Some thoughts on why the Amiga didn't thrive

[Ernst Blofeld]

Originally Posted by Signman

we would kill for what is now available if we could have it back then.

And yet, we still mourn for what is lost.

[Foebane]

Originally Posted by grond

He told me to forget about AGA and, if it really had to be an Amiga, rather buy a used A2000 and put in a graphics card instead (because that could do graphics).

If anyone had said that to me in a shop when I wanted an Amiga, before I knew of Commodore's dire straits and Doom, I would've punched them in the face and told them to fuck off. I really would, the arguments I had in college with my peers over Amiga vs PC...! I really was quite the ZEALOT.

[robinsonb5]

Originally Posted by Signman

Let's be clear, we would kill for what is now available if we could have it back then.

Hardware-wise, maybe.

If 1992 me had known that I'd be expected to download 1.5gb of remote management software for a f**cking laser printer, or that day-to-day tasks would feel slower now than they did back then thanks to a thirty-foot high jenga tower of software layers, network protocols and abstractions, and... well... javascript - words would not have been remotely adequate to describe my scorn.

[Frogs]

Originally Posted by robinsonb5

Hardware-wise, maybe.

If 1992 me had known that I'd be expected to download 1.5gb of remote management software for a f**cking laser printer, or that day-to-day tasks would feel slower now than they did back then thanks to a thirty-foot high jenga tower of software layers, network protocols and abstractions, and... well... javascript - words would not have been remotely adequate to describe my scorn.

Amen! My video driver is a 470 MEGAbyte download. Just for the driver.

Meanwhile, Out of this World has a game and soundtrack that it literally streams from an 800k floppy.

[Foebane]

Originally Posted by Frogs

Meanwhile, Out of this World has a game and soundtrack that it literally streams from an 800k floppy.

Yeah, and demos like "242" by Fairlight / Virtual Dreams were streaming VIDEO off of a similar floppy at around the same time.

[rare_j]

Back in 1985...
"880k? Ridiculous. Pitfall only needs 4k"

[dreadnought]

Originally Posted by robinsonb5

Hardware-wise, maybe.

If 1992 me had known that I'd be expected to download 1.5gb of remote management software for a f**cking laser printer, or that day-to-day tasks would feel slower now than they did back then thanks to a thirty-foot high jenga tower of software layers, network protocols and abstractions, and... well... javascript - words would not have been remotely adequate to describe my scorn.

Most of this is related to the fact that everything and their granny wants to call home and kindly share your data. Corporate internet really has ruined everything.

Other factors are tasks being a tad more complex than 30 years ago and that writing OSs for open-config machines is probably a bit more tricky too.

[robinsonb5]

Originally Posted by dreadnought

Most of this is related to the fact that everything and their granny wants to call home and kindly share your data. Corporate internet really has ruined everything.

Indeed. Even such things as "infinite scrolling" - facebook style - are expressly designed to keep your eyes there as long as possible. You've never "finished" reading a page, there's always more to see and you might miss out if you leave the page now. There are admittedly practical advantages to infinite scrolling on mobile devices - but I'm convinced it was psychology rather than practicality which drove its adoption.

That style of data presentation is incompatible with static data - so when it became trendy everything became javascript-driven, even when it's not appropriate.
For instance, my bank's web site now dynamically loads a list of transactions after the page itself has loaded, with no feedback to let you know whether it's still working or not (and doesn't sort correctly if you want to see the list oldest-first instead of newest-first!) - and the whole thing is way less responsive than the same bank's website of 5 years ago. A simple static view would be so much faster and easier to deal with.

Other factors are tasks being a tad more complex than 30 years ago and that writing OSs for open-config machines is probably a bit more tricky too.

Yes, my little rant is somewhat unfair - but I think most of us can find something to relate to in those words of frustration!

[dreadnought]

@robinsonb5 fair enough. I do like the jenga analogy a lot

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by robinsonb5

Yes, my little rant is somewhat unfair - but I think most of us can find something to relate to in those words of frustration!

I don't think it's unfair. It's about time we started taking a critical view of the current state of personal computing.

IBM developed the PC to fulfill the average user's desire to have something they could safely buy without having to think about it. This demand was so great that pre-orders for the PC exceeded the initial production quantity even before the first units hit the shelves - not because the PC was technically superior (it wasn't) but simply because they didn't want to risk being different. Clone manufacturers quickly jumped on the bandwagon because they had a similar problem, which IBM neatly solved for them by naively making the hardware design 'open'. At this point the fate of any system that dared to be different was sealed, because the majority didn't want different - they wanted the safety of following the herd - wherever that might lead them.

