Amiga.org
Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga community support ideas => Topic started by: biggun on March 20, 2008, 10:33:59 AM
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Hello,
In the Amiga community there are still several driving forces
that are interested in developing and advancing the Amiga.
For example in the area of the Classic Amiga I see:
* The developers of the MiniMig
Minimig is a great solution for A500 replacement.
* The Clone-A
I think the Clone-A will be a A500 replacement as well.
* The Natami
Natami as AGA successor. Focus of the NATAMI is AMIGA compatible as an A4000, but with more performance and enhancement like truecoler, 3D etc. And the Natami offer a CPU upgrade path.
* Elbox Dragon
The Dragon is valuable CPU upgrade path (Coldfire).
If the Dragon would be standalone with AGA included this would be a even nicer device.
I think that there is a lot of potential for these developers to cooperate.
The Natami team for example could lent AGA know-how to Elbox . Another very good idea would be to agree on a common enhancement standard.
I think it would be clever if the leading Amiga designers and developers would combine their brains and agree on a common chipset for the future Amiga.
For example: The Natami will include a "Pamela" (SuperPaula) Audio chip with more channels and more enhanced features.
The same audio enhancements could be loaded into the Minimig . This would allow to have a common Amiga nativa audio design. So applications using the new audio features could run good on all comming Amiga HW designs.
The key for success of the PC was that there was a open design. Any PC manufacturer could build a "compatible" PC.
I believe that it would be very clever to do the same now for the AMIGA.
Together we could create and specify a next generation classic AMIGA platform. I think its good that there are several people still interested in developing AMIGAs.
It would be a big advantage for the community if these designs help each other and guarantee that enhancements are compatibility to each other.
What is your opinion to this?
Does it make sense to create a AMIGA HW Consortium?
It think we should put the best brains together!
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Elbox opening anything up? Forget it.
Coldfire as a CPU upgrade path hasn't proven to be very valuable so far.
Other than that, sure co-operation is always nice thing to have. Not sure if it requires any "consortiom" however. Perhaps some loose setting with common single forum, irc channels etc?
Regarding compatibility: There already are several competing different solutions, each with slightly different approach. This gives them different bugs and slightly different behaviour. One thing that could be provided would be some sort of "acid test" to try to reveal bugs in the implementations. Then it would be easier to pinpoint and fix these bugs. There should probably be multiple tests, at least: cpu, blitter, copper, audio, cia (timers).
I'd think the priority should be in fixing the OCS implementation first, before trying to introduce ECS or AGA, or future extensions.
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Didn't we had something like in the past without any success?
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Yes, the ICOA (Industry Council Open Amiga).
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Minuous wrote:
Yes, the ICOA (Industry Council Open Amiga).
Yes and I tried to put together an "OpenAMiGA" spec, back in 2003-2004... with the idea of delivering a base specification of compatibility between the AmigaOS clones... no one was very interested and the idea fizzled out.
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Yes and I tried to put together an "OpenAMiGA" spec, back in 2003-2004... with the idea of delivering a base specification of compatibility between the AmigaOS clones... no one was very interested and the idea fizzled out.
The idea is still good and the situation did change now.
In 2003 there was no new working classic HW available, was it?
This has changed.
There is the MiniMig, and Natami is working too.
We have AGA and even much more powerful now.
Today its not talking only but we can give parties something.
I believe its a big WIN for Elbox to join
as they could for example get AGA from it.
Cheers
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Wasn't the Phoenix Consortium something similar too?
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For me the IDEA is good. All people who do somethink for Amiga (and us :) ) should have ONE plan for development.
There is no need for "duplicates" especially when couple people is working on particular think for years...
After a while we have situations like Spider vs. Poseidon. And WHO IS LOOSER... WE ARE. Some one is angry with someone... no COOPERATION. (put here also Amiga Inc. vs. Hyperion or ... )
Divisions are destructive.
Cooperation should also include the people who work on software. e.g. Please tell me why for Amiga we need 2 or free Web browsers? If authors of this browsers would work together... I would have functional web browser for A600/2mb (sure that I'm jocking...;) we don't need web browser for A600 for sure, but who know what good programing can do :D ).
Divisions are destructive.
:-(
Ps. And yes I know there are different people and different characters.
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biggun wrote:
Yes and I tried to put together an "OpenAMiGA" spec, back in 2003-2004... with the idea of delivering a base specification of compatibility between the AmigaOS clones... no one was very interested and the idea fizzled out.
The idea is still good and the situation did change now.
In 2003 there was no new working classic HW available, was it?
This has changed.
There is the MiniMig, and Natami is working too.
We have AGA and even much more powerful now.
IIRC, Bloodline's idea was a common spec for classic and NG Amiga OSes, not just 68k Amigas. Having a common set of libraries would make writing software that works on all systems much easier.
If Bloodline is talking about the attempt that I remember, most feedback was negative, suggesting that the standard was pretty arbitrary (or something like that), unnecessary, etc.
Hans
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It would be good to keep future FPGA Amigas following a common specification path, yes.
I think previous efforts failed because they were all talk and no action.
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Hans_ wrote:
biggun wrote:
Yes and I tried to put together an "OpenAMiGA" spec, back in 2003-2004... with the idea of delivering a base specification of compatibility between the AmigaOS clones... no one was very interested and the idea fizzled out.
The idea is still good and the situation did change now.
In 2003 there was no new working classic HW available, was it?
This has changed.
There is the MiniMig, and Natami is working too.
We have AGA and even much more powerful now.
IIRC, Bloodline's idea was a common spec for classic and NG Amiga OSes, not just 68k Amigas. Having a common set of libraries would make writing software that works on all systems much easier.
If Bloodline is talking about the attempt that I remember, most feedback was negative, suggesting that the standard was pretty arbitrary (or something like that), unnecessary, etc.
Hans
Yup, the very same.
I still have all the specs somewhere... things like exec.library 39.x... MUI 3.8... AHI x.x (something)... cgfx.library x.x (again something)... the idea that all systems would deliver API's compatible with that minimum spec...
I still think it's a good idea... :-)
-Edit- Thinking about it, it was less of a spec and more of an Audit of the commonality of the available Amiga clone systems...
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I like the sound of the idea. Dunno how practical it would be.
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I don't thing NatAmi or Clone-A will be open source. Thy appear to be in competition with on another. Also the fols at KMOS still have an excusive lease on the name Amiga, at least in computer usage, they certain don't have control over Spanish speaking love lives...
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Could the community agree on an alternative name for all amiga clones which everyone will know, or come to know means, amiga compatible?
We also need a reverse engineered operating system.
Then we can forget amiga inc.
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A6000 wrote:
Could the community agree on an alternative name for all amiga clones which everyone will know, or come to know means, amiga compatible?
What's wrong with MiniMig, NetAmi and CloneA?
We also need a reverse engineered operating system.
We already have one... AROS...
Then we can forget amiga inc.
We already can. I already do.
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صديق
朋友
친구
or
?
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persia wrote:
صديق
朋友
친구
or
?
or
:-)
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bloodline wrote:
A6000 wrote:
Could the community agree on an alternative name for all amiga clones which everyone will know, or come to know means, amiga compatible?
What's wrong with MiniMig, NetAmi and CloneA?
these are product names, we need a common brand name, as MSX or PC was.
We also need a reverse engineered operating system.
We already have one... AROS...
Fair enough but is there a 68k version?
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A6000 wrote:
bloodline wrote:
A6000 wrote:
Could the community agree on an alternative name for all amiga clones which everyone will know, or come to know means, amiga compatible?
What's wrong with MiniMig, NetAmi and CloneA?
these are product names, we need a common brand name, as MSX or PC was.
Amiga...
We also need a reverse engineered operating system.
We already have one... AROS...
Fair enough but is there a 68k version?
The bounty is is open.
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Do I need to mention that OEM's will not be allowed to use the amiga name at any price.
Does aros offer better features than os4
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Probably would run into trouble with the latin equivalent of Amica and the latin plural Amicae, perhaps some variation of Amare "to love", of course that was tried by the evil Amino... :pissed:
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A6000 wrote:
Do I need to mention that OEM's will not be allowed to use the amiga name at any price.
Doesn't really matter! You can still call it Amiga compatible... MiniMig with a 68k build of AROS would be just such a machine...
Does aros offer better features than os4
I don't know, I've only every used AROS... AROS does have a few features better than OS4... Hardware independence and open source and a modern web browser...
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Call it 'Excellentia' or some other new name..
(Because Amiga in my book was about technical excellence at a economical price)
'Comes comitis'.. 'Duco virtus'..
('Companion friend', 'to calculate excellence')
Or 'BillSucky' or 'BillSuckInk', for those that like the revenge approach :-)
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persia wrote:
Probably would run into trouble with the latin equivalent of Amica and the latin plural Amicae, perhaps some variation of Amare "to love", of course that was tried by the evil Amino... :pissed:
I like Amicae, when people understand what it means, it will be evocative of a family of different machines which are amiga compatible.
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Does anyone here care to make a Wikipedia entry?
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trekiej wrote:
Does anyone here care to make a Wikipedia entry?
Why waste time... the Wikipolice will delete anything...
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i propose Amigan its close enough and it describes what it is
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Sounds good. For an open consortium we`ll need open software.
Dennis decission to release the Minimig as open source was a real good one! When will the Natami source code and schematics be released?
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LawlessPPC wrote:
i propose Amigan its close enough and it describes what it is
Amigoid?
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AMIGOD.
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We should name them them Bloodline as they are part of the Amiga bloodline.. and obviously in honour of me :-)
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A0S
"a" "zero" "s"
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Where does all this hardware and software information get collected?
1. Dedicated Web site.
2. Pre-amble, manifesto, constitution? Sorry, I have not done this before.
3. Officers?
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trekiej wrote:
Where does all this hardware and software information get collected?
1. Dedicated Web site.
2. Pre-amble, manifesto, constitution? Sorry, I have not done this before.
3. Officers?
I think the first thing you have to do is work out what you want to achieve... right now all you have is a bunch of ideas.
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Well, since Hi-Toro decided to choose a name that would come before "Apple" in choosing "Amiga" (plus it was a friendly term), we should choose another name that would come before (or maybe AFTER) Amiga, such as "All That & A Bag Of Chips", or "Ajax", or "Aim-High", or "Ahh-Nuts!", or "Agate", or "After-The-Fall-of-C=", or "Aerobic-Energy" and rename Workbench "Oxygen" :lol:
I think you get my drift. At any rate, I would be interested in joining such consortium. Put my name on a list.
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Please don't call Workbench 'Lifetime Movie Network' (puke)
How about V9IWV. :lol: Vglwv would confuse the lawyers for a while!
Why not just get together with the new C= people and let's all use the Commodore name?
How about Lorraine? :roll:
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Sounds like a good idea. Currently a replacement OS exists, even a platform independent one (sort of). With Minimig released and a Minimig board commercially available the possibilities does like brighter for new hardware.
Judging from the content of this thread, one of the first tasks would be to weed out the talkers and focus on those people that can do something usefull (like design hardware or program).
I have been toying with thought of pulling AROS 68K out of unmaintained, but this is a huge task and having a consortium where decisions could be taken what direction the Amiga platform should take hardware wise would be nice. Then development could be focused in a future direction, not only aiming backwards.
I can offer hardware design skills (VHDL, analog and digital electronics) and programming (A68k). But my time is severly limited.
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I would love to see a group formed that is interested in creating what the Amiga should have evolved into over the years. A new computer design that uses the latest hardware components available at the moment the group chooses to finalize the design specification.
It should do High Definition TV, so new 3rd party add-on hardware that interfaces with the new TV standard(s) can be invented and run on this new computer just like the Video Toaster did in the A2000 at first. It has to hookup to new TVs, DVD players and HD-DVD/BlueRay DVD players with ease. Genlocking with those new TV standard pieces of equipment should be standard.
Any of today's top of the line graphic cards will provide more than enough processing power for games and applications for years to come, IF the same efficient principles that created the original Amiga are used to design the new system.
Use AmigaOS4 or MorphOS2.x as a base model of our beloved original AmigaOS and build on that to create the OS for the new computer I will call MorMiga just for fun in the rest of this post. Keep the principals that make these two examples different than all the other OSes, keep them small and efficient, true multitasking, but move the bar all the way to the top and be the first OS that truly takes advantage of Quad or Octuple Core CPUs. If we can keep the compatibility that is currently available in AmigaOS4 and/or MorphOS, great! If not create emulation that is as good or better than what is currently available with WinUAE. Keeping compatible so most or all of the legacy Amiga software can be used and enjoyed is key to success until new applications, tools, utilities and games are created for the MorMiga. Design the new MorMigaOS so that almost anyone that has the desire to be creative, can produce their own applications and games for MorMiga, this will bring back the glory days when there were thousands of people developing on the Amiga. A toolkit should be provided with the MorMigaOS that is easy enough that a 10 year old could use it.
Invent a new sound chip like the SuperPaula that I have seen discussed on these forums, or choose a current top of the line sound card to handle all MorMiga sound duties.
Write driver(s) for at least one DVD writer, or better yet, make that a BluRay writer/reader/player.
The Graphics and Sound cards should act exactly like the original Amigas custom chips did, only providing the fantastic performance difference that is available today.
It would be nice to include a 880kb/1.76mb floppy drive and build adf reading/writing software into the MorMigaOS. Yes, floppy disks and drives are DEAD, but they are a big part of the MorMiga's past, and with the intent to provide the best ever emulation and/or legacy compatibility, including the floppy drive and software make sense.
There is much more to add, but I will stop here and just say that I am sure I am not alone in dreaming of a new computer that would be a worthy successor to the Amiga line of computers. Something that should have been, IF ONLY ....... (fill in the rest of the sentence with what ever you have always thought concerning the sad direction the Amiga was taken, instead of what should have been). Who knows what might have been, if Microsoft had not dominated the market the way that they did so soon, or if Commodore had not trashed the chances the Amiga ever had, because of poor, or non-existant marketing, late and hobbled by cost concerns development decisions, too much "IN" fighting, inside Commodore, etc.
All a dream, yes, probably. Where would the money come from and who would do all the development work? It is my hope that the remaining Amiga community would join together and do this for themselves, for it is surely never going to happen by anyone else's hand! If we are going to dream, why not dream BIG! With the current state of the Amiga community, recent developments of MiniMig, NatAmi, CloneA, and the increased interest created by them all, I think that this highly improbable proposal could be remarkable possibility. Only Amiga made it possible in the past. Only the Amiga community makes it possible in the future.
AmigaDave
Amiga ENTHUSIAST!
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@amigadave
That's a very nice little fantasy... But it's not realistic, if the idea of an Amiga is to be real, we need to decide exactly what we want to acheive and why.
