Takers - One Woman's Opinion of the Amiga Mini

[Terminills]

Then you should avoid MorphOS too because there is no multicore support. Or am I wrong? :-)

+1

You might as well add to avoid the X1000 with AOS4 also because it falls in the same boat.

Only a few months ago everyone was claiming AROS wasn't out of ALPHA yet.   So I guess we're improving.

[Middleman]

In my opinion things haven't changed with the Amiga Mini, because as far as we know not one has been actually sold.  They're only claiming to sell such things.  But without buyers who cares?

This operation seems to be either an attempt to revive and sell an old brand name to foreign manufacturers at a profit, or an investment scheme trying to pull in investment money, and make a generous salary or two out of the operation giving "naive hopes" that it will take off one day.  

In my opinion, what has been painfully obvious is that Barry hasn't had a real budget for _ANY_ development, be that hardware or software.  AROS still isn't ready as a consumer OS on any of its hardware platforms, and the AGA compatible and beyond fpga clone platforms aren't ready yet either if cusa would just license ROMS  and OS3.9 from Amiga Inc..  New PPC hardware is too expensive or underpowered and also requires the non-existant development funds to support it, so what does that leave for cusa to do, but to try and sell some commodity hardware with minimal cost software to pay the minimally accepted license fees with and keep the trademarks tied up on their behalf...

Well I'm happy to report that a little birdy told me the new Amiga Mini has been doing great. Sales of both barebones and built systems are doing well....so it means Amiga as a brand name, is coming back into the public conscience in a big way. With more people using Amiga Forever and the like, sales of Amiga-related software would no doubt I believe, bring much needed attention (and cash) to those developers.

As for AROS, well hopefully with this resurgence it'll help them too...that's what I believe anyways. But in the meantime before their projects are ready, will probably have to try and do an impossible Amigafan task, and that is wait (ie. be patient) until they are ready. But if we've waited for nearly 20 years for a new Amiga, I am sure we can wait just a while longer.

Reading from all this though, one thing I cannot fathom is, why all the flames if CUSA does create/sell a PowerPC with AmigaOS inside it? It's not like as if CUSA is getting it for free…they are paying Hyperion for their efforts yes? (to create a port for them)? Wouldn't Hyperion need this sort of extra funding? If I was a developer I know I'd certainly would. Also regarding the IP front if the problem exists primarily with Amiga Inc. and Hyperion's contract as regards to what AmigaOS is….why can't just one company buy out the other and then lease out the AmigaOS x86 IP to CUSA? What is stopping them from doing so (since many companies do this already to resolve IP issues?).

I mean think about this. When people talk of Apple IIs & Macintoshes compared to Apple MacBooks, most folks understand that Apple IIs & Macintoshes were 'classic' systems i.e. legacy systems and realize that modern Apples run on the latest Intel chips. Yet when folks like myself here talk of legacy Commodores and Amigas and they are put it in the same sentence as USA, Intel and x86 port, everybody gets their feathers a little ruffled. What's the big deal? I don't understand it…

[Yasu]

Unless AOS and MorphOS finds a way to keep their operating systems up to date by making it possible to use brand new hardware with them, I seriously doubt that they will have a future. But right now something is finally happening in my point of view. That's why I'm planning to buy a Amigaone after all these years without any Amiga.

Our small community have 3 currently developing operating systems that keeps each other on edge. There are new hardware being produced (unlike the last time I looked when there was things "coming out soon", (which was the normal state for very long)). Even though we lag behind on both hard- and software there are at least reasons now to have a little hope. If AOS and Morphos fails we will have AROS, which seems to be getting somewhere as of now.

Either AOS and MorphOS will find a way into the existing computer market, or they will create their own powerful platforms for a reasonable price. Both I think can save them. And I think they know this. So I don't think they plan to linger on with outdated hardware until it's so rare and expensive that giving up is the only option.

When Amiga 1000 came in 1985, the home computers, just like the A1000, had a lot of limitations. 256 colors, 8 bit sound, floppy disks and extremely small and expensive hard drives. It was still cutting edge of course, but the limitations was nevertheless there and every upgrade did cost a small fortune for the consumer. When the A1200 and A4000 came it wasn't cutting edge anymore. It was barely keeping up with the PC market. Good computers, but not at all as impressive as when the A1000 and later the much cheaper A500 got released.

Today seeing all of the color spectrum is standard. Sound cards that does all frequencies too. Big screens, fast, cheap and huge hard drives and other cool stuff makes the difference between a computer manufactured in 2008 and 2012 relatively small for the non-hardcore gaming and non-3D-creating consumer.

All those microchips that made the Amiga 1000 and beyond cool and powerful are today obsolete. Not just the chips, but the whole need for specialized chips. Sure, specialized chips can do cool stuff, but they are simply not needed in order to get a fast and well working computer.

My point is that it doesn't matter much right now that the computers are a little behind since there is a lot of catching up to do software wise. First we have to get software that can do all the everyday things that normal consumers would ask for (web surfing, text editing, picture editing etc (and for my part I want Japanese to be supported)). Then we should find either a good but not pricey platform or strive to be platform independent. If these two steps are made in that order, I think all our 3 OS:es will have some kind of future, maybe even a bright one.

