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Author Topic: Deep philosophical question: What makes an Amiga an Amiga?  (Read 10170 times)

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Offline scuzzb494

Re: Deep philosophical question: What makes an Amiga an Amiga?
« Reply #29 on: March 04, 2012, 07:07:42 PM »
My Amiga was and still is the bestest friend I have ever had. Never let me down and has always been there for me when times have been rough. I guess the fact that the computer kept me sane through some very tricky times makes her very special. Nothing has the ability to make me feel happy more than the Amiga. Often when I've been driving around and feeling glum I have thought about AMOS or DOpus or doing a bit of programming on the Amiga and its carried me through. The Amiga is and will always be a very good friend. Which is just the way the makers saw her.

Offline persia

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Re: Deep philosophical question: What makes an Amiga an Amiga?
« Reply #30 on: March 04, 2012, 08:09:24 PM »
WHen I first bought an Amiga it was state of the art equipment on state of the art hardware that had a unique bond between hard and software.  It took me places in video and images that no other computer could.   That Amiga will not come again.

In terms of what now is an amiga, I'd say pretty much anything now that runs an amiga-like OS is an amiga, virtual or physical.
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Offline spirantho

Re: Deep philosophical question: What makes an Amiga an Amiga?
« Reply #31 on: March 04, 2012, 08:21:54 PM »
An Amiga to me is any computer that is designed first and foremost to run AmigaOS in any flavour - be it 1.0 or 4.1.

So, to me, my Sam440ep is as much an Amiga as my A500s.
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Offline Drummerboy

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Re: Deep philosophical question: What makes an Amiga an Amiga?
« Reply #32 on: March 04, 2012, 08:29:05 PM »
For me Amiga its more  than just the OS. Amiga is the Hardware too, you know, Customs Chips, keyboards, PSU split on/off switch, CPU cases designs, and all that stuffs.

Anyway about OS, Real Multitasking system, stereo sound, funny icons, "Guru Meditation" error messages, flicker in high resolution modes, and more Amiga features.

For now i dont fell the new "Amigas" as "real real" Amigas.
« Last Edit: March 04, 2012, 08:31:55 PM by Drummerboy »
Amiga 1000, 500, 600, 2000, 1200, 4000...

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Offline spirantho

Re: Deep philosophical question: What makes an Amiga an Amiga?
« Reply #33 on: March 04, 2012, 08:52:12 PM »
I know what you mean. But then I see A500s as "Classic Amigas" which are a particular type of Amiga. They're a subset of "Amiga" which contains Classic Amigas and NextGen Amigas.
The thing is, if CBM has continued with the Amiga, we'd still be using hardware much like we are now. There's 0% chance they'd have continued down the custom chip route, because whereas in the mid-80s it was necessary, these days it'd be corporate suicide.
In fact, it's my opinion that if CBM had continued, they'd have done much more damage to AmigaOS and we'd be in a much worse position than we're in now.
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Offline NovaCoder

Re: Deep philosophical question: What makes an Amiga an Amiga?
« Reply #34 on: March 04, 2012, 10:37:40 PM »
Quote from: orb85750;682331
Before you answer, please consider that, while the new Amiga systems being released are somewhat removed from the classics, they are not as far removed as the current Mac machines are from the classic Mac machines (and I don't think anyone is complaining that the latest Mac is not really a Mac -- On second thought,  I guess someone is always complaining).

Anyway, please give it some thought.  I'm still struggling with this question myself, though I have not yet lost sleep over it.  There's probably no right or wrong answer, which makes me somewhat uncomfortable too.


It's obviously going to be a different answer for everyone, but for me personally I think the only Amiga's were the ones made by Commodore (including those models (re)released by Escom).

Anything else to me personally is not really an 'Amiga'.
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Offline cecilia

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Re: Deep philosophical question: What makes an Amiga an Amiga?
« Reply #35 on: March 04, 2012, 11:09:04 PM »
I'll answer the question by telling a story. Don't worry, I'll be brief.