I've been here before 5 years ago, so I have no desire to rehash my old OpenAMiGA spec...
But think about it... A reasonable goal would be to create an opensource platform totally compatible with the Amiga500 with the intention of perhaps building an all in one games console... For example.
This is both achieveable and realistic, the minimig needs bug fixes and cost reduction, Aros needs the 68k port to be brought back uptodate (but we would only need 1.3 compatibility)... So there is a lot of work to do, but everything needed is already there. If this can be done then more advanced plans can be made.
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@thread
Minimig is open source, but I don't think NatAmi or CloneA need to be open source for this consortium to work. What the consortium should be about is defining certain tests that ensure the new machines will be compatible with each other and legacy Amiga systems. For the NatAmi and CloneA it would be the responsibility of the creators to make machines that will pass these tests. Some sort of seal of approval could be worked out.
What it SHOULD NOT be about is providing a design template about what future Amiga machines and operating systems should consist of. I like the fact that Minimig and NatAmi are different. I like the fact that OS4 and MorphOS are different. Gives people choice.
Keep the diversity, improve the compatibility.
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The key for success of the PC was that there was a open design. Any PC manufacturer could build a "compatible" PC.
I believe that it would be very clever to do the same now for the AMIGA.
Idea is good but I wonder what you could achieve with open Amiga design as in hardware.
PC was never really about 100% compatible HW design but companies just delivered x86 based hardware that could run MS-DOS.
On Amiga it would be enough that you can run Amiga software. It could be just Amithlon, Pegasos or Natami. Running real Kickstart 3.1 or MorphOS or AROS, does not matter. It is up to consumer to decide if he wants Paula audio chip (or compatible implementation), Soundblaster, x86 cpu, PPC, 68k, Radeon 7000, Voodoo 3, AGA, whatever. Natami maybe runs old demos and games while Amithlon does not but Amithlon has (had) other advantages.
Everything should go via drivers. Direct access to custom chips should be provided only for backwards compatibility.
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A6000 wrote:
We also need a reverse engineered operating system.
There already is one, what truely is needed is an *evolved* amiga like OS that's also FLOSS, anything else is a disappointment and a proof of "the Amiga curse", sorry, but that's the inconvenient truth :-)
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PC was never really about 100% compatible HW design but companies just delivered x86 based hardware that could run MS-DOS.
On Amiga it would be enough that you can run Amiga software. It could be just Amithlon, Pegasos or Natami. Running real Kickstart 3.1 or MorphOS or AROS, does not matter. It is up to consumer to decide if he wants Paula audio chip (or compatible implementation), Soundblaster, x86 cpu, PPC, 68k, Radeon 7000, Voodoo 3, AGA, whatever. Natami maybe runs old demos and games while Amithlon does not but Amithlon has (had) other advantages.
Everything should go via drivers. Direct access to custom chips should be provided only for backwards compatibility.
The key goal should be 100% compatibility, in years to come it would be nice to be able to buy new software that will run on new or old hardware without any problems.
The machines will just work. no problems with driver/ hardware incompatibilities.
AROS 68k should have all the features of AROS PPC.
Programs written for AROS PPC should also run on AROS 68k without recompiling, which suggests a hardware independant code like VP code or an interpreted language.
Forget about floppy disks, people can use a classic amiga or a USB floppy if they really want one.
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Einstein wrote:
A6000 wrote:
We also need a reverse engineered operating system.
There already is one, what truely is needed is an *evolved* amiga like OS that's also FLOSS, anything else is a disappointment and a proof of "the Amiga curse", sorry, but that's the inconvenient truth :-)
"Evolved" being the key word there, i.e. it needs to grow from our existing tech.
The OS is second in priority to the hardware IMO, need to draw up hardware tests first.
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A6000 wrote:
AROS 68k should have all the features of AROS PPC.
NOOOOOOO! Why hold back development of features for AROS PPC that AROS 68k can't handle? There should be a base level of compatibility between the two but the systems don't need to be identical to achieve that.
A6000 wrote:
Programs written for AROS PPC should also run on AROS 68k
What about programs that need to take low level access of a machine? If it's possible to make a program easy to port then the developer should see that as a good thing anyway.
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HenryCase wrote:
A6000 wrote:
AROS 68k should have all the features of AROS PPC.
NOOOOOOO! Why hold back development of features for AROS PPC that AROS 68k can't handle? There should be a base level of compatibility between the two but the systems don't need to be identical to achieve that.
A6000 wrote:
Programs written for AROS PPC should also run on AROS 68k
What about programs that need to take low level access of a machine? If it's possible to make a program easy to port then the developer should see that as a good thing anyway.
It's going to be hard enough to get developers to write for the aros machines without expecting them to create 2 or 3 versions, 68k, PPC, PC, a common os will help, if the 68k takes longer to run a program, so be it, at least it will run.
Low level access breaks compatibility with others, for example minimig uses paula but natami will use pamela, software can access both, but not at low level, in time 3d graphics will be handled by several different GPU's.
Low level access is fine for Identical hardware platforms, but we won't have Identical platforms.
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OK, this is the first I've heard of the NatAmi. Interesting project. I'll have to keep an eye on its development.
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A6000 wrote:
It's going to be hard enough to get developers to write for the aros machines without expecting them to create 2 or 3 versions, 68k, PPC, PC, a common os will help
There will be common functions between platforms that will make porting easier, but if a program needs assembly routines to run efficiently I don't think there should be some consortium telling the developers they can't use them. The developers are doing the hard work after all. I am sure developers will want to use common APIs where possible (to make their life easier), you don't need to set rules up for this.
A6000 wrote:
Low level access is fine for Identical hardware platforms, but we won't have Identical platforms.
What's the point of having different platforms if you can't take advantage of their unique features?
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HenryCase wrote:
"Evolved" being the key word there, i.e. it needs to grow from our existing tech.
The OS is second in priority to the hardware IMO, need to draw up hardware tests first.
HW is irrelevant to me, as long as the OS is robust and has a nice thought out API.
Still, that does not mean I don't respect the efforts put into these HW projects, including this one, unfortunately though some of us are still waiting for the software (OS) counterpart to this project.
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HenryCase wrote:
A6000 wrote:
It's going to be hard enough to get developers to write for the aros machines without expecting them to create 2 or 3 versions, 68k, PPC, PC, a common os will help
There will be common functions between platforms that will make porting easier, but if a program needs assembly routines to run efficiently I don't think there should be some consortium telling the developers they can't use them. The developers are doing the hard work after all. I am sure developers will want to use common APIs where possible (to make their life easier), you don't need to set rules up for this.
A6000 wrote:
Low level access is fine for Identical hardware platforms, but we won't have Identical platforms.
What's the point of having different platforms if you can't take advantage of their unique features?
I am not saying they cannot use them, I am saying a common os will eliminate the need to write, manufacture and stock different versions for different machines.
If developers want to use unique features of one machine, they can, but they must be expected to refund the money to those who bought the software thinking it would run on their machines but didn't, and NO publisher does that.
If you write some low level code, it will be obsolete as soon as the unique piece of hardware is upgraded, I do not want to buy new software if I upgrade my machine.
Each machine must have low level drivers written by the OEM, AROS will provide a higher level API, which the developers can use, or not, it is their choice, the easiest choice is to write for windows and expect all of us to use a PC.
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If I were to make an opensource A1200 (or A4000?). I would need:
* AGA specification.
* 68020 specification.
* Amiga software tailored towards verification of specific hardware functionality. Ordinary games are good, but won't pinpoint problems.
* Estimation of chip complexity, ie how powerful FPGA is needed.
* An hardware group to correct schematics, and put it into physical hardware. Multilayer, BGA chips, and highspeed signals requires some serious verification.
As long as we don't need a physical cpu but rather use large FPGAs the last point could be eliminated. However using the real cpu (like Minimig does atm). Is one chip less to replicate properly.
Maybe this will give you an idea what would promote development of new amiga hardware.
I think a danger of formalised organisations is that they tend to get rigid by time. And persons involved might be more occupied to preserve their influence rather than help the overall purpose.
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Programs written for AROS PPC should also run on AROS 68k without recompiling, which suggests a hardware independant code like VP code or an interpreted language.
This exists already. Compile applications for 68k and it runs everywhere.
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Excellent, will such programs also run on amigaos.
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Why hold back an operating system because you have to run 20 year old games that violate every good sense of programming? All AROS needs is a classic emulator, like Mac did when they changed over. UAE is the perfect candidate. UAE will run the classic Amiga software and developers will have a less limited system to develop for outside the classic window.
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persia wrote:
Why hold back an operating system because you have to run 20 year old games that violate every good sense of programming?
The important thing is to have a common API.
There will be:-
Classic Amiga
Amigaone
Pegasus
PowerAmiga (PPC)
MiniMig
Natami
CloneA
and hopefully others.
I would like to buy new software that will run on all these systems, even Classic amiga so those machines still have a viable future.
I do not want to run 20yr old software on a Natami, I would want to run new software that takes full advantage of it's better features whilst still being able to run in reduced fashion on classic amigas.
The Customer does not want to worry about hardware differences or driver incompatibilities, he/she just EXPECTS that new software will work FAULTLESSLY on any amiga compatible.
Unrealistic, I know but what can you do?, the Customer is always right, IF you want to stay in business.
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@persia:
An operating system relies on drivers. So no need holdback. And still have hardware that can act both in game compatible mode. And "modern" mode. This hw flip can be accomplished with FPGAs.
@A6000:
We already have an "common API" be the means of the hardware released by Amiga Inc before going belly-up.
With Classic Amiga being the definition. MiniMig, and CloneA being clones.
Natami, and PowerAmiga (PPC) are extensions. Not neccisarily being compatible in all aspects. But keeping as many as possible aspects of classic Amiga compability.
Amigaone, and Pegasus is something completly else. Only seems to build on the love for motorola style cpus and the Amiga community.
So Amiga compability definition already exist more or less.
Anyone knows how M68060 stands up in comparision to Intel line of cpus?, natiami mentions 300x performance compared to M68000.
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@ Thread:
I hope I am not talking out of turn.
I believe that Aros with UAE integration and KickStart replacement on a NATAMI board would be a big boost for us.
It looks like it would give a chunk of what we would want.
It is in our near future and closer than a dream machine.
I do not know about MorphOS,Syllable,etc. enough to recommend.
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I think we are mixing topics here.
My understanding of the topic was to promote the idea
of an open group of AMIGA HW engineers.
This open group would help to build genuine Amigas.
My definition of genuine,original, or classic Amigas
are machines that can run orignal Amiga games or apps, natively.
This definition of Amiga includes the following machines:
A1000 (OCS)
A500 (OCS)
A600 (OCS)
A2000 (OCS)
A3000 (OCS)
CDTV (OCS)
A4000 (AGA)
A1200 (AGA)
CD32 (AGA)
MiniMig (OCS)
Natami (SuperAGA)
Some people raised the valid point about software APIs-
Sharing the software API with Neo-Amiga operating System
is a valid but complete different topic IMHO.
We should not mix this topics with the HW discussion.
At the time when MOS and OS4 where created no one was able
to create a system like the MiniMig or Natami.
At this time it looked like it will never be possible
to build new AMIGA HW and the best option available
was to use PC hardware and to run a AMIGA like OS on the PC.
The Pegasos and the AmigaONE are systems that are able to run a NeoAmiga operating system. The Aone and Pegasos are on the Hardware level not Amigas but PCs.
They are no more AMIGAS as any Dell or MAC is.
There is nothing wrong with building a PC and runnning a Amigalike OS on it!
I think is a valid option to go this route, especially as it looked as new AMIGA he could never be build
Fact is that the situation has changed now.
Two people have proven us that building new AMIGA HW is possible.
MiniMig and Natami are true AMIGAs.
There are still companies interested in building classic AMiGA HW.
Elbox is working in this area ince years, their problem
is that the can not produce AMIGA chipset themselve so ELBOX expansion cards always require an orignal AMIGA (ie A1200)
If ELBOX would use the NATAMI chipset instead of the A1200 then they could creatre new, standalone systems a lot more powerfull than the A1200 based machines.
There are other companies which want to create new classic AMIGAS too.
I think we all agree that there is a lot potential of working together.
If you are able to create a AGA chipset the next logical step is removing some limitation.
- For example, you will want to speed it up.
- And you can add new features like truecolor or 3D acceleration - As the Natami does.
Three companies can develop their own AGA enhancements or they could work together and agree on common things.
Three companies could work on integration the Coldfire into AOS. Or they could work together on this.
I'm probably working to long as open source developer but my honest opinion is that sharing and giving is more important than "taking".
-
@ Biggun:
I know I can not speak for others. Some may still wonder what can be legally done with or to an Amiga.
Someone stated in another thread that Amiga Inc does not own much of the original Amiga except the OS and Name.
I believe that building a computer that is not an Amiga with the ability to run Amiga software is one approach.
-
Looking at my earlier post, I see that Minimig and NatAmi is just that. They are hardware with the capability to run Amiga
As far as Clone-A is concerned, is not creating an ASIC apart of the design process? (Application Specific Intergrated Circuit) If a cycle exact design is implemented, a fab. company could make chips with it, if I understand it correctly.
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biggun wrote:
I think we are mixing topics here.
My understanding of the topic was to promote the idea
of an open group of AMIGA HW engineers.
It would be better to work together to create new hardware.
However, the Amiga community has its limits. There are three new Amiga-compatible pieces of hardware being worked on (Minimig, CloneA, NatAmi). We do not have the capacity to support more and more machines, better to form groups to improve existing machines and ensure they have some level of compatibility with each other.
biggun wrote:
This definition of Amiga includes the following machines:
A1000 (OCS)
A500 (OCS)
A600 (OCS)
A2000 (OCS)
A3000 (OCS)
CDTV (OCS)
A4000 (AGA)
A1200 (AGA)
CD32 (AGA)
MiniMig (OCS)
Natami (SuperAGA)
Where's ECS in that list?
biggun wrote:
The Aone and Pegasos are on the Hardware level not Amigas but PCs.
They are no more AMIGAS as any Dell or MAC is.
In what way? Only in the lack of OCS/ECS/AGA-like functions. The PPC CPU used in both the A1 or Pegasos don't mean they aren't real Amigas, so I hope you weren't referring to this.
-
No A3000 ever came with OCS.
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AMC258 wrote:
No A3000 ever came with OCS.
The 600 was ECS too...
-
I should add something else too. For any new software development I would require:
* Memory protection
* Preemptive multitasking
* Multiuser structured security with file permissions etc.
Or else the risk for wrecking data or interrupt running applications is just too great to have a suitable working platform.
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Custom chips in 2008 are a profoundly stupid idea. I can go on the internet and buy high end graphics or sound and be far, far better off.
-
Hi,
@ persia
WOW someone agrees with me.
