Amiga Inc. will die in the current bad economy? Opinions?

[TCD]

Originally Posted by Fred the Fop

You have it it on the head. Beautifully said, but fanatics cannot be swayed by reason. Hence the shrill "AMIGA # 1!!!!" and "Amiga FOREVER" nonsense.

Zealots, we call them zealots.

To put it simply...

Bill McEwen established Amiga Inc. (Amino - original incarnation) after acquiring the Amiga name and rights from Gateway in around 2000. Then afterwards - a few years later after Amiga Inc. gained popularity and steam, they finished off full ownership of the Amiga rights (ALL OF IT. That is trademarks, IP, copyrights,ect. to Amiga hardware and software produced by Commodore and ESCOM and whatever that was under development when Gateway owned Amiga - then called Amiga International (I think).

To press the rewind back to ESCOM / Gateway / Tulip era.

First off, ESCOM bought Commodore 1994

1995 ESCOM split Commodore and Amiga and the IP rights. All C= owned software and hardware IP for EVERYTHING non-Amiga (Commodore 8-Bits and Commodore PC) was sold to Tulip Computers when ESCOM went bankrupts. Before ESCOM bankrupcy, ESCOM formed Amiga Technologies Gmbh. and sent all the Amiga rights (All C= copyrighted/patented/trademarked rights to all software and hardware & publications for Amiga computer line.) ESCOM sort of gave the rights to its subsidiary.

1996 or abouts Gateway bought Amiga Technologies Gmbh. All C= / ESCOM copyrighted/patented and trademarked software,hardware and publications was bought by Gateway. This was to give ESCOM another year before ESCOM went totally bankrupt. Then in 1997, Tulip bought ESCOM outright (thus acquired Commodore.) Escom main organization retained Commodore under the parent company Escom but divested Amiga to Gateway then Tulip bought Escom. Hence why Tulip computers got all the Escom store chain throughout Europe when Tulip was financially good.

This is how Commodore and Amiga rights split up.

circa 2000, Amino acquired license of the Amiga trademarks and software and became Amiga Inc. (first incarnation), then a few years later got the remaining rights (ownership) from Gateway because Gateway didn't want it anymore. So Amiga Inc. now - got the rights because of the original owners of Amino created the current Amiga Inc. and transfered the rights for probably the minimum allowed by law - $1. So technically, Amiga Inc. as we know it owns the copyright to every C=/Escom & Gateway (Amiga International) copyrighted, trademarked, patented software, hardware and publication since 1983/84 to present.

Now, patents are expiring in a year. So, it doesn't matter. As for Hyperion and Amiga, an agreement apparently has been made to allow Hyperion to continue work with AmigaOS unimpeded.

MY OPINION BELOW:

Amiga Inc. simply agreed to let Hyperion deal with everything pertaining to classic Amiga (including the PPC Amiga and that lineage) because Amiga Inc. is no longer going to be involved with classic Amiga.

I think Amiga Inc. is going to focus on something new and separate from the classic line or something. I think it might be pertaining to AA2 and move forward with that idea. Probably be revised dramatically. Maybe a new OS architecture altogether. So - who knows. Getting the AA2 SDK onto some more systems and released might be part of the goals here.

AA2 development is in a coma at this time and may begin again as soon as we see something happening with Amiga Inc. This bad chapter appears to be over. Both companies can now focus on there goals before this mess occured with revamping on the goals - taking into account the time that passed by. So, who know. AA2 concept can work well in this day and age but it needs to be worked and moved forward with more inspiration.

Ok, sounds like dream talk but the only thing between dream and reality is just "doing".

[Retro1234]

AA2 has Nothing at all to do with Amiga -It only uses the name and that shouldnt be allowed.

[gilgamesh]

Thanks Wildstar. Now I probably understand this mess.

But which patents will expire? In Europe there are no software patents, and America has them since '94 (in a relevant form). Chips can't be patented because everybody can make a different chip with the same function. (That's what I think. Any lawyer would probably scream in terror and despair. )

So, what relevant patents did C= have besides the two buttoned mouse?

[demusse]

for as long as i remember....
Amiga = maybe, possibly, probably...back for the future and all...

we will see what happens... or not !

