Amiga.org
Operating System Specific Discussions => Amiga OS => Amiga OS -- Development => Topic started by: NewRevolution on June 09, 2003, 03:44:36 AM
-
Hi guys, I've been away from Amiga for a while - just looking at articles now and then where Amiga promise gold and green forests (a saying in Norway) and delivers nothing :-(
But I want to get back into Amiga and see if there is anything we can do. Amiga lives for only one reason (I believe) - and that is us, the Amiga community.
So to the core of this thread :-D
Motorola has stoped developing the 680xx processors right? So what new processor technology is the new OS4 built on? What language is used? I've seen there are no SDKs out which is really bad. If Amiga wants to rise, they need the supporting community to start developing software for OS4. What is the point of a new OS if there are no applications available for it?
The most important applications (I believe) are: a "office" packages like Star Office and (urk) Windows Office, multimedia programs and computer games :-p
The OS must be cross platform compatible. It must be able to read / write files from other systems (Microsoft, Mac, Linux / Unix).
Open Source!!! Linux is now a serious threat to Windows - only because of open source concept. I believe that developing programs with the open source principle is a good start for the rise of Amiga.
In the end; no one wants to use a system that cannot be used with other systems. People must feel that they can "identify" the new Amiga system with allready existing OS/GUI platforms. Preventing users to go through a new learning curb will highly improve the attitude towards the Amiga OS (and GUI).
-
Hi,
Lets see. In no particular order...
680x0 development has stopped but the core is still going as coldfire, which at least one guy here is determined to put into just about every 68K amiga model going. Given that the coldfire runs up to 300+ MHz, I hope he succeds :-)
OS4, OTOH, is PowerPC based (60x/G3/G4). It is targetted to run on the AmigaOne series and also (at the time of posting) the CyberStormPPC accelerator for the A4000/A3000. Emulation of the 680x0 processor is built in to allow older 68k programs to function. The emulation is based on a JIT technology rather than interpretation.
The main language for development is still C/C++. The developer tool of choice IIRC is gcc ;-)
OS4 should be largely compatible with 3.1. Given the amount of time and effort put into it I wouldn't hold your breath for an open source version. If that's more your bang, however, check out AROS.
Supporting other filesystems has been there since v2 IIRC
-
Thanks.
Still, I must be lagging a bit behind.....
What is IIRC and gcc :-?
Open source or not doesn't really matter.
So if I get a hold of a PowerPC based (60x/G3/G4) system (e.g. Mac) - I can just start programming? Or can i develop applications for Amiga on my PC?
I recon as loong as the coding isn't hardware specific, it doesnt really matter. But if I start programming against file system, memory etc - I should have a Amiga platform.
-
NewRevolution wrote:
Thanks.
Still, I must be lagging a bit behind.....
What is IIRC and gcc :-?
IIRC == If I Recall Correctly
GCC is a C compiler
Open source or not doesn't really matter.
So if I get a hold of a PowerPC based (60x/G3/G4) system (e.g. Mac) - I can just start programming? Or can i develop applications for Amiga on my PC?
I recon as loong as the coding isn't hardware specific, it doesnt really matter. But if I start programming against file system, memory etc - I should have a Amiga platform.
I am afraid just any PPC solution will not help. However, there are a few solutions that can help you focus on developing apps that can run on AmigaOS once it arrives:
First, buy an Amiga w/ a PowerPC card. That limits you to an Amiga 4000 or 1200, with the Phase5 cards. The 4000 solution especially offers you a rapid case, for you get the actual AmigaOS and will gain earlier access to the next-gen AOS as well as to the Amiga-compatable OS, MorphOS.
Next, if you have a PC already, there is Amithlon. Amithlon is an emulated Amiga for the PC on a custom Linux kernel. Not the easiest thing to work with in my experience, but some people enjoy it.
Finally there is the Pegasos motherboard, a PowerPC motherboard that comes with the forementioned MorphOS. Some people slag off MorphOS, others praise it, but from your viewpoint it might do the job. Since MorphOS is an AmigaOS-API compatable OS, an application developed for it should re-compile for AmigaOS 4.0 without much effort once it arrives. Plus then you'd cover your bet, having an app for both PPC'd Amiga solutions.
