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Author Topic: Takers - One Woman's Opinion of the Amiga Mini  (Read 54607 times)

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Offline commodorejohn

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Re: Takers - One Woman's Opinion of the Amiga Mini
« Reply #194 from previous page: March 27, 2012, 06:40:06 PM »
Quote from: Middleman;685632
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.
I'll grant you that there's apparently one person stupid enough to shell out gobs of cash for something worth half that (wish I knew their name, I've got a bridge I'd like to sell them,) but your "little birdy" says a lot of things. Around this time in the C64x release cycle the "little birdy" was talking about distribution contracts with Wal-Mart that guaranteed tens of thousands of sales. So, uh, I'll believe this when I see it.

Quote
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?
??? They're not doing any such thing...not even in the "Barry wildly tossing out potential ideas that will never actually be followed up on" sense...

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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…
Because here's the thing, the Mac is and always has been a software system, and the hardware is unimportant aside from the most basic sense that it's what the software runs on. That's part of the original Mac Team philosophy. From the original System disk that shipped with the 128k Macintosh all the way up to the last revision of Mac OS 9, that software system was preserved, so that a dual-G4 system running at 1.25GHz is perfectly capable of running software from the 128k days, as long as it's well-behaved software (and it usually is.) Even on OSX, when they moved to BSD internals (something some Mac fans still aren't happy about,) they kept a compatibility layer for it to run classic Mac OS software transparently, in the same user environment. That's respecting a legacy.

The Amiga's design legacy is a bit different - not only the software, but also the hardware is important. Instead of the OS abstracting all of the hardware away, the two are designed to work in concert. That's part of what's so neat about it. Preserving that legacy is harder, since emulating the hardware is trickier - but the "next-gen" Amigoid OSes are trying, at least for well-behaved software (which is unfortunately less common than on the Mac.) They're actually making some effort to keep that legacy alive. CUSA? Isn't. And no, bundling an emulator with a completely unrelated system on completely unrelated hardware doesn't count for squat.
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Offline runequester

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Re: Takers - One Woman's Opinion of the Amiga Mini
« Reply #195 on: March 27, 2012, 06:46:12 PM »
Quote from: commodorejohn;685696
I'll grant you that there's apparently one person stupid enough to shell out gobs of cash for something worth half that (wish I knew their name, I've got a bridge I'd like to sell them,) but your "little birdy" says a lot of things. Around this time in the C64x release cycle the "little birdy" was talking about distribution contracts with Wal-Mart that guaranteed tens of thousands of sales. So, uh, I'll believe this when I see it.


Thousands of machines in major retail chains, 24/7 telephone support, completely original operating system. Yeah, the list goes on.
 

Offline Middleman

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Re: Takers - One Woman's Opinion of the Amiga Mini
« Reply #196 on: March 28, 2012, 12:49:11 AM »
Quote from: commodorejohn;685696
I'll grant you that there's apparently one person stupid enough to shell out gobs of cash for something worth half that (wish I knew their name, I've got a bridge I'd like to sell them,) but your "little birdy" says a lot of things. Around this time in the C64x release cycle the "little birdy" was talking about distribution contracts with Wal-Mart that guaranteed tens of thousands of sales. So, uh, I'll believe this when I see it.


??? They're not doing any such thing...not even in the "Barry wildly tossing out potential ideas that will never actually be followed up on" sense...


Because here's the thing, the Mac is and always has been a software system, and the hardware is unimportant aside from the most basic sense that it's what the software runs on. That's part of the original Mac Team philosophy. From the original System disk that shipped with the 128k Macintosh all the way up to the last revision of Mac OS 9, that software system was preserved, so that a dual-G4 system running at 1.25GHz is perfectly capable of running software from the 128k days, as long as it's well-behaved software (and it usually is.) Even on OSX, when they moved to BSD internals (something some Mac fans still aren't happy about,) they kept a compatibility layer for it to run classic Mac OS software transparently, in the same user environment. That's respecting a legacy.

