How much would it cost to port AmigaOS to x64?

[Nlandas]

• OS4 offers very little over OS X, Windows, Linux or any other alternative OS for the average computer user, plus the fact it is a paid for OS, means it will flop in the market, as it is over-saturated.

I for one use those OSs regularly and would love to have OS4 native on hardware that I could readily buy. Even if it's limited to specific models or video cards, sound cards, etc. I certainly would expect the market to be big but it depends on what the developers could do with it and setting it up as a platform to run classic Amiga applications.

• Then, the lack of money means the developers will be unable to pay themselves, causing massive delays in hardware support, ported applications and such.  
• This will doom its chances of being among the norm. In other words, it benefits nobody in the long term

I would think that someone with $400 million after taxes might just be able to fund development for quite some time without expecting a profit from it other than just enjoying the product. Might be silly to some but I've seen wealth wasted on things that I would consider far more frivolous

I think that custom hardware is part of the appeal, personally, to most users of the OS. I think its best chance is for it to be solicited to a game system manufacturer such as MS, Nintendo, etc. and having them use it as a base for a computer/game system/media system hybrid

I hear that a lot. I do understand the mindset as the custom chips were what made the Amiga so advanced for the time. Certainly a classic Amiga will always be that combination of custom hardware and unique low overhead operating system. However, in this day and age, exactly what custom hardware would make a computer that unique with the amount of raw processor power that is available in CPU and GPU today. What remains for me of Amiga other than UAE and my A1200HD for my classic fix, today is the operating system, which still remains unique in its overhead and design. I know that modern OS's have advanced in other ways, memory protection, etc. However, I find it interesting that we have two main branches of OS to choose from Unix->Linux/BSD or VMS->NT.

   I guess I'm alone, at least in those who still frequent amiga.org and are primarily into Amiga as it remains towards the end on ppc. That isn't meant as criticism but I just guess I'd love to run AmigaOS native on readily available hardware or even a subset of it.

[Argo]

I haven't heard anything about the PS4 including a PPC chip, and given that there's explicitly no backwards compatibility, there's no reason for it to include one.

I recently read an article that said it was going to be an all AMD kit. Though any info at this point is not much more than rumor.

dreamcast270mhz, et. All,
   Most people don't need anything more than a computer that can run a web browser. Then next largest computer user group needs a web browser, office software, and streaming ability. Those two groups should cover 85-90% of computer users.
Any major OS can do this, making basically all the same. So why use anything other than Windows. Apple's marketing can't be so good that it garners 15% of the market just on that. Linux isn't for those kind of people. Unless you want to include Android. Then we should include BSD as Mac OS is certified as a BSD.  
Yeah, Amiga OS need some work. Lots of it just to get to that very basic user level. I just don't see it as filling that market. I see it as an some what specialty OS existing somewhere between Mac OS and Linux. Well, it should.
As to the desire for custom chips, we have them already. It that emergence of them on other platforms that helped kill the Amiga marketshare. Sound cards, Graphic Cards, various I/O bus cards. They have just been badly utilized on other platforms for well over a decade. We are just seeing now in the last few years GUIs using the graphics card. Which for the longest time was regulated to games or video decoding. An Amiga OS should, as it always has, utilized these kind of system resources at the system level and not as an addon for specialty uses.

[weirdami]

Isn't that what Amithlon was? Maybe a better question is how much to get those legal problems solved.

[OlafS3]

there are combinations of Aros and Linux in development. So most hardware will be supported in a couple of months.

[stefcep2]

BeOs didn't succeed with x86. Some developers said that those who has originally used BeOs started to use window/Linux and stopped to support original BeOs apps because everythig was easier with Windows/Linux.

Linux easier?  I'm not a developer but as a user Linux was stinking pile of dog **** next to BeOS.  Log onto any major distro forum and watch the same questions pop up from users year after year after year.

One of my regrets in computing is that the open source movement chose to support Linux.  The only thing it has going for it is the 20 mb kernel.  The GUI is rubbish, as is its reliance on the CLI.

[Thorham]

Linux isn't for those kind of people.

My mom uses the Ubuntu distro, and quite happily so.

Yeah, Amiga OS need some work.

AmigaOS needs to be replaced by something new that's much better (yep, easy to say).

[takemehomegrandma]

OS4 needs to remain PPC.

