<cwall_AMI> point questions to me in private thank you

<fleecy> Tomorrow, the devbox and demos will be down on the floor just next to UGN booth so they can tell you all about it. The public website will go up in the next couple of days...so they tell me. www.amiga.com

Q: *rudge* -So the developer's machine isn't even out on display?

<fleecy> It will be out tomorrow - we are polishing the case at the moment

Q: *Zonkk* Q: Is everything chugging along nicely and meeting with your plans so far? And everyone involved happy

<fleecy> We are literally snowed under with offers of partnerships, money, fame, fast cars etc

Q: *Gooseman* When are the parnerships going to be announced?

<fleecy> Before I tell you what the dev box is, you need to understand that the only thing that matters is the Virtual Processor(VP). It already runs on x86, PPC, MIPS, ARM, SH4..and some other very nice, soon to be announced megaCHIPS. What I pushed in my 3 hr Fidel Castro dev speech was that hardware is becoming a commodity. The dev machine will be a k6 2 500mhz, 64MB, Geforce 256 machine - cheap, runs the Tao system very well

Q: *dmac* will developer softwre be available on the web ?

<fleecy> Gary is doing the support site - there will be a full, professional organisation, paid and free, all done via the web

Q: *Omni* Q : So the dev machine is normal PC ?

<fleecy> YEs, because it makes no difference!!! As soon as someone sends us a PoP machine, we will have that up and running

Q: *rudge* - So can this system be put on any store-bought PC yet or is there still some hardware involved?

<fleecy> Not at the moment - as it is dev system we are only supporting one gfx card, 1 audio card etc.

Q: *m0ns00n* Question: How about AROS. Are you supporting the initiative? Will AmigaNG OS be open source or free, like BeOS5?

<fleecy> We will be making an AROS announcement tnonight 8-)

Q: *KatseNova* q: Do you plan to sell devkits, or will that available for free? By Devkit.. i mean only the software part.

<fleecy> We haven't decided yet - piracy is still a major concern

Q: *jobe* what's with my pc having these specified hardware. am i able to get the dev soft?

<fleecy> Not initially, but quite soon afterwards. If the machine isn't bought from us however, then we won't support any issues you have

Q: *Riley* is the new OS running native or hosted on the devbox? how about the first consumer releases?

<fleecy> It runs hosted on Linux to start with, to show that we can, and to make big companies realise we can do pure, very fast stuff or good hosted stuff - try before you buy gives our developers a huge market from the getgo

Q: *Omni* Q: Ok the dev machine is a PC with developer software, but no DOS no Win crap, right ? Will it look like another computer ?

<fleecy> It is a dev box, pig ugly and functional - no MS stuff near it though

Q: *DJNick* Question to Fleccy: Will there be some larger companies supporting Amiga in future, like Corel or Adobe...? GA

<fleecy> Tonight we will make announcements about partnerships with multi billion dollar companies

Q: *jobe* how does the vp compare to java - in terms of performance

<fleecy> The VP is close to, if not faster than native monolithic - Java runs on top of it - the J-Engine is the fastest per MIPS JVM on the planet by an order of magnitude - that's why Sun love Tao

Q: *dmac* Is uae or other emulation in current development ?

<fleecy> Not by us - but we are talking to 2 or 3 companies or groups who have different approaches

Q: *dmac* How much is the dev machine ?

<fleecy> I just build them...

Q: *Riley* can you shed any light as to whether there's any plans anywhere to bring out Amiga-branded hardware or at least machines with the new OS preinstalled sometime this year (ever)? so that people can go out and "buy an Amiga"

<fleecy> We will work with hardware partners, both Amiga and other to create a solution. How the marketing and branding is done is Bill, Randy and Petro's job. We hope to have a consumer system out before the end of the year....but the evbox will rusumer release, so although we call it a dev box, non devs can buy it

Q: *portnoy* If it runs on a standard pc platform, will it take advantage of pc "plug&pray"?

<fleecy> We will leave standard PC stuff to hosted Elate - Dean is going to do HW reference designs for our own systems

Q: *Gooseman* When will a high profile awareness campaign begin?

<fleecy> We have hired Frank Sinatra to run the campaign...

Q: *KatseNova* q: Will you have a degree of support.. like your major support for devkits sells to commercial developers and hobbyists are last-inline?

<fleecy> We will support all levels = obviously we hope the community will come together around the free stuff as we have to concentrate resources on the paying customer s- this is a business after all ;-)

Q: *m0ns00n* Q: When will we see some good screenshots of the new interface (GUI) - will it feel like AmigaOS?

<fleecy> The interface system is abstracted - it provides an architecture on which multiple interface models can be added. Our first one will be something very different, but ppl can create anything they like

Q: *Gooseman* What about going IPO?

<fleecy> YEs, we do plan to IPO - money in the bank is always good, plus we want to spread the ownership around, and to the Amiga community as well - it gives us a degree of protection from predators, although we may do some hunting ourselves

Q: *Riley* exactly what parts of the new OS are done by the Amiga team and what parts by Tao?

<fleecy> Tao is providing the core but that will be hidden beneath a radical new architecture

Q: *NEO* I wonder about Jim Collas. Is he gone forever or will he get back to Amiga Inc...?

<fleecy> JIm was a great salesman - now he is off doing something very differnent, and very happy doing it. NO ONE benefited from association with the previous employer

Q: when will we be able to buy a dev system?

<fleecy> We have 10 pre prods now - the master is being burnt and then we hope in 2-4 weeks, they will be in channels

Q: *Gooseman* How big will the core OS be?

<fleecy> When we find enough punch cards, we'll let you know. the core kernel is 25kb - the whole thing with the interface and JAva runs in 3MB

Q: *NEO* Are we talking about a revolution here? Will it be so great and a competetive to MS os? What will be your main argument to make ppl use this new OS?

<fleecy> We think so, because we're talking about something more than just computers, or applications

Q: *Mr_Tickle* with Wouter on the team, will we have an E compiler for the new platform? I ask because E could be easier for beginners to learn than C

<fleecy> Wouter (the gnarly snowboarder) will be doing something very special...and it's to do with farm animals

Q: *Omni* Q: Does the dev machine will provide access to USB, DVD, Firewire ...

<fleecy> It is being added - that is the point of us releasing a dev system

Q: *KatseNova* q: Is the idea of the new OS to be a consumer OS like Be/Apple?wind*ze? Or do you target now mainly for intelligent devices?

<fleecy> We have 2 markets, the digital adventurer - an extension of the current Amiga market, and then the Domestic Digital Habitat, for those who hate computers but love devices

Q: *DJNick* I'd like to suggest you to get in touch with more Amiga developers (like SoftLogik - PageStream, Greg Perry - DOpus, then programmer of Photogenics etc etc...). We need stronger ties between Amiga and its developers (like SoftLogik - PageStream, Greg Perry - DOpus, then programmer of Photogenics etc etc...). We need stronger ties between Amiga and its developers

<fleecy> there's an idea

Q: *pepto* (?) Will Icons be seperate files as in AmigaOS-Classic? (pleeease...) 8)

<fleecy> graphics are graphics, icons or animated baywatch images

Q: *portnoy* You said earlier "We hope to have a consumer system out before the end of the year" WIll this be a really usable computer or something of an introductory level?

<fleecy> if it isn't then we aren't really doing our job

Q: *OSS542* can you tell us something about this Virtual Processor and compare it with say, Transmeta ?

<fleecy> The VP is an abstraction - code is compiled to it and distributed. At run time, the "tool" is loaded and translated on the fly to native code

Q: *NEO* Can you say something about this new OS that will wipe away any doubts i have about it...?

<fleecy> No, I don't know what you're doubts are.

Q: *KatseNova* Who exactly do you consider to be targeted as developers for Domestic Digital Devices, will that be Big Names? To who do you plan to license the Amiga technology (if it is licensed)?

<fleecy> Anyone with a good idea and some money

Q: *dmac* will it have ram: device like an amiga?

<fleecy> We tired putting a ram in it but it started eating the keyboard

Q: *jobe* why should someone use the new OS in his device. there are so many OSes out there (e.g. epoc, palmos, WinCE, qnx etc.). any real good arguments?

<fleecy> The reason ppl are running to Tao is because of Java. The reason ppl will run to us is because we offer, smaller , faster, better

Q: *Riley* how "Amiga-like" is the new system? are there any concrete similarities (like a screens-feature)?

<fleecy> I don't want to get into the religious war - we hired notably Amigans because the spirit is in them. Screens is just a mechanism in a single interface implementation

Q: *Mr_Tickle* whats happening with Gateways AmigaObjects? do they enter into the question?

<fleecy> No

Q: *Mr_Tickle* whats happening with Gateways AmigaObjects? do they enter into the question?

<fleecy> No

Q: *Omni* Q: Will the dev machine have video facilities to be widely use in the video market like the Amiga once did, and still does ... ?

<fleecy> We intend to excel in all areas - the dev box is a DEV box....this stuff is being designed and added - the dev team has only been together 6 weeks

Q: *ACEini* Is the new OS as logical as the AmigaOS (Monitors in Monitors: dos drivers in DosDrivers: and so on?

<fleecy> You create your own structure, which is the way it should be

Q: *KatseNova* As I understand that the Java VM is the core of the new Amiga, that means that apps are multiplatform .. windoze,Apple..?

<fleecy> No it isn't. Java is a service - the core is Elate

Q: last question next... Q: *Steini* is the new OS a single or multi user system, and how do you plan to support connectivity with other os's (network file systems and such) ?

<fleecy> yes - standard, open interfaces