Commodore USA's Final Challenge to the Community

[odin]

Holy mackerel, Batman. Pre-orders constructions in Amigaland? Is there even one example since the demise of Commodore where it actually delivered? And it'll work this time around, because...?

[anglosaxonusa]

Natami seems to be what most here are waiting for, however, there is still room for a company to create cases to house future Amiga hardware.

Here are some things to consider:

• Produce an *exact* remake of the A1000 case.
• Produce various adapters for the new case that will allow legacy, Natami, PPC, ATX, mini-ITX and other form-factor boards to reside in it.
• Repeat the process with the A1200 case.

• Publish the exact specs of the cases as open source standards.
• Give the cases logical names "Case Type CUSA-A1000" and "Case Type CUSA-A1200".
• Encourage other companies to make parts for the cases or even entire knock offs.
• Encourage general PC users to use the cases as well as Amigans.  Appeal to nostalgia.
• Don't bother marketing a hybrid "Amiga" OS or selling the cases with x86/x64 hardware.  Just sell the cases and market the nostalgia.
• Build ties with Hyperion and the MorphOS team by marketing the cases as "AmigaOS 4 Certified", "MorphOS certified".  Appeal to the traditionalists with "AmigaOS 3.X" certified", etc.  Spread the word about Natami.

• Defend and market the Amiga philosophy of piles of external devices ("Amiga: the duct-taped computer").
• Create an external enclosure for SATA harddrives, DVD/CDs, etc.
• Create an external enclosure for an ATX power supply if possible.

• Keep things beige, angular, and "80s".  Everyone else is doing glossy, black, and sleek.  Go against the grain.

In general, market the Amiga scene in its entirety, not just your company.  Get involved in the community.  Realize that Amigans are looking for hardware, software, *and enclosures* that are in harmony with Amiga's history.  If you have something to offer to the community, offer it.

[slaapliedje]

I'd have to agree with the others that suggested working with the Natami developers to make cases and funding for helping the project along.  To me the Natami is the only project out there that tries to follow in the path of the Amiga.

Either that, or dump a ton of funding into AROS for the 68k port, along with the PPC and x86.  At least that way we have a standard OS that is Amiga compatible, Open Source and runs on any of the platforms.  Hell, there could be a port for 68k Atari and Macs as well.  Sadly you can buy 68k Macs for nothing, yet at the same time the Atari and Amigas are rare and expensive.

Making a 68k platform with a faster AGA compatible chipset, like the Natami, is the real future of the Amiga, in my opinion.  Simply because AOS4 and MorphOS simply emulate the old platform.  Then I can't really judge those, since I can't use them on any available hardware.

Which comes to the other suggestion of PPC accelerators for classics, at a price that doesn't feel like I'm being raped from the wallet.

slaapliedje

[Amiga_Nut]

Unless Natami can delivery 100mhz 060 performance Amiga for £199 I am not interested.

And unless Minimig can undercut an Mini ITX £60 solution again I am not interested.

Amithlon will never come back to life, thanks to the copyright vultures gnawing at the carcass of the Amiga (including ineffectual Hyperion in this group).

So You can see how the community is fragmented forever now? Some people will buy my creations, many won't. And to them I say all the best with whatever choices you go for.

Amiga is dead, it will never return in its true form because the company and engineers who made the magic are long gone (and sadly in the case of Jay Miner are long since departed).

And to be honest asking C=USA to build you an OS4 compatible is a tall order, and the issue is the cost price of the parts being uneconomical in today's billions of instructions per second £400 i7 PCs in shops everywhere.

(I was never really interested in OS4/MOS seeing as all I am doing is running an emulator and using the same pirated ADFs to use the good stuff as on my Windows PC via WinUAE)

[Rodomoc]

• Defend and market the Amiga philosophy of piles of external devices ("Amiga: the duct-taped computer")

• Keep things beige, angular, and "80s".  Everyone else is doing glossy, black, and sleek.  Go against the grain.

[/LIST]
 ---

I am quite through with my piles of duct taped/deviced legacy machines thus honestly couldn't defend this past the point of those purists wanting to do it that way for whatever reasons... At best I would be interested in more integrated legacy machine upgrade options. Other than this, then new hardware remains my interest whether it be 68k, or other Amiga hardware flavors. There are numerous really cool legacy machine hardware upgrade gizmos. I say combine them into more integrated solutions or as in my last post, just make a generic pci device everyone could use.

