Hello Amigans,

Incredible! My first posts about this were 18 years ago! Time passes and the situation is still at a standstill. How nice it would be if all parties could find a fair agreement and go ahead with a real development of the Amiga platform. I know for a fact that there could be some interesting developments...

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retired

@AmigaBlitter

I thought we'd done that by survival of the fittest. We've reverted to 68k and the Vampire, PiStorm, MiniMig, UnAmiga, Mister, A600 GS and THEA500 Mini/Maxi Teams are providing the hardware to push the platform! It's a brave new dawn! The David Pleasance plan of unifying under a monetary programme failed, long live the 68k market forces!

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"Art challenges technology. Technology inspires the art."
John Lasseter, Co-Founder of Pixar Animation Studios

@BigD

You're right.

Since we are in the IA era, i asked to a known accounted IA what follows:

What developments could there be if all the companies related to the Amiga platform joined forces?

The AI replied:

1. Technological Synergies: Companies could collaborate to integrate their technologies and expertise, leading to significant improvements in the Amiga platform. This could include hardware enhancements, development of advanced software, and optimization of the operating system.
2. Platform Relaunch: Collaboration among companies could result in a relaunch of the Amiga platform in the market. This might involve the release of new products, such as updated hardware, modern emulators, or new versions of the operating system.
3. Support for Developers: By joining forces, companies could provide better support for software and game developers for the Amiga platform. This could encourage the creation of new applications and games, increasing the platform's appeal to users.
4. Stronger Community: Increased collaboration could also lead to a stronger and more cohesive Amiga community. This might include organizing events, promoting the platform, and sharing knowledge and resources among enthusiasts.
5. Renewed User Interest: With new innovations and improvements to the platform, there could be renewed interest from both existing and potential users. This could result in increased sales of Amiga-related hardware and software.
In summary, joining forces could lead to a revival of the Amiga platform, with new growth and development opportunities for the involved companies and increased user satisfaction.

The AI seems to understand the benefit of joining the forces
The summary says it all

Last edited by AmigaBlitter on 07-Feb-2024 at 10:53 AM.
Last edited by AmigaBlitter on 06-Feb-2024 at 08:01 PM.

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retired

@AmigaBlitter

That A.I. response couldn't be more generic. Spoken like a true person who didn't complete the assignment.

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All the way, with 68k

@AmigaBlitter

I totally agree with you. The Amiga platform and the overall community would be better off with a strong alliance amongst the factions.

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@AmigaMac

Since Cloanto own most of the IP in the Amiga Corporation sister company, they can provide "roadmap" style leadership if they wanted to. In the meantime people are just getting on with producing hardware products, applications and games at a faster rate than I've seen for decades. I'm not sure what else could be "coordinated". It's hard enough encouraging the Amiga retail stores to play nice never mind co-ordinate a platform road map etc. They way it works currently is; we choose the direction by what we buy! If you want AAMX supported games then buy a Vampire for example or if you think the AmiStore will lead us to a brave new world, then buy the A600 GS! But if you expect AmiStore on an Apollo product then I'd say that's a long shot! Similarly, expecting RGL and AmigaKit to work together to usher in commercial Arm based mass market products for the masses is not something that the factions seem to want! They serve different niches and philosophies!

Last edited by BigD on 07-Feb-2024 at 06:50 AM.
Last edited by BigD on 07-Feb-2024 at 06:50 AM.
Last edited by BigD on 07-Feb-2024 at 06:45 AM.

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"Art challenges technology. Technology inspires the art."
John Lasseter, Co-Founder of Pixar Animation Studios

With all this recent inflammatory talk of conscription and inevitable conflict with Russia we may all be "joining the forces" sooner than anyone would like.

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Doing stupid things for fun...

@AmigaMac



I know that there are multiple projects ready to start if only all the parties join the forces.

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retired

@AmigaBlitter

For split second there I was a bit shocked & though someone had resurrected your 18 year old thread, although I didn't realize it was quite so long ago! Does rather rub in the fact that old age is fast approaching!

I agree with BigD's survival of the fittest comment, things have moved on. No point in wishing for some great coming together of all party's, nature will continue to take its coarse.

Personally I think AROS will slowly gain more traction, in some part thanks to Apollo Team giving it some exposure (obviously along with deadwood & others continued efforts). Things are looking pretty bright these days on the whole 68K front; personally I think OS3.2 is great & at least as important as the major hardware developments.

