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I spent the day today at the Universal City Hilton hotel for the
2nd annual Video Toaster User expo.
Here's a tiny recap - I'll have more to post later along with
photos after I get the film developed and scan them.
In a half-hour speech to a packed ballroom of about 500 people,
Petro Tyschtschenko (say "ta-SHEN-ko"), a very gung-ho and
good English-speaking guy, pulled up a black cloth and revealed
a brand new production Amiga 4000 Tower, and also showed, cased
in lucite, no less, an actual A1200 motherboard produced by
AmigaTech along with a German sales packed-A1200 full of bundled
software.
He then, with much suspense, announced the next generation Amigas
will use Motorola's PowerPC CPU and will be dubbed the Power Amiga.
Petro, along with his young Press Relations Guy, Gilles Bourdin,
explained that Escom has already spent many times its initial
$12million investment in the intellectual properties of Commodore,
whom they bought out earlier this year. That They know what the
Amiga is, unlike Commodore's former top management, and that
"We didn't just buy the Amiga for Christmas." He insisted that
the Amiga is back and that development will carry on through the
last of the 68xxx processors, the 68060, and then onto the
PowerPC. He did not name any ship dates for Power Amigas of course,
although scuttlebut says expect them in early '97.
Petro further said that so far, 15,000 A1200s have been sold
in Europe. Not just shipped, sold. To customers. And that
over 80,000 more are backordered at dealers and are being
made as fast as the factory can crank them out.
Amiga Tech GmbH is forming a strategic alliance with Apple Computer,
since they have already been before wher eAmiga is going, from the
68k family of CPUs to the PPC.
After Petro spoke, Tim Jenison, Pres. of Newtek took the stage
and gave a very moving, tearful speech in tribute to Jay Miner,
father of the Amiga. This was a speech unlike anything I have
ever heard Jenison give before. He was on the verge of tears many
times as he recounted his early meetings in Los Gatos with
Jay and the early Amiga engineering crew, showing them the first
Digiview pictures, how Jay was constantly amazed and thrilled at
the things developers were making his little creation do.
I took pictures at the press conference and also in the exhibits
hall of various people and products and will scan and upload them
in the next couple days, putting them on Portal in the Amiga Zone