Some people might mention the AmigaONE motherboard from Eyetech, but it only runs Linux at this point, so for your needs (that is, as a developer) it does not do the job at this point.
That's how the cards fall from my point of view. And as I know someone will bring it up if I don't mention it, I work for Genesi, the makers of the Pegasos, so I am biased naturally to our solution. I am trying to present an honest and fair evaluation of your options, however. I just hope this was helpful.
-
by downix on 2003/6/8 23:30:40
Next, if you have a PC already, there is Amithlon. Amithlon is an emulated Amiga for the PC on a custom Linux kernel. Not the easiest thing to work with in my experience, but some people enjoy it.
You forgot to tell him about AROS (http://www.aros.org) which he can use a standard PC and run either hosted (most perferred if doing any developing on) on Linux or go with a straight (and difficult to do) native install of AROS.
Dammy
-
Also Amithlon and Cloanto's AmigaForever.
I have Amithlon, AF, and a Pegasos with MorphOS. I think I may want to try out AROS too :-) There should be both PPC and x86 AROS... :-) So many toys!!
-
dammy: Do you have any experience with AROS? Because it looks interesting. Just wondering how compatible it is with my (now about 10 years old) Amiga programs like Opus, DiskMaster and all the other programs I can't remember. And games offcourse!
Targhan: wanna elaborate on Amithlon, AF, Pegasos and MorphOS?
These are all new HW / SW to me.
-
@Downix:
GCC is a C compiler
That's like saying "the sun's a bit bright" :-D
GCC is one of the best C/C++/Objective-C/Java/Pascal/Fortran compiler suites out there (it's the standard compiler on loads of unices, including linux), and it's free as in Stallman. You can download just the C or C++ parts though, you don't need the whole enchilada.
-
@NewRevolution
Absolutely, I'm more than willing to share what I know. First, there is AmigaForever (I call it AF), which has the least amount of contriversy surrounding it. Quite simply, AF is a complete UAE emulation soluton that legally has use of the names, roms, etc. It is available through Cloanto, the same company/developer that created PPaint. It has the limitations of an emulator, but in some cases emulation is better than the actual advancement of the platform. (Example: try to run a game for OS1.3 on a 3.x machine. Then, try to run it on AF. Chances are it will work better on AF than on the real Amiga!) I believe the url for more info is www.cloanto.com (or is it .it ?)
Amithlon. This is what I would call a "higher class" of emulation. Amithlon runs on x86, but does not require another OS to be present on the machine. It uses a modified linux kernal (hidden) to boot up to AmigaOS 3.x. There are a few bugs, but on a whole the system is really nice. I have Amithlon on a tri*boot PC, and it's faster than either Linux or Windows on the same computer. (Your milage may vary) Unfortunately, there is a war between the two "core developers" of this project. Talk about flames.. Good grief! The mere mention of Amithlon is sometimes enough to get a war started. Basically, it's a good system; however, it does show the scars of the constant bickering. The url for this would be www.amithlon.de. I believe that one of the two main developers is also maintaining a website for Amithlon, but the url escapes me at the moment.
-
Motorola has stoped developing the 680xx processors right? So what new processor technology is the new OS4 built on? What language is used? I've seen there are no SDKs out which is really bad. If Amiga wants to rise, they need the supporting community to start developing software for OS4. What is the point of a new OS if there are no applications available for it?
PPC. There is an ever-so-slight problem of chicken and egg here. Regardless of SDKs, it' s a tad difficult to develop for a currently non-existent platform. Any current developers know how they'll need to develop stuff for OS4, but newcomers are what the platform needs.
As Hyperion/AI have said before, OS4 is just the beginning, to get something "out there" with a reasonable compliment of basic new features. Once OS4 is released and shipping on AmigaOnes, then people outside the community will begin to see that the platform is actually running again and isn't just being powered by vapour.
After OS4 come more features to bring AmigaOS back up to scratch to be able to compare with other operating systems, and to draw in new [newbie] customers.
The most important applications...
True.
The OS must be cross platform compatible. It must be able to read / write files from other systems (Microsoft, Mac, Linux / Unix).
Presumably you mean it must be able to read other operating systems *filesystems*, rather than their files. Of course it can "read" and "write" to the files, they're just files, but if you mean "can it read and properly parse a Word file", then no. That's the job of another piece of software, as is the case on every platform.
