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Amiga announces relationship with Corel
Stephen Williams writes "Amiga has announced that it is working closely
with Corel, to ensure that the next gen Amiga
box has some apps ready for launch when the
hardware is released. The press release is
here. "
Call me a cynic... but honestly... how can they (Amiga) deny it's not just another UNIX distribution now?
You could say that, but then couldn't you say just about the same thing about Mac OS X? Having a Linux source compatibility layer could give you a lot of apps quickly, not to mention dev tools and the like. Then have good but non-x86 hardware (say the Transmeta chip), good 3-D graphics and audio, no legacy hardware, built-in 56k modem and fast ethernet (simplifying the interface even further), and just USB and Firewire peripherals. Bingo, you have a Linux compatible system with no installation hassles, no hardware worries, and you haven't really invested that much to get it.
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
Okay, but what would make this distinctively Amiga? Why couldn't I go out, get the same pieces of equipment, and build the bloody thing myself?
How many home-built Macs do you see? Only x86 stuff is easy to buy and build by parts.
Let's make a few guesses about what it has and then see what that implies. Assume a Transmeta or similar chip, fast but also capable of x86 emulation. Assume ATI Rage 128 with all the All-In-Wonder capabilities, 3-D sound, IDE and USB for standard device plug-in ability, Linux kernel with special Amiga GUI.
You have a baseline machine that is capable of quite nice 3-D and sound, so every game written for Linux can take advantage of them. All systems are capable of MPEG-2 capture (ATI's stuff does this) and display, so it's easy to do video editing. You can run Linux apps and Windows apps at good speed, so there's plenty of applications. All the dev tools are pretty much free to both the Amiga folks and the users, so becoming a developer is cheap. And you can cross-compile on this same machine, using the x86 emulation.
You could do most of this on a Mac, but it would be quite expensive and you would still (until OS X) have a fine GUI on top of a lousy kernel (and no Linux apps.) You could do most of this on a PC, but you would have to set it up yourself (do any PCs come with the All-In-Wonder), which novices aren't willing to do.
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
TedC
What other big companies are there in Canada that Amiga will team up with next? (QNX, and Corel are known, what else is up there in that frozen wasteland?)
It will be on sale in Duty Free shops to American Tourists, and include a free bottle of Canadian Wiskey, but of course, you can import the Netwinder and Wiskey, but not any Crypto Software.
Yes, this is a troll. I live in North Dakota, and I am SICK of dealing with your damn quarters sneaking into my change and jamming our Coke machines... :P
I thought that the announcement the other week was that the Linux Kernel would be the heart of the new AmigaOS, but the rest of the system would not simply a Linux distribution, but rather Amiga's Operating System libraries, tools, et al.
Now, I'm not much of a developer, but it would seem to me that most of the work in porting to AmigaOs would be to make WP interact with AmigaOS system libraries, not with the Kernel itself, as such it would not resemble "WP for Linux" anymore.
There are one of two things going on here:
1) The PHBs who issue press releases don't understand the technical differences between Kernel and OS.
2) AmigaOS will be just another Linux distro, with nifty Amiga E-theme.
Of all the comments I've ever posted, this is definately one of them
Now is Corel working to create more Linux based apps (PhotoDraw, Paint, blah blah, etc.)? What are they doing that is tied to the Amiga platform? Are they planning on using any of the specialized hardware the new Amigas are supposed to have or what? I mean, it seems like this is something they would have been working on already, but Amiga Inc. is just milking for publicity.
Now, let me say that I am excited about the new Amiga and hope that it does well, _but_ it seems like there's just been a lot of hype recently (and over the years). I've always had a soft spot for Amigas (since my A1000), and I'd love to see them do well, but do they actually have anything going on here?
Harlequin
Canada is corrupting our children, luring them into it's propeitary hardware traps with pretty graphics, and then teaching them dirty words!!
I mean, look at this "amiga" thing! it isn't even a real OS! it's just a linux window manager and a bunch of fart jokes!!
If it's war they want, it's war they'll get!!
-mcc
if you don't get it, don't worry about it.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts