Good old videos os AMIGA and Commodore 64!

[B00tDisk]

DavidF215 wrote:
You know, there are a lot of good points in the C64 video. The most important combination of points, I think, is that the C64 was an inexpensive computer that was easy to use. Also, Commodore flooded the market emphasizing the ease of use and the low cost.

This statement is specious at best.  The C64 was no easier - or harder - to use than comparable PCs of the time.  All had the same requirement that at the very least you had to load a program first before they could do anything, and the ease of use depended on the program itself.

In fact, given that unlike the Atari or Apple or IBM the C64 had no disk autoloader, the user had to load a program manually thus putting it one step behind the others.  Additionally, the user had to wait and wait and wait for programs to load on the '64.  The advent of Fast Load -type cardridges came along later in the C64's life.  Other turbo programs you either had to load by hand or type in (I'm thinking of a few I saw in Ahoy! and Compute's! Gazette).

The '64s popularity came from it's ubiquity and C='s willingness to dump palletloads of the things at Montgomery Wards, K-Mart, and so on.  If, say, Exidy had been as initially successful at marketing things would be no different regarding the Sorcerer and Sorcerer II.  

The C64 was a typical computer of it's day, it just had a large user base thanks to cutthroat business tactics on the part of C=, tactics which were (bafflingly) dropped when they bought the Lorraine/Hi-Toro and turned it in to the Amiga.

Don't get me wrong; I had a C64 and I loved it, but I've understood over the years what made it so popular.  Apple computers had better overall hardware, Atari computers had a superior disk/file management system, IBMs were more expandable...C= just had the price point.

[B00tDisk]

KMOS may need to use similar cut throat techniques to get a foot hold in a market for AmigaOS again. And unfortunately, there is no Amiga solution that could be manufactured with a low enough price to dump pallet loads of Amiga computers off at similar places, too.

The Amiga at this point consists of two parts: old, slowly breaking-down machines, the last of which were manufactured over a decade ago.  While the "amiga community" (some 1000-5000 users, probably) may swap them around, no one other than a nostalgia enthusiast would consider buying one.  The other part are the folks who've plunked down their cash for the Amiga-1 systems, and they're rather like the folks who've bought the C=1 boards.  At this point it's a hobby niche, and there's never going to be some revolution where I can go into CompUSA (or even hit compusa.com) and buy A1 hardware or software (although given that the A1 "runs on" commodity PC parts you might make the argument that I already can).

If the Amiga ever had a chance it was in the late 80's, early 90's.  Commodore so thoroughly {bleep}ed up the company that by 1994 nobody would touch them.  If there was going to have been a miraculous comeback, that's when it should've been.  It kills me that people say "Yeah, back in '98 or 2000 we still had a chance!"  Heh.  

[B00tDisk]

SHADES wrote:
@B00tDisk

So really, take a good look at the IT world before making a statement of such, there it is a very big dynamic world of technology, and AMIGA has just as much a chance at this as Linux did. Yes, even now in 2005! it doesn't take much to look at history to proove that one.

Oh grow up.

It isn't a matter of what there is or isn't room for in the market.  The simple matter is that the Amiga has all but disappeared in terms of user-base, okay?  There's what, maybe a thousand or so serious users?

The end result of that is that the support network around the Amiga - the thing that can move a platform through the market - is also virtually nonexistent.  Look, I admire what Hyperion has done.  It's really great effort on their part.  But you need to understand: THERE IS NO AMIGA MARKET.  THERE HASN'T BEEN FOR OVER A DECADE.

It is a hobby niche, plain and simple.  Enjoy it!  UAE, Amiga-1, old hardware, it's all good.  Just don't kid yourself about there being any great Amiga revolution.  You might like to think that Apple's success (if you can call the marginalized hanging-on they do with regard to the computer desktop a "success") doesn't happen because of happy thoughts and good wishes.  It happens because there's a multi-billion dollar coporation driving it.

What's that you say?  What about Linux?  Linux didn't happen in a vacuum either.  If Linux had required some hardware widget that didn't exist when it was concieved, it would've gone down without a ripple.  But it ran (rather, runs) on cheap PC hardware.  And it's still a tiny fraction of the PC desktop market, and nowhere near a majority in the server market.

Why do people like you throw a fit when confronted with facts?  Sheesh.