Agree with the idea on casework having legacy type appearances or colors. I am in process on using some old Commodore casework to hold modern Amiga type hardware. I'm not either way about CUSA in general but they did manage to make a new case that did look like a C64, which was a bit of an investment from a mold tooling standpoint. I am not interested in their computing products but if they elected to sell that C64 case/keyboard as parts, I'd buy a couple for sure and do my own hardware games on the inside. And as I mentioned in my first post, give me a ps2 or usb keyboard that is Amiga format. Again, cusa seemed to do the same for their C64 product.

[EDanaII]

Amithlon will never come back to life, thanks to the copyright vultures gnawing at the carcass of the Amiga (including ineffectual Hyperion in this group).

For the most part, I agree with you, but never say 'never.' CUSA has stated, effectively for us not to worry about issues like that, so I'm not against letting them try.

That said, while I favor an AROS-like solution, Amithlon (then and now) represents the best way forward by offering the best compatibility/speed/price option of them all.

It really is a shame it went down in flames...

[Rodomoc]

Amithlon will never come back to life, thanks to the copyright vultures gnawing at the carcass of the Amiga (including ineffectual Hyperion in this group).

So You can see how the community is fragmented forever now? Some people will buy my creations, many won't. And to them I say all the best with whatever choices you go for.

(I was never really interested in OS4/MOS seeing as all I am doing is running an emulator and using the same pirated ADFs to use the good stuff as on my Windows PC via WinUAE)

---

It is too bad about Amithlon. This could have really turned into something if it stuck around and received development. Remind me to resurrect it from a BSD/Workbench 3.1 standpoint mixed with all of the Umilator stuff - if I ever win the lottery that is...While at it, make an integrated 3.1OS software update package taking that thing the whole 9 yards and equal or past next Gen Amiga OS variants. I would surely do it just to make a point.:roflmao:

Agree on fragmentation. It is get on board one of the offspring (or multiple offsprings) and stop thinking as the community as a single thing. For it clearly is not beyond historical source, API similarities or whatever other similarities still exist.

Emulation is cheapest 68K route obviously and offers a good bang for the buck. For legacy gamers I would assume they are relatively happy with this emulation route. The work Toni Wilson has done is quite impressive. For those wanting more modern software stuff out of 68K that competes with windows/linux/whatever stuff of today, probably not realistic... But still, running a full tilt AmigaOS 3.9 under WinUAE is an interesting experience.

I'm ok with the concept of next gen OS such as MorphOS or Aros. I like the overall software product and attitude of MOS developers . Aros is a long term platform sort of thing, in open source, with increasing levels of hardware portability. Plus they provide a feedback loop to other players so many end up benefiting. So I gotta support them forever.

[Middleman]

Dammy, C-USA is not Microsoft.  The idea you'd even remotely compare the two is appalling, regardless of your blind dedication to "the cause".  The Kinect (and your facts are misleading about what you stated about the pre-order factor involving MS directly in a funds down deposit with MS directly) is a completely invalid comparison, and C-USA is not Microsoft.  

MS has a worth of 44 billion dollars roughly, Dammy.  MS doesn't have a pack of insulting, roving fanboys working for free as their ad department.
MS had a revenue of 16 billion dollars, Q4 2011.  

==Duce, would you kindly please refrain from using such language? It is this sort of attitude that is getting us nowhere. I have not insulted anyone here or anyone else on any other Amiga site. I would hope that in the same spirit as fellow Amiga fans I offer this to you, would you please refrain from saying such things (if we are to go somewhere with this thread)?

Honestly I don't know about you, but I could imagine if we at user level, are having such 'heated arguments' about what the next Amiga should be, you could imagine what it was like at engineer level trying to work out the Advanced Amiga. Everyone is running around like a headless chicken. I wouldn't be surprised if this was the issue that caused Commodore to go down.....


Saying that, you have made some valid points earlier about CUSA that I couldn't deny. Yes we had heat issues with our machines…..at least I did with my early C64x Ultimate. And yes certain members who bought CUSA machines didn't have their questions answered, and I was a little bit annoyed by that. I'm not their staff so I do not know what the status of their support is like, but as fellow user I do try to help others when I can when they post something up on C-A.org.

However I will say that regarding the other unanswered questions, is if they are business-related (such as prior agreements/cancellation of projects with other companies) I do know they are not discussed openly by CUSA - this has been mentioned by Barry and Leo before. In this sense I do understand that CUSA has a right (like any other IT company) and acting like any other IT company, from refraining to disclose such information.


