make an offer to buy Amiga Inc.

[swift240]

What is needed here is some one that actually cares for Amiga and not some one who will hold onto something doing nothing.

To be honest if I had the money to do the job I would do it properly never mind others saying its not worth it. If we all had that attitude nothing in the world would ever get done.

The Amiga is worth it, why?
Well look at it this way when the Amiga first came to the world it was advanced way beyond any PC at that time, so if the right people was there to carry it no with it would be so very different to day.
So yes the Amiga is worth it. But the trouble is so many people get there hopes up and then get disappointed, this goes on and on.
We don't need some one holding onto something that does nothing, this is totally useless to the Amiga world.
We have some one who don't give a {bleep} for the Amiga it seem's to me

There has to be some one out there with the power to do some thing about this, never mind all the ohhhhh well Microsoft is top dog.
The technology is out there so is the money its just the person holding the keys. There is no common sense to what is happening its the one who is holding the keys to the problem that cant see it.

F**k am I angry at this.

And I think right now there are to many people with a couldnt care less attitude, cant say as I blame them really, but it don't help.

Mike.

[countzero]

come on guys, sensible offers please ...

I can swap my BPPC with BVision.
You know it can run OS4 !  :lol:  :crazy:  :-P

[HenryCase]

swift240 wrote:
And I think right now there are to many people with a couldnt care less attitude, cant say as I blame them really, but it don't help.

I think you'll find people do care what happens to Amiga, but not to Amiga Inc.

IMHO, only a few things that Amiga Inc owns are of any major interest to the Amiga community. These are:

1. OS4
2. Kickstart
3. ECS & AGA (patent for OCS has already expired)

We already have ways to get around the problem of the three Amiga products/technologies being held hostage by Amiga Inc:

1. MorphOS & AROS (modern Amiga inspired operating systems)
2. Cloanto
3. Minimig, CloneA, NatAmi

So why worry about Amiga Inc?

[swift240]

It just annoys me to think that the Amiga could have been so much more.
But I guess there are idiots in every company.
And its the idiots that dragged the Amiga down.

Mike.

[billt]

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.

IMSHO, there's no F-ing way it's truely worth anything more than a million or two $ anymore. Anything higher than that is complete and total utter B.S. and nothing else. I don't care about their stupid Prokom stock games or other valuation gimmicks. They've seriously damaged the brand name reputation, their DE flagship product is a dismal failure, and they turned their backs on their user community and the products we wanted. If Bill and friends think it's worth more than a couple mil today, then they are seriously retarded and surely need full-time care to wipe up their drool and change their diapers.

[weirdami]

ematech wrote:
Buy Amiga Inc. ?

Sure, and then what? I bet you'd be in the same boat as it is now.

[ChuckT]

I read that Gateway bought Amiga because Commodore held the patent to the two button mouse and they wanted it.

I think if Amiga came out with a limited production run of any of the old models with the exception of the Pet and maybe the Vic-20, I think they could still make money selling the C-64, C-128, Amiga 1200, etc but the problem they would face is getting a drive since Kodak bought Chinon but they could be replaced by SD (Secure Digital)cards or something similar.  Aren't there enough diehards that would buy two or three and put them away in a closet somewhere?  I think there is still enough educational value in them for children.

[HenryCase]

ChuckT wrote:
I read that Gateway bought Amiga because Commodore held the patent to the two button mouse and they wanted it.

Xerox Star was released in 1981 and had a two button mouse, no Commodore computers before that time had a mouse AFAIK, so I think you've been misinformed.

ChuckT wrote:
I think if Amiga came out with a limited production run of any of the old models with the exception of the Pet and maybe the Vic-20, I t.hink they could still make money selling the C-64, C-128, Amiga 1200

I think you're getting confused between Commodore and Amiga. They are now two seperate companies. Amiga Inc do not own the rights to C64, C128, etc... I do agree there is a market for retro computing, so they could make money off releasing a device like the C64DTV:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C64_Direct-to-TV

I think the CloneA project will end up producing a C64DTV-like device, but I doubt Amiga Inc are interested in funding its development. It seems they are only interested in working with Microsoft products (Windows Mobile and .NET) and clearly do not care about the Amiga community (beyond getting complete control of OS4).

