@#6
No need to apologize. That we both thought this statement was interesting and important reinforces my belief that it is. It's not just the question Michele asked which is brilliant, but his comments about a more niche market Amiga Maxi selling hundreds of thousands of units. It doesn't have to be niche market if it is mass produced dropping the price to be very close to the THEA500 Mini.

Jeff Porter Quote:

We got the cost of the A500 down to $200. So we could sell it for $400 to the retail channel and then mark it up to the retailer for $600 and everyone was really happy. In fact, someone asked me today, "Why do we call it the Amiga 500?" I said, "Because that is what it is supposed to sell for." It's supposed to sell for 500 bucks. If you can make a computer for 500 bucks vs a computer for 600 bucks, you'll sell twice as many at 500 as at 600. There is just some magic price points in the world. And every time you take another 100 bucks out you double the volume. It's pretty amazing there that if you can get the right price points you can move a whole bunch of these things. So we did that and in January of 1987 we had the first Amiga 500 prototypes in plastic cases. I think our tooling had just come in. And I still remember Winfried Hoffmann coming in from Germany and he looked at that and it was running Defender of the Crown, it was running Deluxe Paint, it was running all these famous Amiga titles and it looked like a Commodore 64 and his eyes just lit up. He said, "Jeff, I know exactly what to do with this and by the way I'm taking that one. It's going with me. I'm hand carrying back to Germany. There is no way this one is going back to Pennsylvania. Sorry." I said, "Please, and by the way I have another one here, do you want two?" "Yes Please, and I have a third one from the guy in the UK."

https://youtu.be/otuQq4iqFgg?t=1029

It's probably possible to have an Amiga 120 that looks like the Amiga 1200 with more modern hardware. I'm just saying that is what the target price could be and it would be a nice competitor for the Raspberry Pi 400 but with retro appeal and a better keyboard. The same board could be used in a cheaper more CD32 like console box and the board could be sold separate like Raspberry Pi boards. It isn't necessary to match price or performance because of the library of retro games some of which could be included like THEA500 Mini (throwback to Amiga computer and game packs). Michele may know how many Amiga Mini units have sold and it really is sub-optimal being emulation, having no AmigaOS and not being nearly as cheap as it could have been. It is risky to go full mass production with those impediments even though it looks like Retro Games Ltd. wanted to with having Jeri Ellsworth working on it. They really still needed a professional quality CPU to put in ASIC. I don't know how they planned to address that but maybe they were just looking for a more compatible lower performance CPU where something like the TG68 could be used. The performance/price could be greatly improved without increasing the production cost much although development and licensing costs would increase. It's really difficult for a micro business to do an advanced ASIC by themselves even though these guys are smart. Clueless Trevor is off trying to produce 200 A1222 PPC boards for a ridiculous cost while they come in from nowhere and will likely sell many hundreds of thousands of still non Amiga branded THEA500 Mini units.

Last edited by matthey on 21-Oct-2022 at 10:53 PM.

@matthey

At the risk of going off-topic discussing the world economic situation, I've noticed so far on sites dedicated to one platform or another, that the subject is really never raised.
I can understand that many older people in a community might not have to consider this, but discretionary spending is headed for an all time low for obvious reasons.

One could argue that now anything beyond a certain price point is going to suffer when it comes to sales.

I do wonder if those developing any new products are taking this into account?

#6

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#6 Quote:

At the risk of going off-topic discussing the world economic situation, I've noticed so far on sites dedicated to one platform or another, that the subject is really never raised. I can understand that many older people in a community might not have to consider this, but discretionary spending is headed for an all time low for obvious reasons. One could argue that now anything beyond a certain price point is going to suffer when it comes to sales. I do wonder if those developing any new products are taking this into account?

