7 ms·

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times :-) I really really liked the Amiga (and was a fairly regular contributor to the comp.sys.amiga newsgroup),

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times :-) I really really liked the Amiga (and was a fairly regular contributor to the comp.sys.amiga newsgroup), I also interviewed for a job at Commodore HQ in Frankfurt (the actual headquarters of the tax shelter known as Commodore :-)). And one of the things that became painfully obvious was the Commodore was not set up to make Amiga successful, they didn't have the correct organizational structure nor the core corporate values that would make them successful. At the time I was working at Sun, had joined as a reasonably early engineer, and watched how Sun had grown from a scrappy "start up with great pretensions" to something DEC and IBM started actually losing market share too. I saw the market for Amiga as coming up as a low priced workstation, not the bargain basement home PC. But it could be both, and for a while that path was making progress with the A500 and the A2000. It was hard to do though, the workstation market really needed a "high resolution" flicker free display, the home market needed to look good on TVs. The architecture didn't have the display bifurcation line that was built into the PC or other workstations. With out executive air cover to make the investments they needed to make in engineering, Commodore reverted to its roots of making things as cheaply as possible to add margin that way. "High end" systems that would have small markets were shelved, and even the commercial systems they were selling into the video post production market were starting to get a reputation for being cheaply made. It took me a long time to get past my feelings of loss when we saw the future slip away.

wwweston 7y ago
> I was working at Sun, had joined as a reasonably early engineer, and watched how Sun had grown from a scrappy "start up with great pretensions" to something DEC and IBM started actually losing market share too. If one wanted to read observations about specific things Sun did effectively in this process, from either an organizational, strategic, or execution perspective, where would one look?
- ltbarcly3 7y ago
  Just from chats I've had with people who were there, they claim it was just being better engineers and having more focus, and less internal rot. IBM is full of people who are good at keeping a job at IBM, ditto any company that lasts long enough. If you take any organization, and it lasts long enough, eventually it will be full of people who's only skill is keeping a job at that organization.
btilly 7y ago
If you want some Sun nostalgia, http://consultingadultblog.blogspot.com/ http://consultingadultblog.blogspot.com/ is good. She used to have a lot more, but deleted most of them. You can probably find them on the wayback machine though.
bane 7y ago
> It took me a long time to get past my feelings of loss when we saw the future slip away. I think that for many Amiga users, they've never gotten over their feelings of loss. Among retrocomputing enthusiasts, Amiga users are an extra odd bunch -- often making and selling commercial shrink wrapped software for years. While it's not entirely unusual for people to put effort into a special game or whatnot for their favorite retrocomputer, and charge people for a special nostalgia filled limited run, Amiga users seem strangely tied to trying to make creating Amiga stuff a viable commercial venture [1][2][3] it's as quaint as it is bizarre these days. 1 - https://www.amigaos.net/ https://www.amigaos.net/ 2 - http://entwickler-x.de/emotion http://entwickler-x.de/emotion 3- http://www.pagestream.org/?action=Store http://www.pagestream.org/?action=Store
- romwell 7y ago
  > it's as quaint as it is bizarre these days. You wouldn't say that about an aftermarket for, say, vintage car parts, would you? To be specific, if you buy yourself an original VW bus, you won't be on your own when you try to service it. Amiga just might be the VW bus of retro computers (probably Commodore deserves this title better, but the analogy works the same way). It'll be alive for as long as the feelings associated with it are understood.
  - _jal 7y ago
    Exactly. Some niche products have such a following that they are recreated after the original producer stops making them: http://polaroidoriginals.com/ http://polaroidoriginals.com/ History, if you're not familiar: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polaroid_Originals https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polaroid_Originals
    - romwell 7y ago
      Here, though, I'd say it was not exactly a niche product: Fuji Instax has been on an upwards curve the whole time Polaroid was messing around with its product line. But yup, I agree with your point.
the-rc 7y ago
Sun actually approached Commodore about using Amiga technology for 680x0 workstations, while they were focusing on SPARC, but Mehdi Ali told them to go away. He also was nasty toward (IIRC) Epson during final negotiations for a large deal for the Japanese market. Later, the deal was revived and he insulted them a second time.
- NeedMoreTea 7y ago
  The Amiga Unix licensing failure was an impressively well aimed shot to the foot. Medhi Ali was responsible for gutting Commodore engineering and replacing with mostly cheaper PC people. Which led to the cost-cutting A600 that actually turned out more expensive to produce than the 500 it was supposed to replace. Dave Haynie had a lot to say about that era, all of it free of compliments. Ali and Gould were drawing more than the CEO of IBM in Commodore's declining years.
  - LeoPanthera 7y ago
    The A600 was originally going to be called the A300. (Early models still say that on the motherboard.) They had to "upgrade" the product name when it turned out they couldn't make it as cheaply as hoped.
  - Razengan 7y ago
    From what I garnered from a few documentaries here and there long ago, Mehdi Ali was responsible for driving other companies into the ground too, and escaping those ships richer than he was when he got on them. How does this happen and why is it allowed to? Are these kinds of CEOs the designated cleanup people who get sent in after a company has been decided to get killed off and they're the [insert butcher analogue for stripping the leftover parts of a corpse]?
    - pjmlp 7y ago
      Usually board politics and the ones that manage such people in also get their bank account share, and that is all that they care about
codesushi42 7y ago
It took me a long time to get past my feelings of loss when we saw the future slip away. Are you referring to Commodore or Sun here? Because both had excellent technology that died at the hands of terrible management.
- Razengan 7y ago
  Apple was yet another company that was almost destroyed by its management, post-Jobs. If it wasn't for Steve's return, we came scarily close to becoming a soul-sappingly gray, homogenous Microsoft/PC-only world. Thanks to the Mac's success we got iOS, then because of that, Android. I wonder if there's any chance of a new major architecture becoming successful today.
  - Razengan 7y ago
    Edit: "post-Jobs" should be "between Jobs." Post-Jobs it's doing fine.
  - kbenson 7y ago
    Probably not as long as those two have some of the most profitable companies in the world behind them. We might get one of them pushing an replacement (e.g. Fuchsia), but competing against either of them when they've got the resources at their disposal they do currently seems destined for failure. At best, we might see an open source contender gain some traction, but there's not really the same lineage to draw on there either. Linux at least had a few decades of Unix software and UI (including text consoles) going for it. An open source competitor to iOS or Android will either be copying what they do, or making it up as it goes along, which is unlikely to yield major advantages they haven't already taken advantage of, IMO.
    - Razengan 7y ago
      > but competing against either of them when they've got the resources at their disposal they do currently seems destined for failure. The same was said for anyone versus IBM, then anyone versus Microsoft for almost 2 decades after that. Each time a new challenge was able to enter and stay in the fray, it was by capitalizing on a paradigm shift; mainframes -> home computers -> smartphones.. I think the next frontier may be ubiquitous, always-on AR/VR. If a new company makes that happen before Apple or Google do, they might have a chance.
Annatar 7y ago
What was the deal with Sun Microsystems wanting to buy the Amiga?
- NeedMoreTea 7y ago
  In the era of the A3000 and A3000T, so 1990 or 91, there was an official Commodore port of Unix that had got really good reviews as one of the best, most stable small system SVR4 ports. Sun approached Commodore offering money to license the A3000UX as a low end 680x0 Sun workstation. It could have done wonders for Amiga's serious market and visibility outside games. Medhi Ali turned them down. Twice, if memory serves.

