Comment Amiga Never Died (Score 1) 331
I am interested to read the comments of many "Amiga Outsiders" who claim the Amiga Platform to be a dead ship, and that we should let her lie. This is my first time visiting here and it is interesting to read comments from people outside of the Amiga Community.
I can certainly see where comments like these come from. Afterall, The Amiga certainly hasn't been in everyone's face these last 10 years has it? The truth is, 10 years ago the Amiga and it's fantastic Operating System was the bee's knees. It was clearly the BEST computing solution out there and had massive opportunities for success. Unfortunately, due to a very long story which I wont properly go into here, Commodore messed up big time.
In the cruel business world, it doesn't matter how good your product is. It doesn't matter what your solution can do that others cannot. It doesn't matter that yours is the BEST product. Infact, NONE of these things matter a dime, without that magical term: "Marketing".
The Amiga as a platform was marketed all wrong. As good as the Amiga was at gameing, few people realised that the Amiga was actually BETTER at creativity. It's Operating System was doing things 10 years ago that the likes of Windows is only just recently catching up to. None of these things were marketed, and it's clear to see how a true business man like Bill Gates managed to steal the desktop dominance with a worse product, right under our noses!!!
Since Commodore, the Amiga has had worse, not better luck. It's subsequent owners made promises that never came, and time has dragged on to the point where everyone has forgotten about our computing platform, and to remember it now brings out rather nostalgic memories - and THAT is where the whole "Amiga has been dead for a decade" feeling comes from.
For me, a person who never left the Amiga Platform after Commodore went down, the Amiga has never died. 10 years ago it was alive and well, and 10 years later it is still alive and well - in it's own limited way.
The Amiga has never stopped developing. It has been dragged into the new decade kicking and screaming by the efforts of the Amiga Community and the amazing innovation of Amiga Developers - my Amiga1200 can do things today that the original designers never DREAMED of!!!
The Amiga Operating System has too made some progress over the years. After 3.0 (the last release by Commodore) it went to 3.1 with improved features, and has since moved all the way to 3.9. So to now take it to OS4.0 is not a new thing at all, it's a step upward from the developments already made in OS3.9. You have to understand that the Amiga has never stopped fighting on, it has never stopped developing. In the background (from your point of view) things have continued and the Amiga has developed on regardless.
My Amiga 1200 has 256MB RAM, a dual processor accelerator board (68K and PPC), A 6-slot PCI expansion board with PCI Graphics, Sound, Ethernet and TV Cards, it has 6 USB2.0 ports, 80GB of HD space, a CDRW... pretty much it has most of the things that modern PC and MAC users enjoy!!!
AmigaOS4.0 is for me an exciting development because it is the first time that the Operating System has been moved to a new CPU. The Amiga Operating System has been re-written for PPC, and what that means is we can upgrade our hardware even further. The new Amiga machines, while not as revolutionary as the originals were, DO support every modern computer advance that PC user enjoy. Fast, modern processors, fast IDE bus, massive scope for RAM expansions... that sort of thing.
So you see, things have never really stood still at all, we've made sure of that!!!
Check out a screen grab of my current Amiga Desktop (which is OS3.9) and see what you think.
http://homepages.nildram.co.uk/~amigaos/AmigaOS3 .9 _April2004.png
Best regards to everyone,
Brian
I can certainly see where comments like these come from. Afterall, The Amiga certainly hasn't been in everyone's face these last 10 years has it? The truth is, 10 years ago the Amiga and it's fantastic Operating System was the bee's knees. It was clearly the BEST computing solution out there and had massive opportunities for success. Unfortunately, due to a very long story which I wont properly go into here, Commodore messed up big time.
In the cruel business world, it doesn't matter how good your product is. It doesn't matter what your solution can do that others cannot. It doesn't matter that yours is the BEST product. Infact, NONE of these things matter a dime, without that magical term: "Marketing".
The Amiga as a platform was marketed all wrong. As good as the Amiga was at gameing, few people realised that the Amiga was actually BETTER at creativity. It's Operating System was doing things 10 years ago that the likes of Windows is only just recently catching up to. None of these things were marketed, and it's clear to see how a true business man like Bill Gates managed to steal the desktop dominance with a worse product, right under our noses!!!
Since Commodore, the Amiga has had worse, not better luck. It's subsequent owners made promises that never came, and time has dragged on to the point where everyone has forgotten about our computing platform, and to remember it now brings out rather nostalgic memories - and THAT is where the whole "Amiga has been dead for a decade" feeling comes from.
For me, a person who never left the Amiga Platform after Commodore went down, the Amiga has never died. 10 years ago it was alive and well, and 10 years later it is still alive and well - in it's own limited way.
The Amiga has never stopped developing. It has been dragged into the new decade kicking and screaming by the efforts of the Amiga Community and the amazing innovation of Amiga Developers - my Amiga1200 can do things today that the original designers never DREAMED of!!!
The Amiga Operating System has too made some progress over the years. After 3.0 (the last release by Commodore) it went to 3.1 with improved features, and has since moved all the way to 3.9. So to now take it to OS4.0 is not a new thing at all, it's a step upward from the developments already made in OS3.9. You have to understand that the Amiga has never stopped fighting on, it has never stopped developing. In the background (from your point of view) things have continued and the Amiga has developed on regardless.
My Amiga 1200 has 256MB RAM, a dual processor accelerator board (68K and PPC), A 6-slot PCI expansion board with PCI Graphics, Sound, Ethernet and TV Cards, it has 6 USB2.0 ports, 80GB of HD space, a CDRW... pretty much it has most of the things that modern PC and MAC users enjoy!!!
AmigaOS4.0 is for me an exciting development because it is the first time that the Operating System has been moved to a new CPU. The Amiga Operating System has been re-written for PPC, and what that means is we can upgrade our hardware even further. The new Amiga machines, while not as revolutionary as the originals were, DO support every modern computer advance that PC user enjoy. Fast, modern processors, fast IDE bus, massive scope for RAM expansions... that sort of thing.
So you see, things have never really stood still at all, we've made sure of that!!!
Check out a screen grab of my current Amiga Desktop (which is OS3.9) and see what you think.
http://homepages.nildram.co.uk/~amigaos/AmigaOS
Best regards to everyone,
Brian
