Amiga.org
Amiga computer related discussion => General chat about Amiga topics => Topic started by: Ral-Clan on August 03, 2008, 01:37:30 PM
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A toast to my trusty old A2500 (R.I.P.) which served me well for 12 years as the centre of my home music recording setup. This week a cascading failure beginning in the A2091 lead to the death of the card, a CD burner and hard drive.
I knew this day would eventually come. It will take much work to get the setup back to where I initially had it. Even then, due to the age of the hardware, it could fail again at any moment.
Just an encouragement to those who are developing the Natami and A-Clone. We desperately need fresh, healthy new Amiga clone hardware, soon. Emulation is great, but for doing MIDI work where timing is everything, running straight on native hardware just can't be beat.
I'll buy the first clone that can reliable meet or exceed the capabilities of my old A2000/040/32MB RAM.
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ral-clan wrote:
Emulation is great, but for doing MIDI work where timing is everything, running straight on native hardware just can't be beat.
I'll buy the first clone that can reliable meet or exceed the capabilities of my old A2000/040/32MB RAM.
MIDI is VERY sloppy, the cheapest new PC you can buy would easily run WinUAE and any MIDI software you have perfectly... I know because I've been doing that for 8 years...
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@bloodline
I know because I've been doing that for 8 years...
being sloppy? :-P
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weirdami wrote:
@bloodline
I know because I've been doing that for 8 years...
being sloppy? :-P
I've been sloppy a lot longer than 8 year :-D
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I'm not sure what you mean exactly when you state that "MIDI is sloppy". Do you mean that MIDI is a very loose format, so it doesn't matter what you run it on? Or are you saying that MIDI under Amiga Emulation on a PC is so sloppy in timing that it's crap?
What MIDI software are you running in UAE on the PC? How is the timing via the MIDI port? What sort of PC MIDI interface are you using (game port? USB) that works with Amiga emulation?
I want to be able to run Bars & Pipes and OctaMED, mainly, as good as they run on a real Amiga.
Just as an aside. Can you run Amiga MIDI apps under emulation and have them run in sync with PC multi-tracking apps? i.e. use Bars & Pipes in UAE and have ProTools running on the PC side, and have the two sync up?
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ral-clan wrote:
I'm not sure what you mean exactly when you state that "MIDI is sloppy". Do you mean that MIDI is a very loose format, so it doesn't matter what you run it on? Or are you saying that MIDI under Amiga Emulation on a PC is so sloppy in timing that it's crap?
What MIDI software are you running in UAE on the PC? How is the timing via the MIDI port? What sort of PC MIDI interface are you using (game port? USB) that works with Amiga emulation?
I want to be able to run Bars & Pipes and OctaMED, mainly, as good as they run on a real Amiga.
Just as an aside. Can you run Amiga MIDI apps under emulation and have them run in sync with PC multi-tracking apps? i.e. use Bars & Pipes in UAE and have ProTools running on the PC side, and have the two sync up?
MIDI is very low frequency, and has serious lag in long MIDI chains... so it will work find even on quite bad emulation.
I used a MIDI loopback so I could use OctaMED in WinUAE an loop it back into Various soft synths I had running in Windows.
It's quite easy and fun to do, have a go :-)
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Some people just want to do it with real amiga ;)emulation is great thing but it's not like real thing.
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utri007 wrote:
Some people just want to do it with real amiga ;)emulation is great thing but it's not like real thing.
Natami, CloneA and MiniMig are not real amigas...
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>>Natami, CloneA and MiniMig are not real amigas...
And who says so?
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TheDaddy wrote:
>>Natami, CloneA and MiniMig are not real amigas...
And who says so?
In the case of both MiniMig and Natami, their creators do (I've never heard of CloneA).
Quite frankly, the creators of these devices are in the best position to state whether or not they are "real" amigas I would think.
MiniMig is a hardware emulation, for all intents and purposes (and please, I mean no disrespect to the chap who created it) it is UAE on a chip.
Natami as I understand it is basically the same principle as the minimig, but with support for AGA coded into it, as well as a AAA style update for the chipset.
By no definition I know of (given their respective creators words on the matter if nothing else), could these two projects be called "real" amigas, since everything is being done by an emulator coded into an fpga.
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TheDaddy wrote:
>>Natami, CloneA and MiniMig are not real amigas...
And who says so?
Anyone with a clue?
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>>In the case of both MiniMig and Natami, their creators do (I've never heard of CloneA).
That doesn't mean it can not be considered a real Amiga.
What is a real Amiga?
Is a real Amiga anything that has an Amiga name printed on it?
Is a real Amiga anything that bears the Commodore name on it?
Is a real Amiga any portable device that says Amiga on it?
Is an Amiga a device powered by just the Amiga OS?
Would you call a pc an Amiga if it was running Amiga OS?
If Commodore were still around (not bust and etc.) and they released the Minimig or the Natami under the Amiga 550 and Amiga 7000 names and they didn't tell you these new machines were using FPGA, would we still be here discussing if they are REAL Amigas or not?
If Amiga Inc. had licensed the name to the Minimig and Natami creators what would you call them?
Nonsense.
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TheDaddy wrote:
>>In the case of both MiniMig and Natami, their creators do (I've never heard of CloneA).
That doesn't mean it can not be considered a real Amiga.
What is a real Amiga?
Is a real Amiga anything that has an Amiga name printed on it?
Is a real Amiga anything that bears the Commodore name on it?
Is a real Amiga any portable device that says Amiga on it?
Is an Amiga a device powered by just the Amiga OS?
Would you call a pc an Amiga if it was running Amiga OS?
If Commodore were still around (not bust and etc.) and they released the Minimig or the Natami under the Amiga 550 and Amiga 7000 names and they didn't tell you these new machines were using FPGA, would we still be here discussing it they are REAL Amigas or not?
If Amiga Inc. had licensed the name to the Minimig and Natami creators what would you call them?
Nonsense.
Amiga Hardware is hardware based on the designs of the Original Amiga chipset.
The FPGA projects are new circuit designs which look to software like the Original Amiga chips... In much the same way as an Emulator looks like Amiga Hardware to Amiga Software.
-Edit- CloneA would be the closest to the real Amiga chips since that actually try to get the Amiga Chip timing right as well, and thus would look like Amiga Hardware to other Amiga hardware.
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>>Amiga Hardware is hardware based on the designs of the Original Amiga chipset.
The FPGA projects are new circuit designs which look to software like the Original Amiga chips... In much the same way as an Emulator looks like Amiga Hardware to Amiga Software.
So what?
It's the year 2005 Commodore are still around and they are planning a small, Amiga 500/600 compatible machine with PS/2, SD-Card, VGA support and they name it the Amiga 550.
It is released using fpga technology because it makes economic sense.
So we have the Amiga 550 (Minimig) by Commodore. Is this a "real" Amiga?
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"By no definition I know of (given their respective creators words on the matter if nothing else), could these two projects be called "real" amigas, since everything is being done by an emulator coded into an fpga."
It's not really an "emulator" in the sense of UAE at least, which is software running a close approximation to the original hardware on another cpu. The FPGA designs are actually copies of the original hardware.An FPGA is a big bunch of gates which have the same function as the original chips in the Amiga. The firmware wires these up to create hardware which could be identical to the original design (assuming no bugs). Electrically, in theory, you couldn't tell the difference between the original Amiga and a perfect FPGA copy - it would be the same design.
Sometimes when we design custom chips nowadays we take the source design that will be made into the chip and run it up on a really big FPGA to find any problems before we make it. The FPGA and the custom chip are the same design - ok, the FPGA is a lot more expensive and runs slower. Technology has moved forward so much since the Amiga was made we can now put all the original hardware in a modern FPGA and run it much faster and add extra features. It will be possible to run the 68000 softcore much faster than the original, how fast I don't know yet, but 50MHz plus should be no problem.
Mike.
www.fpgaarcade.com
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TheDaddy wrote:
>>Amiga Hardware is hardware based on the designs of the Original Amiga chipset.
The FPGA projects are new circuit designs which look to software like the Original Amiga chips... In much the same way as an Emulator looks like Amiga Hardware to Amiga Software.
So what?
It's the year 2005 Commodore are still around and they are planning a small, Amiga 500/600 compatible machine with PS/2, SD-Card, VGA support and they name it the Amiga 550.
It is released using fpga technology because it makes economic sense.
So we have the Amiga 550 (Minimig) by Commodore. Is this a "real" Amiga?
How is it any different to running UAE?
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mikej wrote:
"By no definition I know of (given their respective creators words on the matter if nothing else), could these two projects be called "real" amigas, since everything is being done by an emulator coded into an fpga."
It's not really an "emulator" in the sense of UAE at least, which is software running a close approximation to the original hardware on another cpu. The FPGA designs are actually copies of the original hardware.An FPGA is a big bunch of gates which have the same function as the original chips in the Amiga. The firmware wires these up to create hardware which could be identical to the original design (assuming no bugs). Electrically, in theory, you couldn't tell the difference between the original Amiga and a perfect FPGA copy - it would be the same design.
Sometimes when we design custom chips nowadays we take the source design that will be made into the chip and run it up on a really big FPGA to find any problems before we make it. The FPGA and the custom chip are the same design - ok, the FPGA is a lot more expensive and runs slower. Technology has moved forward so much since the Amiga was made we can now put all the original hardware in a modern FPGA and run it much faster and add extra features. It will be possible to run the 68000 softcore much faster than the original, how fast I don't know yet, but 50MHz plus should be no problem.
No one has the original chip designs anymore, so the FPGA Amigas are workalikes, they do not behave exactly as the original chips.
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>>FPGA Amigas are workalikes, they do not behave exactly as the original chips.
I would say that they can be an improvement of the original chipset. I would even go further and say an evolution.
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TheDaddy wrote:
>>FPGA Amigas are workalikes, they do not behave exactly as the original chips.
I would say that they can be an improvement of the original chipset. I would even go further and say an evolution.
UAE is an evolution too... Cheaper, more compatible and more configurable.
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This discussion takes me back to the old "Is Amithlon/Amiga OS XL/WinUAE an Amiga?" and my favourite "What makes an Amiga?"
:-)
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TheDaddy wrote:
This discussion takes me back to the old "Is Amithlon/Amiga OS XL/WinUAE an Amiga?" and my favourite "What makes an Amiga?"
:-)
Hmmm... yes, maybe.
But on a serious note, and what I was trying to get across to the OP, was that Emulation will work fine for his needs.
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"No one has the original chip designs anymore, so the FPGA Amigas are workalikes, they do not behave exactly as the original chips. "
True, but they will be much closer than a software emulation. It is possible to get exact behaviour by running the FPGA core against a real custom and looking for any differences. This is what I've been doing with the Atari chips and will do for the Amiga customs. In this way you can prove the chips behave identically to the originals for all the stuff you have tried, demos, games etc.
If somebody wants to throw money at the problem it is very possible to reverse engineer the logic by examination of a real chip - you scan the chip, strip off the metal layer and repeat. These chips are old so the feature size is large, but it's still expensive.
But, you are right, software emulation is good enough for most things.
/Mike
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mikej wrote:
"No one has the original chip designs anymore, so the FPGA Amigas are workalikes, they do not behave exactly as the original chips. "
True, but they will be much closer than a software emulation. It is possible to get exact behaviour by running the FPGA core against a real custom and looking for any differences. This is what I've been doing with the Atari chips and will do for the Amiga customs. In this way you can prove the chips behave identically to the originals for all the stuff you have tried, demos, games etc.
If somebody wants to throw money at the problem it is very possible to reverse engineer the logic by examination of a real chip - you scan the chip, strip off the metal layer and repeat. These chips are old so the feature size is large, but it's still expensive.
But, you are right, software emulation is good enough for most things.
/Mike
Ok, I guess you are unaware of the projects...
MiniMig just looks like Amiga for software, that's how Dennis made it. He made no effort to recreate the chips, only to get the software to work.
NetAmi, hasn't been finished and the project developers are not looking for cycle accuracy here... so that will be similar to MiniMig.
CloneA, was built to be cycle accurate. Logic Analyzers were used to to ensure that the FPGAs not only perform the same function but timing is perfect too. This is the closest we will ever get to the Original Amiga. But the DACs are not the same old 80s tech, so the gfx and audio output will be different, subtly...
WinUAE is by far the most accurate and configurable Amiga recreation possible. I can adjust all the settings to match any of my real Amigas. I have software that will work on one model of Amiga and not on another... UAE will run all the software...
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Ya know, I was going to let this one slide and leave it to bloodline, but ya know, I've had a crap day and you're it.
TheDaddy wrote:
>>In the case of both MiniMig and Natami, their creators do (I've never heard of CloneA).
That doesn't mean it can not be considered a real Amiga.
Which part of, it's an emulation done in hardware was not clear?
TheDaddy wrote:
What is a real Amiga?
From Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiga):
The Amiga is a family of personal computers originally developed by Amiga Corporation. Development on the Amiga began in 1982 with Jay Miner as the principal hardware designer. Commodore International bought Amiga Corporation and introduced the machine to the market in 1985. The name Amiga was chosen by the developers specifically from the Spanish and Portuguese word for a female friend,[1] and because it occurred before Apple and Atari alphabetically.
TheDaddy wrote:
If Commodore were still around
They're not so the rest of your point is moot. The Commodore name lives on, and produces a very nice set of PCs. End of.
TheDaddy wrote:
If Amiga Inc. had licensed the name to the Minimig and Natami creators what would you call them?
An idea so fundamentally above the capacity of the current name holders that it too is a moot point since it'll never happen.
TheDaddy wrote:
Nonsense.
Funny, I was thinking just the same.
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I am aware of the on-going work, and I agree UAE is accurate and configurable.
Personally I want an expandable hardware system which is accurate enough to run the software I wish to. True, the FPGA designs will be approximations to the original hardware, but with effort they can be extremely close. Logic analysis helps, but it only verifies what you capture. By running the two chips in lock step you can verify function and timing.
The Atari custom chips I have been working on are gate level accurate. (I am an ASIC designer by trade).
At the end of the day, I think expandability is more important that complete compatibility, it's sort of fun to add hardware features we all wished were there from the start. Ok, you can do this in the software emulator, but it's a bit more real when it's a small board sitting on your desk?
Best,
/Mike
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mikej wrote:
I am aware of the on-going work, and I agree UAE is accurate and configurable.
Personally I want an expandable hardware system which is accurate enough to run the software I wish to. True, the FPGA designs will be approximations to the original hardware, but with effort they can be extremely close. Logic analysis helps, but it only verifies what you capture. By running the two chips in lock step you can verify function and timing.
The CloneA Aims for this, and as such is the most accurate of the Hardware clones. If Jens ever finishes it, I'll get one :-)
The Atari custom chips I have been working on are gate level accurate. (I am an ASIC designer by trade).
Forgive me, but the Atari chips were quite a bit simpler than the Amiga ones.
At the end of the day, I think expandability is more important that complete compatibility, it's sort of fun to add hardware features we all wished were there from the start. Ok, you can do this in the software emulator, but it's a bit more real when it's a small board sitting on your desk?
If I want expandability then I'm going software. If I buy a piece of hardware it has to be able to replace my real A1200, one for one (but offer VGA out, and PS/2 or USB ports, etc).
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"Forgive me, but the Atari chips were quite a bit simpler than the Amiga ones."
yes, that's why I started with them :)
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bloodline wrote:
Hmmm... yes, maybe.
But on a serious note, and what I was trying to get across to the OP, was that Emulation will work fine for his needs.
I have tried OctaMED on WinUAE (moderate 2.4 GHz PIV on Windows XP) in different configurations and it never ever felt about the same as when running OctaMED on a 25 MHz 68040 equipped A3000. So WinUAE to me doesn't quite do the job. Which brings back an old question I had: How is OctaMED behaving on the MiniMIG?
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amiga_3k wrote:
bloodline wrote:
Hmmm... yes, maybe.
But on a serious note, and what I was trying to get across to the OP, was that Emulation will work fine for his needs.
I have tried OctaMED on WinUAE (moderate 2.4 GHz PIV on Windows XP) in different configurations and it never ever felt about the same as when running OctaMED on a 25 MHz 68040 equipped A3000. So WinUAE to me doesn't quite do the job. Which brings back an old question I had: How is OctaMED behaving on the MiniMIG?
I agree, I also had problems with with a 3.0Ghz Pentium4 (I think that had a weird timers as I would always get stuttering)... but my Athlons and MacBook Pros always worked fine :-)
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the_leander wrote:
By no definition I know of (given their respective creators words on the matter if nothing else), could these two projects be called "real" amigas, since everything is being done by an emulator coded into an fpga.
You need to understand what an FPGA is before you say something like that. It's basically a huge pile of chips on solderless breadboards with a huge pile of wires to make the interconnects. The design software lets you specify how those chips are interconnected. Nothing is "emulated" unless you build a cpu on the FPGA and do emulation with it. (The port of Minimig to the Altera DE1/2 boards does this for the PIC processor - replacing it with a soft Z80.
The best comparison I can think of is that the minimig, and it's cousins are like the Amiga Lorraine prototype- where the custom silicon was implemented with hard wired low level gates.... It's just that the FPGA makes that process faster & smaller.
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JimS wrote:
the_leander wrote:
By no definition I know of (given their respective creators words on the matter if nothing else), could these two projects be called "real" amigas, since everything is being done by an emulator coded into an fpga.
You need to understand what an FPGA is before you say something like that. It's basically a huge pile of chips on solderless breadboards with a huge pile of wires to make the interconnects. The design software lets you specify how those chips are interconnected. Nothing is "emulated" unless you build a cpu on the FPGA and do emulation with it. (The port of Minimig to the Altera DE1/2 boards does this for the PIC processor - replacing it with a soft Z80.
The best comparison I can think of is that the minimig, and it's cousins are like the Amiga Lorraine prototype- where the custom silicon was implemented with hard wired low level gates.... It's just that the FPGA makes that process faster & smaller.
If the reimplementations in the FPGA were gate level accurate, to the Original Chips, I would agree.
But they are not.
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bloodline wrote:
If the reimplementations in the FPGA were gate level accurate, to the Original Chips, I would agree.
But they are not.
The accuracy of the reimplementation in the FPGA doesn't have anything to do with whether the minimig & friends should be called "emulators" or "clones", "reimplementations" or what have you. It's the technology being used that I'm quibbling about.
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JimS wrote:
bloodline wrote:
If the reimplementations in the FPGA were gate level accurate, to the Original Chips, I would agree.
But they are not.
The accuracy of the reimplementation in the FPGA doesn't have anything to do with whether the minimig & friends should be called "emulators" or "clones", "reimplementations" or what have you. It's the technology being used that I'm quibbling about.
Ok fine. We can call it Brian if you like :-) But that doesn't make Hardware clone of an Amiga more or less accurate than Software clone of a Amiga. Some people get confused by that simple point.
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bloodline wrote:
utri007 wrote:
Some people just want to do it with real amiga ;)emulation is great thing but it's not like real thing.
Natami, CloneA and MiniMig are not real amigas...
In other news.... AROS and Morphos are not Amiga OS!
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JimS wrote:
You need to understand what an FPGA is before you say something like that.
I know full well what an FPGA is, I also know full well what an emulator is and how the Amiga chipset is handled by the code in the two projects I have knowledge of.
I see you've got your "talk down to the prole" routine down pat, it won't work.
JimS wrote:
Nothing is "emulated" unless you build a cpu on the FPGA and do emulation with it.
Now you're getting into a pretty petty semantic arguement that you yourself just blew away..., because by your previous explanation of "how an FPGA works" it's doing exactly the same in both examples cited, only the target chip is different, so, if one is emulation, they both are because the same thing is being done.
Game, set, match.
For future reference: To emulate (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/emulate?r=14).
Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1) - Cite This Source - Share This em·u·late Audio Help [v. em-yuh-leyt; adj. em-yuh-lit] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation verb, -lat·ed, -lat·ing, adjective –verb (used with object)
1. to try to equal or excel; imitate with effort to equal or surpass: to emulate one's father as a concert violinist.
2. to rival with some degree of success: Some smaller cities now emulate the major capitals in their cultural offerings.
3. Computers.
a. to imitate (a particular computer system) by using a software system, often including a microprogram or another computer that enables it to do the same work, run the same programs, etc., as the first.
b. to replace (software) with hardware to perform the same task.
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bloodline wrote:
Ok fine. We can call it Brian if you like :-) But that doesn't make Hardware clone of an Amiga more or less accurate than Software clone of a Amiga. Some people get confused by that simple point.
No argument from me... Of course it's possible for a good software clone to be more accurate than a given hardware clone. Like I said I was quibbling about the terminology. UAE- software, Minimig & similar, hardware.
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@bloodline:
UAE is an software emulation. And software just won't get it cycle exact to realtime. And for some applications software emulation won't cut it.
@mikej:
As for 68000 softcore, someone mentioned a successfull run at 27 MHz. Maybe we can go higher with optimization.
I agree with mikej that expandability is desireable. However I think the real point is that of ral-clan "We desperately need fresh, healthy new Amiga clone hardware, soon.". And this re-implementation should occour before hardware to replicate is all non functional.
The second goal should be to eliminate any dependency of companies or persons that goes out of business etc.. A tarball of HDL sources won't "die" like physical hardware can.
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freqmax wrote:
@bloodline:
UAE is an software emulation. And software just won't get it cycle exact to realtime. And for some applications software emulation won't cut it.
It can't? I would appreciate a list of these applications. Cheers.
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This thread is so silly.
The original Amiga boards were huge as doors before they were shrinked and fabricated.
1) This shrinkage changed the speed of the original chips by laws of physics.
This equals not cycle exact.
2) from OCS to AGA the design changed again, speeds changed again, design changed for 32 bit support.
This equals cycle change again.
3) Every Amiga model that has different cpu is not cycle exact, this is by design.
The original Amigas were software simulations on mainframes, then went hardware.
FPGA to hardware is the same process, we dont even know if Commodore developers used FPGAs later, it was all secret.
There is no such thing as cycle exact, its just marketing hype.
IF hardware can run Amiga OS and Amiga programs the same way as Commodore Amiga then its Amiga. Simple as that.
Come on ppl the original dream for Amiga was to have Amiga software running everywhere, whatever way possible.
Software, hardware, simulation, emulation its all Amiga.
Has everyone forgot ? Resistance is Futile.
We are all Amigans, the more different hardware the better, not arguing authenticity, speed,
measuring xxxx size.
Work together and build or work against and destroy.
Look within yourself and decide which are you.
Blue camp red camp its all stupid grow up its All Amiga, we should be sharing code, apps and knowledge not keeping it for my system only.
Aslong as it works with Amiga software its a plus for Amiga.
Simply put, do you actually think a normal user cares what hardware it is ?
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@asymetrix,
A fellow voice of reason in the Amiga wilderness.
Good luck getting much agreement! :lol:
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i have to double asymetrix (in most points) and amigadave (f' course). i think some members here have some sunday evening trauma. i was seeing this forum ystrday late night and this thread was baybe 5 posts long @ best and now its like 50 already!!! it is not even 8 in the morning in united europe!!! no normal thread is growing that fast, not even on amiga forums, tis more like cancer. and what u ppl discuss are mere semantics. i say, u got some serious time to waste, get a life and wait until natami or a.clone will ever become reality if ever.
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>>Ya know, I was going to let this one slide and leave it to bloodline, but ya know, I've had a crap day and you're it.
I would advise a beer after a crap day or a cold shower. :-)
>>Which part of, it's an emulation done in hardware was not clear?
I leave that to be explained by someone more technical than me. To me the Minimig and Natami are real Amigas, just because the timings aren't "perfect" means little. The Minimig isn't a perfect clone, I see it as an improved A500.
>>The Amiga is a family of personal computers originally developed by Amiga Corporation. Development on the Amiga began in 1982 with Jay Miner as the principal hardware designer. Commodore International bought Amiga Corporation and introduced the machine to the market in 1985. The name Amiga was chosen by the developers specifically from the Spanish and Portuguese word for a female friend,[1] and because it occurred before Apple and Atari alphabetically.
So anything that isn't within that definition is not an Amiga? So Amiga Inc. release a new motherboard (made with fpga bits or new custom chips) with OS4.1 and stick an Amiga logo on it and according to your explanation this would not be an Amiga?
LOL!
>>Commodore are not around so the rest of your point is moot. The Commodore name lives on, and produces a very nice set of PCs. End of.
So everything ended with Commodore? So following your argument Amiga ended when Commodore went bust. Amiga is dead. LOL!:-)
>>An idea so fundamentally above the capacity of the current name holders that it too is a moot point since it'll never happen.
How do you know? Also let's assume Amiga Inc. DID licence the Amiga name to Dennis and the Natami team, would you still say they are NOT REAL Amigas?
So basically what you are telling us is: "A real Amiga can only be called such if it has custom chipsets designed by either Jay Miner (he is not with us anymore unfortunately) or by any ex-Commodore engineers running Amiga OS", which version I can't say because I am not sure if you consider anything after OS3.0 being REAL Amiga OS.
Sorry to brings this up but those times have long gone, there is no research facility anymore, no more huge sums of money to play with, it's all gone, the only dedicated hardware engineers left are right here on this forum, and they have my full respect.
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>>This thread is so silly.
Agreed! :-)
>>The original Amiga boards were huge as doors before they were shrinked and fabricated.
Correct.
>>1) This shrinkage changed the speed of the original chips by laws of physics.
This equals not cycle exact.
Correct.
>>2) from OCS to AGA the design changed again, speeds changed again, design changed for 32 bit support.
This equals cycle change again.
Correct.
>>3) Every Amiga model that has different cpu is not cycle exact, this is by design.
Correct and let me add to this that if we wanted to consider the Minimig/Natami NOT REAL Amigas then becasue of the difference between the various Amiga models (500, 500+, 1200 etc...) they should also NOT be called real Amigas, this is madness! :-)
>>There is no such thing as cycle exact, its just marketing hype. IF hardware can run Amiga OS and Amiga programs the same way as Commodore Amiga then its Amiga. Simple as that.
The voice of reason! :-)
>>Software, hardware, simulation, emulation its all Amiga.
Agree. Hardware purism would be wonderful but it is not practical/economical and probably it won't happen, ever.
>>Work together and build or work against and destroy.
I also would like to say:" Thank (put your favourite god in this space) that we have people like Dennis, mikej, The Natami Team, I won't include myself I am just a designer not a hardware engineer :-) for giving us more new hardware, something to play with, a hope, keep a dream alive and most important spending/wasting your precious time on this community. Thank you guys! :-)
>>Simply put, do you actually think a normal user cares what hardware it is ?
No! No one, apart from the purists hardcore ones, gives a crap, look at the Mac users, it looked like the world was at an end when Apple switched to Intel chips, a couple of years later everyone is happier than ever!
:-)
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The level of ignorance in this has become too great not to address.
Here's a few words of advice for those of you who lack technical knowledge.
Think before you post. Formulate a response, try and establish the point you want to make. You need to make sure that know why you are posting.
Now head over to Google and try and learn a little about the issues involved. Don't for get Wikipedia, which should be your first port of call after reading any post by a member who clearly has more experience with any given topic.
Now, just go back, edit your post appologize for wasting people's time and enjoy the learning experience.
Back on topic, since a number of posters seem to have missed my post on the subject... A Hardware clone of the Amiga is inherently no better or worse than a Software clone. BUT we are in a situation where the Software clone (UAE) is MUCH more mature, and thus compatible than even the most mature of the Hardware clones, MiniMig.
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@bloodline
Yes, UAE is fast and very compatible, but you have to run it on top of windows/linux/morphos etc. With hardware you can boot straight to the system we all love.
If you are happy to use UAE as your primary Amiga, it's fine for me and I suppose that it's fine for everyone else too, but some of us want to have new hardware dedicated only for Amiga and you shouldn't have any objections against that.
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Jakodemus wrote:
@bloodline
Yes, UAE is fast and very compatible, but you have to run it on top of windows/linux/morphos etc. With hardware you can boot straight to the system we all love.
With a minimal Linux set up or Amithlon... you would never know the difference.
If you are happy to use UAE as your primary Amiga, it's fine for me and I suppose that it's fine for everyone else too, but some of us want to have new hardware dedicated only for Amiga and you shouldn't have any objections against that.
Find one objection from me regarding the Hardware clones. You'll find none, in fact I would like to get one, I just wish people who don't understand anything would stop banging on that Hardware Amiga clones are inherently better than software! Also if they could stop posting tenchnical nonsense as fact that would cheer me up too.
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>>The level of ignorance in this has become too great not to address.
I think you are getting a bit too excited about nothing. :-)
>>Think before you post. Formulate a response, try and establish the point you want to make. You need to make sure that know why you are posting.
I am finding your comments a bit offensive may I say. We are all free to express our opinion even without technical knowledge, at least not until a fascist regime comes in telling us what to do.
>>Now, just go back, edit your post appologize for wasting people's time and enjoy the learning experience.
Why? How obnoxious, please spread your infinite knowledge over us ignorant, little people. I think you might need a lesson in modesty.
>>A Hardware clone of the Amiga is inherently no better or worse than a Software clone. BUT we are in a situation where the Software clone (UAE) is MUCH more mature, and thus compatible than even the most mature of the Hardware clones, MiniMig.
I was mainly arguing the point that someone said that the Minimig/Natami are NOT an Amiga, now mature or not it's not the case, let's not try and change the discussion. I clearly, and others, proved that anything running Amiga OS and applications can be called an Amiga.
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>>Find one objection from me regarding the Hardware clones. You'll find none, in fact I would like to get one, I just wish people who don't understand anything would stop banging on that Hardware Amiga clones are inherently better than software! Also if they could stop posting tenchnical nonsense as fact that would cheer me up too.
I believe you said that Minimig/Natami are not real Amigas, that is all I am trying to defend. As for whether an hardware clone is better than software emulation I don't care but I know that I prefer having a new piece of hardware (Minimig/Natami) rather than a pc running UAE just because I like the effort put into this by Amiga developers.
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@bloodline
I am not arguing whether UAE is better or not than Minimig/Natami, I am not arguing that and I am not interested in it.
I am just defending the accusation that Minimig/Natami are not real Amigas.
A real Amiga is very hard to define, as we know, many threads have failed in this.
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Blimey, I never realised that there was Turing-type test for what was a 'real' Amiga and what was not, I have to thank the fanboi trolls on here for making me aware of this fact....
If it runs Amiga software, it's an Amiga, if it's hardware or not, the rest is just semantics.
The hardware purists need to realise that is isn't 1988 any more, you can't get the original hardware, so if you replicate it in another chip, what's the problem?
The software purists, ditto to the above. If you couldn't tell by looking at the screen and using the mouse etc, it's an Amiga, isn't it?
Also, if you replicate the Amiga chipset and add "AGA with knobs on" like Natami are planning, how can you claim it's an Amiga, since you have modified it? If I mod my A1200 by adding an IDEFix and a laptop DVD/CD drive, is it still an Amiga?
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>>Blimey, I never realised that there was Turing-type test for what was a 'real' Amiga and what was not, I have to thank the fanboi trolls on here for making me aware of this fact....
:-)
>>If it runs Amiga software, it's an Amiga, if it's hardware or not, the rest is just semantics.
The hardware purists need to realise that is isn't 1988 any more, you can't get the original hardware, so if you replicate it in another chip, what's the problem?
Thank you! I couldn't have put it better! :-)
>>Also, if you replicate the Amiga chipset and add "AGA with knobs on" like Natami are planning, how can you claim it's an Amiga, since you have modified it? If I mod my A1200 by adding an IDEFix and a laptop DVD/CD drive, is it still an Amiga?
Agree on everything you say. Is a pumped up A1200 with Mediator and PCI cards (from the pc world) still an Amiga?
To me the Natami/Minimigs are real Amigas.
Just be thankful that someone is sweating on these pieces of hardware for everyone to enjoy.
Thanks WotTheFook :-)
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TheDaddy wrote:
>>Which part of, it's an emulation done in hardware was not clear?
I leave that to be explained by someone more technical than me. To me the Minimig and Natami are real Amigas, just because the timings aren't "perfect" means little. The Minimig isn't a perfect clone, I see it as an improved A500.
The end result might well be an improved A500, but that doesn't change the fact that it is essentially still a hardware based emulation. At best you could call it a clone, which is in no way a bad thing, as it happens.
TheDaddy wrote:
>>The Amiga is a family of personal computers originally developed by Amiga Corporation. Development on the Amiga began in 1982 with Jay Miner as the principal hardware designer. Commodore International bought Amiga Corporation and introduced the machine to the market in 1985. The name Amiga was chosen by the developers specifically from the Spanish and Portuguese word for a female friend,[1] and because it occurred before Apple and Atari alphabetically.
So anything that isn't within that definition is not an Amiga? So Amiga Inc. release a new motherboard (made with fpga bits or new custom chips) with OS4.1 and stick an Amiga logo on it and according to your explanation this would not be an Amiga?
LOL!
I wouldn't call an AmigaOne an amiga, no. As for OS4.1, never used it, so couldn't say. OS4 looked pretty, but seemed very unstable on all the different hardware types I tried it on.
I wouldn't call a PC running Amithlon running an Amiga either, yet the net result would be the same - seemless operation of the AmigaOS and its software library running at stupidly fast speeds.
TheDaddy wrote:
>>Commodore are not around so the rest of your point is moot. The Commodore name lives on, and produces a very nice set of PCs. End of.
So everything ended with Commodore? So following your argument Amiga ended when Commodore went bust. Amiga is dead. LOL!:-)
The Amiga line of computers did yes, there were however many clone attempts, a few of which actually made it out of the door, but most never left the paper they were drawn up on.
TheDaddy wrote:
>>An idea so fundamentally above the capacity of the current name holders that it too is a moot point since it'll never happen.
How do you know? Also let's assume Amiga Inc. DID licence the Amiga name to Dennis and the Natami team, would you still say they are NOT REAL Amigas?
I know because I've watched them since the beginning, I've watched them lie, steal and beg, I've watched them burn through venture capital like it was going out of fashion and not a single worthwhile product get released.
As for your point, I'd say it is far closer to the original Amiga both in intent and execution (hell, having gone over the site again recently I'd argue it was more of a Nyx clone on acid then anything we mere mortals ever got our mitts on, but there you go), but no more a real Amiga then Amithlon was. That said, it would however be completely impossible to tell the difference beyond the rather obvious speed bump such a system would provide.
TheDaddy wrote:
So basically what you are telling us is: "A real Amiga can only be called such if it has custom chipsets designed by either Jay Miner (he is not with us anymore unfortunately) or by any ex-Commodore engineers running Amiga OS", which version I can't say because I am not sure if you consider anything after OS3.0 being REAL Amiga OS.
Sorry to brings this up but those times have long gone, there is no research facility anymore, no more huge sums of money to play with, it's all gone, the only dedicated hardware engineers left are right here on this forum, and they have my full respect.
Actually Amiga.Inc had stacks of cash, they frittered it away and produced.... nothing.
The original Amiga was both a revolution to the computer industry and a revelation to those who used them, those days are gone. NatAmi it has to be said is imho what the AmigaOne should have been from the beginning. That they aren't originals is by no means meant as an insult, as Bloodline said wrt Amithlon - you would never tell the difference, I suspect the same would likely be true of a NatAmi, they're both brilliant ideas and Amithlon was outstanding in its execution.
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>>The end result might well be an improved A500, but that doesn't change the fact that it is essentially still a hardware based emulation. At best you could call it a clone, which is in no way a bad thing, as it happens.
I can't comment on that, I don't really know how the Minimig works, the fact remains that I can run my favourite games on it, Workbench and it was made from scratch by an Amigan, this is enough for me to call it a real Amiga.
>>I wouldn't call an AmigaOne an amiga, no.
?! :-?
So what is an Amiga? Give me your definition please.
>>Actually Amiga.Inc had stacks of cash, they frittered it away and produced.... nothing.
I agree with you. :-)
>>The original Amiga was both a revolution to the computer industry and a revelation to those who used them, those days are gone. NatAmi it has to be said is imho what the AmigaOne should have been from the beginning. That they aren't originals is by no means meant as an insult, as Bloodline said wrt Amithlon - you would never tell the difference, I suspect the same would likely be true of a NatAmi, they're both brilliant ideas and Amithlon was outstanding in its execution.
Let's hope it gets released, a new piece of hardware wouldn't hurt since Amiga Inc. don't seem interested anymore.
:-)
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TheDaddy wrote:
>>The end result might well be an improved A500, but that doesn't change the fact that it is essentially still a hardware based emulation. At best you could call it a clone, which is in no way a bad thing, as it happens.
I can't comment on that, I don't really know how the Minimig works, the fact remains that I can run my favourite games on it, Workbench and it was made from scratch by an Amigan, this is enough for me to call it a real Amiga.
>>I wouldn't call an AmigaOne an amiga, no.
?! :-?
So what is an Amiga? Give me your definition please.
Already given earlier in this thread. See the wikipedia link for details.
