make an offer to buy Amiga Inc.

[A6000]

We get quite a few posts from people asking how much their old amiga kit is worth, so can we be sure the OP isn't good old bill himself seeing if anyone's interested in buying amiga? :lol:

Seriously amiga have destroyed the brand name and the goodwill  that used to be attached to amiga, they have destroyed any expectation or demand that amiga be revived and split the comunity into at least 4 camps, os3, os4PPC, os4classic, emulation and aros.

Amiga Inc do not own any IP of interest to the Amiga community, so there is nothing of any value to buy.

Alexh's offer seems very generous to me.  

[persia]

Amiga burst onto the seen with advanced technology and died an early death.  It's the Elvis of personal computers!  There never was a survival strategy, and even if there was it wouldn't have worked.  The only non-MS compatible computer company to survive that era is Apple, and they survived because of Steve Jobs and a small investment for MS.

I'll repeat that THERE WAS NO WINNING STRATEGY.  There is no winning strategy today to bring Amiga back.  There is no way Amiga could catch up with Apple or MS, and catching up isn't good enough to generate customer, you have to really excel.  Where is Amiga going to do that?  

It would take ten's of thousands of man-hours to modernise AmigaDos and then more to develop a killer App.  The hours aren't there, the skills aren't there.  Look at OS4, we've all got copies of it from various sources, not one of us can make it run on old Macs, or Pear PC.  This is child's play compared to updating the OS and developing a killer app.

And if you have the idea for a killer app why would you release or develop it only for Amiga when you could retire happy to a beach on a tropical island if you made it run on a PC?

The Amiga is retro, if you know Amatuer Radio, there is something called QRP, basically transmitted on low power.  Whilst the average person will Skype someone on the other side of the world, the QRPer will build a transmitter in a chewing tobacco can and communicate from the woods using a straight key and an antenna strung between two trees.  That's the Amiga enthusiast!  Yeah I can do that in 10 minutes an an 8 core Mac using Final Cut, but it's more fun  taking a few days to do a more crude looking version on video toaster.  Because you did it on a computer that makes a mobile phone look like a super computer.

Amiga Inc is irrelevant, they have produced nothing that is Amiga compatible, they produce 15 old Amiga games for the PC and do dotNet development in India.  They talk about a redone Tao Intent (Amiga Anywhere) They lease the name Amiga, but that's really it.

[actung_bab]

billt wrote:

Current "imaginary" valuation is said to be over 200 million USD.

That's ludicrously absurd. Gateway bought Amiga for what, $5million or so? How much did Amino get it for from Gateway? And they've driven public perceived value very deeply into the ground since McEwen and Fleecy have had it.

and surely need full-time care to wipe up their drool and
change their diapers.

hehe thid cracked me up but the amiga users we should build retirment home for amiga fans , imagine chould be sitting around huh huh whats that l cant hear the floppy clicking oh crap the thing stoped working ten years ago hehe,
then be the xcopy boing sound whens meal time.
are eye sight not the best so we think the gaphics have imporved somewhat , we think mouse is playing up but its just are hands shake so much .
we think are machines have got much better till realsise after hour there not pluged in.
and its the burnt on image on the screen not workbench. :-)

[freqmax]

When will the ECS and AGA patents expire?

[dammy]

Buy Amiga Inc. ?

For that type of money, why bother?  For about $400K @ year, hire four full time developers, several part time developers and do a bounty system for odd pieces of coding and push AROS to it's maximum capabilities.  Between support/update fees of users (individual and hopefully a OEM or two) and doing real marketing of logos for typical consumer goods, you may break even within three years.  

Dammy

[Piru]

@freqmax

When will the ECS and AGA patents expire?

Ah indeed, there are some patents related: at least copper and blitter, and perhaps some others.

copper:  expires in 2009
blitter:  expired
Peripheral control circuitry for personal computer: expired
Video game and personal computer: expired

[alexh]

persia wrote:
I'll repeat that THERE WAS NO WINNING STRATEGY.  There is no winning strategy today to bring Amiga back.  There is no way Amiga could catch up with Apple or MS, and catching up isn't good enough to generate customer, you have to really excel.  Where is Amiga going to do that?

Nah there were lots of winning strategies.

You think no company has come from nothing in the time Amiga Inc. was dying?

If they had gone for the ULP (Ultra low power) laptop, along the lines of the One-Laptop-per-child kinda thing, they would have been in very good standing right now. Every man and his dog is making a new one. Elonex, OLPX, Intel, Asus etc. etc.

Think about some of the great ideas that came out during that period any of which could have saved Amiga: MP3, Wireless, tablet PC, multi-touch screens, haptics (force feedback) etc.

The problem is Amiga Inc. just didnt have the cash to do hardware and they were money grabbing, penny pinching b-stards.

[ematech]

the project of a new ppc motherboard cost only 35.000 Euro

build an ppc motherboard in 1000 pieces cost only 200 Euro once

but is needed the collaboration of the OS developer.
without u-boot licence is impossible to project the final
prototype
 
i have money for this
i have a project for this
i'm waiting the winner from Amiga inc/Hyperion

[rkauer]

 My 2 cents... :lol:

[HenryCase]

@ematech
You have €35,000 for developing and €200,000 (1000 * 200) for manufacturing a new PPC accelerator?

Even if you don't have that kind of money, I admire that you are willing to fund an Amiga accelerator project.

