Does Linux have an Amiga feel?

[haywirepc]

I totally agree. Seems like "they" are trying to take all digital power away from average people, so its reserved for those who sell the content.

I feel exactly the same way about "cloud computing" - Here, you just need a terminal and you can pay us monthly to use our storage and processing power.

I want the power and my own content in my own hands, not some phantom corporation who will charge me a monthly fee, but it seems thats the way the "industry" is going.

[Mrs Beanbag]

Well socialism proper is when The People own the means of production, either co-operatively or individually, the Status Quo kind of in a panic now, trying to subvert the inevitable, now they must surely realise that anyone at all can, with the right skills, produce any of the things that they have held a monopoly over in the last few decades.

[persia]

In the '80s maybe 5% of people had computers, you bought the computer to do creative things, now with everyone having a computer you may still have that 5% being creative, but that leaves the vast majority of computer owners just doing facebook and watching youtube.  There never was a time when everyone wanted to program.  Many people will be quite happy with using their TV to surf the web.

[commodorejohn]

Again, do you have any basis at all for these claims, or are you just pulling numbers out of your ass? And once again, programming is not the only non-FaceTube activity computers are useful for.

[nicholas]

Well socialism proper is when The People own the means of production, either co-operatively or individually, the Status Quo kind of in a panic now, trying to subvert the inevitable, now they must surely realise that anyone at all can, with the right skills, produce any of the things that they have held a monopoly over in the last few decades.

+1 to that!

[asymetrix]

No ! Sacrilege.

Amiga was based on TripOS - a mainframe supercomputer. Amiga is supposed to be different, super optimized, efficient, multitasking, state of the art technology and concepts to blow competition away for years.

What we need is a chipset or virtual chipset with RTG, hardware accelerated direct to GFX card. Let people 'bang the metal' using the AVC (Amiga Virtual Chipset) using standardized API for GFX, media encode/decode MP4/AVI/7.1 surround s and a Virtual Processor Assembly codebase with plugin support.

Yes, we need a Virtual Cross Platform Assembler, Cross Amiga Assembler + script support. With this, users can create addons to extend the language for every area and never worry about efficiency or compatibility. The code will just compile like AMOS 'just works' Magic.

[nicholas]

No ! Sacrilege.

Amiga was based on TripOS - a mainframe supercomputer. Amiga is supposed to be different, super optimized, efficient, multitasking, state of the art technology and concepts to blow competition away for years.

What we need is a chipset or virtual chipset with RTG, hardware accelerated direct to GFX card. Let people 'bang the metal' using the AVC (Amiga Virtual Chipset) using standardized API for GFX, media encode/decode MP4/AVI/7.1 surround s and a Virtual Processor Assembly codebase with plugin support.

Yes, we need a Virtual Cross Platform Assembler, Cross Amiga Assembler + script support. With this, users can create addons to extend the language for every area and never worry about efficiency or compatibility. The code will just compile like AMOS 'just works' Magic.

http://www.amiga.com/about/history/?t=anywhere

[Mrs Beanbag]

In the '80s maybe 5% of people had computers, you bought the computer to do creative things, now with everyone having a computer you may still have that 5% being creative, but that leaves the vast majority of computer owners just doing facebook and watching youtube.  There never was a time when everyone wanted to program.  Many people will be quite happy with using their TV to surf the web.

In the '80s 5% of people bought computers to do creative things.
In the '90s 5% of people bought computers to do creative things and 10% of people bought computers to play Quake
In the ''00s 5% of people bought computers to do creative things and 10% of people bought computers to go on facebook
In the '10s 5% of people bought computers to do creative things and 10% of people bought computers to play Skyrim and 10% buy computers to go on facebook.

There will always be that 5%*(citation needed) of people who aren't idiots.

[persia]

PCs are appliances, like toasters or dishwashers.  People don't buy a dishwasher to be creative, they buy it to wash the dishes.  Most people want to go on Facebook not write HTML5.  In the '80s you were dealing with a self selected audience, in the '10s you are dealing with virtually everybody.  The cost of entry was very high US$1300 well over AU$2000 for an Amiga 2000 when average wages were AU$400 per week. Now an iPad costs US$499/AU$579 and average wages are AU$1400 per week.  It's no longer a major investment.  

