Pros and Cons of Amithlon type systems

[J-Golden]

It was beautiful to behold!
 
I was lucky enough to use one for a demonstration of IFX at an east coast Amiga Convention. I was amazed at how FAST it was! I may not be into speed the way the boys are, but a faster system does make work that much easier.
I know !

HA HA!!!  I bet you were the one demonstrating the show I was talking about!  That's too funny!
 
I even remember the video clip you worked on for the class.  It was woman blowing out a match and you did some kinda cool background effect and it rendered superfast!

[cecilia]

HA HA!!!  I bet you were the one demonstrating the show I was talking about!  That's too funny!
 
I even remember the video clip you worked on for the class.  It was woman blowing out a match and you did some kinda cool background effect and it rendered superfast!

Baltimore - yes, that was probably me!

and I had JUST been handed this laptop, so all I had to know was IFX. I think connecting the laptop to the projector was more 'time consuming' only because it wasn't my laptop and I had not done this before. I was VERY impressed.

After that experience I laugh at people who don't appreciate the value of emulation.

[_ThEcRoW]

Yeah, as the other friends here posted, the Amithlon emulation for productivity software is amazing. And if you are a person who don't mind custom chipset usage(games or demos) it is a reccomended system. I had it long ago on a pII 266 and it was reaaally fast. So on a 1ghz+ machine that could be a speed demon. Think of it as a draCo type machine.

[EDanaII]

Don't even think it could handle the custom chipset emulation very well so almost all games & demos were a no go on it. Always seemed to me from what I read about it, a pretty pointless exercise to tell the truth...

Holding on to the custom chip set, especially at that time, would have been like strapping a horse to the front of your car and expecting people to be impressed. The custom chip set was a means to an end and by the time Amithlon came around, that end was largely achieved. For those of us no longer interested in Amiga games, the chipset was pretty pointless, and for myself, who would have loved to have seen AmigaOS move forward, Amithlon became another means to an end.

As an earlier poster pointed out, Amithlon allowed you to mix and match x86 and 68k binaries and would have allowed for a smooth transition to Intel. AROS, for example, is trying to build smooth 68k emulation into the OS, but is having some difficulty. If they had adopted the Amithlon approach they would have had it already.

All in all, it's a shame it failed. It's quite possible AmigaOS would have been years ahead of where it is now had it not. Que sera, sera...

[Heiroglyph]

So back to my original question, is there still interest?

Is it just the legality keeping it from use?

Is it the fact that it's somewhere between hard and impossible to set up on current hardware?

Maybe it sounds good on paper but you didn't use it?

Has Aros negated the need?

[J-Golden]

So back to my original question, is there still interest?

I would say yes, if it were still being updated, tweeked, etc. there would be a BIG interest... But...

Is it just the legality keeping it from use?

Yes and no.  The main issue (and an extremely watered down version of it) was that different parts were owned by two people, one of whom became very bitter and refused to work with anyone, AND because the Amiga IP was traded around like a hot potato.  So not only were several different entities demanding fees for using Amiga IP, there was also internal strife that AFAIK is still not patched up to this day.

Is it the fact that it's somewhere between hard and impossible to set up on current hardware?

I would say no because you could use it's latest release on "old" cheap hardware and still have a blazing fast Amiga.  Anything built up from that would be amazing!

Maybe it sounds good on paper but you didn't use it?

It is illegal to sell or buy it since the big blow up.  That is why very few use it, IMHO.

Has Aros negated the need?

Has it? I'd say no, not yet.  Will it?  Most likely.

I see Amithalon Vs. Aros kindda like Amiga Vs PCs in the 90s.  Since Amithalon is not being developed (Like Commodore did to the Amiga) AROS will catch up and surpass it (Like the PC did to the Amiga mid 90s).

[Heiroglyph]

@J-Golden

Thanks for the answers.

In my case, the lack of hardware was a big stumbling block.  I just don't have access to that much old PC hardware and it's super picky about what works.  My one old compatible PC isn't holding up as well as my long lived Amigas, it randomly doesn't post anymore.

I like to think that AROS will get there eventually, I'm just finding along the way that I'm not enjoying AROS as much as I thought I would. It's largely still just a fast subset of OS3.1 without much software.

