Amiga.org
Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga community support ideas => Topic started by: on April 11, 2007, 05:59:41 AM
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By now everybody has a good idea what I think about ideas like "saving the classic Amiga".
I think any machine that is expected to survive on the market has to evolve. That being said, there are some exceptions. The Commodore 64 was revived 2 years ago under the form of the DTV or D2TV with a bunch of games integrated in it. This added another 500'000 units to the 22 million units sold in the 1980s. But in fact, it did evolve. Even if it was no faster than the original thing, it had a color modulation system that was much better on composite TVs than the original 64 and it was based on the latest digital technology. It was much smaller than the original and it worked on batteries.
It seems to me that the latest incarnation of the Amiga, the AmigaOne, leaves a lot of people on their appetite. The attitude of the company regarding the restrictions of sale of the operating system also leaves a lot of people very frustrated.
The emergence of projects like the Minimig and the Clone-A clearly shows that modern technology can perfectly replicate the functionality of the original chip set and perhaps even the AGA chipset.
If the Amiga is to benefit the latest technology, what would you want it to be?
I think if it is possible for simple Amiga fans (perhaps the kind of fan who happens to have a masters degree in electrical engineering and digital design) to develop operational Amiga clones, it might be possible for some of thewm to join together and redefine the future of the machine.
After I get some feedback from you all, I'll give you my opinion on this.
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Anything that wasn't vapor. :lol:
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Methuselas wrote:
Anything that wasn't vapor. :lol:
This answer frightens me more than just a bit... Macintoshes with OS X and intel processors aren't vaporware and neither is Windows Vista running on a Core 2 Quad.
However, I can assure you this is not what I would want the next Amiga to be.
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I would want it to be AROS with seamless UAE integration. :lol:
Or maybe Clone-A or Minimig with AGA support, truecolour graphics, flickerfixer, scandoubler and a fast processor.
It wouldn't really need to evolve much from my current A4000 setup, as most of the software I run was made more than ten years ago. USB would be nice, however.
I would definitely not want an Amiga-in-a-joystick thing.
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As i don't need a full blown Desktop Amiga i would like a little box to tinker with...
Faster Processor eg. Embedded PPC/Coldfire (running 68k Emulation if necessary.)or an 68060 in an FPGA@200MHz (seems we have to wait for the appropriate FPGA for the last one...)
Enhanced ChipSet with some of the AAA features possibly AGA compatible (eAGA???).
Running OS 3.9 or native AROS with integrated UAE.
Maybe a "big box" version with PCI/AGP connector
Oh what's that for a noise in the backround? Damn, the alarm-clock is ringing, bye bye dream land...see ya next night.
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Don't care what the hardware is TBH. But I dream of OS4 with integrated UAE so WHDLoad games will still run.
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moto
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A new desktop built on an existing OS, and a clever new shell that doesn't have all that abbriviated UNIX naming BS.
As opposed to making an OS from scratch, trying to drag AmigaOS into the modern age (which will never work), or just making a pretty interface on top of UNIX. The idea is to actually fix what's broken and leave the good parts alone. UNIX is a good base, and will be mostly invisible to casual users, anyway.
And for heaven's sake, make UTF-8 and seamless networking standard. I hate text encoding problems and FTP transfers with a passion. UNIX is good, but it is rusty and needs a major overhaul. The POSIX geeks are too scared to break anything. I don't think Amigans would be too afraid to bust compatibility with some decade-old software for the sake of actually improving a few things.
Oh yeah, and put some real thought into the file requeser, too. No OS has a decent file requester, although SkyOS is getting there (it needs a seperate app to do queries, rather than integrating it into the system browser).
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I think a new Amiga should have a nice fast PPC processor (NOT intel), and good 68k / AGA/OCS emulation so we can run all old software without having to setup UAE like you do now.
Also, for me to be happy, it wouldn't be just a bog standard PC. It'd have to be something a little bit more proptietry. Maybe a new chipset that is better than AGA could be used?
