PiStorm kills Vampire?

[UberFreak]

As a previous owner of both - there is absolutely no comparison.
The Vampire is the fastest accelerator on the market by far, and was a great experience to use.
The best investment I've made for my Amiga since getting an 060 many years ago.

Sold it the day it was discontinued, now waiting for the new A1200 card coming next year (hopefully).

[grond]

Originally Posted by DDNI

The pistorm will not kill the vampire in performance, but it doesn't need to. When faced with a £400 purchase or ~£40 purchase, the majority will go cheap.
This is where pistorm kills vampire.

That seems possible. I wonder about the slow chipmem access of the PiStorm, though. This probably breaks a lot of OCS games and demos that makes use of every chipmem cycle.

[YouKnowWho]

Mazda MX-5 Miata is a fun little car.

Now, I've seen some people put a V8 engine in it. Oh sure, I'll look at the video of the new creation. But is it still a Mazda MX-5 Miata?

In physical appearance perhaps. But it is no longer a Mazda, it's a FrankenMazda.

I believe this is very true in the Amiga community. There is this push for most MIPS, fastest speed, OSes that were never on the platform, uses that were never on the platform.

Amiga is an Amiga when it has original chipset and 68K CPU running original OS up to 3.1. I'll give 3.1.4 a slight pass here, even if I wish the kickstart boot up would still say Commodore personally (is there a way to change that?)

Anything else is a deviation in my view, and a FrankenAmiga. The question really is how much of a FrankenAmiga is it?

I am fascinated how many wonderful ideas all these Dr. Frankensteins have had since 1994. A lot of clever hardware has come out since, and the effort, work and creativity is impressive. It's fun to watch.

On the flip side, can the Amiga not be appreciated for the essence of what it was? What it could do when it was here? Or is it just not enough now that technology has moved on so much?

Personally, I find the Amiga the most beautiful and final word in retro computing. A real friendly computer, that was there to help us. A computer that was efficient. A computer that booted up a multitasking OS off a single 880K floppy. A computer that came with very capable productivity apps that got me a lot of high grades. A computer that I used to introduced our school's entire photo department to digital photography with just a 500, DigiView and a Citizen 24pin color printer.

A computer before spyware, creepy Silicon Valley creeps started gathering up all our data, our images for facial recognition spying, and making us the product, developing apps to keep us engaged and addicted to their crappy "killer apps". Pushing endless marketing to us, as if we asked for it. What gives them the right?

A computer that was a real A! That was the Amiga. Can't it be appreciated for that? Must we drag it kicking and screaming toward what computing has become today...a soulless slab of glass you touch more than your significant other, whom you're supposed to love?

[sean_sk]

Originally Posted by YouKnowWho

Amiga is an Amiga when it has original chipset and 68K CPU running original OS up to 3.1.

If that’s what Amiga means for you, then great!

But it is certainly not something you can say as a categorical fact. Amiga is a concept or computing principle that encompasses far more than that. In my opinion, (and yes, it’s just an opinion and also not a categorical fact) it includes everything from the A1000 all the way through to the Vampire and it’s up to you to as to what aspect of it appeals to you.

The Vampire is an attempt to push that concept forward and just because it’s not 100 percent backward compatible doesn’t make it any less Amiga than the A500, just like the A1200 is no less an Amiga despite it not being 100 percent backwards compatible either.

“Amiga” does not necessarily have to be something made by Commodore. I reckon if they were still around, it’s quite likely they’d be making x86 computers like everyone else, or if they were still making “Amiga’s”, they’d be nothing like they were in the 90’s.

[Signman]

Originally Posted by eXeler0

So the answer is, no, PiStorm wont kill the Vampire. Will it grab a bunch of the market? Sure it will. Will it divide the community? Probably not at all..
Most of us have more than one Amiga, right? You put a Blizzard into one, a TF into another, maybe a PiStorm in one and why not a Vampire..
It might look scattered, but generally (and for the most part) having multiple choices is a luxory, not a problem. ;-)

Cheers

Exactly. I put the Pistorm in my 1000 because she needs help. I also have a Checkmate with A500 and V2 Vampire, plus a few others. Why get all hot and bothered about some fun hobbyist choices we never had before. The world may be going to shit but my diversions keep marching on.

[grond]

Originally Posted by YouKnowWho

Mazda MX-5 Miata is a fun little car.

Now, I've seen some people put a V8 engine in it. Oh sure, I'll look at the video of the new creation. But is it still a Mazda MX-5 Miata?

