Recently John Kennedy, ex-Amiga magazine journalist wrote on article on exactly how the Amiga should proceed, this article was printed in CU Amiga, the December 97 Issue and I have a great number of problems with it.

Briefly John Kennedy announces the end of the console market is nigh and that the PC will be its heir. He argues that this leaves only one option available to the Amiga, to become a Internet dedicated machine. It would use a PC CPU and standard PC parts because they are cheap. Oh, and it should be nothing like the Amiga we all know and love, in fact we should forget the Amiga's OS (The only thing keeping us Amigans faithful) and use WindowsCE instead!

How in gods name can a computer running Windows using standard PC Parts without some conversion of AmigsDOS or an evolution of AmigaDOS be called an Amiga? What kind of market will be available for it anyway? Why don't I make a prediction, I think I will.

The kind of people who will buy an Internet dedicated Machine are the kind which wouldn't realise that for about £400 they could get a PC which could do the same thing and more. (The figure is what I estimate a Internet capable computer will cost second hand in three or four years when any so-called Amiga could be released.) This would mean the computer would have to be phenominally cheap. No, I want the Amiga to live on, it has valuable bits and pieces which should be built upon.

I suggest that the way forward is to develop a computer which is a damn site easier to use than a PC or an Amiga. We caould spen hours talking about how easy it is to get things done with our machines - but think how easy it would be in the ideal situation;


How to Install.

1) Press button marked "Install."


How to uninstall

1) Press button marked "Uninstall."



The power which comes from making choices could be given if wanted but ultimately anything more difficult than that is going to be a waste of time. Networking too would be valuable, because if we can get the machine into the offices then we can get them into the homes, and good Networks are hard to find. Networks which are peer to peer usually take a lot of fidling to make work and it is this which people hate computers for. Our ideal computer should never, ever crash. Our ideal computer should transparently save work incase it did crash or suffered power failure. Our ideal computer should never "go down." Even if that requires using Standard Software or, by using a basic language which interprets the commands as they come along. The argument against such a thing would be that it would slow the system down, but soon nothing will be slow, even relatively.

I think the world wants a computer without a keybord, voice recognition is on its way and would certainly give the Companies something to think about.

This may sound like pie in the sky but don't forget the Amiga is now owned by Gateway which advertises in the Guardian most days, can you imagine getting that frm C=?.
Richard Fletcher

[I couldn't agree more! Another thing to consider is that if Gateway 2000 wanted to make set top boxes using PC parts and running Windows CE, why would they have needed to buy out the Amiga? To use the name? I don't think so... - Mark]