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[News] Register Flames AmigaDE PlayerANN.lu
Posted on 30-Aug-2001 15:01 GMT by Christian Kemp24 comments
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dakang says: Register Flames AmigaDE Player and quotes: If Sun couldn't make it happen with Java on the basis of allowing anyone to write JVMs and give them away for free, we can't help but think Amiga's plan to make people pay for this stuff has even less chance of success. Doubly so when this allegedly advanced technology can only be used to knock up half a dozen puzzle games of the kind we haven't seen since we won an Atari Lynx in 1988.
Register Flames AmigaDE Player : Comment 1 of 24ANN.lu
Posted by Graham on 29-Aug-2001 22:00 GMT
I sent an email explaining that the AmigaDE was not a Java VM, but had the capability to run (Personal) Java apps alongside native DE applications.
I also said that AmigaDE could be programmed in C, C++, VP, etc, and that it gained its cross-platform abilities by compiling the VP code natively at runtime.
I also mentioned PDAs, and how software on PDAs typically costs a bit of money, unlike on Windows where there is a lot of free software.
Register Flames AmigaDE Player : Comment 2 of 24ANN.lu
Posted by Solar (BAUD) on 29-Aug-2001 22:00 GMT
And yet still, they are right, basically. Amiga Inc. is now under pressure to come up with AmigaOS 4.x - and making it a good one.
As many of us feared and said before - AmigaDE as being for "appliances" doesn´t ring the bell. Yes, I know, *technically* you could use DE for creating desktop apps too - but if you take a look at the SDK / API / tools available, you can only realize that´s "technically" as well as "theoretically".
I think releasing the SDK first, then telling us that DE is only for "the small stuff", then releasing the DE even before OS 4.x hits the shops, was about the wrongest order they could do it in. (I´d have preferred DE being "it" already - that what´s now called OS 5 on the roadmap. OK so they couldn´t make it true, so I´d have liked to see OS 4 and DE hitting the streets simultaneously.)
The way things went, Amiga Inc. (in the eyes of the world) now is a software-only company making a pathetic attempt of providing "content" for PDAs.
This sounds just like those business presentations that carry so much buzzwords that even the knowledgeable among the audience have a hard time finding out what the product really is all about. :-(
Register Flames AmigaDE Player : Comment 3 of 24ANN.lu
Posted by Nick on 29-Aug-2001 22:00 GMT
In reply to Comment 2 (Solar (BAUD)):
I agree. There are some posts over at amiga.org slamming the Reg as being uniformed. Didn't see anything pointing out exactly what they said that was not true, though.
Register Flames AmigaDE Player : Comment 4 of 24ANN.lu
Posted by Gooseman on 29-Aug-2001 22:00 GMT
I think this article by the reg (which I actually like - they are usually very good) illustrates the confusion around the whole Amiga Inc plan. If they spelled it out so that someone outside understood, then this stuff wouldn't happen. You know the old saying - if you can't explain it, you don't understand it. I get the feeling AInc don't really understand exactly what it is they are doing or why - or if they do, they can't explain it simply. We understand the basic concepts, but we follow ANN, shows, posts etc. We can't expect the outside world (!) to do the same.
Register Flames AmigaDE Player : Comment 5 of 24ANN.lu
Posted by Kjetil on 29-Aug-2001 22:00 GMT
Some one has gotten moony out of Linux by selling books with CD's,
This is the road to go, you can't develop with out knowing on how to.
Register Flames AmigaDE Player : Comment 6 of 24ANN.lu
Posted by Kjetil on 29-Aug-2001 22:00 GMT
Some one has gotten moony out of Linux by selling books with CD's,
This is the road to go, you can't develop with out knowing on how to.
Register Flames AmigaDE Player : Comment 7 of 24ANN.lu
Posted by Bill Hoggett on 29-Aug-2001 22:00 GMT
In reply to Comment 4 (Gooseman):
And yet, the Register is right. I don#t for the life of me understand why (a) the
player was released now and (b) why it was not always intended as freely available.
This is doing a lot of damage to the Amiga image (what's left of it) and it aversely
affects everyone developing anything with an Amiga theme.
As for calling a few simple games "applications", that one goes right into the Book
of Amiga Mistakes, which is getting to be pretty think these days.
Register Flames AmigaDE Player : Comment 8 of 24ANN.lu
Posted by Anonymous on 29-Aug-2001 22:00 GMT
In reply to Comment 3 (Nick):
The Register is famous for being uninformed, not accurate. Its an unwritten rule that sites dont link to The Register for those reasons.
Register Flames AmigaDE Player : Comment 9 of 24ANN.lu
Posted by Hippononymous on 29-Aug-2001 22:00 GMT
In reply to Comment 8 (Anonymous):
Do not mistake "opinionated" with "inaccurate". Journalism is, in theory, supposed to simply present facts with as little opinion from the journalist as possible.
Register is not journalism as much as it is editorializing. The writer gives his opinion, which is the mark of amateur journalists. Given this propensity for opinion, one cannot call it unbiased and therefore it is not a trustworthy news source.
