5 ms·

Someone needs to explain the whole Amiga thing to me, because I've lost the thread. When you say markets might number in the hundreds, I have a hard time believ

Someone needs to explain the whole Amiga thing to me, because I've lost the thread. When you say markets might number in the hundreds, I have a hard time believing even that. Perhaps I'm just ignorant (as I said, I've lost the thread), but why would anyone run Amiga OS any more other than for the novelty? Are there still applications that are worth spending money on?

balls187 11y ago
Not a direct answer to your question, but I believe there are still A/V shops that use Amiga Hardware.
- stinkytaco 11y ago
  I used to work in video production and I never spoke to a person that currently used Amiga anywhere. I realize this is totally anecdotal, but the Amiga hardware must be pretty tightly integrated into your workflow if you're still using 20+ year old hardware that's a tiny fraction of the speed of more flexible and standardized desktops now, with software that you can easily and cheaply hire someone out of college to operate since they probably have already trained on it. Perhaps a few TV news outlets are still using it since the turnaround there is so tight that everything needs to be "just so" to meet your deadlines, but even then, I have difficulty believing with the move to digital and HD that you could even get your footage onto an Amiga and work with it. I can't believe the hardware could handle HD.
  - balls187 11y ago
    My comment was also purely anecdotal as well, and biased towards public access and small market TV stations (ie high school run A/V Productions). Regardless, your point is probably valid, but I have to imagine there is at least a handful of A/V enthusiasts taht swear by the RGB based computers.
    - A_COMPUTER 11y ago
      I personally saw an Amiga still in use in a public access studio in 2005. It was being used to show announcements. The function of it today could be trivially replaced with a raspberry pi and a bit of custom software, but I can say that the reason it was still in operation in 2005 was because it was set up by an employee in 1990's who had since moved on and there was no longer anyone with sufficient knowledge/motivation to replace it.
SwellJoe 11y ago
It's like classic cars or motorcycles or woodworking exclusively with hand tools: it is not the fastest, most efficient, most comfortable, way from point A to point B, but it is a unique experience of its own that is not easy to replicate, even with emulators. Why would a 1968 Camaro SS be a sought after thing that anyone could want in a world with Tesla? There's no good reason, it just is. If you do an eBay search, you'll find they are quite sought after. At this point Amigas sell for almost what they sold for new, if they are in very good condition. There is a revived demo scene (just as the C64 has seen a resurgence in recent years), and even new software is being written. It's not sensible, it's just fun. Edit: I own a C64, and would likely buy an Amiga, if I came across one in good shape at a reasonable price. I enjoy the old machines. Tinkering with something so simple is a very different experience than tinkering with a modern computer.
bane 11y ago
You'd be surprised at how big the retrocomputing/retrogaming enthusiast market is. I know in the U.S. that there are several shows alone that pull in north of a thousand people. It really is mostly for the novelty/nostalgia factor. Most of the Amiga OSs run on ancient PowerPC hardware and aren't useful in a modern sense for much more than simple web browsing and IRC. While there are certainly people who make things for the various scenes and sell them, usually they're just trying to cover manufacturing cost of physical product. Software is usually freeware/opensource. The Atari 8-bit computer scene, for example, produces lots of weird custom hardware that the makers usually sell for parts + labor + shipping, but I can't recall ever hearing of license fees for a new DOS (there are many DOSs for the old 8-bits). What's particularly weird about the Amiga scene is how locked down the IP still is and how that seems to permeate the rest of the scene. It's like the IP owners think that somehow they'll suddenly come across hundreds of millions of dollars in VC money and will reignite the Amiga fire with new hardware and software that will sweep the world...if only they hold on to the licenses for 30 year old ROM images a little bit longer. Or that they'll somehow sell enough licenses to make up for millions of dollars of development investment. No joke, AmigaOS 4.1 is actually 30EUR today -- in almost 2016 -- and it only runs on bizarro PowerPC hardware that's built out of weird industrial control system motherboards or something and sold by yet other hopeless companies. [1][2][3] If they sell 1,000 licenses a year, their revenue is 30,000EUR. So I mean, Hyperion Entertainment is supposedly a company and there's probably more than one person hacking away at the OS, but there's no way they're coming close to covering costs on this. If I wasn't convinced of the earnestness of