It wasn't long before IBM realized they had made a mistake. The PC became a 'standard' that even they couldn't fix - even though it desperately needed it. 'IBM compatibility' became an immutable law that drove the industry, and still does today because nobody wants different. Nobody wants to feel the shame of being inadequate in some way because they don't have what everybody else has.

The Amiga was different. Few people wanted that. Most wanted the same thing everyone else had because that was the safe option - the one they didn't have to think about. The Amiga was far from perfect and could have been improved in numerous ways - but being different was worse. The only way to make it acceptable to most people would be to make it 100% IBM compatible, and then any other features would be redundant.

One non-IBM manufacturer realized that this was a problem, and attempted to promote different as an asset rather than a flaw - Apple.

Think different is an advertising slogan used from 1997 to 2002 by Apple Computer...

Jobs said the following in a 1995 interview with the Santa Clara Valley Historical Association:

"When you grow up you tend to get told the world is the way it is and your job is just to live your life inside the world. Try not to bash into the walls too much. Try to have a nice family life, have fun, save a little money.

That's a very limited life. Life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact, and that is - everything around you that you call life, was made up by people that were no smarter than you. And you can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use.

The minute that you understand that you can poke life and actually something will, you know if you push in, something will pop out the other side, that you can change it, you can mold it. That's maybe the most important thing. It's to shake off this erroneous notion that life is there and you're just gonna live in it, versus embrace it, change it, improve it, make your mark upon it.

I think that’s very important and however you learn that, once you learn it, you'll want to change life and make it better, cause it's kind of messed up, in a lot of ways. Once you learn that, you'll never be the same again."

With that message Apple was was able to claw back enough of the desktop computer market to survive, because not everyone is happy living their life in a world made by huge corporations whose only goal is to suck money out of you.

The Amiga didn't 'thrive' because few people are willing to stick their necks out and be different. But for some of us that's what makes life worth living. We enjoy doing things that are different. We don't want to just be zombies using what is given to us. We savor the challenge of getting our 35 year old computers to do stuff the herd said was impossible or pointless, and we enjoy the results - even if they are not technically up to the standard of modern PCs.

The current state of 'personal' computing is not much different from what it was 40 years ago. We still have to keep upgrading hardware and software every few years in order to be 'compatible', even though a 10 year old PC is more than capable (I know because I use one). But manufacturers can't have that because they need sales, so they constantly make little changes to force you to 'upgrade'. People settled on the PC because they figured IBM would look after them so they needn't be concerned about compatibility. But once they were on the hook the industry pulled a bait and switch. 'Compatible' soon came to mean only the very latest stuff producers were pushing, and it's been that way ever since.

After 40 years of 'personal computing' we still face the same issue - follow the herd or suffer the consequences. Well I refuse to live my life inside the PC bubble. I will continue to use my Amigas for things they said were impossible or pointless, and I will enjoy doing it - despite them telling me I can't possibly be (because it doesn't have a 'text mode', or because I don't spend all day slaving over spreadsheets and word processors, or because it doesn't have memory protection and a 'secure' OS etc.).

[Foebane]

Great speech, Bruce Abbott, but I have to ask you:

How do you stream Netflix or Amazon Prime on your Amiga? Or use YouTube? Or Facebook? Or (god forbid) Twitter? There is no way those can be used on Amiga.

[sean_sk]

Originally Posted by Foebane

Great speech, Bruce Abbott, but I have to ask you:

How do you stream Netflix or Amazon Prime on your Amiga? Or use YouTube? Or Facebook? Or (god forbid) Twitter? There is no way those can be used on Amiga.

And thank goodness for that! There are plenty of better things to do on an Amiga than to be sitting around like a vegetable for hours on end being spoon-fed the rubbish that pours out of those services that you mention.

[Foebane]

Originally Posted by sean_sk

And thank goodness for that! There are plenty of better things to do on an Amiga than to be sitting around like a vegetable for hours on end being spoon-fed the rubbish that pours out of those services that you mention.

Oh, really(?) (said in an incredulous tone)

[Valken]

@ Bruce Abbot +1

I am guessing a lot of people were also attracted to the Amiga for WHAT IF type thinking, outside of the PC box back in the days, besides just awesome games.

