Katz panics again but....
on
Planet Gattaca
·
· Score: 1
...at the same time it's an important thing to bear in mind. Yes, misuse of progress in genetic science would be a tragedy... especially if the corporations get hold of it. Imagine a world where you are genetically predisposed to buy product, and forced to be happy living a 9-to-5 existence to pay for it (eeek!) Having said that, this new technology and research could be used for better purposes, for example, those who have been rendered infertile by illness could theoretically 'have' children through cloning and splicing their genes with their partner. Evolution isn't a nice beast sometimes, but this could allow us to bend the rules somewhat. Having the power to perform miracles shouldn't be discouraged, but to take responsibility for our actions with the must be considered paramount. I just hope those that would abuse it don't get there first.
the right to bear arms, i guess.... my arms are hairy enough.. why would I need bear ones?
the right to free speech... i've NEVER charged anyone to listen to me (Not that they'd want to)
the right to democracy... well, in the US exists the choice between the Republicans, who are like our Conservative party, and the Democrats, who are like our Conservative party.
seriously tho... the post wasn't meant to bait the US, start the flaming or whatever... it was a response to a statement i found *amusing*....commonly known as a *joke*. I like the US, I like Europe, so brothers and sisters of the community, come together! (and let's gang up on China*.....)
* - the government - not the ethnicity. Just thought I'd mention that in case another flame comes my way.....
I know that things have come on in leaps and bounds in real terms, but only from those that were marketed successfully, as opposed to the best. Note how Intel-based machines have dominance (due to the better marketing campaign - bearing in mind that x86s are all built upon enhanced 8-bit page-flipping architecture), as opposed to, say, Motorola (better design, 32-bit from conception - lousy marketing) (OK - techie-innovation quashing case study over.)
(And now.. my motivation) It's just sad that kids look at the TV and come away thinking that McDonalds is healthy, or that labelled clothes are somehow better-made, or that they are wothless if they don't have a mobile phone. I'm sorry if I skirt the issue too much for you, it just makes me angry
I'm being as real as I can be. I'm not saying that megacorps haven't done at least some good, but that the bad that they perpetrate (for the most part) far outweighs it.
Everything that was founded in the 1980's and beforehand seems to have come to a head now. Before the great leaders of the western nations decided to 'let go of the reins' of the corporations, we knew there was a clear defining line between what was political, what was ethical, what was moral, and what was financial. Companies and corporations called themselves such, and made no apologies for their behaviour. After all, this was the cut-throat world of business, and you kind of expected it.
Fast-forward to the 1980's, and the free-market boom. All of a sudden, the corporations start swallowing each other whole, and they grow, and mutate, until they are bloated multinationals (Yes, I know there were multinationals before the '80s, but...) or they have become part of the multinationals. By the '90s small businesses depend on partnership or buyout by a multinational as the only method of guranteeing success. Prior to this, multinationals were primarily for basic needs (food, chemicals et al). Now, in the '90s due to continuation of free market policy, multinationals have hit critical mass, hence we face multinationals that deal with everything, from music, to computers, to pretty much anything we have. Everything on my desk is owned/produced by a multinational at some stage. Problem is, the multinationals have the same business-above-all ethic as they have always had, which means standardising, dumbing-down and nipping innovation in the bud (if innovation refuses to be bought). Everyone is expected to purchase multinational product, and is persuaded by a barrage of advertisements designed to extract money from them, sometimes in the most devious way. (Can anyone put their hand up and with a clear conscience say that advertising directly to children under the age of 10 is a Good Thing(tm)?) But it's doesn't end with the erosion of people's choice and rights to choose what they eat, drink, listen to or watch. That is a crime in itself. Censorship is a bad thing in a totalitarian state, however, I think that censorship for profit is equally disturbing, if not more so. Companies censor for profit by deluging the public with the 'news' that their product is the ONLY one worth having, and because they have more money than a smaller rival, their product dominates the market, simply because the public are unaware that a choice exists.
