Sure, we know you and your Video Toaster have been gutted over this whole AmigaOS 4 debacle... what's that? You've never heard of
OS 4? You didn't know Amiga was still around? You hadn't heard that Bill McEwan, CEO of Amiga says the company's next OS is going to be "better than OS X?" Well time to perk up those ears, kiddo. In a truly enthralling read, the head of the
defunct hardware-maker / software company says that Amiga is hard at work on a
number of projects, not the least of which is the follow up to company's OS 4 -- which has been mired in development disputes with a company called Hyperion Entertainment since 2001 -- AmigaOS 5. A piece of software guaranteed to surprise and thrill the technology community at large, mostly (we suspect) due to the fact that no one even knew the company was still in business. Sure, some of the detractors say they haven't released a product in seven years, but what's seven years when you've got that pile of platinum that is OS 5?
Exactly.
[Via
Slashdot]
posted October 6th 2007 10:48PM
3 things you never ever discuss with people
1. religion
2. politics
3. operating sys
It doesn't help his argument much when he has sensor dust covering him up.
Canon called, time to splurge on a self cleaning sensor.
dont fuck with amiga.
its like fucking your father.
What do you expect the man to say?
"Uh yeah, we made this OS right.. so get this.. other operating systems are totally better than it and have lots more users and applications!"
That'll make someone want to buy it. ;)
I hear Bill Gates thinks Windows is better than OSX too..
Still got my Amiga 1000, running Workbench 1.2 nice 'n' strong. Scorched Tanks and Megaball FTW =)
I really need to check out this new OS when it comes out, though. The Amiga is a childhood treasure for me, and I'm ready to be thrilled once again.
I always liked the Amiga OS was put together, simply to program, nice easy to use GUI etc.
Best of luck to them, hoepfully it'll run on my 4000/40 albeit a tad slow.
Where can I get me one of those Sonic 3 bonus level balls?
LOL. Maybe you're kidding, but if not do a search on "Amiga Boing Demo".
EZ Rider, I suspect apple has a higher chance of avoiding closing up shop (again) than ever, ever overcoming any Windows OS.
Sooner or later, this "revolution" will end. People will realize that yes, there are computers that do the exact same thing as an apple, cost less to purchase, service and upgrade. People are already getting pissed about the iphone and the new ipods.
Being "cool" is not cheap and is saddled with diminishing returns.
I'll take utility, ubiquity and net present value over looking "cool" or trying to stand out any day.
I seriously doubt Apple will come even close to closing shop again, have you stopped and looked at their stock they are worth 1/2 of microsoft, with Apples market cap being 140.40 billion and microsofts being 280.55 biliion. They have just about as much of a chance of closing up then pepsi or sony or dell who are both worth 3x less then Apple. Dream on, whether you'd like to believe it or not, Apple is going somewhere microsoft is dry they have a P/E of 20 which is low for a technology company, it means there are no expectations for them, what you see is what you get; a big old lumbering company with no spark of life whereas Apple with a P/E of 45 shows high expectations. Apple is the next Microsoft. Its out with the old and in with the new (although apple is actually older then microsoft :-)
In related news, the OS/2 Warp development team will have the new version (featuring an IPv6 stack) within the year...
I like how all the Mac OS X bashers came and flooded the comments, having nothing to do with the article...
If any company can pull this off (aside from MS or Apple), it would have to be this one. I remember back in the days an Amiga computer can run a Microsoft program, Apple program, and Commodore program all at the same time. I wonder what kind of chips they will be using now? PowerPC?
As a long-time Amiga user (every model Commodore ever released except the original A1000), all I have to say is "yawn" - seriously, why not let a great platform rest in piece? It was great for its time but C= wasn't willing to re-invest the capital needed in R&D to move the platform forward and in the past 13 years none of the IP owners have done anything worth a damn.