@ everyone else
Shouldn't we ask Amiga Inc. for help on this?
smerf
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persia wrote:
Custom chips in 2008 are a profoundly stupid idea. I can go on the internet and buy high end graphics or sound and be far, far better off.
Yeah, and be like everybody else. Custom chips do have their advantages, and FPGAs make implementing them much easier (than building ASICs). FPGAs are reconfigurable so you can customise the level of acceleration you need for certain functions (if you were running a 3d rendering program, for example, you could load a FPGA core that takes away other acceleration and concentrates only on graphics processing).
smerf wrote:
Shouldn't we ask Amiga Inc. for help on this?
Why? So they could contribute nothing and take their cut of the profits? Hell no!
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persia wrote:
Custom chips in 2008 are a profoundly stupid idea. I can go on the internet and buy high end graphics or sound and be far, far better off.
If OEM's are able to produce custom chips, then that is good, the trouble with off the shelf components is a short life cycle, meaning spares becoming difficult to obtain in a few years, we should have learnt this lesson from motorola when they cancelled further developement of the 68k family.
-
Custom chips are cheap and fast, but :
hardware keeps changing
cannot get access to documentation without $$$ and userbase
We need our own custom chips so the Amiga platform is not running into supply, documentation & driver problems.
We should have our own custom chips, it makes us unique, 24bit/32bit copper chip dont sound that bad.
-
That's the problem with custom chips, you can possibly design a wideo chip that will come close to the Nvidia chips of today, let alone those of 2010, wo12 etc. A custom chip is in you machine forever, if I want to upgrade to the latest Nvidia card it takes 2 minutes to open the case, pop out one card and pop in a new one. Plus Nvidia has thousands of employees working on these cards. There's just no way a few hundred Amiga fans can outdo Nvidia, Custom chips just create headache because some joker thinks they can write directly to them and then you can't upgrade because your software breaks.
There's really two roads here, a modern Amiga inspired by Classic Amigas or a reimplimented retro machine with a tweek here and there. There's a fundamental choice. You need to choice, abandon state of the art or abandon classic except as UAE.
There is no way to make classic modern, we are at the same fork in the road Apple was at in 1997. I'm not saying we need to make the same choice, Apple pretty much owns "state of the art" and the competition is hard, maybe a retro games box has a better chance, retro-gaming with the some retro-computing on the side may be a good niche for Amiga. The Amiga has been state of the art in a decade and a half.
The sad thing is, no matter what the choice the community will grow smaller, and neither way offers a guarantee of success.
-
When you look at video cards, sound cards, etc. at a fundamental level all they are is custom chips on a board (as far as comparison goes). Want better graphics... here, plug this in.... want better sound?...here plug this in. Run some drivers and away you go.
When you look at the Amiga historically, it comes at a time of transition between when a home computer was pretty much replaced at the end of its life you didn't upgrade your Vic20 into a C64.. you bought a new one. Now you upgrade it - keeping parts you want.
The Amiga was pretty forward looking, but even so still had to take a step backwards in some regards: Kickstart was originally loaded from disk - just like OS's today are. Of course doing it from floppy was 'too slow' and so it went onto a ROM - good for then, not so good for now. I think anyone developing new amiga base hardware needs to look at what isn't working for us now and address those things - look at what is working in todays world, and use that as a jump off point.
I think a consortium of sorts would be a good thing amongst the hardware developers. In a perfect world it could aid development by not having everyone reinvent the same thing... in a realistic world it opens the doors for them to share features - Super AGA takes off? No probs, you can plug this into your whatever other board..... everybody wins.
How many different Amiga emulation projects would still be here if not for opens source UAE? If everyone had to reinvent every part of the emulation for every single project I don't think you'd see many polished examples out there.
As for compatability... shoot - even different variants of the Amiga aren't 100% compatible with each other now. If folks can run native software on the new hardware, that's neat -- if not there's always emulation for the things that won't work...
Folks can rip on hardware banging, but at the time I think it was a needed evil - you wouldn't have had half the games etc. that made the system popular if they didn't - and lets face it, the paradigm at the time was 'this is the machine.. this is how it is' - you didn't see that many compatability issues spring from banging the C64 hardware.... and I can't blame games programmers at the time not seeing things like OS updates, hardware changes, etc. being in the future.
Sig.
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Where's ECS in that list?
IMHO, ECS is a minor improvement that its not worth mentioning. But you can decide yourself.
In a nutshell the Chipsets have these features:
OCS
---
LOWRES
(320x256) 6-Bit (Planes) = 64 Colors
HIRES
(640x256) 4-Bit (Planes) = 16 Colors
Sound:
4 Channel x 14 Bit
ECS
---
LOWRES
(320x256) 6-Bit (Planes) = 64 Colors
HIRES
(640x256) 4-Bit (Planes) = 16 Colors
Productivity
(640x480) 2-Bit (Planes) = 4 Colors
Sound:
4 Channel x 14 Bit
AGA
---
LOWRES
(320x256) 8-Bit (Planes) = 256 Colors
HIRES
(640x256) 8-Bit (Planes) = 256 Colors
Productivity
(640x480) 8-Bit (Planes) = 256 Colors
SuperHires
(1280x256) 8-Bit (Planes) = 256 Colors
Sound:
4 Channel x 14 Bit
Super-AGA
---
LOWRES
(320x256) 24-Bit (Truecolor) = 16777216 Colors
HIRES
(640x256) 24-Bit (Truecolor) = 16777216 Colors
Productivity
(640x480) 24-Bit (Truecolor) = 16777216 Colors
SuperHires
(1280x256) 24-Bit (Truecolor) = 16777216 Colors
SuperHires-Productivity
(1280x1024) 24-Bit (Truecolor) = 16777216 Colors
Sound:
8 Channel x 24 Bit
Blitter: 100 times faster than AGA BLitter
Extras: Enhanced 2-D Acceleration, 3-D Acceration
Yes, ECS was an improvement for WB users but not for games, I think that ECS is not that important.
AGA was of course a big improvement
And SUPER-AGA is a big improvement
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Actually, that's:
Audio: 4 x 8bit
or 2 x 14bit (trick).
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bloodline wrote:
Actually, that's:
Audio: 4 x 8bit
or 2 x 14bit (trick).
It depends on how you look at it.
The quality of the analog output signal is always 4 x 14 bit.
So technically the OCS was supporting 4 channels with 14 bit quality.
But the 14 Bit has devided into a volume and sample value per channel.
As the Audio had 4 DMA channels you could not DMA load 4 x 14 bit.
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persia wrote:
A custom chip is in you machine forever, if I want to upgrade to the latest Nvidia card it takes 2 minutes to open the case, pop out one card and pop in a new one.
Upgrading an FPGA is even easier, its all done through software.
persia wrote:
There's just no way a few hundred Amiga fans can outdo Nvidia
There isn't anyone seriously aiming to outdo Nvidia or ATI.
persia wrote:
Custom chips just create headache because some joker thinks they can write directly to them and then you can't upgrade because your software breaks.
Any bad changes made to the FPGA can be undone by resetting the Natami.
persia wrote:
There's really two roads here, a modern Amiga inspired by Classic Amigas or a reimplimented retro machine with a tweek here and there. There's a fundamental choice. You need to choice, abandon state of the art or abandon classic except as UAE.
There are more than two roads. Natami is in the middle of the two paths you proposed, being a classic/retro machine with substantial improvements. Probably easiest to think of it as an A5000.
persia wrote:
The sad thing is, no matter what the choice the community will grow smaller, and neither way offers a guarantee of success.
The level of success that Natami enjoys will be dependant on a number of factors, but it's certainly got a lot of interest from within the Amiga community and BBRV are showing an interest in helping out, so it may be sold at a reasonable price for ex-Amiga users to consider.
Sig999 wrote:
I think a consortium of sorts would be a good thing amongst the hardware developers. In a perfect world it could aid development by not having everyone reinvent the same thing... in a realistic world it opens the doors for them to share features - Super AGA takes off? No probs, you can plug this into your whatever other board..... everybody wins.
I agree, sharing the workload benefits everybody.
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HenryCase wrote:
Upgrading an FPGA is even easier, its all done through software.
There isn't anyone seriously aiming to outdo Nvidia or ATI.
Any bad changes made to the FPGA can be undone by resetting the Natami.
I agree, sharing the workload benefits everybody.
If FPGA's can be reprogrammed 10,000 times or more then our new machines could be in a state of continuous evolution, becoming better every month or so.
Even users with no experience in VHDL could try their hand at making small improvements and if they work, submitting them to a library for others to try.
We may end up with something Nvidia would consider uneconomic to design let alone manufacture.
FPGA's mean our new machines will not become obsolete, but are FPGA's economically viable in large production runs, think big, be optimistic.
-
whilst it would be nice to allow users to tinker with their hardware as if writing a program in BASIC, we also need a manual write protection scheme to prevent hackers and viruses changing our machines for their own purposes.
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A6000 wrote:
If FPGA's can be reprogrammed 10,000 times or more then our new machines could be in a state of continuous evolution, becoming better every month or so.
Certainly improvements can be made, but it would be better to limit these improvements to applications only, I don't want to keep on going through the process of upgrading my OS. FYI write/erase cycles should not be a problem. The Spartan-3AN, for example, offers 100,000 write/erase cycles. I have no idea what FPGA will be used for the Natami, but I doubt you'd see less than 10,000 write/erase cycles in its specs.
I gave an example earlier in this thread where you could have a custom FPGA core to speed up 3d rendering, and there are many other cases FPGAs could be customised for the benefit of applications.
A6000 wrote:
Even users with no experience in VHDL could try their hand at making small improvements and if they work, submitting them to a library for others to try.
That would be a great outcome of using FPGAs. Best start learning VHDL then A6000. :-D
A6000 wrote:
We may end up with something Nvidia would consider uneconomic to design let alone manufacture.
Absolutely, but understand that FPGAs are not going to be competing with Nvidia (or ATI) GPUs for pure power. As you say, there will be non-commercial applications that will benefit from FPGA-based hardware acceleration. Take a look at this video:
http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=8182954424526557863
As you can see a single FPGA makes the hacking app run 80x faster than on a 1.25GHz G4 CPU alone.
A6000 wrote:
FPGA's mean our new machines will not become obsolete, but are FPGA's economically viable in large production runs, think big, be optimistic.
FPGAs aren't as cheap as ASICs in large production runs, but the FPGAs used in Natami shouldn't cost too much.
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Maybe you are right, cutting edge is expensive and in the end you will never catch Apple or MS. So abandon the cutting edge and go for the video game market with a machine that you can essentially reprogram the video and audio at will. Price it competitively with Wii, PSP3 and X-Box.
But you have some serious problems, NTSC and Pal are of limited duration, ATSC will be the standard in the US next year with DVB replacing PAL faily quickly. You need to write the OS to handle these. Plus you need to read and play Blu-Ray disks and older DVD movies. There's a lot of technology changes in the pipeline.
-
Whateaver happens I'm in !!!!!
I believe we need to define directions of where to go from where we are, and I would like to be part of the design of an Amiga compatible.
So here goes some suggestions:
- We could start some threads to brainstorm specific features of the machine, like the one about SuperPaula. Let's do it for video, CPU, Audio, I/O, etc...
- We could compile the results in a set of documents and let them public. Keep some threads to improve then and freeze them after some time.
- Start some development. Let's assign some tasks and have some wiring and programming :-)
- Try some tests with Kick 3.1, and keep searching for AROS kickstart.
- Leave space to use off the shelf components. Why can't we have custom chips and use commom parts at the same time? (I have some Ideas about it)
- Glue everything togheter and create a new Amiga. Even if it can't be named Amiga due to legal issues...
Personal opinion:
I don't think we should aim at a specific market like desktops or game consoles. If we define a nice spec, it could cover from a machine as small as a PDA or cell phone up to one as big as a high performance computer cluster.
I seems to be just a matter of planning
-
1) Kickstart roms in 2008 are nothing more than a dongle. It serves no practical purpose in an open machine.
2) Designing scalable anything is hard, I seriously doubt anyone here has that talent. So we are really going back to the cross roads, an Amiga that works in the corporate culture would require so many changes to the OS that it would break everything that currently works on the Amiga. Even if we went that way do we have the necessary skillset within the community. Remember this is a community that has yet to get OS4 to run on an old style Mac Mini, that's child's play compared to writing a fully functioning OS.
3) The reprogrammable FPGs are a nice idea but again the skill set necessary seems to be in the hands of 2 or 3 community members. It would be far easier to use off the shelf components and limit the choices to say one companies video or audio card and then write drivers for them. Maybe use the FPGs for a classic mode and a real video card for future development.
4) Mobile phones require a lot of software to do the phone work, none of that exists in the Amiga world.
The skilled programmers are largely in the Linux world, how many hours went into making Linux into what it is today? Realistically we are a small shrinking community that are mostly collectors or retro computing enthusiasts.
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1)We don't need real ROMs. We need a software starting point, and KS3.1 is a good one. Another good choice is Linux stuff, but this way we would be just another distro... (better get a PC and install your favourit one)
2)Don't paint that as a monster... It is easier to provide a path from the scratch than reverse engineer two complex parts (Mac/OS4). To be scalable you have to specify your base and top model. For example, want a base ? This looks good:
http://www.freescale.com/webapp/sps/site/prod_summary.jsp?code=MPC512X&nodeId=0162468rH3DgbNGrmC22FA&tid=t32hb
Want a top ? Connect some of these through ethernet:
http://www.pasemi.com/processors/pwr1682M.html
Just think about what they have in common and how we could support then.
3)The base stuff needs to be in FPGA for compatibility with AGA. Off the shelf components are better supported in expansion boards. You can use common audio/video boards without having to design complex PCBs and have SuperAGA in FPGA locally.
4) The mobile phone was a small device example I used. It does not mean I would like these specs to support GSM. It means it should support simple devices. Take the PDA if it feels more comfortable, but you can choose anything small. The Freescale chip above would be nice in a PDA, but a G5/Radeon/Realtek combo not, so the base could be: "have a commom processor, drivers for audio and video", instead of "use a Radeon xxx and Realtek yyy". Sounds better ?
I know there are many people in Linux world and even more on MS. There are maybe less than 1% of that amount of people doing AROS and it looks really nice.
If everybody shoots in a different direction our future is as promising as the future of Sinclair users (no offense, I love my Sinclair :-D).
It is worth a try. The Linux guys started like that. At least, we gonna have some fun !
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@biggungunnar
I think its a great idea, one that really needs to be addressed, we could end up in a sitruation where we have 10 different systems all with 20 different "standards".
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bloodline wrote:
@amigadave
That's a very nice little fantasy... But it's not realistic, if the idea of an Amiga is to be real, we need to decide exactly what we want to acheive and why.
