Final thoughts

Waiting for the Big Bang (by Christian Aichinger)

The hardware manufacturers sit in their starting pits waiting for the report of AMIGA's starting gun. Thendic wants to present the Smartboy, a device for the future and, it appears, the first Amiga-PDA, at this year's Cebit; bplan recently published the design of their Linux, MorphOS, and AmigaDE compatible motherboard and additionally announced a prototype of it, and even the island - err... Eyetech - excels in a "half-finished" AmigaOne 1200.

Platform-independent "computing" is the future, and it offers an overwhelming opportunity for the future which cannot be rated highly enough. Many of today's "power-users", who have invested squillions in their Amigas - the whole community appreciates it - still grouch sullenly on and off about the AmigaDE (whatever they understand it is) and their possible financial losses. But even they are increasingly intrigued, because of their attachment to Amiga technology. Just imagine an AmigaDE plugin for your webbrowser. "Amiga" out of the net? Quite imaginable!

Theoretically, the new Amiga needs nothing but a portable data medium. Nothing else. Feed the Amiga data to a CPU, some RAM and for reasonable working conditions a graphics board and a monitor. The type or brand of the hardware is (nearly) irrelevant. Anyone who wants to break free of archaic industry standards, who wishes to use unspoiled, not old contaminated hardware, has no further to look.

Even adherents or users of Windows, MacOS and Linux, used to visiting the computer shop around the corner to upgrade their hardware - seems to be overpriced - could come to appreciate a hardware independence never seen before, without having to ditch their familiar operating system.

But we still want an answer: When will the AmigaDE appear? Yes, AMIGA is wise not to make their plans publicly known. Other and much more powerful enterprises are developing similar projects. But the wise information policy of AMIGA is frustrating, to say the least. The latest Executive Update was anything but. An invitation to the Gateway Computer Show in St. Louis may be a "nice" suggestion, but it's not the information the users and hardware developers are urgently waiting for. Not to mention the users of the existing Amiga platform who are fishing in troubled waters, hoping to hook a future, or at least the ardently expected BoingBag for AmigaOS 3.9.

Hopefully we soon will hear the echo of the starting shot sounding over the big water and finally be on the way. We only hope that the nervy wait does not cause a false start leading to a disaster.

Hence, dear community! Bring peace into your life and stay patient! Spring is upcoming and it is time to power down your computer and take a stroll around the block with your better half or at least with your beloved pet and forget about your worries for a time. Or perhaps you should change your point of view a bit. Just sit in front of a Windows-PC and install several games, which later on you uninstall... that will lift your spirits and put the problems in the Amiga sector into perspective.

All will be well!

Best regards,

Christian Aichinger <christian@aakt.de>