Amiga.org
Amiga computer related discussion => General chat about Amiga topics => Topic started by: Cryten on November 08, 2006, 08:18:03 PM
-
Hi
I just took out my trusty old Miggy (A4000/CSPPC etc etc) from the storage room, and I fired it up to see if it's still working. It's still running, and for some odd reason I felt like upgrading the OS, but there's still nothing out there to actually look forward to...
So, the question is, how dead is the AMiGA this time? I mean, is there anyting going on out there that may resurrect (the hopes for) the platform once more? For instance, who's the current owner of the rights to the OS (Hyperion, or some obscure company that promises to deliver what everyone else just made promises of for the last 10 years?)?
Could someone compact the last 2-3 years of hope/despair into a short post/reply? :-).
I know, I should have used the search function and I should have done my home work etc etc. Will the words 'I'm sorry' make up for that? ;-).
-
You can try out MorphOS on your machine.
-
Once again the Green Monster rears it's ugly head... I wish *I* had a CyberStorm PPC in my storage room. Maybe Santa will be good to me this year :-)
-
http://powerup.morphos-team.net/
-
Hyperion is still working on AmigaOS4... The last "promise" was for a release around christmas time.. But this was said previous year as well, so i dont get my hopes up. It is already avaliable as a pre release for the few lucky ones who got a hold of the AmigaONE hardware and for some beta testers with classic amiga and a ppc accelrator.
-
I would buy OS4 if it were available. It would not bother me if there was no hardware available or not. I would buy it to support the Amiga.
I hope this is not off topic.
B )
-
now that the pegasos is also discontinued and genesi says it's not planning any new platform for the morphos, morphos can be considered dead as well.
-
@Cryten
I felt like upgrading the OS, but there's still nothing out there to actually look forward to...
Or you can try an emulation while waiting for OS4... http://amikit.amiga.sk ;-)
-
@countzero
genesi says it's not planning any new platform for the morphos
I'm sorry but I can't see how this is relevant. MorphOS will run on any hardware the we decide to add support for, Genesi or other.
-
I'm sorry but I can't see how this is relevant. MorphOS will run on any hardware the we decide to add support for, Genesi or other.
If you decide yeah.. So far it looks pretty negative from what i have read around.. I sure hope it gets ported though.
-
its pretty dead no matter which side you're on. AOS4 has no new hardware. MOS has hardware just not "officially supported". Both sides take a "when its done" approach to the release of their respective OS. IMO AOS4 would be ahead of the game had they had licenced hardware. But hey, I'm just having fun w/emulation and using the real deal. :)
-
Well, at least we own our OS, and don't need to worry about licensing issues.
-
I'm sorry but I can't see how this is relevant. MorphOS will run on any hardware the we decide to add support for, Genesi or other.
But until we see something people will be skeptics. Mac G4 would be a perfect platform to support. Linux can port to the G4 Macs, no reason MorphOS cannot.
-
Some seem to suggest MorphOS, but as been pointed out by others, it seems to only offer a dead end that's very similar to the Amiga. That being said, it on the other hand seem to offer atleast a possible future where things actually will/might happen... Btw, from reading the replies in my own thread, I can see the question of MorphOS or not MorphOS is kind of an infected questions here ;-).
Even if Amiga OS4 was released for classic HW + PPC, and Amiga One, isn't that the very same thing as saying that it will be discontinued anyway? I mean, if there's no new HW to run an OS on, what's the point?
Is there any official statement (MorphOS/AMiGA OS) that the OS will be ported to ANY available HW platform?
-
conspiracy theory :
now that genesi has lost interest in pegasos, maybe hyperion can get rights to the platform and and port os4 and resume production ? :) after all it's a known and working system. and it's has better specs than the current os4 candidates as far as I know ? :)
-
@countzero
Well, the theory is flawed: There are no rights to "get", Pegasos II designs are free for everyone.
-
IMHO, a low cost mobo like the EFIKA is the only way to promote an alternative OS, be it MOS or AOS4. I hope MOS team decides to support Efika...
-
so all the better for the os4 camp ? well this is just brain gymnastics, of course I'm not serious and I know it won't happen. But is there anything that stops the 'red camp' from adopting peg2 and manufacture this board ? (aside from the lack of hardware manufactuing capability) they could even sell it to morphos users.