I've been here before 5 years ago, so I have no desire to rehash my old OpenAMiGA spec...
But think about it... A reasonable goal would be to create an opensource platform totally compatible with the Amiga500 with the intention of perhaps building an all in one games console... For example.
This is both achieveable and realistic, the minimig needs bug fixes and cost reduction, Aros needs the 68k port to be brought back uptodate (but we would only need 1.3 compatibility)... So there is a lot of work to do, but everything needed is already there. If this can be done then more advanced plans can be made.
My thoughts are a fantasy to most, but could be a possibility to many remaining Amiga fans. Your idea could be a step along the way to something better. My point is that we, the Amiga community, cannot and should not wait any longer for companies to come up with the next Amiga, or Amiga-Like computer hardware design. With the advancements provided with projects like MorphOS, Minimig, NatAmi & CloneA, it is clear that it IS possible for the community to take charge of our future and move forward in spite of all the lies we have been fed by Hyperion and Amiga Inc.
Let's bring the community together again. The Amiga was/is about all the so very talented, passionate, programmers and users that made/make the Amiga community the best and kept the Amiga alive long after C= folded. It is time to unite under one common goal and work together.
-
amigadave wrote:
bloodline wrote:
@amigadave
That's a very nice little fantasy... But it's not realistic, if the idea of an Amiga is to be real, we need to decide exactly what we want to acheive and why.
I've been here before 5 years ago, so I have no desire to rehash my old OpenAMiGA spec...
But think about it... A reasonable goal would be to create an opensource platform totally compatible with the Amiga500 with the intention of perhaps building an all in one games console... For example.
This is both achieveable and realistic, the minimig needs bug fixes and cost reduction, Aros needs the 68k port to be brought back uptodate (but we would only need 1.3 compatibility)... So there is a lot of work to do, but everything needed is already there. If this can be done then more advanced plans can be made.
My thoughts are a fantasy to most, but could be a possibility to many remaining Amiga fans.
Well... anything is possible, but we do have to be realistic...
Your idea could be a step along the way to something better. My point is that we, the Amiga community, cannot and should not wait any longer for companies to come up with the next Amiga, or Amiga-Like computer hardware design.
I decided that 8 years ago when I put my, support and money behind teh AROS project.
With the advancements provided with projects like MorphOS, Minimig, NatAmi & CloneA, it is clear that it IS possible for the community to take charge of our future and move forward in spite of all the lies we have been fed by Hyperion and Amiga Inc.
I'm not sure what the MorphOS team are up to at the moment, but my point is that we have had the opertunity as a community to take control years ago. Opensource software and commodity hardware is the future. Opensource Hardware is good too, but you have to be realistic.
Let's bring the community together again. The Amiga was/is about all the so very talented, passionate, programmers and users that made/make the Amiga community the best and kept the Amiga alive long after C= folded. It is time to unite under one common goal and work together.
Yes... that's why we need to focus on AROS, which is the only resonable future direction for the community, if the community wants to control it's own future...
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@bloodline,
Yes, I agree with most all you wrote, except I don't agree that AROS is the only answer.
My problem with AROS is that the developers of it did not aim high enough and have still not integrated simple, no hassle, backward compatibility with the thousands of legacy Amiga applications and games. Those old applications and games are all we have now, other than a handful of programs and only a very few games that have been written for PPC only.
What I mean when I say did not aim high enough is, yes, I want some familiarity with the older Amiga API and interface, but there does not seem to be anything in AROS to excite and inspire more programmers to join and complete the project years ago. Where is the "WOW" factor that makes anyone really want AROS. I guess what I am trying to say (again) is that I want what the Amiga should have evolved into, if C= had not held back funding and further development that would have kept the Amiga ahead of the pack where it always should have been.
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@persia:
ATSC is a transmission and coding standard. NOT a video generator<->display link. Same goes for DVB.
Blu-ray etc.. can be handled via firewire/usb. No need to waste resources in a technological rat-race. I think you should read up on the technology issues.
Using of the shelf components instead of FPGA will limit the capabilities severly. And Amiga is not about mediocrity.
@AeroMan/persia:
I rather get a M68060+FPGA or PPC+FPGA (Virtex..). And then use technical skills to see how much performance one can squeeze out of it. The other way around is like.. we shall be no better than X and Y.
I think the idea to base an software API on the existing kickstart is a good idea to get a well defined API. That way we can easily find non-compliant implementations.
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bloodline wrote:
Yes... that's why we need to focus on AROS, which is the only resonable future direction for the community, if the community wants to control it's own future...
I agree with you.
AROS seems to me as well as the most sensible way forward.
I respect the major efforts and excellent work that was put both into MOS and OS4.
But that MOS and OS4 are closed source is a very high risk.
Beeing closed source makes them very "fragile" to getting knocked or never updated anymore if the developer decides to do it.
AROS seem to be much more robust against these type of risk.
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You know I'm starting to change my mind on this whole thing. Chasing state-of-the-art isn't really preactical, how long much effort to write code to take advantage of multiple cores? How much to link machine to combine cpu power like xGrid? Memory protection and all the other issues AmigaDos has are too hard to address.
The Amiga is retro-computing at it's best. I spend all day working on state of the art equipment. When I come home and turn on my 2000 it takes me back to a simpler time. Low end graphics, simple games and OS that really doesn't do anything but load programs. It pulls me out of the 21st Century and back to my youth. That's the Amiga magic. Going state-of-the-art would ruin that. The Amiga is like Amish furniture, nobody asks why the Amish don't use naugahyde!
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I no longer invest any resources in anything that can be taken away to will. At minimum the API should be available. And ofcourse even better the source code with a licence to change, redistribute etc.. (BSD/GPL).
Can't these be used as definition?
It will allow existing software to work. It's widely available, and almost anyone can verify compliency. Won't require any major changes as to how things work.
Hardware API definition: A500/A1200/A3000/A4000 etc..
Software API definition: KS 1.3 basic, KS 3.1 full.
Hw/Sw that works as above should be considered "Amiga compliant".
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This is not the first open amiga idea (http://www.blachford.info/computer/amiopen.html).
I don't hold out much hope for this effort, I wrote that 11 years ago...
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persia wrote:
You know I'm starting to change my mind on this whole thing. Chasing state-of-the-art isn't really preactical, how long much effort to write code to take advantage of multiple cores? How much to link machine to combine cpu power like xGrid? Memory protection and all the other issues AmigaDos has are too hard to address.
The Amiga is retro-computing at it's best. I spend all day working on state of the art equipment. When I come home and turn on my 2000 it takes me back to a simpler time. Low end graphics, simple games and OS that really doesn't do anything but load programs. It pulls me out of the 21st Century and back to my youth. That's the Amiga magic. Going state-of-the-art would ruin that. The Amiga is like Amish furniture, nobody asks why the Amish don't use naugahyde!
Why then developing and maintaining three OSs with the goal of being 3.1 compliant at the expence of modernity, why not just use the #?UAE, there are ports for almost any platform out there, should give the 3.1 lovers least trouble to make out with the 3.1 API :-)
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There's a huge software base for Amiga that I don't want loose. Most newer versions just don't have that software base.
And in any case there's nothing to prevent loading another OS.
If modernity is the way. Then we might aswell dump all Motorola CPU/OCS/ECS/AGA and go for MIPS/ARM/etc.. + Intel graphics (most open atm).
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For anyone who is happy to abandon everything that makes the amiga special, the answer is obvious, get a PC.
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freqmax wrote:
There's a huge software base for Amiga that I don't want loose. Most newer versions just don't have that software base.
And in any case there's nothing to prevent loading another OS.
Like I wrote, why not just use #?UAE ? Use it as X-Amiga or launch it on top of the other real OS that I *know* amiga/3.1 lovers run.
If modernity is the way. Then we might aswell dump all Motorola CPU/OCS/ECS/AGA and go for MIPS/ARM/etc.. + Intel graphics (most open atm).
No I guess we better get back to live in caves while we are at it, or consider what I wrote above..
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A6000 wrote:
For anyone who is happy to abandon everything that makes the amiga special, the answer is obvious, get a PC.
I take it as you use an A6000 for your personal computer needs ?
-
I have no real need for a computer, I don't even play games much, I use a PC ONLY to access the internet, so my a4000 is more than adequate for my needs.
I will however, get a Natami when I can afford it, with an '060 not a coldfire or ppc.
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A6000 wrote:
I have no real need for a computer, I don't even play games much, I use a PC ONLY to access the internet,
If you have a PC solely to access the internet then you *do* need a computer do you not ?
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When I can get a webbrowser for the amiga/natami that does "everything" then I can put the PC in the back of a cupboard.
I can use a library computer, so no, I don't NEED a computer.
I feel a rant coming on about all these "new fangled gadgets". :roll:
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A6000 wrote:
When I can get a webbrowser for the amiga/natami that does "everything" then I can put the PC in the back of a cupboard.
I can use a library computer, so no, I don't NEED a computer.
I feel a rant coming on about all these "new fangled gadgets". :roll:
You still need a computer, that's what you're implying :-)
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OK, I give up, I need a computer, I just don't USE a computer enough to justify the expense.
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Ok, let's get a state of the art machine, an eight core Penryn, 1 TB hard disk, 8 GB Ram, 512 MB graphics card with a RW Blu-ray drive. Do AmigaDos hand the multi-cores? No. Can it use the video card? No. Can it access the entire hard disk? No. Can it burn a Blu-Ray disk? No.
What am I going to switch my picture editing from Photoshop, Lightroom & Aperture? Deluxe Paint? Not bloody likely! Video Editing from Final Cut to what? Word Processing colaberation? Nope. Spreadsheet with mathematical routines? Un-un. Host a PHP website like WordPress or a Java Exo? Sorry mate, no can do.
There's no killer app out there for the Amiga and frankly why would someone bother to write one when it would probably crash the OS, the OS lacks the basic functionality of a modern OS and they could make several orders of magnitude more money with a PC or Mac version.
What would need to be done is that the entire OS would need to be rewritten on top of a Posix OS such as Linux, that is a GUI that approximated Workbench. Who's going to do that?
Realistically the best chance for Amiga is Retro-computing. where it's dead simple looking graphics and OS and sound give that good retro feeling.
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^^^
Absolutely. Any chance of a 'modern' Amiga is about 12-15 years too late at this point. Love it for what it is, not for what it could have been or may be in some wild pipe dream.
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We are all well aware that it's not just hardware that needs to be updated, the operating system also needs to be upgraded.
BUT, we need to ensure that we end up with something recognisably amigalike, NOT PC like.
There really is no point, and no inclination to reinvent the PC in the image of the amiga.
I/We want a modern amiga compatible not a PC running UAE or AROS.
In the late 70's, the advice to computer buyers was, choose the software you want to run then buy the computer that runs it.
You have the PC to run your software. The Amigalike is different, it's demand and possession defies logic, so what.
Maybe we will get lucky and someone, or the community will write new software for it. but, truth be told, it does not really matter whether new software is written or not, it will still sell.
The PC is a workhorse, it's for work. The amiga is a hobby, it's for fun.
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persia wrote:
Ok, let's get a state of the art machine, an eight core Penryn, 1 TB hard disk, 8 GB Ram, 512 MB graphics card with a RW Blu-ray drive. Do AmigaDos hand the multi-cores? No. Can it use the video card? No. Can it access the entire hard disk? No. Can it burn a Blu-Ray disk? No.
What am I going to switch my picture editing from Photoshop, Lightroom & Aperture? Deluxe Paint? Not bloody likely! Video Editing from Final Cut to what? Word Processing colaberation? Nope. Spreadsheet with mathematical routines? Un-un. Host a PHP website like WordPress or a Java Exo? Sorry mate, no can do.
There's no killer app out there for the Amiga and frankly why would someone bother to write one when it would probably crash the OS, the OS lacks the basic functionality of a modern OS and they could make several orders of magnitude more money with a PC or Mac version.
This is pretty obvious isn't it ? not many would write killer apps for an OS that's technically inferior to alternatives (and with alternatives I'm not implying the overbloated trinity).
What would need to be done is that the entire OS would need to be rewritten on top of a Posix OS such as Linux, that is a GUI that approximated Workbench. Who's going to do that?
You're implying a near impossibilty for that, but you're forgetting the existence of things such as Syllable (Desktop), SkyOS, and Haiku, first two with custom kernels AFAIK, and the third using a prewritten kernel named NewOS, none relying on a #?x kernel.
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So why bother about this discussion ? All the "modern" OSs have all those drivers.
You can buy a cheap PC, install your favorite Linux distro and pick the drivers and apps on the net. Then if something goes wrong (it will...) you just have to spend the entire day typing huge commands in a terminal window. Pretty modern, like my TRS-80.
You can instead install Windows and be graced with the blue screen of death from times to times, find out that some of your software does not like Vista, or just delight yourself trying to find out why your state of the art PC is as slow as my TRS-80. After some time you will find out you need an upgrade.
Or, you can spend a fortune in a Mac. It will be well spent as it is really, really different from a common PC (at least for the OS). Then you can suffer trying to find the Mac version for "that" software you need and pay another fortune for it.
I feel the need for the Amiga ! All the "modern" OSs does not satisfy my expectations for a computer as Workbench did at its time.
We just can't wait for a killer app to be written for a non existent platform. It is like a chicken-egg situation.
Some time ago, one might say the same about Linux. "Who is gonna write a driver for my XXXX video board for Linux ?? Does it have Excel? Word? Doom? At least a decent GUI?". Time proved there were people willing to do it.
We already have an open source system. Why put a rock over AROS and say nobody could never do these things?
The only way to know is trying.
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So are we agreed that it is too late to pursue the "state of the art" dream? Had CBM survived they would have made the changes necessary over time and yes AmigaDos 2008 would have looked nothing like AmigaDos 4.
So what we are after is a hobbyist machine, maybe a change to learn FPG programming, a chance to play the old games and maybe play with old stuff like Basic/AMOS. Maybe a chance to learn about networking since a modern OS does so much behind the scenes. A sort of training computer where instead of ticking a box you install three pieces of unrelated software and make them work together and have to learn what it means when that box is ticked. How to get by with barebones programming and not letting the operating system do it all for you.
I like it, it's very much like amateur radio, except you don't need a license!
:elvis:
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Oh, and Elvis as the symbol. A little bit fat, a little bit dated, but still the king!
:elvis: :elvis: :elvis: :elvis: :elvis: :elvis: :elvis: :elvis: :elvis: :elvis: :elvis: :elvis:
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Does it make sense to create a AMIGA HW Consortium?
It think we should put the best brains together!
I think the question has to go out to Jens and Elbox and not us.
If they are not interested it would be best to ask on the big sites who is willing to help out on NatAmi HW or Software wise and see who is willing and capable to help.
