Amiga Inc. Reveals Further Info About Amiga OS5

Amiga Gamer writes "Amiga Inc. Acting President Bill McEwen has given an update to Amiga OS5 of sorts. In a previous interview Bill had said of OS5: "The product that we are going to ship is going to be much better than OSX from Apple". "OS 5 is ahead of schedule, and we will be making public announcements concerning the product in the 4th quarter of this year.""

Comments

All 5 amiga users jumped for joy until

[Ice Station Zebra]

They heard it won't work with their 1000's.

Re:All 5 amiga users jumped for joy until

[Ice Station Zebra]

Pissed off one of the 5 amiga users....

Re:All 5 amiga users jumped for joy until

[baryon351]

"OS 5 is ahead of schedule, and we will be making public announcements concerning the product in the 4th quarter of this year."

This is the man who claimed OS4 was on schedule to be released in 1999.

The release date was eventually December 2006, just days after the last licensee allowed to produce Amiga hardware lost their license.

Anyone else up for another 7 years of "It's nearly ready, really! No, we're serious this time..."

Makes Vista seem positively normal, and makes Leopard's delays look like an overnight shipping glitch.

Re:All 5 amiga users jumped for joy until

[smallfries]

The rest of the interview could be summarised as:

Q4) What's happening with the lawsuit?
I can't tell you because it's a legal matter

Q5..Qn) What's up with X?
See my answer to question 4.

The entire interview is just vapor.

Re:All 5 amiga users jumped for joy until

[empaler]

I was expecting someone to make a joke like this, only also referring to BofH and OS/2.

Re:All 5 amiga users jumped for joy until

[One Louder]

Probably because Amiga OS5 is the official operating system of the Moller Skycar.

Re:All 5 amiga users jumped for joy until

[Klaus_1250]

Make that 2 :-)

Re:All 5 amiga users jumped for joy until

[rs79]

"They heard it won't work with their 1000's"

...yet.

Re:All 5 amiga users jumped for joy until

[Anonymous Coward]

um... Windows Vista is the official operating system of the Moller Skycar. It's no wonder it can't fly with that burden.

Re:All 5 amiga users jumped for joy until

[ehrichweiss]

I was seriously wondering if maybe the Amiga community(or what's left of it plus any fans, etc.) couldn't just buy out what's left of that company and then open source the OS(hardware?) so we could then adapt it to be used on today's commodity hardware. I mean even if they had OS5 available today the sales they would make from it wouldn't be enough to recoup any expenses on development of the OS and keep the company afloat. The whole Amiga bankruptcy scene was a comedy of horrors and the new Amiga, Inc. is the twisted punchline.

The AROS project looks promising but doesn't work with my hardware and this would be just the thing to move them forward.

Re:All 5 amiga users jumped for joy until

[pipatron]

Three.

Re:All 5 amiga users jumped for joy until

[hawk]

>The entire interview is just vapor.

At least that proves that it's really Amiga . . :)

hawk

Re:All 5 amiga users jumped for joy until

[mdwh2]

Makes Vista seem positively normal, and makes Leopard's delays look like an overnight shipping glitch.

I too am rather saddened by the history of vapourware claims and disappointments from Amiga Inc (it's important to distinguish the Amiga platform from Amiga Inc the company - the former was a great platform that lasted just as long as its contemporaries such as classic MacOS and Windows 9x; the latter is a company doing a rather bad job of bringing out any sort of modern equivalent). But note that, FWIW, finally they did release OS 4, so the vapourware claims many are shouting here are no longer valid.

Also note that Apple went through years of trying to update their aging classic Mac OS (copeland, etc), before finally they had to ditch it and work on something from NEXT.

Re:All 5 amiga users jumped for joy until

[mdwh2]

I was seriously wondering if maybe the Amiga community(or what's left of it plus any fans, etc.) couldn't just buy out what's left of that company and then open source the OS(hardware?) so we could then adapt it to be used on today's commodity hardware.

The AROS project looks promising but doesn't work with my hardware and this would be just the thing to move them forward.

I was just about to mention AROS until I saw you did :)

To be honest, despite AROS's limitations, I'd have thought that it's far along enough that the original source code wouldn't help them much - after all, the original source code only runs on either 68k or PPC.

The whole Amiga bankruptcy scene was a comedy of horrors and the new Amiga, Inc. is the twisted punchline.

I agree, it's sad really, it would have been nice to have more choice in computing today, as opposed to just Windows or still-not-ready-for-the-desktop-Linux, or niche-player Apple (which many of us just don't like). It's especially insulting as the companies that did most damage were PC companies - Escom and Gateway - and the way it seems to damage the image of the Amiga (at least on Slashdot). Imagine if a PC company bought Apple, then raised all the prices, and hardly ever bought out new models? Would that mean Macs are crap after all? Of course not.

Hell, rather than trying to build a new platform from scratch, I think I'd find it more pleasing for someone to just release some decent modern PCs, with WinUAE installed as standard, and branded Amiga (I mean, they'll be just as close to the Amigas of 10-15 years ago, as modern Macs are to Macs of the 90s...) Then people can happily run 4GB quad-core machines and smugly call them Amigas if they so wish :)

Re:All 5 amiga users jumped for joy until

[skurk]

Four. Where's the last guy?

Re:All 5 amiga users jumped for joy until

[SCHPONG]

GRRRRRRR!!1

Re:All 5 amiga users jumped for joy until

[freedomlinux]

Five. Sorry to be so late...

Re:All 5 amiga users jumped for joy until

[richie2000]

Typical. Late again. :-(

Re:All 5 amiga users jumped for joy until

[AmigaMMC]

>This is the man who claimed OS4 was on schedule to be released in 1999. Yes, that's the same man who was lied to by Hyperion's manager who claimed a full staff was working on OS4 and then turned out to be only two people. Bill is not responsible for all the crap that happened in the Amiga world. You know who I am.

Re:All 5 amiga users jumped for joy until

[YttriumOxide]

The problem with both AROS and UAE are the goals of those projects. They give a reasonably nice 3.1-ish environment (AROS) or a complete but glitchy anywhere-up-to-3.9 environment (UAE).

For those of us that did move to OS4, going to back to 3.x just feels like entering the stone age. Until UAE can handle PPC emulation and run OS4, I'm afraid I won't go near it.

Re:All 5 amiga users jumped for joy until

[ehrichweiss]

To be honest, despite AROS's limitations, I'd have thought that it's far along enough that the original source code wouldn't help them much - after all, the original source code only runs on either 68k or PPC.

Yes but the source that AROS is dealing with is OS 3.x but the source code I'd like to see open sourced is anything OS4+, including hardware. Yes, I know the hardware was a huge portion of what made the Amiga great but that's all the more reason to free it from its current slow and myopic master.

Re:All 5 amiga users jumped for joy until

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, that's the same man who was lied to by Hyperion's manager who claimed a full staff was working on OS4 and then turned out to be only two people. Bill is not responsible for all the crap that happened in the Amiga world. You know who I am.

Excuses excuses :). You know very well Bill has his own part to play in this, and hiding behind hyperion is, at best, disingenuous. At worst it's a fraudulent lie.

Smile, your time is coming.

Re:All 5 amiga users jumped for joy until

[Jeruvy]

Too late. One of the greatest estate sales occured during the time from when Commodore closed it's doors til it was acquired by it's current owner. Most of the really good assets were pilfered off, and a lot of that technology is now in cable boxes and other such devices, probably some Amiga IP in the iPod even. Besides all the great games (that were developed on or for the amiga) are now coming out on a cell phone carrier near you.

Re:All 5 amiga users jumped for joy until

[Anonymous Coward]

Well you'r right todays Macs arn't really Macs as they used to be. I got an SE/30 from the good old days. I won't trade it. I also have a MacPro. But I trade that one any day to a modern computer with the quality of SE/30. If they only would be running Power6 too );

Sadly there is non. So I guess that an MacPro is the best PC I can get for Money.

Hey, did that guy just say rings are cool?

[VTMarik]

Commodore is making new computers, Amiga is making a new OS, all we need now is a next-gen version of the Oregon Trail and we can successfully bring our childhoods into the 21st century.

Re:Hey, did that guy just say rings are cool?

[VTMarik]

I don't care if the gameplay is good, i just want to hunt for food in 3D.

Re:Hey, did that guy just say rings are cool?

[stoolpigeon]

Here you go

Re:Hey, did that guy just say rings are cool?

[MK_CSGuy]

god no! they DID make next generation versions of oregon trail, THEY SUCKED, I'm still playing the original :D

and still no girlfriend!

Thank you, thank you, i'll be here all night :)

Re:Hey, did that guy just say rings are cool?

[cyclopropene]

C...all we need now is a next-gen version of the Oregon Trail and we can successfully bring our childhoods into the 21st century. But we already have one!

Re:Hey, did that guy just say rings are cool?

[An ominous Cow art]

Sounds like a great premise for a MMORPG :-).

Level 6 carpenter LFG PST

Re:Hey, did that guy just say rings are cool?

[Dogtanian]

Commodore is making new computers Not really; the old Commodore is as dead as ever. The "Commodore(s)" making new computers are simply unrelated companies who bought the name or acquired the right to use it on their products.

Really, it's just a badge and nothing more. If you know this and still want to buy one of those "Commodore"-badged PCs, fair enough. Though personally I think it's just exploitation of geek nostalgia to pretend that it's anything more than that...

Re:Hey, did that guy just say rings are cool?

[mdwh2]

Not really; the old Commodore is as dead as ever. The "Commodore(s)" making new computers are simply unrelated companies who bought the name or acquired the right to use it on their products.

Really, it's just a badge and nothing more. If you know this and still want to buy one of those "Commodore"-badged PCs, fair enough. Though personally I think it's just exploitation of geek nostalgia to pretend that it's anything more than that

Why do people always harp on about this when it comes to Commodore or the Amiga, and nothing else?

Brandnames are just that - whether it's Pentium, MacOS, Atari, Windows or whatever - they all get used repeated for different products, they all get bought and sold. Do you complain that modern Macs shouldn't be called Macs, as they're a completely different hardware platform and OS to the original Macs, and it's just exploitation of geek nostalgia to pretend it's anything more than that? What about ATI, who are now owned by AMD, but graphics cards are still branded "ATI".

_All_ brandnames are about exploiting people's nostalgia, fond memories, good experiences and so on, and it affects everyone, not just geeks.

Re:Hey, did that guy just say rings are cool?

[Dogtanian]

Brandnames are just that Brand names used to have some meaning, usually indicating a particular company (or product line) and having associated values or standards.

whether it's Pentium The Pentium chips are all produced by Intel, and they all serve basically the same purpose- to execute x86 code.

MacOS The MacOSes offer continuation of functionality (albeit through emulation/compatibility layers in some cases) and interface.

Atari This is one case where you're right- there was some continuity in the Atari companies up until the mid-late 1990s when Jack Tramiel wound down the computer busines and sold it to HDD maker JTS, and Midway (or whoever owned it) phased out Atari Games.

The new "Atari" is just a rebranding of Infogrames, nothing more.

Windows Again, the various Windows OSes offer continuation of functionality and mostly run the old programs.

Do you complain that modern Macs shouldn't be called Macs, as they're a completely different hardware platform and OS to the original Macs, and it's just exploitation of geek nostalgia to pretend it's anything more than that? No, because there was a clear connection and continuation at some level between successive generations of the Mac OS and/or hardware. This isn't comparable to some company buying the Commodore name long after it went out of business and slapping it on some generic PCs.

What about ATI, who are now owned by AMD, but graphics cards are still branded "ATI". Arguable continuity of business- unless AMD just bought the name and are slapping it on cards that would otherwise have had nothing to do with AMD.

_All_ brandnames are about exploiting people's nostalgia, fond memories, good experiences and so on, and it affects everyone, not just geeks. No; brand names used to have stronger associations with corporate or product values, and some still do. Can you imagine Mercedes just whoring their brand name out to everyone, including (e.g.) Indian car maker Tata for their $3000 car? Obviously not. Of course, there have always been those brands which were exploited, meaningless or fake- often from the beginning. But they seem even more vapid today.

Some random company getting the rights to slap the Commodore name on some random piece of generic hardware doesn't constitute "Commodore" being back in business. Most people would assume at least some relation to the old company.

Re:Hey, did that guy just say rings are cool?

[mdwh2]

The MacOSes offer continuation of functionality (albeit through emulation/compatibility layers in some cases) and interface.

It's an entirely new OS - or if anything, a continuation of NEXT. Yeah, it has emulation, but my Windows PC runs Amiga applications if that's allowed.

No; brand names used to have stronger associations with corporate or product values, and some still do. Can you imagine Mercedes just whoring their brand name out to everyone

I don't see any brandnames related to Commodore or the Amiga being "whored out to everyone".

Some random company getting the rights to slap the Commodore name on some random piece of generic hardware doesn't constitute "Commodore" being back in business.

A little known fact is that the original Commodore made PCs. So I don't see how modern Commodore PCs are any more random or generic than the standard Commodore 286s they produced back then. In fact, there's more of a continuation and similarity than between modern Macs, and the platform which also used the "Macintosh" brandname back in the 80s/90s.

Most people would assume at least some relation to the old company.

