Author Topic: Why not AmigaOS4 for x86 Platforms? (Read 17732 times)

x56h34 · « **Reply #29 on:** January 21, 2005, 04:50:25 PM »

@leirbag28:

Well, let me just say this. If there's ever going to be the next DoomMaster, you my friend are currently in the lead for that position.

leirbag28 · « **Reply #30 on:** January 21, 2005, 04:53:19 PM »

@x56h34

Hahaha, why on earth would you say something like that? im not a Troll if thats what your saying :-)

Im just a Hardcore Amigan

I dont think imitating PC's and their standards will get us anywhere..............we should be leaders in the Market and not be afraid to stick with what works.

(sure.I believe in supporting PCI cards and all..but just supporting...not requiring)

Karlos · « **Reply #31 on:** January 21, 2005, 04:53:50 PM »

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leirbag28 wrote:
@Karlos

How long would that take, and how much would it cost?
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it take alot less time than it took for this A1 to be released
and the mysterious OS4......thats for Sure!

:lol: Whatever you say :-)

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It would survive alot longer than an A1 G3.......look at the PS2 and Xbox.....how long has PS2 been out and still kicking? hahahaha th New iMac that was just released will kill any AmigaONE anyway.

Consoles are targeted at a single purpose, their hardware and firmware reflect this. Real computers have different requrirements.

If you want a fair comparison. run linux on your PS2 for a while and then try it on a modern PC to see the difference.

You also should use a Mac for a while to see what is wrong with your above statement :-) Trust me, I work with them all day long and I want to vomit by the end of it.

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"Furthermore, why would anybody do that when you can let them install the 'custom chips' of their choice?"
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then get a PC for that..thats what those trashy machines are for. and thats why they are trash..............cant even run anything correctly....always always always freezing and causing headaches.

One could say the same with your console fixation. If you want a non-crashing computer that needs no drivers etc etc, buy a playstation.

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"One word. Competition."
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Amiga will never have Competition with a PC.especially now

I was talking about the competition between rival chipset manufacturers. Without it, you'd not have your GeForceFX, nForce chipset, Radeon etc. And nothing a company with revenue to spare like Amiga could hope to produce a chipset that would even be seen in the dust trail from these ones.

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Whos talking about OLD custom chips? I certainly aint....im speaking of an entirely New Genration custom chipset as standard....................socketed so that they can be upgraded by the parent comapny Amiga Inc................just like the Enhanced Chipset and AGA................except they would be much more advanced................and you saving tons of cash cuz your just changing the chips......you can channel that extra cash in your pocket for the Chips................and Amiga Inc pumping more money into the 2nd set of More SUPER powered Custom Chips would justify it...............cuz every Amigan has the same machine!!!!

You clearly havent read or understood a single word I have said about this issue. If you stick to a single chipset provider you are not going to get the benefit of the advancements that competition drives other manufacturers to produce. Hence it will always end up underpowered compared to rival platforms where this competition exists, so you're stuffed. It will cost more, since there are no rivals providing alternatives, so you're stuffed again. Then your hardware manufacturer goes bust and you get no more chipset upgrades period. So you're stuffed yet again.

Sound familiar? It should as it already happened.

Also, apart from swapping denise and stuff, how many 'AGA' drop ins for OCS/ECS systems have you ever seen? AGA required a completely different system layout. If the magical AGA II Pro Turbo chipset appeared needing a 64-bit bus, DDR support etc. etc., you'd need a replacement motherboard again, just like OCS/ECS systems were not able to be retrofitted with AGA.

leirbag28 · « **Reply #32 on:** January 21, 2005, 05:01:24 PM »

@Karlos

I understand all that................we need to learn from our past.

as Far as Macs........My brother is a Mac freak and practically owned every Mac in existance..................

PC's? I use a Pentium 4 everyday..........It sucks incredibly..............Despite that its such a high powered machine............utterly amazing!

my CD32?SX32 functions better...........I use it instead for rendering and conversion because Pentiums suck.............there good when they work..........but they hardly work right.

Also.no one is saying the PC world hasn't broguht us Good things.

But let me end it like this: Do you think an AmigaONE will ever beat Macs or PC's? or even better.do you think it will ever have the Status of the Classic Amiga?

I think you will agree that its NO.................something needs to change...............otherwise I say Buy a PC or Mac............why bother and waste your life!