@ Foebane why do we HAVE to do all those things on the Amiga? Why can't we have both Amiga and modern desktop slave to do the heavy lifting and leave the Amiga to do whatever it CAN do?

Until Amiga Next becomes a reality, this is what we have.

I like my 8+ year old desktop just for the fact that it can emulate so many other classic systems as well. Kinda like keeping an old flame the way she/he was at their peak.

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by Foebane

Great speech, Bruce Abbott, but I have to ask you:

How do you stream Netflix or Amazon Prime on your Amiga?

The same way as on my PC - I don't, because neither of them can do it. That's right, my 2.8GHz dual core Pentium D with 1GB RAM and Radeon X600 is apparently not good enough to stream movies. But it doesn't matter because I am not a subscriber to either service and have no desire to be.

So how do I get my movie fix? I have a PC running Linux that is dedicated to one task only - streaming TVNZ On Demand (which is free in New Zealand). Every so often it breaks and I have to wait a few days or weeks for the latest update to fix it (such is life for PC owners) but otherwise I don't fiddle with it.

"A whole PC just for that one job - are you mad? How can you justify the expense?". It was given to me by a business that was forced to 'upgrade', so it cost me nothing. I connected it to a widescreen monitor that was also given to me, and installed it next to the treadmill in my exercise room. I wouldn't want to use it for general purpose computing in that location, but it's perfect for entertaining me while I am keeping fit.

Or use YouTube?

It is possible to play YouTube videos on a suitably powerful Amiga (eg. Vampire 600, which I have), but the software to do it isn't well integrated yet. So I use my PC, which so far is working OK. But YouTube is making me watch more and more tedious adverts, and yesterday when I tried to find a video it wouldn't accept spaces in the search bar (WTF?). It's only a matter of time before it breaks completely, and then no more YouTube for me!

Or Facebook?

I wouldn't go near Facebook with any computer.

Or (god forbid) Twitter?

I have zero interest in Twitter, which has become a tool for trolls to peddle dangerous misinformation and stir up trouble.

But Twitter is a prime example of a technology which has abandoned its core principles in the pursuit of profit. It was originally designed to use SMS messaging to create a 'microblog' for cellphone users, thus the 140 character limit. Pretty much any device with an internet or cellular connection could make tweets, but in 2020 (in the middle of a world-wide pandemic) this was dropped in favor of PWA, which requires all the facilities of a 'modern' Web browser. Too bad for Amiga and other alternative platform users!

If I really wanted to get on Twitter then I could use my new cellphone, which I purchased a few weeks ago to run the Covid tracing app. Like many users today, my cellphone may end up being the only device that stays up to date with the latest 'standards'.

You see, a computer doesn't have do everything in order to be enjoyed. I use my Amiga for Amiga stuff, and my PCs for PC stuff. There is no shame in using different devices for different jobs, or in not subscribing to every social media platform out there. You don't buy a power tool expecting it to do everything from drilling holes to mowing the lawn, or a car expecting it to fit in the smallest parking space and tow a yacht. You don't ask your microwave to make toast and wash the dishes. Yet somehow a computer is worthless if it can't do every computing job that is ever developed (for a PC of course - nothing else matters).

Here's the thing, no PC will ever be able to do what my Amiga does - make me feel happy using it. It will never let me program in 68000 machine code, or enjoy using the GUI and custom chips features, or play the awesome games and music that I like - except though emulation (which everyone knows is not the same as the real thing). And it will never reproduce the look and feel of a real Amiga, no matter how hard it tries. My Amigas can't do some things that PCs do, and just as importantly those PCs can't do some things my Amigas do. But even if that wasn't the case it would in no way invalidate my reasons for using one over the other.

[Signman]

2Bruce Abbot +2
Eloquent sir.
In the 80s when I bought my Amiga I talked two of my siblings into purchasing the 500 also.
They were herd followers but went along for a while. Eventually I bought theirs also, sold one. The call of the mob took them away but they only got into computing because everyone was starting.

Right now I am attempting to fix a 2003 dell computer I had. This was the pinnacle of pc computing for me and I have great games and productivity software on it. It still does about everything i want and expect from computing even now.

[Foebane]

@Bruce Abbott:

Fair enough, I was just wondering if you used a PC for anything, that's all.

As for the Twitter thing, I considered trying it a decade ago, but discovered that people have been jailed for making bad enough comments on it, considered trolling. Seems the general public don't even know what REAL trolling is, on forums and boards like this.

