I'm seeing some comments/signature quotes every now and then on here and Amiga.org about the Amiga name. Apparently, some people don't think AmigaNG are real Amigas. As I'm still relatively new to the scene (almost a year now!), what exactly makes AmigaNG's less Amiga? Is it because of the lack of Commodore or is it something else?

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@Vistaus

What you do and don't call an Amiga is largely down to personal opinion. No models with the name Amiga have been built since the days of Escom. The closest in name terms are the AmigaONE models and in hardware terms the Minimig.

@Vistaus

Point of view.

Spirit?

Legality of usage of the name on products?

Commodore Amiga legacy?

Can think of many more, but this is why you will scarcely see the same answer twice. You can look at it any way you choose.

#6

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@Vistaus,

Many of those people discount NG machines for lack of 68K code and it was changed to power PC by a company that is not Amiga. But seriously, who cares since it was converted directly from AOS 3.1.

Chris

@Vistaus

Amiga what was in 1985-1994 was the machine think and devolped with that era... Custom chips and so and so , machine who have to live many and many years and dont less of 2 years. .. now are age of rubbish computers cheaper and simple to buy , simple to upgrade and simple to trash...

Last edited by tlosm on 16-Jun-2014 at 09:19 PM.

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@QuikSanz

Yeah, I agree with you. "who cares". But that doesn't mean I have to stop being interested in other's POV :)

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Proud user of AmigaOS 4.1 on an AmigaONE 500. This is the first Amiga I've ever had so I don't know all the ins and outs of AmigaOS yet, so I'm sorry if I'm asking noob questions and stuff.

@Vistaus

Amiga was almost entirely about the Hardware, which was (and still is) special in major ways.

"Amiga NG" is almost entirely about the Software/Operaitng System, which is now made to run on hardware with generic standard PC controllers assembled in a standard PC way, even if they may have PPC processors.

To those who appreciates the Amiga Hardware, the Hardware Amiga's is probably the "real thing". Those who appreciates the moving on from the Amiga Hardware and this way making the Amiga more "modern", aren't as focused on hardware as those others. To some of them, having a Amiga trade mark sticker or a boing ball makes it a real Amiga. To others, trade marks aren't important and all, and instead the level of new features and how compatible the new OS is to the old stuff what they think is important.

And everyone is right, cause it's an individual thing!

@Vistaus

For those folks who are purely into retro stuff, their idea of a "real Amiga" is a machine based on a motorola 68000 (or '68k') CPU and is restricted to the OCS, ECS or AGA chipset found on Amiga's from 1985 til 1996.

Most of those people don't see AmigaOne's or other PPC AmigaOS computers as "real Amiga's" is because they won't play James Pond naively, as you have to rely on UAE for those old games that require one of those chipsets.

And honestly I found that to be an incredibly stupid reason why.
It is completely unrealistic to expect more than ten year old games that has VERY specific system requirements to run on newer hardware. (same goes for PC and Mac)
If the Commodore engineers had their way then it would be the exact same would happen, their newer chip sets weren't designed to be compatible with OCS/ECS/AGA and were about to ditch the 68k cpu.
And they couldn't give a bit about it unlike Hyperion, so you would not even be able to run OS 3.X stuff on your new Amiga.

Those people still expect A-EON to make some 'magic chipset' compatible with the older chip sets
and that it would out perform everything the PC market has to offer for ten years.. that time is over.

Another thing is that there are trolls who say that AmigaOS 4 or higher isn't AmigaOS but Linux with UAE. of which is completely bullsh* of course.

In my opinion an AmigaOne or any other PPC board which runs AmigaOS is an Amiga. They work mostly identical to late 90's Amiga's. chipset independent with PPC.

Those who disagree, may want to take a look at their hacked up "real" Amiga 1200 with powerpc, pci soundcard and pci graphics card and compare it to an AmigaOne. not much that different aside from the obsolete chip set.

Edit: Sorry if I sounded a bit aggressive, everyone has their right to their opinion and I respect those who think that AmigaNG isn't Amiga, tho I found the reason to be stretched.

Last edited by Trewq on 16-Jun-2014 at 09:54 PM.
Last edited by Trewq on 16-Jun-2014 at 09:53 PM.

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@Vistaus

No they're not Amigas, they're AmigaONEs, totally different architecture and hardware design. The software they run is a development/continuation of the Amiga's, but they are not Amiga computers.

I use MorphOS, I wouldn't consider my Mac Mini an Amiga in any way shape or form, it's a PPC Mac running an Amiga-compatible operating system.

The scenario you portray is a bit like when your wife ask you which dress she should wear at the party. You point at one knowing she most certainly will pick the other.

Its subjective.

The argument of hardware is a strong one tho.
I have Amiga forever and amikit. Both really good enviroments and much more upto date than my A1200. But i still find myself using the actual hardware moreso than emulation.

Based onwhat ive seen from NG OS4 I think I would feel right at home in the most modern version of workbench. Tbh I think for me its the sense of the OS im using running natievily on the hardware. If its PPC or x86 isnt important per see.

Id say my perspective is highly illogical/doesnt make sense, but as i said in the beginning; these things are subjective.

Either way; if you have fun and even get some usefulness out of it; who cares what others think?

Last edited by Overflow on 16-Jun-2014 at 10:15 PM.

@Vistaus

Amiga is a classic computer with OCS/ECS/AGA chipset, 680x0 CPU.

AmigaONE/Sam460 is a computer whit modern chipsets Radion HD, SIL, USB1/USB2, PowerPC CPU.

AmigaONE is not hardware compatible with Amiga computers form 80's and 90's

AmigaOS4 can run 680x0 software by translating assembler from 680x0 to PowerPC, but it can't run software that needs some special custom chips.

The only way to run software that needs special custom chips is by using a program/emulator called EUAE.

In 80's and 90's game developers and wrote games that accesses the hardware direct whit out drivers, this makes it hard to run old programs and games, some work.

The best way to run old stuff is on Classic Amiga or E-UAE, if how ever you are more interested in new things, then a AmigaONE-X1000 or Sam460 is right thing to buy.

The benefits to AmigaONE/Sam computers is that you have more computer power, faster graphics cards, more ram, can run modern web browsers, faster video playback, and can run new software.

Last edited by NutsAboutAmiga on 17-Jun-2014 at 02:40 AM.

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@Trewq

You seem to take saying they're not Amigas as some form of insult, it's not, it's just fact. They are AmigaONE machines, not Amigas - that is not an insult, it's a fact.

I often hear the "what if Commodore etc." but they didn't, the Amiga ended at the A4000T, anything since then is another team's ideas/interpretation of a next gen (clue is in the NG) system owing tribute to the Amiga. Sadly each team has their own ideas on how it should/would have gone, hence why we have 3 camps now, none of them are "Amigas" though.

@danwood

No, I'm perfectly fine with the fact that my AmigaOne differs greatly from my Amiga 500.

I often say in defense to some anti Hyperion trolls that, yes, AmigaOne's aren't Amiga's, hence the name. but my problem is that those people at eab or Amiga.org for example greatly over exaggerate the fact that it isn't an Amiga, to the point that to new comers will lose interest in A1's and OS4. Thanks to eab and Amiga.org I used to despise A1's and OS4 for all the wrong reasons. It took some years for me to find out that AmigaOS 4 isn't linux and that PowerPC motherboards with uboot aren't so very generic at all.

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@Trewq

Let's face it, the only "generic" thing about the AmigaOnes and Sams is that they use generic PCI and PCI-e connectors. All the chipsets that you get on the plug-in boards that you buy are just as "custom" as the custom Amiga chips from the 1980s. We even have to write custom device drivers for each and every one of them.

These days you have a choice of custom chips - you can buy this sort of card or that - there is a driver already made for it. Sure, it's not the no-choice Amiga custom chip from thirty years ago, but it's just as custom, and offers a lot more features and performance than the Amiga chipsets ever could.

Perhaps some people see the advantage of the old custom chips as the fact that they weren't used in any other brand of computer. These days the chips can be used in any computer, so we've lost that individuality.

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@Vistaus

Heres my thought for the subject.

One way to look at the subject is to divide Amiga into many subgroups.

To some Amiga were the games, to some it was the hardware (and there to some 680x0, to some custom chips, and some as long as the basic machine was original amiga, then adding PPC card, graphics card and AOS4.0 would still make it Amiga), to some the Demos, to some the double clicking icons, to some the advanced machine, to some...

And to some it was many of these things at same time. And at commodore times 1985-1994, these all were together, and this all together made the feeling "Amiga".

Now some of these things are lost, some are not. You get AOS4, and you still get to double click icons and open drawers the workbench way. Those thinking that to be Amiga, feel Next Gen Amiga is Amiga. Then there are those who loved the games, the specific games that were hitting the hardware to the max. Those who thought that to be Amiga, those wouldnt feel Next Gen Amiga be Amiga anymore, since that is gone in Next Gen Amigas.


For those who didnt live 80s computer scenes, they need to understand some background on computer scene those days.

There were multiple different branded computers. There were C64, MSX, Atari2600, Vic-20... and at least 20 more i am sure. And there came more all the time.

And there was a huge difference between todays computers and computers then. Nowadays you buy Linux, Windows, Amiga or Apple, and you will always get to internet, be always able to watch the same videos, pictures, plug your cameras to your machines, transfer pictures, do stuff to them practically same way as on any other of thsoe machines.

That wasnt then. You bought C64, and you could only see pictures made wtih C64, you could only lsiten to music made with C64, you oculd only read C64 text files. You couldnt eveen transfer files between different machines. No way, taht was out of average (even somewaht competent) users reach.

