If Tramiel bought Amiga?

[Reptile]

Hello as a follower of both Amiga and Atari machines I don't think that Tramiels presence would have made things any different.

He was getting on in years even in the mid-80s, and my understanding is that he later delegated much of his responsibilities to his sons, who I believe were the main culprits responsible for Ataris downfall in the computer market.


The Jaguar could have been more successful, but it should have shipped with a CD drive, but developers were deserting Atari.
In 1994, CD was well on the way to becoming the standard media for software. Certainly this was the case by the time the Sony PlayStation shipped the following year.

Commodore at least had the CD-drive, but the hardware was too behind the curve for a "next-gen" console, marketed as a 32-bit console with graphics comparable to the more successful 16-bit Sega Mega CD, and no FMV as standard.

This was a similar scenario with the A1200, 256 colours and 2 megabytes of memory were simply not enough when it was released - even if was sold at half the price of PC's of the time.

The Falcon was a superior machine in many ways to the A1200, [I won't go into detail as that will surely spark another debate] but by this time most developers had already flocked away from Atari to develop for Amiga and PC, and later PC only, the Amiga won the war.

If it was Tramiel in charge and we seen an A1200 but better specced with Blitter and so on, things might have changed slightly but I think the Amiga platform as a whole was doomed to last much further than 1997 no matter who was in charge*. Microsoft would have made sure of that, along with the imminent Apple resurgence.

*Amiga as a commercial high-street product.

[freqmax]

What about the third path, where Amiga had gotten capital to develop the system on its own?

The system as it were would certainly not managed after 1997, but I count on that with proper development there would been a replacement in the same spirit but different hardware.

[Kesa]

What about the third path, where Amiga had gotten capital to develop the system on its own?

The system as it were would certainly not managed after 1997, but I count on that with proper development there would been a replacement in the same spirit but different hardware.

HiToro was good at inventing technology. It was not so good at upgrading it though. Jay Miner would have struggled to update the already existing technology which is probably why he never worked for commodore fulltime. His talents lied with inventing and not upgrading. An example of this is the pacemaker he made in the early 1990's. Dave Haynie on the otherhand was good at upgrading existing technology but i am quick to point out he worked for commodore and would never have been given the chance to work for Amiga without commodores ownership.

Bottomline. Hitoro (or is that Jay Miner?) was great at inventing but not so good with upgrading. Taking this into account I'm not sure what Hitoro would have done different if they had full control of their own company with lots of capital.

[freqmax]

All options are b0rked

[nicholas]

There is an unfinished port of Haiku to Aranym so you may get your wish eventually.

Haiku for Atari Falcon 030

Can be run on Aranym VM. (Once it's released that is)

[desiv]

HiToro was good at inventing technology. It was not so good at upgrading it though.

I don't really know about that.  I've seen interviews with Jay where he was talking about upgrades the Amiga needed...

If you look at Jay at Atari, he went from TIA to Antic/CTIA  and then to the Amiga..
Yes, those are different systems, but that's because the place he was working was looking for different systems.

You can't blame Commodore for buying the Amiga and trying to milk the same basic design for years, as they did with the C64 (Well, you can blame them, but..), but I don't think you should draw the conclusion that he (and when I say "he", we're talking Jay and his team) wouldn't have been able to work on upgrades...

I think they probably could have...
If they would have had enough money to continue (some mythological group of different dentists with lots of money to save them..), I think the team could have designed great upgrades faster than Commodore did.

That said, you need distribution and marketing to sell computers..
Without Commodore, the price would most likely have been higher and it would have been harder to get an Amiga...

I think it's likely that Amiga wouldn't have made it as a company if they had just been given more money...

A better idea would have been, what if someone ELSE stepped forward who also had distribution and marketing...

Say, Tandy or even... (should I say it???)  Microsoft..  (Hey, they've tried hardware several times over the years..)
Maybe IBM?  (Don't laugh, they were just looking into OS/2 in 85..  Would have been an interesting idea and a way for them to get back at Microsoft..)

desiv

[Tension]

it was teh PCjnr guy wat dun it.