When I bought my first computer - an Amiga 2000 in 1989 I also bought DPaint with it. I proceeded to teach myself computer graphics and animation with it. It took me about a year to feel that I had 'mastered' the tools. the fact that you could use several tools AT ONCE was quite exciting and freeing for an artist.

In the early 90's I moved to LA and went looking for work. One place I applied had me take a 'test' on their proprietary graphics software. (meaning it had been developed in-house). I found that it was shockingly (for me) simple. You could only use ONE tool at a time and you had to exit from That tool to find another tool to use. Because I had experience with a significantly superior and elegant program (DPaint) i found this inferior program easy to figure out. The person giving me this 'test' was actually SHOCKED at how fast I figured it out. Of course, I didn't tell her about my Amiga experience. But I know that put me at an advantage.

As I continued to other jobs again and again I found that my education gotten from my Amiga held me in good stead. So, to me, Amiga is the Best Artists' tool using a computer I have ever had the privilege of learning from.

No matter what other OS I have to use (on various jobs), my Amiga education informs it. It's been an exciting ride. I don't know where i would be without it.
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Offline smerf

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Re: Deep philosophical question: What makes an Amiga an Amiga?
« Reply #36 on: March 05, 2012, 01:40:36 AM »
Hi,

@Iggy,

How can I attack another pancake head. It is just unfair, I wasn't ragging on AmigaDave, jsut trolling. AmigaDave is one of the best people on Amiga.org. I jsut caught him on something and wanted to bust him on it.

Amigadave, if I caused you any distress please accept my humble apology for saying that you where crying about a question that has been brought up again, and again and again, and again.

but

What really does make an Amiga an Amiga?

smerf
I have no idea what your talking about, so here is a doggy with a small pancake on his head.

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Offline Matt_H

Re: Deep philosophical question: What makes an Amiga an Amiga?
« Reply #37 on: March 05, 2012, 03:05:54 AM »
SYS:
C:
Devs:
Libs:
L:
S:
ENV: or ENVARC:
RAM:
DF0:
DH0: or Workbench:
DH1: or Work:

Save, Use, Cancel
and DOpus.

That's Amiga to me. It just makes sense. Logically organized, human readable, easily customized. Windows and Unix/OSX filesystem hierarchy drives me mad.

Quote
No matter what other OS I have to use (on various jobs), my Amiga education informs it. It's been an exciting ride. I don't know where i would be without it.

Great point, cecilia. I wouldn't be halfway as good with computers if I didn't learn the "right way" on the Amiga.
 

Offline commodorejohn

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Re: Deep philosophical question: What makes an Amiga an Amiga?
« Reply #38 on: March 05, 2012, 03:26:29 AM »
I'm going to have to go with the "actually a machine produced and distributed as Amiga by Commodore from 1985-1994" line of thought, with an extension to the Escom variants of the same, because that quite succintly and definitely excludes everything I don't think is a true Amiga.

However, if I were pressed to give details, I think the key elements that make the Amiga special are these: a powerful but programmer-friendly CPU architecture, a well-designed hardware system that achieves power through flexible control of simple components, and an operating system designed to achieve tight integration with the hardware and be accessible to and enable the programmer rather than trying to shackle them.

Various systems that embody some of those principles I'll consider "Amiga-inspired," but I reserve "Amiga" for the real deal, thanks.
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Offline Iggy

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Re: Deep philosophical question: What makes an Amiga an Amiga?
« Reply #39 on: March 05, 2012, 03:34:17 AM »
Quote from: smerf;682510
Hi,

@Iggy,

How can I attack another pancake head.

smerf


But my bunny has a waffle...

Don't worry about David's sensibilities.
He'd just like to see less feuding amongst the camps (probably because, like many of us, his interests span more than one).
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Offline save2600

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Re: Deep philosophical question: What makes an Amiga an Amiga?
« Reply #40 on: March 05, 2012, 04:14:09 AM »
Quote from: Iggy;682518
Don't worry about David's sensibilities.
He'd just like to see less feuding amongst the camps....