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Waccoon wrote:
UNIX is good, but it is rusty and needs a major overhaul. The POSIX geeks are too scared to break anything.
In what way is UNIX rusty and in need of a major overhaul?
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After owning a real A500 and A1200 in the past, I have my next Amiga(s);
-A Laptop running WinUAE.
-AROS bootable CD.
-UAE4all on GP2X.
For someone who was into the games more than the OS, emulation is all I'll ever need (and more). OS4, OS5... meh, why torture yourself?
It would be nice to see an A500 in-a-stick (like the C64DTV) at some point, but if it cant run disk images easily, then I probably wouldnt bother.
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steve30: I think a new Amiga should have a nice fast PPC processor (NOT intel)
Keep in mind that computers are not all about CPUs. A CPU isn't that useful without a good chipset to go with it. Where do you get those components affordably? Insistance on PPC is what gave us the AmigaOne, a buggy, expensive board that is now defunct.
Think function, not form.
skurk: "In what way is UNIX rusty and in need of a major overhaul?"
Well, I already gave two examples. Traditional UNIX doesn't support international text encoding (or anything other than ASCII, really), and the "everything is a file" paradigm is false, because when it comes to networks, you still have to use clients with proprietary command sets (like FTP) to transfer files, instead of just using a shell prompt. These two things alone are really huge disadvantages that have been fixed in "new" (but unpopular) UNIX implemenations, like Plan9 and Inferno. The "old" UNIX community prefers compatibility and consistency over real improvement.
What about filetypes? UNIX filesystems are pretty much braindead in this regard, and require higher-level layers, such as the desktop environment, to do all the dirty stuff.
Delete a file, and it's gone for good, at least at the low-level. Higer-level interfaces are expected to manage journaling. Much more sophisticated history management would be better.
Security is unimpressive, too. Oh yeah, UN*X geeks laugh at Windows, but in reality, UNIX has many of the same security failings as Microsoft's OS. The applications handle security, not the OS. The system will cover its own butt with group accounts, but your files are still fully exposed to any program that runs on your account. Who cares if the OS is safe? It can be re-installed. What about your files? UNIX was designed for mainframes and multiuser groups where the whole is more important than the individual. For single-user systems, UNIX (and Macs) get by on obscurity alone.
Bash is OK for simple stuff, but there's a reason why people write Perl scripts to do anything useful. Simple concepts like arrays are difficult to perform directly through a shell.
There's no way to get the status of a shell command in progress, regardless of how parallel it is. You just have to wait for it to finish. You could use a complex, bloated, high-level framework to monitor that stuff, or you could just build a simple, standard batch monitor into the terminal.
UNIX has no concept of packages, either. I have to say that ".app" archives on the Mac are a major improvement from the rather primitive way UNIX handles application files.
Why can't applications have their own scratch folders -- a "safe" place to put their configuration files and whatnot? It would certainly make backing-up the system a heck of a lot easier, and still allow each user account to have its own configuration settings. It would greatly improve security, too. This is what the Windows System Registry tried to do, but failed miserably. Dammit, I don't WANT my web browser cookies or cache to be accessible to any program running on my account! Keep everything seperate, and don't use some bloated desktop manager API to manage it all!
Lots of things to improve. Instead, some people still want an ancient AmigaOS running on PPC, because Intel is bad. No wonder Microsoft still controls everything. Almost every alternative platform isn't focused on fixing problems. What exactly did BeOS fix? Nothing, really, and that's why it failed.
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A machine that runs OS4, much faster than my A1 933 MHz, using the latest PowerPC technology and available graphic cards.
Varthall
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Multicore laptop running SMP AROS. OK, I got a laptop now running AROS, but neither is SMP currently. With regard to some of the AROS remarks that others have posted, let me point them to UAE Integration (http://thenostromo.com/teamaros2/?number=7) bounty and the ongoing USB (http://thenostromo.com/teamaros2/?number=28) bounty. USB is nearing completion, so there is only a limit amount of time to donate to. Dr. Schulz is working on putting USB into the ROM, which will give use of USB mouse/keyboard during bootup (with the eye towards a USB thumb drive being bootable once Rob is finished with FAT32).
