How about creating a Open AMIGA Consortium?

[JetRacer]

JetRacer opens casket and howls:

Many people totally miss this very important point: the Amiga was everything-in-a-box. A user streamlined package - while the PC was and still is a production industry streamlined concept. At the time of the A1200 the PC could do it all (in one degree or another) - only each plugin card that added an Amiga feature costed as much as an Amiga.

If you want to earn some millions then be the first to introduce a PC in a cast aluminum keyboard with lcd screen fitted with a tiny all-in-one mobo and pre-installed with win vista and a proper powersupply that plugs strait into the wall. Like those draggable gamer laptops minus the substandard UPS. Sell only one model and make them all identical. -It's a piece of the magic formula that made the Amiga sell.

Another part was the advanced user friendly OS with scripts any user could understand. The OS was never an overclockers dream to begin with - first rule of demo/game programming was to get rid of the system (read: OS).

There's nothing wrong with making a modern Amiga compatible machine that can use modern hardware. The discussions soon reach the point where card-slot hardware is banned for not being enough Amiga. The only reason the Amiga chips exists is because no 3:rd party could provide the technology at the time.

The problem with the "pure" Amiga nostalgia concept is that it's a pipleline which eventually joins the one which leads to the sesspool of Commodores infmaous: "Then the kids will upgrade from the Amiga gaming console to a real Commodore PC computer.".

And, oh, feck the free market - it's a luxury we can't afford. Just get thumbs out and let the consortium to pick a (reasonably modern, not junkyard) gfx chipset of either ATI or nVidia and stick with it through thick and thin. There's basicly only one brand audio chip that is soldered onto every AMD/Intel/PowerMess mobo so that's an easy pick for the undesided. Keep it simple, keep it identical. And everyone will keep in line or face extiction when programmers don't bother writing code to support the strays.

Some user: An Amiga consortium risc becoming a giant that's ineffective due to it's own weight?!? You're kidding, right?

Off-topic: Win XP pre-SP2 runs blazing fast and is 100% stable as long as one doesn't use Explorer (and safe if you don't use the net). After installing SP2 everything runs slowly in an "emulation" type sandbox mode for security reasons. The computer is then bogged down to 68020 levels when using the compulsory firewall. A dirty workaround allows high performance tasks to grab 99% cpu. Unless that workaround is triggered the computer leaves a trail of slime with it's constant 10-20% cpu usage - regardless if the user falls asleep or not :-)

[JetRacer]

@freqmax: Typical afterthought on my part. Yes, buying a chip off nVidia or ATI like any other OEM is a very cheap way to get a modern Amiga.

Also, if ATI / Nvidia won't sell directly then just call some of the billions of OEM's up and see if they're ready to play.

-- edit --

@Sig999: Think of it this way - when the Amiga was released it had graphics equivalent of the most expensive nVidia card , sound like a 5.1 24-bit system, it plugged into a HDTV 1080 and it costed like the cheapest x86.

Today things have changed - except for one vital thing we also see in x86 mobos. Which is cheaper; the all-in-one mobo with quality 5.1 sound 1Gbit network, S-ATA, etc. or to expand a bog-standard mobo with nothing? Don't you agree that having all that for almost no additonal cost and only having one or two PCI slots is getting some serius value for your money?

Who will buy a $3'000 / 1'500 EUR amiga bundle anyway? Because that's the price segment the expand-it-all Amiga will end up in.

---

And for the sake of everyones sanity can someone please re-cap this in a new thread. I almost lost my will to live already at page 9.

[JetRacer]

@ sig999: Well, I was actually writing about the A500 (I'm a 75'er). At the time it was technicly possible to get a PC to do what an A500 with gen-lock and sampler could do. But the economics was horrible - just like the quality of the result.

@ persia: The Amiga wasn't more expensive than a PC at it's time (not A500 nor A1200). The Macs were more expensive.

The Macs have zero 3:rd party products to attach (atleast that's Steve Jobs wish). The Amiga have/had a range of 3:rd party expansions of which a fair share employed the same dirty custom implementations we see in Windows today.

Today Macs run Linux with Apple GUI. And your soundbite there sounds awfully close to the Linux guys favorite argument: "compiled for hardware" which Steve Jobs knicked in a speech.

Macs are expensive - that far I agree. Fact: identical hardware is always cheaper due to bulk sales. What you're saying there sounds more like Apple propaganda trying to shift focus away from the cost it takes to run the company and how it affect the horrendous price of the Macs.

Drivers are not an issue; those can be harvested from Linux for a number of processors. Which we've seen happen frequently in the past for the PPC (or whatever acronyme-of-the-day applies to modern G3-G5).

[JetRacer]

@ Sig999: reg. A500/A1200 (Cough) the keyboard slipped or something :-) Sorry about the confusion. And in the other matter: if we talk A500+ the PC did have the cards - in theory - but the cards wouldn't deliver. So we're both right I guess.

@ persia + varius people: it's a bit confusing for everyone here when the posts span the latest 20 years. If I put it this way: before the historical paranthesis of the x86 Mac the prices were a little bit on the high side, right? Which is a nicer way of saying outright unaffordable coupled with a massive 2:nd hand market.