-
countzero wrote:
so all the better for the os4 camp ? well this is just brain gymnastics, of course I'm not serious and I know it won't happen. But is there anything that stops the 'red camp' from adopting peg2 and manufacture this board ? (aside from the lack of hardware manufactuing capability) they could even sell it to morphos users.
Given that it hasn't happened all the years Pegasos was actually in production I suggest there's a slim to none chance of it happening now.
I'm only guessing that the reason Genesi/bplan dropped the product is that it was non-trivial to make it RoHS compliant and quickly bring it up-to-date spec wise with the markets currently on the radar.
-
Could we please stop worrying about hardware and start focusing on functionality?
Thanks.
-
Could we please stop worrying about hardware and start focusing on functionality?
Ok, so what functionality does non-existing hardware have for us? How can we improve the functionality of the OS without hardware? :-P
-
gdanko wrote:
I'm sorry but I can't see how this is relevant. MorphOS will run on any hardware the we decide to add support for, Genesi or other.
But until we see something people will be skeptics. Mac G4 would be a perfect platform to support. Linux can port to the G4 Macs, no reason MorphOS cannot.
no reason, other than linux being freeware, and both Morphos and OS4 arent. they would need to do it official like, which would mean approaching Apple.... you can work the rest out!
-
@Agafaster
no reason, other than linux being freeware, and both Morphos and OS4 arent. they would need to do it official like, which would mean approaching Apple.... you can work the rest out!
Why would anyone need to contact Apple?
-
cos they own the hardware, no matter how 'obsolete', and the rights to decide who runs what OS on it. Linux is effectively hacked onto the Macs, and not all are supported.
to do it properly, IIRC, would require hardware documentation ? please feel free to correct me if I'm talking bo!!ocks...
as a side note, I would be interested to play with Morphos on my A1. or would I have to rename it Teron first ? ;-)
-
@Agafaster
cos they own the hardware, no matter how 'obsolete', and the rights to decide who runs what OS on it.
No, they do not have the right to block any OS running on their hardware, and they don't even try. They DO try to block Mac OS X running on non-apple hardware, however (and years ago Apple stopped mac clone business).
to do it properly, IIRC, would require hardware documentation ?
You can use open source operating system implementation as a reference. Many components (such as graphics cards) are the same as on PC, anyway, so they're no problem. Some hardware might not have any drivers at all, though (wireless networking hw drivers for example).
as a side note, I would be interested to play with Morphos on my A1
MorphOS requires working cache coherency (just to mention one reason why you won't see MOS on A1).
-
I'll probably get beaten up for this but...
... live free or die. Open source is the only way for oddball platforms to survive in the long run. Commersial operating systems needs a market, open source doesn't, it just need great ideas and devoted coders.
-- Peter
-
Well, at least we own our OS, and don't need to worry about licensing issues.
yet the collective "you" "we" wont support other hardware "officially". Myself, a person looking from the outside in, all I see is a bunch of coders that think they are 1337.
In the beginning you'all had high hopes of MOS. The Genesi deal didnt work out. You guys didnt release any new version of MOS until some counter or whatever reached 0. (you said yourself its not about the money) Never happend nor is it going to. BBRV, in his own way tries to make amends (at least thats what it looked like to me) to sell MOS on Freescale's site. Everything is there for "you" "we" to make money yet you'all dont need the money..
"Hey you'd better not promote our product without our permission!" "We dont care to be known" (heavy on the sarcasm..)
So keep working on MOS for your own little clique of programmers..release whatever "internal betas" with whatever features because even support for your OS is dying.
If the rumors are true that the Pegasos board (the original) will not be made anymore, then thats great news. Smartest thing BBRV has ever done. Why? Because it will force MOS to conform to new hardware. Support new hardware or end up getting de-supported yourself.
Sorry about the rant Amiga fans. I'm just tired of collective NOBODYS jerking users around.
-Alex
-
Piru wrote:
@Agafaster
no reason, other than linux being freeware, and both Morphos and OS4 arent. they would need to do it official like, which would mean approaching Apple.... you can work the rest out!
Why would anyone need to contact Apple?