Now going back to the issue at hand (the new Amiga), there is certainly one thing I noticed from the recent Amiga Poll that was very startling that I found (amiga-poll.blogspot.com). And that was…..everybody is a PC user. Over 90% of the folks there who answered (including myself), was using a Windows PC for their day-to-day stuff….

Now if you go back to why the Amiga is/was no longer around…..you could say that is your answer. Because as users we have been in a way hypocrites…..we are loyal to the hardware and what it can do (for us), and not the brand. Otherwise why on Earth would so many have a Windows PC as their main machine today? If the Amiga was useful/successful, surely the poll would have reflected this?

Which brings me back to why I think Commodore failed the last time round…..
To be fair it wasn't Commodores fault…..it was because the majority market decided/realised that the Amiga's design was becoming too limited in the face of the x86 design. One thing that users couldn't do for sure was add/change a new graphics card in their system like you do in a PC. This, and the fact that the CPUs could be upgraded. I think these were the two killer points if you will, that killed off the Amiga, in addition to the PC already having an established software support base then…(which added another blow to the Amiga fan base).

Also one thing that differed the Windows PC with Commodore was this. If we look back at the 'success' of the 'Wintel' duopoly, ie. Intel and Microsoft, you will see that they 'built' upon their foundation, year on year. Every year the software or hardware that was produced by the x86 companies would be supporting the same platform. With Amiga however, Commodore first did it as 16-bit, then decided with the AAA/Hombre chipset to scrap its existing software/user base (like it did with the C64) and go onto completely different 32-bit/64-bit designs. This unfortunately I believe was the main reason why Amiga never survived. If you don't have backwards compatibility with your existing software base you lose market share…..

Going back to the question at hand, therefore I see that it is important that for the Amiga of tomorrow, we need to 'build' upon the foundations that is already here, not start afresh. What we do need to decide now on is, which one? At the moment two chipsets stick out for us at the moment, PowerPC and x86. 68k is not valid anymore because noone is making the chips anymore and it'll be hugely expensive to set up such foundaries again, so it is either one of the two. The question now is, what support base shall we work on?

To me, the answer lies with those who answered what machine they are currently using….(you guessed it, the Windows PC). Since it is now our favourite platform, how about going the full hog with developing AmigaOS/AROS on it? That'll clear up the 'decade old' question for good…..

[persia]

@Middleman

I think there's also a fair number of Mac users who chose not to answer your poll.  But of course Mac is Intel too.

As to the failure of Amiga the first go round, that I think was the fault of Commodore, and I think you can easily accept that since Commodore USA has absolutely nothing to do with the original Commodore except the brand name.  Commodore didn't feed money back into Amiga development, Amiga simply fell behind and by the time it shed itself of Commodore's incompetence it was too late.

I also think that the idea of traitors in electronics (or most any other consumer product) is silly.  I like macadamias, whenever I visit relative in southern Queensland/Northern New South Wales I gorge myself on their native nut.  When I get back home I eat cashews or walnuts.  Eating cashews or walnuts doesn't make me a traitor to Macademias.  I have several iOS tablets, I also have several Android tablets, using one doesn't make me a traitor to the other.  Life is too short to waste it on hating some brand because it isn't some other brand, but rather enjoying what you have and exploring the uses of what you have.

Brands come and go, how many companies have worn the Commodore brand in the computer market alone, not counting cars and other things.  Amiga means a certain thing to me, a link to places and times that were good.  An Amiga PC insults those times.  I won't allow one or my desk.  The PCs I use are either virtual or ones I put together out of parts.  I lose nothing by not purchasing Amiga PCs, I can put together a personal machine, with the parts I want.  There nothing unique to an Amiga PC, except a sticker, that, if the Commodore USA stickers are any indicating, I could print better myself.

It simply isn't possible to restart Amiga the way it was, cutting edge hardware, OS and Software, so what I would rather have is something in between, something that give me the ability to tinker and remember the past but also does more modern things  in case.  A PPC Amiga isn't idea, but it's all that can be put on the table at this point in time.

[commodorejohn]

Saying that, you have made some valid points earlier about CUSA that I couldn't deny. Yes we had heat issues with our machines…..at least I did with my early C64x Ultimate. And yes certain members who bought CUSA machines didn't have their questions answered, and I was a little bit annoyed by that. I'm not their staff so I do not know what the status of their support is like, but as fellow user I do try to help others when I can when they post something up on C-A.org.

