1. What is it about the Amiga that have attracted your company to the extent that you want to buy the Commodore name and logo?

We at Iwin Corp. and me personally are Amiga "freaks" and fan's since the first day, since the first A1000 was available on the market. We have seen it during the first presentation and were excited. After the death of Commodore we all were waiting what will happen. We heard about the roumors that Nintendo wants to buy Commodore or the Amiga technology. After we saw that Escom bought Commodore we were a little frustrated about it because we knew how Escom was selling PC's in Germany. However, the liquidation of Escom was again a big step back. Now that the whole Amiga community had to bare all the announcements of Amiga Inc. over the last two years, more and more people turned towards the PC. All of the announcements regarding the NG Amiga's with QNX or Linux might be nice, but these upcoming NG Amiga's wont be compatible with the classic Amiga's. And truly saying, there are still a lot of applications and also games for the classic Amiga's which we like very much. However, we wont be able to run these programs on the NG Amiga's. Well, these were the reasons to start thinking about buying the name and logo of Commodore.
Furthermore, we all liked the C64 too, we were coding on it, we knew all the internals and it hurt us very much when we had to see Commodore go into liquidation.

2. Are you in contact with Amiga Incorporated for a Amiga "Classic" revival plan? With the coming of Amiga Workbench 3.5, it would be a perfect chance for Amiga Inc. to bundle your machines with the new OS. It is PPC enabled, and so are your machines.

We have contacted Amiga Inc. regarding our plans. We wanted to license the Amiga technology and it would have been much easier for us to build our machines based on the "original" Amiga technology. Dates for first meetings were already setup but unfortunatelly we couldn't meet with them because of some serious troubles with our US Amiga division. After we have solved these troubles we have contacted them again but they even didn't answer. So we have decided to build up a completely new computer which is compatible with the Amiga but doesn't use any of their technology. However, we have seen some things about the new OS3.5 and we think it's a great product. It sure will be a great idea to sell it together with our computers. But these things depend on Amiga Inc. and if they will contact us in the future. However, we are currently selling our computers also very good without the AmigaOS. Customers either buy it from their local Amiga dealers or they already have one from old ones.

3. You mentioned your enthusiasm about the Amiga computer, and that you have ex Commodore employees, but all big Amiga companies that is on the hardware/software market has got this enthusiasm, and all of them seem to believe that they know the Amiga spirit because of this. But we have all witnessed how they have been wrong. In my personal opinion, neither the QNX/Phase5 or the Amiga Inc. solutions seem to represent the Amiga technology we all admire. What makes your solution the most attractive one?

Well, all these firms have the enthusiasm and the power to bring back the glory days of the Amiga. And we of course are very happy because of that. Iwin Corporation will continue to produce Amiga compatible computers and some pheripherals like graphic cards, sound cards and maybe memory expansions. Others will also produce pheripherals and maybe even Amiga computers. However, we will sell them as "Commodore" computers (most probably not as Amiga, but as i.e. Commodore A510 or Commodore A1010) and our computers are now - and always will be - compatible for 100% with the classic Amiga's. Even in times when Amiga Inc. will have released their NG Amiga's, our computers will still be compatible with the classic Amiga's but also having up-to-date features. We think - no, we know - this will be our success and will bring back the name Commodore to the glory of the past.

4. I see that the A1010MP is cased in an attractive tower - not unlike the iMac tower. How expandible is it? In what way is the A2010 better? Why should an Amiga user want to replace his old Amiga with one of your compatible computers?

:) You are right. The A1010M or P is cased in a very attractive tower. Everybody could see how successfull the iMac was and is. So this is sure a nice little feature and truly saying, we are all fed up with the gray or beige colors of our computers. The A1010 is a very open architecture. First time in Amiga history you can use a lot of existing PCI and AGP cards when you use the Iwin DDK together with it. This enables the AmigaOS to use many of these cards. A small example is to put an ATI Rage 3D graphics card into the AGP slot and to install the DDK drivers for it. You're done - nothing more to do. Your AmigaOS and your applications, games and demos will run without problems. Or just plug in a PCI network card and install the DDK drivers for it. Iwin DDK also includes a 100% compatible TCP/IP stack and your Amiga will be able to connect to every network. The A1010 has 3 PCI, 1 AGP and 3 Zorro III slots free and has already almost everything built in.
The A2010 will be the high-end machine of our A-Series computers. It will be an extended A1010 and especially designed for business multimedia purposes. Features like a built-in genlock interface, frame-grabber, network card, large harddrive, powerfull PowerPC CPU, and much more will make it the premium solution for multimedia in every business. Firms related to multimedia will again have a possibility to choose.

5. Many may wonder if you are entering dangerous ground, where a battle is already taking place. We now know that Gateway 2000 are involved with the new Amigas from Amiga Inc., referring to various articles published on the net. Are you entering this battlefield or do you think it is a waste of effort. Is a battle really needed to make the Amiga big again?