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The PC is not state of the art, it's just fast, the amiga was state of the art in 1984 and the PC is still not there yet, future amiga compatibles could set a new benchmark that will take the PC another 20 years to match.
In the beginning, users wrote their own programs, now with a developed open source model, we may do just fine without commercial developers.
The software we use in future will evolve from software available now. it will be efficient, not bloated like PC software.
Without sharks preying on the users, we may get software that does all we need at minimal cost.
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AeroMan wrote:
So why bother about this discussion ? All the "modern" OSs have all those drivers.
You can buy a cheap PC, install your favorite Linux distro and pick the drivers and apps on the net. Then if something goes wrong (it will...) you just have to spend the entire day typing huge commands in a terminal window. Pretty modern, like my TRS-80.
Great observed, except you are referring to the UI, I'm talking about the internals. :-(
You can instead install Windows and be graced with the blue screen of death from times to times, find out that some of your software does not like Vista, or just delight yourself trying to find out why your state of the art PC is as slow as my TRS-80. After some time you will find out you need an upgrade.
I run windows xp, and have never encountered a blue screen of death, on the other hand so many colorful and non-colorful screens of AmigaOS death that I'm wondering if all amiga users did something really really bad in a previous life.
I feel the need for the Amiga ! All the "modern" OSs does not satisfy my expectations for a computer as Workbench did at its time.
I think you are misunderstanding a few things, I'm talking about the internals and you about the (G)UI !!
We just can't wait for a killer app to be written for a non existent platform. It is like a chicken-egg situation.
Some time ago, one might say the same about Linux. "Who is gonna write a driver for my XXXX video board for Linux ?? Does it have Excel? Word? Doom? At least a decent GUI?". Time proved there were people willing to do it.
I guess we'll have to see, good luck though with the killer app writers swarming around a crashfrienly OS :)
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It's going to be hard enough to get developers to write for the aros machines without expecting them to create 2 or 3 versions, 68k, PPC, PC, a common os will help, if the 68k takes longer to run a program, so be it, at least it will run.
I for one think AROS should be forked.
1. Create a 68k version that runs 3.x Software.
2. Create a "whatever" (AROS 64 with Mem protection) version which uses the 68k version for compatability inside a box or ArosUAE Integration.
=All people happy.
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A6000 wrote:
We are all well aware that it's not just hardware that needs to be updated, the operating system also needs to be upgraded.
BUT, we need to ensure that we end up with something recognisably amigalike, NOT PC like..
Sorry but this made me laugh.
See - I'm old enough to remember the PC when you typed commands from DOS. What your saying is to avoid all things 'PC' just for the sake of it - when the PC liberally took things from the Mac and Ami and ran with them.
The PC you use today has more in common with your Ami than you'd want to admit.
It's funny because I remember trying to put cards into a 386 and get it to run windows 3.1 for work - and pulling my hair out as I messed with jumpers and hardware incompatability and those %^#$!ing IRQ's! Where the Amiga was ... autoconfig.. I don't need to think about it - I turn it on and it will work.
I went through the experience again a few months ago after being away from a real Amiga in a decade.. and I was 'holy crap - I gotta get x ram and switch y jumper, cut z trace - get THIS version of software and THAT patch.... arrrrgh!'
they have changed places - the current state of Plug and Play (which when it was first introduced I called Plug and PRAY) is where Autoconfig cards would be NOW had the Amiga continued and followed its logical progression.
Cutting and pasting between apps - remember SNAP? - again - 10 years of logical progression.
They took a lot of good ideas from the Ami and Mac and built upon them - If you wanted to capture 'Amiga like' you should go back and see what the Amiga was compared to the machines around it when it came out.
Amiga wasn't about mice, windows, workbench - those were things that evolved OUT of what it was about - and that was taking the best things you could find and making something truely excellent and innovative out of them.
The first review I saw of the Ami 1000 had the phrase in it 'this is the Mac - as it should have been'
That's what you should be dwelling on.
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Donar wrote:
It's going to be hard enough to get developers to write for the aros machines without expecting them to create 2 or 3 versions, 68k, PPC, PC, a common os will help, if the 68k takes longer to run a program, so be it, at least it will run.
I for one think AROS should be forked.
1. Create a 68k version that runs 3.x Software.
2. Create a "whatever" (AROS 64 with Mem protection) version which uses the 68k version for compatability inside a box or ArosUAE Integration.
=All people happy.
I don't think all people will be happy - then you split whats left of the development community (which is small and shrinking) in half.
In a lot of ways I think AROS needs classic Amiga and classic Amiga needs AROS. I'd be happier if if in some way classic Amiga were emulated. Embedded would be nice - but if it stunts the growth, then it may not be a good thing.
AROS needs a base of software - which the Amiga has. The Amiga needs to ween itself off the old technology and into the current century - which Aros could provide.
This was why Amithlon (to me anyways) was so important - it was the 'missing link' - the step between the old and new. I could run old apps while developing and cross compiling to the new. I could run more modern video, network, sound cards - and take advantage of other things.
It broke my heart when it fell in a screaming heap, and it was a setback I don't think the majority of people understood. Right now Minimig and Natami are just as important - because they're a step in taking us away from the old failing hardware.
A lot of people seem to expect 2 things: For it to happen overnight and for someone else to do it.
I don't think either are realistic expectations.
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Einstein wrote:
Great observed, except you are referring to the UI, I'm talking about the internals. :-(
I believe it is not impossible to improve the internals. Even MS did that with 16 bit Windows up to XP, and you can still run 16 bit software.
KS 3.1 is a starting point, for sure it needs to be improved a lot.
But the key point on the thread topic is, we need to have a definition of the hardware first. I bet on AROS as a way to improve the internals gradually
I run windows xp, and have never encountered a blue screen of death,
I use XP at work and it gives me more blues than my B.B. King CDs... And it freezes from times to times also, needing to reboot (at least I don't have to see the blue screen when this happens).
My home PC still runs 98, and it works better, believe it or not (yes, of course it crashes too...)
I guess we'll have to see, good luck though with the killer app writers swarming around a crashfrienly OS :)
They do it with Windows. They will survive... :-D
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You can buy a cheap PC, install your favorite Linux distro and pick the drivers and apps on the net. Then if something goes wrong (it will...) you just have to spend the entire day typing huge commands in a terminal window. Pretty modern, like my TRS-80.
You can instead install Windows and be graced with the blue screen of death from times to times, find out that some of your software does not like Vista, or just delight yourself trying to find out why your state of the art PC is as slow as my TRS-80. After some time you will find out you need an upgrade.
.
As much as I loved, and still love my Ami - I'm afraid your stretching here. I know it was the Amiga Way to bag the PC back in the day - and well we could because it was superior in a LOT of ways, but if we want to make comparisons - lets do it on the current reality and not wishful thinking or with a wistfull pining for the 'good old days'. This only turns the tables back to when the PC guys were making excuses (I'll never need more than 640k! Hrmph - pretty color playscreen - don't need that! - my fave from a ST fan : '4096 colors? you know the human eye can only distinguish between 512!')
Lets be honest and real for a moment. The XP machine I'm using right now hasn't crashed in over 3 months - I've yet to actually see the BSOD on it (5 years ago this may have been different).
I can't make this claim about seeing the red 'Guru' - even back in the glory days.
My Linux box - the only time I rebooted it was when I went from MANDRAKE linux to MANDRIVA linux over a year ago. It took me through a graphic setup, detected all my hardware - including USB devices - and has had graphic configuration tools for quite some time. Again - 4-5 years ago this wasn't always the case.
Or we can put our heads in the sand and continue to beleive old stereotypes and make excuses as our machine falls further and further behind until we're the ones making the excuses (well the Web is primarily text, and noone can afford broadband to run streaming video properly!)...
*shrug* the first step in solving a problem is admitting there is a problem, and theres such a very fine line between advocacy and zealotry.
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Sig999 wrote:
*shrug* the first step in solving a problem is admitting there is a problem, and theres such a very fine line between advocacy and zealotry.
I'm not saying it is not a problem, neither comparing today's systems with my A1200, but let's face it: you can't use Linux without going to the shell. It is a matter of time.
I used Kurumin, and now moved to Ubuntu, and still have to type stuff. Most Linux enthusiasts I know prefer the shell. I don't know a Linux user that doesn't use it (there should be some).
And you can't say that Windows doesn't eats your computer's performance. It is pretty clear if you compare 98 and XP on the same machine. (yes, I have crashes with both! Surprisingly, more with XP)
Those are problems for solving too. They exist, but most people say "ok, it is the way it is". It is not a matter of zealotry, they aren't close to what I expect from a modern system.
I had a Mac some time ago. Unfortunately, not with OS X, and I know there are loads of differences from the old MacOS.
Mac is REALLY nice, but it is expensive, and it is difficult to find software for it. This is why I don't buy a new one
Am I the only one in the world who's not comfortable with those OSs and thinks a modern Amiga could fills my expectations?
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In a lot of ways I think AROS needs classic Amiga and classic Amiga needs AROS. I'd be happier if if in some way classic Amiga were emulated.
To Emulate a real Amiga on "AROS 64" you would need:
A real copy of OS 3.x and/or it's kickstart or a AOS3.x compatible AROS M68k build. I do not think it's smart to rely on copyrighted material for a open source OS to function "properly". So i take it you want AROS M68k too? :-D
A lot of people seem to expect 2 things: For it to happen overnight and for someone else to do it.
People usually pay for Hardware so it's no problem to wait for someone else to do it. On the software side - if everybody (maybe 1000 people) would give 10€ to the Aros Kickstart bounty's the one we expect to do it for us would get 10.000€ for his effort...
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AeroMan wrote:
And you can't say that Windows doesn't eats your computer's performance.
I can. The processor on my machine sits completely idle over 75% of the time, and the other 25% of the time it's going full bore when I'm encoding video. I also think this is a foolish argument. Windows XP SP2 is rock solid. I deal with HUNDREDS of XP SP 2 machines a day. It's hands down the best operating system Microsoft has ever produced. If you're getting blue screens on it, you've got a hardware issue or some third party software issue. If it's performing sluggish, you don't have the proper resources to run it (Should I complain about the performance of 3.9 on a 68020 with 5 MB?)
In my experience with Linux, OS X, and Windows, we've really reached a point where a modern computer almost has too many resources for *most* users... (Given that most users do light word processing, email, and web surfing.)
Mac is REALLY nice, but it is expensive, and it is difficult to find software for it. This is why I don't buy a new one
Mac is not really that much more expensive than other NICE PCs. (Yeah, I'm aware that you can go down to Best Buy or your local appliance store and buy a 400 dollar machine, but you get what you pay for.) Given that you can now run Windows software (both natively and virtualized) I'm finding the "can't find software for it" argument to be more and more a relic of the past. What software do you need that you can't find for it? (In my experience, the only real software gap I've encountered is decent Map/GPS software.)
If you haven't given OS X a try, you really should. The linux zealots that go on and on about 'linux on the desktop' are missing the point that unix on the desktop is here in OS X and has been for years.
Am I the only one in the world who's not comfortable with those OSs and thinks a modern Amiga could fills my expectations?
What would a modern Amiga have that would make you feel comfortable? Where does 'comfort' derive from in an operating system? What do you want in a modern Amiga OS to do that one of the other solutions (Windows, Ubuntu, OS X, etc.) don't already provide? (I don't know how you can talk about not being comfortable with what modern operating systems have to provide if you haven't used OS X. It's by far the cream of the crop (though it does have it's own set of hassles, I'll admit).
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Sig999 wrote:
A6000 wrote:
We are all well aware that it's not just hardware that needs to be updated, the operating system also needs to be upgraded.
BUT, we need to ensure that we end up with something recognisably amigalike, NOT PC like..
I remember trying to put cards into a 386 and get it to run windows 3.1 for work - and pulling my hair out as I messed with jumpers and hardware incompatability and those %^#$!ing IRQ's! Where the Amiga was ... autoconfig.. I don't need to think about it - I turn it on and it will work.
I went through the experience again a few months ago after being away from a real Amiga in a decade.. and I was 'holy crap - I gotta get x ram and switch y jumper, cut z trace - get THIS version of software and THAT patch.... arrrrgh!'
they have changed places - the current state of Plug and Play (which when it was first introduced I called Plug and PRAY) is where Autoconfig cards would be NOW had the Amiga continued and followed its logical progression.
Amiga was about taking the best things you could find and making something truely excellent and innovative out of them.
As I said, the operating system needs to be modernised.
Where I said it should not become a clone of the windows, I meant it should be small and efficient, it should allow the user to do what they want, not what microsoft will allow, it should not become an instrument of extortion through DRM.
Think about the things you don't like about the PC and ensure they are not incorporated in a future amigalike OS.
Similarly the hardware should be carefully considered, one problem with the PC is the variety of hardware and versions of drivers, an FPGA common chipset will minimise such difficulties, a PC graphics card could still be installed, if you want the hassle.
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Mac is not really that much more expensive than other NICE PCs.
The problem is they have no "prosumer" model. Either you buy a screen with an integrated computer and only one 3,5 drive (imac) or a 8 core Xeon Workstation (MacPro). I only need a tower with C2D or C2Q two Optical Drives and say 3 HD's. And no i do not like external enclosures. The only way to get this is a Hackintosh...
Ok sorry for being off topic...
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It might be an idea to have two different tracks for future Amiga development:
(1) A version which is Amiga classic hardware/software true. Ie if you can run it on a A500 it will run without modification.
(MC68060, FPGA chipset, etc..)
(2) A version that is brilliant in using technology. We won't compete with ATI/nVidia/Intel/AMD etc.. but we exploit existing chips in a clever and costeffective way. This version would not have any compability ties with original Amigas at all except in spirit.
(Get the most MIPS/Hz CPU, efficient GFX, FPGA subsystem, etc..)
One could exploit the SRAM feature of FPGAs by reloading it every 10^-3 second. And thus make it do many things with a small configuration.
As for a consortium. Collect data on A500/A1200/A3000/A4000 and put into a report that can be used for hw/sw developers for re-implementations.
An portable Amiga with a 7"-10" screen with super efficient use of battery/cpu/ram/periphials etc.. could be an area where it's possible to get at the competition.
A drawback we as a community have is the economy of volumes, army of optimisation engineers, budget for failed prototypes etc.. any project will have to make up for it in some other way. Once one can produce at least 1000 units. The producer is the king because you can order directly from manufacturers, not digikey/jameco/mouser and the rest.
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But what advantage does an Amiga running on state of the art hardware offer? There's no software to take advantage of the hardware. There's no applications to take advantage of it. Put a 512 MB video card in a box, install AROS and you still have a cute 90's look, you might as well have only 16 MB of video ram.
We're dealing with technology that requires some real technical programmers to program for. It's a really big ask.
