Very Computer

(IMO)

Who knows.. maybe AI could add PCI slots, and get Phase5 to start making
*GraphX drivers for current PCI gfx cards..

--
 .------Team-AMIGA--------.
 |  aMiGa 4???'?4? 4?mHz  |
 |   PoWErUP 6?4e 2??mHz  |

: > Surely you don't want the Walker introduced? Non-standard slot, EC030,
: > AGA.  Amiga users have had this for years.  What we would like is some
: > more standardized components, like PCI for example.  If you are talking
: > about designing a new motherboard please think about this... Of course it
: > may take some time, but I am willing to wait for a properly designed
: > system :=)

: The Walker is 95% done isnt it? AI need something to sell.. A1200/4000's
: wont do it. A walker + gfx card + powerup would be a good machine to sell
: in 1997. Fast serial and parallel ports, and MIDI.. I can see this machine
: getting popular in the states. With this thing on the shelves bringing in
: money, they can then concentrate on _real_ R&D.. whatever that might be.

This beast would probably be pretty expensive.  Too expensive.

Darren

: in 1997. Fast serial and parallel ports, and MIDI.. I can see this machine
: getting popular in the states. With this thing on the shelves bringing in

Only if it also runs MAC software.

Quote:>>Surely you don't want the Walker introduced? Non-standard slot, EC030,
>>AGA.  Amiga users have had this for years.  What we would like is some
>>more standardized components, like PCI for example.  If you are talking
>>about designing a new motherboard please think about this... Of course it
>>may take some time, but I am willing to wait for a properly designed
>>system :=)
>The Walker is 95% done isnt it? AI need something to sell.. A1200/4000's
>wont do it. A walker + gfx card + powerup would be a good machine to sell
>in 1997. Fast serial and parallel ports, and MIDI.. I can see this machine
>getting popular in the states. With this thing on the shelves bringing in
>money, they can then concentrate on _real_ R&D.. whatever that might be.

- The Walker-mainboard in a nice PC-tower with the Amigalogo on
- 060/50Mhz (or _at least_ 040/40Mhz - market it as 80Mhz if so,
  Apple does it - why not?)
- 4x, 6x or 8x speed CDrom (EIDE)
- High Density diskdrive
- 1GB+ HD (EIDE)
- 8MB fastram, 2MB chip. At least one empty SIMM-socket left for upgrades.
- *vision3D-like card w/Scandoubler and passthrough for AGA-signals.
  Must not be slower than a CV3D!
- _Easy_ path to plugging in a Zorro or PCI-expansion for those who
  want it.

A 603-card at 200Mhz shouldn't cost more than 350 extra, preferably
less. Remember that this machine could use a standard VGA-monitor,
so it would be cheaper than an A1200 in that aspect, at least.

It should also have a new version of the OS, which should come on a CD,
not disks, the CD could also include various utilities and games.
They don't need to do a lot with OS3.1, but some tings should be done
something with:

- Fix all known bugs, of course.
- Black border around the screen, in all screenmodes, without a
  silly patch or commodity. Gray borders look horrible!
- MUI should be standard, or at least included on the install-CD,
  as many programs use it. Even a demoversion would be better than
  nothing.
- MagicWB-icons as standard. The palette must support it directly,
  so you don't need MagicWB-demon in C: with a extra line in
  the startup-sequence.
- Improved look of menus, something like MagicMenu should be included.
  Not necessarily with popup-menus, but nicer pulldown-menus. Oh,
  and don't just dump it in WBstartup, it must be _incorporated_
  into the OS. This is not too important.
- Some of the prefs-programs should have more options. Have a look
  at Aminet for replacement prefsprograms, and use ideas from them.
- Some nice backdrops included.
- Monitorsettings for VGA/SVGA-monitors should be included as
  standard, with no fiddling around.
- Picture.datatype that supports 24bit. Datatypes for as many
  as possible fileformats.
- A movecommand!
- A nice highres mousepointer as standard. Hey, this surely cannot be too
  difficult? :-)

Other things that would be _nice_ to have something done with is:

- Network-support (IPX, serial/parallell, TCP).
- Snoopdos should be included on the Install-CD.
- New shells, something like Kingcon - but _IMPLEMENTED_ into the OS.
- Make RexxMast running at all times.

Ok, it may sound an awful lot for just a minor update (3.1 --> 3.2),
but I guess some work is already done. Maybe some code from other
people can be used? One thing is important however: No patches
(except for possibly Setpatch :-) should be included, everything
must look and feel professional and 'finished'.

