AmigaOne update

[jmmijo]

You make some very valid points Twistin', I guess I was more interested in conslidating space via an Amiga on a card rather then a separate box, but since I too own the real machines and they already are equipped to handle the games and apps that I have then why not continue to use them

[Korodny]

@Burseg:

This is a matter of seeing the subject from a certain angle or not, sure amiga had workbench from the very beginning but it doesn't owe it's success to the os!

That's absolutely correct. But the Amiga stopped being a games machine six years ago. The old games are not responsible for the fact that there are still three Amiga dealers in my town, that there's still new software being developed and that there's a new Amiga just around the corner.

The Amiga has changed. It's as simple as that. An australian railway company was eagerly awaiting the release of the A1 - because they needed to replace their Amiga based info terminals (they went for Amithlon now, as they couldn't wait any longer). NASA wants to replace their slow A2000/3000/4000 machines and ComputerCity generate a lot of interest amongst professional customers with their upcoming AmigaOne/MediaPointRTG bundles. That's what the Amiga is now.

As an existing amiga user, I can't have the exact feeling of using a classic amiga when I'm using my PPC

Agreed. That's why I make a difference between "retro" users and "modern" (don't know a better term) Amiga users.

eyetech's decision

Once again: Nobody decided that custom chip compatability would be a bad thing. Escena simply dropped the project, probably because it was too much effort for to less financial gain - or because they were unable to do it (I'm just speculating).

"Classic amiga is dead, play with your rotten a500s if you are so enthusiastic about it!"

Nobody said this. But custom chip compatability is expensive and complicated. What I say is "if it doesn't happen, I can live without it".

@jmmijo:

What would have been ideal for me however, would be a classic Amiga AGA machine on a PCI card that goes into either a Power MAC or a PC.

Mick Tinker tried this four years ago ("Access") and he didn't succeed. What makes you think that somebody will resolve the related problems today? There's no money left for R&D, there are practically no engineers left that are up to the task and the demand has practically vanished.

Besides, do you really think an add-on PCI card for existing PC's is able to generate a viable market for software developers? I don't think so.

I tell you what, if Amiga, Inc. had contracted with one of the Taiwanese chipset manufacturers they would have had a product a long time ago

You know what? Amiga Inc. were practically bancrupt the whole last year. It's a miracle that the company still exists. The AmigaOne and OS4 will only happen because Amiga Inc. don't have to invest a single dime in any of those projects (at least no now).

Stop dreaming about "Amiga on a PCI card" solutions. Nobody in the Amiga market has the ressources left, let alone the intention. For now, the last chance was the PCI bridge card .

@Twisting:

Agreed 100%.

[jmmijo]

Yeah, I stopped dreamin/hoping about something like a PCI card Amiga a long time ago I figured I'd just wait until the A1 and OS4 is released and try it out. Yes I do like to tinker around with lots of new technology, let's hope that both the hardware and software are a harmonious combination

[Shatterhand]

Well, I see Korodny talking about "Hey, stop talking "IF", the Amiga One exists, it will be released, and it will be at shops"

Now I wonder... what shops? Who is willing to distribute the A1? Will we see a market campaing for the A1, or is Amiga Inc. just counting with the already existing Amiga users base? (One that's smaller than it ever was).

I have some friends who usually tell me "I would like to have a MAC, but nearly no one has it, it would be hard to find software for it. Webpages are all about PC software, I rarely see MAC software to be downloaded"... I don't care if they are right or not, it doesn't matter, because they THINK like that. What would make those people change their mind and buy an Amiga instead of a PC?

And I also had a very naive thought. I live in Brazil, will I be able to buy an A1 without paying taxes and shipment? I guess not, in the end, the A1 will probably get more expensive than a PC for me... WHERE the A1 will be sold? Europe? USA ? Australia?


Korodny, I wish you could answer me those questions, I would be very happy...