Last edited by Tpod on 07-Feb-2024 at 10:23 PM.

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A1200+Mediator+Voodoo3+040+130mbRAM+0S3.9
A2000+Supra28mhz+9mbRAM+OS3.2.2, CD32 & WinUAE

@AmigaBlitter

I have on more than a few occasions worked in M&A situations where I'm either assisting the selling company separate the sold assets, the acquiring company integrate the purchased assets, or as a third party for both.

Right now, I'm consulting at a company that was formed by a merger of two very similar companies about a year back. One of the companies runs their in-house developed and maintained platforms which will soon become a sticking point. While there might have been some logic behind the decision to build their own instead of off-the-shelf back when they made that decision, that logic is certainly not evident today.
And the newly formed company will have the unenviable decision to replace one or more of these in-house solutions with more pragmatic choices, and essentially flushing $1M-$2M down the toilet.

Because of competing and conflicting philosophies, the only way for ALL remaining "Amiga" forces to join, would come at the expense of some of them similarly flushing person-years of work, and the associated expended monetary value.

The only semi-workable joining of forces, would be if A-EON (hardware), MorphOS (OS), and Cloanto (retro) rally around AROS for ARM. Here too there would be flushing: A-EON flushing PPC (kind of inevitable and long overdue) and building not-a-PC desktop ARM boards, MorphOS abandoning PPC (inevitable and overdue) and porting their slick OS presentation to the open source nature of AROS, and helping their community of developers transition with their SDK, and Cloanto with Amiga Para Sempre on ARM, for the thousands of 68k titles.

Most of the AROS ARM work would benefit AROS 68k and derivatives, which would provide for a better experience on Apollo 080 and emu68 systems, and emu68 could even be used by Amiga Para Sempre inside of MorphAROS on ARM.

Hyperion has no dog in this race. They have too much IP and investors tied up in whatever it is they think they're doing.

Last edited by agami on 08-Feb-2024 at 01:41 AM.
Last edited by agami on 08-Feb-2024 at 01:39 AM.
Last edited by agami on 08-Feb-2024 at 01:36 AM.

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All the way, with 68k

@agami

What about instead of buying Apple Vision Pro you just buy AmigaVision Professional? We saw the Vision many years ago!

https://archive.org/details/AmigaVision_1990_Commodore_363394-01

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Sent from my Quantum Computer.

@DiscreetFX

Commodore - Lots of cool ideas, always with the poor follow-through.

It's a shame AmigaVision didn't evolve. It could've been THE killer app, the kinds of things Apple did when they reinvented themselves in the late '90s.
It could've been the amateur suite at the cross-roads of more professional Scala MM and NewTek's Toaster software. The iLife + iWork of its day.

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All the way, with 68k

@AmigaBlitter

No, no need to join forces. Like the rainbow flag, separate is beautiful.
Mix all colours together and it all becomes brown like shit.

Not everyone can work together. Anyone that has signed an NDA with Hyperion can likely
never be allowed to work on Amiga/MOS/AROS/... sources.

So that divide between developer communities will remain forever, or until Ben declares the NDAs void.
Until then no one in any other group can afford the legal risks of working, co-operating on or taking contributions to a common Amiga cause from any OS4 developers.
You are on your own until you get Ben to void those crazy NDAs.


M68k is doing absolutely great all by itself. Too bad that you are drowning but we are not your lifejacket.

Last edited by V8 on 08-Feb-2024 at 05:29 AM.
Last edited by V8 on 08-Feb-2024 at 05:26 AM.
Last edited by V8 on 08-Feb-2024 at 05:23 AM.

@Karlos

Quote:

With all this recent inflammatory talk of conscription and inevitable conflict with Russia we may all be "joining the forces" sooner than anyone would like.

Who would fight for a political class that clearly hates us?

Join the Forces?
I am waiting for it for decades!