Forget state of the art, this isn't 1989 anymore (the last year Amiga was state of the art). The CLI is clunky and awkward compared to the Bash terminal on my Mac. The Amiga file system is slow and not journaled.
There are dozens of personal operating systems out there, what does a modern AmigaDos offer over Haiku, Syllable or SkyOS? Why would somebody say "I'm going to load AROS on my new Quad core Penryn?"
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AeroMan wrote:
Sig999 wrote:
*shrug* the first step in solving a problem is admitting there is a problem, and theres such a very fine line between advocacy and zealotry.
I'm not saying it is not a problem, neither comparing today's systems with my A1200, but let's face it: you can't use Linux without going to the shell. It is a matter of time.
I used Kurumin, and now moved to Ubuntu, and still have to type stuff. Most Linux enthusiasts I know prefer the shell. I don't know a Linux user that doesn't use it (there should be some).
I've used it since Slackware - before running xwindows was viable to run because of system resources and beyond into the birth of RedHat linux - from it's win95 lookalike onto the start of Mandrake with it's prefs for KDE - till today.
Yes - you can use the shell - and in cases you should use the shell, and indeed for somethings the shell is preferable.
But unfortunately this is not what you said.
You said that you can't set things up without going to the shell, that you can't use it or set things up without it. This is false. My wife, who finds opening the software box complex when it comes to computers installed Linux on her machine unassisted and flawlessly - setting up everything from her mouse, graphics tablet, external usb drives, and scanner - from setting up the gimp to initializing her network card and getting it on the internet....
....all without typing a single shell command.
You are comparing to five or six years ago - Linux has matured - gotten smarter in it's setup, and being made more user friendly. Every year it improves.
And you can't say that Windows doesn't eats your computer's performance. It is pretty clear if you compare 98 and XP on the same machine. (yes, I have crashes with both! Surprisingly, more with XP)
What do I compare it to on the same hardware? Linux? I think Linux handles things better but pays a significant overhead using Xwindows - so - comparable. 95 crashed a lot - 98 crashed a fair bit. See what I wrote above, I didn't take the time to type it for amusement. The machine I'm typing this on hasn't crashed in quite a long time. And I use it for a lot of video compositing and editing with Avid. It gets QUITE a workout... Windows XP is an improvement on 95 and 98. I think your statements are exaggerated.
I don't have as much fun on this machine as others - but as a workhorse it does its job.
Those are problems for solving too. They exist, but most people say "ok, it is the way it is". It is not a matter of zealotry, they aren't close to what I expect from a modern system.
I had a Mac some time ago. Unfortunately, not with OS X, and I know there are loads of differences from the old MacOS.
Mac is REALLY nice, but it is expensive, and it is difficult to find software for it. This is why I don't buy a new one
Am I the only one in the world who's not comfortable with those OSs and thinks a modern Amiga could fills my expectations?
I think you're changing your argument.. if you were comfortable you wouldn't be making broad (and nowadays incorrect) comparisons - you'd be happy with your system.
All OS's have problems - but I find it funny that you're not pointing out the problems with the ones your using while your trying to find fault with the others.
the old Ami guru's more times that 95 hits the BSOD - but hey.. it's old and we should expect that... right?
I'm saying - for once - lets put aside the PC/MAC/LINUX wars (because lets face it - in a glass house we shouldn't throw stones) - and instead look to the things they got RIGHT and try and learn a few lessons... OR we could just continue on the track we're all on now and wait another... hmmm.. 5 - 6 years for OS 6 and whatever lawsuits follow it...
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@ Freqmax
I think splitting limited people into camps isn't good for anyone really. Too few developers in an ever dwindling community. As people get tired of spending money to keep old machines going - going head to head with people who want to those parts to put in a glass case - driving up prices - the fun slowly wears off.
As far as hardware goes - and thats the topic of this thread - I'm not as much concerned with things made now running on 500/2000/3000/1200/4000 as I am with new hardware handling the software from these machines. I think that's the issue.
I can get bits piecemeal for a dying 2000 - OR - I can get a new system, but it will run a lot of my old apps... it sounds more attractive to me. Given that I'll not have to search for THIS particular brand of floppy again or THAT particular brand of memory - software can be adapted, reworked, rewritten... provided I don't have to totally find it from scratch it's all good.
State of the art tech isn't needed - CURRENT DAY is. I'd like to see future hardware as modular as possible so I can update it as I need and as I choose.. this is the appeal the PC has for me over the Mac. I don't have to buy a totally new system all at once - I can buy it part by part as I have the means, time, and energy.
State of the art can come later - for now I'd settle for a standard floppy drive - a usb or ps2 mouse and keyboard - a graphics card I don't need to hunt a junkyard for - and any of the current types of memory on the market that still available. Hell - give me IDE harddrives for now if you can't get SATA going - same for CDROMs.
Someone wants to make 'superpaula' or a 'worldwidepants agnus' - fantastic! but PLEASE don't mount it directly on the motherboard - we've been there - we've done that. Put it on a card so when I want to buy your upgrade down the line I don't need to buy a whole new system - It makes it more attractive.
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The idea of the NATAMI is not to have the most fastest hardware on earth, but to make the HW powerful enough to be able to fulfill the everyday tasks and to really make USE the HW.
Here is an example application running on NatAmi:
(http://www.natami.net/NatamiFlight6.jpg)
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The graphics is awesome, but how fast is it? Any chance to upload a video of NatamiFlight to youtube or something?
BTW, the Natami project looks extremly promising. I'm definitely going to buy one when they are ready. If you guys need beta testers or developers, let me know ;-)
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Sig999 wrote:
All OS's have problems - but I find it funny that you're not pointing out the problems with the ones your using while your trying to find fault with the others.
the old Ami guru's more times that 95 hits the BSOD - but hey.. it's old and we should expect that... right?
I've just did it. I'm using Ubuntu and Win98 at home, XP at work and Workbench 3 for fun. I don't think it is needed to list AmigaOS' problems, everybody is very familiar with all of them.
The Sam's Club down the street sells an IMac for something close to US$2000. That's expensive for me, I can buy a hell of a PC for that amount. I want to give OS X a try, but it seems Apple doesn't wants me to do it. Unless I use a hackintosh...
Apples are expensive here mainly for historical reasons I don't think it is worth to describe here. If you get into a computer shop and ask for Mac software you may find just one shelf if you are lucky. This is the Mac scenario here.
What gets me upset is that everytime somebody comes with the idea of doing an "Open Amiga" or similar, loads of people states that it should be a hobby project only, because all other systems are perfect and there is no place for a new Amiga, or something that fills its gap.
I don't think like that, and if there is an effort to do something, even if it doesn't take off, I would like to help. Otherwise, I will be just quiet.
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Cool, Natami still looks retro but has a it better resolution, put it in a cool retro box, maybe something that looks like it fits a WW1 theme. Or maybe there's something in an old Buck Rogers show that would fit the retro-future look.
Natami - Retro for the masses?
(http://www.steampunkworkshop.com/images/Dj-2.jpg)
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AeroMan wrote:
I've just did it. I'm using Ubuntu and Win98 at home, XP at work and Workbench 3 for fun. I don't think it is needed to list AmigaOS' problems, everybody is very familiar with all of them.
The Sam's Club down the street sells an IMac for something close to US$2000. That's expensive for me, I can buy a hell of a PC for that amount. I want to give OS X a try, but it seems Apple doesn't wants me to do it. Unless I use a hackintosh...
Apples are expensive here mainly for historical reasons I don't think it is worth to describe here. If you get into a computer shop and ask for Mac software you may find just one shelf if you are lucky. This is the Mac scenario here.
What gets me upset is that everytime somebody comes with the idea of doing an "Open Amiga" or similar, loads of people states that it should be a hobby project only, because all other systems are perfect and there is no place for a new Amiga, or something that fills its gap.
I don't think like that, and if there is an effort to do something, even if it doesn't take off, I would like to help. Otherwise, I will be just quiet.
I agree - I don't use a Mac for the same reasons - cost. I have a Mac in my cupboard - a g3 with what was at the time a couple of grand worth of avid hardware. It became obsolete at the same time, leaving me with the option of replacing the entire thing at once with a g4 and even MORE avid hardware - or building a PC to take on the task for less money and the ability to buy it part by part, and have a flexible upgrade path.
I think the problems that arise with new Amiga projects is that they follow this path, buying a whole new system - and when the next one comes out, buy a whole new system again.
I like idea of the Natami because it allows you to do that first essential stage of upgrading - bringing native ami apps across to more modern hardware. I like the idea of the minimig because its a step towards getting away from the old chips.
If they can recapture the fun of the old machine, they'll have a winner. My PC doesn't keep me up till midnight flipping through old books and wading through pages of 68k assembly. Linux doesn't make me stop mid-coffee and run to the keyboard to give something 'just one more try'...
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Sig999 wrote:
If they can recapture the fun of the old machine, they'll have a winner. My PC doesn't keep me up till midnight flipping through old books and wading through pages of 68k assembly. Linux doesn't make me stop mid-coffee and run to the keyboard to give something 'just one more try'...
Well, I can't speak for anyone else, but part of the 'fun' of it for me is the simplicity. When you start introducing modern hardware, the features of a modern operating system, etc., that simplicity has a tendency to vanish.
I mentioned in another thread that I was amazed and amused to find the mainboard schematics for my A2000 in the back of the user's manual. That simply doesn't happen any more. Maybe to a certain degree because the schematic would be useless to most consumers, but I'd argue that, to a larger degree, it's because the systems we buy today are much more complex than the classic Amiga. The classic Amiga is to the modern computer what my 1972 VW Bus is to my 2002 Jetta TDI. I can do limited amounts of work on my TDI, but for any serious repairs, I need tools and knowledge that are largely beyond my scope to acquire. The '72? I can pull that engine and rebuild it in the back room. (Much to the girlfriend's chagrin...)
Likewise, the OS required to support this modern hardware scales up quickly in terms of complexity and needed resources. Look at linux. Sure, you can get a small footprint of linux that boots and runs very fast on very limited resources. But start adding the trappings of a modern OS like Windows or OS X to your linux box and you soon find that it also starts demanding more and more resources as the complexity of the user interface and available tools goes up. That's the nature of all operating systems. These things don't come for free.
I'm still curious as to what the modern features people want to add to Amiga OS, and how they intend to implement these without the Amiga OS morphing into the existing operating systems they're seeking to avoid.
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As far as simplicity goes - I think getting away from some of the things we're locked into right now would maintain a level of that that is currently leaving the mix.
I'm not talking bleeding edge here, things that we can do right now, but take time, money, and a level of complexity to achieve - things that I think should be supported by anyone thinking of making a 'next step' Amiga:
Right now with my Ami if I want to replace, say, my keyboard - I have the option of either hunting one down on Ebay, classifieds, and doing some repairwork - or getting one from select vendors and overpaying for it, OR I can get a ps2 adaptor and get a more common conventional keyboard..
The ability to use a ps2 keyboard or mouse is something 'modern' that I should be able to do.
If I want more hardrive space - likewise I have to track down 50 pin scsi drives that I can partition to around 4 gigs - likewise for a CD rom. I can with additional cost and complexity get an IDE solution - this already exists, so wanting it as a base feature isn't unreasonable.
As for OS complexity - I think being able to format larger partitions wouldn't be asking the world, and things that were supposed to be in the original Amiga like memory protection should be considered.
In my expectations of what a 'new amiga' should provide I try and be resonable in my expectations, and realise that any new step should be fairly small. I think that many projects in the past try and step too big - I'm pretty glad right now I didn't buy a Peg or an AmigaOne, and I bet many who did are wary of jumping into yet another hardware solution.
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Likewise, the OS required to support this modern hardware scales up quickly in terms of complexity and needed resources. Look at linux.
I fully agree. Linux has of course many nice things.
But some of its "modern advantages" are paid with by serious complexity and performance issues.
If on Linux a application uses a device then there is for security reasons no direct connection between the application and the device.
This means that if a user application wants to write something to this device it will write this in its user space buffer. The kernel is than called to copy this user space buffer into the kernel space device buffer. The same complex handling is done when the packets return form the device.
This way is "more secure" of course but also twice as slow as the AMIGA solution.
We are writing 10G Ethernet drivers at work and the way Linux handles this is seriously impacting performance.
The beauty of the AMIGA solution is that its more elegant, simpler and faster!
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To be fair to both Linux and the Amiga - Many things like this could be considered workarounds to make Linux more 'single user desktop' friendly. If it were designed from that standpoint I'm sure many of it's systems would be different. In the same way that doing workarounds on the Amiga would cause a similar slowdown and consumption of resources.
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The retro-future version is more do-able. The Amiga belongs in the last century, leave it there but allow use to use modern parts, USB keybords, mice and joysticks. Improve the graphics so they are a little less retro. A hobby machine that you can tinker with. Maybe one you can plug a USB camera into and play with video capture. Part of the charm of Amiga is that it's pre-turn of the century technology.
The hobbyist really has nothing to play with these days, even Amateur radio is being overwhelmed with technology. you used to be able to build your own transceiver and throw an antenna in the tree, now it's digital controlled hi-tech stuff.
All the homebuild gee-whiz kits are gone. Remember Heathkit? It's a market that whilst small is wide open. No competition.
The Amiga, the ultimate Luddite's PC!
:pint:
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Sig: So, on the one hand, you have projects like Minimig making your hardware desires possible. Modern storage medium, modern keyboard, modern mouse, etc. with A500 compatibility. I get that, in the same sense that I get the DTV hacks. Backwards compatibility with a smaller, more efficient, modern design.
The key being backwards compatibility with the classic Amigas. And it strikes me that if you start tampering too much with the OS in order to modernize it, you're going to run into problems with that compatibility...forcing the software to run under constraints (or without constraints, in the case of HDD size) that it was never designed to deal with and that it's completely untested on.
Persia: you really hit the nail on the head, with regards to the hobbyist thing. That's what drew me back to playing with my A2000.
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abbub wrote:
Sig: So, on the one hand, you have projects like Minimig making your hardware desires possible. Modern storage medium, modern keyboard, modern mouse, etc. with A500 compatibility. I get that, in the same sense that I get the DTV hacks. Backwards compatibility with a smaller, more efficient, modern design.
The key being backwards compatibility with the classic Amigas. And it strikes me that if you start tampering too much with the OS in order to modernize it, you're going to run into problems with that compatibility...forcing the software to run under constraints (or without constraints, in the case of HDD size) that it was never designed to deal with and that it's completely untested on.
Persia: you really hit the nail on the head, with regards to the hobbyist thing. That's what drew me back to playing with my A2000.