Just as they would with every other time a brandname is used, and they'd just as likely be wrong. This is why companies use brandnames, to create a sense of continuity, however true or untrue that might be. People like us know different - that a Commodore PC, Macintosh or random brand of car doesn't necessarily relate to earlier models with the same brand. But I see now reason why people have to blame the companies for doing so - yet only do so for Commodore or Amiga brandnames, and not all the other companies that do the same.

Re:Hey, did that guy just say rings are cool?

[Anonymous Coward]

No thanks, I have my second girlfriend now...

Re:Hey, did that guy just say rings are cool?

[Dogtanian]

It's an entirely new OS Under the skin, yes, but at some level there is a plausible continuity.

my Windows PC runs Amiga applications if that's allowed. Not as an integrated part of the system by default.

I don't see any brandnames related to Commodore or the Amiga being "whored out to everyone". Well, the Commodore and Vic names were used (admittedly by their owner) to sell MP3 players a while back.

A little known fact is that the original Commodore made PCs. I'm aware of that; PCs are a very generic item and I see no plausible case that the new "Commodore" PC maker is in any way a continuation of the original Commodore's PC business. The fact that you could do the same with almost any random PC maker demonstrates this.

With the Macintosh, there is continuity between the generations, and the products are made by the same people.

Most people would assume at least some relation to the old company. Just as they would with every other time a brandname is used, and they'd just as likely be wrong. Absolutely right; and the reason that many brand names are worthless these days. For example, virtually all "Polaroid" products (including many cameras, and certainly all non-camera products such as flat-screen TVs) are produced by unrelated companies who just bought the rights to the name.

This is one of the more blatant cases of short-termist brand-whoring. If you look at Epinions, you'll see that those "Polaroid" products get lousy reviews, exploiting the past goodwill associated with the brand and receiving criticism. Whether these people eventually realise that these are not true "Polaroid" products or just learn that Polaroid sucks, it will kill the brand either way- and this exploitation wouldn't have been possible if the brand had started off like that.

This is why companies use brandnames, to create a sense of continuity, however true or untrue that might be. Brand names, used "correctly" (IMHO) have- or had- a justifiable use; they served as the public face of a company and/or product line with specific associated values and some level of expectation.

The "Sony" name used to have certain high-quality values associated with it. There are clear signs that in recent years they have exploited this and failed to live up to it- and now Sony may be losing its reputation for quality.

Personally, I wasn't impressed when I found out a few years back that "Sony" CD-RW drives were basically just rebadged Lite-Ons.

But I see now reason why people have to blame the companies for doing so - yet only do so for Commodore or Amiga brandnames, and not all the other companies that do the same. Because it's Commodore we're discussing here, and Commodore has more meaning to Slashdot's target audience. If this was a camera forum, we might be discussing Polaroid-whoring, or the misuse of some defunct camera manufacturer's name.

Duh!

[Burdell]

OS 5 can't be but half as good as OS X!

Re:Duh!

[Anonymous Coward]

They should call it OS V. Then someone can hack together a way to combine it with OS X (via GnuStep or something). Then Microsoft can release Works for it. Gettit? VXWorks? Huh huh huh... *crickets* Ermm, alright, I'll go now...

Re:Duh!

[blantonl]

or 2 1/2 times as good as OS/2!

Re:Duh!

[noidentity]

But it'll have half the market share, which sure beats Apple!

Re:Duh!

[TeknoHog]

They should call it OS V.

Or System V.

Re:Duh!

[Arethan]

They should call it OS V.

Or System V.

Or Johnny 5.

Re:Duh!

[Anonymous Coward]

OS 5 can't be but half as good as OS X!

Amiga is McEwen. Mac OSX even, that is.

I know, it'd be funnier if their CEO was called McEqual or McSuperior, but alas.

Re:Duh!

[canajin56]

They should call it OS V.

Or System V.

Or Johnny 5.

Or Johnny Carson

Re:Duh!

[Anonymous Coward]

No, 10 times as good as OS/2. It would be 2.5 times as good as "OS 2".

Re:Duh!

[seanmeister]

Or Kevin Bacon, who appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, show #4299.

I WIN AGAIN!!!!

Re:Duh!

[ConceptJunkie]

Or maybe just 5.

Re:Duh!

[tehcyder]

So windows 2003 is 4006 times better than OS/2???

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Who cares?

[hal9000(jr)]

There are three dominant OS's out there. Windows is the most dominant desktop, followed by OSX and then Linux. What is Amiga going to bring to the table?

Hell, IBM resurrecting OS/2 would make more sense.

Re:Who cares?

[Threni]

> What is Amiga going to bring to the table?

Perhaps this is the rose tinted spectacles talking, but I seem to remember Amiga games having a little more variety than today. It all seems a bit corporate now. Marketing and the quest for the next amusingly expensive generation of graphics card seems to have replaced the fun games. I've checked out a lot of the "indie" games but the trouble with them is that they're all a load of shit - more on a par with the "public domain" games of the Amiga era then its commercial ones.

Re:Who cares?

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

Company of Heroes is a good game. And if you don't mind graphics that seem kinda out-dated the recent Warhammer 40k RTS games are VERY good. I've been spending some time going back through the Dark Crusade campaign as all the armies.

Re:Who cares?

[squiggleslash]

Erm, who, exactly, cares? If Amiga produces something that people like, that's enough. Your attitude is why we no longer have the vibrant flurry of innovation that we last saw in the late eighties and early nineties. Everyone's on Windows, save for a small, growing, minority on Mac OS X, and a few of us use the alternatives and get laughed at for doing so.

Since I gave up on Amiga back in the mid-nineties, I've yet to come across a platform I enjoyed using as much, and realistically, I've only actually enjoyed one, Apple's Mac OS X 10.2 Jaguar (10.3 had "more" but felt "worse", 10.4 took that further. I'm back on GNU/Linux, using Ubuntu.) Until someone comes up with something I look forward to using every day again, they can carry on creating as many new and wonderful operating systems as they want. And once they do, I hope they'll continue.

Re:Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hell, IBM resurrecting OS/2 would make more sense. Believe it or not, IBM still sells OS/2. Seriously, you can buy it from them right now.

Re:Who cares?

[Constantine XVI]

Team Fortress 2 is pretty refreshing for a game once mentioned next to Duke Nukem Forever, and Portal (a game that ships next to it in the Orange Box) is one of the more original PC games I've seen.

Re:Who cares?

[suv4x4]

Your attitude is why we no longer have the vibrant flurry of innovation that we last saw in the late eighties and early nineties. Everyone's on Windows, save for a small, growing, minority on Mac OS X, and a few of us use the alternatives and get laughed at for doing so.

Wow, so his attitude made Microsoft the biggest software company in the world. You put too much weight on his attitude.

Amiga is laughed at, since the guy shows nothing, says nothing, and still has the chutzpah to claim his OS is better than "OSX". Better how? Say something, god damn it!

If he's not ready to speak, he should just wind down the press releases and go back to work until he's ready. What he's doing now is in fact, laughing matter.

Re:Who cares?

[Bert64]

If Amiga produced an OS that outshone everything else available, it would still fail and virtually no-one would use it.
Why? Because people are stuck with proprietary single-platform apps and formats, they can't switch to a better platform even if they wanted to.
If there were standards, standard ABIs so you could write once and run anywhere, with native performance (java is still sluggish), and it isn't too great a stretch to imagine since all the major vendors are x86 compatible today anyway. You really could choose the best os, the best hardware, the best apps, and have it all run together in a way that suits you. Instead, people are stuck with someone else's choices.

Re:Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

I seem to remember Amiga games having a little more variety than today.

That was the era, not the architecture. There was a lot more variety on all platforms. Hell, when was the last time you saw something like Monkey Island released? Bringing back the Amiga won't do anything to resurrect gaming innovation because it wasn't the Amiga that was responsible for it in the first place.

Re:Who cares?

[flyingfsck]

Actually, there are billions more Linux computers than Windows computers. Most Linux machines are cell-phones and routers, not desktops though.

Re:Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

Right now you can't be serious and buy OS/2 at the same time.

Re:Who cares?

[fm6]

What is Amiga going to bring to the table?

Nostalgia.

I'm kind of amused by all these negative comments. Not that I disagree. But a couple of years ago, a few sceptics (including me) were making similar comments on Slashdot, and Amiga fanboys were all over us, accusing of flamebaiting and fuding. Where are they now?

Re:Who cares?

[Fred_A]

Wow, so his attitude made Microsoft the biggest software company in the world. You put too much weight on his attitude. Not at all, I too have always been of the opinion that it was mostly hal9000(jr) (316943)'s fault all along. I actually wanted to testify to that effect in front of the EU a few months ago but they kicked me out. But since you put the topic on the table...

Re:Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

Seeing as OS X market share has decreased month by month from last October until now I think there will be plenty of room for a new OS.

Re:Who cares?

[Dogtanian]

Nostalgia. Technically I'm not sure that you're right, but I agree with where you're coming from.

This is aimed at the relatively tiny group of users who have continued using the Amiga OS long after its commercial demise, people who genuinely want an updated "modern" version. In that sense, it's not nostalgia- people who wished to recreate the experience of using their A500s and run their old apps and games are more likely to use an emulator. (Particularly as many games "hit the hardware" for performance reasons and wouldn't work directly on new machines).

However, although I'm happy if the hardcore fans get something from these "new" Amiga OSes, I don't think they have any modern commercial relevance for reasons I explained in more depth here.

Aside from the diehard hobbyists, most people have *long* since (i.e. ten-plus years) accepted the death of the Amiga and migrated anything significant they were doing to other systems. Therefore, Amiga compatibility is a non-issue- any new Amiga OS trying to make it as a modern operating system would effectively be starting from scratch. I assume that the Amiga OS architecture is still similar to the twenty-year-old original (otherwise what's the point?), but in this context, since compatibility is irrelevant, it would be better to start with a clean sheet.

The Amiga and its OS *long* ago passed the point where their resurrection would have made any sense from a mainstream point-of-view. Those wishing to continue its spirit and do something genuinely innovative with computing would be far better starting off from scratch.

Re:Who cares?

[ancient_kings]

>>What is Amiga going to bring to the table? Cult. "as time grows to be my reaper I leave my mark behind and history will be my keeper but I am still alive and where the ancient kings are buried new kings will rise and stand and so the torch is always carried passed from hand to hand in the night it is all we care for and we all play our part enslaved is our passion and therefore we hide it in the dark"

Re:Who cares?

[Frosty Piss]

What is Amiga going to bring to the table?

Duke Nukum Forever. Wanna play it? You'll have to by Amiga...

Re:Who cares?

[bl8n8r]

Microsoft brought us malware
Apple brought us debt
Linux brought us stability
amiga will bring us choice

Re:Who cares?

[bigstrat2003]

Yeah, that's the rose-tinted spectacles talking. I don't know what the quality of games on the Amiga was like, but my gaming memory stretches back to the NES, and the overall quality of games hasn't really changed since then. There are some great ones, some ok ones, some awful ones. 10 years from now, people won't remember the crappy games of today, they'll just remember the good ones... and say how the games of 2007 were so much better than the games of 2017, and how gaming is going downhill.

Plenty of good games out there, just ignore the bad ones.

Re:Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

Their posts were erased several hours ago. To cut the rant, I'll say that they were mostly about features of old 1.x - 3.x OS.

It seems that only few of the slashdoters know the joy of easy and light OS that simply works and doesn't require any maintenance at all.
Call it nostalgia if You want, but it would be great to see any OS with similar user friendly manner on modern hardware.

Re:Who cares?

[mdwh2]

But from most people's point of view, there's only one dominant OS out there. No one demands to know what OS X will bring to the table everytime there's an OS X article.

Hell, IBM resurrecting OS/2 would make more sense.

Or Apple resurrecting NEXT, you never know.

Re:Who cares?

[mdwh2]

Amiga is laughed at, since the guy shows nothing, says nothing, and still has the chutzpah to claim his OS is better than "OSX".

Yes, as I said in another of my comments, it's important to distinguish between Amiga Inc the company, and the Amiga platform. There's good reason to laugh at Amiga Inc - and most Amiga users have been doing most of the pointing and laughing, in fact. But that shouldn't be taken as any comment about the Amiga platform, which presumably the poster you replied to meant.

Re:Who cares?

[Reaperducer]

And TVs. According to the fine print in the back of the manual my Samsung HDTV runs Linux.

Re:Who cares?

[Brad1138]

Marketing and the quest for the next amusingly expensive generation of graphics card seems to have replaced the fun games.

I understand your point, but my 2 favorite games are StarCraft & UT99. Thats why my fastest machine, up till about 4 months ago, was an Athlon 2500+ with a 64meg Geforce3 Card (now Geforce 7600GS w/256meg-$99 on Newegg).

Re:Who cares?

[SirSlud]

Games, especially strategy and multiplayer fps games, make curious examples, because people's appreciation for them flourish with familiarity.

I went through a period of thinking all modern games were shit, but when I give a game a fair shake, and get to know them, I find there are way more great games than time to play them. Company of Heroes is a wonderfully deep, fun RTS and Team Fortress 2 is a fast paced, fun, easy to pick up difficult to master FPS. But I know what you're saying .. I still play Q3 Rocket Arena on a regular basis. Its hard to let go when you know the game inside and out and have it running to perfection on your machine.

Re:Who cares?

[OakDragon]

But a couple of years ago, a few sceptics (including me) were making similar comments on Slashdot, and Amiga fanboys were all over us, accusing of flamebaiting and fuding. Where are they now?