[OlafS3]

then i can only gratulate your "birdie", but it is hard to believe for me. Why did they lower the prices after one day when all is well? And even now it is too expensive and nothing new or special on it. So perhaps your "birdie" should not believe all it hears...

[Yasu]

Reading from all this though, one thing I cannot fathom is, why all the flames if CUSA does create/sell a PowerPC with AmigaOS inside it?

I didn't know this was their plan? As far as I know they have a pretty standard PC system (with an intel processor, not a PPC) with their own Linux clone. Nothing Amiga at all. As in: nothing Amiga at all. Except for the name. I think that would annoy a lot of people actually.

[OlafS3]

You seem to look at Aros as some kind of reserve only interesting if MorphOS and AOS fail. They will both not "fail" or it depends how you define fail. They have both their supporters who swear on it, they are both depending on old and in case of AOS expensive underpowered hardware and this will not change. So they will stagnate and slowly shrink because they are not able to win new users.

I do not see Aros as "reserve" because it is the only one that supports modern hardware (different platforms) and new concepts.

[spirantho]

It's true, here's the proof:
http://www.commodore-amiga.org/en/forum/5-commodore-amiga-hardware-wishlist-/13855-just-ordered---#13871

They sold an Amiga Mini!

Fair play to them, though, it does take some kind of sales man to sell a bog-standard Core i3 system with a rubbish graphics card and no chance of expansion for $1500 or whatever it was....

[OlafS3]

one more than I thought :roflmao:

[Bamiga2002]

I feel sorry for this person that ordered "the most powerful Amiga I've ever owned" :crazy:. It's not an Amiga in any sense and that individual doesn't even realize it...

[Yasu]

I do not see Aros as "reserve" because it is the only one that supports modern hardware (different platforms) and new concepts.

I didn't mean of it like a "reserve"; something to fall back on if the others fail. Don't get me wrong there. But as of now the downside is that AROS is in need of more developing (but they are getting there!), the upside is that it works on non-outdated hardware.

What I meant was that if AOS and/or MorphOS cannot make the plunge into newer platforms it won't mean that it's the end of Amiga, thanks to AROS. I meant it as a good thing. I plan myself to get AROS when it's simple enough for me to use it (and have more programs). And I wouldn't mind getting MorphOS either. I want the Amiga OS to survive and I actually care little how, as long as it doesn't look and act too differently from the Workbench 3.1 that I loved to play with so much.

[spirantho]

one more than I thought :roflmao:

That's the crazy thing about Barry's plan. He doesn't need many people to buy his machines (at a $1000 mark-up) before he gets his money back. The amazing is that people will actually buy a $500 machine for $1500 if you stick a few stickers on it and tell them it's an Amiga. Incredible.

[OlafS3]

Then I apologize...

I compare the speed of development and I think in less than 12 months it will be competitive in all areas (and superior in a couple of areas).

And more software... the limitation was that Zune was lacking MUI 4.0 features and thus making Aros-Support complicated. This will change this year. Applications like Digibooster (68k) are f.e. already running on my 68k distribution I am preparing (and that will be part of Aros X86 distrbutions. So situation is improving :-)

[Methuselas]

@Olaf,

How is the 68k version coming, anyways? I always thought it would be a good successor to 3.9, for 68k machines.

[OlafS3]

I do not know exactly how it is right now on real classic hardware. It is not optimized for amiga hardware so it heavily depends on processor (68060 recommended). The kickstart must be "soft-kicked" to use the kickstart replacement (and that is needed for Aros 68k that needs 1 MB). The problem was that the kickstart replacement did not recognize the Fast-RAM on the Turbocards with the result that from 2 MB Chipram only 0.8 MB left and thus making the system useless. This problem was solved but I do not know if that is true for all Turbocards. And it will propably never run as fast on classic hardware as the original because it was developed on and for much better hardware.

[Duce]

Curious how long it'll be before the crew in Cupertino get up C-USA's ass about the "Mini" name.  I despise tech law, patent law, etc.  But....

But if I was Apple, who have worldwide copyrights and trademarks on the Mac Mini going back 7 years on the tech, name, and form factor, I'd be on C-USA like stink on a monkey.  There is a valid case there.

It's a small computer, in a form and appearance that looks damned near identical to the Apple product.  Add the fact C-USA is using the "Mini" name will be the icing on the cake.  If they've sold even one of these under that name, ahahahaha...

Thing looks like a Mac Mini knockoff, and is even called "Mini".  If this doesn't have C & D written all over it at a bare minimum, I don't know what does.

Apple, a company ballsy enough to sue over swipe to open/unlock technologies on phones, doubt this will go over well come to think of it.  The sticking point is the "mini" denotation, combined with the form factor and visuals of the product.

Pretty sloppy of C-USA, surprised it didn't don on me earlier.  This should be interesting, knowing the long history of Apple's pitbull lawyers.

[OlafS3]

a short demonstration of my distribution:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRDAXbny428