What's the Deal With CommodoreUSA?

[haywirepc]

I do like the look of that mini.  I just don't think its worth the money. I keep saying if they give me a free one I'll use it though.

I could use a media station, or a video game machine right now.

It would be good for that at least...

And regardless of what anyone thinks, whatever they make with linux is still a hell of alot more useful than an aos4 machine.

Maybe thats why people hate them alot, with little or no actual development effort their offerings far outperform anything AOS has to offer.

Steven

[spirantho]

Maybe thats why people hate them alot, with little or no actual development effort their offerings far outperform anything AOS has to offer.

The reason people hate them is because they don't have any offerings. They just take the credit for other people's work and drag the name of those people through the mud and give them a bad reputation.

They can outperform my Amigas as much as they like, I still get more enjoyment just from turning my Amiga on than their PC will ever give me.
Even in the 90s, the PC far outperformed the Amigas we were using, but it's not performance that matters, is it?

[Kesa]

I don't understand why people keep on comparing Amigaos to Linux. I use Morphos because i want to use an Amiga and vice versa i use Ubuntu because i want to fiddle with Linux (currently having lots of fun figuring out Gnome3). At the end of the day i appreciate both. Why do people keep on trying to merge them together? It's apples to oranges.

[actung_bab]

It doesn't seem to be going anywhere, but appears to really annoy a lot of classic Amiga and 64 users. Their market presence and advertising are almost non-existent. (But if you've ever visited their website or Facebook page, you'd swear they were BIGGER than Commodore ever was!)

But the reality is, (outside of this forum, in the real world), you've either heard of them, or you have not, and they don't seem to be doing a thing to change that status. (Honestly, the first I ever heard of them I was actually doing a Google search for mini-ITX boards for a cluster project, and for some reason their website popped up as one of the hits.)

So, what's the deal with them? Is it just another quick buck operation, trying to make whatever they can off the brand name?

One other question: We've all seem them come and go, from Escom to CUSA. This begs the question: Why has it been so difficult to do a successful reboot of this enterprise?

Post Scriptum: My attitude towards that thing they make (all of them) is almost the same as my attitude towards emulators, and I'll say no more on that subject!
:angryfire:

The seem to be doing okay well good on them if they do nothing wrong with that
I like the look the mini and like idea of computer and keyboard combined like the 1200
yes i know there pcs but hell least bit diffrent to what everone esle is floging these days

I whouldint mind buying something from them mind you i rather buy x 1000 or lap top first

[spirantho]

The seem to be doing okay well good on them if they do nothing wrong with that
I like the look the mini and like idea of computer and keyboard combined like the 1200
yes i know there pcs but hell least bit diffrent to what everone esle is floging these days

I whouldint mind buying something from them mind you i rather buy x 1000 or lap top first

Why do you think they're doing ok? I'd say the quite the opposite, actually; they don't seem to be shipping anything at all! The forums are dead, many of the customers are dissatisfied and the "products" are just rebadged products from other companies. They can't be different to what other companies are flogging for the simple reason that they are what other companies are flogging, if you see what I mean. The "mini" is a case made by another company and readily available for about $80 I believe. The AIO machines are also rebadged Chinese makers' machines.

Why would anyone buy from them when you can get identical systems for a quarter the price?

[Digiman]

Amiga 1000 was REVOLUTIONARY in hardware AND OS over anything for a decade FACT, 500 was ugly but bought you the 1000's technology for half the price, 2000 was a monster but still only 8mhz but hey better than EGA PC with crappy sound blaster card or those crappy Apple Macs for £2000 *bletch*

Commodore USA makes pure sh1t full stop, ugly 'Amiga' machines with crippled built in graphics that won't run 2004 'cutting edge' games and well not much better than a £200 netbook. All running on a mildly breathed over copy of Linux Mint distro (which does less for the machine than a copy of XP running a Amiga OS 4 skin in reality and all the inconvenience of using Linux today over Windows gives you) Oh and apart from the C64x all their machines look FA like a the machine they are supposed to be resurrecting too.

You decide where they went wrong?

In fact you can decide with your PayPal accounts when the Amiga 1200PC machines launch from my website.

(and if anybody doesn't like the C= logos on them tough sh1t I won't remove them. FU )

[ChuckT]

We could probably build something like what you're suggesting ourselves.
I have 14 MHz WDC65C812S chips sitting here right now.
SIDs can be emulated (the code only takes up one cog in a Parallax Propeller).
The video generator would be the toughest task to design.

Can your Parallax Propeller do this?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5eU8pHpy-c

The Xmos chip has more power.  There are other boards and chips that have more power.

If you guys want to make a computer, help me petition Amiga.org for a forum.

[Iggy]

Can your Parallax Propeller do this?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5eU8pHpy-c

The Xmos chip has more power.  There are other boards and chips that have more power.

If you guys want to make a computer, help me petition Amiga.org for a forum.

Actually, YES, that's doable AND higher resolutions that can't be done with an Xmos processor because each cog in a Propeller is equipped for video generation.

But I was only suggesting doing I/O, sound, and glue circuits w/o a Prop.
And unless you used multiple chips, I don't think either could handle the kind of video we're talking about.

