People vs. the Amiga Inc.
 

After Amiga Inc. announced they were PARTNERING with microsoft, community's support seem to be dissolving. Most of us retro people, including me don't see any relationship between Amiga Inc. and the Amiga concept at all but I'd like to hear your opinions about this.

I'm pasting there stuff directly from Amiga Network News. Check that great site for further information.

amiga.com.pl announcement
The biggest polish Amiga portal, amiga.com.pl withdraw from publishing news/stories directly connected to Amiga Inc. due to latest .NET & Amiga "mariage".

Polish Boycott of Amiga Inc. Spreads to Hungary
"The latest Amiga Inc. policy shifts... give us no other option than to say farewell to them for good..." announced Grzegorz Juraszek of Poland's Amiga news service. The Hungarian Amiga news service quickly followed.

OverShaker themes site boycots Amiga/
Overshaker, the Amiga themes website, removed the links to Amiga.com since the partnership with Microsoft has been announced.

SWAUG cuts ties with Amiga, INC
At South Wales Amiga User Group we cannot see the relevance of direction that Amiga,Inc is taking at the moment. The Microsoft announcement was the final straw. Therefore from now on we will only focus on Amiga "Classic" ( I hate that phrase).

@Burseg:

I think AmigaDE (now called "Amiga Anywhere" is a cool concept, but I don't care about it until it has established a software base.

"Partnering" in this context just means that MS is going to advertise its WinCE platform with AmigaDE applications (which run on it anyway) and in exchange does a little promotion for Amiga (like offering them some space on their big and prominent show booths). That's about all.

I wouldn't call ANN a great news site ;) It's one big flamewar/bitching arena. People capable of reading German should use http://www.amiga-news.de as their news service (the english translation is lagging about 12-24 hours), everybody else should check amiga.org. I regularly visit ANN, but just to have fun see while watching people bitch and complain...

Those guys are just plain stupid, sorry. In January 2000 (when Amino/Amiga Inc. had their first press conference) it was clearly stated that AmiVerse/AmigaDE/AA should run anywhere, including (of course) Windows and WinCE (in fact, gaining a market share on MS Operating Systems is quite vital for the DE concept). That was more than two years ago. Everybody who realises *now* that Amiga Inc. is not "attacking" MS directly from the start is just plain stupid.

I think just the same thing, it can be cool if it gets successful. However I'm not rejoiced that Amiga name will be popular again or something. You know my stance about that matter.

Haha right. It's sad but it was so obvious that something like this could happen anyway :rolleyes

I dont understand this people. They decide to boycott Amiga Inc. now? They wont support them anymore? Hah, it took them long to realize Amiga Inc. has nothing to do with them.

Anyway, as Korodny said, I think Amiga Inc. doesnt give a poop about the user base, only the development base.

Agreement with Korodny here, these people are just plain stupid. And I believe these are all those poor Amiga users who got brainwashed and run all over the place saying "THA NEW AMIGA KOMPUTER IS KOMIN!"

akira, i agree...

the new computer isn't an Amiga, as i know it!

And a link to a site with a video clip

http://amiga.medicinareberget.studen...iga/index.html

Actually I think it's more that Amiga Inc. doesn't give a crap about the Classic Amiga user base ;) If they did they would have already come out with more Classic Amiga models in between their Amiga DE product(s).

Development on AmigaDE
 

From my standpoint as a developer I like the idea of AmigaDE (Amiga Anywhere). I bought the SDK long ago and while it still needs some work, it does show lots of promise. Today as a Video Toaster developer I am stuck with developing my Amiga Video Toaster plug-ins under Amiga OS which I love but my Video Toaster [2] plug-ins have to be developed under the Windows OS which I hate!
:mad :mad

I would much rather develop everything under Amiga OS which is what AmigaDE will give me once it is part of Amiga OS 4.2. Amiga Inc. makes sure everyone also knows the AmigaOne and Amiga OS 4.0 is coming out every chance they get like on TechTV so I am willing to cut them a little slack.

It's important not to mistake the AmigaDE for the AmigaOne, which is a new Amiga computer (and it is "komin!"). I agree that it's taken way too long in development, but I personally know that the people working on the OS (Hyperion Software) are really serious about the Amiga, and they've proven their "loyalty" to the classic Amiga user base time and time again. Besides, I've spoken with some of the influental people of that company, and they're all great people. Same thing with the people doing the actual hardware, Eyetech. I've bought lots of stuff from them and I've never been disappointed with any hardware they've supplied me with.

The sad thing is that the AmigaOne seems to be almost unsupported from Amiga Inc. The way I see it, Amiga Inc has almost nothing to do with the future of the Amiga platform that I love. But as long as they allow Eyetech it's partners to finish the AmigaOne, I don't care what else they're up to.

In fact, as a developer, I can attest that Amiga doesn't care out the development base either. Eg. where are the AmigaOS tutorials, examples, tips, etc. on www.amigadev.net that were promised at least 9 months ago!?

Also the fact that I, with Olaf Barthel and others, resurrected the IFF FORM and Chunk Registry, and the Hardware Manufacturer ID Registry, after we had been promised by Ray Akey that these would be put onto www.amigadev.net. This was done 6 months ago, still nothing has been done. (In the interim they are hosted on my site.) Amiga can't treat their developers like this. Amiga seem bent on suicide.

