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HiQ Welcome Page

Hi and welcome to the HiQ home page.

For those who may or may not know, I have been in the Amiga market since 1987, then under the name of Checkmate Digital and since 1990 under the new HiQ limited name which was originally launched to promote the HiQ Tower system developed by James Campbell and myself.

For those with a long Amiga memory, we released the original Amiga 1500 system which was closely followed by Commodore changing there A2000 to A1500. After all the problems that were caused, although not to us, it seems that I am still around which is more than can be said for the people who disliked us for releasing the A1500.

Other products that I have brought into the UK were HAME, Avideo 24 with TVPaint and then finally Frame Machine which were all badly affected by the Opal Vision hype which I personally think was one of the greatest disasters that affected the Amiga with promises being eagerly swallowed up by a gullible press and passed on to the buying public who waited instead of buying products which offered less in some areas but at least delivered the most important features. Still we all know what happened to Opal Vision - Well nothing actually but it will be available in two months ;)

Still such is life and now we have developed the Siamese System which I feel is the beginning of the greatest range of Amiga products next the Video Toaster, Dpaint3 and DigiView, although I would say that wouldn’t I. This has been so far a major success with over a 1000 being shipped by November.

My opinion on the Amiga Market:-

I am sick of the public moaning about the state of the Amiga market and complaining that developers are pulling out. Well I can tell you now that the main problem is people who spend their time talking and don’t use the system and upgrade. When I started, people made their living from their Amiga, and therefore they kept upgrading it, I started a computer company to fund my hobby. Now most people in the UK think that a hard drive is a good upgrade when in fact every one should be using 040 based Amiga’s with 8mb+ ram, CD-ROM’s and big hard drives. Why do people have no problem spending £1000 on a multimedia PC and not £1500 on a really fast Amiga, (I understand that not every one has the money). Most people think the Amiga should be the same price as the PC but the Silicon Graphics machine for example is vastly more expensive and sells very well, and the Amiga with more system software upgrades could be in the same league as a poor mans Silicon Graphics system.

For those Amiga user’s who have fast machines like us, it is very frustrating at present and that was the reason for the Siamese System to help by making up for the Amiga’s failings in the short term. For those who do not have powerful Amiga’s why are you complaining, just upgrade.

As for games, I hated the games coverage the Amiga kept getting but with hindsight the Amiga may have died without the Batman pack and its successors. Now though we have mostly crap games being launched for the Amiga and people will think that the Amiga cannot cut it any more. So don’t write a game unless it is breaking ground and if that means making them available only for 040 users then so be it, have some guts and release for this power base. If not then sod off to the Play station and PC market.

The Future:-

If you are an Amiga user with spare cash and want to carry on using this great machine then don’t wait for the PowerPC to come along unless you are already running an 060, instead get out their now and buy yourself an 40mhz/040 card from someone like Wizard with some ram and start doing what my generation of Amiga user did and start showing people why the Amiga is great, don’t just complain about it. Those of you who are doing this, good on you and if you are doing something interesting then tell me about it, I will then tell people about it on this new site. My motto has always been "If it was easy everyone would do it" but the effort can be worth it, however if this is to much work then stop talking about the problems and take up gardening or something.

To all true Amiga user’s, and that includes those that have left the fold but would like to come back, I wish you the best of luck, and I hope we and other developers can support you for a long time, and maybe bring you back once again.

Steve Jones
HiQ Limited

PS. For those that think I must be rich as was mentioned at the recent Amiga show in April, perhaps as an astute customer said the other day, If I was rich I would not be answering the phone.

I do happen to believe in this machine and always have, but I also know that while the Windows 95 PC is now a very capable machine and we are losing the battle at present, it ain’t over till the fat lady sings !!!

HiQ Limited

Gable End, 2 The Square, Watling Street, Hockliffe, Bedfordshire, LU7 9NB

Tel 01525 211327 Fax 01525 211328

steve@hiqltd.demon.co.uk