The New Amiga won't come from Amiga Technologies!

May 16, 1996

First off, it appears SMG was at least partially right - Amiga Technologies has been screwing around too long and doesn't really have its act together. Yes, we got a wonderful pep talk at the Video Toaster User Expo, yes, we got nifty Surfer Packs with the cool 3-piece-suited dude on the surfboard, yes, we got a good belly-laugh from the Walker case. But where are the American 1200s? Where are the 68060 4000 towers? Where, for that matter, are the 4000 towers that don't cost as much as a used Sparcstation? And although Dave "Zorro III" Haynie has been hired as a consultant, and has been outlining specs for the Power Amiga, the best my spy network can determine is that nothing RISC-based is happening in Bensheim.

But it gets worse. Amiga Technologies didn't know what it was doing. VISCorp doesn't seem to know either. Despite the tantalizing hints dropped by Carl Sassenrath and others on IRC last week, we still can't get anything out of them regarding future development. All we know for sure is that they're making a TV box with Amiga chips. Beyond that...

So it is in this climate that Phase 5 Development, famous for accelerator cards, and the company who was supposed to be helping make PPC accelerators for Amigas, finally made its move.

"Oberursel, May 1996: According to the plans of phase 5 digital products, Oberursel near Frankfurt, Germany, the coming year, 1997, will be a year of joy for all Amiga enthusiasts. As an expansion of the PowerUp project, which involves developing PowerPC processor cards for existing Amiga models, the company has announced that an independent Amiga OS-compatible computer system will be available in the first six months of 1997, representing a revolution on the computer market."

"It is actually true that the extremely high degree of integration and the realisation of novel concepts will make it possible to achieve a performance that explodes existing bounds. Based on the PowerPC as the main processor, the new computer, in addition to the high performance of the processor, offers hardware support for multimedia (MPEG) and 3D functions, while even the basic system offers a resolution of 1600x1200 pixels at 24-bit color depth and a refresh rate of 72 Hz. At the same time special functions for image and video effects have been implemented in the hardware. In addition there are audio inputs and outputs in stereo CD quality, a video-compatible and Genlock-capable 24-bit video output and an FBAS/S-VHS video input. Along with the usual interfaces, the system is rounded off by a Fast SCSI-II controller, a network interface and an ISDN interface. With these features a complete system with a 120 MHz 603e PowerPC, 16 MByte memory, a SCSI hard disk of 1 GB and a quad-speed CD ROM will be available for a purchase price of around 3,000 DM (1,400 # or 2,000 US$, respectively) on the basis of the present market prices for the components. "We hope that in just about one year from now we will even be able to offer a 150 to 166 MHz 603e-processor at this price", anticipates Wolf Dietrich. "In terms of performance the processor has no problems in keeping up with a Pentium processor with an equally fast clock. However, there is no sign of any comparable graphic performance anywhere the PC field and the features of our systems will be difficult to match." There will be a similar system available with a PowerPC 604-e processor and 150 MHz for about 4,000 DM (1,800 # or 2,700 US$, respectively)."

The Phase 5 Amiga will have its own custom chipset. Whether this chipset will be compatible with existing Amiga chips is not known - but since they didn't tout it as a feature, I'm assuming it won't be. In other words, this is not a Cybervision card, this is not AGA, this is not even a resurrected AAA, this is - for lack of something better to call it - AAAA.

Note carefully the prices: $2000 US. That's about $500 cheaper than what the basic BeBox will sell for. Granted the Phase 5 Amiga will have only one processor, but with video-in ports (which I've always thought the Amiga was long overdue for), hardware MPEG playback and 3D rendering, and 1600x1200x24 graphics, this Amiga-monster will be the better deal. Couple that with a time-tested operating system with 12 years worth of applications (and hacks!), and guess which machine I'm buying next summer... if I have $2 grand in the bank by then.

The newsgroups are always alive with discussions about AAA, the "next Amiga", 24-bit SVGA chipsets (a la Picasso, Cybervision, Retina), and the like - basically, the merits of custom-chipsets versus off-the-shelf SVGA, and the basic conclusion we've all reached is that SVGA stuff is cheaper and faster than any AAA-style thing today. Phase 5, if this announcement isn't just inflated hype, may just turn that equation upside down - and prove that custom chips can still kick ass in the second half of the 1990's. This thing would make a better video box than a 4000T, and way better than a Power Macintosh with the AV card. And it'll do it by virtue of having a custom chipset that does what it needs to do, at video frequencies if needed, at high speeds, and everything else the old Amiga chipset was made to do really well. And if Phase 5 does it right, it'll do it at a price reachable by the people who need it.

