How Icaros Desktop brings the Amiga experience to x86 PCs
Linked by Thom Holwerda on Wed 20th Jun 2012 00:40 UTC, submitted by rohan_p
Amiga & AROS "Icaros Desktop is an effort to build a modern Amiga-compatible operating system for standard x86 hardware. It's a distribution built atop AROS, which is an open source effort to create a system compatible at the API level with the AmigaOS 3.x series. I recently had a chat to the creator of Icaros, Paolo Besser, about the creation of the OS and why Amiga continues to inspire people today."
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RE[7]: Hmmm
by Laurence on Wed 20th Jun 2012 17:04 UTC in reply to "RE[6]: Hmmm"
Laurence
Member since:
2007-03-26

That's also with them available separately - I just glanced on my local "ebay" and there are only three drives, four memory expansions, for 30+ Amigas (2 expanded, none with 2nd drive). Why such large discrepancies? (OK, we can presume than in more affluent places this was perhaps half, but the implied ~all? ...and even if, the less affluent places offset this by themselves)

Using those figures, you could also draw the conclusion that people who are willing to spend money buying addons and accessories for their Amigas are more likely to have an emotional attachment to their computer and thus less likely to sell it. Where as people who couldn't justify the upgrade costs are more likely to sell it once it becomes obsolete.

My point is this: your statistics are interesting, but meaningless. So using them as evidence or trying to draw correlations to prove a point will inevitably produce flawed results.

So while I appreciate that you're trying to substantiate your anecdotal evidence, ebay is not right place to source your figures. Better statistics would be sales figures from the era.

Reply Parent Score: 2

RE[8]: Hmmm
by zima on Wed 20th Jun 2012 17:52 in reply to "RE[7]: Hmmm"
zima Member since:
2005-07-06

Yes, but the point is the same applies even more to personal anecdotes ;)
(for example, some people here being more "into" their Amigas back in the day, hanging out & in closer contact mostly with like-minded people, or in atypical neighbourhoods)

There must be something better we can base conclusions on; auction sites, a relatively large concentrations of surplus Amiga equipment, do seem a bit better (meaningless is too strong word, unless you're willing to argue it even more against "everybody I knew had upgrades")

And anyway, most "indifferent owner" Amigas are possibly at best forgotten in attics, cellars, or garages...

But, yeah, sales figures - unfortunately, IIRC, various Commodore country branches barely kept those about their computers (in few stats I've seen, it was about "probable ranges" more or less), much less accessories...

Edited 2012-06-20 18:12 UTC

Reply Parent Score: 2

RE[9]: Hmmm
by Laurence on Wed 20th Jun 2012 19:34 in reply to "RE[8]: Hmmm"
Laurence Member since:
2007-03-26

Yes, but the point is the same applies even more to personal anecdotes ;)

I know it does, i never argued otherwise.

There must be something better we can base conclusions on

Yes, sales figures. I'd already suggested this


; auction sites, a relatively large concentrations of surplus Amiga equipment, do seem a bit better (meaningless is too strong word, unless you're willing to argue it even more against "everybody I knew had upgrades")

Just because one subset of data is more worthless than another, it doesn't mean that the lesser of the two evils is any good.

Using ebay as statistical reference will produce biased and extremely misleading results as there are a whole plethora of variables unaccounted for. Thus, in this instance, the results are meaningless.

I really do appreciate that you're putting a little research into this and trying to find a more scientific answer than personal anecdotal evidence - and the figures you gave are certainly interesting. But we have to remain objective here and understand that the source figures are flawed and thus the results are little better than anecdotal.

But, yeah, sales figures - unfortunately, IIRC, various Commodore country branches barely kept those about their computers (in few stats I've seen, it was about "probable ranges" more or less), much less accessories...

That's a great shame. ;)

Reply Parent Score: 2

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