Adam may be a nice person but ACK isn´t a serious company for me after all this broken promises and lies (same for AmigaInc.).

_________________
AmigaOne X5000/40, 2.2 Ghz, 4 GB RAM, Radeon R9 280X, M-Audio Revolution 5.1, 240 GB SSD

@syrtran

Quote:

No. After the first post was moderated, the person responded -again- just as nastily. Adam vowed never to post again. He didn't manage to stay totally quiet, but he seems to be trying to stay away(*). With some of the posts earlier in this thread, I don't blame him.

No, he has been making marketing announcements even after that and in doing so IMHO validating people's desire and right to have at least some explanations and answers to the past events. He seems to be interested in our business, so some little responsibility comes IMHO with that.

As for was there out of line posters? I have no problem believing there were so in my opinion we can agree on that.

I have no problem with Adam changing his mind about posting here (i.e. breaking silence) either, his reaction was emotional and with serious family issues behind it I can understand. Although I wouldn't call it trolling to call him on his promises, even little ones after all this! What I do mind is announcement after announcement after announcement without deliver or at least a good, solid explanation as to what and why.

I just don't see how one out of line poster (or even few) would absolve ACK of this responsibility after all the announcements and failures to deliver he has under his belt. But this is just IMHO of course.

@Benji

Quote:

Or maybe as I said weeks ago before everything kicked off - the new website and the hardware announcements are just for the benefit of the lawyers who may or may not be watching. He might think Amiga Inc are getting him to source hardware but they might have a different end to the game.

Yeah, something like showing the courts if need be that Amiga Inc. has hardware planned and that harm has come to them for Hyperion's lack of delivery and that they need this resolved quickly because hardware is waiting to be shipped... or perhaps to show to Kent officials that there is activity in the company. This is certainly an interesting theory.

But it is only a theory. I wouldn't go as far as saying that is the case yet, I do want to give ACK the some benefit of the doubt - not a whole lot, but I don't want to think they are a hoax or a mere legal move yet.

Who knows, maybe ACK hardware will appear magically one of these summer nights. I'd still like some explanations to past events, though, but maybe that's just me and the vocal minority of us trolls.

Last edited by jtsiren on 24-Jun-2007 at 09:23 PM.

@AP

Quote:

AP wrote: Adam may be a nice person but ACK isn´t a serious company for me after all this broken promises and lies (same for AmigaInc.).

Broken promises may be, but please do not call people liars.

_________________
Moxee
AmigaOne X1000
AmigaOne XE G4
I'd agree with you, but then we'd both be wrong.

@Moxee

Quote:

Broken promises may be, but please do not call people liars.

Absolutely! It has been said that compassion arises from knowledge of the difficulty of life. Certainly I think that what I call maturity correlates with this. It is I believe, one thing to design and prove hardware. It takes different skills altogether to do the even more difficult thing of bringing products to market. How many start-ups with worthwhile products fail to make it? It has to be impossible to bring a product to market if the IP is the object of industrial and legal dispute - a black hole for those trying to do it, and not knowing fully what is going down.

On another tack; I would not dream of publishing a picture of a circuit board, in a competitive environment, unless that product was about to enter the market so that competitors would not be in time to upstage me. Ack can read a circuit board picture, so can some others here.

Our gripe is with the legal situation. Nothing can go forward. We will not see what people can do until that jam is cleared, if they are still interested.

Noel

@NoelFuller

Ack and Amiga announced that the low-end and high-end boards would be ready for customers in summer 2007 and winter 2007 respectively. They made this joint announcement AFTER the litigation with Hyperion started.

Amiga Inc started the legal action - they knew weeks/months in advance that this was imminent. Therefore these announcements were made in the full knowledge that they would be tied up in litigation. It is not feasible now to say "the legal action has delayed all plans" - these announcements were made in full knowledge of the impending legal action.
Nothing has changed since then.

_________________
Troll - n., A disenfranchised former potential customer who remains interested enough to stay informed and express critical opinions.
opp., the vast majority who voted silently with their feet.

@Boot_WB

I am aware of all these things including much that has been said on IRC and gone unpublished. Amiga Inc thought they were going to have a walkover. Ack believed them. What has changed is that it's not a walkover whatever the outcome. Ack was told first to go ahead regardless, then he acknowledged there would be some slippage, then he apparently was told to taihoa - that's Maori for wait a bit, put things on hold.

