Commodore Stories and Amiga Future with David John Pleasance

Bill and Anthony are joined by former Commodore UK Managing director David John Pleasance for an extensive live interview about his time at Commodore and the Kickstarter for his new book "From Vultures to Vampires: 25 years of Copyright Chaos and Technology Triumphs" David tells stories about his time at Commodore as well as his hope for the future of Amiga especially Apollo's Vampire FPGA.
This was a live stream done on AmigaBill's Twitch Channel on June 14th 2020: / amigabill
Back From Vultures to Vampires HERE:
www.kickstarter.com/projects/...
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Music:
Homunculi by AceMan / Agenda ^ Dreamweb ^ HUGE LOAD ^ Resistance
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[@silkee]

Remember seeing Pleasance when I was a 13 year old kid at the World of Amiga Show at Wembley Arena, London (93/94?)....I was too scared to talk to him even though he's only a tiny bloke haha. He was always surrounded by people though and seemed to draw in crowds. Top fella and one of the few that put the Amiga before himself.

[@jrherita]

I don't even know what i'm watching yet, but it's already gotten my thumbs up!

[@TheGuruMeditation]

Ha ha , thank you!

[@peterlanglois65]

Thoroughly enjoyed this guys. Thanks to David for the great stories - some of them are both heart-breaking and gut-wrenching to listen to.

[@TheGuruMeditation]

Our pleasure Peter. Thanks for watching and the feedback. Appreciate it!

[@bentbilliard]

This was amazing, thank you so much for making it happen!

[@TheGuruMeditation]

Thanks so much Bent. Glad you enjoyed it!

[@curiousottman]

I could listen to these stories all day long.

[@TheGuruMeditation]

Us as well. Thanks for watching!

[@GlensRetroShow]

Great video as always

[@TheGuruMeditation]

Aw, thanks Glen!

[@perihelion7445]

We all love you here in the Amiga community Mr Pleasance we truly do.

[@TheGuruMeditation]

Yes!

[@arongooch]

As always guys, absolutely brilliant. Thoroughly enjoyed every single minute of this.

[@TheGuruMeditation]

Thanks so much Aron. Greatly appreciate all your support for so long!

[@arongooch]

Anytime guys. Absolutely love your video's and the work you do.

[@roartjrhom4932]

Thank you Bill! This is really great!! :-D :-D :-D

[@TheGuruMeditation]

My pleasure Roar. It is a long one. Hope you enjoy!

[@roartjrhom4932]

@@TheGuruMeditation It sure is, perfect for 3 episodes! ;-)

[@AmigaSwiss]

Thx Bill for bringing that together 👏

[@TheGuruMeditation]

Cheers Retro. It was fun. I wanted to get into more of the copyright stuff, but it was 3 hours as it is, lol

[@AmigaSwiss]

The Guru Meditation yea that damn copyright thing is a pain

[@Alphadec]

quote "A new amiga will never come back". Mr Pleasance yes it will, not from big corp but we will have new amiga, I belive that. We have shown that with Vampire, Warp, TerribleFire so amiga will comeback.

[@TheGuruMeditation]

I hope so. I I do think there will be an Amiga Mini of some sort even if it is a pre-configured MiSTer. I know for a fact that is coming

[@perihelion7445]

I don't think one will, there really isn't that wow factor in new hardware anymore. The Amiga blew our minds back then for a reason, what new Amiga would blow our minds today or someone for whom was new to it? And don't take my comment the wrong way, I don't want to be right, I would love to be proven wrong because I love the Amiga. It was my main and only system for everything from 1990 till 2000 👍

[@DavidCNavas]

His first book was a good read -- I'd say his self-review is pretty accurate, and the additional content that he got other people to write really did make this a good read.

[@TheGuruMeditation]

I am looking forward to his new one too!

[@pkf4124]

Back when Escom came on board I remember saying to my Amiga friends that it would not end well. Shame that intelligent people who cared more about the product rather than their wallets were not in charge in those days. My A500 is one of those 186000 Batman packs.

[@TheGuruMeditation]

Unfortunately you were right. That is cool that you have an A500 from the Batman pack. We never had it here in the USA

[@Tweaker420666]

Wonderful interview. There are Amiga BBS Still online like Reign of Fire

[@TheGuruMeditation]

Yeah I need to spend more time on thesr

[@duncanandrews6727]

Bill and Anthony know how to Interview !

[@TheGuruMeditation]

Cheers Duncan! I have been working on my interview technique. Normally I would have butt in more, but I could tell viewers were really enjoying David's stories so I let him go. I wish we got more into the copyright stuff and the frustration of the Amiga community, but I think he wants to talk more about that when the new book comes out.