What scares me the most, however is the fact that multinationals control the media. Jesus wept, they can actually control what people THINK!! (Bearing in mind most of the world's population will believe what they're told, if you say it loud and brash enough...) Corporations like News International are putting the personal beliefs of their CEO into print, TV and films and people are taking it as gospel. That's scary. (Example: By conjuring up images of WWII, and by repeating it over and over, over a period of months, The Sun (UK tabloid owned by Rupert Murdoch's News International) attempted (and pretty much succeeded) to persuade every one of thier readers that joining the European single currency was a bad idea. The real reason? Murdoch has so many $$ tied up in the US that anything that may weaken UK/US relations also weakens his financial position. It's amazing the number of people who haven't worked this out. And of course, every paragraph on why the euro was evil was followed by a long piece on how the US system was the one to emulate (Funny how it supports the system most friendly to global megacorps....)
Anyway, sorry, I'm ranting again. But think for a second. The global music industry is now effectively 3 companies (Sony, BMG and Universal) - The reason we get 3 different versions of the most successful thing of the time (Britney and Christina - 2 different multinationals)
The computing world is dominated by one company which (hopefully) has now bitten off more than it can chew.
Global book publishing is now owned by but a few companies
kinda reminds me of the swipe at Japan perpetrated by 'Doc' Brown in Back To The Future 2. He slates Japan and Japanese technology in the '50s, and then uses Japanese chips in the Flux Capacitor in 1985.... Seems to me not everyone has a rose-tinted view of the '50s (even in the '80s where Ronnie tried to take you guys back to 1950's values, and Maggie tried to take us back to 1890's values!)
(pedant-proofing: I know BTTF2 was made in 1991/2, but Zemeckis seemed just as (subtly) scathing in the first movie.)
Actually, IIRC, there was a very surreal adventure game, (Wonderland?) based loosely on the novels, I think it was released by Mindscape... I also remember it being an Amiga/PC/ST release, so maybe there's a couple of ADF's floating around out there....
Unfortunately, Disneyfication of world culture leads most people to think that the name of the Disney feature 'Alice In Wonderland' is also the name of the book.....
Btw, A version in the UK has some wonderful surrealist illustrations by Antony Browne (leading children's illustrator/author with a surreal twist)
Briefly on topic - any book written well, with enthusiasm for the subject matter tends to instil enthusiasm in those who read it. I just wish more coding authors realised this....
The Atari of the late '70s and early '80s was cool.
The monstrosity of Atari under the Tramiels was certainly not
I have a feeling that the Hasbro Atari is trading on it's association with pioneering video games, as opposed to the cut-throat money grabbing behemoth of the 80's who held back games development for 6 years with the ST.
Besides, only Tramiel's Atari could make an OS and call it TOS! (A very appropriate name, I feel.)
The Tramiel family owned Atari from 1985 onwards, IIRC. Jack Tramiel ran CBM in the days of the C64, but was forced out for various reasons around 1984/5 He set things up so that by the time he quit CBM, he owned and ran Atari, who actually tried to buy the Amiga. However Tramiel refused to play fair, and CBM steamed in at the 11th hour and bailed Amiga out.
The Amiga still lives mainly because of the attachment of those who use them, not because of Gateway IMHO.
Anyway, I've posted a rant below summing up my feelings on this. Have fun, Tc.