EDIT: Or release a G5 AmigaONE at the minimum! and pump them out like crazy at lower prices..........buyers will come!...........if not..............I see a dark future ahead

redrumloa · « **Reply #33 on:** January 21, 2005, 05:12:06 PM »

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Re: Why not AmigaOS4 for x86 Platforms?

You know, just a few years ago I would have argued against going X86. Those arguements may have been somewhat valid back in years past. Now with the conditions of the computer market in 2005, none of those arguements hold any water IMHO.

How many Teron based AmigaOnes can possibly sell in the next 2 years, with the current sticker price? Maybe 100 per year total worldwide? Ok I'll even go as far to say this.. Let's imagine we are smoking the funny green stuff that Ricky Williams is smoking. Let's imagine Eyetech moves 1000 motherboards a year for the next 2 years worldwide. What is the end result? Well besides Eyetech making a killing, everyone else pretty much suffers. Hyperion sells 2000 OEM copies of OS4, hardly enough money to justify their talents. 3rd party software developers? They certainly won't come back to a market with a software base in the very low thousands.

I am firmly in the X86 crowd now, move on AROS! Hopefully Hyperion will consider Athlon64 in the future.

Karlos · « **Reply #34 on:** January 21, 2005, 05:12:30 PM »

@leirbag

Beat them how? Hardware peformance wise, no, likely not. But still, we haven't done that for over a decade. Still, moving from 50MHz 060 to 800MHz G4 is a considerable step in the right direction.

As for status, that depends on what your regard as being amiga-like. My first machine was an A600, soon replaced with an A1200. Then CPU cards etc and finally a gfx card.

Having used my A1200T/PPC/BVision combo since 2000 or so, I'm completely used to RTG, AGA is simple 'retrogaming/demo fodder'...

I also had the loan of an A1XE (G4, 800MHz) for a while. It feels totally amiga like to me - far more so than UAE does, for instance, which I know is a subjective thing. Like UAE, it runs all the 680x0-RTG stuff, but naturally doesn't do AGA.

The biggest feeling of 'connection' is that the same OS4 runs on my A1200, and in the process does support AGA etc. This made the A1 simply seem like a beefier model than the classic, just as an A4K feels like a beefier A1200.

I imagine other A1200/A4000 PPC users that have moved to A1 or Pegasos, or those that have gone to AROS feel the same degree of 'natural progression'.

Karlos · « **Reply #35 on:** January 21, 2005, 05:14:58 PM »

@Red

Athlon64 != x86, one of the main reasons I like it :-)

I'd quite like to see a version for that beast too :-D

amigamad · « **Reply #36 on:** January 21, 2005, 05:22:24 PM »

would have gained better market share if it was, with the low hardware sales of the amigaone it wont last to long its way out of date hardware allready .

leirbag28 · « **Reply #37 on:** January 21, 2005, 05:53:04 PM »

@Karlos

"The biggest feeling of 'connection' is that the same OS4 runs on my A1200, and in the process does support AGA etc. This made the A1 simply seem like a beefier model than the classic, just as an A4K feels like a beefier A1200."
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I agree with that Karlos..and I agree it feels better than UAE for sure..........I want to buy an A1 myself..and the more I see it the more I want it, but I dont want to invest my money and then be embarrassed infront on my PC and Mac owning friends.............although I hardly doubt that as an A1 can already do stuff a Mac and PC cant do smoothly.

Nevertheless, I want to show off my Future A1 running mac OSX
the Price needs to be droppped Bigtime..........otherwise they will perish.

x56h34 · « **Reply #38 on:** January 21, 2005, 05:58:18 PM »

@leirbag28:

I'm kidding of course, but you seem to be very persistant about using the...custom chips. :-)

Anyways, the current major problem with the new Amiga One is the lack of good software that you can use with OS4.0.
The OS itself feeles and looks great compared to OS3.9. It's a huge step forward, but...

I have an Amiga One XEG4 system and I can tell you that there's basically nothing released for OS4.0 that pushes the limits of the Amiga One hardware to the max. More development of ANY kind is definitely necessary. It's not like there's developers out there complaining about how they need some sort of new custom chips, or for whatever reason, any speedy hardware compared to what's available...no...you need development to start working seriously, with serious software coming out. Then, and only then, we'll start to see how good the hardware really is and what are the limits of it, and finally, if ANY improvments to it are really needed at this stage.

