Gary Storm spoke to Fleecy Moss soon after his departure from Amiga Inc.

What the hell happened, Fleecy ? Did you have a major disagreement about the direction A-Inc or Gateway want to take (like just concentrating the Amiga technology for Set-Top Boxes, Consoles, and Vibrators) ? You won't break any NDA's by telling us the circumstances and leaving out the details.

Amiga Inc did not renew my contract. That is all I can say. I am pursuing my own interests, the development of an innovative, Kommunity owned platform, built, designed, evangelised and run by those ppl who work with it, in any capacity.

Is your US visa ok, so you won't have to leave your newborn ?

I got it transferred back to my good old Canadian "pimp" who sells my services in the US. I may have something lined up, but we have been here four years, and no footy, crap beer and our kids getting wierd accents is starting to get to us. If we can get a job back in Scotland, we will be returning real soon.

The "Evie" incident relates to the fact that here in Pennsylvania, it takes months

to get a birth certificate, and without it, we can't get her a passport so we can't take her out of the country. The "threat" of deportation was never a real threat. It was something off the cuff I told my wife, concerning an 'enemy' I had made at Gateway.

Jeff, on a personal level, is a great guy, and I had a lot of fun whenever I was up there, both with him, Mad Dog McEwen and his family. Him getting the blame for that wasn't fair.

To us, it all seemed very sudden. Did you have any warning of your dismissal ? Any hints ? Any inklings ?

...errrr, answering that truthfully would probably get me into trouble.

How's the job hunting been going ?

Lots of offers to return to Scumdon, but I don't want to go there ;-) We have some savings, and KOSH is taking up a huge amount of time now - just wish it paid.

What did you (generally) manage to achieve while you were project manager at A-Inc ?

I *hope* I made them realise just how valuable a resource the Amiga community was at all levels. I talked to many developers and users, got to understand their hopes, their frustrations and made many friends.

What would you have liked to have implemented ?

...what I'm doing now ;-)

Some developers are saying they don't know of any other developer being told anything about producing for os5dev, and believe it to be a mirage (actually, they said it was bullshit). Maybe miggy co's have been excluded, and it's all 'strategic (pc) partners' getting the info. You must know if os5 is smelly or rosy........

...no comment.

QNX.........tell us more.

Great OS. Great ppl (Canadian). Real fans of the community. The bosses both still code, and put technology over politics or management crap.

Is there going to be a new Amiga home computer released via A-Inc ?

...you have to ask them.

If there is to be a new Amiga computer or whatever, what's it's timeline ? The NUON has just been announced (formally) and will be out around the end of '99, as will Dreamcast in Europe and America. Never mind whatever else is going on (like Transmeta). What chance to A-Inc have ?

...you have to ask them.

Would you advise us to all go ppc, or an os5dev system (Amiga on a pentium)?

Depends what you want to do. If you believe in the target markets and strategy of AInc, then go that way. If you don't, then you have to decide what you want to do.

Take a look around at what you want, what you want to do, who you believe, who makes you barf and then decide.

Personally, apart from a few pain-in-the-ass things, which every computer has, I don't mind pc's. What I do mind is anything Microsoft. I wouldn't be happy to lose an Amiga entirely, but I could see myself getting a pc if it had a decent os, like our ancient Amiga one. What's your opinion ?

It's all a matter of integration. Linux on a Pentium goes like the clappers. PCI and AGP graphics cards are amazing. I have a PC, I use it because it has most of my work stuff on it and in a format that I can use at home. My dream OS on my dream machine would be KOSH - to be honest, if what I saw on the screen did what I wanted, made me happy and immersed me into my virtual world then I couldn't care less what was in the box.

Do you see any reasons for users and developers to hang onto the Amiga dream any more ?

Depends. What is the Amiga dream? Is it developing for Amiga Inc machines? Is it developing for PPC machines? The classic? Or is it developing for an innovative, empowering platform which allows you to sculpt virtual reality?

If yourself, Amiga Inc, Amiga Tech, developers, and users etc were football teams (real football, btw, not that American padded 'rugby for girls' stuff :) ), which ones would you be ? (I think that the Amiga users would be Southampton....who always lose their best players, but still just seem to hang on every season, after looking certs for relegation).

Everton at the moment - great players who just can't play together or win a game and had a lot of glory but now fight relegation all the time. Common sense tells you to live them but your heart is there so you carry on, just praying that it will all click.

You've begun a project with Dave Haynie, Gary Peake and others, called KOSH (if you call it BOSH! our chairman would be very happy...it's his catchphrase :). As the song goes....."So what's it all about ?".

KOSH is an attempt to build a commercially sustainable platform that is owned by the Kommunity, the ppl who use it, develop for it, sell for it and report on it. It has 3 parts. Kosh - the Kommunity, kOSh - the OS and kosH - the hardware templates. It started up after AInc let me go, caused by the many thousands of mails I received in which developers, users, retailers and journalists vented - it became clear that many of them had just had enough of this boom/bust, bust, bust cycle of the Amiga. Now they want to build their own platform - not to own it, just to have a foundation on which to earn a living, build a community. Someone christened it the Insanity project which I kind of like because it is insane really. But you know what, there is just enough talent and frustration with computing in general at the moment, that we might pull it off.

Ppl have said why are you doing Linux all over again. That misses the point. Linux is a last generation OS that is free with no central focus, and it is hard to make money in it due to the GPL. Don't get me wrong, I like Linux a lot, but I want a real next generation, innovative OS which runs on the best HW or the cheapest HW, whatever suits my pocket at the time. Something that moulds around me as a user, that becomes my doorway into a virtual universe, that allows me to do almost anything as a developer - that gets out of my way and lets me have fun. But which also wants my opinions, that asks for my help, that calls me friend and lets me meet other friends.

Could turn out to be nothing but it could turn out to be everything. That is why I am going to put so much effort into it over the next 6-12 months. If any of your readers want to get involved, please do. The Kommunity wants as many ppl as possible to come, have a look around, see if they like what they see.

Also, it seems your idea of a central amiga software site, where net-trekkers can buy their shareware and commercial stuff, is beginning to take shape.

I am talking with Gary Peake of Team Amiga about a possible venture in that arena. A portal type site, but one that is actually useful. Stay tuned.

What are your thoughts about a decent, amiga-like os, being on a pentium or something, and all the amigans going for that ?

I am really not a HW zealot. If it does the job in a way I like and has a good price/performance, I really don't mind. It is the OS's job to make sure that HW does for you what you want. Without that, the HW is just so much sand.......

You had alot to do with OS3.5 being started. What the hell happened ??? What are H&P going to do with it ? Already a few contributors to os3.5 have pulledout, and will release their bits on the open market (like ARPAS).

....I can't comment on that. You should chat to AInc or H&P.

How can we, as users and developers, help keep the amiga viable ? Or should we just give up and get a siamese and run Amiga under Windows ?

Again, what is the Amiga? What is it that we want to keep viable? Most of the systems today are a mass of third party products (HW and SW) with an old Amiga buried somewhere in the centre. The community, the users, the developers, the retailers and the journalists have kept "the Amiga" viable. What exactly is it that ppl are trying to save?

fleecy moss *--* myself, my community, my world *--* husband/father
KOSHan (Kommunity Operating System & Hardware) www.kosh.net
"Where is the life we have lost in living?" T.S.Eliot
*--*--*--*--* Adventurer in the physical and the virtual *--*--*--*