SMP is a long way off for AROS, but the first step towards it will the completion of AROS_64 (http://thenostromo.com/teamaros2/?number=21) which should give AROS the foundation it's going to need.
Dammy
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A Cell powered motherboard with compatibility to AGA for retro stuff and decent graphics at the same time.
Defenitly not x86, that doesn't make sense even on marketing terms (loss of identity) and the x86 market is already covered anyway (Ubuntu/Kubuntu, OpenBe...)
A PS3 running AmigaOS would probably be enouph. :-D
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I've often thought that a handheld Amiga would be really cool. The low-power PPC chips already exist and the various flavours of AmigaOS (official OS4.0 or AROS) can run well on relatively low spec machines. This to me seems like a much better idea than trying to shoe-horn Linux into a pocketable device.
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eslapion,
It seems to me that the latest incarnation of the Amiga, the AmigaOne, leaves a lot of people on their appetite.
That's because it's NOT the Amiga.
If the Amiga is to benefit the latest technology, what would you want it to be?
An expandable Clone-A.
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Waccoon,
Good post, you bring up some valid points. Personally I would like to see Inferno take off especially in the application service world.
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raddude9 wrote:
I've often thought that a handheld Amiga would be really cool. The low-power PPC chips already exist and the various flavours of AmigaOS (official OS4.0 or AROS) can run well on relatively low spec machines. This to me seems like a much better idea than trying to shoe-horn Linux into a pocketable device.
yeah nice, but right now, something that exists, and is available if not quite readily available...
something to run OS4 on (cos that exists at least !) dont really care about the spec right now, to be honest,
but PPC with Radeon and Sound blaster is what OS4 currently likes, and is known to run well on.
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My dream "new Amiga" would be something like this:
Fastest ColdFire CPU
PCI, Ethernet, USB, ATA (or SATA) with DMA
256MB+ Fast, 64MB+ Chip mem
Enhanced AGA compatible chipset in FPGA with the following features:
Supports all "classic" modes
Chunky and 16/24/32 depth modes
Limited 3D support similar to what's in the Sega Saturn (deformed sprites are used as quads to make 3D models)
Classic joystic ports, but hardware support for making USB joystics and mice appear to be available via legacy means so they can be used by hardware banging software
Proper 68000 (or 020 or 030) for booting into a "compatability" mode (possibly integrated into FPGA)
Low level floppy emulation using images on the hard drive
For an OS I'd like to be able to dual boot into AROS and Syllable ( http://www.syllable.org/ ). AROS for running old Amiga software and the full "Amiga experience" and Syllable for an OS that I'd actually like to use for day to day stuff. Of course, at the moment neither of these OSes have working 68K ports, but then again the hardware I described is complete fantasy too. Theoretically classic Amiga OS should run in "compatability mode" if not on the ColdFire with JIT.
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steve30 wrote:
I think a new Amiga should have a nice fast PPC processor (NOT intel)
Yes, that's right, tie it to dead end hardware again - that'll ensure its comback!
:roll:
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I'd like to see the next Amiga be for sale.
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Cheap... that's what sold Amigas in the past and that is what sells computers now.
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Next generation should be 100% compatible with A4000 and run Workbench 3.9. It should have at least one videoslot and one Zorro slot.
It should not run on PPC but on a faster 68k CPU so that software should be able to run without recompile. Off course it should have PCIe and SATA etc etc, and it should be available in Mini-ITX/Micro-ATX
I think it is important that the Amiga chipset is on the motherboard and not in software.
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cv643d wrote:
Next generation should be 100% compatible with A4000 and run Workbench 3.9. It should have at least one videoslot and one Zorro slot.
Why? Nothing you can buy uses those slots....
