@Overflow

Quote:

The thing is; most(?) buyers of Amiga classic and NG hardware should know about both the current level of development and the PACE of future development.

That is simply not true. Nobody who prepaid for a X1000 three years ago knew he would not have proper drivers (Overlay, 3D, Ethernet, DMA...) or Dualcore support in 2014. None of these people knew they wouldn't be able to watch HD video and that the machine would even struggle with lower resolutions. And let's not even mention OS 4.2, for which these customers already paid. And I don't think anybody expected his 3000 Euro computer to loose benchmark comparisons against eight year old Mac hardware.

Now, I get that most of these people are okay with all that for some reason ("at least they're trying") - and that's perfectly fine with me. Let's just not try to rewrite history again...

I'm just saying this kind of behaviour actually cements the status quo. If Amigakit are making more than a million in revenue by selling a computer that doesn't do DMA or 3D, why would they waste resources on making sure the follow up product does DMA before it's cancelled? I know I wouldn't.

Commercial entities react to market pressure. Amigakit (or Individual Computers, Vesalia etc.) are commercial entities. They try to present themselves differently, of course - that's called "marketing".

@cgutjahr

Implied vs stated support? Sure.

One buys a dual core machine for example and it is expected/implied that the element will be used/supported. Ditto for your other examples.

I gather you are attempting to point out that the purchase is made based on what the user assumes and therefore it is the user's fault?

#6

_________________
This posting, in its entirety, represents solely the perspective of the author.
*Secrecy has served us so well*

@cgutjahr

You say "its not true", but its one of the reasons why I havent turned "NG". Over the years Ive read the forums and some sites. Looked at the passage of time as the process was evolving.
While I wouldnt mind a OS4 machine, the money VS performance for me personally wasnt convincing.
Others, that might be into development (coding or whatnot) enjoy the journey of adding new software to the platform.
BUT I do accept that others disagree with me with regards to expectations.

I think people, when investing chunks of money, gets "hopes" mixed up with "reality".

The lack of performance and slow development aside, I do admire Trevor, lyle, Amigakits and others drive to improve the expirience.

Last edited by Overflow on 20-Jul-2014 at 08:44 PM.

@cgutjahr

Quote:

Actually - yes, a lot.

Where?

Quote:

you're stopping paying customers from discussing the product they paid for.

I´m no moderator, I have no right to stop anyone.


I must admire your passion towards Ben Hermanc and co. Thread I linked show how blinded you were by your hatred.

Quote:

Maybe you should list the reasons you didn't pay for OS4 yet

Give me portable AmigaOne... (that is about future of OS4, not?)

Precedence is a dangerous (for lack of a better word).
When people accept a half baked product as okay it tells the baker that it's ok. For this reason I have to agree with Paolone here. Its up to the commercial entity to give people incentive to want to spend good money on a product rather than an expensive ticket that allows the customer an opportunity to help the baker.

This attitude/model can only be sustained for so long, especially in the face of similar, much more affordable alternatives. Over time the number of people willing to pay good money for a half baked product will dwindle, especially with fewer and fewer people drawing on nostalgia to justify the expense.

Somewhere along the line people will have to say that its not ok to do things by halves when its an expensive commercial product. A history of doing things by halves does no-one any favors. When no one is enticed anymore who will buy a product. .?

Im as greatful as anyone that there's people willing to have a crack, but this notion that a commercial product can be half baked and rely on customers patience and contributions isnt something I can agree with.


Now that said,.....
Some people need to lighten up a bit, its a hobby, something thats supposed to be fun :) If you want to take something seriously then turn on the news, visit a family member in hospitap or something. There's plenty of more important things in life :)

Last edited by fishy_fis on 20-Jul-2014 at 09:49 PM.

@number6

Quote:

I gather you are attempting to point out that the purchase is made based on what the user assumes and therefore it is the user's fault?

I'm saying that the users are projecting their own motivations for still being a part of the community, e.g.

"Love the machine"
"want to support the Amiga"
"lots of old friends here"
etc. etc.

onto the commercial vendors, completely ignoring that these vendors are mostly motivated by money (they have to be, otherwise they wouldn't be vendors for much longer).

This misconception - "he's one of us!" - leads to a climate where a vendor is greeted by so much goodwill that he can do pretty much whatever he wants without having to fear any backlash. And without market pressure, vendors won't make corrections. Individual Computers' stream of half finished products is a very good example for this.

@Overflow:

Quote:

You say "its not true", but its one of the reasons why I havent turned "NG".

I was referring to actual X1000 customers: They didn't know what (i.e. what little) they would get for their money. They probably didn't expect miracles, but I think if they had made this kind of experience with some other product - car, refrigerator, HiFi system... - most of them would be yelling at their lawyer at this point.

@pavlor:

Quote:

Where?

You're constantly implying people shouldn't take part in discussions like this one because they're "blinded by hatred", "didn't purchase the product" or similar crap. I consider that whining.

And yes, I was wrong on the internet once. I'll man up and eat my gun.

@cgutjahr

Quote:

There's no pressure to improve things if people are going to buy your 3000 Euro computer running a five year old, mostly unmaintained OS anyway.

The pressure of which you speak could only come from the h/w people applying it to the operating system side. Users, if sales decreased would perhaps motivate that desire to apply pressure. I get that.
But given the financial conditions explained quite openly on this website, how would this produce any positive result whatsoever?

