I think.........

[spirantho]

I think we all want the Amiga to be successful....

.. but finding a successful platform and sticking an Amiga sticker doesn't make the Amiga successful. It just makes it look like you can't accept the fact that the Amiga isn't successful.

[Thorham]

I think we all want the Amiga to be successful....

Indeed, and it's a little bit too late for that, isn't it?

.. but finding a successful platform and sticking an Amiga sticker doesn't make the Amiga successful. It just makes it look like you can't accept the fact that the Amiga isn't successful.

Well said.

[Digiman]

I've created a monster!

QUOTE "so when people talk about using pc technology in a more efficient intelligent way as amiga would have had to adapt to do then any new amiga should use ibm xenon cpu/superior memory bus architecture to mac or pc/top end graphics chip."

you sound like barry.

It was the only sensible way to go 4 years ago for price performance. Barry has no clue beyond Ubuntu and low-rent badly designed cases with low quality PC motherboards (some not even capable of 720p HD video playback unlike my laptop from 2006).

I have read through this monster I have created and well two things come to mind.

1. Amiga as a new on the shelf computer is dead NOT the Amiga scene.
2. People are confusing Amiga computers with OS4 compatible PPC hardware.

Amiga introduced all of us to unique things for a personal/home computer back in the mists of time, from an OS perspective I can't really think of anything Amiga OS4 (or MoS) does that you can't do on Win7/OSX/Linux and for less money to boot.

So my point is the OS has no advantage (many disadvantages actually) and hardware has nothing in the spirit of even the A1200 let alone the A1000 on launch day.

Amiga was born of a time when all this creative technology needed to be brought together....PCs and Macs certainly would have no use for something like Digiview.....EGA pictures rendered from 21 million colour internally captured images.....methinks not!

But also the Amiga even in the time of the Sega Genesis/Megadrive in 1990/89 could (if programmed properly with care and talent) produce equally as good games from it's unenhanced 1985 chipset still in the A3000/2000/500 models of that time.

Today if you buy an X1000 can you even play games as well as on a £125 Xbox 360? Can you browse all the sites on the net that someone with Windows/OSX/Linux and Chrome browser can? Can you even do something as simple as listen/view any media that VLC can handle?

That's a no, no and no. My point exactly.

The only people that actually go against the PC/Mac hardware grain worth talking about is Sony and Microsoft's consoles. They have no choice but to find ways to deliver 200-300% better price/performance than launch day gaming PC standard for a ceiling price. And it may be something much more groundbreaking too that needs to happen. Like Wi-mote on Wii (heavily underpowered console with PS2 quality graphics that sold 100s of millions) or even Kinect.

IF, and I really do mean IF, there ever is to be an Amiga again it would need to both have a new OS and also deviously designed hardware on a level of superiority that the £299 Xbox 360 had on launch day in September 2006. For me it will NEVER happen ipso facto Amiga died in 1994. YMMV if you have very low expectations what Amiga stood for and what place it held in the marketplace in it's prime years.

X1000 and SAM460 are our flagships? Well you can keep them then......I will spend my money on something from the 80s that is still superior to front wheel drive rubbish sold today....A BMW 325i Sport* from 1989. X1000 is a Mazda 323 2.0L whereas the direct descendant of my car in 1989 is a 2011 BMW 1M....a car that today is STILL the best 2 door sports coupe that is within the grasp of ordinary people with a decent salary

I have 3 Amigas (6 if you include dead ones) and use them whenever I have time, this is not about my faith being lost in how lovely those machines are and are much more enjoyable than any double click on the WinUAE icon on a directory will ever serve me!

(*funnily enough a car which I owned whilst I used the superior Amiga 1000 on my desk to do things no other computer could do thanks to a combination of hardware and software unique to the platform which could never be transferred to lesser tech like 68k Mac or PC or Atari ST)

[Middleman]

I think we all want the Amiga to be successful....

.. but finding a successful platform and sticking an Amiga sticker doesn't make the Amiga successful. It just makes it look like you can't accept the fact that the Amiga isn't successful.

==Then let me tell you something my friend....

Despite what you think, the Amiga IS already successful and it's on a commercial platform already TODAY. But it's not known in the general public on this secret I'm about to tell you......that the Sony Playstation 3, is an Amiga underneath....

I say this because if you watch the very first E3 when Sony launched their Playstation line-up back in 2005, the demo tester admits on stage the PS3 'is an Amiga clone'.

