How many Amiga users are left?

[Franko]

Franko, your opinions are always entertaining. But, aside from what you and your brother think capacitors have a lifespan rating. Here is how it is is calculated so you know the facts. Surge really has nothing to do with it unless you used the wrong voltage rating in your design.http://www.illinoiscapacitor.com/tech-center/life-calculators.aspx

No offence Amiga92570 but it's not what I or my brother in law think nor is it based on average lifespan ratings, it's based on both scientific tests that were carried out by the manufactures & experience...

Lifespan ratings are based on what you should expect on average from a capacitor being run under normal load and tested upon the capacitors being powered up x amount of times...

The tests in the late nineties carried out by different manufacturers and independent labs showed a number of factors come into play with regard to their lifespan that make the tables you speak of pretty pointless and more of just an average guideline for circuit designers...

The tests and results proved that the more times a capacitor is powered up the shorter it's lifespan as explained previously and that also a simple thing like leaving an item for years without ever being powered up at all, the damage done in the first initial power up after all those years can and often does significant damage to the capacitors or blow them altogether...

If I were to believe the lifespan ratings that you speak of then both my Microvitic Monitor and my 1084 Monitors should have had needed most of  their capacitors replaced years ago with the length of time I've been running them virtually non stop (not to mention my Amigas) but they haven't...

Of course lots of other factors come into it too, mainly the quality and formula used in the manufacture of capacitors, just ask Apple about that one in regard to their problems with capacitors a number of years ago...

At the end of the day I'm satisfied by both what I've read & experienced and been told by not just my brother in law but lots of his acquaintances who were also in the same lines of business as him, who all agree on this matter and many had claimed for years before these tests that this was indeed the case and the tests just confirmed their beliefs...

[ognix]

Just to side note for my vote: as stated I'm mostly a "lurker" right now (despite I don't like this definition).
I don't use my Amigas regulary because of time and space constraints (the latter especially); just every now and then for testing some software/hardware.

I have 2 A500s, an A600, an A1200 and A1000, beside an A4000 motherboard still to repair (with various nice expansions and peripherals too).
Hope to setup my A1200 ASAP to get that nice computing feeling once again, even if I have to rely on my PC for most of everyday tasks (eg. web browsing).

BY!

[amigadave]

I'm sure an Amiga Tech A1200 or A4000 fits in the first category..

Yeah, I should have wrote designed by CBM, or just "Classic Amiga", but someone probably would have figured out some kind of complaint no matter which descriptions I used.  Can't please all the people all the time, specially in the world of Amiga.

[mingle]

Cool... So around 150 active users on Amiga.org.

Wonder how many that extrapolates to in the rest of the world?

Is still stand by my figure of around 1000, tops... :-)

Mike.

[amigakid]

I'm here I use an Amiga 1000 and 3000 on a reg basis.  Also restoring an Amiga 4000 and also have an 2500HD (don't hardly use though).

[MarkTime]

Pancakes are good.

I thought about choosing lurker, but went with pancakes.  Pancakes are syrupy delicious.

I remember having an A1200 with 060 accelerator, and then finding an old, used PowerMac, and that PowerMac was so powerful - I felt guilty.  I did.  I was cheating on my platform.

Hey, at least I felt guilty for cheating - not for sinning.  Some of you have it really bad.

I'm pretty much weaned off Amiga now, haven't booted one in years, and only have to visit amiga sites a couple dozen times a year, and thats about it.  I'll be frank, I thought about buying back into the Amiga scene.  I saw that you could finally buy, in stock, a machine with OS 4 installed - but I didn't.  Bought yet another mac - 2.5ghz quad-core iMac - ok I'm getting all guilty again.

later

[Iggy]

I'd be very surprised if there are more than 1000 active users worldwide.

MorphOS users number almost 2000 by themselves. AOS4 numbers aren't known (ask Hyperion). I suspect that the number of legacy users may be higher than estimated. UAE users may be more numerous than legacy users (what's your fastest 'Amiga'? A PC).
My own loose estimate? Slightly under 10,000.

[thedocbwarren]

Be surprised, I'm a new classic Amiga user.  I love retros and always will.

[amigadave]

MorphOS users number almost 2000 by themselves. AOS4 numbers aren't known (ask Hyperion). I suspect that the number of legacy users may be higher than estimated. UAE users may be more numerous than legacy users (what's your fastest 'Amiga'? A PC).
My own loose estimate? Slightly under 10,000.

Very interesting estimates/claims, do you have a source for your "almost 2000" MorphOS users?  Since there are less than 1,200 MorphOS2.x registered systems and many MorphOS2.x users have more than one registered system, the number of MorphOS2.x users is obviously less than 1,000, so you must have some info about how many MorhpOS1.4.5 users are still actively using the free version of MorphOS1.4.5.

Also, remember the definitions in this thread/poll for "Active" users, not just occasional users, or people that own an Amiga, or Amiga-Like system and turn it on once in a while.  Do you think there are "slightly under 10,000" active users?   I doubt it.  There could be that number of people that are still have some level of interest about Amiga systems.