I think that minimig is a fantastic 'first step' - I'll wait a little bit to see what happens next before I get one though - for me programming is a big part of my Amiga experience, so minimig's not quite there for me yet, but eventually it could be. The little project I'm working on at the moment (game) I'm trying to keep up with minimig's progress so it will be compatible with it.
As for OS upgrading etc - I understand that incompatabilities will arise, this is why I think a 'baby steps' approach is a good idea - to transition from Classic to 'something else'. Take too big a step and you have a whole new system but nothing for it.
As for things such as HD partition size - for me it wouldn't be a huge setback to have to allow for a 4gig partition if needed because some older software expects that - so long as I would be able to also have larger partitions for software that doesn't.
It's getting harder to find older hardware - and that's across the board really, even for some older (like 5 year) PC's - sometimes it amazes me that I can still find hardware at all for the 15+ year Amiga.
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I believe a revival is going on. One thing that seems to be building is momentum.
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persia wrote:
The retro-future version is more do-able. [...] Allow use to use modern parts, USB keybords, mice and joysticks. Improve the graphics so they are a little less retro.
So you are proposing to use the NATAMI, are you ?
Have you seen: http://www.natami.net/
Its backward compatible to A1200 and A4000 but allows to use USB, Ethernet, oldl and new Amiga OS friendly truecolor resolutions with 1280x1024 and 24bit audio.
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abbub wrote:
Sig999 wrote:
If they can recapture the fun of the old machine, they'll have a winner. My PC doesn't keep me up till midnight flipping through old books and wading through pages of 68k assembly. Linux doesn't make me stop mid-coffee and run to the keyboard to give something 'just one more try'...
Well, I can't speak for anyone else, but part of the 'fun' of it for me is the simplicity. When you start introducing modern hardware, the features of a modern operating system, etc., that simplicity has a tendency to vanish.
Explain please!
I'm still curious as to what the modern features people want to add to Amiga OS, and how they intend to implement these without the Amiga OS morphing into the existing operating systems they're seeking to avoid.
If you havent noticed what features some people want in the OS then it's pretty hopeless explaining forever and ever ...and ever, isn't it ?
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Yah, Natami is realistic and doable, state of the art isn't, and even if state of the art were it isn't what most Amiga users want.
Natami is the hobbyist approach, todays Macs and PCs are too easy, just tick a box, the Amiga makes you think and understand what you are doing. It's a learning tool to help understand the basics.
AROS has the most difficult role, bring the Amiga to modern hardware but reproduce the outdated system, major mistake, AmigaDos can't be fixed, it makes wrong assumptions, the same wrong assumptions that killed the Dos/Windows XX and MacOS. You need a new kernel, reproducing the Amiga kernel is a formula for disaster down the road.
Me, I'm buying a MacPro for real work, a Natami for play and getting rid of the 2000 and probably the iMac.
I certainly hope the Natami likes my 3.5 TB RAID when I hook it up to the network... How does Amiga do with SMB or AFP drives?
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biggun wrote:
Likewise, the OS required to support this modern hardware scales up quickly in terms of complexity and needed resources. Look at linux.
I fully agree. Linux has of course many nice things.
But some of its "modern advantages" are paid with by serious complexity and performance issues.
If on Linux a application uses a device then there is for security reasons no direct connection between the application and the device.
This means that if a user application wants to write something to this device it will write this in its user space buffer. The kernel is than called to copy this user space buffer into the kernel space device buffer. The same complex handling is done when the packets return form the device.
This way is "more secure" of course but also twice as slow as the AMIGA solution.
We are writing 10G Ethernet drivers at work and the way Linux handles this is seriously impacting performance.
The beauty of the AMIGA solution is that its more elegant, simpler and faster!
Faster huh ? then why not just use TOS or MS-DOS, I bet no AmigaOS app will ever be as fast as one under these, and due to the non-multitasking nature it means one is less likely to loose data in some running app(s) because another one just did bring down the OS, MS-DOS rulez I guess.
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Einstein wrote:
Explain please!
It's pretty self-explanatory, isn't it?
When you start adding features to an operating system, the complexity of that system goes up. Want to add a web browser? Well, you'll also need to add a TCP/IP stack and the network drivers for your supported hardware, as well as a way to configure all of that. Then someone says, "well, we now have built in networking, so why not go one more step and add wireless? , which opens a whole other can of worms. You add something like simple USB support, but why doesn't the mouse wheel work when I have my USB mouse plugged in? You'll have to add support for that so that the wheel is standardized throughout all of the programs. And third mouse button support that's also standardized. And I want those multimedia keys on my USB keyboard to do something, so we should have a way to configure those in the OS, too. And so on and so fourth.
Before long, adding all of these little tweaks and add-ons results in an OS that now has a 500 MB footprint and needs a half a gig of memory just to boot. All of the simplicity (and speed) of the OS is gone. You're left with yet another operating system in a sea of operating systems, and chances are, you've also left real Amiga support somewhere behind you, because convincing programs written in 1988 to play nice on a modern system is a daunting task. Of course, you could probably port UAE to your new Amiga, and run your Amiga software on your Amiga under emulation...?!
If you havent noticed what features some people want in the OS then it's pretty hopeless explaining forever and ever ...and ever, isn't it ?
One person on here (Sig1999) has answered my question with regards to what he feels are modern features... >4 GB support and the ability to use PS/2 keyboards. (Though I'd argue that PS/2 keyboards are just a stop gap, and for real future proofing you'd need USB.) In any event, I'm not sure how you expect me to 'notice' something that very few people have commented on.
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abbub wrote:
Einstein wrote:
Explain please!
It's pretty self-explanatory, isn't it?
When you start adding features to an operating system, the complexity of that system goes up. Want to add a web browser? Well, you'll also need to add a TCP/IP stack and the network drivers for your supported hardware, as well as a way to configure all of that. Then someone says, "well, we now have built in networking, so why not go one more step and add wireless? , which opens a whole other can of worms. You add something like simple USB support, but why doesn't the mouse wheel work when I have my USB mouse plugged in? You'll have to add support for that so that the wheel is standardized throughout all of the programs. And third mouse button support that's also standardized. And I want those multimedia keys on my USB keyboard to do something, so we should have a way to configure those in the OS, too. And so on and so fourth.
Before long, adding all of these little tweaks and add-ons results in an OS that now has a 500 MB footprint and needs a half a gig of memory just to boot. All of the simplicity (and speed) of the OS is gone.
So you mean it will be more complex *internally*, I could swear it sounded it would get more complex for end users. But what did you expect, on the other hand if yuo hate complexity then why not not just ditch the OS in favour of MS-DOS, or better yet, hardware hitting application framework (+ drivers), and just get rid of the overhead that's added to he OS b/c the need of multi-tasking ?
You're left with yet another operating system in a sea of operating systems,
Yea, just like AmigaOS like systems, yet other OSs in the the sea of OSs... (!)
and chances are, you've also left real Amiga support somewhere behind you, because convincing programs written in 1988 to play nice on a modern system is a daunting task. Of course, you could probably port UAE to your new Amiga, and run your Amiga software on your Amiga under emulation...?!
Not on "my Amiga". All these efforts put into all these projects, only a fraction of it is needed to integrate UAE at a clearly acceptable level into a clearly advanced OS and get on with life.
If you havent noticed what features some people want in the OS then it's pretty hopeless explaining forever and ever ...and ever, isn't it ?
One person on here (Sig1999) has answered my question with regards to what he feels are modern features... >4 GB support and the ability to use PS/2 keyboards. (Though I'd argue that PS/2 keyboards are just a stop gap, and for real future proofing you'd need USB.) In any event, I'm not sure how you expect me to 'notice' something that very few people have commented on.
Than it's possible that you started reading this board (and others) yesterday, in that case it's understandable.
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abbub wrote:
One person on here (Sig1999) has answered my question with regards to what he feels are modern features... >4 GB support and the ability to use PS/2 keyboards. (Though I'd argue that PS/2 keyboards are just a stop gap, and for real future proofing you'd need USB.) In any event, I'm not sure how you expect me to 'notice' something that very few people have commented on.
I'd say they are stop gap too! But saying 'I want hobbyists to build the next Amiga board with built in full support for USB 2, etc. etc. etc.' would be unreasonable (to me anyways).
It's what I was talking about with 'baby steps' - give me a ps2 mouse and keyboard for now - I can still buy them fairly easily.
Same for HD's and CD roms - I know SATA is where it's at now... but hey, if IDE is an easier first step - make it.. only when the only thing I can find is a 200gig drive... please don't make me format it into 50 4 gig partitions! (if such a thing were possible it would look HYSTERICAL on my wb screen.. would there even be enough space for the icons? - and god imagine Diropus!)
I'm in a strange fencesitting position I guess where I love the Amiga as a retro machine - and I think its 'new life' will be in the hobbyist realm and not back in the mainstream again.... that being said - it is an absolute and total PITA to deal with 880k floppys (well it's becoming a PITA to deal with floppies at all really) - and transferring stuff across a null modem cable from the PC...because I'm not about to spend 150 bucks on a network card for the Ami at this point........
You see where I'm coming from?
I'm not in the camp of 'The Amiga will rise and kick arse once more!' - but I'd really like to see it have some longevity via new hardware.... and if an OS eventually follows (thought I totally doubt that) - I'd like to throw some suggestions out there for what I'd like.
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Sig999 wrote:
I'm not in the camp of 'The Amiga will rise and kick arse once more!'
Not me either, but I just cannot hope on something that will get its arse kicked by anything, anytime, anywhere :(
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Einstein wrote:
So you mean it will be more complex *internally*, I could swear it sounded it would get more complex for end users. But what did you expect, on the other hand if yuo hate complexity then why not not just ditch the OS in favour of MS-DOS, or better yet, hardware hitting application framework (drivers), and just get rid of the overhead that's added to he OS b/c the need of multi-tasking ?
Because running OS X, XP, or Ubuntu is a lot easier than finding a browser, email client, and TCP/IP stack for MS-DOS and juggling with the memory manager in CONFIG.SYS to get it all working. ;)
But I think you're taking my thoughts out of the context of this particular thread. My thoughts regarding the complexity of the operating system is that the things that make the Amiga unique (largely intangible and undefinable, I think) would be lost in this transition to a modern OS.
On here, there's talk of modernizing the Operating System and Hardware. My question is (and has been) to what end?
As I've said, in the case of Minimig, Natami, etc., I can see it. You're basically creating a hobby machine that has access to modern peripherals. In other words, you're creating a clone (using modern hardware) of a 20 year old system.
But going beyond that and trying to create a new, high tech Amiga with 'state of the art' graphics, processor, etc., and a new OS to run on it... I don't get it. Seems like using a Workbench-emulating window manager on a linux or BSD system with PC hardware is probably a better, easier solution.
Than it's possible that you started reading this board (and others) yesterday, in that case it's understandable.
Well, two weeks ago, but your point remains. ;)
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Einstein wrote:
Sig999 wrote:
I'm not in the camp of 'The Amiga will rise and kick arse once more!'
Not me either, but I just cannot hope on something that will get its arse kicked by anything, anytime, anywhere :(
agreed :) we're kind of like agnostics at mass ;)
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Sig:
I totally see where you're coming from, and I agree with it. I think that, to a certain degree, the amount of collectors (there are quite a number of people on this board with 3-6 Amiga's listed in their sig) have created a scarcity of 'classic hardware' that makes the 'new clones' all the more attractive.
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@abbub, since you've not read the board long enough then it's a good start to search for the relevant keywords (dunno, memory protection, x, y, z..)with the search form ;)
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Sig999 wrote:
Einstein wrote:
Sig999 wrote:
I'm not in the camp of 'The Amiga will rise and kick arse once more!'
Not me either, but I just cannot hope on something that will get its arse kicked by anything, anytime, anywhere :(
agreed :) we're kind of like agnostics at mass ;)
Could've agreed back to that, if I only knew the meaning of that expression :-D
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I don't really feel that I need to search the forums to know the weaknesses (and strengths, for that matter) of the Amiga OS compared to a modern OS, or to understand the impact that addressing those weaknesses could potentially have on 20 year old software. ;-)
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abbub wrote:
I don't really feel that I need to search the forums to know the weaknesses (and strengths, for that matter) of the Amiga OS compared to a modern OS, or to understand the impact that addressing those weaknesses could potentially have on 20 year old software.
Not if those software run in a #?UAE box that integrates some essantial resources with the host OS. Needs work ? yes, but far far less than that having been put into all these OS projects, one either plans smart, or one does not, but that's the amiga spirit, at least the contemporary one :(
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I just loved the new Natami site !
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JetRacer opens casket and howls:
Many people totally miss this very important point: the Amiga was everything-in-a-box. A user streamlined package - while the PC was and still is a production industry streamlined concept. At the time of the A1200 the PC could do it all (in one degree or another) - only each plugin card that added an Amiga feature costed as much as an Amiga.
If you want to earn some millions then be the first to introduce a PC in a cast aluminum keyboard with lcd screen fitted with a tiny all-in-one mobo and pre-installed with win vista and a proper powersupply that plugs strait into the wall. Like those draggable gamer laptops minus the substandard UPS. Sell only one model and make them all identical. -It's a piece of the magic formula that made the Amiga sell.
Another part was the advanced user friendly OS with scripts any user could understand. The OS was never an overclockers dream to begin with - first rule of demo/game programming was to get rid of the system (read: OS).
There's nothing wrong with making a modern Amiga compatible machine that can use modern hardware. The discussions soon reach the point where card-slot hardware is banned for not being enough Amiga. The only reason the Amiga chips exists is because no 3:rd party could provide the technology at the time.
The problem with the "pure" Amiga nostalgia concept is that it's a pipleline which eventually joins the one which leads to the sesspool of Commodores infmaous: "Then the kids will upgrade from the Amiga gaming console to a real Commodore PC computer.".
And, oh, feck the free market - it's a luxury we can't afford. Just get thumbs out and let the consortium to pick a (reasonably modern, not junkyard) gfx chipset of either ATI or nVidia and stick with it through thick and thin. There's basicly only one brand audio chip that is soldered onto every AMD/Intel/PowerMess mobo so that's an easy pick for the undesided. Keep it simple, keep it identical. And everyone will keep in line or face extiction when programmers don't bother writing code to support the strays.
Some user: An Amiga consortium risc becoming a giant that's ineffective due to it's own weight?!? You're kidding, right?
Off-topic: Win XP pre-SP2 runs blazing fast and is 100% stable as long as one doesn't use Explorer (and safe if you don't use the net). After installing SP2 everything runs slowly in an "emulation" type sandbox mode for security reasons. The computer is then bogged down to 68020 levels when using the compulsory firewall. A dirty workaround allows high performance tasks to grab 99% cpu. Unless that workaround is triggered the computer leaves a trail of slime with it's constant 10-20% cpu usage - regardless if the user falls asleep or not :-)
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I wanna find a 1200 for under 300 bucks!
