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[News] Exclusive! Walker concept designsANN.lu
Posted on 25-Oct-2002 22:20 GMT by Gareth Knight44 comments
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To celebrate the World of Amiga show, Amiga Interactive Guide is proud to reveal six concept designs of the Amiga Walker. Weep nostalgic tears for the familiar desktop! Jump for joy at the mini-tower version! And quake in fear at the bizarre blue Walker!

To read more about the Walker and other developments, visit Amiga Interactive Guide.

Exclusive! Walker concept designs : Comment 1 of 44ANN.lu
Posted by Gareth Knight on 25-Oct-2002 20:45 GMT
For those people who are too lazy to go through the various links, try this page:
http://amiga.emugaming.com/concept/walkerconcept.html
Gaz
Exclusive! Walker concept designs : Comment 2 of 44ANN.lu
Posted by STRICQ on 25-Oct-2002 21:09 GMT
Is it just me or does the Walker-blue look like a street garbage can? Wild.
Exclusive! Walker concept designs : Comment 3 of 44ANN.lu
Posted by Christophe Decanini on 25-Oct-2002 22:43 GMT
This site is great. You can learn a lot there. The Amiga had a lot to offer as a platform.
I have just read this 1995 press release. It is a pity that Escom bankrupted just after !
It may help to understand the current situation with MorphOS.
http://amiga.emugaming.com/ppcrelease.html
Exclusive! Walker concept designs : Comment 4 of 44ANN.lu
Posted by Rob on 25-Oct-2002 23:06 GMT
In reply to Comment 2 (STRICQ):
My sentiments exactly.
Exclusive! Walker concept designs : Comment 5 of 44ANN.lu
Posted by Rob on 25-Oct-2002 23:50 GMT
Although I was never that fussed on the walker case design the
motherboard had a good feature set including 2 EIDE ports, faster
serial and parallel, a simm slot, graphics slot and CPU slot.
I think if Escom had concentrated on being a technology company and
not a high street retailer they could have made a real go of Amiga
they were obviously prepared to put in the funding. I think buying
Rumbellows in the U.K. was a big mistake for them though they must
have spent a lot of money on a high street chain that didn't make any.
Exclusive! Walker concept designs : Comment 6 of 44ANN.lu
Posted by Christophe Decanini on 26-Oct-2002 01:51 GMT
In reply to Comment 5 (Rob):
1 SIMM slot was poor for a supposely very expandable computer.
Also the cpu was an EC30 if I remember well.
Was it solder ? Did the walker had a cpu slot ?
Exclusive! Walker concept designs : Comment 7 of 44ANN.lu
Posted by .jon on 26-Oct-2002 03:56 GMT
In reply to Comment 5 (Rob):
You are funny. ;-)
ESCOM *was* a street reseller, not a technology developer.
They could not concentrate on a low income side-business.
With the purchase of the Amiga assets they wanted to try
something new.
Oh, btw. The founder of ESCOM started with a little Synthesizer
and music machines shop.
.jon
P.S. And I must know. I grew up next to hundreds of ESCOM stores.
Exclusive! Walker concept designs : Comment 8 of 44ANN.lu
Posted by tinman on 26-Oct-2002 06:44 GMT
In reply to Comment 7 (.jon):
> P.S. And I must know. I grew up next to hundreds of ESCOM stores
Maybe that's why they failed, too high a concentration of shops ;)
Exclusive! Walker concept designs : Comment 9 of 44ANN.lu
Posted by Anonymous on 26-Oct-2002 10:58 GMT
No company can seriously expect to make hugh profits on a dead end market, the amiga days are long gone, all this AmigaONE nonsence is just a ploy to make money out of old rope.
Exclusive! Walker concept designs : Comment 10 of 44ANN.lu
Posted by Ole-Egil on 26-Oct-2002 11:36 GMT
In reply to Comment 9 (Anonymous):
What a quaint and curios idea.
"Hey, this Amiga market is dead, there's no money in it."
"Ok, let's start making some more hardware so we can milk out any of this non-existant money you mentioned."
Nah. Can't be. It's the DE that's gonna be the milking cow that'll keep the Amiga market alive. Not the other way around. Mark my words.
