By Sam Ormes, Senior Editor, Sormes@aol.com
It has been almost a year since a loud "moooo" resonated around the Amiga world as Gateway 2000 acquired our beloved platform. We knew in our hearts that such a major player would soon be "doing us right" after the debacle of Commodore and the disappointment of Escom. We eagerly awaited the big announcement about the new model Amigas that would come flowing out of South Dakota.
The nay sayers kept whispering in our ears that GW2K would NEVER produce a computer with the Amiga name on it, that they only acquired it for the patents that they intended to use in other devices. Others insisted that Gateway would "milk" the investment by selling licenses to anyone who wanted to build an Amiga in any form anywhere. Many of us refused to believe those scenarios.
When Amiga Inc. was created last August with Jeff Schindler as General Manager, and rumors proliferated about big Amiga buildings being constructed and staffed in South Dakota, we "knew" the assembly lines would soon start cranking out the new generation machines. We awaited the "big announcement"!
It arrived in early 1998. It was not exactly what we had hoped for. I quote below the relevant lines, as provided by Amiga Inc. spokesman Joe Torre:
Q. Will Amiga Inc. be making new Amigas?
A. No, Amiga Inc. will not be making new machines. New machines will come from companies who have a license from Amiga International.
That's the reality. No "Schindler's List" of Holstein-colored Amigas but rather a continuation of Petro/Euro/Licensing. We need to adjust our thinking to this reality and hope that Gateway will somehow have enough interest to impose some sort of standards that will create order from the current chaos. The recent agreement (we think) regarding the future CPU appears to be a step in the right direction.
It's not the way we wanted it to be... but it never was.