Pros and Cons of Amithlon type systems

[Minuous]

@BootDisk:

Not this old crap again about OS3.5/3.9 not being proper upgrades. It's rubbish and you know it, or should do by now. Workbench ARexx port, GlowIcons support, various enhancements and bugfixes to core APIs etc. The fact that some previously 3rd-party apps (eg. ReAction) were also integrated into the package doesn't negate this.

[XDelusion]

I also miss UAE for QNX. It was cool to be able to launch QNX apps via Work Bench, though sometimes the screens would screw up, and with no updates on the horizon, I stopped using it.

[Heiroglyph]

Removing the original OS would be a bad idea at first.

1. Then why not just run AROS?
2. Compatibility with old apps wouldn't be good
3. You're just going the AROS route again with 3.1 on x86.

I was looking at something more like:
Take a more advanced OS that matches well, say Haiku.
Get Amithlon working on this rather than Linux.
Make use of ClassicWB or other distribution and the users own ROM.

You could start releasing right here.

Amithlon would become more of a UI than the OS, like early Windows or XWindows.
Instead of peeking through a keyhole with special x86 extensions, expose the underlying OS to AmigaOS.
Make use of AROS code to slowly integrate them better making Haiku more Amiga like and AOS more native, eventually negating the need for ROMS, etc that can't be distributed.

Part of my reasoning is that Haiku is more of a spiritual successor than most other OS's, but is far more advanced.
It has SMP, memory protection, virtual memory, datatypes, responsive UI, it's multi-media centric and has a good selection of drivers.  It also boots to a usable desktop in 8 seconds. (not counting BIOS crap that can't be helped)

Anyway, that's what has been kicking around in my head.

[Franko]

Removing the original OS would be a bad idea at first.

1. Then why not just run AROS?
2. Compatibility with old apps wouldn't be good
3. You're just going the AROS route again with 3.1 on x86.

I was looking at something more like:
Take a more advanced OS that matches well, say Haiku.
Get Amithlon working on this rather than Linux.
Make use of ClassicWB or other distribution and the users own ROM.

You could start releasing right here.

Amithlon would become more of a UI than the OS, like early Windows or XWindows.
Instead of peeking through a keyhole with special x86 extensions, expose the underlying OS to AmigaOS.
Make use of AROS code to slowly integrate them better making Haiku more Amiga like and AOS more native, eventually negating the need for ROMS, etc that can't be distributed.

Part of my reasoning is that Haiku is more of a spiritual successor than most other OS's, but is far more advanced.
It has SMP, memory protection, virtual memory, datatypes, responsive UI, it's multi-media centric and has a good selection of drivers.  It also boots to a usable desktop in 8 seconds. (not counting BIOS crap that can't be helped)

Anyway, that's what has been kicking around in my head.

That's the right way to go I reckon, don't get why people would want to get rid of 3.x compatibility and go another route... :confused:

Seems from what I've learned in this short time about Amithlon it's whole purpose was to be as 3.x compatible as possible which to me is what would make it so good...

I hope you go ahead with this as I reckon your onto something here...

PS: I see the usual idiots who lurk around here but are too afraid to say anything have started a thread on PooBunny dissing your idea, gawd what a sad bun of tards some of these tubes are... :rolleyes:

PooBunny Wahoos Gibber About Amithlon

[XDelusion]

Amiga + Haiku = My wet dream

[Fats]

My thoughts on what needs to be done.

1) Remove OS3.9 from Amithlon and replace it with 68k AROS parts.
2) Re-Compile the various parts of AROS in a piecemeal fashion using the 686-BE compiler, until there is little to none 68k code left.
3) Convince Bernie to release the code to Amithlon/Umilator or write a clone from scratch.
4) The community profits!

You could take another route:
1) idem
2) idem
3) use 686-BE compiler to compile AROS itself, I would call this AROS with i386be CPU.
4) implement proper bootstrap to run i386be AROS on a i386 machine
5) run amithlon without amithlon

greets,
Staf.

