If you owned the Amiga trademark, what would you do?

[Iggy]

Personally, I think worrying about the chipset rights is a bit silly as the all the patents have lapsed.
 
Also, the Amiga name has been polluted and the reputation dragged through the mud.
 
I'd take the money and talk to Treavor about a new MorphOS machine with JIT support for UAE.
 
PPC or ARM? I'm not sure. 68K? Why? At 100MHz that is still DAMNED slow.

[Rodomoc]

Better to simply start over with the name and trademark thing. Call it 'Friend', get a marketing firm to dream up logos and all of the trademarkable crap, legally start a company that includes all of this newly dreamed up stuff, and then do whatever you want... Aros is probably a more sensible direction being that it is open sourced so put it on whatever hardware platform it supports and one you fancy the most. And there it is, a non-poisoned computer entity off to a fresh start. And not in any way tied to filthy garbage. There would be plenty of money left over to heavily fund some Aros bounties too. My suggestion...even though I tend to drift in the 68K and MorphOS worlds.

[XDelusion]

Revive Amithlon.

[Thorham]

Even Natami is not worthy of the Amiga name in your view??

Worthiness isn't the problem. The problem, in my opinion, is that you're naming something Amiga that isn't. The Natami is certainly a very cool machine (yes, I find FPGA computers quite interesting), but it's a Natami, not an Amiga.

Perhaps I should have said: Forget about the Amiga name, and invest in something new. Or perhaps call the machines you release Amiga compatibles (which they are).

Personally, I think worrying about the chipset rights is a bit silly as the all the patents have lapsed.

Hmm, I didn't realize that at all. That should open some doors.
 

Also, the Amiga name has been polluted and the reputation dragged through the mud.

But not the reputation of the original Amiga computer line, and with those patents out of the way, who knows...

PPC or ARM? I'm not sure. 68K? Why? At 100MHz that is still DAMNED slow.

Anything Amiga has to be a copy of the originals. If you want something new of a later generation, then it's time to drop the Amiga and move on.

Also, you're talking about hardware performance, but what about software performance? AOS is far behind the times, but you never hear anyone say anything about that, and I really wonder why...

[mingle]

"Friend" - that is a brilliant idea :-)

Tied to AROS, that's probably the most sensible and interesting suggestion so far...

As for the "Amiga" trademark, I'd buy it and give it a decent burial... It's beginning to stink...

Better to simply start over with the name and trademark thing. Call it 'Friend', get a marketing firm to dream up logos and all of the trademarkable crap, legally start a company that includes all of this newly dreamed up stuff, and then do whatever you want... Aros is probably a more sensible direction being that it is open sourced so put it on whatever hardware platform it supports and one you fancy the most. And there it is, a non-poisoned computer entity off to a fresh start. And not in any way tied to filthy garbage. There would be plenty of money left over to heavily fund some Aros bounties too. My suggestion...even though I tend to drift in the 68K and MorphOS worlds.

[Amiduffer]

Dole out enough to programmers like Kermit Woodall so that serious programs like ImageFX can be updated.

[Everblue]

Exactly. Software availability is what breaks or makes a system. Look at Linux, many people won't touch it because there isn't Photoshop on it. Now I am not saying that someone should port Photoshop over to Amiga OS, but with the complete lack of decent productivity software for it, it will remain forever a hobbyist OS (not that there is anything wrong with that).

[Tripitaka]

..and the above post is exactly why worrying over super fast hardware is irrelevant. It's the same ol' circle, software drives hardware drives software etc...

[theweeone]

Given a very limited amount of capital, say $100-200K, and ownership of the Amiga trademark, what would you do with it?  (Please, no jokes, as tempting as they may be here.)

I would make the os open source with the intention of having it ported to Intel processors. I personally believe restricting it to PPC is a bad idea. I have a 900mhz netbook crying out for a decent os and I believe AmigaOS would be that os.