Exclusive! Walker concept designs : Comment 11 of 44ANN.lu
Posted by Alkis Tsapanidis on 26-Oct-2002 11:40 GMT
In reply to Comment 10 (Ole-Egil):
Amiga Inc won't get a penny out of AmigaDE in the future. I'm 99% sure of that... It's a dead end, and they don't have the development resources to
compete with .net, etc.
Exclusive! Walker concept designs : Comment 12 of 44ANN.lu
Posted by smp266 on 26-Oct-2002 11:41 GMT
In reply to Comment 10 (Ole-Egil):
Don't forget Amiga actually made a profit for Escom and Commodore. It was their PC market that lost all their dollars.
Same deal with Gateway, they took big losses in their PC sales.
Amiga is a veritable cash cow!
Exclusive! Walker concept designs : Comment 13 of 44ANN.lu
Posted by smp266 on 26-Oct-2002 11:44 GMT
In reply to Comment 12 (smp266):
P.S. I have DE and I like it. I wish they would release more arcade games for it. Plus operating on VP is a thrill.
Exclusive! Walker concept designs : Comment 14 of 44ANN.lu
Posted by asdasd on 26-Oct-2002 13:16 GMT
In reply to Comment 10 (Ole-Egil):
Kind of hard to get milk from a cow that has abandoned its offices and disconnected its phones (poor cow). Unless Amiga Inc. has moved to the MS Redmond campus, it would seem, at least for now, that they are not operating (try calling their phone numbers; rumors persist that the offices up there are locked and empty). When a company forces its employees to take vacations, the end is near for them. Maybe some of these rumors are made up. But I can vouch that their phones are out and have been for days and days.
Exclusive! Walker concept designs : Comment 15 of 44ANN.lu
Posted by reflect on 26-Oct-2002 14:31 GMT
In reply to Comment 14 (asdasd):
When a company forces its employees to vacation, its days are numbered?
Oh, I see. So in 2001, in the summer when Sun Microsystems let all the employees go
on vacation for a month without pay.. hm. and they did the same thing this year..
hmmm..
I wonder when they'll go bust then. It should be any second now, right?
-- BAH! --
Exclusive! Walker concept designs : Comment 16 of 44ANN.lu
Posted by Anonymous on 26-Oct-2002 15:12 GMT
In reply to Comment 14 (asdasd):
The Snoqualmie Pegasos User Group will move into their offices, for sure! :-D
Exclusive! Walker concept designs : Comment 17 of 44ANN.lu
Posted by anonymous on 26-Oct-2002 15:44 GMT
"Kind of hard to get milk from a cow that has abandoned its offices and disconnected its phones"
If these rumours are real it definitely doesn't look encouraging.
Just a hypothetical question, but has Thendic ever indicated if they perceive ownership of Amiga IP to be of value to them?
Exclusive! Walker concept designs : Comment 18 of 44ANN.lu
Posted by Troels E on 26-Oct-2002 19:07 GMT
In reply to Comment 17 (anonymous):
"Just a hypothetical question, but has Thendic ever indicated if they perceive ownership of Amiga IP to be of value to them?"
I never heard them talk about that but if the price is right I'm sure they would like the Amiga name:-)
Exclusive! Walker concept designs : Comment 19 of 44ANN.lu
Posted by anonymous on 26-Oct-2002 19:34 GMT
In reply to Comment 18 (Troels E):
One would imagine.
I'm not saying this is even remotely thinkable, but what exactly are the arrangements with Eyetech and Hyperion?
I was under the impression that come hell or high water, Hyperion basically held the rights to OS4 and anything derived from it while Eyetech's interest seems to be primarily the name.
Exclusive! Walker concept designs : Comment 20 of 44ANN.lu
Posted by Anonymous on 26-Oct-2002 19:52 GMT
you know what i mean, this AmigaONE is a high priced low end board which is not worth 411 GBP, they know the total obsessed amiga nut will buy any old shit just because it has an amiga badge on it, AOS needs to go all the way (to run on all hardware) instead of the stupid restrictions.
Exclusive! Walker concept designs : Comment 21 of 44ANN.lu
Posted by cOrpse on 26-Oct-2002 20:24 GMT
In reply to Comment 20 (Anonymous):
"they know the total obsessed amiga nut will buy any old shit just because it has an amiga badge on it,"
My amiga doesn't have an amiga badge on it ... its gotta haage and partner sticker and an Eyetech EZ-Tower badge ;).