Regardless of what the Register thinks, the problem is that the market Amiga Inc. went for is not panning out in any country execpt Japan. Time will tell if they can become part of the DoCoMo craze there.
Again I see remarks implying that OS 4.x is somehow going to emerge as their main product. OS 4.x is just another grasp of desparation at the only customers Amiga seems to have, the people who still use Amiga desktop computers. By trying to appease them, they hope to get some of them to buy, or develop for, their initial DE products.
OS 4.x is supposed to be a home server platform. The people most willing to buy it want it to be a desktop platform like the Amiga OS releases up to this point.
If it turns out that OS 4.x is their only revenue source, their investors will pull out pretty fast. No VC's are going to fund an alternative desktop OS company.
Amiga Inc. is stuck in a cycle of wanting to ditch the idea of Amiga as a desktop computer platform and promote Amiga as a software and content developer and licensor, but most of their only willing customers (of which there are few) only to seem to want an Amiga desktop computer.
I think they are vague with their announcements on purpose, because they fear deep down that if they were to spell it out for everyone (and say how they want to just license cell-phone games and apps and dump the whole Classic Amiga thing), their remaining fans would abandon any loyalty to them.
Of course, that same fear is what drives them to back disparate products like OS 4.x/AmigaOne and Amithlon.
I was willing to give them some slack, but the DE shop is so poorly done, I say good luck to them in their next jobs. Thanks for at least giving it a shot.
Register Flames AmigaDE Player : Comment 10 of 24ANN.lu
Posted by gz on 29-Aug-2001 22:00 GMT
In reply to Comment 9 (Hippononymous):
I couldnt agree more with this comment.
For once we get realistic comments about the amiga's TRUE situation
instead of the "we want amiga so blindly were willing to buy crap"
attitude.
AI is certainly not impressing the world with their actions.
The sdk has been out for ages but what can one do with it? create
games for pda's that look like the first version of tetris when it
came out?
Wheres the power AI promised their updates to sdk would
bring?
Unless they dont get their act together (which I'm beginning to doubt)
they will end up like the rest who have owned amiga since commodore :(
Register Flames AmigaDE Player : Comment 11 of 24ANN.lu
Posted by Nick on 30-Aug-2001 22:00 GMT
In reply to Comment 8 (Anonymous):
Now there's a really well thought out argument. I guess you don't read the Reg much. I haven't seen a whole lot they were "uninformed" about over the past year or so.
Register Flames AmigaDE Player : Comment 12 of 24ANN.lu
Posted by LordArthur on 30-Aug-2001 22:00 GMT
In reply to Comment 10 (gz):
One thing you must realize about the DE is simply it isn't done yet. They still have a good year to go before it hopes to be. I don't mean the OS4x series, I mean the DE. They only have enough in there to do PDA games. An OS takes a LONG time, and they don't have unlimited resources. If they can make money with the PDA stuff, until the rest is ready, then that is fine! High end apps(including games) need high-end APIs, and they aren't done yet. This is why they are introducing Ami2D & Ami3D in OS4x. They know the DE won't be ready for larger things for a while. Current it is like Dos (or probably more like Windows 3.0 on Dos if you can remember that).
As for the player, this is actually a good thing. One of the larger problems about developing for the DE is after your done, no one could run the APP unless they had the DE SDK as well. Now you can actually write something in DE, and sell it, and license the Player (and include it with your app) much like you would license DirectX for a game on Windows (to include it with your game).
When OS4.2 his with DE available for it, you'll start see MUCH more DE development since people will actually be able to play with it on their Amiga. The only thing that the DE REALLY needs is a good Integrated Development Environment! I'm too spoiled with better compilers to go back to using scripts and command line switches.
Register Flames AmigaDE Player : Comment 13 of 24ANN.lu
Posted by Cybes on 30-Aug-2001 22:00 GMT
I understand the issues at hand here, but i must say at the end of the day the player should be free, content shouldnt. In its simplest form think of MUI vs ClassAct (;)), to rekindle an old debate. At the end of the day MUI won as it was the one who offered something free to the market it was trying to attract, and even though as a user, you could pay for it, it wasnt necessary. ClassAct on the other hand demanded the developer pay for it outright and as a result severely limited its market appeal. But this is a cross comparison, not a direct one. The target market the DE needs to get is people using it, people who develop for the DE (presently) will (Generally) be doing so to provide commercial content, and thus will profit, so it is them who should pay any licensing from this, and the users, who may otherwise not consider it, if it was free, would be much more likely to take to it if they didnt have to pay. This is particularly true of the Linux scene which in general seems to see paying for anything as a dirty word *usually*. This said, Amiga has recognised the need for a free player, and i hope this is succesful. DE's functionality is meaningless if there isnt users to use it, and few usersfew developers, more users=more developers. infact, if i was Amiga, id be doing what i could (pending Tao's approval) to get the DE *player* (not AmigaDE whole environment) out there as widely as possible. Put it on freshmeat, download.com, shareware.com, aminet, amiga cover cds, pc cover cds, (mac cover cds when appropriate), and so on. Get it bundled with everything and anything you can. So at the end of the day you may end up with 100million people with the player installed (whether they r aware of it or not). Obviously this kind of widescale distro is something you dont want till the DE is in a state which Amiga is happy to be commercially succesful from, then this can be done. But to charge at this early state, even as a revenue raiser is just bad publicity imho, and sets a first impression which may not be easily shaken.