Of course, a huge reason to little or not enough development is the high price of Amiga One motherboards. If it were a little cheaper, a lot more people would get them and at least give it try. The specs of the Amiga One motherboards are fine...it's the price that's not. :-(

leirbag28 · « **Reply #39 on:** January 21, 2005, 06:06:16 PM »

@x56h34

Well I actually agree..........I see A1's in action all the time and they look impressive...........Yes I still want custom Chips, but I also want Amiga Inc (the parent company to produce its own hardware) Yeah yeah I know they dont have the money.........but thats on my wish list...............One comapany producing the machine calls for less problems and a more Official Amiga. And also support for Mainly the Best gfx card out there...put the other cards as second place when creating drivers............the ATI All in WOnder comes to mind.I prefer it over any N-Vidia card because if its ALL In ONE S-Video In and OUTS and TV tuner. I have one on my PC

Tomas · « **Reply #40 on:** January 21, 2005, 06:21:41 PM »

Quote

bloodline wrote:
Quote

What are the only Computers in the World that don't crash?

Playstation 2
Playstation 1
Game Cube
N64
SNES
Genesis
XBOX

I've seen both a Playstation 1 and an XBOX crash :-)

I have had my ps2 freeze up on gta vice city and that was a brand new orginal version of the game

dammy · « **Reply #41 on:** January 21, 2005, 08:19:52 PM »

Well, there is a (very tiny) bounty for AROS going x86-64. Yes, some of us old Intel Haters have seen the light, and it's mostly shining on AMD.

Dammy
TeamAROS

aardvark · « **Reply #42 on:** January 21, 2005, 08:48:34 PM »

You know what would rock? Amiga OS on a Playstation 3!
Think of the advantages.
-low cost hardware
-one of the most advanced cpu's on the planet
-everywhere
-no other general purpose OS on this platform
-could be done as a Sony licensee
-fixed hardware requiring no mucking about with different chip versions

The Amiga was always about 2 things, hardware that blew everything else out of the water (circa 1985) and an OS that just made sense. Well, we can have the first again with the PS3, and the second would just require porting.
(Admittedly that could be an expensive difficult undertaking) :banana:

DavidF215 · « **Reply #43 on:** January 21, 2005, 09:26:16 PM »

If you want OS4 on x86, then I would suggest to recruit like minded persons and create a company. Apply for a license agreement for the port (if Amiga, Inc would allow it) then port the code. Once the OS is ported, sale an AMD PC with the OS installed and configured. If you don't think such a business idea would succeed, then why should Amiga Inc, Hyperion, or any other company try porting to x86? If ported, use AMD 64bit only; leave 32bit behind. But it is still a lot of coding, man hours, and money to do it right and in a reasonable time frame.

OS4 on a G5 (which is 64bit, btw) would scream past x86, in GUI performance and most video applications. Of course I'm assuming that OS4 or OS5 will be ported to the G5 in the future. AmigaOS was designed for a low MHz 68000 processor. If the design is kept tight, then think of what it could do on a 64bit processor like the G5.

Also, wait till the next generation of PowerPC chips begin to have more of the Power4 and Power5 technologies. I'm putting my money on IBM's chips against both AMD and Intel because IBM has high end system technology, and they are beginning to integrate their high end technology into their PowerPC chips (staring with the G5). AMD really gained an advantage over Intel when they began integrating Alpha processor technology into their chips. But I still pick IBM chips over even the Alpha chips. Although a comparison of AmigaOS on PowerPC and Alpha chips would be interesting.

If you want x86 OS, try the AROS project or Haiku project.

FastRobPlus · « **Reply #44 from previous page:** January 22, 2005, 12:17:39 AM »

Quote

Tomas wrote:
Quote

bloodline wrote:
Quote

What are the only Computers in the World that don't crash?

Playstation 2
Playstation 1
Game Cube
N64
SNES
Genesis
XBOX

I've seen both a Playstation 1 and an XBOX crash :-)

I have had my ps2 freeze up on gta vice city and that was a brand new orginal version of the game

I've seen an Xbox crash... The guy had it in the back of his pickup truck, and the tailgate fell down while he was on the highway.

I've seen a 3D0 crash while playing "Battle Chess." It gave a red border "guru" style error and reset!!!! I was stunned. I didn't know a lot about the 3D0, but bought one at launch. That was the first time I knew that 3D0 was heavily Amiga-influenced.

Speaking of influence - the Epyx/Atari Lynx handheld crashed once (can't remember what game) and the screen was frozen, expect for the red and peach colored Amiga OS 1.x mouse pointer!