The (one and only) CUSA thread

[gibs]

If noone here is interested, I don't know who is going to buy that thing

[CritAnime]

Originally Posted by gibs

If noone here is interested, I don't know who is going to buy that thing

The people on that rather creepy fan site thing will. I saw a comment by one user saying he will buy a copy of the "workbench 5.0" because it sounded "awesome".

I hope they get sodomised by Jay Miner for making these abominations of Amiga's.

[Maren]

In the best case scenario, I'd have settled for a stable and fully integrated PC-AROS solution in a c64 casing as an alternative to my current system, you know, sounds fun for a change, but Linux? what a piece of garbage, they have lost their marbles

[FOL]

Originally Posted by CritAnime

I saw a comment by one user saying he will buy a copy of the "workbench 5.0" because it sounded "awesome".

lol, now that is funny, .

[CritAnime]

Originally Posted by Maren

In the best case scenario, I'd have settled for a stable and fully integrated PC-AROS solution in a c64 casing as an alternative to my current system, you know, sounds fun for a change, but Linux? what a piece of garbage, they have lost their marbles

Linux is usefull for many things, i would put a safe bet on this sites server been Linux based, and I use it for some things when i tinker with electronics.

Yet as you say an Aros solution would be better. But you would be able to make a PC-AROS rig yourself far cheaper than what these jokers would sell their crap for.

Originally Posted by FOL

lol, now that is funny, .

I thought it was funny to start with. Then I started to feel saddened and actually quite sorry for the guy. Considering he is willing to pay for a copy of linux, skinned to look like workbench with some emulators that he could get for free, when there are hundreds of free alternatives. Not including actually spending the money on a real Amiga with a proper copy of Workbench.

[gilgamesh]

I wonder wether they are going to include all the stuff from Cloanto. Thats worth That costs 50 bucks after all. (And while I feel it is slightly overpriced, it is at least a honest offer for a good product. Take it or leave it.)

Selling Linux as Workbench 5.0 without making it clear is anything but honest. Linux is great, I use it day in, day out, for free.

[TCD]

Can Cloanto re-licence their stuff? Maybe those Commdore-USA joker... I mean 'guys' would have to find those who gave the licence in the first place?
Oh and yes, putting a 'Workbench' badge on Linux is quite pathetic... but wasn't the whole 'project' like that to begin with?

[CritAnime]

I have wondered how they would get round the emulation issues. TheCyberDruid has already raised the question of wether they would be legally able to re-license the roms to a 3rd party. It could also be argued that parts of the C64's system roms, including basic language, could still be under some sort of copy protection. but this is a little off topic though.

So would they even be able to incorporate them into "Workbench" 5.0 without any legal snafu?

It's as clear as mud as to what people are and aren't alowed to do with things when it comes to anything with Amiga's. On one hand you have Cloanto sitting on the fence, semi talking about the legalities of licensing and distribution of the roms here. You have Amiga Inc. handing licensing rights to CUSA to allow the amiga name to be used on their all-in-one computers here (which intrestingly enough mentions that they are going to be using AROS as the os). And then you have Hyperion claiming that all this violates, see here, some settlement they had with Amiga inc in 2009.



I am no legal expert, the mear sight of anything legal makes my head hurt, but I don't think this will be going anywhere for a while. Which makes me think that all this talk of emulation and re-skinning of linux to be nothing more than a last ditch attempt to save both face and money.