The relevancy of putting a Microsoft bash in the article could be debated heavily, but the truth is that although the Amiga didn't fit in with Gates's plan for all home computers to resemble miniature mainframes (The Amiga was small, fast and comparitively reliable, anathema to DOS and Windoze-heads in the early '90s), I don't believe M$ considered them a real threat due to the fact that their main user base was based in Europe, which, he probably reasoned, could be swung by a heavy advertising campaign from a 'new' product. People from the UK will agree that we were hit by a MONSTROUS ad campaign for Win95 in an attempt to switch us. Adults bought PC's because of the heavy advertising and didn't know any better, and the kids bought them because of DOOM, which didn't have a serious contender on the Amiga for another year. (Although it said a lot for the machine that AB3D, Gloom, Fears and the like ran playably on a CPU less powerful than a 286!). Rumours abound in the Amiga community that Medhi Ali was paid by Gates to wind up CBM, however my BS detector quivers strongly on that one, as I believe that CBM, especially in the US, was a badly mismanaged company whose shareholders wanted to be in bed with Gates and 'the big boys' as they probably saw it. This shows in the fact that Commodore PC clones were, in the public eye at least, given marketing priority over Amigas in the US (source : Eric Schwartz). What the shareholders saw as a 'minority machine' due to the Amiga's notable foothold in Europe as opposed to the US, just simply wasn't generating enough capital for them. This is an aspect of the computer world that I really, really hate. I don't know if or how the Amiga can have a future, or at any rate didn't until I heard of the plan to Open-Source the Amiga OS. This can only be a good thing. Pushing up the spec of computers is also a Good Thing. Filling up these computers with BloatWare that takes up space that could be used better elsewhere is categorically NOT A GOOD THING. That is what keeps the Amiga alive in the minds and hearts of those who used one on a regular basis, because they remember a time when the OS was designed with efficiency and intuitiveness in mind, rather than these pretty, but slow and cumbersome monstrosities that M$ has been churning out for years. Perhaps my nostalgia is dissolving my thoughts into a rant, but the damage that Microsoft did, and continues to do with all it's competitors, simply by using marketing and advertising to convice a sometimes sheep-like public that THERE IS NO REAL ALTERNATIVE TO OUR PRODUCT is very palpable indeed to all who try to pick up the computer baton and run ahead of the game that M$ would like to think it controls. Yes, Commodore had wonderful ways of shooting itself in the foot, even when it had superior product, but the fact that a bunch of Californinan dentists with a couple of million dollars to burn, plus a team of dedicated engineers could steal a jump on Big Blue and M$ in the 80's when they hadn't got to thinking about the home market yet, at least should give us hope. What made the Amiga for me was the fact that it was a computer that a simpleton could at first use, and then grow to understand how it worked at their own pace (Thanks to an inspired OS), and then play arcade quality games on when they got bored. This was the route that really got me into computer-related things, and I have been slightly disillusioned with them ever since the M$/corporate mentality took over circa 1994. Only the Linux way of thinking gives me hope that computers could be more than just another way of getting revenue these days, and the open-sourcing of Amiga OS can only teach the lesson of a well-written OS to a new generation.
+++ RANT MODE OFF +++
Anyway those that really want to know about Amiga, what it did and who was involved, there is a list of them here There are more lists which mention more people, for those who wish to look. The most widely known of former CBM-Amiga engineers, Dave Haynie, occasionally posts here, and can be seen occasionally throughout the 'Net. A list of amiga specs that Haynie rescued from the CBM vaults is here. As for the other engineers, I just hope that they're still being nuts somewhere, and haven't been sucked into the corporate tangle that is the dark side of computing today. Jay Miner, as most Amigans know, tragically died in 1994, after many years of illness, but his mark on the technological world is indelible, and the love he and the other engineers had for their little lump of silicon and PCB is echoed in the fact that the Amiga will never be forgotten by those who used them, and some who still use them today.
Well, please forgive the incoherence, and I hope that I talk a bit of sense to some of you here and there.
.....they're shooting themselves in the foot, because the kids forced to use Windoze will use twice as many expletives when their system goes awry......
McDonald's only scored a partial victory, on the grounds that some of the information on the leaflets was correct (e.g. the deliberate targeting of children in it's advertising campaigns.) The couple who did it are now still actively involved in boycotting the company, and the high regard with which McDonald's held among businesses in the UK was dented considerably. (Which just goes to show, we need more judges who will not accept arrogant corporate bullying tactics as gospel. Kudos to that judge in the UK, and Judge Jackson in the US for this....) With local computer stores, word of mouth is usually enough to stop people going there for large purchases, and as I said, in the case of the place I worked, they did eventually collapse. The real worry would be if larger corporate manufacturers used the same tactics. It tends, however, to only be middle- and high management who think they can get away with this for any length of time. If a large mfr. tried this then a leafleting campaign would work, as long as the facts on the leaflet hold up in court, should things progress that far. As a British politician found out at the weekend, deception can only go so far.
It's up to us to make sure that people like that can't get away with it, and McLibel in the UK, and the M$ anti-trust case proves that it is possible to beat them.
As someone who worked in a computer store as a techie as well as a salesman (much against my better judgement) I can concur that some of those I worked with were completely unscrupulous when it came to these things. However I made a point of being honest when selling machines, because the profit that goes to the company and any commission you get is categorically NOT worth losing your job over. To keep a long story short, the company I worked for folded soon after I left (I hope it wasn't anything to do with me?!), but many people came back to me, and I built them machines as a freelancer for a year before I went to college.. Moral of the story? If you can find a blatant geek at your local PC store, you'd hopefully do well to trust them. Avoid the most obviously shark-like salesmen, and always, if you can, take someone who knows what they're talking about with you, so you don't get blinded by jargon.