Open Source!!! Linux is now a serious threat to Windows - only because of open source concept. I believe that developing programs with the open source principle is a good start for the rise of Amiga.
The platform still needs an army of developers, open sourcing or not. Personally I think it needs a 50/50 mix of the two types, commercial and opensource. The platform has to get back into the OS race quickly in order to keep its current supporters and to attract newcomers.
In the end; no one wants to use a system that cannot be used with other systems.
That's a very broad term. Care to elaborate?
Preventing users to go through a new learning curb will highly improve the attitude towards the Amiga OS (and GUI).
I disagree to a certain extent. I agree once you get to the extreme of "horrendous amounts to be learnt otherwise you can't use anything on the platform". However, talking about "preventing users from going through a learning curve" is tantamount to saying "it should work just like Windows". Which we don't want. Thinking that users shouldn't have to learn anything just helps perpetuate the same kind of user ignorance that is rife today.
I don't think users should have to learn everything there is to learn about a platform, but at the moment there is an attitude of not wanting to learn "because they shouldn't have to". A good practical working knowledge for using a computer: installing apps, knowing where you put your files, steering clear of trojans/viruses, file management, and general day-to-day apps usage (everything they need to know to do what they need to do regarding that app).
It really gets my back up when I've told the same person for the fiftieth time how to find the Control Panel on Win9x and they still have to ask. This is because that kind of person places no value on learning that kind of thing. To me, that would be like a person owning a car and having to have a techie to switch on the stereo for them.
-
Pegasos: A PPC mainboard that is designed to run MorphOS, along with several other OS's. This can be compared to the AmigaONE hardware, and it often is. It is rumored that there may be an OS4 kit for Pegasos, but it may have been part of flamebait. Irregardless, in the forums here, Pegasos is tied to the "Great OS4 MorphOS Debate." I wish I had more solid ground for this, but, sadly, I do not. I do believe AROS is being ported (Which is another Amiga-ish OS, which I have to investigate more myself).
MorphOS... Oh yeah, mentioning either OS4 or MorphOS here is almost asking for a flame war. It seems as if the two (AmigaOS / MorphOS) are diametrically opposed. MorphOS is very difficult to explain, in that it is a new OS but also a reimplementation of the AmigaOS. The most blatent difference between the two (other than who is flaming whom) is that MorphOS has integrated MUI rather than ClassAct (classact is now called reaction, fyi).
The best place for information on the Pegasos is PegasosPPC (http://www.pegasosppc.com).
And for MorphOS: www.morphos.net (http://www.morphos.net).
NewRevolution: Please check out the various websites before spending too much time reading the flames that are bound to happen.
(Equel opportunity time here: more info on OS4 is at os.amiga.com (http://os.amiga.com).)
-
NewRevolution wrote:
dammy: Do you have any experience with AROS? Because it looks interesting. Just wondering how compatible it is with my (now about 10 years old) Amiga programs like Opus, DiskMaster and all the other programs I can't remember. And games offcourse!
Targhan: wanna elaborate on Amithlon, AF, Pegasos and MorphOS?
These are all new HW / SW to me.
AROS is source Code Compatible with Amiga Apps. This means they have to be recompiled. With older Games who use the graphics custom chip of the Amiga you won't have any luck. Newer Games who support graphics card should work after a recompile too. Well at least when AROS will be finished.
-
@NewRevolution:
Since you're new here, let me give you a bit of background... the amiga is currently split into two subgroups, one is the group that favours the Morphos/Pegasos solution (as Downix mentioned, he leans that way) and the other favours the AmigaOS4/AmigaOne solution (I lean in that other direction, but am just a prospective customer). The split basically got created because people got tired of waiting for an new Amiga.
First was Morphos, this started life as the OS for an Amiga that never saw the light of day (the Pre/Box IIRC). A few years later a company (which would become Genesi) started work on another Amiga successor, and decided to use Morphos instead of starting from scratch. At the head of this group is someone called Bill Buck, he is the CEO (I think?) of Genesi, and sometimes posts using the handle "bbrv". Genesi basically grew from the well-known expansion card company Phase 5. The Pegasos is a PPC motherboard designed by Phase5 engineers, but because of a dispute over hardware bugs with MAI Logic (the makers of one of the core chips in the Pegasos), only 600 were made. Most were sold, but there should be some stock left though. A second-generation Pegasos has been announced, which uses chips by a different manufacturer.
