So I was reading my email one day and what do I get but an email from the current owner of Amiga.org! He has agreed to come on to Amiga Roundtable and answer some questions from the community. If you have a question for him, now is the time to ask it. He does ask that technical questions be excluded as he feels he isn’t technically savvy enough to answer any. So questions pertaining to the website and the community will have first consideration. So if you do have a question, please email them to us at amigaroundtable@gmail.com. The hosts of  the show will pick the 10 best ones and ask them on an upcoming show. This most likely be sometime in January as the holiday winds down. We will have a definite date for you when we get a chance to co-ordinate after the New Year.

So come up with a good question or 2 and get it in. Deadline for questions will be January 10th.

Things change. It’s a fact of life and well, sometimes they happen to podcasts as well as websites. Recently, Kim and I were featured in an article from a local paper called Greenbush Life, that is published by The Record in Troy, N.Y. This was a first step to start making AmiZed a little more than what it is. Let me expand a little.For a while now, I have been wanting to get things a little more ramped up with the podcasting end of the website. That included adding content on a regular basis. Hence why Ham Radio blogs stories are being added on an almost daily basis. Those posts are then syndicated to a larger Ham Radio website called AmateurRadio.com. From there, I get about 60 to 100 unique reads of my stories. This in turn has upped the traffic of the site a little.

We also have the podcasts here as well. The 2 main ones are The Kim and Rich Show, which appeals to a large demographic of listeners, and Amiga Roundtable, which is a very niche’ show. Strangely, the niche’ show gets more listeners than the broader show. But I kind of expected that, which is why I am making some changes under the hood of the website to help get more traffic to the Kim and Rich Show. So you will see some changes here as we begin to make over somethings. The first being, changing the system used to serve up the podcasts. We are moving to a service called BluBrry, which also serves content to set top media devices, like Rokus and Western Digital TV media players. This can expand the reach of not only the Kim and Rich Show, but of the other shows here as well.

But in the meantime, I would like to invite all of our readers, and listeners, to check out some of the other content on the site, that you may not normally read or listen to. I would love to get your opinions and thoughts on what we have to offer here. I know right now, it all seems like a very eclectic blend of content on the show. But as time progresses, it will be come apparent where it is all going.

This weekend is AmiWest. An annual event held by the Sacramento Amiga Usergroup. I was honored to be sent by listeners of Amiga Roundtable back in 2007. And since then, I was asked to try and go again to report back. A couple of times, I have tried to raise funds to go, but have fell short. This year again is the same. With the economy the way it is, and money and budgets tight, it’s hard to spare enough money to fly to the west coast. So with AmiWest coming up, and me and many other east coast Amiga users missing it again this year, I thought why not see if there is enough interest in an east coast show? If there are enough people willing to, maybe something could get put together. After a post to the Upstate New York Amiga Users mailing list, I want to get some outside responses and see where it could go. THIS DOES NOT MEAN AN EAST COAST SHOW WILL HAPPEN. This is just to gauge if there is enough of a demand. It would be a lot of work and time to get something like this pulled off and then, with the number of Amiga/AROS/MorphOS users that can fit in my old high school gym and still have room for 6 elephants, it may not even be worth it. But, here it goes.

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Well, it’s been 6 Episodes now, and we’re starting to get more comfortable on the show and we are working on getting the word out about the show. If you have been listening to the show, thank you very much. We do appreciate it. If you haven’t yet? Why not? We’re funny aren’t we?If we’re not, now is the time to tell us. We want to know what you think about the show. What you like, what you don’t like, what you want to hear us talk about, what you don’t like us talking about. I think you are getting the idea of what we are looking for. So leave your comment here and if you would be so kind, participate in the poll just below and let us know what you think.

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V greater than X

Could AmigaOS 5 have come out in 2003, 2004, or 2005? Would developers be ready for such a paradigm shift? Would the user-base accept such a dramatic move away from the computing norms? When you look at how much fanfare the Amiga community dishes out for some of the incremental improvements made in OS 4.x, MOS 2.x, and AROS, things that by computer industry standards are trivial, I’m not sure they’re ready for it even in 2011.

 

As a matter of fact, I’m pretty sure that “AmigaOS 5 Beta” will be met by much criticism from many members of the Amiga community.