I just thought I'd stick up for the honest small retailers (or their even smaller-fry employees) that could be tarred by a broad brush here.
On top of this, I'm from the UK, I don't know if the US system is any different though.....
I agree with the point about users with state-of-the-art machines deserving of extra performance for their spending effort. I also agree that games should be as backwards-compatible as possible, for those without the cash to buy a P3/Athlon/TNT Ultra/Geforce box to get at least a similar experience. However, I don't agree that the power of your machine should figure in your enjoyment of a game. A well-designed game should engender the same feeling and depth no matter what you play it on. (forgive the nostalgia, but...) Didn't Amiga games have a ton of atmosphere, and generally gave the same feeling of depth whether you played on a lowest-common-denominator A500 with 1MB, or a souped-up-to-the-nines A4000? Obviously the gulf in hardware is very different, but the point was is was the game's DESIGN that shone through, and the amount of thought and effort that went into them. A crap game with a fancy gfx engine tagged on is still a crap game, surely?! It's just a shame that corporate ethos (i.e. sales of the game were great, so let's just re-release it with new graphics engine, that way the consumer will think it's a new product worth having!) exerts such a stranglehold on an industry that was once synonymous with original thought and hard work. Nowadays, it seems only the latter exists. OK, that's it, but finally thanx to John C, for at least trying to keep the original spirit alive. ---------------------- "I'm not dumb, I'm just intellectually challenged."
Slashdot Mirror
...at the same time it's an important thing to bear in mind. Yes, misuse of progress in genetic science would be a tragedy... especially if the corporations get hold of it. Imagine a world where you are genetically predisposed to buy product, and forced to be happy living a 9-to-5 existence to pay for it (eeek!)
Having said that, this new technology and research could be used for better purposes, for example, those who have been rendered infertile by illness could theoretically 'have' children through cloning and splicing their genes with their partner. Evolution isn't a nice beast sometimes, but this could allow us to bend the rules somewhat. Having the power to perform miracles shouldn't be discouraged, but to take responsibility for our actions with the must be considered paramount. I just hope those that would abuse it don't get there first.
the right to bear arms, i guess.... my arms are hairy enough.. why would I need bear ones?
the right to free speech... i've NEVER charged anyone to listen to me (Not that they'd want to)
the right to democracy... well, in the US exists the choice between the Republicans, who are like our Conservative party, and the Democrats, who are like our Conservative party.
seriously tho... the post wasn't meant to bait the US, start the flaming or whatever... it was a response to a statement i found *amusing*....commonly known as a *joke*. I like the US, I like Europe, so brothers and sisters of the community, come together! (and let's gang up on China*.....)
* - the government - not the ethnicity. Just thought I'd mention that in case another flame comes my way.....
but now it looks like you're going to elect Bush's son as well... i suppose he's not Pat Buchanan, at least....
I'm just waiting for someone to say that 2/5 Europeans must be crazy, because everyone knows that the US is the sanest country in the world!
n entjihad...stillbelievethatcommunismi ssomethingtobefeared
mumblemumblearmsraces...claimingallmuslimsonperma
I dunno.
I know that things have come on in leaps and bounds in real terms, but only from those that were marketed successfully, as opposed to the best. Note how Intel-based machines have dominance (due to the better marketing campaign - bearing in mind that x86s are all built upon enhanced 8-bit page-flipping architecture), as opposed to, say, Motorola (better design, 32-bit from conception - lousy marketing) (OK - techie-innovation quashing case study over.)
(And now.. my motivation)
It's just sad that kids look at the TV and come away thinking that McDonalds is healthy, or that labelled clothes are somehow better-made, or that they are wothless if they don't have a mobile phone. I'm sorry if I skirt the issue too much for you, it just makes me angry
I'm being as real as I can be. I'm not saying that megacorps haven't done at least some good, but that the bad that they perpetrate (for the most part) far outweighs it.