On the other side, there is a trio of companies: Amiga Inc, Eyetech and Hyperion Entertainment. Amiga, Inc was formed by a few ex-employees of Gateway (the "cow" computer company), which bought enough intellectual property rights from Gateway to be able to sell "amiga" branded machines. Its CEO is Bill McEwen, and its CTO is Fleecy Moss. They are involved in two things called "amiga": the Amiga DE, which is a Java-like technology that should let you run the same binaries in many devices. It's taking some time to catch on. The other is the Amiga as you remember. Amiga Inc is a very small company, so they decided to license the "Amiga" brand name to others to make hardware and software. Eyetech is a UK company that also sells Amiga addons, they signed up to sell new Amiga hardware (the CEO of Eyetech is Alan Redhouse). After some time and false starts, they decided to sell a modified version of the MAI Logic "Teron" motherboard under the name "AmigaOne". The operating system (AmigaOS4) is being developed by Hyperion Entertainment, a Belgian company. Hyperion's CEO is Ben Hermans and the senior developers behind OS4 are a pair of identical twins called Hans-Joerg and Thomas Frieden. AmigaOS4 has been in development a little under two years, and has had its first public demonstration this weekend.
Now for the fun part: both groups are bitter rivals, and the source of many flame wars here and at www.ann.lu (another amiga chat site). The reason I did all that name-dropping above was because the corporate officers of these companies, who really should know better, often drop in during these heated exchanges.
A nasty side effect of this rivalry is that the OS you choose to run determines the hardware you buy - you won't be able to run AmigaOS4 on a Pegasos (Amiga Inc and Genesi can't reach a licensing agreement), and the MorphOS team may or may not want to support AmigaOne motherboards (since then Genesi might sell fewer Pegasos motherboards).
One interesting factoid: you might have noticed that the same company (MAI Logic) that made the chip that Genesi claims to be defective, makes the AmigaOne motherboard. The AmigaOne also uses the same chip (called the "Articia S northbridge"). Genesi (and its supporters) claim that the chip is hopelessly flawed, while Eyetech (and it's supporters) claim the chip just has a few harmless quirks that can easily be worked around in the drivers. There are plenty of very vocal supporters of both theories, but as far as I can tell, no uninterested party has definitely determined what the real deal is.
Bottom line: treat anything you read with a pinch of salt, even if (some might say especially if) it comes from one of the "big kahunas" I named above.
Other than that, sit down, have fun! :-D
[EDIT] I forgot to mention AROS... they are a third possibility, they are source-compatible with AmigaOS on non-68K machines (AROS can run on x86 PCs) and binary-compatible on 68K hardware. They have somehow managed to stay out of the fights, probably because they're open source and so no money is involved...
-
@codesmith
Well said.
-
Thanks :-)
I felt the need to give the guy some warning, before he wandered into some flamefest and decided we're all nuts :-D
-
I felt the need to give the guy some warning, before he wandered into some flamefest and decided we're all nuts :-D
I don't know, I think "we're all nuts" is probably a fair assessment :-D
-
(And suddenly I feel like Frodo inside Mordor) :-D
Before I write some more, If I click 'post new thread', will a new msg come under 'Amiga Platforms'? Or do I have to click 'Reply' for that to happend?
Katchung! I'm away for an hour and I can spend an hour reading replys when I get back! I like it - it's healthy!
Alright..... where to start (in no particular order) ;-)
: : mikeymike : :
In the end; no one wants to use a system that cannot be used with other systems.
* That's a very broad term. Care to elaborate? *
I'll try. I guess a lot of what I am thinking of is done on the application side. A word processor can read documents from Mac, MS Office, Lotus etc. When AOL develops their messenger, it can be implemented on a Amiga OS. When applications are developed, they should not have to redesign the whole program to make it wotk on Amiga OS. Amiga OS must be open (enough) to allow other organization develop applications that can be run on different platforms with minor modifications.
I don't think users should have to learn everything there is to learn about a platform (...) It really gets my back up when I've told the same person for the fiftieth time how to find the Control Panel on Win9x and they still have to ask.