But that's not all. The first step is rewriting exec.library for PPC, and that will form the basis of the PowerUP accelerator cards (and when those become available, guess who's putting a 603 in his A1200 and selling off that 030 card cheap...). The next step, though, what Phase 5 is working towards for the AAAA project, is rewriting the entire OS for PPC native. That's the OS that will run on the new computer - basically AmigaOS 4.0, which again, Amiga Tech shows no signs of providing. Phase 5 expects to ship the first PPC boards to developers sometime this summer - I don't know how far along they are to porting exec to native code, but as soon as I learn of Workbench booting on a PowerPC processor, you'll know.

Phase 5, it's worth noting, has also entered the Macintosh market, with upgrade boards for the Power Macintosh 7500/8500/9500 series. These systems will be designed for the "e" series processors - the 603e and 604e, which can be run at 4 times the bus speed. This means 200MHz systems and beyond - which is something Apple is also anxious to do.

But here's the weirdest part of the news item, as stolen from CUCUG. Does this look to you like a sane, rational version of SMG's blast? Maybe SMG was more right than we thought. Maybe all our early paranoia about ESCOM was right after all. Read:

"In addition to this project announcement, phase 5 also made some side remarks on the current state of affairs with regard to Amiga Technologies. "To our regret we found that Amiga Technologies offers us no sort of outlook or basis for developing into the future", says Wolf Dietrich. "The first year of Amiga Technologies was marked by a continued chain of wrong decisions which have been responsible for the bad situation in which the company now finds itself. The results must be adequate to the objectives set in the spring of 1995 and in this respect they are more than disappointing. There is no getting away from this. In fact the same mistakes were made that were previously made at Commodore and partly by the same people. For example, attempts continue to keep technically outdated products on the market at unrealistic prices, which is particularly true in the case of the A4000T. Another point is that the marketing concepts are completely outdated, there is an absence of any kind of futuristic vision and a lack of any independent development, which is so pronounced that today AT neither has any 68060 technology to show for itself nor even a sign of any PowerPC technology. The brief spark of any independent development was extinguished again by the latest wave of redundancies. In this respect the only thing that we can just about expect from AT is that they sell off their large quantities of existing stock. These do give us some cause to hope that the existing products will be on the market for a while and that, in due course, they will be offered at more realistic prices. Finally, the only thing that can be said about the activities of AT is: They should have asked someone who knows his stuff."

In the opinion of phase 5 a takeover of Amiga Technologies by VIScorp does not awaken hope of any major innovations or any strengthening of the Amiga system. "So far we have heard nothing from VIScorp that would cause us to assume that anything different is being planned than the exploitation of the Amiga technology in a settop box. Nor do we see why this company, which must certainly concentrate all its efforts on realising its settop projects, should be interested in further pursuing the primary aim of continuing with the Amiga system. If this had been the case, it would already have been quite feasible for VIScorp to initiate such a project as a licensee of the Amiga technology." phase 5 sees this critical opinion confirmed by current events. "The actions of VIScorp do not convince us that they are serious in continuing with the Amiga. So far, for example, VIScorp has not directly spoken to the developers who were the last to support the Amiga. Nor was there any reaction when we tried to make contact. The VIScorp meeting in Toulouse that has now been announced lacks any kind of organisation and was called without there being any recognisable concept behind it. For this reason it is more than doubtful whether even a sign of any constructive result can be expected to come out of it, so that in our view it would be a pure waste of time to attend, as we have repeatedly found in the recent year at ESCOM meetings. We don't need a repeat of that." Let it be mentioned in passing that the hope often expressed in the general discussion, i.e. that in VIScorp Amiga will find itself taken over by a company that will finance the development of a new generation of Amiga products more or less from the petty cash, is something that Wolf Dietrich considers to be very optimistic. "For a start we had exactly the same expectations a year ago when everyone thought that the giant ESCOM would get things moving at Amiga from a standing position and quickly produce a new generation of Amiga computers for a more competitive price. Secondly we should first wait and see whether the figures that have been bandied about in the discussion concerning VIScorp's takeover of AT have any sort of real fundament." "

The dragon returned to its cave, satisfied. He had staged the death of the Phoenix at the hands of Gollum, using an orc dressed as Gollum and a stuffed phoenix, in front of a crowd of mannequins dressed as Phoenix worshippers - red and white checkered clothes and all. Then he filmed it and distributed it worldwide to the enemies of the Phoenix, as "proof" the Phoenix was truly dead at last.

