My evening with Commodore USA, LLC

[smerf]

OS4 is worth less than anything that actually runs on hardware people have. OS4 runs only on specialized, very expensive and rare hardware. Fine for you if you want to spend tons of money on it.

Hi,

@Kthunder,

Kthunder you have to watch what you say here on Amiga.org, you almost sound sane. I have spent at least $1500 on my A1200 with upgrades, and guess what I can't find OS4 that will run on it or a power supply that will run it. If I disable all my upgrades, it works fine as a A1200.

I just wish someone would upgrade OS4 to a PC, I would buy it real quick, I hate MACS and believe only non computer people use them, I use Ubuntu 10.10 and love it, (funny how with Ubuntu I started with 7.04 and upgraded to 10.10 and haven't lost any data, almost as good as my miggy)

smerf

[XDelusion]

Well...

I do like the looks of the C64 casing clone, very nice, except it needs two C64 keys so I'd be able to do a soft reset in AROS, assuming it would run on the hardware if it comes out.

As for judgment. Well it has been a fun ongoing joke here in the community, so thus far we can all thank Barry for that! Now if he delivers a price effective product that will run AROS, I'll happily commend him. After all, this is a fun idea that I'm sure many of us have thought of our selves before C USA came around. So to Barry, I say GO FOR IT!

On the other hand, if they really are saying that Amiga has gone no where, and that they are the first to actually do something with the name...
...well they seriously need to kill that noise. It's LAME.

Lastly I must state that I'm VERY curious as to what Workbench 5 is! VERY!!! I'm not expecting much, but I'm damn curious! I'm willing to bet that it is some Linux concoction with an Amiga skin though. :/

[persia]

I looked at the article about Barry again and now I know why we thought his satellite TV company wasn't real.  The article was dated 1984!  I didn't go back that far in my research, those records are hard to find on the internet.

When they mentioned satellite TV I assumed they meant something modern, that was my mistake.  So am I correct in saying that Cabletron was pretty much squeezed out with the advent of the 90 cm dish and paid subscriptions to satellite TV?

That would be interesting that Barry's business suffered from the same problems at the same time as the original Commodore.

[JC]

Did you mention Aeon, Hyperion, Acube, to him and what they are doing with X1000 etc... Or does he just not care?

[redrumloa]

Did you mention Aeon, Hyperion, Acube, to him and what they are doing with X1000 etc... Or does he just not care?

I don't remember the name Acube coming up. The X1000/OS4 project came up and he said they were contacted and (me paraphrasing) that this is not a viable option because there is no product near completion and doesn't look like it will be any time soon. They want to get a product on the shelves this year, not some undetermined time in the future if at all.

[jorkany]

I don't remember the name Acube coming up. The X1000/OS4 project came up and he said they were contacted and (me paraphrasing) that this is not a viable option because there is no product near completion and doesn't look like it will be any time soon. They want to get a product on the shelves this year, not some undetermined time in the future if at all.

Bit of a bombshell for some, I imagine.

[desiv]

Don't be stupid,

There's this thing called "context."



Relax..  Breathe..  Decaf..  :roflmao:

desiv

[redrumloa]

I looked at the article about Barry again and now I know why we thought his satellite TV company wasn't real.  The article was dated 1984!  I didn't go back that far in my research, those records are hard to find on the internet.

When they  mentioned satellite TV I assumed they meant something modern, that was  my mistake. So am I correct in saying that Cabletron was pretty much  squeezed out with the advent of the 90 cm dish and paid subscriptions to  satellite TV? That would be interesting that Barry's business suffered from the same problems at the same time as the original Commodore.

So much wrong in this statement, where to start?

Cabletech  was a developmental partner with General Motors & Hughes  Communications in the small aperture DBS system that later became  DirecTv.

Not so shabby. Click here for 1994 Cabletech news. Barry also founded Club Spectrum in South Florida. I remember hearing about this club, it was crazy busy but ended up going adult due to teen gang problems.

Quite a stretch to take someone who founded multiple successful companies and made themselves a fortune in the process and dismiss them out of hand as some unknown hack from the 80's.