[Twistin'Ghost]

Well, I don't believe the A1 is trying to "compete" with the PC the way the Mac is. That's certainly too high of an obstacle to take on this early in the game. I believe it is aiming for perhaps the old Amiga crowd and/or users brave enough to throw away their Windows training wheels. There are certainly enough users who are fed up with the stranglehold of M$, but most are too chickenshit to make a change - even while using Windows in tandem. Their loss (and mine).

I was gonna address the IF thing before and forgot. It's a nice speech, but where would we be today if the original Amiga dream team did not embrace the "if" word? Where would Bill Gates' fortunes be if he and his partners in grime had not uttered "if" in their master plan? There's a lot to be said for "if" as long as the grunge work follows behind it. But the word in itself is not the cop-out it's been described as.

2 more k...

the Amiga stopped being a games machine six years ago

And was it a change that caused a huge success? Or was it a natural step in the evolution of the amiga platform? No, there just haven't been good software support on amiga platform compared to the commodore days therefore no good games appear. Computers with multimedia capabilities did/do become popular and remain alive mostly bacause of games. It's not a thing to be ashamed of. The amiga has been dead for a lot longer than six years, nearly no new amiga users appear for more than that!
Sure -amiga-, by the people who hold the rights of the name has been changed but there are more people who use winuae to play classic titles than the ones who use the ppc machines as their main systems. Amiga is now in a position to turn it's back to those who can again form a great user base. That makes me worry. Eyetech's decisions, based on financial facts can be understandable if I can get some sort of clue about how much they are aware of the existance of people who are not %100 content of what eyetech is doing at the moment.

Nobody said this. But custom chip compatability is expensive and complicated. What I say is "if it doesn't happen, I can live without it".

That's what it implicitly sounds like to me, we are already -living with that-, just using our old amigas today but the problem is, are they really unable/will remain unable in the future for technical reasons or do they just don't want to do that at all. Providing backwards compatibility might not be much of a financial gain and they might be planning not to do that ever. But as users, we need to be aware of the true attitude of the company against us. Then we can force them choose either of -a little bit of financial loss- or -the serious reaction of people- Sadly, the latter doesn't exist today and amigans seem to accept all that is given to them.

The Amiga has changed. It's as simple as that. An australian railway company was eagerly awaiting the release of the A1 - because they needed to replace their Amiga based info terminals (they went for Amithlon now, as they couldn't wait any longer). NASA wants to replace their slow A2000/3000/4000 machines and ComputerCity generate a lot of interest amongst professional customers with their upcoming AmigaOne/MediaPointRTG bundles. That's what the Amiga is now.

This doesn't sound like they decide the amiga over the alternatives, it just seems that they're looking for a backwards compatible solution

[Korodny]

@Shatterhand:

Now I wonder... what shops? Who is willing to distribute the A1? Will we see a market campaing for the A1, or is Amiga Inc. just counting with the already existing Amiga users base? (One that's smaller than it ever was).

Nobody has the money to do a merketing campaign. The AmigaOne is pretty much relying on the well known brand name - this ensures a lot of public recognition: In Germany, TV coverage is already granted. Big european computer magazines are covering the latest happenings around AmigaOS. Berlin's biggest printed newspaper covered the release of both OS 3.5 and OS 3.9 in its "media" section. Slashdot and the register are covering it (the typical Slashdot reader is exactly the kind of guy the AmigaOne is targeted at).

I have some friends who usually tell me "I would like to have a MAC, but nearly no one has it, it would be hard to find software for it. Webpages are all about PC software, I rarely see MAC software to be downloaded"... I don't care if they are right or not, it doesn't matter, because they THINK like that. What would make those people change their mind and buy an Amiga instead of a PC?

As Twisting already pointed out, the AmigaOne does not target (can not target) the general computer users at the moment (due to the lack of funding). While the AmigaOne theoretically is still a perfect "homecomputer" (easy to use, good intuitive software, fast boot times, no shutdown required etc.) it's expensive (compared to the average low-cost PC) and you'll be the only one in your neighboorhood using one.