"AOS needs to go all the way (to run on all hardware) instead of the stupid restrictions."
Phase5 introduced amiga to PPC not an one of the *amiga* companies , PPC is now something we're stuck with ... And hyperion wanted to run AOS4 on the majority of PPC hardware ( they did order a pegasos , but it never turned up ) , so that statement is complete BS.
Exclusive! Walker concept designs : Comment 22 of 44ANN.lu
Posted by Alkis Tsapanidis on 26-Oct-2002 22:13 GMT
In reply to Comment 21 (cOrpse):
Well, that first order, at that time was just to enter the MOS dev program,
but these orders seem to have been canceled afaik. They can order one now
and get it, like any other person, but they won't be able to release OS4 for
it, if Thendic doesn't get that stupid agreement.
Exclusive! Walker concept designs : Comment 23 of 44ANN.lu
Posted by George on 26-Oct-2002 22:33 GMT
In reply to Comment 20 (Anonymous):
> you know what i mean, this AmigaONE is a high priced low end board which is not >worth 411 GBP, they know the total obsessed amiga nut will buy any old shit just >because it has an amiga badge on it, AOS needs to go all the way (to run on all >hardware) instead of the stupid restrictions.
Yeah I know - how silly of them to concentrate on a single piece of hardware instead of writing & developing support for EVERY piece of X86 HW out there....I mean I'm sure that the handful of people at Eyetech & Hyperion have the capacity and resources to perform this function.
<sarcasm off>
You guys have NFI
Exclusive! Walker concept designs : Comment 24 of 44ANN.lu
Posted by anonymous on 26-Oct-2002 22:45 GMT
In reply to Comment 19 (anonymous):
Argh... the office number is indeed disconnected.
Exclusive! Walker concept designs : Comment 25 of 44ANN.lu
Posted by Anonymous on 27-Oct-2002 02:56 GMT
In reply to Comment 15 (reflect):
Non-core staff were asked to take the _week_ of July 4 off, most US offices were shut and there was a corresponding reduction in company overheads. Not "for a month" and not "all the employees" and it wasn't "without pay" unless employees had already used up all their discretionary leave (which would be pretty unusual by 7th July)
Core operations at Sun (e.g. 24/7 support) still continued as necessary. And yes, analysts considered this a sign that Sun was in some financial trouble. Basically they'd grown too quickly. In the medium term Sun are still vulnerable and could go the way of SGI or DEC all too easily if they make more serious mistakes.
Exclusive! Walker concept designs : Comment 26 of 44ANN.lu
Posted by Don Cox on 27-Oct-2002 07:25 GMT
In reply to Comment 14 (asdasd):
The "vacation" concept comes from a hoax post to the Bunny. There is
no evidence that Amiga Inc are taking a vacation, forced or otherwise.
There does seem to be good evidence that they are no longer in the
Snoqualmie office. That is all that is known.
Exclusive! Walker concept designs : Comment 27 of 44ANN.lu
Posted by Don Cox on 27-Oct-2002 07:34 GMT
In reply to Comment 19 (anonymous):
"I'm not saying this is even remotely thinkable, but what exactly are the arrangements with Eyetech and
Hyperion? "
Eyetech are distributing a PPC motherboard and have license and
approval from AmigaInc to call it "AmigaOne" and use Amiga logos. If
the Amiga brand name changed hands, they could still sell the board to
run Linux. Probably there is an arrangement to go on using the Amiga
brand name too.
Hyperion are developing OS 4 at their own expense, with access to the
source code and full support from Amiga Inc. Amiga Inc have the option
to buy the new code from them later if they want to. If Amiga Inc goes
down, Hyperion still have the rights to sell the OS. Presumably the
new owners would get a license fee for each copy sold.
I don't know the exact position of Cloanto, but it must be similar,
as Amiga Forever went on being sold when Gateway sold the brand to the
new Amiga Inc.
Exclusive! Walker concept designs : Comment 28 of 44ANN.lu
Posted by Ole-Egil on 27-Oct-2002 08:00 GMT
In reply to Comment 14 (asdasd):
And I can vouch for the fact that at least Fleecy answers selected emails and is really positive, but working way too hard to answer all the "why is the phones disconnected" questions. Let them work. Stop worrying. AI is _not_ going away just because they've been hard to reach for a while.
