The $500 000 Question: How much is Amiga *worth*?

[stopthegop]

You dont boot from a rom. You still have to load workbench.

no, not normally.  but you can if you want to or need to, whereas in Linux you can't.    That was your question, "What can AOS do that Linux can't".   The ability to access files on a disk if the the os decides to quit working because an index file somewhere got corrupted or because of a virus is one of the Amiga's many virtues.  

Its not a chore but thats because I know what I'm doing.

Thank you for proving my point.  If you have to "know what you're doing" to make it useful, then its not useful.  In fact its a direct contradiction to the first statement in the same paragraph;

"Linux and MacOS are as elegant, intuitive and graceful..."

Not if you have to "know what you're doing" to "make it", it isn't.  A DIY kit is the antithesis of elegant.  How big is the user documentation for Linux?  Probably up to about a terrabyte by now..  If not, it will be soon.   Either way, its frigg'n huge.  You call that fun?  In no perversion of the term can it be called "intuitive".      


 


 

[stopthegop]

Clarification:  First line above I meant to say "No normally you do NOT boot from ROM", but you can if you need to..  

[stone]

ok, but you were just talking about the millions... and MILLIONS of Amiga fans..ok they dont count.  nevermind.

i really dont have time to start a discussion on stuff you make up. i have consistantly talked about people to whom the amiga name rings a bell. i have consintantly pointed out that there isnt any viable amiga fan based market.

Really?  Tell that to the Friedens (sp?) or the MOS devel group.  Those are some of the smartest people working on AOS4 and MOS respectively.  But you're right, I bet you can make some sort of PlaystationOS (POS) (no pun intended..lol) that resembles AOS 4 or MOS "in about two weeks" right?

hyperion and the friedens brothers are without doubt already aware of this fact, and there are a lot of exellent books on the teoretics of operatingsystems.

you are assuming its rocketsscience based on your own lack of insight into the topic. its complex for for sure, and definitly time consuming. throw some more mud in random directions and you might hit a valid point sooner or later.

MacOS/Linux EASILY trumps any incarnation of any Amiga OS out there currently.

not really. they are more complete and contains a lot of applications and subsystems that amigaos lacks. except for a few more or less mportant features such as memory protection, the vital parts are very much on par, with amigaos lacking in a few areas while being ahead in others.

the features you claim easily trumps amigaos isnt operatingsystem features but part of the application layer which is irrelevant in this context, and can 'easily' be added whenever someone gets the time.

/stone

[snowman040]

This is fun! :-) 'you said, I said...'

@stone: you tried to explain us that Amiga Inc. has more value then 20000-50000-100000$ for brand, and from "millions Amiga users" you moved to "millions that Amiga name rings a bell" ? What bell ? "buy all new Amiga products" ? I doubt.


@all: Please stop that 'Amiga OS rulez' nonsense, yes it RULED some 20 years ago, but try connecting to internet out-of-the-box or try reading modern web documents. Amiga OS today needs a lot of work to be done, and that is almost as rewriting the OS from scratch.

[recidivist]

 There are some established  methods of determining value:

 1. Let the tax assessors do it,and appeal if not happy.


  2. Offer the item/company at auction.


  3. Hire professional appraisers familiar with the market.Complain if their judgment differs from yours.


   4. Have a bunch of people with no access to relevant  information engage in wild speculative arguments.Ignore them.

[stone]

you tried to explain us that Amiga Inc. has more value then 20000-50000-100000$ for brand, and from "millions Amiga users" you moved to "millions that Amiga name rings a bell" ?

eh, no i didnt. can you even read? if so, please point out where i write that. there is no point in having a discussion if all the arguments you have are based on asumptions and stuff i never wrote.

i would appriciate if you would actually produce from real arguments at some point. preferable some thats actually reletated to the the context and posts i have done.

What bell ? "buy all new Amiga products" ? I doubt.

a brand is valuable when the name means something to a lot of people. its not about buying or not, its about millions of people who will get some kind of assosiation when they hear the name.

And please stop that 'Amiga OS rulez' nonsense, yes it RULED some 20 years ago, but try connecting to internet out-of-the-box or try reading modern web documents. Amiga OS today needs a lot of work to be done, and that is almost as rewriting the OS from scratch.

and where do i write that amigaos rules? please grow up a little and try to lead a sober discussion. putting words in my mouth really is a waste of everyones time.

besides, a modern webbrowser is not a part of the core operatingsystem, and is only an important part if you are trying to sell it to a desktop user. there are hundreds of other uses for an operatingsystem in other areas.

yes, we need a good modern browser, but you are mixing up the operatingsystem with the application layer which is a completly different thing.

/stone

[dammy]

i dont know what your definition of 'a few' is, but millions of people isnt a few in my book. these are people to whom the word amiga rings a bell in one form or another, and for by far the largest part of these a very positive bell too, though most of them never even owned an amiga.

Too bad that proved out to be badly overestimated by the sales of A1s and Pegs.  Clearly there USE to be millions of Amiga users, we judge that by number of units sold world wide.  Now that Eyetech has headed for the hills with pathetic sales and Genesi had to go to *nix groups to make any sales numbers, it's plain to most rational folks, there is no market left.  There are thousands (in the four digits) of customers out there, not tens of millions nor one million like so many would like to believe.