[Piru]

@ChuckT

I read that Gateway bought Amiga because Commodore held the patent to the two button mouse and they wanted it.

That's nonsense. Commodore did, however, have patent to toggling a menu selection while keeping the menu open. This patent expired recently.

Note: the patent claim includes very wide range of things. However, as far as I know everything else than this selection toggling had prior art and thus was unenforceable.

[ChuckT]

Piru wrote:
@ChuckT

I read that Gateway bought Amiga because Commodore held the patent to the two button mouse and they wanted it.

That's nonsense. Commodore did, however, have patent to toggling a menu selection while keeping the menu open. This patent expired recently.

Note: the patent claim includes very wide range of things. However, as far as I know everything else than this selection toggling had prior art and thus was unenforceable.

http://www.amigahistory.co.uk/gatepate.html

Why did Gateway buy the Amiga?
For two years no one knew why Gateway had bought the Amiga. The majority opinion indicated that the purchase was purely for the patents rather than through any decision that the Amiga should be bought back from the dead. Dave Haynie, former Commodore engineer and now working at Met@box illustrated this on the Team AMIGA mailing list.
Opinions vary, but clearly, the $4M they plunked down was worth it just for the patent portfolio. Patents are important bargaining chips in these lawsuit-crazy times, as well as for more mundane things, like signing cross-licensing deals rather than paying cash for the use of some "invention" (in these days of serious numbers of bogus patents, I use that term loosely). Gateway, doing none of their own development, was particularly at risk.
Two years after the purchase Carl Sassenrath revealed what had led Gateway to buy the Amiga. In an interview with Linux World he commented,
"The technology which was sold to Gateway was primarily a deal to buy the patent on the 2-button mouse... That is why Gateway bought Amiga -- but then they got... thousands of emails asking if they were going to relaunch the Amiga. So they figured, 'why not?'"
So Commodore had the patent on the two-button mouse all along. Who would have guessed that the old giant owned the patent for such a common computer tool?

[Piru]

If this was the reason then Gateway well deserved to get bust. Multiple buttons had prior art, the patent would never had stuck in court.

Again, AFAIK the only part of the patent that didn't was the actual usage of the two buttons to manipulate menus.

[HenryCase]

ChuckT wrote:
http://www.amigahistory.co.uk/gatepate.html
Two years after the purchase Carl Sassenrath revealed what had led Gateway to buy the Amiga. In an interview with Linux World he commented,
"The technology which was sold to Gateway was primarily a deal to buy the patent on the 2-button mouse... That is why Gateway bought Amiga -- but then they got... thousands of emails asking if they were going to relaunch the Amiga. So they figured, 'why not?'"

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?

[AeroMan]

Why anyone would care to buy A Inc ?

The Amiga name is not that strong anymore, let's face it. We are few today, and relaunching the brand in the market would be no advantage.
The technology is old. The Amiga was revolutionary, but today almost, if not all, features have better versions.

So, if one would drive into developing a product as revolutionary today as the Amiga was in the 80`s, it would be better to pick a new name and do what the original Amiga team did at that time.
Whateaver is the amount of money A-Inc would charge, it would be better spent in engineering.

Anyway, I offer 2 bucks and a beer cap for A-Inc  :-D It is a fair price  :-D  (I hope it pays the bus ticket back to home to Bill McEargh...)

[BlitzThose]

perhaps we should tell this fellow below to talk some sense into bill

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhHP3hP_0Pg

[downix]

alenppc wrote:

But only if they've still got that Walker prototype somewhere in their office.

Nope, both prototypes are accounted for.

[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.