 

Early Impressions

mmmmm, omelette

The OS is pretty well done. I was able to test many aspects of the technologies listed above. It was very responsive and things are working as one would expect them to. That said, it’s important to remember that there is no gain without loss. The old “You’ve got to break a few eggs to make an omelette”. So whilst there are many improvements over the previous versions of AmigaOS, there are many things that are no longer there as they make little sense in a modern computing landscape.

 

Hardware support is pretty good, USB 2.0, IEEE 1394 a/b, GbE, 802.11 b/g/n (WEP/WPA/WPA2), DVD RW, Bluetooth 4.0, PCIe, DDR3 RAM, etc.

 

The library system is quite different to that of classic AmigaOS and OS 4.x. The object oriented design is still there though, to support the meta-data OS many new objects have been created in Objective-C to make development a lot easier, especially in the areas of audio, video, animation, text, and data. Many open standards are supported, OpenGL, OpenAL, OpenCL.

 

The UI layer is completely new and only resembles Workbench in a few areas. On the upside it is predominantly GL optimised with many calls handed over to the GPU. This ticks one of the boxes against the earlier mentioned technologies (Symmetric and Asymmetric modes).

 

All in all a very forward looking OS with a lot of potential. Plenty of that Amiga awesomeness we’ve all grown so fond of over the years. If this OS were an animal in the African savanna it would be perched right on top of the food chain, all other animals would tremble from its mighty roar, kind of like a Lion.

 

Two Questions: How Much? and Give it to Me!

Hopefully by now you’ve caught on to the fact that this is a bit of a tongue-in-cheek piece. But in the spirit of the article I will continue. So how do I get to try the “AmigaOS 5 Beta”?

 

Interestingly enough, “AmigaOS 5 Beta” was not developed by Amiga Development India but rather Apple Inc. Another interesting thing is that it requires that you are running Mac OS X 10.6.x on a compatible intel Mac computer. It is available exclusively though the Mac App Store and will set you back the equivalent of US$29 or thereabouts.

 

It seems those guys at Cupertino have relaxed their application approval process

 

The Real Questions

Our latest Amateur Radio story talked about Twitter and using it for Amateur Radio. As Hams embrace new technology rather than fear it. And since many Hams from all over the world are now using it some to even report DX spots and even self spotting, which is frowned apoun on the regular DX Clusters, we were curious….

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A company called Lightsquare is working on building an open access network of satellites and a terrestrial based 4G LTE broadband network. It’s looking to wholesale it’s services to companies that want to offer wireless service. But there is one hitch. The spectrum band they are going to use, between 1525MHz and 1660.5 MHz, is right next to GPS and the emissions from the devices and satellites could cause interference for GPS devices because of the stronger signals.

Photo Courtesy of Wikipedia

ArsTechnica has a nice writeup about it, and after reading it, it seems like another rehash of the whole BPL vs. Ham Radio community. They, Lightsquare, has a commercial product that would hamper the use of an established and widely used technology and they seem to be laying blame on the GPS device manufacturers for building devices that reply on shared spectrum with other services. I think the flaw though is, that those other services don’t interfere with GPS or anything thing else and GPS doesn’t interfere with those other services too. But Lightsquare says they have a solution that will solve the problem.

They say their 3 part plan would solve the interference in 99.5% of all GPS devices, including ALL the GPS enabled smartphones. From the ArsTechnica Article:

LightSquared’s testing shows that the fix “resolves interference for approximately 99.5 percent of all commercial GPS devices—including 100 percent of the 300 million GPS-enabled cell phones” and says that it can’t believe such a terrific national benefit as a new national wireless network could be held up over “a problem posed by approximately 200,000 GPS devices.”

When I read this I Googled the word Arrogance and this is what I got.

Arrogance : an attitude of superiority manifested in an overbearing manner or in presumptuous claims or assumptions.

GPS device designers are not buying what Lightsquare is selling and is saying that their solutions defy the laws of physics. I say give them a chance. Maybe they can crack that whole Faster Than Light space travel thing. I invite you to read the article yourself and see what you think. The FCC is now looking at the info provided by Lightsquare and will decide if Lightsquare’s solutions can actually solve the problem.

Do you think this is like the BPL vs. Amateur Radio community? It seems like it to me. And since we as Hams do use GPS for some modes, especially Emcomm work, I think we should be watching this very closely.

