Quickly, before I go back to tweaking Barry Altman's nose, the IP in question may not even be Bill McEwen's to reassign. That question has never faced a legal challenge as there was no one else left to challenge it. There is plenty of evidence that indicates that Amiga Inc. owns NOTHING.

[ Edited by Jim on 2010/9/2 3:02 ]

Wow!
What a decent mail from Barry...
Friendly words and lots of "facts" ....
Good base for a reasonable discussion, indeed...hehehe...
Well, also seems to me that C= has nothing much to offer or has even been cheated by Bill the Evil.
Realizing that and realizing that the scene is not to bee cheated so easily, Barry gets frustrated and slightly irritated, so his ball-mail proves.
If there was something straight behind the project he wouldn?t even have reacted.
Well, barking dogs don?t bite...(or in this case can?t bite)...

@Jim

Wow.. your balls must be amazing. Care to share pictures of them? :)

Finally we have some popcorn-entertainment.. it's been a looong loong time without heh

Well, while the response was kind of pathetic the question is why did you bother to mail him in 1st place? Who cares about "Commodore" or "Amiga"? Amiga went under somewhen in the 90ies.

I would suggest that we all leave the ranting and raving about Commodore USA & Amiga Inc. over on the other websites that care more about what name is printed on the front of their computer than they care about how well it runs the programs they want/need to use.

It is entertaining to read some of the histrionics that are being displayed on other sites, but we don't really need them here too. I would like to think that we are past the point of caring what Amiga Inc. does, or does not do, as IMHO they have always been irrelevant in regards to the existing Amiga community.

Thanks, you all have valid points and I'll step back from this after I talk with Barry later today (and don't worry, I'm not likely to be drawn to the "dark side").

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Very well put Sir, I 100% agree!

Over and out!

takemehomegrandma wrote:

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Do you really believe they are tring to make a crapload of money off of the X1000? I can think of a million better ways to make money. If I wanted to really PROFIT I would certainly not choose the Amiga market as my number one choice.

Trevor (head of A-EON) is an Amiga user and owns pretty much every machine under the sun, including MorphOS machines, and has a clear love for the Amiga, going way back to the Amiga 1000.

I think the motivation is not really about money but trying to advance the Amiga platform.

And yes, it's an insane price. When you produce in low volumes a high-spec PPC board like this, of course it's going to be expensive. Producing ANY product in low volumes has a higher per unit price. When you start to mass-produce you see the savings.

This has been the case on every piece of "new" amiga hardware since Commodore died. I find it crazy that people still don't get that. Low volume = high price.

By the way, this high price (including Pegasos-2 which cost me over $1000 - same price as my MicroA1) was one of the reasons why the MorphOS team has moved to cheap second hand PPC macs.

Well new Amiga hardware may be a moot point as it appears that Altman's serious. So whether they like it or not, those who cling to the Amiga name are likely to get X86 boxes in their future.

As Zylesea has stated, why bother with it? It's not an issue for our community and if Altman can make some money out of it he's doing better than McEwen.

Jim'my let me ask: how is ur balls? :D

Apparently the balls can take some abuse. Its a new fact of life (at least in the US) that when you question someone they go on the offensive.

So for jumping into something that doesn't really concern me, my sack gets used as a punching bag. No big deal.

Jim, that e-mail from Altman was an amusing read. At least, it showed the man has an unprecedent amount of energy to spend on... well... nothing. It really looks as if writing that e-mail was the last thing he did, just before his head exploded like a supernova.
But he is right in one detail: Why did you hide behind an alias, not showing your real identity? At least you are "Jim" over here. Talking about your identity here, I think your avatar holds a flamethrower? Could it be that you used it in your first e-mail to Altman?

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Yes but, like you say, Trevor IS a very long time Amiga fan. And thus, he SHOULD have devised a realistic plan, not this ye again, once more, "superpower computer" scheme that noone believes, not is able to buy.

