Ordered my AmigaOne X5000 from Amiga On The Lake in USA

[Iggy]

Cool. He deserves support. Its nice to have an Amiga vendor in the country that invented the platform again.

[Iggy]

Maybe if it wasn't sold and marketed as a home game machine for the kids it would have done better. I hung on as long as possible with graphic and productivity but it was pointless by the early nineties.

Frankly, my company was selling its own multi-user 68K systems at the time, and after a visit from some IBM engineers (and the receipt of a pre-release copy of Window 3.0) I was able to accurately predict what would happen to the computer market.
Hey, having a better idea NEVER guarentees you a win in a commodity driven market.
And Commodore was fairly clueless about how to advance the Amiga.
Paula should have been scrapped in favor of a plug in audio card.
Same with AGA graphics. It was way to slow and unsuited for 3D graphics.

OUR machines always used plug in graphics cards (and a better OS, but that is besides the point).

Development of the 68000 series stopped as the Mac moved to PPC.
Commodore was foolish enough to be looking at PA-RISC.
And their best engineer, Dave Haynie was never that good anyway.
Certainly he was no Jay Miner, and Zorro III's dma issue clearly point to that.

Our dreams died, and those of second rate carnival barkers like Steve Jobs prospered.

[Iggy]

@Iggy

The truth still stands that the American media clocked the amazing graphical and multimedia abilities of the Amiga and then proceeded to ask "What is the point!" Admittedly, it's up to the parent company to market their product and the black and white Amiga advertising in the 1985 launch era were scandalous but still the media saw the Amiga (in the flesh), were wowed by it and then had no imagination as to how to use it! Steve Jobs was perhaps right that these sorts of people don't know what they need until it's marketed to them but the majority of computer users in the UK and most of Europe understood the Amiga was special so why didn't American users get it? I thought green screen PCs sucked in the 80s and I still think Windows 10 sucks now (though by not as much but still). Why did people happily waste a decade of their lives between 1985 and 1995 using substandard IBM compatible rubbish while the Amiga was cheaper, more fun and brimming with potential from the people that brought you the C64! Windows 3.0 and 3.1 sucked. The only computer I ever used that used 3.1 was a old computer circa 1996 that powered a CAD plotter. It could cope with that in a sad industrial use kind of a way, but the GUI and general experience was below par. People only used it because they were "told" to by IT managers and industry bosses. Macs were fun but black and white screens in the early days and then clunky OS and the worst mice that I ever used in the iMac days.

In a word Boz?
Software.
The same reason people were willing to put up with dreadful crap like CPM.
Which come to think of it MS-DOS was just a knock off of.
And Jobs with his over priced closed platform misuse of the 68K processor still pisses me off.
But as far as Europeans just "getting it"?
Sound like something the French would claim.

To this day I still see loads of Europeans embracing Macs or Linux.
Nothing in particular about either of those alternatives appeals to me.
One is perpetually overpriced and quickly obsolete, the other has a large base of software that isn't quite as capable as commercial alternatives.

And where did you get the bizarre idea that Amigas were affordable?
The high pricing sold a lot of Atari STs.

[Iggy]

We waited for good software and the most needed never arrived.

When I saw that I could have vga and super vga graphics with thousands of colors with real commercial graphic applications such as Corel suite, cheap word processors, and accounting software for my business, it was over,very reluctantly.
That and 3d games like Wolfenstein etc. it was hard to look back.

But I returned around 1999- 2000 and dropped it only to come back again this year , first with Cloanto, then Amibian and now ratcheting up a 1200.
Still fun but not deluding myself as to where my real computing will be.

If I do get my hands on a Vampire, that will be great but doesn't change much.

Yeah, I really get that.
I've kept an A2000, and I have a CD32, but legacy Amiga hardware just stagnated.
Its fun to revisit, but it painfully obvious why we lost.

[Iggy]

Sorry to hijack the OPs original post. I would really like to hear about your experiences with this machine.
Something I wouldn't mind playing with and trying.

My apologies as well.
I didn't mean to get sidetracked over my angst about the track personal computing took.

As I intend to buy one of these, I'm particularly interested in hearing about it myself.

Lack of software be damned.

Oh, and game software for the Amiga has NEVER been my focus (European warm NES-like fuzzies or not). It was a damned good productivity machine.

Why would you pay thousands to play video games?

[Iggy]

Two words; Virtual Reality.

But yeah, I agree.  It was oddly the same from the Atari side, the ST was definitely more popular in Europe than the US.  Hell, I  have been searching for nearly a year for a US keyboard to replace my UK one on my Falcon.

Yes, there is a Falcon on eBay right now going for $1500 that I'd actually consider buying if I had the available funds.
Crazy price, but a neat machine.
And having run Microware's OS-9 on an ST, I rather like the more bare bones nature of the Atari design.
The Amiga chipset was never central to my attraction to these machines.
It was the Motorola 68K cpus.

But I don't get the virtual reality comment, more like alternate reality.
But then, in a country dumb enough to vote in a president like Donald Trump, the success of the Wintel platform isn't that surprising.
Get ready to be taken to TrumpU everyone (a really funny name if you THINK about it).

