What's the Deal With CommodoreUSA?

[commodorejohn]

They're a fast-buck operation, and the only thing that distinguishes them from any other fast-buck operation is how inept they seem to be at it. They can't design a PC that even sounds convincing on paper (multiple people in the community had to tell them outright they picked an inadequate power supply for their announcement of the "Amiga Mini,") they have absurd delays in shipping that make it clear that Barry doesn't even keep the parts in stock for fear of not getting enough orders to clear it out, and Barry seems to spend far more time fighting with community members than actually conducting business.

The only real question is why they haven't taken the money and run, and I assume that's because they haven't made that much money yet, and are still holding out and hoping that a few more schmucks out of whoever they haven't alienated completely will take the bait. Yeah, good luck with that.

[commodorejohn]

Arguably CUSA has created a nice case for their C64 look alike. It`s hard to find a comparable box these days.

Yes, the one case. It is indeed quite pretty. However, it's not exactly enough to earn absolution for everything else they've ever done, pretty or no. And anyway everything they've done since has been prefab cases badly emblazoned with rented trademarks.

You can' t blame a company for selling Intel chips in their hardware and Linux is a good choice if you want to add branding on an otherwise free OS. So it all rational choices here.

Rational or no, it still means that they offer exactly nothing not offered by every other PC manufacturer in existence, not to mention having exactly zilch in common with either the C64 or the Amiga.

Let' s not forget that in the world of business today, you don' t have to earn the right to use a name. You just have to pay for it and defend it.

This is correct. However, the mere fact that something is legal does not make it automatically admirable or ethical, and charging massive markup on commodity hardware and free software in an attempt to exploit nostalgia is not something that can be called either admirable or ethical on its own merits.

There is no real development done by CUSA, but apparently they hired some designers for the cases and don' t be mistaken:
"Skinning" a Linux distro to the extend they where doing requires dedication and a lot of work.

No it doesn't.

[commodorejohn]

Our small enthusiasts and companies kind of sound PRO and RELIABLE when compared ... as well as INNOVATIVE.

Indeed...hell, even Hyperion looks like the peak of technical wizardry compared to these slackjaws.

[commodorejohn]

I don't understand why people keep on comparing Amigaos to Linux. I use Morphos because i want to use an Amiga and vice versa i use Ubuntu because i want to fiddle with Linux (currently having lots of fun figuring out Gnome3). At the end of the day i appreciate both. Why do people keep on trying to merge them together? It's apples to oranges.

Part of it's because some people in this community have latched onto Linux as the Last Best Hope for Commodore, because it's A. not related to either of the Mortal Enemies, Microsoft and Apple, B. semi-modernish (really it's a '70s mainframe OS that's been hacked into modernity, as is glaringly obvious anytime you peek under the hood, but don't tell them that,) and C. free. The fact that it has nothing at all to do with the original Amiga OS is apparently less important than those considerations.

The other part is because there's a certain kind of Linux user who takes it for granted that Linux is basically the Platonic ideal of operating systems that other OSes must still be struggling to reach, and that it's only natural for any other OS (like the Amiga OS) to become Linux in its quest for enlightenment. There seem to be fewer of those around here than the first group, but they're still present. (There's a number of them in the Haiku community, too.)

[commodorejohn]

Develop a desktop environment that genuinely feels and functions like a fully featured amiga environment and go from there.

Develop a desktop environment that genuinely feels and functions like a fully-featured Amiga environment, and then you'll only be left with all of the underlying structure that feels absolutely nothing like it and also it doesn't run any Amiga software. Yeah, sounds like a plan.

Heck, amithlon proved what could have been.

Except for the part where Amithlon was nothing at all like Linux, sure.

[commodorejohn]

On my end, I don't really care what this or that folder is called, what the file system happens to be called or whether the kernel does this or that.
The user interface and experience on the other hand, is what you engage with every moment you use the machine.

I suppose this is a matter of perspective - if you think BSD with an Apple-designed desktop environment is essentially the same as classic Mac OS, I suppose a similar approach for the Amiga would make sense. The way I see it, though, there's already very little variety in operating systems - there doesn't need to be less, and certainly not by ditching the fundamentals of a perfectly decent existing OS.

As far as amiga applications, port or emulate. Not really different from the OS4 people. Or build in some sort of compatibility layer like the Mac people did with their switch to Intel. Who knows?

Porting isn't that simple, though. Software can be ported between NG Amiga projects fairly easily because they're all based on the same API. Porting to/from a completely different OS like Linux requires quite a bit more work for the same result. A compatibility layer would be peachy, but doing one on Linux would mean reimplementing the whole AmigaOS API anyway.