In physical appearance perhaps. But it is no longer a Mazda, it's a FrankenMazda.

I believe this is very true in the Amiga community. There is this push for most MIPS, fastest speed, OSes that were never on the platform, uses that were never on the platform.

Amiga is an Amiga when it has original chipset and 68K CPU running original OS up to 3.1.

Your car analogy doesn't work very well here in my opinion. Computers have always been about getting faster and still are today. Although Commodore had a tendency to keep the same base config forever even they moved from 7 MHz 68000 over 16 and 25 MHz 030 to eventually 25 MHz 030 and 040. If they had continued to live, they might have put out a 50 MHz 060 configuration similar to the Draco. And if the market had been big enough, Motorola might have continued 68k development. To me the Vampire isn't a Frankenstein Amiga, it is an extrapolation of the Amiga line of computers. Or in a car analogy: it is one possible answer to the question of how a Volkswagen Camper would look like today if Volkswagen had stopped making them in 1994.

[YouKnowWho]

Originally Posted by sean_sk

If that’s what Amiga means for you, then great!

But it is certainly not something you can say as a categorical fact. Amiga is a concept or computing principle that encompasses far more than that.

Yo surfer Bro...Amiga is not just a computer. It's a way of life man. Ride the gnarly wave wherever it may take you.

[YouKnowWho]

Originally Posted by grond

Or in a car analogy: it is one possible answer to the question of how a Volkswagen Camper would look like today if Volkswagen had stopped making them in 1994.

Well, as we said earlier, you can make your own reality and take the Amiga to the destination YOU think it would go to.

Reality we commonly share however is the destination Amiga took: Terminal.

We have to accept the reality that was, and always only will be: 68K machine with Commodore's special chipset. That is the true reality of what the Amiga is to everyone. How you chose to deviate from that is up to you, but that is the common point we can all agree on as fact.

Anything beyond that is as you say...imagination of what if would be today. And the reality is that the Amiga today is....well, this Mac I'm writing it on. Ideas Amiga introduced were borrowed and taken and live on in technology we use today. Amiga is this iPhone I'm using. Just look at how you switch applications on your iPhone after double click. If that's not Workbench-like, I don't know what is.

[tomcat666]

Originally Posted by grond

I wonder about the slow chipmem access of the PiStorm, though. This probably breaks a lot of OCS games and demos that makes use of every chipmem cycle.

The authors are already hard at work on the proto4 firmware that should fix all those problems(a tiny bit slower chipmem access and the interrupt problem, which breaks some of the demos and games)...

[YouKnowWho]

Originally Posted by sean_sk

“Amiga” does not necessarily have to be something made by Commodore. I reckon if they were still around, it’s quite likely they’d be making x86 computers like everyone else, or if they were still making “Amiga’s”, they’d be nothing like they were in the 90’s.

You know what, this is an interesting point, and this reality was being realized.

Commodore was already pushing toward "me too" PCs with their PC10, 20, 30, etc. If you think about what Intel was delivering to market, it's clear that there was no path forward for C64 & Amiga products. Commodore had to go to Intel PC. Apple resisted with PPC after 68K, but eventually even they went to Intel also. Today they are on ARM, which the PiStorm is. And where is Apple heading toward with M1?

You can muddle and pull the Amiga through each of these eras. We had PPC capabilities on Amiga. We have emulation running on Intel and ARM. Now ARM CPU replacing the 68K. Fascinating how the computer moves into these new architecture and is made to work.

But remember...it works with it's own original chipset and 68K CPU just fine as well. So all of these new things are...I'm going to say "cute" proofs of concept. But in the end...we already have what's needed - Commodore's chipset and 68K CPU.

Maybe that's really why Commodore died in the first place. C64 platform went as far as it could go. Amiga install base wasn't nearly enough to make the jump to PPC - not like anyone made money on PPC Amiga after Commodore, so clearly it wasn't the killer platform that would have made the difference, and for Commodore to stick their name on PCs...it just didn't carry the pull. Other brands were there with IBM compatibles, and were dominating market share.

And so Amiga never went beyond the chipset and 68K CPU. But maybe thanks to that, and being somewhat frozen in time it becomes timeless, and frozen at its peak before it had to become FrankenAmiga on PPC or Intel of ARM?

[Promilus]

Originally Posted by manossg

My point is exactly that these features do not exist in classic Amigas, so beefy Amigas, RPis and WinUAE cannot (yet) do what can be done with a Vampire.