Let the platform shine in the history books but let's put the effort in advancing technologies where they can be used and exploited in a meaningful fashion, not in some reminiscent wet dream of years gone by. As a die-hard Amiga-fanatic turned Windows Guru, MaC OS X is where it's at right now. That's not going to change with any second rate Workbench or Kickstart 5 release.
Speedball, Cadaver and MUDS - All-time greats. :)
I love these OS debates. Which is better? Mine is better than yours.
I have over 100 applications running on my machines, games, music editing, video editing, graphics, utilties, productivity, development tools, etc. Guess which OS runs all of them?
I hope the Amiga OS 5 is cool. I wonder what it runs on? I have an old LED calculator from the 1980's laying around, perhaps it will run on that?
- Roger
Props to Amiga, but gimmee a damn break. Let it go, guys. Seriously, we DO NOT need another proprietary OS out there. If anything, we need LESS.
Why not build a killer Linux distribution??
I'm gonna give him the benefit of the doubt since he says he'll be announcing the details of the new OS (and selling it) before the end of 2008.
But right now, all he has is this checkerboard ball. I'm sick of the ball. On his site there at least 5 copies of the ball on each page, in various artistic interpretations. Transparent checkerboard ball, opaque checkerboard ball. Matte ball, shiny ball. Ball and a dolphin. Ball and marbles.
So, we get it, Amiga's got the balls. They challenge OSX. Now what remains is the harest part: deliver up to their promises.
Actually, there was plenty of sarcasm there, as noted by "...I might blow it again..." I actually have no plans to blow it again. After posting my comment, I looked at Amiga.com (for the first time ever), the graphics on the amateurish-looking website appear to be stuck in the late 80s -- not very impressive. I found an interesting History Of Amiga site, and man, that company has been so dysfunctional and changed owners so many times, I can't imagine wanting to take much of a chance and buy anything significant from Amiga. And the linked interview did not give much confidence this OS X killer will actually be released. And, common sense tells you the current Amiga, with its small band of programmers in India, just doesn't have the time or manpower to create something that can top what a major player has developed over many incarnations. But don't get me wrong, I'd be happy to be proven wrong and see exciting stuff from a company that, yes, I'm nostalgic for.
Return Amiga to its former glory! Maybe they can make an aphone that is actually unlocked also!!
Better than OS X, hmm?
If AmigaOS 5 can't...:
1. Blend
2. Play Doom
...I am not interested.
Engadget
Oct 6th 2007 7:43PM More importantly, will it play Doom while blending?
\Animated WiFi detector shirt keeps you single with signal
Engadget
Oct 6th 2007 4:37PM *wait for it*
*
*
*
But, will it blend while playing Doom?
Zune 2 leaks out in three flavors
Engadget
Oct 1st 2007 8:38PM More importantly, can it play Doom while blending?
IronKey rolls out special edition "military-grade" flash drive
Engadget
Sep 21st 2007 3:43PM I want to see this thing meet a blender
Motorola day: Verizon gets Q9m, Sprint gets V9m
Engadget
Aug 22nd 2007 4:28AM The real question is, which one blends better?
In before "those Doom/blending comments are stupid!"
Apple's gigabit / non-gigabit AirPort Extreme base stations compared
Engadget
Aug 20th 2007 1:38AM I wonder which one blends/runs Doom better...
Nikon D3 teaser ad leaked?
Engadget
Aug 19th 2007 8:12PM Yes, but will the rumor blend?
Canon rolls out CF-1 digital retinal camera
Engadget
Aug 17th 2007 4:36PM Remember that one episode of Will It Blend? where a Sony Handycam was blended?
They should try that again but with this retinal camera.
POINT IS: SHUT UP ALREADY
k
Mac's are awesome if all you want to do on your computer is go to myspace/facebook or type up a simple text document.
Otherwise they suck more than Paris Hilton.
Sir, that's the most balanced and well argumented position I've seen about why we should avoid Mac. Thank you!
Please let me know what I should switch to and I shall do so immediately!