73.

Rich also writes a Tech blog and posts stories every Tuesday and Thursday on Q103, The Rock of Albany’s website, as well as Amateur Radio stories every Monday thru Friday here on AmiZed Studios.

We have a new poll up, and we want to know if you participated in this year’s Field Day? Take the poll here on the website and let us know! And feel free to tell us what you thought of Field Day in the comments below.

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After many years in the making, alien invasions, natural disasters and wallets hidden under the bed, we can now say that The Kim and Rich Show, is a go! Yes, we finally have an episode that is produced and ready for mass consumption. The infamous Episode “Zero”. When I told Kim this was going to be an Episode “Zero” she looked at me like I just told her a joke without a punchline.

Photo Courtesy of Rich Lawrence

For those that don’t understand my crazy reasoning, Episode “Zero” is the first episode of a podcast that I produce to introduce the show to potential listeners. Kind of like a demo tape radio DJs send to radio stations to apply for jobs. Only this isn’t a real job. Kim and I basically sit down, and talk like we normally do at home about, well, stuff. Movies we would like to see, things we’ve seen online or in the news and just give our opinion and thoughts. Kind of like Regis and Kelly, but without Regis and Kelly actually giving you the opinion. I mean, lets face it, who could replace Regis Philban? I sure can’t! And Kelly? Yeah, Kim could totally take over for Kelly. (I am under contractual obligation to say nice things about Kim.)

Kim is my fiance’. We have been together over 5 years and I proposed to her just this past December. She, like me, is a radio broadcaster and worked at Townsquare Media’s Lite 98.7 for around 7 years. That is where we met. She has also been a reporter for News/Talk 950AM WIBX and for the Herkimer Telegram. She is currently the Media Manager for The Girl Scouts of NYPENN Pathways, where she blogs, does podcasts and interviews for their newsletters and also keeps the community informed of the happenings with the Girl Scouts. Why she has agreed to do this podcast with me, is still a mystery.

Photo AmiZed Studios

As for me, many of the visitors of this website know me as not only the guy that runs this place, and host of a bunch of the podcasts on here, but also as an Amateur Radio operator that also blogs on this site as well as writing tech stories on Townsquare Media’s Q103, WQBK/WQBJ in Albany website, every Tuesday and Thursday, with an occasional post here or there. I have been in radio broadcasting for about 20 years and have been making a foray into podcasting to keep up with the young kids. I am also a father of 3 daughters: Terry 9, Isabella 6 and Noelle 5, but only Terry lives with me.

As for this new show? What can I say? Listen to Episode “Zero” when it comes out this Wednesday, June 22nd, 2011, and let us know what you think.

I recently saw a video John, W5CYF, posted about his thoughts on learning CW. After watching it I had the thought that maybe I should start learning it again. I have been wanting to get back into it for a while, and I had learned it for my Novice and General licenses, and even manged to barely pass the 20 word per minute test, but never did get to take the written tests for Advanced or Extra class. So I figured it was time to start learning. Then I got to thinking while I was practicing one night.

Photo Courtesy of Wikipedia/Gerry Lynch-G0RTN

I know that to save time and such, hams use Q codes and shortened words. “SK” for signing off and the like. But I got to wondering now, with a new generation of hams coming into the fold, some of which have never been in a world without text messaging and the internet with Instant Messaging, if they will stop using some of the current “short cuts” and start using more modern ones like text messaging shorthand?

Like when a ham says something that is to be taken as a joke or humor, they usually say “HiHi”. Will a new generation of hams use “LOL” or “ROFL”? And what about when you didn’t copy what someone said? Will they use “WTF”? And how about when you have a regular schedule with someone on CW? Do you say they are your “BFF”? I know a lot of these are just silly, but I actually would be curious to know about this. Will the acronyms that are using in text messaging start making there way into CW? When I finally knock the rust off and start doing CW, will I be hearing those in a conversation? Is it OK for me to use them? I’m pretty used to them myself.

I would also love to know, if you are using them or know of anyone that is using them. Are you just used to them, are they easier for you to use? What’s your general thinking about them?

73.

Rich also writes a Tech blog and posts stories every Tuesday and Thursday on Q103, The Rock of Albany’s website, as well as Amateur Radio stories every Monday thru Friday here on AmiZed Studios.