Conversely Vampire cannot do many things PPC amiga or WinUAE can. Also - it's not that software emulated 68k can't do AMMX. Reason why nobody implements it to WinUAE and Musashi is becase no one wants to. There's just no immediate need to do that (and most likely won't be since there aren't many apps which absolutely will require it ... and WinUAE with JIT can do circles around super Vampire anyway)

Furthermore, you still haven't answered me about the price but shifted the goalpost to PPC. Ok, let's chat about PPCs (which cannot run Vamp software but can the Vamp run PPC software?).

Vamp can't run PPC either. It wouldn't be even possible to squeeze small ppc softcore to run on cyclone V A5 concurrently with AC68080. And there's absolutely no option to attach external PPC to it. You're talking about cost - well PiStorm is a fraction of what Vampire costs. FPGA itself is roughly the cost of entire Raspberry Pi 4! PPC aren't produced anymore en masse, just few specialized solutions which costs a lot. X5000 anyone? Yeah - that's that. But that's the fastest "amiga" there is. Well, maybe fairly modern PC costing around V4SA is faster with 060 JIT.

Also, I do not care for OS4 or MOS, unfortunately they seem like dead ends to me and not very NG (although they had so much potential), so please do not divert the conversation.

Well 68k is a dead end since mid 90s. Oh wait... Vampire is 68k compatible and that's it's selling point. Dead end technology Guess what, those NG dead ends can do more than ApolloOS. And does support more hw from different vendors as well. MOS handles PowerMacs which you can buy for 100-200$, sure second hand (or third ) but there's distinct possibility you could run Jedi Knight there and maybe watch some fullscreen video with decent speed.

Those MIPS and FLOPS numbers of AC68080 are ridiculous when you compare them with seasoned PPC and ARM (even Cortex M7 in STM32H7 guys from CSLabs used has more MIPS! and all it does is to handle temperature readings, fan control, frequency control, usb hid and mass storage support, sdcard support, firmware update and mp3 decoding, Cortex A53 from Pi3 is way more advanced than M7 and runs at higher speed too).

Gunnar always tries to shift attention to memory subsystem performance. Yes it is impressive. After all that's DDR3 memory (despite running at fraction of it's speed) while most platforms he compares it with are running SDR or DDR1.

So all Vampire represents is being performance king of 68k dead end and all vampire developers will achieve is to push that wall few bricks further then stop with no way to push forward and no way to turn back and try something else (and that's exactly why it is a trap).


@YouKnowWho

Apple resisted with PPC after 68K, but eventually even they went to Intel also. Today they are on ARM

Apple went smoothly to PPC offering decent emulation for old software. They went to x86 bandwagon only because IBM didn't provide new PPC which could be put into notebooks while intel had such CPUs. So they jumped in and were happy about it. Offered yet another emulation layer to play with PPC apps under x86. Apple invested in developing ARM architecture to their smartphones but wouldn't switch to it with notebooks and desktop hadn't intel fail they expectations just like IBM. Apple can produce more chips with TSMC 5nm, more power efficient and not terribly lagging behind in terms of performance. That's the reason why it was yet another time to switch. And also there's emulation. Amiga users aren't like Apple users. They want the old one OS, compatible with old ones hw but some of them want modern speed and features as well. That can't be done. Vampire offers something in between - fairly modern architecture, most compatible and powerful 68k but still fitting to classic amiga. Something more compatible? Turbo on Motorola. Something faster? WinUAE, PPC or ARM.

[manossg]

Thanks for the paragraphs, mate, it makes the conversation much easier.

Originally Posted by Promilus

Conversely Vampire cannot do many things PPC amiga or WinUAE can. Also - it's not that software emulated 68k can't do AMMX. Reason why nobody implements it to WinUAE and Musashi is becase no one wants to. There's just no immediate need to do that (and most likely won't be since there aren't many apps which absolutely will require it ... and WinUAE with JIT can do circles around super Vampire anyway)

Let's put it another way. There isn't anything NG I want to run that the Vampire cannot run. There are quite a few things that I want to run that UAE/PPC cannot but the Vampire can with ease. Also, I find that the Vampire, although not perfect, offers a smoother experience compared to UAE/Pi for a lot of NG things, even for games (for example, AB3D2 springs to mind, I sincerely could never get it to run as smooth as on the Vampire).

As for your claim that nobody implements AMMX because nobody wants it, I think you might be projecting your opinion to every amigan. Vampire is admittedly a commercial success, so somebody must find these features desirable.