The general computer user may be targeted later, if everything works out the way it is planned. As you already stated, AmigaDE (which will get integrated into AmigaOS later on) might be killer. But that remains to be seen and is no argument to buy an A1 now.

And I also had a very naive thought. I live in Brazil, will I be able to buy an A1 without paying taxes and shipment? I guess not, in the end, the A1 will probably get more expensive than a PC for me... WHERE the A1 will be sold? Europe? USA ? Australia?

Unfortunately, that's no naive thought

The AmigaOne will be initially sold by Amiga dealers. Amiga dealers are available in the US, Europe and Australia. Unless you live in a very big city, you don't have a dealer in your town, but that's no big problem. For years I was just calling my preferred dealer and told them what I need. The next day the ordered item arrived at my door.

Unfortunately, http://os.amiga.com/dealers/index.php does not list any dealers in Brazil, Argentina or other southern American countries I tried.

There are some big electronic stores interested in selling Amiga products (including the A1), but that will certainly take a while and probably won't help a brazilian user....

@Burseg:

And was it a change that caused a huge success? Or was it a natural step in the evolution of the amiga platform? No, there just haven't been good software support on amiga platform compared to the commodore days therefore no good games appear. Computers with multimedia capabilities did/do become popular and remain alive mostly bacause of games. It's not a thing to be ashamed of.

I'm not ashamed of it - why should I? It just prooves that there's more to the Amiga than just games.

Custom chip dependant games are a thing of the past, period.

The amiga has been dead for a lot longer than six years, nearly no new amiga users appear for more than that!

Sorry, but I doubt that you're the person that decides if a computer platform is dead

Eyetech's decisions

Please stop talking about "Eyetech's decisions". Eyetech don't have the engineers to do that on their own. Their only option was to contract somebody for doing the design stuff. That's what they did. Now that Escena dropped out, there's nobody left who's up to the job. If you don't think so, please name some likely candidates.

if I can get some sort of clue about how much they are aware of the existance of people who are not %100 content of what eyetech is doing at the moment.

You are always claiming there's a demand for games compatability. Are you able to proof it? No? As you seem to be sure that such a product would sell like mad, are you willing to invest 250.000 dollars to make the product happen? No? Okay, then name some candidates that would be willing to do so? Ups, you can't come up with names? What now?

Actually, that supposed demand is your only valid argument. How are you able to estimate that demand, if you don't know the price of the product nor the actual implementation? The PCI bridge would have been shipped for about USD 150. Would you be willing to pay 300-400$ for a non-upgradable Amiga on a PCI card,while you can get an upgradable A1200HD+Monitor for a fraction of that price? The only 68k CPU still in production (at very low quantities - read: these babies are expensive) is the 68060. Okay, you could use the Host-CPU to emulate the 68k, but ups... there goes the 100% compatability.

The only reason custom chip compatability was ever considered was the fact that some key applications require them. Custom chip compatability for retro-gaming may be cool, but from a commercial point of view it's simply hilarious.

Sadly, the latter doesn't exist today and amigans seem to accept all that is given to them

No. The people interested in the AmigaOne are mainly inerested in a computer for their everyday needs. To them, backwards compatability is a lot less important than it seems to be to you. Ironically, you're demanding features for a product you don't even want to buy

This doesn't sound like they decide the amiga over the alternatives, it just seems that they're looking for a backwards compatible solution

No, it just prooves that the Amiga had more to offer than games - even a decade ago.

[Amiga1992]

Hmmm.. well, I'm a bit of an arse here, but it seems my mind and heart cannot withstand a machine with the "Amiga" brand that won't let me play Turrican

From Twistin's viewpoint, the A1 is a godsend. And I dont think it's that expensive. It's much cheaper than a Mac, and I preffer a PPC to an x86 ANY DAY. But Macs cost so much!

I just wont bother with the A1 anymore and not bitch about it anymore... it's just not worth it, it's not the product for me! The software I use for work, unfortunately, will never be available for the A1 (and if it appears on the A1, you can bet I'm teh first one switching ). For now my only choice is Mac. if I had the budget :P

Will Amithlon 2 support PPC and run OS4? I'm interested in these new multimedia apps you keep on talking about, Korodny.