I guess it's been decided against making any more public announcements until a product is shipping. Which is what some people have asked for. They're spending less time making announcements, more time making actual deals and products. How is this a bad thing, again?
Exclusive! Walker concept designs : Comment 29 of 44ANN.lu
Posted by cOrpse on 27-Oct-2002 11:00 GMT
In reply to Comment 22 (Alkis Tsapanidis):
"Well, that first order, at that time was just to enter the MOS dev program,
but these orders seem to have been canceled afaik. They can order one now
and get it, like any other person, but they won't be able to release OS4 for
it, if Thendic doesn't get that stupid agreement."
LOL it doesn't really matter what thendic say , hyperion can release OS4 for the pegasos if they don't sign stupid contracts.
If you have to sign contracts with thendic to release/port an os to the pegasos they're kicking themselves in the nuts.
Exclusive! Walker concept designs : Comment 30 of 44ANN.lu
Posted by Anonymous on 27-Oct-2002 11:25 GMT
In reply to Comment 28 (Ole-Egil):
>but working way too hard to answer all the "why is the phones disconnected"
>questions
Yes, that is the age-old excuse isn't it? Working way too hard to answer all the difficult and unpleasant questions, avoiding them and keeping the spin up and discrediting rumor-mongers by saying, well, really, nothing - even if the rumors turn out to be absolutely right.
It would take Fleecy 5 minutes to answer the question in public once, the community would disseminate it for him. He chooses not to, and obviously not because he doesn't have the time to do it - he can't, for some reason, or does not want to.
This has been the Amiga Inc. motif from day one. They rarely admit to failure in public, or accept any kind of criticism in public. And considering their track-record, that is also why they've lost the respect and trust of so many. A big mistake in my opinion.
That being said, I do believe they are still operational (probably not at the office though) and probably going ahead with a new deal. I hope it doesn't turn out like the previous ones...
Exclusive! Walker concept designs : Comment 31 of 44ANN.lu
Posted by Anonymous on 27-Oct-2002 12:48 GMT
In reply to Comment 21 (cOrpse):
>Phase5 introduced amiga to PPC not an one of the *amiga* companies
What? Amiga Technologies decided for PPC back then and it was better than x86, too.
Exclusive! Walker concept designs : Comment 32 of 44ANN.lu
Posted by Anonymous on 27-Oct-2002 13:02 GMT
In reply to Comment 28 (Ole-Egil):
Didn't they promise monthly executive updates?
Exclusive! Walker concept designs : Comment 33 of 44ANN.lu
Posted by Anonymous on 27-Oct-2002 13:05 GMT
In reply to Comment 29 (cOrpse):
>LOL it doesn't really matter what thendic say , hyperion can release OS4
>for the pegasos if they don't sign stupid contracts.
Thendic say they are welcome to release OS4 which Thendic would even ship
with the machines.
>If you have to sign contracts with thendic to release/port an os to the
>pegasos they're kicking themselves in the nuts.
You misunderstood something - it's AInc. that demand "stupid contracts" first.
Exclusive! Walker concept designs : Comment 34 of 44ANN.lu
Posted by Ole-Egil on 27-Oct-2002 13:57 GMT
In reply to Comment 30 (Anonymous):
Wrong. It wouldn't help either way for anyone from AI to go out in public and say "We're still here, working our asses off on this new thing we can't tell you about". Much better to shut up, get the thingie out, and apologise for being quiet. Basically, until you've been notified of AI's death, they are still alive. And personally, I'm glad. Because I think they might be on to something. Hopefully we'll see some news from them in a short time. Hopefully the community will take it like grown ups. But one of the two last sentences just seems _very_ unlikely. Feel free to guess which one. I'm placing my bets on sentence number two being the most unlikely.
Exclusive! Walker concept designs : Comment 35 of 44ANN.lu
Posted by Anonymous on 27-Oct-2002 15:20 GMT
In reply to Comment 34 (Ole-Egil):
>Much better to shut up
Better to shuddup than to tell people they have seen the original AOne running... :-P
Exclusive! Walker concept designs : Comment 36 of 44ANN.lu
Posted by hgm on 27-Oct-2002 16:47 GMT
Closing the business, just before releasing new hardware, though it is the wrong processor, is very very pity. If they had released a x86 Amiga OS they were still in business. Sooner or later the AOS will run on x86 processors or their children.