wwweston 7y ago

> I was working at Sun, had joined as a reasonably early engineer, and watched how Sun had grown from a scrappy "start up with great pretensions" to something DEC and IBM started actually losing market share too. If one wanted to read observations about specific things Sun did effectively in this process, from either an organizational, strategic, or execution perspective, where would one look?

ltbarcly3 7y ago
Just from chats I've had with people who were there, they claim it was just being better engineers and having more focus, and less internal rot. IBM is full of people who are good at keeping a job at IBM, ditto any company that lasts long enough. If you take any organization, and it lasts long enough, eventually it will be full of people who's only skill is keeping a job at that organization.

btilly 7y ago

If you want some Sun nostalgia, http://consultingadultblog.blogspot.com/ http://consultingadultblog.blogspot.com/ is good. She used to have a lot more, but deleted most of them. You can probably find them on the wayback machine though.

bane 7y ago

> It took me a long time to get past my feelings of loss when we saw the future slip away. I think that for many Amiga users, they've never gotten over their feelings of loss. Among retrocomputing enthusiasts, Amiga users are an extra odd bunch -- often making and selling commercial shrink wrapped software for years. While it's not entirely unusual for people to put effort into a special game or whatnot for their favorite retrocomputer, and charge people for a special nostalgia filled limited run, Amiga users seem strangely tied to trying to make creating Amiga stuff a viable commercial venture [1][2][3] it's as quaint as it is bizarre these days. 1 - https://www.amigaos.net/ https://www.amigaos.net/ 2 - http://entwickler-x.de/emotion http://entwickler-x.de/emotion 3- http://www.pagestream.org/?action=Store http://www.pagestream.org/?action=Store