To be clear, imho, the NatAmi and minimig should be classed as compatibles or similar, in the same way the Drako was, or the C=One is for the C=64.
As for the AmigaOne, that should be classed as an abortion, in all its different models.
TheDaddy wrote:
>>The original Amiga was both a revolution to the computer industry and a revelation to those who used them, those days are gone. NatAmi it has to be said is imho what the AmigaOne should have been from the beginning. That they aren't originals is by no means meant as an insult, as Bloodline said wrt Amithlon - you would never tell the difference, I suspect the same would likely be true of a NatAmi, they're both brilliant ideas and Amithlon was outstanding in its execution.
Let's hope it gets released, a new piece of hardware wouldn't hurt since Amiga Inc. don't seem interested anymore.
:-)
I too would like to see it released, then again I'd like to see the issues with regard to Amithlon resolved so as to allow for a much greater market, I for one would love to see AmigaOS 3.9 running on my EeePC.
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WotTheFook wrote:
If it runs Amiga software, it's an Amiga, if it's hardware or not, the rest is just semantics.
So a PC running ReactOS is Windows? A Linux box runing Wine is also Windows?
These meet your requirements... but they are Not Windows, they are clones.
Every AMD or intel box running MSDOS or FreeDOS, is an IBM PC?
Again... they are not IBM PCs they are clones.
The key difference is that the behaviour of the original is known and well documented. The clone is a new system, which is compatible with the original.
The hardware purists need to realise that is isn't 1988 any more, you can't get the original hardware, so if you replicate it in another chip, what's the problem?
There are subtle differences with hardware... have you forgotten the long thread where myself and Karlos tried to work out the actual response of the Paula DACs... which is nonlinear, due to the now long obselete chip Fabrication process used by Commodore! No modern chip suffers from this nonlinear nature and as such sounds different.
The nature of the MiniMig, for example, not being a gate level copy of the Amiga, means that it is still full of bugs. While the chip is compatible with the Amiga chipset, the subtle interations of the various circuits is different, which upsets certain software.
I'm not a Hardware purist, by any stretch, as a man who sold his hardware synths for softsynths... but I do get annoyed when people make false claims.
The software purists, ditto to the above. If you couldn't tell by looking at the screen and using the mouse etc, it's an Amiga, isn't it?
No, it's not... for all the same reasons as I stated above... it's a clone. A workalike. My pefered Amiga option right now, due to advanatages too numerous to mention.
Also, if you replicate the Amiga chipset and add "AGA with knobs on" like Natami are planning, how can you claim it's an Amiga, since you have modified it? If I mod my A1200 by adding an IDEFix and a laptop DVD/CD drive, is it still an Amiga?
Because one is an Amiga with bits bolted on... the other is a new system, that tries to be compatible with the Amiga Chipset.
If you made a Gate level copy of the Amiga chipset, with accurate timings, and tried to match the electical properties as best as posible WRT the DAC/ADCs etc... then yeah, I'd say you had yourself a real Amiga.
If I were to take a Lotus and then put a shell on it to make it look like a Delorian, and fitted out the interior to look like a Delorian... that's not a a Delorian.
If I were to take the Delorian plans and build one using new parts, to the original specs... then yeah... that's a Delorian...
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@ bloodline
I am not going to copy and paste comments here for the sake of an epic post. Suffice to say that you all appear to be arguing over what appears to be a Turing-type test, where the user tries to work out if the machine at the other end of the mouse and keys is an Amiga.
If all you had was a screen, with a mouse and keyboard that looked like the Amiga ones, could you really tell without seeing the hardware...??? This is the test they applied for artificial intelligence, it should surely be good enough for the Amiga....
... except that such a test doesn't exist. Oh dear....
All this hardware-versus-software debate is devisive, we all love the Amiga, isn't that enough?
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@bloodline
Come on, we are splitting the hair now.
Millions of cars share millions of parts but they are still Fords, Fiats, Opel, BMWs, Audis and so on.
I would like to say that if the Minimig/Natami can, to a certain extent, be 90% compatible with old Amiga software then they are Amigas.
I was also thinking would you call an Amiga a real Amiga if it couldn't use hardware add-ons designed for a specific Amiga model? I would still call it an Amiga.
If someone said to me: "From tomorrow we have three new Amiga models but they are not 100% compatible with old Amigas/Amiga software", I would be enourmosly happy and thankful. It wouldn't even cross my mind to check if and why they are not 100% compatible.
:-)
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WotTheFook wrote:
@ bloodline
I am not going to copy and paste comments here for the sake of an epic post. Suffice to say that you all appear to be arguing over what appears to be a Turing-type test, where the user tries to work out if the machine at the other end of the mouse and keys is an Amiga.
If all you had was a screen, with a mouse and keyboard that looked like the Amiga ones, could you really tell without seeing the hardware...??? This is the test they applied for artificial intelligence, it should surely be good enough for the Amiga....
... except that such a test doesn't exist. Oh dear....
All this hardware-versus-software debate is devisive, we all love the Amiga, isn't that enough?
Ok, this is getting annoying because I agree with you that it doesn't matter if you are running a real Amiga, an Emulation or an FPGA... since that was my original point!!!
Then someone stated that Emualtion was not as good as the real thing, so they wanted NatAmi or MiniMig... This is why I am now having to argue that the FPGA clones are not the real thing. I am not saying they are better or worse than Emulation, or better or worse than a real Amiga. But they are different.
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A lot of the Amiga World is like a time capsule, a frozen look into where we were 20 years ago. Does anyone actually argue about what a PC or Mac is? No, they have all gone through a series of changes over time but a Mac is still a Mac, whether it is running a beta version of Snow Leopard or OS 7.5.1.
Nobody in the PC world argues that a P4 isn't a real PC because it's slow and has only one core! There are still a few people running Window 3.1 and they are still PCs as much as a 4 core Xeon Vista computer.
The trouble with Amiga is that we lost a living Company long ago and have no one to tell us where Amiga is going. So some folks want to live in the World that existed at Commodore's Death Nell Vigil (TM), whilst others want to modernise the hardware and run the 15 year old OS on modern equipment. Still others want to take the concept of Amiga and ring it into the 21st Century.
When the Amiga was released it was cutting edge, it was capable of things that no other personal computer was capable of at that time. It squandered that lead and the company went belly up. The Amiga's capabilities in 2008 look oddly nostalgic. Think about where Amiga would have been today had Commodore not been found floating at the top of the tank! Amiga's with GBs of RAM, 8 cores, TB hard drives. It was able to squeeze so much out of so little, what could it have squeezed out of modern equipment?
AmigaDos would have been rewritten many times by now. The original creators made some choices, such as the lack of memory protection, that were necessary back them but now make no sense, they would have fixed them and built a new OS. It probably would have had to run the old stuff through a Classic system like the Macs used to have. But new software would have arisen and the old games updated to run in the new system.
For a decade and a half the Amiga has been leaderless, slowly losing it's user base. WHy do we need to tear at each other? We're all that's left, maybe a few thousand scattered across the globe. We have different visions, different ideas We disagree on what we want, but we don't disagree on what we don't want. We don't want the Amiga relegated to history.
(http://i179.photobucket.com/albums/w303/cascabelsl/smiley-frites-salut.gif)
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Amen, Persia, here endeth the first lesson.
:bow: :bow: :bow:
:cheers:
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TheDaddy wrote:
@bloodline
Come on, we are splitting the hair now.
Millions of cars share millions of parts but they are still Fords, Fiats, Opel, BMWs, Audis and so on.
Millions of Computers are built using the same capacitors, resistors, transistors, gates, 74xx ICs, etc... What matters is how they are put together! :-)
I would like to say that if the Minimig/Natami can, to a certain extent, be 90% compatible with old Amiga software then they are Amigas.
But If I need them for a specific Amiga feature... lets say the nonlinear audio reproduction... then with the MM or NA I'm stuffed... I wouldn't call it a real Amiga then.
I was also thinking would you call an Amiga a real Amiga if it couldn't use hardware add-ons designed for a specific Amiga model? I would still call it an Amiga.
Irrelavant... the clone may or may not have compatible interfaces, these are often the easiest part of a system to clone since the spec must be very detailed and tight!
If someone said to me: "From tomorrow we have three new Amiga models but they are not 100% compatible with old Amigas/Amiga software", I would be enourmosly happy and thankful. It wouldn't even cross my mind to check if and why they are not 100% compatible.
For me then it would be pointless as an Amiga... One of my favourite projects is posibly the least Amiga compatible Amiga Clone project... I don't think of it as a real Amiga though... I see it as a learning tool and a hobby!
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WotTheFook wrote:
Amen, Persia, here endeth the first lesson.
:bow: :bow: :bow:
:cheers:
While Persia is totally correct, that actually has nothing to do with my point :-)
Anyway, a computer platform is defined by it's software. The problem with the Amiga is that all serious software development ended once software houses realised the Amiga platform was in trouble... perhaps around 1995 at the very latest.
The Mac and PC, bear no resemblance to their historic ancestors, but that doesn't matter, because the software and applications grew with the platforms. New verisons of old software took advantage of the direction the platfomrs went in, so developers and users could grow with the platform.
The Amiga is now frozen in an early/mid 90s snapshot... the applications require technology that is now several generations behind anything we have now... and as such a modern Amiga would have to support a massive Gerneration bridge in order to make any sense... such a bridge would be pointless.
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>>For me then it would be pointless as an Amiga... One of my favourite projects is posibly the least Amiga compatible Amiga Clone project... I don't think of it as a real Amiga though... I see it as a learning tool and a hobby!
Ok let's end it like this then saying that I consider a Minimig/Natami a real Amiga and anything like the SAM with OS4.1 (hopefully) an Amiga and you don't. :-)
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bloodline wrote:
The Mac and PC, bear no resemblance to their historic ancestors, but that doesn't matter, because the software and applications grew with the platforms.
PC is still compatible with IBM PC. You still can boot to MS-dos 2.0. Your ultra-fast graphic card, with the latest pixelshaders and high speed GDDR5 memory chips, can still display CGA-graphics. Hardware has maintained its backward compatibility. Only thing that has changed is the OS. Microsoft has dropped support for 16bit programs, so nowdays you have to use dosbox.
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persia wrote:
For a decade and a half the Amiga has been leaderless, slowly losing it's user base. WHy do we need to tear at each other? We're all that's left, maybe a few thousand scattered across the globe. We have different visions, different ideas We disagree on what we want, but we don't disagree on what we don't want. We don't want the Amiga relegated to history.
The different visions are exactly why people are tearing at each other. I wish that everyone would move to Amiga OS 4 (ignore the hardware availability issues for a second please) and help push that forward; MorphOS fans would prefer it if everyone switched to MOS and pushed that forward (also ignore limited hardware availability please, more is coming); Bloodline & co wish that everyone would join the AROS initiative; and, there are also those who would insist that a real Amiga has to have AGA compatible hardware. In fact, there's also a group that want Amiga to remain a retro machine.
What would be neat is if a next-gen API could be collectively agreed upon, and then implemented on all the next-gen Amiga systems. That is, however, unlikely to happen.
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Jakodemus wrote:
bloodline wrote:
The Mac and PC, bear no resemblance to their historic ancestors, but that doesn't matter, because the software and applications grew with the platforms.
PC is still compatible with IBM PC. You still can boot to MS-dos 2.0. Your ultra-fast graphic card, with the latest pixelshaders and high speed GDDR5 memory chips, can still display CGA-graphics. Hardware has maintained its backward compatibility. Only thing that has changed is the OS. Microsoft has dropped support for 16bit programs, so nowdays you have to use dosbox.
Yes you can run your old MS DOS 2 apps on a modern PC... but if youy read my post carefully... you will notice I am talking about the environment that has evolved.
If Commodore had kept going, every year the Amiga platform would have evolved to keep it in step with with latest generation of software and hardware technologies. But it didn't so now our next gen Amiga's are still stuck in the 1994 time warp... where really the Modern Amiga should be as different from AmigaOS 3.9 as MacOSX is from System 7... but we've missed those 15 years of dev time. In that regard "It's all over!" - MegaloMania 1991
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Hans_ wrote:
persia wrote:
For a decade and a half the Amiga has been leaderless, slowly losing it's user base. WHy do we need to tear at each other? We're all that's left, maybe a few thousand scattered across the globe. We have different visions, different ideas We disagree on what we want, but we don't disagree on what we don't want. We don't want the Amiga relegated to history.
The different visions are exactly why people are tearing at each other. I wish that everyone would move to Amiga OS 4 (ignore the hardware availability issues for a second please) and help push that forward; MorphOS fans would prefer it if everyone switched to MOS and pushed that forward (also ignore limited hardware availability please, more is coming); Bloodline & co wish that everyone would join the AROS initiative; and, there are also those who would insist that a real Amiga has to have AGA compatible hardware.
Now we seriously have to think about what each project or rather what each group of people really want to achieve! please see below...
In fact, there's also a group that want Amiga to remain a retro machine.
And if we want to ensure that the Amiga's place in history is not forgotten forever, may be the best way to preserve what little dignity there is left. Please see below.
What would be neat is if a next-gen API could be collectively agreed upon, and then implemented on all the next-gen Amiga systems. That is, however, unlikely to happen.
But we already do have a common API, that is the collection of technologies that grew up over the period between 1993 and around 2001... We are now stuck with that forever. There is no reason to build a new "next-gen API", as it couldn't offer anything that an off the shelf solution could not provide... much like Apple in the late 90's it would make sense for the three exisisting clones to become the legacy layers on top of a new system. But while that is the only sensible solution, there is really no point since there is no vital Amiga only software anymore... no resaon for this legacy layer. :-(
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Just enjoy the ride while it lasts, nothing lasts forever. Until the last Amiga has died, it will always be remembered.....
It's who we are, it's a link to our childhood, who cares if it's MAME, Atari, Amiga, Spectrum, Mac, Oric-1 or whatever, if you have fond memories of it, it can't be bad.
Now, can we have a ceasefire please?
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What would be neat is if a next-gen API could be collectively agreed upon, and then implemented on all the next-gen Amiga systems. That is, however, unlikely to happen.
But we already do have a common API, that is the collection of technologies that grew up over the period between 1993 and around 2001... We are now stuck with that forever. There is no reason to build a new "next-gen API", as it couldn't offer anything that an off the shelf solution could not provide... much like Apple in the late 90's it would make sense for the three exisisting clones to become the legacy layers on top of a new system. But while that is the only sensible solution, there is really no point since there is no vital Amiga only software anymore... no resaon for this legacy layer. :-(
Whether you design a new API that is based on the existing one, or steal someone else's (e.g., use BSD as a base OS), it's still a new API as far as the Amiga is concerned. What needs changing is nowhere near as much as was required with Mac OS (which didn't even have pre-emptive multitasking).
I'm personally in favour of keeping what's good in the Amiga OS API, discarding the rest, and creating a new API that has all the modern essentials such as full memory protection, SMP, etc. I do not see the point in becoming another Linux distro.
I also think that enough people want to continue to use their old Amiga software to warrant having a legacy layer.
Hans
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WotTheFook wrote:
Just enjoy the ride while it lasts, nothing lasts forever. Until the last Amiga has died, it will always be remembered.....
It's who we are, it's a link to our childhood, who cares if it's MAME, Atari, Amiga, Spectrum, Mac, Oric-1 or whatever, if you have fond memories of it, it can't be bad.
Now, can we have a ceasefire please?
Hey, we're just firing paint balls. Now put your mask back on or you might get injured. :lol:
Hans
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Hans_ wrote:
What would be neat is if a next-gen API could be collectively agreed upon, and then implemented on all the next-gen Amiga systems. That is, however, unlikely to happen.
But we already do have a common API, that is the collection of technologies that grew up over the period between 1993 and around 2001... We are now stuck with that forever. There is no reason to build a new "next-gen API", as it couldn't offer anything that an off the shelf solution could not provide... much like Apple in the late 90's it would make sense for the three exisisting clones to become the legacy layers on top of a new system. But while that is the only sensible solution, there is really no point since there is no vital Amiga only software anymore... no resaon for this legacy layer. :-(
Whether you design a new API that is based on the existing one, or steal someone else's (e.g., use BSD as a base OS), it's still a new API as far as the Amiga is concerned. What needs changing is nowhere near as much as was required with Mac OS (which didn't even have pre-emptive multitasking).
-Edit- I would say they had an easier task, since it's very easy to see that MacOS Pre OSX was not going to cut it... AmigaOS has the problem is that it can keep up with the big boys... just as long as it doesn't have to carry very much, and there are no hills, and there's no cross wind, and no one jumps up and shouts "Boo!", etc...
Basicly if conditions are good... AmigaOS is a great system, it just doesn't have to ability to deal with problems... and it is the robust nature of modern OSs that give them their strenght!
I'm personally in favour of keeping what's good in the Amiga OS API, discarding the rest, and creating a new API that has all the modern essentials such as full memory protection, SMP, etc. I do not see the point in becoming another Linux distro.
I've often considered this... but think about the implications of this... Once you give exec memory protection, SMP, and a nice new scheduler, some modern data sstructions not just endless linked lists... etc, etc... it's going to end up looking like a pretty ordninary Microkernel... and one that has taken quite a bit of work to get to and won't have the proven track history of modern Microkernels... and then quite a lot of the old Amiga subsystems are either outdated; graphics.library, layers.library, audio.device or wouldn't work with a modern MP/SMP exec; intuition.library and I think dos.library too...
So all that has to be replaced... leaving you with really very little reason to have chosen AmigaOS in the first place :-(
I also think that enough people want to continue to use their old Amiga software to warrant having a legacy layer.
I have the problem that 95% of the old Amiga software I would want to run needs the Amgia hardware... so even a legacy software layer is of little use.
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bloodline, if you want to have 68k amiga compatible hardware then you should actually support such an approach as the natami team. they consider replacing amigaos kick and libs with 68k aros substitutes. in long therm this might be the solution for a-clone too at least to get rid of legal dependencies and to be freely distributable.
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wawrzon wrote:
bloodline, if you want to have 68k amiga compatible hardware then you should actually support such an approach as the natami team. they consider replacing amigaos kick and libs with 68k aros substitutes. in long therm this might be the solution for a-clone too at least to get rid of legal dependencies and to be freely distributable.
This idea that I don't like the Hardware clones can only come from people not reading my posts... Please reread them.
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ur posts are too long to read. but i havnt accuse u of nothing. i just wanted to point out something that might interest u as aros supporter, remembering that u were critical about natami.
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@ wawrzon
If you can not bee bothered to fully read somone's posts, in my opinion you don't really have good grounding on which to comment on them.
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Hans_ wrote:
The different visions are exactly why people are tearing at each other. I wish that everyone would move to Amiga OS 4 (ignore the hardware availability issues for a second please)
No, that's at best disingenous. The reason OS4 is dead is that the hardware it was designed to run on was a pile of cack even when it was available.
Yes, it was faster, but it has an attrition rate higher then that of the original Amigas it was trying to replace!
In evolutionary terms, it's a dead end. Time to move on.
Hans_ wrote:
there's also a group that want Amiga to remain a retro machine.
There is a good reason for this too, those of us who wish this realise the gap between what the Amiga in it's heyday was able to offer, and what is out there now is too great a gap to bridge, you may as well start from scratch at this point.
Hans_ wrote:
What would be neat is if a next-gen API could be collectively agreed upon, and then implemented on all the next-gen Amiga systems. That is, however, unlikely to happen.
It's also unfeasable to push a single user, non memory protected, non smp capable OS into a new device without starting from scratch, simply adding an new API won't cut it.
The best you could possibly hope for is some heavily patched beast running on something like an EeePC or mini itx board, because anything else would litterally be wasted on AmigaOS - it simply isn't capable of utilising anything more complex or capable.
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wawrzon wrote:
ur posts are too long to read. but i havnt accuse u of nothing. i just wanted to point out something that might interest u as aros supporter, remembering that u were critical about natami.
Bad spelling, grammar, coupled with an unwillingness to listen. How very efficient of you.
And again, for the hard of learning: Bloodline was not critical of NatAmi, he stated that there was nothing intrinsically better or worse about NatAmi verses a software solution like Amithlon.
Not the same thing.
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@jj: tell me where did i in my last post comment on anything.
@the_leander: so what? are we going for insults? i reffered to another thread that bloodline maybe will recall.
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and 4 ur info: i would probably go for amithlon any day if it was available. as for now i prefer the real theing. i do not care much for my uae installs anymore since to boot windows first to get into them is to bothersome.
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wawrzon wrote:
@jj: tell me where did i in my last post comment on anything.
You might want to re read your own stuff as well as others.
wawrzon wrote:
@the_leander: so what? are we going for insults? i reffered to another thread that bloodline maybe will recall.
If you cannot be bothered to read other peoples comments, then you deserve to be stomped on. Whether it is this thread or any other.
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@all
Just finished reading through all your posts so far, I get the feeling this matter (though rather pointless) is getting people down, hopefully my POV can help change this.
What is an Amiga computer? It is the A1000. There were no other computers ever given this name. What followed after were members of the Amiga computer family. The A1200 is just as much a part of the Amiga family as the Natami is/will be.
As for the whole Amiga software vs Amiga hardware issue, of course they are both useful. What we must understand about ourselves is that some Amiga fans are more drawn to the classic hardware architecture whilst others are more drawn to the Amiga software side. It's about what we find interesting, rather than what is more useful.
Speaking personally, I never really used AmigaOS/Workbench much, I was much more interested in games back in the day, and later I came to appreciate the hardware that made those games possible. Running software through emulation, whilst perfectly usable, doesn't give me quite the same buzz, as I like the classic Amiga hardware design, and would rather be running the software on a computer with that architecture.
We all have different reasons for liking Amiga computers, let's not delude ourselves that these reasons have to be based on "what's best". Use the Amiga and its related technologies/applications to give yourself maximum enjoyment, forget about how other Amiga users may prefer to spend their time. Often progress in one area of Amiga development is loosely beneficial to another area, so be glad for all Amiga development.
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@the_leander: u dont know what humour is, do u? then go on flaming. im off 4 now anyways. not going to be interesting.
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the_leander wrote:
Hans_ wrote:
The different visions are exactly why people are tearing at each other. I wish that everyone would move to Amiga OS 4 (ignore the hardware availability issues for a second please)
No, that's at best disingenous. The reason OS4 is dead is that the hardware it was designed to run on was a pile of cack even when it was available.
Yes, it was faster, but it has an attrition rate higher then that of the original Amigas it was trying to replace!
Disingenuous? In what way is anything that I said disingenuous? I simply stated my personal preference. The comment in brackets is because I know that it's kind of hard to get OS4 if you don't already have a PowerPC classic Amiga or an Amigaone.
BTW, I have one of those "piles of cack" (sic) that you speak of, and for a "pile of cack," it works pretty darn well. You clearly have no idea what state OS4 is in, or the hardware.
You can disagree with me if you wish, but suggesting that I am being disingenuous is plain stupid. Nothing I said is wrong; some want OS4, others want MOS, or AROS, or just the classic OS.
Hans_ wrote:
there's also a group that want Amiga to remain a retro machine.
There is a good reason for this too, those of us who wish this realise the gap between what the Amiga in it's heyday was able to offer, and what is out there now is too great a gap to bridge, you may as well start from scratch at this point.
And? I didn't say anything negative about the retro crowd. I simply listed it as another position. If people want to stick with their A500s and A1200s, etc., that's fine by me.
Hans_ wrote:
What would be neat is if a next-gen API could be collectively agreed upon, and then implemented on all the next-gen Amiga systems. That is, however, unlikely to happen.
It's also unfeasable to push a single user, non memory protected, non smp capable OS into a new device without starting from scratch, simply adding an new API won't cut it.
Wrong. It's not adding an API, it's creating/using a new API. The new API would be incompatible with the old one, so old software would run in a legacy environment. Apple did it with Mac OS X, so it can be done. Except, with Amiga OS, the difference between the two APIs needn't be so drastic. Just because you don't know how to do it doesn't make it unfeasible.
The best you could possibly hope for is some heavily patched beast running on something like an EeePC or mini itx board, because anything else would litterally be wasted on AmigaOS - it simply isn't capable of utilising anything more complex or capable.
That's the best that you could hope for, not everyone else. There is no technical reason why Amiga OS could not utilise something more complex or capable.
BTW, no, I do not expect Amiga OS to suddenly catch up to the rest of the computing world; I just happen to enjoy pushing it forward beyond what it was originally designed for. That's pretty similar to the Natami guys, who are pushing the original hardware design forward, instead of the OS. I think that the Natami project is pretty neat.
Hans
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The idea to build a new Amiga on top of QNX was a great idea, unfortunately it fell by the wayside. QNX is a small efficient micro kernel, unix like and very stable. QNX's economy of scale matched the Amiga philosophy perfectly. Sadly the project died over a lack of leadership from you know who...
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@Hans_
(Off topic rant about non Natamis)
The Natami is pushing the hardware limits but it will only be able to run OS 4+ if they add a PowerPC accelerator card to it. Before the Mac went to Intel the PowerPC was a vibrant design with lots of attention and now it is relegated only to game machines which are restricted by hypervisors so that they don't allow ordinary people to experience their full potential.
I think PowerPC is a dead-end as much now as ever and the Intel and AMD processors are reaching a dead end also due to the heat restrictions of higher clock frequencies and are turning their attention toward multiple cores. Since their software doesn't run well on multiple cores they are going to be at a standstill.
I think the Intels will make it further than the PowerPCs because they have a more compact instruction set but that will wear thin when easier-to-use instruction sets prevail. I think the way of the future is asymmetric multicore design where the cores are dedicated to the functionality they are intended for.
What makes an Amiga, in my opinion, is the dual-bus architecture. While most computers are stuck with a left-brain dominant design that didn't allow for parallelism, the Amiga introduced a computer with a right hemisphere for creative thinking. On most computers it may be considered a required peripheral for graphics and sound, but on the Amiga it was standard, integrated, and elegant. On the stock A1200 it was even right-brain dominant due to the underpowered main processor.
I could say more but if you want to hear more of why I think the way I do, I'll start a new thread.
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YES, I knew my EFIKA could be called an Amiga. :)
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persia wrote:
The idea to build a new Amiga on top of QNX was a great idea, unfortunately it fell by the wayside. QNX is a small efficient micro kernel, unix like and very stable. QNX's economy of scale matched the Amiga philosophy perfectly. Sadly the project died over a lack of leadership from you know who...
I too was very disappointed that AInc. did not follow through with the partnership with QNX. AOS4.x would have been completed years earlier IMHO.
@SamuraiCrow,
Start a new thread, I would be interested in your opinion of a smart way forward beyond or parallel to the NatAmi project.
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Yeah, I'm curious too. It seems to me that OS X is about as parallel as you can get. I use multiple cores 8 in two separate units, I borrow processing from other computers in my house. Everything just works. I fail to see how AmigaOS could take advantage of any of this.
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persia wrote:
Yeah, I'm curious too. It seems to me that OS X is about as parallel as you can get. I use multiple cores 8 in two separate units, I borrow processing from other computers in my house. Everything just works. I fail to see how AmigaOS could take advantage of any of this.
I use a Mac Pro at work also. I've run out of time for one night but this thread (http://www.amiga.org/forums/showthread.php?t=37504) will have to make do for now.
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persia wrote:
Yeah, I'm curious too. It seems to me that OS X is about as parallel as you can get. I use multiple cores 8 in two separate units, I borrow processing from other computers in my house. Everything just works. I fail to see how AmigaOS could take advantage of any of this.
I am also a fan of MacOSX and use a MacBook for most of my email and online bill payments. I really like the way the Mac "just works" too.
I don't agree with your last sentence though. What is to stop any future AmigaOS from utilizing ALL the features and power of hardware similar to the Mac or modern PCs and making them look like dinosaurs in comparison due to the future AmigaOS being so lightning fast and resource efficient? I am not talking about next month or even next year. If it were ever to happen, it would likely take several years for a new AmigaOS to be written (be it AmigaOS4.x, MorphOS2.x, AROS, or something new from scratch), and although I would like for it to be able to run the old legacy Amiga programs some how, I have come around to agreeing with many that think legacy compatibility is not a high priority. We have the UAE, MiniMig, CloneA and NatAmi for future compatibility with the old programs and games.
Not worrying about legacy compatibility will allow creation of something completely new that is not crippled by any past dependencies on hardware or software. It would be nice to have an Amiga that the World looks at and just says "Wow" again because it is so much better than anything else available anywhere. We actually have an advantage that Windows, Linux, MacOS and all the rest do not have, in that we could start with a clean slate, if only we could muster the needed programmers and hardware designers to accomplish such a monumental task. Could history repeat itself again? Could a small group of very talented hardware and software geniuses come together and actually create a system as advanced beyond what is available today, as the Amiga once was when it was first introduced? Probably not, but it sure would be nice to see that kind of creativity once again.
Back on Topic, I look forward to the NatAmi project as an improved version of what we already have. Just a way to advance the original Amiga concept beyond where it has so far been dragged into the future, but nothing more than a hobby project with great backward compatibility and strong ties to the original Amiga machines.
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Hans_ wrote:
Disingenuous? In what way is anything that I said disingenuous? I simply stated my personal preference. The comment in brackets is because I know that it's kind of hard to get OS4 if you don't already have a PowerPC classic Amiga or an Amigaone.
You misspelled pointless.
I do however apologise, it wasn't clear from your original post that it would simply be personal preference.
Hans_ wrote:
BTW, I have one of those "piles of cack" (sic) that you speak of, and for a "pile of cack," it works pretty darn well. You clearly have no idea what state OS4 is in, or the hardware.
"clearly not knowing what state OS4 is in", HA!
It's more stable then it was, but still less stable then 3.9 on classic hardware, though better on an A1, however, the number of working A1's continues to decline at a fairly steady (read, ludicrous) rate.
It's not as stable as MorphOS from my own testing, has nothing on even BeOS, which ceased development in 2001, and certainly not Zeta (the BeOS derived OS that was killed off last year).
Consider yourself lucky, having been to several amiga shows and in constant contact with a great many people who bought A1's of all different types, I can tell you that their failure rate is obscene, no product that poorly produced should ever have left the shop floor, power regulator issues, fouled IO, borked sound.. The list goes on.
My all time personal favourite though was the constantly resetting Uboot issue many microA1's had, every time you boot, you have to re-edit uboot, even after replacing battery after battery, nice.
I could probably quote you a couple of snippets I've gleaned about the snafu that is OS4's revised memory model from Karlos, but I seriously doubt you want to hear it.
Hans_ wrote:
there's also a group that want Amiga to remain a retro machine.
Hans_ wrote:
What would be neat is if a next-gen API could be collectively agreed upon, and then implemented on all the next-gen Amiga systems. That is, however, unlikely to happen.
It's also unfeasable to push a single user, non memory protected, non smp capable OS into a new device without starting from scratch, simply adding an new API won't cut it.
Wrong. It's not adding an API, it's creating/using a new API. The new API would be incompatible with the old one, so old software would run in a legacy environment. Apple did it with Mac OS X, so it can be done. Except, with Amiga OS, the difference between the two APIs needn't be so drastic. Just because you don't know how to do it doesn't make it unfeasible.[/quote]
It was called BeOS.
Worked a damn sight better then OS4 ever did too. But going back, it is unfeasable, because simply "creating a new API" with the sorts of fundamental changes you would need, with the current limitations means you would basically have to re-write the thing from scratch, whilst at the same time breaking compatability with all previous software, at which point, why bother? There are off the shelf solutions out there that would probably be better suited, hell, Haiku - the opensource BeOS clone with a UAE sandbox integrated would probably give you everything you needed and give it to you in an identifiably AmigaOS like way. Aros is another potential way forward...
Hans_ wrote:
The best you could possibly hope for is some heavily patched beast running on something like an EeePC or mini itx board, because anything else would litterally be wasted on AmigaOS - it simply isn't capable of utilising anything more complex or capable.
That's the best that you could hope for, not everyone else. There is no technical reason why Amiga OS could not utilise something more complex or capable.
I don't deal in false hope, it always ends in bitter dissapointment. Reality is my prefered choice, and the reality is that the best you really could hope for is something like an Amithlon/Aros hybrid running on X86, or maybe NatAmi if you want something really cool.
Hans_ wrote:
BTW, no, I do not expect Amiga OS to suddenly catch up to the rest of the computing world; I just happen to enjoy pushing it forward beyond what it was originally designed for. That's pretty similar to the Natami guys, who are pushing the original hardware design forward, instead of the OS. I think that the Natami project is pretty neat.
Hans
I happen to agree with that, in the same way I thought the C=One project was an outstanding piece of ingenuity, indeed my first thoughts when I saw it was, the Amiga community would have been better served with a beefed up one of these over the A1.
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--deleted--
Was uncalled for. - AF
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persia wrote:
A lot of the Amiga World is like a time capsule, a frozen look into where we were 20 years ago. Does anyone actually argue about what a PC or Mac is? No, they have all gone through a series of changes over time but a Mac is still a Mac, whether it is running a beta version of Snow Leopard or OS 7.5.1.
Good point. But what is a "real Amiga?" An unexpanded A1000? Or an A4000T?
When the Amiga was released it was cutting edge, it was capable of things that no other personal computer was capable of at that time.
True. At first the hardware was something that set the Amiga apart. But the hardware failed to keep pace and the Amiga is now essentially the OS.
AmigaDos would have been rewritten many times by now. The original creators made some choices, such as the lack of memory protection, that were necessary back them but now make no sense, they would have fixed them and built a new OS. It probably would have had to run the old stuff through a Classic system like the Macs used to have. But new software would have arisen and the old games updated to run in the new system.
Having started out with an A2000 with kick/os 1.3 and now having an A4000x with 060s and PPC, it's clear that the Amiga had to break compatibility with a lot of software and hardware. So what is a "real" Amiga? The defining factor is probably the OS. Why is a "new" Amiga any less of an Amiga? The "classic" hardware is what it is and it's never coming back. In my world the the hour and minute hand only turn clockwise.
For a decade and a half the Amiga has been leaderless, slowly losing it's user base. WHy do we need to tear at each other? We're all that's left, maybe a few thousand scattered across the globe. We have different visions, different ideas We disagree on what we want, but we don't disagree on what we don't want. We don't want the Amiga relegated to history.
Nicely put. Enjoy the classic hardware if you have it. NatAmi and the others look interesting. It's too bad Amiga Inc are having such problems but it's also easy to see that "any" new system will be a tough sell with PC/Mac/Linux dominance. If we could get the community to rally around a direction, the energy could be focused and might actually bring some results...
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bloodline wrote:
But we already do have a common API, that is the collection of technologies that grew up over the period between 1993 and around 2001... DELETED STUFF ... there is really no point since there is no vital Amiga only software anymore... no resaon for this legacy layer. :-(
Whether you design a new API that is based on the existing one, or steal someone else's (e.g., use BSD as a base OS), it's still a new API as far as the Amiga is concerned. What needs changing is nowhere near as much as was required with Mac OS (which didn't even have pre-emptive multitasking).
Basicly if conditions are good... AmigaOS is a great system, it just doesn't have to ability to deal with problems... and it is the robust nature of modern OSs that give them their strenght!
I've often considered this... but think about the implications of this... Once you give exec memory protection, SMP, and a nice new scheduler, some modern data sstructions not just endless linked lists... etc, etc... it's going to end up looking like a pretty ordninary Microkernel... and one that has taken quite a bit of work to get to and won't have the proven track history of modern Microkernels... and then quite a lot of the old Amiga subsystems are either outdated; graphics.library, layers.library, audio.device or wouldn't work with a modern MP/SMP exec; intuition.library and I think dos.library too...
So all that has to be replaced... leaving you with really very little reason to have chosen AmigaOS in the first place :-(
Exactly. Once you start putting in features to make the OS more stable and modern, you start to increase the hardware requirements and break compatibility. It will stay a single user hobby OS unless you completely change it... into something that it isn't currently. You might have a look and feel, but the internals will have to change...
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I must admit, I really dont see the need for backward compatibality these days. All you need is a transparent ( something I belive AROS is trying to do) way of launching or intergratting UAE into the host OS. Then as long as its amiga like, hey presto.
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I totally agree with Amigadaves last post.
It's ridiculous! You are a whole bunch of geniuses and all you all have to do is turning your efforts at a common goal. Can’t you come together under the flag of the greater good and create the best OS and machine the world have ever seen? With transparent UAE support of curse.
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cicero790 wrote:
I totally agree with Amigadaves last post.
It ridiculous! You are a whole bunch of geniuses and all you all have to do is turning your efforts at a common goal. Can’t you come together under the flag of the greater good and create the best OS the world have ever seen? With transparent UAE support of curse.
We had that, it was called Amithlon.
Worked great.
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I love Amithlon too, but that will not be sufficient for slaying the dragons Windows and MacOS. A new OS, a new more powerful sword is needed, for the cutting edge hardware of today.
