Amiga - What next?

Never in the many years of using an Amiga and being an Amiga user and chatting to many in the community, have I seen what's left of the Amiga community (all 3,000) of us (rough guess) at such a low point.

The release of OS4 final should have heralded a renaissance for the Amiga platform but instead the opposite appears to have taken place and disillusionment seems have taken hold throughout the Amiga universe.

As users we can take a lot of credit for actually keeping what is left of this once great community ticking for as long as we have. We are in debt to some fantastic individuals and one man businesses, who have kept us going for so long, the IBrowse team, Airsoft, Jahc, Bean, and too many others to mention.

That being said however we are very much a rudderless ship due to lack of leadership from above. Not since the days of Jim Collas and the fledgling Amiga division under Gateway, have we had so much of a sniff of a vision, or possible money to back that vision.
When Jim Collas was at the helm, things felt like the Amiga platform once more had a direction and hope, not seen since the early days of the Amiga, when it?s creator, Jay Miner and the rest of the original Amiga team created what possibly was the best Operating System ever.

However, Gateway kicked out Jim Collas and closed down their fledgling Amiga divison. All was not lost, because shortly after, former Gateway employees, Bill McEwen and Fleecy Moss somehow manged to cobble together enough money to buy out/License the required technology from Gateway to create yet another Amiga inc.

How we rejoiced back in those days, hope once more sprung eternal and we all thought that with the announcement of new hardware via Eyetech, and the Licensing of the OS to Hyperion Entertainment, that maybe, just maybe, things would finally take a turn for the better.

Fast forward 3-4 years and we are left with a rather depressing if not, sadly familiar, story.

True, we have a new Operating System, Amiga OS4, PPC, fast, lean, very nice and although, it still needs some bugs ironed out and some essential features still to be added. Its many times better than its OS3.9 predecessor.

Sadly, if not frustratingly, the vast majority of Amiga die hards find themselves with no hardware of any sort to run the latest evolution of Amiga OS.
Worse still, for those of us who were fortunate enough to somehow get Amiga PPC hardware to run Amiga OS4, we now find ourselves saying ?Where now??

Its all very nice having a nice OS4 PPC capable computer to use. But in all honesty what next? Where?s the next Amiga Game, Application, or Utility Release coming from? They are not exactly falling off the shelves at Amiga dealers (which you can now count on one hand ? Worldwide).

That?s not to belittle the likes of the people behind IBrowse , Hollywood, Audio Evolution, Wookiechat, Tunenet, DV player, on the contrary they are doing a remarkable effort. But to paraphrase Winston Churchill, never have so few done so much for so few?
When Jim Collas/Gateway were on the scene it would probably have been safe to assume that the Amiga community stood at around 20,000 to 50,000 users worldwide. Small, but probably just about enough to gain momentum had new hardware materialised there and then or shortly thereafter. Sadly, it didn't

Looking at the Amiga scene now and not just at this site, If we were to say that the total amount of Amiga users is no more than 3,000 worldwide - max, we would not be a million miles out.

So, who is to blame for this sad decline? Well, many would say that the fault lies at with the man at the top Bill McEwen. But that would be a bit unfair to say it all lies with him? there are other factors and other individuals as well.
The split between AOS and MOS was and remains very damaging and continues to kill if not hasten the departure of users on a daily if not, weekly basis.
Mistakes in the past such as the Eyetech not being able to buy enough boards at the right price and in sufficient quantities to re-ignite the brand was no help either.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing and one shouldn?t be too disparaging of Amiga inc, they decided to concentrate on their AmigaDE product, because they thought that this may be the sure fire way to bring in the bacon that would allow them to re-launch the Amiga platform. Unfortunately, this strategy didn?t work out and sadly their strategy of licensing the OS and the hardware to third parties whilst at the time was the only option, meant that effectively the Amiga platform had no clear direction. Amiga inc took their eye off the ball. And it seems to have proved to be very damaging if not fatal.
The fact that Amiga inc has undergone more buy outs than MFI in the last 15 years and with who knows how many more still to come.
first it was Jim Collas, then Bill McEwen and Fleecy, next it was Garry Hare, then just Bill McEwen again. (Anyone know where Fleecy got to?)