Desperately poring over eBay for a $200+ network or graphics card... using a friend's PC.

Re:Who cares?

[mdwh2]

Desperately poring over eBay for a $200+ network or graphics card... using a friend's PC.

1995 called and wants its joke back.

Re:Who cares?

[fm6]

This is aimed at the relatively tiny group of users who have continued using the Amiga OS long after its commercial demise...

No, it isn't. Check out the Amiga Inc. web site. They honestly believe AmigaOS has a future as an alternative OS, on PCs, PDAs, and for embedded applications. They're even pushing it as an alternative API under Windows, with the OS running on a VM!

Obviously this is an exercise in wishful thinking. But all the kewl platforms have advocates who continue to believe in them long after they become commercially irrelevant.

Re:Who cares?

[Dogtanian]

No, it isn't. Check out the Amiga Inc. web site [amiga.com]. They honestly believe AmigaOS has a future as an alternative OS, on PCs, PDAs, and for embedded applications. Yes, but I'm not sure that has anything to do with "the" Amiga OS. Amiga Inc. were doing some J2ME-based API/development/whatever-it-is thing for mobiles called "Amiga Anywhere", as well as some games. These things are probably related to that... thingy.

I never saw any indication that "Amiga Anywhere" had anything to do with the classic Amiga OS whatsoever. I asked about this Slashdot twice and didn't get a reply.

This could all be wrong- there's more about Amiga Anywhere here, but still no indication that it has anything at all to do with the "real" Amigas.

I honestly couldn't give a toss anyway; the Amiga is long dead and this is just a case of exploiting the brand name, and- as you say- pretending to be serious for the sake of keeping the diehards interested. Perhaps.

Re:Who cares?

[fm6]

Amiga.com may be short of technical details but they really are working on the OS. It's true that Amiga is branching out to other platforms via their Indian subsidiary, but that's a recent development -- the Amiga OS products have around for years .

Re:Who cares?

[vuffi_raa]

so I guess if we wait till 2018 we will be set-

Re:Who cares?

[bhtooefr]

Hell, IBM resurrecting OS/2 would make more sense. Already done.

Re:Who cares?

[Dogtanian]

Oh, I've no doubt they are- I was just saying that some of the "Amiga" stuff on that page had nothing to do with the "real" Amiga OS and is apparently just exploiting the brand.

Re:Who cares?

[XO]

You can still get OS/2, and in fact, I plan to do so, just to mess with it's current incarnation.. when I get around to buying a 500+GB hard drive and have a ton of space to mess with...

I did see a brand new ATM that was being installed near somewhere I frequent, and it was running OS/2. I asked the guy installing it, if he knew anything about the operating systems, and he laughed, and said that the small amount of ATMs in the world that run Windows, DOS, or some custom OS have something like 200% more service calls per year than the OS/2 ones, so most of the manufacturers that tried to go to Windows-based systems ended up getting pressured by their clients into going back to OS/2

Better?

[nurb432]

and no i didnt read the story.. cant get to it.

1 - what hardware does it run on, generic PC's? Generic Macs? If its still on custom hardware, its DOA at this stage of the game.
2 - software: is it all custom, or can i run Word, Acrobat, etc? If it cant run commodity software its also DOA as far as the big picture is concerned. ( X11 will help.. )

While it may be great technology, there are 100s of 'good' OS's out there that are niche markets. That doesnt make them 'better'. Even when they had a chance like Be. You just hve to have a level of compatiblity of both hardware AND software of the 2 big players to really make it and be 'better'.

Re:Better?

[Fred_A]

Come on, if it's "much better than OSX from Apple", people will just *have* to flock to it.
I'm sure even Duke Nukem Forever will be ported to it.

I know I can't wait. It's too bad I'll have to discard all my Linux software of course, and I'll probably have to junk all of my hardware as well, but since it's "much better", this can't be helped. Gotta stay with the times.

It's so exciting to be there when this revolution in computing is about to happen, the rebirth of Amiga, wow. Who would have thought !

(whops, I think I wet myself)

Re:Better?

[Anonymous Coward]

>>and no i didnt read the story.. cant get to it.

Let me summarize the interview:
1) See answer #4 (wherein he says "...can't answer for legal reasons")
2) Just you wait, it'll be great!
3) Our team in India is on the case.
4) blah blah blah

This was one of the weakest tech reports/interviews I've ever read.

Re:Better?

[XO]

That worked superbly for OS/2.. "A better DOS than DOS, a better Windows than Windows" .. so of course, the vast majority of people continued to write their DOS and Windows software, and the few OS/2 ports of decent apps were awful.

I can't believe I'm saying this, but...

[lottameez]

Let me be the first to welcome our Amiga-friendly, Commodore-centric, TI-99 riding robotic overlords.

They visit our earth once more.

Re:I can't believe I'm saying this, but...

[sl3xd]

our earth?

What makes you think it's ours, you presumptuous git!

It's the RIAA's planet, and anybody who disagrees will be sued for copyright infringement.

Re:I can't believe I'm saying this, but...

[Pollardito]

they've been here all along, they just move so slow it's hard to notice them

yet another

[yoprst]

press release from a crypt.
/me goes back to playing with WinUAE

Summary of the interview:

[Gadzinka]

"I can't answer any of your questions due to pending litigation and NDAs, but keep the faith, Amiga is and will be the best platform, ever. Oh, and 20yrs old sources to historic versions of AmigaOS is our core intelectual property asset, so the release of them is never going to happen."

Robert

Re:Summary of the interview:

[a.ameri]

If your business model views 20 year old obsolete software as its core property, it's time to revisit that business model.

Re:Summary of the interview:

[speaker of the truth]

So I take it Mac has released their 20 year old software? No? Guess they consider it important enough to keep unreleased as well then and yet I don't see people saying they should revisit their business model.

Re:Summary of the interview:

[Anonymous Coward]

So how old's the Unix/Linux file structure ect design then?

Re:Summary of the interview:

[HardCase]

What is this "Mac" company that you speak of?

Re:Summary of the interview:

[jdschulteis]

"I can't answer any of your questions due to pending litigation and NDAs, but keep the faith, Amiga is and will be the best platform, ever. Oh, and 20yrs old sources to historic versions of AmigaOS is our core intelectual property asset, so the release of them is never going to happen."

Robert More likely, they simply don't have the necessary legal rights to the 20 year old sources and thus can't release them.
--
Jerry, who one of these days will get his 1985 Amiga 1000 out and running again . . .

Re:Summary of the interview:

[Slashcrap]

Oh, and 20yrs old sources to historic versions of AmigaOS is our core intelectual property asset, so the release of them is never going to happen."

Answer me honestly - what is in there that anybody could possibly be interested in in this day and age? Do you really think that people have forgotten how to write an OS without memory protection? That there is really anything there that hasn't been re-implemented a hundred times better and more portably in the last 20 years?

I think I speak for everyone with any sense when I say that nobody wants your moldy old source.

Amiga is and will be the best platform, ever.

I find the idea of Amiga zealots very amusing. Unfortunately, the actual implementation tends towards the annoying.

Re:Summary of the interview:

[speaker of the truth]

So all of their 20 year old code is part of Darwin is it? Somehow I doubt it.

Sales of the new Amiga...

[Prototerm]

...will immediately follow the release of Duke Nukem Forever and the return of Elvis in a flying saucer.

Re:Sales of the new Amiga...

[Andrei D]

Actually, they intend to get the Amiga system sounds from Chinese Democracy, the long-awaited Guns n' Roses new album. Axl said it will be released only when he feels it's better than everything GNR did before. "It won't take long, really", said Axl Rose in an interview back in 1997. So keep your faith folks.

Re:Sales of the new Amiga...

[cei]

I'd heard that Duke Nukem Forever was being programmed in Director CS3, once Knuth releases The Art of Computer Programming Vol IV, using a soundtrack from Chinese Democracy, and was going to be the flagship title of Amiga OS5. Oh, and Natalie Portman was going to be nude in it.

Re:Sales of the new Amiga...

[Anonymous Coward]

Eeeww... who'd want a game with granny porn in it.

I stoped caring a long time ago.

[emj]

When BeOS came along 95 I think I understood that AmigaOS would never be good enough again. So I switched to Linux, there has never been any reason to switch back even though the Amiga workbench is still a lot better than KDE/GNOME are, and Final writer kicks Open Office writers ass any day.

Amiga fanboy forever.

Re:I stoped caring a long time ago.

[eneville]

When BeOS came along 95 I think I understood that AmigaOS would never be good enough again. So I switched to Linux, there has never been any reason to switch back even though the Amiga workbench is still a lot better than KDE/GNOME are, and Final writer kicks Open Office writers ass any day.

Amiga fanboy forever. does the amiga have vim7 - no! so what's the point dude? work bench wasn't that great, at the time the acorn os had a better gui, it's quite sad i've not seen the same ported to linux. if i was a tenth the programmer i wish i was i would have put the time in to recreate it.

Re:I stoped caring a long time ago.

[Anonymous Coward]

Uhm... As someone who had to use final writer -- just before commodore went under -- I have to say bull. As for workbench kicking gnome/kde ass, dunno. I never could get into KDE, and Gnome has taken a step backwards by making the panel always on top. No DirOpus workbench replacement probably is the best desktop for power users.

Re:I stoped caring a long time ago.

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually the are a couple of projects aiming to put the acornish gui on linux: ROX ROLF

Re:I stoped caring a long time ago.

[argent]

When BeOS came along I looked at it and said "they're trying to be Amiga, and they've got less going for them".

Amiga had two things that will probably never be repeated:

1. The OS was generations ahead of its peers. The real competition was a bunch of file loaders that weren't significantly different from early '60s program loaders for punch card systems... you load a program, it takes over the system, and calls simple utility routines that must run to completion before returning to the application. The other GUI systems were basically GUI libraries that maintained some graphic system state and ran on top of the same kind of simple file loader. AmigaOS was exceptional because it was actually pretty close to professional realtime systems... the only other personal computer with anything close even as an option was the Radio Shack color computer with the optional OS/9.

2. The hardware could do something significantly better than any of its peers. The Amiga graphics coprocessors weren't insanely great, but they gave it a wedge that got people to take it seriously enough to give it a chance. If the Color Computer had a 68000 and a blitter instead of a 6809 and a raster buffer, Commodore would have had more of a problem.

10 years later, everyone except Apple had real operating systems in place or in the works, and BeOS wasn't that far ahead of the pack in any area... and not necessarily ahead of any of them - there's some real design problems in BeOS that have bugged me every time I looked at it. And their hardware wasn't a killer box in any respect either.

So to me, the Amiga was already doomed, and BeOS was born doomed. It was trying to pull an Amiga, with less money, fewer resources, and no footholds to let it get started even if they HAD gotten a completed system and OS with everything working (networking never became stable) before they flamed out.

Re:I stoped caring a long time ago.

[couchslug]

"though the Amiga workbench is still a lot better than KDE/GNOME are, and Final writer [pisle.com] kicks Open Office writers ass any day."

If they are that good, port them to Linux so we won't need an Amiga to run them. There is no reason to run a different OS if one can get the apps that once made using the OS they worked with desirable.

Re:I stoped caring a long time ago.

[Bryan K. Feir]

Never used the Amiga myself, but I was a CoCo user from way back, including both Flex/OS and OS-9. It also was ahead of its time... just that its time was a few years before the Amiga.

Really, Tandy didn't have any idea what to do with it once it started to grow out from being the ‘toy’ semi-console system it was originally designed as. The CoCo 3 had some great potential, though it was brought out because the CoCo II had already fallen behind; it was designed to compete with the Amiga and the Atari ST systems. Support up to 512K of memory, better graphics modes... but it got hobbled so it wouldn't compete with the Tandy 1000 line, and Tandy simply didn't bother marketing it, after having gone through the work to actually get games like Kings Quest III and Leisure Suit Larry ported to it. Heck, I've still got the Robot Odyssey port for the CoCo downstairs, though it's doubtful that the diskette is still readable.

Tandy killed it through sheer neglect, and went on to spend their effort on building the least compatible IBM-‘compatibles’ that existed on the market at the time. Which is why Tandy/Radio Shack doesn't sell any of their own computers anymore...

Re:I stoped caring a long time ago.

[argent]

A 6809-based computer couldn't have competed with a 68000-based one, any more than the 16-bit 6502 variant in the Apple IIGS could have let it compete on a level playing field with the 68000. OS/9 was in assembler, but Microware already had a portable C port (OS/9000) in the pipe when the Amiga came out. If Tandy had made OS/9 a standard part of the Coco that would have accelerated things and given them a credible high-end personal computer.

But there's no way they'd have done that, because they didn't want to pay Microware royalties with every Coco sold. They were aiming the Coco at the low end, their equivalent of the VIC-20. The overhead of the OS/9 license would never have fit.

The Berlin Amgia Users Group has 130 members.

[Anonymous Coward]

I was at the August meeting of the Berlin Amiga Users Group. There were 130 people there. We had to move to from the pub we started at because there were too many of us! I talked to one guy there who was in the Rotterdam Amiga Users Group, and they routinely had 90 to 100 people show up to their meetings. Those are significantly larger crowds that I've ever seen at Linux user group meetings. Amiga was always big in Europe, and still is, even many years after the demise of their mainstream products.

