OT = How Does Shrapnel Stay In Business

[Arcadenut]

I heard that there was some good drugs in this forum so I thought I would stop by and check it out!

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Originally posted by LCC:
Back in 85 the Amiga Workbench (Windows
without Microsoft and concurrent multitasking to boot)was controlled either

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Back in 82 the Commodore 64 (Amiga without the GUI, multitasking, graphics, sound, etc...) we had direct access to the hardware too! Then Commodore ruined it for all of us by creating a Multi-Tasking OS with a GUI! Talk about BLOAT! You needed more than 64K of memory after that, and you had to load the OS off of Floppy or Hard Disk! Progress just sucks!

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by the developer using the Intuition interface to the lower level drivers, or going down to the driver level and customizing them for oddball devices. They HAD drivers for every device, and animation/ graphics/ sound at any level desired to boot. They would have had packages for software composition at higher levels than the Intuition interface if the company had Lasted long enough to get customers that NEEDED it.

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Uh, I believe the call that a "Device Driver" today. Some people even refer to it as "Hardware Abstraction". Something new? Nope. Something that Commodore inventerd? Nope.

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That's because it was an OPEN operating system

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Is this the Microsoft definition of "Open Operating System"? Could I get a copy of the Amiga OS source code? Could I run the Amiga OS on my Atari ST? On the PC? How about the MAC? I don't think its really "Open" if you can't see the source, or run it on any other platform other than the Amiga.

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supporting thousands of third party companies with cheap or free development tools, well documented, well designed for ease of understanding, well concieved for functionality, and memory/ execution time efficient to boot.

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Microsoft has 100's of thousands of "Third party companies" support it. There are several free compilers on Windows too! Want documentation? Have you seen the MSDN? Its so big now, that they ship it on a DVD.

What about Books? I went to the bookstore today, and I don't recall seeing "Amiga Unleashed" or "Mastering Amiga", or even "Amiga for Dummies"....

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People like me wrote and published over 800 Megabytes of FREE software for the Amiga, managed by Fred Fish.

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Hmmmm... Well, lets see... I just installed SuSE 7.2 Linux on one of my PC's Last weekend. The FULL install was 8 GIG. Guess what! It was all FREE too! Ever taken a look at tucows.com? download.com? fileplanet.com?

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Commodore Amiga had everything they needed except money and marketing skill, which was utterly lacking. ..

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Yeah, who needs those! Money? Bah! Marketing? Everyone will just *KNOW* about our product which will solve the Money problem for us! All we have to do is WAIT for the customer to come to us! Brilliant!

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If the new incarnation of Amiga can survive just a couple more years,

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Here check out this link to see how well Amiga has been "Surviving" Who owns them now? Who is the CEO again?
http://slashdot.org/search.pl?query=AMIGA

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they will OBLITERATE Microsoft, but I expect MS knows it well and will prevent it.

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The day this happens, I'm going to Vegas! The day Amiga can OBLITERATE Microsoft is the day I'm going to win in Vegas!

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HOW they will do so is the only question. But I predict that it will NOT be by offering superior products.

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How will Microsoft Defeat the Amiga onslaught? By doing exactly what they are doing now against it. Nothing.

Then again, if Jack Tramiel was running Commodore again! Look out MicroSoft!

Now where did I put that Crack Pipe... Oh, LCC is using it right now....

[geoschmo]

A little harsher than I would have been Acadenut, but thanks for injecting a little reality into the discussion.

LCC, I hope you don't start feeling persecuted here. I don't think that is anyone's intention. It certainly isn't mine.

But your reverance for Amiga is a bit odd. I would expect that kind of fervor from a fan of Apple. At least that was demonstrably a decent product. If Jobs hadn't been such a kook, that might have been the competetion everybody wanted it to be for Microsoft. But Amiga?

Geo

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Originally posted by Arcadenut:
I heard that there was some good drugs in this forum so I thought I would stop by and check it out!

Now where did I put that Crack Pipe... Oh, LCC is using it right now....

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Hmm. I may be insensitive, but THAT finally got through to me - a flame!
1) I had copied the post and typed up a response offline, but when I went Online to post I kept getting "Web Site Not Responding" "504 Connection Timed Out". All other sites I checked worked fine.
2) When I finally got through, half the thread was missing, including the flame and my remarks that preceded it.
3) It seemed likely to me that the two were connected, so I got off again and thought about things a while.
4) I will not post any more of my crackpot opinions.
5) I sincerely apologize to Shrapnel and all its customers for the inconvenience my uninhibited remarks posted at this site may have caused.
6) I will post only when I have something of value to the other SE IV gamers to contribute.
7) Posting this took at least an hour, because that is how long I have tried to get through already.

