RedHat's business model was to give the free OS away (for free obviously) and sell support services.

So yes, that Cloanto. The one with a viable business model.

@ne_one

Quote:

ne_one wrote: @kolla Quote: The most skillful and talented Amiga coders left decades ago because they knew perfectly well that the platform has no future. The implication being that the platform is forever consigned to the past because there is a lack of available talent? There is no shortage of capable resources out there and that includes developers and the myriad of other people who are equally important to making a business viable. The problem has always been the people running the show. Commodore certainly wasn't the best suitor for the platform. But since that time the succession of incompetents in charge of the Amiga have made them look exceptionally brilliant.

Usually talent follows a credible, compelling long-term vision. Not the other way around.

Commodore were brilliant at the time. It just happened that the fixed traits that made them winners in the 80s didn't extrapolate to the environment of the 90s and later. In fact one of the brilliancies of Commodore was to completely abandon any further attempts to look backwards to the C64 (the most successful home computer of all time) as they learnt from the C128 market failure (and the C64 was just 3-4 years old, not 3+ decades old as the Amiga is now).

@muyuu

Quote:

In fact one of the brilliancies of Commodore was to completely abandon any further attempts to look backwards to the C64 (the most successful home computer of all time) as they learnt from the C128 market failure (and the C64 was just 3-4 years old, not 3+ decades old as the Amiga is now).

I am not sure of what all that really means.

C= continued to produce and sell the C64 until 1993 / 1994.

The market failure of the C128 is the biggest misconception of the 20th century. Depending on the source, but as a generally accepted fact, the C128 virtually sold as many units as the A500.

@BigD

Quote:

Pigs have been flying in Italy since 1997!

And painting in South Africa. This one does not need P96.

Last edited by Nonefornow on 26-Feb-2019 at 03:48 PM.

@Nonefornow

Pigasso 96.

@Nonefornow

Quote:

Nonefornow wrote: @muyuu Quote: In fact one of the brilliancies of Commodore was to completely abandon any further attempts to look backwards to the C64 (the most successful home computer of all time) as they learnt from the C128 market failure (and the C64 was just 3-4 years old, not 3+ decades old as the Amiga is now). I am not sure of what all that really means. C= continued to produce and sell the C64 until 1993 / 1994. The market failure of the C128 is the biggest misconception of the 20th century. Depending on the source, but as a generally accepted fact, the C128 virtually sold as many units as the A500.

It means that the C64/C128 remained distinct projects that didn't leak into their Amiga line, which was the present/future for them rather than the low end/past.

My C128 still works. The C128 failed and it failed hard. Most people used it in compatibility mode, there are extremely few software releases for the C128 mode. The C16/Plus-4 sold more software than the C128 proper, by far, and is also regarded as a market failure. These are niche machines.

@muyuu
@Nonefornow

Bil Herd has said that the C128 was consciously conceived as a stop-gap to keep excitement and sales of 8-bit machines moving while the Amiga was ramping up. For a last-minute, one-man, stop gap, passion project, the 128 was a roaring success. I and most of the people I knew with Commodores moved to the 128. Just because we never booted into CP/M didn't stop it from being the world's best selling CP/M machine. Just because we mostly used C64 mode didn't change the fact that we bought C128s.

In general we are all aware of Commodore's failure to properly fund R&D, to capitalize on what sat in their labs (Commodore LCD, AAA chipset, etc.) Commodore was really good at chasing away top talent and siphoning money into pockets...

Last edited by Dave73 on 26-Feb-2019 at 06:15 PM.
Last edited by Dave73 on 26-Feb-2019 at 06:14 PM.

If only the C128's 80 column chip had some sprites...and more than 16 colors though you could simulate extra colors with interlacing...

@Dave73
@muyuu

Under that optics then the A500 was a failure as a computer and a success as a gaming machine.

No-one bought productivity software or applications, but everyone bought games.

@Nonefornow

I used the A500 for games and productivity.

