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[B00tDisk]

Or, to clarify things a bit let us say that Atari doesn't either. Say the Amiga is on a 3rd path, or Apple buys it and integrates parts into the Macintosh or something. But C= doesn't get it and there is no Amiga that we'd immediately recognize.

What does C= do next?

Pursue the C900 and make a go at Data General's (or even Sun or SGI's) marketshare?

Push the C65?

Push the Colt series, die on the vine as a PC-Clone manufacturer (which they essentially did anyway)?

Honestly, I think perhaps the C900 might have been their best bet (again, assuming no Amiga). Presuming that the bad **** that went down due to management looking to raid and dump the company, Coherent, running this windowing system:

http://hack.org/mc/mgr/images/mgrscreen.png

...on a workstation as inexpensive as C= could provide them may well have served the company quite well. Coherent/MGR was also targeted at x86 systems so a later transition to that platform would've been fairly easy, and put Commodore in a sort of Compaq or HP situation in the early 90s.

[persia]

There really isn't much left to Amiga, the IP has expired, the OS is permanently licensed to Hyperion. The only thing AI or the Kouri estate have is the Amiga name for use in electronic devices. That's nothing Apple or any large electronics firm would be interested in. The company who's name shall not be mentioned doesn't need the Amiga name actually, but as they've already made deal with AI, there's really nothing stopping them from using it.

[B00tDisk]

Originally Posted by persia

There really isn't much left to Amiga, the IP has expired, the OS is permanently licensed to Hyperion. The only thing AI or the Kouri estate have is the Amiga name for use in electronic devices. That's nothing Apple or any large electronics firm would be interested in. The company who's name shall not be mentioned doesn't need the Amiga name actually, but as they've already made deal with AI, there's really nothing stopping them from using it.

No...no, that's not at all what I'm talking about. I'm talking about history. What IF Commodore, back in the 1980s, didn't wind up with the Amiga.

[amigadave]

Originally Posted by B00tDisk

No...no, that's not at all what I'm talking about. I'm talking about history. What IF Commodore, back in the 1980s, didn't wind up with the Amiga.

People fixated with their CUSA hatred cannot understand your first message.

I wish Commodore had not gotten the Amiga and they could have some how survived with Jay fully in control of it's future. Then we would have seen some amazing progress, as I am sure he would not have rested on his laurels and it would not have taken so long to get Workbench2.x and 3.x. Also, the switch to better graphics modes, or standard graphics cards, would have happened much sooner.

Commodore did not even do half of what could have been possible with the Amiga. They had no idea what they had or how to market it. It was mismanaged right into the grave.

I don't really care what would have happened to Commodore if they had not bought the Amiga, but I suspect they would have either become better at competing in the PC space, or they would have gone under even faster than they did. PC sales (or lack of ) is what killed Commodore, as it has been reported many times that the Amiga sales were breaking even, or making a small profit, while their PC sales lost Commodore tons of money.

[commodorejohn]

Originally Posted by amigadave

People fixated with their CUSA hatred cannot understand your first message.

I hate CUSA bunches, but I understood it.

[Tension]

With hindsight, it would've been better staying under Tramiel's Atari company, away from the Goulds and the Alis. Although Sam Tramiel would've sunk it in the end anyway. There was really no stopping PC sales. Modularity. Ah well, too late now anyway.

[Haranguer]

Originally Posted by commodorejohn

I hate CUSA bunches, but I understood it.

+1

[Tripitaka]

Originally Posted by amigadave

People fixated with their CUSA hatred cannot understand your first message.

Why can't you understand that CUSA hating is not a fixation? It's an aggravation, nothing more. For the record I understood the original post perfectly well. You on the other hand stereotyped all the people who don't share your opinion into one group and then insulted them all by implying a lack of intelligence. Way to win friends and influence others, got to respect those people skills.

Anyway, my apologies to B00tDisk for going off topic. To answer the original question; Without the Amiga I think the big C would be remembered with the likes of Sinclair and Amstrad. Good back in the day but all gone now. Amiga was the big opportunity for them and in the end, whatever we think now, they blew it.

[olsen]

Originally Posted by amigadave

Commodore did not even do half of what could have been possible with the Amiga. They had no idea what they had or how to market it. It was mismanaged right into the grave.