So I have been doing this blog regular now for a couple months, and I must admit, that when I start something new nowadays, I get a “..For Dummies” book to help me get started. From there I move on to more advanced aspects of the project or hobby. But it wasn’t like that with Ham Radio. I just did some old fashioned research at the library, called the ARRL, got some books, studied and took my test. Now look where I am! I’m a blogger with a need for some guests to come in and post a story here or there.

Photo by Rich - KB2MOB

I read in my copy of “Professional Blogging For Dummies”, that missing one day of blogging won’t kill your blog. A couple may show a drop but more then a few, and you risk losing some readers. And since I am just starting this blog, I think I better line up some backup. This won’t be a constant thing, unless someone really wants to blog on here on a regular basis. Right now, Eddie, who is a co-host on the Amiga Roundtable Podcast, does a feature now and again called “Op-Eddie“. It’s just an opinion column type thing he posts when he has time to. It’s nice when he does because he adds some fresh content. And to be honest, not much really happens in the Amiga Community. But when it does, it does get interesting.

But as for Amateur Radio, there is always something going on. From the Space Station to new DXCC list entries, software, radios being announced, and more! And I am but one man in this vast universe! So I figured I should see if anyone else is interested in getting the blogging bug. And that’s where you might come in. If you’re interested.

Basically, I’m just asking for someone to come in when I need a day off, or if you maybe have a blogging itch to scratch or something. I can tell you now, there are a few days in July and August I plan on taking off, and would love if someone would be interested in “covering for me” for those few days. It doesn’t need to be anything grandiose. If you’ve been reading what I post here, you can see what I mean. Just your take on something going on in the Ham Radio community and lifestyle. Amiga users are welcome to hop in on this too.

There’s no pay in it. I have yet to make much if any money off this website. So don’t expect a paycheck. But if you would like to post a link to an ad for your website, or if you’re an affiliate for something that is not “Adult” in nature and want to post that in your article somewhere, feel free. But if you have a passion of Ham Radio, or Amigas, and it sounds interesting to you or maybe you just want to get a little more traffic to your website, please let me know. I would love to talk to you.

73.

Rich also writes a Tech blog and posts stories every Tuesday and Thursday on Q103, The Rock of Albany’s website, as well as Amateur Radio stories every Monday thru Friday here on AmiZed Studios.

Another Summer Comes
So here we are. June of 2011. Summer’s not quite here but we’re so close we can see it from where we’re standing (for northern hemisphere folk). 26 summers ago Commodore released the Amiga 1000 upon the world, and if you agree with my previous post, upon our hearts. And with a clear voice told the world; other personal computers are tools, this one is a friend.

A-Eon’s aim to release the X1000 in the summer of 2010 would have been terrific for several reasons; First, and most obvious, those who looked forward to buying one would’ve had one for an entire year by now. Second, it would have been a nice touch to coincide with the 25th anniversary of the Amiga. Third, and for a start-up probably most important, they would have done good on their word. Not that any promises where made, but it pays to achieve goals in accordance with a written or verbal schedule. Consumer confidence and all that stuff.

At the end of the day 25 is just another number, and apart from the reasons listed above, and their respective flow-on effects, 26 is just as good a number. Many X1000 hold-outs are genuinely optimistic when they proclaim “It’s not too late for A-Eon to release the X1000”. But I’m here to offer another, also optimistic view; It’s not too late for A-Eon to pull out.

General Dwight D. Eisenhower

Change Tack

On the eve of what was one of the greatest war offensives in recorded human history, General Dwight D. Eisenhower has been quoted as saying “Plans are nothing, Planning is everything”. It is a philosophy rooted in the knowledge that circumstances are constantly changing and demand our vigilance and adaptivity. Plans represent a point-in-time view; what might have been true then is not necessarily true today. Planning represents adaptation to a new set of circumstances.

To use the sub-heading’s nautical theme, when the prevailing winds are favourable, we can stay on our original tack with a bit of trim (sail adjustment) here and there. But when the winds change, and we want to continue sailing, we need to change tack. This means changing the direction of motion by up to 90 degrees. You’re still heading in the same general direction, but you’re approaching it from a different angle.

Some of you may say that the amount of change in the wind requires only a bit of sail adjustment, I say the winds weren’t that good for this tack to start with, and a year later there’s been enough change to justify a change of tack. Forget the plans from 2009/2010, and start planning.

