Re: Computing Editorial (please read)

[Jeff Thomas <a2forever@usa.net>]

Lots of inaccuracies in the editorial.

Commodore may have folded, but the Amiga technology is alive and well.
Eyetech Group (eyetech.co.uk/amigaone) has had the AmigaOneG3-SE in
limited production since March, last year. Sporting 600Mhz Motorola G3
CPU, integrated Ethernet/Fast Ethernet networking, a single 2X AGP and
four PCI slots and the board handles up to 2GB of 133MHz SDRAM in two DIMM
sockets, Dual USB ports and UDMA/100 channels and the usual parallel,
serial, PS/2 mouse and keyboard as well as PC floppy interfaces. They're
already working one successor called AmigaOne-XE, capable on handling
single/dual G4 and possibly G5 CPUs whenever Motorola releases them.

As for the brand name, "Commodore" a computer company based in Holland,
brought it and are selling PCs with "Commodore" name!

Apple Computer still provides technical information and software for the
Apple II product range, notably Apple IIGS System Software, drivers and
info for various Apple II perhiperals. But provides no support, but the
newsgroups are great place to get help.

Some die-hard fans, are attempting to create new motherboards with newer
processors and that are backward compatible with IIGS.

What really killed most of these once great computer companies was bad
mismanagement.

Commodore before their demise, were very reluctant to release newer Amiga
technologies and sadly, crumbled to PC onslaught. We all know how crippled
the Amiga 1200 (A1200) was, just play "Dune II" or "Wing Commander" on
native A1200.

As for Atari, they caused their own downfall. Why on earth, they wasted
their time trying to emulate an Amiga with Atari STE is beyond me. People
quickly realised that the Amiga was vastly superior beast, and ditched
their Atari's. When the A1200 & A4000 came along, well, they were history.
These days, Atari only produces games like it did in it's heyday. I guess,
the computing market was another revenue source, but couldn't keep up.

Apple fared better, but didn't get away unscrathed. Despite having a
ten-year head start over Windows. Many computer companies have tried over
the years to emulate the Macintosh GUI, from: Atari TOS, GEM, GEOS,
GeosWorks to Amiga Workbench.

In 1997, Apple's future didn't look too good. Why? Like all the other
computer companies before it, they were missing that killer application,
being "M$ Office" series ~ nothing compared or matched it, on any of the
other computers.

Also, before then Apple spent a considerable amount of time, developing
the Apple Newton which never really took off, because the market wasn't
really for it. Now the market has opened the flood gates of Pocket PCs and
Palms.

As for books, regarding the early days at Apple, I highly recommend John
Sculley's "Odyssey -Pepsi to Apple" and "Fire in the Valley - The Making
of the Personal Computer". And brilliant, "Pirates of Silicon Valley"
movie.

No Bill Gates isn't our saviour. Everyone knows he stole the Macintosh GUI
and embedded it, into his Windows. Try using a pre-1995 Macintosh, and
you'll realise how closely Windows copies it, even down to the application
names that are part of the Mac OS. Here's some comparisions:
Windows  &  Mac
Notepad   /   Note pad
Clipboard  /  Clipboard
Desktop    /  Desktop
Control Panel /  Control Panels
Find             /  Find File
Shut Down    /  Shut Down
Calculator     / Calculator

M$ remains the least innnovative company around, and they never really
stopped ripping other people's ideas or competiting unfairly like the
tactics they used against Netscape, DR. DOS, Novell and countless others.
Even when they began, with their take of DOS, that they brought and
redeveloped into CP/M knock-off. And more recently, with "System Restore"
that came with Windows Me which is rip-off from Norton's "Ghost" program.

A fanasatic book on this, would be "The Microsoft Files - The Secret Case
Against Bill Gates".

Now, M$ are trying to kill-off the game console and gaming industry as
well. Sega already has quit, developing game consoles and are now solely
focused on creating and releasing games. Nintendo's future does look
shaky, doing less well than the Playstation.