I expect most longer term product development plans are for economic conditions to return to pre-pandemic levels. Shorter term product development is more likely delayed especially where production/manufacturing was scheduled to start. Logistics seem to be taking forever to unclog. Michele was saying a container that used to be $1,000 is now $20,000 which is insane and enough to pause most discretionary production. I expect logistics to slowly unclog but energy prices and inflation to remain elevated. Energy prices were on the rise before the Ukraine war started and even if the war ended soon, it would take some time to retreat to pre-war levels (some energy infrastructure is damaged). Consumers are feeling the pain and it would be wise to target products with low prices and good value (Walmart, dollar stores and the Raspberry Pi Foundation due well in this kind of environment). Many new chip foundries are being built, especially in the U.S. in case Taiwan is invaded by China, which should drop the cost of services, perhaps to inflation adjusted levels below what they were before the pandemic. The logistics problems make it evident that a simplified BoM (fewer parts) is appealing and with affordable foundry services should lead to more custom SoCs. This is a good time to do R&D while waiting for an improved environment for production. There is a real possibility of WWIII (Russia, China, Iran, Syria and N. Korea against the West) which could make the current situation look like a practice drill but stopping everything to build nuclear bunkers isn't a good plan either.

@NutsAboutAmiga

Quote:

NutsAboutAmiga wrote: @cdimauro Quote: Care to tell me why Hyperion has removed the copyright from the first AmigaOS 3.1.4 ROMs if they had exclusive rights? Well, I’m not Ben, so I can’t answer that.

Do you really need to ask Ben to know why this happened?

Haven't you stated that Hyperion had exclusive rights? But they changed copyrights on the Amiga 3.1.4 .

This is a clear contradiction, right?
Quote:

But was got from talking to Ben, was that he was willing compromise and agree to some kind of new settlement agreement. Ben is not interested in destroying Cloanto’s business.

Actually IF this is the case then he's looking for an agreement for not being destroyed by Cloanto...
Quote:

Anyhow that’s up to Mike Battilana to be willing sit down and work out an agreement where etch company can co-exist.

I hope that Michele never settles the case and goes straight forward asking a final sentence from the judge: it's time to put a tombstone to this very long story/war. Only one company should survive, for the good or the bad.

@cdimauro

Quote:

Haven't you stated that Hyperion had exclusive rights? But they changed copyrights on the Amiga 3.1.4 .

Well I don’t know the decision-making process in changing that, it was surprise to me as anyone else, and 3.1.4 I believe was around the time Cloanto acquired Amiga Inc, well exclusive rights was with settlement agreement they had with Amiga Inc.

It might be correction, as it discovered Clonato also had none exclusive distribution license for ROM with Commodore by contract. (Not as owners)

The outcome of legal case about the buyback contract was never solved (Instead, it was settled outside of court.)
I don’t think it was ever properly established that "Amiga Inc" properly was bankrupt, clearly, they ware, when they had to pull the coupon / tshirt scam on their customers, maybe that’s what kept Amiga Inc alive in view of the legal system, instead it ended in the settlement agreement. The buyback agreement gave Hyperion ownership while developing the OS, of because that did not cover the trademarks (only a right to use).

It's really down to how Ben interpretation about the company’s rights, at the time.
He did say one thing to me however “he tough it was solved with the settlement”.

Anyhow the Amiga roms are not meant to store legal documents and contracts.

Last edited by NutsAboutAmiga on 22-Oct-2022 at 11:36 AM.
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Last edited by NutsAboutAmiga on 22-Oct-2022 at 11:07 AM.

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@NutsAboutAmiga: but if they store some copyright then it might a problem.

That's why such copyright was removed from the first 3.1.4 ROMs.

However it was already too late.

@matthey

Quote:

Amigaworld.net, which has strong AmigaOS 4 support

Yeah rrright ...

Every day, every topic, the same people tell us over and over again that PPC and OS4 were the wrong choices.

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redfox

Last edited by redfox on 23-Oct-2022 at 08:06 AM.
Last edited by redfox on 23-Oct-2022 at 08:04 AM.
Last edited by redfox on 23-Oct-2022 at 07:07 AM.
Last edited by redfox on 23-Oct-2022 at 05:08 AM.
Last edited by redfox on 23-Oct-2022 at 04:52 AM.

@NutsAboutAmiga

Quote:

Anyhow that’s up to Mike Battilana to be willing sit down and work out an agreement where etch company can co-exist.