I personally think all these joint hardware announcements were part of an Amiga Inc snow job, perhaps with the court in mind, with Ack likely the biggest victim if he went on spending his money. He must be in considerable doubt as to what he will do, in which direction he will head. I accept he could have done things better, I can hardly think of a thing I have done that could not have been done better, I doubt anyone being honest with themselves can say different. Those who call others liars so easily can certainly do better.

-----

While I have often had to deal with lies, particularly as a teacher, only a handful of people I have known could really be called liars. However, for your amusement. In an IT class I took there was only one person I could unhesitatingly claim to be a liar. Another teacher described her as the archetypal bad girl out of a James Bond thriller, and quite ruthless. I gave this class a questionaire to try to discover how much they really knew of the world of computing and IT. Included were a number of traps to see if they were being honest with me. It seems that the word went round that I knew nothing anyway so claim to do everything. I handed the papers back uncommented and then asked odd students for some detail on arexx say and other points. They knew they were caught. I could almost see the hot air currents rising off their embarrassed ears as they rubbed and wrote furiously, trying to do it secretly, to provide some honesty in their answers. I had already of course noted with interest which half of the class had not tried to fool me.

Noel

@Benji

Quote:

Benji wrote: Or maybe as I said weeks ago before everything kicked off - the new website and the hardware announcements are just for the benefit of the lawyers who may or may not be watching. He might think Amiga Inc are getting him to source hardware but they might have a different end to the game.

My thoughts exactly!! I think Adam has been sold a story by AInc (He's been McEwaned?), for the benefit of the trial. But the I could be wrong.

_________________
Peter Swallow.
A1XEG3-800 [IBM 750FX PowerPC], running OS4.1FE, using ac97 onboard sound.

"There are 10 types of people in the world: those who understand binary, and those who don't."

@Moxee

Quote:

Broken promises may be, but please do not call people liars.

What is the difference between a broken promise and a lie ?

According to Hatschi's timeline, PowerVixxen was never produced or available. As far as I know this also includes being released, sold, demonstrated or pictures shown.

It is unreasonable to post an allegation on a random forum and expect someone to refute it "otherwise it must be true". However, on this occasion it is a forum that the accused has visited and even this very thread. He has had plenty of opportunity to refute the timeline but has not. How trivial is it to post a picture these days ?

This is far from conclusive proof that PowerVixxen was never designed or produced but given the utter lack of evidence against, any person could reasonable conclude that it is as good as non-existent.

fairlanefastback said this much more eloquently in post #80.

At what point are the Amiga community allowed to stop tiptoeing around and call it what it is ? It's not as if we don't have precedents for this kind of thing, iWin anyone ?

Now, please excuse me while I get back to playing Duke Nukem Forever on my Boxer.

@koan

Quote:

koan wrote: @Moxee Quote: Broken promises may be, but please do not call people liars. What is the difference between a broken promise and a lie ?

You make a promise to your girlfriend: "Baby, we will be married next week!" "Oh, that’s lovely sweety!", she answers..
In the middle of the week you are fired, your house was devastated by a severe earthquke, innocent victims are scattered all over the streets. You say : "Honey, I think we have to postpone our marriage". That is a broken promise.
The girl replies "You bast*rd! You took advantage of my youth and beauty and now you withdraw your offer? You &%#$%&, you "$$%%&..." That’s the amiga community.

Now another version:
You make the same promise to the same girl only to earn some time, pack your bags and escape abroad with her sister!
That´s a (clever) lie.


The truth is that amiga in general is not attractive anymore (youth and beauty). We, as community, are often negative (see the %&$% and #$%#& above). We may have a sister (MOS) but I don’t think that any amiga h/w developer ever thought of fooling us around just to end up with his board to the blue side of life.

_________________

@koan

Quote:

What is the difference between a broken promise and a lie ?

Come on. Do you really mean that? There is a world of difference. A lie is a conscious attempt to deceive. Promises are undertakings that you may or may not be able to keep, however you try.

I eventually resolved never to make promises because my naive belief in my abilities, or in a benign environment, and sometimes because I became wiser in what should or should not be done, meant that I often could not keep them, however earnest I was when making the promise.