Now, none of the true Phoenix believers were fooled by the tape. The depiction of the Believers in the tape was not of the true believers, not of the friends of the Phoenix whose lives had been improved by the Phoenix' power, who had become storytellers and musicians and artisans through the Phoenix' inspiration and guidance, but of babbling fanatics, blind followers who had no other purpose in life but to cling obsessively to a dead idol. The Believers had long known of the Phoenix' illness, but they knew the Phoenix was not dead - not yet, anyway. The Phoenix had a long recovery ahead, and would never fully heal, but at the end of that recovery, the Believers knew the Phoenix would be more than ready to venture into the world - to the land across the ocean, ruled by the Shadow, and join those warriors who would do battle against the Shadow.

But none of this mattered. Since none of the enemies of the Phoenix listened to the Believers, they had no choice to believe the tape - which confirmed what they already believed, that the Phoenix was dead and its followers were no threat.

And that's what SMauG wanted. SMauG's own carelessness had already wounded the Phoenix, and Gollum's associates had already abandoned SMauG for that. But SMauG knew that tape was all it needed to direct people's attention elsewhere - to blame Gollum, and to blame the Believers, and to convince the others that the Phoenix was already out of the picture. It would be more than enough to hide SMauG's incompetence...

And all the while, in Mordorsoft, the Shadow watched from his tower, and laughed at it all...

to be continued...

Beta 6 fixes Beta 5's weird habit of "ignoring" paragraph tags in places, and finally implements table rowspans - something else that was broken in beta 5. Beta 6 also adds a major cosmetic improvement - it draws the inner borders of a table, giving tables that extra bit of crispness. I threw some of the trickiest tables on the Net at it and it never flinched - even tables within tables, which sends some "table-ready" browsers screaming into the abyss, came out intact. Even cellspacing and cellpadding work properly, cellspacing=0 now means zero spacing between table cells, meaning that IBrowse does a better job of digesting Discovery Channel Online than Netscape itself.

IBrowse beta 6 also finally implements the font size tags. In the browser preferences section, you can specify a different font for each size - use Helvetica for the smaller fonts, for instance, so they're readable, and Times for the bigger ones. This allowed me to create a font scheme that's far more sane and readable than anything Netscape or that Borg browser can manage. Pages just look so much crisper.

A minor surprise in the font department: IBrowse Beta 6 supports the font color tag, pioneered by Netscape 2.0! This is, as far as I cn tell, the only Nescape 2 tag supported by Ibrowse.

Now for what IBrowse 0.96 doesn't do.

IBrowse still has no clue what to do with MIME trickery - i. e. server pushes, client pulls, and other Netscapian animation tricks.

IBrowse still gets confused by certain forms - they display fine, but don't always work as expected. On a related note, IBrowse doesn't understand the action="mailto:" syntax yet, or any other mail features.

IBrowse doesn't really understand what blockquote is supposed to do. It only blockquotes about a quarter-inch, instead of Netscape's 3/4-nch. Worse, blockquoting in IBrowse is dynamic - it "falls" off of any left-aligned or right-aligned images or whatever, and those pages which depend on this particular quirk to keep text to the right of dark things on the background - High Five Awards among them - get nasty-looking. Even BorgBrowser (Internet Explorer) can figure this simple one out.

IBrowse still leaks RAM if you stop a download too soon.

IBrowse still crashes more often than it should - but then, so does Netscape.

IBrowse still uses MUI. This is good and bad - MUI has some nice features, drag&drop, complete customizability, etc. but it's also a resource hog and is kinda sluggish on anything less than a 68030 - but granted, it's still fast next to the competition at the same clock speeds.