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cicero790 wrote:
I love Amithlon too, but that will not be sufficient for slaying the dragons Windows and MacOS. A new OS, a new more powerful sword is needed, for the cutting edge hardware of today.
These Dragons can't be slayed with AmigaOS... Any more than a longbow can fight a Challenger2 Trank...
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How would you do it Bloodline? What would it take? :-)
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cicero790 wrote:
I love Amithlon too, but that will not be sufficient for slaying the dragons Windows and MacOS. A new OS, a new more powerful sword is needed, for the cutting edge hardware of today.
It won't be AmigaOS that topples windows, but Linux or MacOS might do.
The only chance Amiga had of killing the PC was in 1984 but it failed, it's too late now.
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Microsoft is planning on dropping windows anyway.
Linky (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7540282.stm)
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I believe nothing is to late. The Soviet crumbled down, so did the Roman empire. " My eagles, give me back my eagles."
Its never to late for anything.
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cicero790 wrote:
How would you do it Bloodline? What would it take? :-)
Hmmm, I'm not really sure you can topple these top systems... their budgets alone make that task virtually impossible.
A computer platform is defined by the available software, Windows and Mac have a software history that cannot be matched. I would say the only time you ever get a chance to make a new platform is when a new technology emerges... that renenders the old software obselete. Then you can quickly jump on to that new technology, and if you are more innovative than the competition, you can dominate the market.
The Personal Computer (I mean the Apple1, CommodorePET, etc...) platform was the first... The Second was the GUI, the Third was the internet... the Last was the mobile computing device...
Microsoft won the first one.
Microsoft and Apple won the second.
Google won (is winning at least) the third.
And we shall see who wins the fourth, and youngest platform.
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Isn't this the time then? with windows shutting down and AROS available on pc that is surprisingly almost A1200 like, as you showed in the fpga forward thread.
Is this the time to develop AROS into a better Midori?
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cicero790 wrote:
Isn't this the time then? with windows shutting down and AROS available on pc that is surprisingly almost A1200 like, as you showed in the fpga forward thread.
Is this the time to develop AROS into a better Midori?
Remember that the three Amiga platforms are basicly each a new platform, they have no meaningful software history anymore.
But AROS, like its Amiga clone Breathren, is a an old GUI platform. This platform has been won.
If something new came along... I don't know... like brain implanted computers, then a new platform would need to be developed to fill that void... Would any features of AmigaOS have any relevance on that platform?
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A bit hard to tell, but if you take one step back to google, with its office, calender and mail capabilities. That puts AROS in a new light for a normal user.
Anyway, I'm looking forward to use AROS as the primary PC OS then the browser comes along. And so will probably some of the 3.8 million former Amiga users just in Europe.
AROS is just a nicer place to be in then Windows.
And i'm going to buy NATAMI.
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I think the point being made here is that Minimig/NatAmi/CloneA etc.. isn't doesn't match the behaviour of the original correctly to 100%.
But that said, authors of all those project try to do their best in that respect. So if anyone knows an efficient method that also can be carried out then please tell us.
The original chipmasks are most likely *gone*. But one could possibly xray the existing chips. And then analyze the matrix with software. Another possibility is to make some kind of analyser software that pokes the hardware. Another one is clocks in sync where differencies are logged etc..
Considering that the Amiga development is so far behind the only point personally is to be able to run old legacy software.
Another perspective is to make use of the "Most out of the available hardware" philosophy (at a specific price level). Then it would be multi-core, microkernel, etc.. Without ties to the original hw/sw except for the philosophy and ideas.
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@thread,
Some new info on the NatAmi project:
http://www.natami.net/knowledge.php?b=1¬e=1603
It appears that the hardware design has been finished and the team are awaiting for some boards to be produced.
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I do however apologise, it wasn't clear from your original post that it would simply be personal preference.
Really? The sentence that you quoted started with "I wish."
I could probably quote you a couple of snippets I've gleaned about the snafu that is OS4's revised memory model from Karlos, but I seriously doubt you want to hear it.
Go ahead, tell me what's so "snafu" about the revised memory model.
It was called BeOS.
Worked a damn sight better then OS4 ever did too. But going back, it is unfeasable, because simply "creating a new API" with the sorts of fundamental changes you would need, with the current limitations means you would basically have to re-write the thing from scratch, whilst at the same time breaking compatability with all previous software, at which point, why bother? There are off the shelf solutions out there that would probably be better suited, hell, Haiku - the opensource BeOS clone with a UAE sandbox integrated would probably give you everything you needed and give it to you in an identifiably AmigaOS like way. Aros is another potential way forward...
It's not as insurmountable a problem as you make it out to be. Obviously it'll take effort and would take time. The new API could of-course draw from existing solutions. In fact, I'd expect them to use industry/de-facto standards wherever possible.
Why do it? To push the system forward. We all know that breaking compatibility is required so why not just go ahead and do it?
Why make the NatAmi? It's never going to compete with mainstream computers; it's graphics features are never going to compete with the latest graphics cards. No existing software will make use of its advanced features.
I'd say in both cases it should be done because people enjoy it. If I were involved, I'd probably get a kick out of simply proving people like you wrong. The Natami team are doing stuff that other people say are unfeasible.
That's the best that you could hope for, not everyone else. There is no technical reason why Amiga OS could not utilise something more complex or capable.
I don't deal in false hope, it always ends in bitter dissapointment. Reality is my prefered choice, and the reality is that the best you really could hope for is something like an Amithlon/Aros hybrid running on X86, or maybe NatAmi if you want something really cool.
Your perception of reality is somewhat different from mine.
Hans
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cicero790 wrote:
I love Amithlon too, but that will not be sufficient for slaying the dragons Windows and MacOS. A new OS, a new more powerful sword is needed, for the cutting edge hardware of today.
Why bother slaying the dragons? They're not bothering us? They don't even know that our little play-ground exists. Wouldn't it be more fun to play in our own playground with our own toys instead?
Let the rest of the world put up with the dragons.
Hans
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Why bother slaying the dragons? They're not bothering us? They don't even know that our little play-ground exists. Wouldn't it be more fun to play in our own playground with our own toys instead?
Let the rest of the world put up with the dragons.
Hans
------------
Perhaps your right, but that doesn't necessarily need to stop you from creating great toys in joint efforts with soft and hardware, and why? just to see if it can be done.
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cicero790 wrote:
Why bother slaying the dragons? They're not bothering us? They don't even know that our little play-ground exists. Wouldn't it be more fun to play in our own playground with our own toys instead?
Let the rest of the world put up with the dragons.
Hans
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Perhaps your right, but that doesn't necessarily need to stop you from creating great toys in joint efforts with soft and hardware, and why? just to see if it can be done.
Absolutely. I enjoy creating toys and improving old ones. That's part of the fun.
Hans
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Hans_ wrote:
cicero790 wrote:
Why bother slaying the dragons? They're not bothering us? They don't even know that our little play-ground exists. Wouldn't it be more fun to play in our own playground with our own toys instead?
Let the rest of the world put up with the dragons.
Hans
------------
Perhaps your right, but that doesn't necessarily need to stop you from creating great toys in joint efforts with soft and hardware, and why? just to see if it can be done.
Absolutely. I enjoy creating toys and improving old ones. That's part of the fun.
Hans
So, whats the logical step to develop after NATAMI?
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@cicero790
Well the current "road map" the NatAmi developers have is they are planning to release the Developer NatAmi version, which is SuperAGA chipset + 060 clocked at 90MHz, then they want to work towards a "consumer" version which would include the SuperAGA chipset (plus any enhancements brought about via developer testing) with a new 68K core clocked at 200MHz+ with added features in one FPGA. I think that they are also open to the dea of open sourcing the SuperAGA but that is way down the line.
But if you mean a newer more featured AMiga compatible clone computer then I personally can only think of them trying to add more features to the SuperAGA (enhnaced 3D core etc) and maybe evovling the platform with Aros as they can only really go so far with OS3.9+ enhancements.
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AmiBoy wrote:
@cicero790
Well the current "road map" the NatAmi developers have is they are planning to release the Developer NatAmi version, which is SuperAGA chipset + 060 clocked at 90MHz, then they want to work towards a "consumer" version which would include the SuperAGA chipset (plus any enhancements brought about via developer testing) with a new 68K core clocked at 200MHz+ with added features in one FPGA. I think that they are also open to the dea of open sourcing the SuperAGA but that is way down the line.
But if you mean a newer more featured AMiga compatible clone computer then I personally can only think of them trying to add more features to the SuperAGA (enhnaced 3D core etc) and maybe evovling the platform with Aros as they can only really go so far with OS3.9+ enhancements.
I did never get the 060 to the A1200 back in the old days, so I will buy the NATAMI to balance that out.
My hopes for the NEXT GEN is that they go for the most advanced yet affordable technology and with WB AROS as OS. Doing it in the spirit of Amiga, e.g to be the most advanced with the smartest solutions and test the boundaries of whats possible.
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Hans_ wrote:
It was called BeOS.
Worked a damn sight better then OS4 ever did too. But going back, it is unfeasable, because simply "creating a new API" with the sorts of fundamental changes you would need, with the current limitations means you would basically have to re-write the thing from scratch, whilst at the same time breaking compatability with all previous software, at which point, why bother? There are off the shelf solutions out there that would probably be better suited, hell, Haiku - the opensource BeOS clone with a UAE sandbox integrated would probably give you everything you needed and give it to you in an identifiably AmigaOS like way. Aros is another potential way forward...
It's not as insurmountable a problem as you make it out to be. Obviously it'll take effort and would take time. The new API could of-course draw from existing solutions. In fact, I'd expect them to use industry/de-facto standards wherever possible.
Do you have any concept of how difficult it is to produce a modern operating system that meets todays standards?
Do you?
Now, I was once an Editor for Zetanews and as such had access to developers in a way most people don't, I talked with them in detail discussing both Zeta and later Haiku as they built up from a far better starting position then AmigaOS offers.
Haiku is probably the best place to start in terms of just how complex the task of reimplimenting a modern OS from scratch, they had some truly brilliant people working for them full time and it's still taken them 7 years to get to the point they are now, and what they have still isn't complete or as capable as BeOS R5.03, released back in 2000!
AmigaOS reimplimented in a modern fashion would be and is a pipe dream, one lacking in both resource and a framework. To take the AmigaOS and make it a truly modern OS, with all the things that are expected from a modern OS (SMP, multi user, memory protection etc etc etc) would be a staggaringly complex proposition, far greater then "simply" reimplimenting what came before (such as AROS or Haiku), requiring far more developer numbers then even both communities combined could offer.
And that's ignoring the complete lack of a roadmap to work towards... And no, I would seriously not want to be the one to open that particular can of worms.
Hans_ wrote:
Why do it? To push the system forward. We all know that breaking compatibility is required so why not just go ahead and do it?
Yes, great, but at that point, why bother? Seriously, if you are going to drop support for old applications, why not simply move to a new OS and have done with it?
You might as well take a snapshot of AROS and Haiku code, shake em together and slap an Amiga sticker on it, it'll save you time and effort and the net result would have about as much to do with the Amiga as any from scratch OS you came up with.
Hans_ wrote:
Why make the NatAmi? It's never going to compete with mainstream computers; it's graphics features are never going to compete with the latest graphics cards. No existing software will make use of its advanced features.
I'd say in both cases it should be done because people enjoy it. If I were involved, I'd probably get a kick out of simply proving people like you wrong. The Natami team are doing stuff that other people say are unfeasible.
There is nothing unfeasible about NatAmi, it's an FPGA board thats been told it's an amiga-alike. Now the cool factor there is the same as the C=One, it also offers the potential for developers to cut their teeth on relatively simple and elegant solutions on which to build better things, the ultimate bedroom coders board. Truthfully I feel that something like this or Amithlon *should* have been chosen as the way forward for the Amiga.
The NatAmi project holds the potential to be of interest to far more people then any number of AmigaOne models simply because of the nature of FPGAs.
Getting bored with your "Amiga", select the AtariST/Falcon rom image and hey presto! Instant Atari, or whatever.
As I said, the scope for Natami in this regard is great, and not just by this community.
Hans_ wrote:
That's the best that you could hope for, not everyone else. There is no technical reason why Amiga OS could not utilise something more complex or capable.
I don't deal in false hope, it always ends in bitter dissapointment. Reality is my prefered choice, and the reality is that the best you really could hope for is something like an Amithlon/Aros hybrid running on X86, or maybe NatAmi if you want something really cool.
Your perception of reality is somewhat different from mine.
Hans
I know it is, I have some idea of the monumental difficulties involved in doing what you're suggesting with regard to the AmigaOS.
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I guess it is a good thing that "the_leander" was not a room-mate of Linus Torvalds a few years back! :lol: :lol: :lol:
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Do you have any concept of how difficult it is to produce a modern operating system that meets todays standards?
Do you?
It's not my area of expertise, but I'm not exactly ignorant on the subject either. Judging by what you've said, you've never actually been involved as an OS developer either, you just spoke to the developers.
AmigaOS reimplimented in a modern fashion would be and is a pipe dream, one lacking in both resource and a framework. To take the AmigaOS and make it a truly modern OS, with all the things that are expected from a modern OS (SMP, multi user, memory protection etc etc etc) would be a staggaringly complex proposition, far greater then "simply" reimplimenting what came before (such as AROS or Haiku), requiring far more developer numbers then even both communities combined could offer.
You keep on insisting that it has to be a "from-scratch" implementation. It does not. There is no need to dump all the source-code.
Hans_ wrote:
Why do it? To push the system forward. We all know that breaking compatibility is required so why not just go ahead and do it?
Yes, great, but at that point, why bother? Seriously, if you are going to drop support for old applications, why not simply move to a new OS and have done with it?
A sand-box for old apps would be part of such a system so the old apps would still run (and yes, I know that this will take more time than dumping the old application support).
An updated Amiga OS that breaks compatibility with the old system (but still runs old software in a sand-box) would still have the same design philosophy as the old system. Moreover, you already have a group of like-minded people (which obviously does not include you) ready to make it happen. Start a new OS project, and you end up with "yet another OS project" that is struggling to gain developer interest. Sure it would be a long-term effort, but the starting point is much better than having zero source-code and a blank slate with regard to design.
There is nothing unfeasible about NatAmi, it's an FPGA board thats been told it's an amiga-alike. Now the cool factor there is the same as the C=One, it also offers the potential for developers to cut their teeth on relatively simple and elegant solutions on which to build better things, the ultimate bedroom coders board. Truthfully I feel that something like this or Amithlon *should* have been chosen as the way forward for the Amiga.
That's easy to say now that the concept has been proven. Were you around when Dennis van Weeren announced the Minimig? People were yelling "Hoax! It's impossible! It can't be done!" till they were blue in the face.
I know it is, I have some idea of the monumental difficulties involved in doing what you're suggesting with regard to the AmigaOS.
Ah, and by implication then, I have "no idea." Whatever.
Hans
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amigadave wrote:
I guess it is a good thing that "the_leander" was not a room-mate of Linus Torvalds a few years back! :lol: :lol: :lol:
No kidding. But then, everyone that embarks on such a project is told that it's "unfeasible" and that they are "crazy." In many cases they are. It's the ones that do their homework, spot an opportunity/technique that others have missed, and ignore the nay-sayers that succeed.
Hans
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Being one of those developers, and having spent over 7 years on an OS project, I can state with confidence that the_leander got it exactly right. It'd be humongous task.
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Piru wrote:
Being one of those developers, and having spent over 7 years on an OS project, I can state with confidence that the_leander got it exactly right. It'd be humongous task.
I don't think anyone has said it would be anything different. The difference is that "the_leander" is saying, or implying that it can't be done, won't ever be done, and Hans does not know what he is talking about.
I tend to disagree with him and look at all the interest in different Amiga projects right now as a positive sign that something might happen in the future. I also agree with Hans that something NEW could be created built on top of all that has been learned on multiple systems in the past, without having to start completely from scratch. Use what we already know and have, use industry standards where they will not hold back the advanced design of the new OS.
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@Hans_
An updated Amiga OS that breaks compatibility with the old system (but still runs old software in a sand-box) would still have the same design philosophy as the old system. Moreover, you already have a group of like-minded people (which obviously does not include you) ready to make it happen. Start a new OS project, and you end up with "yet another OS project" that is struggling to gain developer interest. Sure it would be a long-term effort, but the starting point is much better than having zero source-code and a blank slate with regard to design.
The problem with this is that if you introduce those new concepts such as MP, SMP, 64bit support and so forth, pretty much all of that old designs and code is useless. Sure you could use those for stuff that runs inside the sandbox, but not for the new stuff.
So basically you are starting with nearly zero source-code and blank slate regarding design. The cynic would ask what exactly would make this new system any better than say Mac OS X or GNU/Linux...
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Piru wrote:
@Hans_
An updated Amiga OS that breaks compatibility with the old system (but still runs old software in a sand-box) would still have the same design philosophy as the old system. Moreover, you already have a group of like-minded people (which obviously does not include you) ready to make it happen. Start a new OS project, and you end up with "yet another OS project" that is struggling to gain developer interest. Sure it would be a long-term effort, but the starting point is much better than having zero source-code and a blank slate with regard to design.
The problem with this is that if you introduce those new concepts such as MP, SMP, 64bit support and so forth, pretty much all of that old designs and code is useless. Sure you could use those for stuff that runs inside the sandbox, but not for the new stuff.
Why?
MP would require a change to message passing (i.e., it would become more restrictive), but the basic scheme could stay intact. SMP would bring about the end of forbid()/permit(), but those calls could be replaced with spinlocks/mutexes. Again, not something that would require all existing code to be discarded. 64-bit support would enlarge pretty much everything that's declared as an int now to 32-bit. That could be a real pain with the sand-box (32-bit to 64-bit conversion of tag-lists), but the C code shouldn't have too many conversion issues (except for tricks that don't work anymore like 32-bit int to double conversion and back). Intuition would be an issue due to it being based on message-passing. Intuition would need to be modified to have per-application threads (note: would require the concept of threads within a process), but that's worth doing for system reliability anyway. Drivers also use message passing so new ones would have to be written (or old ones extensively rewritten).
With a sandbox in place, things could be migrated/rewritten/replaced gradually over time.
I don't see why we'd have to start from scratch. Yes, it would be a big task. However, it doesn't all need to be done in one go.
Hans
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Piru wrote:
@Hans_
An updated Amiga OS that breaks compatibility with the old system (but still runs old software in a sand-box) would still have the same design philosophy as the old system. Moreover, you already have a group of like-minded people (which obviously does not include you) ready to make it happen. Start a new OS project, and you end up with "yet another OS project" that is struggling to gain developer interest. Sure it would be a long-term effort, but the starting point is much better than having zero source-code and a blank slate with regard to design.
The problem with this is that if you introduce those new concepts such as MP, SMP, 64bit support and so forth, pretty much all of that old designs and code is useless. Sure you could use those for stuff that runs inside the sandbox, but not for the new stuff.
So basically you are starting with nearly zero source-code and blank slate regarding design. The cynic would ask what exactly would make this new system any better than say Mac OS X or GNU/Linux...
MP is out of the question for AmigaOS but managed code based on a subset of LLVM is possible for AROS and any source code that ditches 68k compatibility. See this slideshow (http://llvm.org/devmtg/2008-08/Criswell_SVA.pdf) for an example of how to do it.
64-bit addressing is also out of the question for AmigaOS but what is easily possible, is a hardware-based RAM-disk that can address more memory than 32-bits allows. All that's needed for this is a custom API that allows for memory swapping either with or without an MMU.
As for SMP, a gang scheduler could allow the forbid() and permit() functions to continue working as long as they disabled all but the first thread, and reenabled all of the other threads respectively, when they were called. The reason for this is all of the threads use the same task scheduler at once so their time-slices are synchronized.
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@Hans_
Why?
Say for example everything in AmigaOS and amiga apps depend on the shared memory model.
To mention few inside the OS itself:
- Libraries in general
- Devices (timer, audio, trackdisk, scsi.device etc)
- Resources
- Exec Message passing
- Exec IO interface (devices)
- dos.library <-> filesystem interface
- filesystems (they depend extensively on the message passing)
- Exec interrupt interface
- Hook interfaces all over the place
- ARexx
All of these would need to be rewritten, and since the dependacy on the old legacy APIs would be all over the place, and support for things such as MP, SMP and 64bit sizes would be missing, it would almost be better to write them from scratch anyway.
I also disagree that sandboxing would somehow help migrate the system gradually. You still need something to run the sandbox on. For the sandboxed environment to actually work you'd still need pretty much the whole host opearating system done already. Even with optimistic guestimates that'd take over half a decade (here assuming everything else such as the highly skilled and well motivated developing team, being paid and doing fulltime work would be provided).
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For something to run the sandbox on, see the linked PDF slideshow in my previous post.
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@SamuraiCrow
But such virtual environment needs something to run on top of, too. This is a chicken & egg problem.
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So let me get this straight, a group of people that can't even break simple boot code to get AmigaDos 4 up and running on a Mac-Mini are now going to redesign AROS around a complex memory management model?
Part of the problem is Tripos itself, even freed of BCPL code it's still a bit of a mess.
The only possible solution is to take Zune and the WOrkbench clone that has been built in AROS and get it to work on top of a QNX microkernel and run classic apps in the QNX version of UAE. Even then it's probably too late, but it might be worth a shot. A small Posix compliant OS with an interesting and small GUI might just turn a few heads.
(http://i55.photobucket.com/albums/g147/maniacdrums/beating-a-dead-horse.gif)
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But you have to look at the competition Linux faced when Linus started the project. Linux has 17 years of continuous development by thousands of programmers. OS X has about a decade in development, also with thousands of developers. MS Windows over two decades and again thousands of programmers.
What you are talking about is starting with a model T make a new model T with fuel cell technology, a GPS guidance system and crash proof and do it with a dozen people, oh and the model T still has to use the same gearbox...
Hans_ wrote:
amigadave wrote:
I guess it is a good thing that "the_leander" was not a room-mate of Linus Torvalds a few years back! :lol: :lol: :lol:
No kidding. But then, everyone that embarks on such a project is told that it's "unfeasible" and that they are "crazy." In many cases they are. It's the ones that do their homework, spot an opportunity/technique that others have missed, and ignore the nay-sayers that succeed.
Hans
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persia wrote:
So let me get this straight, a group of people that can't even break simple boot code to get AmigaDos 4 up and running on a Mac-Mini are now going to redesign AROS around a complex memory management model?
This is the reason why I get annoyed :-)
The only possible solution is to take Zune and the WOrkbench clone that has been built in AROS and get it to work on top of a QNX microkernel and run classic apps in the QNX version of UAE.
A rather resonable idea, and the only sensible idea I've heard in a long time. Zune even started life as a MUI clone on Linux, so there might not take very long to get it building in a POSIX OS.
Even then it's probably too late, but it might be worth a shot.
It is too late. But still sounds like fun.
A small Posix compliant OS with an interesting and small GUI might just turn a few heads.
I'm sure some of them do... but one more in the long list isn't going to make a splash.
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persia wrote:
Hans_ wrote:
amigadave wrote:
I guess it is a good thing that "the_leander" was not a room-mate of Linus Torvalds a few years back! :lol: :lol: :lol:
No kidding. But then, everyone that embarks on such a project is told that it's "unfeasible" and that they are "crazy." In many cases they are. It's the ones that do their homework, spot an opportunity/technique that others have missed, and ignore the nay-sayers that succeed.
Hans
What you are talking about is starting with a model T make a new model T with fuel cell technology, a GPS guidance system and crash proof and do it with a dozen people, oh and the model T still has to use the same gearbox...
Think it's more akin to taking that Model T, and trying to fit a modern electronic ignition, FADEC and fuel injection system onto the original engine... then painting the car Ferrari Red... Entering it into a Formula One Race... Then wondering in pure astonishment why it not only doesn't work, but everyone else is laughing at it!
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Piru wrote:
@Hans_
Why?
Say for example everything in AmigaOS and amiga apps depend on the shared memory model.
To mention few inside the OS itself:
- Libraries in general
Libraries are generally written such that the application holds the data itself. Thus the code could be shared (and protected) whilst the library calls remain within the application's process. Per-application globals can already be handled too, so I don't see the big issue here.
- Devices (timer, audio, trackdisk, scsi.device etc)
Yes, the devices are going to be a pain. But how many of the device APIs actually pass pointers to the driver internals? The input device, timer device and others definitely don't. Their message internals could remain the same. For the trackdisk and scsi.device, the application wouldn't be able to put the read/write buffer just anywhere, but that's the application's problem, not the device driver's. When working on a project involving controlling CD/DVD-R drives, I was anticipating a move toward increased memory protection and ensured that the entire contents of the message were allocated in shared-memory. It's doable.
I'm not too familiar with the other device driver APIs, but I'd expect most of them to have similar issues. Most of the time, it would be the application that has to change.
- Exec Message passing
Well, obviously. But what kind of a change are you thinking of? I'd expect the message passing by reference to continue, but with a requirement that the entire contents of a message must be in shared mem (or temporarily shared mem, if possible), and the message receiver isn't allowed to cache pointers (i.e., after a reply message, it no longer has access).
- Exec IO interface (devices)
Already covered above.
- dos.library <-> filesystem interface
- filesystems (they reply extensively on the message passing)
I don't know enough about these to comment. You're probably right that these would require extensive rewrites. To be honest, I think that DOS is the messiest part of the Amiga API. If anything would need a rewrite from scratch, or simply be replaced with a more modern alternative, it would be DOS (at least get to get rid of all the BCPL stuff).
- Exec interrupt interface
Don't IRQ handlers operate in kernel space? If so, what's the issue?
- Hook interfaces all over the place
How many would involve data crossing over process boundaries? Yes, those would be a real pain.
- ARexx
The impression that I get is that people want ARexx to be retired, and replaced with something more modern anyway. One of the open-source scripting languages (Python?) would be a good candidate.
All of these would need to be rewritten, and since the dependacy on the old legacy APIs would be all over the place, and support for things such as MP, SMP and 64bit sizes would be missing, it would almost be better to write them from scratch anyway.
Exactly what is the difficulty with expanding ints to int64s? We're breaking compatibility anyway, so keeping structure alignment isn't necessary.
I also disagree that sandboxing would somehow help migrate the system gradually. You still need something to run the sandbox on. For the sandboxed environment to actually work you'd still need pretty much the whole host opearating system done already. Even with optimistic guestimates that'd take over half a decade (here assuming everything else such as the highly skilled and well motivated developing team, being paid and doing fulltime work would be provided).
To get things started, you'd need the new exec kernel and a set of device drivers running before the sandbox could be put in place. However, after that, the process could be more gradual.
Hans
BTW, some people enjoy retrofitting and enhancing their old cars/motorcycles. Probably the most interesting of those would be Burt Munro taking a motorcycle designed in 1901 with a max speed of 60 mph, and setting a world speed record of 190.07 mph (unofficially 205.67 mph was reached) in 1967.
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persia wrote:
But you have to look at the competition Linux faced when Linus started the project. Linux has 17 years of continuous development by thousands of programmers. OS X has about a decade in development, also with thousands of developers. MS Windows over two decades and again thousands of programmers.
Hind sight is always 20/20. Jump back to when Linus started and you'd probably find plenty of people that would have said the same thing about Linux. "You're going to go up against existing Unix systems that have had over a decade of development by huge teams? You're blinking mad." Sound familiar?
Hans
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Hans_ wrote:
Do you have any concept of how difficult it is to produce a modern operating system that meets todays standards?
Do you?
It's not my area of expertise, but I'm not exactly ignorant on the subject either. Judging by what you've said, you've never actually been involved as an OS developer either, you just spoke to the developers.
No, you're right, I'm not a coder, but I know enough coders and have known them long enough to have a firm grasp of just how big a job reimplimenting an OS is. Yes, what you're saying with regard likemindedness is not a bad thing, but as Piru pointed out, the amount of work required to bring up to scratch the OS and drag it into the modern age would be so great that the existing code would be all but useless for the task and probably be quicker and cleaner to simply move to a fresh sheet of paper.
Hans_ wrote:
AmigaOS reimplimented in a modern fashion would be and is a pipe dream, one lacking in both resource and a framework. To take the AmigaOS and make it a truly modern OS, with all the things that are expected from a modern OS (SMP, multi user, memory protection etc etc etc) would be a staggaringly complex proposition, far greater then "simply" reimplimenting what came before (such as AROS or Haiku), requiring far more developer numbers then even both communities combined could offer.
You keep on insisting that it has to be a "from-scratch" implementation. It does not. There is no need to dump all the source-code.
Piru answered this better then I could. Short answer, yes, it really would.
Hans_ wrote:
Hans_ wrote:
Why do it? To push the system forward. We all know that breaking compatibility is required so why not just go ahead and do it?
Yes, great, but at that point, why bother? Seriously, if you are going to drop support for old applications, why not simply move to a new OS and have done with it?
A sand-box for old apps would be part of such a system so the old apps would still run (and yes, I know that this will take more time than dumping the old application support).
And this would be better then say AROS or Haiku with an intergrated Jit-UAE system, how?
I really want to understand why you feel something like you're suggesting is a prefered option over an AROS or Haiku based Hybrid. Please, explain.
Hans_ wrote:
There is nothing unfeasible about NatAmi, it's an FPGA board thats been told it's an amiga-alike. Now the cool factor there is the same as the C=One, it also offers the potential for developers to cut their teeth on relatively simple and elegant solutions on which to build better things, the ultimate bedroom coders board. Truthfully I feel that something like this or Amithlon *should* have been chosen as the way forward for the Amiga.
That's easy to say now that the concept has been proven. Were you around when Dennis van Weeren announced the Minimig? People were yelling "Hoax! It's impossible! It can't be done!" till they were blue in the face.
In fairness to the people who have cried hoax, how many major vapourware projects have we all seen come and go?
I lost count at around the 20 mark back in 2003.
I must admit, I wasn't around (was a bit busy being homeless and all that), so no, I didn't see the initial reaction, but it doesn't invalidate the above point.
Personally I say good luck to Dennis, it's a damn fine bit of work, same goes for this NatAmi project.
Hans_ wrote:
I know it is, I have some idea of the monumental difficulties involved in doing what you're suggesting with regard to the AmigaOS.
Ah, and by implication then, I have "no idea." Whatever.
No idea? I never said that. Don't put words into my mouth sunshine.
Yes, I can be abrasive at times, but I've seen far too many "lets port the AmigaOS to and add SMP, MP, 64bit etc etc, lets release it tomorrow, and do it for a quid!!!!111oneoneone", you aren't one of those, not by a long shot, but at the same time there are issues that need explanation as to why it's unlikely to happen with what you're asking. Know nothing? I've seen far too many of your posts to consider that for a second.
As for the linus torvalds crack, I should point out I'm using an EeePC with Xandros running on it to post this...
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Hans_ wrote:
persia wrote:
But you have to look at the competition Linux faced when Linus started the project. Linux has 17 years of continuous development by thousands of programmers. OS X has about a decade in development, also with thousands of developers. MS Windows over two decades and again thousands of programmers.
Hind sight is always 20/20. Jump back to when Linus started and you'd probably find plenty of people that would have said the same thing about Linux. "You're going to go up against existing Unix systems that have had over a decade of development by huge teams? You're blinking mad." Sound familiar?
Hans
No, Linus wrote a 386 based MINIX clone for himself... quite a straight forward task. Much like AROS was a 386 AmigaOS clone. It was other people who just started adding things to it, and bug fixing it, which lead to its popularity. No one thought Linus was mad, as he was just building a kernel for his own use, which happened to be useful to others.
If AmigaOS was useful to others outside of the Amiga community then it would have been picked up long ago.
AmigaOS is, by design, useless for modern computing needs. And trying to fix the broken parts of the API would be after a cost/benefit analysis, unjustifyable... Why spend 2 years fixing an old OS, rendering it totally incompatible with it's own software base at both a source and binary level!!!! When you could spend those 2 years making an already good OS, brilliant!
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And this would be better then say AROS or Haiku with an intergrated Jit-UAE system, how?
I really want to understand why you feel something like you're suggesting is a prefered option over an AROS or Haiku based Hybrid. Please, explain.
You probably wouldn't care too much about this one, but I have OS4 software that won't run on UAE. Also, UAE is rather slow so apps that don't bang the hardware directly would run much faster in a sandboxed environment.
Hans
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Hans_ wrote:
And this would be better then say AROS or Haiku with an intergrated Jit-UAE system, how?
I really want to understand why you feel something like you're suggesting is a prefered option over an AROS or Haiku based Hybrid. Please, explain.
You probably wouldn't care too much about this one, but I have OS4 software that won't run on UAE.
And which of those OS4 applications is a killer app, with no free alternative on Linux?
Also, UAE is rather slow so apps that don't bang the hardware directly would run much faster in a sandboxed environment.
But the only reason to run AmigaOS now is for those old apps... and as I've said before Almost all of the Amiga software I still want to run hit the hardware... so UAE is perfect, best of both worlds really. Especially if we are using a nice fast x86 :-)
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bloodline wrote:
Hans_ wrote:
And this would be better then say AROS or Haiku with an intergrated Jit-UAE system, how?
I really want to understand why you feel something like you're suggesting is a prefered option over an AROS or Haiku based Hybrid. Please, explain.
You probably wouldn't care too much about this one, but I have OS4 software that won't run on UAE.
And which of those OS4 applications is a killer app, with no free alternative on Linux?
I don't care if there's a free Linux alternative. I don't like many of the Linux alternatives because I think that they're badly designed.
Also, UAE is rather slow so apps that don't bang the hardware directly would run much faster in a sandboxed environment.
But the only reason to run AmigaOS now is for those old apps... and as I've said before Almost all of the Amiga software I still want to run hit the hardware... so UAE is perfect, best of both worlds really. Especially if we are using a nice fast x86 :-)
That's the only reason for you to run Amiga OS. I haven't run any hardware banging apps in a while. Part of the fun for me is to push the system beyond its original design. As bad as it sounds, playing catch-up with the rest of the world is also kind of fun (ok, maybe not all the time).
Hans
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Hans_ wrote:
And this would be better then say AROS or Haiku with an integrated Jit-UAE system, how?
I really want to understand why you feel something like you're suggesting is a preferred option over an AROS or Haiku based Hybrid. Please, explain.
You probably wouldn't care too much about this one, but I have OS4 software that won't run on UAE. Also, UAE is rather slow so apps that don't bang the hardware directly would run much faster in a sandboxed environment.
Hans
Ok, but how would breaking compatibility with your current software (as you have conceded as a necessity toward making the OS serviceable in a modern context) going to help you over porting it to such a hybrid, or getting it running under UAE?
Further, If you find UAE slow, try Amithlon, seriously, the difference is night and day and even on a system such as a 901 or 1001 EeePC, likely faster and more responsive then any Amiga or AmigaOne ever built.
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@Hans_
Libraries are generally written such that the application holds the data itself.
Unfortunately this is not the case. Most libraries maintain library side data structures which are shared between different callers. These require total rewrite in MP environment.
But how many of the device APIs actually pass pointers to the driver internals? The input device, timer device and others definitely don't. Their message internals could remain the same.
Except that the messaging system must go (see below), which means the device interface will change, too. -> rewriting tons of code.
Exec Message passing
Well, obviously. But what kind of a change are you thinking of? I'd expect the message passing by reference to continue, but with a requirement that the entire contents of a message must be in shared mem (or temporarily shared mem, if possible), and the message receiver isn't allowed to cache pointers (i.e., after a reply message, it no longer has access).
I was merely pointing out the problems, not suggesting any ways to fix them (yes, this is much easier, I know :-)). Since the actual message can contain arbitrary data (say pointers to even more data elsewhere in memory!), it's impossible to re-use this concept in an MP environment. This is one of the largest problems since it means ALL message passing code must be rewritten everywhere. And this problem is extremely widespread since messages are in the core of pretty much every other OS component and application.
Don't IRQ handlers operate in kernel space? If so, what's the issue?
They call user code directly. Assuming each process has it's own memory space this just won't work at all.
How many would involve data crossing over process boundaries? Yes, those would be a real pain.
Most. There are couple of context dependant pointers passed to the hook function for example, and the hooks again call other process' code from the context of either another. Total mess from MP POV. This means hooks must go too, so anything using them must be rewritten.
Exactly what is the difficulty with expanding ints to int64s? We're breaking compatibility anyway, so keeping structure alignment isn't necessary.
Assuming AmigaOS, all of the existing code is hardcoded to 32bit ints (pointer sizes mostly). AROS situation is better here, but AFAIK not everything is fixed yet.
To get things started, you'd need the new exec kernel and a set of device drivers running before the sandbox could be put in place.
Device drivers alone won't do it I'm afraid. Or are you suggesting the sandbox would somehow use the drivers directly? That'd lead to double work since you'd then need to somehow access them from both the sandbox and the new OS itself. Also, not many device drivers handle two simultanous accessors well (for example imagine two OSes fighting over the access to HDD, display framebuffer and input devices). This plan smells of disaster.