The strange story of the Amiga-clone PS3 began right after Gateway went bankrupt. At the time Intel realized Amiga's designs were still significant so they went on an IP shopping trip to buy up what was left of Gateway's Amiga IPs. They used this knowledge, and with HP went onto create what was the IA-64 and Itanium chipsets from those designs. Sony, knowing Intel had the rights to the Amiga design, approached Intel for permission to use it in a console. The rest as they say is history...

So, if you really still want your modern Amiga, you can today. Just ask Sony to create a special board for an all-in-one computer OR ask Intel to develop a system based around the IA-64 chip, and you'll get there. Or even better, get a PS3 and a copy of BF3 on it. Because THAT IS an Amiga underneath it all. All that's missing is the sticker.....

[CritAnime]

Digiman you have unleashed a monster. But a good kind of monster as it brought a good bit of debating to the forum. Been actually an ineteresting read.

If we are talking hypothetically now then here is what I would like to see. A system that is powerful and uses new and interesting tech but doesn't cost the world. That has the os to match, been responsive and speedy without needing the resources of a small nation to run. Its has to be a joy to use on a daily basis and not feel like a chore everytime you look at the screen.

But I know this won't happen.

Now this is a view that I have never shared with anyone beyond a few tech geek friends over a beer. If Commodore was still around today, in their original form, I think they would probably be into the tablet market right now. The scope for new and creative tech in this section of the computing world would have been right up their ally in my view. I could quite easily see the Amiga spirit been put to good use with these devices. Imagine if something like the amiga architecture, but obviously a modernised version, running in a tablet form. Along with a modernised Workbench os to go with it.

Call it daft but this is were I feel Commodore would have gone. Or maybe even into the server side of things.

[commodorejohn]

Call it daft

Okay: it's daft. Tablets are a marketing-department fad toy, designed to make futurists think they're living in the future and nerds think they're living in Star Trek: The Next Generation. They're a shoddy compromise between the smartphone and the laptop that inherits the disadvantages of both and the advantages of neither. Feh.

[CritAnime]

Now this is where I would have to disagree with you. When tablets first came out I would have agreed that they were gimicky and appealed to the "Oh look how futuristic I look" geeks. They were clunky, awkward to use and weren't all that powerful. Now though, as both the technology and software behind them is starting mature they are having more of an impact. I know they wouldn't replace a full desktop computer. But I can see their appeal growing more and more.
 
And I can still see Commodore, if they were still around, venturing into this branch of the market. Making affordable, yet powerful, hardware and software.

[slayer]

The trouble with this thread and the people arguing in it is they are comparing the wrong things.

It does not matter how advanced the Amiga was when it came out.
The price was/is insignificant.
It does not matter what chip set it had.

All these things just make something more desirable or less desirable based on ones individual perception and also, it's a time expiring value in most cases.

What I'm basically saying is if you fell in love just because the Amiga was x, y and z it wasn't bound to last and is misplaced loyalty

What does matter is keeping the Amiga ideal (what Aros and MOS have successfully tapped into) and AmigaOS alive and for me personally Custom Hardware is very important as well... If they ever made AmigaOS portable and didn't continue the custom hardware line that is probably when I'd end my Amiga crusade...

For me the X1000 for example is very cool and try as you may you just won't feel the same way with any other computer system... sure, you've got your power users but they don't care about what they're running as much as how fast its running... anyway, I think you understand...

In short alot of these retro Amiga users never actually loved the Amiga itself but what it represented and did at the time... it is no wonder they do not want to migrate to modern pastures

[commodorejohn]

Now this is where I would have to disagree with you. When tablets first came out I would have agreed that they were gimicky and appealed to the "Oh look how futuristic I look" geeks. They were clunky, awkward to use and weren't all that powerful. Now though, as both the technology and software behind them is starting mature they are having more of an impact. I know they wouldn't replace a full desktop computer. But I can see their appeal growing more and more.

Nope. They've improved, but considering the stunted baseline they started from, that's not saying much. You can pile on the improvements as much as you like, but they're still going to be a laptop someone's chopped the keyboard off of.

[CritAnime]

I have to stress that my view has no solid basis and is just hypothetical at best based on what Commodore would have done if it was still around in my own little imaginery bubble lol. And that would have been both desktop/laptop hardware and tablet hardware.
 