[@JustWasted3HoursHere]

Man, if only Commodore had been able to get an injection of cash at that point AND replace upper management (Ali and Gould were terrible), we might be sitting around using our Amiga 10,000's by now with who knows what powering it (probably an ARM processor on steroids with extremely sophisticated co-processors). Woulda-coulda-shoulda

[@JustWasted3HoursHere]

I wonder where we'd be if David had got the rights to Commodore instead of Escom?

[@TheGuruMeditation]

@@JustWasted3HoursHere It is an excellent question we will never know the answer to. I guess it hinges on Hombre. But it would have been difficult to survive

[@JustWasted3HoursHere]

@@TheGuruMeditation Yep. Hombre had some excellent specs (similar to PS1 at the time). But as you say, we'll never know. :(

[@TheGuruMeditation]

@@JustWasted3HoursHere Yep :-(

[@blablabla3452]

to be honest, as an amiga fan, i feel like the spiritual successor of amiga os are modern linux distros. I imagine that if the amiga would have continue to develop it would not look and work much different than Elementary OS or Linux Mint KDE.

[@valenrn8657]

David Pleasance's bundle deals are the same as Xbox 360/Xbox One's timed exclusive games. David Pleasance understands exclusive games drive hardware sales.

[@TheGuruMeditation]

He is a great business man

[@jamesbellegarde2893]

Honestly I hope we don’t get an Amiga mini, I would rather see an Amiga maxi like the C 64 maxi. Great streaming video thank you very much we’re going to the trouble of making it for everyone all the fans.

[@TheGuruMeditation]

Thanks James! Glad you enjoyed the video. I can argue with an Amiga Maxi. That would be wonderful!

[@JMDAmigaMusic]

I like the pack idea, but also as a platform for more advanced homebrews

[@ice2642]

Hello, I would like to know what program do you use for video conference in the classic amiga? BR

[@TheGuruMeditation]

I don't use and video conferencing software for classic Amiga. No such software exists and classic Amiga isn't capable of that.

[@JMDAmigaMusic]

Wish those CDTV were preserved somewhere: nowadays are very hardly sought of as a symbol of a misunderstood future device...

[@Storm8873]

What a shame David wasn't the top man of Commodore back in the day. Commodore would have been still around today.

[@TheGuruMeditation]

Agreed, would have been cool to see what he could have done

[@jvidia]

From where can i get a signed copy of David Pleasant 1st book?

[@TheGuruMeditation]

Unfortunately he isn't making any more. You will likely have to have it done in person. There are a couple of books left at DownTimePublishing.com but I am not sure if they are signed

[@perihelion7445]

Actually I'm not familiar with the A1222, what is it?

[@TheGuruMeditation]

It is a newer lower priced PowerPC motherboard that will be the next A-EON release. They also call it "Tabor"

[@bobrandale4864]

Ft. Meyers, FL; I applied for a position with the city a couple years ago, but the wife had other ideas... :)

[@TheGuruMeditation]

Did you tell her you could be neighbors with Anthony??? ;-)

[@bobrandale4864]

@@TheGuruMeditation Absolutely! Our 2nd child was living in West Melbourne on the eastern coast, not extremely far from Anthony, but is in the process of moving back to Ohio next week...

[@oxogood9018]

Fantasic interview,realy comes across as if commodore were stumbling around in the dark and hopeing to find the light switch,no business plan ,Why.

[@TheGuruMeditation]

thanks oxo. Glad you enjoyed the interview!

[@tfksworldoflinux]

Kick starter: 24 days to go guys...

[@TheGuruMeditation]

Let's do this!

[@tfksworldoflinux]

@@TheGuruMeditation Already doing it!

[@keeler1701]

:)

[@TheGuruMeditation]

:-)

[@stevenbrown5483]

@@TheGuruMeditation :)

[@jvidia]

Please lower the music next time. Great work even so.

[@TheGuruMeditation]

Which music?

[@NiekkieNick]

Amiga Workbench should have been THE OS of the world instead of the crappy Windows OS!

[@TheGuruMeditation]

That would have been cool !

[@EXITMUSIC2011]

The worst thing about the Vampire is sending over £400 via wire transfer to a guy in Bosnia in blind faith you will get the card! Its availability.

[@TheGuruMeditation]

That is understandable, but from what I have witnessed they are reputable

[@stefanobriccolani3407]

You pay your vampire only when there is a card ready for you. So 1-2 weeks before card arrives to you. Igor is the most trustworthy person in the world. The only problem with v1200 is that there's huge request, and by now only who ordered between 23 and 26 of December got their board, so if you order it now probably your card will arrive at the end of this year o next year. But you will pay only when your board is ready to be shipped. V4 is the same, but it ships from Germany.

[@roygillotti4615]

Covid-19 has also slowed things down greatly.