Ah - but why do you think the user had to be told 15 times? Besides that it might be u explaining badly... nah just kidding :-D but seriously, why couldn't the user learn it the second or the third time? Some people are less computer litterate than others. But could it have been the design of the system? Could Microsoft have designed it in a way that would make it easier to find the control panel?
We have to remember that what is so obvious for us, might not be obvious at all for someone else. Even if they are used to computers.
When I was mentioning the learning curve - I agree. Users are not to become gurus in the OS. But the time it takes them to approach the system for the very first time and perform a given task, should be drastically reduced after two or three tries.
Now that most users are used to windows based OS's, they should quite quickly get used to the GUI. When microsoft went from Win 3.11 to Win 95, they conducted a pretty big usability test to come up with the Win 95 design. An interesting article about the test, can be found HERE (http://www.acm.org/sigchi/chi96/proceedings/desbrief/Sullivan/kds_txt.htm) and it's worth while reading if you are planning to develop a new OS / GUI for Amiga.
Right, who was next? Ah, yeah - entering the dragons cave! :-D
Does anybody remember the 80s and two companies called IBM and Microsoft? For a very loooong time, they absolutely REFUSED to work "together". As the history goes, we the user population, started demanding. In the 70s and partly the 80s, the programmers told the customers how the applications should be designed. Today, WE tell the designers and programmers how we want it to work.
I cannot remember who, but there has been (and probably still is) feuds between graphic card producers.
What I'm getting at, is that if Mr. Bill Buck and Mr. Bill McEwen (hey - at least the got ONE thing in common) are going to follow the road they are heading, they will run Amiga down the gutter... again. I guess Amiga Inc. sits with the ace by having some of the intellectual property rights. MorphOS should make their system compatible with AmigaOne. It will only strengthen their market share and support - but Amiga Inc. must not charge redicules royalties from MorphOS (I think that is how it works?)
Personaly I hope they can join forces. Bring the best from MorphOS and AmigaOne (OS4) together and build something that will blow standard PC's away!
If they keep the battle up, I think AROS might walk away as a winner!
My personal opinion is that there are no WORKAROUNDs. If a chip has a bug or a "minor defect" FIX IT. Don't build a system on something that might crash. There are plenty of developers that want to create SW for OS4 - but if a faulty chip makes creates more work.........
Thanks guys for all the imput. Guess I better start some research.
Hmm.. how many here is actually from Down Under? I keep seeing signs of it all the time 8-)
-
Re: app compatibility
That depends entirely on how badly written the app is, from a porting point of view.
When I was mentioning the learning curve - I agree. Users are not to become gurus in the OS.
Agreed. Basically if they how to do everything to accomplish what they need to do, that's great.
Your bit about who tells who how something should work has actually changed very little. People who don't know how to program (myself included) don't have a clue how hard something is to implement, and whether it's even worth implementing because of what it might do to the flexibility of the platform.
Your bit about MorphOS - I tend to steer clear of all discussion regarding MorphOS, primarily because I know nothing about it, but I'd guess that MorphOS advocates would disagree with you.
AROS won't win because it's an entirely different architecture, unless something really twisted happens. But then, AROS wasn't intended to "win".
About what you said regarding new users - I agree to a very limited extent that non-computer-literates simply aren't going to be able to grab things so well, but I still think I'm right. Some Non-computer-literates believe they can get away with being so damn ignorant, so they will. Hence the business of someone I know not knowing by now how to locate the Control Panel without prompting. It's not rocket science. He knows how to launch all the apps he needs, also located in the start menu, and it's just as many steps, and he needs to locate the control panel often enough, so he should know.
I know also from personal experience that some people simply aren't going to 'get it' with computers even if they tried for the rest of their lives, and I cut them some slack.
The same person I was talking about regarding the control panel "couldn't learn email" until it became a relatively "trendy" thing to know. Then, miraculously, the person picked it up straight away! Funny that! I've seen that more times than I like to remember.
-
(...) People who don't know how to program (myself included) don't have a clue how hard something is to implement, and whether it's even worth implementing because of what it might do to the flexibility of the platform.
Exactly - that's when they go to the negotiation table. The stakeholders normally doesn't care HOW technology is implemeted, as long as they get what they want. And if that is not possible, they may compromise functionality for perfomance or vica versa.
Whenever I try to do something on a Mac OS - I always struggle a little bit. It's new to me and a bit different from Windows. If I was going to use a Amiga OS - I bet I would have the same problems.
