I feel like the answer is: a person or company willing to spend billions on platform (hardware/software) support, a unique idea, and a lot of luck.

Who can predict the next big thing tho? I feel like no ones integrated AI correctly yet, so probably room for innovation there but who knows.

I actually never used an Amiga but I’ve always been interesting in trying the platform. The emulation options (either raspberry pi or cheap x86) look appealing as a good entry point but yet I still never tried. What would it take for me to jump in? Everything about the A500 mini looks great except the price tag. The other mini/classic retro systems that I’ve bought have all been around the $50 price point. I’d probably be willing to go as high as $100 but seems like A500 mini is still several times more expensive. I’m guessing that’s licensing costs?

So for people like me with no experience or nostalgia for the platform but do have an interest in platforms they missed out on as a child : the cost of entry is either too high or requires too much setup work currently.

But my question is what would Amiga have to be today that would make you abandon your PC (!!!)

Good question.

To be honest, I don’t know.

I feel a bit disconnected with the Amiga community, also.

Many adore the Amiga 600, 1200 and 3000/4000 and Amiga OS 3.x,
while I do relate more to Amiga 1000 and 500/2000 and Kick Start 1.x/WB 1.3.

To me, these 90s Amigas feel as weird as, say, an Atari Falcon feels to an Atari ST 520 user with TOS 1.x.

That being said, I think AROS is cool. If it only had useful software.
My amateur radio hobby wasn't being supported anymore by Amiga platform since 1988/89 or so.
That's when there was SSTV hard and software for Amiga, still, for example.
https://bruxy.regnet.cz/web/sstv/EN/amiga-video-transceiver/

@BinaryDemon The platform is interesting for sure. It's just very niche, with big focus on demoscene, pixel art, retro games etc.

There's also seamless integration between 68k applications and x86 Amiga host.:
It involves Amibridge and Janus-UAE. The 32-Bit x86 versions of Icaros Desktop and AROS One support it, I think.
Both are distributions from vanilla AROS (the one with the Kitty mascot).
The vanilla AROS serves as a basis for developers mainly, essentially.
Some information: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtDiXhjSIfs

Edit: I think what Amiga did make stand out was its expandibility, the multimedia features and the friendly, snappy graphical OS.
Nowadays, making the Amiga imitate a standard PC or a smartphone doesn't help it.

Because, I think, the Amiga does attract people the most who want the 80s lifestyle back.
Making a modern, powerful Amiga on ARM or RISC V basis would make it both very modern and make it stand out - without sacrificing its soul.

But to make it usable, it also would require cutting-edge applications again.
Like 8k HDR graphics editing, a Photoshop port, a Deluxe Paint 2026. Anything.

Edit: Another idea would be to go back to the roots and re-build an 68k Mac, err, Amiga.
With all the expansions ports and hardware capabilities, but with extensions.

But instead of using something outdated as an 68060 or Power PC processor, an ARM or FPGA core would simulate an 68040/68060 core.
It's important that performance is still able to compete, the Amiga being usable for real world work.

I mean, a modern Amiga that can still interface with 1985 era hardware might be appealing.
As an option, besides things such as modern USB 4 ports, Firewire, Gigabit ethernet and 8k graphics hardware.
Old hardware projects could be revived and modernized, new applications for the "real" Amigas would appear on a side effect.

Such things would appeal both hardware hackers and industrial customers.
Being able to have a modern Amiga as an alternative.

Edit: What I wrote was poorly worded, maybe.
What I meant was, that it would be cool to be able to seamlessly continue where the Amiga/Commodore has left off.

By combining all the developments of the past decades with seamless compatibility to original software and old professional development software,
the Amiga wouldn't be so "meaningless" anymore.

Developers who did abandon the Amiga 30+ years ago could recompile their software with little effort, adapt it to modern standards.

A high-end 680X0 processor implemented in software/FPGA would still impose limitations, but at least provide a full 32-Bit address range.

OK. That's not exactly new, though, I admit.
About 25 years ago, there was AmigaXL for QNX.

The adoption ratw wasn't great, maybe, but performance of the emulated m68k environment was huge.
By using ARM or RISC V, it could be even better now. Just think of PiStorm!

http://www.bambi-amiga.co.uk/amigahistory/emu … /amigaosxl.html

https://github.com/captain-amygdala/pistorm

Edit: On other hand, who's "we"? The Commodore fans? The computer hobbyists? The home users?
Because my hobbys or interests aren’t being reflected by Amiga community, really.
Aside from things like Tracker Music, raytracing and drawing/cartoons.
Things like electronics, chess games, stereograms or astronomy aren’t very popular it seems. Even on Mac platform, there's more nowadays.

