Even this blog author has never shared Barrys over-enthusiasm, and has constantly indicated
some of the mistakes, having the man gone is never a good news. Each man gone is a loss,
and company CommodoreUSA still has to prove itself as innovative.
A talented team of Filmmakers are putting together a film documenting the Rise and Fall of the Amiga. They just need a little help with funding. Please read on.
You can make a difference today by pledging a small donation to make this happen.
KickStarter is a well-respected site that helps small projects get off the ground and has backed many 1000s of projects across the globe since its inception in 2009.
This is a unique opportunity to purchase a DVD charting the entire history of the Amiga. There will be familiar faces and interviews shown including the legendary Eric Schwartz; the creator of all those cartoon animations foreinstance Amy the Squirrel and Superfrog you probably watched over and over again when you was in your teens.
This DVD will be both informative and entertaining and will include many exclusive interviews with key figures that made the Amiga possible
Please visit the URL below and make your pledge today, there is absolutely nothing to lose and everything to gain.
If you’re reading this, you’ve probably been to http://www.amigafilm.com and have seen the trailer, and are likely an Amiga user or general fan. But if that’s not the case, here’s the general pitch:
In 1985, a powerful new kind of computer was born. It was 10 years ahead of its time, and ready to take on Microsoft, IBM and Apple for control of the PC market. The Amiga computer revolutionized video, multimedia and digital art, with Andy Warhol being a big advocate. It was also known for being a fantastic video games machine. Despite the computer’s manufacturer going bankrupt in early 1990’s, the Amiga has a huge cult following worldwide to this day. This film documents the rise and fall of the Amiga in the marketplace, and gives an inside look at the passionate and eccentric community that surrounds it. We’ve got in-depth interviews with the Amiga’s designers, engineers and advocates, and we’ll be shooting even more. This is a compelling and unique documentary, rich with animation and a distinctive style. Viva Amiga is also being written and directed by an Amiga user – me, Zach Weddington! Without the Amiga, I seriously doubt my career in film and animation would be where it is today.
Rather than just ask for donations, we’ve decided to give everyone some cool stuff in return, so take a look at the great rewards we’re offering at the various donation levels. These packages we’re offering now at these prices will only be available to Kickstarter donators, so don’t miss the chance to get this stuff and help fund the film. All donations for packages include shipping!
Your donations will enable us to complete the film. Here are some big names that we’ve already filmed so far:
Jeff Porter – Former Commodore Engineer – in charge of hardware develepment. He gave us the 500.
Dave Haynie – Former Commodore Engineer – best known for the Amiga 3000. He shot the infamous „Deathbed Vigil“ video.
Bil Herd – Former Commodore Engineer, Principal Enginneer on the Commodore 128 and others…
Andy Finkel – Former Commodore Engineer – software
Jason Scott – Computer Historian, Writer (www.textfiles.com), and Filmmaker (BBS – The Documentary, Get Lamp)
RJ Mical, legendary video game industry pioneer, Workbench designer, and part of the original Amiga design team, has just signed on to be interviewed.
Eric Schwartz, well-known Amiga animator, will appear in the film as well. He has also offered to do some special graphics for the film.
My long-time friend and expert animator Maksim Bondarev has also just signed on with the film! He’ll be creating 3-D models of all the major Amiga models that will be used for animated sequences in the film…..
…and several other important Amiga journalists, scenesters and engineers too.
Oh yeah, let’s not forget about the kick-ass soundtrack being composed by Amiga mod scene musician Zoë Blade
I want to thank you SO much for your support so far. This project is moving along great now. But we need your help. You may place a pre-order for one of our cool packages or simply donate. We’ve set a goal of $25,000 for pre-orders/donations, but honestly that is the bare minimum we need to pull this off. I’d love to see it soar much higher. The more donations and/or pre-orders we receive, the better the film will be. You have no idea of the costs we will encounter – travel fees, lab/post-production costs, legal fees… it goes on and on. Please help!
So please head on over to our kickstarter.com page and place your pre-order now!
Jason Perlow interviews Barry Altman, the CEO and founder of Commodore USA, and discusses the rebirth of the legendary Commdore 64, the new Amiga product line, and the future of integrated keyboard PCs.
SinclairUK are proud to announce the immediate availability of the first Sinclair QL computer in about a billion years or something, the QL mini. We did intend to launch yesterday but feared that it may be seen as an april fool joke and not an actual real product so delayed for 24 hours.The new Sinclair QL mini is the only computer with comparable specs in it’s price range, no other computer comes close and no other computer at any price allows you to do so much with an official Sinclair sticker on the front.
The new QL mini is only available in traditional Sinclair kit form as it reduces the cost to the consumer and to save you even more money we have decided that you would be better off sourcing the parts yourself as it means we don’t need to pay for a huge warehouse to store everything, therefore passing the savings on to you.
To obtain your new Sinclair QL mini please follow these instructions.
1, Purchase these parts from your favourite vendor.