(never missed the 'everything in the box' - I just don't look at that as an advantage)
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@biggun:
It's possible to do without the extra copy stage. It's called "zerocopy" and NetBSD has implemented this. You could try it and see if performance improve.
@abbub:
Modularity is the key to avoid the complexity trap. I also think USB for lowend devices is needed, eventually. Not now because the stopgap solution (PS/2) let's us focus on other issues. In the meantime prices for an implementation will go down.
@Sig999 post 3/26 22:00:
Ethernet can cure all those storage needs. I think the filesystem networking doesn't have the 4 GB limit.
@JetRacer:
(1) "Amiga was everything-in-a-box. A user streamlined package"
(2) "each plugin card that added an Amiga feature costed as much as an Amiga"
(3) "The only reason the Amiga chips exists is because no 3:rd party could provide the technology at the time."
Good points JetRacer!
I think this kind of summarize the economic driving factors behind the Amiga.
I think I should point out from an electronics designers point of view. That adding yet-another-chip to an existing pcb is very cheap unlike doing the same with an external card.
So an hw/sw true box would be an FPGA+PPC with a PCI slot I guess. And the amiga spirit compatible would be efficient & modern asic cpu + fpga.
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@freqmax: Typical afterthought on my part. Yes, buying a chip off nVidia or ATI like any other OEM is a very cheap way to get a modern Amiga.
Also, if ATI / Nvidia won't sell directly then just call some of the billions of OEM's up and see if they're ready to play.
-- edit --
@Sig999: Think of it this way - when the Amiga was released it had graphics equivalent of the most expensive nVidia card , sound like a 5.1 24-bit system, it plugged into a HDTV 1080 and it costed like the cheapest x86.
Today things have changed - except for one vital thing we also see in x86 mobos. Which is cheaper; the all-in-one mobo with quality 5.1 sound 1Gbit network, S-ATA, etc. or to expand a bog-standard mobo with nothing? Don't you agree that having all that for almost no additonal cost and only having one or two PCI slots is getting some serius value for your money?
Who will buy a $3'000 / 1'500 EUR amiga bundle anyway? Because that's the price segment the expand-it-all Amiga will end up in.
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And for the sake of everyones sanity can someone please re-cap this in a new thread. I almost lost my will to live already at page 9.
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freqmax wrote:
@abbub:
Modularity is the key to avoid the complexity trap.
In terms of software, you mean? Well, it can help, but all too often a modular approach to software development ends up with modules wrapping themselves around each other in a cycle of dependencies (Often for good reason...there is something to be said for not reinventing the wheel...) and then you're back to the complexity. I'm not saying it's impossible to avoid this, just that it's difficult. (And that it comes at a cost.)
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@Sig999: Think of it this way - when the Amiga was released it had graphics equivalent of the most expensive nVidia card , sound like a 5.1 24-bit system, it plugged into a HDTV 1080 and it costed like the cheapest x86.
Actually I prefer to think of it as it actually WAS - you see I had an Amiga back then, and I'd just been forced to buy a PC because my bridgeboard wasn't going to cut it anymore.
When the Amiga was released (A1000) the PC did 16 colors and the Mac did 2... but that's not what you're talking about , you're talking about the 1200... that's around 1992 - around 93 ish when it came to Australia.
So, why don't we look at it like the 1200 was doing 256 colors in AGA, with a possible 16 million.. The PC card I bought to run Winblows 3.1 on did about the same, and with a Soundblaster 16 thrown in cost me around 300-350 bucks.
The 1200 did not cost 300 bucks - or if we say that each card cost the same as an amiga - 150 bucks. My 500 cost 1000 when I first bought it - several years later when I got my 2000, it cost about the same.
Lets bring in some historical reference - to put it in perspective.... The PC was well on it's way to feature recovery - and the year after the 1200 was released, it started taking back the games market when DOOM was released.
The Amiga was only a blip on Billy-Boy's radar - but the thought that DOOM was installed on more PC's than Windows 95 actually phased him.
To be 100% clear though - I hated windows until XP, which I find 'ok for work' - I've never liked Doom. But I was there for the Amiga's arrival, rise, and eventual fall. I remember the hey day when the 040 equipped Amiga could still hold it's own against the first Pentiums, and how we laughed when the first bugs in that system appeared (division by 0? Only Pentium makes it possible!).
But let's keep our advocacy based in Reality - please.
As for all-in-one solutions - I am loathe to buy a laptop because if something breaks or becomes obsolete, I pretty much have to buy a new laptop.
I won't buy any new Ami system that follows the same paradigm as the 500/600/1200 for the same reasons.
All in one Mo-bo's today, you can switch all that stuff off and go with better systems if you choose - that's the way I'd prefer to go.
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What is your opinion to this?
Does it make sense to create a AMIGA HW Consortium?
It think we should put the best brains together!
The way to start is to prevent what happened: The reason I offered to go spelunking at the site of the old MOS technology buildings is because everything in Amiga's future hasn't been preserved or given to Amiga's public. In the video "Deathbed Vigil", Commodore still gave its employees exit interviews. Why would a company give exit interviews in the first place while it was alive? Maybe to preserve and learn from what the employee was last working on. In their case, they were out of a job and thought that it was over. Those who are unfamiliar with the technology would have to learn what they did really fast and without directions might not be able to recover everything without exit interviews. Amiga must not just be a computer company but it must preserve the future as well.
Assign documentation to every work and require it as payment to be a member.
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ChuckT wrote:
The way to start is to prevent what happened:
For that, we'll need a 1982 Delorean DMC-12 and a flux capacitor. A Mr. Fusion would come in handy, but isn't absolutely necessary. ;-)
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I think if there is stock ownership, it should be ammended so that we have access to the specs and information. I think that Amiga should belong to the public if the companies involved are not going to act in good faith.
abbub wrote:
ChuckT wrote:
The way to start is to prevent what happened:
For that, we'll need a 1982 Delorean DMC-12 and a flux capacitor. A Mr. Fusion would come in handy, but isn't absolutely necessary. ;-)
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You can't beat PC pricepoints. With a PC you can buy incredibly cheap hardware that probably won't last, but it will have drivers.
The Mac on the other hand specifies the hardware and is tuned to that specified hardware. This was the Amiga approach as well. It's more expensive, limits your choice of hardware but provides a far more satisfactory user experience. PC crashes are often due to badly written drives or hardware incompatibilities. The choice is quite simple, support everything to an ok level, or support a limited amount of things and do it very well.
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@ sig999: Well, I was actually writing about the A500 (I'm a 75'er). At the time it was technicly possible to get a PC to do what an A500 with gen-lock and sampler could do. But the economics was horrible - just like the quality of the result.
@ persia: The Amiga wasn't more expensive than a PC at it's time (not A500 nor A1200). The Macs were more expensive.
The Macs have zero 3:rd party products to attach (atleast that's Steve Jobs wish). The Amiga have/had a range of 3:rd party expansions of which a fair share employed the same dirty custom implementations we see in Windows today.
Today Macs run Linux with Apple GUI. And your soundbite there sounds awfully close to the Linux guys favorite argument: "compiled for hardware" which Steve Jobs knicked in a speech.
Macs are expensive - that far I agree. Fact: identical hardware is always cheaper due to bulk sales. What you're saying there sounds more like Apple propaganda trying to shift focus away from the cost it takes to run the company and how it affect the horrendous price of the Macs.
Drivers are not an issue; those can be harvested from Linux for a number of processors. Which we've seen happen frequently in the past for the PPC (or whatever acronyme-of-the-day applies to modern G3-G5).
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Actually Macs are not that expensive, take an intel motherboard, put quality components on it, a nice video card, a glass protected high definition monitor (if iMac) and you aren't very far from the price of a Mac. You can buy an EEEEEEE machine or some other such cr@p for less, but you get what you pay for...
Apple today has more third party hardware than Amiga could have dreamed about when the company was alive, you can't buy Apple clone Motherboards, but you couldn't buy Amiga clone motherboards either. Most Amiga users never open their computer boxes back then, the idea of stretching the hardware came about the time of the death of the company.
My original Amiga 1000 and 2000 cost substantially more than a generic PC back in the day, folks at work thought I was stupid for dropping a large wad of cash on a non-compatible machine.
Yes, OS X is based on BSD (not Linux), my point is that Apple was able to make that vchange because they are Apple, they define what Apple is and what Apple isn't. The AMiga lack such leadership, and so can't really enter the 21st Century technology wise.
Finally drivers, unless you are talking about AROS hosed on Linux or UAE, Linux drivers have little meaning to Amiga, you can't use Linux drivers on AROS or AmigaDos directly.
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JetRacer wrote:
@ sig999: Well, I was actually writing about the A500 (I'm a 75'er). At the time it was technicly possible to get a PC to do what an A500 with gen-lock and sampler could do. But the economics was horrible - just like the quality of the result.
JetRacer opens casket and howls:
Many people totally miss this very important point: the Amiga was everything-in-a-box. A user streamlined package - while the PC was and still is a production industry streamlined concept. At the time of the A1200 the PC could do it all (in one degree or another) - only each plugin card that added an Amiga feature costed as much as an Amiga.
I beg to differ.
If we're talking about the 1000/500/2000 the PC couldn't do what it was doing, and this was the 'glory day' of the Ami.
After that the PC's and Mac's started playing catchup - and C= did very little with the Ami at all. By the time AGA and the 1200 came out - it was already pretty much too little, too late.
The Amiga had many great accomplishments on it's own without needing them to be sensationalized or embellished - how many home computers were launched by someone like Andy Warhol? I think exaggerating things like that not only makes Ami enthusiasts sound an awful lot like Mac and PC followers of the early 90's, but also cheapens the actual accomplishments the machine made.
Besides - after finishing a 10 year career in TV News, I've had all the sensationalism I can stomache.
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@ Sig999: reg. A500/A1200 (Cough) the keyboard slipped or something :-) Sorry about the confusion. And in the other matter: if we talk A500+ the PC did have the cards - in theory - but the cards wouldn't deliver. So we're both right I guess.
@ persia + varius people: it's a bit confusing for everyone here when the posts span the latest 20 years. If I put it this way: before the historical paranthesis of the x86 Mac the prices were a little bit on the high side, right? Which is a nicer way of saying outright unaffordable coupled with a massive 2:nd hand market.
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Yeah, there was a brief period of time where, had we known only on (besides MS) would survive, it sure looked like Amiga. Unfortunately it was not to be. CBM marketing and research was not behind it. Hardware updates didn't come, the OS updates were too far between. The technological advantage was wasted by not maintaining it.
he Amiga had many great accomplishments on it's own without needing them to be sensationalized or embellished - how many home computers were launched by someone like Andy Warhol? I think exaggerating things like that not only makes Ami enthusiasts sound an awful lot like Mac and PC followers of the early 90's, but also cheapens the actual accomplishments the machine made.
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>As for OS complexity - ... and things that were supposed to be in the original Amiga like memory protection should be considered.
As long as you can disable it so real-time analysis remains simple. I just got through writing code to remove I/O protection under Windows '98SE so I can write code in user mode that runs as fast as Windows 3.11.
Speaking of the topic, I guess you would need some entity all concerned parties can trust-- sort of like people trusted George Washington to be president unanimously since he was devoted to the cause and not for some side motive.
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I think that Commodore could have never won the battle.
On the PC side you have one big company constantly researching to increase computing power, a big bunch of large companies researching on optimising data transfer within the mother board and all its components, a bunch of very big companies struggling to deliver the best video performance ever, one enormous corporation developing an OS plus many communities developing powerful free OS's, etc, etc. You all know what and who I am talking about. Do you seriously think that Commodore on its own could have come up with all the massive amount of technological advances that all of these dedicated companies have come up with? I very much doubt so. Sooner or later, and no matter how much Commodore would have brought the Amiga forward (had it done so), Commodore would have been catched up with and surpassed.
In other words, and in terms of how many efforts could have been put into enhancing Amiga and PC, the Amiga is and was a boat powered by a few people rowing, whilst the PC market is and has been a larger boat powered by a myriad of powerful engines. I fail to see how Commodore could have survived in such an environment no matter how many efforts they would have put into the job.
I agree that AGA was too little, too late, but one single company could not have done enough and fast enough to catch up with Microsoft, Intel, ATI, and NVidia, all toghether (and this is to name just a few companies). Yes, it could have adopted Linux as standard and that would have rid Commodore of the burden of constantly updating the OS, but there would have been too many giants to fight against for one single company like Commodore.
Greetings,
Ed.
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awe4k wrote:
In other words, and in terms of how many efforts could have been put into enhancing Amiga and PC, the Amiga is and was a boat powered by a few people rowing, whilst the PC market is and has been a larger boat powered by a myriad of powerful engines. I fail to see how Commodore could have survived in such an environment no matter how many efforts they would have put into the job.
I see what you're saying, but look at Apple. They didn't have the huge technological lead that the Amiga had when it was launched, and yet they've only just started using Intel CPUs. Think about the advances the Amiga could have made with strongly funded R&D.
awe4k wrote:
I agree that AGA was too little, too late, but one single company could not have done enough and fast enough to catch up with Microsoft, Intel, ATI, and NVidia, all toghether (and this is to name just a few companies). Yes, it could have adopted Linux as standard and that would have rid Commodore of the burden of constantly updating the OS, but there would have been too many giants to fight against for one single company like Commodore.
Linux? Linux was barely out of nappies when Commodore went bankrupt (1994). nVidia didn't have any products on the market at the time, and ATi were no threat. This is before the time the high powered GPU was seen as a standard PC component.
If you really want to know what killed the Commodore Amiga line of computers (other than Commodore's own incompetence), you need to look at the Amiga in the home market and the Amiga in the business/school market.
In the home market, which was much smaller back then, most people used computers for word processing (basic DTP at most), for spreadsheet/accounting software, and to play the odd game or two. The audiovisual and creative opportunities available on the Amiga were not high on Joe Public's agenda, other than for gaming. The most important factor was making sure the kid's schoolwork could be transferred to the school computers and similarly that the report you spent all of last night typing up would load on the computers at work.
The choices made by the business world had a great influence when it came for people to pick a home PC. So why didn't Amigas become popular in the business world?
There's the classic phrase 'Nobody gets fired for buying IBM'. IBM's endorsement of the x86 PCs ensured those companies who had been buying IBM computers for years would see the IBM-compatible PC as a logical path to take. Amiga suffered from an image of being too flashy and unstable for the business world, which a bit of marketing and R&D from Commodore could have fixed. Also the business applications which were popular at the time of the A1000/A500/A2000 weren't ported, Lotus 123 for example. Why switch to a different computer if you can't use your most business critical apps?
Had Commodore not messed everything up they could have won over the business community, and the Amiga's future would have been much brighter.