+1

:lol:

[bhoggett]

Isn't that what Amithlon was? Maybe a better question is how much to get those legal problems solved.

Years too late would be my guess  People - by which I mean the developer(s) - will have moved on. Then you'd still be faced with the fact that the OS is way out of date.

Just one of those things that wasn't to be.

For me, the insistence that I be forced to buy expensive hardware I didn't think was any good was what alienated me from the Amiga scene. Now, I couldn't care less as I certainly wouldn't go back and while I'd still take a look out of curiosity and nostalgia, that's not a good enough reason to spend lots of valuable money on a toy.

I do find arguments about Hyperion's "business model" rather hilarious though since I very much doubt that proceeds from AmigaOS4 total sales would have covered one year's salary for one full-time programmer - or even half that.

Not that it really matters any more.

[jorkany]

OS4 needs to remain PPC.

Exactly!

OS4 was not ever intended to go head to head with Windows. This is why Apple will never go x86 because once a system can run Windows or SomethingElse, people will ALWAYS run Windows!

Where's that link...ah, yes, here it is:
http://www.amigahistory.co.uk/emulators/hyperionblast.html

[OlafS3]

thanks for the link. I read something similar from the Friedens.

My short comment: BeOS (and OS/2) did not fail because of the hardware but because of not enough software. And that would not have been different under another hardware (f.e. PPC).

[touringsedan]

For me, the Amiga is a classic and all attempts at using anything on a PC or modern hardware take away from the joy and excitement of the real thing.

UAE can run the real thing at blazing speeds, but for me its not even fun on a PC.

Making a 25 year old A2000 do modern things is so much fun, I can't stop trying new things with it.

I have dreamt of creating a new motherboard that can host all the original chips and new cases that look alike to help keep the classics alive as their supplies dwindle.

So for me, buy up all the licensing rights, bring it back to the original Jay Miner vision.

Produce updates to the original OS for Classics.

I often thought how I could use an A2000 forever, because that is truly what I would want. And I was thinking if you had to money, startup the accelerator development again, but finish what many started, an Accelerator with modern memory, audio, video, 3d, SATA, etc all on one accelerator board.

That way I can keep my A2000 classic, but run any screen mode and have all the faculties of a modern PC whilst keeping my roots in the classic Amiga ever present.

[takemehomegrandma]

@ OlafS3

IMHO, BeOS failed mostly because its mother company decided to try their luck by changing their core business to "Chase some IT-Bubble Dragon" at the time, resulting that its business burst with the bubble, and the OS went down with it. A case of corporate mismanagement IMHO. Sad, though...

(At least I have an official T-shirt and a portable CD-case/bag with BeOS logo as a souvenir to remember it by!

[OlafS3]

Better than nothing :-)

I bought my first PC (8 MB!) with OS/2 and saw it failing not because of the product (it was better than Windows at the time) but because of no software.

But again every OS (whatever hardware it uses) competes with all other platforms for users and developers. And avoiding to use the same hardware does not change this.

[desiv]

  Most people don't need anything more than a computer that can run a web browser. Then next largest computer user group needs a web browser, office software, and streaming ability. Those two groups should cover 85-90% of computer users.
Any major OS can do this, making basically all the same.

Exactly!!  That's why were not necessarily tied to..

So why use anything other than Windows..

..er..  what?
Why?  Because a very smart person once said:

Any major OS can do this

:-)

Also, you can run Office Software in a browser nowadays..

I'm not saying that I expect an Amiga OS of any kind to take over the world, but I can very possibly see a world with much less Windows.  Already seeing that with phones and tablets accounting for more and more percentage of the browsers in the web logs..
Combine that with embedded internet (in TVs and DVD's/Blu Rays, etc) and internet enabled Consoles possibly gaining traction.....

I'm not saying it's going to happen, but...

desiv

[runequester]

Operating system success has nothing to do with most of the things people talk about. It has everything to do with marketing.

The GUI is rubbish, as is its reliance on the CLI.

Which GUI are you talking about?

[takemehomegrandma]

Operating system success has nothing to do with most of the things people talk about. It has everything to do with marketing.

...and the science of marketing isn't about what most people thinks it is (advertisements etc), but identifying a need on a market and provide a way to satisfy that need with the right combination of Products, Price, Place and Promotion! If your product doesn't satisfy a true need, it's redundant, and it won't matter how much you advertize...