One way or another one of the OSes must explicitly manage the actual hardware resources, and then provide them in a safe, controlled manner to the other. If you plan to have MP, this manager can't be the sandbox -> you must have pretty advanced new OS before the sandbox can work.
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Ok, but how would breaking compatibility with your current software (as you have conceded as a necessity toward making the OS serviceable in a modern context) going to help you over porting it to such a hybrid, or getting it running under UAE?
Having a similar API would ease the porting process.
Further, If you find UAE slow, try Amithlon, seriously, the difference is night and day and even on a system such as a 901 or 1001 EeePC, likely faster and more responsive then any Amiga or AmigaOne ever built.
It's no longer available. Amithlon could have become the basis for a new Amiga OS. Too late now with all the developments that have happened since.
Hans
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@Piru
Piru wrote:
@Hans_
Libraries are generally written such that the application holds the data itself.
Unfortunately this is not the case. Most libraries maintain library side data structures which are shared between different callers. These require total rewrite in MP environment.
Such as the library open count? No-one but the system needs access to those.
Exec Message passing
Well, obviously. But what kind of a change are you thinking of? I'd expect the message passing by reference to continue, but with a requirement that the entire contents of a message must be in shared mem (or temporarily shared mem, if possible), and the message receiver isn't allowed to cache pointers (i.e., after a reply message, it no longer has access).
I was merely pointing out the problems, not suggesting any ways to fix them (yes, this is much easier, I know :-)). Since the actual message can contain arbitrary data (say pointers to even more data elsewhere in memory!), it's impossible to re-use this concept in an MP environment. This is one of the largest problems since it means ALL message passing code must be rewritten everywhere. And this problem is extremely widespread since messages are in the core of pretty much every other OS component and application.
I already said that the pointers to arbitrary memory would no longer be acceptable. I even discuss pointers in the bit that you quoted. Now why would the timer messages have to be changed? I think that the driver messages with pointers to data buffers could remain mostly intact too; the buffers would just have to reside within shared memory, or within the message allocation itself. That's going to annoy some app developers, but I don't see that as a reason to completely dump the message passing scheme.
Exactly what is the difficulty with expanding ints to int64s? We're breaking compatibility anyway, so keeping structure alignment isn't necessary.
Assuming AmigaOS, all of the existing code is hardcoded to 32bit ints (pointer sizes mostly). AROS situation is better here, but AFAIK not everything is fixed yet.
typedef void* APTR;
Doing a search and replace for LONG would be a good start (just not through all source-files in one shot). This would be more of a tedious task than a hard one.
To get things started, you'd need the new exec kernel and a set of device drivers running before the sandbox could be put in place.
Device drivers alone won't do it I'm afraid. Or are you suggesting the sandbox would somehow use the drivers directly? That'd lead to double work since you'd then need to somehow access them from both the sandbox and the new OS itself. Also, not many device drivers handle two simultanous accessors well (for example imagine two OSes fighting over the access to HDD, display framebuffer and input devices). This plan smells of disaster.
Anything in the sandbox would have to go through an abstraction layer, so you'd likely have to write a scsi.device, trackdisk.device, etc. that would go through the abstraction layer (yes, more work I know).
The sand-box would be more for running the existing GUI system and other higher-level stuff. Basically anything that's not exec, DOS or a device.
Having said that, some drivers could initially be allowed to access hardware "directly" (still going through some kind of layer) from the sand-box until a replacement exists for the new OS. The idea is that, initially, the new OS would only be running one app, the sand-box. So, having something like the USB stack running in the sand-box and providing it with exclusive access to the USB card wouldn't be a big deal as the new OS wouldn't have its own USB stack yet. As soon as the new OS gets its own stack, the sand-box would require a wrapper.
Hans
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Hans_ wrote:
Ok, but how would breaking compatibility with your current software (as you have conceded as a necessity toward making the OS serviceable in a modern context) going to help you over porting it to such a hybrid, or getting it running under UAE?
Having a similar API would ease the porting process.
But no moreso then using the hypothetical Haiku/AROS hybrid from what I can see.
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@Hans_
Such as the library open count? No-one but the system needs access to those.
No. Things inside the library. Things the functions (called from various different processes) modify.
I already said that the pointers to arbitrary memory would no longer be acceptable.
That'd break almost all existing code and you'd need to rewrite much of it. Not to mention there wouldn't be trivial way of detecting wrong usage, other than having the process bomb due to access violation.
the buffers would just have to reside within shared memory
Using shared memory kind of cripples the idea of MP IMHO. Especially since things as DMA can take a very long time and the buffer would sit exposed for extended periods.
Also, how is this shared memory going to work? By forcing each memory allocation to pagesize alignment? Or by copying the whole message around at putmsg and replymsg? Using copy sounds pretty bad for anything that passes largish data around. Forcing alignment to pagesize doesn't sound particularily appealing either.
typedef void* APTR;
Except that there are million things that don't use it.
Doing a search and replace for LONG would be a good start (just not through all source-files in one shot).
Manually check every occurance of LONG? Sounds pretty mind numbing, indeed...
The sand-box would be more for running the existing GUI system and other higher-level stuff. Basically anything that's not exec, DOS or a device.
So to recap: You must write much of the new system before you actually get to run the sandbox.
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the_leander wrote:
Hans_ wrote:
Ok, but how would breaking compatibility with your current software (as you have conceded as a necessity toward making the OS serviceable in a modern context) going to help you over porting it to such a hybrid, or getting it running under UAE?
Having a similar API would ease the porting process.
But no moreso then using the hypothetical Haiku/AROS hybrid from what I can see.
I am assuming that the message passing system will still be similar, instead of the complete replacement that Piru says would be required. That would make it easier.
Hans
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Piru wrote:
@Hans_
Such as the library open count? No-one but the system needs access to those.
No. Things inside the library. Things the functions (called from various different processes) modify.
Could you please provide a solid example so that I understand what the problem is?
I already said that the pointers to arbitrary memory would no longer be acceptable.
That'd break almost all existing code and you'd need to rewrite much of it.
Inserting appropriate message allocations would be tedious, but it's not like you have to write things from scratch.
Not to mention there wouldn't be trivial way of detecting wrong usage, other than having the process bomb due to access violation.
Now this is something that I just didn't think about. It would be nasty if you could crash a process just by sending it a bad message.
the buffers would just have to reside within shared memory
Using shared memory kind of cripples the idea of MP IMHO. Especially since things as DMA can take a very long time and the buffer would sit exposed for extended periods.
The memory wouldn't have to be shared with everyone. Nor would it have to be writable by all processes with which it's shared.
Also, how is this shared memory going to work? By forcing each memory allocation to pagesize alignment? Or by copying the whole message around at putmsg and replymsg? Using copy sounds pretty bad for anything that passes largish data around. Forcing alignment to pagesize doesn't sound particularily appealing either.
Large messages (i.e., ones with big buffers) could be page-sized. For small messages a copy would probably be the sensible thing to do.
typedef void* APTR;
Except that there are million things that don't use it.
Hence the next line below.
Doing a search and replace for LONG would be a good start (just not through all source-files in one shot).
Manually check every occurance of LONG? Sounds pretty mind numbing, indeed...
I don't think that a manual check would be needed for every occurrence.
The sand-box would be more for running the existing GUI system and other higher-level stuff. Basically anything that's not exec, DOS or a device.
So to recap: You must write much of the new system before you actually get to run the sandbox.
Correct. Although as I said, initially some of the drivers could be inside the sand-box with exclusive access to the hardware. That would be the case until a native version was available for the new system.
Hans
EDIT: I've just realized how much time I've wasted debating something that won't happen any time soon (if ever).
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Hans_ wrote:
the_leander wrote:
Hans_ wrote:
Ok, but how would breaking compatibility with your current software (as you have conceded as a necessity toward making the OS serviceable in a modern context) going to help you over porting it to such a hybrid, or getting it running under UAE?
Having a similar API would ease the porting process.
But no moreso then using the hypothetical Haiku/AROS hybrid from what I can see.
I am assuming that the message passing system will still be similar, instead of the complete replacement that Piru says would be required. That would make it easier.
Hans
Dunno about AROS, but Haiku, like BeOS took some of the best ideas from AmigaOS, things like the datatypes system and brought it bang up to date with things like video codecs etc. My thought was to essentially take Haiku, and build a JIT-UAE into it in a seamless fashion as a service, kind of like Amithlon, I would imagine the same could be done more easily with AROS, though with that you would loose many more modern options that would come with Haiku.
I honestly can't see any other way of jump starting Amiga except to piggyback on another OS, or, through something like NatAmi. The days of AmigaOS, even OS4 as we knew it, are over.
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Hans_ wrote:
Piru wrote:
@Hans_
Such as the library open count? No-one but the system needs access to those.
No. Things inside the library. Things the functions (called from various different processes) modify.
Could you please provide a solid example so that I understand what the problem is?
EDIT: I've just realized how much time I've wasted debating something that won't happen any time soon (if ever).
Hans... no offence meant here, but have you ever done any Amiga development at all? I ask because the questions you are asking show a real lack of knowledge with AmigaOS... If you want to find out more about how AmigaOS works, just have a look over the AROS source code it would give you a much clearer idea of the scale of the problem!
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the_leander wrote:
Haiku, like BeOS took some of the best ideas from AmigaOS, things like the datatypes system and brought it bang up to date with things like video codecs etc.
Apart from datatypes, in what ways is BeOS/Haiku similar to AmigaOS?
bloodline wrote:
Hans... no offence meant here, but have you ever done any Amiga development at all?
No offence, but... do you intend to stir trouble or are you just naive? In any case, just so Hans_ doesn't have to rise to your bait himself, he is working on OpenGL stuff for AmigaOS4 IIRC.
@all
I'm sure you're all aware of CAOS, the operating system the Amiga was destined to have from the start. Here's some information about it if you need a refresher:
http://www.thule.no/haynie/caos.html
Now from what I can tell from that synopsis CAOS was very similar in design to what we now know as AmigaOS, but with a few key differences that allowed for better MP, better file system, etc...
Two questions:
1. Will copying or adapting some of the design features from CAOS allow us to move into a more stable AmigaOS without having to rewrite all the subsystems from scratch?
2. Will these CAOS features restrict us in building the application sandbox Hans_ is proposing?
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HenryCase wrote:
bloodline wrote:
Hans... no offence meant here, but have you ever done any Amiga development at all?
No offence, but... do you intend to stir trouble or are you just naive?
Don't be an idiot! That was a legitimate question, Hans is asking questions that honestly give the impression that he has had very little experience messing around with AmigaOS.
In any case, just so Hans_ doesn't have to rise to your bait himself, he is working on OpenGL stuff for AmigaOS4 IIRC.
:-? And? What bait? What "OpenGL stuff"?
@all
I'm sure you're all aware of CAOS, the operating system the Amiga was destined to have from the start.
I'm very aware of CAOS... and there is a big reason why we don't have it now.
Here's some information about it if you need a refresher:
http://www.thule.no/haynie/caos.html
Now from what I can tell from that synopsis CAOS was very similar in design to what we now know as AmigaOS, but with a few key differences that allowed for better MP, better file system, etc...
CAOS was totally different from AmigaOS. And guess what it didn't work and it couldn't be made to work in budget or in time.
Two questions:
1. Will copying or adapting some of the design features from CAOS allow us to move into a more stable AmigaOS without having to rewrite all the subsystems from scratch?
CAOS was a fundamentally different system built around our beloved exec. Oh and it didn't work... if you read what is left of the specs, you can see it was an odd system... probably even less compatible with the all pervasive POSIX than what we have now...
2. Will these CAOS features restrict us in building the application sandbox Hans_ is proposing?
Forget about the sandbox... ok?
There is no future with AmigaOS anymore... we need to make the best of what we have, and develop that to the best of the concepts strengths... rather than these silly pipe dreams, which serve to do little more than make our favourite OS look really stupid.
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bloodline wrote:
That was a legitimate question
Maybe, but what did you intend to achieve by asking it?
bloodline wrote:
What "OpenGL stuff"?
Adding functions/features to TinyGL.
bloodline wrote:
CAOS was totally different from AmigaOS. And guess what it didn't work and it couldn't be made to work in budget or in time.
Those reasons were financial rather than technical, as far as I can tell. See this quote from Carl Sassenrath: "CAOS was contracted out, for the most part, to a company that felt Unix was a better choice and didn't buy into my design. They became history when they started using their Sun development systems for other projects, not the Amiga higher level OS functions."
bloodline wrote:
CAOS was a fundamentally different system built around our beloved exec. Oh and it didn't work...
...because the coding wasn't finished. That doesn't mean we can't apply some of the ideas from CAOS to our newest AmigaOSs.
bloodline wrote:
if you read what is left of the specs, you can see it was an odd system... probably even less compatible with the all pervasive POSIX than what we have now...
Not everyone sees POSIX as a good thing. Seems to me the more you strive for total POSIX compatibility the more you turn your OS into a UNIX variant. As long as apps aren't super difficult to port why care about POSIX?
bloodline wrote:
rather than these silly pipe dreams, which serve to do little more than make our favourite OS look really stupid.
This goes back to the can it be done/should it be done split I outlined in our last MP discussion. Should it be done? Probably not. Can it be done? That's the interesting part. Forget about logistics, discuss the technical details.
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Hosted AROS runs AROS software in a sandbox on top of Linux. If you don't want the sandbox and want to run it memory-protected, use Linux itself.
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HenryCase wrote:
the_leander wrote:
Haiku, like BeOS took some of the best ideas from AmigaOS, things like the datatypes system and brought it bang up to date with things like video codecs etc.
Apart from datatypes, in what ways is BeOS/Haiku similar to AmigaOS?
*dusts off his cope of CU Amiga, dated July 1998...
Client-server internal architecture, multithreaded throughout, Pervasive multithreading with realtime multitasking with an object oriented API that is clear and simple.
The IO system is modular, dynamically loaded (just as with .library and .device)
That said, there are some major differences, it has memory protection, virtual memory, the graphics system is modular to the point where a driver for a graphics card can be installed and used without rebooting.
The way it handles filetypes is different, although newicons and deficons aparently have similar capabilities.
The filesystem is journaled and offers realtime searches that to this day is very powerful in comparason to OSX's and Vistas.
It also has posix compliance and a built in TCP/IP stack.
The big difference though was the fact that API forced you to write your application in a multithreaded fashion, which for a complex application wasn't such a bad thing, for a simple application (such as unzip, for instance) it was less useful, indeed it could be a disadvantage.
Haiku (the last time I checked) was implimenting full Multiuser support (the option was always there but never implimented in the original BeOS). Zeta 1.5b had fully functional Multiuser support however it's development was cut short when the guy who started Zeta was found to have lied about his having a licence with Palm for the original BeOS code.
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@Hans_
Could you please provide a solid example so that I understand what the problem is?
selib.c (http://www.iki.fi/sintonen/src/misc/selib.c)
Constructs such as this are extremely common, and WILL die horribly with MP.
I don't think that a manual check would be needed for every occurrence.
Why not?
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@HenryCase
1. Will copying or adapting some of the design features from CAOS allow us to move into a more stable AmigaOS without having to rewrite all the subsystems from scratch?
No.
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@SamuraiCrow
Hosted AROS runs AROS software in a sandbox on top of Linux. If you don't want the sandbox and want to run it memory-protected, use Linux itself.
Examundo. You hit the proverbial nail in the proverbial head.
This is the exact reason why such NG-AmigaOS-project makes absolutely no sense at all. You'd only end up with 0 applications, especially if you wouldn't be POSIXy (apparently some see it as a bad thing...). Also, lets not forget the horrible pain that'd ensue from having to write drivers for the tens of thousands of x86 devices. Either do that, or severely limit the possible setups for the OS.
I'd take the negligible overhead of running hosted on top of the Linux kernel any day.
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>This week a cascading failure beginning in the A2091 lead to the death of the card, a CD burner and hard drive.
...
>I'll buy the first clone that can reliable meet or exceed the capabilities of my old A2000/040/32MB RAM.
How does the hard drive controller card failing relate to the A2000 motherboard? Won't just replacing the A2091 card with GVP SCSI card help? I have had a GVP SCSI for many years and has not yet failed although the hard drive attached has failed since it's well past its MTBF; however, it still works if I press On/Off a few times and get it to spin up. The only motherboard that ever failed me was the one that had the battery leak.
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by asymetrix on 2008/8/3 22:45:02
>This thread is so silly.
Well, your comments don't help to improve it.
>1) This shrinkage changed the speed of the original chips by laws of physics.
>This equals not cycle exact.
First you have to have a frequency that you are talking about before you claim it's not cycle exact. You can have something execute by the time the cycle time you want is expired, and the shrinkage won't affect the cycle exact nature as everything will be ready to be clocked in at the next cycle.
>2) from OCS to AGA the design changed again, speeds changed again, design changed for 32 bit support.
>This equals cycle change again.
No, the OCS Copper still run at 3.57954525Mhz on AGA. The OCS Paula still has a sampling rate divisor of 3.57954525Mhz. The CIA timer still runs at 715909Hertz. CPUs were purposely put at higher clock rates with faster memory; they weren't trying to keep them running at the same clock frequency since the timing could still be done via other methods (CIA, Copper, using a Paula sound channel as the original poster's sound software does).
>There is no such thing as cycle exact, its just marketing hype.
Yes there is and on the Atari 800, even the CPU at 1.7897Mhz is cycle exact as well as it's timers, DLI, VBI, etc. since they never bothered to upgrade CPU speeds.
>IF hardware can run Amiga OS and Amiga programs the same way as Commodore Amiga then its Amiga. Simple as that.
If the programs use the cycle exact nature of the Amiga which was maintained in all of its models and it does not run the same on a "new" software or hardware amiga, then that's not a real Amiga. Why would Commodore bother keeping all those timings the same in future models if cycle exact was just hype.
>Software, hardware, simulation, emulation its all Amiga.
I believe many people familiar with hardware will disagree with you.
>Simply put, do you actually think a normal user cares what hardware it is ?
You can also say fake diamond is the same as a real diamond if it looks the same. But some people have use for the real one and to claim it's all the same is being vague and misleading.
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I mentioned this early. Really do no see the point in running old OS stuff in a sandbox and the code a ccompletley new OS to run the sandbox in.
We have already got a brillaint sandbox its called UAE, run it on any system you want (more or less). There are even linux installs around that are so small and with running UAE in mind, so you would not even not notice xit wasnt native OS3.9.
We already have MorphOS and OS4. They are the most modern an amiga like OS is going to get.
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HenryCase wrote:
bloodline wrote:
That was a legitimate question
Maybe, but what did you intend to achieve by asking it?
Your reaction to the question is far more interesting than either my question or Hans's answer could ever be!
I was interested in what experience Hans had, so that I could answer his questions better, perhaps he has experince in VxWorks... I don't know, but his questions were not those of someone who has spent many a bored evening messing around with an Assembler trying to get stuff to work...
You rection though, immediately makes me think there is far more to this than you are letting on, and not a good way. Someone is bullsh1ting us here!
bloodline wrote:
What "OpenGL stuff"?
Adding functions/features to TinyGL.
Bug fixing a library that is not native to the Amiga is hardly a way to learn about the internals of AmigaOS.
bloodline wrote:
CAOS was totally different from AmigaOS. And guess what it didn't work and it couldn't be made to work in budget or in time.
Those reasons were financial rather than technical, as far as I can tell.
During the development of a new Operating system, is there any difference... Any problem can be solved eventually if you throw enough money at it.
Technology is all about bringing in the features you want, on a budget and in timescale.
See this quote from Carl Sassenrath: "CAOS was contracted out, for the most part, to a company that felt Unix was a better choice and didn't buy into my design. They became history when they started using their Sun development systems for other projects, not the Amiga higher level OS functions."
See above.
bloodline wrote:
CAOS was a fundamentally different system built around our beloved exec. Oh and it didn't work...
...because the coding wasn't finished. That doesn't mean we can't apply some of the ideas from CAOS to our newest AmigaOSs.
It couldn't be finished. It wasn't possible to get it done in the time frame/budget that Commodore had, to get the Amiga out in time. If they had stuck with it and the project had rolled on for 2 more years... too much money would have been spent, and every other computer company would have had a chance to make something better. The Amiga would have failed before it even left the stable.
bloodline wrote:
if you read what is left of the specs, you can see it was an odd system... probably even less compatible with the all pervasive POSIX than what we have now...
Not everyone sees POSIX as a good thing. Seems to me the more you strive for total POSIX compatibility the more you turn your OS into a UNIX variant. As long as apps aren't super difficult to port why care about POSIX?
You have a choice... be POSIX compatible and have software or be some strange little curiosity OS... with no software.
All you really have now is Win32 or POSIX (ok, the MacOS X NeXTStep frameworks are gain ground, but Mac software really stays on the Mac). 99% of all free software is POSIX, and a new operating system needs free software to be in any way useful.
If you don't like POSIX, really what else is there?
bloodline wrote:
rather than these silly pipe dreams, which serve to do little more than make our favourite OS look really stupid.
This goes back to the can it be done/should it be done split I outlined in our last MP discussion. Should it be done? Probably not. Can it be done? That's the interesting part. Forget about logistics, discuss the technical details.
I'm happy to disscuss the technical issues, but I would prefer it if we were not just going around in circles... and as soon as an issue is almost put to bed as unsolveable... someone pipes up that I must be an Amiga hater, or that there must be a way for the amiga to make a massive come back, we just need tothink about it properly... both of which are untrue.
We are at the end of the developement, cycle here. The Amiga scene had some of the greatest minds available... Any problem that can be solved has been solved. AmigaOS is what it is. If you want to make a new OS go right ahead. But I like our little dinosaur.
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Hi all
I followed this and I was thinking. That if one changed the definition of where it must go to be modern? The string theory was canned and then rediscovered and is now hotter than ever. Bear with me for a second despite my low knowledge in this field. You can say that AROS is not VISTA, true.
AROS is not a Ferrari it is a salt lake sound barrier braking OS then run on a fast PC. It’s so fast it’s ludicrous. There was a guy yesterday that wanted to use AROS for some car application that will put peoples life in the hands of an AMIGA OS. Samurai crow wrote over at the Amiga world, then talking about parallel hardware that MP was not necessary. Is there another way to do it? Could it be a strength to not have a similar MP like all the dragons? Just a little comment, I may be completely wrong.
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cicero790 wrote:
Hi all
I followed this and I was thinking. That if one changed the definition of where it must go to be modern? The string theory was canned and then rediscovered and is now hotter than ever.
I don't think you know your Modern Physics very well... :-(
Bear with me for a second despite my low knowledge in this field. You can say that AROS is not VISTA, true.
AROS is not a Ferrari it is a salt lake sound barrier braking OS then run on a fast PC. It’s so fast it’s ludicrous.
But the AmigaOS design can't take advantage of modern hardware features... An OS that can use an 8core CPU... is going to outperform one that can only use one.
An OS that doesn't need to reboot every time there is a problem, is outperforming already one that does!
There was a guy yesterday that wanted to use AROS for some car application that will put peoples life in the hands of an AMIGA OS.
As I understand it, his application is not mission critical.
Believe me, system that are mission critical... say used on aircraft, for example, put stablity and fault tolerence above all else.
You would be an idiot if you used AmigaOS in such a situation.
Samurai crow wrote over at the Amiga world, then talking about parallel hardware that MP was not necessary. Is there another way to do it?
MP isn't necessary for SMP, but it's not very efficient if don't have VERY controlled memory management. Imagine if you have a CPU core trying to access memory that is on a separate bus, that is in use by another CPU... the speed would be terrible...
MP didn't wasn't invented to make AmigaOS redundant... it is a very useful feature.
Could it be a strength to not have a similar MP like all the dragons?
Singularity tried a different approach... M$ have dropped it now, so you can play with the source code yourself. It is very nice, and I look forward to seeing what the OpenSource community do with it.
Just a little comment, I may be completely wrong.
Indeed.
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You have a sharp sword Bloodline. It looks grim the way you present the situation. But, can you see a way to adapt AROS to take advantage of multi core processors??
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cicero790 wrote:
You have a sharp sword Bloodline. It looks grim the way you present the situation. But, can you see a way to adapt AROS to take advantage of multi core processors??
Yes, actually... This is an Area that Kal and Michal S on AROS-Exec.org can disscuss better :-)
I find concurrency issues very complex and it takes me a while to get my head around. In short it is possible, but the design of AmigaOS (and thus AROS) is not really very suited to SMP...
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Thats brilliant news. There could be a NEXT GEN. The possibility is there. Thats great! :-)
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cicero790 wrote:
Thats brilliant news. There could be a NEXT GEN. The possibility is there. Thats great! :-)
Yes, but an OS based on AmigaOS is never going to be as good at using modern hardware as a modern OS design.
I'm not really sure why there is this real need for a "Next Gen" anymore. I think that time has passed. We now need ot focus on what AmigaOS does well.
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bloodline wrote:
cicero790 wrote:
Thats brilliant news. There could be a NEXT GEN. The possibility is there. Thats great! :-)
Yes, but an OS based on AmigaOS is never going to be as good at using modern hardware as a modern OS design.
I'm not really sure why there is this real need for a "Next Gen" anymore. I think that time has passed. We now need ot focus on what AmigaOS does well.
O.k O.k O.k, But when you say that there is a possibility for a multi core version, thats a Quantum leap in my book.
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cicero790 wrote:
bloodline wrote:
cicero790 wrote:
Thats brilliant news. There could be a NEXT GEN. The possibility is there. Thats great! :-)
Yes, but an OS based on AmigaOS is never going to be as good at using modern hardware as a modern OS design.
I'm not really sure why there is this real need for a "Next Gen" anymore. I think that time has passed. We now need ot focus on what AmigaOS does well.
O.k O.k O.k, But when you say that there is a possibility for a multi core version, thats a Quantum leap in my book.
Far more of a leap in my mind, was the move of AROS from 32bit to 64bit... that required a significant amount of work and bugs are still showing up. AmigaOS was never meant to run on a 64bit system.
But even if AROS can use multiple cores... it simply cannot use multiple cores as efficently as well... any orther OS :-)
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bloodline wrote:
cicero790 wrote:
bloodline wrote:
cicero790 wrote:
Thats brilliant news. There could be a NEXT GEN. The possibility is there. Thats great!
Yes, but an OS based on AmigaOS is never going to be as good at using modern hardware as a modern OS design.
I'm not really sure why there is this real need for a "Next Gen" anymore. I think that time has passed. We now need ot focus on what AmigaOS does well.
O.k O.k O.k, But when you say that there is a possibility for a multi core version, thats a Quantum leap in my book.
Far more of a leap in my mind, was the move of AROS from 32bit to 64bit... that required a significant amount of work and bugs are still showing up. AmigaOS was never meant to run on a 64bit system.
But even if AROS can use multiple cores... it simply cannot use multiple cores as efficently as well... any orther OS :-)
"any other OS..." I like that. You are pretty hard on AROS and if I understand you are deeply involved in it so that makes you pretty hard on you self.
There will probably be a way around it. Perhaps something shows up with the singularity project as you said, that could be used in some smart way, the AMIGA way. As an enthusiast that my hope. :-)
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I just love all these absolutes that keep showing up in this thread. "...never as well as other OSes..." "....never meant for 64bit...." "....I live in reality and you don't..."
IMHO people that speak/write in absolutes are just immature and have not been around long enough to see that anything is possible in time and things are not always the way they seem.
Ever hear of the saying "Never say never".
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cicero790 wrote:
bloodline wrote:
cicero790 wrote:
bloodline wrote:
cicero790 wrote:
Thats brilliant news. There could be a NEXT GEN. The possibility is there. Thats great!
Yes, but an OS based on AmigaOS is never going to be as good at using modern hardware as a modern OS design.
I'm not really sure why there is this real need for a "Next Gen" anymore. I think that time has passed. We now need ot focus on what AmigaOS does well.
O.k O.k O.k, But when you say that there is a possibility for a multi core version, thats a Quantum leap in my book.
Far more of a leap in my mind, was the move of AROS from 32bit to 64bit... that required a significant amount of work and bugs are still showing up. AmigaOS was never meant to run on a 64bit system.
But even if AROS can use multiple cores... it simply cannot use multiple cores as efficently as well... any orther OS :-)
"any other OS..." I like that. You are pretty hard on AROS and if I understand you are deeply involved in it so that makes you pretty hard on you self.
I'm not hard on myself :-) Certainly no harder than on anybody else!
But I have spent a very long time tryin to think how AROS could have a use in the modern world... and every time I come back to the fact that there are newer OSs that are so much better than AmigaOS it's unreal!
I love AmigaOS, but I know it's limitations. It is a strange relic of the 80s... simultainously beautiful and irrelavant.
Much like an old classic aircraft, I would suggest the Avro Vulcan B2... wonderful to see it, the grace, the poise, it just looks right, but it can serve no practical purpose anymore... it was design with 1950s technology to carry nuclear bombs to Moscow...
AmigaOS is in that position.
There will probably be a way around it. Perhaps something shows up with the singularity project as you said, that could be used in some smart way, the AMIGA way. As an enthusiast that my hope. :-)
But the question remains, why. I love the AROS project because it preserves the OS I know and love. I ensures that no matter how technology moves on, I can still fire up that classic design of Operating system and dream about how things could have been.
AROS was also the most amazing way for me to learn how an operating system actually works. AmigaOS was an OS I knew inside out, so when I found AROS I actually got to look under the hood and mess around with it. I would probably recommend AROS as learning tool to all who want to konw how to make a simple, powerful operating system work on very low spec hardware.
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@amigadave
Absolutely ;-) Who could have imagined fantastic things like MINIMIG and NATAMI then they closed production of the original models. Its a miracle. And AROS is also a miracle IMHO.
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amigadave wrote:
I just love all these absolutes that keep showing up in this thread. "...never as well as other OSes..." "....never meant for 64bit...." "....I live in reality and you don't..."
IMHO people that speak/write in absolutes are just immature and have not been around long enough to see that anything is possible in time and things are not always the way they seem.
The immature ones are those who are sure something can be done, without first researching the problem to see if their ideas and reality actually match up.
The immature ones, are those who don't listen to someone like Piru (who probably knows AmigaOS better than anyone else on this board) when they point out the flaws in the argument.
Ever hear of the saying "Never say never".
Never...
Seriously, there comes a point where something is so unlikely that is may as well be considered impossible... or costs too much to be worth while... This is where we are at.
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@Bloodline
Let me paint another picture.
Lets say AROS gets browser support.
Then I will replace windows on one the pc's and use it for everyday tasks and in 2008 an AMIGA OS is the main OS.
Lets further more say that the multi processor support gets going and someone at some point thinks its time to get a vmmachine for AROS (We are talking future with a perhaps 24 core CPU ;-) ) Then AROS could snatch all those programs back from windows and you could still use an AMIGA OS the favorite OS.
I mean, for heavy duty tasks you use special machines like at ILM or supercomputers for weather forecasts. Compare one of these systems to a super pc and its cr.p.
I just say that AROS is very usable if you do not have extremely special needs. AROS is great, and you are part of it and you underestimate it's usability.
:-)
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cicero790 wrote:
@Bloodline
Let me paint another picture.
Lets say AROS gets browser support.
Then I will replace windows on one the pc's and use it for everyday tasks and in 2008 an AMIGA OS is the main OS.
Even now I have an EPIA Mini-ITX that does nothing but run AROS... I can do quite a bit of stuff with it... but it can never exceed my iPhone, which I now use for All casual computing tasks...
Lets further more say that the multi processor support gets going and someone at some point thinks its time to get a vmmachine for AROS (We are talking future with a perhaps 24 core CPU ;-) ) Then AROS could snatch all those programs back from windows and you could still use an AMIGA OS the favorite OS.
Not really sure what you mean, here... you can run AROS in a VM already or uses the Hosted version (which will be faster than an VM).
I mean, for heavy duty tasks you use special machines like at ILM or supercomputers for weather forecasts. Compare one of these systems to a super pc and its cr.p.
I just say that AROS is very usable if you do not have extremely special needs. AROS is great, and you are part of it and you underestimate it's usability.
The problem is that every day tasks, mundane tasks... casual computing tasks can now be handled by a small battery powered device that I can hold in my hand! I only switch my main machines to do specific work.
The space the Amiga occupied has gone. In fact, up until I used the iPhone, I still had hope that the Amiga could find a place... but now, technology has moved on, the way we can use machines has changed. The world is a different place :-)
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Quote:
Not really sure what you mean, here... you can run AROS in a VM already or uses the Hosted version (which will be faster than an VM).
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Well I meant the other way around. AROS running windows in a box.
Quote:
The Amiga space is gone.
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You have really a pitch black view on the state of things. But I am thankful despite this, that you brought AROS to life. Thank you.
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cicero790 wrote:
Quote:
Not really sure what you mean, here... you can run AROS in a VM already or uses the Hosted version (which will be faster than an VM).
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Well I meant the other way around. AROS running windows in a box.
But that's the wrong way around :-) AROS can't use the hardware as effectivly as Windows... so why not let the Windows side do all the hard work... and worse, if a prorgam crashes in AROS... the whole system goes down... including the Windows VM...
Quote:
The Amiga space is gone.
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You have really a pitch black view on the state of things.
I'm only ever trying to be relaistic. That is why 10 years ago I decided to get behind AROS. And why now I think we need to think about the strengths of what we actually have with AROS... instead of trying to shoehorn it into something it's not going to be very good at.
If you don't stay realistic, then you will destroy the project.
But I am thankful despite this, that you brought AROS to life. Thank you.
I am only a small part of a huge number of people who have made AROS possible, you should also thank the MOS team, they have also contributed to the project.
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Thank you all involved, non forgotten.
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bloodline wrote:
The problem is that every day tasks, mundane tasks... casual computing tasks can now be handled by a small battery powered device that I can hold in my hand! I only switch my main machines to do specific work.
Same goes with me with an EeePC using a hsdpa modem. I'd consider something smaller if I thought for a second I could type with it and not get cramp though :-)
The only difference is I can litterally do everything I need bar gaming on this thing, not just the mundane stuff.
bloodline wrote:
The space the Amiga occupied has gone. In fact, up until I used the iPhone, I still had hope that the Amiga could find a place... but now, technology has moved on, the way we can use machines has changed. The world is a different place :-)
For me using BeOS, as limiting as it was (in terms of software) brought me to the same conclusion, later using Elive linux erased any lingering doubt, truly, it was the most elegant and easy to use system I've ever had the pleasure of running.
I still have a place in my heart for the amiga, it was the system that first really introduced me to what a computer could do, it was the first computer I had that got me online, brought me here, and up until 2003, was my only computer type.
Something like the NatAmi, or even an Amithlon type setup would be cool, purely from the point of a desire to play old games.
But to try to drag it into the modern day rather then celebrate its heyday through things like NatAmi, is just plain wrong at this stage. The last hope for a resurection was back in 98/99, when 3.5 came out. Don't believe me? Take a look at the software released for the Amiga that year, of the hardware being released. There was, for that brief moment in time a real hope again, a feeling that things were moving forward, yet only 2 years later, all that had stalled, the release, of the AmigaOne was delayed, the single biggest hardware producer in the community at the time (Phase 5) croaked. Key software producers were winding down and moving to other platforms. Yes, both the A1 came out, as well as OS4, but both were poor in terms of quality and years overdue.
Amigadave I am by no measure immature, I don't use words or phrases lightly, if I say something it is because I've generally researched it and am sure of my ground. Yes, great, people would like to see a modern Amiga-like OS out, but truthfully, there already are - both AROS and Haiku fit that bill quite nicely. The main problem people here have with this seems to me to be the fact that neither have the Amiga name attached to them. Building a complete new OS from the bottom up, with only a nod to the original API's (since most of them would not be workable within a modern OS) just so you can have the Amiga name plastered over it is genuinely a waste of developers time. There are better, more elegant solutions out there and developers know it.
I take no pleasure in accepting that the Amiga no longer has a place outside of a hobbyists or retro scene, indeed when I sat down and began to make plans to switch from the Amiga to BeOS, it was a very long and painful thing, I'd spent at that time over a decade learning every tip and trick to getting the most out of these obscure little machines, I had one of the single most patched/hacked/kludged systems going in terms of my 1200 both in software and hardware, there was little I couldn't tell you about any patch you cared to mention on aminet. But as I said, false hope always leads to bitter dissapointment, my wakeup call was seeing the abortion that was the AmigaOne role out, obscenely overpriced, without an OS and no real timeframe of getting one. I spent the exact same money for a complete, self built PC as just the board would have cost me, running BeOS and running a damn sight faster.
Linux came later. Elive being my final stop in the desktop before getting the EeePC and never looking back.
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bloodline wrote:
Hans... no offence meant here, but have you ever done any Amiga development at all? I ask because the questions you are asking show a real lack of knowledge with AmigaOS... If you want to find out more about how AmigaOS works, just have a look over the AROS source code it would give you a much clearer idea of the scale of the problem!
