Journal hob42's Journal: The "New" Amiga (99.12.02) 1
(Originally posted to the internet December 3, 1999)
Well, this turned out to be about half history, half commentary. So if you know all about the Amiga's history, you can skip down a bit. If not, read on, and learn why the Amiga is in the position it is today.
The Amiga computer, an innovation in 1985, was slowly repressed over the years by it's own company. One advanced project after another was cancelled or reshaped into something inferior, and by the time Commodore finally killed itself in 1995, the Amiga was barely (if at all) keeping up with the PCs and Macs of the time. But, in the midst of the Commodore bankruptcy, several other companies (such as Commodore-UK, Commodore's US distributer, and even a big-league player -- Dell) stepped forward with offers to buy Commodore's properties, all with various promises of what they would do for the Amiga's future. After all, the Amiga was the only thing useful of Commodore's anymore.
After a year of postponed deadlines, the Bahamian court finally ended the auction and Commodore was bought by a german PC manufacturer ESCOM. They created a subsidiary called Amiga International to coordinate the production of the current Amiga models and develop a roadmap to a future platform. After another year, things weren't much different. AI had some ideas, and they were designing a new system, but in those two years the Amiga had ben left in the dust. Nothing AI was planning would even be a catch-up system to current PCs and Macs.
Now, some other companies stepped in. In particular, phase5, a german company known for it's accellerators and graphics cards. phase5 ushered in the next generation for the Amiga with dual-processor PowerPC/680x0 add-on boards for the existing computers. The idea was to do what Apple had done, move the computer frmo the 68k processor to the PPC, but in a slower manner as dictated by the tiny market. The idea was to eventually port the Amiga OS to PowerPC, and include a 68k emulator. Then, you could remove the 68k from the picture altogether while still retaining 100% compatibility with existing applications.
AI endorsed phase5's plan, saying they would not only license a PPC port of the OS, but would do so for any CPU. They envisioned a CPU independant architecture... but that would never fly. Each port would have to emulate all the other CPUs for compatibility, and developers would still have to compile their programs for each different CPU so that they could get the most performance out of it. People clamored for AI to decide on one future standard CPU, but AI didn't have the chance.
In 1997, a year after ESCOM had bought the bankrupt Commodore, ESCOM itself went bankrupt. Once again, the Amiga community was left in painful limbo, wondering who would hold the future of the Amiga this time. The answer was more shocking than ESCOM had been -- it was none other than the largest direct-market PC manufacturer, Gateway2000. (It's funny to note that Gateway's closest competitor is Dell... Take a look back at the first liquidation bidders.) Now the rumors started. Would they merge the Amiga and the PC? Would they make a set-top box out of it? Would they throw it away, since they had only bought it for the numerous patents?
Well, it turns out, they had intended to do the latter. But once they started recieving thousands of emails about their plans for the future, they decided they should make a plan for the future. And so Amiga, Inc was born. Amiga International still existed, and would handle marketing and licensing, while Amiga, Inc. would be purely R&D. And with Gateway's deep pockets, almost anything seemed possible.
The first thing that came out was that they weren't going to be coming out with anything. They did decide they would release a minor upgrade to the OS, v3.5, but they wouldn't elaborate much further into the future. Jeff Schindler just kept saying they needed time to lay out a 5-year development roadmap, and that it had to be finished before it could be announced.
In the meantime, life in Amiga-land went on as it had before. We had little official guidance from a parent company since '95 (or earlier), and we were used to it. Sick of it, but used to it. The PPC cards were finally released, cool new graphics cards come out, new 100%-compatible chipsets are announced, redesigned motherboards with new buses like PCI, and so forth. But time was taking it's toll. As I look out at the shareware scene, I can tell things aren't as great as they used to be.
But, eventually, we did get to hear the plan for the new Amigas, in 1998. But it wasn't quite what we expected. Basically, Amiga is starting a new age, with a completely new OS on a completely new architecture. The only thing that is the same is the philosophy.
(Okay, now the history is out of the way. Here's the real program.)
You see, Amiga Inc. has declared the current Amiga architecture as legacy, now commonly termed Amiga Classic. This is the Amiga we all know and sometimes love. This is the Amiga that runs all our software. This is the Amiga that drives the Video Toaster / Flyer. This is the Amiga that is just now beginning to get critical mass in the PPC area so that a more complete PPC solution could be made. This is the Amiga that hasn't had an OS or chipset upgrade since 1994.