You took a machine, and you got yourself a whole world of that machine. You bought MSX, and you got into world of MSX, you bought a C64, and you got yourself C64 world, you bought Amiga, and you got yourself Amiga world. And when you picked one, you missed all the rest. You could pick only one world to live in, and you were stuck with your choice.

Today you buy any machine, and you get the most important features anyway, regardless of your choice. Today you only miss minor things, like some games, and even games tend to be made with languages able to port to all the platform, so you dont really miss even them anymore.

That wasnt then. You took a choice, and whole world opened to you, while all the other worlds would stay shut.

It was also that every other machine was quite limited in their capabilities in many ways, Amiga was first affordable computer, that could actually do things that all the modern computers do. Music actually sounded like real music, not some form of beeping like in C64 for example (although i do like those SID tunes).

Amiga was also first affordable computer to have disks as default, which first of all got rid of problems of tape loading which practically meant you had to load everything in certain order, or limit your product to computers memory space. And also made it easy for people to save and load their stuff like text, music, pictures, programs they had made.

And Amiga was also first one to have mouse as default as well, which would once again revolutionalise the creation part of computing. You just take Shoot Em Up Construction Kit and use it with C64 with Joystick, or with Amiga with Mouse and you can see the difference.

Amiga introduced a lot of things making it remarkable computer of its time.

Amiga also stayed as mainstream computer for a long time, and basically thanks to Commodores stupidity, A500 stayed mainstream computer for a long time, which opened the possibility that limits in power had been reached long time ago, and now people had to become inventive to figure out new ways to get even more power out of the machine.

It was also interesting since even average user had been using the same machine (A500) for several years and hence had started to understand the machines limits, and therefore even you didnt necessarily understand about programming, you could still be impressed when someone did some serious hardware banging, since you had some sense about what was supposed to be possible and what not.

And even when A1200, and 030 turbo cards etc. started coming, Even average user had such a good grasp about A500, that when you told them that 030/50 would be about 12 times the speed of A500, they would already have very good idea what was possible with that machine then, and could still enjoy for example from Demos that were banging 030/50 to its limits, since you had some sort of understanding what was happening.

I go to computer store today, and I cant even figure out which processor is faster than the other. In those days you had pretty good idea about difference between different Amigas.

And you nowadays see a demo done on windows machine, and you have no idea if they are doing something amazing or not, since you have no idea what the limits of computers should be nowadays. Its no fun anymore. You just look for the prettiest demo, and thats it. The ugly duckling with ultimate hardware banging loses just because you cant see the technical difference nowadays.

Hope this long explanation about those days gave you some idea about why some think Amiga is something, while someone else thinkgs something else. And why some think New Amigas arent Amigas anymore.

Which reminds me one important part again. In those days you picked a computer hardware, and you could use it only for that one computer. You took Amiga, and you would use it for Amiga only. It is not like today when you buy X1000 and you can choose wether to put linux or Aos4 to it, since both use same hardware. In those days, hardware limited the choice of machines to just one. (Actually Amiga was bit of expection to that rule too)

@Vistaus

Nearly a year and you haven't figured out that asking this question is only going lead to the usual bitching and back stabbing between camps?

You are either a little stoopid (sic) or are simply lighting the blue touch paper and retreating to a safe distance...

@Trewq

Back in the days we compared Amiga and PC (that means Hardware) and not AmigaOS and MSDOS (or later Windows) so for me personal the 68k systems up to A4000 were Amiga because they were clearly different with their custom chips to a PC. A used Mac with MorphOS is a used Mac, a PC with Aros is a PC with Aros and a AmigaOne with AmigaOS is a AmigaOne (and not Amiga). If someone thinks his AmigaOne is Amiga for him it is a valid subjective opinion as long as he respects that others think different.

@Vistaus

Not.

I've said it before and I'll say it again; An Amiga is more than a brand, it's more than an OS or an ISA. It's not the presence of custom chips, but rather the reason they were needed. It's what Jay Miner and Co. believed in, and for a while at least they got some of us to believe it too.

Can something like that come around again? Absolutely.
Are any of the AmigaNG platforms doing this? Absolutely not.

Eddie

Last edited by agami on 17-Jun-2014 at 03:27 AM.

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@Vistaus

As you can see from the responses, it is largely down to personal opinion.

Some people are happy using the older Classic Amiga systems.

Some people are happy using emulation on a PC system.

Some people are happy using MorphOS on a compatible PPC system.

Some people are happy using AROS.

Some people are happy using AmigaOS4 on a compatible PPC system.

IMHO, whatever solution works for you can become your Amiga.

---
redfox

@redfox

best answer & I might add that some people are happy using more than one Amiga/ Amiga 'inspired' system as well

simple answer: if you're having fun while using it and it reminds you of our favourite OS then heck you can call it your Amiga...why not

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