Hmmm, then why does every competent graphic artist, commercial printer, and a very large segment of video production studios opt to use the Mac format? With your ignorant statements, some of you Mac Haters actually make Mac Fanboys look genius. Go ahead and say you prefer Windows and list some valid reasons (of which there are plenty) and I won't think you're an idiot.
BTW, I sure enjoy OS X, which (regardless of reason) has never forced me to endure a single incident of malware. For this reason alone, I feel sorry for computer novices who opt to buy a Windows machine.
LOL he said nothing about Windows you retard.
My 2 cents about Apple market share increase : I think it is able to increase a lot in the future just because for now, a lot of people does think that the only computers are PC+Windows. I know a lot who did buy PC+Windows because of this. When I tell them about Macs, they say "oh too bad, but too late now".
When going to supermarkets, people do not see Apple computers at all. Only FNAC and Darty sell Macs, so nearly nothing. A vendor told me the reason is just commercial.
I love Amiga, but this guy is just delusional.
Rights to name Amiga Inc. have been bought, stolen, transferred, licensed so many times to so many incompetent people that now there's nothing left except debts and pile of empty promises.
There's no hardware, current AmigaOS is delayed 7 years and still in unstable beta. So the next version will probably be better than OS X 10.0.0 long after Apple runs out of cats and dogs for their codenames.
I love Amiga, but this guy is just delusional.
Rights to name Amiga Inc. have been bought, stolen, transferred, licensed so many times to so many incompetent people that now there's nothing left except debts and pile of empty promises.
There's no hardware, current AmigaOS is delayed 7 years and still in unstable beta. So the next version will probably be better than OS X 10.0.0 long after Apple runs out of cats and dogs for their codenames.
I for one, welcGuru Meditation Error #00000031.0000AAC0
Interesting..
Also coming in 2007/2008:
* Texas Instruments climbs back in the saddle with the TI-99/4B. The new version of the modular "sidecar" add-on capabilities doesn't make you expand to the right, off the edge of your desk like the old model. Now they build upward and slightly to the back!
* Timex has finally updated the Timex Sinclair computer with the new Timex-Sinclair 3000.
* Radio Shack is back on the block with the TRS-80 Color Computer's new iteration: The TRS-100 I Color Computer! Now CoCo fans won't have to milk 2MB of RAM anymore!
* Coleco, feeling bad that their ADAM computer never got the chance it deserved, is building an add-on computer for the Nintendo Wii, and they're calling it the Coleco EVE. They expect to release a printer for it in 2018.
* Miss the IBM PCjr? Well, there's good news for you! Dell, Alienware, HP have joined forces with AMD and Intel to make the NEW AMD/Intel PCjr II. Now you can experience the glory of half-assed versions of all your favorite functions, and look! It comes complete with cartridge slots and joystick ports, and SVGA graphics! (That's Supreme Video Grade Array... Not that other one, by the way.)
* Miss the good old Atari days? Miss them no longer with the impending release of the Atari 7000-ST. It may only do 640x640, but it's got the support of Atari, and that's a name you can trust, right? Right? Anybody?
Disclaimer- None of these products are actually confirmed, or even a good idea. No guarantees are made as to the existence of any of these items.
Amiga made a product ten years supperior to anything that ran an MS or Apple operating system once. They had one of the cleanest, most organized and well thought out programming models and API at the time despite having a significantly more complex underlying system. They had the first consumer true real time multi tasking OS back when the command prompt was bitchin' and the Steve was getting ready to alienate all of his Lisa devs; Microsoft didn't achieve that until Windows 95 and Apple didn't until OS X. From a design perspective Amiga was lightyears ahead, but they lacked that crucial little thing called a well orchestrated business plan (in a large part Commodore killed them).
If there still are the same seeds of innovation at the resurrected company, they might very well produce another technical marvel, something that trounces both Vista and OS X from a technical standpoint. It wouldn't be the first time they leapfrogged over Microsoft and Apple. However that won't matter if they haven't gotten their business stategy together, and that is honestly their biggest hurdle. How do they get application support? How do they get on people's computers? Apple is a smart opponent, and they have only recently breached the 3% market share globaly (domestically that number is upwards of 5.5%), and only then the increase didn't really start happening until the release of bootcamp (several people may call coincidence here, but I know far more people running Vista on their Macbook pros than OS X, though to be fair, my sample population for this observation is probably not indicative of the greater Mac population).