I think Hyperion babbled about not being able to port to G4 Macs because Apple has the design locked down so they cannot get documentation or some such. This is a load of crap since Yellowdog and Debian and Gentoo exist for Macs.
-
gdanko wrote:
Piru wrote:
@Agafaster
no reason, other than linux being freeware, and both Morphos and OS4 arent. they would need to do it official like, which would mean approaching Apple.... you can work the rest out!
Why would anyone need to contact Apple?
I think Hyperion babbled about not being able to port to G4 Macs because Apple has the design locked down so they cannot get documentation or some such. This is a load of crap since Yellowdog and Debian and Gentoo exist for Macs.
It's not as clear cut as that, remember BeOS was also unable to run on any mac hardware post iMac due to the same reasons.
Yes it is possible to work around it as linux has done. But, it takes time and resource that Niether Be Inc had or Hyperion has.
But beyond that for a moment. What would be the point in porting to yet another dead end platform?
PPC Macs are no longer produced, indeed the only folk producing anything that could conceivably be considered a PPC desktop system are IBM and Genesi (as and when their new dual G5 board is released) and they are both more geared to the high end workstation market then the joe public consumer grade desktop system.
If AOS isn't ported to a platform that has a reasonable lifespan, then it's game over.
I'm sorry, but as it stands, outside of being ported to something like the GPx2 or x86 mainstream, AOS with the current encarnation is it for the platform. Same goes for MOS realistically.
-
Well, I have ebayed a few amigas with hopes to buy OS4.0, but with no news out of Amiwest, I have bought a Mac instead :(
I still have several Amigas, but like many, I am not expecting much. I hate that we are being relegated to a hobbiest group rather than an alternative OS that it should be.
-
@TheMagicM
You guys didnt release any new version of MOS until some counter or whatever reached 0. (you said yourself its not about the money) Never happend nor is it going to.
This wasn't "we", the MorphOS Team. This was some disgruntled developer who got shafted by Thendic/Genesi/whoever, and made some silly claims that he would block MorphOS releases. We (the MorphOS Team) have since released two new MorphOS releases, 3D driver update package, and various smaller bug fix releases (not to mention the developer material which has gotten updated dozens of times). The "counter" has never reached 0.
MorphOS 1.5 will be released, but not before it's ready for release.
-
hey piru, will 1.5.1 be released for us classic users ? is it planned?
-
But beyond that for a moment. What would be the point in porting to yet another dead end platform?
PPC Macs are no longer produced
There are 1000x more PPC Macs than A1/Pegs combined, and they will continue to be available via ebay etc for a long time. Sounds good enough reason to me.
-
@keropi
I see no technical reason why it couldn't be released, other than not having as wide driver support as would be desirable. But the "100% certain" platforms for now are Pegasos I and II.
-
nice, thanx :-D
-
Piru wrote:
There are 1000x more PPC Macs than A1/Pegs combined, and they will continue to be available via ebay etc for a long time. Sounds good enough reason to me.
I agree. Regarding how cheap they are (and even will be in the future), the option of running MorphOS on them would be awesome.
-
Piru wrote:
But beyond that for a moment. What would be the point in porting to yet another dead end platform?
PPC Macs are no longer produced
There are 1000x more PPC Macs than A1/Pegs combined, and they will continue to be available via ebay etc for a long time. Sounds good enough reason to me.
We played this game before.
We played it for 12 years with our current kit.
Porting to a dead platform is not a way forward, only the most blinded zealot would think that such a move would be anything other then stupifyingly shortsighted.
Yes, there's a lot of this kit floating about the place, but no more will ever be built again, even with the current AOS4 codebase, with the limited resources at hand it could take a couple of years just to port to one or two of the available models. If you truly want a future for your platform of choice, then your only option is to move to something that also has a future.
If you port to PPC mac, you are just hammering in another nail into the already overly secure coffin of the Amiga.
-
I see no technical reason why it couldn't be released, other than not having as wide driver support as would be desirable.
Ah, that's good to hear. I think most of us Powerup-users will be already very pleased to get an update to 1.5. No need to support all strange clockport-devices. Driver support is IMHO already quite good, ok, Mediator-support is lacking, but I do understand the reasons for that. I am very pleased with MOS Powerup so far, great work guys!