Is it me, or is this a very roundabout way of saying "CUSA hasn't been any help at all, so the users have had to step in and help each other?"

One thing that users couldn't do for sure was add/change a new graphics card in their system like you do in a PC. This, and the fact that the CPUs could be upgraded. I think these were the two killer points if you will, that killed off the Amiga

What? Commodore died because you couldn't upgrade an Amiga's video hardware (except that you totally could) and you could upgrade the CPU? How does that make any sense!?

Since it is now our favourite platform, how about going the full hog with developing AmigaOS/AROS on it? That'll clear up the 'decade old' question for good…..

It's not my favorite platform, or a lot of other people's. The fact that it's the most commonly-used attests only to the Wintel alliance's success in dominating the industry, not personal preference. And any attempt to establish it and "clear up the decades-old question" will do nothing of the sort, it'll only further alienate the non-x86 fans.

[Kesa]

@Middleman. Has it occurred to you that the reason people mostly use PC's, Windows and x86 is not because they want to but because they have no other choice? I use x86 but it is definitely not my "favourite". People want to use something else other than x86 for their hobby computers. Notice the word "hobby".

[spirantho]

I use a PC every day at work.
I sometimes use a PC at home.

If I could run Open Office on my Amigas, I would stop doing so immediately. I long for a Windows-free environment.

There's only one reason I'm using x86 architecture at all, and that's because I have to... and I'm far from alone.
So saying that "we all use Windows/x86 therefore Windows/x86 is our favourite platform" is... somewhat inaccurate, shall we say...

I kind of agree with what Middleman said about there being fewer upgrade options with the Amiga; it's true that the Amiga could have its video and CPU upgraded, but this was mostly ignored by C=. For Wintel, on the other hand, it was forced upon the users.... and that did make a large difference.

[SysAdmin]

@spirantho

Stop spinning tales, Windows is the favorite platform of this guy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodo

[jm4n]

I stopped reading replies at page 3,  I've read many interesting points but also many who have their heads in the clouds.

Provided the good will (and good faith) of CUSA, I think the most affordable way for everyone is to stick to x86.

I'm really sorry for AmigaOS and MorphOS, but sticking to PPC/esoteric hardware it's a neverending fight against obsolescence.

Come on, AOS is a complete rewrite as AROS is, so which should be the one to be pushed forward? Classic AOS is already an emulated feature on anything more recent than a 680x0.

More than everything, what the Amiga community needs is the support of developers. Improve the hardware compatibility for AROS and make it cheap to be installed on commodity hardware. Make that platform interesting for developers!

Unfortunately, according to the ~800 voters of this poll, my thoughts are not shared :-)

[Middleman]

Is it me, or is this a very roundabout way of saying "CUSA hasn't been any help at all, so the users have had to step in and help each other?"

==I guess you could say that....
Well CUSA are actually quite helpful but are just currently understaffed (sadly). And being an early supporter myself, well why not? Is there anything wrong with that?

What? Commodore died because you couldn't upgrade an Amiga's video hardware (except that you totally could) and you could upgrade the CPU? How does that make any sense!?

==Yes I think so...it ultimately led to its demise (I believe) because the PC architecture became open-ended. 3D cards (in their early phases anyway) from Voodoo/Hercules and the like was already out for PCs by the time the Amiga 1000 was 4 years old (from what I remember). I mean I was running Corel Draw 3D back in 1989 on a 286 PC and by 1993 I had cards which could display 16.7 million colors and systems that could run CD-ROM. The Amiga couldn't and didn't have much then.....

It's not my favorite platform, or a lot of other people's. The fact that it's the most commonly-used attests only to the Wintel alliance's success in dominating the industry, not personal preference. And any attempt to establish it and "clear up the decades-old question" will do nothing of the sort, it'll only further alienate the non-x86 fans.

==Well I believe it is the low cost of the Wintel systems that has ensured its dominance - this is why it is commonly used. But saying that, some of you in the poll could've answered PowerPC Mac or Android Tablet or Linux-based laptop/PC - why just Windows PC? Just sayin'...


BTW Persia it is not my poll.....someone else put it up, not me...

[spirantho]

==I guess you could say that....
Well CUSA are actually quite helpful but are just currently understaffed (sadly). And being an early supporter myself, well why not? Is there anything wrong with that?

But why are they understaffed?

A big company that has apparently had a $30m advertising budget, but doesn't have enough staff to answer support questions? Just doesn't make sense....