Sorry it took so long to get this one up - I should have written this Friday when I learned of it.
Sometime last week, Carl Sassenrath resigned from Viscorp.
Now, a little history is in order: when Viscorp first announced plans to buy the Amiga, it wasn't long before Mr. Sassenrath was name-dropped as "proof" that Viscorp is an Amiga-oriented company. Carl Sassenrath was head of the Amiga OS project - admittedly his role in creating the OS we know and love today is somewhat unclear to me, but he was definitely a major player. He's the one most of us looked toward at Viscorp as a sort of bright light in the middle of the fog - at least until Jason Compton joined up.
In any case, let's let Carl do the explaining. Oh, this is choice stuff - I feel vindicated somehow. Read on:
I hope this is not too long-winded for you, but here is a brief summary of my story:Actually, today cars all pretty much look and run alike. Push-button transmission? No. Third headlight? No. Electric engines? No. Nifty shapes? No. Cars aren't as bad as computers - to the extent that I can't go buy a Ford six-cylinder and put it in my Malibu to replace the dying Chevy engine that's in there now.1. I joined VIScorp about a year ago as a consultant to help them create new system software for the Amiga. I believed at that time that they had the ability to take the Amiga into several new, huge markets around the world. They made many promises to me in order to get me to join the project.
2. In March 1996 VIScorp informed me that they planned to buy Amiga Technologies. The reason was simple: for the vast quantities of Amigas that they planned, it was cheaper to buy AT then to pay the royalty. It seemed to me that this could work, if they could come up with the money.
3. Over the months that followed, I made numerous suggestions to VIScorp regarding what they needed to do to support and further improve the Amiga. I even proposed a business plan centered around the Amiga, as it seemed to me that you CAN have an ALTERNATE computer for people who don't want PCs. After all, what would our cars be like if only one company produced them? The Amiga offered us a choice.
Back to the story...
4. VIScorp never responded to my suggestions. Not once. In fact, they kept me totally in the dark as to what they were doing and what progress had been made on the AT deal. I never knew from day to day what was going to happen next.Join the club.
You guys remember asking me why I'm so down on Viscorp? I must have a talent for this sort of thing - I had a "bad feeling" in November of 1993 that Commodore was not exactly going to be with us forever, between the shifting Commodore US presidents, the botched John Dilulu thing, the discontinued A1200, the lack of a definitive plan for anything, the skipped trade shows, and of course, the lack of a release date for the 4000T, I kinda got this weird "vibe" that Commodore was not anywhere near as stable as they appeared. Then in April 1995, I had a similar bad feeling about ESCOM - the simple fact that there was NO ONE at the company who seemed to know a damn thing about the Amiga, their stores in Germany were Amiga-hostile, some of their divisions were Amiga-impaired, and the eerie sense that they bought it all just for the Commodore name. A year later, the Commodore name is probably all that'll be left of ESCOM once the bankruptcy courts are done with them.
And now Viscorp. At first I decided to be nice to them - ask first, flame later. The first hint of trouble was watching Bill Buck and others go three months before actually admitting they had any intention at all of making "real" Amigas AT ALL - and the weirdly capitalized "Desk Top Computers" thing I keep mentioning because I think it's significant. It's November 1996, there's no resolution in sight, Viscorp has NO PRODUCT to sell in the meantime, it's very possible they can go broke waiting... and dammit I hate being right.
5. By August I was starting to tire of VIScorp and its unkept promises to all of us. They were 110 days behind in paying me, and I was very disappointed in the whole mess that they had brought on the Amiga community, developers and dealers, and myself. It had become clear to me that VIScorp was not competent. I took a couple weeks off and went to Florida.OK, I'll stop complaining about my own financial situation. Columbus PBX hasn't paid me in about 40 days. Viscorp kept Carl Sassenrath on the fishhook for 110 days. "Viscorp was not competent" indeed. After two months without a paycheck you normally either file a lawsuit or walk out after stealing your weight in printer toner cartridges. Or both. The Amiga has this effect on people - the last 40 people at Commodore Engineering persisted until late 1994 or early 1995, without much in the way of pay... because when you're building pieces of a future Amiga, paychecks don't matter much - you're building the future of something you love.
While Sassenrath believed he was helping the Amiga, he was almost capable of ignoring Viscorp's stupidity. But sooner or later there's a line you cross.