I'm not ashamed of it - why should I? It just prooves that there's more to the Amiga than just games.
Custom chip dependant games are a thing of the past, period.

Living in the past is not an option but I say there doesn't seem to be a link with the past and future. Why is this new machine, an
amiga? OS is important yes but the old amigas also have the os and more.

Sorry, but I doubt that you're the person that decides if a computer platform is dead

Can you deny my statement? If I thought amiga is totally dead, would I join this discussion? What does this have to do with my personality?

Please stop talking about "Eyetech's decisions". Eyetech don't have the engineers to do that on their own. Their only option was to contract somebody for doing the design stuff. That's what they did. Now that Escena dropped out, there's nobody left who's up to the job. If you don't think so, please name some likely candidates

I'm just trying to be sure of eyetech's attitude. I hope they are just "incapable" as you say, but I despise this kind ofmarketing tricks and feeling pity for this company is just not a thing I'll do. The name of the guilty company is not of my interest, I'm a lazy user I cannot name a candidate or anything sorry

You are always claiming there's a demand for games compatability. Are you able to proof it? No? As you seem to be sure that such a product would sell like mad, are you willing to invest 250.000 dollars to make the product happen? No? Okay, then name some candidates that would be willing to do so? Ups, you can't come up with names? What now?

In this discussion, many of this board's members explicitly said they are interested in compatibility. I don't believe any kind of amiga hardware will sell much at all but a compatible amiga is way too interesting than a Macish machine running linux on it. I say a compatible A1 may be less disasterous than an incompatible one meanwhile I can grab one if I like it

Actually, that supposed demand is your only valid argument

You don't like my way of argument, you don't reply. But I'd be sorry actually for I like to discuss these things with you

How are you able to estimate that demand, if you don't know the price of the product nor the actual implementation? The PCI bridge would have been shipped for about USD 150. Would you be willing to pay 300-400$ for a non-upgradable Amiga on a PCI card,while you can get an upgradable A1200HD+Monitor for a fraction of that price? The only 68k CPU still in production (at very
low quantities - read: these babies are expensive) is the 68060. Okay, you could use the Host-CPU to emulate the 68k, but ups...
there goes the 100% compatability.

As I said, the important factor is the attention of Eyetech and Amiga Inc. During a period of time, they had and will have the
opportunity to make people like me content, wasting this opportunity is their problem. Buying a 2ghz pc seems to be a way better solution but there are just -other- reasons we're using amigas remember? Actually we are all retrocomputing people.

Custom chip compatability for retro-gaming may be cool, but from a commercial point of view it's simply hilarious.

That's my demand, that'll make me buy a new machine or not. Otherwise, amithlon on a fast pc will beat this amigaone anytime!
That makes amigaone such a mundane and unimportant piece of hardware for me. You may just assume I'm alone on this but I
can assume you are alone on your claims too. They may be only able to produce "this machine" and I say "I don't want this machine" it's that simple. Now I wouldn't even start this discussion and would just decide not to be interested in this A1 issue at all but I'm the sort of guy who wants to see the the return of the amiga but in a much grander way. I say compatibility is important that's not all for me, I'm sure compatibility would not make me half content with A1. I would go on bitching until I believe the new amiga was the kind of machine that can bear the name. But realistically I accept this is not a thing that can happen in short term. In this case I'm just trying to believe in eyetech's attitude, but I see a company that uses the amiga name with their odd machine.

No. The people interested in the AmigaOne are mainly inerested in a computer for their everyday needs. To them, backwards compatability is a lot less important than it seems to be to you. Ironically, you're demanding features for a product you don't even want to buy

Well that would make me want to buy, I didn't even have an amiga when I signed up on this board.

No, it just prooves that the Amiga had more to offer than games - even a decade ago.

So games were lesser elements than professional applications a decade ago?

I had a look at my post.