[downix]

alexh wrote:

persia wrote:
I'll repeat that THERE WAS NO WINNING STRATEGY.  There is no winning strategy today to bring Amiga back.  There is no way Amiga could catch up with Apple or MS, and catching up isn't good enough to generate customer, you have to really excel.  Where is Amiga going to do that?

Nah there were lots of winning strategies.

You think no company has come from nothing in the time Amiga Inc. was dying?

If they had gone for the ULP (Ultra low power) laptop, along the lines of the One-Laptop-per-child kinda thing, they would have been in very good standing right now. Every man and his dog is making a new one. Elonex, OLPX, Intel, Asus etc. etc.

Think about some of the great ideas that came out during that period any of which could have saved Amiga: MP3, Wireless, tablet PC, multi-touch screens, haptics (force feedback) etc.

The problem is Amiga Inc. just didnt have the cash to do hardware and they were money grabbing, penny pinching b-stards.

But they rejected those that did have the cash for hardware, and not only did that but attacked them both publically and privately.  Anyone else here got their Peake-a-gram?  They stated, repeatedly and with religious zealotry, "Hardware is irrelevent" and "hardware doesn't matter".  Well, guess what, without hardware, it doesn't matter how good your software is, you can't run it!  People don't buy OS's for the most part, they definately don't buy runtime JIT VCPU solutions with a VOS on top of it.  They buy machines.  But when offered a design for a ULP laptop, an MP3 player, a tablet PC, or a cell phone, they scoffed and turned their noses up on it, seeing the prize as being in Disney-designed 3D renderings that cost a pretty penny.

[persia]

None of which was a winning strategy when Escom folded, you would have had to use technology that simply didn't exist at the time.  There simply wasn't a winning strategy, Apple survived by the skin of it's teeth.  Had MS not made a strategic investment to save it's sole competitor there would be no Apple today.  All those wonderful toys that have made Apple and others lots of money came long after the remnants of CBN/Amiga Inc/Escom were gone.

I can't really figure out what Amino and KMS were/are about, they bought the Amiga name but seem to have little interest in developing products.

So here it is, more than a decade on, AmigaOS has no relevance to modern OSs, has no hardware to run on and no modern applications to run on it even if it did.

How much money, time and effort do you spend to make Amiga DOS modern and what equipment do you run it on?  You can't make a modern OS and still be compatible with 20 year old programs and you can't sell a machine that has no applications.  Best bet would be intel hardware with a custom designed video card from someone like Nvidia.  But once you've produced a custom os on a customised PC where are the Apps that people are going to run on it?  There is simply no winning formula today if you want to go that route.

This is KMOS/Amiga Inc's dilema.  It's neat to evoke the late 80's and early '90s but there's no money in it.  Basically you build a clone of 15 year old technology and you sell a hundred or two units or you invest millions developing a new software/hardware platform and sell them only if their cheap enough that people can load MS Windows on them.

It's too late, KMOS/Amiga Inc has done nothing but drive away more people than would have been lost by attrition.  The audience is no longer there, not in the numbers that are needed.

[ematech]

HenryCase wrote:
@ematech
You have €35,000 for developing and €200,000 (1000 * 200) for manufacturing a new PPC accelerator?

Even if you don't have that kind of money, I admire that you are willing to fund an Amiga accelerator project.

at the moment i don't believe in an accelerator project, i believe only in an amiga clone with os 4 licenced from Amiga inc or Hyperion

the project is

FREESCALE PPC 8323 ( 700 mhz) POWER QUICC2 upgradable in next version

ETHERNET 1 x 10/100 Mbit
VOIP 2 x Port RJ11
NOR FLASH UpTo 64 MB
ADM UpTo 1024 MB DDR2
INTERFACES RS232
Real Time Clock
Power Supply 12 Vcc
2xMiniPCI INTERFACE
realtek hd audio
firewire
JTAG Interface
Nvidia 9600 GT
U-Boot firmware
2 sata port
2 usb 2.0 port





I will contact Hyperion when the legal odissey ends...

[huronking]

To put it bluntly, Carl Sassenrath (talented though he is) is talking out of his ar*e here. Take a look at the patent for yourself:
US Patent for multi-button mouse

According to the Internet, there were 47 patents relating to the Amiga (17 of which were in video). However, none of the sources I found listed these patents. Does anyone know where we can see a list?

I don't think he meant "two-button mouse" literally.

I think it was like one might use "kitchen sink" when describing the inclusion of ubiquitous items.

[HenryCase]

@ematech
Did you design that board yourself? Kudos if you did. What major advantages does it have over Sam440ep (they have to be major advantages to make the new board worthwhile)?

huronking wrote:
The technology which was sold to Gateway was primarily a deal to buy the patent on the 2-button mouseI don't think he meant "two-button mouse" literally.

I think it was like one might use "kitchen sink" when describing the inclusion of ubiquitous items.

I know you're trying to stick up for an Amiga legend here, but you're wrong. Take a look at the statement again:

Carl Sassenrath said:
"The technology which was sold to Gateway was primarily a deal to buy the patent on the 2-button mouse..."

That isn't a wishy washy statement, it's crystal clear. Of course he meant two button mouse literally, I have never heard anyone being able to describe all computer hardware using the 'catch all phrase' of two-button mouse! F*cking ridiculous.

It's possible Mr Sassenrath meant to say about the 'usage of the two buttons to manipulate menus' that Piru mentioned. Hardly a big money spinner though is it.

[huronking]

Woah buddy, I'm not sticking up for anybody.

You contradict yourself. If he literally meant two-button mouse why would he mean 'usage of the two buttons to manipulate menus'?

Get a life.