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Amiga computer related discussion => General chat about Amiga topics => Topic started by: WarPiper on October 23, 2014, 02:40:25 AM

Title: Kickstart Amiga OS to Intel?
Post by: WarPiper on October 23, 2014, 02:40:25 AM
Just a thought here, why is it that kickstart can get enough support to port games to intel X86 and to have big books created, but so far nothing to port the Amiga OS that has been sitting on hyperion shelves in their broom closet to the Intel architecture?  I am sure this has been discussed, but I have been out of the loop for a while.
Title: Re: Kickstart Amiga OS to Intel?
Post by: Oldsmobile_Mike on October 23, 2014, 02:56:39 AM
Isn't that basically what AROS is?
Title: Re: Kickstart Amiga OS to Intel?
Post by: Thorham on October 23, 2014, 06:04:56 AM
Quote from: WarPiper;775464
Just a thought here, why is it that kickstart can get enough support to port games to intel X86 and to have big books created, but so far nothing to port the Amiga OS that has been sitting on hyperion shelves in their broom closet to the Intel architecture?
Because most peecee users don't care about an old OS that doesn't let them run what they want. Can't say I blame them. Why would I use AmigaOs or a derivative on my peecee when even WinXP is already much better? I only use AOS because I like using my A1200 (there is some good software for it, though).
Title: Re: Kickstart Amiga OS to Intel?
Post by: ElPolloDiabl on October 23, 2014, 07:00:56 AM
AROS is what you would get anyway.

Here is a link to some software already available:

http://www.aros-platform.de/html/some_software.html (http://www.aros-platform.de/html/some_software.html)

There are game ports as well.
Title: Re: Kickstart Amiga OS to Intel?
Post by: guest11527 on October 23, 2014, 08:51:57 AM
Quote from: WarPiper;775464
Just a thought here, why is it that kickstart can get enough support to port games to intel X86 and to have big books created, but so far nothing to port the Amiga OS that has been sitting on hyperion shelves in their broom closet to the Intel architecture?  I am sure this has been discussed, but I have been out of the loop for a while.

In principle, the idea is fine, but it probably comes 15 years too late. Back then, the decision was made to move towards PPC - and I believe I already commented back then that this would be a bad choice. Now see, it was indeed a bad choice.

Anyhow, nowadays it would probably not make any difference. With funding money, AmigaOs sources could be used to help AROS to establish such an Os, which might probably find some users, or at least attract open source developers. It will remain a niche product for sure.

I personally see a much more realistic and useful future in FPGA emulations of the 68K and the Amiga custom chips, and for that AmigaOs sources would be more beneficial than for x86 rewrites. This is basically because existing applications - the few we have - run on 68K, and not much would be ported to x86 anyhow, so x86 would probably be not a "dead end", but at least a very slow going.
Title: Re: Kickstart Amiga OS to Intel?
Post by: Duce on October 23, 2014, 08:56:31 AM
Already got a plethora of AROS versions and emulation covers everything else.

Things like AmiKit take 5 minutes to install and setup and give you a super high end Amiga experience with all the compatibility you'd ever want.  I'm not sure what having OS4 or MOS ported to x86 would buy you over AROS or emulation.

I've never had much luck with AROS in the least, but I swear by Amikit.  I honestly consider it to be one of the best offerings we have at our disposal, it's just great.  It doesn't get 1% of the credit and applause that it should, IMO.
Title: Re: Kickstart Amiga OS to Intel?
Post by: kamelito on October 23, 2014, 12:44:25 PM
Quote from: Thomas Richter;775472
In principle, the idea is fine, but it probably comes 15 years too late. Back then, the decision was made to move towards PPC - and I believe I already commented back then that this would be a bad choice. Now see, it was indeed a bad choice.

Anyhow, nowadays it would probably not make any difference. With funding money, AmigaOs sources could be used to help AROS to establish such an Os, which might probably find some users, or at least attract open source developers. It will remain a niche product for sure.

I personally see a much more realistic and useful future in FPGA emulations of the 68K and the Amiga custom chips, and for that AmigaOs sources would be more beneficial than for x86 rewrites. This is basically because existing applications - the few we have - run on 68K, and not much would be ported to x86 anyhow, so x86 would probably be not a "dead end", but at least a very slow going.

IIRC Apple did have MAC OS for X86 in 1987 project STAR TREK from memory. Now they didn't switch until 2005/6. So it's never too late. When BeOS R5 made it's way to X86 they got a million download rapidly. Too bad the german company at the time didn't succeed on their vision to update it properly.

Kamelito
Title: Re: Kickstart Amiga OS to Intel?
Post by: wawrzon on October 23, 2014, 01:05:47 PM
Quote from: WarPiper;775464
Just a thought here, why is it that kickstart can get enough support to port games to intel X86 and to have big books created, but so far nothing to port the Amiga OS that has been sitting on hyperion shelves in their broom closet to the Intel architecture?  I am sure this has been discussed, but I have been out of the loop for a while.


you cannot kickstart something you have no right to. as others said ppc was a wrong choice to begin with. everybody least realistic has seen disaster come and jumped the ship. today someone with your pov has a choice to eiter support aros develoment or fpga develoment. or in particular aros68k development as it automatically contributes to amiga development, uae-amiga forever, aros in general and prepares the system and applications to run in upcomming fpga environments.