Amiga enthusiasts, I'd almost believe the entire thing is some kind of complex money laundering operation. There's even commercial software still developed and licensed: [4][5][6][7] and even an entire app store! [8] I really admire the enthusiasm and passion, but I just can't figure out the money angle or what the point is. 1 - http://www.amigaos.net/ http://www.amigaos.net/ 2 - http://www.a-eon.com/ http://www.a-eon.com/ 3 - http://www.acube-systems.biz/ http://www.acube-systems.biz/ 4 - http://www.pagestream.org/ http://www.pagestream.org/ 5 - http://www.amigaos.net/software/100/amidark-engine http://www.amigaos.net/software/100/amidark-engine 6 - http://www.hollywood-mal.com/purchase.html http://www.hollywood-mal.com/purchase.html 7 - http://www.codebench.co.uk/ http://www.codebench.co.uk/ 8 - http://www.amistore.net/ http://www.amistore.net/
- 11y ago
ZenoArrow 11y ago
I'll try to explain a little bit of the history of the OS, to help explain the various factions in the Amiga community... When Commodore was producing Amigas, the Amiga OS that ran on top of them ran from the Amiga OS 1.x series to the Amiga OS 3.x series, with Amiga 3.1 being the last version that was produced before Commodore went bankrupt. After Commodore went bankrupt, the future of the Amiga was uncertain. Some Amiga users began debating how to take the platform forward. After a lot of debate, this culminated in the decision to start by creating an open-source OS based on the design of Amiga OS 3.1, which could be used as a platform for future improvements. This became the AROS project. Ownership to the official Amiga assets (OS, patents and hardware) changed hands a number of times. The common pattern seemed to be a purchase by a PC manufacturer, who would then outsource the development of the platform through a dedicated subsidiary. First owners were Escom. Second owners were Gateway. Gateway was purchased by Acer at one point, so I believe the current owners are Acer. However, as mentioned previously, official development of the platform was managed by subcontractors, that went under names like 'Amiga Technologies' and 'Amiga Inc'. Another OS split would happen because of the lack of new hardware coming from official sources. During the time when the official owners of the Amiga appeared increasingly incapable of bringing new hardware to market, a series of PowerPC accelerators appeared for classic Amigas (classic Amigas are based on the 68k family of processors). At first, these PPC accelerators would run on software designed to work alongside Amiga OS 3.x, but in time this evolved into a dedicated PPC-based OS for Amigas. This became MorphOS. What about the official developments? So after Amiga OS 3.1 there were two additional releases in the 3.x series, 3.5 and 3.9. IIRC of these releases were developed by a company called H&P (Hauge & Partner, or something like that). At one point, it looked like MorphOS would become AmigaOS 4.0, however a couple of the H&P developers formed a new company called Hyperion and convinced Amiga Inc to let them develop the PPC version of Amiga OS, which became the Amiga 4.x that exists today. There were various other twists to this tale that I've glossed over, but notable mention should go out to Amithlon (sp?), which was an unofficial AmigaOS port/emulator for x86 hardware. At one point there was some hope that this could've been used to pushed the Amiga forward, but it never got the official backing it needed. So in terms of the remaining factions, it's arguable that four remain: 1. Classic Amiga (68k-based AmigaOS, running on either real or emulated hardware). 2. AROS. 3. AmigaOS 4.x. 4. MorphOS. In terms of software releases, there's still a small amount of new releases, but killer apps that would be worth investing in the platform for are thin on the ground. Closest to that you'll probably find is Hollywood, but it's available for non-Amiga platforms now too: http://www.hollywood-mal.com/ http://www.hollywood-mal.com/
pmarin 11y ago
People run Amiga computers as a hobby like many others legacy plataforms.
vidarh 11y ago
> but why would anyone run Amiga OS any more other than for the novelty? Because it feels very, very different to the mainstream options, and if you stuck with it long enough to get invested in the PPC versions, why not? At that point you got hardware that if not competitive is at least fast enough to be reasonable. It's an extremely lightweight OS, with a culture of minimalism, so while things will be slow if you try to do stuff that's actually CPU heavy, most Amiga software is responsive on very slow hardware. I doubt there are many Amiga users today that use it as their only system, though there might be some diehard people doing even that, but for many of the remaining users AmigaOS is the OS they enjoy using, and they'll "resort" to Windows or OS X or Linux as a fallback when they have to.
rasz_pl 11y ago
Today its nostalgia driven hobby consisting of tens of people collecting accelerator cards in order to run sysinfo :(

balls187 11y ago

Not a direct answer to your question, but I believe there are still A/V shops that use Amiga Hardware.