* ZOTAC Z68ITX-B-E
* intel core i7 2600K 3.5GHz
* 1TB SATA hard drive
* 2 x 8GB DDR3 SO-DIMMs
* intel mini-PCIe wireless card
* wesena HTPC ITX2 case
*Sinclair Badge for the front of the case (only available from SinclairUK for just £1000+VAT)
2, Assemble all the parts, training courses should be available in your area if you don’t know where to start.
3, Send the receipts for the parts you purchased to SinclairUK so we can verify that your new computer meets the QL standards.
Once all these steps are completed, you have affixed the Sinclair sticker to your case (this is the most important part) and installed Sinclair OS you will now be the proud owner of a brand new Sinclair QL mini, the greatest mini desktop computer with a Sinclair badge available today.
You will receive a Sinclair UK welcome pack containing warranty information (only covers sticker peeling) and a CD-R disc containing a couple of emulators we downloaded.
Why buy a bog standard PC that doesn’t say Sinclair on it when you can have a Sinclair QL mini that does.
I agree with +99% of all the suggestions posted here. We now have access to all the data from the old forum; it’s just a matter of extracting what we need, formatting and converting it and then implementing it into all the new categories in our new forum. (not easy).
The topic sections will be greatly expanded to make things easy to use such as specific categories for each different product, sub categories for the various OS variations, hardware & software support, suggestions, general discussions…basically everything we had before, and a lot more. Please keep in mind this may take a week or so (just a guess), but it is our top priority now, along with the updates for Commodore OS Vision & Commodore OS Fusion.
Please keep this quote from the NEWS section in mind as we move forward in this endeavor:
„Please take the time to read our TOS and FAQ. Please understand that this is our official corporate forum, and as such it’s primary purpose is to promote and support our products, our customers, potential future customers and those that have an interest in our line of retro and innovative contemporary products.“
We have no intention to edit, remove, alter, dismiss or in any way censor any of your posts, replies or suggestions. And this specifically includes me . What seemed like a heavy hand in the previous forum will not be the normal operating procedure here. I only ask that things remain civil, constructive criticism is welcome and the postings reflect the true spirit of what we are trying to accomplish. Unlike most other public forums, I would only ask that you think of this forum as my personal living room. All are welcome, but please don’t spit on the floor, use an ashtray, refrain from making nasty comments about the drapes and furniture and treat all our guests respectfully.
Postings that trash our products, trolls, those that reverse engineer our products with the intent to exemplify the costs and sources with the intent to either expose our private business and manufacturing processes, those that discus and or in any way promote our competitors products and those that in any fashion run contrary to our main forum purpose (read the above paragraph) will be deleted. Since this company is privately held, the will be no conversations regarding sales figures, profits and distributions and any other private information that normally would be disclosed for a publicly traded corporation.
The look and feel of this forum will be greatly improved as we intend to apply a new skin (open to immediate discussion and suggestion) There is a huge selection of skins that are available; just Google „vBulletin ver 4.2.0 skins“. There are thousands of selections to choose from….dig in and start exploring.
Lots to do, and with your continued support and patience, we look forward to presenting a truly remarkable and unique forum experience that we can all enjoy.
Barry promised to be a good guy, but corporate TOS makes them eliminate any discussion and resistance. Great Barry, that is the way to clean hands!
And yes Barry who is reverse engeenering whose products, please that part once again!
Note: Original Statememt (c) Barry Altman, CommodoreUSA Bolded words: Frank Spiers, Scotland Footer Bold/Comments: Vox, Serbia
I was honestly on the fence about CUSA in the beginning. When they released the C64x, I had some real faith in them because the breadbox was very cool looking. Even though it didn’t run anything „Amiga“ OS-wise, it didn’t bother me because it looked like a C64. When they came out stating that these were going to be Linux specific machines, I was actually a bit excited because honestly, I’m a big Linux fan. I pictured something like System 76 who is loved and embrassed by the Linux community and often gives back with Open-Source drivers and such.
As of recently however, and after really looking at this Amiga Mini thing and their A1000 (sorta clone), and also after seeing how Barry responds to his customers on his own forum (blasting them and then kicking them off), I see no hope for this company. I actually feel sorry for Leo because I think his heart is in the right place… hell maybe Barry’s is also but he’s just so brash and angry toward customers and potential customers that it makes him incredibly unlikable.
…but the point of this post is to talk about why they fail so miserably as a computer company.
Operating System:
Again, I’m a huge Linux fan, so CUSA choosing Linux as an OS seemed like a great idea to me. Linux today very much reminds me of Amiga in 1990. It’s a great OS that runs circles around Windows in almost every way and the Open Source movement is just amazing. From Makerbots to Ubuntu and Blender, I truely believe that Open Source is the future of technology because we don’t have to rely on giant, multi-billion dollar companies to make product and software decisions for us anymore (but that’s another soapbox).