Re:The Berlin Amgia Users Group has 130 members.

[Anonymous Coward]

I have to ask what the hell happened to the posts that were describing old AmigaOS features and functionality?
Who erased them and for what reason?
It is a shame to see posts moderated interesting or insightful erased by an AC editor, censor or whatever.

Re:The Berlin Amgia Users Group has 130 members.

[DECS]

Not to be rude, but there are more people in the Flat Earth Society, or who can translate Klingon to Esperanto.

I like old computers, but a few hundred people is not a market for an operating system, it's a small hobby. Apple is derided as a bit player on the Macintosh, and it has around 22 million active users of Mac OS X and thousands of developers.

SCO, Linux, and Microsoft in the History of OS: 1990s
In the 80s, a new generation of graphical computers from Apple, Atari, Commodore, and NeXT--all based on the Motorola 68000 family of processors--leapt past the previous generation of 8-bit computers. That new hardware enabled more powerful software using a fully graphical user interface.

Re:The Berlin Amgia Users Group has 130 members.

[Crayon Kid]

Those are significantly larger crowds that I've ever seen at Linux user group meetings.

And it totally rules over the number of people who turn up at Windows user group meetings, I presume.

The "user group" phenomenon is rather inversely proportional with the popularity of the OS, methinks. When an OS becomes the norm there's no more need for evangelism and camaradery, there's just support groups, which can be done over the Internet just fine.

Re:The Berlin Amgia Users Group has 130 members.

[Chelloveck]

Not to be rude, but there are more people in the Flat Earth Society, or who can translate Klingon to Esperanto.

Hey! How else do you think we're going to get good Esperanto translations of Shakespeare!?

Re:The Berlin Amgia Users Group has 130 members.

[DECS]

One of the most wryly ironic personal funny moments I ever had (well at least in the top 1,000) was being put in an elevator with a guy at SF General Hospital, who looked like the "stereotypical nerd" (I look like a non-stereotypical nerd, for the record) with a stack of books on cashless society. I struck up a conversation about his reading material and he notified me that he was translating it into Esperanto. I couldn't laugh, I couldn't speak. I felt like an actor on the scene of some nerdy inside joke miniseries.

My knowledge about Esperanto would barely fill a leaflet the size of "Jewish Sports Legends," but I recognized immediately that Esperanto was the perfect language for educating oneself on the benefits of a cashless society. And perhaps fondue parties.

Re:The Berlin Amgia Users Group has 130 members.

[discogravy]

I support the idea of esperanto, and it's a tragedy that it's not a more widely known and used language, but seriously, if you're going to read Shakespeare, you should read it in the original Klingon.

What -is- the situation with Hyperion?

[mccalli]

Throughout the article they allude to it, but never say what's happening. Could someone who knows please tell me what's going on between Amiga and Hyperion?

Cheers,
Ian

Re:What -is- the situation with Hyperion?

[Samurai Crow]

There is an ongoing lawsuit between Amiga, Inc. and Hyperion-Entertainment, VOF. The Amiga, Inc. that was chartered in Washington went belly up but never signed the insolvency papers. Hyperion has, as part of their contract, a transfer agreement similar to the one between Novell and SCO. Hyperion claims AmigaOS 4 is theirs because of the former insolvency of Amiga, Inc. Washington. On the other side of the coin, Amiga, Inc.'s name and IP rights have been bought out by another company called KMOS that changed their name to Amiga, Inc. and is chartered in Delaware. Amiga, Inc. Delaware is claiming to own the rights to the name AmigaOS 4 as a result of that situation. As soon as Amiga, Inc. Washington went belly-up Hyperion started letting their third-party contractors get by with binary-only licenses of their contributions to the AmigaOS 4 code-base and so, even if Amiga, Inc. Delaware buys Hyperion they won't have the source code rights to AmigaOS 4.

Re:What -is- the situation with Hyperion?

[dammy]

There is an ongoing lawsuit between Amiga, Inc. and Hyperion-Entertainment, VOF. The Amiga, Inc. that was chartered in Washington went belly up but never signed the insolvency papers. They didn't go belly up (insolvent nor bankruptsy) and they sold everything for debt relief to a debtor, Itec (which is also own Kouri). Itec then made more deals with Hyperion and another contract (Itec and Hyerion) surfaced. Itec then sold AI IP to KMOS (Kouri again) which renamed itself to Amiga Inc. Hyperion's been paid once and then KMOS/AI attempted to pay a second time, which Hyperion refused. Bottom line is Hyperion is in deep doodoo. What's really funny is they hired The Twins at $30K EURO @ month with no deadline but AI activated a buy back at a flat fee of $25K. Hyperion is so deep in doodoo, it's not even funny.

Smoke and mirrors

[LoadWB]

None of the questions presented here matter, even if they are serious. Amiga has produced nothing of value since OS3.9 several years ago. Bill McEwen went on the record a while back saying that he put a great deal of his own personal money into making sure that OS3.9 was released. If that is true, then that is the last act of heroism we have seen from the Amiga camp. OS4 is working but stuck in litigation. OS5 will be free from the shackles of hardware dependence, so they say. But we all know that nothing from Amiga ever materializes.

Re:Smoke and mirrors

[Jeremy_Bee]

But we all know that nothing from Amiga ever materializes. But... but...
he say's that there's five guys that are working on it, and have been for two years!

Surely that beats out all those other people working on those other OS's. :-)

If You Can't Trust a PR guy....

[rueger]

"OS 5 is ahead of schedule, and we will be making public announcements concerning the product in the 4th quarter of this year."

So what have here is a Press release announcing that in a couple of months they'll issue a Press Release.

You know, given the dissatisfaction with Vista*, the hardware constraints associated with OS X**, and the usual limitations of Linux***, there could be a place for a new OS. Whether Amiga can make the jump though is entirely another question, one largely to be answered by the eternal question: can it run MS Office?.

* No-one wants to buy it ** only runs on Apple hardware *** still too geeky for most people, and yes I know about Ubuntu

Re:If You Can't Trust a PR guy....

[Junta]

On Vista, it's more applicable to consider the whole Windows environment. You forget that for the people who would've bought Vista, the reason was not so much it explicitly sucking, but that XP suits their needs fine and they don't see the point of going to a slightly different setup and spend money to do so when they have a working solution today. For the Windows people that took the time to evaluate it and declare that it sucks, it's generally because either drivers for Vista were lower quality than XP, and the resources the Vista fluff takes up drags the system down more than XP. So in essence, Vista if anything is losing to XP, not driving people significantly to non-Windows systems. The people blowing it up in the media and declaring Vista sucks are these people plus the people who dislike Windows no matter the incarnation, but are there to revel in what failings they can.

On Linux, I disagree that for most common non-gaming people, that Linux has to be too geeky anymore. There is the great potential on a Linux system to geek out to extraordinary degrees, but if you don't elect to and the hardware vendor providing your platform explicitly tries to work with Linux, the experience can be quite straightforward to people who never want to 'pop the hood' so to speak. Claiming Linux is too geeky is to an extent like claiming OSX is too geeky because of the BSD core, the fact you can start terminal and get a *nix shell, and it uses the NeXT defaults system for configuration. A vast majority of OSX users may never realize these facts (or if they do, what they mean except to bring up to defend their platform), and the same can be true for desktop linux users. The exception is when trying to use hardware whose drivers are off the beaten path, and the way the Linux market goes, it's far more common to have the system vendor not paying attention to Linux, and therefore pushing this evaluation to the consumer I have seen in the x86 world system vendors switch components because the Windows drivers the hardware vendor wrote not be able to perform reliably. That's a huge part of what's biting Vista today (people ugrading their systems may have components where someone couldn't have possibly known the Vista driver quality for). I can pre-select a set of hardware, assemble it barebones, and hand the install disc to a non-technical person, and they can be up working with documents and surfing the web without significant assistance.

Once every blue moon an "Amiga is comming back"..

[3seas]

...article is posted to slashdot. And that began many blue moons ago.

Is it a slow news day? Did murphy firehose it up?
Is it intended to be humor or is it to expose the remaining gullible?

Seriously, the company now known as Amiga has worked very diligently
and persistently at securing its reputation as a company intent on
keeping the Amiga off the market and deceiving what ever followers it
may still have with what amount to as soap opera antics.

Now about Amiga being better than OSX.... Think about it!

You can have the best OS in the world but if there is no software
being written for it.... who is going to use it for what?

Don'tcha think someone would have heard about software developemnt
for the Amiga if it were going to be better than _____________
(fill in the blank with any reasonably used OS)

Bill McE. is financed to be a nut... How better to keep amiga off
the market and the open source clone dev (AROS) less supported and
concerned enough about Amigas legal antics to remove "Amiga" from
all mention?

There is nothing in the last 7 + years, of which the current
"ownership of Amiga IP" has done anything beneficial for classic
Amiga users, the consumers, or for the Amiga software development
market. If fact they have done just the opposite.

And as other Blue moons have passed with little to no fan fare,
so will this one.

Only the gullible would mod this down or as flamebait.

Its honesty based on the history since before gateway sold all but the patent IP.

omg.. i cant decide...

[Anonymous Coward]

i don't mean to troll... just want to know... which one is funnier...

beos or amigaos?

based on what?

[m2943]

There are three dominant OS's out there. Windows is the most dominant desktop, followed by OSX and then Linux.

Really? Given how many universities and businesses have deployed Linux on desktops and in research labs, Linux may well be way ahead of OS X on the desktop.

The market where OS X is clearly ahead of Linux is the home or consumer desktop. But that's different from the desktop.

Re:based on what?

[Anonymous Coward]

OMFG What a passionate argument about who is the best of the losers. And by "passionate" I meant "finding some little sub-category where you come out ahead." Here's a modification of your brilliant position:

Really? Given how many universities and businesses have deployed Linux on desktops and in research labs, Linux may well be way ahead of OS X on the desktop.

But the university I go to have more Macs than Linux boxen.

I go to the same university as you, and while that may be true, there is a Linux computer lab in White Hall. So clearly Linux is more dominate in that particular segment. And don't say "boxen," it's stupid.

>But I know a group of guys who live in White Hall, and most of them have Macs. So Macs win in the suites-in-White Hall category."

>>Yes, but there is the one guy in that suite who runs Ubuntu. So, clearly you dumbass, Linux is the dominiate OS in the Room A Suite C Floor 3 White Hall computing sector."

>>> I get you guys get a lot of snatch.

Re:based on what?

[confused one]

I'll grant you, there are a lot of linux installs; and, it's difficult to generate demographic data on them because they're often generic boxes bought from Dell, HP, etc., many of which count as Windows sales.

You're forgetting that a lot of research labs and universities buy Apple iMacs or PowerMacs/Mac Pros because it's a preconfigured Unix machine. That was one of the not so talked about big wins of OS X -- It was rapidly adopted by research labs and universities who had been buying more traditional Unix machines because a Mac was easier to set up and considerably cheaper than a brandX workstation with a user license for brandX Unix.

My point is that there are a lot of universities or labs who might be using linux or bsd on the servers but have OS X on the desktop.

Re:based on what?

[teh kurisu]

A home desktop isn't a desktop? Is that kinda like how a dwarf planet isn't a planet?

Re:based on what?

[m2943]

OMFG What a passionate argument about who is the best of the losers. And by "passionate" I meant "finding some little sub-category where you come out ahead." Here's a modification of your brilliant position:

I'm not talking about "some little subcategory". I'm saying that Linux may well be on a lot more desktops overall than Macintosh.

And, no, I'm not "passionate" about it, I'm just asking people like you to stick to the facts.

Re:based on what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Overall my ass. You're nothing but a Linux fanboy adding qualifiers to an unverifiable made-up statistic to support some bullshit point.

Nobody uses Linux, except for a few IT guys in their messy closet they call an office and some comp sci nerds jacking off to porn in college. Walk into any company/school/home in the world, and you'll find 99% Windows, 1% Mac, and not a fucking Linux machine to be found. If you truly believe otherwise, you're blinded by either nativity or idealism. That is a fact you should be sticking to.

Re:based on what?

[m2943]

A home desktop isn't a desktop? Is that kinda like how a dwarf planet isn't a planet?

Come on, I'd expect better reading comprehension and logic from someone educated in UK schools... Of course, home desktops are desktops; they simply aren't the only desktops. Therefore, it is wrong to conclude from Apple's dominance over Linux in the home desktop market that it dominates Linux in the desktop market as a whole.

Look at the figures: OS X probably has between 10 and 22 million users worldwide (Apple's own figures, go look it up). Ubuntu alone has about 8 million active users according to Shuttleworth, but it's only one of four major desktop distros. So, OS X and Linux look like they are quite close in desktop usage, and it's anybody's guess which OS is actually ahead overall.

Re:based on what?

[i41Overlord]

First of all, home desktops outnumber corporate desktops. Second of all, every company I've ever worked at used Windows.

Re:based on what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Walk into any company/school/home in the world, and you'll find 99% Windows, 1% Mac, and not a fucking Linux machine to be found.

In fact, I do, frequently. And I'm telling you: the standard desktops worldwide at universities and companies are Windows and Linux. Some universities (mainly in the US) use Macs, and I have never seen any large company use Macs as a standard desktop environment.

Re:based on what?