I hate posting long messages that look like important and aggressive stuff.

[Unknown_K]

Well if the A1 isnt backwards compatible who is going to spend the time and money to make new software for a very very very small A1 hardware market? And if the new amiga OS runs on standard PC hardware why bother with the A1 at all?

What we have here is a software company trying to make hardware and slapping an AMIGA nameplate on it. What they should have done was liscence the old 1200 chipsets from whoever owns them and have a batch of chips manufactured in asia somewhere. The problem with that is it takes some money that these people dont have, or dont want to risk on such a venture.

[IanS]

What on earth is happening here? People talking about a comuter that almost nobody has seen, yet they condemn it without regard because it won't play 10-15 year old games?

I wonder what wood have happened if Jay Miner, Carl Sassenrath, R J Mical etc had decided to make a new computer that was bang up to date, yet compatible with a machine from 10 years previous?

Come on guys... the A1 is a new machine, with new H/W and OS and because it's called an "Amiga" we shouldn't get hung up on running old versions of Turrican, DPaint and Wordworth. It should be able to churn out 60+ fps in Quake 3, render fast, good looking effects in a modern version of Photogenics or produce documents on a word processor at least as good(?) as MS Word. This is what most serious Amiga users have wanted. Copious amounts of horsepower with good games and apps, in just the same way that the original Amigas had in their heyday.

I have a moderately expanded A1200, and I have a PC (4 in fact, but none of them are that 'modern' and 2 of them are 486s!). I even have a 68030 Mac, as well as a ZX81 and an old Atari 800XL. I also have Amiga Forever running nicely on my P3 500, and it actually feels better than the real thing as I can run it at ultra high res with no flicker on a 17" monitor, 256Mb ram and 40+ Gb of HD!!!!

Apple didn't make everything backwardly compatible in hardware when moving to power PC... they used emulation. People bought native PPC apps that blew the socks off anything they'd had before. Do Ford make their cars backwardly compatible with a Model T?

Either buy an A1 for what it is and what it can do, or just leave it and use whatever else you want to. Just bear in mind that almost nobody (note I say "ALMOST") is producing S/W for the classic Amiga range, and even the stuff that is available now, just can't compete in the speed stakes.

I'd prefer an A1 with twin G4s myself, but if the new A1 is good, I'll buy one.

End of rant. Sorry.

[Fred the Fop]

Being someone who is an avid self student on business and finance, I can only state emphatically now: To hell with this technical mumbo jumbo. The business model I see developing here from Amiga/Eyetech etc is laughable and doomed for failure. I have no question about that. Nothing to do with the AmigaOne or OS 4, what look to be great products from descriptions. The business model is built so poorly, so amateurely. The "$50" Amiga promise thing was a PATHETIC grab for infusion of money to keep the whole rotten, ridiculous project going for a few more months. All I read about on the A1 update page is "Keep costs down". Yes, thats important, but to continually aver this in a release is lousy business practice. The whole thing reeks of inconfidence andshaky pylons doomed for failure. Half ass crap comin' at ya outta Amiga (St)Inc.
What a joke.

[IanS]

Well, I agree that the marketing is not brilliant, but as the O/S isn't finished and there's no software to run on it yet... what are they supposed to market? "

"Hey look, we have a product to sell but we can't show it to you, and we don't know what you can do with it... but we do have a name for it, so buy one now!"

And as for grabbing money from prospective buyers to keep the business above water, what else do you suggest? Perhaps you have some better ideas that you'd like to share with them free of charge.

"The whole thing reeks of inconfidence andshaky pylons doomed for failure. Half ass crap comin' at ya outta Amiga (St)Inc."

Well, before you do any marketing in the english language, maybe you should check your spelling and grammar. I suppose you mean "wreak" and I'm not quite sure what "inconfidence" is. Not heard that one before. Did you mean "incompetence" by any chance? Or maybe a "U" instead of an "I", but even then it's suspect.