Planning
Please feel free to put your thoughts forward on why A-Eon should continue with their original plans, in the meantime I’ll explain why it’s not too late for them to bail on those plans. (The following is a hypothetical planning session).

Lets take stock. What have we (A-Eon) got thus far:

1. An OS that is commercially bound to the PowerPC microprocessor architecture.
2. Decent investment of funds into Nemo development boards.
3. Decent investment (or deposit) for the manufacture of a set number (hundreds) of X1000 boards and other non-commodity paraphernalia (case, keyboard, etc).
4. Verbal, architectural, and in some ways a philosophical commitment to use the Xena (XMOS) programmable co-processor.
5. Fragmentation of the core target demographic over multiple Amiga-like offerings.
6. High price tag (if we want to break even on the short-run PC manufacturing).
7. Key open source applications being ported to the platform (Firefox, OpenOffice).

What does our core demographic want:

1. An OS that is free and open.
2. Developers developing for the platform.
3. Powerful hardware. The kind that isn’t too far behind the x86 counterparts.
4. Something to set us apart from the rest of the Windows and Apple crowd.
5. Unified user-base supporting the true Amiga NG platform.
6. Reasonable price tag. The kind that’s not too far above the x86 counterparts.
7. Choice of freeware, shareware, and big-name commercial applications that shine on the platform.

What do ‘we’ want:

1. An OS that allows us to do things rather than prohibit us from doing things. An OS that developers want to develop for.
2. Developers developing for the platform.
3. Second, and third generation hardware. We want this thing to keep growing because we have a vision.
4. Something to set our products apart from the Windows and Apple products. We’re not playing catch-up, we’re not even looking at leap-frog. Like the Wii in the world of Xbox 360 and PS3, we want to define a unique experience.
5. A user-base that may use other platforms, but is using our product for 90% of their computing needs. Like with the original Amiga, a user-base that has a sense of endearment and loyalty to the brand.
6. A price tag that our customers consider reasonable, but also makes us a decent profit. That way we can invest in new products and extend the platform.
7. An ecosystem that will encourage freeware, shareware, and big-name commercial applications to be developed specifically for the platform. Ports are nice, but native apps rock.

Now lets look at the themes and patterns. We want a lot of the same things our core demographic wants, and our second and third demographics would surely appreciate (rich ecosystem with a respectable number of developers creating freeware, shareware, and big-name commercial applications, and something to set us apart from our contemporaries), other mutually inclusive themes are things like the reasonable price tag. It covers what our core demographic wants, but it also feeds the proliferation of the platform and gets it into more hands. More users equals more developers interested in developing for the platform.

The one caveat, the thing we can’t do, if Hyperion is going to make money from their OS investment, is port AmigaOS to another microprocessor architecture. Yes, Arm is nice, x86 is cheap as chips (see what I did there?), but we are wedded to the PowerPC. For better or for worse.

For Better
So here’s what we can do and still cover the things that both ‘we’ and our user-base want.

We pull the plug on the current plan. Any boards currently developed or already in the pipeline will be considered development boards. The thing isn’t reducing in price at the rate we expected.

Now if all those boards are going to be development boards, what will be the user board?

The users want a good price/performance ratio. They want board prices similar to those of the intel/AMD motherboards. They’re not unreasonable in expecting this. Whilst these boards are manufactured in the thousands, the components on these are mostly the same as those found on the Nemo; PCIe, PCI, SATA, PATA, USB2.0, GbE, AC97, DDR2 RAM, BIOS, etc. So the real differences are a different socket, different controller chipset, and lets not forget the Xena. So why are we building a board that has 80% of the components found on $100.00 board? So I say, lets do that, lets give the users a commodity PC motherboard.

What? I thought you said we can’t port AmigaOS to x86.

And we won’t. Let me finish. We go with an AMD chipset board, something that is used by all the main motherboard producers; ASUS, Gigabyte, MSI. The other reason we go with AMD is because the socket doesn’t change as often as it does with intel, and the AMD CPU’s cost less. So our dual PCIe 16x non-custom board + AMD CPU is about $300.00 to the consumer. We give ourselves a ceiling of $1000.00 for the consumer price for the board solution, which leaves us $500.00 – $600.00 (per unit) to source, design, and produce a PCIe PPC board, there are some Freescale QoreIQ parts that would fit nicely. We can try and have the Xena on the same PCIe board or we can just use another of the slots on the motherboard, whichever costs less. After all, the XMOS parts are not PPC specific.