How do the questions that I'm asking give the impression that I don't know anything about Amiga OS? I don't see how discussing some of the specific internals demonstrates a complete lack of understanding ... no offence meant of-course. ;-)
FYI, yes I have done Amiga development, and I do know a thing or two about how Amiga OS works. Obviously my knowledge is not as extensive as someone that has actually worked on the OS itself, but I do understand the message passing system, devices, libraries, etc.
Hans
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HenryCase wrote:
bloodline wrote:
That was a legitimate question
Maybe, but what did you intend to achieve by asking it?
I don't see it as a legitimate or useful question actually. I find it hard to see how what I wrote demonstrates a complete lack of understanding. The question serves only to question my intelligence and understanding and does nothing to debate the actual issues. It's just part of the negative rhetoric along with comments such as "... silly pipe-dreams ..." Bloodline often has a mocking tone in his posts which you'll just have to get used to.
bloodline wrote:
What "OpenGL stuff"?
Adding functions/features to TinyGL.
Correction, I'm extending MiniGL. I have worked on other stuff, but none of that is released yet (and some of it is discontinued).
bloodline wrote:
if you read what is left of the specs, you can see it was an odd system... probably even less compatible with the all pervasive POSIX than what we have now...
Not everyone sees POSIX as a good thing. Seems to me the more you strive for total POSIX compatibility the more you turn your OS into a UNIX variant. As long as apps aren't super difficult to port why care about POSIX?
Like it or not POSIX is now an official standard and a lot of code has been written that uses it. Any new system that ignores POSIX is doomed.
Hans
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Piru wrote:
@Hans_
Could you please provide a solid example so that I understand what the problem is?
selib.c (http://www.iki.fi/sintonen/src/misc/selib.c)
Constructs such as this are extremely common, and WILL die horribly with MP.
Thanks for the example.
Looking at it quickly, you have a global list containing nodes from every library user. One option would be to make the list a per-library open item. This would require the addition of a single keyword. Another option would be to leave it in shared memory, which you obviously wouldn't like, and probably wouldn't be necessary. I still think that the bulk of most library source-code wouldn't be affected.
The libraries that I can think of that really do require common internal state variables would be things such as the bsdsocket library which is part of the TCP/IP networking stack. An MP environment would require the library to pass messages to the TCP/IP process for almost everything, if this isn't how it's done already.
I don't think that a manual check would be needed for every occurrence.
Why not?
Because everything that fits into an int32 fits into an int64. Specific sizings usually relate to hardware interfacing and really low-level stuff. Also note that a 64-bit version of AROS already exists.
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@Hans_
Looking at it quickly, you have a global list containing nodes from every library user.
Not quite. There can be any number of them per caller.
One option would be to make the list a per-library open item. This would require the addition of a single keyword.
How would that fix it exactly?
I still think that the bulk of most library source-code wouldn't be affected.
Well I disagree. This is just one example of how resources allocated by any function can totally screw it up in MP environment. Many libraries allocate resources in the functions that are somehow referenced by the other library openers.
Because everything that fits into an int32 fits into an int64. Specific sizings usually relate to hardware interfacing and really low-level stuff.
That'd break many more things than you think, for example files read from/written to disk, network or any other medium. You can't just do global search and replace like that, it'd b0rk horribly. Another suckage from this would be the needless extra memory consumption. It'd also suck to have every other 32bits "unused", esp for caches.
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@the_leander
Thanks for the BeOS/Haiku information. I liked Haiku before, but now I have even more reason to like it!
@Piru
Piru wrote:
No
The reasons these topics tend to go around and around is useless answers like this. Ok, you say no to CAOS functions, I say why? You have to explain your point of view for me to take it seriously.
@bloodline
Your reaction to the question is far more interesting than either my question or Hans's answer could ever be!
I was interested in what experience Hans had, so that I could answer his questions better, perhaps he has experince in VxWorks... I don't know, but his questions were not those of someone who has spent many a bored evening messing around with an Assembler trying to get stuff to work...
You rection though, immediately makes me think there is far more to this than you are letting on, and not a good way. Someone is bullsh1ting us here!
Why would you believe someone is bullsh1tting you? Bloodline, from conversations I've had with you in the past I know you can be a helpful guy, but let's face it, you were not going to help anyone by asking if Hans_ had ever programmed for AmigaOS before (comments like that just make you seem like your looking to put people down, though you may not have meant it this way). If you wanted to him see your point of view you would have given him an example of why his ideas wouldn't work with AmigaOS, just like you had helpfully done when I was talking up MP stuff.
bloodline wrote:
Bug fixing a library that is not native to the Amiga is hardly a way to learn about the internals of AmigaOS.
I don't claim to be Hans' biographer, I was just giving you an example of Amiga programming he has done.
It couldn't be finished. It wasn't possible to get it done in the time frame/budget that Commodore had, to get the Amiga out in time. If they had stuck with it and the project had rolled on for 2 more years... too much money would have been spent, and every other computer company would have had a chance to make something better. The Amiga would have failed before it even left the stable.
Granted, it is quicker to adapt an existing OS like Tripos than start from scratch. If the CAOS developers hadn't wasted time during the development process they may have had time to get it done for the A1000 launch, who knows. We are not working to those same time restrictions, and I doubt there would be much resistance in the Amiga community to the idea of resuscitating CAOS. So exec is the same in CAOS and AmigaOS, and other functions are similar, we don't have to throw everything away to get the job done do we?
bloodline wrote:
99% of all free software is POSIX, and a new operating system needs free software to be in any way useful.
How hard is it to port a POSIX compatible app to a non-POSIX OS, in terms of libraries missing and other needed infrastructure?
bloodline wrote:
AmigaOS is what it is. If you want to make a new OS go right ahead. But I like our little dinosaur.
I think this is the core of why these discussions get you (and others) worked up. In my opinion we are not defiling the memories of AmigaOS by discussing new ways we can take our OS's. The classic AmigaOS architecture will always be what it is, but new Amiga compatible OS's can take the OS in new and interesting directions. Why not look at what all of those possible directions are? You don't have to hate the new to preserve the fondness for the old.
@Hans_
Hans_ wrote:
Correction, I'm extending MiniGL. I have worked on other stuff, but none of that is released yet (and some of it is discontinued).
Thanks for the correction.
Hans_ wrote:
Like it or not POSIX is now an official standard and a lot of code has been written that uses it. Any new system that ignores POSIX is doomed.
I'd still personally resist a 'one size fits all' computing world even if there were significant drawbacks. Got to give the world a true alternative to POSIX one day IMO.
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@HenryCase
If you think about it for a second you realize CAOS is totally different from current amigaos. Thus, if you'd replace parts of the amigaos with CAOS, nothing would work anymore. Thus, No, it would not help at all.
How hard is it to port a POSIX compatible app to a non-POSIX OS, in terms of libraries missing and other needed infrastructure?
Depending on which missing functions are used, pretty hard to totally impossible.
{EDIT] Well, nothing is impossible, but if you need to rewrite most of the code then I'd say "porting" didn't happen :-) [/EDIT]
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Piru wrote:
@Hans_
Looking at it quickly, you have a global list containing nodes from every library user.
Not quite. There can be any number of them per caller.
Containing nodes from every library user includes multiple nodes per caller.
One option would be to make the list a per-library open item. This would require the addition of a single keyword.
How would that fix it exactly?
It would be a local list sitting within the caller's memory space. I'm assuming that you're not trying to use the library for inter-task communications here.
I still think that the bulk of most library source-code wouldn't be affected.
Well I disagree. This is just one example of how resources allocated by any function can totally screw it up in MP environment. Many libraries allocate resources in the functions that are somehow referenced by the other library openers.
And how many of those would actually require the other tasks to reference resources not allocated by them?
Because everything that fits into an int32 fits into an int64. Specific sizings usually relate to hardware interfacing and really low-level stuff.
That'd break many more things than you think, for example files read from/written to disk, network or any other medium. You can't just do global search and replace like that, it'd b0rk horribly. Another suckage from this would be the needless extra memory consumption. It'd also suck to have every other 32bits "unused", esp for caches.
Fair enough. Note, I did not suggest just running a search-replace on the entire source tree.
Hans
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Hans_ wrote:
Like it or not POSIX is now an official standard and a lot of code has been written that uses it. Any new system that ignores POSIX is doomed.
I'd still personally resist a 'one size fits all' computing world even if there were significant drawbacks. Got to give the world a true alternative to POSIX one day IMO.
There are alternatives, but almost no-one uses them. Developers like standards because it allows them to reuse code on multiple systems. This is why everyone uses the SCSI or IDE standards for drive interfacing; why ATAPI for IDE is based on the SCSI protocol; why SATA is based on ATA, etc. It's also why Warp3D Nova won't be created; instead OpenGL will be the 3D API.
I'd be fine with ignoring POSIX compliance if there were some clear advantages to it. For desktop computing, there are none (that I can think of). Besides, POSIX compliance can mean that there is simply a POSIX API wrapper sitting on top of the OS' API. That's the way that POSIX thread works on Amiga OS for example (and Windows).
Windows is fully POSIX compliant, MacOSX is fully POSIX compliant, as are a whole range of other OSes. Surprizingly, Linux is listed as being mostly POSIX compliant (not fully).
Hans
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@Hans_
I'm assuming that you're not trying to use the library for inter-task communications here.
I am not. Lets just assume the library needs to access the other nodes for some reason. Even though you seem to have missed such constructs, they are common in real life, indeed. My example has just some dummy code that illustrates the problem.
And how many of those would actually require the other tasks to reference resources not allocated by them?
I can't see how it could be avoided really. These libraries really need to access the structures allocated by other callers.
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Piru wrote:
@HenryCase
If you think about it for a second you realize CAOS is totally different from current amigaos. Thus, if you'd replace parts of the amigaos with CAOS, nothing would work anymore. Thus, No, it would not help at all.
How hard is it to port a POSIX compatible app to a non-POSIX OS, in terms of libraries missing and other needed infrastructure?
Depending on which missing functions are missing, pretty hard to totally impossible.
Careful Piru, you don't want to be branded immature by amigadave for using mean words like impossible now, do you? :roll: :crazy: :lol:
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:-)
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Piru wrote:
@Hans_
I'm assuming that you're not trying to use the library for inter-task communications here.
I am not. Lets just assume the library needs to access the other nodes for some reason. Even though you seem to have missed such constructs, they are common in real life, indeed. My example has just some dummy code that illustrates the problem.
I see no problem in your example code. You said that basically the whole shared library method would have to be discarded due to memory sharing issues. I see nothing in your example code that supports that.
And how many of those would actually require the other tasks to reference resources not allocated by them?
I can't see how it could be avoided really. These libraries really need to access the structures allocated by other callers.[/quote]
You didn't answer the question, and simply saying that it is necessary doesn't help. I need a solid example why a library would need to allow multiple callers to access structures allocated by the other.
Hans
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Ok, even though I am new here, I wanted to drop a few comments from a "New" Amiga user on this subject.
Fist, I have been trying "different" emulators of vintage computers for years, and they all lack from a newbies point of view. You have to have all these tutorials open and even then you really can't do anything.With "real" hardware, you hook up and go, no problems, no "mounting" nothing. Example: The first thing I did was buy "Amiga Forever". I can boot it from the CD on my $7000 Voodoo laptop, get into workbench and then DO NOTHING!, the Amiga software on my hard drive is not recognizable. I can't access my CD Drives, absolutely nothing past the workbench screen. Now, I have to go and hunt down websites with tutorials on how to get it to see my drives, etc.- Biggest pain in the butt. I don't have time to mess around with it all.
OTOH, I plug my A500 into the tv. Insert the workbench disk, after that, I can put in any disk and actually do something, Play a game, write a spreadsheet, you name it. No configuring.Boot and go!
That is why "real" hardware will win out any day over emulation.
Second, some people HATE -and I mean DESPISE Linux or any form of it Period! If you want to impress these people, write an NEW OS that has NOTHING do do with Linux. People who write on top of Linux for other "OS" are just plain lazy and can't create something on their own- not my thoughts but general view of the anti-Linux community. (THERE I SAID IT FLAME AWAY ).
:crazy:
I see the projects like mining and such as a step in the right direction, but until they can just "plug in and go" without having to hunt down every single little thing to make it work, it won't have the respect it deserves. The answers to why won't it read floppies, "oh , thats coming" is not acceptable. Natami looks promising, but if it is not Plug and play than it will never get the respect.It must be a full, working, system when its released.
Anyway's, thats just a newbies point of view. Of course I don't have the knowledge of some of you on the subject, and I apologize in advance for my naivety.
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@QuarkX
You've obviously never had to install Windows from scratch. If you don't have the rescue CD from the manufacturer or are building a machine from the motherboard up, you have to hunt down drivers for everything but the install CD.
I'll admit not having a CD driver in the Kickstart is kind of a pain but when the Kickstart 3.1 was made there were no CD-ROM drives. People still used floppy-disks for everything. The Amiga could fit more on one medium density floppy than the PC could because of special formatting. That's why a PC can't easily read an 880k Amiga floppy disk.
The Natami will have CD-ROM and USB storage support in the Kickstart but, in order to do this, it will need to install a patch every time the Kickstart is re-flashed. Furthermore, if you buy a Natami as a complete system everything will be preinstalled when you get it.
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You said that basically the whole shared library method would have to be discarded due to memory sharing issues.
And my example only provided one reason for it.
Others include the problem the fact that you'd need to have different library base per caller. Something that doesn't work with many libraries.
I need a solid example why a library would need to allow multiple callers to access structures allocated by the other.
diskfont.library, dos.library, asl.library, locale.library, rexxsyslib.library, realtime.library, commodities.library, datatypes.library, card.resource, timer.device, keyboard.device, trackdisk.device, graphics.library, intuition.library, layers.library, gadtools.library, exec.library, utility.library at least.
Of 3rd party libs reqtools, xadmaster, xfdmaster, openurl, muimaster, ixemul at least.
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quarkx wrote:
Ok, even though I am new here, I wanted to drop a few comments from a "New" Amiga user on this subject.
Fist, I have been trying "different" emulators of vintage computers for years, and they all lack from a newbies point of view. You have to have all these tutorials open and even then you really can't do anything.With "real" hardware, you hook up and go, no problems, no "mounting" nothing. Example: The first thing I did was buy "Amiga Forever". I can boot it from the CD on my $7000 Voodoo laptop, get into workbench and then DO NOTHING!, the Amiga software on my hard drive is not recognizable. I can't access my CD Drives, absolutely nothing past the workbench screen. Now, I have to go and hunt down websites with tutorials on how to get it to see my drives, etc.- Biggest pain in the butt. I don't have time to mess around with it all.
I've run UAE under 4 different platforms, not one has ever given me issues like you're describing. Clearly, this is a pebkac issue.
quarkx wrote:
That is why "real" hardware will win out any day over emulation.
Right up to the point where your real hardware dies of old age. The A500 is 20 years old, it was designed with a service life of maybe 5.
quarkx wrote:
Second, some people HATE -and I mean DESPISE Linux or any form of it Period! If you want to impress these people, write an NEW OS that has NOTHING do do with Linux.
Some people also like Britney Spears, there is no accounting for taste.
quarkx wrote:
People who write on top of Linux for other "OS" are just plain lazy and can't create something on their own- not my thoughts but general view of the anti-Linux community. (THERE I SAID IT FLAME AWAY ).
:crazy:
Lazy eh? Have you ever tried Amithlon? Ever tried porting an entire OS that you've first had to write from scratch to another platform? If not, you are in no position to call anyone lazy.
As for a supposed anti-linux community, there is a certain amount of irony in that without linux, you would have the internet as you do now - most servers online today, run either a Unix or Linux based solution. I wouldn't be surprised for instance, to learn that Amiga.org ran on a linux server.
Personally, I like my EeePC, with its appliance like stability and the fact it comes with everything I needed out of the box and didn't require me to spend hours farting around to get it going, plug in, turn on, insert modem setup modem via graphical wizard, go online, total time from box to net - 5 minutes. Beat that.
quarkx wrote:
I see the projects like mining and such as a step in the right direction, but until they can just "plug in and go" without having to hunt down every single little thing to make it work, it won't have the respect it deserves. The answers to why won't it read floppies, "oh , thats coming" is not acceptable. Natami looks promising, but if it is not Plug and play than it will never get the respect.It must be a full, working, system when its released.
Yes, because getting an A1200 to do anything remotely useful like go online, use a CD or dvd rom drive or RW is simplicity itself, requiring no hardware hacks, no need to crack open the case...
quarkx wrote:
Anyway's, thats just a newbies point of view. Of course I don't have the knowledge of some of you on the subject, and I apologize in advance for my naivety.
Nice try. Perhaps you should instead of commenting off the cuff should have sat down and actually read this thread and tried to take in some of the complexities involved.
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Piru wrote:
You said that basically the whole shared library method would have to be discarded due to memory sharing issues.
And my example only provided one reason for it.
No it didn't. I do not see any problem in your example that would kill the shared library model.
I need a solid example why a library would need to allow multiple callers to access structures allocated by the other.
diskfont.library, dos.library, asl.library, locale.library, rexxsyslib.library, realtime.library and commodities.library at least.
Of 3rd party libs reqtools, xadmaster, xfdmaster, openurl, muimaster at least.
Sigh. Naming libraries is not a solid example.
Hans
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@Hans_
Naming libraries is not a solid example.
So if I explain why one of the libraries requires it will that be enough for you? (The same problem is in all of the libraries I listed. It is the very same problem I tried to demonstrate with the example library code, but apparently failed miserably)
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Piru wrote:
@Hans_
Naming libraries is not a solid example.
So if I explain why one of the libraries requires it will that be enough for you?
Yes. Assuming that I can't think of a method of dealing with the problem.
Hans
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OMG the rabid Linux Zelots show their teeth. get out the pitch forks and torches, lock up your women, someone disapproves of Linux
SamuraiCrow wrote:
@QuarkX
You've obviously never had to install Windows from scratch. If you don't have the rescue CD from the manufacturer or are building a machine from the motherboard up, you have to hunt down drivers for everything but the install CD.
I have to do at least 5-6 Windows XP installs a day - everyday on different machines, We "Downgrade" Vista to XP here all the time, but I agree the hunting of the drivers takes time.
the_leander wrote:
Personally, I like my EeePC, with its appliance like stability and the fact it comes with everything I needed out of the box and didn't require me to spend hours farting around to get it going, plug in, turn on, insert modem setup modem via graphical wizard, go online, total time from box to net - 5 minutes. Beat that.
My EEEPC never once booted to Linux, from the first time it was powered on, straight to an XP install.If XP came pre-installed with that model, it would be less the 5 minutes also to be on the net etc. I fail to see any correlation here between what I was talking about, But it's very apparent that the Linux fans will jump on anyone who says otherwise about Linux. But that's not my point. My point, is that Linux is far too often used as a kernal for "Other" OS's. It takes some real imagination, work and thought to create something totally new. The best analogy I can think of is when a sculptor creates a new statue with clay (lets say a figure of a man) then someone else comes along and paints a new shirt on them. That is the way I see it. It may take ages to hand paint a shirt on the stature, but at the end of the day, its not really creative or imaginative.
Yes, I re-read this thread 3 times before posting my "off the cuff" remarks, I just wanted to let you guys know what a newbies sees coming into this. I don't what this to turn out a Linux fighting thread either, so I will not make any more comments on it, for it is a far too tired old debate anyway. If you like Linux, all the power to you, but don't go crapping all over the people that dislike it.
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Hans_ wrote:
I need a solid example why a library would need to allow multiple callers to access structures allocated by the other.
diskfont.library, dos.library, asl.library, locale.library, rexxsyslib.library, realtime.library and commodities.library at least.
Of 3rd party libs reqtools, xadmaster, xfdmaster, openurl, muimaster at least.
Sigh. Naming libraries is not a solid example.
Hans
Perhaps you might consider Bloodline's suggestion to download the AROS source? Maybe even look at the aros forums to see where all the problems are.
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the_leander wrote:
Hans_ wrote:
I need a solid example why a library would need to allow multiple callers to access structures allocated by the other.
diskfont.library, dos.library, asl.library, locale.library, rexxsyslib.library, realtime.library and commodities.library at least.
Of 3rd party libs reqtools, xadmaster, xfdmaster, openurl, muimaster at least.
Sigh. Naming libraries is not a solid example.
Hans
Perhaps you might consider Bloodline's suggestion to download the AROS source? Maybe even look at the aros forums to see where all the problems are.
Searching for a problem that you think doesn't exist is kind of hard.
Hans
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@Hans_
utility.library/AddNamedObject
utility.library/RemNamedObject
utility.library/AttemptRemNamedObject
These named objects are in a global tree which can be modified by any caller. For additional headache, the objects can be removed by different task, too. Read the autodocs for details.
This stuff is clearly broken if each task has it's own memory space.
dos.library/AddDosEntry
This function adds the given dosentry to the internal global doslist. Some things (filesystems, apps) allocate the dosnodes themselves and pass them to the AddDosEntry (among other things it means you can't safely free a dosentry you remove). With MP this concept would be horribly broken.
dos.library/LoadSeg
dos.library/UnLoadSeg
LoadSeg allocates memory for the segments in the context of the caller. Yet somehow this memory should at some point change ownership. Similarily UnLoadSeg is often called by different task than that called the LoadSeg. Shell and Workbench do this, aswell as ramlib (see below).
ramlib
exec/OpenLibrary
exec/OpenDevice
exec/OpenResource
exec/AllocMem etc
ramlib calls LoadSeg to load the library/device/resource, yet expunge gets called by totally unrelated task:
If system runs out of memory or "avail flush" is performed, the system will attempt to free memory by calling the "lowmemhandlers". These handlers get called in the context of the AllocMem caller, meaning that different task will call library/device/resource Init and Expunge vectors.
I'll add more examples if needed.
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Windows is fully POSIX compliant, MacOSX is fully POSIX compliant, as are a whole range of other OSes. Surprizingly, Linux is listed as being mostly POSIX compliant (not fully).
Hans
This must be the first time I have ever seen anyone claim Windows to be fully POSIX compliant. What do you mean, through cygwin? I think you're rambling.
AFAIK the only OSes that really care/cared about POSIX compliance was the commercial UNIX systems. FreeNIX systems like Linux and *BSD, only stick with POSIX when it makes sense, no suprise there. MacOSX only became POSIX compliant in its latest release, iirc.
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quarkx wrote:
OMG the rabid Linux Zelots show their teeth. get out the pitch forks and torches, lock up your women, someone disapproves of Linux
Oi, trollboy, pack it in.
quarkx wrote:
the_leander wrote:
Personally, I like my EeePC, with its appliance like stability and the fact it comes with everything I needed out of the box and didn't require me to spend hours farting around to get it going, plug in, turn on, insert modem setup modem via graphical wizard, go online, total time from box to net - 5 minutes. Beat that.
My EEEPC never once booted to Linux, from the first time it was powered on, straight to an XP install.If XP came pre-installed with that model, it would be less the 5 minutes also to be on the net etc. I fail to see any correlation here between what I was talking about,
Simple, in 2-8 months time I won't be needing to reinstall the OS because it has imploded. The interface was custom built to work with a small screensize, it just works. All your applications are there, good to go.
quarkx wrote:
But it's very apparent that the Linux fans will jump on anyone who says otherwise about Linux.
Look, your first post in this thread was borderline trolling, your second is flat out trolling. Knock it off.
If you insist on spreading FUD based on nothing but your own bias you should expect to be called on it, repeatedly, culminating in your being laughed out of any thread you visit.
quarkx wrote:
But that's not my point. My point, is that Linux is far too often used as a kernal for "Other" OS's.
When the OS in question is as behind the times as AmigaOS is, it makes sound sense to use Linux or something similar as an abstraction layer to enable it's use on modern hardware.
quarkx wrote:
It takes some real imagination, work and thought to create something totally new.
The problem here, if you had bothered to read and understand this thread, is not that there is a lack of imagination, but a lack of skills, time, money and need to create what you deem to be the way forward.
quarkx wrote:
The best analogy I can think of is when a sculptor creates a new statue with clay (lets say a figure of a man) then someone else comes along and paints a new shirt on them. That is the way I see it. It may take ages to hand paint a shirt on the stature, but at the end of the day, its not really creative or imaginative.
You fail. Please hand in your analogy licence. Read and understand this damn thread to find out why what your saying is so much horsecrap for the love of gods!
quarkx wrote:
Yes, I re-read this thread 3 times before posting my "off the cuff" remarks,
Clearly, understanding is not your forte, perhaps you should have asked questions about the bits you didn't understand, rather then comming into this with an anti linux troll.
quarkx wrote:
I don't what this to turn out a Linux fighting thread either,
Really, so why the trolling?
quarkx wrote:
If you like Linux, all the power to you, but don't go crapping all over the people that dislike it.
When said people are trolling they will get crapped on, regardless of what the issue is, welcome to Amiga.org.
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Fine, Trolling it is?
No one is allowed to state their Point of View if it doesn't mash with yours, then its trolling is it?
If I dare talk out against Linux and try to make a point its trolling is it ?
No one is alowwed to poke a bit of fun when people tke things WAAY too seriously
ok.. have fun with that...
Maybe then the moderators should re-write the definition of trolling that correlates with your point of view. It sounds like your way or the high way. fine.. I am out of here..
the_leander wrote:
quarkx wrote:
When said people are trolling they will get crapped on, regardless of what the issue is, welcome to Amiga.org.
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Piru wrote:
@Hans_
utility.library/AddNamedObject
utility.library/RemNamedObject
utility.library/AttemptRemNamedObject
These named objects are in a global tree which can be modified by any caller. For additional headache, the objects can be removed by different task, too. Read the autodocs for details.
Ok, an API of a library that needs to be changed. If the named objects were used within a single application then it wouldn't be a problem with a threading model (i.e., extend the idea of a sub-process or thread to the memory protection scheme). It shouldn't be used to communicate/transfer objects between applications.
dos.library/AddDosEntry
This function adds the given dosentry to the internal global doslist. Some things (filesystems, apps) allocate the dosnodes themselves and pass them to the AddDosEntry (among other things it means you can't safely free a dosentry you remove). With MP this concept would be horribly broken.
Again, library specific API design. We've already talked about how the DOS library would need a lot of work.
ramlib
exec/OpenLibrary
exec/OpenDevice
exec/OpenResource
exec/AllocMem etc
ramlib calls LoadSeg to load the library/device/resource, yet expunge gets called by totally unrelated task:
If system runs out of memory or "avail flush" is performed, the system will attempt to free memory by calling the "lowmemhandlers". These handlers get called in the context of the AllocMem caller, meaning that different task will call library/device/resource Init and Expunge vectors.
In an MP environment, the library/device/resource code would have to be loaded into memory that is marked as shared read-only and executable. As such the whole loading and unloading mechanism would have to be modified to make that happen. Just because everything currently happens in the caller's task doesn't mean that it has to be that way. An application programmer won't notice the difference if you change the way that libraries load.
You've identified a number of issues with existing APIs that would indeed have to be addressed, but nothing that I would say kills the shared library system. Really, if shared objects/DLLs work on MP systems then I see no reason why shared libraries would fail.
Hans
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cicero790 wrote:
@amigadave
Absolutely ;-) Who could have imagined fantastic things like MINIMIG and NATAMI then they closed production of the original models. Its a miracle. And AROS is also a miracle IMHO.
Exactly my point cicero79,
There were hundreds, if not thousands who screamed that the Amiga could never be emulated on a Windows PC when WinUAE was being developed, there were dozens that screamed MiniMig was a hoax and there are dozens again that are saying that NatAmi will never be a reality.
I can't believe this thread is still going. Hans and a few others are writing about what could be done with something new, even if it breaks compatibility with past Amiga OSes and the few that are arguing with him are writing that nothing can be done, will ever be done, no group or company will ever produce a modern Amiga-like OS beyond what we have now with AOS4 and MOS2, which will never have certain features that modern OSes have today.
It must be great to have the ability to see into the future like that. I wonder why they have not used their future sight to win the lottery yet! :lol:
They don't seem to know the difference between improbable and impossible. For a definition of impossible see: WinUAE, MiniMig, ...............
Edit: Thread appears to be way off topic by now.
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quarkx wrote:
Fine, Trolling it is?
Yes, it is.
quarkx wrote:
No one is allowed to state their Point of View if it doesn't mash with yours, then its trolling is it?
Just because you are entitled to an opinion doesn't mean is has any factual basis. Get off your high horse.
quarkx wrote:
If I dare talk out against Linux and try to make a point its trolling is it ?
Why would you need to demean an entire OS ecosystem to make a point? And that's the point here - If your point has any validity you shouldn't need to attack something else. It should be able to stand on it's own merits.
quarkx wrote:
No one is alowwed to poke a bit of fun when people tke things WAAY too seriously
ok.. have fun with that...
Again, grow up.
quarkx wrote:
Maybe then the moderators should re-write the definition of trolling that correlates with your point of view. It sounds like your way or the high way. fine.. I am out of here..
And again, grow up and get over yourself. If you cannot engage in a reasonable discussion but resort to FUD then cry when called on it, then really, why are you online?
I see you haven't once addressed the points made regarding why your opinion is in error.
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@Hans_
You've identified a number of issues with existing APIs that would indeed have to be addressed, but nothing that I would say kills the shared library system.
The MP issues I've listed are just part of the problem, more like annoyances, icky things you would need to fix all over the place. There are other similar issues that add to the workload, such as global variables being used on disk based libraries.
Each caller would need to get their own library base. Also, to allow static data (disk based libraries) you'd need to somehow clone the data hunks for each caller and handle the relocation. In all this would end up being closer to .so than the classical shared library system. Thus my claim that it would kill the shared library system (as we know it).
This all combined with other problems introduced by SMP, resource tracking etc make me wonder if this would be worth the trouble.
This is my view. If you don't agree, fine.
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the_leander wrote:
quarkx wrote:
Fine, Trolling it is?
Yes, it is.
quarkx wrote:
No one is allowed to state their Point of View if it doesn't mash with yours, then its trolling is it?
Just because you are entitled to an opinion doesn't mean is has any factual basis. Get off your high horse.
quarkx wrote:
If I dare talk out against Linux and try to make a point its trolling is it ?
Why would you need to demean an entire OS ecosystem to make a point? And that's the point here - If your point has any validity you shouldn't need to attack something else. It should be able to stand on it's own merits.
quarkx wrote:
No one is alowwed to poke a bit of fun when people tke things WAAY too seriously
ok.. have fun with that...
Again, grow up.
quarkx wrote:
Maybe then the moderators should re-write the definition of trolling that correlates with your point of view. It sounds like your way or the high way. fine.. I am out of here..
And again, grow up and get over yourself. If you cannot engage in a reasonable discussion but resort to FUD then cry when called on it, then really, why are you online?
I see you haven't once addressed the points made regarding why your opinion is in error.
You say I am "on my high horse" When all I see is someone with a stick up their arse {bleep}ing about nothing, I would respond to why my views are in error, but all you do is attack and say that I am trolling. I guess as a new guy here I am finding out who's arse I have to kiss. I didn't come here to be attacked, I came to present a Point of view, If you disagree, thats fine, if you think I am a total idiot, thats fine,it i am wrong, I am wrong and that fine. but move on for God's sake, but you are starting to look like a real twit for continuing to keep harping on my comments. You say I am on my high horse, but its you who sounds like it.
I guess its my fault for responding to this in the first place, it seems to add fuel to your fire, but grow up!. I refuse to participate in this flame ware anymore.
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amigadave wrote:
I can't believe this thread is still going. Hans and a few others are writing about what could be done with something new, even if it breaks compatibility with past Amiga OSes and the few that are arguing with him are writing that nothing can be done,
I think you'll find that you have misrepresented what has been said, not that it cannot be done in theory, but it will not be done because the resources simply aren't there.
amigadave wrote:
will ever be done, no group or company will ever produce a modern Amiga-like OS beyond what we have now with AOS4 and MOS2, which will never have certain features that modern OSes have today.
Haiku AROS .
amigadave wrote:
It must be great to have the ability to see into the future like that. I wonder why they have not used their future sight to win the lottery yet! :lol:
...
amigadave wrote:
They don't seem to know the difference between improbable and impossible. For a definition of impossible see: WinUAE, MiniMig,
WinUAE was always possible, the thing that held it back was the amount of processing power required to do a good job of emulation, I still remember an Amiga company selling the Cerberus as a follow on to the Amiga - basically a custom pc with a media processor running Windows 98 and WinUAE.
I still remember phoning them up and asking what the comparative speed was for this system, the response was that it'd be about as fast as an 040 Amiga in most things - this was with the then new slot 1 Pentium 2.
As for MiniMig, the concept of using an FPGA to emulate the Amiga chipset isn't even a new one, remember BoXeR?
When Mick Tinker realised that there was no way to source sufficient amounts of custom AGA chips to make his dream a reality he turned to FPGA's then, now, what killed that project was his constant revisions of what should go on the board - he was aiming at a moving target and ran out of cash. But the basic concept is and was sound. In many ways NatAmi could be seen as a logical progression of the BoXeR concept. Taking the same basic idea and using modern technology to make it better.
I think you'll find it is you who is having trouble with their definitions.
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Piru wrote:
You've identified a number of issues with existing APIs that would indeed have to be addressed, but nothing that I would say kills the shared library system.
The MP issues I've listed are just part of the problem, more like annoyances, icky things you would need to fix all over the place. There are other similar issues that add to the workload, such as global variables being used on disk based libraries.
Each caller would need to get their own library base. Also, to allow static data (disk based libraries) you'd need to somehow clone the data hunks for each caller and handle the relocation. In all this would end up being closer to .so than the classical shared library system. Thus my claim that it would kill the shared library system (as we know it).
There are already libraries that provide each caller with their own base. Static data could be left in read-only shared memory. It is true that shared libraries would become even more like shared objects.
So the only bit that we're really disagreeing on is what constitutes "killing" the shared library system. Well that took a lot of posts to figure out. :lol:
So, to summarize a bit:
- Piru: I spent over seven years doing that kind of ____ and I certainly don't want to do it all again from scratch. Look at all the stuff you'd have to do.
- Hans: It's a big task, but not too big. Plus I'm a glutton for punishment. Let's make it happen.
Hans
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Except the 7 years were a lot easier than what is suggested here. We built the OS on solid ground, well perhaps not made of rock, but it was solid enough for us.
I wouldn't want to start now by drying up some wetland.
:-)
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kolla wrote:
Windows is fully POSIX compliant, MacOSX is fully POSIX compliant, as are a whole range of other OSes. Surprizingly, Linux is listed as being mostly POSIX compliant (not fully).
Hans
This must be the first time I have ever seen anyone claim Windows to be fully POSIX compliant. What do you mean, through cygwin? I think you're rambling.
How about you ramble over to the wikipedia page for POSIX. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posix) It used to state full compliance, now it lists the following for windows:
* Cygwin – enables partial POSIX compliance for certain Microsoft Windows products.
* Microsoft Windows Services for UNIX 3.5 – enables full POSIX compliance for certain Microsoft Windows products.
* UWIN from the AT&T Research implements a POSIX layer on top of the Win32 APIs.
So, you need the business version of Windows for full POSIX compliance. Vista has been advertised as being able to run Unix software. Cygwin (and probably UWin) are partial POSIX layers.
So, let me revise that. Some versions of Windows are fully POSIX compliant.
Hans
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quarkx wrote:
You say I am "on my high horse" When all I see is someone with a stick up their arse {bleep}ing about nothing,
Not at all, if you had read this thread like you say you have, you would see that many of the points about having an amigalike system are already reality, and that to try to jerry rig the original AmigaOS code would require you to basically write the OS from scratch and render all of your current software unusable. At which point, why bother.
But lets move on, shall we?
quarkx wrote:
I would respond to why my views are in error
Then do so.
quarkx wrote:
, but all you do is attack and say that I am trolling.
Because, strangely, all you've done is go on about an "anti linux community" (which I have to ask, wtf?) and ignore explanations by several here of why using linux as a launchpad isn't such a bad idea if you want to run AmigaOS on something other then 20 year old equipment without spending a bundle.
quarkx wrote:
I guess as a new guy here I am finding out who's arse I have to kiss.
No, just listen. That's it, if you have a question, ask it. If you have a point. Make it.
A point, if it has any value should stand or fall on it's own merit, if you need to attack an entire OS ecosystem for your point to hold water, think again.
quarkx wrote:
I didn't come here to be attacked, I came to present a Point of view,
Then make it for the love of all that's holy!
quarkx wrote:
If you disagree, thats fine, if you think I am a total idiot, thats fine,it i am wrong, I am wrong and that fine. but move on for God's sake, but you are starting to look like a real twit for continuing to keep harping on my comments. You say I am on my high horse, but its you who sounds like it.
I've asked you not once, but twice now, make a damn point.
What are you, a creationist? Your views only work if you first poke the holes in something else?