[teh kurisu]

I was being pedantic/flippant. I was also poking fun at the daft naming conventions of planets.

That said (if you're going to bring logic into it), I still maintain that what I said is a valid interpretation of what you said.

As for the whole Mac vs Linux market share contest, it's a pissing match. Counting purchases and downloads, I would count as two Mac users, two Windows users and who knows how many Ubuntu, Gentoo and Red Hat users. I don't think it's possible to lend any credibility to any market share statistic.

I'd contend, though, that if you take the general population into account, Macs have a greater mindshare than Linux. I wonder if anybody's ever conducted a poll on that subject...

Re:based on what?

[m2943]

My point is that there are a lot of universities or labs who might be using linux or bsd on the servers but have OS X on the desktop.

And my point is that you shouldn't present guesswork as fact.

You're forgetting that a lot of research labs and universities buy Apple iMacs or PowerMacs/Mac Pros because it's a preconfigured Unix machine.

Maybe in a handful of latte sipping enclaves of North America. In the real world, most universities and research labs have never been able to afford either Macs or UNIX workstations; they are upgrading their aging Windows NT PCs to Linux and really happy with it.

If you want some data, look at Google Trend data (google.com/trends): Linux-related terms generally dwarf Apple-related terms, both in absolute volume and world-wide base. On a worldwide basis, the notion that Macintosh is even close to Linux in desktop usage seems implausible (but until we have data, we won't know).

Re:based on what?

[bigstrat2003]

Come on, I'd expect better reading comprehension and logic from someone educated in UK schools... For being so smug, your reading comprehension and/or logic is rather flawed. When one says "desktop" in reference to computers, that means, in common usage, the home/consumer desktop, not all desktop computers in all environments. I believe the GP was trying to make a joke, but even if he weren't, it's your own damn fault for using ambiguous terminology. Just because you're following the technicalities of the language doesn't mean you're communicating well, you also have to consider how the language is used in actual practice.

Re:based on what?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm from an eastern european country and I have seen a Mac only once, in a second hand computer shop window. And it was what I believe it's called an iMac G3, the CRT kind.

Apple computers are sold here, mostly by order I presume, and it's my understanding that they are used mainly in printed mass media. But not anywhere else. Most of the people have no ideea that they even exist.

As to Linux use - I work for a pretty big telecommunications company and we use Linux internally on some of our servers. I have no exact figure, but I can approximate it at about 25%. Desktops are 99.9 Windows though. And my new desktop came with Vista :(

I can guarantee that at least here Apple has practically no market share compared to Linux in the home and education arena and very insignificant in the corporate one. So that pretty much negates your argument about "anywhere in the world".

Re:based on what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Visit Apple? Hahahhah.

Re:based on what?

[drcagn]

What does that prove? That people search for Linux more than they do for OS X? That could simply mean that people are searching for help on their hard-to-use Linux boxes while the OS X users are quiet, using their just-works machines. That proves nothing.

Re:based on what?

[Greg_D]

In fact, I do, frequently. And I'm telling you: the standard desktops worldwide at universities and companies are Windows. Fixed. You can no more make the case for Linux proliferation at universities and companies on the desktop than you can Macs. Go into any English or print or broadcasting or art or graphic design department at any school in the country and you'll find more Macs there than any other desktop. Similarly, there's a larger percentage of Linux systems (still a very small minority) when you're talking about Computer Science and Engineering departments. And there aren't many collegiate business departments that use Linux in any capacity, because Linux doesn't run Peachtree. Stop being disingenuous to try to eek out a point. Every OS has its strong points, weak points, and its place in academia and business.

Re:based on what?

[m2943]

What does that prove?

I don't have to "prove" anything because I didn't claim anything; I'm merely pointing out that there is reasonable doubt that Macintosh is dominant.

The guy who has something to prove is the guy who stated:

There are three dominant OS's out there. Windows is the most dominant desktop, followed by OSX and then Linux.

So, where is the proof for that assertion?

Re:based on what?

[Anonymous Coward]

First of all, home desktops outnumber corporate desktops.

First of all, it's not clear that that's even true worldwide.

In any case, you're arguing if Macintosh has a higher market share than Linux in the home market and if there are more home machines than corporate desktops, it follows, according to you, that Macintosh has a higher desktop market share overall. Sorry, but that argument is simply wrong.

Second of all, every company I've ever worked at used Windows.

Again, that doesn't mean anything. We know that there are large companies with widely deployed Linux desktops (IBM, Google, etc.) and entire university systems that are deploying Linux desktops. Furthermore, what you use depends is very dependent on your job and the industry you work in, so if you use Windows at one company, chances are that's all you'll ever see.

Re:based on what?

[Anonymous Coward]

I can guarantee that at least here Apple has practically no market share compared to Linux ...

So, you can guarantee that based simply on your little anecdotal walkthrough of your third-world neighborhood? Wow, amazing. Don't worry, soon your Borat-town will be filled with PCs ... the $100 plastic ones that you have to wind up for power. What kind of computer does the goat use? I mean, when all the local boys aren't giving him an ass pounding, that is.

Re:based on what?

[gbulmash]

Nah. I can tell you... going through my server logs, I see Macs outpacing Linux by a large number. If you go to a larger, more heavy-traffic site like w3schools.com, you'll see that through 2005, Linux did lead Mac, but ever since the beginning of 2006, the fortunes of Mac have been rising while the fortunes of Linux have been pared back.

With the introduction of the Intel-based Macs, the "Apples to Oranges" comparisons diminished and on a price to performance comparison with similarly equipped Windows machines, Macs became competitive. They're still considered pricy because you can't get a bargain Mac laptop running a Celeron chip with PC 2700 DDR system RAM.

So, yes, some places have been installing Linux on older commodity hardware, but the number of people switching from Windows to Mac is outpacing the number switching from Windows to Linux while the number of people switching from Linux to Mac is outpacing the people switching from Mac to Linux.

The switch to Intel was the best thing Apple did. Windows and Linux people now own Macs, doing much of their browsing and e-mail on their Macs, and running Windows or Linux in virtualized windows at speeds close to or exceeding the older hardware they upgraded from... on the rare occasion they need an app from one of those OSes they can't run on their Mac directly.

Re:based on what?

[khuber]

So it's okay for you to make up statistics AC? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_desktop_operating_systems

Re:based on what?

[confused one]

And my point is that you shouldn't present guesswork as fact. OK, facts, based on market research

Mac: 3.74%
linux: 1.38%
http://www.w3counter.com/globalstats.php

Mac: 6.61%
linux: 0.81%
http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.aspx?qprid=2

Maybe in a handful of latte sipping enclaves of North America. In the real world, most universities and research labs have never been able to afford either Macs or UNIX workstations; they are upgrading their aging Windows NT PCs to Linux and really happy with it. well, in the math department of my particular latte sipping liberal arts university we use Macs. In the physics department of the same latte sipping liberal arts university we use a mix of Solaris, Macs and PCs. All of the PC's are old (800MHz). Newer machines are Solaris or Mac, but I'm seeing fewer solaris boxes and more Macs being purchased. By the way, I like my coffee black.

If you want some data, look at Google Trend data Funny that, I did exactly that with the search terms "linux, mac" and it came back with Mac passing linux Q2 2006.

Re:based on what?

[m2943]

Nah. I can tell you... going through my server logs, I see Macs outpacing Linux by a large number

Web server logs are not a reasonable way of determining desktop usage. The statistics you point to themselves contain a prominent disclaimer to that effect.

If you go to a larger, more heavy-traffic site like w3schools.com, you'll see that through 2005, Linux did lead Mac, but ever since the beginning of 2006, the fortunes of Mac have been rising while the fortunes of Linux have been pared back.

It's not surprising that web designers use more Macs. That tells you little about world wide desktop usage. A typical Linux desktop user in a corporation, government, or university gets a Linux desktop from the organization and uses it to fill in forms, write letters, do a lab assignment, schedule appointments, etc. They are not going to show up on w3schools.com or do much browsing.

but the number of people switching from Windows to Mac is outpacing the number switching from Windows to Linux while the number of people switching from Linux to Mac is outpacing the people switching from Mac to Linux.

Again you're picking numbers out of thin air. Furthermore, when corporations or governments pick platforms for organization-wide deployment, that is completely implausible.

Re:based on what?

[adavidw]

Web server logs are not a reasonable way of determining desktop usage.

Says the guy who cites Google Trends lists of popular search terms as the source that Linux has higher desktop marketshare than MacOS.

Re:based on what?

[gbulmash]

If you go to a larger, more heavy-traffic site like w3schools.com, you'll see that through 2005, Linux did lead Mac, but ever since the beginning of 2006, the fortunes of Mac have been rising while the fortunes of Linux have been pared back.

It's not surprising that web designers use more Macs. Now, given the numbers from W3Schools can't be easily extrapolated worldwide, but you can't dismiss them with the claim that web designers use Mac, because their users preferred Linux to Mac for the first 2.75 years of the 4.5 year dataset.

That's actually counterintuitive because Linux has been getting MORE competitive with Mac on the design front rather than less... You'd assume more designers migrating from OSX to Linux than from Linux to OSX.

Both numbers were growing, at the expense of Windows, but Mac grew faster than Linux, and while Mac continued to grow this year, Linux started giving back some of its gains.

And those numbers are meaningful, no matter how much you try to magick it away with sweeping generalizations.

Re:based on what?

[m2943]

Says the guy who cites Google Trends lists of popular search terms as the source that Linux has higher desktop marketshare than MacOS.

I'm not trying to prove that Linux has "higher desktop marketshare", I'm saying: WE DON'T KNOW.

How clearly do you need it spelled out for you?

Re:based on what?

[m2943]

And those numbers are meaningful, no matter how much you try to magick it away with sweeping generalizations.

It's you who is making the sweeping generalizations, and you still haven't shown any evidence that Macintosh is more successful than Linux on the desktop.

Again, I'm not saying that Linux is more successful, I'm saying we just don't know. So stop making unfounded claims, OK?

Re:based on what?

[m2943]

That said (if you're going to bring logic into it), I still maintain that what I said is a valid interpretation of what you said.

What I said was correct: the set "home desktop users" is different from the set "all desktop users".

As for the whole Mac vs Linux market share contest, it's a pissing match

No, it's merely that Mac users are pissing all over Linux developers by making unsubstantiated statements about Linux supposedly trailing on the desktop, Linux supposedly having inferior usability, and all that.

Re:based on what?

[m2943]

When one says "desktop" in reference to computers, that means, in common usage, the home/consumer desktop,

Quite to the contrary: the term traditionally refers to desktop computing in business and engineering environments only; it did not use to include home computers at all, which didn't even use to sit on desks. Since modern home computers blur the line between work and play, it now also includes many home computers.

In any case, I think we can agree: in the US home market, Macintosh dominates Linux, but in all other environments, it's pretty much anybody's guess.

They are adding an interface to enable the...

[JackMeyhoff]

.. Infinite Improbability Function.

The best new feature would be...

[Jugalator]

Improved hardware independence?

So far, AmigaOS 4 is a bit like OS X being built for special hardware, just that this one lacks the hardware. :-p

I can understand if Apple doesn't want to let go of OS X like that, because they after all sell a lot of hardware this way, but isn't AmigaOS 4 is in such a horribly sorry state that Amiga Inc would only win on having it support other hardware platforms better?

Re:The best new feature would be...

[Seehund]

I can understand if Apple doesn't want to let go of OS X like that, because they after all sell a lot of hardware this way, but isn't AmigaOS 4 is in such a horribly sorry state that Amiga Inc would only win on having it support other hardware platforms better? Yes, of course. That is if they were ever interested in making OS4 a profitable (or at least financially self-sustainable) product. It is clear that this was never their intention.

AInc had no interest in OS4, i.e. a continuation of the "classic" AmigaOS. Instead they believed it to be possible to live off simply owning the brand Amiga, and having it applied to games for mobile phones and a renamed version of Tao's "Intent" (also dead now, BTW).

Then came Hyperion, a small company that ported old Windows games to AmigaOS, MacOS and Linux, and nagged at AInc to get permission to make OS4. So far, so good. Unfortunately, they also brought along a hardware vendor, Eyetech, in the deal. OS4 had been reduced to a means for a shady computer dealer to resell outdated and dysfunctional $500 "Teron" motherboards for $900 with a new "AmigaOne" sticker to a tiny group of ignorant trademark fanatics.

AmigaOS was killed there and then (2002). They've had nearly 6 years to re-negotiate a new distribution scheme for OS4, one that doesn't include an unnecessary "hardware partner", but they've chosen not to do this. Neither did the following death of PowerPC (on the desktop, at least) seem to affect their perception of reality. The losses and ensuing lawsuits and bickering between these "AmigaOne Partners" is just sweet poetic justice. It's a bit sad that Eyetech got away from their "AmigaOne" scam with a relatively (for an "Amiga" company) hefty profit, but I doubt they'll be able to do business in the computer field again.

BTW, anything AInc/McEwen says about an "OS5" is just bullshit, of course. Why is this on Slashdot? Does the general /. audience really appreciate the entertainment value of all this, like we hardened Amiga community members do?

Why ...?

[suv4x4]

I don't want the technical details if he can't share. I want him to give us use cases. Why would we go buy their computers and OS when I can run OSX, Windows or Linux?

Who's the target, business users, video producers, prosumers, gamers, developers, mythical moms and dads, and how will Amiga make a difference to those people compared to OSX, Windows, Linux.

I must definitely not be the target, since "Better than OSX" means precisely nil to me. OSX runs my desktop software, Windows runs it as well. Hell, Linux runs some of it. I don't just install an OS and marvel at how good it is, I run apps on it.

Amiga doesn't run anything right now, but they have a checkerboard sphere. They better have made this the best checkerboard sphere in the world ever.

Linux more prevailant than OSX

[Zombie Ryushu]

There are more Linux users than OSX Users.

Re:Linux more prevailant than OSX

[Anonymous Coward]

No, they just spend more time on their computers, trying desperately to configure them, so it only LOOKS like there's more of them.

Re:Linux more prevailant than OSX

[TheRaven64]

Do you have any source for that, or are you just counting anyone who uses the Google search engine as a Linux user?

Re:Linux more prevailant than OSX

[Divebus]

There are more Linux users than OSX Users. Really? Not here there aren't. There are two photos side by side, so stitch them together to recognize the true power of the X!

Re:Linux more prevailant than OSX

[the_womble]

Ubuntu passed the 8m mark abouut 9 months ago, based on the number of people updating from Ubuntu servers.

Note that updates can be cached, there are probably people sho do not update (for example because they have slow internet connection), and there are people who update from mirrors, so it is probably an undercount.

Ubutntu and Linux are growing, so the numbers are higher now

If Ubuntu alone has that many users it seems probable that desktop Linux is ahead of Mac OS's 20m+.

Re:Linux more prevailant than OSX

[confused one]

Interesting. Thanks for the demographic. Now I know how to put some numbers together to try to refute my management who turn a blind eye and claim "No one is running linux"

Re:Linux more prevailant than OSX

[Anonymous Coward]

wow! so many sheep in a room.

Re:Linux more prevailant than OSX

[Anonymous Coward]

Whoops! The truth is changing before our eyes. I almost feel sorry for the 3 jackasses with PC laptops. The kids without laptops should send this picture home to mom and dad - "how do you expect me to succeed without a brand new 17" MacBook Pro?"

Re:Linux more prevailant than OSX

[JasonBee]

Ummmm...no that was me. Sorry

I will shut down my 500 Ubuntu test VMs right now.

*delete*

Re:Linux more prevailant than OSX

[Nocterro]

'and there are people who update from mirrors'

I know for a fact that no Australian in their right mind would download/update ubuntu, debian and the like from anything other than the ISP provided mirrors, simply because bandwidth is metered, and not cheap. On a 20 or 30 GB/month quota pulling an entire netinst debian desktop down will eat a fair chunk of your month's downloads, but every worthwhile ISP will provide un-quotad local file mirrors.
Australia's unusual with the high cost of international bandwidth I'm sure, but there's still got to be a pretty significant percentage of linux users who never touch a primary mirror, for initial downloads or updates.

Re:Linux more prevailant than OSX

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not necessarily an undercount. For example, I'm running Ubuntu on my work desktop, home desktop, and laptop.

Ubuntu users (and Linux users in general) are, as we all know, enthusiastic about and proficient with their favorite OS and are unlikely to limit themselves to only one installation.

- Dave

Re:Linux more prevailant than OSX

[Anonymous Coward]

> If Ubuntu alone has that many users it seems probable that desktop Linux is ahead of Mac OS's 20m+.

I doubt it since Ubuntu is all most people know of desktop linux. Yeah, obviously you can install desktop software on basically any distribution, but Ubuntu and maybe Mandriva or Linspire or basically it for the population at large.

Also, people probably update right after installing Ubuntu, so this would also count people who install, use it for a day or maybe a week, and then go back to Windows and/or Mac OS X. That's exactly what my brother did.

As a Linux user, I'm happy to see user interest and I'm personally satisfied with the current level of growth, but I wouldn't say we surpass Mac OS yet. That's not to say we won't very soon.

Re:Linux more prevailant than OSX

[Matey-O]

I don't update Ubuntu alot on the fileserver because I'd be rebooting friggen WEEKLY, they update the kernel so often. I don't quite know why everybody though 'microsoft makes you reboot monthly for patch tuesday, so frequent reboots are okay'.

Re:Linux more prevailant than OSX

[ozmanjusri]

I doubt it since Ubuntu is all most people know of desktop linux.

Fedora reports about 1.5 million unique connections to Yum for FC7, and about 3 million for FC6. They're getting about 16,000 new IPs a day.

Distrowatch puts SuSe ahead of Fedora in terms of popularity, while Debian, Mandriva and PCLinuxOS aren't far behind. In fact, a survey of desktop Linux users put Ubuntu as the most popular distro with 30% of the market, and Fedora at 7%, so with those numbers, we can estimate the total installed base of Linux desktops as being more than 25 million.

Re:Linux more prevailant than OSX

[Verte]

Novel used the number 30 Million in their "I'm a Mac/I'm a PC" spoof. They didn't say if that was an estimate of all GNU/Linux users or just Novel users, but either way, that's ~3% of the desktop market, which fits with observations by the w3c.

Don't believe a word

[tmk]

I don't trust Bill McEwen more than Steve Ballmer.

• He announced to sponsor the new Kent Events Center with 10 million dollars - but he could not pay.
• He sued the developers of Amiga OS 4 and announced a new hardware solution - which was not delivered.
• The only product Amiga Inc has released in seven years were mobile phone versions of old Amiga games.
• ...

Re:Don't believe a word

[hempdog]

My thoughts exactly. It's also funny how he keep getting back to the Amiga curse not realizing the curse has a name and it is Bill. Honestly he seems like a real ptight idiot. I especially liked the comment on wether to release Amiga OS 1.0 - 3.1 as opensource.. total nutcase.

I did not see where he mentioned...

[Anonymous Coward]

It includes Duke Nukem Forever

Good going Cowboy Neal......

[3seas]

Check out the earlier interview with the CEO of Amiga....

Notice the Date Saturday Oct 7th.....

CowboyNeal is trying to make the "2 more weeks" happen.....

Re:Once every blue moon an "Amiga is comming back"

[Anonymous Coward]

Only the gullible would mod this down or as flamebait.

This sentence is itself flamebait, which is a shame because the rest of the post seems fairly reasonable.

No apostrophe on 1000s

[Anonymous Coward]

No apostrophe on 1000s. If you were to say, "The picture of my girlfriend's vagina via my 1000's GINA chip is a nice looking one" then all right. If you were to say, "The picture of my girlfriend's vagina via the other four 1000s' GINA chips is a nice looking one, too", then that, plural and possesive, is all right. "On their 1000's (sic)" is not all right. It is plural, not possesive.

Re:No apostrophe on 1000s

[Ice Station Zebra]

'w'h'a't'e'v'e'r's

Re:No apostrophe on 1000s

[mliikset]

the guy is absolutely correct, and you are willfully stupid.

the apostrophe misuse is a very common one, but makes no grammatical sense. ex; "mp3s" is the correct plural, "mp3's" would would refer to something belonging or attributable to an mp3. otoh, if it were something all mp3s had in common, it would be "mp3s'".

i wouldn't have been one to bring up your illiteracy, but since you rejected relatively polite advice on the correct way to denote plurals based on numeric or non-alphabetic symbols, i feel completely justified in pointing out that ignorance is correctable, but stupidity is lifelong.

Re:No apostrophe on 1000s

[rizzo420]

actually, the apostrophe is only mis-used if you go by newer rules of grammar. about 15-20 years ago, using the apostrophe in that case was 100% correct.

since i don't think rules of grammar should arbitrarily change, i consider it correct and use it when i write (of course that's how i'm used to writing).

also, please ignore my lack of capital letters. i hate the shift key.

Re:No apostrophe on 1000s

[Anonymous Coward]

you know what/ i'm also tired of needlessly hitting that shift key1 this is going to save all kinds of time and energy1

Re:No apostrophe on 1000s

[LoadWB]

Funny. I was in school 15 to 20 years ago, and I remember the rule being quite the same as today. I would be interested to see a grammar text from the day.

Re:No apostrophe on 1000s

[rizzo420]

i suppose it could've been longer than that. the books we had when i was in school were not, in any way, new. they could've been about 5-10 years old.

Re:No apostrophe on 1000s

[Moodie-1]

i don't think rules of grammar should arbitrarily change
They didn't arbitrarily change. The widespread use of personal computers changed them. 1000's is now possessive-only and 1000s is now the only accepted way of pluralizing 1000. Consider how you would pluralize an acronym: XYZ is singular nonpossessive, XYZs is plural nonpossessive, XYZ's is singular possessive, XYZs' is plural possessive. For a similar reason that when closing a sentence with a quote you must place the period after the endquote mark, not before it. The reasoning is that the quote marks belong only to the quote while the period belongs to the entire sentence, not just the quote. Similarly, an apostrophe now always denotes possessivity (except when you bracket a word or phrase with two of them). It didn't used to matter (much) which way you did things, now it does, due to the unforgiving way computers handle text. This requires us fuzzy-logiced humans to be more (not less!) careful with our use of language. Of course, considering how much mutilated English I see every day (especially online), no doubt I'm in the minority here. I realize that people can't help thinking that their technology will compensate for their laziness (hence spell-checkers, etc.) but this attitude is what is leading all of us into an appallingly pro-ignorance future. Oops, sorry, I'm off on a rant again.

Re:No apostrophe on 1000s

[rizzo420]

i knew they changed... just wasn't sure why. thanks for the explanation.

however, i do have an issue with this part:

For a similar reason that when closing a sentence with a quote you must place the period after the endquote mark, not before it. The reasoning is that the quote marks belong only to the quote while the period belongs to the entire sentence, not just the quote. Similarly, an apostrophe now always denotes possessivity (except when you bracket a word or phrase with two of them). putting the period outside the quotation marks is pretty recent. the norm when i learned grammar was to put them inside the end quote mark, regardless of if it was for the quote or the sentence.

and to be a bit nit-picky, the apostrophe is still used for contractions. :)

Re:No apostrophe on 1000s

[Anonymous Coward]

So says the person who can't bother to use proper capitalization.

Your message would go over a little better if you weren't so willfully stupid, or lazy as the case may be, yourself.

Re:No apostrophe on 1000s

[Anonymous Coward]

Similarly, an apostrophe now always denotes possessivity Except when it doesn't: It's / Its

Re:No apostrophe on 1000s

[Anonymous Coward]

I blame eBaum's World.

Re:No apostrophe on 1000s

[ehrichweiss]

putting the period outside the quotation marks is pretty recent. the norm when i learned grammar was to put them inside the end quote mark, regardless of if it was for the quote or the sentence.

I remember the exact same THOUGH I always thought it made more sense to put the period after the end quote and changed pretty quickly once there were no more teachers to tell me otherwise.

Re:No apostrophe on 1000s

[Mathinker]

See the applicable section of Wikipedia.

I'm assuming you were interested in a reference to this alternative usage. My apologies if you were actually only interested in old books and nostalgia.

Re:No apostrophe on 1000s

[Moodie-1]

You're right, it is pretty recent. It began changing about when PCs were introduced. I don't think that there can be any other cause for it. Actually, it should have been this way all along. Logic dictates (sorry to sound like Mr. Spock) that since the period ends the sentence, not the quote, it should be on the outside. Maybe it started on the inside because it looked better that way.

And yes, you're right about apostrophes being used in contractions. I overlooked that. It was late and my brain must have been a bit contracted then. :D

Re:No apostrophe on 1000s

[Moodie-1]

That's a bit irregular.

Re:No apostrophe on 1000s

[rizzo420]

last nitpick... apostrophes do not always notate possession.

its/it's :)

Re:No apostrophe on 1000s

[LoadWB]

*yawn* Oh, I'm sorry. Was that the sound of you shoving your apologies in a dark hole?

I digress. I must be missing something as I do not see your point, snide comment aside

Re:No apostrophe on 1000s

[tehcyder]

when closing a sentence with a quote you must place the period after the endquote mark, not before it.

Maybe in America, not in the UK.

If anyone could build an Amiga, it would be AMD

[tjstork]

I bought the Amiga Hardware Reference Guide before the computer was even released, read it cover to cover, many times, all about the sound, video, and other hardware, and I knew had to have this hardware. The Amiga legend was really born because of absolutely the best documentation any computer system has ever had, and, then fostered by the execution. I read the documentation. I walked into a Sears, saw the King Tut image in Deluxe Paint, and I so blown away that I literally shook in my shoes. It all came together - great documentation, beautiful hardware, and an ok operating system, in one moment, where I could see the demo, understand completely what it meant, and I had to have one. I opened up a credit card that I couldn't possibly pay for and I bought the thing. It was one of the best days of my life and I feel fortunate to have lived solely to have been there for that moment.

But, those days are gone. If anyone could make anything like Amiga, it would be AMD (Apple is more marketing than any real hardware expertise on its own) - but AMD would also have to hire not just good, but great writers, and document everything the way the Amiga was documented. You would have to have AMD rolling out with a pretty good CPU, next generation hardware, all in a consumer friendly case with a completely new operating system. Part of Amiga's appeal was that the whole thing was different. For AMD to pump that kind of money into some new consumer / geek box would almost certainly demand that it run Windows or Linux, and we already know enough about both to not really get excited over either. A souped up / updated version of BeOS is what that kind of hardware needs - really, the coolest new OS ever made, and I doubt seriously that AMD could take that risk.