[gertsy]

Franko, your opinions are always entertaining. But, aside from what you and your brother think capacitors have a lifespan rating. Here is how it is is calculated so you know the facts. Surge really has nothing to do with it unless you used the wrong voltage rating in your design.http://www.illinoiscapacitor.com/tech-center/life-calculators.aspx

Not sure what your getting at, what design  ?.  And what do you mean facts?  Facts denote reality not a predictive formula.  From what I can tell this Web site basically confirms Franko's point..  Cold capacitors = short lived capacitors.
Put a voltage metre across the power rails on an Amiga when you turn in on if you doubt the irregularity of power that hits your naked amiga at that time.

Here is Franko who has been using Amigas for nigh on 20 years telling you that keeping them turned on makes them last longer and you quote a formula from an electronics manufacturer who imports components from Hong Kong?

I know who I believe.

[Franko]

Not sure what your getting at, what design  ?.  And what do you mean facts?  Facts denote reality not a predictive formula.  From what I can tell this Web site basically confirms Franko's point..  Cold capacitors = short lived capacitors.
Put a voltage metre across the power rails on an Amiga when you turn in on if you doubt the irregularity of power that hits your naked amiga at that time.

Here is Franko who has been using Amigas for nigh on 20 years telling you that keeping them turned on makes them last longer and you quote a formula from an electronics manufacturer who imports components from Hong Kong?

I know who I believe.

Don't just take my word for it Gertsy, here's a simple wee experiment to try and you can prove it for yourself...

Take two identical Amiga's set them up in a nice handy place (but not in the way of everything else) mark one with a large letter A and the other with a large letter B and switch them both on at the same time...

Now over the next 20 year period only switch the one marked A off and on once every 2 years or so and the one marked B switch that off and on a couple of times a day...

Then see which one packs up first... easy eh...

PS: @ The Mods:- what's going on with the site tonight one minute there are umpteen "Server Errors" and the site cannot even be found the next it's working again but the "quick reply" button doesn't work any more or the smilies menu (you have to type them by hand now)...

[kedawa]

Power cycling can be very hard on electronics, especially when they get caught in the spokes.

[djrikki]

Of course you also have to factor into this running total the people who don't visit A.org on a regular basis because they prefer forum X over forum Y for whatever reason.

I rarely visit A.org myself as it is seems to be 'all about the past' aka the classics which I find dull.  And the all news items you can find duplicated elsewhere.

If I am honest I only visit A.org for the Franko-amusement factor.  I see he is still posting links to Doom-master videos after all these months/years. xD

[Iggy]

Very interesting estimates/claims, do you have a source for your "almost 2000" MorphOS users?  Since there are less than 1,200 MorphOS2.x registered systems and many MorphOS2.x users have more than one registered system, the number of MorphOS2.x users is obviously less than 1,000, so you must have some info about how many MorhpOS1.4.5 users are still actively using the free version of MorphOS1.4.5.

Also, remember the definitions in this thread/poll for "Active" users, not just occasional users, or people that own an Amiga, or Amiga-Like system and turn it on once in a while.  Do you think there are "slightly under 10,000" active users?   I doubt it.  There could be that number of people that are still have some level of interest about Amiga systems.

Actually David, if you think about it, my estimate is pretty conservative.
I'd be willing to bet that there are more unregistered users then registered users.  And even if the number was only 10000, then MorphOS users alone account for as many users as previous total estimates.
The real question is how many copies of AOS4.X have been sold and how many AROS users are there?
We know that the number of legacy systems that remain functional has to be falling each year, but the number of NG system users is rising.
And there is quite a lot of interest in FPGA recreations of legacy hardware.
I will cede to you that the 10K figure may be interested users and active users combined, but the total potential market is definitely higher than 1000.

Then there the statement on the main page of Amiga.org:
Stats                                                                                                                                                     Members: 8,317

[djrikki]

Iggy, its impossible to put a number on a 'potential market'.  Even with OS4 development seemly at a snails pace at times, as long as there is a reasonable and active core OS development base, the potential market grows and grows over time... as the gap shortens.

There is only so far an operating system can go, Windows and Mac OS X reached that peak moons ago - now they just add eye-candy.

[Minuous]

There is only so far an operating system can go, Windows and Mac OS X reached that peak moons ago - now they just add eye-candy.

Are you suggesting Windoze and MacOS are perfect? Far from it, in fact they still lag behind OS3.9. The stability, backwards compatibility, GUI, API, speed, and other aspects of Windows are inferior to OS3.9. Eg. they still don't ever have the scrollbar arrows located together, we have had that feature for nearly 20 years...The "improvements" being made to Windoze are mostly in the area of Digital Restrictions Management and such...I'll give such "improvements" a miss. The last time any worthwhile improvements were made to Windoze was the improvements between Win98FE and Win98SE, since then it's all been downhill.