Hey, could you pass the pannekoek peace pipe over here please?  :lol:
« Last Edit: March 05, 2012, 01:49:31 PM by save2600 »
 

Offline klx300r

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Re: Deep philosophical question: What makes an Amiga an Amiga?
« Reply #41 on: March 05, 2012, 06:25:46 AM »
Simply put. It's a computer that runs AmigaOS natively.

Without the Amiga operating system there would be no Amiga computer :-)
« Last Edit: March 05, 2012, 06:28:05 AM by klx300r »
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Offline Drummerboy

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Re: Deep philosophical question: What makes an Amiga an Amiga?
« Reply #42 on: March 05, 2012, 06:42:56 AM »
Quote from: klx300r;682521
Simply put. It's a computer that runs AmigaOS natively.

Without the Amiga operating system there would be no Amiga computer :-)



but with this philosophy. What makes a PC a PC?  MS DOS / Windows, or Linux, Solaris, or any other OS or the Hardware?.

Becouse i hear many people said somethings like "... yeah i have a PC Running Ubuntu Linux..". or ".. my PC have a brand new Windows 7!..."

You know, for any Amiga Makes an Amiga.. its the Hardware too.. more than just the OS..
Amiga 1000, 500, 600, 2000, 1200, 4000...

C= VIC 20 / 64 /SX64/ 128

Atari 600XL (SIC Cartdridge)
Atari 800XL (SIO2SD unit)

Jay Miner`s Atari 2600 - Wood front -

\\"Amiga, this Computer have a Own Live\\"--\\"Silence When the Drums are Talking\\".... DrummerBoy
 

Offline fishy_fiz

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Re: Deep philosophical question: What makes an Amiga an Amiga?
« Reply #43 on: March 05, 2012, 07:15:46 AM »
Quote from: klx300r;682521
Simply put. It's a computer that runs AmigaOS natively.

Without the Amiga operating system there would be no Amiga computer :-)


That'd also make a machine designed for a different OS an Amiga  :)
Near as I can tell this is where I write something under the guise of being innocuous, but really its a pot shot at another persons/peoples choice of Amiga based systems. Unfortunately only I cant see how transparent and petty it makes me look.
 

Offline takemehomegrandma

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Re: Deep philosophical question: What makes an Amiga an Amiga?
« Reply #44 from previous page: March 05, 2012, 09:06:10 AM »
Quote from: klx300r;682521
Simply put. It's a computer that runs AmigaOS natively.

Without the Amiga operating system there would be no Amiga computer :-)


I agree with Fishy_Fiz and Drummerboy above, and would like to add on top of their comments: Back in the days, when the A500 was at its peak and was mostly used for gaming by the broad groups of users, the OS was at best very far, far in the background. The OS never had a focus or a priority in development back then, not even from Commodore. Often you used kickstart to physically bring up the computer and loading a game, that then took over and had its own ways of utilizing the Amiga HW directly. No sight of what you would call "AmigaOS" today, and by your definition, an Amiga 500 playing a game won't be an Amiga!

I have full respect for people thinking Amiga is all about the Amiga hardware. Because they are right; traditionally, Amiga was always about the hardware, and the OS was secondary and nothing that was really developed and evolved in a way even close to the HW evolution.

I think what you *really* want to say, however, was something along the lines of "It's all about the API" that I wrote in my comment above. I think this is what you really wanted to say, -Can it run an OS that behaves the Amiga way, has the Amiga strengths and weaknesses, the Amiga ways of doing things, runs the Amiga appliactions, etc, then it's an Amiga. But then you realized that this would also include AROS and MorphOS in the philosophical definition of what Amiga is, and because of that, you also choose to combine it with the Trade Mark definition, in order to exclude the others. "Only AmigaOS(TM) is Amiga". I'm not surprised with that, coming from you, but it's sad to this kind of apartheid mentality everytime it shows...

:(
MorphOS is Amiga done right! :)