As a code geek, I look forward to tinkering with their OS and seeing what clever design decisions are made. I fully expect that there will be features of it that are far and away better than the big two competitors. I also expect that I will never seriously use it to get anything done, because I am a bit pessimistic about their chances. BeOS was much better than OS 9, and it actually had some App support, but it didn't amount to anything either. Technology doesn't win the market alone (though to cut off any comments about MS here, notice that they had a multi-tasking OS 5 years before Apple, even if it was 10 years after Amiga).
Do NOT diss the Video Toaster :P
They put food on the table for hundreds of workers who manufactured video heads for 3/4" machines!
(The Toaster could only render one frame at a time... You had to edit them on to tape frame by frame. This killed heads remarkably quickly :P )
Erm, Amiga is still going? Jesbus!!!
"I just bought a 300 MHz Pentium II PC, and I can say that I have finally found a machine that I can replace my Amiga with..."
(Carl Sassenrath, CTO of REBOL, 15 years after the death of the 7.16 Mhz Amiga)
trolls
LMFAO!!!! Now they are just beating the dirt where a horse died a decade ago.
The Amiga had (past tense) 2 things that made it worth while. It could multitask in 512K, and output video at the same frequency as NTSC.
Everything but Palm can multitask, and NTSC is about a year and half away from being obsolete.
Compiz/Beryl runs circles around OS X for graphic whiz bang, and it still hasn't made a dent in the OS war. Why? NO FRIGGIN' APPLICATIONS!!!!!
Unless Amiga makes a partnership deal with Adobe, I don't think they will make a fart's worth of noise in Jovian storm system.
What is kind of funny, ironic, sad... is that we see this product which is centered around durability and efficient power usage as necessary only for the third world. So, the message seems to be that some day they too will have enough wealth to waste resources (of any kind) wantonly. Hahahaha... and then icing on the cake is that we view this as educating them... While it is entirely clear that we need some educating ourselves.
Actually, it's products like this which really point out how unimaginative and unfulfilling the western free market is in terms of the products it delivers. Not that I have a better way mind you.
Of course outside all of that... this XO laptop is a great idea I think and a breakthrough product it its own right. I'd like to have one. Even more so, I would like to have some of its features in my next fully blown laptop.
re: what's being learned that couldn't be with paper/pen? An entire paradigm and relationship with both technology and community cooperations is potentially learned. Perhaps the naysayers are right and it will be meaningless. But we won't know until it is tried. There objection that the money should be put to more traditional charity uses falls somewhat flat in that those approaches have been tried for decades with little to show, in the way of bootstrapping these societies, for the effort in most cases. Not that those efforts should be abandoned by any means.
re: the business model. I think the idea put forward above that cheaper sales in western countries of individual machines might do better in the long run is an interesting one.
re: getting into kids hands. I worry that these things, even being cheap for what they are, will have too much value to make it to where they are being sent in many cases. And like the corruption and theft of books and such mentioned above.... many of these things will go to those that already have power and wealth in those areas.
I bet many more than the original 25,000 available to the west will show up on e-bay (or someplace) at some point.
I hope not... but I think it will be a problem.
- m
oops.... posted to the wrong tab... hahaha.... well, it turns out sometimes I'm a dumbass ...hahhah
Sorry..
- Mike
Actually my OS is better than Amiga 5, OS X, all flavors of linux and Windows.
Yeah, I remember the Amiga fanboys back in the day saying that the Amiga was better than any other OS. After all, they did Babylon 5 on a Toaster! Well heck, Amiga OS 5, and Baylon 5 in is heritage? There's some kind of convergence, right?