IBrowse still uses datatypes (optionally), and OS3.0's odd pen-mapping mechanisms. It does a better job than a PC at mapping colors to low depths, but pales beside a Macintosh. And datatypes mean that your chip RAM fills up quickly.

But IBrowse has done what they said was impossible: clone Netscape on the Amiga. It's not really Netscape yet, but it's close enough that I feel comfortable using it as my workaday browser.

That in itself is a shakeup - much like GVP's collapse, it's a shock but nothing we can't handle - after Commodore's collapse, we can handle anything, right?

But this one is different. It's one thing for an Amiga company to take to the parachutes. It's another for them to say things like this on the way out:

"The SMG regrets taking these actions, but the worsening situation with Amiga Technologies, an unscrupulous distribution system, and the wholesale de-emphasis of support, leaves us no choice. Despite the SMG's best efforts to provide fairly priced and well supported Amiga systems, Amiga Technologies and the North American Amiga market has deteriorated irretrievably. Conscience mandates that we no longer participate."

Service Management Group, the company initially selected as the North American distributor and warranty service provider for Amiga Technologies products, has been terminated by Amiga Technologies president Petro Tyschtschenko. QuikPak, the manufacturer of the Amiga Technologies Amiga 4000 Tower, will now be free to sell at distributor pricing to any company which meets a minimum order requirement--something SMG had been failing to do.

Now, at first this looks like the biggest case of political infighting in the Amiga market since Alex Amor. On the surface, it's SMG hasn't done their entire job, Amiga Tech fires them for it, and in a burst of sour grapes, SMG sends out an official "fuck you" to the Amiga community. There is unscrupulousness in the Amiga market - companies that eat your money, vaporware, companies run in closets and hallways, etc. But the sad fact of life is that it's that way in any industry - any business - anywhere. And to believe that QuikPak press release, SMG itself is part of that - failing to meet requirements.

But it gets worse. Read on:

"As the new year began, we found ourselves awash in a sea of by unethical practices, betrayal, duplicity and uncountable lies. Mortally wounded by an inability to pay its debts, Amiga Technologies lost total control. Sensing its imminent demise, dark forces gathered to seize the opportunity and hasten the end. Confused, lost and senseless, the Phoenix wandered aimlessly, stumbling often. Its sense of purpose long gone, it now sought only the light of one more dawn. We obtained the counsel of every manner of wizard and warrior, priest and prophet. The Phoenix could still live, if only it raised its head to the heavens and picked a star to guide it. The Phoenix heard the words, but could not understand. It grew weaker by the day.

On March 2nd, the nearly lifeless Phoenix was carried to New York. It spoke eloquently of its coming victorious ascent to the heavens. Amid the fire and flame, it spread its wings. We pleaded with it to raise its head and see beyond the dawn. It was too late, it could not. The Phoenix plunged headlong into the sea, and died. We held its now lifeless body and wept. The dream gone. It was finished. The dark forces leaped with joy. Their moment had come. At that very instant, Gollum slithered from the stench and ooze, and stole the last ring. Now invincible, their plan was complete. Cloaked in invisibility, Gollum held the lifeless form of the Phoenix on the throne and summoned the faithful. It spoke of the glories yet to be, demanding tribute and obedience. The faithful bowed low and paid homage.

How can this be, we asked? Can they not see the dream is gone? The Phoenix is dead. No, came the reply. They are blinded by their desire. The Phoenix gave their lives meaning and purpose. In their minds the Phoenix will always live."

It gets worse:

"Hey guys. Its time to leave.

For the past six years, first with Commodore, most recently with Amiga Technologies, we have tried to do the right thing. Amid the noise and confusion, we have attempted to operate with honesty and professionalism. We attempted to create a business environment where people who cared about Commodore and Amiga products could be treated fairly and honestly.

Guess what?

Thats not what you guys want. With a minimal number of exceptions (you know who you are) the Amiga universe is a finely tuned blend of dysfunction and psychosis. Manufacturers, distributors, dealers, and users; the only saving grace is that the players are apparently equally delusional."

They know something is wrong with the Amiga market, but have completely missed the point of what. The Amiga suffers from a lack of respect - caused by lack of market share - caused by lack of respect - caused by lack of market share. Collapsing distribution structures are normal in such an environment - the same kind of endless loop that killed Commodore itself.