The Amiga's design legacy is a bit different - not only the software, but also the hardware is important. Instead of the OS abstracting all of the hardware away, the two are designed to work in concert. That's part of what's so neat about it. Preserving that legacy is harder, since emulating the hardware is trickier - but the "next-gen" Amigoid OSes are trying, at least for well-behaved software (which is unfortunately less common than on the Mac.) They're actually making some effort to keep that legacy alive. CUSA? Isn't. And no, bundling an emulator with a completely unrelated system on completely unrelated hardware doesn't count for squat.

I understand what you're saying, but have you ever thought about looking at things in a new light if the old plan fails because of a number of factors? A classic example is the demise of the custom electronics industry for the Amiga. Many of the parts we once took for granted in making up the Amiga as it was are no longer there, so it is largely through software we try to recreate this (as you say, emulate the hardware) - and yes I know it's tricky. But with a powerful chipset (like the x86 or PowerPC) we can hopefully recreate this.

The problem right now is not the hardware….the hardware we already have in the form of x86. The problem we have now is the rather stubborn attitude of those who are still holding onto the past glory of CBM and dedicated hardware, and not willing to release AmigaOS to the great heights of further evolvement as it should be.

Taking the Apple analogy further from an Amiga viewpoint, if Mac OS wasn't evolved since 2000, it would still be using PowerPCs and a probably dated OS today, albeit with new softwares. Imagine iLife or iPhoto under OS9 lol. This is the state of the play at the moment in the Amiga community…for AmigaOS at least.

CUSA really wanted to use AmigaOS I'm sure, but it's all these 'potential lawsuits' that is keeping them at bay….and keeping the Amiga community at bay from moving on also...

And I do feel software compatibility is important to the survival of the platform. Being 'incompatible' and totally working against a software industry now practically built on Intel boxes (with the exception of consoles), is crazy. Why not honour the past through emulation, and develop a future for the platform via AROS/Linux and custom chips via add-in boards/dongles?

Also it isn't just the likes of myself who have said about adopting the x86 platform for the Amiga is probably the right way and right choice, there have been others. Let me give you a quote from Casey Bakker on the Natami forum on what he had to say on the matter:

Casey Bakker
Netherlands

06 Jan 2012 22:44

'As a general consensus, the Amiga was a VERY advanced computer in 1985 and was even outselling the Mac in 1986 - however while commodore stood still after the initial succes, Apple quickly regained momentum and in 1990, Amiga technology was just on par with the competetion and by 1992 it was severely lagging behind, since commodore hardly evolved the platform at all. So how did Commodore waste a 5-year lead over the competition?

Commodore had a developed a strategy to lock users into a specific hardware with the C64 and "milk" this hardware without ever evolving it. While this had worked well for the C64 during the entire 1980's this strategy was not sustainable on the Amiga. Amiga adepts (like myself) compared the Amiga to the Mac and the PC's and were expecting similar evolutionary improvements. For example Apple introduced the Mac-II 68020 based system in 1987 and put a faster system on the market every other year. I remember reading the Amiga mags each month in the hopes of finally learning that some advanced new chipset had arrived. Unfortunately it never came (not until it was too late anyway).

Commodore realised their mistake no sooner than 1992: While the C64 sold multiple millions of units ayear consistently throughout the 1980's, C64 sales had slumped after 1989 and by 1990, the Amiga finally outsold the C64 for the first time with 1 million units sold that year. From 1992 however, Amiga sales started to go down rapidly as the Amiga no longer held the price/performance-edge over VGA-based i386SX systems. At that time Commodore was producing huge piles of unsellable C64 and Amiga's and they got into financial trouble because of this. The AGA-based A1200 and CD32's cranked up the sales in the final year before bankruptcy but it simple wasn't enough and it was allready too late.

Strangely, Commodore management couldn't see the "writing on the wall" that many Amiga users could see. For example this is shown by the fact that CBM management had even postponed the new AGA-based chipset which was ready in 1991 (in the A3000+) in order to develop the low-cost A4000. At the same time, the A500+ and A600 were introduced which meant no performance upgrade over the A500 whatsoever. It just shows how detached from reality CBM-management really was..'
« Last Edit: March 28, 2012, 12:53:26 AM by Middleman »
 

Offline number6

Re: Takers - One Woman's Opinion of the Amiga Mini
« Reply #197 on: March 28, 2012, 01:02:59 AM »
Quote from: Middleman;685743
CUSA really wanted to use AmigaOS I'm sure, but it's all these 'potential lawsuits' that is keeping them at bay?.and keeping the Amiga community at bay from moving on also...



