Spirit of the Amiga
by Eric W. Schwartz
Editor, AmiTech-Dayton Gazette
It seems every day the prospect of a new and better Amiga draws a little closer, then is delayed a little further, to the point where one wonders if product will ever be delivered and promises kept. One unfortunate truth is that the community of current and former Amiga users that are the most likely to buy something next-generation is extremely small, to the point where it's difficult, if not impossible, to be financially successful even if every member of the Amiga community bought plenty of hardware and software. It's no wonder many of these folks are hedging their bets by playing to the Linux community, not to mention Amiga's own multi-platform Amiga DE/Anywhere. The other sad truth is that the community has developed a schism, and loyalties are divided between Amiga and MorphOS over who best embodies the "true spirit of the Amiga." This is evidenced by the wars of words over the message bases in Amiga News Network and other sites, and the dubious and confusing legal contention between the two players don't help matters either. A pittance divided two or three ways might as well be nothing. While I'm very much looking forward to new hardware and operating system from all players -- choice is supposed to be a good thing, after all -- it's hard to imagine the Amiga regaining its spot as a strong alternative platform, or maybe even succeeding at all.
I didn't exactly intend to be a downer this month, but the editorial rants usually take on a life of their own. This one was inspired in part from an article linked from the ANN site, stating that a lot of the wars of loyalties between fans of Amiga, Morph, or what have you have blinded people to what is really important. In the early days, people said the custom hardware design was what made the Amiga great. Nowadays people say the operating system is what makes the Amiga great, though the genuine advantages are more debatable with each revision. The real truth is, people buy computers to do things, possibly creative things, and the machine that shows it can do some things quite well becomes desirable. Most people just want to play games, surf the web, and get some work done at home. Those people will most likely get a PC. In its early days, the Amiga had the hardware and software that made it easy, and inexpensive, to be creative with graphics, sound, music, animation, and multimedia, and play the occasional game or bring some work home. The Video Toaster bolstered that by practically inventing the niche of desktop video, making the creation of your own semi-pro video projects cheap compared to doing the same with other equipment. This was what truly made the Amiga great. But between dumb management decisions and bankruptcies, The Amiga lost its way. In today's world, the closest embodiment of that spirit may be the various Macintosh models. Before you pull out the pitchforks, think about it for a second. It's possible, with little to no additional hardware or software, to shoot a video, edit it on the Mac and burn the project onto a DVD -- not to mention surf the net, mix your own CD's, play a few games, and take a little work home. I could see the Amiga in this position if the spirit that brought us DeluxePaint and the Video Toaster swept the Amiga into its future. I don't know if the Amiga can recapture even a fraction of its original spirit, but I'd love to see. And if it can't, at least I know where to follow a facsimile of that spirit.