Come on! You can do better then this, surely?!
quarkx wrote:
I guess its my fault for responding to this in the first place,
It is not that you commented here that was the issue, it was that you felt the need to attack an entire ecosystem, without explanation of why (and this is a big thing) rather then say... Oh I dunno, make an actual point and then back it up.
quarkx wrote:
it seems to add fuel to your fire, but grow up!. I refuse to participate in this flame ware anymore.
Feh, you should have been here when MorphOS was born. Now those were real flamewars!
But here, try this one on for size, you want to make a point about linux not being ok, it being lazy:
Several years ago a product came out through Haage and Partner, a then well known and (largely) well respected company in the Amiga community, it was this company that released OS 3.5 and I believe much of what was in 3.9 was based on their work also.
Now, this product was called Amithlon, it was a stripped down, headless Linux with a custom JIT (Just In Time - basically faster then non JIT) UAE. Now, at this point you're probably squirming at the thought, and having run UAE on many platforms the idea didn't exactly grab me.
Then I tried it. I was playing with what I thought was a stupendously fast Amiga - like nothing I'd ever used, not even an A1 could touch this puppy. I was then told that what I was actually using was Amithlon, but it didn't feel like an emulator - it felt like the real thing, everything responded just as it should, but faster, if I hadn't have been told, I would have believed it to be an Amiga, and so would anyone else who had tried it that day.
Linux, doing what linux does best, which is act as a foundation for services - in this case a souped up UAE, running on a pretty fast PC. And I, a user of Amigas, big box and wedge since 1991, couldn't tell the difference.
So, why do you feel it is lazy to do this if the result is that things work as they should and do so on hardware that is easy to aquire?
Why would writing an Amiga like OS from scratch be better then say using something Amiga like as a launchpad?
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ooops, double post! :-o
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the_leander wrote:
I think you'll find that you have misrepresented what has been said, not that it cannot be done in theory, but it will not be done because the resources simply aren't there.
No, my statement said nothing about what can, or can't be done in theory and it is pretty accurate in regard to what is going on in this thread.
Tell me how you can predict what resources will be available in the future?
New technologies and ideas are happening all the time, but you have a very narrow view of what could be possible for an AmigaOS in the future, even when others point out that they are not talking about completion in months or even a year. We all know that it can't be done overnight and quoting what has been completed by a few over the last 7 years does not automatically mean that the same pattern will persist over the next 7 years.
It could mean that the direction over the last 7 years has not been the right one and more "resources" might have been available had several choices been made differently. As for Hiaku and AROS, I don't see that they have inspired the majority of Amiga users to jump at supporting either of them as their OS of choice for the future. Maybe if something better is thought of, more people, Amiga coders and coders that have never worked on anything Amiga before, might join to make it happen. Why do you think Linux went from one man's vision to what it is today?
We can't change the past and sure can't foresee the future, but some people are arrogant enough to think they can.
As for definitions, look up sarcasm. (your history lessons of WinUAE and the BoXeR are already well known to me)
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Hans_ wrote:
So, to summarize a bit:
- Piru: I spent over seven years doing that kind of ____ and I certainly don't want to do it all again from scratch. Look at all the stuff you'd have to do.
- Hans: It's a big task, but not too big. Plus I'm a glutton for punishment. Let's make it happen.
Hans
I'll stand over on Hans side and vote for the "Let's make it happen" path. Love your summary Hans!
@Piru,
Perhaps a different path can be invented that will not require you to go through another 7 years of "that kind of _____ and won't look like an unsurmountable task to complete, from scratch or not.
My view is to use what is available now (personal choice at this time is MOS2.x), help improve it where ever I can by becoming more involved, and waiting for the next great step in the evolution of computing.
I actually will welcome something that breaks with everything we now use and is so remarkable that it is an easy choice to replace all our legacy systems, be they Amiga, Windows, Mac, Linux, or anything else that is currently being used (no, not an iPhone either :lol:). It would make me even happier if that far distant new paradigm has the name Amiga on it and is open source (AInc. long gone).
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amigadave wrote:
the_leander wrote:
I think you'll find that you have misrepresented what has been said, not that it cannot be done in theory, but it will not be done because the resources simply aren't there.
No, my statement said nothing about what can, or can't be done in theory and it is pretty accurate in regard to what is going on in this thread.
I think you need to get your prescription checked - clearly we are reading different things.
amigadave wrote:
Tell me how you can predict what resources will be available in the future?
It's called probability, backed up with a very sharp memory of what has happened to get us here. When the odds get big enough, the chances of something happening will eventually become so small as to effectively render them impossible for all intents and purposes.
Now, on the hugely unlikely possiblity that someone, somewhere, with stacks of cash and mean ass lawyers come along, wrestle the Amiga IP away from the current criminals who hold it, then, and only then, might there be a possibility of change. But even then, it is far more likely that a C=One or that C= Joystick would be the resulting product rather then an Amiga Inspired Desktop killer OS. Which I might add, Bloodline has already correctly pointed out is a market that has already been won.
amigadave wrote:
New technologies and ideas are happening all the time, but you have a very narrow view of what could be possible for an AmigaOS in the future,
Wrong, by the very nature of the AmigaOS, understanding it's capabilities and its shorcommings, the fact that the market is changing means that the AmigaOS is becomming less and less relevant as a desktop OS, indeed, the concept of a desktop is beginning to change itself with the advent of the Netbook. With each of these changes in the market, the amount of work that would be required to shoehorn the AmigaOS into it increases exponentially. At some point, you have to accept that the Amiga has no place in the modern age beyond that of a hobbyist machine or even just as a toy.
amigadave wrote:
even when others point out that they are not talking about completion in months or even a year. [ We all know that it can't be done overnight and quoting what has been completed by a few over the last 7 years does not automatically mean that the same pattern will persist over the next 7 years.
I've followed 2 major reimplimentations of OS's, AROS and Haiku. I have also seen the Refit of an OS, Zeta, which was based on the original BeOS code itself.
Haiku and Zeta took 7 years to get where they were, Zeta, even with the head start of having the code available, wasn't able to come up with an answer that realistically could survive in the current OS marketplace as anything other then a hobbiest system, Haiku, initiated as Be's ashes were still glowing, has taken since 2001 to get to early Alpha stage. AROS took even longer (though to be fair, there was a damn sight more work needed to get it to where it is today over Haiku).
Understanding how fast these projects take, one can reasonably extrapolate that with the same amount of funding, how long a project doing a similar thing, will take. It's not rocket science.
amigadave wrote:
It could mean that the direction over the last 7 years has not been the right one and more "resources" might have been available had several choices been made differently. As for Hiaku and AROS, I don't see that they have inspired the majority of Amiga users to jump at supporting either of them as their OS of choice for the future.
Most Amiga users woke up around 2002-2003 and went to other platforms, I went to BeOS, later Zeta and Haiku, many went to linux, most went to Windows and Mac.
But there you have it, neither AROS or Haiku (which to be fair, was never aimed at the Amiga community) have inspired, I do wonder if either had had the Amiga name attached, if they would have received greater funding and support from this community.
amigadave wrote:
Maybe if something better is thought of, more people, Amiga coders and coders that have never worked on anything Amiga before, might join to make it happen. Why do you think Linux went from one man's vision to what it is today?
Bloodline answered this one, aparently you didn't read it:
Linux was useful to more then Linus. If AmigaOS had been useful to others, it would already have been picked up by now.
amigadave wrote:
We can't change the past and sure can't foresee the future, but some people are arrogant enough to think they can.
It is not arrogance, it is realism, it is projections based on what has already happened, what is happening, and what is likely to happen, now if some mad fool comes up and sweeps away all the crap and builds "a new Amiga" with bucket loads of cash, then great, I'm wrong, you're right. But I really do not see any evidence of that happening. Do you have something to share with the group?
The best you can hope for, is things like Minimig, like NatAmi, like Amithlon, like AROS.
amigadave wrote:
As for definitions, look up sarcasm. (your history lessons of WinUAE and the BoXeR are already well known to me)
I know sarcasm, being British, it's my bread and butter. I can even use it effectively, something, you have yet to have shown. Snide yes, sarcasm, no.
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Though I will make an "arrogant" prediction now though:
NatAmi will be a commercial success, but not so much of a success in the Amiga community, indeed I would be surprised if the Amiga communty made up 10% of the sales of this device.
I'll explain my reasoning: The Amiga community, as nice as it is, is fractured, with a great many people having already blown large sums on their A1's and Pegasos, along with the investments in MOS and OS4 specific software. As Hans has already alluded, he would prefer an OS4 followup, I suspect you'd get a similar response from Peg users, and that is completely ignoring the A1 users who got burned by their last purchase.
But, the concept of a relatively inexpensive FPGA board offers a great many embedded developers a cheep way of getting hardware to work on, likewise, the NatAmi would be a boon to the Atari community as well.
But mostly, the embedded developers would make up the lion share of the purchasers.
Genesi were smart to realise the money wasn't in the Amiga community, which is why they marketed primarily to ppc developers. My suspician is that the NatAmi developers, if they have any business sense, will be offering their board up to embedded and fpga specific developers far more then the Amiga community. It wouldn't surprise me either that if Amigakit offered the minimig to fpga devs, as well as 68k devs, their sales would go through the roof, if they aren't already.
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persia wrote:
A lot of the Amiga World is like a time capsule, a frozen look into where we were 20 years ago. Does anyone actually argue about what a PC or Mac is? No, they have all gone through a series of changes over time but a Mac is still a Mac, whether it is running a beta version of Snow Leopard or OS 7.5.1.
Nobody in the PC world argues that a P4 isn't a real PC because it's slow and has only one core! There are still a few people running Window 3.1 and they are still PCs as much as a 4 core Xeon Vista computer.
The trouble with Amiga is that we lost a living Company long ago and have no one to tell us where Amiga is going. So some folks want to live in the World that existed at Commodore's Death Nell Vigil (TM), whilst others want to modernise the hardware and run the 15 year old OS on modern equipment. Still others want to take the concept of Amiga and ring it into the 21st Century.
When the Amiga was released it was cutting edge, it was capable of things that no other personal computer was capable of at that time. It squandered that lead and the company went belly up. The Amiga's capabilities in 2008 look oddly nostalgic. Think about where Amiga would have been today had Commodore not been found floating at the top of the tank! Amiga's with GBs of RAM, 8 cores, TB hard drives. It was able to squeeze so much out of so little, what could it have squeezed out of modern equipment?
AmigaDos would have been rewritten many times by now. The original creators made some choices, such as the lack of memory protection, that were necessary back them but now make no sense, they would have fixed them and built a new OS. It probably would have had to run the old stuff through a Classic system like the Macs used to have. But new software would have arisen and the old games updated to run in the new system.
For a decade and a half the Amiga has been leaderless, slowly losing it's user base. WHy do we need to tear at each other? We're all that's left, maybe a few thousand scattered across the globe. We have different visions, different ideas We disagree on what we want, but we don't disagree on what we don't want. We don't want the Amiga relegated to history.
(http://i179.photobucket.com/albums/w303/cascabelsl/smiley-frites-salut.gif)
Just thought this post by persia needed to be read by some posters here again.
"So some folks want to live in the World that existed at Commodore's Death Nell Vigil (TM), whilst others want to modernise the hardware and run the 15 year old OS on modern equipment. Still others want to take the concept of Amiga and ring it into the 21st Century."
Three visions of what the Amiga should be in the future. Some of us only subscribe to one of the three, while others want two, or all three to be possible.
Why can't we all just get along and let each have their own vision of what the future will bring?
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Ok Amigadave, I kind of like you. I like your enthusiasm and dedication to the cause... but you are being a prick now.
Let me tell you a story... back in 2004/2005 I also has some half baked about adding Memory protection. Fortunately Piru used to frequent the AROS IRC channel around the same time... I would present my ideas to the channel and the clever guys there would explain the flaws in my thinking... OK... I would think, I'll prove them wrong, I would take the AROS sources and try my idea out as best I could... That is the coolest thing about AROS, you can just try an idea out and see how it works... and you know what, Piru and the other guys on there were always right.
You, and Hans et al can keep arguing with Piru, but if you are not prepared to try your idea out and prove that it doesn't work, I have no time for you.
Hans clearly is an intelligent chap with coding experience, and it really pisses me off that he would rather argue a point he doesn't understand rather than actually try the idea out and prove it.
I refer back to an argument Karlos and I had on this very forum, he suggested one way to do something I suggested another... To prove Karlos wrong I tried his idea out... turns out he was right.
Don't just stand there and shout it, do something about it!!!!!
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the_leander wrote:
NatAmi will be a commercial success, but not so much of a success in the Amiga community, indeed I would be surprised if the Amiga communty made up 10% of the sales of this device.
I'll explain my reasoning: The Amiga community, as nice as it is, is fractured, with a great many people having already blown large sums on their A1's and Pegasos.
I think the Natami will be of greater interest to "Amiga fundamentalists" rather than PPC users, people who have waited years for someone, anyone to produce a system that is true to the core concepts of the One True Amiga.
But the real benefit of the Natami is SuperAGA, which could be used in a new graphics card for big box Amigas.
It may be too expensive to buy the complete system, so, many people may be satisfied with a new SuperAGA graphics card to modernise the most obvious part of their Amiga computer, the video display.
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amigadave wrote:
"So some folks want to live in the World that existed at Commodore's Death Nell Vigil (TM), whilst others want to modernise the hardware and run the 15 year old OS on modern equipment. Still others want to take the concept of Amiga and ring it into the 21st Century."
Three visions of what the Amiga should be in the future. Some of us only subscribe to one of the three, while others want two, or all three to be possible.
Why can't we all just get along and let each have their own vision of what the future will bring?
I get along with folk just fine for the most part, but understand, you have the resources now to maybe recreate Amithlon or build up from NatAmi and Minimig and relegate the Amiga to hobbyist or enthusiast status only. There simply isn't the capital to make the Amiga the Giant killer it should have been. Or, you can keep on wishing for giant killer status whilst forgetting what is available both now and in the immediate future.
The bitter irony, the terrible truth is, had BoXeR or NatAmi been available in 98, the Amiga community wouldn't have shrunk by the 90% it has in the years since. And again, it is a handful of people, not a giant multinational or even the crims who leased the IP that are behind it.
They say time is cyclical...
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A6000 wrote:
the_leander wrote:
NatAmi will be a commercial success, but not so much of a success in the Amiga community, indeed I would be surprised if the Amiga communty made up 10% of the sales of this device.
I'll explain my reasoning: The Amiga community, as nice as it is, is fractured, with a great many people having already blown large sums on their A1's and Pegasos.
I think the Natami will be of greater interest to "Amiga fundamentalists" rather than PPC users, people who have waited years for someone, anyone to produce a system that is true to the core concepts of the One True Amiga.
Which is precisely why I think it'll only sell to a small subset of the community.
A6000 wrote:
But the real benefit of the Natami is SuperAGA, which could be used in a new graphics card for big box Amigas.
It may be too expensive to buy the complete system, so, many people may be satisfied with a new SuperAGA graphics card to modernise the most obvious part of their Amiga computer, the video display.
Tbh the cost of making a zorro card and modifying AAA to work as a bus device rather then part of an intergrated system would probably make any such board about as expensive as just the NatAmi. I can see your point as to why it might be desirable to have it as an addon, but these systems are becomming increasingly fragile as time goes on, and unlike with the A500-3000 where the chipsets were socketed and there is the option of caniblising one from another, there just isn't the capacity to do that with the 600-1200 and 4000. Added to that the tiny numbers of surviving units and I just can't see that it would be financially viable.
But as a whole board, you open the possibility to sell it to much larger communities then this one. In all honesty, if they want to be able to keep making these and be able to flog em at a reasonable cost, marketing to the embedded and fpga specific developer communities is really the only logical option.
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bloodline wrote:
To prove Karlos wrong
See, this is where you failed - Karlos is a true genius, basically, if he says something is or isn't possible, take him at his word, whilst not infalable, this curry powered megabrain is right a damn sight more often then not :-D :lol:
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the_leander wrote:
bloodline wrote:
To prove Karlos wrong
See, this is where you failed - Karlos is a true genius, basically, if he says something is or isn't possible, take him at his word, whilst not infalable, this curry powered megabrain is right a damn sight more often then not :-D :lol:
Well, both our ideas would have worked, but his was much simpler... so I tried his idea first... and he was right, so I just conceded defeat :-D
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the_leander wrote:
I think you need to get your prescription checked - clearly we are reading different things.
My prescription is fine thank you, it is you who live in the fantasy world and interpret your surroundings through those colored glasses to the point where you cannot even consider another person's POV (probably inhibited due to your arrogance). But I agree we are seeing two very different things in this thread.
It's called probability, backed up with a very sharp memory of what has happened to get us here. When the odds get big enough, the chances of something happening will eventually become so small as to effectively render them impossible for all intents and purposes.
...... But even then, it is far more likely that a C=One or that C= Joystick would be the resulting product rather then an Amiga Inspired Desktop killer OS. Which I might add, Bloodline has already correctly pointed out is a market that has already been won.
This explains your misguided statements. No one but a fool thinks that the Amiga is going to inspire a "Desktop killer OS" that will compete directly against Windows, or even the Mac. No where have I stated or implied that idea and that is not what this thread is about. It started out with a big argument about what is a "real" Amiga and what is not. On that point I agreed for the most part with bloodline's POV and definition.
A new AmigaOS does not have to compete against Windows or the Mac to be a success, or fulfill the wants of most/many current Amiga users, former users and other computer users that are just sick and tired of Windows and too intimidated to deal with the remaining problems of Linux. Maybe for you and bloodline a new AmigaOS must fit into a narrow description of specific rules to make it worthwhile. I think it is you that are being the pricks in trying to talk down to everyone else that disagrees about what can and cannot be done and the way it has to be to make it worth any effort.
Just because you have some prior knowledge and experience with Amiga development and its failures, or setbacks in the past, does not make your opinions the only valid ones.
Wrong, by the very nature of the AmigaOS, understanding it's capabilities and its shorcommings, the fact that the market is changing means that the AmigaOS is becomming less and less relevant as a desktop OS, indeed, the concept of a desktop is beginning to change itself with the advent of the Netbook. With each of these changes in the market, the amount of work that would be required to shoehorn the AmigaOS into it increases exponentially. At some point, you have to accept that the Amiga has no place in the modern age beyond that of a hobbyist machine or even just as a toy.
"Understanding it's capabilities and ....." You are writing about the current AmigaOS' limitations as if any new work must be dependent on it and cannot free itself from the past. I am writing about creating something new that is not limited by the past, but builds on the legacy items that can be saved without crippling the future.
Your argument, as Hans put so well and so briefly in his summary of Piru's side of the argument, is that it will take too long, cost too much, there are not enough resources to work on such a project, and it is not worth the effort because there are alternatives already available.
All valid points and they support your "probability" that there is a good chance nothing will happen, but ..... (see next point).
Linux was useful to more then Linus. If AmigaOS had been useful to others, it would already have been picked up by now.
My point that you have worked so hard to refute over and over again is that if a new AmigaOS (Amiga-Like) were created next year, or the year after that has advanced features and innovative ideas that are not available, or perhaps not possible in other OSes, perhaps due to their own legacy limitations, then that new AmigaOS would be "useful to more than Linus".
I understand that your argument about providing certain modern capabilities will break some of the very things that make any OS "Amiga-Like". I get it!
All I have been trying to say this entire time is that hope for a better AmigaOS should not be abandoned just because the odds of anything improving are so very small and because we have only our past 10 years of failures and disappointments to look back on.
It would be much more productive for technically inclined Amiga users like yourselves to help find what can be done instead of repeating what cannot.
And yes, I am stepping up to put my money where my mouth is by looking for a PegasosII G4/1ghz to purchase and learning more about programming so I can help with several different projects.
I will enjoy my Classic Amiga collection (incl. my MiniMig & soon a NatAmi), actively work on the current "State of the Art" (IMHO) Amiga-Like system and prepare myself to help with creating or writing programs for a future OS which I hope will be both Open Source and Amiga-Like even if it is not named "AmigaOS".
It appears you assume you know what I, or other Amiga users want from a new AmigaOS. You are wrong about me, and possibly others as well.
I've followed 2 major reimplimentations of OS's, AROS and Haiku. I have also seen the Refit of an OS, Zeta, which was based on the original BeOS code itself.
Haiku and Zeta took 7 years to get where they were, Zeta, even with the head start of having the code available, wasn't able to come up with an answer that realistically could survive in the current OS marketplace as anything other then a hobbiest system, Haiku, initiated as Be's ashes were still glowing, has taken since 2001 to get to early Alpha stage. AROS took even longer (though to be fair, there was a damn sight more work needed to get it to where it is today over Haiku).
Understanding how fast these projects take, one can reasonably extrapolate that with the same amount of funding, how long a project doing a similar thing, will take. It's not rocket science.
You can extrapolate. Bullcr@p!
What amount of funding would that be?
What are the number of programmers that will be interested in working on this new project?
What code can be borrowed from and improved upon from the Open Source community?
I could go on and on with the number of variables that you could not have any knowledge of prior to the beginning of any new OS project, which makes your statement a joke.
Most Amiga users woke up around 2002-2003 and went to other platforms, I went to BeOS, later Zeta and Haiku, many went to linux, most went to Windows and Mac.
Oh well, they will be back if something sparks their interest. Since I am not involved in this for profit, I don't care who else comes back or not.
It is not arrogance, it is realism, it is projections based on what has already happened, what is happening, and what is likely to happen, now if some mad fool comes up and sweeps away all the crap and builds "a new Amiga" with bucket loads of cash, then great, I'm wrong, you're right. But I really do not see any evidence of that happening. Do you have something to share with the group?
Only what I have already shared. It only takes one great idea, not "bucket loads of cash" to start an avalanche of support, as my example of Linus Torvalds clearly shows.
The best you can hope for, is things like Minimig, like NatAmi, like Amithlon, like AROS.
I know sarcasm, being British, it's my bread and butter. I can even use it effectively, something, you have yet to have shown. Snide yes, sarcasm, no.
So not only are you going to dictate what we can hope for, you are going to boast about being the best at sarcasm. Anything else? Should I bow down now to your self proclaimed superiority? (I think NOT)
Arrogance: offensive display of superiority or self-importance; overbearing pride.
That seems to fit your tone exactly! You are so full of yourself.
I'll be the judge of what's the best I can hope for.
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@ the_leander
I think your condescending remarks are rather uncalled for and a little bit more professionalism is in order.
Please be CIVIL.
PS: Don't be ticking off my neighbors.
Chris
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amigadave wrote:
the_leander wrote:
I think you need to get your prescription checked - clearly we are reading different things.
My prescription is fine thank you, it is you who live in the fantasy world and interpret your surroundings through those coloured glasses to the point where you cannot even consider another person's POV (probably inhibited due to your arrogance). But I agree we are seeing two very different things in this thread.
Oh I'm sorry I must have missed the legions of developers and millions of dollars in VC investors that are just chomping at the bit to make your dream of making a whole new OS that just happens to have the name "Amiga" stamped on it.
Wait, whats that? There isn't any money? And there are maybe a handful of developers left that are remotely capable of such a task?
Oh.
amigadave wrote:
It's called probability, backed up with a very sharp memory of what has happened to get us here. When the odds get big enough, the chances of something happening will eventually become so small as to effectively render them impossible for all intents and purposes.
...... But even then, it is far more likely that a C=One or that C= Joystick would be the resulting product rather then an Amiga Inspired Desktop killer OS. Which I might add, Bloodline has already correctly pointed out is a market that has already been won.
This explains your misguided statements. No one but a fool thinks that the Amiga is going to inspire a "Desktop killer OS" that will compete directly against Windows, or even the Mac. No where have I stated or implied that idea and that is not what this thread is about. It started out with a big argument about what is a "real" Amiga and what is not. On that point I agreed for the most part with bloodline's POV and definition.
Misguided? Pfft.
amigadave wrote:
A new AmigaOS does not have to compete against Windows or the Mac to be a success, or fulfil the wants of most/many current Amiga users, former users and other computer users that are just sick and tired of Windows and too intimidated to deal with the remaining problems of Linux. Maybe for you and bloodline a new AmigaOS must fit into a narrow description of specific rules to make it worthwhile. I think it is you that are being the pricks in trying to talk down to everyone else that disagrees about what can and cannot be done and the way it has to be to make it worth any effort.
So you leave yourself niche markets, what markets were you thinking of exactly? Just the community? Sorry, no dice, no one could make money out of what remains of the once huge Amiga community.
amigadave wrote:
Just because you have some prior knowledge and experience with Amiga development and its failures, or setbacks in the past, does not make your opinions the only valid ones.
It doesn't make them invalid either, nothing you have put in your post has shown my points either from an economic standpoint or developmental point to be invalid.
That you refuse to see that is not my concern.
amigadave wrote:
Wrong, by the very nature of the AmigaOS, understanding it's capabilities and its shortcomings, the fact that the market is changing means that the AmigaOS is becoming less and less relevant as a desktop OS, indeed, the concept of a desktop is beginning to change itself with the advent of the Netbook. With each of these changes in the market, the amount of work that would be required to shoehorn the AmigaOS into it increases exponentially. At some point, you have to accept that the Amiga has no place in the modern age beyond that of a hobbyist machine or even just as a toy.
"Understanding it's capabilities and ....." You are writing about the current AmigaOS' limitations as if any new work must be dependent on it and cannot free itself from the past. I am writing about creating something new that is not limited by the past, but builds on the legacy items that can be saved without crippling the future.
So, you want a whole new OS, from scratch, just so you can stick the name "Amiga" on it.
I'll go with Bloodline on this: Do it yourself. Put your money, blood sweat and tears where your mouth is instead of having a pop at people who actually know what they're talking about.
amigadave wrote:
Your argument, as Hans put so well and so briefly in his summary of Piru's side of the argument, is that it will take too long, cost too much, there are not enough resources to work on such a project, and it is not worth the effort because there are alternatives already available.
You're damn right there are alternatives available.
This is what I don't get about the community, what I never understood, that someone could take a pre existing OS, slap the name Amiga on it and you folk would cheer like it's the second coming (TAO). But point you at Haiku or AROS and you don't so much as bat an eyelid.
As for your dismissal of Piru's points, well, that said it all for me, I mean, afterall what on earth could someone who has actually been neck deep in an OS for the past 7 years, whose API's are identical to the one you use know about an OS, yes, lets listen to the guy who has done sweet FA in terms of OS development instead! He clearly knows what he's talking about...
Just because you don't like the answer does not make the person arrogant or invalid!
amigadave wrote:
All valid points and they support your "probability" that there is a good chance nothing will happen, but ..... (see next point).
Linux was useful to more then Linus. If AmigaOS had been useful to others, it would already have been picked up by now.
My point that you have worked so hard to refute over and over again is that if a new AmigaOS (Amiga-Like) were created next year, or the year after that has advanced features and innovative ideas that are not available, or perhaps not possible in other OSes, perhaps due to their own legacy limitations, then that new AmigaOS would be "useful to more than Linus".
Right, because of what, exactly? The name Amiga? Newsflash, the name is a joke synonymous with failure and more recently, with dodgy dealings.
Even before the legal issues YellowTab, the producers of Zeta were in trouble, serious financial trouble, they had a modern, scalable fully functional OS based on the superb BeOS. If you enter the desktop market you will fail. Further, unlike with Zeta, which had a reasonable back catalogue of software, your supposed Next-Gen AmigaOS will have sod all.
BeOS, Zeta, neither of them could gain traction and they were about as advanced as any OS out there, more so in many respects then the major players and an order or two of magnitude more capable then AmigaOS and it had a rolling start with the aid of the BeOS back catalogue.
amigadave wrote:
I understand that your argument about providing certain modern capabilities will break some of the very things that make any OS "Amiga-Like". I get it!
No, you really don't, it won't break the things that make it Amiga-like (as has been pointed out already, there are modern OS's out there that are amigalike and have capabilities far and away superior to the AmigaOS - Haiku being a prime example), it'll completely destroy backward compatibility with about the only thing that AmigaOS has any value left in - it's software catalogue.
Linux was useful because it allowed people like you and me to use a UNIX type environment without having to be butt raped by IBM, Novell or Sun for the privilage. It also put UNIX styled OS's onto the desktop - something that was considered to be a bad thing by the above companies. It was the right tool, at the right time. Something that seems to have escaped your understanding, despite it having been repeatedly pointed out to you.
amigadave wrote:
All I have been trying to say this entire time is that hope for a better AmigaOS should not be abandoned just because the odds of anything improving are so very small and because we have only our past 10 years of failures and disappointments to look back on.
You misspelled False hope.
I'm not saying AmigaOS should be abandoned, I'm saying that trying to make a "next gen" OS whose only claim is that it holds the name "Amiga" and calling it an Amiga would be no different then simply taking the AROS or Haiku code and slapping the name on that!
I'm saying that if Amiga is to survive, it will be through emulation both hardware and software. I'll be through things like the UAE, Minimig and NatAmi, it won't be through investing millions (in terms of both money and man hours) on yet another niche OS.
amigadave wrote:
It would be much more productive for technically inclined Amiga users like yourselves to help find what can be done instead of repeating what cannot.
Already done, and for that I have been accused of being arrogant.
I told you what is on the table. If you don't like it, do something about it.
amigadave wrote:
And yes, I am stepping up to put my money where my mouth is by looking for a PegasosII G4/1ghz to purchase and learning more about programming so I can help with several different projects.
May I suggest getting an Efika, given that they're still being produced and all.
amigadave wrote:
I will enjoy my Classic Amiga collection (incl. my MiniMig & soon a NatAmi), actively work on the current "State of the Art" (IMHO) Amiga-Like system and prepare myself to help with creating or writing programs for a future OS which I hope will be both Open Source and Amiga-Like even if it is not named "AmigaOS".
Haiku and AROS fit this bill quite nicely. You should have a look at them.
amigadave wrote:
It appears you assume you know what I, or other Amiga users want from a new AmigaOS. You are wrong about me, and possibly others as well.
Really, no I think I have you bang to rights. What you want is not attainable. It hasn't been for a decade.
amigadave wrote:
I've followed 2 major reimplimentations of OS's, AROS and Haiku. I have also seen the Refit of an OS, Zeta, which was based on the original BeOS code itself.
Haiku and Zeta took 7 years to get where they were, Zeta, even with the head start of having the code available, wasn't able to come up with an answer that realistically could survive in the current OS marketplace as anything other then a hobbiest system, Haiku, initiated as Be's ashes were still glowing, has taken since 2001 to get to early Alpha stage. AROS took even longer (though to be fair, there was a damn sight more work needed to get it to where it is today over Haiku).
Understanding how fast these projects take, one can reasonably extrapolate that with the same amount of funding, how long a project doing a similar thing, will take. It's not rocket science.
Most Amiga users woke up around 2002-2003 and went to other platforms, I went to BeOS, later Zeta and Haiku, many went to Linux, most went to Windows and Mac.
It is not arrogance, it is realism, it is projections based on what has already happened, what is happening, and what is likely to happen, now if some mad fool comes up and sweeps away all the crap and builds "a new Amiga" with bucket loads of cash, then great, I'm wrong, you're right. But I really do not see any evidence of that happening. Do you have something to share with the group?
The best you can hope for, is things like Minimig, like NatAmi, like Amithlon, like AROS.
I know sarcasm, being British, it's my bread and butter. I can even use it effectively, something, you have yet to have shown. Snide yes, sarcasm, no.
Arrogance: offensive display of superiority or self-importance; overbearing pride.
Pride? In myself? Dear gods you really have no clue who you're talking to do you? LAWL!
By the way, there is a difference between arrogance (which assumes I'm in error) and being correct and you not liking the answer.
You should think on that.
amigadave wrote:
That seems to fit your tone exactly! You are so full of yourself.
I'll be the judge of what's the best I can hope for.
I'll await AMigaDaveOS development news with baited breath. Promise!
Or, you can continue false hope in a second coming and you'll eventually either end up like Athiest and a short step away from a nut house, or you'll have to face crushing disappointment when you realise all your energy was wasted.
Remember, the longer you leave it, the greater the pain.
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QuikSanz wrote:
@ the_leander
I think your condescending remarks are rather uncalled for and a little bit more professionalism is in order.
Really? Well bully for you! I think a wake up call to people living in a dream world is in order myself, sadly, breaking someones dreams is not a pleasant process, the flip side is though, that going through the crushing realisation yourself alone is far, far worse.
Condecending and Arrogant eh? Damn I'm going to have a whole dictionarys worth of insults thrown at me before the end of the week at this rate.
And all from whiney septics from CA.
Interesting that.
QuikSanz wrote:
Please be CIVIL.
I haven't been uncivil yet.
I haven't even begun to be uncivil.
I can show you uncivil if you like? :evilgrin:
QuikSanz wrote:
PS: Don't be ticking off my neighbors.
Chris
That a threat?
Quaking here man, hey, guys, this random person on this website I've been visiting for the past 6 years just threatened me!
... :roll:
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>running a search-replace on the entire source tree.
Could this code for a memory leak detector be modified to be used to trap functions etc ?
Especially the logging feature, lower down the page , logging commands and changing them ?
This could act like a search replace
http://angelheart.obxhost.net/leakdetector.htm
Someone knowledgeable make use of it ?
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In your shoes, I would not be proud of myself either.
Get your quotes right, I never wrote the statements you are quoting.
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amigadave wrote:
In your shoes, I would not be proud of myself either.
Snide.
amigadave wrote:
Get your quotes right, I never wrote the statements you are quoting.
Editing your posts after the fact is not good form chum.
I hit the quote button at the bottom of the post page. You wrote what was quoted.
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@ the_leander
I was the one that wrote "please be civil".
I also wrote "Don't Be Ticking off my neighbors"
Unfortunately You are confused. You should never respond in anger. So, OK what is your beef in general? Most folks in EU don't trash like you.
I can maybe speak for some people that our existing stuff won't last forever. What do we do when that time comes along?
I have a PC for new games but it's no Amiga.
Chris
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QuikSanz wrote:
@ the_leander
I was the one that wrote "please be civil".
I also wrote "Don't Be Ticking off my neighbors"
Unfortunately You are confused. You should never respond in anger. So, OK what is your beef in general? Most folks in EU don't trash like you.
I can maybe speak for some people that our existing stuff won't last forever. What do we do when that time comes along?
I have a PC for new games but it's no Amiga.
Chris
Don't bother correcting him, he is always right and correct, haven't you read his posts?
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@amigadave,
Yeh, Trolls, Whats a person to do? Forget about it.
Chris
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QuikSanz wrote:
@amigadave,
Yeh, Trolls, Whats a person to do? Forget about it.
Chris
Yeah, I am done with that lying, waste of time, fool that can't even get his facts straight.
It is a joke that he thinks he is here to save all our poor souls from our wayward path. :lol:
If he had read any of my other 1650+ posts here on these forums, he would know that I am not one of the blind zealots of the Amiga community, but he has a burr up his arse and won't get up to dig it out and pull his head out with it.
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QuikSanz wrote:
@ the_leander
I was the one that wrote "please be civil".
I also wrote "Don't Be Ticking off my neighbors"
Fixed, and my apologies, apparently I didn't hit ctrl c quite hard enough.
QuikSanz wrote:
Unfortunately You are confused. You should never respond in anger. So, OK what is your beef in general? Most folks in EU don't trash like you.
I am Britsh, not European.
I'm also not angry, just saddened at the complete lack of understanding, or rather, wilful ignorance of some.
Here you have in this thread, posts by one of the best coders in the Amiga community, one of the most respected developers of AROS - Piru.
And he is being dismissed like an errant child because his answers aren't the ones some folk want to hear.
What's worse though, is that you have AROS, which is for all intents and purposes, a next generation AmigaOS in both form and function, it's good to go today. And it is being ignored utterly in favour of making, from scratch a whole new OS that'll have "Amiga" stamped on it.
I can't even begin to imagine what AROS developers reading things like that feel - to see their hard work dismissed by people solely because it has the wrong name. Or to be called lazy because it offers the option of running hosted in Linux.
This community really is retarded at times - it has had the answer sat there for yonks, ready to step into the fore, and no one wants it, the terrible thing is it'll be the same for the NatAmi for the most part too...
QuikSanz wrote:
I can maybe speak for some people that our existing stuff won't last forever. What do we do when that time comes along?
I've already said, several times now what the future is for the Amiga as it stands: UAE, Amithlon (or something that follows the same principles, maybe a hosted derivative of AROS), NatAmi or Minimig.
I've stated that it is however unlikely, given the fractured nature of the community that any product will survive on the meagre earnings that are likely to be had from this community - most, like Hans, have paid up for their dead end systems and are either unwilling or unable to fork up for something else.
I've stated that the NatAmi could well end up being a big hit with developers of fpgas, same goes for Minimig, and if marketed to those groups will likely become commercial successes ensuring their survival, which in turn, is good for users of original equipment looking for a replacement.