#6

_________________
This posting, in its entirety, represents solely the perspective of the author.
*Secrecy has served us so well*

@cgutjahr

I think cgutjahr makes some very good points.

Last edited by thinkchip on 21-Jul-2014 at 04:33 AM.
Last edited by thinkchip on 21-Jul-2014 at 02:48 AM.

_________________
X5000 / microA1(OS4.1 FE U2) / CodeBench / Imagine / Blender
Lightwave 2019 / Microsoft Visual C++

@realize

Quote:

1. Decisions to port to alien hardware instead of focusing on new software apps and games and os features. Many many man hours of programming wasted on proprietary drivers for alien hardware.

Replace "alien" with "dead", that's the right wording. But then we'd have to change the topic to yet another "achitecture switch" thread which isn't very well accepted here (and i don't want to start it) even though it'd be the most logical thing to do.

Last edited by Nibunnoichi on 21-Jul-2014 at 08:00 AM.
Last edited by Nibunnoichi on 21-Jul-2014 at 08:00 AM.

_________________
Proud Amigan since 1987
Owner of various Commodore and a SAM440ep\OS4.1FE
See them on http://retro.furinkan.org/

Quote:

cgutjahr wrote: [...]3000 Euro computer running a five year old, mostly unmaintained OS anyway. [...]

Its hardly unmaintained, there have been numerous updates since update 6 (30 nov 2012) through AmiUpdate.

_________________

Quote:

Krischan76 wrote: Yea, because buying an outdated, useless pile of crap just is not enough commitment. Jeez, you guys on here sure are morons.

Well, comparing to the XE I had prior my X1000, the X1000 is a lot faster. Given that I want to use OS4, I really had no choice besides the X1000. And I feel neither fooled, nor scammed. I knew what I was buying. I knew it wouldn't be faster than my intel-based laptop, or get the same amount of updates.

I was also not buying it based on speculations, or announced not-yet-delivered software. I bought it as an upgrade to my XE, which is exactly what I got, with all the announced features working (I have sound and ethernet, even if its on PCI cards.)

Furthermore, I didn't mean "ask not what AmigaOS can do for you, but what you can do for AmigaOS", but rather "ask not what will be released for AmigaOS in the future, but what is released today". If what's currently available isn't what you want; then don't buy it. If its kind of what you want, and you want to support future upgrades, by all means, get it. But don't be naïve.

(Now, one computer I did buy, where I felt both scammed, and fooled was when I got my MacBook Pro. I thought I was getting something better than Windows, with some sort of nice Unix-integration. I was sorely disappointed, even though it's both faster and gets more updates than AmigaOS. It also costs about the same [ok, not counting monitor and so].)

_________________

@number6

I assume that Hyperion is long over the "point of no return" to change direction. The user base (that finally finances everything) has propably shrinked for all camps but when you have to earn money with it you have the biggest problem. The developer in the two "Clone" camps are more or less idealists, they do it for fun in their spare time. AmigaOS is done by the Frieden brothers (propably contract workers what is typical for small software companies) and owned by Ben H. (and family). So everything has to be paid, any ISA change would cost lots of money that has to be invested and nobody knows if it can be earned after. Then Hyperion is tightly connected with a-eon and Trevor is spending a lot of money for the new "X" models. ISA change can be ruled out.

Pressure on them fully supporting the hardware before selling it would be only there if there would be competition and people credible threatening not to buy the new computers when they are not fully supported. I do not see that either. The strategy is propably to satisfy the existing small AmigaOS community, not more or less. No longterm plan, no plan to make the platform more popular or to win new users outside the (AmigaOS) community. My prediction is it will go on like it is, no changes to the worse or better and propably most existing buyers are happy with it because they got what expected.

People should (unlike Vox and others) not buy it with expectations what there will be but look what they get now and if it is not satisfying them look at the existing alternatives.

@thinkchip

As I said if situation around your preferred choice is not satisfying you then look at the alternatives or be content with what you have. There are only these two choices.

Maybe a problem with AMIGA is the low number of users.
With a only few hundred users or low thousand there is little commercial point to produce or port any new software.

Maybe the key question is can this number be changed?

_________________
APOLLO the new 68K : www.apollo-core.com

@BigGun

"low number of users.
...
Maybe the key question is can this number be changed?"

IMO: The HW developers have the key now as it's the HW that dongles our niche OSs to some price & availability.

_________________
- KimmoK
// For freedom, for honor, for AMIGA
//
// Thing that I should find more time for: CC64 - 64bit Community Computer?

@thinkchip

There aren't any new Amiga users? Speak for yourself. I'm 22 years old and new (well, new compared to the rest) because my AmigaOne 500 is my first Amiga ever that I have for almost a year now.

I do agree that OS 4.2 development seems to go very slow. They should at least bring forth some teasers.

(oh and I'm Western European ;))

Last edited by Vistaus on 21-Jul-2014 at 10:47 AM.

_________________
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

oh indeed why do we discuss at all when there is ONE new user?

@BigGun

I'd be glad to support any dev. I already spent a lot on donating (sometimes recurring monthly) to devs/creators on various platforms, I'd be happy to support any AOS 4 dev this way (I did donate to kas1e and Onyxsoft on AOS). Either by donating afterwards or up front.

_________________
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.

@OlafS25

I didn't mean it like that lol. I just meant that thinkchip's point was moot since there is one new users: me. So he was wrong about that one point, that's what I wanted to point out ;)

_________________
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

ok understood