But is it out of line for SMG to ascribe the blame for all the Amiga's troubles on the Amiga user and marketplace as a whole? Are we delusional? All of us? Are we psychotic?

In a way, yes - they're right, we're fanatically devoted to a platform that's hopelessly behind the times. But the same can be said of everyone who likes a particular brand of computer - they're either obsolete in hardware (Amiga), obsolete in software (Wintel), or have no market share (Be). Or all of the above - Atari ST. Anyone who thinks their favorite platform is the best is delusional - all computers suck. Even the Amiga is lagging - it can do more with its five-year-old chipset and slower processors than any other system, but it's still old, doesn't have native 24-bit support, the OS is getting a little rusty (no memory management or resource tracking), and costs too damn much.

But I think I stand with all those other psychotic, delusional Amiga users out there and take offense at this message from SMG. We know the product isn't what it was in 1992. We know in many ways we're grasping at straws - trying to bring the Amiga back into the limelight by sheer force of will. But perhaps that's something to be admired and fed - instead of ridiculed. Of course it looks silly - but then, I think Microsoft's sad devotion to a 16-year-old CP/M clone is kinda silly too. Obviously a strong user base can become the lifeblood of a product - but oddly enough, SMG doesn't look like part of a strong user base.

I am not here because I'm psychotic. I am here because I like the platform. Spend an hour at a PC and an hour at a Macintosh and a hour on an Amiga and you'll see why. Watch the PC people bringing home Pentium 133s to do "multimedia" in a quarter screen, while your yard-sale A500 plays Juggler faster and in more colors. Cruise the demo directory on Aminet sometime - hate the hardware-banging, but realize those same effects are the stuff of $10,000 workstations. The Amiga, in its obsolescence, can still do things PCs cannot do.

But this isn't what SMG is talking about. They're sick and tired of certain things going on in the Amiga marketplace, and in their screaming baby tantrum, have decided the entire Amiga community is responsible.

"It would be easy, at this point, to write many pages detailing all of the errors and omissions that have plagued these products for the past five years. I doubt that would accomplish much. You buy old technology at extraordinarily high prices. You have no development plans, no growth path, and no guarantee of availability on the current production models. The product is fraught with limitations, quality and engineering problems. The key selling advantage of the price performance edge that existed four years ago is gone....forever."

Yes, we have trouble with availability - someone needs to be called to task for the lack of A1200s in North America - whether the blame lies with Amiga Tech, the FCC, SMG, or whoever, I don't know, but rest assuyred someone needs to pay the piper for this.

Now, granted, our growth path isn't as clearly defined as say, Microsoft's ("same thing we do every night, Pinky...") but I'd say migrating processors and going to a PCI architecture - i. e. mainstreaming - is a growth path. Being able to run PPCP operating systems on Amiga hardware and run Amiga operating system on PPCP hardware is the best/only way to keep the Amiga alive.

No, Amiga Technologies dowsn't have a clear development plan - or much of anything that's clear. I'm perfectly willing to accept that they are still settlking in, but there comes a point where we need certain things - like a North American marketing strategy.

Funny, that: Amiga Tech said that would be SMG's job.

I honestly don't know and can't know the problems SMG has had with other Amiga dealers and developers and with Amiga Technologies itself. I don't profess to know every Amiga user on the planet - there are some real weirdos out there, though, I'll bet. (Like me?) But to read SMG's message, one would think the Amiga market is nothing but blind platform-obsessed users and money-grubbing dealers - the truth, as far as I can tell, is that they're the exception, not the norm. Most Amiga owners today also have PCs or Macintoshes - they use whichever machine they need to get the work done - but the Amiga still has the best feel of them. The Amiga owners whoi don't have other machines are like me and can't afford other systems - much cheaper to keep throwing $300 accelkerators into the old box than shelling out $1800 for the Pentium to do the same things. (ANd let no one kid you, PCs are useless without heavy hardware.) We're artists, musicians, programmers, writers, gamers, hobbyists, hackers, surfers, modellers, people with and without lives, with and without jobs, with and without futures, we are from all walks of life, we are not insane, we just know what we like, and for our own reasons we like the Amiga.

