Even the PC sales fuelled by Doom would not have been hindered by
the A1200, A4000, A4000T trio and there was no way that AAA based
machines were on the horizon as contenders for the games niche
before 1996 based on C=s development to shelf typical lifecycle.
A very true statement. I totally agree.
Never underestimate the power of the games market - there are people I know who have 'games machines' comparable in cost and power to my editing system (and that takes some beating), all to get the upper hand in UT (or whatever the FPS game of the second is).
I remember seeing Castle Wolfenstein for the first time on a friends PC when it came out - and even then I felt a chill that was the beginning of the end.
Through the late 80's I'd seen folks that had PC's ditching them for Amigas, mainly for playing games (this was in Australia, my old home, timelines may vary elsewhere). But then in the 90's these same folks were the first to switch back as a plethora of FPS's hit the markets.
Then the blows of Windows 3.1 - Windows95 - suddenly your average Joe User decided that taking work home from the office AND playing games made the PC a very attractive deal.
I stuck it out till 97, when I moved to the U.S... I sold my systems and put the money in the bank to buy a new Ami with... It's still in the bank too, waiting :-)
As for what I'd like to see...
When I saw the first screenshots in Australian Personal Computer, my jaw dropped.. I'd like to relive that moment.
At a time when the PC did 16 colors - the Mac did 2 - and the best selling home computer was the C64, it was so incredible that I was stunned.
Apart from the 'aint it cool' factor - I'd like to see a decent instruction set for ASM programming.. That was my first and longest love with the Amiga. I stopped programming the x86 in ASM after 3 days, and I never did it again (only C nowadays - on the linux box).
Lastly - something that a company can't really provide - a rekindling of the community spirit (Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that it doesn't exist , I'd like to see it grow). That's what attracted me to Linux when I eventually did go x86. They have their flamewars and zealotry as much as the next group - but there's also a sense of freedom and sharing.
The Microsoft mentality seems to be 'make a buck' - go browse Tucows to see what I mean.. scribble some source, cripple it and charge 30 bucks. In the linux community there is more 'Hey, check this out -- ain't it cool?'. I think this is the great strength of the Linux community, and I'd like to see it propagate.
Then again - we could have this right now, no need to wait for a new set of hardware to hit the market.
Siggy.