Dammy

[snowman040]

@stone: Last comment wasn't directed at your posts (one with @stone: is)... I edited it to clearify.

a brand is valuable when the name means something to a lot of people. its not about buying or not, its about millions of people who will get some kind of assosiation when they hear the name.

I doubt all those people will think something more than "Amiga? that computer from 90s?", but ok... this discussion leads to nowhere anyway...

@recidivist: well in a very odd situation that there IS NO 1,2,3 from your list here at amiga.org, we stick to no 4.

[stopthegop]

Please stop that 'Amiga OS rulez' nonsense, yes it RULED some 20 years ago, but try connecting to internet out-of-the-box or try reading modern web documents. Amiga OS today needs a lot of work to be done, and that is almost as rewriting the OS from scratch.

Thats assuming you're goal is to transmutate an Amiga into a Windoze box.  

[stopthegop]

Too bad that proved out to be badly overestimated by the sales of A1s and Pegs. Clearly there USE to be millions of Amiga users, we judge that by number of units sold world wide. Now that Eyetech has headed for the hills with pathetic sales and Genesi had to go to *nix groups to make any sales numbers, it's plain to most rational folks, there is no market left. There are thousands (in the four digits) of customers out there, not tens of millions nor one million like so many would like to believe.

The A1 is an uninspired piece of junk and it, too, was poorly marketed.  It used a canned, off-the-shelf PPC board (probably the same boards Apple was using at the time), totally unoriginal and uninspiring; just nothing there to get excited about.  Plus it was a CLEAR transparent attempt to exploit the Amiga name uing stock "ho-hum/yawn" technology. OF COURSE it was going to fail.  It was doomed before it hit the starting gate.

[stopthegop]

There are some established methods of determining value:

1. Let the tax assessors do it,and appeal if not happy.


2. Offer the item/company at auction.


3. Hire professional appraisers familiar with the market.Complain if their judgment differs from yours.


4. Have a bunch of people with no access to relevant information engage in wild speculative arguments.Ignore them.  

What if a person in category 4 has several years of professional experience pertaining to the professions listed in categories 1-3?  

[stone]

[..] it's plain to most rational folks, there is no market left.  There are thousands (in the four digits) of customers out there, not tens of millions nor one million like so many would like to believe.

the difference here is that we are talking about different markets. i really think its quite clear from my previous posts that i dont see any valuable in the current userbased market, regardless of you repeatedly trying to imply that i do.

so far all newer amiga productions has been targeted at the enthusiast market and the last remaining fans. this market is incredible small and difficult to make any profit in.

we have yet to see a product thats targeted at the mainstream market and those potential new and has-been amiga users.

/stone

[dammy]

The A1 is an uninspired piece of junk and it, too, was poorly marketed. It used a canned, off-the-shelf PPC board (probably the same boards Apple was using at the time), totally unoriginal and uninspiring; just nothing there to get excited about. Plus it was a CLEAR transparent attempt to exploit the Amiga name uing stock "ho-hum/yawn" technology. OF COURSE it was going to fail. It was doomed before it hit the starting gate.

The whole concept of the unholy trio was doomed from the start with piss poor business plan.  Say they took a x86 mobo and rebadged it.  Who the hell is going to pay nearly a grand for it?  As horrific of a disaster the project it was, if there were really million(s) of Amiga fans out there waiting for the resurrection of the Amiga, they could have gotten atleast 10% of that market just by slapping the boingball on the case.  That didn't happen at all.  They sold, what, less then two thousand units with Genesi selling about the same before they focused on linux?

No, there are no millions of Amigians awaiting for Amiga5000's release.  There are no millions awaiting for the next AmigaDE.  Wake up and smell the coffee, economic viablility of the Amiga Market died years ago.

Dammy

[neon32]

I doubt all those people will think something more than "Amiga? that computer from 90s?", but ok... this discussion leads to nowhere anyway...

I think you'd be suprised snowman, especially over here in Europe.

[stopthegop]

The whole concept of the unholy trio was doomed from the start with piss poor business plan. Say they took a x86 mobo and rebadged it. Who the hell is going to pay nearly a grand for it? As horrific of a disaster the project it was, if there were really million(s) of Amiga fans out there waiting for the resurrection of the Amiga, they could have gotten atleast 10% of that market just by slapping the boingball on the case.

You're first three sentences are right on the money.  The fourth is incomplete.  They failed to get even that "diehard 10%" because of a total lack of ADVERTISING.  Period.  

No, there are no millions of Amigians awaiting for Amiga5000's release. There are no millions awaiting for the next AmigaDE. Wake up and smell the coffee, economic viablility of the Amiga Market died years ago.

You're right but your analysis is again incomplete.  Millions of people HAVE at least heard of the Amiga name and, if given a reason to do so --via marketing-- would spend money on it.  A differentiated, unique and inspiring product would also help.  

[redrumloa]

This conversation is getting pointless and going in circles. Some think OS design is "trivial" and that the Amiga is going to take over the world.

You can't argue with baseless enthusiasm, sorry. I've been there myself, up to about 2002. In these very forums in ~2001 Wayne scoffed at the very notion I was putting forward that the Amiga could make a serious comeback. So shocking I thought, he couldn't possibly be right. I couldn't handle that iea. Wayne was right 5 (FIVE) years ago. Nothing has changed except even the dream has faded away with a wimper. The Amiga is a historic retro computer and unless you see someone with extremely deep pockets take stupid pills, it will stay that way.