But I feel the community as a whole I think will ignore it, just like they have with AROS.
QuikSanz wrote:
I have a PC for new games but it's no Amiga.
Chris
Honest to goodness, look on ebay for Amithlon. If you can, get it.
You seriously will not regret it. You thought an A1 was fast, try an Amithlon equipped PC, it'll feel just like the real thing, only faster then greased lightning. It'll also offer better compatability with older software since it'll be running a 3.x series OS rather then 4.0.
Failing that, ask someone who has a copy, or can get copies in private if they can run a copy off for you.
That, or have a look at Elive. Yes, it's linux, but it really is a sight to behold and use, by far the slickest OS I have ever come across, and I've used a few. Better then Ubuntu imho, fast even on (seriously) old hardware.
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@the_leander
Quote:
_____________________________________________________________
the_leander wrote:
"Or, you can continue false hope in a second coming and you'll eventually either end up like Athiest and a short step away from a nut house, or you'll have to face crushing disappointment when you realise all your energy was wasted."
_____________________________________________________________
Your debate with amigadave on this thread is most interesting as in explaining the obvious current market and economics woes of the very small Amiga community and those that are trying very hard to support it.
But, what is most interesting that you would make a statement as quoted above and expose your own ignorance into something apparently you have little belief or knowledge about. I would suggest Sir that you remain on topic of this thread and take keep your comments concerning others religious beliefs to the General Chat forum under Philosophy and Religion. There you can discuss your statements freely.
I'm sure you will understand.......
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amigadave wrote:
QuikSanz wrote:
@amigadave,
Yeh, Trolls, Whats a person to do? Forget about it.
Chris
Yeah, I am done with that lying, waste of time, fool that can't even get his facts straight.
Lying eh? Prove it.
amigadave wrote:
It is a joke that he thinks he is here to save all our poor souls from our wayward path. :lol:
You're right, no one can save you from wasting your time and pi$$ing on (not a typo) developers.
amigadave wrote:
If he had read any of my other 1650+ posts here on these forums, he would know that I am not one of the blind zealots of the Amiga community, but he has a burr up his arse and won't get up to dig it out and pull his head out with it.
Really? You say you don't care what the name is, so long as it's amiga-like, ok, AROS, Haiku there you go. But then you go on to say that you want something completely new, replicating the work both of these projects have done and have the Amiga name.
To which I have asked repeatedly: Why?
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Firedawg wrote:
Your debate with amigadave on this thread is most interesting as in explaining the obvious current market and economics woes of the very small Amiga community and those that are trying very hard to support it.
Glad you've enjoyed it.
Firedawg wrote:
But, what is most interesting that you would make a statement as quoted above and expose your own ignorance into something apparently you have little belief or knowledge about.
There is no ignorance, just cold, hard, generally unforgiving fact. Read my previous post and you might get a better feel for where I'm comming from on this.
Firedawg wrote:
I would suggest Sir that you remain on topic of this thread and take keep your comments concerning others religious beliefs to the General Chat forum under Philosophy and Religion. T
Aaahhh, nonono...
Athiest is a well known (well, I thought he was, seems I was wrong on this) Amiga fanatic, it was not a comment about a person's religious or lack of belief.
Don't believe me? Go on moobunny, he posts there as athiest2. He's from Canada, and possibly one of the single most single minded (almost to the point of parody) amiga nuts you will ever come across. To this guy, an A500 will pwn any pc ever made in terms of performance, in fact, no, I really can't do him justice - just take a look, he should be due to pop in a couple of months given the last time he did and assuming he stays on shedule.
I believe he was banned from this board a number of years ago, was also banned on AW and amigans... Not sure if he was banned on anything else amiga related, but it wouldn't surprise me.
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"Lying?"
Misquoting me, then accusing me of the mistake you made. I received no apology.
"Why?"
I have answered you several times, but you don't like the answers, so you ignore it and go on spreading your misinformation to deflect what I am saying.
"....." & "phttt"
Great responses to questions or statements that you can't deal with. (Snide or Sarcastic, I don't care what you think by now)
When AROS, AmigaOS4.x, Haiku, or any other OS shows me something that I want to use and can't get on any other OS, I will be glad to support them. Until then, I have chosen MorphOS2.x as the OS I will support, as well as the MiniMig and NatAmi projects. I will do what ever I can to move MOS2.x forward, until something so amazing comes along to replace it (for me).
The next OS I have been writing about is the next quantum leap above where we are now with any OS, but that leap will mean different things to you than it does to me because you are so far off from understanding where I am coming from. Hence, when a shift of paradigm comes for me, you may not even recognize or acknowledge it. I don't want the next Windows OS, I want the next AmigaOS, and yes, I don't care what it is called, but, as I have stated before, I would prefer an Open Source OS called Amiga with AInc. dead, buried and forgotten.
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amigadave wrote:
"Lying?"
Misquoting me, then accusing me of the mistake you made. I received no apology.
And you'll get none, not because you're not deserving of it, but because you chose to add that snide remark before it.
amigadave wrote:
"Why?"
I have answered you several times, but you don't like the answers, so you ignore it and go on spreading your misinformation to deflect what I am saying.
BS.. This post however...
amigadave wrote:
"....." & "phttt"
Great responses to questions or statements that you can't deal with. (Snide or Sarcastic, I don't care what you think by now)
Yes they are, I hope they got across just how pathetic and beneath every reader who had the misfortune of having their eyes role over such drivel. They were worthy of no fuller response.
amigadave wrote:
When AROS, AmigaOS4.x, Haiku, or any other OS shows me something that I want to use and can't get on any other OS, I will be glad to support them.
That in of itself isn't an issue.
amigadave wrote:
Until then, I have chosen MorphOS2.x as the OS I will support, as well as the MiniMig and NatAmi projects. I will do what ever I can to move MOS2.x forward, until something so amazing comes along to replace it (for me).
Good for you on picking MorphOS, I hope it does what you need of it.
amigadave wrote:
The next OS I have been writing about is the next quantum leap above where we are now with any OS, but that leap will mean different things to you than it does to me because you are so far off from understanding where I am coming from.
Pretty sure Bloodline suggested you take a peak at Singularity. Honestly I'd back this up - it really had some cool ideas (I know, microsoft... the amiga user in me died a little to admit that, the irony is that they dropped possibly the only truly innovative project they've ever had in order to concentrate on Vista and Windows 7).
Flip side though is that they are giving what they had away for people to go over.
If BeOS or AmigaOS were to be built today, using cutting edge OS ideology, they would probably have followed a similar path to that of Singularity.
Some of the concepts that they were trying to put together... Damn it would have made for an awsome piece of software...
amigadave wrote:
Hence, when a shift of paradigm comes for me, you may not even recognize or acknowledge it.
The next big thing is here, so to speak, it's things like the Netbook, like the iPhone, it's mobility in all its many forms.
Now, I'll be the first to admit that no one has got it totally right yet, there are some that have it more right then others - I think using linux isn't an inherently bad move, but, it is a bit of a tight squeeze on some of the lower end Netbooks, it is interesting that something like the ill fated BeIA would probably have been ideal in such a form factor as a NetBook...
amigadave wrote:
I don't want the next Windows OS, I want the next AmigaOS, and yes, I don't care what it is called, but, as I have stated before, I would prefer an Open Source OS called Amiga with AInc. dead, buried and forgotten.
Sounds to me that Amiga for you has become something of a holy grail, less about a computer and more of an ideal then anything tangible. Not a bad way to look at things I suppose.
Guess I was wrong about you afterall.
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Here in amiga.org are some people who could have great help to this project.
Aros project, kickstart replacement is now really important, natami with reverse engineered kickstart would be free of amiga curse ;)
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utri007 wrote:
Here in amiga.org are some people who could have great help to this project.
Aros project, kickstart replacement is now really important, natami with reverse engineered kickstart would be free of amiga curse ;)
It'd be interesting to see just how well Amiga apps ran under a NatAmi running Aros. I know there is source compatability, but if it's running on a 68k, would it offer binary compatability also?
Anyone?
It'd get around not only the curse, but the legal issues that have blighted Amiga since the current bunch have had ownership of the IP.
Now if it were to offer binary compatability that really would be an awesome crossing of roads.
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Just my opinion, Aros is not the answer, it is so far from it original purpose, to be amiga replacement OS
But natami needs to get rid of original amiga kickstarts
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utri007 wrote:
Just my opinion, Aros is not the answer, it is so far from it original purpose, to be amiga replacement OS
How so? I'll concede that I really haven't been following AROS as closely as I would have liked.
I thought it was making great inroads as to becoming a fully fledged 3.1 replacement?
utri007 wrote:
But natami needs to get rid of original amiga kickstarts
Ain't that the truth, then again, removing all tainted IP should be a priority, I can't see A Inc being any more friendly with the NatAmi then they were with Amithlon.
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I am Britsh, not European.
And since when is Britain not in Europe?
Sorry, but if you are "Britsh", you are also European :-)
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I'm from United States OF Europe
As you all know UK is small part of it ;)
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kolla wrote:
I am Britsh, not European.
And since when is Britain not in Europe?
Sorry, but if you are "Britsh", you are also European :-)
Since when has having political ties or even agreement with a group of countries to form a union require a change of nationality? By your reasoning I would also be Irish, Scottish and Welsh. Hell given all the close nit ties with the US are you going to call me a Yank as well???
But I am none of those. I am just plain old British.
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the_leander wrote:
kolla wrote:
I am Britsh, not European.
And since when is Britain not in Europe?
Sorry, but if you are "Britsh", you are also European :-)
Since when has having political ties or even agreement with a group of countries to form a union require a change of nationality? By your reasoning I would also be Irish, Scottish and Welsh. Hell given all the close nit ties with the US are you going to call me a Yank as well???
But I am none of those. I am just plain old British.
I happen to be British also, and I too would perfer to not be refered to as European... because I'm not.
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the_leander wrote:
utri007 wrote:
But natami needs to get rid of original amiga kickstarts
Ain't that the truth, then again, removing all tainted IP should be a priority, I can't see A Inc being any more friendly with the NatAmi then they were with Amithlon.
If only Bernie had used AROS in Amithlon, then he wouldn't have needed to go near Amiga Inc... but in the end it wasn't Ainc that killed Amithlon (since he could have gone the AmigaForever route)... it was H&P that killed it.
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the_leander wrote:
utri007 wrote:
Here in amiga.org are some people who could have great help to this project.
Aros project, kickstart replacement is now really important, natami with reverse engineered kickstart would be free of amiga curse ;)
It'd be interesting to see just how well Amiga apps ran under a NatAmi running Aros. I know there is source compatability, but if it's running on a 68k, would it offer binary compatability also?
Anyone?
Yes, that's right :-)
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bloodline wrote:
If only Bernie had used AROS in Amithlon, then he wouldn't have needed to go near Amiga Inc... but in the end it wasn't Ainc that killed Amithlon (since he could have gone the AmigaForever route)... it was H&P that killed it.
I stand corrected.
But yeah, that would have been an ideal marriage.
Btw, since you're on, whats the deal with binary compatability with Amiga apps when running AROS in a 68k environment?
--edit--
Nevermind, you just answered hehehe.
Another question then, how complete is AROS in this sort of mode, ie, if it were running on either a real amiga or something like a NatAmi, how close to complete is it in terms of a full replacement to AOS3.1?
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I'm not up with the politics over at AROSland, so I'd like to know: what does the closing of the TeamAROS site mean? is it a portal like this site (meaning that the closing sucks, but it's not a dent in the big picture), or more of an important hub? I've also heard that some important AROS core devs have decided to call it quits following this, so all AROS development moving on will be x86 only. Is this true?
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Firedawg wrote:
@the_leander
Your debate with amigadave on this thread is most interesting as in explaining the obvious current market and economics woes of the very small Amiga community and those that are trying very hard to support it.
I have to agree, this is probably the first time I've seen an honest debate as to what is really going on, and where the Amiga is actually at.
But, what is most interesting that you would make a statement as quoted above and expose your own ignorance into something apparently you have little belief or knowledge about. I would suggest Sir that you remain on topic of this thread and take keep your comments concerning others religious beliefs to the General Chat forum under Philosophy and Religion. There you can discuss your statements freely.
I need to jump in here!!! The_leander was not refering to any religous belief, he was refering to an ironically titled member of this board called "Atheist", who despite his promising sounding nickname has a zealoted devotion to the religion of AmigaOS4/AmigaONE...
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the_leander wrote:
bloodline wrote:
If only Bernie had used AROS in Amithlon, then he wouldn't have needed to go near Amiga Inc... but in the end it wasn't Ainc that killed Amithlon (since he could have gone the AmigaForever route)... it was H&P that killed it.
I stand corrected.
But yeah, that would have been an ideal marriage.
Btw, since you're on, whats the deal with binary compatability with Amiga apps when running AROS in a 68k environment?
--edit--
Nevermind, you just answered hehehe.
Another question then, how complete is AROS in this sort of mode, ie, if it were running on either a real amiga or something like a NatAmi, how close to complete is it in terms of a full replacement to AOS3.1?
The 68k branch is so stale now.. it would take a bit of work for someone to bring it up to date with the mainline... Though I guess the big issues would be around bootstrapping and drivers... the problem is there are so few 68k linux machines to allow easy development :-(
The bounty for the 68k port is large thoguh so perhaps someone would like to have a look... :-)
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I happen to be British also, and I too would perfer to not be refered to as European... because I'm not.
On denial? :roll: What would you be, American? Asian, Afro?
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bloodline wrote:
The 68k branch is so stale now.. it would take a bit of work for someone to bring it up to date with the mainline... Though I guess the big issues would be around bootstrapping and drivers... the problem is there are so few 68k linux machines to allow easy development :-(
Could you not use the debian port to the amiga running under UAE? Or is that even more hidious a concept then it sounds in my head?
bloodline wrote:
The bounty for the 68k port is large thoguh so perhaps someone would like to have a look... :-)
Maybe the NatAmi could offer a fresh incentive, same goes for the Minimig I would imagine.
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CodeSmith wrote:
I'm not up with the politics over at AROSland, so I'd like to know: what does the closing of the TeamAROS site mean? is it a portal like this site (meaning that the closing sucks, but it's not a dent in the big picture), or more of an important hub? I've also heard that some important AROS core devs have decided to call it quits following this, so all AROS development moving on will be x86 only. Is this true?
Really it's just changed hands. All of the TeamAROS bounties have transfered to Power2People. Business as usual really... though we won't have Dammy nagging us to support the bounties :-(
No devs have quit because of this. And AROS has two primary branches now... with PPC and x86 being actively maintained...
Anyone want to get back into 68k Dev work?
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pixie wrote:
I happen to be British also, and I too would perfer to not be refered to as European... because I'm not.
On denial? :roll: What would you be, American? Asian, Afro?
Shocking as it might seem, maybe, just maybe, he's British...
I know, odd concept. But there you go.
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pixie wrote:
I happen to be British also, and I too would perfer to not be refered to as European... because I'm not.
On denial? :roll: What would you be, American? Asian, Afro?
Well... no because I'm British... though I wouldn't mind being German :-)
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bloodline wrote:
CodeSmith wrote:
I'm not up with the politics over at AROSland, so I'd like to know: what does the closing of the TeamAROS site mean? is it a portal like this site (meaning that the closing sucks, but it's not a dent in the big picture), or more of an important hub? I've also heard that some important AROS core devs have decided to call it quits following this, so all AROS development moving on will be x86 only. Is this true?
Really it's just changed hands. All of the TeamAROS bounties have transfered to Power2People. Business as usual really... though we won't have Dammy nagging us to support the bounties :-(
No devs have quit because of this. And AROS has two primary branches now... with PPC and x86 being actively maintained...
Anyone want to get back into 68k Dev work?
Ya know, if I thought for a second he wouldn't get Nicholas (MDMA) to pay me a visit for increasing his already insane workload I'd suggest Karlos :lol:
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the_leander wrote:
bloodline wrote:
The 68k branch is so stale now.. it would take a bit of work for someone to bring it up to date with the mainline... Though I guess the big issues would be around bootstrapping and drivers... the problem is there are so few 68k linux machines to allow easy development :-(
Could you not use the debian port to the amiga running under UAE? Or is that even more hidious a concept then it sounds in my head?
I have no idea... At the moment our best bet is Bernd Roesch, who builds AFA (where he backports parts of AROS to AmigaOS, so as to bring the advanced features of AROS to 68K machines)... this is one of the more interesting things going on in the Amiga world right now IMHO...
bloodline wrote:
The bounty for the 68k port is large thoguh so perhaps someone would like to have a look... :-)
Maybe the NatAmi could offer a fresh incentive, same goes for the Minimig I would imagine.
I would hope so... but the AmigaOS ROMs are so easy to come by... and the only real users of MiniMig are Amiga Owners who already have Amiga ROMs... the drive just isn't there...
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Okay, lets examine the differences:
Amithlon. No ECS/OCS/AGA emulation.
UAE/AmigaForever: No AGA
HOWEVER!
There is 180 megs of underlying OS needed for the emulators, on 1,000 plus variants/configurations of HW, AND can true rad: reboots be done?
Emulators also depend on the underlying OSs grumbling stumbling of other activities it does. Boy, you should see my windross xp Pro crawl when I SW disable internet access, and fail to work when I turn off swapping.
The FPGAs, I would call nearly true Amigas, only slightly below ASICs as what they both do is AMIGA and ONLY AMIGA related.
As for cycle exact, the NatAmis should ALL be cycle exact ...... TO EACH OTHER. That is paramount! That was one of the true purities of Amiga. Generally there was cycle exact across a huge amount of machines.
Of course, true cycle matching is ONLY when the same list of programs are being run on the same machines doing the same tasks.... well a video game running on the same HW and no other SW multitasking in the background.
Amiga had the unique situation of being a home computer, having an extraordinary USER based OS (all privileges given to the USER), extraordinary custom HW, and having MOST machines operate identically (relatively) always as Playstaion or Nintendo consoles do to each their own.
The only gripe I have with minimig is the lack of full ram of 2 megs chip, 8 megs fast.
NatAmi60 will prove to be the ULTIMATE COMPUTER* only surpassed by an ASIC running at 2.8+ GHz.
* It's just a fluke that the ultimate computer is an AMIGA.
There is a superior to this version even, and without going multicore SMP. Seems there's no way to go SMP.
Although, how about running AOS3.0 in every core? Separately, four AOSs running at the same time. You could even be running different versions in different custom chipsets. They talk to each other as though they're other computers through fake parallel port links. Just divide up the tasks to different CPUs on your own. Run Pagestream on 1 CPU, a rendering program on another, a paint program in another, etc. A custom memory controller would separate the ram pools so the CPUs don't need to keep track of not overwriting other CPUs data. A fatal crash even couldn't write over another CPUs address space as long as the memory controller absolutely knew which CPU was sending data to ram and never allowing the data to cross ram segments.
How about one core monitoring the others, and if a guru meditation occurs, it can be rebooted from that CPU, automatically? TRY to make a self recovering computer, quadruple uptimes.....
For those who haven't seen it yet, Still Alive (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mg6wrYCT9Q), on YouTube.
ONLY AMIGA makes it possible!!!!!!!
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Atheist wrote:
Okay, lets examine the differences:
Amithlon. No ECS/OCS/AGA emulation.
UAE/AmigaForever: No AGA
Ok... Which part of UAE has no AGA emulation?
I wish you wouldn't sprout rubbish.
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@Atheist
Um, Gunnar has said many times that "cycle exact" is meaningless when applied to the amiga. There are too many permutations of CPU and chipset, so most Amiga software makes allowances for it.
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Atheist wrote:
ONLY AMIGA makes it possible!!!!!!!
No, it doesn't. In fact if you had bothered reading this thread you would realise that Amiga makes a lot of things impossible!!!!!!!
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CodeSmith wrote:
@Atheist
Um, Gunnar has said many times that "cycle exact" is meaningless when applied to the amiga. There are too many permutations of CPU and chipset, so most Amiga software makes allowances for it.
Don't be stupid...
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CodeSmith wrote:
@Atheist
Um, Gunnar has said many times that "cycle exact" is meaningless when applied to the amiga. There are too many permutations of CPU and chipset, so most Amiga software makes allowances for it.
Hi CodeSmith,
Actually, I was primarily referring to all the first model of NatAmi60s would be cycle exact to each other. The ones released next year might not be, but they will to their runs.
While the different Amiga 500s with same CPU and OCS say, also might not be cycle exact, due to different revisions of Paula, Denise etc. they were much more similar than the hundreds of different components that kept appearing on the PC side.
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Hi bloodline,
Last time I looked into AmigaForever, they said they were working on AGA and it was available but not reliable yet.
Thought they gave up on AGA as it was too taxing on PCs.
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Atheist wrote:
Hi bloodline,
Last time I looked into AmigaForever, they said they were working on AGA and it was available but not reliable yet.
Thought they gave up on AGA as it was too taxing on PCs.
Then the last time you looked must have been in 2002...
AGA isn't taxing, it is only a very small improvement over ECS... The big problem with AGA is that it was a massive kludge and was poorly documented compared to the very well known OCS.
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bloodline wrote:
Then the last time you looked must have been in 2002...
AGA isn't taxing, it is only a very small improvement over ECS... The big problem with AGA is that it was a massive kludge and was poorly documented compared to the very well known OCS.
Hi bloodline,
256 colours of 16 million over 32 and 32 more shades of the first 32 from 4096 in extra half bright mode is "only a very small improvement"?
You'd make a TERRIFIC supervisor. "What? Only three levels of the pyramid built this month???? Heads are gonna roll!"
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I would really suggest that anyone who wants to keep their sanity, refrains from pointing out the stupidity of atheist's posts.
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Atheist wrote:
bloodline wrote:
Then the last time you looked must have been in 2002...
AGA isn't taxing, it is only a very small improvement over ECS... The big problem with AGA is that it was a massive kludge and was poorly documented compared to the very well known OCS.
Hi bloodline,
256 colours of 16 million over 32 and 32 more shades of the first 32 from 4096 in extra half bright mode is "only a very small improvement"?
You'd make a TERRIFIC supervisor. "What? Only three levels of the pyramid built this month???? Heads are gonna roll!"
Yes... AGA only requires 2 extra bits in the bit planes... And 3 extra bits in the palette table to achieve the extra colours...
The sprite hardware had a bit of an overhaul and a burst mode was added to Alice... The AGA chipset was a pathetic upgrade... Especially compared to what the PC gfx chip vendors were making at the time!!!!
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Just add to the whole british/european thing. TBH I do take things one step futher. I am Welsh, not British :lol: :-D
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JJ wrote:
Just add to the whole british/european thing. TBH I do take things one step futher. I am Welsh, not British :lol: :-D
Well, my mother is Welsh and my father English... So I think that puts me firmly in the British camp :)
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Well my father is english, my mother was welsh. my mothers parents were welsh and scottish, and my fathers parents were english. There is some irish blood in family somewhere down the line too.
Im still Welsh though :-)
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hmmm, i think i'm fairly english through and through. small town farming communities not really getting out and about much...
thinking about it, i wonder if the accordian, morris dancing and real ale, is this island's equivilent of the banjo, square dancing, and moonshine? :lol:
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bloodline wrote:
Yes... AGA only requires 2 extra bits in the bit planes... And 3 extra bits in the palette table to achieve the extra colours...
The sprite hardware had a bit of an overhaul and a burst mode was added to Alice... The AGA chipset was a pathetic upgrade... Especially compared to what the PC gfx chip vendors were making at the time!!!!
Actually the PC chip makers were about 3 years later since they couldn't write hardware-accelerated drivers until Windows 95 came out.
Also, the palette table was expanded from 12-bits per entry to 25.
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SamuraiCrow wrote:
bloodline wrote:
Yes... AGA only requires 2 extra bits in the bit planes... And 3 extra bits in the palette table to achieve the extra colours...
The sprite hardware had a bit of an overhaul and a burst mode was added to Alice... The AGA chipset was a pathetic upgrade... Especially compared to what the PC gfx chip vendors were making at the time!!!!
Actually the PC chip makers were about 3 years later since they couldn't write hardware-accelerated drivers until Windows 95 came out.
No, S3 had some pretty cool stuff out even by 1991... Others followed pretty quickly... Even the Falcon had 16bit chunky, when the Amiga was still stuck with its archaic planar display...
Also, the palette table was expanded from 12-bits per entry to 25.
Um... That's what I said (I should have made it clear I was saying 3bits added per colour gun)... I didn't realise it the OCS/ECS only had 4bits per gun though? (-Edit- Just checked, the OCS only had 4bit per gun.) I thought it was 5 bits per gun!!! Thus the addition of of 3 bits per gun to bring the entry to 24bit (+one Genlock bit?)... damn it's been so long since I messed around with Amiga hardware... it must be over 10 years now :-(
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I happen to be British also, and I too would perfer to not be refered to as European... because I'm not.
So what continent do you come from then?
You have to be pretty uptight and stupid to believe that the British isles are not part of Europe just because you dont fancy EU or whatever. If you as Brits are not European, then _noone_ is European.
And please stop changing the meaning of words, sheesh!
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kolla wrote:
I happen to be British also, and I too would perfer to not be refered to as European... because I'm not.
So what continent do you come from then?
You have to be pretty uptight and stupid to believe that the British isles are not part of Europe just because you dont fancy EU or whatever. If you as Brits are not European, then _noone_ is European.
And please stop changing the meaning of words, sheesh!
You have to be pretty uptight not to get deadpan British humour ;)
Sheesh; How American!
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the_leander wrote:
Sounds to me that Amiga for you has become something of a holy grail, less about a computer and more of an ideal then anything tangible. Not a bad way to look at things I suppose.
Guess I was wrong about you afterall.
Thank you for considering that I might not be the fool you thought I was, or your enemy.
I am neither.
I would not exactly put it the way you did, the Amiga is not a Holy Grail for me, but it is an ideal of computing elegance & genius that should have succeeded, but did not.
For me the next "Big Step" in computing is not here yet. Think of something closer to the HAL9000 from Stanley Kubrick's "2001 - A Space Odyssey". The shrinking and making more portable of technology that we already have does not "float-my-boat", though it is convenient and a bit interesting. I hope I am around to see the next leap forward in computing, by my standards. It will be fun to interact with a certain level of artificial intelligence far beyond what we have today in appliances, robotics, transportation, commerce, etc. I think the next step in that direction will be the continuing work on improving voice recognition for input. Typing will soon no longer be the primary method of computer input everywhere. I already talk to the computer in my car.
For now I am content to tinker with my old Classic Amigas and actively support my recent choice of Amiga-Like OSes with cash, code and what ever else I can help with. I try to read about other happenings in the computer world, but I know if anything really interesting happens and I miss seeing it at first, it will trickle down to me eventually.
Although I can be very persistent and loud in expressing my opinion from time to time, I get the loudest when I feel other's opinions might be getting squashed or trampled. It is just an annoying trait of mine.
I would like to apologize to everyone who has witnessed my frustration in this thread at trying to express my POV and the retaliation of harsh words which occurred. I wish I could say it will be the last time it will ever happen. I really wish it would be, but I know myself too well.
Edit: I am descended from the British, English and Welsh. My family tree includes two very famous Englishmen, Winston Churchill and Walt Disney.
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kolla wrote:
I happen to be British also, and I too would perfer to not be refered to as European... because I'm not.
So what continent do you come from then?
You have to be pretty uptight and stupid to believe that the British isles are not part of Europe just because you dont fancy EU or whatever. If you as Brits are not European, then _noone_ is European.
And please stop changing the meaning of words, sheesh!
There is nothing and no one here changing words except you, who seems to insist on being able to inform people what their nationality is based on continental plates.
We are not European because it is simply not part of our identity, our culture has very little in common with any other country in Europe, or indeed with America.
Oh and the whole all or nothing thing, knock it off, it makes you look an even bigger prat then you do for thinking yourself capable of telling other people what their nationality is based on either geo political ties or tectonic plates.
It's just not cricket old bean :-D
@ the rest of the people reading this thread.
I would like to take this oportunity to apologise sincerly and most humbly... For invoking the name of Athiest and thereby encourage him to post in this thread.
I hope, in time, that you will be able to forgive me :-(
PS, told you I wasn't making a crack about someones religous beliefs :lol:
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amigadave wrote:
Think of something closer to the HAL9000 from Stanley Kubrick's "2001 - A Space Odyssey".
Not going to see that within your lifetime.
amigadave wrote:
The shrinking and making more portable of technology that we already have does not "float-my-boat", though it is convenient and a bit interesting.
I dunno, the technological leaps in low power and batteries that are being developed from the commercial success of mobile phones is very cool. Just shows what can be accomplished if it makes money.
amigadave wrote:
I hope I am around to see the next leap forward in computing, by my standards. It will be fun to interact with a certain level of artificial intelligence far beyond what we have today in appliances, robotics, transportation, commerce, etc.
Unfortunately I do not think you (or I) will be here to see that.
amigadave wrote:
I think the next step in that direction will be the continuing work on improving voice recognition for input. Typing will soon no longer be the primary method of computer input everywhere. I already talk to the computer in my car.
Full voice recognition is a commercial flop and so a lot of the research into it was cancelled about 10 years ago. The consumers were not comfortable talking to their equipment, it was pretty useless in the office environment. With no commercial driving force, only dictation software and Voice Tags in phones have been funded (and both are still pretty crap). The same thing happened with video phone. Technologically possible for many, many years but not developed due to lack of commercial success or interest.
It is a shame but consumerism is still the driving force for computer development.
What is going to happen is more likely a textual and optical interface. We are already starting to see very natural multi-touch interfaces and at university we developed cursor technology which followed where you were looking.
But I think we can see the keyboard present for the rest of our lives. Just look at the tablet PC. IMHO an amazing move forward that just did not take off due to the poor quality software support and such a love of the keyboard.
If I can make a prediction for the future... the next revolution in computer interaction will be the 2nd information revolution. The first revolution was the internet, opening up almost unlimited information at the click of a button to anyone at a workstation... soon it will be information ANYWHERE at the click of a button. But more importantly it will become accepted, as much as having the internet at home is today.
Anyone who has their computer in the living room will tell you how consumer orientated this is. Something comes on TV, or in conversation and you can look up the details on the net instantly.
I would still like to think there is a possibility that SMART devices (household devices like the fridge, cooker, TV etc. all on the internet) could still take off... but I said that 10 years ago and they were a commercial flop :(
I'd still like an interactive Tesco ordering system on the fridge or the ability to buy items in TV adverts and in shows via mail order at the click of a button.
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Think of something closer to the HAL9000 from Stanley Kubrick's "2001 - A Space Odyssey".
Ah, so, no memory protection there then either - bonus being that when it guru's it'll blooter ya ;-)
Seriously though, not a bad thing I suppose, AI is definately cool though I'm none too sure as to how far along such research is at the moment. The last AI stuff I played with was, whilst quite clever not something that'd beat a turing test.
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the_leander wrote:
Think of something closer to the HAL9000 from Stanley Kubrick's "2001 - A Space Odyssey".
Ah, so, no memory protection there then either - bonus being that when it guru's it'll blooter ya ;-)
Seriously though, not a bad thing I suppose, AI is definately cool though I'm none too sure as to how far along such research is at the moment. The last AI stuff I played with was, whilst quite clever not something that'd beat a turing test.
Cutting edge AI is still a long way of from real intelligence. AI is just so much more complex than anyone originally thought.
Hans
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SamuraiCrow wrote:
Actually the PC chip makers were about 3 years later since they couldn't write hardware-accelerated drivers until Windows 95 came out.
AFAIK even Windows 3.11 supported accelleration for stuff like window blitting etc. VGA cards we're getting pretty sophisticated by this time, with accelleration for blitting, line drawing, cursor etc etc.
While the A500 was a revolutionary computer, the 1200 was evolutionary. AGA wasn't a big step forward, it was basically a few extra bitplanes and a larger palette. Instead of looking forward, Commodore tried to squeeze a few bucks out of something that was basically designed - what - 7 years earlier.
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the_leander wrote:
Think of something closer to the HAL9000 from Stanley Kubrick's "2001 - A Space Odyssey".
Ah, so, no memory protection there then either - bonus being that when it guru's it'll blooter ya ;-)
Seriously though, not a bad thing I suppose, AI is definately cool though I'm none too sure as to how far along such research is at the moment. The last AI stuff I played with was, whilst quite clever not something that'd beat a turing test.
My memory isn't protected, why should I require my computer to have it's memory protected? :lol:
I know that unless the medical profession comes up with some real miracle, I won't see HAL9000, but I do think I will be around to see computers in more and more consumer items I use every day.
I can envision having fingerprint and/or voice recognition open the door to my home for me, lighting turned on and off, or adjusted by voice commands as well as what is already available with motion sensors, things like that, which are already possible now, but will be refined and commonplace in a few years. I already have some Amiga hardware and software stashed somewhere that is designed for home automation, that I plan on setting up soon. The other home automation ideas will come as my programming skill improve, but it will be simple stuff and I expect commercial products to expand much faster than my automation programming skills.
So that is what I was thinking of when I referenced the HAL9000. That plus the chess games of course.
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I believe, and have said this before, that AI has a better chance of progressing on a low overhead OS system and FLEXIBLE system as AOS is.
No memory protection and self modifying code I think are assets to the field of Artificial Intelligence. Only drawback of AOS is that it can't use the entire 4 GBs of address space for SW.
64 bit is desirable, but non-implementable without a recompile. Besides, there isn't a 64 bit 68000 series CPU.
NatAmi's Achilles Heel is 256 Megs fast, 16 MB chip vs 1.5 GBs fast, 16 Megs chip ram and also not being able to do 1080P in the 1st run of the motherboard. It should also have a MIDI port too. USB MIDI may not react properly if that bus is flooded.
NatAmi60 may be the first wristwatch computer.
Imagine running all Amiga SW in a voice activated watch!!!!!
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Correct this statement if it's wrong:
AOS is the ONLY OS that can restart running in RAD: independent of ANY external devices.*
* Devices being: floppy disk, hard disk CD, DVD, CF card, swap files, etc. etc.
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@Atheist
The RAD: reboot option will not be needed badly if the Natami comes with a big enough FLASH memory for a HUGE KICKSTART that holds most of the OS. You're RAD: device will only need the s: directory since most of the rest of the OS will be running from the Kickstart. This would also free up most of the memory from having to contain anything other than applications.
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Atheist wrote:
Correct this statement if it's wrong:
AOS is the ONLY OS that can restart running in RAD: independent of ANY external devices.*
* Devices being: floppy disk, hard disk CD, DVD, CF card, swap files, etc. etc.
You're so wrong about that - and everything else computer related you've ever posted - that it hurts to read.
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No memory protection and self modifying code I think are assets to the field of Artificial Intelligence.
How exactly?
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B00tDisk wrote:
Atheist wrote:
Correct this statement if it's wrong:
AOS is the ONLY OS that can restart running in RAD: independent of ANY external devices.*
* Devices being: floppy disk, hard disk CD, DVD, CF card, swap files, etc. etc.
You're so wrong about that - and everything else computer related you've ever posted - that it hurts to read.
+++ QFT
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Atheist wrote:
Correct this statement if it's wrong:
AOS is NOT the only OS that can restart running in RAD: independent of ANY external devices. ;-)
My Atari ST is happily using one.
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Woo, and bonus points for using an Atari as the example :lol:
...And the crowd goes wild!
:-D
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Atheist wrote:
No memory protection and self modifying code I think are assets to the field of Artificial Intelligence.
Any expert system that couldn't keep itself from overwriting its own memory would be effectively worthless. Every thought would essentially be a tapeworm, destroying data as it was created.
You hate MP because Amiga OS doesn't have it, and in your mind if AOS doesn't have it, it is at best unneeded or "bad", see your views on multi-user environments. :roll: :roll: :roll:
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SamuraiCrow wrote:
@Atheist
The RAD: reboot option will not be needed badly if the Natami comes with a big enough FLASH memory for a HUGE KICKSTART that holds most of the OS. You're RAD: device will only need the s: directory since most of the rest of the OS will be running from the Kickstart.
Hi SamuraiCrow,
That is an excellent option.
That, and when NatAmi60 become an ASIC, the boot would be brought to the amount of time it takes to do a diagnostic check of ram and whatever else at boot up, to maybe about 1.5 seconds!!! Awesome!
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B00tDisk wrote:
Any expert system that couldn't keep itself from overwriting its own memory would be effectively worthless. Every thought would essentially be a tapeworm, destroying data as it was created.
Hi B00tDisk,
And yet my Amiga 2000 using AOS1.3.3 runs?
And yes, why chastise me for being selfish and wanting a ONE USER computer/OS? PC is for Personal Computer not Politically Correct, and sharing my toy with all comers.
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Piru wrote:
No memory protection and self modifying code I think are assets to the field of Artificial Intelligence.
How exactly?