I loved the Amiga not only for it's hardware and software but also for how it impacted in my personal computing world. Regardless of the leaps and bounds it represented in the wider computing world. It's one of only two computers I have ever actually ever felt completely, 100%, no questions asked comfortable with. And the other computer was a C64 that my dad bought only a few months before I was born in 82
 
Everything else I have liked but never truely loved the same way.
 

Nope. They've improved, but considering the stunted baseline they started from, that's not saying much. You can pile on the improvements as much as you like, but they're still going to be a laptop someone's chopped the keyboard off of.

I think it's just a slow starter in technological life. They are still tinkering with what makes them tick and it doesn't help that the playfield keeps shifting so wildly with every new step forward. Which is why I think it would have been interesting to see how Commodore would have approached this.

[Middleman]

Now this is where I would have to disagree with you. When tablets first came out I would have agreed that they were gimicky and appealed to the "Oh look how futuristic I look" geeks. They were clunky, awkward to use and weren't all that powerful. Now though, as both the technology and software behind them is starting mature they are having more of an impact. I know they wouldn't replace a full desktop computer. But I can see their appeal growing more and more.
And I can still see Commodore, if they were still around, venturing into this branch of the market. Making affordable, yet powerful, hardware and software.

==Well Commodore IS around today, they're just simply called 'the company whose name shall not be mentioned' on here....:roflmao:

Honestly the guys at CUSA are doing a really fine job at the moment despite the product announcement mishaps and whatnot. Moving to the Intel platform is a small concession to pay for everyone to get all that C= goodness once more. At least the new PC-based Amiga is no longer going to be based on parts that are not obsolete or are underpowered. They're going to be based on high quality, affordable (and abundant) PC parts, right on par with the competition. And the great thing about it (apart from the C= and checkmark on the case) is if you don't like to use WinUAE in Linux Mint or Commodore OS, well just load up Aros instead - there's plenty of choice! That'll probably be your closest Amiga based experience from a PC you'll ever get, with the speed and specs to match running the latest greatest stuff on Windows.

I got my C64x Ultimate for my birthday this year. For next year I'm hoping to get a new Amiga A500 PC based on the RG Marett design that Barry promised. Despite what you guys may say that it's 'just a PC', that's really the new Amiga that I'm waiting for....with looks and specs to match....
Unless of course Aros decides to hook up with Sony and produce a Playstation/Amiga computer. But I don't think that's ever going to happen...
　
Now for those who may think I was kidding about the Gateway-Intel-Sony story, look up on who bought the company ICP-Vortex, the makers of the original GoldenGate 486SLC bridgeboard for Amiga. As it happens the link about this was originally from A.org back in 2001 >
http://www.amiga.org/forums/showthread.php?t=42197[/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT][/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT][/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT]

[CritAnime]

Hmmm maybe not eh. There is a difference between been Commodore and only having its name. And the USA outfit is a name only affair as far as I am concerned as it shares nothing with its namesake. But let's not bicker about this anyway because its too early in the morning to really be bothered.

Edit--

Thanks for the link. Didn't think you were joking but its always good to post some linkage

[commodorejohn]

Despite what you guys may say that it's 'just a PC', that's really the new Amiga that I'm waiting for....

Why wait? If that's all it takes to be "Amiga" to you, you can have it right now!

[Digiman]

The trouble with this thread and the people arguing in it is they are comparing the wrong things.

It does not matter how advanced the Amiga was when it came out.
The price was/is insignificant.
It does not matter what chip set it had.

All these things just make something more desirable or less desirable based on ones individual perception and also, it's a time expiring value in most cases.

What I'm basically saying is if you fell in love just because the Amiga was x, y and z it wasn't bound to last and is misplaced loyalty

But it does matter, that was the whole point. I got an A1000 coming from 6 months of ownership of an Atari ST (and 4 years ownership of a C64) and the Amiga was the first time it all gelled together IMO. And for this it does matter because the things that Amiga brought to the world of desktop home computing were only possible due to it's unique features.

Multimedia......only possible due to the OCS chipset. So what you take for granted today was born of a machine that could.....