But still, all three are a bit similar. So it wouldn't take me long to get into it.
If we are to reach new user groups, they must not be daunted by the new Amiga OS. It's always a bit scary to try something new - and we can't rely on the Hard Core amiga users forever.
But then again, what will the new Amiga platform be used for? Multimedia boxes? TV set top boxes? If MorpOS or Amiga Inc. are targeting their user groups, I guess it wouldn't matter too much for new "inexperienced" users.
-
AROS won't win because it's an entirely different architecture, unless something really twisted happens. But then, AROS wasn't intended to "win".
Sorry? Care to elaborate?
-
@ falemagn
Wasn't AROS for a "just for the sake of it" project? I might not be remembering my conversation with the main co-ordinator of the project a few years back very well, but I could have sworn it was talked along those lines. I fully admit to the possibility that I could be wrong, and/or the goals of the project have changed since then :-)
-
AROS won't win because it's an entirely different architecture, unless something really twisted happens. But then, AROS wasn't intended to "win".
Not sure what you mean by enirely different architecture... AROS is an AmigaOS 3.1 Clone which is portable accross 68, PPC and x86 (and hopfully more in future)...
But I do agree that AROS was not set up with the intention to win. It is an effort to give the community a Free AmigaOS clone to run on any hardware they choose
-
@ bloodline
That was what I thought as well, that is as well as "to see if it could be done reasonably".
-
mikeymike wrote:
@ falemagn
Wasn't AROS for a "just for the sake of it" project? I might not be remembering my conversation with the main co-ordinator of the project a few years back very well, but I could have sworn it was talked along those lines. I fully admit to the possibility that I could be wrong, and/or the goals of the project have changed since then :-)
If AROS were a "for the sake of it" project you'd not see me working on it, even if just in my spare time. Aaron may have his view on it (but don't let yourself be tricked by "politically correct" words... get what I mean?), but most of the people involved in the project have pretty much other opinions on the matter, myself included.
-
So what's your plan then? To see AROS become the primary Amiga-like platform, but on x86?
I'm not going to go any further than I have, as I'm going into my own opinion on the matter, which I'm not particularly interested in hearing :-)
-
mikeymike wrote:
So what's your plan then? To see AROS become the primary Amiga-like platform, but on x86?
The plan is to complete AROS (as complete as an OS can be) and make it appealing to people. If it will become people's first choice, it's, well, their choice, we just work on what we think is right, which however doesn't mean that we work on it just for the sake of it.
-
falemagn wrote:
mikeymike wrote:
So what's your plan then? To see AROS become the primary Amiga-like platform, but on x86?
The plan is to complete AROS (as complete as an OS can be) and make it appealing to people. If it will become people's first choice, it's, well, their choice, we just work on what we think is right, which however doesn't mean that we work on it just for the sake of it.
I is important to remember that the AROS dev team work very very hard to make AROS. It is our hope that we can give people a viable choice, which is available to them to run on any hardware they choose.
Well feel it's important to have an AmigaOS clone that is not governed by the comercial or political motives of one or several companies, but instead by the needs and desires of the Amiga community.
If you also feel this way, then AROS is there for you.
-
NewRevolution
What I'm getting at, is that if Mr. Bill Buck and Mr. Bill McEwen (hey - at least the got ONE thing in common) are going to follow the road they are heading, they will run Amiga down the gutter... again. I guess Amiga Inc. sits with the ace by having some of the intellectual property rights. MorphOS should make their system compatible with AmigaOne. It will only strengthen their market share and support - but Amiga Inc. must not charge redicules royalties from MorphOS (I think that is how it works?)
Well there is more to this soap opera as there is different game plans.
See Genesi (Pegasos) game plan is hardware they'll sell to anyone even people that don't care about the Amiga and the hardware sales will subsidize MorphOS. Genesi probably wouldn't even mind Amiga OS 4 on their hardware. Yet this means Genesi has little incentive to port MorphOS
The Amiga Inc/Eyetech/Hyperion is a alliance with Amiga Inc at the top with each having their own agenda and intrests.
Amiga Inc game plan is Amiga DE a run anywhere Amiga virtual environment that will be implemented into the Amiga OS later on. So programs for Amiga DE can run on any Amiga DE system.