If you're sure you've isolated the principal obstacle, then you should also know the solution.

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Offline commodorejohn

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Re: Takers - One Woman's Opinion of the Amiga Mini
« Reply #198 on: March 28, 2012, 01:20:14 AM »
Quote from: Middleman;685743
The problem right now is not the hardware….the hardware we already have in the form of x86. The problem we have now is the rather stubborn attitude of those who are still holding onto the past glory of CBM and dedicated hardware, and not willing to release AmigaOS to the great heights of further evolvement as it should be.
That's an absolute load of crap. The Amiga OS has no less than three ongoing projects to keep it alive and updated as best as can be managed with the original architecture on a broad variety of newer hardware (including x86 PCs,) two of which are commercial developments by small companies and one of which is developed and supported entirely by Amiga fans. None of its contemporaries come close to that level of devotion. Commodore fans aren't holding the Amiga back, they're the sole reason it's still alive.

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Taking the Apple analogy further from an Amiga viewpoint, if Mac OS wasn't evolved since 2000, it would still be using PowerPCs and a probably dated OS today, albeit with new softwares. Imagine iLife or iPhoto under OS9 lol.
...and? There's nothing magic about OSX or x86 that makes iLife better than it would be on OS9. I use OS9 semi-regularly on my old Macs, and it's perfectly decent for many purposes. A little balky, yes, and it's missing support for some new technologies (argh, no WPA support,) but it's not as if it's some kind of primitive mainframe operating system from 1970 or something. Apple went BSD because they felt it'd be easier than moving OS9 past a few key architectural stumbling blocks (cooperative multitasking and lack of memory protection, f'rinstance,) not because it was infinitely superior and transcendently perfect.

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CUSA really wanted to use AmigaOS I'm sure, but it's all these 'potential lawsuits' that is keeping them at bay….and keeping the Amiga community at bay from moving on also...
I don't buy that. But even supposing I'm wrong and they ever were seriously considering supporting AROS or somesuch, the fact is they didn't. They went ahead with a series of projects that repurpose the names of classic computers (and the VIC-20, *rimshot*) for products that are completely unrelated, in hardware or software. If they were really at all committed to the idea of carrying the torch for the old Commodore, they'd have let Hyperion take their ball and go home, given up on getting the trademark, and forged ahead with their plans. Instead, they gave up on the thing so they could leverage the name. Any good intentions that they may have had mean nothing if they didn't follow through.

Quote
And I do feel software compatibility is important to the survival of the platform. Being 'incompatible' and totally working against a software industry now practically built on Intel boxes (with the exception of consoles), is crazy. Why not honour the past through emulation, and develop a future for the platform via AROS/Linux and custom chips via add-in boards/dongles?
I never said that wasn't an option. I'd extend due consideration to an OS that runs legacy Amiga software in emulation the way OSX does, placing it transparently in the same user environment. But CUSA just bundles WinUAE with an operating system that doesn't look, act, or work anything like an Amiga - that's a lazy token gesture, not any sign of real commitment.

Quote
Also it isn't just the likes of myself who have said about adopting the x86 platform for the Amiga is probably the right way and right choice, there have been others. Let me give you a quote from Casey Bakker on the Natami forum on what he had to say on the matter:
That quote says nothing whatsoever endorsing a move to x86, it just notes (correctly) that the PC market outpaced Commodore's lackluster R&D between 1985-1994. So did Apple's, and they didn't move to Intel until eleven years after Commodore broke up.
« Last Edit: March 28, 2012, 01:29:50 AM by commodorejohn »
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"\'Legacy code\' often differs from its suggested alternative by actually working and scaling." - Bjarne Stroustrup
 

Offline Digiman

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Re: Takers - One Woman's Opinion of the Amiga Mini
« Reply #199 on: March 28, 2012, 03:45:57 AM »
What's really funny is my £500 PC has better sound and 3D graphics capability than their Amiga Mini :roflmao:

Will they rebadge a $400 24" LCD AIO and call it iAmiga next??
« Last Edit: March 28, 2012, 04:01:20 AM by Digiman »
 

Offline Digiman

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Re: Takers - One Woman's Opinion of the Amiga Mini
« Reply #200 on: March 28, 2012, 03:59:14 AM »
Quote from: Iggy;685395
Obviously closer to my own sentiment, except I'm no longer that fixated on the name.