As the machine would run on VGA-screens, it should probably have
800x600 as default in WB and all programs that come with the
machine. It looks a hell lot more impressive than PAL:HighRes :-)

Software to include with the machine:

Worms - The Directors Cut (could sell the machine alone! ;-))
Slamtilt
Genetic Species
Hellpigs

(select at least two of them)

Scala MM300 or MM400
Final Writer or Wordworth, as new a version as possible
Internetsoftware (Miami, AmFTP, AmTelnet, AmIRC, Voyager etc.)
Octamed Soundstudio (including loads of Mods and Samples, categorized)
Personal Paint 7.1

and anything else they can get, really... An important thing is
that the machine is 'cool', 'for creative users, not nerds or
lamers', although I guess my way of saying it shouldn't be
included in adverts ;-)

I hope you are listening, Amiga International.

<SB>-- rUSTYBRAIn -- A4000/040-40MHz/18MB/2.7GB/4xCD/CV3D/14"/os3.0

Quote:>- *vision3D-like card w/Scandoubler and passthrough for AGA-signals.
>  Must not be slower than a CV3D!

--

Quote:

>    My personal impression is that Gateway 2000 has no clear concept
> of what to do with the Amiga, or at least if they have one, they did
> not state it in public. For all I know, buying Amiga Technologies could
> well have been a tactical decision to avoid taxation. Someone has to take
> this subject serious: is it worth taking operating system development
> further and do we need new Amiga hardware? Or is it sufficient to just
> give Amiga OS 3.1 a bit polishing, bundle some software with it, label it
> "AmigaOS 4.0" and drop hardware production altogether since it is not making
> that much money? Some people appear to believe that the situation the Amiga
> is in is "normal" and little to no improvement of the situation will
> have a great impact. To these people even cutting hardware development
> and production altogether sounds like a great idea ("hey, Apple licensed
> their operating system so anybody could make Macintosh clones, we should
> be able to do this with the Amiga, too"). My impression is that whoever
> makes the decisions should be encouraged to take bolder steps towards
> taking Amiga operating system and hardware development further.
> Baby steps are not going to take us anywhere. The decision makers should
> be made aware of the fact that it can make good sense to actually spend
> money on the technology rather than trying to cash in on the existing
> stagnant technology base. Is it worth the effort? Is the effort
> necessary? I'd say yes, but do the decision makers know?

IMHO if GW2K knew what they were doing with AI they would have cleaned
house and started from scratch. I really believe they have know
idea of what direction they want to go with the Amiga. They are just waiting
to see what falls in their lap. This really is a shame becuase time
is of the essence.

Quote:

>It should also have a new version of the OS, which should come on a CD,
>not disks, the CD could also include various utilities and games.
>They don't need to do a lot with OS3.1, but some tings should be done
>something with:
>- Fix all known bugs, of course.
>- Black border around the screen, in all screenmodes, without a
>  silly patch or commodity. Gray borders look horrible!
>- MUI should be standard, or at least included on the install-CD,
>  as many programs use it. Even a demoversion would be better than
>  nothing.
>- MagicWB-icons as standard. The palette must support it directly,
>  so you don't need MagicWB-demon in C: with a extra line in
>  the startup-sequence.
>- Improved look of menus, something like MagicMenu should be included.
>  Not necessarily with popup-menus, but nicer pulldown-menus. Oh,
>  and don't just dump it in WBstartup, it must be _incorporated_
>  into the OS. This is not too important.
>- Some of the prefs-programs should have more options. Have a look
>  at Aminet for replacement prefsprograms, and use ideas from them.

Quote:>Software to include with the machine:
>Worms - The Directors Cut (could sell the machine alone! ;-))
>Slamtilt
>Genetic Species
>Hellpigs
>(select at least two of them)

Quote:>I hope you are listening, Amiga International.
><SB>-- rUSTYBRAIn -- A4000/040-40MHz/18MB/2.7GB/4xCD/CV3D/14"/os3.0

Derrick Hopkins  :                                                       :

IASCA NOV 1-150  :                                                       :
==========================================================================
The Cynthia Rothrock Fan Site--http://www.infi.net/~dhopkins/rothrock.html

Quote:> >wont do it. A walker + gfx card + powerup would be a good machine to sell
> >in 1997. Fast serial and parallel ports, and MIDI.. I can see this machine
> >getting popular in the states. With this thing on the shelves bringing in
> >money, they can then concentrate on _real_ R&D.. whatever that might be.

