Any news on future release of OS4 netbook or on Natami?

[commodorejohn]

Speak for yourself.  I have no interest in an oversized smart phone.  

+1 to this. Finished hardware projects are rare enough in this community, the last thing we'd need is for perfectly good time and effort to go into something so useless.

[commodorejohn]

Tablet Sales Overtook Netbook Sales in Q2 2011

Imagine what the Netbook market will be like in 2013/2014.

Good question. I suppose it depends on when people will wake up and realize that netbooks and laptops come with keyboards built in and use real, full-fledged operating systems you can install anything you like on.

[commodorejohn]

Both can co-exist in a household.

Strictly speaking this is true; however, neither can exist in the first place if the focus keeps jumping back and forth between one or the other while neither of them have even been made.

A port back then could have led to AmigaOS being a major player in the tablet space by now. Too late now.

Not a chance. The tablet market has been about proprietary, vendor-controlled software for years now, and certainly since the iPad made them trendy and people actually started buying them. A non-proprietary OS, on which people can install any software they like right out of the box, would be anathema.

Minds like you is what ruined commodore, a tablet will be sold in more units than any computer even if it is driven by a exoticOS (= AmigaOS)

Wow, li'l old me, a corporation-slayer? Why, I never knew I had it in me! I was just pointing out that spastically jumping between projects as the trend-winds change is going to result in no units being sold, but if we want to go there: why do you think that an "Amiga" tablet is going to sell more than an "Amiga" computer? Certainly not because the target market for tablets (teenagers and twenty-somethings with too much money, middle-aged people who are scared by real computers) have any idea what the Amiga is or feel any loyalty to it. Not because of technical superiority either, because any desktop OS is going to be ass on a tablet. Or do you think the existing Amiga community is going to run out and buy a hundred thousand tablets each?

I had to check wether this was Amiga.org or OldDuffers.org, it's funny how fans of a computer that changed the world 25 years ago now piss and moan about tablets, the most transformative innovation in the computer world in the last two decades.

Wake up and smell the coffee, if there even is a netbook market in 2015 it'll be lumped in the "other" category as statistically irrelevant.

"It's the future! It's totally the future because Steve Jobs said it was the future, so there, nyeah! You can't disagree with him because he's richer than you, and now that he's dead the Pope's probably gonna canonize him!"

Tablet = laptop - keyboard - useful OS - freedom of choice in software - hard drive. Yeah, that's innovation.

I believe that the OS is slowly becoming less relevant with the trend of moving everything into the cloud. A system just needs a good browser with up to date support for all the various standards.

Ahh, "the cloud," that magical invention of magic wherein your data ascends to a higher plane of existence, free from the toil and suffering of this physical world, to a Gnostic sort of heaven where it is freed from the corruption of the flesh forever and exists in a transcendent state of Pure Mind. Come one, come all, to the Temple of the Cloud, to speak with your data through the Spirit Links!

What's that? You say that it's not absolved of its physical nature? That it has been spirited away to a data center in Texas? But, but, that's a real place! Things can happen to it there! Why, if the Internet weren't faster than a hard drive, there wouldn't be any advantage at all to "the cloud!"

...what? It's not?

...Oh.

[commodorejohn]

That is why the public activity on the Natami page and forum is low. Surprisingly few people wants to know actual facts about the system in its current state, they want to hear promises and propaganda. And with the guy willing to make propaganda gone - well, you get it

I want to hear fact about the system. Hell, I'll volunteer: somebody keep me updated, and I'll update the site myself.

[commodorejohn]

What makes you a better predictor of the future than current sales figures?

Simple: I look beyond current sales figures, not relying on the assumption that things will continue forever as they have for the last two years (in which case tablet sales would outpace global population growth by something like 25x,) and consider the ultimate long-term usefulness of the thing: it is no more capable than a laptop (typically less,) not very much cheaper, and typically a worse deal in terms of power-for-money. Its sole advantage is that it's lighter, which laptops are continually working towards anyway. Eventually they will reach a saturation point of "light enough," and tablets will have no more advantages left, Q.E.D.

Anything can sell well for a short time. As I've written, the Abdomenizer was able to sell 3.5 million units, and that was just a plastic saddle you were supposed to do sit-ups on with an imbecilic infomercial. A professional force with an enormous budget like the Apple marketing department could sell used Kleenex in iPad quantities for two years, and have the rest of the industry scrambling to get their own used Kleenex to market. The question is what's going to happen when the novelty wears off, tablets are no longer "cool," and people start assessing them based on their actual usefulness and not just their specs compared with other tablets.

Early PC users looked down their noses at this childish rodent thing called a "mouse." Who in the world would ever use one of those?

Yes, tablet evangelists do like to say this a lot. But the mouse actually solved a problem in computer input better than the other solutions, which is why it's stuck around as long as it has. The tablet solves nothing and introduces a host of disadvantages compared to the laptop. I think history will judge one a lot more kindly than the other.

[commodorejohn]

Usually I can see where you're coming from, but during this line in particular you must have been drunk or half asleep.

Nah, I drink in the evening, and I'd had my morning coffee by that point.

Right, no keyboard, kind of a pain sometimes, but as for freedom of choice in software, have you seen the Android market (and to a lesser extent in terms of freedom, the iOS AppStore?)

Android is better on this point, yes; centralized software distribution still makes me leery. In any case, the iOS App Store is exactly what I was talking about.

No hard drive?  Sure, no spinning platter, but who the hell wants one of those anymore, especially on a portable device?  Solid state storage works just fine, and throws across the room happily.

SSDs work just fine, yes - except that they're many times more expensive per megabyte. People brag about 64GB tablets - ooh, wow, that's over half of what my low-end laptop I purchased three and a half years ago came with!

And if you're worrying about it surviving being thrown across the room, drive technology is not your chief problem.

Obviously if you need terabytes of stuff in your hand at any given time you'll need something more, but as mentioned previously tablets aren't PC replacements and are geared more towards accessing content stored elsewhere.

See, this is what irks me about this debate: tablet evangelists keep moving the goalposts. "They're going to replace desktops," "hey, you can't compare them to desktops, they're not meant to replace them!" "They're going to replace netbooks," etc. etc. etc.

Actually, it is.  It's 95% of what people want to do in a simplified,  easier to use, more reliable, and less expensive package.  That's  innovation.  Bigger is not always better.

"It's 95% of what people want to do" because that's what Apple told people they wanted. Nobody was clamoring for a device that did less for more money per GB/GHz. Bigger is not always better, but a device doesn't have to be big to be full-featured.
 
 

Actually, data hosted in a true cloud is not at any single data center -  the data exists in many so that no single data center failure would  cause a disruption.

Right, of course. That privilege is reserved for man-made disasters.
 

"The Cloud" may just be a buzzword, but the reality of what it is and  its advantages cannot be ignored.  Taking a photo on your phone, then  going home and picking up your tablet and having it be there - that's  cool, and that's made possible by "The Cloud".
 
"The Cloud" has made it easy for everyday people to have instant access  to their email, contacts, calendar, etc. - from multiple devices, all in  sync.  Update your calendar on your phone and come home and your PC  will have the appointment as well - all without syncing via cable.

Yes, The Cloud frees mankind from the tyranny of Cables. And, you know, leaves you stuck depending on wifi and/or cell reception, which as we all know is omnipresent, cheaper and faster than cables, and completely reliable. BEHOLD THE FUTURE.
 

"The Cloud" has allowed people to backup their important data to an  off-site location with ease.  People who probably never would have  backed their data up before because they can't be bothered with manually  backing up their data, swapping hard drives, taking a copy off-site,  etc.

Yes, it's now easy to back up your data - because copying files to another drive was totally arcane and unfathomable, and commercial backup software totally didn't exist. Now you can back up your data over a slower connection to a service that can freely mine your data as it sees fit and probably stipulates that in its license so you can't complain about it, and is open to the Internet so a mildly clever hacker can get to it! That's progress!
 

It may not be more capable than a laptop, but it's a heck of a lot more  convenient.  My notebook sits on a shelf 99% of the time since I  purchased my iPad.  The reality is that most things I want to do on my  notebook I can do so much more effortlessly on my tablet.

Well, that's lovely for you then.

I can browse  the web in bed, or while eating lunch, or while taking a crap if I'd  like.

As can I, with my laptop - and I can type a response, on a real keyboard, without needing a third-party peripheral. Also I can run software from absolutely any source without needing to hack the OS to install it.