[/I]


You don't seriously think a modern Amiga would contain a Paula chip do you? That's as unlikely as a new 68K processor.
While I admire the persistence of the Natami team and really like the replay board, neither of these projects is going to take the place of a modern computer.
An new Amiga, at least in my mind, would be better built on something similar to what's going into today's gaming consoles (with,ob viously more memory and expansion).

But then again, there we go with the opinions.

One thing I think most of us agree on, it wouldn't be a PC.


No my whole point is an OS4+PPC based hardware+UAE computer is no more "Amiga" than my AMD PC+Amithlon+OS3.9+UAE setup. Ditto AROS config.

The last REAL Amiga model was CD32 by CBM in 93...it's easy to surmise  that all by saying "has a Paula chip" :)

Amiga NG title is meaningless and misleading as that overpriced bunch are not Amigas.....just OS4 compatible boxes IMO, and they're made by people who didn't do any hardware and/or OS R&D for either the A1000/2000/3000 or A1200/4000.
 

Offline haywirepc

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Re: Takers - One Woman's Opinion of the Amiga Mini
« Reply #201 on: March 28, 2012, 04:30:25 AM »
I can understand why people like ppc I suppose, since many legacy apps can be run on it if they are system friendly. Unfortunatly, most amiga games and many apps were never written to be system friendly, so that leaves very few apps that don't require an emulator.

Unfortunately, fpga could be a solution for amiga future but can't really be a solution because os3.x is closed source. Maybe aros 68k will change that.

People can complain about cusa using linux but...

Its got smp, tons of applications, and is much more technically advanced. I don't know the legalities of why they can't advance that idea further and create a workbench like file structure and gui, but apparently they can not do that or risk legal actions, which is a shame. This idea once proposed as annubis. (linux underneath an amiga like os file structure and gui) Me, I think thats a fantastic solution for this whole debacle.

Then you could have an amiga like os on an amiga branded pc that ran all legacy apps beautifully and seamlessly. The amiga look and feel would be preserved, but what if you added a new piece of hardware? (Almost anything these days has linux drivers) It would just work. period. Can't do that on aros, morphos or os4 (and you never will be able to. NEVER)

So maybe COS as much as it was mocked here was just a first step in the right direction. If they finished the job (and were legally allowed to) I think everyone who likes amiga would be incredibly happy with the results.

I don't know what will happen, but its fun watching.
As the boing ball turns...
 

Offline commodorejohn

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Re: Takers - One Woman's Opinion of the Amiga Mini
« Reply #202 on: March 28, 2012, 04:34:05 AM »
They're not going to do that, that would require time and effort.
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Offline haywirepc

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Re: Takers - One Woman's Opinion of the Amiga Mini
« Reply #203 on: March 28, 2012, 06:37:37 AM »
I wish all camps the best, including even cusa now.  
At least the old girl is still alive.

Steven
 

Offline Thorham

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Re: Takers - One Woman's Opinion of the Amiga Mini
« Reply #204 on: March 28, 2012, 11:48:39 AM »
Quote from: haywirepc;685780
If they finished the job (and were legally allowed to) I think everyone who likes amiga would be incredibly happy with the results.

Not the people who say that Amiga is chipset+680x0. They don't care now, and they won't care in the future.
 

Offline Bamiga2002

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Re: Takers - One Woman's Opinion of the Amiga Mini
« Reply #205 on: March 28, 2012, 11:52:06 AM »
Quote from: haywirepc;685794
I wish all camps the best, including even cusa now.  
At least the old girl is still alive.