> If they can sell something like this for 800-850, they are in for a real
> winner I belive:

> - The Walker-mainboard in a nice PC-tower with the Amigalogo on
> - 060/50Mhz (or _at least_ 040/40Mhz - market it as 80Mhz if so,
>   Apple does it - why not?)
> - 4x, 6x or 8x speed CDrom (EIDE)
> - High Density diskdrive
> - 1GB+ HD (EIDE)
> - 8MB fastram, 2MB chip. At least one empty SIMM-socket left for upgrades.
> - *vision3D-like card w/Scandoubler and passthrough for AGA-signals.
>   Must not be slower than a CV3D!
> - _Easy_ path to plugging in a Zorro or PCI-expansion for those who
>   want it.

Quote:

> <SB>-- rUSTYBRAIn -- A4000/040-40MHz/18MB/2.7GB/4xCD/CV3D/14"/os3.0

--
 .------Team-AMIGA--------.
 |  aMiGa 4???'?4? 4?mHz  |
 |   PoWErUP 6?4e 2??mHz  |

Quote:>>- Improved look of menus, something like MagicMenu should be included.
>>  Not necessarily with popup-menus, but nicer pulldown-menus. Oh,
>>  and don't just dump it in WBstartup, it must be _incorporated_
>>  into the OS. This is not too important.
>>- Some of the prefs-programs should have more options. Have a look
>>  at Aminet for replacement prefsprograms, and use ideas from them.
>In other words, make the OS bloated with stuff a lot of people don't
>want or need. I don't like MWB icons(NewIcons look much better to me)

Quote:>and a lot of people don't like MUI.

Quote:>MagicMenu is nice but is it exactly stable?

Quote:>And it's not to hard to live without.

Quote:>The Amiga is nice because you can run it -without- a lot of extra stuff
>running in the background.
>As soon as you start building in a lot of pretty-boy features, it make
>it bigger, bigger, and bigger.

Quote:>Win95 has a lot of nice extras but I'd be
>nice if you could turn half of them off and get it to run on 3megs.

Quote:>>(select at least two of them)
>These are all great games, but to be blunt. they all look dated now.
>It'd be better to get something like Warcaft II, Duke 3D 2, Sega Rally,
>etc etc. ported to show off the machine.

<SB>-- rUSTYBRAIn -- A4000/040-40MHz/18MB/2.7GB/4xCD/CV3D/14"/os3.0

Quote:>>- *vision3D-like card w/Scandoubler and passthrough for AGA-signals.
>>  Must not be slower than a CV3D!
>Hardly possible.

<SB>-- rUSTYBRAIn -- A4000/040-40MHz/18MB/2.7GB/4xCD/CV3D/14"/os3.0

Quote:>> - *vision3D-like card w/Scandoubler and passthrough for AGA-signals.
>>   Must not be slower than a CV3D!
>> - _Easy_ path to plugging in a Zorro or PCI-expansion for those who
>>   want it.
>[list of ideas deleted]
>Sheesh, It's like your reading my mind! :-)

<SB>-- rUSTYBRAIn -- A4000/040-40MHz/18MB/2.7GB/4xCD/CV3D/14"/os3.0

Quote:>>>- Improved look of menus, something like MagicMenu should be included.
>>>  Not necessarily with popup-menus, but nicer pulldown-menus. Oh,
>>>  and don't just dump it in WBstartup, it must be _incorporated_
>>>  into the OS. This is not too important.
>>>- Some of the prefs-programs should have more options. Have a look
>>>  at Aminet for replacement prefsprograms, and use ideas from them.
>>In other words, make the OS bloated with stuff a lot of people don't
>>want or need. I don't like MWB icons(NewIcons look much better to me)

>Fair enough, then you can install NewIcons. However, I don't think
>it's good having a hack in the OS. If Newicons was to be incorporated
>into the OS, I guess that would be a lot more difficult than to
>incorporate MagicWB-demon - which basicly locks some colours in
>the palette, as far as I know.

The real question is, should a new OS use a fixed palette for icons, or
not?  I'd say no - why impose a palette when everyone will be able to
use 24-bit graphics cards, and have CPUs fast enough to decompress even
JPEG-ed icons?

Quote:>>and a lot of people don't like MUI.

>Maybe they should just include it on the install-CD, optitional to install,
>then.

Quote:>>MagicMenu is nice but is it exactly stable?

>The latest version seem quite stable, yes. However, I didn't talk
>about including MagicMenu, but improving the design of the pulldown-
>menus to look like it.

Quote:>>And it's not to hard to live without.

>Of course not, and as I stated above: 'This is not too important'.
>It would be nice if they could do something like it without slowing
>down the OS/taking up much more RAM, cause it really makes everything
>look better.