:)

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@Nonefornow

Quote:

No-one bought productivity software or applications, but everyone bought games.

This is so deep issue one may call it root of all causes of the Commodore demise. CBM was never really successful on the US business market and the company virtually left high-end desktop market after the failure of CBM II. Attempt to return to the "serious market" with Amiga was only of limited success. In 1984 (after the first great price war), Commodore sold more computers than all other computer companies (even more than IBM!), but these were dirty cheap VIC and C64 models with ultra low margins and so CBMs revenues were far bellow other major computer companies. In the end, it was the business market that was a driving force behind software and hardware sales leading to the ultimate domination of the IBM PC standard.

@Nonefornow

Quote:

Nonefornow wrote: @Dave73 @muyuu Under that optics then the A500 was a failure as a computer and a success as a gaming machine. No-one bought productivity software or applications, but everyone bought games.

It was a huge success as a gaming machine, a moderate success as a graphic design/music machine, a big success in the video editing home computer segment (invented it) and an unmitigated failure in the office productivity segment (which became extremely important in the mid 90s, but is moving to "the cloud" now).

Last edited by muyuu on 26-Feb-2019 at 10:26 PM.

Quote:

And painting in South Africa. This one does not need P96.

On a side note, this pig does not need CyberGraphX.

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@QuBe

Quote:

It would be like a new beginning...

I suppose it would be. But it would also be 20 years late. So would lack the excitement of a new Amiga machine taking the place of the Amiga a few years after it wasn't produced.

I'm sure it will still be exciting. But against the modern world it may look a tad mediocre. A fast new Amiga with retro appeal.

A miniaturised Amiga with built in RTG, RTA, USB, SATA and HDMI. True color graphics, 16-bit sound and no messing about with an Amiga compatible monitor.

But I hope to see better than people getting excited over playing MPEG1 video streams on their A500 because it has a Vampire. The Vampire is doing all the hard work. And MPEG1 video is so 90's. I could play that on my A4000. When ever I see MPEG1 videos I think of a certain Shania Twain song.

@Hypex

Quote:

When ever I see MPEG1 videos I think of a certain Shania Twain song.

"Leave me Breathless"? ...



.... Ahhh "That Don't Impress Me Much"

Good to be reminded of Shania's back catalogue!

Amiga ... "You're Still The One!"

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@Jose

Quote:

Jose wrote: "...and almost everyone who is still here, are the hard core users that will remain here until they die" Man, That sound f***ing epic :) Seriously though, I think that everyone gets bored and then comes back from time to time just to check how things are going. You still see old users coming back from time to time and those are the ones that bother to create an account, there are surely others lurking around. Sadly there are no products that interest most, maybe a lower priced X6000 with AltiVec. " I think that people like you who say that our community is doomed to die a quick death over the next few years, are about the same as the few community members who still believe that the Amiga is going to make some kind of miraculous recovery to its glory days" I don't think practically anyone believes that, it's just that trying to make it happen is part of the fun. The Amiga is a very peculiar system and an updated version would surely gather interest. There are also advantages to running an exotic system, you are for example immune to threats from viruses that plague other systems. But then you can't run some of the great programs available today for Windows. We all see the markets going towards big monopolies that use open source software. These big monopolies are also in bed with governments. Even is there was a miraculous AOS version with all the amazing features one would dream of it, the average Joe would just buy and believe the hype from the big players. Just look at how TDT TV was advertised (in this case also from governments) and the hype that the image would be better, then when they implemented it they used 10% of it's capabilities with super compressed streams with lower quality than the previous analog streams (with a few exceptions of course). It was pretty painful to watch a football game with a big screen TV and seen all the green squares moving... The Amiga and whatever great other OSes and systems are out there would never make it in this world, even if they were updated to today's standards. But, and this is a big but, there are always curious people that like computers and that would maybe try it if it had some advantages.

