Amiga as a Tablet

[Strangedisk]

Hello.  I've been thinking about the future of the Amiga and have an idea which I'm sure has been thought of before, nevertheless, I will share it.

How about, for the next Amiga after AmigaOne (AmigaTwo?) it is made into a Tablet formfactor.  Now hear me out!

Firstly, this message is prompted by the lively discussion about how Amiga supposedly made a mistake by not choosing the ix86 over the PowerPC.  I don't think they did, but the CPU is not really the issue.  Amiga's future is.  And in the final analysis, although I am a fan of Motorola (used to work for them) and have nothing but respect for their excellent engineering, and the PowerPC in particular, ultimately I don't care what CPU is in it.

The Amiga has an opportunity here that should not be lost.  I remember watching the Bernie video off of Aminet.  I saw him boot an Amiga (AmigaXL in this case) on a CD with only 3MB's written to it.  That included some demos, the OS, the UAE layer, and the Linux substructure.  THREE MEGS.  And a more native port would be smaller.  The Amiga can fit ANYWHERE, even as it is (even without DE, although I love DE, anyone else here take a good long look at it?).  I hear a lot of talk about how we need 3Ghz chips, and ultra-fast video cards, and that we need ... well basically we need to chase PC's around.  No, we don't.

Amiga should, as it always has, go its own route.

Look at the 500, the 600, and the 1200.  These were wonderful computers that fit into peoples lives.  The lights didn't flicker when you turned them on.  They didn't sound like a vaccuum cleaner.  They didn't take the entire desk, unless you expanded them to infinity.  Plus they were cheap.  I'm going to repeat that.  They were cheap.  That's important.  Not poor quality, by any stretch of the imagination.  But cheap.  Everyone could get one.

We have the advantage here.   Microsoft also wants this market, because Bill Gates is blessed with a KEEN SENSE OF THE OBVIOUS.  It's going this way, and not only do I want the Amiga there, I want her to be first, where she belongs.

Imagine a tablet (not a tablet pc, it aint a pc, it's a tablet) which runs AmigaOS.  You take it around, you throw it on the couch.  You stuff it in your bag.  It's not a laptop, it doesn't have to be "opened" and although it does "boot" in the technical sense, it happens so fast only programmers need to know about it.  Apps don't need to be "loaded" either (from human persepctive).  You just touch the icon, the app appears before you take your finger off the screen.  Browse the web with it, it's wireless of course.  You still need a desktop?  Prop it up on the desk.  And stick a USB keyboard into it.  There -- it's a desktop.  Stick the same HD into it that the iPod uses.  Add some flash RAM, the os should boot off of that.  Flash cartridges replace floppies.  And the batteries would last 10 hours not 2.

Meanwhile you just plop around on that screen.  Touch it, draw on it.  Write on it.  Touch a text box then write in it (doesn't have to be in the lines!)  This is the future.  Talk to it -- it will recognize your speech and dictate it.

Billy wants this market, but Billy has a problem.  You see, Billy wants to OWN this market, like he wants to own all markets in the software field.  But -- in order to do so, he must find some way of wedging his currently monopoly widget, Windows, onto the goddamn thing.  Windows XP no less.  Good luck, that thing is huge and slow and boring.  Windows CE won't cut it -- no apps, and it's still basically Windows (all of the boredom, none of the compatability!).  XP can't fit, either in the technical sense or in the "fit into ones life" sense.  Oh sure Billy will shove the behemoth on that, and it'll look like you're hauling around the thickest book in the Encyclopedia Britannica around with you.  Real chic.  We need an OS that is light and fast, and fun.  And we have one.  With AmigaOS 5, it will be hardware agnostic as well.

My point is that the Amiga to me has always been a much more "personal" computer than any PC.  This is the natural next step.  Anyway how can you get any more personal a computer than one named "Amiga"?  It means "friend!"  (it does not mean "girlfriend" by the way, that would be a little too personal for a computer :-P -- it's just a feature (or a drawback?) in Spanish that words are inflected by gender.  You can't say "friend" without indicating the gender of the friend, in this case female)

Also it's worth noting that people are not upgrading their PC's as much anymore.  Why?  Well, the economy is one, but another reson is that current PC's are enough, and even overkill for doing what most people want to do with their PC's.  And if it's overkill running Windows, it's EXTREME overkill running AmigaOS.  I ask the people at Amiga Inc (if they read this site) to give the Amiga a new body, a slim, modern one that shows off her best features while making her drawbacks (compatability with PC's) irrelevant.  Make her fast, slim, long-running, fun, and friendly.  Make her cheap, because everyone deserves one.  Make her compatible in the only way that really matters -- compatible with her users.  