Exclusive! Walker concept designs : Comment 37 of 44ANN.lu
Posted by Ole-Egil on 27-Oct-2002 17:01 GMT
In reply to Comment 36 (hgm):
AI aren't releasing new hardware. So what are _you_ on about? ;-)
Exclusive! Walker concept designs : Comment 38 of 44ANN.lu
Posted by anonymous on 27-Oct-2002 17:42 GMT
In reply to Comment 34 (Ole-Egil):
"Wrong. It wouldn't help either way for anyone from AI to go out in public and say "We're still here, working our asses off on this new thing we can't tell you about". Much better to shut up, get the thingie out, and apologise for being quiet."
I don't buy this. No matter how 'busy' you are that is no excuse for disconnecting a phone line and leaving the old number posted on your web site. If it was disconnected because it's more practical for employees to work from home then the line should have been re-routed or forwarded to an answering service.
Bill McEwen is obviously trying to attract investors and business opportunities, not coding. This is definitely not a good way to do it.
Exclusive! Walker concept designs : Comment 39 of 44ANN.lu
Posted by Gareth Knight on 27-Oct-2002 17:54 GMT
In reply to Comment 31 (Anonymous):
PowerPC was the 'ommon sense'path in the mid-1990s. At the time PPC was much faster than the x86. Dave Haynie has indicated that Commmodore would have followed the Apple route if they hadn't died. Nowadays there is little distinction between current RISC and CISC machines.
Exclusive! Walker concept designs : Comment 40 of 44ANN.lu
Posted by Anonymous on 27-Oct-2002 23:38 GMT
In reply to Comment 28 (Ole-Egil):
This is often how it looks when a badly run private company goes under. All the employees will have been asked to make "sacrifices" for the good of the company e.g. no pay or "lending" thousands of dollars as an unsecured loan, so they aren't going to tell you about their misgivings because their future is tied up with that of the company.
So long as there is even the tiniest chance that everything will work out, Fleecy and Gary and especially Bill are going to say "Don't worry, it will be OK, in fact it will be better than OK, it will be great". They've been lying to you for years, and they're not about to stop now.
Exclusive! Walker concept designs : Comment 41 of 44ANN.lu
Posted by Anonymous on 28-Oct-2002 04:24 GMT
In reply to Comment 32 (Anonymous):
>Didn't they promise monthly executive updates?
They've promised a lot of things over the past two and a half years. I wonder when will they learn not make ones they can not keep. I can understand a done deal that goes wrong for an unexpected reason (although when it becomes a pattern like it has it makes for worse reading), but why keep promising stuff like this when they've so often failed to meet them in the past...
I know, I know, to keep us waiting for that two more weeks. Just like the proverbial frog that will jump out immediately if thrown into a pot of boiling water, but if you put the frog in cold water and heat it up gently to the point of boiling, the frog will not understand to jump out in time. How many of us would still be here had we been given realistic timetables two years ago?
Doesn't make it right, though. And in the end, it has cost them a lot of trust and respect. This is something they could at least rectify in part by being open and honest, but I guess they've decided long ago that that is just not the way they go about business.
I'd really hate to agree with comment 40, but it does bring up a point one can't entirely dismiss.
Exclusive! Walker concept designs : Comment 42 of 44ANN.lu
Posted by brotheris on 28-Oct-2002 04:44 GMT
In reply to Comment 39 (Gareth Knight):
Didn't they speak of some HP cpu ? PPC was too weak at that time.
Exclusive! Walker concept designs : Comment 43 of 44ANN.lu
Posted by dammy on 28-Oct-2002 05:08 GMT
In reply to Comment 42 (brotheris):
IIRC (hey, it's late), Hombre was based on PA-RISC core. The actual CPU wasn't going to be based on PA-RISC.
Dammy
Exclusive! Walker concept designs : Comment 44 of 44ANN.lu
Posted by RetardKiller on 28-Oct-2002 19:03 GMT
In reply to Comment 34 (Ole-Egil):
"Because I think they might be on to something."
Yeah, they've become adept at failure.
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