In reply to Comment 36 (Senex):
As far as I can tell, Wayne was getting frustrated about the lack of positive action in the community --- in other words, most of the energy is spent on trying to hurt each other.While I certainly agree with his observation (well, duh!), I can't agree with his analysis regarding the cause. This is going to be controversial, but hey, I haven't been flamed in a while (disregarding Sammy here --- flamed in style, I mean :)There were mainly two kinds of Amiga users in the early to mid 90s --- those who used their A500 or A1200 as a games console, and those who were specifically using a "different" computer from the mainstream --- be it, because the machine could do things the mainstream ones couldn't, or be it out of a misguided desire to be special. Alas, it is 2004, and between Gamecube, PS2 and XBox, those A500 gamers have long since moved on. Also, the mainstream has progressed in leaps and bounds, opening up all sorts of things which you couldn't do on the aging A4000, even if you spent a small fortune to put a CSPPC into it. And those things that used to be the Amiga's strength, oh well, the mainstream went past those 68k zombies a long time ago. Whether Paula is 8 or 14 bit capable really doesn't matter when $30 PC sound cards give crystal-clear 16 bit sound, with a built-in DSP, and digital in and out. So most of those who used the Amiga because it did what they wanted to do better than the mainstream machines of the90s did --- well, they are gone to, because the Amiga didn't get any better at anything for years, and the mainstream came up with all this cool new stuff, as well as overtaking the Amiga in its own are. Which means that the current "community" is mostly made up of those who need to find some reason to feel good about themselves, no matter how idiotic. Most of them haven't got the slightest clue about computer architecture, but will make passionate arguments about how much better their chosen thing is than what "the sheep" use. Be that the old "IDE is a CPU-intensive hard drive interface" (hasn't been the case for a decade, and these days, serial-ATA and serially-attached-SCSI are actually pretty much identical), be that the "x86 is a kludge on top of a kludge on top of a kludge, and runs incredibly hot" (partly true, but of course just as true for PPC; Comparing G3-800s to Athlon64-3400+ processors doesn't make sense; Compare the G3 to a Pentium-M or a C3). And let's not even think about the whole issue of"interrupts", right? Hardly a soul who understands them (let alone the fact that interrupts are something *GOOD*, and that the Amiga had lots of them, too), and yet, people still act as if PCs came with nothing but ISA busses (for which, indeed, the way interrupt requests were implemented, was braindead). So, you end up with a community hell-bent on proving to itself its own superiority, because that's the whole *point* of being in this community, of putting your luck in with "the Amiga".That worked well in the late 90s. The Amiga had some things still going for it, and "the community" was sufficiently large to reinforce each other's conviction of being better, smarter, more individualistic or more technically pure than "the sheep". Alas, once again, it is 2004. The 68k Amiga has been left behind by such a long way, that even if Amigans wanted to preach its superiority, "the sheep" would simply smile condescendingly and move on. And what "next generation Amigas" there are, are unfortunately PCs with a different processor; No great system architecture, no custom chips, nothing at all that's different from the mainstream, except for the processor. Oh, and the fact that they are one or two hardware generations behind the mainstream, some parts don't seem to work properly, and there is very little software for them. So no, walking up to a "sheep" and talking about your great "new Amiga" is not going to work, either.What to do? Atari is dead, so feeling better than the 520ST owners won't work. Apple has got its act together, is making money and building up-to-date hardware with cool design and one kick-ass OS, which, what a shame, even multitask preemptively. Damn! I bet if Macs still had floppy drives (remember them?), they could even format a floppy and play a DVD at the same time. So, instead, the obvious choice is to split your small community in two --- after all, then "we" and "they" are starting from the same place, and as "we" have obviously aligned ourselves with the better team, or the more clever team, or the better funded team, or the more ethical team, "we" are so much better than "they" are.....Just one problem: Both "we" and "they" got screwed. One side has been promising their OS in a few months for years now, while the other side has only held back the promised update for what, a year? Both sides have always been quick to announce hardware, but slow to deliver --- and even slower to deliver working hardware. Both sides still can't support even all the onboard hardware with drivers for their chosen OS. Both sides were for all intents and purposes broke at the start of the year, and neither has given any reason to believe they are now any better off. And deep down, everyone who paid for the privilege of owning one of the "new Amigas" knows it, and is upset about it. But surely it's not because of anyone's own fault, or even due to a fault by "the chosen team". It must be somebody elses fault. THEY WRECKED IT ALL! THEY! THEY! And as long as I can make THEM feel bad about themselves, maybe I can feel good about myself and forget that irritating nagging voice in my head. THEM! EVILDOERS! |
