Awareness by classic Amiga users about modern Amiga's?

[Astral]

I occasionally trade items via eBay.

It is very surprising to me, that when a buyer comes to pickup their "classic Amiga" item, and we get to having a little bit of a chat, there seems to be one very common similarity. The similarity is when I mention that I have recently purchased and am enjoying the latest Amiga, the SAM440, EVERY single person so far has not even heard of it. I am not talking 2 people, and am talking of at least half a dozen people.

This doesn't really surpise me though. I suppose the more advertising, word of mouth, and so on that occurs, the more people learn about new things, including Amiga's.

Whilst I believe the steps that have been taken recently by Hyperion/ACube have been in the forward direction, I am not for a minute going to suggest how they should promote the Amiga, if at all. I am sure they have a goal, they have made a plan, and are taking steps to achieve this. Whether this includes promoting the Amiga through advertising, using methods they seem fit, is purely their choice.

In regards to having the Amiga *GROW* as a whole, company, user base, practical uses and so on, maybe it is best that the software base is improved before getting the word out there? Maybe it is best to improve the hardware before getting the word out there?

What steps do you think should be taken, including advertising, and at what point?

[guest3110]

I can't say I'm surprised people don't know about those--I barely know of them, myself (like, where to get one, etc.). I understand enough that not one of those things mentioned is a full-fledged computer, but instead is either a motherboard or a card that goes into some slot; and that all are 'classic' (if that) in nature, and not a piece of it with a CPU that is AMD or Intel.

As far as steps to be taken, including advertising, etc., I won't offer any until I see on the Amiga Inc. website a press release that "Amiga will now be put on x86-64 CPUs" and run on CPUs by AMD and Intel. Til then, what's the point? (beyond this, I have extremely hostile words)  :-D

[Astral]

@eyeam

Other people share you opinion. It will be interesting to see if this is the next step that is taken. I suppose it all depends on the ultimate goal that Hyperion/ACube have.

With consideration to the fact we do not know Hyperion/ACube's ultimate goal, why do you suggest that AmigaOS on x86 hardware should be the next step to be taken? Price value? Pre-existing hardware base?

[guest3110]

I haven't offered any next steps. Been there, done that. I said in the previous post I'd wait til I see such an announcement on the Amiga website.  :-)

So what happened to the Amiga-Hyperion court case? The last thing on the docket (Amiga-Hyperion case) was posted January 5th, 2009, but regards a deadline stemming back to December 19th, 2008.

[Ni72ous]

Hmm Amiga is a hobby os, i dont think it will change, i myself aint looked back since win 95 or 98, people remember how good amiga was for games not for os, dont get me wrong i love AOS but it cant replace any modern mainstream os ever.

[quarkx]

The SAMM440 is not an Amiga to most "Classic" Amiga users, it is just another "flash in the pan" like the BEOS, Amigaone, minimig, etc. It will never have the market penetration to be considered  even remotely an Amiga. I am surprised that people even consider it part of the Amiga heritage. Way too expensive for the hobbies, in a year it will be just another Amiga memory,a part for people with too much money. I am not trying to start a flame war, but it is just another limited run thing.

[mingle]

Hi,

I agree with quarkx...

To me the Amiga was (and always will) be the true 'classic' Amigas (A1000-A4000 and everything in between). The essence of Amiga evaporated when CBM went to the wall...

I personally have little interest in SAM, Amiga Ones, etc. If I want to try an alternative OS, I have an Ubuntu box to muck around with.

If I want to enjoy an Amiga I'll boot up WB1.3 or 3.1 - admittedly in WinUAE these days - and relive those great days in the late 1980s when the Amiga ruled!

Cheers,

Mike.

[Astral]

Please, whilst I appreciate this is a forum, and hence a place of public opinion, the aim of this thread isn't to debate what is, and what isn't "Amiga".

The aim of this thread is to get an idea of the steps people believe need to be taken to go forward, not stay in the past, or stay in the present.

[bloodline]

Tell these same people that these "modern Amigas" don't run any of their old games, are provided as little more than an old Motherboard, but costs more than a modern Laptop...  and they lose interest.

[guest3110]

from mingle:

I personally have little interest in SAM, Amiga Ones, etc. If I want to try an alternative OS, I have an Ubuntu box to muck around with.

You know, I liked the name "Amiga One" (and always thought the KISS song "We Are One" could have been the perfect campaign song for it in commercials that showed all the Amigans at the Amiga shows that would have demonstrate such a thing).

