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Author Topic: Lets Boost Up Amiga  (Read 13655 times)

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Offline Darklight

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Re: Lets Boost Up Amiga
« on: January 25, 2007, 05:07:53 AM »
I can't see how it would work.  Sure, it would be nice if Amiga was popular again, but most people like to be able to walk into a store and buy a computer, and know that they'll be able to get parts anywhere.  I hardly think that's the case with Amiga.  Sure, it may be a user friendly/nice alternative to Windows (no virus/spyware threats, etc), but realistically, people want their computers to be -

1) Compatible with everyone else's computer (ie, Mac Office)
2) Cheap and easily available

That means that for the most part, regardless of whether we hire skywriters to do a huge "Amiga OS4" sign, or whether we put papers in everyone's letterboxes, it's just not effective and they won't buy into it.

If hardware and software were readily available, sure, it would be different.  But why would people who don't already know about Amiga want to emulate an outdated OS on their much more powerful Windows/Mac machines?  For games, perhaps, but without hardware being available, it's just going to remain a geek platform for us miggy users of old.  :-(
 

Offline Darklight

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Re: Lets Boost Up Amiga
« Reply #1 on: January 26, 2007, 11:04:24 AM »
Starke, I think what you're forgetting is that many of the members here have been Amiga users since the early days (if not day 1) and have seen the downfall of Commodore, the promises from Escom, Gateway, and Amiga Inc, mistake after mistake (ie, QNX/Linux fiasco), and delay after delay and have been burnt by the platform they loved more times than they would care to count.

I'm only 22 myself (and another Australian) but had an A500 since not long after they came out here.  I was too young to understand much of what happened in the 90's with Amiga (truth be told, I didn't even know about it), and only investigated Amiga again a few years back after I found a cheap A600 and decided to put an HD in it (I still have my 500 :) ).  I read up on Amiga's history, and a lot of it shocked me - I hadn't known that Amiga's were still around in any form, the fact that there was still some life (albeit on a respirator) surprised me.  

Since then I've built my collection and there've been many times when I've had similar thoughts - "You know, if I won the lottery, I reckon I'd buy Amiga Inc and get some stuff going again", much like most of us probably have.  However, I can appreciate why some of the members here may appear cynical in the face of yet another Amiga revival idea.  If it's not another "I want to build a new Amiga motherboard/expansion" thread, or a "I've made a new Amiga motherboard/expansion" thread, it's a "Why are we content to let Amiga die?" thread like this one.

I can appreciate why you've made this thread, and trust me, I've thought the same things numerous times, (had similar thought about other failed platforms too, such as the Dreamcast), but it certainly wasn't through lack of community spirit that the Amiga got to this stage in the first place.

Trying to get the Amiga to compete again in a world almost controlled by Microsoft/Apple seems to be a daunting if not completely impossible task for a platform so long in the tooth and relatively unsupported.  To many (including myself), it's a wonderful pipe dream, but may seem as likely as the Spectrum becoming the exclusive platform for Halo 3.  

I'd be happy to help 'revitalise' Amiga, but I think it may take infinitely more than you might imagine for it to even become as popular as a Linux distro.  Still, it is good to see that there are still idealistic minds willing to help the cause :)

Sorry about the rant, once I started, I couldn't stop :lol: