The Amiga scene is one of the most interesting Retro computer scenes right now.
Why would I say that, you ask?
Because, unlike most other Retro computer platforms, on Amiga there is active development of the original official AmigaOS operating system to support new and modern features, both on Classic Amigas with the recently released AmigaOS 3.2 and Next Generation PowerPC AmigaOne systems running AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition Update 2.
We have new hardware accelerators to speed up our Classic Amiga machines to take advantage of new software, like the Vampire, PiStorm and many more. We have Mp3 decoder hardware upgrades for Classic Amigas. We have RTG cards that can output 720p and 1080p HDMI RTG Workbench screen modes!
How many other Retro computers do you know with such a vibrant ongoing operating system and hardware development?
Most other Retro computer platforms I follow are focused on emulation and preservation of software, with development mainly focused on making the real life original systems easier to connect to modern hardware, and conveniences such as floppy drive emulators, CD emulators, and proprietary Audio/Video out to modern HDMI, VGA or RCA AV output. There are new games and demos too, but using existing hardware functionality in most cases. That said, I love my C64 :-)
This is not even considering ongoing game and application development for all of these Amiga platforms.
But despite this, we see so much negativity towards the remaining companies trying to push the Amiga platform forward. We see copyright holders fighting the few remaining developers over AmigaOS rights, draining the remaining financial resources to fund ongoing development, and scaring away the few remaining developers who are now expected to contribute for little or no financial reward for their efforts. These efforts being done outside of their day job, as Amiga development income is definitely not able to pay most of the bills!
This is not a sustainable situation.
Many developers and users I know have left Next Generation AmigaOne systems in droves, due to a lack of recent development, caused by all the legal actions underway for the past few years.
For the avoidance of doubt, the target market for Amiga systems in 2021 is current (and former) Amiga owners. There are a few new people who have never used one, that are interested in Amiga as a Retro platform, but little more than a curiosity for most of them. It is kinda like those YouTube videos where they show old Retro computers and devices to young kids who have never seen them before and try to use them. That kind of interest. It is fleeting, and not ongoing.
The Amiga as we know it will die when we, the fans, do. There is no magical next generation of Amiga fans that will keep the platform going. Those next generation kids today are too busy on their smartphones watching TikTok, SnapChat, Signal, Instagram, Discord, Twitch, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and other social media platforms. They don't care much about programming or computing, and use modern systems simply to achieve their personal goals rather than to learn about them. Their community and friends are mostly online, and they generally don't care about Retro computers except as a curiosity scrolling past in their feeds. Sad, but true.
YMMV, I know. I assume those Amiga fans out there with kids are gently exposing them to the world of Amiga in one way or another - most likely via games and demos...that is great of course. :-)
The remaining passionate Amiga users today, remember when computing was fun. This was an awesome era, cut short by management incompetence at Commodore. I felt like we missed out on what Amiga could have been, as it didn't get the chance to fully develop before Commodore ruined it for us all.
Since 1994, despite a number of bungled takeovers and lawsuits, I have seen a very large number of separate developments by passionate people that have tried to push the Amiga platform forward, and kept us all engaged and interested in the platform. I knew in our heart of hearts that Amiga would never again be a significant player in the industry, but supporting these ongoing developments allowed us to fill in a gap that we wanted to see how the Amigas could have been had development kept going.
With the AmigaOne X1000 brought to market in 2011-2014, I believe we reached the peak of that development, and the zenith of what was achievable with AmigaOS without breaking backwards compatibility with originally software.
Plenty of Amiga people gave up waiting it seems, and with the 30th anniversary of the Amiga in 2015 potentially further pushing their nostalgia buttons went back to the Classic Amiga platforms instead, which have seen a resurgence in new hardware and operating system development activity since 2014. Seriously. Go to any Retro computer group meeting. They are buzzing with activity. It's great.
From the outside of the current situation looking in, it seems that Cloanto (Amiga Corporation or whatever they call themselves these days) wants to ensure their copyright over Amiga trademarks is strictly enforced, and for whatever reason to prevent Hyperion Entertainment from making money from releasing new versions of AmigaOS 3.x for Classic Amiga systems or AmigaOS 4.1. Or perhaps this is just to make the terms much more in their favour financially/control-wise to allow such development to continue.
To this situation, I don't know who is right or wrong, and who really has the rights to develop what and who doesn't, and in what situation or products are such developments allowed. I am definitely not a lawyer and I will not be drawn into that debate. I am not taking any sides here. I think we are all losers in this situation sadly.
I am guessing the MorphOS fans out there would be quick to point out that MorphOS would have become AmigaOS in that case and probably a lot of the recent litigation would never have happened. Maybe, or maybe not...hard to know. I like MorphOS too for the record, and run it on X5000 and PowerPC Macs.
But in any case, what development has Cloanto actually done to push forward the AmigaOS with new functionality since they took control of the trademarks for Commodore and Amiga? I have seen very little, if any development. Have you? Did I miss something?
It seems to me that their focus is about preserving the existing Classic Amiga as it was back in 1994 by selling the old kickstart roms, selling Amiga Forever (a front end for WinUAE) and licensing the Commodore/Amiga roms and trademarks to get maximum licensing revenue from other parties who want to sell FPGA re-implementations of those systems (eg. like the C64 Max).
These FPGA systems are great systems by the way....I bought the C64 Max. They just don't offer any really new functionality to the hardware platform itself. They are cool though.
And maybe that is not a bad thing. Perhaps by Retro Games Ltd releasing for sale a proper Amiga 500 cased system (like their C64 Max), it would help raise the profile of Amiga in the Retro computing community again. (Please don't release a mini A500 version with no working keyboard!)
Many Amiga users only used an Amiga 500. With 1MB memory and Workbench 1.3. And mostly played games on them. And moved onto PC or Mac platforms and never looked back. This combination is the most well known platform for the Amiga, even though AmigaOS 3.x and big box Amiga systems offered so much more (as we know).
In that case, maybe we shouldn't be wasting our time trying to develop AmigaOS and MorphOS and AROS anymore and focus on Amiga preservation through emulation and FPGA, playing old (and new) games and demos like most other Retro computer platforms do. Retro Computing is supposed to be fun right? And we aren't getting any younger after all!
It takes real effort and dedication by a few awesome developers to keep the hardware and operating system development going for Amiga in 2021. I applaud and truly appreciate the efforts that have gone into those developments. Personally I don't want to see this stop.
Whatever happens, I am really glad I was around to see all these really cool things for the Amiga. I hope we get to see a few more years yet. If we don't, I have no regrets - it has been a great ride.
It most certainly has been a good ride! Who would have ever have thought how far that machine would go.
ReplyDeleteAmiga!!!
Amiga is the most globally diverse, and most fractured, retro computing platform on the planet. It's also one of the most active and I think I know why.
ReplyDeleteIn many ways we are SO lucky. As you highlight in your post we can virtually put a brand new Amiga together from scratch with new motherboards, accelerators, graphics cards, operating systems (!), etc.
But there's a reason why the Mac community isn't nearly as feverish about their scene hardware and software scene. It's because Apple survived. No USB option for your 680x0 Macintosh? Oh well, just go grab a Powerbook and use it as a bridge. Problem solved.
They've got actual hardware and software that shipped to fill the gaps, so there isn't the same burning desire to innovate at the retro level. It's more about preservation and usage. And collecting, of course.
Granted, there aren't a lot of games being written in 2021 to run on DOS or System 7. But there weren't a ton of games being written for System 7 back in the day! DOS on the other hand? While a great OS for games, I don't miss those driver/hardware jugglingh nightmares one tiny bit.
And the Amiga was made to be customized, even if only lightly, like so many computers that emerged in the late 80s and early 90s. The C64? It is what it is. Needless to say I never would have dreamt so much innovation could have been spawned from a cartridge port, hah!
I agree with the current state of the Amiga as you outlined in your article. It seems one question you brought up is which direction is the best for Amiga. As a old time Amiga user watching it all from the outside, the most exciting recent development in my opinion is the Vampire and ApolloOS. Most of the Amiga's life was on the 68k CPU, and having a new 080 CPU with built in Amiga custom chip support being actively developed, seems more exciting then using what is left of the PPC CPUs, which seem to be at a dead end. I don't find the PPC as exciting when most of the old software it is running is through a 68k emulator, while anything it tries to do with modern software using the direct PPC instructions (such as a web browser) could be done better on a X86 system.
ReplyDeleteWhen it comes to ApolloOS, we finally have an actively supported 68k Amiga compatible OS that is open source. By being open source it gets around the legality issues in addition to guaranteeing a future since it is not tied to any single company. Since the main supporters of ApolloOS develop the 080, they are optimizing the OS as they optimize the CPU, the same way the original Amiga did with its 68k + custom chips. Of course it is being done in a FPGA instead of ASIC, which allows for continued optimization and custom chip improvements.
So in my opinion if I had to look at the different directions as outlined in your post, the one with the most Amiga feeling to me is the Vampire and ApolloOS. It runs the old 68k without software emulation, continues the development of the 68k CPU that was the core of the Amiga, and can run a open source 68k Amiga compatible OS that is optimized for the CPU. I hope more support is put behind this effort and that the ApolloOS gets to a level to rival the more modern PPC OS (AmigaOS 4.x and MorphOS).
Great right up and blog, I agree with most of your comments, I wanted a next gen Amiga, in a way we got it, but be a little sad if no more progress is made and its just about the past. I feel AmigaOs4 needs to make the jump from PPC to Arm to progress as PPC is dead now, when Apple killed the AIM alliance and bought almost all the CPU designer over to work on Arm chips the writing was on the wall. Shame this all happened while X1000 was in development, arguable the first real go at relaunching next gen Amiga. When I stopped a looked at the time line and the fact the first Pi came out the same time as X1000 I do stop and think just what might of been if they had launched the AmigaOS on this little fun open arm device. I still think a low power, low demanding OS, like AmigaOS make more sense now on hardware like the Pi than custom PPC hardware. But i do understand the issues, costs and work needed to do this would be quite high and likely not to happen. shame really.
ReplyDelete