[Duce]

What does a cable box/satellite, furniture company and some teen club really have to do with how C-USA will or will not be a grand victory?

I'm appreciative of the backstory on the principal of this company, but I don't really see the relevance on how it will affect the success of their computer offerings, I suppose.  There's been a lot of wildly successful businessmen that have started new companies that utterly flopped.

Most people I have spoken to just rolled their eyes at the mention of "TV advertising".  I had friend that still own multiple classic amiga systems - thousands of dollars worth of high end classic Amiga system - simply cringe at some of this "new revival" talk, lol.  Just like they did at the pricepoint of the SAM and x1000 stuff.  If anyone thinks that buying ad time on TV stations will advance these machines into the mainstream market, I've got a bridge to sell you - it's a waste of time and money for a niche product.  Even Apple is smart enough to save their TV ad budgets for mainly their appliance/phone/mp3 devices knowing full well that their Mac's are still small fry and niche in the grand business scheme they have.

Guess I'm missing something with all this, but as I've said before - best of luck.

[danwood]

Exactly Duce, well said. I don't wish to be rude, but reading excitable comments from red/dam my about how Barry is going to be doing Superbowl TV ads, his own AppStore, and dreams of a global Commodore/Amiga relaunch, my first instinct is to cringe.

In reality anybody who's passed Business Skills for the 11+ can see this company/project has absolutely no hope of succeeding. Those who are expecting CUSA to be the second coming should really learn a few basics in business before believing in this crap so much.

At best, they'll release a few pcs in expensive cases to look like C64s, which as someone said earlier is "retromod" territory. The general public aren't going to be falling over themselves to buy a low-end PC shoe-horned into a cheesy looking 30 year old 80s relic skin, the breadboard c64 even looked outdated by 1987, hence the introduction of the c64c.

I really can't see the shifting anymore than a thousand or two, same with the Amiga-esq PCs, this is not a business model that can succeed outside of the small "retro" computing community, and it seems even 50% of them are against this project.

I give it all 6 months and maybe the c64PC launch after that I'd expect we'll have heard the last of them after some big financial losses.

[redrumloa]

Exactly Duce, well said. I don't wish to be rude, but reading excitable comments from red/dam my about how Barry is going to be doing Superbowl TV ads, his own AppStore, and dreams of a global Commodore/Amiga relaunch, my first instinct is to cringe.

I've made excitable comments? I don't think I've done any fist pumping promoting or made any predictions. I've simply posted what I have seen or learned. AFAIR the only prediction I made was something like "things could get very interesting".

[Lando]

Judging from what I've read the man is an arrogant nutcase, his products are junk, his website looks like a 12-year-old created it and is full of stolen images, and his business plan is non-existent.

Re-selling PC's with glued-on Commodore badges?   That idea has been tried and failed time and time again since 1994 beginning with Escom.

I can't believe people are paying this guy so much attention.  His business amounts to selling case badges.

[runequester]

Judging from what I've read the man is an arrogant nutcase, his products are junk, his website looks like a 12-year-old created it and is full of stolen images, and his business plan is non-existent.
 
Re-selling PC's with glued-on Commodore badges? That idea has been tried and failed time and time again since 1994 beginning with Escom.
 
I can't believe people are paying this guy so much attention. His business amounts to selling case badges.

I hate to correct you, but he isn't selling anything at all
 

Exactly Duce, well said. I don't wish to be rude, but reading excitable comments from red/dam my about how Barry is going to be doing Superbowl TV ads, his own AppStore, and dreams of a global Commodore/Amiga relaunch, my first instinct is to cringe.

Well, we're past the superbowl as it turns out. I dont watch the thing, so someone else can fill in if there were any computer adds

[Franko]

You seem to have forgotten to close this one too...

[redrumloa]

J
Re-selling PC's with glued-on Commodore badges?   That idea has been tried and failed time and time again since 1994 beginning with Escom.

I can't believe people are paying this guy so much attention.  His business amounts to selling case badges.

Does this look like slapping a glue-on Commodore badge to a PC?

[commodorejohn]

Does this look like slapping a glue-on Commodore badge to a PC?

Nope. Looks like slapping a screw-on Commodore case to a PC.