Motorollin's "Future of the Amiga" thread

[TheMagicM]

I meant installing Amiga Forever is simple.  Anyone who knows how to click "Setup" and click on Next Next etc can do it.  If not they'll ask Cloanto or whichever internet forum.

It would be cheaper to buy a Dell PC then order Amiga Forever from Cloanto than it would be to get it as a package from AI.  

[motorollin]

But most companies would never think to use AmigaOS! If it's marketed as a fantastic multimedia platform listing all the features then they might use it even though they had never thought of it themselves.

--
moto

[balrogsoft]

motorollin wrote:
1. Amiga Inc put together packages of cheap x86 systems running AmigaForever KXLight or AROS, with Hollywood or Scala and touch-screen and TV/VGA support built in.
2. These packages are marketed to manufacturers of multimedia display booths and interactive displays.

Well, i see another way, very similar to create cheap x86 systems running AmigaForever, why don't use the new Minimig, and AClone? It can have two markets, an Amiga TV joystick, and a small multimedia machine for museums, and you can share the costs of Minimig/AClone boards...

I had another idea, add genlock functions, and something like mandala board of vivid group and you will have a small eyetoy machine (or better, with chroma), and you will have a cheap and small machine for interactive multimedia presentations...

I'm working on a similar system (software based) for x86 systems with windows and a webcam, you can see something on my web...

[Starrunner]

Let's assume for a moment that Amiga Inc does not exist.

If you have, say Amiga OS4, have it so it works on x86 platforms, then you can do 2 things.

1.  Offer the OS with or without a bundle of programs for a reasonable price.

2.  Get with a company such as Acer that produces reasonably priced desktops and off the AmigaOS with or without bundle.

This could be done with AROS as well in my book.  It would allow for ease of getting people to learn and see and keep the x86 hardware they have.  Marketing of course would be a key.

[TheMagicM]

--EDIT
I should add that this is particularly true of AmigaOS which is not well known. I doubt most people running a kiosk in B&Q would know how to install Workbench, find, download and install Hollywood etc etc.

Your heart is in the right place but....  Thats just the thing..nobody is going to care to install a *emulator package* to run a presentation in a public area.

Microsoft has you beat to the punch.  Hell.. LINUX has you beat.

People nowadays are brainwashed with Microsoft.  Thats all they know.  Getting people to turn away is a tough battle.  Linux is going at it but in the business world...hittin the server side and its working.  There are more Linux apache servers then Windows IIS servers.

The only way to make it work is to try it out yourself and maybe you'll have something *you* can market.  I did that.  I setup a few webservers..Windows shops.. but I setup a linux server..they freaked out but were open to the suggestion.. been happy ever since.

-Alex

[TheMagicM]

Let's assume for a moment that Amiga Inc does not exist.

If you have, say Amiga OS4, have it so it works on x86 platforms, then you can do 2 things.

1. Offer the OS with or without a bundle of programs for a reasonable price.

2. Get with a company such as Acer that produces reasonably priced desktops and off the AmigaOS with or without bundle.

This could be done with AROS as well in my book. It would allow for ease of getting people to learn and see and keep the x86 hardware they have. Marketing of course would be a key.

Then you need to have companies developing software for OS4..now that the OS and hardware is out we'll need software. So how to convince big companies to develop something for your operating system?  I dont think it will happen.   Linux kicks AOS4/MOS butt and they are just starting to get mainstream apps but most is from the community.  People porting software to Linux..  thats the way it will be for OS4/MOS for quite some time.

[Starrunner]

Then you need to have companies developing software for OS4..now that the OS and hardware is out we'll need software. So how to convince big companies to develop something for your operating system?  I dont think it will happen.   Linux kicks AOS4/MOS butt and they are just starting to get mainstream apps but most is from the community.  People porting software to Linux..  thats the way it will be for OS4/MOS for quite some time.[/quote]

You are right.  It would take companies or a community to develop.  There is prolly a senario where both could work together.  I know it would not be easy.  but if there was only a way.

[TheMagicM]

It could happen... I think OS4 or MOS should be released to the public.. open sourced.  Take the approach Sun did with Solaris and Linus did w/Linux.  You'll end up getting more developers (assuming the interest is there) which will in turn enable you to get fresh ideas/get more work done.

