From: peterk@combo.ganesha.com (Dr. Peter Kittel) Subject: Re: Problems with PIOS (was Re: State of PIOS) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.misc,comp.sys.amiga.hardware,comp.sys.amiga.advocacy Reply-To: peterk@combo.ganesha.com References: <5u3cmj$kta$1@coranto.ucs.mun.ca> <1472.183T953T12723469@accesscomm.net> <5ulqfo$62v$1@coranto.ucs.mun.ca> Message-ID: Date: 5 Sep 97 13:11:18 MEZ Organization: Private Lines: 124 Path: 195.95.96.10!news.unisource.be!planetinternet.be!newsgate.unisource.nl!bullseye.news.demon.net!demon!dispatch.news.demon.net!demon!feed1.news.erols.com!newsfeed.ecrc.net!blackbush.xlink.net!ganesha!combo.ganesha.com!peterk Xref: 195.95.96.10 comp.sys.amiga.misc:152140 comp.sys.amiga.hardware:151031 comp.sys.amiga.advocacy:181283 In article <5ulqfo$62v$1@coranto.ucs.mun.ca> gnoel@morgan.ucs.mun.ca (George Noel) writes: >In article <1472.183T953T12723469@accesscomm.net>, >Gary Peake wrote: >>George Noel rambled on about Re: State of PIOS (was Re: Yet another frien >> >Right now the PIOS One is not an Amiga in any way shape or form.. sorry. That's your personal perception, shared not by everyone. >Just because a former ex Commodore engineer built the machine does not >make it an Amiga. Sure, but ... >What I dislike about PIOS however is the Jean-Louis Gassee attitude of >trying to sway the Amiga camp over to their side now that they have >Something Cool coming out. Now that hurts. I have to say that I also was negatively affected by that move of JLG, but he has stopped that, now that he can get on the masses of Mac users. What is different between Be and PIOS is that they have something definitely different from AmigaOS, an OS with a lot of ambitions and a lot of good aspects, but it's not AmigaOS. We from PIOS, however, feel that we do something with our PIOS ONE hardware which is practically what would have been the next Amiga hardware from Commodore, like it or not! Yes, there was also Hombre, but I've seen some docs where this was scheduled to become either a games console, not necessarily much Amiga-like, or an own gfx card with just an own kind of gfx chip instead of some from the gfx card makers. And not to forget AAA, please note that this was buried as a project even before Commodore closed. In total, it's highly likely that Commodore would have gone hardware-wise in exactly this direction where the PIOS ONE now develops. > Unfortunately Dave is wrapped right up there in >it. I wouldn't have this attitude had their company provided some kind of >support to the Amiga community directly What should we do? Sell 68k stuff? For a new company, this would mean wasted effort, as the days of 68k are definitely counted. There has to come a transition, and the best we can do with our limited resources, we are doing: working on next-generation Amiga, as we think it should look like and as probably Commodore would have also built it. > instead of trying to steal the >business away from it by offering competition (and I am talking Mac and PC >clone type competition, not Amiga competition). In which way is cloning with official licenses "stealing"? Yes, Apple earned money from us via licenses, as we don't yet have some AmigaOS of any kind for our hardware. What we currently sell is just exercises in the PPC market, and for market-related reasons, this can only take place in the Mac clone market, no way around that, sorry. Yet we don't do PC clones, why do you mention those? > Ok, so they are providing >a Siamese System as standard on the transAM. So what? I can use that with >my Amigas and another computer type if I want to. Ok, so they are offering >pOS as standard. So what? It is close to AmigaOS but not enough of a >difference to go gaga over. It will be out for Intel as well, I could go >that route if I wanted to. Nobody keeps you from that, but we're getting close as much as possible to the real Amiga. Please keep in mind, we're on PPC processors, where there is currently no official AmigaOS. So we have to find some approximation, again as close as possible, via Siamese, via pOS, etc. > They are using slots, >busses, ports, cards/chips for graphics and sound which all can be used on >Macs and PC clones. If I wanted them before, where do you think I would >have already gone to get them? Well, I firmly belive that if it had been easily possible to use such cards in the current Amigas, people would have done so, don't you think? So why do you see a disadvantage in finally providing this? Again: The next Amiga from Commodore would have had PCI slots. > Motorolla also has an offering in that category and the PIOS One >has a CPU daughter card with its ram etc. on it. Sorry, but I don't see >the bells and whistles going off because of that mere point. It's a subtle point, but can become immensely efficient and practical when it comes to upgrading. Ask Amiga owners with 040 or 060 cards what power has been made accessible to them on base hardware of which age. >Ok, back to the point way above, I chose the Amiga for a reason and its >purposes suit my need for the next while, if I went with the PIOS One, I >will lose a lot of that functionality. So you use majorly the functionality of the custom chips? Weird. > To me, the Amiga is still the best >overall computer there is out on the market. Undebated. And we try to follow that tradition and help its transition into new processor arenas. > BUT it is taking the best parts from PC clones, Macs >and getting into the PPCP market. Why is this a "but"? > Mac lovers will love it, Uh, they have problems with such an open platform, it frightens them a bit... But some of them are of course open minded enough to appreciate the advantages, but those can't be called typical Mac users, it seems. It's more typical for Amiga folks to see such openness as an advantage. >Now back to Dave directly.. I dislike his attitude change over the years >from him working on great, new, innovative hardware to settling to use off >the shelf parts. I also dislike his feeling that "It is the OS stupid!" - >sounds kind of weird coming from a hardware engineer and I also disagree >with it.. Perhaps your error in perception is that Dave did *not* change his attitude? He always just chose the way which was appropriate for the time, and times *did* change. Think over it. -- Best Regards, Dr. Peter Kittel // http://www.pios.de of PIOS Private Site in Frankfurt, Germany \X/ office: peterk@pios.de This "combo" account may soon go away, please use the office one!