I grew up with the C-64 when they first came, heck I still have one at my dad's house in Canada, and when I moved to Australia, the first year I was here I bought one on ebay with a 1541 and data tape drive , My uncle used to be a software developer for commodore also back in the 80's. I'm one of the Puppy Linux developers. When I came across the surfboard keyboard/pc I bought one straight away because it reminded me of the a modern day C-64, here's the website if you would like to read about it, its not the fastest pc on the market but it does surf the net fine and for around $200 with shipping and video out, its not bad, plus it only takes 5watts of power, plus what ever monitor you add to it. http://www.norhtec.com/products/surfboard/index.html
If you were around when the C-64 broke the worlds record of sales totaled 17 million units, making it the best-selling single personal computer model of all time and if you had one of them you would have a clear understanding what C-64 fan stands for. You see the Amiga came out after and this being an Amiga thread there were 3 types of dedicated Commodore users
- CBM, Commodore pet
- C-64, vic-20,C-16,C-128
-Amiga 500,1000,2000,3000++
I would say less than half C-64 dedicated users ever went over to Amiga, most of them went directly in MS crap. Why? well we all at the time, we felt let down when Commodore dropped the C-64 ++, and went to a desktop pc, and a new operating system. Because at the time Commodore was top dog and at war with Apple and new kid on the Block MS in 1985 with windows 1.0, but MS was light years behind the C-64 at that time. But didn't take them long to catch up. !!
I converted to Linux almost 6years ago, I was fed-up with MS virus's, adware, malware, defrag and then the constant security updates that were bigger than the O's and when you went to upgrade Os versions it Usually broke your system. Plus just the size of it. Puppy Linux is around 120MB iso and it can run 100% in ram, you can bootup live and pull the cd out and pop-in a dvd movie and view it without installing anything.
Now when I look at the New C-64, my wheels start turning in my head, I could compile a custom kernel/Xorg video driver for it which would reduce the overall iso size by around 20MB. Which would make that specific version just for that C-64 model. Add a few emulators for C-64 +Amiga and once again Commodore would have a robust, extremely fast Operating system that would be 100% free and against MS. Just the way the 1980's era was. Lets just call it round 2.
The only thing I would like to see go in that new C-64 is the fan, my Surfboard doesn't have any and runs cool. Its nice to have Zero noise from a PC Like the old C-64 were, Also I hope they expand the Hardware to include Printers, wouldn't that be nice if Workbench 5 supported a 100% ( maybe Linux based) printer.
You see guys you have have your Amiga crew/views but then you have C-64 crew/views that aren't always the same. I'm sick of MS and lately apple dominance, maybe its time to give the Sleeping Giant some time to wake up. Oh by the way I did read a few months back that Commodore was going to spend $20million on advertising, man if they do that it will be just like the old days with all the commodore tv adds I just hope they aren't miss-managed like the previous 6+ owners of Commodore.
well like it or not, that's my view.
ttuuxxx

[Paul_s]

Well, CUSA is also part of the Homecraft, LLC company... and if their customer reviews are anything to go off then CUSA is doomed!

http://www.reviewcentre.com/reviews-all-98588.html

[CritAnime]

Hate to break it to you ttuuxxx but as a long standing C64, still have the original that my dad bought back in 1983, fan and Amiga fan I think it's still utter bollocks.

Also you do know that the people at CUSA only have license to produce these replica Commodores. And most of these computers are just going to be cheap, off the shelf and re-badged units. So along with the skinned version of linux they are tinkering with, they are actually bringing nothing new to the party.

I respect your views ttuuxxx but to be honest I hope the bubble bursts for the CUSA boys and they drop into a hole to be never seen again.

[Dunny]

I think there may be a (small) market for a project like KDE, but which is inspired by the Amiga. After all, AmigaOS was an entire API to the hardware. Simply skinning a window manager isn't enough - but a complete desktop environment written from scratch to take advantage of the underlying linux would be quite interesting.

D.

Originally Posted by CritAnime

Also you do know that the people at CUSA only have license to produce these replica Commodores. And most of these computers are just going to be cheap, off the shelf and re-badged units. So along with the skinned version of linux they are tinkering with, they are actually bringing nothing new to the party.

I respect your views ttuuxxx but to be honest I hope the bubble bursts for the CUSA boys and they drop into a hole to be never seen again.

Well to start with just to get a custom designed keyboard/pc case like the C-64 built would be a very large expense, I don't think the keyboard will be cheaply designed or cheap quality at all. The internal cpu/chipset is of very good quality
Commodore 64x PROCESSOR:
Intel® Atom D525 1.80GHz (Formerly Pineview-D) CHIPSET:
Intel NM10 (Formerly Tiger Point)
Next-Generation NVIDIA ION Graphics (ION2) MEMORY:
2 x DDR2 667/800 Single Channel DIMM slots (up to 4 GB) GRAPHICS:
Next-Generation NVIDIA ION Graphics Processor AUDIO:
Realtek ALC662 6-CH HD Audio
Nvidia L-PCM digital audio (HDMI 1.3) can support 7.1 output with external decoder
there are a lot less cheaper ones they could of went with. This is actually the making of a quality green pc.
And what they are bring to the table, I would say if this is a Linux base pc, then they are taking back older Commodore user from Windows and increasing the Linux share of market, which as security and freedom goes, its a plus, plus.
I did have a few emails with the last previous owners of Commodore in the uk a few years back and I at the time asked about bring back a true Commodore back to life not based on Windows,Mac/Linux but and its own Cpu architecture, kind of like what has done in the past. His response was that the cost to develop such a pc from scratch would be enormous and that not too many companies starting out could ever afford that sort tooling setup. Then all the software would have to be developed from scratch etc.
Now moving onto the latest owners they really have only 2 options, either Windows or Linux, and it looks like they are gearing for both. Kind of a smart move. Same with motherboards, spend hundreds of millions building a factory, hiring scientists, developers, engineers to build microchips, cpu's, motherboards, power supplies, or make a deal with a well established company that make quality boards and cpu's and buy them at cost? I think most would buy quantity or building that sort of hardware from scratch.
Now that I looked at those C-64 pictures a bit more, something else I would see change, they have 3 different colour plastic plates, the metal motherboard i/o plate, the black dvd blue ray tray cover, charcoal gray reader/writer plate. I think that isn't right at all, those covers should be the same colour as the C-64 case or key colours.