[motorollin]

Starrunner wrote:
2. Get with a company such as Acer that produces reasonably priced desktops and off the AmigaOS with or without bundle.

Why would Acer want to do that? What would be the advantage for them?

TheMagicM wrote:
nobody is going to care to install a *emulator package* to run a presentation in a public area

They wouldn't know it was an emulator. As far as they are concerned the OS runs natively. At the end of the day, the customer doesn't car how the software runs, as long as it provides the services they are paying for.

TheMagicM wrote:
People nowadays are brainwashed with Microsoft. Thats all they know.

End users and corporates maybe, because they need to conform with what have become standards. But for a box which sits in the corner displaying a MM presentation or has a touch screen interface for people to make selections, and never interfaces with the outside world, the OS doesn't matter - it's the software that counts. And Amiga has excellent software in this field. And a cheap pre-configured box would be marketable to companies who can't/don't want to set it up themselves.

TheMagicM wrote:
The only way to make it work is to try it out yourself

Hmmmmm.... ;-)

TheMagicM wrote:
Then you need to have companies developing software for OS4..now that the OS and hardware is out we'll need software

That's the beauty of my idea - the software already exists (and is good).

--
moto

[Starrunner]

I was using Acer as an example only.  i had not thought through the idea fully as of yet.  First thing that came to mind.

[TheMagicM]

They wouldn't know it was an emulator. As far as they are concerned the OS runs natively. At the end of the day, the customer doesn't car how the software runs, as long as it provides the services they are paying for.

Dont base your company ideas on a lie, that was the mistake AI made (lies, plural actually).  They will know because they will ask.  

If someone wants a multimedia box sittin out at the mall then they will ask, what if I want to run/display this certain file..and the Amiga OS doesnt play it.  "Isnt that Windows", "it works on my PC at home".

[keropi]

I think that there would never be a succesfull new amiga now or in the future...
why? lack of hardware and all great hardware nowdays is for pc's... who will design let's say a better gpu than nvidia/ati? noone can , money is the main reason... so you make an amiga mobo coupled with the latest nvidia/ati chip, the latest sound chip etc... so? another computer can have that and propably use it better because of the greater user base...
even apple abandonned their "close" architecture... there was no point to it when the x86 hardware is now way better...

[motorollin]

TheMagicM wrote:
Dont base your company ideas on a lie, that was the mistake AI made (lies, plural actually).  They will know because they will ask.  

Not a lie. The features and limitations of the OS would be made available to the customer. The only thing they wouldn't need to know (and probably wouldn't care about) is that it's sitting on top of an emulation layer.

TheMagicM wrote:
If someone wants a multimedia box sittin out at the mall then they will ask, what if I want to run/display this certain file..and the Amiga OS doesnt play it.  "Isnt that Windows", "it works on my PC at home".

Can you give me an example of a filetype which might be required in a MM box which the Amiga couldn't handle?

--
moto

[TheMagicM]

I dunno.. I dont use my amiga for video playback or anything of that nature.

[ptek]

The option "emulation" is not the best for multimedia presentation purposes I presume. Only if you're willing to forget about smooth animation, but thinking twice, I guess the "common" users are already used to this, after of several years of MS washing their mind with crap presentation packages and game gfx performance hiccups, just because their great OS need (even) more memory and goes for hard disk swapping.

Like someone also said here, I'm surprised with the unexplainable attraction "users" have with the bloated Vista! Man, if MS tells them to jump from a bridge, will they also do that ?!

Have MS now the power of inciting a global suicide ?
Just exagerating a bit, but you see my point (I hope)

What's the reason to go for Vista?!

[Floid]

The problem is that kiosks with 24/7/365 uptime demand... well, 24/7/365 uptime, which ideally means some way to detect memory leaks and watchdog the thing.

If you're cutting the power every night, you can use anything ROM-based, really.  Or anything that can keep its filesystem writes synchronous/atomic.

Everyone loves the fast boot time and the low resource footprint... but how often does anyone boot anymore, rather than taking a machine out of suspend?  (Admittedly, Vista will probably take five minutes to come out of hibernation even though it's now the default...)

I think this means the real niche is down in the fabled embedded space, namely ubiquitous, practically disposable devices -- pull out something the size of a pack of cards with your presentation preloaded, plug it in, and...

I've just described the iPod.  F***.