It wasn't certain from the start that Commodore would go down that path. If I remember my little bit of Amiga history correctly, the management which pushed for Amiga, Inc. to be acquired did not see the acquisition through, and subsequently left the company. Hence, the guys who had something of a vision where the Amiga fit into Commodore's future were not the ones who actually got to make something/anything out of it.

After the departure of the founder, Commodore was left without tech-savy management, which time and again hurt them until the end. I suppose not really knowing what to do with Amiga is but part of the picture. Did Commodore make good use of MOS Technology/CSG?

[psxphill]

Originally Posted by olsen

I suppose not really knowing what to do with Amiga is but part of the picture. Did Commodore make good use of MOS Technology/CSG?

They definately did before Jack left, although "good use" means ringing every last cent out of them without investing for the future.

[billt]

Originally Posted by B00tDisk

No...no, that's not at all what I'm talking about. I'm talking about history. What IF Commodore, back in the 1980s, didn't wind up with the Amiga.

Title does use the word "doesn't", which indicates something current. "Didn't" would be more appropriate to talk about something that did or might not have happened a few decades ago. As would some mention that you're not tallking about Today Commodore or their current claimed desire to have Amiga and current use of Amiga name, and the assumption that there is a fight about that. I don't consider myself obsessed with today Commodore USA, I don't even think of them other than when I see posts about Commodore. But I did assume that's what this was about. The mention of Atari, etc. confused me until I saw the later clarification post.

[FaLLeNOnE]

Nothing would have changed at all.
Amiga was doomed to die because it was way ahead of its time. People were never ready. As a result of this:

1-) Anyone who buys Amiga will always immediately become sleazy. This is what I call the "Amiga curse"

2-) It was not possible for Amiga to cope with the demands of capitalism and an economy focused on wanting people to consume more.

[Digiman]

Lynx and 3DO were too far ahead of their time for possible mass market success and seeing as that's 66% of the A1000 chipset team you can guess the rest.

I don't believe A1000 was too sophisticated at all, it was simply down to bad marketing or no marketing in the case of 1986 and the A1000 with Commodore.

BUT the reason it took until AFTER the ST for the A1000 to be finished was money, now if you said if someone with billions backed Jay and RJ and Dave fair enough, maybe then with some marketing savvy they would have survived.

Also, whilst you can argue that using PC components was inevitable (like all the 3D GPU cards in 486/Pentium era) there was no reason why you had to mate them to a $hitty PC bus like ISA or all the memory contention in the PC compatible architecture. Intelligent companies would have taken the Diamond stealth 64 chipset and mated it to a superfast bespoke Amiga architecture with 32 bits....couple with superior OS = much better performance for the same price.

I think for a real winner you would need Commodore (because they owned MOS Technologies...a massive strategic advantage in the right hands) and Tramiel still there (because he wasn't a dikhead like Gould/Ali combination so no time wasting crap like the +4 or C128 wasting R&D finances) and Amiga chipset. Tramiel at Atari had no money left to do anything, Commodore run by ****s who wasted 3 years making the butt ugly same technology as before A500 was also fail and Jay on his own had no money to develop jack $hit

YMMV

PS PC was NOT a done deal at all, home and business market place were big enough separate market sectors to make billions in one not both. We only got PC for home use because Acorn/Atari/Commodore ALL tanked around the same time. Apple was overpriced crap but their huge profit margins selling to t-w-a-t-s with no brains in the 90s saw them through until the cash iCow bollox came along to rescue them. Even today Mac doesn't even make 5% of world computer market FAIL. They only stayed commercial with iBollox sorry. Ditto for Nintendo...only Pokemon saved Nintendo in the N64 years while Sony was tearing Nintendo a new one on a regular basis for TWO console generations.

Moral of the story....cover your turds in gold dust and you will survive even if you are selling turds.

[persia]

Yep, I read the title and thought it was the evil one, sorry.

Originally Posted by billt

Title does use the word "doesn't", which indicates something current. "Didn't" would be more appropriate to talk about something that did or might not have happened a few decades ago. As would some mention that you're not tallking about Today Commodore or their current claimed desire to have Amiga and current use of Amiga name, and the assumption that there is a fight about that. I don't consider myself obsessed with today Commodore USA, I don't even think of them other than when I see posts about Commodore. But I did assume that's what this was about. The mention of Atari, etc. confused me until I saw the later clarification post.

[Darth_X]

Originally Posted by persia

The company who's name shall not be mentioned doesn't need the Amiga name

Hyperion!