Erik


 

[clark]

I've always liked the idea of data tablets (a la Startrek), but you're not the first one in the Amiga realm to think of this.  I remember seeing official amiga concept art in an old Amiga Format, which depicted a tablet Amiga.  I think that was with Gateway and Jim Collas, might've been earlier.  Of course, little came of that.

Amiga is heading in an excelent direction for this.  Motorola is moving away from desktop processors to embedded, and the PowerPC architecture is becoming more scalable in that respect.  Lower G2 or G1 chips are perfect for tablet computing.  And we've an O/S that can run FAST on these chips.  There is potential.

I would love to see Amiga Tablets, but time will tell.

Clark

Wow... i really like that idea. Amiga tablet... I would take it anywhere and proudly show it to everyone. I really hate microsoft and their "os" and im not the only one. If a tablet like that would be marketed as pure non-microsoft computer, I think there would be plenty of customers. And the fact that its amiga, well... great )

[reticuli]

We have the advantage here. Microsoft also wants this market, because Bill Gates is blessed with a KEEN SENSE OF THE OBVIOUS. It's going this way, and not only do I want the Amiga there, I want her to be first, where she belongs.

Only one tiny eenie weenie little snag. Microsoft TabletPC based devices are already shipping.

e.g. Acer C100, Compaq TC1000 and ViewSonic ViewPad 1000.

*sniff*

[Strangedisk]

Well, I took a look at those and the only one that looks like the vision I had was the ViewSonicViewPad 1000.

At $1699.

Not there yet!

[reticuli]

The other two are basically traditional laptops with rotatable screens that fall flat back on the keyboard. You get the best of both worlds... a tablet when you want to do simple, light work, or graphical stuff... and a keyboard when you want to do anything serious.

Heck... you're right on price though. Call me a cynic but it all seems to me like a marketting exercise to enable PC manufacturers to sell sub-standard PC's at high prices.

I mean... sheesh... when was the last time you saw a laptop with a 10.4" screen? And the processors are hardly anything likely to make you salivate either.

Combine this with Windows XP... Ack!

Not to say I wouldn't like to see AmigaOS run on a tablet form machine. That'd be way cool.

[sackbut3]

Hmm...to a guy who just spent an entire week ridding his PC of viruses, and eventually reinstalling winblows...
THAT SOUNDS GREAT!!!

sackbut

[sarkis]

er..............
www.psionteklogix.com
netpad 5000.
tao intent
has it all and a drop from 3ft onto concrete and still
duin it

regards
sarkis

[Strangedisk]

I'll check out that one.  But -- the price is important.  And the reason it needs to be that high for the other ones that are mentioned  is because it needs to have a processor, memory, and harddrive space that can deal with a big, bloated OS.  It would be much cheaper with a PDA type processor, a few megs of flash (no harddrive at all possibly) and enough ram to work.  Basically what I have in mind is a big PDA (basically so that the screen is usable for real tasks, such as browsing the web, balancing your checkbook, watching videos over the net possibly (not sure if high end StrongARM's are capable of this yet or not), and IM and so on.  But without a PDA OS, rather with AmigaOS and Tao.  Rugged and cheap.  $500 at most.  It would sell like hotcakes.  But no keyboard to get in the way -- that complicated and an extra gadget to break.  Rather, if you want a keyboard, plug one into USB and use it.  Otherwise, write to it or talk to it or tap on "screen keys".

Erik

[ne_one]

@namochan

"Wow... i really like that idea. Amiga tablet... I would take it anywhere and proudly show it to everyone. I really hate microsoft and their "os" and im not the only one."

Let's hope you are. If the best marketing strategy you can come up with is that it doesn't involve Microsoft or Windows that's pathetic. Who is honestly going to invest in the development of an unproven technology and direct it towards a niche market? And who is going to buy it?

There is a simple way of appealing to mainstream consumers and making the same technology available to Amiga diehards: port the operating system to other architectures. Then encourage developers to create applications that make use of it.

See the reason why many of us keep chirping about x86 support?

