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Offline alexTopic starter

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Returning user observation
« on: September 03, 2003, 08:33:58 PM »
Ok, I finally got around to knocking the dust off my old Amigas, sold many spare parts like CPU upgrades, Nic cards, etc.

Out of it I have 2 nice A3000s, an A4000, and a nicely equipped A1200.

But I had some knee jerk reactions that had me scratching my head.

When I powered up the first A3000, it was equipped with the latest OS, the Cyberstorm 060/50, the Cybervision 64/3D, and about 128mb cyberram, 16mb mobo ram, and 4mb on the scsi card.  Some utils like Dopus WB replacement, PFS, executive, etc.  Not a bad machine.  Not modern, but not bad.

But after 5 minutes of using it, I was like DAMN!  this sucker is responsive as all hell.  After 2 years of Mac OS X and Linux, this sucker is really really smooth.  The starting and stoping of apps is great, the seat of the pants action was head and shoulders better than the painfully slow Mandrake AMD 1700+ system I have or the G4 mac on my main desktop.

SO then I loaded up the apps.  Web browsers, DTPs, worpros, spreadsheets.

What I noticed was that it wasn't the machine or OS that was bad, but the Apps that SUCKED!!!!!

Now I read the threads that after all the development on AOS 4, the best I can get is a PPC "feeling" like a fast '060.  Well I have that, so what's the exercise for?

Now, I'm not hatng on the PPC move, in fact, I'm loving it, but it seems to me that all this talk of memory protection, blah blah blah, we're missing the point that it's the application that we really need and an updrade to the APIs for these applications.

Now with that said, is it the transition to PPC that is necessary to get good apps, was the OS the problem, and can the apps have been improved with just a new OS?

I hate the fact that I have such a nice machine in front of me, but I have to face the fact that such a  nice and responsive machine will never benefit from another OS updgrade or improved apps unless I jump to a new platform to get the exact same '060 feel.

Now the REAL million dollar question that begs is, does the AOS 4 and PPC upgrade really finally spell the true end of the current Amigas, or will people continue to support the older stuff once the new comes out.

I do understand why people held onto their dollars until the solid direction was laid out, but I think that if more people had upgraded from a crappy 030 1200 to a full on kit with video and 060 upgrade, we might have seen that we already had nice firepower for decent apps and supported their development via purchases as opposed to waiting for the PPC saviour.

Let's not forgt that an 060 has the basic horepower of a 100mhz pentium which ain't that bad expecially considering how wicked quick our OS is.

So unless people start re-investing in their current Amigas in tandem to the new, the only thing you'll be keeping from the good 'ole days is the software and the hardware will become scrap with a final OS.

Babble mode off......
 

Offline downix

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Re: Returning user observation
« Reply #1 on: September 03, 2003, 09:05:58 PM »
Don't forget the other million dollar question, how will apps feel on AOS4 when compared to apps on MorphOS.
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Offline alx

Re: Returning user observation
« Reply #2 on: September 03, 2003, 09:14:04 PM »
PPC (or x86) really is the only way ahead now - while AmigaOS might be great on a 68060, it simply doesn't have the number crunching capabilities needed for modern applications (particularly games).  I hope that a lot of software that could run on the 68k Amigas is still ported to them though.

Quote
Now I read the threads that after all the development on AOS 4, the best I can get is a PPC "feeling" like a fast '060. Well I have that, so what's the exercise for?


I think you're referring to the GUI responsiveness.  The reason that it wasn't far quicker than a 68060 at the OS4 on tour and Amiwest presentations is that intuition was running through an emulator (not even a JIT emulator) - I believe that intuition is now PPC native, so this problem will have gone :-D

Offline downix

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Re: Returning user observation
« Reply #3 on: September 03, 2003, 09:36:12 PM »
@alx

No, the PPC native intuition was being shown off.  You're thinking graphics.library.
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Offline Lando

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Re: Returning user observation
« Reply #4 on: September 03, 2003, 09:56:50 PM »
Quote

alx wrote:
PPC (or x86) really is the only way ahead now - while AmigaOS might be great on a 68060, it simply doesn't have the number crunching capabilities needed for modern applications (particularly games).  I hope that a lot of software that could run on the 68k Amigas is still ported to them though.

Quote
Now I read the threads that after all the development on AOS 4, the best I can get is a PPC "feeling" like a fast '060. Well I have that, so what's the exercise for?


I think you're referring to the GUI responsiveness.  The reason that it wasn't far quicker than a 68060 at the OS4 on tour and Amiwest presentations is that intuition was running through an emulator (not even a JIT emulator) - I believe that intuition is now PPC native, so this problem will have gone :-D


At AmiWest it was approximately the speed of an 040@33Mhz (running on a CSPPC).

The latest Petunia JIT benchmarks put it at a little over the speed of a "normal" 060 @ 50Mhz on CSPPC.  Of course it will be much faster on the AmigaOne.

The Pegasos with MorphOS 1.4 and the "Trance" JIT emulation is incredibly fast (giving almost 3200 MIPS in sysspeed - 50 times faster than my old A4000/060, or 380 times faster than my current A4000/030).

We really need more modern apps.
 

Offline mdwh2

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Re: Returning user observation
« Reply #5 on: September 03, 2003, 10:06:23 PM »
Quote

alex wrote:
Now I read the threads that after all the development on AOS 4, the best I can get is a PPC "feeling" like a fast '060.  Well I have that, so what's the exercise for?
AmigaOS may not need a PPC, but applications do. I don't think it's true that all Amiga apps suck (eg, I've yet to find an email client I prefer over YAM), but getting modern applications such as web browers, DTP etc, is going to require more than 68k.

