CompuServe Messages

Software Engineering at Commodore had been meeting schedules pretty well for the last few years — marketing and management inserted random delays between engineering release and customer availability. I don't know who made the 18-month estimate, but it is probably for a reasonable number of engineers (at some point adding more just makes things go slower) and it probably accounts for some getting up to speed, but probably also depends on some experienced engineers returning for the work. I have difficulty imaginging it being done sooner, but I think it could be done that soon with the right resources. I don't know that there is an RTG design to start with. Chris and Spence had a design. Alan decided to toss it after they left. AmigaReport reports that Alan has left. That would leave no one who's done Graphics or Intuition at Commodore, and those are the two critical parts for a AAA release. The key is getting someone with a good Amiga background to do a really good design for the RTG system, and then to have engineers who really knows the Amiga graphics and GUI for implementing it. I can't imagine how long it would take if you couldn't hire people already familiar with Intuition, for example. Think of all the compatibility issues and other kinds of pitfalls. And I'd suspect that many of the engineers who've left the Amiga would have to be paid very highly to be enticed back. Why interrupt a succesful new career path to return to a machine that's burned you once with a company without any track record of engineering at all. Commodore itself relocated some engineers and then layed them off less than six months later. It seems entirely possible that a new company might do the same (do six months of engineering and then run out of money or see shifting market conditions and change its mind about how badly it wants new Amigas). That possibility will weigh heavily and will have to be overcome somehow.