No. In fact we are absolutely against such battles. We don't want to fight against Gateway or Amiga Inc. On the contrary, we would like to partner with them. I think our new technology which is 100% compatible with the classic Amigas together with the AmigaOS 3.5 and some other technologies from Gateway or Amiga Inc. could be the number one computer of the future. Currently we have to write everything on our own. All the drivers, all the software packages, all the other stuff and so we are just doing all these things what Amiga Inc. already did or will do in the future. Amiga users will have to choose between two or three different product lines. Of course, our computers will still run their software from the past - Amiga Inc. NG Amiga's wont, but this is not what the Amiga users want. They just want a good and powerfull machine which is also compatible with the classic Amiga's. We can - and we will - give them this, no matter if Gateway and Amiga Inc. is now together with us or not. But as I said already, I would appriciate if Amiga or Gateway would contact us regarding these plans. In fact, these fight or battles are nothing more than these old childish "fights" between Amiga and Atari ST users from the past. We are open for everything. But, currently we are living in competition.

6. Many things makes it look like the Amiga is really an unwanted presence in the computer industry and in the computer market generally. Amiga has lived through two bankruptcies and bags full of unkept promises. You say you want to give rebirth to the "Commodore Amiga", the Amiga in it's most successful form. How do you plan to do this.

We have planed to do it in some steps. Not starting with a bunch of announcements, and development by not seeing how the current market situation is. We will do the following:

A:	Start of production of the A510 and A1010 will be 6th September 1999. First machines will will be available in the middle of September in the stores. Various independent software developers already have some black boxes from us to make sure there will be enough of new software available.

B:	Since we have the new technology we are also already producing new software for it. We have already ported a lot of our software product line to the AmigaOS and our own operating system PowerSE is also already ported for 70%.

C:

Our new Amiga division will also produce Amiga only software products. The first product will be the VPE (Visual Programing Environment). This will be something like a Microsoft Visual Basic for the Amiga, but you will be able to use Basic, Assembler, Pascal and C++ Release date for VPE will be somewhere in the end of November.

D:	We are trying to contact the major game producers to attract them creating again games for the Amiga. Currently we are choosing them.

E:	Like Commodore did, we produce not only the computer, but also pheriphals like mentioned before.

F:	The upcoming A2010 will be again a high-tech and state of the art computer like the "old" A2000 was in the past. It will be the premium solution for all multimedia purposes.

G:

And finally - the name Commodore is still in good mind. Many of the old C64 and Amiga users still know the name and like it. So they will be attracted only by hearing that there will be again a Commodore Amiga computer. But as I said before, we most probably wont sell them as Amiga, but as Commodore Axxx because of the licensing and trademark questions. Well, but we'll see what Amiga Inc. and Gateway says about it.

7. Many current Amiga software developers are living through hard times at the moment. The uprising of the AmiRage machine, the new Amiga MCC and the ATX board, which are quite different from the Amiga machines they are used to developing for, neither guarantees success nor efficient functionality, as the current Amiga in fact does. Could your initiative make a better path for these developers?

Yes of course. Developers wont have to change the platform they are developing for. They still will be able to develop their programs for the classic Amigas, and actually ON their classic Amiga's. Iwin Corporation will provide all developers with state of the art tools for creating high-tech programs. The VPE and PPL programing environment will ensure them that their applications will run on classic Amigas (back until Kickstart 1.2) and even on the new technology Amigas. They will have to recompile their programs, but this will make sure their programs will definitly run. For developers who don't want to change their programing environment, Iwin Corporation will even release the VPE and PPL extensions for existing environments. And as soon as the OS3.5 and the MCC is available, Iwin Corporation will release a special version of PowerSE to also enable these computers to run the classic applications down to Kickstart 1.2 So we have products for everybody using an Amiga. No matter if classic Amiga, NG Amiga, Iwin A-Series or other Amiga based or compatible computers. The Amiga plattform and the AmigaOS are very good and we would like to see it in a big role in the future - of course with Commodore as the main producer. :)

8. As a last question, I would like to ask a personal question. What is it that makes the Amiga special - or what is an Amiga? This question has been the center of the debate that has been going on ever since Amiga Incorporated announced their vision.

Well, this is a very good question. My personal opinion about the Amiga is that this computer incorporated an early vision from a small team around Jay Miner. It had all those features what Windows and PC's are now praising as "new" and "high-tech" already years before the PC could do more than just beeep. This vision and excitement never again could be reached by any other computer manufactor - even not Amiga Inc. now. And this is what makes my current Amiga's (I personally still have an A500, A1000 and A2000) a vision for myself. A vision what we are currently trying to bring back again to the people.

Thank you for your time, and I wish you the best of luck you can possible have. New times are on the way for the Amiga community, and either we will have to change platform, or we will get what we have dreamed of for a very long time.

Thank you very much.

Hogne Titlestad of AmiUpdate

More info can be found at the IWin Corporation homepage!