You wouldn't like to hear my comments about "Half ass crap comin' at ya outta Amiga (St)Inc.", suffice to say you do less for the english language than Amiga do for the A1.

Anyway, a lot of good ideas and technology have fallen by the wayside in the past, but not all because of bad marketing, rather the wrong kind of marketing. The two are not necessarily the same. The A1 may or may not succeed. Let's hope it does!
bad

[Amiga1992]

Come on guys... the A1 is a new machine, with new H/W and OS and because it's called an "Amiga" we shouldn't get hung up on running old versions of Turrican, DPaint and Wordworth.

Please go to the MSX fans, and ask them if they would buy the new CIEL 3++ computer if it couldn't run their 13 years old copy of Nemesis 2. Go to the Spectrum fanbase and ask them if they would buy that superduper Spectrum clone that has HD and all, if it wouldn't run Atic Atac. You could also try and ask ST users if they would consider buying that german souped up ST clone if they can't run CuBase on it! you can also go to the CommodoreOne discussion group and ask them if they would even consider buying the C=1 if it would not be compatible with old C64 software AND hardware. In my point of view, the name "Amiga" means lots of things. Ok, this is new hardware and all, but they are throwing everything out of the window, and the saddest part is: lots of "amigans" don't give a fuck. But as I said, the A1 is not a product for me. I'll stick with my Classic (REAL) Amiga, souping it up a bit more if possible (I'd like an 060). Whenever I earn enough to move over the PC, I'll get into the Mac. Unless you assure me Macromedia will produce their apps for this machine (yeah right ), in which case I can work with the A1 and i'll be much more than happy to switch to an A1 instead of a Mac.

This is what most serious Amiga users have wanted. Copious amounts of horsepower with good games and apps, in just the same way that the original Amigas had in their heyday.

Compromising most of what Amiga means? This is what Amigans wanted all the time? I think I kind of agree. From many years on, there's been a tendence to try and make the Amiga look like PCs and do what PCs do. I think the PCs are an awful role model to follow. I always despised all those PC-like apps, like Start menu bars and startup screen programs (oh please, NO!)

I actually thought Amigans wanted to stick to an alternative from the PC world. If what you want is only that, lots of horsepower plus good apps (sorry but I dont see any PC games like Quake to be any good), you might as well buy a PC. It fits your description! Nowhere you mention that you would like to do that under a decent OS like AmigaOS.

I also have Amiga Forever running nicely on my P3 500, and it actually feels better than the real thing as I can run it at ultra high res with no flicker on a 17" monitor, 256Mb ram and 40+ Gb of HD!!!!

Nothing beats the Real Thing©. And your lameulation pack RUNS OLD STUFF too, don't you apreciate that? You should consider getting a scandoubler/flickefixer for your Amiga, if that concerns you a lot. And you can install a 40GB HD, and at least 128 of RAM (dunno about 256) on an Amiga too.

Apple didn't make everything backwardly compatible in hardware when moving to power PC... they used emulation. People bought native PPC apps that blew the socks off anything they'd had before. Do Ford make their cars backwardly compatible with a Model T?

Sorry but you are comparing a complex beast like an Amiga with a piss simple machine like a Macintosh 68k. 68k macs have NO EXTRA CUSTOM CHIPSETS to fiddle with, so when the move to PPC was done, all they had to do is implement a 68k PPC emulator in there, much in the way AmigaOS4 will do. However, with this simple thing, they managed to get a big level of backwards compatibility. The A1 has zero compatibility level with software that hits the custom chipsetry.

Well, I agree that the marketing is not brilliant, but as the O/S isn't finished and there's no software to run on it yet... what are they supposed to market? "

I wonder where are you getting your facts from? Korodny said there's already programs being made for the new OS/platform, and lots of them are right now working and could be demo'ed. The OS too.
Far from brilliant, I'd really have to agree with Fred and say pathetic. But this is no big news in the Amiga world. Seems like the new owners maintain the lack of marketing knowledge of good old Commodore! Way to go guys! You kept from the old era the thing that you needed to get rid off firstmost!

