Amiga Vendors?

[Tomasz Rola]

On Thu, Jun 11, 2020 at 03:58:24PM +0200, Liam Proven via cctalk wrote:
> On Thu, 11 Jun 2020 at 13:41, Jules Richardson via cctalk
> <cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
> >
> > The 4000T that I have was built in May of '96, and it amazes me that there
> > was any kind of market for it in light of how widespread PCs on the desktop
> > had become by that time.
> 
> Agreed.
> 
> VideoToasters might have been the main one, perhaps?

>From time to time I behave like a normal human and, for example, zip
channels on my cable tv. Few years ago, while stopping at their "see
what we have on offer to you, prospective viewer" kind of channel, it
cracked open and I have seen the Workbench screen. Version 1.3 or 2.0,
if I am correct. Could be 2.0, so most probably Amiga 1200.

So, yes.

Amiga seems to have find itself a safe niche. Makes huge sense (the
kind of the niche), from what I could gather about people still using
it. But, maybe not so safe anymore, as tv moves to digital - my cable
still provides analog channels side by side with digital - if one's tv
set is properly equipped with decoders, it can receive both analog and
digital (and, uh, also a "terrestial satelite", what a name). But, the
number of analog channels is systematically going down - about fifty
ten years ago, about thirteen today. I speculate that they are
cannibalising their hardware and try to keep analog for as long as
possible, because some clients are not willing to jump and buy a new
tv. And some will just go and buy decoder for "terrestrial sat"
(dvb-t), thus ending their cable adventure. I have used one tv tuner
pci card or another during last two decades, now I will use some
external box. Right now I am not willing to have it digital, they are
not willing to ease it to people who want recording on their own
hardware (vcr, dvd-r, etc) and I am not going to ease it for
them and let them know what I record. Some dvb-t tuners allow owner to
record, so this is the way forward.

Anyway, we will see what happens to Amiga world in ten years.

Other systems you mentioned, not so lucky. Very few paying users. They
seem to be used by amateurs of their own DIY hobby projects - driving
self made electronics and similar stuff.

Indeed, newish computers are USB-only. And this means a layer or two
of cruft which filters signal going between device and
processor. Gamers know this, too, which is why they seem to prefer
motherboards with ps/2 ports.

-- 
Regards,
Tomasz Rola

--
** A C programmer asked whether computer had Buddha's nature.      **
** As the answer, master did "rm -rif" on the programmer's home    **
** directory. And then the C programmer became enlightened...      **
**                                                                 **
** Tomasz Rola          mailto:tomasz_rola at bigfoot.com             **