I just remember a coworker showing me the Amiga at work and thinking, "Man, the graphics on this thing is cruder than Windows NT or OS/2 (both of which I was running at the time.) Let alone the Mac. He just couldn't get around the fact that engineers cannot design worth diddly. The Amiga OS was a tour de force in terms of the graphics processing performance the thing had. To do a show like Babylon 5 on such underpowered computers (compared to what they do at Pixar now with buildings full of rendering machines 14 years later) is a major feather in their hat. But that doesn't mean the OS wasn't butt-ugly. :-D
Keep in mind that Amiga Inc. today is basically a one-man company that hasn't had a product in active development for years and has none of the people from Commodore who really worked on the Amiga - all of them have moved on and it's doubtful Amiga Inc. could get them anyway. Amiga Inc. is a company which has defaulted on debts and attempted to swindle at least one small town in Washington (goodle Kent Amiga Center). There literally are no developers at Amiga Inc. The only hope they have of a product is the hideously late, underpowered and hardware-less OS4 which was written by a handful of unpaid contractors by a shell company in Belgium called Hyperion, which Amiga Inc. is currently suing for ownership of that OS.
It's disgraceful that the name Amiga is now owned by a company run by a loser like Bill McEwen, and even that ownership is in jeopardy thanks to the aforementioned lawsuit! McEwen is a chronic liar as proven by his past history. There's really nothing to these announcements. It may be related to the ongoing lawsuit against Hyperion or a lame attempt to drum up some positive press, or maybe just McEwen's pathetic need for attention.
Of course you did not know the company was still in business... NONE of the companies that produced Amiga computers is in business any longer!
Engadget should have filed this under its "Keepin' it real fake" articles.
Bill McEwen's "Amiga" company, incorporated in Delaware in 2003, does not even have access to the source code of the (old) Amiga OS. It has no patents, no copyrights, and, as of today, still no trademarks, in spite of having been trying to transfer some trademarks to their company for several years, and filing for new trademarks in 2006.
All this new Delaware company has is the amiga.com domain, and for this it has to thank Amiga user Alan Rateliff who spent $15 in 2001 to renew the domain, trusting it to be in good hands with Bill McEwen. Now these $15 are worth almost $100 million on paper to the likes of Prokom, Tapul, and other companies I am sure you never heard of before. All very shady if you ask me, and I hope the SEC and the FBI will be investigating this, if they are not already.
I personally think its all very sad. I was the biggest advocate of Amiga, even til the late 90s, remember the hope when Escom bought it, then when Gateway made all the promises.
As far as I know, the Amiga dream died the day Jim Collas was fired and Gateway closed down the Amiga wing of the company. Rumours were rife at the time, this was because of a married Collas sleeping with a girl from Annex (who recorded the dreadful Amiga song at the time) and being busted snorting coke, weather or not it's true, who knows, but he did leave under cloak and dagger.
Since then Amiga has been snapped up by bedroom operators, and people running from tiny offices in trading estates. Loads of promises, but no big weight behind them. They had hope with Commodore, Escom and Gateway, all huge global companies. Now they're just a joke sadly. This will never materialise, hell, even on Amiga.org (the site for Amiga discussion) no one is bothered about this, as we've all heard the lies before for the last 15 years, we're bored of it.
The Amiga and it's OS were sheer genius. Brilliantly designed in both hardware and software. While hardware has strode forth in leaps and bounds, The current dominant Operating System does little more than what the 1985 Amiga did. Except the Amiga did it in 512k with a 7Mhz processor.
Damn Bill to Hell for locking in such a low denominator as Windows. Computers would be so much more advanced by now if it wasn't for the harm his greed achieved. He was never more than a nasty manipulative little Dork, riding the waves of hardware advancement, while pretending to be a geek.
Think about all those zombie systems out there that are hard at work churning out all those spam emails we just love to get, and then consider what Operating Systems they're running
Windows - 100%
Linux - 0%
OS X - 0%
Now that's a market share that Microsoft should be ashamed of
Nuff said