Frankly, I won't miss SMG. I don't know what they've had to go through, but if they're going to stick their noses in the air and say "Well I tried but you didn't want our help," blaming this nebulous "Amiga community" for the problems when those responsible for the problems are the ones we don't accept as part of the community anyway, trying to pass the Amiga crowd off as blind worshioppers and psychotic delusional, they want to piss us off.

Here's my favorite part:

"Clearly, we misjudged the intent and temperament of the other players in the Amiga market. They do not want honesty and clarity. They want to shut the doors, fire up the cigars, and dance the dance of the quick and dirty deal. They do not want to honor and support their customers. They want to grab peoples wallets and scurry back down the alley. Their vision of the future comes not from a mountain top, but from under a rock."

Intel: "WWhat are we going to do tonight, Brain?"
Microsoft: "Same thing we do every night, Pinky: try to take over the world."

My Amiga was on at the time, and oddly enough, continued to function quite well after hearing the news.

Commodore's bankruptcy was unique in the computer industry, in that its product line went up in value after it collapsed. A1200s went from $350 apiece to about $500 apiece, and 4000s basically stopped moving, as those who had them began putting accelerators and other nice hardware to up the value, so they could sell them again in the $3700 range. The Amiga 4000 became the world's most powerful orphan... and was hot in demand from the video pros for a long while. It's said the Amiga is like Elvis - worth more dead.

By the time Escom got around to buying it, though, the Amiga's market share had fallen considerably - the magazines had dwindled, AmigaWorld stopped altogether, GVP liquidated, several other large Amiga developers closed shop, and the 4000 had fallen out of favor with the video pros in the face of cheaper PCs and Macs. 1200s were beaten in the low end by ultra-cheap Macintoshes, and don't even ask about CD32.

Since Escom took over, yes, we get all the PR, yes, we get a resurgence of Euro development (including productivity apps), yes, Aminet is quickly becoming THE hotbed of shareware development - growing faster than even InfoMAC and Simtel. But you'll notice the Amiga still hasn't regained any of its status as a mainstream computer. MetroWorks Code Warrior, for instance, a C/C++ compiler, targets to Macintosh, Power Macintosh, Windows 95/NT, and even BeBox, but not to Amiga. Netscape hasn't written an Amiga version yet. None of the major companies are even trying to develop for the Amiga - despite the fact that the Amiga is, in many ways, the ideal host for certain products - TV cards, QuickCams, VRML, etc.

The one thing we all expected to catapult the Amiga back into the spotlight is the Power Amiga project. But unfortunately, VISCorp hasn't given any real substantive answers one way or another regarding Power Amigas.

Or anything for that matter.

All we know is Viscorp wants to make TV boxes. What happens to the rest of the line is up in the air. It's probably a good bet that Viscorp won't be as liberal about licensing as Escom was - Viscorp is buying the Amiga specifically to protect their license, they don't seem to want competition. While most of Viscorp is ex-Commodore people, getting straight answers about the Amiga's future from them is much like getting straight answers about the economy from Tom Foley. "Uh... yeah, whatever..." "...yeah, that too..." "...no, I never said that..."

Where is the Amiga today? In limbo? The biggest orphan that isn't? New machines are rolling off the lines - but where are they in America? Aside from overpriced A4000Ts, we see NOTHING here in North America. No advertising, no development, magazines 40 pages and under, and not much else. No Surfers, no Walkers, nada.

In the world picture, where is the Amiga today? No one knows. Viscorp is still just considering the purchase - and while they evaluate the assets, we sit and wait, as do the developers and those in the industry who could possibly give the Amiga a name in the marketplace... waiting to see what kind of Amiga emerges. The same as they waited in 1993 for Commodore to resolve their financial difficulties, the same as they waited in 1994 for someone to buy Commodore, the same as they waited in 1995 to see what the hell Amiga Tech was going to do.

The bottom line? The Amiga has not had a stable home in four years. No one will develop Amiga stuff because no one has faith in the platform anymore. We all know the Amiga's OS is still among the best on the planet, but it's still confined to Amiga hardware - an expensive and somewhat rare commodity with an uncertain future. Until the Amiga gets out from under the spectre of changing ownership, unstable finances, and the like, the industry will not take it seriously.

What can we do as users? Well, for starters, we can hold off flaming Viscorp for one more month. They haven't articulated - or for that matter, formulated - a direction for the whole Amiga package they've bought into. We'll wait... but we'll wait together.