Noel

@NoelFuller

Quote:

Come on. Do you really mean that? There is a world of difference. A lie is a conscious attempt to deceive. Promises are undertakings that you may or may not be able to keep, however you try.

That is certainly true, but I think the announcements have been so wrong in so many cases, that it probably isn't unreasonable to conclude that some conscious misleading may taken place. For instance, how do you explain this from December 2005:

Quote:

The PowerVixxen LT has gone to production, docs are being polished up.

Not will go to production, may go to production, *has gone* to production! Yet we've never seen any sight of this product. Of course it is possible something catastrophic happened and the production house called Adam the next day and said we're cancelling the production run or something, but quite as possibly conscious attempt to deceive at some level (maybe it hadn't really gone to production yet, but was on its way any day now...) may have happened. I don't believe there is a 10-100 PowerVixxen's in some drawer at Adam's place that he produced, but never sold. Perhaps if there was a catastrophic design flaw, but that feels a long shot.

Adam staying silent about it just adds to the suspicion. If something really happened that he couldn't and shouldn't have been able to foresee, it would have been far easier to deal back then with some facts made public.

It is certainly POSSIBLE we have been fed some lies. I'm not saying that is the case, I'm just wondering how come you are so sure that hasn't happened. (Mind you, I still don't want to think of this as any kind of hoax like iWin, Adam probably means to produce something.)

@NoelFuller

Quote:

Come on. Do you really mean that? There is a world of difference. A lie is a conscious attempt to deceive. Promises are undertakings that you may or may not be able to keep, however you try.

This is not about promises. PowerVixxen was not a promise. It was not a "I'll try my best to make this design, produce it and get it out the door". It was a "It's all done and will be available as soon as the postman knocks on your door, which should be any second now". (Check that timeline for the exact words). There is a world of difference.

What part of PowerVixxen was designed, produced or delivered ? In the absence of any proof (for which it would be trivial to produce and we haven't even heard a refutation let alone proof), it would seem none of the above.

@ChrisH

Quote:

"True believers" was the nicest & most polite name I could think of, for a group of people who still believe in him, despite a mountain of worrying facts.

Guess it was to close to being called a "fanboy". I don't think there are any "True believers" in irc or anywhere else now. Personally I still hope the h/w somehow happens & he's not being jerked around by AI. Adam was in irc for a short time today, he never talks about the threads in the forums & neither do we.

@all

Forgive me, but I'm not going to respond to the rest of the posts aimed at me. The thread has taken a more friendly approach & I don't wish to take a chance on changeing the current mood. It is a very welcome & refreshing change & I hope it lasts.

_________________
Hate tends to make you look stupid...

@jtsiren

Quote:

how do you explain this from December 2005: The PowerVixxen LT has gone to production, docs are being polished up. Not will go to production, may go to production, *has gone* to production! Yet we've never seen any sight of this product.

I believe someone else pointed out that all it may have meant is that the development phase has ended, so Adam believed, and now he was entering the production phase. In fact, according to various posts, he was not really out of the development phase if ever. I have gone through IRC logs and other material since that date and selected the following quotes which should show the ongoing process until Amiga Inc decided they wanted Adam to play their tune. Clearly I could include more but this is enough to demonstrate the ongoing process which in my opinion provides no justification for all the villification but does show plenty of grounds for frustration all round as the plot develops.


Posted on: 2006/4/4
Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada

PowerVixxen LT: I need to know the Estimated Demand

Hello,

Yes....the project is late.....yes I haven't been able to source the
connectors. I'm asking for anyone who has a line on a source of the
A1200 CPU female connector to e-mail me at a.kowalczyk@sympatico.ca
Similarly, please email me if you intend to purchase a PowerVixxen LT
for your A1200 as I need to know an approximate quantity if/when I
get a manufacturer to make them.

Sincerely,

Adam Kowalczyk

On the 23rd he asked for indication of interest in two CPU cards.
Some time about then he also posted:

The PowerVixxen has changed drastically since it's first announcement
and is indeed late, but will arrive. The shortage of connectors is
now well behind me and I even have options to choose from regarding
supplier. I have been working behind the scenes to make a few
different things happen...but I'm only one person....and a very busy
one at that. I hardly consider that this caused pure crap as I need
to know the demand and the overwhelming demand is to support the
faster 1.7GHz unit. In such a small market a miscalculation of which
product is in demand would leave me and/or dealers holding stock. So
this isn't crap....it's market research.

