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An Amiga Round-up
Mike Bouma writes "Amiga`s CEO Bill McEwen announced in a keynote speech held prior to the AmiWest 2001 show that new consumer PPC motherboards, AmigaOS 4.0 PPC and also AmigaOS for x86 will ship by November 1. Furthermore the Amiga Digital Environment which offers full binary compatibility across CPU architectures and operating systems was being demonstrated at the show running on various handheld devices. In addition, Bill stated that Merlancia Industries has acquired the rights for the Amiga Multimedia Convergence Computer which was being worked on by the Amiga team under Gateway but was cancelled. Merlancia will release new PPC hardware soon after the AmigaOne launch. Their CTO is the infamous Amiga system designer Dave Haynie who designed many critical parts of the classic Amiga 2000, 3000 and 4000 desktop computers. "
Granted, that was cool in it's day.
But the reason it was necessary was because you had to jump through hoops to display something at 640x400 @ 4096 colors... the best resolution possible in the glory Amiga days.
I no longer need to do that. My screen is 1280x1024 @ 16 million colors. The jpg sits nicely in the bottom corner of the screen, and I can do other things at the same time...
Like looking at another jpg!
Next!
Why in the heck do people insist on selling houses with kitchens? I mean, when I can _buy_ a ready cooked burger for a dollar, why should I bother learning how to make a nutritious meal? Besides, McDougals already has ever kind of burger there is, so what could a home kitchen possibly offer?? People don't want to learn how to cook, they want more burgers because they are too busy now to eat anything else.
Then them crazy old guys with 1950s Chevrolets, they are such l0Z3rz when I can buy a 2001 Hyundai that has a CD stacker and cup holders!
And that old dude who _walks_ to the store!!! What, doesn't he have a car or sumthin????
Xix.
--
"Everything is adjustable, provided you have the right tools"
It's because Amiga is dead. It's not coming back in any form, be it virtually under Linux or otherwise. Can we please move on?
It's not dead as long as there are people still wanting to make a viable platform out of it.
I for one gave up on the Amiga a long time ago, specifically when the whole Amiga DE crap came about. I voiced my disapproval, I wrote a few e-mails, and I generally bitched and complained about how AmigaDE would not be the "real Amiga" but would rather be just some hoakie bullshit company using the Amiga name.
Then, something unheard of happened. Amiga Inc. apparently took the voices of thousands of people just like me into consideration.
What happened? Amiga OS 4.0 was to be based on the classic Amiga OS. AmigaOne "Zico" was to be based on the original Amiga hardware - as a transition platform - if you will.
They rethought their roadmap, and made way for fully retargetable hardware, not just graphics, but sound and IO. They considered what their users wanted, and they considered what they felt was necessary to build a whole new platform from something old and once loved.
If you ask me, they've made all the right decisions, and the only thing left to do is put their money where their mouth is and finally deliver upon a product.
November 1st is the day of judgement.
They've FINALLY given an official date by which they plan to have on the market their new vision of home computing. In my opinion, because they've listened to what the Amiga Community wants, they've earned my attention until at least November 1st.
I think anybody who once loved the Amiga would be well wise to give Amiga Inc. the benefit of the doubt until November 1st.
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
Moderation Totals: Wrong=2, Stupid=3, Total=5.
Cool, at least seeing Dave Haynie in the loop gives a bit more credibility. Nice to hear he's still alive and involved somehow.
--- Metamoderating abusive downgraders since my 300th post.
1. The x86 version is, for the time being, going to be an emulated version, using a Linux kernel as its basis, so AmigaOS can be cold booted, with no underlying desktop OS, like other emulators. The advantage of this is speed: apparently the few benchmarks (on a Celeron 500) made public ran up to 1118x quicker than on the fastest 68060 'Classic' Amigas, and boot time on a Celeron 500 was about seven seconds, or so it has been said. Another advantage of this approach is hardware support (by relying on Linux drivers). Another is compatibility. Also there is the short time until release. Nobody was expecting this anouncement, and until it sinks in, I expect there will be some misunderstandings.
2. x86-AmigaOS apparently will be based on 3.9, and on the same day, OS 4.0 will be released for PPC (AmigaOne hardware) - ie - the latest release. The main purpose, as far as I can tell, of the x86 release is to attract former Amig owners back into the fold, without them having to shell out on a whole new system, until they are ready to so do. It is also another step towards the hardware independence scheduled for OS5.0. AmigaOS and AmigaDE will be combined, as will platform-specific versions. Another advantage is simply revenue: for little outlay, it has the potential to boost Amiga's income substantially.
3. Other important announcements were news of AmigaDE on three Sharp devices, including a mobile phone, AmigaDE on Psion's NetBook, a possible GameBoy Advance-type machine before Christmas, other content providers deals to be announced soon, and a deal with one of the world's largest wireless carriers. Place the emphasis where you choose, but it's generally good news nonetheless. There's other stuff as well, so have a look at Amiga.org for a start.
There's no doubt other stuff I haven't mentioned, but these are just a few thoughts that have occurred to me having read the news.
Amiga itself will have material available publicly by Wednesday.
All in all, a good day for Amiga news, IMO. I shall be buying x86-AmigaOS when it is available, as an interim step towards new hardware in the future.
I heard that your library burnt down and destroyed your only two books - and one was not even coloured in yet.