Originally Posted by Promilus

Vamp can't run PPC either. It wouldn't be even possible to squeeze small ppc softcore to run on cyclone V A5 concurrently with AC68080. And there's absolutely no option to attach external PPC to it. You're talking about cost - well PiStorm is a fraction of what Vampire costs. FPGA itself is roughly the cost of entire Raspberry Pi 4! PPC aren't produced anymore en masse, just few specialized solutions which costs a lot. X5000 anyone? Yeah - that's that. But that's the fastest "amiga" there is. Well, maybe fairly modern PC costing around V4SA is faster with 060 JIT.

You are doing the same thing, mate. You want to compare the Vamp to PPC or X5000 performance-wise, but you shift the goalpost to comparing it with the Pi when the price is mentioned. This is not ok. At least we agree that PPC and X5000 cost a lot.

Originally Posted by Promilus

Well 68k is a dead end since mid 90s. Oh wait... Vampire is 68k compatible and that's it's selling point. Dead end technology Guess what, those NG dead ends can do more than ApolloOS. And does support more hw from different vendors as well. MOS handles PowerMacs which you can buy for 100-200$, sure second hand (or third ) but there's distinct possibility you could run Jedi Knight there and maybe watch some fullscreen video with decent speed.
So all Vampire represents is being performance king of 68k dead end and all vampire developers will achieve is to push that wall few bricks further then stop with no way to push forward and no way to turn back and try something else (and that's exactly why it is a trap).

Well, Amiga is generally a meaningless dead end, when you think about it like that, but at least now I understand the rationale behind your 'trap' argument. Needless to say, I fully disagree, since we are talking about a hobby computer here and not at a contender for, let's say, x86.

When I talk about being a dead end, I mean that there is no noteworthy forward momentum at present. Under this light, I hope we can agree that both AmigaOS and 68K are enjoying very delicious, active developments at the moment (eg with AOS 3.2, Warp&TF 060 and the Apollo 080). Also, quality games for 68K systems (and some exclusive Vamp titles) are very actively being developed and I find that 2021 is a great time to be an amigan!

I am not an expert on OS4 or MOS developments, but I feel that things are a bit stale there although I truly hope I am wrong.

You are right, though, about ApollOS, mate, it is still not very usable. But at least it enjoys active development and it continually improves, so, for me, it is not a dead end.

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by tomcat666

Man, what did you add to get to 132 EUR ? rPI 3A+ is around 20 EURos, You can use a 16GB SD card for 2 EUR and the piStorm is anywhere from 25 to 40 EURos... so you would be at around 50 EURos in the end.

I just selected all the necessary options at AMIGAstore.eu, and that's what the total came to.

[cugar124]

Using the store is just a lazy way. I bought mine for £30 pistorm on eBay and £20 pi on eBay so total £50. I have my now not supported V2 vamp and I love it my A600 would never be that powerful otherwise. Biggest problem with the vampire is cost and lack of upgrade when they add a feature that won't fit the limited V2 because hey they are a company now and want to make cash and made sure to use a cheap very limited fpga. Best bit is like all Amiga kit someone will hack emm and improve them in time.

[nikosidis]

Sure PiStorm Will be faster than wamp. Pi4 support will happen and JIT will happen. As long as future Pi versions stay compatible it will be even faster. To me Vampire is to slow for any NG solution. PiStorm will eventually kill Vampire. The team they have there! Vampire have no chance. There will be A1200 solutions, cards etc.
I would estimate 1 year for this to happen.

[NovaCoder]

Originally Posted by nikosidis

Sure PiStorm Will be faster than wamp. Pi4 support will happen and JIT will happen. As long as future Pi versions stay compatible it will be even faster. To me Vampire is to slow for any NG solution. PiStorm will eventually kill Vampire. The team they have there! Vampire have no chance. There will be A1200 solutions, cards etc.
I would estimate 1 year for this to happen.

Yes I'm sure when this product matures (and brings Pi4 support) the performance will be more than enough for us retro gamers.

I think the best thing about the PiStorm is that it will never have proprietary software developed for it....

[nikosidis]

Originally Posted by NovaCoder

Yes I'm sure when this product matures (and brings Pi4 support) the performance will be more than enough for us retro gamers.

I think the best thing about the PiStorm is that it will never have proprietary software developed for it....

Yepp

I also think that AROS 68k will have a nice future on PiStorm.
Just like Gunnar use it for Apollo OS on Vampire.