Hi Piru,
Software collects data and makes decisions on what to do, but how about generating new code to make decisions from logic as opposed to merely collecting data and reacting? Saving these new program segments and running them. Then perhaps joining some together. This is how I think AI could work.
Also, I think that all software should have the capability to examine all address space if it wants to. Something about limiting this in any way seems to violate my sense of empowerment through knowledge, or restriction of, making certain things not possible. I want to be able to locate a string in memory, and even if it's in another program, be able to change it. I want and expect absolute control of MY computer. Other users? No, there's only me, myself and I, and that's a total of 1.
So, I can't say when it would be useful, but I want the long hand of one program to be able to interfere in another's activity, because it opens new avenues of operation, but this behavior must be used in the most careful of ways to avert meltdown.
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alexh wrote:
Atheist wrote:
Correct this statement if it's wrong:
AOS is NOT the only OS that can restart running in RAD: independent of ANY external devices. ;-)
My Atari ST is happily using one.
Hi alexh,
When I used TOS, I couldn't even find the RAM: disk???
So, is Atari ST just as good as AOS then? I think not!
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@the_leander,
Seems your wish has been answered. He is posting all over the place now (I don't know anything about your "invited one").
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Atheist wrote:
When I used TOS, I couldn't even find the RAM: disk???
Where did you look?
Atheist wrote:
So, is Atari ST just as good as AOS then?
Apples and Oranges mate. You can use a recoverable RAM disk though.
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Software collects data and makes decisions on what to do, but how about generating new code to make decisions from logic as opposed to merely collecting data and reacting? Saving these new program segments and running them. Then perhaps joining some together. This is how I think AI could work.
Memory protection does not prevent any of this, though what you wrote here has no extra benefit whatsoever for AI (naturally you CAN use code generation, but there is no benefit from it).
Rest of your comments deserve no reply, I'm afraid.
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amigadave wrote:
@the_leander,
Seems your wish has been answered. He is posting all over the place now (I don't know anything about your "invited one").
Less a wish and more of a calculated risk in saying his name ;-)
As for invited, I meant that in the same way as "speak the devils name and he shall appear"...
:lol: :lol: :lol:
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Atheist wrote:
B00tDisk wrote:
Any expert system that couldn't keep itself from overwriting its own memory would be effectively worthless. Every thought would essentially be a tapeworm, destroying data as it was created.
Hi B00tDisk,
And yet my Amiga 2000 using AOS1.3.3 runs?
Something that isn't an AI.
Atheist wrote:
And yes, why chastise me for being selfish and wanting a ONE USER computer/OS? PC is for Personal Computer not Politically Correct, and sharing my toy with all comers.
Right up till the moment that your mate asks you to use your computer for a bit, and whilst there, decides to start poking around, discovering all these wierd looking files, and promptly deletes, renames or moves em depending on desire.
I've seen it happen too many times. Hell, I've had to undo the damage enough that it simply isn't funny any more.
There are perfectly good reasons for having a tiered system of access on a computer, stopping people with too little knowledge to understand and just enough to do damage is one of them.
I like when I let someone access the net through my systems that I don't have to worry about the integrity of my documents and pictures.
If it's what you want, great, fantastic and more power to you. Thing is though, the rest of the world, that being one with a clue of course, want their *own* accounts, customised to their particular likes and dislikes without having to worry about other people using the machines preferences. The like that on the odd occation that their application does croak, it doesn't bring down the rest of them and the computer with it, they just restart the app and get on with things.
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Atheist wrote:
B00tDisk wrote:
Any expert system that couldn't keep itself from overwriting its own memory would be effectively worthless. Every thought would essentially be a tapeworm, destroying data as it was created.
Hi B00tDisk,
And yet my Amiga 2000 using AOS1.3.3 runs?
Please explain, using all your powers of comprehension and computer knowledge, how AOS 1.3 is in fact an AI or expert system.
And yes, why chastise me for being selfish and wanting a ONE USER computer/OS? PC is for Personal Computer not Politically Correct, and sharing my toy with all comers.
Psh. You don't even understand what multiuser is about.
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Atheist wrote:
And yes, why chastise me for being selfish and wanting a ONE USER computer/OS? PC is for Personal Computer not Politically Correct, and sharing my toy with all comers.
Multi vs. single user OS has very little to do with memory protection. It's about preventing a crashed application from bringing the whole system down, or to offer some form of protection against hacks, spyware or whatever.
I don't know how you got self modifying code into the equation.
Memory protection can be flexible enough to allow one process to access memory belonging to another process. This is how it works in freemint; where each allocated memory block is tagged with access rights.
Like someone said, it seems like you don't like memory protection just because AOS lacks this functionality.
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the_leander wrote:
There is nothing and no one here changing words except you, who seems to insist on being able to inform people what their nationality is based on continental plates.
I never mentioned nationality, but obviously you are confusing nationality and geography.
We are not European because it is simply not part of our identity, our culture has very little in common with any other country in Europe, or indeed with America.
Ah yes, the British - so unique, so special - unlike the homogenous group of Europeans that live around them.
Oh and the whole all or nothing thing, knock it off, it makes you look an even bigger prat then you do for thinking yourself capable of telling other people what their nationality is based on either geo political ties or tectonic plates.
Again, this is not about nationality, dumbass. And it's not about your precious feelings. It's all about your location and tectonic plates - yes. And whether you like it or not, the British share history, language, culture and just about anything with most European countries.
You can be as non-european as you like, the rest of the world will still consider the british isles as part Europe.
It's just not cricket old bean :-D
No, it's also about driving on the left side of the road, clinging to the emperial system and walking around in tweeds. And sticking the nose in the sky, thumping your chest and claiming "I'm British - not European!" :lol:
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shoggoth wrote:
Atheist wrote:
And yes, why chastise me for being selfish and wanting a ONE USER computer/OS? PC is for Personal Computer not Politically Correct, and sharing my toy with all comers.
Multi vs. single user OS has very little to do with memory protection. It's about preventing a crashed application from bringing the whole system down, or to offer some form of protection against hacks, spyware or whatever.
Let us now patiently await Atheist's scathing reply that the Amiga has no such problems and blah blah blah blah because it's so awesome (ie, such a hyper-obscure platform that nobody can be even be bothered with pranking it).
Like someone said, it seems like you don't like memory protection just because AOS lacks this functionality.
yep.
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Even the ground we walk on is refusing to be part of Europe, the British Isles are moving away from Europe at the rate of about 1cm per year. :-D
EDIT: Sorry that should be half an inch per year, the Euro brainwashing is starting to have an effect.
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@kolla
If you can, try and find an old European... sorry I mean British, TV series called "Ripping Yarns"...
Here are a few clips to start you off:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHo8kqdRpLs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTCLi9w1Vws
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FawTzTY5RAU
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SamuraiCrow wrote:
bloodline wrote:
Yes... AGA only requires 2 extra bits in the bit planes... And 3 extra bits in the palette table to achieve the extra colours...
The sprite hardware had a bit of an overhaul and a burst mode was added to Alice... The AGA chipset was a pathetic upgrade... Especially compared to what the PC gfx chip vendors were making at the time!!!!
Actually the PC chip makers were about 3 years later since they couldn't write hardware-accelerated drivers until Windows 95 came out.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATI_Mach
ATI Mach 32
Released: 1992
32-bit GUI accelerator with basic DOS support
Limited VESA VBE support
Support for 15bbp, 16bbp and 24bbp colour modes added
Video memory: 1 or 2 MiB DRAM or VRAM
Memory interface: 64-bit
Port: ISA, EISA, VLB, PCI, MCA
Integrated VGA core
100% compatible with IBM 8514/A
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bloodline wrote:
@kolla
If you can, try and find an old European... sorry I mean British, TV series called "Ripping Yarns"...
English perhaps?
Are you suggesting that the_leander is trying to be funny?
If he is, he's not very good at it.
Really, I am not unfamiliar with british humour, you'd be surprised how many british shows we've had on norwegian TV over the years. I very much grasp the concept of what it means to be British, I also know how british soldiers behave when they are over here on NATO winter trainings.
I have myself visited the british isles on many occations, probably been to more places on the isles (and certainly more isles) than most brits - you are not much different from anyone else in Europe, even though some of you like to think so.
British are europeans, just like scandinavians are europeans, just like iberians are europeans, just like balkans are europeans. Being european means being a native, or inhabitant of Europe, the british isles are part of Europe.
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kolla wrote:
bloodline wrote:
@kolla
If you can, try and find an old European... sorry I mean British, TV series called "Ripping Yarns"...
English perhaps?
Are you suggesting that the_leander is trying to be funny?
If he is, he's not very good at it.
Really, I am not unfamiliar with british humour, you'd be surprised how many british shows we've had on norwegian TV over the years. I very much grasp the concept of what it means to be British, I also know how british soldiers behave when they are over here on NATO winter trainings.
I have myself visited the british isles on many occations, probably been to more places on the isles (and certainly more isles) than most brits - you are not much different from anyone else in Europe, even though some of you like to think so.
British are europeans, just like scandinavians are europeans, just like iberians are europeans, just like balkans are europeans. Being european means being a native, or inhabitant of Europe, the british isles are part of Europe.
Are you sure you're not German? :lol:
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kolla wrote:
the_leander wrote:
There is nothing and no one here changing words except you, who seems to insist on being able to inform people what their nationality is based on continental plates.
I never mentioned nationality, but obviously you are confusing nationality and geography.
Geographically, the UK is an Island (Channel Tunnel not withstanding).
kolla wrote:
We are not European because it is simply not part of our identity, our culture has very little in common with any other country in Europe, or indeed with America.
Ah yes, the British - so unique, so special - unlike the homogenous group of Europeans that live around them.
I look to the continent and see a great many unique cultures, some sharing within that at the borders within any set of nations, but still unique. Britain, whilst the rest of Europe was busy burning witches and heretics for instance, was building on the very latest scientific advances that would put it in good stead for the next 500 years.
See, being an islander you have something of a unique perspective on the world, moreover, being on this particular piece of land, we were able to watch Europe close enough to see what was going on, but far enough away to be fairly impartial about it.
It allowed us to develop in ways that simply wouldn't have worked anywhere else - because of that seperation by water.
kolla wrote:
Oh and the whole all or nothing thing, knock it off, it makes you look an even bigger prat then you do for thinking yourself capable of telling other people what their nationality is based on either geo political ties or tectonic plates.
Again, this is not about nationality, dumbass. And it's not about your precious feelings. It's all about your location and tectonic plates - yes. And whether you like it or not, the British share history, language, culture and just about anything with most European countries.
Yes, they do. We are what happens when you throw all of the cultures of Europe at their heights (Romans, Normans, Vikings etc) into a melting pot and allow to simmer for a few centuries, we are what is left when all the chaff is removed.
We have such a strong sense of independance because scumbags from all over Europe have, time and again tried to take that away from us. The reason we, for the most part do not like being refered to as "Europeans", is because we have faught so bitterly hard to stop Europe from dominating us.
I am British. Not European.
kolla wrote:
You can be as non-european as you like, the rest of the world will still consider the british isles as part Europe.
And yet, interestingly, many large trading blocks, such as the US for the most part still go on about "Britain and Europe". Part of Europe, but not Europe.
kolla wrote:
It's just not cricket old bean :-D
No, it's also about driving on the left side of the road, clinging to the emperial system and walking around in tweeds. And sticking the nose in the sky, thumping your chest and claiming "I'm British - not European!" :lol:
[/quote]
Hey, just because you folk decided to follow the road laws set down by a Portuguese dwarf is not our problem :lol:
A Portuguese dwarf that happened to be beaten by the British, btw :-D
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bloodline wrote:
@kolla
If you can, try and find an old European... sorry I mean British, TV series called "Ripping Yarns"...
Here are a few clips to start you off:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHo8kqdRpLs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTCLi9w1Vws
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FawTzTY5RAU
As it happens there was a BBC 2 special on that included Ripping Yarns as part of its coverage.
:-D
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This thread is getting really entertaining! :flame: :pissed: :destroy: :popcorn: :pint:
All Brit's are Europeans, but not all Europeans are Brit's.
Being European does not make someone living in the British Isles any less British, or English. If asked, it make perfect sense for them to say they are British, or English, or Welsh, or Irish, but not European, just as someone living in Italy would say they are Italian, or a man living in Spain would answer that they are Spanish.
It is also entertaining to see the British superiority complex is still alive and well, and understandable that the other "Europeans" are offended by such a notion, just as many cultures are offended or just sick of the many Americans that project a similar superiority attitude toward any other cultures.
I extremely dislike any disrespect for any culture, or race and strive to communicate to people from other countries that not all Americans are as arrogant and ignorant as the current US president. I think his actions have created a new low in history for how Americans are perceived by other nations and cultures. :-(
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I dont think I have ever seen a thread go more of topic than this one!
NatAmi any good? - What IS Amiga - I know more about Amiga than you! - Can we get modern features into AOS? - I am British!
Been a great read though even if I ave forgotten about 75% of it!
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@the_leander:
Hey, just because you folk decided to follow the road laws set down by a Portuguese dwarf is not our problem :lol:
You're standards have been beaten by a portuguese dwarf!? Ouch! That must have hurt! :-D
A Portuguese dwarf that happened to be beaten by the British, btw :-D
Any reference? :-? I didn't even knew that road laws were implemented on Portuguese ones..
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AmiBoy wrote:
I dont think I have ever seen a thread go more of topic than this one!
NatAmi any good? - What IS Amiga - I know more about Amiga than you! - Can we get modern features into AOS? - I am British!
Been a great read though even if I ave forgotten about 75% of it!
Good point! Now it is off to which side of the road we drive on. :lol:
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amigadave wrote:
AmiBoy wrote:
I dont think I have ever seen a thread go more of topic than this one!
NatAmi any good? - What IS Amiga - I know more about Amiga than you! - Can we get modern features into AOS? - I am British!
Been a great read though even if I ave forgotten about 75% of it!
Good point! Now it is off to which side of the road we drive on. :lol:
Well at least the British, and Australians drive on the correct side of the road... How you lot all managed to get it wrong, I'll never know!!!
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When I visited London it was clear that it did not matter what side of the road drivers were supposed to drive on, after they had enough time after work to have a few drinks they just used which ever side they fancied at the moment.
I never did so much walking in my life and had no desire to rent a car there. In New Zealand however, I was forced to rent a car because the amount of traveling to be done for the week was very extensive. I must say I am quite proud of myself for coming back alive and without having killed a single cow or sheep. (New Zealand = Most Beautiful Place on Earth)
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@bloodline:
Well at least the British, and Australians drive on the correct side of the road... How you lot all managed to get it wrong, I'll never know!!!
Sheer luck, I guess... :roll:
:-D
-
We sit on the right side of the car and the correct side of the road!
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pixie wrote:
@bloodline:
Well at least the British, and Australians drive on the correct side of the road... How you lot all managed to get it wrong, I'll never know!!!
Sheer luck, I guess... :roll:
:-D
:lol:
But seriously... Driving on the left is safer:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Driving_on_the_left_or_right#Myths_and_miscellaneous_facts
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When I lived in Kent, it always used to amuse me just how far in-land some of the "Drive on the left" (in English, French and German) signs were placed.
Seriously, if you hadn't sussed it 20+ miles along the M20, you probably shouldn't be driving a car :-)
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@bloodline
Interesting article. Also this quote from it:
Today, just four European countries still drive on the left: Cyprus, Ireland, Malta and the United Kingdom.
Maybe you should edit the article to make it more "true"? ;-)
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It's so refreshing to see that the level of debate in this thread has dropped so dramatically over the past few posts as per usual :-)
Flashlab wrote:
Today, just four European countries still drive on the left: Cyprus, Ireland, Malta and the United Kingdom.
Ahhhh there are still some normal people left in the world then :-)
/me exits to the tune of Rule Britannia and the stirring sounds of a 21 gun salute in the distance
-
Hehe, just heating up the fire a little to see the stiff upper lips get their knickers in a twist.
No harm intended. ;-)
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Flashlab wrote:
@bloodline
Interesting article. Also this quote from it:
Today, just four European countries still drive on the left: Cyprus, Ireland, Malta and the United Kingdom.
Maybe you should edit the article to make it more "true"? ;-)
Bah! It should read thus:
Today, just three European countries follow the British and drive correctly: Cyprus, Ireland, Malta.
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Flashlab wrote:
No harm intended. ;-)
It's nothing more then mere fun and games on the playground of life :-)
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@ bloodline
Forget 'Ripping Yarns' ... Can't beat a good ol dose of The League Of Gentleman :-D
Youtube linky (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOtpgz4L5d8)
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the_leander wrote:
We have such a strong sense of independance because scumbags from all over Europe have, time and again tried to take that away from us. The reason we, for the most part do not like being refered to as "Europeans", is because we have faught so bitterly hard to stop Europe from dominating us.
Those who have tried to take away your independance have mostly succeeded (romans, vikings, anglians, saxons, normans). Your royal house is very much a European royal house, with close family ties to the continent. Your language is mostly nethergerman/norse mix, spiced up with french - the english _love_ french and consider it far more sophisticated (Hyacinth Bucket), yet they hate the french.
My favourite english word is (ironically) "island", which is "frenchification" of old norse eyland (iland, or ayland, considering how most isles of Shetland are named). It wasnt classy enough with the old eyland, so they mixed it with the french isle and created island - with a silent s - how clever!
And yet, interestingly, many large trading blocks, such as the US for the most part still go on about "Britain and Europe". Part of Europe, but not Europe.
Really, I never noticed. Clearly they should say "Britain, Iceland, Malta, Cyprus and Europe", maybe also toss in Ireland as well, in case some Irish are listening.
Hey, just because you folk decided to follow the road laws set down by a Portuguese dwarf is not our problem :lol:
A Portuguese dwarf that happened to be beaten by the British, btw :-D
Yes, beating up a dwarf sounds like something a gang of british soldiers might find entertaining, after that they get naked and pee on each other in good tradition.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1979990/posts
(Notice the last sentance.)
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kolla wrote:
Yes, beating up a dwarf sounds like something a gang of British* soldiers might find entertaining, after that they get naked and pee on each other in good tradition.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1979990/posts
(Notice the last sentence*.)
Ahhhhhh what a night that was :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:
* corrections due to the 'European' way of teaching I guess lol
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@kolla
Don't you mean European soldiers?
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This thread has gone wwwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyy off track!
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tonyyeb wrote:
This thread has gone wwwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyy off track!
So far off track I think it's somewhere near Malta at the minute ... I think it's trying to get to the Beijing Olympics for the closing ceremonies :lol:
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ZeBeeDee wrote:
This thread has gone wwwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyy off track!
So far off track I think it's somewhere near Malta at the minute ... I think it's trying to get to the Beijing Olympics for the closing ceremonies :lol: [/quote]
At least it will be driving on the left :-P :lol:
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tonyyeb wrote:
At least it will be driving on the left :-P :lol:
Too right! :lol:
The picture says it all really lol
(http://i61.photobucket.com/albums/h69/Stormies_Pics/HijackedThread.jpg)
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bloodline wrote:
@kolla
Don't you mean European soldiers?
Yes, they were european soldiers, but all of them were british, hence it makes sense to point out that they were british soldiers - not german, not french, but british soldiers. I know this concept is very hard for you to grasp.
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kolla wrote:
Yes, they were european soldiers, but all of them were british, hence it makes sense to point out that they were british soldiers - not german, not french, but british soldiers. I know this concept is very hard for you to grasp.
*narrator's voice*
What kolla is actually trying to say is that the soldiers were from British regiments that make up a vast proportion of a European land based army.
We now return you to your regular scheduled thread.
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kolla wrote:
the_leander wrote:
We have such a strong sense of independance because scumbags from all over Europe have, time and again tried to take that away from us. The reason we, for the most part do not like being refered to as "Europeans", is because we have faught so bitterly hard to stop Europe from dominating us.
Those who have tried to take away your independance have mostly succeeded (romans, vikings, anglians, saxons, normans).
Bravo - picking a bunch of examples, the most recent of which is approaching 1000 years old. Point out any other European that can claim anywhere near that. Norway certainly can't.
The point is, with nearly a millennium of independence, and a number of tough years where we were effectively isolated and alone about 70 years ago, it's not hard to see why we are not really of the 'European' mindset.
It's nothing to do with any self-superiority - every nation has a small element of that. If you were really the expert on Britain you claim to be you'd know how much time and energy we spend on complaining about how much we suck.
Is it really so hard to comprehend that we simply don't see ourselves that way, because that's not part of who we are? We're not the only country that thinks that an EU superstate is a bad idea are we? ;-)
Besides, treating us like a bunch of retarded lepers is hardly the the most persuasive way of handling things now is it? That just makes people want to tell you to shove your European brotherhood up your condesending arse. And that's never a nice way for conversations to go. :lol:
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Sjeesz what an emotions here ;-)!
It's simple: if people don't want to be part of an European community then that's fine! Don't be. People can't be forced to join a party can they?
Whether it's short sighted or visionary, arrogant or self confident, smart just plain stupid is another question.
In my opinion we need to work together in Europe (when I take a look at my atlas the UK was still in Europe) to be able to compete with the US and the upcoming continents. No-one needs to loose their identity in doing so. If people don't want to then hey, too bad. I hope that in the future Europe can become more of world power again in a positive way. After WWII we lost the power and credibility IMHO.
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I
alexh wrote:
Atheist wrote:
When I used TOS, I couldn't even find the RAM: disk???
Where did you look?
Hi alexh,
I looked on the screen, and couldn't see an icon for it.
Atheist wrote:
So, is Atari ST just as good as AOS then?
Apples and Oranges mate. You can use a recoverable RAM disk though.
Wasn't apparent that there was one.
Although, I may have had an older version of TOS that didn't have it yet, and I was using it casually and only for a couple of days.
Can the OS be completely copied over, and a reboot done with then the system disk not being accessed anymore like on Amiga?
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the_leander wrote:
amigadave wrote:
@the_leander,
Seems your wish has been answered. He is posting all over the place now (I don't know anything about your "invited one").
Less a wish and more of a calculated risk in saying his name ;-)
As for invited, I meant that in the same way as "speak the devils name and he shall appear"...
:lol: :lol: :lol:
Hi amigadave, the_leander,
Actually, I was off the internet for about 3 days and when I got on saw this thread out at 12 pages, and having only read three pages, replied in it. It was a fluke (but accurate) that you had made that comment about me.
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the_leander wrote:
Atheist wrote:
B00tDisk wrote:
Any expert system that couldn't keep itself from overwriting its own memory would be effectively worthless. Every thought would essentially be a tapeworm, destroying data as it was created.
Hi B00tDisk,
And yet my Amiga 2000 using AOS1.3.3 runs?
Something that isn't an AI.
Hi the_leander,
No, but for the obvious reasons of, not fast enough, not enough bits CPU and not enough RAM/hard drive space.
Although, 1 Gig and a fast CPU in a NatAmi60 and 1 terabyte of storage, I think that the realm of AI can be grazed if not fully realized.
Atheist wrote:
And yes, why chastise me for being selfish and wanting a ONE USER computer/OS? PC is for Personal Computer not Politically Correct, and sharing my toy with all comers.
There are perfectly good reasons for having a tiered system of access on a computer, stopping people with too little knowledge to understand and just enough to do damage is one of them.
If it's what you want, great, fantastic and more power to you. Thing is though, the rest of the world, that being one with a clue of course, want their *own* accounts, customised to their particular likes and dislikes without having to worry about other people using the machines preferences.
Well, "the rest of the world" have 3 OSs to choose from, may they compute in peace.
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B00tDisk wrote:
Atheist wrote:
Hi B00tDisk,
And yet my Amiga 2000 using AOS1.3.3 runs?
Please explain, using all your powers of comprehension and computer knowledge, how AOS 1.3 is in fact an AI or expert system.
Hi B00tDisk,
Simple, it's not an AI system. I was mostly concerned with the statement that MP is a crisis and systems without don't work, when clearly there is a computer that works, and doesn't use it.
As for expert system, I attribute it's flexibility and manipulability to that qualification.
And yes, why chastise me for being selfish and wanting a ONE USER computer/OS? PC is for Personal Computer not Politically Correct, and sharing my toy with all comers.
Psh. You don't even understand what multiuser is about.
I don't care about it, as there are 3 OSs available with it, and I don't want to use them because they don't truly offer what I want. Why are they bigger than 80 Megs? They're no good.
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Are'nt atheists posts off topic, I thought this was the Eurobashing thread. :-D
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shoggoth wrote:
Like someone said, it seems like you don't like memory protection just because AOS lacks this functionality.
Hi shoggoth,
Yes, I don't like it because it wasn't originally implemented, so I guess it wasn't critical to have.
Also, MP slows a system down, and with the pathetic speed we have available to us as it is, we need every cycle we can get.
ALSO, isn't it true that most SW would need to be recompiled if AOS went MP?
You got access to all the source code of all the AOS sw out there for that to be done?
In addition to all of that, who's rewriting AOS3.1 to use MP anyhow?
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Flashlab wrote:
@bloodline
Interesting article. Also this quote from it:
Today, just four European countries still drive on the left: Cyprus, Ireland, Malta and the United Kingdom.
Maybe you should edit the article to make it more "true"? ;-)
Hi Flashlab,
Are you highlighting that "left is right" or that "Cyprus, Ireland, Malta and the United Kingdom" are four European countries?.
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The remark was about the UK not being European according to bloodline but the article he provided to prove that some British customs are better actually states that the UK is a European country. Thought it was quite funny!
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Atheist wrote:
Although, I may have had an older version of TOS that didn't have it yet, and I was using it casually and only for a couple of days.
Can the OS be completely copied over, and a reboot done with then the system disk not being accessed anymore like on Amiga?
TOS doesn't have a ramdisk. Later incarnations of the OS are disk based and does have a ramdisk (/ram/). You can't boot from it though, if that's what you mean.
That said, I wouldn't rule out the possible existence of a bootable RAM-disk, since the system in theory supports it.
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A6000 wrote:
Are'nt atheists posts off topic, I thought this was the Eurobashing thread. :-D
ROFL!
-
It's ironic that Switzerland ISN'T in the EU.
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Atheist wrote:
It's ironic that Switzerland ISN'T in the EU.
Not really ... who controls most of the money in Europe anyway?
You got it ... Switzerland. They can and probably already said "Shove your EU! Try and force us in and opp!, we lost your privately numbered Swiss account with all those millions" lol
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Atheist wrote:
Yes, I don't like it because it wasn't originally implemented, so I guess it wasn't critical to have.
That was true when applications and operating systems had a small footprint.
Today it's imperative if you want to be sure that your system doesn't crash due to some bug (or other side effect) caused by something outside of your control.
Use your sense of logic, Atheist. They didn't invent this concept because it was stupid, inefficient or useless.
Also, MP slows a system down, and with the pathetic speed we have available to us as it is, we need every cycle we can get.
I disagree. We're talking about a negligible slowdown, hardly noticeable. If you have figures to back your statement up, please give them here. I can benchmark this stuff on a 68060-based machine here if needed, but let's how I don't need to.
ALSO, isn't it true that most SW would need to be recompiled if AOS went MP?
It is. The discussion was not about that however. No offence, but you give people the impression that you have no idea what memory protection and multi-user setups is all about, yet you seem to have a deeply rooted need to bash it. Of course, I may be wrong, in such case please accept my humble apologies.
Doesn't MOS (and possibly AROS? Don't know about AOS4...) offer some degree of memory protection? Can't MOS run applications in different sandboxes depending on their implementation (MP-aware vs. legacy).
Are you a coder by any chance, Atheist?
You got access to all the source code of all the AOS sw out there for that to be done?
Again, we're talking about the *concept* of memory protection, and why it's an essential in a modern context. I'm not bashing AOS in any way, since I've been fascinated by it from day one.
In addition to all of that, who's rewriting AOS3.1 to use MP anyhow?
Dude, that wasn't the point.
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shoggoth wrote:
Atheist wrote:
Although, I may have had an older version of TOS that didn't have it yet, and I was using it casually and only for a couple of days.
Can the OS be completely copied over, and a reboot done with then the system disk not being accessed anymore like on Amiga?
TOS doesn't have a ramdisk. Later incarnations of the OS are disk based and does have a ramdisk (/ram/). You can't boot from it though, if that's what you mean.
That said, I wouldn't rule out the possible existence of a bootable RAM-disk, since the system in theory supports it.
Hi shoggoth,
So to be clear, of all OSs, only Amiga and Atari/TOS have a RAD: that can be booted off of and be independent of external media?
I thought only Amiga has a true RAD:.
No matter, the Amiga "mix" is still unique, valid, and capable of giving superior performance and allowing for unique abilities to be granted to users.
If it weren't the case, I'd close down my membership here at Amiga.Org and get whatever mac/windros/linux system was the best.
In my case it would be xp ONLY because of game availability.
If all windross games were available on Amiga, I would toss x86 in the garbage can as it's utterly frustrating and totally useless to me.
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shoggoth wrote:
Atheist wrote:
Yes, I don't like it because it wasn't originally implemented, so I guess it wasn't critical to have.
That was true when applications and operating systems had a small footprint.
Hi shoggoth,
Last time I checked, AOS IS a small footprint operating system to this day!
Are applications on Amiga still small foot print? Well, gee, it's all relative, so, like IBrowse's ~3 megs vs. FF2's 60+ Megs, gee, I wonder???? /Scratches head
Today it's imperative if you want to be sure that your system doesn't crash due to some bug (or other side effect) caused by something outside of your control.
Those Neanderthals of 1986-1994 weren't concerned of such things I suppose?
MP doesn't make it impossible for those things to happen anyway. The need is for programming to BECOME SIMPLER so that less mistakes can happen in the first place.
Use your sense of logic, Atheist. They didn't invent this concept because it was stupid, inefficient or useless.
I can understand that, I also understand that it WAS done without at one time as well.
Well, we lived without medicine as well, but that's not something I'd advocate, even though 93% of the world's population doesn't have access to it, or at least way sub par when they do.
Also, MP slows a system down, and with the pathetic speed we have available to us as it is, we need every cycle we can get.
I disagree. We're talking about a negligible slowdown, hardly noticeable. If you have figures to back your statement up, please give them here. I can benchmark this stuff on a 68060-based machine here if needed, but let's how I don't need to.
Sorry, I do not have stats, nor can I generate them, but we're up against CPUs that are 50 and more times faster than the fastest we can get, so it all counts.
ALSO, isn't it true that most SW would need to be recompiled if AOS went MP?
It is. The discussion was not about that however. No offence, but you give people the impression that you have no idea what memory protection and multi-user setups is all about, yet you seem to have a deeply rooted need to bash it. Of course, I may be wrong, in such case please accept my humble apologies.
I bash because it's unnecessary overhead. It's an obstacle. It's clutter. It's bloat. Can we have ONE SIMPLE OS please??? Others are available if this one doesn't meet your needs.
Seriously, is that "The Law"?
EVERY SINGLE OS that is buyable by the consumer must have:
1. multiuser logins
2. virtual memory/swap space
3. memory protection
Doesn't MOS (and possibly AROS? Don't know about AOS4...) offer some degree of memory protection? Can't MOS run applications in different sandboxes depending on their implementation (MP-aware vs. legacy).
Yes, and how many AOS programs run on AROS? Answer, none, because they can't without recompiling, and it doesn't even have anything to do with MP. That dilemma is on top of that problem.
Are you a coder by any chance, Atheist?
I am limited to the ability of being able to use AMOS Professional. It's insanely easy to use and understand.
This includes Truebasic, Blitzbasic and Hollywood not exactly being standard (as I see it) are hard to use.
C is impossible for me to understand. I can't cope with being forced to define my variables before I use them. There are many, many complications that are subtle and too mind bending for me.
I've written ADOS scripts, only very basic programs. It's very, very, very powerful (and single commands are lightning fast, too), but NOT EASY to understand. Tons more documentation is needed.
You got access to all the source code of all the AOS sw out there for that to be done?
Again, we're talking about the *concept* of memory protection, and why it's an essential in a modern context. I'm not bashing AOS in any way, since I've been fascinated by it from day one.
Well, AOS last I checked (as I mentioned above), gets smaller and smaller foot print wise by the day, compared to the gargantuan behemoths the competition has become, and yet we just want the mouse to scroll across the screen so we can double click.
In addition to all of that, who's rewriting AOS3.1 to use MP anyhow?
Dude, that wasn't the point.
Oh, then please disregard my statements.
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If it weren't the case, I'd close down my membership here at Amiga.Org
It isn't the case.
Here's hoping...
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Not to derail the thread any further, but:
@ bloodline, Well at least the British, and Australians drive on the correct side of the road... How you lot all managed to get it wrong, I'll never know!!!
What? Are you nuts? :-D
Speaking as an American who has actually driven on British roads, I'm surprised your nation hasn't perished in one gigantic traffic accident!
And don't even get me started on London's Congestion Fee Scam.
Seriously, though, I do have to compliment the Brits for how they drive: while I was in the fast lane, no one ever passed me, even when I was going too slow. Over here in the states, it's a free-for-all. Oi!
Ed.
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Atheist wrote:
Those Neanderthals of 1986-1994 weren't concerned of such things I suppose?
Get real, Atheist. I never claimed that these people were Neanderthals. The discussion was about the *concept* of multitasking, something you constantly mix up with AOS bashing (which it's not).
They designed an efficient OS for a CPU which didn't have the mechanisms necessary to achieve memory protection, or they choose not to implement it since it would break other aspects of the OS.
MP doesn't make it impossible for those things to happen anyway.
No, but it's about a zillion times safer than the alternative.
The need is for programming to BECOME SIMPLER so that less mistakes can happen in the first place.
Ok, so instead of designing crash proof operating systems, we should hope for better applications?
Well, we lived without medicine as well, but that's not something I'd advocate, even though 93% of the world's population doesn't have access to it, or at least way sub par when they do.
lol :)
Sorry, I do not have stats, nor can I generate them, but we're up against CPUs that are 50 and more times faster than the fastest we can get, so it all counts.
Well, you're looking for bottlenecks in the wrong places.
I bash because it's unnecessary overhead. It's an obstacle. It's clutter. It's bloat. Can we have ONE SIMPLE OS please??? Others are available if this one doesn't meet your needs.
Again, the discussion was about the *concept* of memory protection, not whether or not AOS is a capable alternative (which it sure is).
Multiuser-capabilities doesn't in itself doesn't constitute any overhead, nor does memory protection in practice. This is not bloat, clutter nor obstacles. You just don't like this stuff since their existence would implicate that AOS actually *lacks* something.
Seriously, is that "The Law"?
EVERY SINGLE OS that is buyable by the consumer must have:
1. multiuser logins
2. virtual memory/swap space
3. memory protection
No, I totally agree that there is no reason for all this to be "The Law". There are strengths and weaknesses in every solution, and today people are so focused on unix-ish solutions that they seem to forget that there are other ways to do things as well.
Having said that, the features you list was invented for good reasons, and they don't constitute bloat or performance penalties.
This is way off topic, and it's getting nowhere...
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Talking of the crazy europeans and the olympics. you really couldnt make this stuff up.
Click here (http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2008/aug/10/olympics2008.olympicsbasketball)
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JJ wrote:
Talking of the crazy europeans and the olympics. you really couldnt make this stuff up.
Click here (http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2008/aug/10/olympics2008.olympicsbasketball)
I feel so proud to be European :roll:
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bloodline wrote:
I feel so proud to be European :roll:
But remember, you're not European... nor we, true europeans want the likes of you to be either... ;-)
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pixie wrote:
bloodline wrote:
I feel so proud to be European :roll:
But remember, you're not European... nor we, true europeans want the likes of you to be either... ;-)
:lol:
Remember I'm British by the accident of my birth, not through choice... If I could choose I'd go for German... I perfer the food and music and woman...
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I have spent quite a bit of time recently with work in cologne, love the place, the people etc
And they totally get british humour in cologne. thye all seem to be big fans of the holy grail and life of brian etc and they understand sarcasm and everything.
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HI all
I just read up on this monumental thread, tried to understand the implications of the important issues for the future that was discussed. And almost fell of the chair of laughter then the thread went off topic straight into lunar orbit.
I must share this with you. I looked at the SF movie Casshern yesterday. And believe my surprise then there was a character in it named, yes Midori. And listen to this, she said; Nobody is always right, and nobody is always wrong. The answer is co existence, don’t give up, end the war.
I have been involved in long term projects and sometimes you just get tired. Then you have to step away from it and look from above and try to see what we have really got. And from my returning enthusiast perspective I can see a whole lot. There could have been absolutely nothing after the original models. But here we are at 2008 and it still lingers. And I agree with the unwritten future posts in this thread.
If you deeply knowledgeable people could get a normal user perspective on AROS the browser will be a world of difference. Reach out a hand to the normal user that does not know what’s under the hood. Then you get users, then the buzz, then more developers.
If the future goes toward vm machines so programs can be OS independent, then why not using an AMIGA environment that you like to choose those programs from. I will post a question about this in a new thread: VMWARE on AROS, could it be done??