You said "It does not matter how advanced the Amiga was when it came out."
1. Play any sound in stereo, not a soundchip noise but ANY sound ever been digitally sampled.
2. Play realtime animation at 25/30FPS in colour, again this is only thanks to the architecture of the machine.
3. Almost photo-realistic digitized images, again only possible thanks to the ability to display 320 x 512 pixel images in HAM due to OCS.
4. Ability to run many pieces of software together in a multi-tasking GUI. Again only possible because you could have a 4.5mb Amiga but only a 640kb PC or 1mb ST or Mac.
5. Arcade quality games in the true sense of the word (e.g. 1986 release of Marble Madness) compare that to the PC or Atari ST version of 1986.
6. Video production work friendly out of the box even with an A500 + Genlock + software. PC/Mac/ST couldn't do this because they weren't designed to do it.

Obviously we take this all for granted when we switch on our computers today, but it is Amiga in the mid 80s that laid the revolutionary ground work to show people that was the future and also how Windows v1 or 286 (v2) was just pathetic. Pre-emptive multitasking is what IBM sought help with (in exchange for their REXX batch language) from Commodore when designing OS/2 for PC. And it is features no modern operating system can do without.

PCs ended up with DAC based stereo sound hardware, millions of colours on screen (initially only as a slow Hold and Modify style mode with ISA for still images) via better hardware and after 25 years multi-tasking is quite usable on Windows and Mac.

BUT......there is no guarantee that any of this would have happened had Amiga not set the benchmark so high initially.

So you see, the unique advanced architecture is really what made it possible. Now I totally understand when people say this can't happen again because we are pretty much there these days (Windows crashes less, makes a good attempt to multitask even if it is horribly inefficient and even Ubuntu is media rich out of the box...a FREE OS) and so that only leaves price and games playing ability.

And price advantage as far as cutting edge (technically) gaming was the sole domain of consoles a couple of years ago. Whether the next Playstation or Xbox will have an x86-64bit compatible CPU or something totally alien in architecture as in the current versions your guess is as good as mine. Today all three consoles have PPC derived CPUs, next generation it may all be super hot AMD 64bit CPUs with a bulk discount only Sony/Microsoft can commit to in quantity terms. What it won't be is a PC motherboard in a slimline case

And as a final note, there is no reason why the next generation of Amigas after AGA if Commodore had not gone under couldn't use x86 CPUs. The Konix Multisystem Console had an 8086 but mated to totally alien bus interface and non standard cutting edge custom chipset. The CPU is not that important if your machine's performance is derived from custom silicon rich motherboard.

Even the ST was considered in the early stages of design with a possible 8086 CPU instead of the 68000.

Peace to you all, I am happy with my A1000 and 325i Sport, both may be considered 'classics' or 'old school' but I will use both for the pleasure of the experience on a daily basis when I am retired soon. And this good feeling is where my new Buck Rogers game will come from

[psxphill]

The strange story of the Amiga-clone PS3 began right after Gateway went bankrupt. At the time Intel realized Amiga's designs were still significant so they went on an IP shopping trip to buy up what was left of Gateway's Amiga IPs. They used this knowledge, and with HP went onto create what was the IA-64 and Itanium chipsets from those designs. Sony, knowing Intel had the rights to the Amiga design, approached Intel for permission to use it in a console. The rest as they say is history...

I don't know if you're joking or not.
 
No design from the Amiga ended up in the PS3. Although the CPU that Sony/Toshiba/IBM developed ended up in the xbox 360.
 
The Itanium design wasn't based on the Amiga and wasn't used in the PS3.
 
Zorro and PCI have simularities as does WAV and IFF. That is about it in terms of technology that escaped.
 
All of this generations consoles (PS3/XBOX360/WII) have more in common with the gamecube than the amiga.
 
ICP-Vortex made high performance RAID controllers when Intel bought them. Adaptec seem to own them now.
 
http://www.treadlayers.com/PC_Hardware/Storage/SATA_RAID/RAID_4.shtml

[psxphill]

It does not matter how advanced the Amiga was when it came out.
The price was/is insignificant.
It does not matter what chip set it had.

I think those points were significant. If it had the same performance as a sinclair spectrum but a higher price then it would not have sold at all.
 
The only viable competition was the ST, the Acorn Archimedes was too expensive and didn't have enough games. However the ST wasn't cheap enough to make up for the lack of power, so it only appealed to those who wanted built in MIDI or couldn't (or wouldn't) pay for an Amiga.
 
There was a time when Amiga could have competed against PC's, but that time is long gone.
 
You're right that blind loyalty to a brand shouldn't be enough to encourage you to part with money. Although I'm sure there are some people that will feel good about buying an X1000, retail therapy isn't particularly healthy in the long term (unless you never run out of money).