It should not run on PPC but on a faster 68k CPU so that software should be able to run without recompile. Off course it should have PCIe and SATA etc etc, and it should be available in Mini-ITX/Micro-ATX
Why? Just emulate the 68k... there is pretty much no way you could push a 68k much faster than the 68060... the architecture is just too CISC for high speeds...
I think it is important that the Amiga chipset is on the motherboard and not in software.
Why? Hardware is always a limitation.
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What I would like to see is an Amiga that is likely that the mass-marked would want and buy.
Look at what people are buying right now:
- Big screen TV's that also handles PC-input
- DVD/Harddrive movie recorders
- MediaCenter PC's
- sattelite/cable/Terrestial receivers
So basicly I would like to see an Amiga product that can be a full blown media box that can connect to the HD-TV and handle all these things, and the same time can be used as a computer running OS4.
-And offcourse this product should be there right NOW:)
I have a Dreambox at home and this is a Linux/PPC sattelite receiver thing that already can do many of these things. Its only 250MHz so its rather slow in computer terms, but its some years old already. Still it can record TV to hardrive, play music and movies stored on the harddrive, it can connect to the internet and browse it (although not the most modern browser). Some models have a plug-in module system so you can have two different tuners in, eg one for sattelite and one for Cable or Terrestial. Some models allows you to add a DVD as well. You can get a wireless keyboard for it as well, but the OS's that are made for it does not make use of the box as a full computer.
So what I would like to see is a box like the above, but with more modern specs and running on AmigaOS. It should be sold and marketed like a all-purpose mediabox, and should have a media interface executed by default on startup while AmigaOS is running in the background so that computer novices did not even need to know its was a computer they was using. The AmigaOS workbench should be easy available from the mediainterface, and offcourse configurable so that you could start it like a normal Amiga and just launch the mediainterface when needed. Also there should be some audio-video inputs as well so you could record and edit from any video source.
It is possible today to make a box that can do all this, using a regular pc as a base and adding DVB-S or DVB-T pci cards. But I have yet to see this put together in a full package, and even if it was, I still think the software solutions available today are not quite good enaugh to make this userfriendly enaugh for the end user.
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I haven't read all the concepts dreamt up here, just to keep the head clear :-)
My idea of a new Amiga is this.
Hardware wise the basic components should be off-the-shelf. Let's face it, the Amiga market atm doesn't justify the development of new components.
In essence, I think it should be an off-the-shelf motherboard (from, say, ECS) with a choice of socketed or SMD'ed AMD64 Turion processor, socketed or SMD'ed bags of RAM (it's cheap nowadays so glue it on!) and some ATI graphics-chip. Or in other words: Dirt-cheap AMD64/ATI platformed motherboard with lowish power-consumption.
To make this board an Amiga I think the BIOS should be replaced by a combo of FPGA, and flashable Firmware. This can function as a modern-day Amiga KickstartROM system. Why? Well.. the FPGA can be used as a compatibility-layer for old-school Amiga software. If it's big enough, it should even be possible to integrate 68020 or PPC.
The firmware-part should take care of a few things:
1) Hold an old-school BIOS to keep PC or even IntelMac compatibility
2) Hold AmigaOS4.x startup-code
3) Hold a mechanism to program the FPGA for 68k software
4) Hold a mechanism to distinguish in which way it should start.
Explanation
1) Hold an old-school BIOS to keep PC compatibility
Unfortunately we all need a Windows PC every now and then (in the Netherlands we need 'm for doing our taxes!). It also allows Windows Games to be played. Implementation could be self-sensing based on the media placed in the removable drive or by pressing both mouse-buttons and access a early-startup.
2) Hold AmigaOS4.x startup-code
This is only needed for 'wink of an eye' startup-time.
3) Hold a mechanism to program the FPGA for 68k software
If a CD or floppy from a classic Amiga is inserted, the FPGA should be programmed accordingly and start 'classic Amiga' with self sensing OCS/ECS/AGA.
4) Hold a mechanism to distinguish in which way it should start.