[Iggy]

A bit dismayed.... no X5K yet.  Was supposed to ship back on the 9th but has not.  Feeling down at the moment trying to be patient for it to actually ship.  :confused:

TJ

Yes, it would have been nice for you if it arrived before Christmas.

[Iggy]

That's what made me hesitant to order it as soon as I saw it available on the AOTL. Delays.

And yet, the first system delivered was sold by AOTL.
That's who I'm buying from.

[Iggy]

Good luck.

Hardly necessary.
Even when I buy on eBay, I don't rely on luck, I rely on a payment method I can ask for a chargeback on.
And I've talked with this guy and trust him.

Like I said, he shipped the first production X5000 delivered to a customer.
Got any reason for the negativity, or (like so many here) are you just reserving the option to be a...?

[Iggy]

Good luck.

 What DO you know, apparently luck isn't a factor as he IS getting his system before Christmas.
But I don't blame you for doubting, Amiga vendors can be extremely slow to ship, often difficult to contact, and ocassionally. a transaction goes sour.
So far though, the vendor has not had those issues.

AND he's in the US!
So again, that is who I am supporting.

[Iggy]

Yep,

I am waiting for mine too... I also contacted them yesterday and was told that they should ship today.  I am very excited!

I have been patient with Amiga on the Lake... it is a hobby business, the owner has another real business that is more important to his livelihood... and he has been very great to work with.  He also had a few delays on receiving the AmigaOS registration cards..

That doesn't mean I am not anxious to get my machine!  If it does indeed ship today, I will be out of town when it arrives... luckily I have someone watching my house, so I am not worried about the delivery, just that I won't get to use it until I get home... which will be January 1st!  Be something fun to use when I return!

My first thought was "good luck", until I realized I'd given someone else a hard time for that lukewarm comment.
Instead, congratulation on your purchase of the most powerful AmigaOne system yet released.

[Iggy]

hope so TJ as that sounds like a darn cool way to bring in the New Year:hammer:

@ Iggy

give the dude some slack eh it's Christmas after all ;-)

Yeah, I may have misinterpreted his post.
But I am impressed AOTL, Aaron gets right back to you when you pm him.

[Iggy]

I order about $10k in Amazon Prime stuff a year for work.  Most of it comes in 1 day, even on Sundays.  Of course it helps that my office is right down the street from a warehouse in one direction, and an Amazon datacenter in the other.  

Enjoy your X5000, hope everyone who ordered one gets theirs soon!  :banana:

I live close to two Amazon distribution centers myself.
That company has a really cool relationship with the Postal Service.
And they picked the right shipper to team with, Fed Ex and UPS keep handing my shipments off to the USPS (and FedEX and UPS shipments take longer to get to me unless they are overnighted).
Frankly, I wish that companies I purchase from wouldn't use FedEx or UPS truck shipping options, because Priority Mail is faster (and often cheaper).
So much for the incredibly DUMB idea of privatizing our Postal delivery.

For that matter, since Delaware is close to New Jersey's Newegg.com warehouse, I get quick deliveries on most items ordered from them as well.

The only real excuse to use UPS is for heavy shipments (like desktop computers). There they DO offer a pricing advantage.

[Iggy]

Received tracking # just now.  Shows the 30th as I expected.  So, hoping UPS is nice... gentle... and gets it here next Friday so I can drink booze, eat like an oinky, and play Amiga OS 4.1FE on my X5K.  

Has been 5 years since I purchased my X1K (Dec 2011) and since selling it 1.5 years ago, been missing out on enjoying Amiga.  Even though I was not an Amigan prior to 2010, for whatever reason, getting one again (like the X5K) is exciting.  Not quite 1980/90s computer exciting but exciting never the less.

Back in the 80s/90s it all seemed to fresh.  Now a-days, computing is not as exciting, but the Amiga platform has come close to bringing some of that excitement back for me.



TJ

I can get behind that, when the Amiga was current I was working with other 68K hardware and still actively involved in 8 bit projects (which come to think of, I've never stopped).
But Amiga related computing can be more interesting than the sterile 'modern' appliance orient stuff I use day to day.

[Iggy]

@ Amigasociety

"Received tracking # just now.  Shows the 30th as I expected...."  

Interesting, when I received my X1000 in December 2012, a few days before Christmas, I took just 3 days to arrive from Cardiff, Wales, UK.  Why on earth would it take more than twice as long to arrive from upstate New York ?  Anyway hope you enjoy the X5000.  Would be interested to know how you think it compares to your old X1000.

BCP
Indianapolis, IN USA

Could be worse, it just took about two months for a package I shipped via Priority Mail International to get to the recipient in South Africa (the USPS quotes 10 days).
Although, Wales to the US in three days is just plain remarkable.
I'm happy when I get a package shipped to Germany in under two weeks (short of being dumb enough to pay for the massive fees required to overnight ship a package).

Six days to truck ship a computer system in the middle of the holiday season?
Why would you think that was unusually long?