Amithlon seems to give me all my old software plus a super RTG Amiga and right now that's what I really want to use.

Long story short, that's why I'm looking at reviving Amithlon without the IP problems but I was curious as to what people liked/disliked about the original.

[Crumb]

Amithlon seems to give me all my old software plus a super RTG Amiga and right now that's what I really want to use.

Long story short, that's why I'm looking at reviving Amithlon without the IP problems but I was curious as to what people liked/disliked about the original.

"Umilator" solved the main problems with Amithlon, had a proper HD installer... Bernd Meyer released some of the improvements as Amithlon updates for example generic drivers for network/audio that used Linux ones.

I think it definitely worths trying out, if you install AfA and latest stuff you'll end up with a nice system. You won't have latest OS4/MOS goodies but it's still a decent and fast way of running Amiga apps.

Amithlon RTG graphics worked (and still works probably) faster than WinUAE IIRC. input.device received the ps2 instructions directly or something like that. It felt very fast. I still keep my original copy but thanks to MorphOS I haven't touched it in ages :-)

[runequester]

Its an extremely interesting idea. Too bad it got tangled up.

I guess today uae covers it in any event. Particularly since it does have3 chipset compatibility

[Franko]

Seems from what people have been saying here and from the links XDelusion gave that Amithlon was somewhere along the right tracks when it comes to Amiga emulators (all be it running only "System Friendly software)...

Been digging around the old CD magazine "100% Amiga" and there are quite a few interesting reviews/ news items about Amithlon on them, sadly though it seems to have gone (like most things Amiga) belly up...  which leaves me wondering just what Amithlon could have become had it not been struck down by the Amiga curse...

A couple of news items on Amithlon from 100%Amiga CD Magazine (Jan/Feb 2003)

[Heiroglyph]

Bernie got so screwed in that situation.

It's a shame, he's an awesome developer and has great ideas.  Plus he's just too nice to have that happen to him.  Where is karma when you need it?

[Franko]

Bernie got so screwed in that situation.

It's a shame, he's an awesome developer and has great ideas.  Plus he's just too nice to have that happen to him.  Where is karma when you need it?

Sadly it seems to be the norm for anyone trying to develop either software or hardware in Amigaland...

Sometimes wonder why there has been so much of this type of behaviour in the Amiga's history, is it greed or just plain pettiness or do Amiga developers just not like to see someone else producing something better than their own project... shame really...

[Heiroglyph]

From what I remember, in this case it was either greed making them think they could avoid licensing costs for the OS they were shipping or believing that they had the right to do so.  I won't try to read their intentions, but regardless they were proven wrong.

Bernie got caught in the middle and bailed out to cover himself from the lawsuits.

[Karlos]

Amithlon was simply the best "classic" Amiga and experience on x86. Not being able to emulate native hardware wasn't a problem for me; it was an AmigaOS system for productivity rather than gaming.

[Fraggle1]

I remember Amithlon before the licensing problems, running on (if memory serves) a 750mHz x86 machine. Display was a 38 inch (yes, that's right) monitor, & it was streaming & playing four videos (using Frogger) from the same HD at the same time. Awesome !

PC users refused to believe it was possible until the case side was removed to prove there was only one HD in the machine.  If you had tried to do the same thing using Windows98 or W2K, which were the current Windows versions at that time, then the machine would have either crashed or slowed to slideshow frame rates.

I also recall that it booted straight into Amithlon very quickly, & while you couldn't run games, OS legal software ran at blistering speed. When you'd finished there was no shutdown proceedure, just press the power switch to close down.

Best of all, it really felt like an Amiga.

[haywirepc]

Seemed like the best way forward for amiga at that time. I think the lack of amiga chipset did kind of leave alot of people out though. Games was such a huge part of the amiga experience.
 
Today, you can install winuae on top of windows, remove windows shell and other things and get the same functionality along with the games. It won't boot or render as fast as an amithlon system, but I think being able to run any games is worth a few more seconds at boot time.
 
As I recall, amithlon was a bitch to get working on some hardware. You had to use a supported sound,video and network card I think.
 
Someone should post a list of the supported graphics, sound and network cards. I think I still have a couple of isos of amithlon around.
 
Steven