Interview with Trevor Dickinson

[EDanaII]

That's one way of measuring it. Not necessarily the one I was looking after. Computer value doesn't exactly follow the same pattern as house prices. ;-)

I'm afraid the only comparison anyone is going to make is to comparable modern hardware. Comparing it to hardware of the time, or even houses, isn't going to drive sales. Period.

Ed.

[EDanaII]

Yea, this is really a bird in hand/two in bush argument, with dreamers talking about how awesome the new amiga is gonna be but never having seen how awesome it is (or isn't). Sigh...

Amigans have learned nothing after all these years.

Ed.

[EDanaII]

Eh, if you ain't gettin' it, AH, 'cause you don't _want_ to get it. Sorry to be blunt, but that's how I'm seein' your responses.

The majority of us that don't like the X1000's price don't criticize it because we love MorphOS (I'm in the x86 camp), we do it because, and I know this is hard to see: we don't like the _PRICE._

It's really very simple: In order for AmigaOS to be a viable OS again, it needs a user base. That will bring more developers, which will attract more users. More users, more developers, which will lead to more users, followed by developers. Etc, etc, etc...

And the best way to get the ol' ball rollin' is _hardware everyone can afford._

This isn't very complicated at all, but some people see only what they want to see.

[EDanaII]

The Amiga was about doing more with cutting edge hardware and software. The new AmigaOS/AmigaOne is not cutting edge in either. The X1000 is an elitist hobbyist machine. It's about bragging rights in an ever shrinking community.

I'd say that is a perfect summary.

Change "elitist" to "religious" and I'll agree with you both 100%, instead of just 99.9% . The Amiga is a religion anymore, with acolytes, heretics and a few agnostics here and there; the pragmatists all fled a long time ago...

[EDanaII]

I don't quite know where I fit into that. I have a fairly modern PC (2 years old, nearly, but a decent enough spec), I use other OSes, but I still retain several classics, an A1 and I was hoping to get a PPC mac for MOS2 and contemplating this X1000 machine too.

Alas, the old job security took a kick lately and such plans are now on hold for the moment.

Well, I suppose if I were to try and "quantify" where one rates on the Amiga Religion scale, I'd have to say (for the sake of argument) that those who want PPC and think that Hyperion is going to save the world are probably 100% religious. I'd say that those who want PPC over x86 by asserting that PPC is somehow superior while ignoring the price performance ratio of alternatives are 100% religious.

Contrast that with someone like myself, I'd have to say I'm 10, maybe 20%, religious. I have my A1200. Haven't used it seriously in a long time but never had the heart to get rid of it. No modifications to it, use UAE more often than that and even then barely. Have AROS installed on a couple different boxes, etc...

So, I'd have to ask then, where do you think you fall in between those figures? You do sound like you got at least a little bit of pragmatism in ya, so I suspect you're somewhere in the middle.

Not that there's anything wrong with being religious, btw. For me the wrongness is being too far in one direction or the other. More importantly, the wrongness is in not seeing the reality of the situation and failing to adapt to it. (Such as giving us something that fails to grow the user base. Which is by far more important than a PPC machine with "customizable" chips that have, as yet, to prove their worth.)

But that's my two centavos.

Ed.

[EDanaII]

That wasn't the point I was making. 1500pounds for a complete non mainstream computer is not a lot of money.

It is if you don't have it :-/

Which is precisely the point some of us are making: too much money, too little power, not justified for the current user base. Their first priority should be to grow that user base and this just won't do it.

I like PPC for the same reason I like most things: variation. I don't regard it as a "must-have". As long as it has the performance to run old apps "better" and new ones adequately I'm not really bothered if there are x86 processors that are far faster. I can, and do, use those just as happily with a different OS.

What I find rather dull is the thought of the day when there is only one hardware platform left and only a choice of OS to differentiate systems.

You know what, Karlos? Me too! Or in my case, I want competition. Real honest to goodness competition with Windows and Mac. Once again, that's not going to happen if we don't grow the userbase, and that won't happen if we don't give them reasonable priced hardware.

Now, to be clear, I don't care how that price is achieved, I've even stated elsewhere: "if it must be PPC, then XBox, Wii or PS3." This too, would get affordable hardware into a larger userbase than this X1000 ever could.

I lean towards x86 simply because of the price/performance ratio. Beyond that, I don't really care.