Everything that was founded in the 1980's and beforehand seems to have come to a head now. Before the great leaders of the western nations decided to 'let go of the reins' of the corporations, we knew there was a clear defining line between what was political, what was ethical, what was moral, and what was financial. Companies and corporations called themselves such, and made no apologies for their behaviour. After all, this was the cut-throat world of business, and you kind of expected it.
Fast-forward to the 1980's, and the free-market boom. All of a sudden, the corporations start swallowing each other whole, and they grow, and mutate, until they are bloated multinationals (Yes, I know there were multinationals before the '80s, but...) or they have become part of the multinationals. By the '90s small businesses depend on partnership or buyout by a multinational as the only method of guranteeing success. Prior to this, multinationals were primarily for basic needs (food, chemicals et al). Now, in the '90s due to continuation of free market policy, multinationals have hit critical mass, hence we face multinationals that deal with everything, from music, to computers, to pretty much anything we have. Everything on my desk is owned/produced by a multinational at some stage. Problem is, the multinationals have the same business-above-all ethic as they have always had, which means standardising, dumbing-down and nipping innovation in the bud (if innovation refuses to be bought).
Everyone is expected to purchase multinational product, and is persuaded by a barrage of advertisements designed to extract money from them, sometimes in the most devious way. (Can anyone put their hand up and with a clear conscience say that advertising directly to children under the age of 10 is a Good Thing(tm)?)
But it's doesn't end with the erosion of people's choice and rights to choose what they eat, drink, listen to or watch. That is a crime in itself. Censorship is a bad thing in a totalitarian state, however, I think that censorship for profit is equally disturbing, if not more so. Companies censor for profit by deluging the public with the 'news' that their product is the ONLY one worth having, and because they have more money than a smaller rival, their product dominates the market, simply because the public are unaware that a choice exists.
What scares me the most, however is the fact that multinationals control the media. Jesus wept, they can actually control what people THINK!! (Bearing in mind most of the world's population will believe what they're told, if you say it loud and brash enough...) Corporations like News International are putting the personal beliefs of their CEO into print, TV and films and people are taking it as gospel. That's scary. (Example: By conjuring up images of WWII, and by repeating it over and over, over a period of months, The Sun (UK tabloid owned by Rupert Murdoch's News International) attempted (and pretty much succeeded) to persuade every one of thier readers that joining the European single currency was a bad idea. The real reason? Murdoch has so many $$ tied up in the US that anything that may weaken UK/US relations also weakens his financial position. It's amazing the number of people who haven't worked this out. And of course, every paragraph on why the euro was evil was followed by a long piece on how the US system was the one to emulate (Funny how it supports the system most friendly to global megacorps....)
Anyway, sorry, I'm ranting again. But think for a second. The global music industry is now effectively 3 companies (Sony, BMG and Universal) - The reason we get 3 different versions of the most successful thing of the time (Britney and Christina - 2 different multinationals)
The computing world is dominated by one company which (hopefully) has now bitten off more than it can chew.
Global book publishing is now owned by but a few companies
Scary, isn't it?
kinda reminds me of the swipe at Japan perpetrated by 'Doc' Brown in Back To The Future 2. He slates Japan and Japanese technology in the '50s, and then uses Japanese chips in the Flux Capacitor in 1985....
Seems to me not everyone has a rose-tinted view of the '50s (even in the '80s where Ronnie tried to take you guys back to 1950's values, and Maggie tried to take us back to 1890's values!)
(pedant-proofing: I know BTTF2 was made in 1991/2, but Zemeckis seemed just as (subtly) scathing in the first movie.)
And let us not forget "I wish Bill Gates was dead" through the English(US) spellchecker
You may want to correct your page, as it lists him as Alan J Perils! Just thought i'd better warn you....
... it's just a shame that so many of the populace require it in the first place....
Actually, IIRC, there was a very surreal adventure game, (Wonderland?) based loosely on the novels, I think it was released by Mindscape... I also remember it being an Amiga/PC/ST release, so maybe there's a couple of ADF's floating around out there....
Unfortunately, Disneyfication of world culture leads most people to think that the name of the Disney feature 'Alice In Wonderland' is also the name of the book.....