So why don't we try to build a faster C65?

[ChuckT]

Actually, YES, that's doable AND higher resolutions that can't be done with an Xmos processor because each cog in a Propeller is equipped for video generation.

But I was only suggesting doing I/O, sound, and glue circuits w/o a Prop.
And unless you used multiple chips, I don't think either could handle the kind of video we're talking about.

So why don't we try to build a faster C65?

I haven't seen good graphics on the Prop without a CPLD and then it pales in comparison.

The Omap processor in the Beagleboard and Beaglebone from TI is more powerful and can do HDMI video.  VGA only has a couple of years more to live before computers go to DVI or HDMI.

Both the Beagleboard and the Raspberri Pi have more power than the Parallax Propeller but don't expect the Raspberri Pi to do the same things as your $800 desktop computer.

[vox]

To shorten the story, there is nothing unavail that C-USA offers apart C64x case I would not buy just because of way they conduct bussiness.

And everything is massivly overpriced.

Sadly, instead of lowering the sys price, Linux is abused as faked added value.

An example of anti open source behav.

[mongo]

So why don't we try to build a faster C65?

So we can run all our favourite C65 software?

[commodorejohn]

I don't understand why people keep on comparing Amigaos to Linux. I use Morphos because i want to use an Amiga and vice versa i use Ubuntu because i want to fiddle with Linux (currently having lots of fun figuring out Gnome3). At the end of the day i appreciate both. Why do people keep on trying to merge them together? It's apples to oranges.

Part of it's because some people in this community have latched onto Linux as the Last Best Hope for Commodore, because it's A. not related to either of the Mortal Enemies, Microsoft and Apple, B. semi-modernish (really it's a '70s mainframe OS that's been hacked into modernity, as is glaringly obvious anytime you peek under the hood, but don't tell them that,) and C. free. The fact that it has nothing at all to do with the original Amiga OS is apparently less important than those considerations.

The other part is because there's a certain kind of Linux user who takes it for granted that Linux is basically the Platonic ideal of operating systems that other OSes must still be struggling to reach, and that it's only natural for any other OS (like the Amiga OS) to become Linux in its quest for enlightenment. There seem to be fewer of those around here than the first group, but they're still present. (There's a number of them in the Haiku community, too.)

[runequester]

Ive said before and people got mad, but a linux /base/ for an Amiga os is the only sane option left.

You have access to extremely wide base of hardware, with drivers available, you have access into modern applications etc.
Develop a desktop environment that genuinely feels and functions like a fully featured amiga environment and go from there. Heck, amithlon proved what could have been.

Yeah, it wont satisfy the purists but neither does anything else. So **** 'em.

[commodorejohn]

Develop a desktop environment that genuinely feels and functions like a fully featured amiga environment and go from there.

Develop a desktop environment that genuinely feels and functions like a fully-featured Amiga environment, and then you'll only be left with all of the underlying structure that feels absolutely nothing like it and also it doesn't run any Amiga software. Yeah, sounds like a plan.

Heck, amithlon proved what could have been.

Except for the part where Amithlon was nothing at all like Linux, sure.

[runequester]

Develop a desktop environment that genuinely feels and functions like a fully-featured Amiga environment, and then you'll only be left with all of the underlying structure that feels absolutely nothing like it and also it doesn't run any Amiga software. Yeah, sounds like a plan.

I guess this is one of those nebulous "what makes it an amiga" things.

On my end, I don't really care what this or that folder is called, what the file system happens to be called or whether the kernel does this or that.
The user interface and experience on the other hand, is what you engage with every moment you use the machine.

As far as amiga applications, port or emulate. Not really different from the OS4 people. Or build in some sort of compatibility layer like the Mac people did with their switch to Intel. Who knows?

Except for the part where Amithlon was nothing at all like Linux, sure.

It runs on a linux kernel, so I'd say it is entirely like linux. In fact, Im not sure if we're talking about two different things here?

"Linux" is the kernel. People glue all sorts of stuff on top of that, to make the typical desktop experience you get from the various distro's but those are specific examples, not the only possible answer.

[commodorejohn]

On my end, I don't really care what this or that folder is called, what the file system happens to be called or whether the kernel does this or that.
The user interface and experience on the other hand, is what you engage with every moment you use the machine.

I suppose this is a matter of perspective - if you think BSD with an Apple-designed desktop environment is essentially the same as classic Mac OS, I suppose a similar approach for the Amiga would make sense. The way I see it, though, there's already very little variety in operating systems - there doesn't need to be less, and certainly not by ditching the fundamentals of a perfectly decent existing OS.

As far as amiga applications, port or emulate. Not really different from the OS4 people. Or build in some sort of compatibility layer like the Mac people did with their switch to Intel. Who knows?

Porting isn't that simple, though. Software can be ported between NG Amiga projects fairly easily because they're all based on the same API. Porting to/from a completely different OS like Linux requires quite a bit more work for the same result. A compatibility layer would be peachy, but doing one on Linux would mean reimplementing the whole AmigaOS API anyway.