[ne_one]

"Billy wants this market, but Billy has a problem. You see, Billy wants to OWN this market, like he wants to own all markets in the software field. But -- in order to do so, he must find some way of wedging his currently monopoly widget, Windows, onto the goddamn thing. Windows XP no less. Good luck, that thing is huge and slow and boring."

Er... have you read any of the specs? These tablets run a special edition of XP on 800 MHz+ PIII chips. And just to be interesting they throw in minor technologies like handwriting recognition to make it useful. Oh... and if you're not sure what to do with your slow and boring tablet it's compatible with software that runs on 600 million other PCs.

If people want to come up with an Amiga pipedream think small before taking over the world. Like maybe a portable MP3 player/phone/game system that someone else develops and you can OEM just for funzies.

[CodeSmith]

Actually, right now the tablet PC is more of a solution looking for a problem.  Eventually people will start thinking of ways to take advantage of the form factor, and that's when it will really take off.  The tablet PC is now at its infancy, so the entire market is a niche.  If the AmigaTablet comes out within a year or so it will be a contender, regardless of what CPU it uses.  If it uses a low-power-drain CPU and a lightweight OS it will favourably compete with the big monsters (3 hour battery life? come on!)

[CodeSmith]

@ne_one:

Actually, I have a counter-example for you - Windows CE.  All Windows handhelds use CE, which is binary incompatible (and partly source incompatible, CE uses a subset of win32) with "big" Windows.  Yet my Ipaq interfaces pretty well with my Windows box.  If I had a Palm handheld, that would interface pretty well too, and it doesn't run anything remotely resembling windows.  Most Windows desktop apps assume you have a mouse and/or keyboard (and why not?), so they would be cumbersome to use on a Tablet PC.  If you're going to have to write a special tablet version, you might as well make it run on a different OS.  I believe that the important thing here is interoperability.  As long as I can plug the two things together, I don't really care what they're running.

[Strangedisk]

Well why x86 particularly?  Rather, if it goes onto something like this, it needs to be StrongARM.  If and when Amiga is running under DE, if that's the direction they go, it will run on Intel just fine.  And everything else, which is the point.

Well, I like the little psion machine but it's not quite what I'm thinking of, although it's the closest I've seen so far.  It's too little for starters, since it's made more for data entry in warehouses and stuff like that.  It's got a 640x240 screen.  Imagine a 800x600 screen with about the same pixel-size, and the size of the machine adjusted accordingly.  I'm thinking a home machine, made for around-the-house websurfing, looking up recipes in the kitchen off of it (and not having to worry too much about a little water or flour on it)  Just a little larger.  The weight is fine, and I think would still be even if it were a little heavier (it was about 1.5lbs and even 2 or 2.5 would still work).  

I definitely don't want it to have a keyboard built into it, which would make it both bigger and much, much more delicate.  Keyboard should be a USB or PS/2 or whatever, external.  

The $1700 one suffered from several other problems other than just price.  I'm sure it was fairly delicate.  One drop and that's it.  Also, it was heavy.  Since it runs XP, you have to dick around with the OS.  In other words, it's got to boot, it takes time to shut down, load software, or whatever.  Someone will have to administer this machine.  It's a desktop or server OS, running in a different form factor.  So is AmigaOS (as a desktop OS) of course, but I am saying that changes to the OS should be made to make it work in a more "instant on, instant off" kind of way.  It's already easier to use than XP.

Battery life is another problem.  It lasts for about 2 hours!  That's useless.  I want 10 hours.  That's a lot easier to accomplish with a StrongARM than with an Intel Celeron, mobile edition or not.  

[reticuli]

Er... have you read any of the specs? These tablets run a special edition of XP on 800 MHz+ PIII chips.

Not exactly state of the art though, are they? You pay's your money... you get's less ;-)

And just to be interesting they throw in minor technologies like handwriting recognition to make it useful.

Not to knock handwriting technology 'cause it sure seems impressive to me but... I can type way faster than I can write. This kinda thing seems, to me, to be aimed at the 'newbie' - for whom it is probably very beneficial = but not to a seasoned user.

f people want to come up with an Amiga pipedream think small before taking over the world.

A dream, perhaps, but I'd buy one if it was one of those rotatable screen things with a keyboard. I guess the best we can hope for is when AmigaOS allegedly becomes hardware agnostic and runs quite happily on existing TabletPC stuff :-)

Well... perhaps!