Originally Posted by gilgamesh

Thanks Wildstar. Now I probably understand this mess.

But which patents will expire? In Europe there are no software patents, and America has them since '94 (in a relevant form). Chips can't be patented because everybody can make a different chip with the same function. (That's what I think. Any lawyer would probably scream in terror and despair. )

So, what relevant patents did C= have besides the two buttoned mouse?

Patents are good for 20 years. So the patents on the Amiga graphics system would be expiring in 2010 which places the patent registration/filing in 1990 which means pretty much the AGA chipset but certainly OCS and ECS would both be in PD by now. OCS is probably already - hence the OCS in Minimig project. ECS came a little later. The patents did not pass patents process until a year or two or three after the filing for patent and much of that and products with the chips already came out so patent registration would be a year or 2 after the products with it were out. It is about 20 years now. AGA patents would be expired in about a few years anyway at the latest. So, pretty much by 2015, any C= patent would be expired by now.

Many of the patents were filed under Commodore-Amiga and Commodore Business Machines and possibly Commodore Electronics - but that is pretty much how the patents were filed when looking at the Commodore corporate structure and what I recall of Amiga patents. Hell, the patents on the VIC-II and SID and TED had expired.

How the patent names are filed maybe tricky but lets remember VIC-II, SID, TED were product names not the patent names. You have to look at the patents more closely. The patents regarding the Blitter and such are also in the records. So, when all this is expired, anyone can use the technology including Hyperion, Jens, Amiga Inc., ect. with no questions need bne asked.

Originally Posted by gilgamesh

Thanks Wildstar. Now I probably understand this mess.

But which patents will expire? In Europe there are no software patents, and America has them since '94 (in a relevant form). Chips can't be patented because everybody can make a different chip with the same function. (That's what I think. Any lawyer would probably scream in terror and despair. )

So, what relevant patents did C= have besides the two buttoned mouse?

Patents in the US are for hardware and inventions. Software is copyrighted and trademarks (that's the logos and slogans and marketing words.) I was referring to the all the copyrights, patents and trademarks that Commodore / Escom and possibly Gateway (Amiga International) had for software, hardware and publications (printed & electronic documents) for Amiga is owned by the current Amiga Inc. However, many of it has little to no value.

To simply put, this doesn't mean Amiga Inc. owns the copyrights to any games and such that was made by third-party.

This would include Mind Walker and Amiga CD FootballCD32 game.

Commodore themselves did not do all that much publishing/developing software for Amiga. So it is limited. All the books published by Commodore would be owned by Amiga Inc. That would be a given in this territory.

I'm thinking somewhere around 2002/2003, Gateway just outright divested the rights to all things Amiga to Amiga Inc. In 2000, they just got the trademarks and some copyrights. Of course, this is due to Amiga Inc. having an upswing back in 2002 and probably alot having to do with the main investor backing Amiga Inc.

Anyway, the software for the Amiga Operating System was not officially names AmigaOS until well after Commodore. It's official software title was Workbench and Amiga Inc. has that right. Agreements are probably in place to not impede the use of the term Workbench by Hyperion for components within AmigaOS. These little things are probably not going to be debated.

[gilgamesh]

Originally Posted by Wildstar

Patents in the US are for hardware and inventions. Software is copyrighted and trademarks (that's the logos and slogans and marketing words.) I was referring to the all the copyrights, patents and trademarks that Commodore / Escom and possibly Gateway (Amiga International) had for software, hardware and publications (printed & electronic documents) for Amiga is owned by the current Amiga Inc. However, many of it has little to no value.

Yes, I see. There is a distinction between patents and intellectual property.

But to my best knowledge having a patent on e.g. AGA does not make sense, because you could "invent" another chip that has all the functions of AGA, but a completely different layout than Commodore's Lisa chip. Workbench, manuals etc are intellectual property.

So is there any patent that has any practical value?
I know that C= had a patent on two buttoned mice. Yet, three buttoned mice don't infringe that patent.

Originally Posted by gilgamesh

Yes, I see. There is a distinction between patents and intellectual property.

But to my best knowledge having a patent on e.g. AGA does not make sense, because you could "invent" another chip that has all the functions of AGA, but a completely different layout than Commodore's Lisa chip. Workbench, manuals etc are intellectual property.