If I would only be able to finally register it... Hey, I will make a nice Paypal donation afterwards (hint, hint). ;-)
-
Porting to a dead platform is not a way forward, only the most blinded zealot would think that such a move would be anything other then stupifyingly shortsighted.
Ok then, please point us at the current alternatives on the PPC-market? Are there any other proven, relatively cheap and powerful PPC-platforms that are available in numbers and that have a future path? No? The only alternative would be to go x86, but before doing that, you would first need to assess what you are really aiming at with your OS.
If you want to go the commercial route and want to target at the desktop users, then there might be no other way than going x86. Hyperions problem is exactly that: I guess they originally planned to make some money with their OS, but how realistic is that on a license-restricted "only-PPC" and "we need custom HW" niche market?
The targets of the MOS-team might be different, for most of us they might still appear rather fuzzy, so I just wouldn't risk to tell them which route they should go.
-
I dont think I have seen anyone mention OS 3.9 for the Amiga. It runs very well and if you add a Mediator board and put the 4000 into a tower case you get a very functional computer and its alot of fun working on the towerising project. The Mediator alows you to use some of the cheep PCI sound and graphic cards in your Amiga while still giving you Zorrow II & III slots for Amiga hardware.
-
humppa wrote:
Porting to a dead platform is not a way forward, only the most blinded zealot would think that such a move would be anything other then stupifyingly shortsighted.
Ok then, please point us at the current alternatives on the PPC-market? Are there any other proven, relatively cheap and powerful PPC-platforms that are available in numbers and that have a future path? No?
PPC as a desktop system, beyond highly specialised products like IBM workstations (which cost in the multiples of thousands each) and genesi's forthcoming multi cpu boards is a dead end.
Only highly specialised markets within the embedded industry really use ppc now, and for most of these applications, AmigaOS is in no position to be marketable (most of these things require, at a minimum, memory protection and stability far beyond what AOS can offer).
The only alternative would be to go x86, but before doing that, you would first need to assess what you are really aiming at with your OS.
If you want to go the commercial route and want to target at the desktop users, then there might be no other way than going x86. Hyperions problem is exactly that: I guess they originally planned to make some money with their OS, but how realistic is that on a license-restricted "only-PPC" and "we need custom HW" niche market?
AmigaOS would need to be rebuilt from the ground up again to have a chance in the mainstream. It wouldn't be able to compete with Zeta, let alone one of the big boys as it stands.
There are however niche sectors even within the x86 market, look at the epia platforms from VIA - low cost, specialised hardware with lots of custom chips to play with. I'm genuinely surprised that there hasn't already been a port to epia tbh.
But seriously, give it up on PPC, for the Amiga's needs it's game over.
-
Releasing for G4 Macs would grow the platform exponentially. With the small footprint of the OS, a 1 GHz Mac G4 that sells for $100 on craigslist would be a smoking fast MorphOS machine and you could still play your Amiga games. When it comes down to it, MorphOS is the future of AmigaOS.
-
tonyvdb wrote:
I dont think I have seen anyone mention OS 3.9 for the Amiga. It runs very well and if you add a Mediator board and put the 4000 into a tower case you get a very functional computer and its alot of fun working on the towerising project. The Mediator alows you to use some of the cheep PCI sound and graphic cards in your Amiga while still giving you Zorrow II & III slots for Amiga hardware.
Great systems, but they are not only dead end platforms, but also starting to get very fragile due to age.
I love seeing the old girls at Amiga meets, but as time goes on their numbers will continue to dwindle.
-
gdanko wrote:
Releasing for G4 Macs would grow the platform exponentially. With the small footprint of the OS, a 1 GHz Mac G4 that sells for $100 on craigslist would be a smoking fast MorphOS machine and you could still play your Amiga games. When it comes down to it, MorphOS is the future of AmigaOS.
Tbh that $100 would be better spent on a pc laptop of the same vintage and run amitholon on it.
Same software, faster hardware and an upgrade path ahead of you.
-
I love seeing the old girls at Amiga meets, but as time goes on their numbers will continue to dwindle.
I don't know about that. I've seen some that are fragile and others that are in GREAT shape. Fortunately most of mine are of the latter.. excellent condition!
