Preface

Preface and review on July

AMIGA releases more concept drawings for publication +++ AMIGA hires Dr. Richard Lipes as 'Director of Multimedia Services' +++ AMIGA uses Linux kernel instead of QNX kernel for the AmigaOE +++ AMIGA publishes technology brief regarding the AmigaNG +++ AMIGA annouces cooperation with Corel +++ AMIGA shows model case for the Amiga MCC +++ AMIGA is supposed to use the Transmeta as AmigaNG processor +++ Release of AmigaOS 3.5 will be delayed for approx. one to two months

These were the headlines in July (in chronological order). Welcome to the largest size in the history of AMIGA aktuell international (and AMIGA aktuell), after a really exciting, but also stressful month was over. If the time of the 'Collas era' has been quite interesting, but the last weeks exceeded even the wilded expecttations.

Those who deal with the news as I do as the publisher of this magazine could think, that the Amiga has advanced in rank to the top and put the PC on rank 2 of the media presence... It wasn't really that way, but it has to be noticed, who reported (sometimes multiple times) about AMIGAs news: (CNN, c't, Die Zeit, Forbes, Mac Times, NBC Giga, PC Week, SAP Magazin, Screen Multimedia, Yahoo, ZDNet and many, many more. Well, never after the bankrupcy of Commodore the Amiga caused a stir as within the last weeks.

But now to the news in detail:

Sometimes I am nearly jealous (but only nearly) on those of you, who get AMIGA aktuell by post, because they have no Internet access. You can't imagine, what happened in the first days after AMIGAs decision to use a Linux kernel instead of a QNX kernel was revealed. In forums and newsgroups there was hysteria, but not of excitement, but of anger and especially about the president Jim Collas, who, in theirr eyes, wanted to bring just another Linux computer to the market.

Even in the beginning there were people, who asked for patience or welcomed the decision for Linux, but in the beginning they couldn't win against the front of the masses.

This made Jim Collas to publish some statements and explanations, what led to a calm down of the moods on the cost of a weekend. It has been characteristic, that in an online survey only one quarter supported the Linux decision in the beginning, but in the end of this survey the the supporters and the opponents were of the same numbers.

Just this would have been enough for an entertaining Amiga month, but there was the technology brief of the AmigaNG, which was made public some days later and has been supported by most of the users. Of course, there were critics and some people, who refuse the NG completely, but this isn't surprising, because the Amiga community is no homogeneous group.

Especially about the standard fittings of the AmigaNG there are various opinions. Some of the users want aged, but spreaded technologies like a parallel or serial port or SCSI, which is nearly of the same power as EIDE/ATA, as standard for the AmigaNG. My idea is: Why don't those, who want these ports an extension for USB resp. PCI? Especially boards for the port named last are available for "a song".

Also the theme 'disk drive' raised tempers: I personally don't believe, that the users can agree about a standard disk drive. Some will prefer the LS120 drive, some will prefer the competing product Zip drive and other users will prefer a standard 1.44MB drive, while the rest will forego on a floppy disk drive. So I think, that AMIGA made the right decision, not to put any disk drive into the AmigaNG. But a 3.5" bay should be present definitely.

The last thing of July are the Amiga show 'World of Amiga' in London, England and 'Amiwest' in Sacramento, California, USA. AMIGA showed (behind glas) a model of the case of the planned Amiga MCC (Multimedia Convergence Computer), which found much support within the Amiga community. But there were also some users, who think, that this case is too modest or would like to have a more common computer design. Thanks to the ATX standard a re-mounting into another case shouldn't be a problem. And if the Amiga MCC is put on the market in the presented case is uncertain, anyway.

Maybe the video, AMIGA showed on these shows was even more important than the case model: This video listed the partners of AMIGA, which are with the development of the AmigaNG. In addition to Sun (owner of Java), Pentagram (responsible for the case designs) and Corel (making applications available) there was Transmeta! So the speculations, that the AmigaNG might get the legendary processor of this company, might become true. Just a little number of people knows about the status of this new processor - and it would fit with the insinuations of Jim Collas. There is no official statment of AMIGA regarding the use of the Transmeta, but the use of Linux, which 'father' Linus Torwalds works with Transmeta, makes the use of the CPU with the AmigaNG even more likely.

One marginal note: After AMIGA switched to the Linux kernel Phase 5 thinks about etablishing a competetive computer system, which should be shipped with the QNX operating system Neutrino (as well as the PPC-G3 boards of this company, see below). Now we have to wait, if Phase 5 can make a computer announcement to become reality - the previous tries A\Box and pre\box failed even in the initial stage. In those days the Amiga had nearly no perspective, because there wasn't an offical successor under development. But now the situation is totally different, so it has to be allowed to ask, how Phase 5 want to make this goal, if the company failed twice in days, when the situation was better for them. But let's wait and see, what they can do.

And now to something completely different: The epilogue of the last edition seemed to have a result. With Phase 5 and Metabox two of the companies, that want to develop G3-boards for the Amiga made statments. Phase 5 changed the specifications of their G3-boards and want to put them on the market in the first days of September. Metabox wants to begin shipping the products of the 'AmiJoe' series within the next two months.

The internals of this edition:


To our regulary summonses: 
 

Have fun with this edition,

yours

Carsten Schroeder