In a science-fiction masterpiece of P.H. Dick we can see a fight between an intrinsic regression trend of substance towards archetype forms and a misterious regenerative power, the Ubik. In this fanciful world of non-alives, time flows backwards: for example a modern computer is turned at first in a calculating machine, then in an abacus.
Science fiction?? I can't say that, the same thing happened to Amiga. The '80s Amiga was an extreme sinthesys of power and semplicity, a dream become true which allowed things never seen before with the greatest ease. With a deep sorrow we have seen the bad management wasting the advantage of more than 10 years over competition: under our eyes that little and marvellous jewel regressed at first to a good system with little software, then to an acceptable compromise between elegance and calculation power, and finally a victim of the same problems for which we criticised PCs. PowerUps with expensive and not to be found Simms, Intuition with thousands of patches that butt to each other, our good system seems to have lost the magic of that years. Confined in a dark corner of the same information technology we once claimed to revolutionize, nowadays we are considered the "non-alives": the press doesn't give us enought space, it's hard to find new software, even harder spare parts.

However, as in the novel of Dick, there is a huge force opposing this decadence, fearlessly trying to recover the tecnological leadership: the strength of ideas and ideals, that joins minds in a no-limits war.
It's the force of Amiga Group Italia, which is stipulating an agreement with Pluricom (the new publisher of Byte and MC-Microcomputer) for the release of a new Amiga-oriented magazine!
I's the force of Diff, another new web-based magazine enjoiable under subscription, which joins again Eng. Paolo Canali and Sergio Ruocco discussing about Amiga and alternative systems.
It's the force of AmyWorld that since eight months is offering us real-time information, now available also in english, portuguese, serbian (NATO permitting..) and german as well.
It's the force of working together for a project.

It's not just abstract ''idealism'', unable to change the world, considering that also the software-giant Corel announced to be likely supporting new Amigas...
With the same speed of a UBIK spray, what seemed dead regains brightness and greatness. Did someone buzz about a bankruptcy of PhaseV?? So there, preceded by a hiss, the announce of new G3/G4 cards (also for A1200). It's a implicit challenge to Met@box AG, known before as Pios Computer AG (does this rememind you of something?): the society leaded by Dave Haynie which a short time before announced PPC 750/333mhz for Amigas...
The freely distributable software world comes back to boil again with portings like Netscape and with new releases by italian developers, including Darkage Software.

And what can we say about the designation of Jim Collas from Senior Vice President of Gateway's Product Development and Management to president of Amiga Inc? It' s clearly a trust demonstration into Amiga, a clear proof showing the interest for new technology (we don't know how much it'll be a heir of actual Amigas) which, in their plans, should change the conception of home information-technology...
A deep scepticism remains, indeed, a sad reality with few developers and nearly no market nor certainties.

What's important is that at the present -now at least- the regression stopped, allowing us to work for a better future. There's still life in Amiga, there are still strength, ideas and dreams. And until there's life, there'll be someone that will tell about Amiga.

Paolo Pettinato

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Contact: paulpetty@iname.com