Pre-assembled Minimigs - Cmonnnnn!

[little]

2. Legal: (A inc)

Let's review history please.

1. Back in the day PC clones had a phoenix bios to avoid paying IBM royalties for their IVM PC bios ang guess what, there was never a demand from big blue against those doing clones even though they took the market from them. The bios shipped with the minimig is the PIC controller program released under the GPL.

2. When apple clones arrived, companies were lazy and never created an MacOS compatible bios, the result? Steve Jobs returned to apple and prohibited these companies from bundling the bios or their operative system with the machines. Guess what, the miniming will not be bundled neither with the bios nor the operative system property of A inc.

IMO it would be the last nail on this legal issue if someone writes some verylog code so the miniming runs another 68k era computer, the Atari ST for example, so the minimig would be a generic 16 bit emulation solution.

[little]

The "BIOS" in the Amiga is the AmigaOS itself!

Are you serious? The amigaOS is not and has never been the BIOS, the kickstart is. Before you argue that the kickstart is the same as the amiga operative system remember that you can since the old days you also load unix/linux into the amiga. Also as I have stated before, it is a matter of time befor somebody develops verilog code that you can load into the minimig to run another machine (a c64? an atari st? a classic macintosh? only time will tell) so I stand by my words, the PIC code is the bios of this machine, everything on top of it won't run unless the PIC code is run first.

2) Incorrect here as well. Mac's used (until they switched to Intel) OpenFirmware

Next time please double check you facts. The whole mac clones drama was before the days of openfirmware, before the days of PowerPC and when system 7 was the cool kid on the block. The mac had no custom chips like the amiga, you could use chips with a similar functionality and voila, you had a functional mac clone. Steve Job didn't refused to sell the OS, he locked out the clones from bundling the next version (system locking them into obsolecence, but that trick won't work on a 100% retro system.

So I stand by my words, A inc has no legal grounds against the minimig and with amiga forever there is the posibility of 100% legal clones.

[little]

I have a better idea, whoever owns the copyright to this book can sue ALL C programmers for "infringement of copyright since coding C is effectively an unofficial translation of this book from English to a said computer language".

[little]

The Mac-clones came during the early PPC-days, the only 68k-clones I'm aware of would be things like Emplant or Shapeshifter

No doubt this macintosh clones are a figment of my imagination :-o Some mac clones no doubt could be upgraded to PowerPC just like the amiga, but that does not mean the mac clones made their appearence at the time the PPC macs made their debut.

What has the abilty to run another OS has to do with the question wether Kickstart is an OS or an BIOS ??

You do not need Windows (or other operative system) to run linux, beos, aros, etc. only the bios of the machine.

You know, one could start linux from Workbench (thats how I did it when I tried 68k-linux for the only time).

Nowadays you may use tools like vmware, qemu, etc. to run another one operative system inside another, but that does not change the fact that operative systems are created to run atop of one bios (be it phoenix, open firmware, efi, linux bios, etc.)

Exec, Intuition,GFX and DOS are in ROM, and even started before anything is loaded from disk

You may place parts of an operative system within the bios, heck linuxbios includes the whole kernel, kickstart 3 has fonts for crying out loud. But that does not change the fact that the bios is the "basical input output system".

Oh, and that book was written years after Kernie&Ritchie developed and documented C

Are you trying to imply that the "Amiga Hardware Reference Manual Third Edition 1991" was written before the amiga made it's debut in 1985? holy time continium distortions batman :-o

or that Kernie&Ritchie should sue all C programmers :-?

[little]

I think that whoever has the means to do this feat will think about this and decide whatever means he dims more adequate to acomplish it. We can give our opinion, make suggestions, but at the end of the day it is his/their money on the line.

One thing I can add, I think that whoever is the first to deliver a "finished product" and by that I mean a fully populated minimig, a case, a 5v power supply, a joystick and a MMC card with either a kickstart or AROS kickstart replacement and some games will have the oportunity to sell them beyond the community, articles at techie and game sites will make aware former amiga users of the chance to re-experience the amiga without the hassle of buying old hardware that can no longer work with modern equipment or the hassle of configuring emulator and obtaining roms for it. A "plug and play" package will no doubt give new life to the community and who know, with the extra sales and extra disk storage we might see some new games make its way specially if we get ECS/AGA in the months to come.

It would be nice if before that there could be a minimig 1.2 design with DDR ram (16mb I think is the minimum sized chip one can get) and maybe a RTC.

[little]

Publications of this type are common in the hardware world. They help extend the life of IP protection beyond patents.

I think it is highly unlikely that after IP has changed from owner to owner that they have remembered to include this book in all the transactions.

Besides, there is something no one has said so far, last time we heard the newest/biggest plans from the owners of A inc. was about a year ago. They have sued Hyperion but seems they are going to finish and sell AmigaDOS 4.0 in a few weeks, which seems to imply that either A inc. has lost interest on the amiga (unless they can do a quick buck) or they simply cannot pay the lawyers bills, rendering the whole demand DOA.

[little]

as soon as someone started to make any serious money they would come out of the woodwork for their slice.

... and they could be counter sued for racketeering, because is the only reason for a demand, extort money, there is no piece of hardware in the minimig that would holds water in IP demand in a court of law.

[little]

I'm sure some folks wouldnt want to send $ in his direction.. (Bill Buck)

From Genesi? Please correct me if I am wrong, but they have already won a legal demand vs. A inc. so I think they fit the bill to sell a "Finished product". AFAIK people dislike genesi because EFIKA does not run AmigaOS (or AROS or MorphOS or any amiga flavored OS). But minimig DOES run amigaOS up to 3.1, what is there to dislike?

[little]

then you must be a newbie to the Amiga scene and whats gone on.

If by newbie you mean "skipped almost a decade of melodrama" you are bloody right. I suffered the dying of the amiga like everybody, voraciously reading every new amigaworld issue hoping news of change for the best. After the bankruptcy I heard every few years news of "The new Amiga" but never saw it materealize. Then I hear about the minimig and for the first time in YEARS it is for real, it might not be a microsoft killer, but has a lot of potential. I really could not care less about all the drama gone in years past, if this bill guy can deliver a finished product all the thousands of people that left the amiga when commodore died will have a good reason to return, if only to take a nice trip down memory lane.

[little]

Unfortunately some of Dennis' posts to this forum backup such a claim

Is that all? Man, you had me worried there for a second. SCO had better chances with imaginary patents than A inc has arguing they have a book copyright, since they will have to show proof to the judge and the instant they come out empty handed it will be over, as simple as that.

[little]

Who's to say (the book copyright) wasnt (kept by) Tulip or someone else who bought Commodore?

Now that would be a BIG relief. Because none of them could care less about it (it would a piece of paper no one knows it is there) or if they have been following the amiga scene up to now they must be amiga fans that would not stop the minimig production.