Register Flames AmigaDE Player : Comment 14 of 24ANN.lu
Posted by Luca on 30-Aug-2001 22:00 GMT
In reply to Comment 13 (Cybes):
Amen to that!
Register Flames AmigaDE Player : Comment 15 of 24ANN.lu
Posted by Solar (BAUD) on 30-Aug-2001 22:00 GMT
In reply to Comment 9 (Hippononymous):
I couldn´t have described my fear any better than you did.
Yet still I hope the real thing is more along the lines of "DE isn´t finished yet".
The only thing I know for very, very real is that we don´t know enough. You can blame Amiga Inc. for that, but I also understand they have to keep their long-term strategies under cover. It´s business after all.
Register Flames AmigaDE Player : Comment 16 of 24ANN.lu
Posted by Ben on 30-Aug-2001 22:00 GMT
Unfortunately:
a) I would agree witht The Reg on this
b) This is the view of Amiga that most people can see at the moment, regardless of what may be happening in the future. The point is Amiga have just released a "player" for $20 and nobody can see a killer app/game for it.
Register Flames AmigaDE Player : Comment 17 of 24ANN.lu
Posted by dakang on 30-Aug-2001 22:00 GMT
Has anybody heard from Amiga Inc recently about this or their 'counterargument'?
Judging by the poll, the majority of us want a free player!
I'm a Network Engineer, not a business guru but I wonder why we cant have a free 'basic' player and let them charge $20 for a superduper version?
Register Flames AmigaDE Player : Comment 18 of 24ANN.lu
Posted by alffx on 30-Aug-2001 22:00 GMT
why should i pay 20$?
to play tetrisclones on my pc.
think not.
And please clean up this amigashop because I was showing it to a friend of my
and messages as "not available yet" are no good.
alf
Register Flames AmigaDE Player : Comment 19 of 24ANN.lu
Posted by alffx on 30-Aug-2001 22:00 GMT
why should i pay 20$?
to play tetrisclones on my pc.
think not.
And please clean up this amigashop because I was showing it to a friend of my
and messages as "not available yet" are no good.
alf
Register Flames AmigaDE Player : Comment 20 of 24ANN.lu
Posted by Rik Sweeney on 30-Aug-2001 22:00 GMT
In reply to Comment 19 (alffx):
Sure thing, I'll get on it right away.
Maybe you should send that message to someone who can actually do something about it.
Register Flames AmigaDE Player : Comment 21 of 24ANN.lu
Posted by K.O. on 30-Aug-2001 22:00 GMT
What DE really needs is a killer ap, period. If DE had a killer ap, Amiga would not have to ask twice. It's compelling content that'll make 'em pay.
Amiga Inc. is trying really hard to scrape up some quick cash, me thinks, and I can't really hold that against them. If you can afford it, cast your lot with Amiga Inc. and buy the *%# DE player. They aren't freaking M$, after all, and
can't afford to just give stuff away.
Register Flames AmigaDE Player : Comment 22 of 24ANN.lu
Posted by Troels Ersking on 30-Aug-2001 22:00 GMT
In reply to Comment 21 (K.O.):
Hi
I agree 100% about the need of a killer application, the current range of games available are PDA versions which will never sell very well to a desktop audience.
What we need is new applications or new AmigaDE versions of old AmigaOS applications..... Photogenics has been announced/demonstrated a loooong time ago but where is it? It's applications like that that will sell the AmigaDE (atleast to me).
I guess we will have to wait a while for "real" AmigaDE/player desktop applications, there are still to many things missing in the DE, like 2D,3D and sound api's.
Regards
Register Flames AmigaDE Player : Comment 23 of 24ANN.lu
Posted by Brecht on 30-Aug-2001 22:00 GMT
In reply to Comment 22 (Troels Ersking):
http://www.idruna.com/
there is a pocketpc version of photogenics
Brecht
Register Flames AmigaDE Player : Comment 24 of 24ANN.lu
Posted by smith_rouelle on 31-Aug-2001 22:00 GMT
The Register's article certainly contains some inaccuracies about Java too - what's this about Java not making it? Okay, so Java isn't big on the desktop, but it's MASSIVE on the server, on information systems, on multi-tier systems. Java is no failure - a lot of people make a lot of money from Java.
I'd imagine those in the Java community will be just as annoyed with this article which is unfortunately so typical of the stuff they produce. Personally, I think the best place for professionally written IT news is ZDNet.
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