Amiga users wait nestled among the remote craigs and glens of cyberspace, like Highlander loyalists, awaiting the rallying call of their new leader Amiga International. No pretender or usurper this time, Amiga International will lead them once again in the struggle to regain their rightful place in computerdom. They wait. For now Amiga International is silent. Yet these cyber-Highlanders are patient. Gazing down upon the computer lowlands, filled with the dreams of the Return, they wait.

After the events of the past few years, that the Amiga even exists at all must qualify it for the award of the most amazing computer of the 20th Century. Yet merely showing up again with a product line composed of 1200s
and 4000s is a road to Culloden, not a return to a rightful place in contemporary computing. Yes showing up is important, but more so is knowing what to do. A new strategic direction is required is that leads to the reinvention of the Amiga for the 21st Century.

The Laird in the back muttered, "And Laddie, just exactly what will the computing environment of the year 2000 be like?" Right.

Consider this. The Strategic Situation For Computing 2000-2010: Computing of the next decade will be characterized by open systems with modular software, running on computing within intelligent networks, with a cross platform, web-centric orientation that includes information appliances and other intelligent devices.

Adherence to these factors will characterize all viable computing platforms. Unique capabilities and customization will be what differentiates them from each other. Keep in mind that for all intents and purposes the year 2000 is here today. The outlines of this vision of computing are already in place- and a lot of the details for that matter.

It is a little more than a year to New Years Day 2000. The Net, Java, AI everywhere, Information Appliances, it's all here or closing fast. Real fast. Being up to speed is not enough. In Year 2000 computing there is no place
for a "me too" machine that merely does what the others do. That computer becomes a commodity competing on price alone. Embracing open standards and cross platform inter-operability while necessary, is not enough. Every net-centric computer and information appliance will do the same thing. The Web surfing Amiga will compete against the Web enabled telephone given away free by competing regional phone companies.

What is required in addition to the "me too stuff", is to create experiences, environments, and capabilities on the Amiga that are unique and compelling. They will draw users to the platform.

What Is To Be Done? That's easy.... Reestablish the Amiga as the computer of choice of the leading edge/early adopter user: Gameheads and websurfers are great to have on board any computer platform. They add sizzle. But the doings of the early adopters is what captures mindshare of people looking for the next computing advance.The Amiga must once again become the preferred machine of the garage developer start-up in programming, the arts, music, Internet, and multimedia development. A computer that enables low cost access to the creative edge of computing while maintaining open standards will be a very compelling computer.

"How can that be done?", says the Laird, his hand resting on the hilt of his claymore. Most of what I'm about to present requires software development, licensing, organization, and adaptation of existing technology, not proprietary technology. Where hardware development is involved, it can be done just as easily by licencees as by Amiga Inc. itself.

Allow me to present..... Ten Steps To Return The Amiga To A Preeminent Position In Computing

1. Make the Amiga the platform of choice for Web Broadcasting production: Isn't it interesting that the
dimensions of MPEG1 and Amiga low-res overscan are the same, 352x240? The Amiga already has a lot of
graphics and animation software that works well with these dimensions. Webcasting is the multimedia Web-
audio and video on the Net. Already Webcasting is the domain of the artist hacker, media avant garde, student,
and educator. This is the natural constituency of the Amiga. Give them something compelling and inexpensive.
This is the group that made the Amiga in the first place. Remember Commodore asked Andy Warhol and
Deborah Harry to introduce the Amiga at launch in 1985. Artists. For the time being Amiga has lost the low
budget television production market. Like Lightwave, these producers have migrated to Win95 or NT. The
Web, not broadcasting is the future of the Amiga; and the future of the Web is webcasting. Shouldn't CDXL ver
2.0 be a Java streaming video applet?

2. The Amiga must have a suite of low and moderate cost production applications and hardware if Amiga is to
remain a relevant multimedia production platform, let alone a webcasting platform: There are certain
necessities.... A. Digitizer card (or external box) capable of 30/25 fps (frames per second). It must have audio
and video capability on the same card. Yes, I know about the Flyer and VLab. Great, but no onboard audio
though. Digitizing solutions in the $2K-$4K range are no longer viable for garage webcasters. Video producers
have already bailed out of the platform. Today $5K will get you Trinity, broadcast studio in a box. On Win95.
The Amiga solution must cost no more than $199 USD. Impossible? Have you seen BUZ by Iomega for the PC
and Mac? Winnov ( http//winnov.com ) makes such a PCI card for the PC. Digitizes at MPEG1 specs
(352x240) at 30 fps with CD level audio, stereo of course, on board. Maybe Amiga International can OEM it
and write drivers and a software interface. B. HDTV and DVD authoring. If a Hi-def/DTV/DVD/MPEG2
production-post-production solution, running on the Amiga, in the $4K-$5K range, emerged it would have the
same impact in the video marketplace as the Toaster did when it came out. Newtek? In the US the shift to DTV
and HDTV is on. Amiga should lead the parade for garage developers. C. Hypertext authoring program.
Licence Hypercard from Apple and develop something compatable. Better yet develop something Java
compatable and be truely cross-platform. Shouldn't Amiga Guide be a Java applet? How about OEMing
StorySpace for Java? D. Java programming software. All Tech Heads should be properly thankful that Java
Virtual Machine development is well underway for the Amiga. There are at least three major, serious
programming projects underway. True, all of them have slipped their shipping dates, but this is very good news
anyway. Without Java the Amiga becomes a permant isolated backwater in the computing world. But there must
be further progress. The garage developer of today is going to be working in Java. They should be doing that
work on their Amiga. According to Sun Microsystems there are at least 750,000 Java programmers at work.
Why shouldn't some of them be working on an Amiga? Java and Arexx would make a very powerful
combination for application development. A suite of Java programming tools for the Amiga is needed to make
this happen. Maybe CanDo, or something like it, should be revived as a Java authoring language. While some
of these capabilities can be Java apps, not all of them should be. There must be capabilities that are unique to the
Amiga.