And where is Boing Bag 2, obviously they don't give a damn about it.

This Microfilth crap is the last straw.

Therefore, Amigan Software has regretfully taken the decision to participate in the AmigaDE boycott. Rest assured that our commitment to OS3.x remains as firm as ever.

The Satan that is M$
 

Amiga Inc. like all of us have to deal with the Satan that is M$ daily. The Win part of WinUAE means Windows! So a true boycott means none of us on EAB could boot up WinUAE because it is a Windows app. If lots of developers support AmigaDE and write apps for it then it will make Windows no longer matter since AmigaDE apps run on everything except Crapintosh. Sharing boothspace with M$ at a PDA expo and doing a joint press release brought the Amiga some much needed respect and drew people to www.amiga.com where they can read about Amiga OS 4, AmigaOne etc. Many think that Amiga is dead and what a shock it must have been for people to see M$ promoting Amiga in the Microsoft booth. Amiga Inc. said from day 1 that AmigaDE would run on Windows, Linux, Amiga Os 4.2 etc. so this not an issue. Sony hates M$ as well but does trade shows and joint press releases with them. I too wish for a day when I don't have to have any computers in my home that run Winblows, Amiga Anywhere could make that come true in the future. I hate developing for Winblows!

Amiga Inc. has been hurting for money the last 1 1/2 years like most of I.T. That could be why there is no Boing Bag 2 out etc. What is wrong with OS 3.9 though that warrents a Boing Bag 2? I runs very stable for me.

I don't know what you think but for me the nVidia nForce mainboards are pretty much like a new amiga in terms of hardware. They have superior sound and graphic capabilities on board and are cheap. You need not an intel but an AMD processor with them. Run Amithlon or WinUAE "dedicated" windows on it, and it feels more Amiga than anything else. There is just no kickstart in the bios. I'd rather have that system than using A1.5

Do you have one? If you do how well does it run WinUAE and or Amithlon? Price for a nVidia nForce mainboard?

not that my opinion really counts for anything, but i am personally quite disgusted by the launch of the new "amiga products" they are putting the great name of our beloved machine to shame.

surely Amiga lives on only in the hearts and minds of those individuals that work on their own (now so called 'classic amiga') systems, building them up, modifying them and generally taking them beyond their original specification using their own knowledge and 3rd party products to get the best out of their machines.

what i think would be good is if amiga became a totally public domain platform where all users were developers of the system by contributing what they can, building machines to their own spec and then see where we end up... it sure wouldn't do any harm and would be much more fun to all the supporters of the machines :D

well thats my tuppence worth on the subject anyways.
what does everyone else think about that

A friend of mine, who is also on eab (mast) is planning an upgrade to a nForce board and he informed me about that motherboard's capabilities. I checked a review at tom's hardware and it's indeed promising.

It's on board sound capabilities are said to be better than "anything creative has ever designed" and there is a Geforce2 MX as a graphics chip which will probably be replaced by better nVidia chips in the future nForce models.

nVidia don't manufacture the board themselves, motherboard manufacturers do that and MSI K7N-420 PRO nForce motherboard is 140$ here in Turkey.

I was against the idea of putting everything on board since most of the time, either sound or graphic chips sucked, intel for example, made some lame attempts but nForce looks cool and when it gets old in a year or two it won't be a problem to replace it for it's just too cheap.

I'm not planning an upgrade from my AMD 800 /GeForce 2 system soon but if I do, I'll absolutely prefer a nForce model with a better gfx chip for I just can't downgrade to MX :)

Well actually the nForce chipset boards are more for OEM's that want to produce a somewhat varied line of computer models, the thing that changes is the HD capacity, memory and the CPU speed. Since these boards use integrated audio and video the total cost per unit is less and hence the manufacturer can also sell the computers for less. Both SiS and ALi have done this as well but these chipset manufacturers are much smaller and don't have the same market share as the big boys do, i.e., Via and Intel. nVidia along with ATi, yes the other major video chipset manufacturer, has produced new mainboard chipsets for the OEM's. ATi's chipset has a built-in Radeon video chip, kinda a lite version of course.

If all out balls to the wall speed is your concern, and why shouldn't it be ;), then go with a faster chipset like the Via KT-266E for AMD cpu's and either the Via P4X-266 or the Intel 845 for Intel cpu's. This way you can stick in whatever AGP video card you want and upgrade to faster ones in the future ;)

Also note that some of the integrated chipsets have the option to disable the onboard video and use the optional AGP slot for upgraded video cards. Remember this is a mobo manufacturer option and not all of them do this because it adds to the overall cost of the mobo!!!

Yes, I agree that I have not noticed any bugs in OS3.9 BB1. However there are probably several minor bugs lurking around which have already been fixed by H&P. Eventually these fixes should get packaged up and released as OS3.9 BB2. Also OS3.5 BB1 had a few extra goodies thrown in that were quite cool, like the animated icons :-) hopefully there will be goodies in OS3.9 BB2??

Perhaps OS3.9 BB2 will be released after OS4.0, just as OS3.5 BB2 was released after OS3.9.

OS 3.9 BB2 wsill be released in the next two weeks. I should know, because I'm the delaying factor ;-)

Yes, it's been released today...