It could be the start of new x86 O's. Linus Torvalds has been really disappoint with the direction where the Linux kernel has went in the past, at one point the kernel was growing by 1000 lines of code a day. Puppy Linux went from 78MB to 120MB in a matter of 3 years, mainly due to the Kernel and Video growth, mostly because of the newer wireless modems and mini laptops kernel drivers.
So with this is mind, a all in one pc does take a lot less drivers etc, like a embedded system does. So who knows it might lead to bigger and better things if it catches on.
ttuuxxx

[gilgamesh]

Hi ttuuxxx,

I really appreciate your enthusiasm about Amiga technology, but I don't see anything Amiga-like in their products (beyond the name). It's a PC with Linux. If it has a competitive price - ok. But calling a company "Commodore", a PC "Amiga" and a Linux "Workbench 5.0" won't make them such. And I'd be surprised if CUSA even get the skinning right, considering the quality of their homepage. Let alone tinkering with the Linux kernel or a window manager.

There are amazing things happening: Toni and Jason work hard to bring Aros as a Kickstart replacement to the Amiga. Now that's real progress.

[Predseda]

Totally agree, nothing to add.

[Retro-Nerd]

PROCESSOR: Commodore 64x Intel® Atom D525 1.80GHz (Formerly Pineview-D)

Try it with the latest WinVice WIP (CRT emulation enabled, plus ReSID high settings) and you get a slideshow.

[Paul_s]

ttuuxxx - I also like your enthusiam.. I would be the same if they did something worthwhile!

As someone who owned an Atom based netbook not so long ago I would not dream of owning one again. They offer very poor performance if you want to do something other than basic emulation of an old game or running the internet/word processor (notepad ).. HD video for instance is a non starter. They should at least be offering a dual-core as a basic setup. But then again what's the point - no one is going to buy the thing apart from people who buy into the marketing.

It's kind of like the ZX Spectrum of what the Amiga is....

[AmigaDave]

Originally Posted by Boo Boo

I wouldnt care if it was just a case but its an x86 with this Workbench 5

This "project" by C=USA is nothing different than the A1000 conversion kits by Nova Design that put x86 into A1000 cases and ran emulators on Linux, or Windows, or both and that was how many years ago? Nothing new, except the free emulators have gotten better since then, or perhaps C=USA is buying Colanto's AmigaForever & C64Forever front ends for the free emulators and calling it Workbench5.

I don't really care one way or the other, and actually find some of the case designs they are showing to be attractive. None of their plans is new or interesting, but they might be able to sell a few hundred, over a year or two. I don't see them succeeding, or lasting long though. Just another "flash-in-the-pan" Amiga failure story.

Nothing to see here, move along.

[Cammy]

Fuck it, I'll just throw a link to the cases they're using again for the hell of it.

http://www.karmadigital.com/tf5_htpc...e_pc_case.html

Just get one of these and run Ubuntu on it with a horrible looking skin and you've got Workbench 5.0 and the new "Amiga" already.
No need to wait for a price hike on something you can already get.

[Retrofan]

I have to say something... I was out of all this Commodore-Amiga scene only 9 months ago. I first started with all of this finding the Keyrah in the web and thinking to use a C=64 as a PC keyboard. I could have bought this CommodoreUSA "Thing" by then if I never had started in forums like this and knowing what the "Real Thing" means.

Now I think the same way as you do (I've expressed it from the beginning), but.... I wonder how many of the millions of Commodore 64 buyers that had been out of the scene for years will see this """"beautiful""" (it's the same outside than it was) C=64 will think in buying it before searching and openning this or few more threads...