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I´m back in 2023 on Classic Amiga with my A1200/Blizzard1230IB@50Mhz, 32MB RAM, AmigaOS3.2 and ROMs, Indivision AGA MK3, Author of Amiga-Flipclock (OS4)

BigD Quote:

Since Cloanto own most of the IP in the Amiga Corporation sister company, they can provide "roadmap" style leadership if they wanted to. In the meantime people are just getting on with producing hardware products, applications and games at a faster rate than I've seen for decades. I'm not sure what else could be "coordinated". It's hard enough encouraging the Amiga retail stores to play nice never mind co-ordinate a platform road map etc. They way it works currently is; we choose the direction by what we buy! If you want AAMX supported games then buy a Vampire for example or if you think the AmiStore will lead us to a brave new world, then buy the A600 GS! But if you expect AmiStore on an Apollo product then I'd say that's a long shot! Similarly, expecting RGL and AmigaKit to work together to usher in commercial Arm based mass market products for the masses is not something that the factions seem to want! They serve different niches and philosophies!

It's not that easy for Amiga Corporation to make a "roadmap" or do a project already. The new Amiga Corporation has to be accepted as the legitimate successor to Amiga Corporation first. The new Atari has had the same problem with the user community split between acceptance and rejection despite there not being a challenging alternative. The Amiga community is also split with IP squatting businesses seen as Robin Hood like heroes for taking control of AmigaOS 4 from the disappointing Amiga Inc. The illegal shenanigans are over looked as they delivered with relatively large projects and products to their customers. Amiga Corporation and Cloanto also have been a positive for the Amiga community but mostly for the retro Amiga with smaller more conservative projects. There is also the problem of investment for Amiga Corporation. The legal situation creates uncertainty for possible investment potentially reducing the number of investors and increasing borrowing costs. Retro Games Ltd performed due diligence before licensing IP for THEA500 Mini. They stated they would like to do more faithful hardware and investigated it but this would have a longer development cycle and more up front cost. Even with due diligence, the IP squatters and lawsuits create uncertainty for business that license Amiga IP as well. Amiga Corporation has been conservative which likely means waiting until the lawsuits are settled and ownership is secured.

agami Quote:

I have on more than a few occasions worked in M&A situations where I'm either assisting the selling company separate the sold assets, the acquiring company integrate the purchased assets, or as a third party for both. Right now, I'm consulting at a company that was formed by a merger of two very similar companies about a year back. One of the companies runs their in-house developed and maintained platforms which will soon become a sticking point. While there might have been some logic behind the decision to build their own instead of off-the-shelf back when they made that decision, that logic is certainly not evident today. And the newly formed company will have the unenviable decision to replace one or more of these in-house solutions with more pragmatic choices, and essentially flushing $1M-$2M down the toilet.

What is the typical cost for a 2 way and 3 way merger of small businesses? How much does merging businesses in different countries affect the cost.

agami Quote:

Because of competing and conflicting philosophies, the only way for ALL remaining "Amiga" forces to join, would come at the expense of some of them similarly flushing person-years of work, and the associated expended monetary value. The only semi-workable joining of forces, would be if A-EON (hardware), MorphOS (OS), and Cloanto (retro) rally around AROS for ARM. Here too there would be flushing: A-EON flushing PPC (kind of inevitable and long overdue) and building not-a-PC desktop ARM boards, MorphOS abandoning PPC (inevitable and overdue) and porting their slick OS presentation to the open source nature of AROS, and helping their community of developers transition with their SDK, and Cloanto with Amiga Para Sempre on ARM, for the thousands of 68k titles. Most of the AROS ARM work would benefit AROS 68k and derivatives, which would provide for a better experience on Apollo 080 and emu68 systems, and emu68 could even be used by Amiga Para Sempre inside of MorphAROS on ARM. Hyperion has no dog in this race. They have too much IP and investors tied up in whatever it is they think they're doing.

Interesting "joining of forces" thought. Cloanto instead of Amiga Corporation where most of the Amiga IP is being or has been transferred?

I doubt MorphOS would be interested in a "joining of forces" for ARM hardware. They are likely close to a port of MorphOS to x86-64 where they can leverage the high performance advantages of x86-64 over ARM. They have a roadmap with good planning. They are ahead of AmigaOS 4 in porting away from PPC, they focus on software which is ahead of AmigaOS 4 in many ways and they already borrow from AROS when useful. The only question is if MorphOS on x86-64 will be anymore successful. I wouldn't want to invest in a software only business selling only an OS. MorphOS and AmigaOS 4 have different philosophies and have gone in different enough directions that it will be difficult for them to re-standardize together without one of them failing.