Depending on the removable media being inserted the system should sense how it should start. With a powerfull FPGA there are limitless ways it could start. Think Nintendo, Sega, XBox, Playstation, etc... etc... Only thing important: The user shouldn't press a button.
Sofar... the hardware.
edit... being sober now;-)
Then, we need an OS. This should be Reliable, Efficient, Fast, Slim, an OS! It should perform the tasks an OS should: establish and maintain communication between the different pieces of hardware and influence the communication based on user input.
The user input (and feedback to the user) should be taken care of the GUI. There should be basic functionality available and people should be allowed / able to expand the functionality to their likings. This is essential, I think, as Amiga-users have done just that over the past decade when there was no clear direction given as to where the Amiga should go. As a direct consequence of that decade of user-development it is near impossible to create one solution everybody likes.
And in the end, it should be available, like yesterday!
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Ask me this question five years ago my response would be somewhat different, but today I'd settle for an Intel/AMD based machine provided that the following conditions were met:
1) Full legacy compatibility
2) Graphics hardware and CPU upgradeability
3) At least one headline grabbing application
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eslapion wrote:
By now everybody has a good idea what I think about ideas like "saving the classic Amiga".
...
After I get some feedback from you all, I'll give you my opinion on this.
Come on then eslapion. Tell us your thoughts.
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One thing that irritates me about having MorphOS, AmigaOS, OS4, Windows and wanting a laptop too is having 5 different computers to run the damn things. I just want one box, why do I need 5 different hard drives, 5 CD/DVD drives, 5 floppies, 5 psu's etc?
Th cabling form one computer is a headache for most people - 5 in one room? Forget it.
Let's be realistic - the mass market is not going to ditch Windows or the existing form of easily upgradeable PC in the foreseeable future. Neither am I - most of the software I use will only run under windows.
IF a next-gen Amiga was created as a pci card SBC - incorporating ram slots and any custom chips onto the pci card - using all the other resources (pci, usb, ps/2, parallel) from the host computer this could easily be a realistic upgrade for more than just us geeks.
I believe what Amiga - in this form - needs to sell is just 1 or 2 killer apps. If the app could be bought with the SBC Amiga it could run in ANY pc - no need for expensive hardware, no need to run on x86 (for the purists).
Also - installation and configuration needs to have (at least the option of) easy GUI based front ends, and detailed help files. I would like to retain the option of switching all the bells and whistles off, but for most people the thought of editing a text-based configuration file is terrifying. Put a GUI in front of it showing the options in drop-down menus and it's a lot less daunting.
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Why? Just emulate the 68k... there is pretty much no way you could push a 68k much faster than the 68060... the architecture is just too CISC for high speeds...
That hasn't stopped x86. On modern CPUs RISC doesn't buy you much anymore. The die space needed for the extra front end complexity is insignificant on a modern desktop CPU and even the RISC processors have some front end translation going on now.
I doubt there ever will be a high performance 68K processor, but the reasons for that are economic not technical.
Anyway, while your question was directed at someone else, the reason I would want a real 68K (or at least a close cousin of the 68K like the ColdFire) is because I don't really want an Amiga for any real practical purpose. A bog standard x86 PC running a non-Amiga OS does that fine. I just find the Amiga hardware neat and I think the 68K family of processors is also quite cool. I essentially want a geek toy, not a practical machine that will bring Amiga back as a contender on the desktop.
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meega wrote:
Come on then eslapion. Tell us your thoughts.
Before I tell you my toughts on what the next Amiga "should" be, I will tell you about what it must NEVER be.
Well, first, it should NEVER have been the AmigaOne. It died and for good reasons.
The replies I read here tell me that most people have a good sense of marketing but there are a few very loud voices which are totally disconnected from reality.
Allow me to criticise:
cv643d wrote:
Next generation should be 100% compatible with A4000 and run Workbench 3.9. It should have at least one videoslot and one Zorro slot.