[nicholas]

You could take another route:
1) idem
2) idem
3) use 686-BE compiler to compile AROS itself, I would call this AROS with i386be CPU.
4) implement proper bootstrap to run i386be AROS on a i386 machine
5) run amithlon without amithlon

greets,
Staf.

But that would not have the benefit of Amithlon's seamless 68k emulation.

[Heiroglyph]

PS: I see the usual idiots who lurk around here but are too afraid to say anything have started a thread on PooBunny dissing your idea, gawd what a sad bun of tards some of these tubes are... :rolleyes:

This may be the stupidest idea ever, who knows.  Wouldn't be my first, won't be my last.

It sounds fun though, that's about all that matters anymore.

It's not like I'm trying to make money from it, it's just an interesting challenge with open source code to get a head start from.

[haywirepc]

Thats a huge project but I wish you the best. Good luck, please let us all know how it goes.

[haywirepc]

While we're on this subject, can someone please post a list of compattible hardware for amithlon? I tried some time ago but it didn't like any machine I tried to put it on, and I tried older era pcs (800-1500mhz)
 
I think alot like aros, you need a certain video, sound and network card to get it going easily. I have a few old pcs around and I'd be interested in giving it a go.
 
I have a couple of amithlon iso's around still.
 
Steven

[Franko]

While we're on this subject, can someone please post a list of compattible hardware for amithlon? I tried some time ago but it didn't like any machine I tried to put it on, and I tried older era pcs (800-1500mhz)
 
I think alot like aros, you need a certain video, sound and network card to get it going easily. I have a few old pcs around and I'd be interested in giving it a go.
 
I have a couple of amithlon iso's around still.
 
Steven

Nearly-Right already posted a link a few pages back with that info...

http://www.garycvl.f2s.com/amithlon.html

[nicholas]

This may be the stupidest idea ever, who knows.  Wouldn't be my first, won't be my last.

It sounds fun though, that's about all that matters anymore.

It's not like I'm trying to make money from it, it's just an interesting challenge with open source code to get a head start from.

Just getting AROS-hosted to compile and run on Haiku would be a cool thing.

[haywirepc]

Franko,
 
That info is for an updated kernel. First, you need to install and get the system working before you can update the kernel.
 
I'm interested in what hardware the original amithlon cd supported, which I have a copy of but no docs, or hw supported info for.
 
Steven

[Franko]

Franko,
 
That info is for an updated kernel. First, you need to install and get the system working before you can update the kernel.
 
I'm interested in what hardware the original amithlon cd supported, which I have a copy of but no docs, or hw supported info for.
 
Steven

Click on the links on that page and it takes you to compatible motherboards etc..

Thought that was the info you were looking for... :confused:

I'm pretty sure there was quite an extensive review of the original hardware done on one of the 100%Amiga CDs I was looking through yesterday but I think they are in the old magazines format of IFF ILBM files and not the HTML type I posted earlier (which 100%Amiga changed to later)...

I'll have a look through the CDs and see if I can convert any Amithlon stuff that will allow me to post them here...

[haywirepc]

Thanks Franko, that would be awesome to see.

So far I know sb 128 pci will work. Still a bit confused on the network and video cards. Anyone with an amithlon system care to chime in with appropriate parts?

Steven

[Lando]

Amithlon wasn't so much an Amiga emulator as it didn't actually emulate an Amiga (ie. the custom chips, which to me were what makes an Amiga what it was).  Rather it was a way of running Amiga OS 3.x on a x86 machine on top of a barebones linux kernel.

I torrented it several years ago to try out (it wasn't available to buy anymore) and it was very fast.  In UAE the customer chip emulation takes 90% of the processor time so the reason Amithlon was so fast is because it didn't bother with any of that, but you had to run hardware-banging apps in E-UAE on top of Amithlon which kinda negated the whole point.