-
gdanko wrote:
I love seeing the old girls at Amiga meets, but as time goes on their numbers will continue to dwindle.
I don't know about that. I've seen some that are fragile and others that are in GREAT shape. Fortunately most of mine are of the latter.. excellent condition!
As time goes on that proportion will only increase toward the fragile end of the scale.
What surprises me the most about all of this is just how much of the old kit works at all!
Good to know there are people out there that look after it all :-)
-
When it comes down to it, MorphOS is the future of AmigaOS.
even that remains to be seen. They've never heard of project management before or deadlines etc. If they were to keep track of progress/work being done like AROS Devel does then I'd be more then I'd take your comment into consideration.
-
Cryten wrote:
Some seem to suggest MorphOS, but as been pointed out by others, it seems to only offer a dead end that's very similar to the Amiga.
I don't see your point.
You have a good A 4000 CSPPC, so you have the lucky opportunity to try a modern Amiga-Like OS like MorphOS.
It is not suggesting you to try or not a dead end.
It is mounting on your computer a modern AmigaOS-like Operating System.
With MorphOS you will start exploring the brave new world of PPC-only and Amiga-Like OSes such as like AmigaOS and MorphOS.
Just try it, and if you like it, you at least re-juvenate your A4000, because then PPC will work at its best performance working with MorphOS.
----------
Then, regarding new hardware for existing AmigaOS and MorphOS.
AmigaOS could continue survive on new Samantha from Italy, the new Panda Board, which are the major candidates...
And perhaps there is AROS that runs on PPC, X86, and it has being ported to support 64bit X86...
...and someone rumors of a misteriooooous italian project Moana, a full size board with high clocked CPU, at very cheap price, due to new incoming family of PPC processors.
About MorphOS it works on Efika boards, except the fact, it has been tested for internal use of Genesi and MorphOS team and actually it will be not sold with Efika.
We however are waiting for the heir of Pegasos II, the Pegasos III based on dual core PPC G4 model 8641D, clocked at 1,7 GHz.
Such a processor clocked at 1,7 GHz should let many Intel Core Duo, clocked at same speed to bit the dust.
By the way, it has recently noted that 8641D run flawlessly asymmetrical processing with one core at a time, so for the first times, it will be no necessary to transform either AmigaOS nor MorphOS to achieve SMP Operating Systems features.
-
TheMagicM wrote:
Well, at least we own our OS, and don't need to worry about licensing issues.
yet the collective "you" "we" wont support other hardware "officially". Myself, a person looking from the outside in, all I see is a bunch of coders that think they are 1337.
In the beginning you'all had high hopes of MOS. The Genesi deal didnt work out. You guys didnt release any new version of MOS until some counter or whatever reached 0. (you said yourself its not about the money) Never happend nor is it going to. BBRV, in his own way tries to make amends (at least thats what it looked like to me) to sell MOS on Freescale's site. Everything is there for "you" "we" to make money yet you'all dont need the money..
"Hey you'd better not promote our product without our permission!" "We dont care to be known" (heavy on the sarcasm..)
So keep working on MOS for your own little clique of programmers..release whatever "internal betas" with whatever features because even support for your OS is dying.
If the rumors are true that the Pegasos board (the original) will not be made anymore, then thats great news. Smartest thing BBRV has ever done. Why? Because it will force MOS to conform to new hardware. Support new hardware or end up getting de-supported yourself.
Sorry about the rant Amiga fans. I'm just tired of collective NOBODYS jerking users around.
-Alex
QFT
-
Raffaele wrote:
We however are waiting for the heir of Pegasos II, the Pegasos III based on dual core PPC G4 model 8641D, clocked at 1,7 GHz.
I dont think thats the answer though. It will be expensive. Right now for whats left of the Amiga market, we need something cheap and good and a OS development team that keeps the public up-to-date on what is going on with the OS. Bugs, fixes, updates etc.
-
I'd love to see OS4 release with all new hardware.
But I think a realistic option for those of us who are still happy to play with classic systems and software are these FPGA Amiga clones.
As our original hardware fails, hopefully in future, we will be able to buy replica amiga hardware in this form.