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Then, grab some money from credible investors, go to bPlan, have them desing a REALISTIC computer for you, and insist in making them solder down one of those rare Transputer things, to have that "unique" spec no one else has.

As for the operating system, why not MorphOS? That team really does have a good track record. The Pegasos DID EXIST and was SOLD, and was born with MorphOS. After that, the Efika came. It's true it took a very long time to port MorphOS, but I think there were also hardware problems that delayed it (see that "B" letter in the CPU name).

Heck, it was done ten years ago! It was called Thendic, now Genesi (hunting more boring opportunities now).

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Of course, we all know that! What chokes on people is not that low volume means a high price, is the fact of picking this disadvantage as the starting point for a new market. It's insane. Computers are expected to be almost free today. The same goes for software. Check the amount of things you can do with a five hundred dollar regular computer today. There's no way you can compete with that, ever. Instead, they pick an elitist scheme that looks, smells and walks like a profiteering strategy.

@Jim

If you are going to post a private email, you should at least post what you sent him first so we can all see what he responded to. I'm not saying he should have replied the way he did, I'm just saying that context is everything.

By your own admission, you have a fixed view, so why did you bother to email him ? Were you trolling him ?

His company can't be making much money if he is wasting time replying to someone he believes will never be a customer.

I think it's all crap... on the other hand: Weren't we all silently hoping for some events like this ? Otherwise it's way to boring on Amigaworld.net and the likes.

Back to get out the popcorn.
Yes, I freely admit that my message to him was pretty unpleasant. I make no excuses for my intense dislike of one of his business associates, Bill McEwen (at Amiga Inc.).
And I don't think it had sunken in yet that this development didn't really matter to me. I use Windows, OSX, Linux, and MorphOS, but nothing I use carries an Amiga moniker.
I'm not one of the foolish people that think there's going to be some resurrection from the dead for the Amiga platform. Heck, Amigans can't even agree on what that would be.
Should it be a continuation of the original chipset (a la Natami), a PPC based system (under AOS4 or MorphOS), or a new system using industry standard X86 components?

These issues don't really phase me. I'm using MorphOS, not as much for its Amiga roots, as for the fact that I like the OS on its own merits.

Hell, I'm convinced we have a lot of really intelligent head cases in the Amiga community (some of them I'd even consider friends). But it does make for good theater, doesn't it?

> go to bPlan, have them desing a REALISTIC computer for you, and insist in
> making them solder down one of those rare Transputer things, to have that
> "unique" spec no one else has.

I see no way how bplan could have developed a PA6T and XCore based board significantly cheaper to build than Varisys did. Likewise I don't see why Varisys couldn't or wouldn't have developed an MPC8610 (or similarly priced processor) based board (with or without XCore) if someone had commissioned them to do so.

"The following core designs are on the shelf to expedite the custom design cycle: PA Semi PA6T-1682M Freescale PowerPC MPC8641, MPC74xx, MPC86xx [...]".
http://www.varisys.co.uk/services.html

Bottom line: I don't see anything bad per se in choosing Varisys over bplan.

> the Efika came. It's true it took a very long time to port MorphOS, but I think there were
> also hardware problems that delayed it (see that "B" letter in the CPU name).

Didn't the MorphOS port to the Efika 5200B commence not before Genesi paid for it in January 2007, i.e. when the transition from MPC5200 to MPC5200B was already done?

> it was done ten years ago! It was called Thendic

Ten years ago there was no Thendic in a MorphOS context. They came into play a bit later.

Andreas has a very good point here. Even before A-eon's announcement about their relationship with Varisys, if you'd given me the task of finding a company to design a MorphOS motherboard Varisys would have been one of the first companies that would have come to mind.
Their website mentions custom designs available and in addition to the PA6T the MPC86XX is mentioned.
It wasn't posted here, but a long time ago I'd been discussing with Andreas the potential of a 8640/8641 based motherboard using an AMD SB600 Southbridge (the Southbridge that is on the X1000 MB).
The problem is we're talking about a LOT of money (needed to finance such an undertaking).
Bplan and Varisys won't do this kind of thing out of the goodness of their heart.
And I'm confused as to everyone continues to focus on Bplan (perhaps their past connection with our market) when there plenty of talented alternatives that could build a new PPC board for our market.