So AmigaOS runs on the PPC board!

To help you visualise the solution

Correct. We use Linux, BSD, or COUGH(aros)! to create a mini-OS that boots off the x86 AMD and loads only the bare necessities to provide a soft UBoot environment for AmigaOS to see the PPC CPU, the PCIe bridge, and all the other devices presented through the soft UBoot (the other PCIe/PCI slots, SATA, PATA, USB2.0, GbE, AC97, DDR2 RAM. It won’t be as fast as a native motherboard, but for AmigaOS 4 it will still be very fast. It’ll be much faster than the SAM460 and for not much more in terms of price. Architecturally it’d be not too dissimilar to a Classic Amiga with a PPC board, consider it as replacing the 68k sub-platform with a x86 sub-platform.

The key is, we get to provide a multi-core AmigaOS 4 computer with modern hardware, and we get to shave a good $1000,00 off the original price tag. It’s a bit Frankensteinien to start with, but the end result is the important thing. Not only are we still in the game, but we are better positioned to satisfy the things we and our users want. And I’m sure there’s a few other things clever developers would do with a box like this.

So what’s stopping someone to buy any x86 board they want, buy the A-Eon PCIe PPC and Xena board or boards, compiling their own kernel, purchasing Amiga OS, and building their own AmigaOne computer?

Nothing. Why would we want to stop a thing like that.

Conclusion
It’s not too late for A-Eon to pull out of it’s original plan and come up with a new one. The one I’ve presented up here is just one of a few possible alternatives. Most of their efforts to date would not be wasted. They can still end up at their destination.

They would no doubt be concerned about user backlash if they told everyone that they are changing their plans. To this I say “We’re Amigans. Plan changes are nothing new to us. Just don’t tell us you’re getting out of the Amiga business.”

What do you guys say? Would you mind a change of plans if they were for the better?

Eddie Cejvan

With Episode 50 soon to be released, I wanted to make some changes to the show, like I have been saying for nearly a year now. I started really with tweaking the format and moving somethings here and there and trying new stuff. I’m still making some behind the scenes changes as well, but the biggest change that people will really notice, is the new theme song. And I came across it by accident believe it or not.

Screenshot from YouTube

While I was on YouTube, watching some music videos, getting my Michael Buble’ fix, and started clicking a few suggested videos, and found Ronald Jenkees. The first video I saw was for a collaboration he did with a group called STS9. I loved it and so I started looking for more of his stuff. Little did I know, he was a big YouTube sensation! So I got all over his videos and then looked for his website. When I found it and read it, I saw that someone on ESPN was using one of his songs for a theme for their podcast. That’s when I got the notion to use his music. So I emailed Ronald and made my case. A few days later, I got back an email and we were in business.

Now Ronald is pretty cool with his music. He didn’t want a lot of money. In fact he didn’t ask for anything! Just credit for his work. No problem. But I want to encourage all our listeners to go to Ronald’s website and listen to his music and buy a song or 2. Help support him and his art. Subscribe to his videos on YouTube even. I can’t say enough about his music. It’s awesome in my opinion. And to be honest, I wouldn’t mind doing an interview of him sometime.

In the meantime, listen in below and let us know what you think of the new theme music. Leave a comment and vote in our poll!

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Rich also writes a Tech blog and posts stories every Tuesday and Thursday on Q103, The Rock of Albany’s website, as well as Amateur Radio stories every Monday thru Friday here on AmiZed Studios.

Ownership
One of the topics that’s been dominating the Amiga news recently, as I’m sure many of you have noticed, is the issue of Amiga licences. Trademarks, copyrights, OS 3.x, OS 4.x, PPC, Cloanto, CommodoreUSA, etc. To add to the problem, without citing any existing legal documents, a multitude of pundits in the Amiga community have made statements regarding the legality of this company or that company having the right to use a trademark or distribute software.