Quote:>>The Amiga is nice because you can run it -without- a lot of extra stuff
>>running in the background.
>>As soon as you start building in a lot of pretty-boy features, it make
>>it bigger, bigger, and bigger.

>This wouldn't necessarily be a problem if these patches were a part
>of the OS instead. And how many people with a 040/060, some ram, and
>maybe a graphicsboard actually run their WBs in the bogstandard shape
>anyway? Maybe just as well to provide everyone with bugfree, clean,
>extensions and improvements in the OS instead of forcing them to
>install a lot of junk if they want to improve the OS' look. I had to,
>and it seemed very buggy for a while. Now I'm only running a few
>patches, but I would like more if they weren't slow and buggy.

Quote:>>Win95 has a lot of nice extras but I'd be
>>nice if you could turn half of them off and get it to run on 3megs.

>It wouldn't be possible, Win95 is big because of bad code and
>backwardscompatibility. BeOs looks just as nice, and run on 3MB, BTW.

Quote:>>>(select at least two of them)
>>These are all great games, but to be blunt. they all look dated now.
>>It'd be better to get something like Warcaft II, Duke 3D 2, Sega Rally,
>>etc etc. ported to show off the machine.

>AI won't be able to afford this before they can show at least a _bit_ of
>sales, I guess. BTW, Warcraft 2 doesn't look very impressive, does it?
>I mean, and Amigagame that looks better than it could easily be coded.

Quote:>> >>and a lot of people don't like MUI.

>> >Maybe they should just include it on the install-CD, optitional to inst
>> >then.

>MUI's features are great though.. Why bother recoding MUI functions into
>Workbench when its already availiable with MUI..?

- Ben

___________________________________________________________________

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Quote:> >>want or need. I don't like MWB icons(NewIcons look much better to me)

> >Fair enough, then you can install NewIcons. However, I don't think
> >it's good having a hack in the OS. If Newicons was to be incorporated
> >into the OS, I guess that would be a lot more difficult than to
> >incorporate MagicWB-demon - which basicly locks some colours in
> >the palette, as far as I know.

> In order to keep those colours locked even when the WB screen is closed
> and re-opened, the MagicWB daemon must patch some OS functions.  (At
> least this is what my clone, TragicWB, does, and I don't see any other
> way to do it.)  So both MagicWB and NewIcons are hacks.  I think it
> would be fair to say that no-one in their right mind would want hacks
> like this in an OS.

Quote:> >>and a lot of people don't like MUI.

> >Maybe they should just include it on the install-CD, optitional to install,
> >then.

--
 .------Team-AMIGA--------.
 |  aMiGa 4???'?4? 4?mHz  |
 |   PoWErUP 6?4e 2??mHz  |

--

 > The Walker is 95% done isnt it?  AI need something to sell..

Sell an OS upgrade while the hardware options are properly sorted out.

 > A1200/4000's wont do it.

 > A walker + gfx card + powerup would be a good machine to sell
 > in 1997.

At what price point?  The Walker was never going to be inexpensive to start
with.  Add on top of that a gfx card (which for many Amiga users means
a new monitor, too) and Powerup (which still would
have no OS or software support worth mentioning) why would even Amiga
users buy this thing??  You have 500 and 600 users who wouldn't fork over
the buck$ for even a 1200, and why would ANY other Amiga system user be
tempted to move to such a Walker?  Many already have a gfx
boards and PowerUp is/will be readily available, too.

 > Fast serial and parallel ports, and MIDI.. I can see this machine
 > getting popular in the states. With this thing on the shelves bringing in
 > money, they can then concentrate on _real_ R&D.. whatever that might be.

The Walker would get slaughtered in the U.S.  The state-side computer press
has few loyalties to the Amiga anyway, and the Walker would be just
the thing they'd have fun unloading on.  Such a move would make the Gateway
acquisition a joke.  "Gateway purchased Amiga properties to try and sell
THIS?"  And that would make it all the harder to generate interest in
a serious new Amiga model down the line.  Not to mention that anything
"proprietary" about the Walker probably wouldn't survive into a
serious next generation Amiga, so who would support it?  Using an
upgradeable CPU daughterboard socket on an industry standard motherboard
FORM format that can fit into any of a hundred different tower and
dtop cases make the Walker's only unique feature -- modularity --
moot anyway.

IBM proved big enough to outlive the * of the Peanut.  But the
Amiga might never outlive the Walker.  The only thing the Walker is
missing is a chicklet keyboard.

d.

--
       Don Romero                        ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

\\// Amiga User since 1986               ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~