Five years ago, Commodore 64 enthusiasts never would have though there would be newly produced C-64 computers. Now they have both the C-One and the Commodore 64-DTV. Both are not only new implementations of the hardware, but offer EXPANDED features (in the case of the DTV, new colour and graphics modes).
When it finally becomes feasible to produce an Amiga in a joystick, someone will do it. Then we can hack it back into a case. Maybe one day it will be feasible to put the equivalent of an Amiga/060/RTG graphics/sound on a single chip. There's no reason why this hardware even has to be limited to the speed of the original 68XXX chips. It could technically be a 68000, but run at many times the speed of one.
While this isn't a path forward, it's at least a continuation of the classic Amiga line for those of us who like to use that.
-
And perhaps there is AROS that runs on PPC, X86, and it has being ported to support 64bit X86...
Currently, AROS runs on x86 (native, hosted and emulated), PPC Hosted (work is being done on native PPC which will eventually include EFIKA). X86_64 is in developement. AFA for 68K Amigas.
Dammy
TeamAROS (http://www.teamaros.org)
-
Piru wrote:
MorphOS 1.5 will be released, but not before it's ready for release.
Hahaha, where have I heard a phrase like that used before?
:-) No offense intended, just pointing it out thats all.
-
neon32 wrote:
Piru wrote:
MorphOS 1.5 will be released, but not before it's ready for release.
Hahaha, where have I heard a phrase like that used before?
:-) No offense intended, just pointing it out thats all.
But I bet that you never heard that phrase coming from MOS german programmers.
If they had had said to any people that they will release MOS 1.5 when it will be done, it sure means quite dam*ed exactly what it means.
These people sure are krazy goott perfektionizts and they don't want to release any MorphOS 1.5 until ALL modules will be perfect as they like it (as intended from a prussian point of view)!
Ach So!
:-D :lol: :-P
-
Thanks for all the replies and views shared. It's appriciated :).
I personally think that the only viable option to get a larger user base would be to port the OS to some standard HW that's already available to the user. The cheaper, the better, and what's cheaper than HW you already own? So, I think it would have been nice to see a plan to port MorphOS/Amiga OS to x86. Maybe AROS is the way to go, but the last time I checked, it was nothing more than a nice project (nothing wrong with that, unless you're looking for an OS).
-
Apps are being added and updated for AROS. Once EUAE is integrated, the apps issue should be greatly reduced.
Dammy
TeamAROS
-
dammy wrote:
Apps are being added and updated for AROS. Once EUAE is integrated, the apps issue should be greatly reduced.
Dammy
TeamAROS
Here are a few of must-haves to really make this a good Amiga Evolution.
1) Natively booting into AROS. ie; not relying an underlying OS like Linux or Windows
2) Native support for the Mac G4 platform as I suggested for MorphOS
3) Full EUAE integration
4) This is a big one but I think it'd doable. Create an AROS (Amiga) preferences applet to alter the way the EAUE subsystem operates. In other words, have settings CPU, fast mem, etc.
This would be an ideal platform for newer app development, classic app operation, and mass market saturation.
Just my .02
-
Here are a few of must-haves to really make this a good Amiga Evolution.
Been many a moon since AROS went native. What I'm really waiting for is AROS-64 (x86_64) port to be finished.
2) Native support for the Mac G4 platform as I suggested for MorphOS
A dev is working on that, I'm sure he would welcome more folks to achieve this objective.
3) Full EUAE integration
Waiting on a Dev to free some time to begin working on it. He said he would throw in TCP/IP bridge software as well.
4) This is a big one but I think it'd doable. Create an AROS (Amiga) preferences applet to alter the way the EAUE subsystem operates. In other words, have settings CPU, fast mem, etc.
Yup, that too. He's going to be busy, so he's waiting to have enough time to do it. Hence the waiting on his official "I'm ready, let's do it." confirmation email to TeamAROS.
Dammy
TeamAROS
-
Dammy,
I haven't been able to get it installed directly from the CD to a blank hard disk. Is there a HOWTO somewhere?
-
It's not easy, see this thread (http://aros-exec.org/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=1732&viewmode=flat&order=ASC&start=0). IMO, it needs a full rewrite (http://thenostromo.com/teamaros2/?number=6).
Dammy