AMIGA Classic

[THX-4703]

I was just wondering who owns the rights to the original Amiga hardware architecture? .. The new Amiga (Amiga One) as I understand it is not combatable with the original Amiga. The classic Amiga was such a leap forward, a machine way ahead of it's time.. I can't understand why someone wouldn’t want to take that design and update it a bit so it can handle higher resolutions and color depths and I supposed increase the CPU clock speed a bit, though it wouldn’t need to be anywhere as fast as today's PCs since it is such an efficient design. Why are people satisfied with their crappy x86 PC / WinBLOAT machines? It's the equivalent of owning a car with a 5000 HP engine that has a top speed of only 20 MPH.

[odin]

Right...update it 'a bit'. You have some spare millions in your backpocket to do that? :-).

And as far as who owns what....I *think* Gateway own certain parts and has licensed Amiga Inc those parts and Gateway sold other parts to Amiga Inc.

Amiga Inc in turn sold?/licensed? KMOS bits of those parts. I think. :-D.

[Blomberg]

Shawn?

[billchase]

There are certainly many answers and explainations to you question, so I will try to give a brief response.  1.  Many
of the original design and components can no longer be made.   2.  The original Amiga's do not conform to what is now known
as "industry standard" parts such as PCI, AGP, and USB, though 3rd party expansions have alleviated this to some degree.
Ease at which parts can be obtained for the x86 platform (and of course cost) is why people settle for that.  3.  Modern PC
hardware such as the latest APUs, GPU/VPUs, etc in many ways mimic what the original amiga chipsets do.  They offload
work from the main processor and to some degree can run independently.  4.  Has much as the original hardware was
special, I personally believe much of the "magic" was in the OS.  Of course, this point is certainly debatable.  I also
believe OS4 does a great job recreating that ole Amiga feel.

To clarify one of your statements, The AmigaOne is compatible with a lot original software.  No not 100%, but what little
it can't run can certainly be emulated.  I am sure the AmigaOne owners will certainly voice their opinion.
As far as who owns what, I really don't know anymore.

I hope this helps.

C Snyder
 

[B00tDisk]

THX-4703 wrote:
I was just wondering who owns the rights to the original Amiga hardware architecture? .. The new Amiga (Amiga One) as I understand it is not combatable with the original Amiga. The classic Amiga was such a leap forward, a machine way ahead of it's time.. I can't understand why someone wouldn’t want to take that design and update it a bit so it can handle higher resolutions and color depths and

...blah, blah, blah.

Poke around and find the various interviews and newsgroup posts from Dave Haynie about why this can't work ever again.  I'll help you out if you don't feel like digging:  Any custom-chip set (so-called) would be outdated by the time the first prototypes were fab'ed.  PC tech moves by leaps and bounds, and whether or not you "like" Intel or Microsoft (or AMD and Linux or whatever) can't change that, period.  You simply cannot design an on-board PC "custom chip set" that won't be eclipsed by the time it makes it's debut.