[freqmax]

A better idea would have been, what if someone ELSE stepped forward who also had distribution and marketing...

Say, Tandy or even... (should I say it???)  Microsoft..  (Hey, they've tried hardware several times over the years..)
Maybe IBM?  (Don't laugh, they were just looking into OS/2 in 85..  Would have been an interesting idea and a way for them to get back at Microsoft..)

desiv

I think any serious candidate would have to employ a management style that let's the development team to flourish. In that respect both Microsoft and IBM have proven they can't handle it. Maybe Apple would, but it would look nice, be horrible expensive and perform like crap but be easy to use , dunno about Tandy.

At the core seems to be capital, distribution, and management style.

[Tension]

I think any serious candidate would have to employ a management style that let's the development team to flourish. In that respect both Microsoft and IBM have proven they can't handle it. Maybe Apple would, but it would look nice, be horrible expensive and perform like crap but be easy to use , dunno about Tandy.

At the core seems to be capital, distribution, and management style.

I take it you've read about the connection between AmigaOS and OS/2 then?

[pwermonger]

Commodore made a lot of mistakes... they overpaid the topmanagement and underfunded R&D, had no real concept or vision and spoiled money in different markets (f.e. by producing PCs). And they made their final error, the Amiga 600 (which created a lot of losses after they announced the A1200).

Actually, their PCs sold extremely well in Europe (the market in which they also were originally conceived), so not spoiled money at all.

The 600 is another story but that's what happens when you bring in someone with a failed product (PCjr) who then decides that trying the same failed idea (lets try to sell a product with fewer features and capabilities and see how that floats in the market) might work if we just try it enough times.

[pwermonger]

A better idea would have been, what if someone ELSE stepped forward who also had distribution and marketing...

Say, Tandy or even... (should I say it???)  Microsoft..  (Hey, they've tried hardware several times over the years..)
Maybe IBM?  (Don't laugh, they were just looking into OS/2 in 85..  Would have been an interesting idea and a way for them to get back at Microsoft..)

desiv

Tandy had distribution but no interest really in marketing and once you tapped all the Radio Shack distribution offered, you were strangled by it. Thats what hamstrung the Coco and TRS-80s over time as Atari and Commodore moved into  department store chains, Toys R Us, Kmart, etc while those machines had to stay exclusive in only one chain of stores. Same would have happned to the Amiga that already did to the Tandy offerings already trounced by the 64.

Microsoft would have bought Amiga and shelved it as they saw much more money in Windows on Intel.

IBM would have bought Amiga and fumbled it.

[nicholas]

They should have fired Mehdi Ali and prized JLG away from Apple.

[freqmax]

So what company would been the best candidate in 1984?

And why?

[nicholas]

So what company would been the best candidate in 1984?

And why?

Trotters Independent Traders of course.

[mingle]

At least it would've (probably) had built-in MIDI ports - look how that kept the ST in widepsread use...

[lsmart]

The picture that I got from reading about Tramiel in the early years of Commodore doesn´t fit into what happened with Atari in the 90s. If 1984s Tramiel had AMIGA he wouldn´t have built the machine we love today. Tramiels Amiga would have had only 2 custom chips and no multitasking in the OS. It would have come out in January 1985 and shipped in March. Something like the Amiga 600 would have entered the market in 1988. Tramiels values would have been preserved by a new management. Tramiel retires. In 1990 Amiga would have had a DOS mode that could make use of all 4096 colors but most Software would have ignored that. In 1995 Amiga would have had its own x86 compatible CPU and Amiga would have ported Workbench to Windows NT. 1996 Amiga would have had realtime truecolor 3d animation at $2000. Sadly it wouldn´t be very popular due to poor marketing.

Oh and Atari would still be kicking Sonys ass and Playstation II wouldn´t have been built because of low market potential.