I am truly SORRY....

[capnq]

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But your reverance for Amiga is a bit odd. I would expect that kind of fervor from a fan of Apple. At least that was demonstrably a decent product. If Jobs hadn't been such a kook, that might have been the competetion everybody wanted it to be for Microsoft. But Amiga?

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Geo, you sound like you've never used an Amiga, and definitely haven't dealt with many Amiga fans before.

My first home computer was an Amiga 500, which I purchased used around '89 or so. I was still using it occaisionally until a chip blew about a month ago, and there were several areas where it outperformed the Windows machine I bought new in '98. The Amiga was technically superior to anything in its price range in its early years of release, but some of its idiotic corporate owners actively discouraged further development, in favor of lining their own pockets instead.

The Amiga inspired an almost religious devotion in many of the people who owned one; "Amigoids" can outdo Mac lovers in fanaticism anytime. This is part of why so many of ex-Amiga owners are so bitter about its fall, which shows in the flamewars that break out on Slashdot whenever somebody Posts an Amiga related news item. This passionate fan base is the main reason there's anything left of Amiga to argue about.

BTW, you're the first person I've ever seen accuse Microsoft of having "trained, courteous support", and I don't see many people claim that they "treat the customer right", either. Whether they've provided "value added products" is highly subjective.

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Cap'n Q

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the
human mind to correlate all of its contents. We live on a placid
island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was
not meant that we should go far. -- HP Lovecraft, "The Call of Cthulhu"

[Quikngruvn]

quote:

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Originally posted by LCC:
4) I will not post any more of my crackpot opinions.
5) I sincerely apologize to Shrapnel and all its customers for the inconvenience my uninhibited remarks posted at this site may have caused.
6) I will post only when I have something of value to the other SE IV gamers to contribute.

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LCC, I see no need to apologize. The Last time I checked, you're free to post whatever the heck you want, within reason, and so far you've been within reason. Heck, I've been reading this thread with curiosity and bemusement, and though much of the programming stuff is over my head ("Dammit Jim, I'm a troubleshooter, not a programmer!"), most everyone's Posts (yours included) have been interesting and informative.

Not having owned or worked on an Amiga, I cannot comment on it. I only know and work on Windows because it is the dominant OS on the market, not because of any love or respect for MS or Mr. Bill.

Now, everybody back to their neutral corners before I start with the firehose!

Quikngruvn

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Stay alert. Trust no one. Keep your laser handy.
--from the RPG Paranoia, now my PBW mantra

[geoschmo]

LCC,

By all means, you are free to say anything you wish. That's all part of the free exchange of ideas in an unmoderated forum like we have here. As long as we don't go over the bounds that Shrapnel considers acceptable, and I don't think we have. (Well, maybe we came close a couple times. )

Cap'n, I am familier with Amiga, but no I've never owned one. I am not a programmer. I can understand why a person coming from a programming perspective would prefer a more open OS.

My point was never that Microsoft was better than Amiga. I was simply trying to point out that the growth of computer hardware over the Last 15-20 years is in large part due to the widespread acceptance of MS as a standard in the industry.

Of course now that computers are firmly intrenched in the fabric of our soceity, there is more of a market for alternate OS's like Amiga to gain a foothold and support themselves. That's a good thing.

Twenty years ago a few percent of the market was too few Users for an OS to survive. Today that same percentage could mean millions of Users. Quite a differance.

I guess to the old saying that you should never talk about religion and politics, we'll have to add operating systems.

Geo

Edit:for spelling. grrrr.

Btw Richard, if switching from NT to Amiga for the Shrapnel server means we can get a spell checker on the forum, I'm all for it.

[This message has been edited by geoschmo (edited 05 August 2001).]

[capnq]

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I guess to the old saying that you should never talk about religion and politics, we'll have to add operating systems.

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Operating systems are religion.

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Cap'n Q

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the
human mind to correlate all of its contents. We live on a placid
island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was
not meant that we should go far. -- HP Lovecraft, "The Call of Cthulhu"