I see Hyperion and A-Eon with AmigaOS 4 as being in trouble. PPC is dead, AmigaOS 4 updates are rare and Ben claims there is no money for porting, except the semi-AmigaOS 4 port back to 68k AmigaOS 3. Trevor is oblivious to the writing on the wall as he keeps on producing more and more noncompetitive PPC hardware now only in the hundreds of units (reminiscent of C= upper management thinking 68000+ECS was competitive in the early 1990s?). Hyperion is one court judgement away from being history and A-Eon with it after loosing sub-licensing to AmigaOS 4. I can't see any positive outcome for Hyperion and A-Eon with the status quo. Their situation is like playing chess for a stalemate (draw) when they can't win and hoping the opponent gives up.

The AmigaOS businesses are stepping on each other feet and going in different directions. A-Eon and Hyperion used to be allies or at least partners in crime. Ben realizes that PPC is dead and the Amiga market is retro while Trevor remains oblivious in his continued PPC development. AmigaKit is a newer allied business that is creating a replacement AmigaOS and marketing an AmigaKit computer device without the Amiga trademark. I wonder how much money is wasted for legal bills by A-Eon, Hyperion, AmigaKit and Amiga Corporation. There could be real synergy in just removing the legal bills not even counting development synergies.

Amiga Corporation, A-Eon and Hyperion need to be aligned to open doors for AmigaOS. I like the retro Amiga Corporation name and it is great that an Amiga business can use the Amiga name again. These three businesses should combine (not necessarily merge) with current business owners receiving Amiga Corporation stock. Hyperion may choose to trade AmigaOS related IP and sources to Amiga Corporation for stock and return to porting games but this may not be legally possible. A-Eon would disappear under Amiga Corporation with A-Eon owners receiving Amiga Corporation stock. AmigaKit may be better off kept separate while the rights to use the AmigaOS and the AmigaKit name in the A600GS could be traded for their current replacement AmigaOS development to enhance the official AmigaOS. Retro Games Ltd is another name that would be interesting to combine or work with because of their retro marketing and games licensing prowess. Amiga Corporation could become a one stop retro IP licensing business as well as a RPi like 68k Amiga business with retro gaming. PPC AmigaOS 4 support could continue with bug fixes and easily ported enhancements between the 68k AmigaOS and PPC AmigaOS, especially where API compatibility is improved. Eventually, a better NG AmigaOS needs to replace PPC AmigaOS 4 though.

It's easy to say "do it already" but the reality is that it would take a miracle. There are some really stubborn and narrow sighted Amiga related business owners.

Last edited by matthey on 09-Feb-2024 at 12:14 AM.

@Rob

Quote:

Rob wrote: @Karlos Quote: With all this recent inflammatory talk of conscription and inevitable conflict with Russia we may all be "joining the forces" sooner than anyone would like. Who would fight for a political class that clearly hates us?

Nobody in their right mind. Then again, that's what conscription is for; mobilising the unwilling.

It's political suicide though and let's face it, the turds we have in charge likely know it.

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Doing stupid things for fun...

@AmigaBlitter

Quote:

How nice it would be if all parties could find a fair agreement and go ahead with a real development of the Amiga platform.

I personally agree with this sentiment, despite the odds.



redfox

Last edited by redfox on 09-Feb-2024 at 01:55 AM.

@matthey

Quote:

It's easy to say "do it already" but the reality is that it would take a miracle.

I wrote that as a comment about new 68k “pi� type of hardware that regardless shouldn’t be developed solely for AmigaOS, but instead cater to _all_ 68k communities - especially those much heavier on developers, like Linux, netbsd and Atari. A straight out clone of a 68040 (or 060) would be a good starting point, and from there work openly with the gcc, llvm devs and others about where to go next, ensuring that advancement in the architecture is actually supported by the tool chains and the actively developed 68k operating systems and software. AmigaOS development is limping along way behind, but that’s hard to do anything about.

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B5D6A1D019D5D45BCC56F4782AC220D8B3E2A6CC

@redfox and @AmigaBlitter

Few can even agree on what “the Amiga platform� really is. To some, it is just software, to others it is the legacy chipset, and to some it is just the name.

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B5D6A1D019D5D45BCC56F4782AC220D8B3E2A6CC