Why? Ben has proven over and over that he cannot be trusted, his quarrels aren’t just with Mike, but also with previous Hyperion co-founders, previous Hyperion board members, previous Hyperion partners, previous Hyperion developers etc. The only thing you can rely on with Ben Hermans and Hyperion is that he will do his best to breach any contract and agreement and get away with it. So what would be the point to make yet another agreement with him??

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B5D6A1D019D5D45BCC56F4782AC220D8B3E2A6CC

@kolla: NutsAboutAmiga advocates for an agreement only to save Ben's @ss, which isn't in a good situation.

Why Nuts has developed a so visceral attachment to Ben goes beyond my comprehension...

Quote:

cdimauro wrote: @kolla: NutsAboutAmiga advocates for an agreement only to save Ben's @ss, which isn't in a good situation. Why Nuts has developed a so visceral attachment to Ben goes beyond my comprehension...

That's what nuts do.






/MEGA!

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@MEGA_RJ_MICAL

Quote:

MEGA_RJ_MICAL wrote: Quote: cdimauro wrote: @kolla: NutsAboutAmiga advocates for an agreement only to save Ben's @ss, which isn't in a good situation. Why Nuts has developed a so visceral attachment to Ben goes beyond my comprehension... That's what nuts do. /MEGA!

https://youtu.be/A0LiYT1tXhA

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@Karlos

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redfox Quote:

Yeah rrright ... Every day, every topic, the same people tell us over and over again that PPC and OS4 were the wrong choices.

If you are referring specifically to me, I am generally supportive of the AmigaOS 4 effort while financially it likely was a failure. From a business perspective, this makes it the "wrong choice". PPC wasn't necessarily the wrong choice when Motorola chained the 68k in the cellar and was pushing PPC but it is definitely the wrong choice today. PA-RISC and the Alpha architectures which were considered for AmigaOS porting would have been worse choices. Licensing the 68k and integrating the Amiga into a single chip SoC would have been the best choice. CBM could have made the Amiga like the RPi but more than a decade earlier.

kolla Quote:

Why? Ben has proven over and over that he cannot be trusted, his quarrels aren’t just with Mike, but also with previous Hyperion co-founders, previous Hyperion board members, previous Hyperion partners, previous Hyperion developers etc. The only thing you can rely on with Ben Hermans and Hyperion is that he will do his best to breach any contract and agreement and get away with it. So what would be the point to make yet another agreement with him??

A honest lawyer who is a true Amiga fan would have been an asset to the Amiga community. As it is, I don't think Ben is eligible for any lawyer or management jobs or positions in any Amiga business besides his own.

Last edited by matthey on 23-Oct-2022 at 08:07 PM.

@MEGA_RJ_MICAL

Quote:

MEGA_RJ_MICAL wrote: Quote: cdimauro wrote: @kolla: NutsAboutAmiga advocates for an agreement only to save Ben's @ss, which isn't in a good situation. Why Nuts has developed a so visceral attachment to Ben goes beyond my comprehension... That's what nuts do. /MEGA!

LOL True!

@matthey

Thank you for the clarification.

Sorry, I was not referring specifically to you when I replied "the same people tell us over and over again that PPC and OS4 were the wrong choices."

I was responding specifically to the notion that

Quote:

Amigaworld.net, which has strong AmigaOS 4 support

IMHO, that was true in the past, but so much in the last 5 years.

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I must add that I am very grateful for all the help I have received from kind people on AmigaWorld. Sometimes, I think I was the first person who was not a developer or a betatester who bought an OS4 motherboard. In those early days, everything was hush-hush and I could not access the secret discussions, but my dealer and a few kind people here on AmigaWorld helped me get through the rough spots.


redfox

Last edited by redfox on 23-Oct-2022 at 10:53 PM.
Last edited by redfox on 23-Oct-2022 at 10:24 PM.

@matthey

BTW, I do agree that there are better hardware choices now.


redfox

Last edited by redfox on 23-Oct-2022 at 11:08 PM.

@redfox

Quote:

AmigaWorld helped me get through the rough spots.

There is an actual "through" the said rough spots?

_________________
All the way, with 68k

Quote:

agami wrote: Quote: AmigaWorld helped me get through the rough spots. There is an actual "through" the said rough spots?

It's graphic stuff, friend Agami.
And I don't mean radeon drivers or such.





/MEGA!!

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