Latest Issue of Club Amiga Monthly Available Now

[Wilse]

Club Amiga members can read the latest issue here.

[System]

Please feel free to let those who didn't send them money for the press releases exactly what "news" they have to discuss.

{edit}
Looking at that site, I can honestly say that I left feeling depressed.  I have never before seen a more desperate, delusional company effort...  

"Pay us $50 per year, and we'll tell you "what's going on" occassonally.  Otherwise, we won't talk to anyone, or make monthly announcements to the community who actually supports us".

On the other hand, it's a great way to make sure the ONLY people left in the community are those who are willing to blindly contribute money to a questionable effort.  

My guess is that the idea of Bill McEwen as a "marketing guy" is, like 99% of their press releases, greatly overstated.

Also, notice the first comment under the "buy the Amiga club membership" belongs to our favorite cheerleader, Luca Diana (head of their ACCM -- aka Blind, Blonde Cheerleader Squad).  That pretty much says it all.

{/edit}

[SlimJim]

Shouldn't the older CAM:s soon be released to the public? I
think there were supposed to be a two-month delay to
reward the people in the Club (No, I'm not privvy to the CAM
either).
.
SlimJim

[Spidey]

Hi,

It seems you're a member if you pay that 50 Euro's/dollars

As I have paid it last year around June, I believe I'm also part of the club.

I mailed to that support-mail adress if they can clarify why I'm still no member.

Hopefully someone will answer :-)

Spidey

[sdesros]

I just skimmed it briefly... From what I can remember...  Hmm....

-There's a page on their "featured" dealer of the week.
-There's a page on their "featured" developer of the week.
-Some babble about "Amiga Generation 1" or "AG1" is their new term for "Classic Amigas" I think... and "Generation 2" is their PPC based amigas.  (I skimmed through it.)  Something about how they were originally thinking that the DE would be their new AmigaOS and then dropped it after a year to concentrate on OS4.   *cough* *cough*  :-D

Probably the more important bit is the info on what's left to be done on OS4.0.  What I remember:

-They're almost done with the input libraries ("soon to be signed off" was the term used).  I'm not going to comment on the architecture at the moment.   There's a picture of the prefs GUI and well, the window was rounded.
-PPC Boot is now UBoot (PPCBoot2.x)
-Working on defining the default OS4 look.
-Umm...  There's some work still required to migrate from the CSPPC based systems (which still have custom chips) to a non-"Classic Amiga".  Stuff like the Input Library/ies is part of it.
-Still working on the 68K emulator and tying it into the OS.  (Part of their acid test will be to install and run OS3.9 AFAIK.)
-There are still lots of stuff from OS3.x to be ported.
 on it.

I wonder why NEWS has to be posted on it since "club members" should have gotten notified by e-mail anyway.     :-?

[Wilse]

Hi Wayne,

Please feel free to let those who didn't send them money for the press releases exactly what "news" they have to discuss.

I don't think many (if any) people sent them money for press releases. I certainly did not. I also think you are well aware of this. Correct me if I'm wrong.
Personally, I sent them $50 in the hope that it might help contribute to me getting a new Amiga. I was quite prepared to lose that money if it didn't work out - still am. Might well have been stupid in other people's eyes but if I'm at least getting to read something approaching an amiga magazine because of it, I'll happily accept it.
OTOH, if it does work out, I reckon I'll get my $50 back. Heck, who knows, I might even get a T-shirt! :-P

CAM (AFAIK) was an afterthought. Three issues in, I can't say I'm disgusted at this. ;-) I treat it as a bonus. It's presented pretty much like a magazine and is actually not a bad read.
Assuming you can stop foaming at the mouth over A.inc long enough to read it, that is. ;-)

As for Luca - can't comment as I don't know him.

[Kay]

@Wayne:

It's a club magazine, that's why it is only available to club members. Important announcements are not exclusive to club members, nor is the weekly Q&A session with Fleecy, so it's quite possible to get information from them without paying for it.

> On the other hand, it's a great way to make sure the ONLY people left in the community are
> those who are willing to blindly contribute money to a questionable effort.

Why are you trying so hard to insult us? I'm not blind, I'm not blond, and I cheer for whoever I choose to. I don't deserve being patronized, nor does the other Club Amiga members. :-x

If it's any comfort, you're no longer the only person feeling depressed. Well done. :-(

Kay

[sdesros]

Personally, I sent them $50 in the hope that it might help contribute to me getting a new Amiga. I was quite prepared to lose that money if it didn't work out - still am.

That pretty much sums it up for me.  It was a choice between a video-game and/or a chance to put in *some* contribution which could work out with some sort of bonus.