And that will give me time to think of a better answer. :-)

The taker? VISCORP, a Chicago-based interactive television company made up of Amiga people. You may recognize VISCORP as the company which licensed the AGA chipset back in January for their set-top box "ED." Buying Amiga Technologies will guarantee them a steady stream of chips. The price tag: $40 million. Remember when ESCOM bought it for under $10 million?

Basically, ESCOM no longer has the financial might to sustain Amiga Technologies. This past Christmas hit them pretty hard (as it did the rest of the industry) - inventory problems, etc. Add to this the cost of going from "a new company" (Amiga Tech) to starting production on "new" products (A1200s, A4000ts) in just a few months... ESCOM saved the Amiga, but now has decided to pass the torch.

OK, stop panicking. We've panicked enough - we panicked more than enough when ESCOM bought the Amiga, and we certainly panicked more than enough in April 1994. This is nowhere near as big a deal as it sounds. Amiga Technologies remains a functional, sorta-independent unit in Benzheim, and everything is proceeding normally - as far as we can tell, yes, that includes Power Amigas and Stealth Turtles.

Oh, don't believe me? Believe Petro. Here's what Petro Tyschtschenko had to say on the subject at World of Amiga on Saturday:

"As you might be aware of, ESCOM is currently facing a quite difficult financial situation. A bad christmas season and inventory write offs were the main reasons for this. This situation of course is also directly affecting Amiga Technologies. The fact is that ESCOM currently does not have the financial resources needed to support the still ongoing costs of our operation, especially advertising and research & development."

"VIScorp is a research & development oriented company. These research efforts are based on the Amiga technology for use in set top boxes. Former Commodore engineers work for VIScorp, which will of course be an appreciable synergy for the development of Amiga in general."

"As I told our staff yesterday, this procedure is not affecting our daily business and ongoing projects, as well as my position as the president of the company. We want the migration to be made as smooth and transparent as possible, for our company and also for our business partners and the Amiga community."

Meanwhile, Carl Sassenrath, one of Viscorp's software guys, had this to say:

"What I have been telling people is not to worry. We are all Amiga lovers here. Unlike ESCOM or even Commodore, VIScorp does not have a single IBM PC person in the group. We are all solid Amigans from the very beginning (for example, I developed the Amiga's Multitasking OS, CDTV system, AmigaLogo, Bay, OptCD, ISOCD, etc.).

Personally speaking, I don't plan on killing the Amiga. In fact, if they ask me to take over system development, you'll see one killer Amiga!"

Which granted, isn't too tough.

Fresh news: an IRC conference with a Viscorp insider fell apart when it turned out the "insider" was a fake. "I AM in Portugal... and who's Sassengrath?" Classic. Frustrating when you're hunting for real info, but classic.

April just seems to be a weird month for the Amiga. It's become a tradition - every April, the Amiga changes ownership, changing hands like Aunt Liz's fruitcake at Christmastime. We ought to just have a "form press release" - fill in the blanks, "_____ has purchased the rights to the Amiga for $______, we plan to swipe the chipset to use in _____, we'll support ____ models, the A4000 will only cost $_____ more than what the last Amiga owner was selling them for, our employees are __% ex-Commodore people, we will/will not listen to anything CEI has to say, our financial status is good/shaky/poor/Apple..." and just date it April __, 19__.

Keep the faith. We've been down before, things get weird. But the Amiga still has the most efficient multitasking graphical operating system on the planet - smaller than Newton or RISCOS - and is still the best platform for video work. It's an ideal hacker platform - 68000 code is much easier to write than x86 code any day - and is very stable. It looks cleaner and is more customizable than the Mac, feels a lot more functional than Win95 (you click on a button and it reacts), and is remarkably robust for something that fits on a 512K ROM and six floppies. It's extensible, powerful, and is truly preemptive - unlike the Big Boys. And it will continue to multitask preemptively no matter who owns the company. We spent 357 days as owners of an "orphan" platform - we can survive anything.

By the way: does anyone know the correct capitalization of VISCORP?

Newest cool things on the net: POV-Ray 3.0 Beta 6 is now available for Amiga. This thing's not for the faint of heart - you need 4 megs and an FPU just to get in the door. You A500 folks will need to stick with POV 2.2 for the time being - which actually doesn't work too bad, just... slow.