And in a year or so, there will be a new Amiga, commonly called AmigaNG. I nicknamed it Amiga II myself. But the most important thing to remember is that it is _not_ the Amiga we all know and sometimes love. It _might_ include enough emulation to run all our software. It _won't_ drive the Video Toaster / Flyer. And it would have futuristic multimedia capabilities with no compatibility to the above-mentioned chipset.
Some people are upset. Some people are overjoyed. I was... both.
I'm sad that official Amiga Classic development will halt with OS3.5. I'm sad that I may never be able to upgrade my aging A2000 to anything better than it is now. I'm afraid that companies like phase5 and Haage&Partner will collapse as the Amiga Classic market can only shrink from here, and that would mean the end of the road for the amazing Amiga that was born in 1985.
I'm glad, however, to see a new "alternative" platform emerge. I like the idea of an OS with design goals similar to that of the Amiga being used in TVs, game consoles, network appliances, and desktops. The QNX/AmigaOS 5 should be interesting, and it's future seems bright and promising.
But the name Amiga is misleading. Jeff Schindler invites the Amiga community to evangelize the Amiga name. But what do I, a user of a 10+ year old Amiga 2000, have to do with the Amiga II? It might have a few similar philosophies, but so does BeOS, or perhaps QNX. What Jeff asks the Amiga community to do is like Microsoft asking MS-DOS users to evangelize about Windows2000 against Linux or the Macintosh, just because it's got the Microsoft label.
Regardless, the Amiga community is accepting the Amiga II plans. We waited eagerly to hear that QNX was the kernel partner for the OS. Now we wait eagerly to find out what the Magical Mystery Chip is that is supposed to be the heart of the new architecture. We are accepting the doom of the Amiga we know so that the Amiga can rise again. But is it really the Amiga? If it doesn't have a backwards- compatible custom chipset, is it an Amiga? If it's not Intuition- based, is it an Amiga? If the kernel isn't Exec, is it an Amiga? If it's not on a 68000, is it an Amiga?* If it doesn't have a keyboard garage, is it an Amiga?**
*: Some people asked the same thing when the Macintosh became the PowerMac. I still call it a Mac...
**: This question was raised in 1987, regarding the A500 and A2000 replacing the A1000. I still call them Amigas...
So, the question is, where do we draw the line? Amiga Inc says the philosophy is the same, so that's that. "So what" to the fact you won't be running ImageFX or Lightwave3D or Arkanoid; it's still an Amiga anyway. I drew the line somewhere else, though. It has a new CPU. It has a new OS. It has new APIs. It has new market targets. The only link it has to Amiga Classic is the possibility of running the UAE Amiga emulator - but if that makes it an Amiga, then my Win95 PC can be called an Amiga, too.
People say that the Amiga Classic is too far gone to be ressurrected, and that the only thing to do is start from scratch. Believe me, I know how outdated the Amiga is. I haven't upgraded my A2000's graphics, so they're still at 1987's standards. Yet I did manage to make the very same A2000 my only computer until just a year and a half ago. And if phase5 had pulled through with a PowerPC card for the 2000 series (currently, they only support the A3000, A4000, and A1200) I might not have even done it then. And consider this: Index is creating a brand new chipset that is register-level compatible with AGA, while at the same time having 16-bit audio and SVGA video modes, with a 32-bit core and a much wider and faster memory bus. Combine that with their planned new motherboard that has both ZorroIII and PCI slots and an improved processor interface, and you have a real Amiga that is at least as good as current PC offerings. It's not even the fabled 'AAA' chipset, but I'd kill for one of these puppies. Who knows, maybe with some more time and money, they could bring the Amiga out to the front again.
Why am I not content to let brave companies like Index do it all themselves? Because there aren't enough of them left. I can count the number of good hardware developers for the Amiga on one hand. Without some central direction, that number will only decrease. AmigaOS3.5 is one small step in that direction, because they are forcing phase5 and H&P to set a standard and create a unified PowerPC interface in what is now a splintered and incompatible market. But AmigaOS3.5 is also the final step for the Amiga Classic, at least from Amiga itself.
Jeff, I love your plans for Amiga II. I just wish you could have taken those dreams and named it something different. And someone else could have given us official PPC standards, official RTG/RTA standards, new chipsets... I'm not asking for a return to glory, but these are the things that I need to make the computer I love - the AMIGA - an even more enjoyable computer to use.
And all we have now is a name.
-Justin Pope
Amiga veteran since 1987
Reversal of sorts (Score:1)