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..'
