By Guy Nathan, Contributing Writer, jagz@ar.com.au
"You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one..", the Amiga's return can be compared to this line from a famous song. Many said the Amiga couldn't survive Commodore's demise, but through it all Amiga users kept believing, having faith, in something which was much more to them than the average PC. It has been said only the Amiga could've died and come back again; any other platforms would have merely died off all together. And this feeling has been echoed by Amiga users, corporations which support the Amiga, and industry critics themselves. So on this return of the Amiga I will attempt to define an Amigan.
Today I am going to try and explain to you, what is most probably the hardest thing a person can try to define, that is who is, and what characterizes, an "Amigan" versus any other computer user.
Those of you who have kept up with Amigas over the years, who have read magazines, participated in Amiga Computer user support groups, participated in mail echoes such as comp.sys.amiga areas on the internet, and Amiga-related echoes through Fidonet and Amiganet, will know most likely of the sort of feeling certain Amiga users have about their machine. In this article I will discuss some of these feelings expressed in the things mentioned above, and other matters which I believe help to define an Amigan.
As a bit of background, I will start off by first discussing what the Amiga was designed to be. The Amiga was designed to be the Ultimate Games Machine, and was developed and built by a dedicated bunch of computer experts in 1982-5, who wanted to make a machine which people would think of as something they would be proud to own. The bunch of experts were made up of people such as RJ Mical and Jay Miner (RIP), who designed part of the Amiga's custom chipset, and who is known to many as the "father" of the Amiga. Due to a lack of funds originally supplied by a trio of dentists, the development company could no longer afford to continue development without the aid of being bought over by a third-party company. To make a long story short as to who bought what, when, and where, the company which ended up with it in the end, as many of you know, was Commodore. When Commodore got hold of it, they changed several aspects of the machine, and introduced an Operating System based on the UNIX pre-emptive multitasking operating system named Tripos. This was coded by Britol-based Metacomco, a company which prior to that had only developed for mainframes. This allowed the machine to change from a purely games machine to a proper personal computer. Since the A1000's release there have been subsequent releases of newer, "better", and faster Amigas. HAM mode found in Amigas wasn't supposed to have existed, and Jay was going to remove it, but at the last minute he changed his mind (due to external influences) and kept it.
The best way to characterize an Amigan, is probably to meet one yourself and talk about their feelings about the Amiga PC. An Amigan is a computer user who has an above average knowledge about computers in general, as opposed to your average Mac and PC user who buy a computer because it has the label "Multimedia" on it, or "Free 5 hours use of the Information Superhighway". An Amigan is generally a person who is not afraid to explore the limits of their machine and try to take it one step further. They are innovative, creative, well-opinionated, and many things more. The average PC or Mac user, when they run into a problem, will generally ring a company for support to come in and fix it, whereas an Amigan will usually solve the problem themselves in a small amount of time, and continue going on doing whatever they were doing prior to it.
Those of you who have read Amiga magazines and participated in Amiga mail areas, will be all too familiar with Amiga vs's X Machine debates. An Amigan is the type of person who is not afraid to speak out in a crowd of PC and Mac "experts", and voice their opinion in regards to the Amiga vs's PC's and Mac's. They are generally well-equipped with facts and other related information about the Amiga and machines on other platforms, whether it be information on a Pentium (tm), a Mac Quadra (tm), or even a PowerPC. There is a real 'flame' in an Amigan's heart to defend their machine through thick and thin, and not fall for the sheep syndrome when times are tough. The real test for Amigans has been the demise of Commodore. The Amiga gameplayers (not to be mistaken at all with Amigans), were the first to go, and went off and jumped platforms. Other non-dedicated Amiga users went next, attracted by the likes of Doom I and II, Excel, and Word 6/7, even though chances are, they wouldn't use any more features than on their Amiga counterpart software which is also far cheaper. Other people who were real Amigans unfortunately had to leave for other platforms, not by choice but due to financial and job matters. The most recent test for Amigans has been ESCOM'S (tm) buyout of Commodore International (tm), and the formation of ESCOM's "Amiga Technologies" division. Opinions on what they can provide the Amiga with have been heavily disputed, and have left some Amigans rather heartbroken at the thought of it. As a result of this, in very recent times these people have jumped platforms as well, but being Amigans, as they still are, they have kept their Amigas for use, whenever they feel like it. An Amigan who jumps platform is usually the smartest of the PC and Mac users around.
Recently, I had the pleasure of meeting up with an Amigan who was one of the first Amiga owners in the world (the Amiga was purchased from the first batch of Amiga 1000's to ever hit Australia), and was also one of the very first Amiga Developers here in Australia. They told me of the experiences they had with meeting Jay Miner, and other "famous" people in the Amiga's history, with much joy and enthusiasm as if it was only yesterday, praising these people who put the "heart" in the Amiga. After meeting with them I felt a link to them in a way, like a family, ethnic community, race, or religious link because they were another Amigan. An Amigan is not determined by race, religion, or anything else like that, but by one's feelings towards a machine which makes you think it really has a heart, and a readiness to defend that machine against all odds. In magazines you read of people who say, "I have an Amiga but my friends have bought PCs. I tell them the Amiga is a better machine and they say 'Ha! That crappy thing?? It can't do anything but play some really old games, it doesn't even have Doom!' (No jokes about ShapeShifter running DoomII go here =) ). But I know, and I'm right when I say my Amiga will provide me with much more enjoyment than their PC will ever". It is this dedication which makes an Amigan.