Btw, A version in the UK has some wonderful surrealist illustrations by Antony Browne (leading children's illustrator/author with a surreal twist)
Briefly on topic - any book written well, with enthusiasm for the subject matter tends to instil enthusiasm in those who read it. I just wish more coding authors realised this....
Dale Due? or Don L??k could be Dale Luck (co-author of Boing!)
The Atari of the late '70s and early '80s was cool.
The monstrosity of Atari under the Tramiels was certainly not
I have a feeling that the Hasbro Atari is trading on it's association with pioneering video games, as opposed to the cut-throat money grabbing behemoth of the 80's who held back games development for 6 years with the ST.
Besides, only Tramiel's Atari could make an OS and call it TOS! (A very appropriate name, I feel.)
The Tramiel family owned Atari from 1985 onwards, IIRC. Jack Tramiel ran CBM in the days of the C64, but was forced out for various reasons around 1984/5 He set things up so that by the time he quit CBM, he owned and ran Atari, who actually tried to buy the Amiga. However Tramiel refused to play fair, and CBM steamed in at the 11th hour and bailed Amiga out.
The Amiga still lives mainly because of the attachment of those who use them, not because of Gateway IMHO.
Anyway, I've posted a rant below summing up my feelings on this.
Have fun,
Tc.
The relevancy of putting a Microsoft bash in the article could be debated heavily, but the truth is that although the Amiga didn't fit in with Gates's plan for all home computers to resemble miniature mainframes (The Amiga was small, fast and comparitively reliable, anathema to DOS and Windoze-heads in the early '90s), I don't believe M$ considered them a real threat due to the fact that their main user base was based in Europe, which, he probably reasoned, could be swung by a heavy advertising campaign from a 'new' product. People from the UK will agree that we were hit by a MONSTROUS ad campaign for Win95 in an attempt to switch us. Adults bought PC's because of the heavy advertising and didn't know any better, and the kids bought them because of DOOM, which didn't have a serious contender on the Amiga for another year. (Although it said a lot for the machine that AB3D, Gloom, Fears and the like ran playably on a CPU less powerful than a 286!). Rumours abound in the Amiga community that Medhi Ali was paid by Gates to wind up CBM, however my BS detector quivers strongly on that one, as I believe that CBM, especially in the US, was a badly mismanaged company whose shareholders wanted to be in bed with Gates and 'the big boys' as they probably saw it. This shows in the fact that Commodore PC clones were, in the public eye at least, given marketing priority over Amigas in the US (source : Eric Schwartz). What the shareholders saw as a 'minority machine' due to the Amiga's notable foothold in Europe as opposed to the US, just simply wasn't generating enough capital for them. This is an aspect of the computer world that I really, really hate.
I don't know if or how the Amiga can have a future, or at any rate didn't until I heard of the plan to Open-Source the Amiga OS. This can only be a good thing. Pushing up the spec of computers is also a Good Thing. Filling up these computers with BloatWare that takes up space that could be used better elsewhere is categorically NOT A GOOD THING. That is what keeps the Amiga alive in the minds and hearts of those who used one on a regular basis, because they remember a time when the OS was designed with efficiency and intuitiveness in mind, rather than these pretty, but slow and cumbersome monstrosities that M$ has been churning out for years.
Perhaps my nostalgia is dissolving my thoughts into a rant, but the damage that Microsoft did, and continues to do with all it's competitors, simply by using marketing and advertising to convice a sometimes sheep-like public that THERE IS NO REAL ALTERNATIVE TO OUR PRODUCT is very palpable indeed to all who try to pick up the computer baton and run ahead of the game that M$ would like to think it controls.
Yes, Commodore had wonderful ways of shooting itself in the foot, even when it had superior product, but the fact that a bunch of Californinan dentists with a couple of million dollars to burn, plus a team of dedicated engineers could steal a jump on Big Blue and M$ in the 80's when they hadn't got to thinking about the home market yet, at least should give us hope.
What made the Amiga for me was the fact that it was a computer that a simpleton could at first use, and then grow to understand how it worked at their own pace (Thanks to an inspired OS), and then play arcade quality games on when they got bored. This was the route that really got me into computer-related things, and I have been slightly disillusioned with them ever since the M$/corporate mentality took over circa 1994.
Only the Linux way of thinking gives me hope that computers could be more than just another way of getting revenue these days, and the open-sourcing of Amiga OS can only teach the lesson of a well-written OS to a new generation.
