Classic VS NG

[Amiga_Nut]

I don't actually think there is a link at all between Commodore Amigas and Next Gen Amigas to be honest (be it the hardware on PPC boards or OS4/Morph etc) but that is not an insult so no flaming please.

I really only use my Amigas as they were intended, A2000 for coding with the nice keyboard and simple HD option, A1000 for OCS/ECS gaming and a spot of Dpaint and Digi-View and A1200 for Super Stardust and other good AGA games. I also keep a CD32 because there are about 10 AGA games on there that are nice to have without disk swaps...and you can make it boot into WB 3 with various cover CDs.

I always thought trying to make the Amiga do what a 10 dollar Pentium 1 or Playstation 1 does was madness and surely you can put up with the crap 2 mainstream OS choices to just surf the web (use a good browser that suits you, I love Opera myself now Chrome turned to crap) or download/playback various types of media.

Trying to make a NG Amiga into even an old 2009 i7 PC is never going to happen and trying to make a Commodore Amiga of any specification do the same is even more of a challenge. If you enjoy the challenge in either case then I salute your perseverance so again no flaming please. I just find it easier to play Wipeout 2097 on my original release PS1 or endure my OS4 skinned XP Pro machine to watch movies or waste time on pootube

I guess I am just lazy and the Amiga now lives with all my other wonderful retro machines in the 'dungeon' rather than my office desk. Sure I could run my business on a C64, let alone my 4.5mb A1000 but that's a no brainer however I will still need to go online to process payments and communicate with my loyal customers so ultimately I just gave in.

What really frustrates me is that in 1988 instead of trying to win various Cinemaware games I should have been programming the worlds first real-estate visually rich and GUI'd system using my A1000, Amos and Digi-view....wow could have made a fortune whilst proving the Amiga even with KS 1.2 was the future that was here and now. Meh, anyone fancy a game of Super Stardust?

[Amiga_Nut]

Not wanting to sound like a flame, but honest question... why do you not think that OS 4 is the link between the original Amigas and the Next Gen Amigas?  AmigaOS 4 is still AmigaOS at its heart - that's a pretty big link!

Not a problem. NB my reasons are only personal to me though and might not make sense to others so I hope nobody takes offence. It's just a feeling I have now compared to how I felt using machines 3 decades ago.

It's not that there is no link at all between an Amiga 4000/040 from Commodore and AmigaONE x1000 and other Next Gen Amigas in my opinion, theres is a spiritual link back to the OS ethos in Workbench/Kickstart for sure. They don't look like either OSX or Windows design choices either that's for sure. It's just for me the Commodore Amiga's were more than just their OS. They were from a different time where your host hardware took the brunt of the workload through well thought out exclusive custom chipsets to make the use of the machine more pleasurable whereas the newer machines are all 100% software type solutions. Sign of the times and I am not passing negative judgement on the new machines though (it's not like you will get a virus as often as even a Linux based machine haha and for some people that is worth every single dollar invested in any Amiga system).

In a way for me it feels like computers have come full circle back to the original Commodore PET in 76? (arguably the worlds first 'modern' mass produced commercial public targeting computer) which just had some nice features built into the system comprising hardware for sale to any company...like for example the very useful PETSCII graphics set for making simple games (look out for PET Moon Patrol one day haha)
After a couple of decades of ingenious custom/bespoke components from all manufacturers we are back to the very early times. Maybe one day someone will write an OS specifically for Oculus Rift to make a radical new path for domestic computers but for now we are back in the 'quality computer=quality software/firmware included in the package running on generic components'.

But even if all you do is run WinUAE you're still an Amigan, which is why semantics like emulator users, Commodore Amiga collectors and NG Amiga owners today are part of the same group. But hey I still only have CRT TVs in the house but watch HD movies on them just to be awkward*

(well technically I am just feeding a broadcast quality signal into the TVs to approximate the quality of analogue TV transmissions which at the time were far superior to the non-HD options for TV set top boxes today btw so not crazy at all IMO)

[Amiga_Nut]

correct me if im wrong but hardwarewise i dont see any link at all.

Well the thing to remember is the Amiga 1000 on launch day was the more advanced machine compared to its rivals at the time by a margin that will ever be repeated again for a combination of things not just hardware IMO.

1. Elegant design comprising a tiny footprint and near silent operation (OK except the damned floppy drive lol)
2. A very very resource efficient custom OS that multitasked so well it could be used as the basis for a scientific or military computer system.
3. The most advanced and flexible audio visual independant custom hardware.

Sadly 1 and 3 are no longer relevant to OS4 development and even today point 3 is not part of any machine design for joe public consumer products. So I can see why others think  it's OK for the link to be in the OS design ethos.

The only way the Amiga could have ever come back as a viable OS and hardware solution in the same sort of way as Commodore Amigas is probably Playstation3 hosting OS4 not Linux from day one (with a very highly tuned edition bespoke to that machine's custom chipset).

I might try out MorphOS too if there is a nice G4 machine I can run it on, not G3 Mac though as this is too slow for me now.

[Amiga_Nut]

How could that be when the buzz occurred when you were experiencing it for the first time?
 
I enjoyed games more when I was younger, not because they were better than they are now but because they were better than anything I'd seen at the time.
Plus I was young and care free.

That's an interesting point. I still remember feeling at the time that 'I can do anything' atmosphere at the time I owned my A1000. Today it's not quite the same feeling I get, just as nice though. It's like growing old with a friend, you notice different positive aspects about the Amiga over time and appreciate the machine's awesomeness in chronological terms more than ever but at the time I was still getting used to the limitless awesomeness of what the entire system had to offer. Of course the difference is also at the time we didn't know we'd be stuck with that Joke of an OS company Microsoft either with no design improvement 3 decades later