[Promilus]

@nikosidis - JIT will be fast but JIT is also not so good when it comes to compatibility. Some software will have problems, some won't run at all. That's the cost of software emulation. It's rather slow when "more compatible" and rather incompatible with some tricks used by (mostly) demoscene devs when in JIT.

@manossg

As for your claim that nobody implements AMMX because nobody wants it

Users might want whatever they like (something you should be familiar at apollo forum ... requests for things Gunnar and team will never make), decision rests in hands of developers and when it comes to WinUAE and Musashi - atm those ppl aren't interested in AMMX and for good reasons.

Needless to say, I fully disagree, since we are talking about a hobby computer here and not at a contender for, let's say, x86

Let me ask a question then - to what kind of use you need AC68080 level of performance in Amiga? I mean processor-wise, not the whole subsystem.
Either you need something way faster than 060/50MHz or you don't. If you don't then PiMiga will eventually give everything typical amiga user need for less money (and with more availability) than Apollo Team products.

If you really do more power then Phase5 already shown the way. You don't need to make "fastest 68k" ... just use processor with different architecture and incorporate support for apps compiled for it inside AmigaOS. It was relatively cheap then - when both FPGAs were extremely expensive and PowerPC 603/604 fairly common. It could be cheap now too - with extremely cheap ARM SoCs where whole working board costs around the price of single Vampire's FPGA chip itself (which - as I understand - has a long lead time due to supply shortages and production redirection).

Please understand - I am impressed by work done by Apollo Team. As fellow engineer I am familiar with difficulties in development of fully pipelined 68k on FPGA. I find AC68080 piece of technical art. But that's that. When it comes to amiga software (actually games) there are 4 categories:
1. Designed and working well on either stock or commonly expanded Amiga
2. Designed for moderately expanded amiga for full speed but working ok on commonly expanded or stock
3. Designed for heavily expanded amiga with RTG for full experience but working ok on AGA and moderately expanded amiga (e.g. Napalm)
4. Designed for extremely heavily expanded amiga with 3D RTG - those usually require both hw acceleration of graphic card (voodoo, bvision) and PPC.

Vampire handles 1-3 and kind of overlaps part of 4, PiStorm should handle 1-2 (especially if chip ram access is fixed) and in the future 1-3. And when it comes to #4 most practical approach would be to copy and improve the way Phase5 did that. And it makes perfect sense ARM SoCs are fit to do that as relatively common, cheap and powerful (and also supporting both little and big endian and not being x86). I'm sorry but while being most powerful 68k Vampire just won't fit in this category.

Even their on-going effort in 3D core won't change that simple fact - it will still be too slow to port more power hungry games but games designed strictly for Vampire won't run on non-vampire classic amiga rigs fully capable of running either segment 3 or segment 4 titles. Yes, 604e@300MHz with 060/50MHz won't run application designed with AMMX in mind despite being capable of running Quake 2 better (it's ppc version against vampire's 68k). Now you see why I kind of don't like where it is going with those 68k (un)natural Gunnar's additions?

[manossg]

@Promilus

I think I better understand your viewpoint now, mate, and the core of our disagreement. You are concerned about the fragmentation that the Vampire innovations might bring. I, on the other hand, find these additions very true to the Amiga spirit and I am very excited with this new and upcoming software that takes advantage of them. For example, the Jake and Peppy game looks and feels very modern, while at the same time being an Amiga title.

That's what I mean in my original post:

Originally Posted by manossg

the Vampire experience is not only about acceleration (although the Vamp is unbelievably fast!), but about improving/enhancing the Amiga experience in ways that the original Amigas could not deliver.

It is not just a matter of raw speed. And that is why, although I do not doubt that PiStorm will improve a lot given enough time, I highly doubt that it will threaten, let alone 'kill' the Vampire, as the OP claims. That's also why I stopped using emulation (UAE/PiMiga) for NG Amiga stuff (and because, as already mentioned, Vampire is/feels smoother), although the emulation route has better scores on SysInfo.

The way I see it, again, we are spoilt for choice and there are great options for everyone. All this thing about past and future Vampire-killers might be a bit juvenile and makes for some nice, fun conversation, but the actual end result is lots of fantastic hardware choices and my guess is that this friendly (and sometimes not so friendly ) competition inspires the Apollo team to continue innovating and pushing the hw even more, so everybody's a winner.