+++ RANT MODE OFF +++
Anyway those that really want to know about Amiga, what it did and who was involved, there is a list of them here There are more lists which mention more people, for those who wish to look. The most widely known of former CBM-Amiga engineers, Dave Haynie, occasionally posts here, and can be seen occasionally throughout the 'Net. A list of amiga specs that Haynie rescued from the CBM vaults is here.
As for the other engineers, I just hope that they're still being nuts somewhere, and haven't been sucked into the corporate tangle that is the dark side of computing today. Jay Miner, as most Amigans know, tragically died in 1994, after many years of illness, but his mark on the technological world is indelible, and the love he and the other engineers had for their little lump of silicon and PCB is echoed in the fact that the Amiga will never be forgotten by those who used them, and some who still use them today.
Well, please forgive the incoherence, and I hope that I talk a bit of sense to some of you here and there.
Don't let the b*stards get you down,
Tc.
.....they're shooting themselves in the foot, because the kids forced to use Windoze will use twice as many expletives when their system goes awry......
McDonald's only scored a partial victory, on the grounds that some of the information on the leaflets was correct (e.g. the deliberate targeting of children in it's advertising campaigns.) The couple who did it are now still actively involved in boycotting the company, and the high regard with which McDonald's held among businesses in the UK was dented considerably. (Which just goes to show, we need more judges who will not accept arrogant corporate bullying tactics as gospel. Kudos to that judge in the UK, and Judge Jackson in the US for this....)
With local computer stores, word of mouth is usually enough to stop people going there for large purchases, and as I said, in the case of the place I worked, they did eventually collapse. The real worry would be if larger corporate manufacturers used the same tactics. It tends, however, to only be middle- and high management who think they can get away with this for any length of time. If a large mfr. tried this then a leafleting campaign would work, as long as the facts on the leaflet hold up in court, should things progress that far. As a British politician found out at the weekend, deception can only go so far.
It's up to us to make sure that people like that can't get away with it, and McLibel in the UK, and the M$ anti-trust case proves that it is possible to beat them.
Anyway, my $0.02 have run out so.....
l8rz,
Tc.
As someone who worked in a computer store as a techie as well as a salesman (much against my better judgement) I can concur that some of those I worked with were completely unscrupulous when it came to these things. However I made a point of being honest when selling machines, because the profit that goes to the company and any commission you get is categorically NOT worth losing your job over. To keep a long story short, the company I worked for folded soon after I left (I hope it wasn't anything to do with me?!), but many people came back to me, and I built them machines as a freelancer for a year before I went to college.. Moral of the story? If you can find a blatant geek at your local PC store, you'd hopefully do well to trust them. Avoid the most obviously shark-like salesmen, and always, if you can, take someone who knows what they're talking about with you, so you don't get blinded by jargon.
I just thought I'd stick up for the honest small retailers (or their even smaller-fry employees) that could be tarred by a broad brush here.
On top of this, I'm from the UK, I don't know if the US system is any different though.....
l8rz,
Tc.
I agree with the point about users with state-of-the-art machines deserving of extra performance for their spending effort. I also agree that games should be as backwards-compatible as possible, for those without the cash to buy a P3/Athlon/TNT Ultra/Geforce box to get at least a similar experience. However, I don't agree that the power of your machine should figure in your enjoyment of a game. A well-designed game should engender the same feeling and depth no matter what you play it on. (forgive the nostalgia, but...) Didn't Amiga games have a ton of atmosphere, and generally gave the same feeling of depth whether you played on a lowest-common-denominator A500 with 1MB, or a souped-up-to-the-nines A4000? Obviously the gulf in hardware is very different, but the point was is was the game's DESIGN that shone through, and the amount of thought and effort that went into them. A crap game with a fancy gfx engine tagged on is still a crap game, surely?! It's just a shame that corporate ethos (i.e. sales of the game were great, so let's just re-release it with new graphics engine, that way the consumer will think it's a new product worth having!) exerts such a stranglehold on an industry that was once synonymous with original thought and hard work. Nowadays, it seems only the latter exists. OK, that's it, but finally thanx to John C, for at least trying to keep the original spirit alive.
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"I'm not dumb, I'm just intellectually challenged."