I always knew there was much work to be done until the OS and software library could catch up to the computing norms derived from dominant platforms like Windows and Mac OS X, but it seems it was more important to catch up with the likes of Microsoft and Apple in IP law turmoil. If this is what the thousands of Amiga enthusiasts and hobbyists were aiming for, then congratulations are in order. Mission accomplished.

I Agree with Uncle Carl
If Carl Sassenrath happens to read this post I hope he doesn’t mind me referring to him with what I consider a term of endearment. Whilst there were many creative and passionate engineering personalities involved with the delivery of the Amiga platform, I’m singling out Carl because of one of the key philosophies he adhered to way back then. He has been vocal about it over these many years, and he feels just as strongly about it today, and I agree with his philosophy.

To paraphrase; The user ‘owns’ the computer, and not the other way around. In everything uncle Carl does, the belief in this philosophy has shaped the solution. With other computer platforms the user comes second, and in some cases third, where with the Amiga the user came first. In fact, it could be stated with a high degree of confidence, the Amiga computer was the first computer ‘owned’ by the user. This simple philosophy contributed significantly to the popularity of the platform in the late 80′s and early 90′s, and in no small way accounted for the unique emotional reaction users experienced, and are feeling to this very day. Users own the Amiga.

Capitalism vs. Patriotism
So why all of a sudden have we preoccupied ourselves with this issue of corporate level IP ownership? I guess we all like to see a good fight, but why should we users care about names, brands, or IP rights to place specific program code on a specific microprocessor architecture? Have we all forgotten what owning and using an Amiga is all about? And it’s not about what we use it for, the forgotten question is why we use it?

Yes, it’s a commercial playing field out there. A computer platform is a business endeavor. Developers develop applications to create revenue. Even in the Linux world there is commercialization. There is no free lunch.

I’ll take this opportunity to introduce a polarized argument; Capitalism vs. Patriotism. I find this to be very relevant to the current Amiga landscape. Capitalism being the need to seed the platform in a commercially viable venture vs. the Patriotism-like devotion of the Amiga user base.

The western world, in particular the United States, is confronted by this in a very profound way. The reason the argument exists is that too many enterprising individuals, that would consider themselves patriots, will leverage lower cost labour/components from other countries to increase their profit margins, at the expense of depleting related market segments at home, and in some cases contributing to the complete collapse of domestic sectors, which then require government subsidies/bailouts. And let’s not forget the thousands of people left without work, which again requires government monetary support. Not very patriotic. There is a very excellent book published in 2006 called China Inc. that I recommend to anyone interested in this topic.

How is this related to the Amiga? The individuals that are looking to make a profit from our Amiga Patriotism are doing so at the expense of the very “country” we live in. All of them are so concerned by who ‘owns’ what because that is important in business, but all of them have lost focus on what they’re in business for.

A colleague of mine, who I think very highly of, will often use the market mantra of “competition is good for the consumer”. In this point he is mislead, the truth of the matter is that choice is good for the consumer. Though one of many ways to provide consumer choice, Competition is the worst way to do it because, whilst it may be good for a group of consumers, it is ultimately bad for the wider consumer group or “country” as a whole, and therefore can be argued to be non-Patriotic.

Competition results in conflict, conflict is a form of war, wars devastate entire landscapes, those who profit from war are those who have no problem counting their winnings whilst standing on the corpses of their countrymen. Not very Patriotic.

The Hearts and Minds
Not to paint too grim a picture of commercialism and the things laid waste in its pursuit, there are other ways to conduct business. To make a long story short, the key is to balance the responsibilities to the investors and customers. This is something Commodore failed to do, though not from a lack of dedicated and user focused engineers trying to balance against the corporate greed.

What many business ventures will attempt, but not many will succeed to do, is the proverbial “winning the hearts and minds” of their consumers. Trying to sell a compelling product that we can rationalise, and at the same time ensure we have an emotional reaction to it.

The Amiga 1000 out of the gate hit us with a clear value proposition aimed at our minds; Do things you couldn’t do with any other personal computer. Multitasking, vibrant images, colourful animations, multi-channel sound, and all at a fraction of the price of other personal computers. The emotional response came after people actually started using it to express their creativity.