But, a man can dream.

Re:If anyone could build an Amiga, it would be AMD

[Abuzar]

and I so blown away that I literally shook in my shoes.

Over a computer? Dude, you truly are a geek. In my case women elicit that reaction, but each to their own. I won't judge. Feel free to get married too, you have my approval.

Re:If anyone could build an Amiga, it would be AMD

[NeoTron]

Indeed.

I still have an Amiga 1200. Still very much alive and kicking, and a bit riced up too (monitor adapter/flicker fixer, 68040 accelerator card giving the Amy a whole 40Mhz of Insane Demonic Superpowah - wooo - IDE doubler so I can run the internal hard drive AND attach the cdrom drive, an NE2000-compatible pcmcia network card, and AmigaDOS 3.9. Oh and I had to ditch the Commodore power supply in favour of using a PC PSU in order to power all that extra stuff, heheh). The ultimate Amiga box - if only it were 15 years ago ;) I can even dual-boot it to Debian too, though, really, it runs better with AmigaDOS 3.9 - it seems to run like molasses when booted to Debian.

I only boot it up from time to time, though, and since I moved to Japan I haven't touched it, simply because I haven't the time.

But every time I boot it up for a nostalgia trip I still to this day wish Commodore's execs and management hadn't completely managed to flush the whole concept down the drain like they did. Damn their interminable hides! I still remember the very first Amiga Demo I saw and heard shortly after I bought an Amiga (A500 at the time) - I literally could not believe what I was experiencing - you have to remember that at the time of the A500, PC's were still stuck in VGA-land, with very poor graphics and sound capabilities. The Amy just blew everything else out of the water. I can only dream now what current multimedia experiences would be like if the Amiga technology/hardware concepts were allowed to have evolved. When the Amiga went down the tubes, multimedia experience development and evolution was, in my opinion, basically stalled for at least a decade. Only now are graphics cards beginning to reach the stage where multimedia and games experience are beginning to impress me. I wonder what that experience would be like if the Amiga's hardware technology had been further developed and evolved since those halcyon days.

Regards.

Re:If anyone could build an Amiga, it would be AMD

[tjstork]

Over a computer? Dude, you truly are a geek. In my case women elicit that reaction, but each to their own. I won't judge. Feel free to get married too, you have my approval.

I am married now, but in my past, women were always pretty easy for me to get. So, there was no need to shake in my shoes over one, because there was always another one. But Amigas, wow, those were pretty special.

Re:Once every blue moon an "Amiga is comming back"

[christurkel]

I agree. This guy has made repeated promises and broken them. Most recent? ACK controls is making our new PPC hardware for 9/07 (and this was in 5/07). 9/07 has come and gone and guess what? nothing.

This guy is a sneak oil salesman.

Connectsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

This Bill McEwen character used to be Director Of Marketing for a company called Connectsoft. If you know anything about Connectsoft. you will realize that everything coming from his mouth is complete garbage.

They ARE ahead of schedule

[Anonymous Coward]

When your release date is set for the Fifth of Never, being ahead of schedule is a simple task.

Amiga OS5 will be so awsome,

[Britz]

it will be the only platform to run Duke Nukem Forever.

Sounds like somebody's jealous...

[SanityInAnarchy]

It's not tagged "colddayinhell" because nothing could be better than OS X.

It's tagged "colddayinhell" because Amiga is vaporware. Since Vista has actually been released, consider the new joke to be, "Amiga 5 WILL be released... and it will be bundled with Duke Nukem Forever."

Re:Sounds like somebody's jealous...

[joe 155]

No idea why you've been marked as offtopic, this is exactly the problem with Amiga (well, other than the whole closed source thing they've got going on...). Say I want to buy their OS (I've gone mad and think it might be loads better than linux even though it has worse hardware support, is closed source and wouldn't run hardly any of the software I like). So I want to buy it, I need to put it on my laptop... but no.

From the interview;
"3) Is there any hope of OS4 capable hardware released in 2007?
That is the plan, and hope."

You can't even run it on any hardware! there is hope that you might be able to buy it sometime in the future. maybe.

Re:Once every blue moon an "Amiga is comming back"

[empaler]

I don't know whether that's all bad; sneak oil is a rather untapped market.

Amiga missing an opportunity with handhelds

[jfisherwa]

Amiga should give up on the traditional desktop for the time being. Who is going to bother?

Instead, they could develop something for an N800-style tablet device. The OS is lightweight, there are 'some' applications available already and on an 800x480 screen 4.1" screen, those old AGA games might actually look good again.

Re:Amiga missing an opportunity with handhelds

[mdwh2]

One thing I thought might be nice is a handheld A500/1200. It doesn't have to be custom hardware, or require porting the OS, at all - just use modern hardware and run UAE. Flash memory would be room to store hundreds or thousands of games. Add the option to plug into a TV.

Getting back to desktops, one thing I thought does seem missing, and could be done without having to write a whole new OS, is as follows: a low-end computer, that has a standard, and decent, graphics chipset, and comes in a compact case. Whilst most PC motherboards have graphics chipsets and, perhaps thanks to Vista, they now all at least support DirectX 9, they are still rather basic. On top of that, PCs are more likely to have driver issues due to the many different chipsets that games need to run on. The Mini-Mac is another close example, but it still has rather basic graphics. The only machines which have fitted this since the mid-90s are consoles - which of course don't give you the advantage of computers.

It could be built using standard parts and an existing OS, and would provide much of what people loved of the Amiga. Yeah, it wouldn't be an "Amiga" in that it wouldn't run the classic AmigaOS, but that's missing the point. Mac and Windows have little in common with their namesake platforms in the 80s/90s. And if you wanted compatibility on this hypothetical machine I describe, that could be provided through UAE anyway.

Both of these examples would give us decent modern Amigas, without having to build a whole new niche platform from scratch, or dragging the Amiga brandname through the mud.

Amiga.......good old days...

[zelik]

Yes, I remember my Amiga.. I started a bit late...picked up my brother's old Amiga 1000 when he left it for the MacIIfx (I believe he paid 2k or 4k for that? wow!) and I was in love with Defender of the Crown, Marble Madness, Battlehawks 1942, etc. WOW!

Then, I upgraded to a 2000 and the 8mhz CPU just wasn't enough. I had to upgrade it with a 68030 running at *gasp* 25mhz and wow things were great. I ran a 2 phone line BBS (using C-net) with my prized USRobotics HST modem and a regular 2400 baud on the other line. Sure, it was a warez bbs but wow those were some great memories! I could multitask the BBS (with 2 users uploading/downloading/posting), write my homework using Scribble!(a wordprocessor), print my homework and have Monkey Island running at full speed while printing. No slowdown. It was amazing at the time, esp. compared to Windows (3.11? Or 3.0? Not sure, barely remember those things then).

The full screen program multitasking, which let you pull up and down a full screened program like slides, was quite amazing and powerful. The games, the sounds, all amazing. Of course, this is compared to AdLib soundcards and CGA/EGA. At the time, there was no reason to "game" with your dad's expensive PC other than the fact that it was "all that is available at home."

But now? C'mon! I soon had to let go of my Amiga when no further developments came along. When Doom came out for the PC along with Wing Commander, Strike Commander, etc., the Amiga just started to look antiquated. Sure, the multitasking element was nice, but it just lost the gaming advantage when no advances in the graphics department were forthcoming. There was just so much potential but the management just took the potential and threw it down the drain. The only graphics update I got was a ...... "Flicker fixer" which allowed me to connect a RGB PC Monitor and run things at a higher resolution without "flickering". Remember Newtek's Video Toaster? I heard (not confirmed) that Babylon 5 space scenes were done on it. Amazing stuff I tell you!

Anyway, sorry for the nostalgia. Back to topic: Workbench (the Amiga OS) 3 looks about Windows 3.1 level still, maybe a bit better. It's pathetic. I don't know about Workbench 4 and good lord how could a BRAND NEW market untested and long development dormant OS be better than OSx? C'mon! That's like creating a new model of the DeLorean and saying "This is better than a Ferrari. Trust me!"

Re:Amiga.......good old days...

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, they ARE remaking the DeLorean, in fairness :)

My mom uses my old amiga 1200 as a TV 'net box and is happy with it.

Re:Amiga.......good old days...

[mdwh2]

Workbench (the Amiga OS) 3 looks about Windows 3.1 level still, maybe a bit better. It's pathetic.

In what way? A default install of OS 3.9 looks the same sort of thing as "classic" Windows (i.e., 9x, 2000 - which many people prefer over the eye candy XP/Vista/OS X, after all). Obviously Amiga OS 3.0 looked hopeless, but it was designed when most people were viewing on low resolution TVs, and most PCs at the time were still on DOS anyway, whilst System 7 looked pretty awful too.

Re:Amiga.......good old days...

[Anonymous Coward]

> I ran a 2 phone line BBS (using C-net) with my prized USRobotics
> HST modem and a regular 2400 baud on the other line.

Oh those were the times. Thanks to CCITT No 5 you had all those euro users 24h online..

from TFA: Re:Better?

[J_Omega]

So I browsed it quickly, since I became curious:

1. Posed questions about OS4 included being able to "create reliable OS4 compatible hardware," "new hardware," "OS4 capable hardware." For OS5 the question/answer was "7) What kind of hardware will OS5 be designed for?" - "OS5 scales to its host hardware, so anything from mobile phones through stbs, consoles up to servers. Initially covering software hosts Windows-D, Windows Mobile, Linux-D, Linux-E and Symbian for x86 and ARM, and possibly any high profile hardware host."

2. Look at this Q/A: "19) Will OS5 be a completly [sic] independent OS, or will it be hosted on some other platform?" - "Details will be given out to the public later this year."

Actually... most of his answers are like that. Either "no comment," "Wait and see," or "see the answer from before which was either 'no comment' or 'wait and see.'"

Seems like a rather pointless article, unless you're a real current Amiga fan. I hope that this information excites all three of them.

Re:from TFA: Re:Better?

[ivan256]

So they're making a GTK theme?

i remember when tim rue was crazy

[Anonymous Coward]

tim seemed like a pariah of the amiga community. shunned by the most vocal zealots while he worked thanklessly on his VIC and flux capacitor. but now he seems reasonable as he points out that the whole amiga thing is a lie. yet the community hasn't changed. who's crazy now?

Yes, but...

[artemis67]

It ships with Duke Nukem Forever preinstalled.

Re:Yes, but...

[Plaid Phantom]

But will it work on my Phantom console once it ships?

Re:Yes, but...

[Alonzo Meatman]

And, as an added bonus, the soundtrack for Duke Nukem Forever will be Guns n' Roses new album, Chinese Democracy!

More progress with AROS?

[Fujisawa Sensei]

Sounds like the AROS Project is making more progress than Amiga Inc. is.

Re:More progress with AROS?

[dammy]

Sounds like the AROS Project is making more progress than Amiga Inc. is. 64 Bit AROS (x86_64) will be released shortly with major OS improvements. AROS is also being ported to PPC http://www.genesippc.com/efika.php/ as well back ported to Amiga86K. Probably the reason why AROS is doing so much better then Amiga Inc has done, ever, AROS is Open Source.

But that statistic is nearly useless.

[i41Overlord]

If you're counting how many times it's been downloaded, that doesn't tell you much. I'm a Windows user, but I've downloaded Linux a few different times. I played with it, but that doesn't make me primarily a Linux user. I'm still a Windows user, but I'd be counted as several Linux users if you just looked at download stats.

Re:But that statistic is nearly useless.

[tkw954]

I don't think the GP meant that there were 8 M downloads. He said "number of people updating". I'd assume this means 8 M unique IP addresses. And if you were just playing around you probably didn't hit the apt update servers. In this case you'd count as zero Linux users. You'd count as one user if you've used the apt repos, which probably means you use Linux enough to qualify as a user.

Please see the answer to #4!

[ph0rk]

otherwise I might have to answer a real question.

Re:Please see the answer to #4!

[BozoForPresident]

A real question like... What does Amiga StInc own and what is merely licenced?

Better yet -

What's stopping others from licencing the same IP from Gateway/Acer?

Not necessarily

[rsilvergun]

They probably just don't want the legal hassle and expense of releasing it. They'll be patents and cross licensing involved, and they'd have to vet all the code before releasing it.

But ours go to 11

[houstonbofh]

But Linux goes to 11. :)
http://www.slackware.com/announce/11.0.php

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Will never happen again

[sardaukar_siet]

Innovation in the computer world has a timing - and that timing has been lost for the desktop. It's just too big now to change. Real innovation now may come from smaller devices, newer concepts that are being explored right now like Ultra Mobile PCs coupled with WiMax. You can't expect something like Linux to revolutionize the industry again - it's already here. I can see a future where Linux catches up in terms of polish to Windows, and Windows dies to be replaced by it and THEN something else comes. Something that defies the way we interact with computer systems. But not another OS with a compatibility layer to Win/Lin - what would be the point? Better architecture? Users don't give a crap.

The good old days are back

[El_Oscuro]

You can get a good Amiga emulator at Amiga forever. You can also get the original version of Defender of the Crown for free at Cimemaware. Event the sound works, everything just like I remember it.