3. 3D Stereo: The Amiga needs things that are unique. There is a shareware program Stereoptican II by Ernest
Ruckle, of Ireland, that runs on the Amiga. It can create stereo stills ( NOT stereograms) and stereo anims
(standard IFF format) in color but viewed with red/blue glasses. It should be licensed and integrated into a suite
of standard Amiga programs. If the Amiga could produce 3D Stereo web broadcasts, or stereo GIF 89a web
animations, it would be a very compelling Web development machine; nothing "me too" about that. Amiga Inc.
should licence Real Network's G2 technology while the're at it.

4. The Amiga should become HDTV ready: While other platforms are still reaching for the snooze alarm, Amiga
can embrace the US HDTV format 16:9 screen ratio with appropriate resolution. In 1985 being video ready right
out of the box was one of Amigas' major features when first introduced. Do it again at relaunch by being HDTV
ready. It also supports the Amiga as a playback platform for DVD.

5. Consider a new GUI interface paradigm: Consider how popular the Metatools interface in Bryce3 or Photo
Soap is among users. Check the url for the Photo Soap demo (http://www.metatools.com/soap/ ). Imagine that
the 5.0 OS GUI looked like this. Even Irving Gould, bozo marketeer supremo, would have been able to do
some selling with an interface like this. Here is a real opportunity to get out ahead. It is clear that the
paper-folder-file cabinet inspired Desktop GUI interface, established at Xerox Parc in the 1970s, is at an end-
run out of steam. Kaput. Amiga shouldn't be a "me too" follower in this area. Consider Mirrorworlds
(http://www.mirrorworlds.com/) or InXight (a Xerox spin-off, It is rumored that Netscape will be using one of
their interfaces, http://www.inxight.com/products/visual/overview.shtml ) as the GUI for Amiga OS 5.0.
License one of these GUIs.

6. The next version of the operating system should be multi-processor capable: Make Amiga DOS 5.0 the
garage hackers inexpensive but powerful answer to NT. Of course there should be hardware as well. Imagine
an Amiga upgradable to 4 Mystery Chip, or 604e Power PC processors, or 4 Intel chips for that matter. It
would be capable of producing the first HDTV garage production. That's what lies beyond Bablyon 5. Aladdin
4D or Tornado 3D, Imagine, and other 3D software, would be amazing running on such a platform. Make it so
Petro.

7. Establish a website where Amiga shareware developers and their customers can securely conduct software
registration transactions: This is not a new idea, but it is a useful idea. The MUI guys are already doing this. A
site where users may buy with credit cards and be assured of immediate downloads of keys, upgrades, or
plug-ins would invigorate the Amiga shareware market which has been so vital to the long term viability and
health of the platform.

8. Reestablish the Amiga as the premiere fractal landscape platform: Before Bryce3 there was Vista Pro ver 3.0.
A pity that ver 4.0 runs on Win95. A modern landscape program that could create animated land and seascapes,
that could animate weather, sunrises, and the march of the seasons as well as 3D objects within them, maybe
lightening strikes too- would be compelling. Five years ago there were at least three companies actively
developing these programs on the Amiga. Today?..... Let's change that.

9. When Amiga Inc. decides to do a laptop, don't. Do a PDA instead: Amiga OS hoses CE. A multimedia
oriented PDA that would interface with digital still cameras thus facilitating sending Internet digital postcards
would really turn heads. Maybe there could be a MPEG1 accquisition capability. If that PDA were Java capable
it would be very impressive. Can you imagine how impressive a PDA running a cut-down version of Scala
MM400 (or a clone) would be? Every sales rep in the world would buy one. Imagine.

10. An Adobe Premiere clone is a must: There must be software that can synchronously edit video and its
soundtrack that is not tied to specific hardware (like the Toaster/Flyer or VLab). This is a basic necessity for
multimedia and webcasting development. It is rumored that ProDad has such a program in the works (running
on Amiga OS not pOS). It is crucial that they bring it to market as an Amiga application as soon as possible. If
not, Amiga should facilitate the porting of something like VideoWave by MGI to the Amiga. VideoWave costs
$90 on Win95. Ver. 2 will save files in MPEG 2 (not a typo) format. Shouldn't something like this be running
on the Amiga? An Amiga with multiple processors.... a 21st Century Amiga? Beam us up Petro. Remember
when you need analysis and insight.... Check the Tek.

Comments and responses to Amiga Watch are welcomed at: rbw30@hotmail.com Be seeing you.

Tech Head Stories, the electronic journal of narrativity and technology presents Amiga Watch, an ongoing series
of commentary and analysis of the Amiga Scene. Communique One: Get Our Motor Running, examines what it
will take to put the Amiga back in the forefront of contemporary computing. Set your browser to
http://tech-head.com/amiga.htm.
 

Comments and responses to Amiga Watch are welcomed. Send email.