I do relate more to Amiga 1000 and 500/2000 and Kick Start 1.x/WB 1.3.

same here. I never had an Amiga myself, but I new several people who had. I remember visiting a friend who would show me his new machine. So the first thing he was firing up was Lotus 2 hooked up to a serious Hifi system. I was completely thunderstruck. For a brief moment, with Lemmings, Shaddow of the Beast, and Turrican Amiga was at the top of its game. So I completely understand the nostalgia and I still play these games till today and watch the old demos fom time to time. Also like a lot of the music/ mods. But I too have no idea what a Commodore could be in 2025 (or if I will need one soon)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQSsq7HCNHw&l … w&start_radio=1

Aui wrote on 2025-06-27, 07:08:

I do relate more to Amiga 1000 and 500/2000 and Kick Start 1.x/WB 1.3.

same here. I never had an Amiga myself, but I new several people who had. I remember visiting a friend who would show me his new machine. So the first thing he was firing up was Lotus 2 hooked up to a serious Hifi system. I was completely thunderstruck. For a brief moment, with Lemmings, Shaddow of the Beast, and Turrican Amiga was at the top of its game. So I completely understand the nostalgia and I still play these games till today and watch the old demos fom time to time. Also like a lot of the music/ mods. But I too have no idea what a Commodore could be in 2025 (or if I will need one soon)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQSsq7HCNHw&l … w&start_radio=1

Good song, thanks for the link! 😃👍

I think I understand what you mean.
I was late to the party but had an Amiga 500 once, which I sold many years ago.

What I found interesting was AmigaOS 1.x with speech synth, AmigaBasic etc.
The Amiga had some applications/games in hi-res modes, too, which I think was interesting for the time.

What I miss about 90s Amigas and beyond is lack of "hobby" software.
Such things like a catalogue program for stamp collecting, joke programs that generate nonsense sentences,
Eliza theraphist programs, solidstate databases for transistors, ICs etc.
Or useful programs such as astronomy/stargazing programs, a telescope control software etc.

Examples:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8EMbqx-SnM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyIKRIYUi3Y

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1llyEOy2fbM

-
Edit: In other words, all the strange software someone did find on PC/Mac shareware CDs of the 90s.
Programs that generated stereograms or the "Elvis detector" type of fun software.

Or interface circuits for grabbing composite video (still image),
as described in public domain software at Hobbes archive.

The Amiga surely had similar stuff in 80s and early 90s, I believe.
Or things like exotic communications programs (ANSI/PETSCI terminals, remote desktop etc).

Control software for robot arms, a program that teaches how to do Origami, a program that teaches magic tricks etc.

Such fascinating programs, beyond the usual Turrican, Super Frog or Monkey Island gaming session.
-

I know that seems unfunny nowadays, but such niche stuff gave computers an actual purpose.
These programs made Mac, Amiga or PC a part of an other hobby, also.
So using these computers wasn't just for sake of using these computers.

The Amiga fans of today are seemingly focusing on the "scene" stuff.
Pixel art, raytracing, tracker music, demos, games etc.
But I don't know if that will also attract former Amiga users with other interests.
So yeah, I'm curious too about what Commodore means to people in 2025.

I never had an Amiga when i was younger , pretty much started out with windows 95 , though i did find a A500 on the side of the road a number of years ago with a 1084 crt and bunch of "duplicate" floppies and some legitimate ones which sent me down the rabbit hole of getting to grips with the system.

Long story short after some buying and selling I ended up with an A1200 , got a TF1260 and a rev 5 68060 with an FPU.
Ended up not needing much use for the other A500 i got a few years after selling the first and sold that and kept the A1200 and CM8833mk2 which i still have.

The experience has been interesting to say the least , the amiga tended to have better looking and performing games vs PC's at the time minus maybe simulation games though as time went on the advantages were eroded , and of course it has a number of pretty good games such as Lemmings , Cannon Fodder , Turrican , Exile , It Came from the Desert , SpeedBall etc and the Paula sound chip is quite capable , AGA is okay but games support is a bit lacking.