6. In September I tried to recruit RJ Mical to join the team. I put a lot of energy into it, as RJ was skeptical of VIScorp. I finally succeeded! Then, VIScorp blew him off. RJ and I couldn't believe it. What were they doing?When you figure it out, tell me.
7. Finally, I decided to focus 100% on what they had originally hired me for: to create a TV set-top Amiga. Perhaps if we could build a good demo, VIScorp could convince one of its investors to contribute extra cash. By the end of September, Don, Steve, Jim, and I had finished a dazzling prototype of such an STB. In my opinion, it really showed off what the Amiga could do as a STB. The software for it was entirely written by Jim and I, because VIScorp had not been paying any of the other contractors.This is utterly hilarious and sickening at once. Carl, Don (Gilbreath), and others built the product that Viscorp existed to sell - the set-top box - and were ignored. Hold that thought.8. After delivering the prototype, I never heard a word back. VIScorp was again far behind in payments. What were they doing? What had gone wrong? What was next?
9. Whatever it was, I didn't want to be part of it any longer. I've never seen such an idiotic, screwed-up, incompetent company (and I am saying it mildly). VIScorp was worse than Commodore, and I never thought that was possible. I took my name off the web site, vowing not to be a part of this lunacy."So, John, why don't you like Viscorp very much?"
Because Viscorp doesn't care about the Amiga.
Because Viscorp doesn't care about set-top boxes.
Because Viscorp doesn't care about its employees.
Because Viscorp doesn't care about itself.
Because right now nobody else likes them either.
I knew something was up at Viscorp. The mix of arrogance, confusion, words-Amiga-people-love-to-hear-but-have-heard-before, and Deafening Silence (tm) all hinted at something off-kilter. As Gilles Bourdin said, "If you knew 10% of what Viscorp doesn't want you to know, you'd apply for a job at Microsoft immediately." (Admittedly I'm out of a job right now anyway, but I'm not sure I want to move to Redmond, Washington. Menlo Park, California, maybe, but not Redmond.) But I have to admit these latest revelations from Carl Sassenrath have blown away even my own most negative delusions of paranoia. Viscorp sucks far, far worse than I could have imagined. I just thought they were greedy, self-centered sons of bitches. But now I see that's implying the management at Viscorp actually has enough intelligence to comprehend greed and self-centeredness.
So what can I say? Please don't flame me for doing this. I refuse to be part of such a sloppy situation, regardless of my love for the Amiga. Over the last 10 months I have heard from many of you, and have sent nearly 1500 personal email replies to you. All I can say is that I am sorry that I could not do more for you and our Amiga Computer.I ought to check Be's web page and see if they're hiring Web developers.I am unsure what the future holds for the Amiga. Perhaps VIScorp or some other company will scrape together enough cash to make the AT purchase. We can only hope.
Right now I think Viscorp buying the Amiga is the last thing we want to see - well, second-last, but at least if Microsoft bought the Amiga they'd be out of business by April 1997. Right now I think an Amiga Consortium of some kind needs to exist - desperately - preferably with people like Eric Schwartz and Carl Sassenrath and other big-time Amiga notables in it - a sort of Amiga steering committee, for lack of a better term, an Amiga Gray Council, in which we aren't afraid to invest our faith and money, a well-organized fundraising group whose intent is to buy the Amiga outright and put the technology back under OUR CONTROL. It's our machine, dammit.
As for my future, I am going to return to what I do best: operating systems and languages. You have not heard the last from me. I can imagine a system much better than the Amiga.... now to create it. Truely, only time will tell.Yeah, but money's nice, isn't it? You can build the kick-assedest Amiga in the universe on paper. Chip fabs cost money. And admittedly Phase 5 is not known for making deadlines, AAA is (according to Ed Hepler) in a cabinet somewhere in partially-debugged tape images with three defective prototype boards owned by ex-Commodore Engineering people - and Pios can't do a damn thing until they get a license from Viscorp, a company that won't even give green lights to its own internal projects that it's hired people specifically to do.
One final thing: the message from Sassenrath is, as far as we know, authentic. He's been answering e-mail nonstop for several days, he's probably gotten several thousand in the last 48 hours, but what has come from sassenrath.com has been confirmation that he indeed sent this message, that he indeed has resigned from Viscorp, and that he indeed removed his name from their web pages before he left. This one's for real, gang.
Only time will tell.
(Oh nice - now I have Asia's "Only Time Will Tell" running in my head on endless-loop.)
Oh, by the way: I still need a job.
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