It should not run on PPC but on a faster 68k CPU so that software should be able to run without recompile. Off course it should have PCIe and SATA etc etc, and it should be available in Mini-ITX/Micro-ATX
I think it is important that the Amiga chipset is on the motherboard and not in software.
Well, this is a good example of what we should NEVER allow the next Amiga to be. There is virtually NO hardware in production now that could ever use a Zorro or video slot and to have the chipset in hardware is a complete closed door on evolution.
PPC and 68k processors are also to be totally avoided as they are no longer properly supported by their manufacturers.
This is a series of suggestion that seems to me to be absolute paint yourself in a corner solutions.
Added edit:
CV643d is the short name for the Cybervision64 3D and that video card is actually a PC video card adapted for a Zorro III slot...
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Back in 1994 when I switched from the Amiga, the reason I did was because of what I saw Windows NT (3.51 back then) do.
It ran on a machine that was actually cheaper than my Amiga 3000 yet it was fast and it multitasked flawlessly. It had beutiful 24bit display capabilities and 16 bit stereo sound. Of course, not all Windows 3.1 or DOS software ran fine on NT but I prefered power to compatibility.
Prior to seing Windows NT do such things, the PC, to me was nothing but a clunky box with beeps for sound and monochrome 80 column display... except for games which still ran at resolutions similar to that of the Amiga but with all the hassle of DOS memory management schemes...
Windows NT also incorporated built-in networking capabilities and security features totally absent on the Amiga. The filetype management was also quite good.
My PC truly completely killed my Amiga 3000 when I installed Photoshop 3.0 in NT and discovered that it was able to load all the IFF images I had and process them in whatever mode I wanted, all the way up to 24 bit RGB and even CMYK. There were also PC versions of Pagemaker, QuarkXpress and Adobe Illustrator. The Amiga was no longer needed as these applications were far more powerful on a PC than they could be on an Amiga emulating a Mac and at a far lower cost.
For a few years, there was more or less of a feud between NT and windows 9X. Eventually, XP appeared and ended all this. XP is actually a different name for Windows NT 5.1.
Now that tells you what I would want the next Amiga OS to be. It shouldn't look like Windows XP but while maintaining compatibility all the way back to at least OS 2.04, it should incorporate the most important features we are used to find in Windows XP.
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One of the possible incarnations I see for the "next" Amiga looks like this: http://www.nsu.ru/matlab/Exponenta_RU/soft/Others/ti/RIS2.JPG
This is a TI-92+ calculator. It has a 10MHz 68000 processor built-in and a few MB of RAM and flash memory built-in.
Now, today, we are able to put color displays on PSPs and Nintendo DS that operate on batteries and put hundreds of MBs of memory of various types in them. Why not have something that's like a PSP with a keyboard?
That could be a "low-end" Amiga and and certainly could be 100% compatible with the Amiga 1200 but faster and uses a 1GB SD card instead of a hard drive.
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eslapion wrote:
For a few years, there was more or less of a feud between NT and windows 9X. Eventually, XP appeared and ended all this. XP is actually a different name for Windows NT 5.1.
*cough* Windows2000
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B00tDisk wrote:
*cough* Windows2000
Unfortunately, Windows 2k was more or less eclipsed by the miserable Windows ME.
It remains a good "lightweight" version of XP with pretty much full hardware and software compatibility.
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I guess I want 2 new Amigas just as there were always 2 types of Amigas available back in the day. A low-end and a high-end.
They should both run the same OS. AROS (when completed) or an OS3.9-4.0 type.
An A1200 type system somewhat like this.
68060 running around 60-75MHz.
128MB RAM. Expandable to 1GB.
20GB Hard Drive.
CD-RW Drive.
High-Density Amiga compatible hard drive. Via a Catweasel chip maybe?
AGA or AAA type chipset. Real or fully emulated with support for OCS, ECS, and AGA modes.
Full USB support.
A full PC type big box system.
Either x86 or PPC system. Speed whatever MHz.
512MB RAM. Expandable to 1-2GB RAM.