Originally Posted by Promilus

to what kind of use you need AC68080 level of performance in Amiga? I mean processor-wise, not the whole subsystem.
Either you need something way faster than 060/50MHz or you don't. If you don't then PiMiga will eventually give everything typical amiga user need for less money (and with more availability) than Apollo Team products.

Again, 'need' is a weird term to use, regarding a hobby computer. I would say that I enjoy using my Vampire for luxuriating in the wonderful Workbench, some light productivity (milkytracker and word processing), NG games (especially the great ports by Arti/BSZili ), 060 demos, some -amazing- Mac emulation and a few classic games. Although I could do most of these on the PiMiga, for example, I couldn't do everything and not with the same amount of smoothness. So, again, it's not only a matter of raw speed.

Originally Posted by Promilus

When it comes to amiga software (actually games) there are 4 categories:
1. Designed and working well on either stock or commonly expanded Amiga
2. Designed for moderately expanded amiga for full speed but working ok on commonly expanded or stock
3. Designed for heavily expanded amiga with RTG for full experience but working ok on AGA and moderately expanded amiga (e.g. Napalm)
4. Designed for extremely heavily expanded amiga with 3D RTG - those usually require both hw acceleration of graphic card (voodoo, bvision) and PPC.

Vampire handles 1-3 and kind of overlaps part of 4, PiStorm should handle 1-2 (especially if chip ram access is fixed) and in the future 1-3. And when it comes to #4 most practical approach would be to copy and improve the way Phase5 did that.
Even their on-going effort in 3D core won't change that simple fact - it will still be too slow to port more power hungry games but games designed strictly for Vampire won't run on non-vampire classic amiga rigs fully capable of running either segment 3 or segment 4 titles. Yes, 604e@300MHz with 060/50MHz won't run application designed with AMMX in mind despite being capable of running Quake 2 better (it's ppc version against vampire's 68k).

I am not so sure I fully agree with your assessment. Vampire atm is actually so-so regarding classic games (those in the category 1 you mentioned) and I wouldn't recommend the Vampire if you only want to play WHDLoad games. Vampire truly shines and kicks ass in categories 2-3 and, naturally, in Vamp specific games.
For games like Quake 2, performance is quite decent and unbeatable in this price level for real hw.

Also, I have yet to see the new 3d improvements in action and it is still too early, so I cannot refute or confirm your claim/prediction that it will be too slow but I also don't know what kind of expectations you have.

[Tigerskunk]

Originally Posted by YouKnowWho

Mazda MX-5 Miata is a fun little car.

Now, I've seen some people put a V8 engine in it. Oh sure, I'll look at the video of the new creation. But is it still a Mazda MX-5 Miata?

In physical appearance perhaps. But it is no longer a Mazda, it's a FrankenMazda.

I believe this is very true in the Amiga community. There is this push for most MIPS, fastest speed, OSes that were never on the platform, uses that were never on the platform.

Amiga is an Amiga when it has original chipset and 68K CPU running original OS up to 3.1. I'll give 3.1.4 a slight pass here, even if I wish the kickstart boot up would still say Commodore personally (is there a way to change that?)

Anything else is a deviation in my view, and a FrankenAmiga. The question really is how much of a FrankenAmiga is it?

I am fascinated how many wonderful ideas all these Dr. Frankensteins have had since 1994. A lot of clever hardware has come out since, and the effort, work and creativity is impressive. It's fun to watch.

On the flip side, can the Amiga not be appreciated for the essence of what it was? What it could do when it was here? Or is it just not enough now that technology has moved on so much?

Personally, I find the Amiga the most beautiful and final word in retro computing. A real friendly computer, that was there to help us. A computer that was efficient. A computer that booted up a multitasking OS off a single 880K floppy. A computer that came with very capable productivity apps that got me a lot of high grades. A computer that I used to introduced our school's entire photo department to digital photography with just a 500, DigiView and a Citizen 24pin color printer.

A computer before spyware, creepy Silicon Valley creeps started gathering up all our data, our images for facial recognition spying, and making us the product, developing apps to keep us engaged and addicted to their crappy "killer apps". Pushing endless marketing to us, as if we asked for it. What gives them the right?

A computer that was a real A! That was the Amiga. Can't it be appreciated for that? Must we drag it kicking and screaming toward what computing has become today...a soulless slab of glass you touch more than your significant other, whom you're supposed to love?

Nice text, mate...

Personally, I think Amiga can be both.

I like tinkering with OS 3.2 on my Vampire, but on the other side enjoy coding ASM for vanilla machines like the A500 or A1200.