Hyperion has the right to devlop Amiga OS4 so besides being in the alliance they have no reason not to port it to other hardware but since Eyetech is in the alliance this complicates things.
Eyetech is the hardware end of this alliance. They have delivered hardware yet wait for Hyperion to deliver the OS. Yet Eyetech has a competition on the horizon from the Pegasos 2 with what could be better hardware and better prices. Eyetech has nothing to gain yet alot to lose with the porting of OS 4 to other hardware
So you now you have Amiga users divided with people buying or planing to buy Eyetechs Amiga Ones just for the Amiga OS 4 (since that is the only thing the Amiga One got going for it) yet this is the thorn in the community since if Pegasos 2 lives up to claims and OS 4 gets ported that lobs the ball at the Amiga Ones court to sink or swim. Some think Amiga One needs to be protected since it carriers the Amiga name and Pegasos don't.
-
@ bloodline
There are always politics. Opensource projects do not solve that problem, believe me.
-
@ Psy
Don't we all love politics... :-P
The idea concept for the alliance might have seemed good in the begining - and then they probably signed contracts. Amiga Inc. is shipping AmigaOne with Linux. And what is that? Just another computer with Linux - why call it AmigaOne? Amiga is the OS, not the wrapping.
And doesn't Eyetech have any other customers? Or are they betting everything on one horse? In that case, I think the alliance will be split sooner then they hope.
I still think Amiga Inc. has taken the wrong approach to OS4. I daresay that what Amiga Inc is facing today, is what M$ was facing in the 90s, when they changed from Windows 3.11 to Win95. Such a drastic change is something Amiga Inc. should be looking at. Develop a new platform, but yet have the essence of the good old workbench (3.1)
Of what I have surmised so far, both MorphOS and OS4 will be hardware dependent. That means I have to buy that exact motherboard to make it run. And if the motherboard producer is just a small timer - those boards will cost a fortune , have bad support and be difficult to get a hold on. It's not like all computer stores will start importing them :-(
-
@NewRevolution
Well, a G3 Pegasos rev 2.0 is slated to retail for $299. The G4 for $499.
And yes, I agree that AInc took the wrong approach to AmigaOS. They should have let the MorphOS team be the official OS rather than force so many terms on them that the license would have resulted in a horrid mess and cost years of development time. (Yes, they were negotiating for this at one time, but could never come up with a solution for the requirements that was agreeable to all parties) This hurt AInc, rather than MorphOS, in the end. MorphOS simply allied themselves with AROS to provide the AmigaOS-API compatable system, showing that the source code to AmigaOS itself is not as useful as some might think. The result, however, is this further schisming of the market, no different from a few years ago when WarpUP stepped in to hurt PowerUP, and did nothing but kill the PowerPC'd Amiga platform by throwing multiple standards that could not be made to work together. (Developers didn't know weither to use PowerUP or WarpUP for their solution, so in the end the critical pieces ended up split between both camps resulting in a lack of critical mass for the solution to go forward. This ended up killing the PowerPC card company, Phase5, as not enough customers purchased the card to make a stable enough market to expand with due to the fact that there was no clear development-center in this area, leaving the original 68k Amiga a more attractive option)
Ok, there, blew off some steam. Thanks for giving me the option here. 8)
-
It's a real treat to read a thread such as this without the ann type of flamefest developing.
About the "AmigaOne" hardware - I think it might be reasonable to say that Eyetech, having paid for a hardware design and rights to use the chipset, and faced with a long wait before AOS4 would be available, decided to release the PPC boards under the name "AmigaOne" in order to get some recompense for their efforts. After all, there are plenty of people out there who would like a PPC board to run Linux, and it also made more machines available for developers to get their hands on.
So Linux is the only publicly released OS for it at the moment. No matter, those who like to fiddle have new hardware to play with. Those who are fortunate enough to be AOS4 developers have the real hardware as well. And Eyetech are gradually forming a market for these PPC boards amongst the Linux community.
tony
-
Ah! So Eyetech, if they are lucky, are getting it in both sack and bag (as we say). That means non-Amiga programmers (here: Linux) can start developing HW propritary applications. Not only will they try to gather the Amiga community, but they will start attracting the Linux community as well. Now that is a pretty large user group.