But they never manifested what I thought the "Amiga One" should have been. It should have been done as another big box Amiga, right down to the case. The original Multimedia Convergence Computer (MCC) prototype that Jim Collas commissioned was a nice step toward this--but that was really more 'set top' than anything else, and save for that being a set top, the computer version (also black) should have had a bigger case. Could have even been a Commodore-Amiga venture. Could still be.

Inside, it should have had the latest ATX Intel- or AMD-based motherboards, with the latest industry standards. At one time, that could have included the BoXeR, which was a step in the right direction. Keep the casing for a number of years, just change out the ATX motherboard and specs, and monitor tube (for better monitors), save money 'recycling' and embed a consistent image in the minds of the public.

The world doesn't know about "Amiga One". Even now. The name was a good one, to reboot the whole thing. But what manifested was wrong, in my opinion.

[Astral]

bloodline wrote:
Tell these same people that these "modern Amigas" don't run any of their old games, are provided as little more than an old Motherboard, but costs more than a modern Laptop...  and they lose interest.

Lose interest? Maybe yes, but this is not gauranteeed. This is where marketing may help.

Anything can be sold with the right marketing. Check Nintedo technology out - is that up to date technology? Gameboy's? Wii? Are they/were they worth their asking price with respect to production costs? Probably not - a large percentage of users probably have never given a thought to the underlying technology, and don't care a bit. The end result is what matters - sales, a user base, and hence potential growth for the future. Something doesn't have to be ground breaking to be successful.

Can you come up with anything you could tell old Amiga users, and potential new Amiga users, that would get them interested in "new Amiga's", that would contribute to the growth of the "Amiga"?

[guest3110]

from bloodline:

Tell these same people that these "modern Amigas" don't run any of their old games, are provided as little more than an old Motherboard, but costs more than a modern Laptop... and they lose interest.

With good reason, they lose interest. :-)

An Amiga OS atop a rewritten Exec (exokernel!) can facilitate 100% backward compatibility with every single Amiga software program there ever was. You'd need either a CPU library, if you were going to emulate the custom chips, or a hardware card like Jens Schoenfeld's Clone-A, I guess, present in a PCI slot--with the OS routing the calls to what's appropriate.

[bloodline]

Astral wrote:

bloodline wrote:
Tell these same people that these "modern Amigas" don't run any of their old games, are provided as little more than an old Motherboard, but costs more than a modern Laptop...  and they lose interest.

Lose interest? Maybe yes, but this is not gauranteeed. This is where marketing may help.

Anything can be sold with the right marketing. Check Nintedo technology out - is that up to date technology? Gameboy's? Wii? Are they/were they worth their asking price with respect to production costs? Probably not - a large percentage of users probably have never given a thought to the underlying technology, and don't care a bit. The end result is what matters - sales, a user base, and hence potential growth for the future. Something doesn't have to be ground breaking to be successful.

Can you come up with anything you could tell old Amiga users, and potential new Amiga users, that would get them interested in "new Amiga's", that would contribute to the growth of the "Amiga"?

The purpose of any platform is to run software... When a new platform arrives it needs to offer more, much more, than the existing platforms... If it doesn't, it is illogical to move to it.

The Amiga platform offers antiquated technology when compared with a wintel box running Win Vista or an OSX mac or any of the games consoles...

The Amiga platform does have a software legacy, but this is either games on floppy (a very dead format) that require special hardware and better run on Emulators or producivity software that is 15years behind the free software I can get on modern systems.  

[bloodline]

EyeAm wrote:

from bloodline:

Tell these same people that these "modern Amigas" don't run any of their old games, are provided as little more than an old Motherboard, but costs more than a modern Laptop... and they lose interest.

With good reason, they lose interest. :-)

An Amiga OS atop a rewritten Exec (exokernel!) can facilitate 100% backward compatibility with every single Amiga software program there ever was. You'd need either a CPU library, if you were going to emulate the custom chips, or a hardware card like Jens Schoenfeld's Clone-A, I guess, present in a PCI slot--with the OS routing the calls to what's appropriate.

With this paragraph, you have shown your ignorance of Operating system design!

Think for a second, why is the complex mess you propose, better than UAE running on Linux?

[alexh]

There is no such thing as a "modern Amiga" unless you count WinUAE.

Classic compatibility is everything. Running an obscure OS slowly is nothing.