Let me put it this way; If the Amiga returns, we all remember what we had before, and what we will get again! Think of it, tenfolds, or hundreds of good old game-developers returning to our platform with their latest productions - "Optimized for Amiga".

If the Amiga platform is revived, the developers both in hardware and software would return, no question about it. A revival is a revival, no matter how you put it, so it would mean a reunion with old Amiga developers like Renegade, Electronic Arts and the bunch. Perhaps we would see updated and modyfied version of old Amiga games, games that never were replaced by newer and lousier Amiga games in the same genre. Put it simple - we would get great games and applications back on the Amiga, by software houses made of more than one developer in each department - leading to more bugfree programs. That would be new on the Amiga, wouldn't it?! We'd see new programs that had fewer bugs in v4 than v1!

The Amiga market has been flooded by lousy software and rather expensive hardware. It is almost strange how we have been able to cope with the situation. Surely, there should not be any Amiga users left these days. It is almost a year between each software update, that can't be healthy to the Amiga user-base.

But as I said, the new times are coming, and they will act as the old times, when the Amiga was the best. A revival of the miggy has been promised, and that is great news. I just can't wait to be able to play around with a stabile program like Dpaint III was, play a responsive and addictive racing game and make music on an updated sound tracker. I took this for granted in the early 90s, but now, it is very rare to experience this on the Amiga. I can't wait till I can feel save with a piece of software again.

The Amiga NG, The Alien Boxer, the Iwin Amiga Compatibles and the partners aligned have outlined a great future for the Amiga user. Somehow, I feel all the years of waiting for this was worth it. It gives me back the enthusiasm, which is a good and almost miracules thing, considering the amount of apathy that has infected the Amiga community. This will certainly lead somewhere, and the Amiga demo scene will definately grow again - glowing with creativety as it did before.

I am by no means trying to insult the current Amiga developers. But the fact is that they have had a hard time developing new products for the Amiga, remembering how small the user base is and how few the number of developers is on each development. Great news for these too, because if the Amiga gets its revival, they will sell more, because of a growing user base, and they will have the money to emply new staff. The democoders will get new crew members that previously operated in other circles of the computer scene. Everything will grow, everything will improve. So now, we must stop complaining, let us welcome the future, not speculate in the end of the world.

Hard facts are arriving, and all we can do is wait. So let us do what we need to do, then, let us review the future when it has arrived. I personally think it will be a success, and I hope it will be a tremendous one at that. I ignore other scenarios - we can't pay attention to those if we are to succeed! Let us all have a ball!

HT