So is there any patent that has any practical value?
I know that C= had a patent on two buttoned mice. Yet, three buttoned mice don't infringe that patent.

Well, here's the thing, it does constitute patent infringement IF you reversed engineer (ie. examine the original chip design) and make a new design with the original in mind. It goes with the territory of plagarism in authorship. If you examine my code to make your own version of doing the same thing, that is technically copyright infringement. You are suppose to do without examining the works of others to make your own design. It would be modifying it. If all you do is streamline it then it isn't new. O course, in court - the battles can get really muddy and go on to impracticality.

Is there any patent of practical value... who knows but you would have to at some point examine how the existing design works to make a clone that is functionally compatible. Technically, reverse engineering hardware is ILLEGAL (if it results in a clone or new chip based on that of another) because it constitutes patent infringement. You have to examine the design of a chip to make a clone of that chip. You have to examine the semiconductor substrates and how they connect, analyze the timing and in some cases, leaked out copies of chip schematics. However, once patents expires, it wouldn't matter. New designs can be based on the original and creative new features or functions in themselves maybe patentable.

The question, is the patents of practical value? Depends on what you intend to do. When they expire, they are part of public domain. So, would those designs be of practical value? Could be. Lets say, I want to develop a bitplane graphics system of 3d reality with multiple screen layers. Amiga technology could be a practical base line. I just have to think of multiple screen outputs from different views.

Current Amiga

--------- screen plane 0
--------- screen plane 1
--------- screen plane 2
--------- screen plane 3


new design
---------------- front s.p. 0
---------------- front s.p. 1
---------------- front s.p. 2
---------------- front s.p. 3
|||| left ----|||| Right
|||| sp.-----|||| s.p.
|||| 0-------|||| 0
|||| to------|||| to
|||| 3-------|||| 3
---------------- back s.p. 0
---------------- back s.p. 1
---------------- back s.p. 2
---------------- back s.p. 3

Each screen plane would bit bitplanable up to say 32 bitplanes.

Each screen plane would have a sprite plane (the sprite plane could in theory have 0 (invisible) to 32 bit layers.

Take this into account and you have a very complex - virtual reality type environment potential. This can be mapped to say 4 actual screens. Each screen plane can be at different resolutions. Could that lead to a futuristic hardware platform. Maybe. Could that lead to a virtual hardware platform... perhaps. Maybe first and be simulated on various hardware.

It might be a little far fetch for Amiga Inc. to do on real silicon today but can we imagine this in a virtualized system platform?

[Pyromania]

Originally Posted by Thorham

I'm certainly not. I'm not going to buy obsolete hardware for ridiculous money just so that I can use an obsolete os that isn't even free. I mean, really:

Sam 440ep (533Mhz CPU) - €455.65
AmigaOS 4.1 (SAM440ep) - €131.32

That's €586.97 which is of course ridiculous, and not in any way value for money.

Hey don't cry, it's cheaper than a Maserati!

http://www.dupontregistry.com/AUTOS/...?itemid=711743

[Pyromania]

Maybe Wildstar is in the know!

[Thorham]

Originally Posted by Wildstar

It might be a little far fetch for Amiga Inc. to do on real silicon today but can we imagine this in a virtualized system platform?

I don't see the point. Why waste cpu speed converting 32 bitplanes (!) to 32 bit chunky? Makes absolutely no sense. And to make matters worse, you now have 24 bit planes to write to just to write a single true color pixel to the screen. All this does is make the programming job harder, and it wastes cpu time. Bitplanes can be usefull when dealing with palette based graphics in some cases, for everything else you want chunky graphics (especially 3D).

Originally Posted by Pyromania

Hey don't cry, it's cheaper than a Maserati!

http://www.dupontregistry.com/AUTOS/...?itemid=711743

I'm not crying, because I don't want one Cool car, by the way

[Paul_s]

Maserati's breakdown and are too expensive

Bring back Irving Gould and his Petjet.

Originally Posted by Pyromania

Maybe Wildstar is in the know!

I wouldn't be in the know of everything but I remember reading something some stuff. Sadly, stuff do seem to vanish on the web after some time.