stinkytaco 11y ago
I used to work in video production and I never spoke to a person that currently used Amiga anywhere. I realize this is totally anecdotal, but the Amiga hardware must be pretty tightly integrated into your workflow if you're still using 20+ year old hardware that's a tiny fraction of the speed of more flexible and standardized desktops now, with software that you can easily and cheaply hire someone out of college to operate since they probably have already trained on it. Perhaps a few TV news outlets are still using it since the turnaround there is so tight that everything needs to be "just so" to meet your deadlines, but even then, I have difficulty believing with the move to digital and HD that you could even get your footage onto an Amiga and work with it. I can't believe the hardware could handle HD.
- balls187 11y ago
  My comment was also purely anecdotal as well, and biased towards public access and small market TV stations (ie high school run A/V Productions). Regardless, your point is probably valid, but I have to imagine there is at least a handful of A/V enthusiasts taht swear by the RGB based computers.
  - A_COMPUTER 11y ago
    I personally saw an Amiga still in use in a public access studio in 2005. It was being used to show announcements. The function of it today could be trivially replaced with a raspberry pi and a bit of custom software, but I can say that the reason it was still in operation in 2005 was because it was set up by an employee in 1990's who had since moved on and there was no longer anyone with sufficient knowledge/motivation to replace it.

SwellJoe 11y ago

It's like classic cars or motorcycles or woodworking exclusively with hand tools: it is not the fastest, most efficient, most comfortable, way from point A to point B, but it is a unique experience of its own that is not easy to replicate, even with emulators. Why would a 1968 Camaro SS be a sought after thing that anyone could want in a world with Tesla? There's no good reason, it just is. If you do an eBay search, you'll find they are quite sought after. At this point Amigas sell for almost what they sold for new, if they are in very good condition. There is a revived demo scene (just as the C64 has seen a resurgence in recent years), and even new software is being written. It's not sensible, it's just fun. Edit: I own a C64, and would likely buy an Amiga, if I came across one in good shape at a reasonable price. I enjoy the old machines. Tinkering with something so simple is a very different experience than tinkering with a modern computer.

bane 11y ago

You'd be surprised at how big the retrocomputing/retrogaming enthusiast market is. I know in the U.S. that there are several shows alone that pull in north of a thousand people. It really is mostly for the novelty/nostalgia factor. Most of the Amiga OSs run on ancient PowerPC hardware and aren't useful in a modern sense for much more than simple web browsing and IRC. While there are certainly people who make things for the various scenes and sell them, usually they're just trying to cover manufacturing cost of physical product. Software is usually freeware/opensource. The Atari 8-bit computer scene, for example, produces lots of weird custom hardware that the makers usually sell for parts + labor + shipping, but I can't recall ever hearing of license fees for a new DOS (there are many DOSs for the old 8-bits). What's particularly weird about the Amiga scene is how locked down the IP still is and how that seems to permeate the rest of the scene. It's like the IP owners think that somehow they'll suddenly come across hundreds of millions of dollars in VC money and will reignite the Amiga fire with new hardware and software that will sweep the world...if only they hold on to the licenses for 30 year old ROM images a little bit longer. Or that they'll somehow sell enough licenses to make up for millions of dollars of development investment. No joke, AmigaOS 4.1 is actually 30EUR today -- in almost 2016 -- and it only runs on bizarro PowerPC hardware that's built out of weird industrial control system motherboards or something and sold by yet other hopeless companies. [1][2][3] If they sell 1,000 licenses a year, their revenue is 30,000EUR. So I mean, Hyperion Entertainment is supposedly a company and there's probably more than one person hacking away at the OS, but there's no way they're coming close to covering costs on this. If I wasn't convinced of the earnestness of Amiga enthusiasts, I'd almost believe the entire thing is some kind of complex money laundering operation. There's even commercial software still developed and licensed: [4][5][6][7] and even an entire app store! [8] I really admire the enthusiasm and passion, but I just can't figure out the money angle or what the point is. 1 - http://www.amigaos.net/ http://www.amigaos.net/ 2 - http://www.a-eon.com/ http://www.a-eon.com/ 3 - http://www.acube-systems.biz/ http://www.acube-systems.biz/ 4 - http://www.pagestream.org/ http://www.pagestream.org/ 5 - http://www.amigaos.net/software/100/amidark-engine http://www.amigaos.net/software/100/amidark-engine 6 - http://www.hollywood-mal.com/purchase.html http://www.hollywood-mal.com/purchase.html 7 - http://www.codebench.co.uk/ http://www.codebench.co.uk/ 8 - http://www.amistore.net/ http://www.amistore.net/