With that said, it didn't work out.   And I won't be sending them anymore cash if/until I get to evaluate the product.

With that said, I don't mind sharing what's in CAM.  See my previous post.

[System]

Why are you trying so hard to insult us?

I would say that you've read far, far too personally into what was written.  I think it's the most pathetic attempt at extorting money from the community that supports them that I've ever seen.  I don't have anything against the actual people who've "taken a bite of the apple".  

That's your choice, but I will still defend that this community is being crippled by Amiga Inc's even basic hint of public relations knowledge.  

It's Amiga Inc's actions (or lack thereof) that I take offense to, not the people who support them.   For the record, I took an equal umbrage when Fleecy was doing interviews for the "pay per view" AmigaZone.  Restricting knowledge from those who support you unless they physically pay you is stupid.

[Kay]

@Wayne:

Sorry, I just think you come across as somewhat condescing to the people who don't share your (IMO) blind hatred towards AInc. Sometimes it ticks me off. Anyway, glad you didn't mean it that way.

Kay

[System]

@Kay,

I don't "blindly hate" Amiga Inc, or anyone else with the exception of Mike Bouma and Kevin Hisel.  I respect them (Amiga Inc) for being able to stick it out so long, though I firmly believe their continued existence will eventually be the death of this community.

I have just learned, by 8 years of experience (5 years with the current people) not to believe a single word they say any more.

Honestly, I don't expect you to understand.  None of you could understand because you have not been in my position, but I have been personally face-to-face lied to by multiple management members of Amiga Inc on multiple occassions.  As such, I have no more "trust" in what they say or "optimism" that they can actually DO anything, and I damned sure don't have any more "faith" that they are operating in the best interest of this community.

If you were in my position, I've no doubt that you too would also have earned a healthy skepticism towards the current "owners of the week".

[zee4]

Well I got my e-mail this morning, and checked it out. There's some good stuff on AmigaInput written by Steffen Haeuser, another is article by one of the AmigaDE devlopers about what he's working on, and, yes, a bunch of general stuff on where AmigaOS is going, post 4.0.

I know people are ticked-off that they don't have OS4 by now, but I think if you take Allen's speech at the Amiga show last week, you can see the reason things are taking so long- money. Given the state of things, I think they've done a decent job.

[zee4]

Wayne,

First of all, let me say thank you for keeping Amiga.org going all these years, when people ask me for sites for info on the Amiga, I tend to mention your's, sometimes before Amiga Inc. own site.

Though I'm not quite sure where you're going with:
"though I firmly believe their continued existence will eventually be the death of this community. "

If I follow that logic, it seems like we should, either, quite while we're ahead and become Linux-heads (that's basically where I'm drifting) or start signing up for Retro-computer shows and hanging our with the 8-bit Atari crowd telling stories about how we would have done things if we'd been running Commodore or ogaling AAA specs.

At some point,  you have to move on. Me, I went with AmigaDE becasue it chance (maybe a slim one) to make sure PDAs don't turn out as boring as desktops did. Now as far as desktops go, I like what they're talking about, can they do it? I don't know, but I do know that at least they are thinking about more than cloning the WindowsXP interface. Will they do it? Maybe, but,  then again I look over at what Bill Buck and the ex-Phase5 guys are talking about and it's not much new either.  

At some point, you have to pick at a few long-shots, you might as well go with one that is looking forward and not sideways.

Zolatn

[System]

If I follow that logic, it seems like we should, either, quite while we're ahead and become Linux-heads (that's basically where I'm drifting) or start signing up for Retro-computer shows and hanging our with the 8-bit Atari crowd telling stories about how we would have done things if we'd been running Commodore or ogaling AAA specs.

I'm not saying any of that.  Not at all.  A real company with professional management could still come out with a real platform.  DE isn't it.  AmigaOS4 isn't it, unless it comes with real commercial-level applications.

The AmigaOne (I will refrain from my natural desire to call it what it is, the LinuxOne) could be the fastest, most powerful hardware platform on the planet and it won't matter because there are still no AmigaOne or AmigaOS 4 applications from real commercial companies.  Hyperion porting old PC games doesn't count.

[System]

It's a club magazine,

Ok, without malice intended, someone needs to set things in stone.  Was it a $50 non-existent coupon, a $50 non-existent T-shirt, or a $50 magazine subscription?

If someone wanted to tell me that they honestly paid $50 for an Amiga magazine subscription, I'd stop bitching, but I still maintain my point about Amiga Inc's CONSTANT and debatably INTENTIONAL mishandling of community support.