Hyperion Entertainment: Clarification of Current Situation

[wawrzon]

they have return to normal business?

..what would that be? e-begging?

[wawrzon]

the fact remains that with os4 pretty every opportunity is taken to ask for money, especially that it is always justified with supporting the system and its future. i have not seen it with amiga, morphos or aros projects otherwise.

[wawrzon]

Yet another thread that shows why the 'Amiga' community is shrinking and will continue to do so.

What sane newcomer would invest either time or money in a community that appears to enjoy infighting more than any other activity.

It's a sad rump (with notable exceptions) of what used to be one of the great communities.

the foras are where people go to rant, or to pat each other on the shoulder. pick your choice. where and if things get done you may not even notice that here.

On contrary, I see the so called classic community is still thriving. What shrinks is the NG community, but not because of the lack of monolithic thought

one needs to make his own mind as to where investing limited time. knowledge and motivation is safest. genuine amiga and it associated projects both hardware and software is a probably the safest especially if where the projects are open and community driven.

[wawrzon]

Would it help if I ported OS4emu to Os3? It would not run OS4 native software of course but would make porting OS4 software easier.

Imho it would pay more if you helped with aros 68k or adopted your mui netsurf frontend the last source or something like that. I dont know what os4 software would actually justify looking for compatibility except sdl or qt ports, but then even these might be easier achieved with aros.

[wawrzon]

I am using an A1200T here and also my X5000.  I am very much wanting to shorten the software gap between them in terms of whenever software technologies can be developed mutually for both.

understandable, but the current situation is a result of very long politic of abandonment towards amiga and there is no sign that it has changed, what concerns whomever has their say about os4. i doubt you can do anything about it, except if you had influence on the os4 development, which i doubt you have. and even if it was so, it appears that os4 had introduced a number of changes which actually enforce incompatibility. so except one wanted desperately to follow their path, which im not sure would be convenient for technical reasons one might rather concentrate on alternatives that to date appear more compatible, more flexible, open and disposable. guess, what im talking about..

[wawrzon]

Should new FPGA or PPC accelerators become available, I would expect to see software introduced that would take advantage of the increased power.

there is already a number of software available that would take advantage of it, like regular sdl ports.

[wawrzon]

@wawrzon

I am sure there are ways of developing for both Classic AmigaOS and OS 4.1 mutually in terms of Workbench applications and libraries.  This helps bring the development costs down and gives much needed vital investment back into Classic at the same time.

but as far as i have understood you, you were talking about bringing os3 to the state on pair with os4 in order to enhance common development. you can do that without access to os4 and its sources, but then it would mean reverse engineering and reimplementation, like in case of mui4 for os4. this causes an additional (costly, as you yourself admit) effort, while aros provides already good amiga compatibility while introducing technical features on pair or probably in many cases even better than os4 itself. with aros you can actually maintain libraries for different architectures automatically side by side, without that much hassle about different interfaces, like those used on os4.

dont get me wrong, im not trying to talk you into aros, but i dont understand how and why do you want to handle parallel development on what you call "classics" and os4, if experience with existing efforts in this direction apparently prove problems, jut to name magellan or personal paint.

I have learned recently how costly real software development is, so developing FPGA solutions for Classic is one important step, then paying for software to be written for them is another expensive project. I remain positive though that solutions can be found.

if you want to develop native applications from the scratch then probably. but if you just port things over, there is already a number of enthusiasts doing it for free and the sake of it. im positive, that as soon as they may lay their hands on fpga hardware, it will boost their interest.

on the other hand i just dont see a possibility to develop huge and complex native software packages for affordable money. people may do it out of own interest, like for instance hd-rec, but i doubt you are able to provide enough funds to commission software you wish for and ensure its maintenance.

again i see here only realistic possibility to motivate people in certain directions, towards simple detailed goals by means like contributing to the bounties.

[wawrzon]

The foundations laid now are important enablers for more complex projects later on.

thats what im saying. distributed effort. reachable short range targets. but this makes cooperation necessary. and openness. i dont see that granted, when basing these efforts on os4 attitudes, where everything is locked behind seven seals.

The work that Amiga enthusiasts do in their spare time for little or no money is quite simply remarkable, but relying on the goodwill of these enthusiast developers is not the complete answer as we will be in the same situation in another decade with development ongoing at the same pace.  So a commercial injection of capital is also needed to kickstart the software development process in a structured way.

yes, we have seen aeon investing insane amounts of money already. and yet where have all these investments led so far? i dont see much coordination nor far reaching concept behind it and not because of a inability or a bad will, but simply because there can not be such a concept, or it would be very difficult to come up with a genuine one, not simply reproducing customary solutions found on other systems. such a far reaching plan would imho involve giving up on anything amiga legacy and therefore would hardly end up with enough interest, as already os4 history proves.