I bought an Amiga 1200 (used) in the mid '90s, invested in a then expensive Blizzard 1260 and SCSI, used the system for years as my primary work computer, then rackmounted it and turned it in to NetBSD server.
Sure, it had to be recapped, and it has gone through several drives, but it has run mostly continuously since 1995. It's good hardware, and it's responsible for many of the m68k pkgsrc binary packages available today.
Just recently I recapped an Amiga 3000 and started playing with AmigaDOS 3.2.2. I could browse the web, with https, with 16 megs on a 25 MHz m68030. Because of Datatypes, I could even see webp, which my previous Mac couldn't. The OS has had recent updates. AmiSSL is based off of OpenSSL 3.x. Software and browsers are still being updated. It's amazing.
It's definitely an excellent candidate for a 50 year computer :)
The sentiment is nice, and while I wouldn't mind owning an Amiga again (my dad had an Amiga 2000 back in the early 90s), I'm concerned about the video output issue.
Namely, will I be able to find a screen that works and doesn't weigh a ton?
There are mods, something which takes a Raspberry Pi and uses it as a video converter and makes an Amiga 500 have HDMI output. But I think the FPGA Amigas are also very cool.
There's also a mod where you put a raspberry pi on top of the CPU, replacing the 68000 7 MHz CPU with an emulated 68060 at something like gigahertz speed.
I think the Amiga is such a nice candidate for an autarkic computer design. Simple enough to not be completely unrealistic, interesting enough to be worth it, and by now, insanely well documented.
No system with the number of custom ICs found in the Amiga is a self-sufficient design.
The ultimate self-sufficient design is the IBM PC. Today, right now, you can find a compatible version of every single component used to manufacture the original IBM PC sitting on a shelf somewhere for sale.
Try replacing a Gail, Paula, Alice, or Lisa that's gone bad in an A1200.
Have an upvote, but I didn't mean what old chips you can get off the shelf right now. I meant what you could build with a budget and a chip factory. There are so many Verilog and FPGA implementations of Amigas to start from. (Related note: the Draco "Amiga compatible" ran AmigaOS and "well behaved" programs, even though it didn't have the custom Amiga chips, just the m68k processor.)
The Amiga is in a such a sweet spot, because you can do all "modern" things like web browsing, developing with an IDE, play movies and music etc etc, while still being very simple and easy to understand.
IBM PC clones win on the "easy to understand" front but they are clearly from a previous era. Amigas are somewhere in between...
The Raspberry Pi fits the bill better - it will run some form of desktop Linux for a long time into the future and it is such a simple cheap design - just 4 IC's with some bits.
The same can't be said of the A1200 - flaky old circuitry that you cannot source new parts for except cannibalize donor boards - and it is huge and slowww.
The pi is largely undocumented and otherwise proprietary. It's owned by broadcom who are otherwise known for putting everything behind an nda. No, the pi is a lot, but it's not a platform i would bet on to be available in 50 years.
Yes the Amiga OCS can be implemented on a FPGA but nobody is running the 68K architecture (Paula/Agnus/Denise ain't nothing special) anymore except for ColdFire variants still used in the automotive world and in laser printers.
ARM is rather ubiquitous at this stage considering the number of implementations in the world since the first Android phones went on sale.
Sure, it had to be recapped, and it has gone through several drives, but it has run mostly continuously since 1995. It's good hardware, and it's responsible for many of the m68k pkgsrc binary packages available today.
Just recently I recapped an Amiga 3000 and started playing with AmigaDOS 3.2.2. I could browse the web, with https, with 16 megs on a 25 MHz m68030. Because of Datatypes, I could even see webp, which my previous Mac couldn't. The OS has had recent updates. AmiSSL is based off of OpenSSL 3.x. Software and browsers are still being updated. It's amazing.
It's definitely an excellent candidate for a 50 year computer :)