Take cars, when only the few had them everyone who owned them could tear them apart and rebuild them, now everyone has a car and only a small percentage actually work on them on their own.  It's not an adventure in discovery to own a car, it's a necessity.  People no even vaguely interested in how an internal combustion engine works own them.  But that percentage, that tinker with cars, as a part of the total population, has remained constant.

[commodorejohn]

PCs are appliances, like toasters or dishwashers.  People don't buy a dishwasher to be creative, they buy it to wash the dishes.  Most people want to go on Facebook not write HTML5.  In the '80s you were dealing with a self selected audience, in the '10s you are dealing with virtually everybody.

You are correct that the market for computers is much broader than it was in the '80s. Yes, it contains many more non-programmers than it used to. However, you are still completely ignoring the question: how do you even know that most people only want to "go on Facebook" and not do any of the hundreds of other, non-technical, non-programming things that PCs are useful for? You keep making this blanket assertion and you have absolutely nothing to back it up with aside from the truly shocking revelation that more people watch video on devices that are specifically geared towards watching video.

The cost of entry was very high US$1300 well over AU$2000 for an Amiga 2000 when average wages were AU$400 per week. Now an iPad costs US$499/AU$579 and average wages are AU$1400 per week.  It's no longer a major investment.

And an entry-level computer in either desktop or laptop form factor can be had for less than half that, if you even buy it new from an OEM; and it can run a far broader range of much more useful software. Your point?

[ElPolloDiabl]

I don't like the vague estimates.
Things people might do on a computer:

Edit photos/store photos.
Logon to bank and pay bills.
A lot of online shopping.
Write a resume.
Google stuff.

The above mentioned drones who seem to be estimated at 95% (put me down for 50%) are people who have a device or computer to access the internet. I imagine there day consists: Google restaraunt. Google map to get to restaraunt.
Check emails while in restaraunt. Google what a 'Linux' is. etc.

[ElPolloDiabl]

You are correct that the market for computers is much broader than it was in the '80s. Yes, it contains many more non-programmers than it used to. However, you are still completely ignoring the question: how do you even know that most people only want to "go on Facebook" and not do any of the hundreds of other, non-technical, non-programming things that PCs are useful for? You keep making this blanket assertion and you have absolutely nothing to back it up with aside from the truly shocking revelation that more people watch video on devices that are specifically geared towards watching video.

I suppose it is anecdotal evidence.

[commodorejohn]

I suppose it is anecdotal evidence.

I'll let persia answer for himself, assuming he actually ever will answer, but if it's anecdotal, I can provide plenty of counter-examples.

[Mrs Beanbag]

PCs are appliances, like toasters or dishwashers.  People don't buy a dishwasher to be creative, they buy it to wash the dishes.  Most people want to go on Facebook not write HTML5.

What an odd thing to say. You couldn't write HTML5 on a dishwasher even if you wanted.

[psxphill]

I'll let persia answer for himself, assuming he actually ever will answer, but if it's anecdotal, I can provide plenty of counter-examples.

I thought you were both writing roughly the same thing.
 
The majority of people only use facetwitmytube, they only need a simple appliance. He is making the distinction of people using facebook or html5, but that is just for comparison of user types. Not because facebook and html5 are the only thing you can use a computer for. There are plenty of ways you can consume and plenty of ways you can create. In the UK they are talking about teaching programming in schools again (they only teach you how to use things like word, excel, some form of database right now).

[commodorejohn]

I thought you were both writing roughly the same thing.

Not remotely...
 

The majority of people only use facetwitmytube, they only need a simple appliance.

I have my doubts about that assertion (they really don't use a computer for anything else?) and I certainly don't buy his 95% figure, unless he can come up with some data to back it and isn't just pulling it out of his ass.

He is making the distinction of people using facebook or html5, but that is just for comparison of user types.

Unless I misunderstand, when he mentions HTML5 he's talking about web authoring using HTML5, not browsing HTML5 sites.

There are plenty of ways you can consume and plenty of ways you can create.

There are indeed, but he (along with pretty much every other tablet zealot) is claiming that the majority (95%, according to him) of people just aren't creative and only exist to be media-consuming couch potatoes, and therefore the creative potential of a platform is irrelevant and nobody needs a real computer.

In the UK they are talking about teaching programming in schools again (they only teach you how to use things like word, excel, some form of database right now).

And it's high friggin' time.