[commodorejohn]

OK, offer a promised model AND offer a more advanced variant with 766MHz SAM 440 board, integrated RadeonHD and 1GB DDR RAM, fast SATA 2,5 hard drive and max monitor size. Linux, MorphOS and OS4 preinstalled would be nice, Squeeze for 10, MOS for test (105E Key) and OS 4.2 as bundled.

"And two hard-boiled eggs."

*HONK!*

"Make that three hard-boiled eggs."

[commodorejohn]

So what is "S-Zorro" on that diagram, anyway? Is there actually a Zorro bus controller that one could theoretically hook a backplane to?

[commodorejohn]

Although, if Gunnar left the project a few months ago, that shouldn't be a problem anymore??

You'd think...I'm sure the interpersonal drama was a pain and all, but a deinterlacer would be a seriously useful feature - be a shame for the system to not have it for no good reason.

[commodorejohn]

That is because companies have factored us out.

But, but Chuck! Don't you know that money is always right? So if you don't like what the rest of the industry is doing, and they're making lots of money, you must be wrong! You're just resisting Progress, you shameless old codger! We know it's progress because marketing and tech journalism told us so!

[commodorejohn]

I think the commodification of every aspect of our society is incredibly toxic. The notion that there is no instance that should not be turned into a source of income, is very inhuman, even if you are otherwise pro-free trade.

Quite so. That was the reason I never got onto Facebook (well, the initial reason - there's been no shortage of additional ones since then.)

[commodorejohn]

Typically you will find that in areas lacking in wealth, or having existing wealth devalued by government policies which will force people into creative methods of wealth generation.

Then what's it doing in Silicon Valley?

[commodorejohn]

Considering the devaluation of the USD (QE I,II, Twisting and soon to be III), inflation including food/energy, and decline in wealth in Silicon Valley via falling property values, I would say yes.

http://articles.businessinsider.com/2012-04-25/tech/31396730_1_housing-market-housing-values-zillow-home-value-index

Except that, as the article notes, in the areas with the big companies (and these being some of the biggest companies in world history,) they're actually rising. (I'd be interested in seeing some more recent data, though, now that Facebook's "looming IPO" has suffered hilarious performance issues.)

You say that the commoditization of humanity is tied to poor economic health and impeded growth, but I'm just not seeing that. US-based companies have led the way in this for years, and we're certainly not among the poorest nations, flagging though we are. And for two examples, Google's creeping dominance of the information-trafficking business and Facebook's out-and-out commoditization of human relationships both started long before the 2008 crash (I don't know exactly when you could point to for Google, but the launch of GMail could be seen as a starting point, and that and Facebook both launched in 2004.)

In any case, your premise (if I'm reading it correctly) basically boils down to the idea that greed is a function of lack, which I think is essentially contrary to all observed behavior in all of human history. If people and companies only sought to acquire more than they have because they don't have enough, then we should see people and companies above a certain level of wealth (not necessarily subsistence-level, maybe more like what you could call "luxury-level") being by and large content with what they have, while anybody below that line would be, as a rule, striving to reach that point.

That's not what we see. That's not what we've ever seen. What we see is that a lot of the people who have well more than enough strive to acquire even more, and a lot of the people who are below "luxury-level" (but above subsistence-level) are more or less content to remain where they are, even if they might theoretically like to have more. It's the exact opposite of that premise.

Now, I'm not the kind of person who's going to say that trying to get more than you need is necessarily a bad thing. I think it can be pathological and unhealthy, but maybe not always. What I do think is that it's not inherently good, either* - which means we must judge a person so doing individually, on the basis of what they do in pursuit of that. Throwing venture capital at a company because you have cash to spare and think their product is going to pay off? Nothing wrong with that (assuming it's not a company manufacturing baby-chippers or something.) Building a company designed to commoditize human friendship, so that you can sell relationships to advertisers? No. No, that's some supervillain-level crap, and we just plain don't need that.

* (this is where I differ from modern-day Republicans, who seem to be caught up in a blind, Randian worship of success irrespective of its motive or means)

[commodorejohn]

If you're into piracy, high-quality music rips are not that difficult to come by, and they're free, to boot! Even better deal!

[commodorejohn]

Well, I can see an argument being made for legitimate music purchase on ethical grounds, especially now that there are services where a significant chunk of that money actually goes to the artist and not the eighteen middlemen imposed by the music industry standard model. But it's still funny to hear something that costs money praised as "a good deal" compared to something that costs nothing...

Me, I just buy used LPs on eBay.