But my point is, Twitter is probably the worst thing to happen in the world in the last decade. Social media may once have been YouTube and Facebook, but they're relatively benign compared to the blue birded pestilence. Doesn't help that so many people use it and swear by it, but not me, and that's why I was hesitant in asking if you did.

As for the Netflix / Amazon Prime thing, I used to use my PC for that, but since the quality of YouTube was reduced by Covid-19, I was annoyed that I could only see my movies in SD... that is, until I discovered that my Amazon Fire TV stick could play them in HD, so I've stuck with those on both my displays since, except for YouTube, cos it would take ages to type in searches for videos with the remote.

[Frogs]

I think it's fair to say that most people, especially in the early days, bought PCs because they didn't want to give much thought to their choice.

Personal computers were new and scary and they knew who IBM was. I'm curious if anyone here believes that there is some alternative timeline where IBM and the compatibles could have been displaced?

I haven't asked my dad what he thinks but I do think there are many timelines where the Amiga, instead of the Mac, had a chance unlike say, the Atari St which I don't think there's any scenario it could have succeeded long-term.

That's why I keep harping on the monitor stuff. Imo, that's the low hanging fruit change that could have made the Amiga alternative for creatives. That doesn't mean Commodore wouldn't have screwed it up still. A worldwide supply chain and sales force is a pretty critical thing and Commodore routinely showed they could snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory (Sears, Sun, etc.).

[TEG]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

IBM developed the PC to fulfill the average user's desire to have something they could safely buy without having to think about it. This demand was so great that pre-orders for the PC exceeded the initial production quantity even before the first units hit the shelves - not because the PC was technically superior (it wasn't) but simply because they didn't want to risk being different. Clone manufacturers quickly jumped on the bandwagon because they had a similar problem, which IBM neatly solved for them by naively making the hardware design 'open'. At this point the fate of any system that dared to be different was sealed, because the majority didn't want different - they wanted the safety of following the herd - wherever that might lead them.

It wasn't long before IBM realized they had made a mistake. The PC became a 'standard' that even they couldn't fix - even though it desperately needed it. 'IBM compatibility' became an immutable law that drove the industry, and still does today because nobody wants different. Nobody wants to feel the shame of being inadequate in some way because they don't have what everybody else has.

The Amiga was different. Few people wanted that. Most wanted the same thing everyone else had because that was the safe option - the one they didn't have to think about. The Amiga was far from perfect and could have been improved in numerous ways - but being different was worse. The only way to make it acceptable to most people would be to make it 100% IBM compatible, and then any other features would be redundant.

One non-IBM manufacturer realized that this was a problem, and attempted to promote different as an asset rather than a flaw - Apple.

For me, this is thinking in black & white. Without replacing the PC, don't you think the Amiga could have thrive much more than it had and have Commodore a place similar to Apple in terms of fame?

And at the time games were not so done like it' the case today. There was room for outsiders. And the Amiga was a good outsider but with some flaws.

The unanswered question I have is: could the hard have delivered a better experience taking into account the limitations of what electronic components were available, especially RAM? Perhaps the Amiga was just a bit too ahead of its time and we had the best of what was possible.

On the point of electronic components, Commodore could have been able to make sparks 5 years before the Amiga. At a time they had Chuck Peddle, MOS technology and the Moore Park R&D facility. Perhaps they would have been able to produce better RAM for the market and put it into the Amiga when the time comes. OK, I drift.

In these days before the IBM PC, Chuck spearheaded a group of Commodore managers who wanted to replace the aging fleet of PET computers with a line of real business machines. At a fateful April 1980 meeting in London England, Tramiel was late and the group made the mistake of openly considering splitting the company into to parts, a consumer division and a business division. Chuck knew that Tramiel’s heart and expertise was in the consumer line and Chuck felt it was only natural that he would lead the business line. When Jack arrived and found out what was going on, he wrongly interpreted the meeting as a mutiny. “Or maybe it was?” says Chuck. Jack was furious and Chuck was going to take the brunt. The next day Jack ordered the Moore Park facility closed and the staff to be relocated to Commodore’s head office in Pennsylvania. Chuck had had enough and quit for the last time.

Source

[E-Penguin]

Originally Posted by Foebane

Or Facebook?

I've managed to use Facebook (lite) on my CD32/TF330. I wouldn't say it was a smooth experience but I could read things, make new posts...

I've not tried twitter on IBrowse, maybe I'll give it a go this weekend.