b3tAmiga Intern./Inc. at C'97tRokDaZonethpf2s1c01Amiga stands for friction and fun for the user. f1c03No wonder also c04Amiga International c03is eager to boast this fact and indeed, at the c04Computer'97 c03they have managed gloriously to verify it. · f2Friction f1due real unsharp statements about the Amiga's future. · f2Funf1, because some certain statements by c04Petro Tyschtschenkoc03, managing director at Aminga Int., really rose some sad laughter within the community. More on that later. f2c01Two planes meet in the sky. In both of them sits Petro Tyschtschenko. f1c03After all the various exhibitions, conventions and congresses around the Amiga this year, c04Petro Tyschtschenkoc03, head of c04Amiga Internationalc03, must be one of the most travelling businesmen under the sun. Never before have we faced such a presence of Amiga officials within the past 12 years. Normally a good sign and firstly greeted as a positive trend, soon the effect turned into the negative. Since more than six months, Petro bursts into a convention, says the same in different words and disappears. Tyschtschenko, not the most unclever person on earth, found himself in a surely uncomfortable situation: Standing there with practically empty hands on one side and with a demanding community on the other. Instead of soothing the hysterics, the manager decided to balance on a matchhead. Everything was scheduled to the c04Computer'97lc03 16th to 18th November in Cologne/Germany. This gave some time to the company to check out things in the forefield, but rose expectations of the people to the extreme. Moreover newcoming Amiga-clones irritated them. What was A.I. about to? Why did they "sell" the platform? Feverishly we waited for the days to pass and the exhibition to start. f2c01 Some of the More Interesting Facts f4c02 "In the technology, not in the products business" f1c03is the position for c04Amiga Inc. c03This means that one mothercompany in shape of Amiga Intern./Inc. will set standard technologies from which a broad range of possible applications will be formed with the main aim to bring Amiga to technically requested states nowadays, maybe even further if possible. But with a mostly four-years-old technic it surely needs more than just an upgrade like the c04A5/6000 c03or similar clones. A major overhaul is requested. In the start, however, we have to be content with the newly coming clones, which make a good and solid impression so far. Liscensing will play a big role also in future distribution policy. c04Darrick Lislec03, e.g. stated that the Amiga technology has to be made available to anyone who has a use for it. Which means that we surely will see Settopboxes and homemanaging systems as much as professional highend graphic workstations if their plans work out like hoped. This, however, surely will in the short range push money into c04Amiga Int. c03for liscenses. In the long range this will rebuild the Amiga market as a whole and also might enable faster development processes for Amiga Inc. when liscensing techniques from thirdparty developers themselves. f2c01 Yes, Tell it to Me, Man! f1c04Petro Tyschtschenko c03is known for his slightly amusing statements and again he gave some real rhetorical highlights. Although the processor to be installed into future Amiga-models f4c02"is not the main topic" f1c03with new videochips being more essential to him, he stresses that a f4c02"68060 at 200MHz would be the ideal solution for the Amiga." f1c03Yes, surely. Yet as this is absolutely out of question as c04Motorola c03dropped the development of 68k-processors in 1995, such a statement is out of place. c04Tyschtschenko c03sees the future Amigas as multiplatform systems which can be used as homecomputer aswel as settopbox and as basement for further multimedia purposes. Maybe also a netcomputer? This at least would explain how he thinks a starting modell for 250,- US$ (400,- DM) could be made possible. There is actually little you could seriously offer for such a price. Still, what can we expect from a highend Amiga for 870,- US$ (1500,- DM)? It is quite obvious that only a poor groundsolution can be offered at such a price with external boards adding the real graphical-/ soundpower. Another thing he mentioned was that they were exploring possibilities to put all Amiga custom chips on one single instead of a clutch of individual chips. Then again such extreme changes in their structure and the needed improvements would take an newly immense development process that this solution doesn't sound probable. It is obvious that he has to defend the A1200 against the simple power of a modern PC, but by saying that the 68020/14MHz is as fast as a Pentium60 disqualifies him as uncommented it simply seems ridiculous thata processor released in 1987 should be able to compete against one from 1994. When comparing performance at similar tasks one under Workbench, the other under under Windows95 we get nearer to his point and this is also the only way to interpret his strange statement. f2c01 Future of the AmigaOS f1c03Already in the first third of 1998, c04AmigaOS 3.5 c03is meant to be released. A pure softwareproduct under existing 3.1 Kickstart-ROM. New features besides clearing known systemerrors will be a rework of the graphical interface Workbench and the printerdrivers plus intergration of Internet-applications. To par with other systems, some third-party software shall be bundled aswel. Later AmigaOS-versions are supposed to be portable to different systems where a virtual engine seems the most probable solution (cp. "Amiga Concepts Seminar" in this issue). Most important candidate are the PowerPC family and Alpha-CPUs, according to the developers conference (DevCon) on the first day of the fair. c04RTG c03and c04AHI c03as graphics-/soundstandard opening gates are considered to be integral part of later releases. As advisors several prominent names from Amiga's past will act, e.g. c04Carl Sassenrathc03, c04RJ Micalc03, c04Dale Luckc03, c04Andy Finkel c03and c04Dr. Ed Hepler c03as c04Darrick Lisle c03told us. Those will not work for c04Amiga International c03or Inc. factually, however. f2c01 Good News at Last f1c03Few people actually were aware that not less than five million Amigas have been sold in recent years. Especially newly interested markets as former eastblock states but also India give a proper clientstructure as the cheap, small A1200 suits the smaller average budget quite well internationally. Recently there have been unconfirmed rumours that c04DCE c03will produce not less than 20.000 units of their A5000 for the Chinese market. At the moment being, Amiga International writes black figures and is able to do polite cash retransfer to c04Gateway 2000c03. After the first smaller successes, Gateway seems to be willing to put further cash into the Amiga. f4c02 "Gateway is our bank" f1c04Tyschtschenko c03comments.