I even manage to ignore the CommodoreUSA stuff. I always regarded as business.
Even when they publicly bad-mouthed the AROS and the entire Amiga community (which is strange because they were publicly embracing at first).
In fact, since they were promoting X86 hardware with just know brands was not bad for me. Really what could they do wrong? Slap a linux into a pc with an E-UAE software??
If the Hardware was interesting someone could always stick AROS into it (And that would be as close to a commercial Power Amiga you might get)!
That's what happened... Up to a point...
Introducing Commodore Amiga HW (really??)...
Well first they announced a few Amiga Boxes, which seem to have vaporised (vapourware?) over the time, and now they're presenting the Amiga Mini!
They're cool images (click on them for a bigger picture), and in apple mac-mini rip-off style. But they work (apple designers have been ahead of its time).
The "Amiga Community" seems to have taken this very badly, but in reality it does not add much to what we know from CommodoreUSA.
Even Commodore OS Vision is simply a linux distro - seems well put from the video show on their site, but really it does not add anything else.
So what does it mean for the technological panorama? Another X86-clone with a proprietary linux distro. A conservative yet planned commercial attempt at the general market. General, yes... Because the Amiga spirit is not present on this initiative.
What do I mean by Amiga Spirit?
- Do I mean Custom chips?
Custom Chips are a thing of the past, and its philosophy has reached in a distorted way all the hardware available today, so I'm no preaching hardware revolution, although for many people it was that in the beginning.
Besides if you still want the original Custom Chips philosophy, your best option is NATAMI - the Amiga hardware upgraded to the 2000's.
- Do I mean AmigaOS or similar?
Oh well... AmigaOS was revolutionary, and even with its initial flaws it made into the 21st century into 3 NG options: OS4, MorphOS and AROS.
There are also OS who are inspired or taken many approaches similar to AmigaOS.
And I'm not underlining the Exec pre-emptive multitasking type with its memory allocation, interrupt handling and handling of dynamic shared libraries - Other Operating Systems offer similar approaches.
But the all compact, configurable, understandable structure with a feeling of control and fun (and not overly technical complex).
Definitely the Un*x/Linux spirit does not fit into any account.
- Do I mean something more "ethereal"?
But the most underlining spirit is the one of awe, of belonging, of love...
You could feel that the Amiga was communicating with you, it behaved in distinct manner that you felt that was the right thing (at least most of the times). And there was always some form, some solution to problems posed.
It's something it starts on the developers, the engineers, the designers, and its transported to the end-user.
Every AROS, MorphOS and OS4 user seems to have some of that spirit present...
I'm positively sure that's not the case with the Amiga mini. Of course I could be wrong, and time will tell...
In a nutshell regarding Amiga mini:
Do I care about the hardware? Nope... But the engraved box with the blu-ray drive is interesting (still a bit expensive though).
With that in mind, I would take them put my favorite X-86 AROS supported hardware on it as well as AROS. And then I could say Amiga has just reached the mac-mini hype!
Next target is the tablet!... ;)