Re:The good old days are back

[Alphi1]

Awww man... Just mentioning Defender of the Crown and now I have the theme song stuck in my head... Damn you... ;)

Has to be better than it's clone

[dltaylor]

The GUI of OSX is a clone of the Amiga as possible, including the "replicative fading". Sure it has a few more colors, and much newer hardware to drive it, but functionally, it's the same, but weaker.

Same:

Menus at the top of the GUI, rather than the application window.
Brain-damaged limitation on the location of the window resize controls.
Task bar/dock.
Drive icons.
Really usable command line interface.
Drag'n'drop, ...

Missing:

Public/shared/private screen feature.

Better:

???

BTW, anyone got a "stickies" (on-screen Post-It (tm)) equivalent for the Mac or Gnome?

Re:Has to be better than it's clone

[Joehonkie]

You mean it's a clone of original MacOS? Because that had all these things:

Menus at the top of the GUI, rather than the application window.
Brain-damaged limitation on the location of the window resize controls.
Drive icons.
Drag'n'drop, ...

And the command line and dock are features from Nextstep, which OSX is based on (and just plain IS, really).

Re:Has to be better than it's clone

[Anonymous Coward]

BTW, anyone got a "stickies" (on-screen Post-It (tm)) equivalent for the Mac or Gnome? Are you kidding me? The Mac has had stickies since OS 7.5. In OS X it is located at, appropriately enough, /Applications/Stickies.app.

Re:Has to be better than it's clone

[Ilgaz]

"BTW, anyone got a "stickies" (on-screen Post-It (tm)) equivalent for the Mac or Gnome?"

For the Mac? Mac has "Stickies.app" itself :) I think you wanted to mean KDE or Gnome, they both have similar applications, I can't access to my KDE installation on OS X right now but it must be coming with KDE as "KNotes" and Gnome one is named "Gnome Stickies".

I think they must be keeping it away from "base installation" and provide an optional package so that is why you don't see them.

While speaking about Gnome etc. I think you should be comparing WindowMaker to Amiga. OS X is really a bit dumbed down version of original Next and the "real dock" or the massive amount of window controls are in WindowMaker which is OpenStep. If a Mac user asks me about a full screen X11 Window Manager, I send them to WindowMaker and nothing else.

we're better ...

[Anonymous Coward]

"Better than OS X" - I wouldn't overanalyze that one too much. Amiga is trying to do the best they can to try raise some sort of a tidal wave. In their bathtub.

which is not a change of convention.

[mliikset]

i went to catholic school 40+ years ago and the use of apostrophes was the same then. don't bother trying to tell me that sister syncletica was a progressive grammarian.

i think that contractions are being used as an example for apostrophe usage
when plural/possessive is another matter altogether.

you have got to love fascism in all its forms.

i do agree with you about the caps usage.

GTK developers, please, read!

[Anonymous Coward]

Whoever had used an Amiga about 15 years ago knows how advanced became its GUI after the first 1.1->1.3 incarnations. The 2.0+ GUI model adopted most of the innovations many programmers added to the system. Anybody remembers about the arp.library which added many useful functions and graphical widgets to the system? Then there were the reqtools.library, and MUI, the pure object oriented graphical interface where everything was scalable. All this ran on 8 MHz machines too, 15 years ago.
Now I open a GTK-Gnome file requester and what I see is something that would have meant being fired in the old times. The GTK file requester is the worst piece of junk I have seen in the last 10 years at least. And if the way it's designed sucks, the implementation sucks even more. C'mon guys, over 35 damn seconds to wait for a /usr/bin browse to settle? People would have laughed at you for this performance on a 8 MHz Amiga 500, and I have to see this on a 3 GHz machine in 2007?

Please, someone contact people like Nico Francois, Wouter van Oortmerssen and other great names among the Amiga scene old timers and let them explain to you what usability and code efficiency mean; those principles didn't change in 15 years, but looks like they're constantly ignored by many mainstream Linux developers.

Re:GTK developers, please, read!

[mdwh2]

I loved MUI! It was the first GUI toolkit I used - and everything since then has been downhill, from ones which try well but don't quite make it, to dire pieces of crap like the Microsoft Foundation Classes.

I also can't stand the point-and-click "Visual" GUI editors - handcoding a GUI in MUI was both easier, and more flexible (e.g., works better when you resize the window, easier to swap the order of elements). It's clever use of macros meant that the interface definition could be inlined in the code, rather than being read in from XML files or whatever.

'Stickes' shipped free with MacOS 7.5 in 1994.

[agentofchange]

FYI, the application you're looking for was named 'Stickes' and shipped free with MacOS 7.5 in 1994. It still comes free with OS X.

Here are Ten Ways that Amiga OS 5 can work

[Orion Blastar]

#1 Develop X86 versions of it to run on PC systems. Use UAE to run the older 68K Amiga software on it.

#2 Develop PPC versions of it for the Amiga PPC, PowerMac, and CHRP hardware sets so people with older systems can run it as well.

#3 Get better development tools for it. Developers want to be able to write with more than C++, Python, Free Pascal, AREXX and legacy AmigaDOS tools. Get Novell to port the Mono Development system to AmigaOS 5, get Delphi ported, get RealBASIC and TrueBASIC ported, get Ruby, Perl, Smalltalk, XBASIC, GCC, and Java ported as well.

#4 Get software developers to write AmigaOS 5 ports of their popular software. Get OpenOffice.Org, StarOffice, Quicken, Turbo Tax, Photoshop, Lotus Smartsuite, etc ported.

#5 Get Blizzard, and other game makers to write AmigaOS 5 versions of their popular games.

#6 Get the F/OSS projects ported to AmigaOS 5, like Firefox, Thunderbird, Eurdora, GNUCash, Apache, CVS, The Gimp, etc ported.

#7 Port WINE to the AmigaOS 5 X86 version, and have it built in. Also work on the OSFree project to give the ability to run OS/2 programs. Also work with the Haiku OS project to run BeOS applications on AmigaOS 5. This way you can run software written for Windows, OS/2, and BeOS on one OS, a feat never before done.

#8 Port NDIS Wrapper to use Windows drivers for AmigaOS 5, in case we cannot find any native Windows drivers. Also allow Linux, FreeBSD, and Mac OSX drivers to work as well.

#9 Work in parallel with the Amiga Research OS that AmigaOS 3.5 was based on, so that they can give AROS AmigaOS 5.0 features.

#10 Get Virtual Machines ported to AmigaOS 5.0 like VMWare, Bochs, QEMU, Parallels, etc. Also get emulators ported like MAME, MESS, VICE, UAE, Stella, ZNES, SNES, Virtual Gameboy Advance, Basilisk II, VMac, ported to the Amiga OS 5 system.

Re:Here are Ten Ways that Amiga OS 5 can work

[Eli Gottlieb]

At the very least they don't have to port Delphi. Lazarus (the open-source Delphi that needs some work) goes wherever Free Pascal does, and the applications it builds go wherever it goes.

Re:Here are Ten Ways that Amiga OS 5 can work

[mdwh2]

#1 Develop X86 versions of it to run on PC systems. Use UAE to run the older 68K Amiga software on it.

I think they could do more simply promoting WinUAE on Windows system - there's Amiga Forever at least, but there's interesting setups like AmiKit which provide a complete setup with lots of applications. Maybe get the rights for a few old games too.

#2 Develop PPC versions of it for the Amiga PPC, PowerMac, and CHRP hardware sets so people with older systems can run it as well.

Well if it was on x86, you could run it on older hardware there (which'd also be cheaper and more commonly available).

#4 Get software developers to write AmigaOS 5 ports of their popular software. Get OpenOffice.Org, StarOffice, Quicken, Turbo Tax, Photoshop, Lotus Smartsuite, etc ported.

#5 Get Blizzard, and other game makers to write AmigaOS 5 versions of their popular games.

Sadly this seems unlikely, unless they have a lot of money to pay them for porting.

#6 Get the F/OSS projects ported to AmigaOS 5, like Firefox, Thunderbird, Eurdora, GNUCash, Apache, CVS, The Gimp, etc ported.

Looking at the other way round, I'd love to see YAM ported to Windows.

Re:Here are Ten Ways that Amiga OS 5 can work

[argent]

#0 Take a generic Linux or BSD kernel and build an Amiga-branded distro, include UAE for compatibility, and call it Amiga System 5.

Re:Here are Ten Ways that Amiga OS 5 can work

[Orion Blastar]

Of course because Amiga One box owners just formatted and installed Yellowdog Linux instead of AmigaOS 4.0, right?

So take a Linux or BSD Unix distro, port the Amiga GUI over to it, port Amiga libraries over to it to support AmigaOS API calls, and call it AmigaOS 5.0, right?

Re:Here are Ten Ways that Amiga OS 5 can work

[argent]

So take a Linux or BSD Unix distro, port the Amiga GUI over to it, port Amiga libraries over to it to support AmigaOS API calls, and call it AmigaOS 5.0, right?

Basically, yes. The only way AmigaOS 5 can possibly recover development costs, let alone be considered a success, is if it introduces some capability that's such an incredible breakthrough that people are compelled to switch to it (including switching hardware) just to get that capability... or if the cheapest possible implementation - compatibility libraries on an existing OS - is used.

Apple had a viable presence in the market to start with and had to use BOTH tricks, and they're still haven't returned to their peak market share.

I loved the original Amiga OS, but it was killed dead by the feud between Gould and Tramiel, and it was already doomed when the even-more-doomed BeOS showed up to steal the geeks away. All the killer Amiga apps and vendors, inlcuding NewTek, have already gone elsewhere - there's probably more of a market for BeOS apps than Amiga apps right now.

So they're starting out with no hardware, no support for commodity hardware, no user base, no apps, claim to be doing a scratch implementation, and given that QNX couldn't get any interest in QNX (which blew away AmigaOS) after Amiga failed to pay for the development of the consumer version... I can't see any killer capabilities coming. The only hope I can see for the latest rump of AmigaOS is for them to be maximally cynical and basically sell an emulation kit.

Speaking of AROS

[dammy]

Speaking of AROS, AROS has now entered into the world of 64 bits on x86_64. http://www.amiga.org/modules/news/article.php?storyid=7476/. Isn't Open Source wonderful?

Amiga???? Rising from the dead...

[Anonymous Coward]

a bit early for haloween this year mate...

sir, you have cut me to the quick,

[mliikset]

touche or something.

my right-side caps key is on vacation, and since i'm used to using it, i find it easier to skip altogether, and i don't feel that it compromises any nuances in what i'm saying.

you may or may not accept my reasoning, but i won't try to tell you that i'm right in not using it.

Military Contracts?

[Anonymous Coward]

Think about it... an undead horse that is impervious to repeated beatings and it eats money. Sounds like a bureaucratic military's military dream.

Back in the day

[Intrinsic]

the games that really blew my mind were Another World, Flashback, and Shadow of the beast. When I saw Another world using vector graphics to draw in game shots of action via real life camera angles I couldn't believe what I was seeing.. Then I spent some of my College tuition money on TrueSpace (a revolutionary 3d application back then.. I was making models and animations.. Amiga just kicked ass, and I thought with this kind of technology anything is possible. But that was before I realized revolutionary technology doesn't really matter if you don't know how to market it like lame as commodore.. (sorry no offense) :(.

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[account_deleted]

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Finishing would be the worst possible thing to do

[Joce640k]

If they actually finish this thing people are going to find out that the Amiga really is dead after all, that their fond memories are just nostalgia.

Much better to keep the dream alive than the actual machine....

Who's the clone?

[argent]

Menus at the top of the GUI, rather than the application window.
Brain-damaged limitation on the location of the window resize controls.

Those misfeatures were copied from the original Mac.

Task bar/dock.

That was not part of Intuition.

Drive icons.
Drag'n'drop, ...

That was copied from the original Mac.

Really usable command line interface.

That's been part of every UNIX system since before Commodore made computers.

BTW, anyone got a "stickies" (on-screen Post-It (tm)) equivalent for the Mac or Gnome?

That's not part of Intuition. And the first version of Stickies was written by Apple and shipped in System 7.5. It's now a dashboard widget, which makes it even more pointless than it was to begin with.

The only actual feature of the Amiga that you're looking for is "screens", and the only reason you needed multiple screens rather than just running windows in different modes was that the Copper wasn't fast enough to composite on a window-by-window basis... so they had it switch modes and bitmaps in the horizontal sync interval... which was bloody impressive at the time. Modern GPUs support 3d compositing on a surface-by-surface basis in real time, so you can get the effect of "screens" on a window-by-window basis without the CPU having to deal with it.

The Amiga user interface had two main advantages over its contemporaries.

(1) It was running on top of an actual operating system. This wasn't a user interface feature, but it did make it possible to do things on the Amiga that MacOS and Windows and TOS couldn't dream of.

(2) In addition, the widgets in the UI were implemented in Intuition itself, rather than via callbacks or in the application message loop, so it didn't freeze when an application quit responding.

That second feature is about all I'd like to bring forward from the Amiga into a modern OS, since it's unlikely they'll actually have a real-time kernel... if they wanted that they'd pay QNX what they owed, pay whatever it took to make them happy, and then pay them more for an Amiga-branded port of Photon and QNX. Because, frankly, there's not much else that's got a chance of making an Amiga OS that's anything but a money sink.

In all seriousness...

[Anonymous Coward]

The Moller skycar is an investment con, whereas OS4 was honest-to-goodness vaporware.