What are the advantages of the present/future Amiga?

[quarkx]

Piru wrote:
@amigaksi

a new "Mac" is NOT a Mac because of Intel chips

Why not?

I have both PPC and Intel Macs. There is no difference between them, except that the Intel Mac is much faster.

I think the point is the "Spirit or Soul" of a MAC is that of a different architecture. The modern Intel MAC is exactly the same as running AUE or Amiga forever on a modern Intel box, although the MAC is not Emulated anymore but the OS is designed to run on an x86, the spirit of a MAC will always run on a Moto or PPC. Infact the "OS 9" and legacy mode for OS 10 (as I understand it) is an Emulation of the PPC.
It is the same debate on why cant we have Amgia OS 5 run solely on an x86 platform, because (in my mind) that would go against everything unique about the Amiga.
Too me it would be like all cars running the same frame and chassis. motor etc. The only difference would be the outer body and interior of the car. This is used by each of the car manufactures, but what happens if they ALL used the same one, whether it was Ford, GM or what ever? That is what is happening in the computer industry today, there is no Soul left, no real pride left in owning a brand name, they are just recycling the same stuff over and over and putting a different paint job on it.
Of course the MAC fanboys will argue this point saying that Apple is truly different, but at the end of the day, no matter what box it is in, it is still the same internals as the next company.

[quarkx]

Piru wrote:

The thing is that with computers software is everything. Who cares about the actual HW underneath as long as it's fast enough and bugfree?

BTW, car analogies suck.

I Beg to differ, the hardware is what makes it unique, otherwise all we have is the same bs over and over. Send in the clones...and innovation and evolution is non-existent. that is the reason, the hardware is so important in this hobby, otherwise, we would all toss our amigas and just run winAUE or some other emulation and the re-sale market on e-bay and such would be nothing. But hey if you want to ditch all your Amiga hardware and run emulators then there are A LOT of people waiting to grab your old hardware.

Car analogies may suck, but they are the most effective in proving a point. I would much rather drive and own a 1970 Hemi Cuda ragtop, then a Ford focus anyday, even if the focus could emulate the feel of the cuda, it still not the same. in many ways the car hobby is the same as the vintage computer hobby.

[quarkx]

alexh wrote:
I have to disagree with quarkx (not for the first time).

The ethos of AmigaOS was to make the user experience easier and better to the point where it almost doesn't feel like you are using a computer.

It doesn't matter what hardware it uses. To be honest if you're even THINKING what the underlying hardware is then the OS + applications have not done their job correctly.

The most functional, easiest to use User experience is what it aims for. Stuff "just works".

Taking a crappy stoic stance of "it's not pure" is so lame and not what computing is all about.

You use words "Spirit" and "Soul" and I say that your ideas are the work of Beelzebub. You've missed the whole point of OS level computing!

You could argue that the spirit and soul of the Amiga was not in the OS level but in the bang the metal programming that grew up around the earlier computer systems. But I doubt very much you are a programmer or know anything about this area. You are just a user. (As am I)

First, you are right, I am not or never said I was a programmer, but I just can't seem to understand your point at all. Why do you even bother with Amiga then if not for the hardware? Why is the price of all the amiga stuff so expensive, if none of the hardware mattered? By your argument, we should all just trash our amigas and run emulators, because the real stuff doesn't matter. X86 is going to go the way of the 68xxx sooner or later also. The hardware is the most important part of any computer system, otherwise, you just have trash.

[quarkx]

alexh wrote:

but the price of all Amiga stuff isn't so expensive. You can pick up A500/600/1200 for next to nothing £10-20. The reason certain items are so expensive is because they were the items we coveted as children. The expensive addons we read about in magazines and dreamed of but could never afford. The GVP A530, Blizzard & Cyberstorm PPC, A3000 & A4000.

Again, you are living in a land where it may just be cheap, other parts of the world, it is VERY expensive. remember the world does not center around the UK, and UK hardware will not necessarily work without modification in other parts of the world. To think otherwise, you are just living in a bubble. An A 500 may be reasonably priced here ($50 +), but thats it. To find an NTSC A500+ or a NTSC A600 is next to impossible without ordering it from halfway around the world and paying hundreds of dollars in shipping (and good luck getting that NTSC).An NTSC 1200 is  also rare, but not as hard to get as a 600.  

Also, the software is worth NOTHING! You can find all of it for free if you look.(mind you it may be pirated) The hardware is worth everything! the hardware will always be the most important thing in any system. It's very hard to pirate Hardware, but software can be gotten anywhere for free (if you want it badly enough). Now, I don't personally condone software piracy or peer to peer networking, but its there and it does make software rather worthless.