PPC = PowerPC right? And PowerPC runs on the 60x/G3/G4 chipset right?
So what kind of chipset is in the Pegasos boards?
As for Hyperion and their OS4; if the OS is going to be HW dependent, how could they start without Eyetechs PPC boards?
It seems to me that Amiga Inc has been rushing a bit. Amiga has been behind the curtains for the last decade, I don't think a couple of more years would have mattered much. Especially if that would have improved the comming OS4. But as mentioned before, it's more important to get the core functionality to work first, then spice up the OS.
I'm just afraid that OS4 might not be so attractive when it is lounched into the business world! Mostly because it does not really contain any new features... right?
And Tonyw - you are right. It is good to have a "objective" discussion where we can discuss viewpoints without any flamation :-)
Before the start of this thread, I felt a bit lost. Now though, there have been so many quality feedback, that I feel pretty up to date.
Still, I got left to make up my mind about MorphOS and Amiga Inc. And I guess the only way to do that, is to get hands on experience......
-
@Downix:
Developers didn't know weither to use PowerUP or WarpUP for their solution, so in the end the critical pieces ended up split between both camps resulting in a lack of critical mass for the solution to go forward. This ended up killing the PowerPC card company, Phase5, as not enough customers purchased the card to make a stable enough market to expand with due to the fact that there was no clear development-center in this area
The *really* scary part in all this is, that sounds like a very possible outcome in this latest stage of the game (replace PowerUP and WarpUP with AmigaOS and MorphOS). Sure, both OSs will be compatible with AmigaOS 3.1, but who wants to code for the old systems? I don't think any company is going to die this time (genesi has its set-top boxes, hyperion its mac and linux market, eyetech its pc hardware market and amiga has the de), but the most likely casualty will be the amiga itself. The situation needs to be fixed, and SOON. We're running out of time...
-
I knew it! a few years ago I heard rumors that Amiga had been bough by another company. Then I read that they where gonna use Amiga technology in set top boxes (which are for TVs right) - got a bit disapointed with that. Not fully using the Amigas potentiallity.
And what is PowerUP and WarpUP?
-
Ah! So Eyetech, if they are lucky, are getting it in both sack and bag (as we say). That means non-Amiga programmers (here: Linux) can start developing HW propritary applications. Not only will they try to gather the Amiga community, but they will start attracting the Linux community as well. Now that is a pretty large user group.
Well Pegasos is doing the same thing. The outside world already knows of Pegasos. Here is a review from osnews (http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=3589)
Also on Slashdot they had a huge thread about how well Pegasos could run MacOS via Mac On Linux .
It seems to me that Amiga Inc has been rushing a bit. Amiga has been behind the curtains for the last decade, I don't think a couple of more years would have mattered much. Especially if that would have improved the comming OS4. But as mentioned before, it's more important to get the core functionality to work first, then spice up the OS.
Well Amiga Inc is competing with Genesi and Genesi has the upper hand when it comes to funds plus Genesi can afford to lose the battle with MorphOS as Genesi already is positioning Pegasos to be more then just a next gen miggy board ie porting OSs to it like BeOS. The idea to turn the Pegasos into a next gen Atari has also flew around atlest in the community.
-
Basically, PowerUP and WarpUP were PPC kernals for Amigas that had the Cyberstorm or BlizzardPPC cards.
MorphOS is supposed to be portable at some point, and I believe OS4 as well. It should be taken into consideration that these projects have to start somewhere, and the road is a long one indeed.
-
A nasty side effect of this rivalry is that the OS you choose to run determines the hardware you buy - you won't be able to run AmigaOS4 on a Pegasos (Amiga Inc and Genesi can't reach a licensing agreement), and the MorphOS team may or may not want to support AmigaOne motherboards (since then Genesi might sell fewer Pegasos motherboards).
One thing that has been overlooked is the posibility that a 3rd party could decide to license OS4 for the Pegasos 2 motherboard. I don't know if they would need to buy the motherboards in and mod them with AOS4 complient firmware or if they could get away with providing a Pegasos version of AOS4 and possibly requiring customers to send their motherboards in to be modded.
Taking this idea further if a 3rd party went to the trouble of negotiating a deal with A Inc why stop at the Peggy 2, How about having AOS4 on a Mac laptop :idea: or any future PPC hardware if the demand for it is there.