Adam

In Early May he is talking about own manufacture options and
also a high end board prototype that he has been exploring for about
a year. On May 13 he says:

"I've never quite understood the rationale that if I've not seen it,
it doesn't exist. Boards will not be released to beta-testers as beta
products, they will be delivered as final product. A high end board
will be demonstrated approximately one month after the CPUs are
demoed. Period."

On May 16 Ack has more to say. His innocence regarding
licensing is apparent:

jahc: when is the high end board going to come out?
ackcontrols: Goal is to have several products available for
AmiRevival show. [July 29]

AmigaBlitter: What about licensing? How do you obtain licensing?
ackcontrols: I really don't expect any issues with the licensing.
Going to get the h/w working first and worry about that after.

By mid June he has cancelled the CPU card demo because of a
performance problem he has not yet got an answer to plus he has
devoted too much time to other projects. Then his father falls ill.
He still thinks licensing issues will be resolved soon. Remember
that Hyperion and Amiga Inc also seem to think all issues are going
to go away RSN (my qualifier being that each party still thinks the
other must agree with its position and will do so with the next
communication). On June 10 this is said:

ackcontrols: PV will be released first as there arn't any licensing
issues, the carrier board will require a license.

Guest651: How difficult has it been trying to gain a license?
ackcontrols: Amiga Inc. has been very responsive and hasn't presented
any stumbling blocks.
tarbos: does pv tl require a separate licence?
ackcontrols: I'm grouping a few things together.

On August 1 Adam says he is stress testing a batch of pre-production
1.7 MHz CPU cards having resolved all other issues. He has not supplied
any hardware for the Ami Revival show. PVs are still not actually being
manufactured.

On September 20 Adam is still sounding optimistic, PVLT has been
changed yet again but:

ackcontrols: Communications with Amiga Inc. died down about a month
ago, so I recently opened communications with Evert Carton directly.

and

jahc: Is it looking possible to get an OS4 license without Amiga Inc?
just going through Hyperion? Is that what you're trying to do? or is
Hyperion the middleman in between you and Amiga Inc?
ackcontrols: Hyperion has control over the classics. I had approached
Amiga Inc. regarding solutions outside of Hyperion's control and was
working to bundle pricing.
NomadOfNorad: "was"?
ackcontrols: It was just simpler on my part. Time is running out and
I want somethng "legal" for the AmiWest show. (Oct 21)

and

jahc: ackcontrols: do you think Amiga Inc are dragging their heels
because of the legal dispute between Hyperion?
ackcontrols: I don't know, but I'm sure that has a lot to do with it.

Adam appears to be somewhat unhappy about the way things are going.

Now comes the long silence while "Real Soon Now" continues to come from
Hyperion and Amiga Inc sources. We learn about the PASemi evaluation
board and wonder.

Then the April 22, 2007 announcement:

After months of designs and negotiations Amiga, Inc. and ACK Software
Controls, Inc. are pleased to announce that new hardware is on its way
for Amiga users.

"I have been working on these designs with Amiga for almost 12
months and have been able to create two new designs that will fully
support the needs and desires of today's Amiga user, while opening
the doors for new users, said Adam Kowalczyk President of ACK
Software Controls, Inc.

etc...

I think the 12 mths includes Adam's initial attempts to get licencing
for his hardware projects but somewhere after September 20 I guess
Amiga Inc came back and said something to this effect: "Forget all
that stuff you are working on. We need something else which we will
buy from you to market in quantities of 1000 units minimum and so on
but no word of this must get out. Let people go on thinking you
are still going ahead with your PV and CPU stuff. You won't be able
to explain why you are not without giving the game away so don't!

Noel

Last edited by NoelFuller on 25-Jun-2007 at 11:33 AM.

@NoelFuller

First, thank you for additional timeline to help us refresh our memories. It was helpful and insightful.

A few comments:

Quote:

I believe someone else pointed out that all it may have meant is that the development phase has ended, so Adam believed, and now he was entering the production phase. In fact, according to various posts, he was not really out of the development phase if ever.