[Fred the Fop]

Yay.
Ians the grammerian/ philologist. Yay.
IanS. Don't go around low blowing trying to correct my grammer.
I can't stand sanctimonious, smarmy, weak little nit pickers, kid.
You've offered NO rebuttal to my basic premise. "Bad" marketing. "Wrong" marketing. What the hell is the difference in this case? Same result. Their whole operation seems a farce, Any business minded person like myself sees this. You see a shop open up in a manner very shoddily, managed in such a way as to embarrass you. and in a place that it is not suited for, and you know it'll flop. Straight crud commin' outta the jernt I say.
Now my hope is that if indeed the whole operation goes under, that the beloved and long awaited OS 4 go open source ala Linux. Then Amigans everywhere can have their fave OS free and many others not familiar with it can see its brilliance as well. As for the hardware? I don't even know if it's necessary. But alas it's just pipe dreaming on my part. I feel bad that the brilliance of Amiga, its legacy and its fans for it to be held hostage almost, in such a way. I sincerely hope OS 4 makes it out, damn the hardware.

[Fred the Fop]

Now as for Akira's comments: Akira makes superb points, as well as Burseg, in re: The importance of backwards compatability. To Amigans, which is the vast majority of the AmigaOne's target consumer base, this is a crucial point. Yet Amiga (st)Inc. does not see this. This is marketing? To first promise and now betray such a thing? I guess its technical PCI bridge issues and such. And these things happen in development of such things, mais oui.
But as Un_known might say, these guys have the marketing brilliance of a dead handball. Perfect illustration of my point. They NEED to find a way to address this issue or they lose a massive chunk of their potential consumer base. Akira and Burseg, two prime examples of the people Amiga (st)Inc. need to survive, just signed off. Bad move, Amiga, baaaaad move.

[Korodny]

@Burseg:

Had prepared a very long reply, came back to the board to post it and just saw that Ian already said most
of what I intended to say. So I'll concentrate on the "is an Amiga on a PCI card a viable option?" stuff..

Living in the past is not an option but I say there doesn't seem to be a link with the past and future. Why is this new machine, an amiga? OS is important yes but the old amigas also have the os and more.

Sorry, but your only valid argument is demand. You're not in the position (don't get me wrong, neither am I) to declare that the Amiga is dead, or to decide that hardware X is an Amiga while hardware Y isn't. If anybody decides things like that, it's the owner of the trademark.

You can of course say: "In my eyes the Amiga's dead" or (like Akira does): "to me it's not an Amiga, if it doesn't run Turrican". But that is not of interest to a commercial company that wants to make profit. Such a company only gets interested if a lot of people share your point of view - because in this case there's a demand

Imagine you're a hardware developer. There's some unknown demand for Amiga custom chip compatability. Several solutions are available already and meet that demand:

1. Classic hardware: Available in masses and pretty cheap. $20 for an A500, $40-$50 for an A1200
2. (Win)UAE: A software only solution, which may have some problems (you're the UAE guys, tell me!) but it comes for free

That's the competition you're going to face. Your own solution will cost at least 300 US$ *without* a processor (try to locate some 68k chips in low quantities, you'll be shocked), it will still require a second monitor (i.e. half of the advantage compared to standalone classic hardware is already lost).

Do you honestly think this is a viable business model? Would you buy such a card, at that price?

I'm just trying to be sure of eyetech's attitude. I hope they are just "incapable" as you say, but I despise this kind ofmarketing tricks

That's not a marketing trick, I'm not working at Eyetech's PR departement. Eyetech don't have engineers at all. They're contracting out neccessary jobs (and they're usually quite good at doing that).

In this discussion, many of this board's members explicitly said they are interested in compatibility.

Well, apart from you there were two members actually stating that.

Actually we are all retrocomputing people.

Sure, that's why we visit this board. But once again: The AmigaOne is no retro-computer.

