Amiga OS 5 prediction

[jarroyo]

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Steril707 wrote:
But Apple had hardware as well to support their Unix driven OS, giving some identity to the whole thing.
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I encourage this crowd to look deeply into the platform A Inc has chosen to host OS 5 on. It is quite different than what is out there, extremely powerful, when you consider that a significant amount of typical PC components are integrated into this single chip solution. It is a very balanced piece of hardware with ability to scale beyond what what current PC solutions are able to achieve today.

Don't let the 2 GHZ speeds fool you. This processor was designed for low latency transactions from end to end. A significantly more efficient architecture than what the PC and Mac has out there today.
http://www.pasemi.com/downloads/PA_Semi_PA6T_1682M.pdf

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Steril707 wrote:
An Unix based Amiga OS is still uninteresting to the average Joe imo
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I 100% agree with you on this point.

[jarroyo]

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BooBoo1200 wrote:
Now that Amigas will not have any custom chip the Os is the only thing that remains Amiga and a Os based around the source code of Workbench - Os 4 -I would argue that is Amiga But an Os based around QNX,Linux or any other Os this is not Amiga
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QNX would represent the microkernel much the same way "Darwin / Mach?" represent the Mac kernel with OS X sitting on top. Atop QNX you could develop many of the same feature set the Amiga is known for, including the Workbench paradigm. Microkernels in fact lend themselves to this type of implementation.

As far as the custom chipset, the PA Semi processor is oddly enough a custom chipset in its own right. It has a feature called the "Conexium Interchange."

From their site you read about Conexium:
"Interconnects the two 64-bit superscalar CPUs, two DDR2 memory controllers, a dual-ported L2 cache and the ENVOI I/O subsystem to deliver on-chip symmetric multiprocessing with coherent I/O"

From a custom graphics and sound point of view, this would be nearly suicidal. Unless you are Nvidia or AMD/ATI, you would be hard pressed to come up with a comparable solution that the average joe would not think its inferior inside of an Amiga.

Amiga was built at a time when custom chipsets where required to have the platform do what it became famous for. Those days are long gone and the economic landscape does not support this model any longer.

My 2 cents....

[jarroyo]

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downix wrote:

Actually, you'd be wrong here. While yes, on the graphics end there has been dramatic improvement, other areas of the system are downright anemic in performance. Look at audio, dominated by a single vendor, there hasn't been any progress since Aureal was bought out by Creative Labs. Or I/O, cheap junk 9 times out of 10 except on overpriced server mobo's.
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I guess from your perspective I was both wrong and right..:-)

While we agree on graphics, I think that the reason why there has not been much improvement in the audio area, and this is my opinion, is because audio has peaked / been commodotized as a technology. It is very good by default, and the majority of manipulation which audio requires for "effects" are easily executed in software with todays processors.

In PC category I call "The Balanced Platform," technology has been significantly stagnant; barring high end equipment. Interestingly enough, the PA Semi chip goes a long way into introducing a "Balanced Architeture" to the PC market. It takes into account many of the symbiotic elements of a PC, and tailors a solution based on lower latency than any other product in the consumer market.

This is largely the reason why I feel that the platform of choice for the future is somewhat "Amigest" in pedigree.

[jarroyo]

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downix wrote:
I am a little confused here. The x86 PC architecture is one of the worst for latency out there. Also, utilizing the CPU for sound and video decoding (which graphics chips do not offer mind you) can eat up a huge fraction of the available processor time. There is an area where a customized solution can be viable and profitable on the desktop, and here it is I feel.
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I was speaking about the PA Semi architecture being a low latancy platform, much more efficient / balanced than the X86 architecture. This chip is acually being targetted for use in places like enteprise routers, a low latency high throughput application.

It is true what you say about CPU's being bogged down by effects processing in software, but consider these factors:
1. CPU's are standardizing on a dual core design. the power will be there to spare.
2. The 128 bit matrix math units built into the chips are made to handle these kinds of transformations.
3. Its cheaper to do it in software, and with the video, and soon to be physics off loaded from the CPU; your processor will be sitting idler than in times past; at least for games.

Just my thoughts......
3.