The best thing that COULD happen to the amiga would, as recent dave haynie article (iirc) suggested, to free it from proprietary hardware dependency.
Even if they sold the OS with a hardware key, such as a set of roms or a write-protected fpga-key on a PCI card, so the OS couldn't just be copied - I'd be happy to buy OS4 for £100 for a single installation - as long as I knew I could buy a PPC motherboard and upgrade the CPU whenever I wanted/could afford (drivers allowing).
With respect to the Amy 05 guys - I really look forward to your board, and WILL be buying it (assuming OS4 runs on, and comes with it): if you an guarantee a price and that it will be released I'll pay you £200 upfront RIGHT NOW!!!! But it is still tieing the user ot a fixed, soldered in cpu with no upgrade options, and a 33MHz PCI bus speed.
In terms of the current situation: (politics aside) mediator has to be the best thing to happen to the amiga purely because it gives me:
a 16mb graphics card £5
a soundcard for £5
and a ethernet card £0.50
- all of which I can replace for around a tenner should any or all of them die on me. Given the same situation with a zorro bus, you're looking at a couple of hundred squids on green-board alone, for lower spec stuff.
Second to that poseidon (Thanks Chris Hodges), as it gives me masses of new hardware ot play with at a reasonably good data transfer speed. I use spider - it may be WAY overpriced at £50, but for future applications I think the PCI bus is the way to go, not limiting oneself by having to route data through the (15-year old) motherboard.
I don't like the way they deal with their critics, but I do think Elbox have the right approach when it comes to developing hardware for the classic amiga.
They really should give developer information though to allow other people to develop drivers for the mediator. That sucks: really Elbox - that really, really sucks. Oh, and you're installation programs also suck.