I just sent this to Altman (to see what happens):

Altman,
Why, as an Amiga fan should I buy your product? What does it have to offer over an Amithlon equipped PC I can get for $10? Furthermore, I can equip said PC w/ AROS, yes, the very same OS your PC does, for free! Also, how do you discredit the sources saying Amiga Inc. (and by extension, Bill McEwen) have no rights to the Amiga Name.

Yours Truly,

Redfoxva

P.S. My balls are not for your enjoyment thanks very much

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I think they won't even make ends meet on this. And obviously they don't thinks so themselves, hence the pre-payment scheme, even for *beta pre-release hardware*. But *I do* think it's obvious they have calculated on hefty profit margins per unit. Multiplied by dreams. And dreams are infinite...

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Thanks, I hadn't had a good laugh today yet!

BTW - I haven't posted his phone number because he only asked that I relay it to one other person, but don't be surprised if he offers to talk to you directly.

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Aye!

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Personally, I think the Natami is very interesting. For some "nerdy" POV only. I will probably buy one, when (if) it gets released.

However, I realize that it offers:
1) more than the retro crowd would require (hence it's not suitable for this crowd), and
2) less than the "NG" crowd requires (hence it's not suitable for this crowd either)

"Stuck in the middle"...

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At least some key MorphOS developers acknowledge that PPC wouldn't be the choice today if they had known back then what they know now...

But under the current circumstances, the optimal decision would be to support the best of the most widely spread PPC hardware out there.

Which the MorphOS team obviously aims to do.

I couldn't agree more!

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Well, that's the question, isn't it?

The OS created by some of the people responsible for taking Amiga beyond "a 68k based games console with a keyboard" (RTG, PPC, USB, MUI, RTA, and so on), the fastest, most Amiga compatible OS with the best features, *or* the OS created by the twin brothers taking a crash course in OS design on their local university, utilizing *the left-over* Amiga standards, incorporating Linux bloat as soon as they can, etc. Hmm, difficult decision...? I think not...

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What we are talking about (in the recent threads about "Commodore Amiga"), is really *the regular AROS system*, right? "PC", yeah? What's new?

The new thing is that the regular AROS system (if AROS will be made to support this particular HW) could now be called Commodore Amiga!

Personally, I have absolutely *ZERO* problems with that! I emotionally abandoned those brands a decade ago, but I would think it to be cool if some new Amiga product would materialize using these brands!

Nothing that would affect my views and devotions to MorphOS though!

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No?

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Bring on the popcorn!

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What you said doesn't make sense. You say they don't think themselves they would make ends meet, then you say they priced in a hefty profit.

So which is it?

Sure, there may be some profit priced in (that is what business is about - making money), but I doubt it's hefty. It's probably enough to make a small return, and on the end user machines make enough so they can make some money and the dealers, too.

At least they most likely are not planning to lose money. But they have every right to make a profit.

I would have to disagree that they are planning on making a profit. Hoping to make back their investment of time and money is more like it and trying to minimize the amount of their loss is most likely.

The investment to create this custom computer has been large and the number of sales might be very small. So small that A-Eon may not even come close to recouping their investment capital. We will just have to wait and see how many pay to beta test it and how well it sells to the Amiga public after the beta test program is over.

I hate to be a pessimist but given the facts, it doesn't look good for making any profit.

> the twin brothers taking a crash course in OS design on their local university

Maybe you mean it and are only expressing yourself in a strange way: The Friedens studied computer science at the University of Trier and attended an OS design lecture as part of their schedule. "Crash course" is an improper term to describe a regular university lecture, I think.