To all of you AmigaXL/Amithlon users

[Desolator]

"The trouble is that when you get "stalked" by people set to abuse you, including mid-night telephone calls, when your health and relationships start to suffer badly, you think twice if it's all worth it"

Argh, this makes me som angry! Here a nice person constructs a wonderful product that lots of people have need for, and some people just can't have it that way. I for sure stand on bernies side here, he shouldn't have it this way, he deserve so much more.

[ne_one]

@bhoggett

"It won't happen as long as Hyperion control the source code and the contracts. In order for it to happen, Amiga Inc would have to buy back the rights and the find someone to do the work. I wouldn't hold my breath..."

Eek... you mean the OS4 development is completely closed?

"Well, in the long term their x86 solution is supposed to be the mythical OS5 - although I suspect my kids will have grandchildren of their own before that becomes reality"

You are a dour one aren't you?  ;-)

"but nothing's going to happen unless Bernie feels he's clear of the c##p and free to release his product without his life being ripped apart"

Who exactly is holding Amithlon up anyway? Or at least, which components of the technology are in question?

"There's no point going into details if doing so will merely serve to stir up controversy."

True. But you're welcome to provide vaguely disguised hints of what you think would be viable.  :-D

[bhoggett]

@ne_one

Eek... you mean the OS4 development is completely closed?

Effectively yes, though you could mention some exceptions like Olaf's Roadshow TCP/IP stack. Other stuff, however, is excusively licensed to AmigaOS4, and Hyperion hold those contracts, not Amiga Inc.

You are a dour one aren't you?

When it comes to talk about OS5, yes. I have absolutely no confidence in their ability to deliver at all, never mind according to their laughable schedule.

Who exactly is holding Amithlon up anyway?

That one's easy: Haage & Partner and Harald Frank.

Or at least, which components of the technology are in question?

The original delay was about the P96 license. However, political and legal games have now made that issue almost irrelevant.

True. But you're welcome to provide vaguely disguised hints of what you think would be viable.

"Something in-between".

Make of that what you will.  :-P

[ne_one]

@bhoggett

"Effectively yes, though you could mention some exceptions like Olaf's Roadshow TCP/IP stack. Other stuff, however, is excusively licensed to AmigaOS4, and Hyperion hold those contracts, not Amiga Inc."

Interesting. It's now quite obvious that interest in the classic OS was an afterthought. One really has to wonder how OS5 could evolve without using OS4 as the foundation.

"That one's easy: Haage & Partner and Harald Frank."

So we can likely infer from this that the issue is not concerning Bernie and H&P but rather Amiga and H&P?

"'Something in-between'. Make of that what you will."

Hmm... a microwave that plays Planet Zed?  :-P

[Snuden]

With all the glowing user feedback I keep wondering why Bernie hasn't been retained to help write the native x86 version of the OS. According to the powers that be this is only 12 months away.

Bullshit! There is no x86 version of AmigaOS in development.

[bhoggett]

@ne_one

Interesting. It's now quite obvious that interest in the classic OS was an afterthought. One really has to wonder how OS5 could evolve without using OS4 as the foundation.

Don't ask me. I've no idea. As far as I can tell, the whole "project" is completely rudderless, heading wherever the prevailing wind gets to push it.

So we can likely infer from this that the issue is not concerning Bernie and H&P but rather Amiga and H&P?

No, that would be wrong. The dispute between H&P and Amiga Inc is a side issue.

Hmm... a microwave that plays Planet Zed?

Yea! How did you know?  :-o

(only joking. Thendic have got the rights to that one first!)

[ruben]

@Bill

This was probably asked before, but is it out of the question to do a PPC emulator for x86, and allow OS4 to be run the same way OS3 is run with Amithlon?

[ne_one]

I've seen this mentioned a number of times so I'm now curious: how exactly can you create x86-native versions of Amiga applications? Or am I misreading the claims of programs like fxPaint?

[bhoggett]

@ruben

This was probably asked before, but is it out of the question to do a PPC emulator for x86, and allow OS4 to be run the same way OS3 is run with Amithlon?

Yes, this has been raised before, ever since Amithlon was first released as it happens. The short answer is no, it's not going to happen because it's not viable. The reasons are technical, financial and probably political too. Careful scrutiny of the Amithlon mailing list will probably reveal a number of threads on this subject and Bernie's assessment of the situation.


@ne_one

I've seen this mentioned a number of times so I'm now curious: how exactly can you create x86-native versions of Amiga applications? Or am I misreading the claims of programs like fxPaint?

No, you're not misreading them. AFAIK, IOspirit are the only company so far to take advantage of this feature in commercial applications (fxScan and fxPaint). Then again, there haven't been that many commercial AmigaOS applications released in the last 12 months anyway - I guess everyone is waiting for AOS4.

Amithlon can run x86 ELF binaries. This is technically one of the nicest parts of Amithlon, because it works really well. There are basically two ways of doing this:

(a) you can produce code on Linux and then compile it to an x86 ELF object, then use a 68k AmigaOS program to call the x86 functions. Examples of how this is done are on the CD, including all needed headers etc. This is also how MagicMenu added Amithlon support in v2.34.

(b) you can use the GCC cross compiler in x86 Linux (by Martin Blom) or in 68k AmigaOS (Jens Langner) to compile the programs to x86 code rather than 68k code. Endian issues are handled automatically. To run these, you either supply the program name as an argument to a loader program called run_elf, or better still, use run_elf to patch the system so that the x86 programs are run transparently. You can make calls from the x86 program to 68k library functions as normal. I've been able to recompile some simple examples of 68k code from the RKMs to x86 without changing anything at all, and then ran them successfully.

Basically, if your code compiles with GCC, it's not a tricky task. If it's SAS/C or DICE etc, then it needs to be converted to compile with GCC first, which can be messy.

DISCLAIMER: I've REALLY oversimplified what happens above, but I don't think this forum is the best place for details. There's an Amithlon developer list at this URL which, although extremely quiet lately, would be the best place for such questions. Suffice to say that "yes, Amithlon does run x86 code transparently from AmigaOS".

[ne_one]

@bhoggett

"Amithlon can run x86 ELF binaries. This is technically one of the nicest parts of Amithlon, because it works really well."

Excellent summary for the uninitiated like myself.

I'll have to dig deeper, but one quick question comes to mind: is the ELF binary format supported on other platforms as well? ie. can you generate ELF binaries under x86 and then run them on 68k or PPC platforms?

Another architectural question also intrigues me. As I understand it, Amithlon uses the Linux kernal for bootstrapping and for system/process management. Is only the kernal employed or is X-11 utilitized for rendering?

[Balti]

@ne_one

".elf" is just a common format for storing binaries which are
still x86,PPC or even 68k.

But since most of that stuff is done with gcc, it should be just
a matter of 3 compiler-runs instead of 1.

No X11 is used, but (accelerated) framebuffer-drivers in the kernel.