The good news is that we have at last been given official confirmation of what many speculated to be either complete by now, in hopeless disarray, or a fine blend of the two. The new Amiga hardware architecture has been finalised, partners have been chosen, software structures have been prepared. You'll have to wait for a short while until names and products are announced to label the black boxes but at least we have confirmation. As you would guess, some surprises are waiting in the list - but what they are, we don't know just yet. It wouldn't be a surprise otherwise, would it?
To many, the main focus will probably be the processor Amiga choose for the main stream of development. It's probably not as important as many are making out, Amiga being aimed at a multi- platform environment, but it's always reassuring. With the QNX Neutrino kernel (presently) running on x86, MIPS and PowerPC architectures the speculation has been concentrating on these. Alpha has also been mentioned in passing by Jim Collas and in respect to interest by the makers of the kernel - could this be more in the game than people realise? I'm inclined to say PowerPC, others seem to think MIPS - the only certainty is that it isn't x86, but most would've guessed that from the very beginning. Anyway, the guesswork is immaterial now - the CPU has been chosen and the announcement will be made at both the World of Amiga and AmiWest shows, along with details of major partners and complementary technologies (there's more to a modern computer than the processor after all).