As an Amiga kid from the late 80s and early 90s and C64/C128 before that, every now and then I take a look at the retro scene. The Amiga scene is rather unique in that it seems to be in the delusion that it isn't chiefly a retro scene. If anything this causes some alienation and division, because there can be no common goal when a large subset of the remaining people interested in "Amiga" (whatever that even means now) want to spend resources - most importantly branding and dev attention - in a fool's errand to resuscitate an anachronistic code base and architecture to bring it to... 1999? or 2006 if you are willing to spend a few thousand quid.

The C64 scene - to use as an example - lives in the real world. People create hobbyist projects to pimp their C64 and that's ok. They are priced as hobbyist projects or retro nostalgia machines. Nobody is talking about replacing their Windows/Linux/Mac Intel i5/i7 grade laptops or desktops with a pimped C64. Or even their smartphone for that matter.

I believe my constituency, generically speaking and limited to the context of this post, has a headcount in the low millions. We haven't for the most part paid much attention to anything that has happened with the Amiga brand since the mid 90s. We don't really care, we can't see how on Earth do any of these lawyered-up entities can claim to be "Amiga" or "Commodore" beyond strictly legally - there's an intrinsic conflict between that and the whole spirit of retro nostalgia. We see some of the projects as somewhere between interesting and intriguing, but nothing we would entertain investing heavily in. That would make no sense.

As most kids with computers in the 80s, I'm an early tech adopter, and I do care for the bleeding edge in technology. But "Amiga" is not going to be it. For sure some project could carry over the "philosophy" and do something Amiga-esque in 2019 or later, but is it going to be based on fighting for the trademarks or coding on top of ancient software?? Nope, there's zero future there for an Amiga-in-1985 tier "game changer" - having said that I understand there's money to be made in just extorting hobbyists by asking them for royalties or branding rights.

AMA.

@BigD

Yes, you got it, the unimpressive one.

@muyuu

Good perspective. I largely agree. That's why I like the idea of Cloanto being a reliable clearing house for rights and IP to make products like an Amiga Mini possible, at a commercial scale with a reasonable price. The standalone Vampire, while a bit more expensive, would also fill my needs perfectly.

I do want to go beyond just retro gaming though. With a bit of modern connectivity (USB storage, or Dropbox/Google Drive access, etc) I would happily use a new Amiga for writing. This is currently what I run Ubuntu for on an old, rock-solid ThinkPad. Writing is one of those low-resource, long time commitment activities that can let you keep using your tools of choice (witness authors happily still using WordStar, or DOS WordPerfect, decades after their "sell-by" date.)

I'm not a dinosaur, I've got plenty of Windows 10, Mac OS and iOS in my life to get everything done. But I like using different systems, and have always felt most at home with Amiga. I hope not for a resurgent Amiga to reclaim all of desktop computing -- merely offer me a way to reliably use any modern Amiga for what it's good for at a reasonable price.

Last edited by Dave73 on 04-Mar-2019 at 03:43 PM.

@Dave73

Can't you just put sticker on a PC? If this all you like to have?

I think its about time to drop IP, and name it something else it's not worth paying Colonto to put name on box, that's wasted money, everyone who care about Amiga knows it hardware and / or the OS that is what counts, not its name / stickers. it has no value kids today don't know what Amiga is, it has no value outside of this community anyway.

The legal cost around IP to defend it, protect it, also freaking waste of money. let AmigaOS and Workbench be the past, and let HyperionOS be the future.

Last edited by NutsAboutAmiga on 04-Mar-2019 at 04:39 PM.
Last edited by NutsAboutAmiga on 04-Mar-2019 at 04:35 PM.
Last edited by NutsAboutAmiga on 04-Mar-2019 at 04:33 PM.

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@NutsAboutAmiga

Quote:

The legal cost around IP to defend it, protect it, also freaking waste of money. let AmigaOS and Workbench be the past, and let HyperionOS be the future.

I kind of agree with this, but it leads to a huge problem: AmigaOS, evaluated on its own merits and apart from its Amiga legacy, is a really bad operating system. No memory protection in 2019 is full stop. Amiga legacy is really all it has going for it.

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