Hey I'm new here, just want to keep the Amiga thing alive.

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Hi I'm am new here and I have to to say I die a little more inside each time I see the amiga name, and think about what could have been. The present should be a very different reality.

History has proven time and time again small decision can ultimately effect the lives of all those on the planet. The marketing and strategy commodore used when selling the Amiga has now touched almost everyone on the planet. It's sad to think the most advanced personal computer of the 80s and one with features that have only now been replicated more than 20 years later, died such a quick mainstream death. I wish it had been Apple, in fact it might well have been apple and MS that were wiped off the face of the earth ... it just goes to show you, the best and most advanced does not always win. It's just a pity business didn't really see the importance of what the Amiga had to offer and stagnated on plans which saw the situation worsen.

There is still something inside me that one day hopes, through some revolution, the amiga raises itself like the firely pheonix to reclaim its position at the top of personal computers. We could all be so much further advanced in computing if the Amiga had penetrated the right markets and sales and marketing has been directed correctly.

I have several Amiga computers and started using them when i was in school to play games on, later I used them professional within an organisation for graphics, video, rendering, programming and design work. After teh Amiga were phased out I managed to score 4 A1200s and 3 Amiga A3000s, including my own A3000 with 24-bit EGS Graphics board, CD-Rom and expanded RAM.

Anyway here is a 3D visualisation for a next generation Amiga, the Amiga 8k. The mouse is not quite what i want yet, still looks a bit Atari St like. The keyboard is also PC styled, with more function keys etc.

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I agree too many dreamers and not enough people with the cash or business sence to push the computer where it needed to go. It's just unfortunate better business sence didn't prevail after commodore's collaspe. The Amiga was saleable and could have been effectively maintained with better vision and additional funds.

Apple has had a rough time too and I think they have alot to thank for the development of the ipod, which otherwise might have seen trouble for apple computing divisions in more recent years. Popularity in apple products has been spured along through the Ipod and itunes to some extent.

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The keyboard is less than 10mm thick but yes it would be nice to think it could be stored in the keyboard.

As for the box, well all those custom chips must go somewhere and the big-arse Amiga branding.

Maybe an Amiga 5000 would follow in the vein of the A500, computer and case integrated. I never liked the A500 and A1200 all-in-one design, i opted for the A2000 right from the start for this very reason.

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LOL I am not deluded, I know we missed the boat and it's a case of too little too late. LOL but aint it kicking a dead horse, that guy looks like he has a light sabre, we only want to kick the dead horse, not cut it up!

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LOL much of it is based on my preferences - it's not intended to be wholly serious or based on market trends. It's what I might have if given the option of choice. This is really only an evening of me being bored and deciding I feel like playing around with some designs. I cant say I really thought much about any of it.

The keyboard is based on the current IBM Ultra/Nav it works extremely well, best keyboard I have ever had. It combines Track point, numeric pad and thermal touch pointer - indentical to the thinkpad keyboards. means I can have my Desktop match my notebooks in every way. I love that. I much prefer the the half height laptop keys.

I have seen a preference for smaller form factor and shuttle designs, specifically respective of the home entertainment environment and matching aesthetics - as people start to incorporate computers as part of the entertainment systems. Of course this system is more workstation less personal computer.

Personally i am not a fan of widescreen monitors and have always perfered the standard aspect ratio that was popular before widecreen started showing up in computing. Widecreen is clumsy in publishing and design but better for video etc.

As for the branding, well it was really a five minute job, but i'd never use serif based characters on a computer. Serif now align themselves far too much the past, in 1986 is was more acceptable, if rather stick with streamlined sans-serif fonts or very narrow weight simple typefaces like helvetica neue, I do like the open A though and I think it has room for incorporation into a possible more polished CI idea.

David Childs really made a mess of freedom tower IMO, which version of the freedom tower are we talking? There are literally about 5 that were at any one time ... getting built. Daniel's designs I think were better and more integrated but we will have to wait and see whether the Childs/Silverstein inspired vision getting built looks any good. Still some of the treatments for the podiums look quite interesting.

Here's a very rough concept Notebook called the Amiga Attache, the keyboard width would make it a a 18' screen abouts. It's a big'un.


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Yeah cool, I can see the twisting obelisk thing you mention, it probably has to do more with the reflectivtity of renderings though, I have a habit of overdoing things with mirrored surfaces, The 'box' is actually a combination of polished metal and transparent highly reflective purple plastics.

I modified the notebooks and I have some new ones that include workstations, desktops, notebooks and a supercomputer housing. I am on a bit of a computer styling mission atm. I'll post em later. Thanks for the feedback.