In other news, another high-profile shakeup at Apple (is this getting repetitious or what?) - David Nagel, Apple's senior VP of worldwide research and development, flew the coop to join AT&T Research (you know, the "new" baby bell?) Industry pundits have blamed Nagel for the delays in Copland (Apple's idea of a pre-emptive OS) and the late shipment of Power Macs. But other Apple insiders say his departure is a Bad Thing (tm): QuickDraw 3D and AppleGuide were supposedly his pet projects. Meanwhile, Gil Amelio (Captain Comeback) has taken over Nagel's position as head of R&D.

Meanwhile, Copland itself, aka System 8.0, aka Windows 97, is still hopelessly behind. Some of us remember reading in 1994 about "Apple's System 8 may be delayed somewhat while they add (such and such feature)"... many of us drooled over the Copland screen shots in the magazines awhile back, and there are a bazillion Mac INITs and CDEVs to make your Mac have the Copland look; in fact, Agent Sculley's computer on The X-Files is using just such a hack, if you look closely. Copland, as far as I can tell, is just a thread-managed, PPC-native version of System 7.5.3, with a shiny interface and OptiMem's RAMCharger under the hood. Pre-emptive multitasking? Sorta - individual apps can be Thread Manager-savvy and do preemptive multithreading within the cooperative system. The Mac has had Thread Manager for some time - Mac Netscape is a particularly fine example of Thread Manager in action - all Copland does is make the Finder itself Thread Managed, so you can format one disk while browsing another. Want fully pre-emptive multitasking? Yup, you guessed it - wait for System 9, which at Apple's current development speed, will be out shortly after I graduate from college.

In 2019.

I have to wonder what it is about preemptive multitasking that's so tough to achieve. For legacy operating systems like Windows and Mac System, I understand - apps have to be written for preemptiveness, which is why DOS applications stop cold when you switch to another task in Windows. But even newer operating systems have problems - the Acorn computer system is cooperative, for instance, and so is the Newton. In the Olden Times, pre-emptive interrupt-driven time-sharing multitasking was the only way anyone even considered multitasking - that's how UNIX, VMS, and OS-9 were designed. Sure, you had those goofy "Run two programs at once!" packages for Apple IIs and TRS-80's, simple foreground/background stuff, but until Microsoft Windows came out, "cooperative multitasking" was commonly called "task switching" - because that's all it is. Microsoft redefined "task switching" as multitasking, and boom, baby - we live with "fake" multitasking for a decade.

It's not so much that the Amiga did it so much better than anyone else, it's that nobody else seems to have picked up the ball and run with it.

Here's a look at the new prototype Amiga that was shown at CEBIT. Now, keep in mind, ever since Escom bought the Amiga, we've been harassing Gilles Bourdin and Peter Kittel that we want an Amiga that isn't dull-looking, we're sick of beige, we want something distinctive, etc. Well, here's there answer.

It has to be the ugliest computer I've ever seen in my life. I still can't quit laughing at the damn thing. But I admire their chutzpah for designing it this way, and I hope they keep the design - just because something this ugly HAS to sell. You can't possibly walk by something like that in a computer store - you have to stop and take a look at it, and the stupid thing does its own marketing. If they can manufacture enough of these, and get them stateside in quantity and with a price point at $600 or so, they'll sell like hotcakes - albeit very ugly ones.

Sad thing is, Viscorp might not use that design.

I'm not sure if this is an April Fools thing or not, but rumors have been circulating lately that Microsoft is phasing out Windows 95 and going exclusively to Windows NT 4.0 by the end of 1996. On the one hand, Win95 can be had at seemingly-closeout prices, and our sources say they've already stopped manufacturing new CD-ROMs. On the other hand, the rumors did start around April 1. A call to Microsoft gave us the "of course not" story - but then, Microsoft also once said no, of course we're not going to discontinue OS/2. It is a very Microsoft tactic to bring out a product, hype up the industry, and then drop it - if indeed it's true. Now, people in my spy network have claimed to actually have seen the press release indicating Microsoft's intention to do this in some major magazine and on TV, but I can't find it again and neither can they. If you know anything at all... let me know, OK?