What we have now it seems is that Amiga inc and Hyperion are locked in a legal dispute of some sort over the OS. Until this is sorted there is nothing, we, the users can do. Apart that is from voting with our feet, or cash as seems to be the case and leaving the platform altogether.

?It was the worse of times, it was the worse of times?

Of course, I know I am preaching to the converted, many of you already know what I am saying and have heard it many times before. But just trawling through the various Amiga sites of late, things, have never been worse.

A lot of people are pinning their hopes on the month of April and the expected announcement of new, affordable Amiga PPC hardware.
Hardware, which had better be available soon and running Amiga OS4, if not, I fear that before long, we?ll be down to a couple of hundred diehard Amigans throughout the world.

Amiga inc, Hyperion, ACube, Troika and the office pet should pull their fingers/paws out soon, because if not, there will be nothing left for them to argue over.

I am not trying to be depressive, I am hoping that this piece will serve as a reminder to the powers that be that time is indeed running out, if they don't act soon, then all I can say is..

Will the last Amiga user left please turn off the lights?

Mikey C

@Mikey_C

I totally agree with you... is there anyone out there ??

@Mikey_C

Quote:

No i won't.

@Ami603

I refuse to give up yet,
Its hard when you look at times of past but I will be here to the end.
My love for the OS is just too strong, still a sad situation we are facing.

@All

I refuse to give up too.. Now the we have a good operating system.. but what Mikey_C is saying is true..

Who is leading amiga market ? and WHERE ??..

In Italy there is ACube Systems who is working hard to make hardware a reality ( on Pianeta Amiga we italian users saw a prototype ), but it cannot do ALL LONELY..

I really like that someone can tell us something..

Come one ! What are all these secrets ??

We are not at AREA 51 ....

You cannot continue saying " when it's done ".., at who will say " when it's done " when out there there will be nobody ??...

People continue leaving amiga scene.. time is passying by...

@all

I hope that the more of you post in reply to my article, the more the powers that be, will realise that what I am saying is not just my view, but the view of everyone of us. We are their potential customers and their potential "sales/evangelist" people.

They really ought to start listening to us.
- Before its too late.

@Mikey_C

If I should leave from this platform that will be very expensive for me.
Hundreads and hundreads hours of psychiatrist therapy will be necessary to remove that five letter word from my mind.

@lazi
Quote:
Maybe a simple lobotomy would be a much cheaper and faster solution for you

@AmiKit
Quote:
I already tried that. Now I can't turn left but nothing else has changed.

@Mikey_C

Quote:

Their original announcement about AmigaDE made me decide that the Amiga was truly gone. I wasn't interested in that product and my understanding is, most Amiga users weren't either. When they announced that they would continue AmigaOS after all, I was interested again.

One thing I'm wondering, does A Inc. even read these forums? They give a very good idea of what their potential customers want. So far, they have failed to deliver. Sure, I have OS4, but others are still waiting, and giving up and walking away.

Hans

@Mikey_C

I think that Amiga would need a high-profile release with a sizeable marketing budget to expand the userbase enough. They'd also need to offer something that other platforms don't have or that is significantly better. A modern browser would also be very helpful. Nostalgia is not enough. It's got to be about computing being fun.

Hans

@Mikey_C

I fear it may already be to late and the next few months will take its toll
be lucky to have a 1000 users left seems ill be throwing the switch

but no bugger it im not gona let anyone turn off the lights Amiga will live for ever while im alive

@Mikey_C

Admitting that we all contributed our share to the misery and that it's self-inflicted is the first step. Not only companies, protagonists and wanna-bes of all kinds have failed, this applies to users and developers alike. At some point in the Amiga past we all either came up with a stupid idea that was poorly executed or we fell for a stupid idea that was poorly executed.

Phase5's PPC/PowerUp was probably the most stupid HW/SW combination ever conceived, but it fell into a directionless vacuum and was adopted by people who were eagerly awaiting direction. Hardly understood by its customers and lacking everything ranging from an OS to compilers and a 68k emulator, it made inroads into the marketplace and paved the way for all kinds of fragmentation. This together with the compiler and RTG splits is when the cracks in the community set in. To their defense, Phase5 had a legitimate interest in selling products; it's not their fault that their incomplete design was adopted, and the same can be said about the fiascos to follow.