[AmigaNG]

I would buy out Cloanto and make a Retro Player, kind of like amiga forever setup but have a store section like apple and have maybe the A500 setup with ks 1.3 rom free and then charge like £1.99 for each extra system you wanted as well as have games available to purchase, then try and expand the service to offer legitimate ways of obtaining say sega system or Nintendo systems, and have all the games in the retro playing format, make it as easy as possible for the end user to play these games, maybe make a very small console like system that would just boot up into the retro player.

I know it pretty easy to get you hands on emulators and systems roms, but the average jo believe me doesn't know how to set up most emulators and the whole scene is just a bit of a legal mess, it would be nice for someone to build a front end easy simple all in one solution to run any old game no matter what the console or format.

I would also support all community efforts where possible, maybe back port the retro player to Os4, aros, morphos etc. and still push Os4 and aros developments where possible.

[Rodomoc]

Revive Amithlon.

I like it. Use a modern 2.6.whatever Linux kernel (some kind of mainstream kernel with zillions of drivers so it runs on most anything) and build the Amiga end of it using 3.1 instead of 3.9. Plus throw in that 64bit 68K JIT compiler we need, and whatever other cool Umilator features that may exist. If the rats cry about use of 3.1, then use some of the cash to acquire resources needed to get Aros68K 100% compatible with 3.1.
 
----
 
Additionally, after starting the 'friend' computer company blah, blah...and reviving Amithlon, funding some Aros bouties...Cash needs to also fund some MorphOS work.

[commodorejohn]

I would port it to DEC Alpha and focus on that, to spite all parties in the CPU debate.

[Kalvan]

I would port it to DEC Alpha and focus on that, to spite all parties in the CPU debate.

Three problems with that:
 
1. Amiga OS 3.x is written primarily in 68k assembler, and needs the custom chips. Plus, the FORBID call rearing its ugly head.
 
2. Amiga OS 4.x and on will be controlled by Hyperion, who will never let anyone port it to anything else.
 
3. The only people using using Alpha nowadays are the Chinese, and if they won't license the Loongson 3 series (Which was designed as a desktop chip to begin with) to outsiders on smaller nodes on fabs outside of China, what makes you think they will license their HPC pride and joy?
 
And that's only the technical problems. There's still all the expense of actually designing the motherboard and tooling up.

[B00tDisk]

I like it. Use a modern 2.6.whatever Linux kernel (some kind of mainstream kernel with zillions of drivers so it runs on most anything) and build the Amiga end of it using 3.1 instead of 3.9. Plus throw in that 64bit 68K JIT compiler we need, and whatever other cool Umilator features that may exist. If the rats cry about use of 3.1, then use some of the cash to acquire resources needed to get Aros68K 100% compatible with 3.1.
 
----
 
Additionally, after starting the 'friend' computer company blah, blah...and reviving Amithlon, funding some Aros bouties...Cash needs to also fund some MorphOS work.

This plus the ability to compile and natively run x86/Linux apps would be nice - Firefox on 3.1, anyone

[commodorejohn]

Three problems with that:
 
1. Amiga OS 3.x is written primarily in 68k assembler, and needs the custom chips. Plus, the FORBID call rearing its ugly head.
 
2. Amiga OS 4.x and on will be controlled by Hyperion, who will never let anyone port it to anything else.
 
3. The only people using using Alpha nowadays are the Chinese, and if they won't license the Loongson 3 series (Which was designed as a desktop chip to begin with) to outsiders on smaller nodes on fabs outside of China, what makes you think they will license their HPC pride and joy?
 
And that's only the technical problems. There's still all the expense of actually designing the motherboard and tooling up.

(That was sarcasm.)

[djrikki]

Hmmm what would I do if I owned the Amiga trademark... and some capital...

For starters some internet changes would be required, I'd buy A.org and have it redirect to AmigaOS.net and build a forum there where people could safely discuss Amiga NG.  There would be no 'retro threads nor 'other OSes' threads, any detrimental talk about any other AmigaOS-like operating system or even the classic range would be deleted without warning by my moderation team.  Amigaworld.net would cater for all that 'Noise'.

Whilst this 'cleansing' is taking place I'd then meet Ben Hermans and discuss how the remaining capital could be best invested to not only sustain, but improve OS development.