Those who have noticed the number of programs on the Amiga which are freely distributable, will know that unlike PC and Mac PD programs, a lot of Amiga authors do it for the love of their machine, gaining no profit whatsoever, but maybe some fame. It is this sort of dedication, willingness to provide something for nothing, that makes an Amigan. The programs which are shareware are usually products which are of commercial standard, but at a non-commercial price. On the PC, I have found many applications which are freely distributable on the Amiga come at a great expense on the PC (eg. Screenblankers, general purpose utilities :^)). The PC and Mac world is not based on a bunch of 'elite' computer users who have real feelings for their machine, but a bunch of computer users who do everything based on money, money, and more money, a very cold and business-like feeling. Obviously there are people who will disagree with this, but this is my opinion. In all fairness, all PC users are not like this, but I describe what I feel the majority is like, from personal experience and from what I have learnt and seen. Remember these are my opinions, and you're not required to agree with me ;-).
Amigans know that although initial costs of hardware for their machine far outweighs that of the existing competition, when it comes down to buying applications after purchasing their machine, the Amiga user usually comes out fairly to well in front. For example, Final Writer 4 or WordWorth 4, if they were PC-only applications, would cost the user many times more than what is currently charged, and although some Amiga users complain that software is too expensive, they would find if they were after the equivalent on a competing platform the costs would be higher. The Amiga is STILL the cheapest low-cost, true-multimedia, true-multitasking machine with an OS which isn't system resource-heavy.
Before I go on though, it must be said that words alone can't describe the feelings involved here. Is it Magic? Who knows? Amiga Tech's new "Amiga Magic" pack may be a good way to describe the Amiga, Magic.
The announcement of a PPC (PowerPC) Amiga has left some unsure whether this will be just another jazzed-up "Multimedia" (note quotes) PowerPC (a bebox? =) ), or a real Amiga, with a big step-up in the processing power department and probably in the graphics department too. I don't believe I can judge whether an Amigan can be determined by which one of the above two they choose to believe. But with vapourware, something founded by Commodore ;), Amiga users have over time become more skeptical about 'promises' made, and things to be released 'real soon' which change into being released days, months, years later, or maybe in the end, never. Whatever happens, the release of upgrades for our Amigas is more than welcome, as people's patience wanes more and more for the Amiga to be able to come once again up to scratch against the competition, or to once again be innovative and do for the computer industry again what it did back in '85. I believe all Amigans would support this idea.
Some of us Amigans are stupid; actually, we almost all are! Why? Because we defy economics, defy business logic, defy industry standards, defy common sense (?? :)), and more. But especially the fact that we spend more on our machines to turn them into powerful beasts, than Mr./Ms./etc. average PC owner would. We spend amounts on accelerators which would buy us much faster PC CPU's, we spend amounts on graphics cards which are a fraction of the price on PC's, we spend more for hardware specially made for the Amiga when cheap clones exist which can do more for less cost on the PC. Average PC owners buy their P5's for less than we spend on getting an '060 Upgrade CPU for our Amigas.
But all costs aside, all dollars/pounds/etc. spent, PC's still don't come up to scratch in many areas. Their multitasking is still far from perfect; although their pseudo-multitasking in Win95 is noticeably improved, their OS in general is still too inflexible in many ways, and still dependent on MZ-DOZ for Win95, and OS/2, well, let's just say OS/2 is AmigaDOS 2.x, and we now have V3.x. But above all PC's are still limited by their XT-originated architecture, something that with all the marvels of modern PC technologies, they still have not overcome. An Amigan recognizes this, and as a result sticks with a machine which still truly does most of what they want, and can run ShapeShifter to do things it doesn't ;).
It is without argument, though, that the PC has way more 'flashier' games nowadays (not necessarily better), with their 'c00l' interactive movies (ie. spot the section where you actually get to make a decision what to do next and watch the pretty sequences), and the like, and obviously a lot more games are released for this 'Business' platform =) than on our humble Amigas. But despite this Amigans still keep their machines, and some have gone out and bought a Next Gen console for the purposes of playing those 'c00l' games found on the PC, and the rest of us have generally been happy with our Colonizations, Pinball Illusions, Fears, our Gloom, our Alien Breed 3D's, our Lemmings, and so on.
Amigans live in a world dominated by PC's, Mac's, UNIX Boxes, and so on. We don't have as many magazines as other platforms do, we don't have as much support by companies as other platforms do, so what do we have? We have Amigas, we have magazines dedicated to our machines, we have a general ignorance about our machine in the general public. Okay, so we don't have it all, but what counts is that we've stuck by this wonder of a machine, and still care about it just as much. Ignoring what the competition has is just ignorance; once you have learnt about the competition, you can then go and say how bad it is =).
But when it comes down to defining an Amigan, in reality I can't, and neither can any other article attempt to; what I have given you here, though, is a bit of an insight into what I believe might constitute an Amigan vs's anyone else. Feel free to discuss this on c.s.a.* if you wish, debate over it, whatever. Hopefully we'll see some responses to this in the letters to the Ed section in future issues of AR (or any other place this article may be copied/duplicated to/in).
Down with the Be/PC/Mac - Long Live the Amiga!
Additional Note: I give full permission for this article to be re-printed in any magazine (electronic or print), but it must be an Amiga-related one, and have someone preferably e-mail me first to tell me please.