80GB Hard Drive.
CD/DVD Burner
High-Density Amiga compatible hard drive. Via a Catweasel chip maybe?
High-end video card/chipset to rival anything today for the PC but with emulated (although maybe not fully) support for older chipsets.
High-end audio same as video.
Full USB support.
Very expandable.
Both of those would sit in my stable and be used all the time.
As long as we're wishing... :-)
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The AMD64x2 machine I already own? :-?
Looks like I just need an AmigaOS4 CD that will install on it I guess.
$100 bucks to Hyperion per copy sound reasonable? ;-)
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eslapion wrote:
B00tDisk wrote:
*cough* Windows2000
Unfortunately, Windows 2k was more or less eclipsed by the miserable Windows ME.
...
What?
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B00tDisk wrote:
eslapion wrote:
B00tDisk wrote:
*cough* Windows2000
Unfortunately, Windows 2k was more or less eclipsed by the miserable Windows ME.
...
What?
What I mean is, everytime I would talk to somebody about Windows 2000 when I was using it, I got a reply like: "Of course I have Windows Millenium..." and I would have to clarify, "no, Windows 2000, not Millenium, its not the same thing".
Business people knew of Windows 2000, especially for its server suite. Common folks, however rarely knew of its existence.
And Windows Millenium was truly a miserable buggy OS. Its core is based on Windows 9X, not NT but Windows 98SE is more reliable and more compatible.
Since a lot of people confused ME with 2000, a lot of people belived the latter to be a lousy OS...
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MskoDestny wrote:
Why? Just emulate the 68k... there is pretty much no way you could push a 68k much faster than the 68060... the architecture is just too CISC for high speeds...
That hasn't stopped x86. On modern CPUs RISC doesn't buy you much anymore. The die space needed for the extra front end complexity is insignificant on a modern desktop CPU and even the RISC processors have some front end translation going on now.
I doubt there ever will be a high performance 68K processor, but the reasons for that are economic not technical.
Anyway, while your question was directed at someone else, the reason I would want a real 68K (or at least a close cousin of the 68K like the ColdFire) is because I don't really want an Amiga for any real practical purpose. A bog standard x86 PC running a non-Amiga OS does that fine. I just find the Amiga hardware neat and I think the 68K family of processors is also quite cool. I essentially want a geek toy, not a practical machine that will bring Amiga back as a contender on the desktop.
But the 68K isn't the x86... the 68k is a fantastic chip, full of features and a nearly orthoganal design... while these make it a dream to program... they also hinder it's maximum speed. Intel got lucky (sort of) that the x86 is a very simple processor, from a CISC point of view, it's very easy to bolt it's ISA onto a nice fast RISC type core, it has very rigid addressing modes and rules as to what instruction can be used and when... these things lend themselves to modern CPU design... The 68k simply isn't that simple... it's too versatile... if you try and make it more suitable for hight speeds you end up with the mostly incompatible coldfire... and if you push it harder, you'll end up with something that pretty much looks like an x86... in almost every way... and you'll be wishing you'd started from scratch (or used a MIPS :-) ).
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bloodline wrote:
But the 68K isn't the x86... the 68k is a fantastic chip, full of features and a nearly orthoganal design... while these make it a dream to program... they also hinder it's maximum speed. Intel got lucky (sort of) that the x86 is a very simple processor, from a CISC point of view, it's very easy to bolt it's ISA onto a nice fast RISC type core, it has very rigid addressing modes and rules as to what instruction can be used and when... these things lend themselves to modern CPU design... The 68k simply isn't that simple... it's too versatile... if you try and make it more suitable for hight speeds you end up with the mostly incompatible coldfire... and if you push it harder, you'll end up with something that pretty much looks like an x86... in almost every way... and you'll be wishing you'd started from scratch (or used a MIPS :-) ).
Something I don't understand is... why not just clock the damn thing faster?