The O/S is pretty capable as well , but i feel like amiga fans tend to overexaggerate how amazing it is , windows 3.1 more or less works fine even though people dunk on it , and not having a proper file browser built in is a bit strange (hello DirectoryOpus) also having to unhide stuff in every directory is also pretty annoying.

It's a good lean system and well thought out but I feel like it was a bit ironically a victim of its own success by being so tied to the custom chipset that was built into the mainboard.

So here's the thing , my problem with these sorts of systems and the hypothetical 2025 amiga is the proprietary nature which has always sort of been a no go for me when it comes to having a modern daily driver system.

I'm not a huge fan of a vertically integrated locked down proprietary system owned by one company. This is why i prefer pc compatibles because of the modular and "open architecture" nature of them
My ideal for the future wouldn't be another one brand owner system like an AMIGA but instead maybe a RISC-V open architecture standard similar to PC's now but with more than 2 CPU makers (10 or more would be good) and maybe with Linux with many flavors(which would be a better bet than a locked down O/S) and open source software is the best bet going forward i think , especially now with AI and the end goal of enshittification of most products from most tech companies.

That sort of an ecosystem with built in redundancy would help insulate users somewhat against any disruptive situations , and honestly the last thing we need is another Commodore International going bust because of questionable business decisions and taking the entire platform with it.

Methinks the safer option is to make computers more commodity and more appliance like , more standardized and easier to repair , computing power is less an issue now thanks to diminishing returns from transistors being squished down , useability and flexibility is the way to go at least for a general use case system , but I'm sure there will always be a place for a separate market with super computers and ultra high end workstations.

AppleSauce wrote on 2025-07-02, 08:52:

also having to unhide stuff in every directory is also pretty annoying.

So you also had this problem ? 😆

AppleSauce wrote on 2025-07-02, 08:52:

I'm not a huge fan of a vertically integrated locked down proprietary system owned by one company. This is why i prefer pc compatibles because of the modular and "open architecture" nature of them

Yes, that's what's I liked about PCs, too, they used to have an open design.

AppleSauce wrote on 2025-07-02, 08:52:

My ideal for the future wouldn't be another one brand owner system like an AMIGA but instead maybe a RISC-V open architecture standard similar to PC's now but with more than 2 CPU makers (10 or more would be good) and maybe with Linux with many flavors(which would be a better bet than a locked down O/S) and open source software is the best bet going forward i think , especially now with AI and the end goal of enshittification of most products from most tech companies.

I understand, a standard PC motherboard with RISC V instead of x86 in principle;
but I'm not sure if the world needs another GNU/Linux distro. 😟

What I think an Amiga 2025 probably needs to have is its own, distinct personality.
Something that sets it apart from the masses of uniformity. Somehow.
Still don't exactly know what this would look like.. 🤷‍♂️

but I'm not sure if the world needs another GNU/Linux distro

Maybe - but think about Steam OS (which is now supposedly running games better than Windows )

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2025/06/games- … -testing-finds/

Valve is just one of these companies who dare to think about a platform outside of the (windows) box.
They do hardware, but may also be capable to release a killer app (Half life 3?). This is a recepie quite similar to the original Amiga story...

I also think that it is still early days for new innovative ARM based platforms (unless x86 survives the comming storm)

Wow - I just watched Part 2. So Perifractic Did buy Commodore. And he seems to be comitted to a vision that cares about the past as well as the future of the brand - exciting! Commodore also made a lot of XT and AT machines. 286, 386, 486 they will all be back on the shelves soon! So now someone really has to start thinking a bit harder about this A5000 😉

Nothing will come of this, no new hardware other than rebranded Chinese crap.

Commodore died for a reason; the niche they filled is gone.

Enjoy your C64/128 and Amiga hardware will it still works.

I think most of us agree that the introduction of the home computer was a revolution (comparable to the “movable type printing press” scale) and Commodore played a unique role during this time. Most also agree that these beginnings should be remembered (if possible, with actual Hardware and Software). The question is how? Different people have different ideas but the concatenation of “China” and “Crap” does not help here. Almost all consumer electronics has been made in Asia for decades and by this logic the very device you are reading or blogging on right is possibly also crap. If I had the ability (which I have 0) to design new PCBs or make new ISA cards – I would find it discouraging to have these efforts called “rebranded crap”. On the other hand – I’m not convinced that the actual brand is really that important. I agree that all original Hardware will eventually fail. So what’s your solution to this problem or your vision of how to keep these early machines alive and working?