‹ BackHN Continuity

Thread

Amiga Unix, Again

144 points · 67 comments · doener

  1. nullc · · focus · HN ↗
    I get pet-cemetery vibes from these AI powered resurrections.

    As in ... "the AI brought it back to life, but it came back /wrong/".

    1. CursedSilicon · · focus · HN ↗
      I mean, that Peri Fractic clown "owns Commodore" now and tried to sell people a phone that was rendered entirely using AI.

      Maybe Amiga people are ready to drink from that chalice too?

      1. qmr · · focus · HN ↗
        Why do you feel he is a clown?
        1. CursedSilicon · · focus · HN ↗
          His behaviour, mostly
          1. self_awareness · · focus · HN ↗
            He's primarily an entertainer, doesn't mean he's a clown.

            I think there are worse clowns in corpos without careers on YouTube.

        2. snvzz · · focus · HN ↗
          Because he's seeing success and fame, while the parent (most frustratingly) isn't.

          If it didn't matter to them, they wouldn't have commented what they did.

          1. CursedSilicon · · focus · HN ↗
            Success and fame in...selling an AI slop phone?

            If that's something to be jealous of, I guess?

      2. samplatt · · focus · HN ↗
        Wait, what? I'm on the waitlist for that phone as I thought it was a great idea in general, regardless of the renders. Have I been had?

        I've never (ever) bought a phone because of what it looks like in marketing material.

        1. CursedSilicon · · focus · HN ↗
          From what I've read, the phone did not (does not?) yet physically exist

          All his marketing has been via AI renders

          1. bakoo · · focus · HN ↗
            The phone is a real device produced by Jolla. After being called out on the AI generated ads, Commodore apologised and had the videos remade using real people.
            1. samplatt · · focus · HN ↗
              Thanks for that info.
    2. jmspring · · focus · HN ↗
      Your pet cemetery reference made me recall reviving puffy the dog in Something about Mary - <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=HzgrVW2uZWE" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=HzgrVW2uZWE
    3. spijdar · · focus · HN ↗
      I&#x27;ve used LLMs to get the distributed Sprite OS running again, though I&#x27;ve yet to release it, and I&#x27;m not sure what that release will look like, if it ever happens.

      One thing I really don&#x27;t get, and I really hope I never do, is leave the front page&#x2F;README&#x2F;etc so ... Claude-ified (or GPT, plausibly, I guess):

        native SCSI and ethernet drivers, proven on real hardware
      
        Quake — runs; a benchmark more than a game, for now
      
        running under emulation, real hardware next
      
        The grimoire records both, confidence-tagged
      
      I am becoming probably too okay with LLMs, and I&#x27;m probably about as &quot;forgiving&quot; of this stuff as anyone, but man, it&#x27;s disheartening to see that for something as much of a passion project as &quot;Amiga Unix&quot;, seemingly no-one bothered to write a page in a human voice for it. Maybe it&#x27;s LLM-written, maybe a hybrid thing, I dunno. But at best it sounds like &quot;Apple product release&quot;, IMO.

      I know others will say the same about seeing LLM usage at all, and yeah... I don&#x27;t really have a defense. It just feels like the &quot;bare minimum of decency&quot; to, well, at least make the front page less LLM-sounding.

      1. hexapus · · focus · HN ↗
        Can&#x27;t argue with you there. There&#x27;s a ton of cool projects that people have vibecoded, and exist in domains where the fact that it&#x27;s possibly insecure&#x2F;poorly optimised&#x2F;unmaintainable by humans doesn&#x27;t really matter much. e.g. porting retro systems to, or writing new utilities for MiSTer FPGA. I love the platform, and the more stuff I can run on it, the better. Bugs are annoying, but not critical. The community gets software that may have never existed otherwise.

        But still, somehow, when I see a Claudish README, it instantly gives me the ick. Write about your project. Tell us why you built it. Talk about the problems the bot helped you work through. I&#x27;m not going to judge you for not being able to code it all up yourself - but at least write the README in your own voice and tell me why you cared enough to do it.

Open on Hacker News to reply ↗

Unofficial Hacker News client; not affiliated with Y Combinator.