So CUSA release „Commodore OS“. What? You made your own distro? How bold! How exciting! How…. wait a second, this is Linux Mint.. not only is this Linux Mint but it’s a really crappy version of Linux Mint. There is a reason we have a software Package Manager in Mint… it’s because if you add all the software in the distro, it becomes crazy unruly in size and install and people won’t use 90% of the software anyway. Also, adding ALL the bells and whistles in Compiz is just obnoxious. What makes distros like Mint so cool is that you get to customize it to your workflow. All the COS distro does it take Linux Mint with Compiz and turns on all the fluff (which most adults tend to avoid).
It would be much better to use Mint or Ubuntu as they are but with support… real support like System 76 does. Make drivers and software to support your hardware and of course, make it Open Source. That’s the power of that community. If you don’t support Open Source then don’t even bother using Linux…. you’ll just be seen as someone taking advantage of the „Free“ part which is not the point of Open Source. It’s „Free“ as in Freedom!
Commodore-Amiga.org
Once again, I’m going to talk about freedom. Claiming to be a supporter of Open Source software and then having an extremely censored forum to post on goes against everything that Open Source stands for. Commodore-Amiga.org is the China of open forums. It is regulated with an iron fist. Any post questioning the decision of CUSA tends to be quickly locked or deleted and people involved tend to just „disappear“ from the forum.
There is something else that bothers me about the forum. It is the least active Amiga forum that I visit (by far)… which makes me seriously question the user stats (the number of online people there). Are they making those numbers up? I bet there aren’t 3 posts a day on that forum yet it shows hundreds of onlookers. Is this accurate? I have no idea but it is strange and this company has been known to fudge things in the past.
One of the craziest things about the forum is reading Barry’s replies to customers. I don’t think he understands that these people are the people that are going to make or break his business because he treats them with a kind of distain I’ve never seen from a business owner before. Does Barry think that having a Steve Jobs personality is going to make him a successful business owner? I’m not sure but it’s quite disturbing.
Commodore Amiga Mini
I don’t even know what to say about this product. It feels like CUSA believes that any product with the name „Commodore Amiga“ will sell well no matter what it is or how much it will cost. Don’t they read the posts people make in the news forums? How can they see this as a successful venture? I just don’t understand.
CUSA Self Image
CUSA tries so hard to make themselves look legitimate that they end up looking foolish. We’ve seen this MANY times now. Why try and make yourselves out to be something you are not unless you are purposely trying to mislead customers. Is this in fact what they are attempting to do or is this Barry saying „I’m big and important“? I don’t understand the need to be perceived as a large corporation. There is nothing wrong with being small… it’s actually very popular to be small and hip in the tech industry right now. The only result of their attempt to deceive is to be seen as deceptive.
Chances of Survival
At current course, not a snowball’s chance in hell. I can see no way that this company will be embrassed by anyone other than the incredibly niave. Unless they make drastic changes to their business plan (and quickly), I predict that they will be completely gone within 5 years.
I realize that people have been talking about CUSA for awhile now but I tend to not read those threads because people get emotional about anything Amiga and I wanted to come to my own conclusion about this particular company… so I’m sorry if this is a repeat of what others have said. I am non-partial to any Amiga camp at the moment (I do not consider CUSA as an Amiga Camp by the way… only AOS, MOS and Aros). I actually feel that all the current Amiga camps act with great poise and professionalism when it comes to business and customers. I’m very impressed with them.
Our dear C=USA felt that, even Commodore-Amiga „support forum“ was moderated by Linnar and BigAussie, they need MORE CONTROL (even their C-A forum was free of any Amiga related topics such as AROS, MorphOS or AmigaOS)
Please visit the new official Commodore USA forum. This site went online on Sunday, July 29th, 2012, and was created to replace the commodore-amiga.org forum, which was running extremely slow and starting to show it’s age. As you may know, the commodore-amiga.org domain is owned by Commodore USA, LLC, but the actual forum itself is owned and managed by terminals, who has done an outstanding job of creating the first forum to feature and showcase the CUSA product line. Since we are not the actual owners of the forum, it placed restrictions on our ability to fully monitor and implement corporate policy and other features that will now become integrated into this official Commodore USA forum, forums.commodore.netThis forum is officially supported by the CUSA staff, and is a great place to talk about and get support for your CUSA products, as well as engage in general Commodore and Amiga chat. The staff of Commodore USA, LLC will no longer be participating on commodore-amiga.org, and will be available to answer all your questions and concerns, as well as engage all our new members on our official site: forums.commodore.net.Please take the time to read our TOS and FAQ. Please understand that this is our official corporate forum, and as such it’s primary purpose is to promote and support our products, customers, potential future customers and those that have an interest in our line of retro and innovative contemporary products.
We invite you to create an account and join us in the discussions!
AmigaOS 4 is fully recompiled AmigaOS from Motorola 68k code to PowerPC. Any software that is system friendly and can open a Workbench windows works out of box or with minor setting tweaks.
On the Edge: Spectacular rise and fall of C=USA 