[commodorejohn]

If I had the money to set up a small computer business, I'd buy the same cases and peripherals that CUSA uses and resell them at far lower prices under the brand name Commode.
I'd offer a choice of OS including AROS, PC Linux OS, PC-BSD, Windows, and maybe Haiku.
I can't imagine it would be any less successful than CUSA.

Do you have someone you can hire to verbally abuse any parties that might otherwise be interested in your products?

[commodorejohn]

in a world where "custom" means "i changed the wallpaper" and the response to a software crash is to buy a new machine, I'm not sure how your statement makes any lick of sense.

I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. If you're suggesting that variety in OSes doesn't matter because people are boring and lazy and have no taste these days, I don't think that's the kind of behavior one ought to make decisions based off of...

I'm confused as to the specs
 
"video output is 400x300 pixels in 512 colors"
 
later
 
"background graphics
512x512 pixel character background"

Haven't looked into the Gameduino much myself, but given its console inspirations, I presume the 512x512 pixel background is a larger playfield out of which the 400x300 actual display is framed?

[commodorejohn]

Joking aside, what I was getting at, and I do have the linux zealot hat on here for a moment, is that in a market where the two mainstream options (windows and os x) are basically locked down ecosystems with very little possibility for user input, complaining that Linux is the choice of the unimaginative and lazy seems very weird to me.

Well, if you compare it to settling for Windows or OSX, I suppose that's true, but I don't know of anybody who does that; people who want a Windows box just buy a Windows box. Whereas Linux is basically the inevitable, omnipresent fallback OS for pretty much any 32-bit hardware project that isn't x86, which is I think where the perception comes from.

(Again, it also has to do with that class of Linux users who think that every OS secretly wants to be Linux and spend their time kibitzing around places like the Haiku forums and perpetually suggesting that it become less like the OS it intends to be like and more like the OS they think it should be. It's easy to see Linux as a sort of ominous, all-engulfing Borg project when you get stuck in a conversation with these people for too long.)
 
 

In the end though, I think there's sort of two different things at stake here.
1: What the hobby community is doing right now
2: Theoretical ideas of how to get a sort of Amiga experience that has any resemblance to the success of the 80's and 90's.
 
Im not sure those two points converge at all. Of course, maybe they don't have to.

I don't think they have to, which is where I differ from a lot of people in the community. I'm all for improving the Amiga experience, but I really don't get and don't at all agree with the notion that this is so important that it means it's worthwhile to abandon anything and everything that made the Amiga interesting in pursuit of it.

[commodorejohn]

I come from a mainstream background and I have no problem with it.

Seems like most claims of "normal people won't get this" just boil down to "people who are expecting Windows and don't want to hear any different won't get this," in my observation...

[commodorejohn]

I'd not feel very comfortable sending something from windows XP to hunting down MUI classes for a 20 year old email app to work

That's true enough, though I'dve thought the NG projects would integrate some of that stuff the way ClassicWB does...
 
 

On your previous note, I agree with you that "amiga" in 2012 doesn't have to be a "mainstream" computer thing to be worthwhile. There's a significant faction that feels it should be or can be, and I don't think that's at all plausible given the situation right now. None of the current players have that ability.

Exactly. It seems like a lot of hope and enthusiasm is wasted on pie-in-the-sky dreams of world conquest, which is a shame when there's so much humble but genuinely neat stuff going on right here in the actual real-world present-day Amiga community...

[commodorejohn]

The original OS for the A1000 didn't start out as an OS for Amiga.

Correct me if I'm wrong, someone, but yes it did. The original version of AmigaDOS was based on TripOS, but the other components (Exec and the other libraries, not to mention Workbench) were developed specifically for the Amiga. Certainly the project as a whole wasn't designed for some other computer and then hacked to support the Amiga because Commodore just happened to need something to run on it.

[commodorejohn]

And, again, its just a PC, a really small PC.

No it isn't. It's an ARM SoC-based system, look it up. It is running Linux, but there is at least a RISC OS port underway, efforts to get AROS running are in progress (though last I checked it's still running it from a Linux base,) and who knows what else will happen in the future...

[commodorejohn]

ON THE OTHER HAND, I still think that its possible to do a completely new roll-out of an alternative system, based on new hardware and software.

I'm not arguing that - I'm just saying that calling the Pi a "small PC" is doing a disservice to the scope, direction, and goals of the whole project.

[commodorejohn]

Exactly.
I never said the OS wasn't developed for Amiga, just that it didn't start out that way.

Except that every part of it other than the filesystem/CLI most certainly did...