Saying something is in production means something is in production - or at least this will be how people will understand it. Adam should have known this, and I think he knew it and made the comment with full understanding of how it would be read. Clintoneseque I did not have sex with the woman / it wasn't really in production althought I said it was doesn't hold much water (although seemed to do the trick for Clinton).

If PowerVixxen indeed was NOT in production when Adam said so, he lied. Plain and simple. Now I'm willing to leave the issue open for further explanation by anyone in the know of course, because I can't say for certain what the production status of PowerVixxen was. So of course I don't know if it was a lie, I hope it wasn't! (But it is becoming very hard to explain...)

Quote:

but somewhere after September 20 I guess Amiga Inc came back and said something to this effect: "Forget all that stuff you are working on. We need something else which we will buy from you to market in quantities of 1000 units minimum and so on but no word of this must get out. Let people go on thinking you are still going ahead with your PV and CPU stuff. You won't be able to explain why you are not without giving the game away so don't!

Is this pure speculation on your part or is this based on some information from a trustworthy source? You say guess, so I am assuming it is speculation but I ask because it feels a bit far reaching if only a guess... OTOH, if you know something that makes you think that then it would indeed be interesting.

@all

What makes any of you think you're owed anything from Adam or Amiga Inc? Just because we all liked/loved Amiga back in the day, because we're all hoping for a new machine to go with the elusive OS4 and because Adam and Amiga Inc post that new boards are on the way, DOES NOT mean that we're owed anything. They're stating what will be. No one here made pre-purchases (like we really could anyhow) no one here was personally promised a thing. Just sit back and watch what will unfold.

Ed

_________________
Amiga 1200 - ACA 1233 68030 128MB Ram
8GB CF With tons of Classics

AmigaOne X5000

Raspberry PI 400 - PiMiga 1.5
"That which doesn't kill you, only makes you stronger" - Someone important, but I forgot who

@NoelFuller

Quote:

I believe someone else pointed out that all it may have meant is that the development phase has ended, so Adam believed, and now he was entering the production phase. In fact, according to various posts, he was not really out of the development phase if ever.

ACK didn't say that it might be entering the production phase, they said the Powervixxen _IS_ in production and that estimated availability is just _one_ month later.
At the same time, ACK didn't have any CPU connectors and they weren't even sure where to get them. So how could ACK ever ramp up a production with availability just one month later without those connectors or any idea where to get them?

No matter how you reinterpret ACKs plain and simple statements ("has gone in production" "availability end of January") it is very clear that he _lied_ at that time. Yes, it's not a nice thing to say, but sometimes it's better to face the truth than to come up with hilarious explanations and excuses, e.g. "yes it was in production, but maybe the factory might have burned down after it was finished, you never know, sh*t happens, it's not fine to blame ACK for the situation".

_________________
This signature is in the middle of a much needed facelift!

@jtsiren

Quote:

but somewhere after September 20 I guess Amiga Inc came back and said something to this effect: "Forget all that stuff you are working on. We need something else which we will buy from you to market in quantities of 1000 units minimum and so on but no word of this must get out. Let people go on thinking you are still going ahead with your PV and CPU stuff. You won't be able to explain why you are not without giving the game away so don't! Is this pure speculation on your part or is this based on some information from a trustworthy source? You say guess, so I am assuming it is speculation but I ask because it feels a bit far reaching if only a guess... OTOH, if you know something that makes you think that then it would indeed be interesting.

It is pure speculation based on the sudden cessation of effort and communication in established directions, the guff in the joint hardware announcements about time in development and what we now know about the legal dispute.

Noel

@edponpon

Quote:

They're stating what will be.

No, the history has shown that ACK has always stated what _won't_ be.

I don't think even Adam believed when Amiga Inc told him that there "won't be any problems" with getting their hands on OS4. He was well aware of the situation around the OS4 source code and that the chance that Amiga Inc will easily get access to it is very small. I think he was also very aware of the fact that a HW announcement for "Summer 2007" is extremely unrealistic given these facts and the start of the lawsuit.
But still he agreed to play the game with them. Amiga Inc needed the announcement for their lawsuit. Adam needed the announcement because he is an attention seeker. As long as he still get's attention and as long as there are still people who get excited and post bananas after his announcements, he will still keep on doing that.

Last edited by polka. on 25-Jun-2007 at 12:26 PM.

_________________
This signature is in the middle of a much needed facelift!