I didn't fall for the PPC stupidity. I was watching the Amiga community falling apart and stopped adopting new hardware and developing software. But, being entirely human, I'm not exempt from stupidity; Hoping for a new concept, I followed a few years later Amiga Inc. by buying their SDK and developing for DE. But contrary to what they promised, focusing on the DE, they turned by 180 degrees and started supporting the classic OS again! I think that Amiga Inc. had to turn into a letterbox affair since this inconsistence has caught the eyes of their investors.

Some of my fellow Amigans followed the Pegasos, others next to me started using emulators, but in the end we all were followers, minions, and frivolously giving up which once summed up the Amiga quite nicely: Unity. Now I think that's just the natural way how cultures degenerate in secession wars when leaders which they accommodated to die all of a sudden. The only reasonable conclusion is: Do not accommodate to leaders!

I don't like letting a lengthy post end in indifference and fatalism, so what next? I suggest that we put aside all the crap of the past, ranging from PPC cards, Pegasoses, emulators, AmigaOnes, DE and the like and start thinking on our own terms. Perhaps the next Amiga is the one that we may build in unity again, without leaders? I can't say that AROS "is it", I was personally thinking of something more like an open-source incarnation of the DE, but I would agree to different models as well, including OS4. But then we would have to seize the OS, steal it, rename it, open source it, whatever... it's not a viable path if it denies me control as a user and developer.

As this is all very unlikely to happen, I can assure you that I'll stay here with you to turn off the lights.

@@Mikey_C

The Amiga situation is exactly the same of 2-3 years ago, so I don't understand why you think to give up.

Maybe I can said better, we have 3 good operative system in our hands ...

So my opinion is: enjoy your system and don't think more about this situation, expecially if you don't have the key to solve this situation (say a lot of million dollars )

xp pro doesn't have a ram disk.

The Mozilla Firefox pro clock for my timezone is one hour ahead and they've known about it since Nov. 2006. (It's 384 K in size, while many other add ons are merely 4K, I don't get it.)

When I'm in full page mode in Firefox (I downloaded a plugin that shows absolutely the whole page when you hit "F11") the page flickers (between the upper and lower browser information appearing and disappearing) if the page is wider than what your screen can display when you go to the bottom to slide it left or right.

I could go on and on and on.....



They say the grass is greener on the other side. HAH!

All of us has some guilty in the last years. First of all the war between MOS and AOS user's side.
From the software side we should understand tha if we want to put extrnal users to our platform we must use the Open Source. Is the only solution. I'm saying this thing since a lot of time..

On the hw side well.. the story is well known.. But i assure you that if also our "heroes" sometimes will use a little good sense we could have hw also TODAY...

Remember my message...

@Mikey_C


[Shock]

What... You lot still here ?

[/Shock]

@Mikey_C

Just because we're not taking over the world doesnt mean we cant enjoy using our machines. Think about it. MPlayer plays most video formats, we've got Tunenet for internet radio and general audio playback, tons of emulators for old gaming (sega, nintendo, arcade, commdore), some basic but good internet software like SimpleMail, YAM, AmiTradeCenter, SAMBA,and my own WookieChat, music creation software like Bars'n Pipes, Horny, Audio Evolution, HDREC.. etc etc!

It's not the end of the world guys. :)

@jahc

Its good to see you have the enthusiasm left, wish we could bottle it and give it to everyone else.

As you can see from some of the comments on here, some people are very near the brink of quitting the scene altogether. Its maybe not so noticable here, but if you look on other sites, or chat on IRC or as I do, run a usergroup, you'd notice that this is pretty much make or break. I know so many people who are just waiting for the April announcement. If its not what is expected, there will be a lot of prominent Classic Amiga users going elswhere.

@Mikey_C

I purchased my first Amiga in Nov.1985.Since then I also have a 500,3000,4000 and a 4000T.I still have them and they work.I never hooked any to DSL and therefore not on the internet with them.
Didn't pick up an AmigaOne,that was my loss,wanted a better speced Amiga.Just hanging in for my final year.We need to have hardware soon,I want OS4 running on a modern Amiga before I go off to the recycle bin.Lets all say a prayer to the power above for delivery of the New Amigas.
Thanks for listening to this old timer who will always love the thrill and fun the Amiga represented in its various versions.
Flipper frrom Alaska.