Quote
Now, I'm not hatng on the PPC move, in fact, I'm loving it, but it seems to me that all this talk of memory protection, blah blah blah, we're missing the point that it's the application that we really need and an updrade to the APIs for these applications.
AmigaOS 4 is supposed to have improved APIs. Some of these APIs (eg, Mesa) are going to benefit from faster CPUs.
 

Offline sdesros

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Re: Returning user observation
« Reply #6 on: September 03, 2003, 10:19:00 PM »
Quote
But after 5 minutes of using it, I was like DAMN! this sucker is responsive as all hell.


Well to be honest, I used to get that impression with my A4000 w/CSMkIII-060 + UWSCSI harddrive and Cybervision 64/3D.  But compared to my G3 Pegasos + MOS it just seems soooo sluggish now.  :-D  [The clincher was loading up quake, I think it took a grand total of 2 seconds for it to load. ]

Quote

SO then I loaded up the apps.  Web browsers, DTPs, worpros, spreadsheets.

What I noticed was that it wasn't the machine or OS that was bad, but the Apps that SUCKED!!!!!


Which versions and which apps sucked?  Not many of them have been updated in a good long time.   FroggerNG [yes, can finally watch DivX, QuickTime and other movie files on an Amiga-ish system], IBrowse 2.3, MIami, Yam do pretty much of my day to day things.  (Even my on-line banking. :P)  I really just need a good JAVA implementation and working video-capture/edit software and I'd be all set. :P

Quote

Now I read the threads that after all the development on AOS 4, the best I can get is a PPC "feeling" like a fast '060.  Well I have that, so what's the exercise for?


Well, that's a fast 060 on a Amiga4000 with CyberstormPPC running a relatively "slow" PPC.   The exercise is to eventually decouple the AmigaOS from the older Amiga hardware and bring it up to a more modern level.   In the case of OS4, the AmigaOne.

If I can try and transpose how an 060 based A4000 running OS3.9 feels compared to a G3-600 Pegasos system.  Then I'm positive that OS4 + AmigaOne should give you at the very least a similar quantum leap.

Quote

Now with that said, is it the transition to PPC that is necessary to get good apps, was the OS the problem, and can the apps have been improved with just a new OS?


I think the main problem is hardware.  As far as I know, no one is building anymore AGA chips, no one is assembling any more Amiga systems and hardly anyone service these systems.   The amiga market is shrinking, not expanding.  And lack of horsepower isn't helping matters.  You want to play mp3's while browsing?  Oh, you want to watch this cool DivX film online?  You want to run an emulator?

Add on top of that the cost to upgrade classic hardware.   I look at the Zorro cards I've got and for a time I was considering scrapping them all and getting a Mediator to switch to PCI.  

Quote

Now the REAL million dollar question that begs is, does the AOS 4 and PPC upgrade really finally spell the true end of the current Amigas, or will people continue to support the older stuff once the new comes out.


Well, it's quite possible.  There is a market for WinUAE users.  I use WinUAE on my laptop so I can work on things online.  Amithlon users are there as well.  Not to mention Pegasos + MOS users as well.  The one common denomicator between OS4, UAE, Amithlon, MOS is OS3.x 68k binaries.  (Also note that AROS is compatible with OS3.x source code.)

Hardware-wise, I can see classic amiga hardware getting less and less upgrade options without making the jump to PCI.
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Offline carls

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Re: Returning user observation
« Reply #7 on: September 03, 2003, 10:37:54 PM »
Quote
Now with that said, is it the transition to PPC that is necessary to get good apps, was the OS the problem, and can the apps have been improved with just a new OS?


Of course the move to a faster CPU will help writing up-do-date software that does the things we expect of a program nowadays (IE web browsers, graphics software, DTP etc.) but the programs won't write themselves :-)

I feel that somewhere along the road the focus on Amiga products changed from software to hardware - perhaps because it is easier to design a CPU card if someone has done it before you, than it is to write a word processor incorporating all the features people want. Especially if you're only one or two developers (like with most software released on Amiga lately) and you're competing against Microsoft's huge coder factory.

You make a good point, though. Even if the A1 will be fast and have a responsive OS, it's not much to long for if there won't be any good applications. Let's just keep our fingers crossed :-)
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Offline jeffimix

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Re: Returning user observation
« Reply #8 on: September 04, 2003, 12:28:39 AM »
LOL first time I read that as, "Microsoft's Candy Factory"
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Offline Valan

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Re: Returning user observation
« Reply #9 on: September 05, 2003, 06:14:23 AM »
This is the Chicken and egg problem all over again.

What will come first, the users or the developers?

We need software that is designed by people who know very little about computers.

People who do not know the difference between Amiga, Microsoft, Apple or Palm.

My uncle uses the web and email on a Mac on a daily basis yet knows only how to start the machine and relevant apps, type, send, browse and close the machine.

We all have relatives like this. Programmers and software designers should ask them or watch them on the computer.

Valan
 

Offline amigau

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Re: Returning user observation
« Reply #10 on: September 05, 2003, 06:22:33 AM »
I'd take serious issue with the statement 'we need software designed by people who know little about computers' - I'd argue that M$ is already doing that one, and increasingly making their machines more and more like 'AOL for Windoze'.  I really hate that, enough that I bought a thinkpad used on eBay that I'm going to make into a linux machine when I get it and only tolerate winblows for work stuff from now on, beside my home amiga/amithlon machines.

Macs are ok but I find them boring and too simplistic, they look really nice and have good overall design, but are just too much like a 'working' Microsoft Bob.  

Give me the classic 'amiga' combination of power and elegance anyday.....

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