The emotional response grew, and as Commodore began its decent, the speeds and feeds aspects that are aimed at the mind began to slip compared to the competition. This suicidal strategy was in no small part fed by the devotional following of the Amiga users, which stemmed from their emotional attachment to their Amigas. Commodore (mis)management felt that the Amiga user’s ‘heart’ will buy any new Amiga even if the ‘mind’ doesn’t think it’s good value for money. Think back to the early 90’s and many of us will remember having this attitude. Commodore sucked, but our Amiga could never do wrong.

Today we have a bunch of companies trying to make a business out of the remaining embers of the feelings we still have for this venerable platform. Everyone is going after the mind; Morphos is good value for money, A-Eon’s X1000 will be the fastest Amiga ever sold. But unlike the mid 80’s and the A1000, these companies cannot just sit by and hope we become emotionally attached based on our fondness for the Amiga. Any truly new “Amiga” will need to win our hearts and our minds. It will not have to be called Amiga, it will not have to run Amiga OS with Workbench. It will provide rational value and at the same time will evoke a visceral response. At our very core, within our hearts, we will feel that this new thing is not part of the problem but rather part of the solution.

Maybe it will be the next computer from A-Eon, a X2000 or X500. If not, it will be something delivered by another company. I don’t know who will make it or what it will be called, what I do know is that it will be a computing platform created to be owned by the user.

Eddie Cejvan

So it’s been about 5 days for Episode 49 of Amiga Roundtable. And from comments on some of the forums, it’s kind of mixed. I’m still kind of digesting everything that was said and re thinking what I want to have on the show now. And to say I haven’t thought about scrapping ART all together would be a lie.

Photo Courtesy of Rich Lawrence

But getting people on the show is kind of a chore. We need to come up with ideas of people, and then ask them to be on. 90% of the time, we get no reply. We’ll send a couple more emails asking if they want to be on, and nothing. Such is the case with Dave Haynie. We did everything but send a carrier pigeon to his house. So I am officially giving up on him. If anyone else wants to try and get him to come on the show, knock yourself out.

And while we have made some cracks about Commodore USA, we are still open to having them on in a serious form to give us and them, a dialogue to clear up some of this mistrust that is going on in the community. I don’t know if you could call it mistrust. Out right hatred with fire and pitch forks would be a better description.

And then, the trolls. Ah yes, those pesky creatures that lurk on the forums and plot and scheme to jump on something that someone says and twist it around and cause a big flame fest and get people mad and upset. Yeah, I’m getting sick of those assholes. I wish I could roll a critical D20 on you, 2nd Edition style. HINT: If this last paragraph has offended you, you might be a troll. Just sayin’.

But from a standpoint of the show, I think I am going to release the episode that was just an hour of Bill P., Frank and I talking Commodore USA, and nothing else. For better or worse, so be it. I’m going to need to do some major editing though make it sound decent. And to those that give us good as well as bad on the content of our show, thank you. YOU are the ones that tell us what to talk about. And to those that just like to bash us and pick on every little thing we do or say, I await the first episode of YOUR podcast.

’nuff said.

Rich also writes a Tech blog and posts stories every Tuesday and Thursday on Q103, The Rock of Albany’s website, as well as daily Amateur Radio stories here on AmiZed Studios.

Some time ago, I posted a story about some changes that were being made to AmiZed Studios. Well, two of those changes are happening or are in the process of happening. And now you can get a sneak peak at something new we’re going to try.

Image by AmiZed Studios

The first is a new podcast call “Hack The Box”. It’s a technology podcast with a slant to Linux and hacking. But not hacking like cracking passwords and breaking into servers. This is hacking in the true sense of the word. Tweaking, coding and modifying something till it does what you want it to do or something totally different from what it was meant to do. Circuit bending would be a great example of this. Not to say we’re doing a show all about that. No, we plan on doing an overview of technology as a whole with some slanting of focus towards Linux. We think it’ll be something a little different and bring a more varied group of listeners to the show.

And as previously talked about, we’re starting to ramp up some Amateur Radio content here on the site. We’re off to a start with some stories on the site, and plan on introducing more varied content in the future. We’re going step by step, and taking our time to get things setup for the next steps. Those I’ll share in a future story.

In the mean time, remember you can follow us on our Facebook page as well as our 2 Twitter feeds. The AmiZed feed for all things to do with the site (Amiga Roundtable, NewsTek etc..) and our Amateur Radio Twitter feed.

You’re also free to post comments here on the site and share your thoughts and ideas. We would love to hear them.

73.