11y ago

ZenoArrow 11y ago

I'll try to explain a little bit of the history of the OS, to help explain the various factions in the Amiga community... When Commodore was producing Amigas, the Amiga OS that ran on top of them ran from the Amiga OS 1.x series to the Amiga OS 3.x series, with Amiga 3.1 being the last version that was produced before Commodore went bankrupt. After Commodore went bankrupt, the future of the Amiga was uncertain. Some Amiga users began debating how to take the platform forward. After a lot of debate, this culminated in the decision to start by creating an open-source OS based on the design of Amiga OS 3.1, which could be used as a platform for future improvements. This became the AROS project. Ownership to the official Amiga assets (OS, patents and hardware) changed hands a number of times. The common pattern seemed to be a purchase by a PC manufacturer, who would then outsource the development of the platform through a dedicated subsidiary. First owners were Escom. Second owners were Gateway. Gateway was purchased by Acer at one point, so I believe the current owners are Acer. However, as mentioned previously, official development of the platform was managed by subcontractors, that went under names like 'Amiga Technologies' and 'Amiga Inc'. Another OS split would happen because of the lack of new hardware coming from official sources. During the time when the official owners of the Amiga appeared increasingly incapable of bringing new hardware to market, a series of PowerPC accelerators appeared for classic Amigas (classic Amigas are based on the 68k family of processors). At first, these PPC accelerators would run on software designed to work alongside Amiga OS 3.x, but in time this evolved into a dedicated PPC-based OS for Amigas. This became MorphOS. What about the official developments? So after Amiga OS 3.1 there were two additional releases in the 3.x series, 3.5 and 3.9. IIRC of these releases were developed by a company called H&P (Hauge & Partner, or something like that). At one point, it looked like MorphOS would become AmigaOS 4.0, however a couple of the H&P developers formed a new company called Hyperion and convinced Amiga Inc to let them develop the PPC version of Amiga OS, which became the Amiga 4.x that exists today. There were various other twists to this tale that I've glossed over, but notable mention should go out to Amithlon (sp?), which was an unofficial AmigaOS port/emulator for x86 hardware. At one point there was some hope that this could've been used to pushed the Amiga forward, but it never got the official backing it needed. So in terms of the remaining factions, it's arguable that four remain: 1. Classic Amiga (68k-based AmigaOS, running on either real or emulated hardware). 2. AROS. 3. AmigaOS 4.x. 4. MorphOS. In terms of software releases, there's still a small amount of new releases, but killer apps that would be worth investing in the platform for are thin on the ground. Closest to that you'll probably find is Hollywood, but it's available for non-Amiga platforms now too: http://www.hollywood-mal.com/ http://www.hollywood-mal.com/

pmarin 11y ago

People run Amiga computers as a hobby like many others legacy plataforms.

vidarh 11y ago

> but why would anyone run Amiga OS any more other than for the novelty? Because it feels very, very different to the mainstream options, and if you stuck with it long enough to get invested in the PPC versions, why not? At that point you got hardware that if not competitive is at least fast enough to be reasonable. It's an extremely lightweight OS, with a culture of minimalism, so while things will be slow if you try to do stuff that's actually CPU heavy, most Amiga software is responsive on very slow hardware. I doubt there are many Amiga users today that use it as their only system, though there might be some diehard people doing even that, but for many of the remaining users AmigaOS is the OS they enjoy using, and they'll "resort" to Windows or OS X or Linux as a fallback when they have to.

rasz_pl 11y ago

Today its nostalgia driven hobby consisting of tens of people collecting accelerator cards in order to run sysinfo :(