Look at the first Pentiums. They began running at 60MHz powered on 5V, then they took the same architecture and used better transistors to make the thing run at 75 MHz and quickly pushed it to 133MHz.
A year of research in new materials... still no redesign and it went up to 200MHz.
Why not do the same with the 68060? They could have done that easily, I am quite sure.
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eslapion wrote:
bloodline wrote:
But the 68K isn't the x86... the 68k is a fantastic chip, full of features and a nearly orthoganal design... while these make it a dream to program... they also hinder it's maximum speed. Intel got lucky (sort of) that the x86 is a very simple processor, from a CISC point of view, it's very easy to bolt it's ISA onto a nice fast RISC type core, it has very rigid addressing modes and rules as to what instruction can be used and when... these things lend themselves to modern CPU design... The 68k simply isn't that simple... it's too versatile... if you try and make it more suitable for hight speeds you end up with the mostly incompatible coldfire... and if you push it harder, you'll end up with something that pretty much looks like an x86... in almost every way... and you'll be wishing you'd started from scratch (or used a MIPS :-) ).
Something I don't understand is... why not just clock the damn thing faster?
That faster you clock it, the more electricity it needs, the hotter it gets and due to propegation delays, parts of the chip go out of sync... all of these things end in a crash.
To solve the power problems you try and use a smaller manufacturing process, this requires a chip redesign so that the smaller components don't interfere with each other.
Look at the first Pentiums. They began running at 60MHz powered on 5V, then they took the same architecture and used better transistors to make the thing run at 75 MHz and quickly pushed it to 133MHz.
When designing a chip, you try to plan how fast you want the clock to run. The Pentium was released at 60Mhz (at the very begining), but the design was made with the idea of a faster clock rate... as production improved (as chip design and manufacturing process never stop delvelopment), the chip will (as predicted by the designers) be able to clock faster.
A year of research in new materials... still no redesign and it went up to 200MHz.
Plently of redesigns are made, a chip is never just designed and then made... the designers work constantly to improved the layout and adapt the design to new processes and materials.
Why not do the same with the 68060? They could have done that easily, I am quite sure.
If you wanted to make an 68060 now, you would have to find an old Fab that could manufacture such an old design, then get the masks from Freescale, but all you'll end up with is probably a few 40Mhz 68060 chips... until the engineers that you are paying managed to get yealds up and iron out any bugs in the process so that you can get them to clock up to 50... or even 80MHz (at a push).
If you wanted to build it on a new process... 65nm? Then you would have to hire a team of chip designers and buy time in a test Fab. You'd probably have to design the chip from scratch as the last revision is 8 or 9 generations old. This would cost millions... now given that the 68k architecture is not suited to High speed operation so you couldn't really take the "Pentium" approach of a RISC 68k style core with a nice decoder in front (well you proably could but it would be a expensive and time consuming to get right... perhaps would could depreciate most of the 68k addresing modes, but then why usea 68k?), and the fact that you don't own any patents on modern cpu chip design... you would probably end up with a chip only two or three times faster than the existing 060... you'd need a massive die size, it would consume a large amount of power, it would have no Vector unit and a very old CPU bus (so no modern support chips)... coupled with the fact you don't have anyone to sell it to... all you end up with is a very large bill., and something that if it would work at all, would be slower than UAE with a JIT running on a PC that cost £500.
This is why Motorola dropped the 68k in favour of the PPC, all those years ago. There was no gaurenteed market for continuing the 68k... but with Apple and IBM on board, they knew they could sell the PPC (to apple and IBM) which was better suited to high performance computing (smaller die, lower power consumption, and 64bit ), and thus cheaper to get to market.
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Go on then make your own 68k :-)
http://www.chipzilla.com/default.aspx?article=38964
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bloodline wrote:
Go on then make your own 68k :-)
http://www.chipzilla.com/default.aspx?article=38964
Neaaaaat! Only 10% of the virtex is used so that opens a LOT of possibilities for designers.
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....available for sale in the real world in a shop where i can just walk in and buy it ;-)