I hate posting long messages that look like important and aggressive stuff

Oh, that's fine with me. I guess my postings look somewhat arrogant and/or aggressive too sometimes

[Korodny]

This discussion is getting somewhat pointless, IMHO. It basically comes down to one question: Do you like the A1 concept or not? If you don't, I'm wondering what you're complaining about? Have fun with your classic Amiga or your emulator, and don't waste your time thinking about the A1

@Akira:

lots of "amigans" don't give a fuck

I'm not sure if Burseg ever spent money on new hardware/software directly bought at an Amiga supplier (that's not meant as an offense, Burseg!). I somewhat doubt that he'd suddenly rush for an $700 custom chip compatible A1 motherboard if a $40 A1200 provides the same functionality in the area that is important to him.

Fred seems to be the usual doom monger around here (is there a secret rule that every Amiga forum has to have at least one? One could really think so). Unknown_k is trolling. I wouldn't count on selling products to these guys.

You, Akira, by all means, you don't need an AmigaOne (even if it had custom chip compatability) - but you're the only one that seemed to be really interested to buy one.

Until now, I don't see how Eyetech/Amiga Inc. looses much of a userbase due to their inability to provide custom chip compatability.

Will Amithlon 2 support PPC and run OS4? I'm interested in these new multimedia apps you keep on talking about, Korodny.

No. Amithlon2 is just a slightly improved rerelease of Amithlon because distribution of Amithlon was effectively stopped by Amiga Inc: H&P (the Amithlon publisher) refused to pay the required licensing fees to Amiga Inc. but were selling the product anyway.

PPC emulation for x86 CPUs won't happen that soon (it's quite tricky, especially because the PPC has a lot more registers). It would be illegal if Amiga Inc. wouldn't grant a license - and I doubt that they'll do that. These problems are also responsible for the fact that there's no PPC-Mac emulator for x86 yet.

[Amiga1992]

Originally posted by Frederic
The importance of backwards compatability. To Amigans, which is the vast majority of the AmigaOne's target consumer base, this is a crucial point. Yet Amiga (st)Inc. does not see this.

I think I start to see, from what Korodny and this other person who signed in just to discuss this (:P) say, that the Amigan "race" has been split in two, just like the hardware: Classic Amigan and NÜ-Amigan, to put but two names on them.
We are Classic Amigans. Ok, at least me and I suppose Burseg too. The Amiga, to us, is much more than the OS and a phillosophy of how computing things should work, it's also the way the hardware was constructed and the philosophy behind it, and the fact that a Classic Amiga today can be used like any other machine, if you want to. Sometime, like in my case, its place is not to be replaced by any other system. The classic Amigan thinks the way of the C64, MSX, Spectrum or ST user. These people embrace the idea of new hardware to be created around their fave machines, but want, and need, full (or pretty damn good) backwards compatibility.

Then we have the NÜ-Amigan, who, I don't know why, I think because of paying too much attention on the PC scene, wants a machine that does what a PC does, but running AmigaOS. At least this is how I see it from the words of the PhD in grammar and spelling . To this user, it doesn't matter if the Amiga suddenly is NOTHING BUT A MONIKER slapped into a generic PPC motherboard that runs a true Amiga OS. Seems like, by Amiga Inc.'s calculations, NÜ-Amigans outnumber Classic Amigans, otherwise, this move is rather stupid. I wold REALLY like to conduct a poll about this subject. Not on the EAB, because I suppose Classic amigans outnumber the NÜ ones here. Perhaps in the AFB group?.

Originally posted by Korodny
You, Akira, by all means, you don't need an AmigaOne (even if it had custom chip compatability) - but you're the only one that seemed to be really interested to buy one.

Until now, I don't see how Eyetech/Amiga Inc. looses much of a userbase due to their inability to provide custom chip compatability.

I begin to see it now, if what I say above is correct, that the vast majority of Amiga users do not care for backwards compatibility. However don't be so sure about my needs of an A1 with custom chipset,. I bet my arse that if such a thing would have been released, I would have bought it.

Sucks to hear about Amithlon, I was expecting to run OS4 with that.