romwell 7y ago
> it's as quaint as it is bizarre these days. You wouldn't say that about an aftermarket for, say, vintage car parts, would you? To be specific, if you buy yourself an original VW bus, you won't be on your own when you try to service it. Amiga just might be the VW bus of retro computers (probably Commodore deserves this title better, but the analogy works the same way). It'll be alive for as long as the feelings associated with it are understood.
- _jal 7y ago
  Exactly. Some niche products have such a following that they are recreated after the original producer stops making them: http://polaroidoriginals.com/ http://polaroidoriginals.com/ History, if you're not familiar: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polaroid_Originals https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polaroid_Originals
  - romwell 7y ago
    Here, though, I'd say it was not exactly a niche product: Fuji Instax has been on an upwards curve the whole time Polaroid was messing around with its product line. But yup, I agree with your point.

the-rc 7y ago

Sun actually approached Commodore about using Amiga technology for 680x0 workstations, while they were focusing on SPARC, but Mehdi Ali told them to go away. He also was nasty toward (IIRC) Epson during final negotiations for a large deal for the Japanese market. Later, the deal was revived and he insulted them a second time.

NeedMoreTea 7y ago
The Amiga Unix licensing failure was an impressively well aimed shot to the foot. Medhi Ali was responsible for gutting Commodore engineering and replacing with mostly cheaper PC people. Which led to the cost-cutting A600 that actually turned out more expensive to produce than the 500 it was supposed to replace. Dave Haynie had a lot to say about that era, all of it free of compliments. Ali and Gould were drawing more than the CEO of IBM in Commodore's declining years.
- LeoPanthera 7y ago
  The A600 was originally going to be called the A300. (Early models still say that on the motherboard.) They had to "upgrade" the product name when it turned out they couldn't make it as cheaply as hoped.
- Razengan 7y ago
  From what I garnered from a few documentaries here and there long ago, Mehdi Ali was responsible for driving other companies into the ground too, and escaping those ships richer than he was when he got on them. How does this happen and why is it allowed to? Are these kinds of CEOs the designated cleanup people who get sent in after a company has been decided to get killed off and they're the [insert butcher analogue for stripping the leftover parts of a corpse]?
  - pjmlp 7y ago
    Usually board politics and the ones that manage such people in also get their bank account share, and that is all that they care about

codesushi42 7y ago

It took me a long time to get past my feelings of loss when we saw the future slip away. Are you referring to Commodore or Sun here? Because both had excellent technology that died at the hands of terrible management.

Razengan 7y ago
Apple was yet another company that was almost destroyed by its management, post-Jobs. If it wasn't for Steve's return, we came scarily close to becoming a soul-sappingly gray, homogenous Microsoft/PC-only world. Thanks to the Mac's success we got iOS, then because of that, Android. I wonder if there's any chance of a new major architecture becoming successful today.
- Razengan 7y ago
  Edit: "post-Jobs" should be "between Jobs." Post-Jobs it's doing fine.
- kbenson 7y ago
  Probably not as long as those two have some of the most profitable companies in the world behind them. We might get one of them pushing an replacement (e.g. Fuchsia), but competing against either of them when they've got the resources at their disposal they do currently seems destined for failure. At best, we might see an open source contender gain some traction, but there's not really the same lineage to draw on there either. Linux at least had a few decades of Unix software and UI (including text consoles) going for it. An open source competitor to iOS or Android will either be copying what they do, or making it up as it goes along, which is unlikely to yield major advantages they haven't already taken advantage of, IMO.
  - Razengan 7y ago
    > but competing against either of them when they've got the resources at their disposal they do currently seems destined for failure. The same was said for anyone versus IBM, then anyone versus Microsoft for almost 2 decades after that. Each time a new challenge was able to enter and stay in the fray, it was by capitalizing on a paradigm shift; mainframes -> home computers -> smartphones.. I think the next frontier may be ubiquitous, always-on AR/VR. If a new company makes that happen before Apple or Google do, they might have a chance.

Annatar 7y ago

What was the deal with Sun Microsystems wanting to buy the Amiga?

NeedMoreTea 7y ago
In the era of the A3000 and A3000T, so 1990 or 91, there was an official Commodore port of Unix that had got really good reviews as one of the best, most stable small system SVR4 ports. Sun approached Commodore offering money to license the A3000UX as a low end 680x0 Sun workstation. It could have done wonders for Amiga's serious market and visibility outside games. Medhi Ali turned them down. Twice, if memory serves.