Steven
Merely alive, as an abused crack-wh**e on life-support that's about to fail anyway...
Real Amigas & Amigoid systems - still alive & kickin'! :banana:
« Last Edit: March 28, 2012, 01:12:46 PM by Bamiga2002 »
CD32
A500
 

Offline Yasu

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Re: Takers - One Woman's Opinion of the Amiga Mini
« Reply #206 on: March 28, 2012, 12:43:22 PM »
I wish all the camp the best of luck too. But I don't consider CUSA one of them. PC hardware and Linux I can live with. Exploiting the old, classic names like C64 and Amiga in order to boost sales of unrelated products kinda pisses me off.
 

Offline persia

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Re: Takers - One Woman's Opinion of the Amiga Mini
« Reply #207 on: March 28, 2012, 01:56:03 PM »
The Commodore and Amiga names are just marketing tools to move mediocre product.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]

What we\'re witnessing is the sad, lonely crowing of that last, doomed cock.
 

Offline Middleman

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Re: Takers - One Woman's Opinion of the Amiga Mini
« Reply #208 on: March 28, 2012, 04:44:05 PM »
Quote from: Digiman;685777
What's really funny is my £500 PC has better sound and 3D graphics capability than their Amiga Mini :roflmao:


Exactly! And you wonder why…..because the PC clone had 'inadvertently' over the years, become what the Amiga should have been…..have fully open architecture, meaning the ability to upgrade parts on a constant basis (and now cheaply) via ISA/PCI giving the user flexibility. This is the crux that caused Commodores downfall which I was trying to allude to in my post to Commodorejohn earlier. As Bakker said (in the 2nd paragraph) compared to the Mac which was constantly being upgraded, nothing happened on the Amiga end from a chip perspective. Whereas everyone then was upgrading their systems month by month, nothing was happening with the Amiga. To the public eye, Amiga wasn't changing quickly enough as far reaching as Apples or PCs were beginning to become, so hence Commodore had this problem of lack of sales near the end.

Not that the Amiga had any lack of skills. One thing the Amiga did retain was the wide base of support from the various software companies much akin to how console software developers work today because its hardware was more or less fixed. This approach wasn't surprising because the Amiga WAS supposed to be designed as a console…

Quote from: haywirepc;685794
I wish all camps the best, including even cusa now.  
At least the old girl is still alive.

Steven


Me too…..and you/they have my sentiments also. I wish them all the best…


Quote from: persia;685821
The Commodore and Amiga names are just marketing tools to move mediocre product.


It doesn't have to be…..Commodore and Amiga can still come back in a big way with your help.

If the various camps work together on a really good plan, the old girl can finally come off the table and stand on her own hind legs…for instance funding AROS/Amiga case moulds, special projects, porting AOS to x86; developing a newPaula/new boards etc. This is just the beginning of the revamp…. :)
 

Offline commodorejohn

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Re: Takers - One Woman's Opinion of the Amiga Mini
« Reply #209 on: March 28, 2012, 04:55:54 PM »
Quote from: Digiman;685777
What's really funny is my £500 PC has better sound and 3D graphics capability than their Amiga Mini :roflmao:
Quote from: Middleman;685834
Exactly! And you wonder why…..because the PC clone had 'inadvertently' over the years, become what the Amiga should have been…
And the award for "not reading the sentence fully and thus missing the point hilariously" goes to...Middleman!

Quote
..have fully open architecture, meaning the ability to upgrade parts on a constant basis (and now cheaply) via ISA/PCI giving the user flexibility.
...wha...? Are you even reading what you're writing? God knows I love old-ass PCs, but seriously, holding up ISA, with its jumper configurations and interrupt conflicts, as an example!? PCI is more like it, but let's take a moment and note that the Amiga had an autoconfiguring expansion bus a decade before PCI came out. And what the hell can't you upgrade in an Amiga? The one irreplacable bottleneck is the actual bus itself, and that's no less true on any PC you care to show me.
Computers: Amiga 1200, DEC VAXStation 4000/60, DEC MicroPDP-11/73
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"\'Legacy code\' often differs from its suggested alternative by actually working and scaling." - Bjarne Stroustrup