Amiga.org
Amiga News and Community Announcements => Amiga News and Community Announcements => Amiga Software News => Topic started by: Blomberg on January 13, 2003, 08:27:38 PM
-
"January 13, 2003 - Snoqualmie, WA
Amiga is pleased to publish this first version of the feature set of the up and coming AmigaOS4.0. The document will undergo revision in subsequent issues but because of the massive demand for information made by the public, we have decided to release it in its current state."
Read more here (http://os.amiga.com/os4/OS4Features.php) ...
Update ...
You can find a html version here (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/gline/Ryu/OS4Features/features.html), thanks to Ryu
-
ya know? This actually sounds decent. If it works out this way, I might have to take back some of my previous statements. Hardware is still an issue, but still.... The PDF does look decent at first read....
Wayne
-
Sounds great! :-o
Hope to see it soon...
-
WOW! I'm in love!! :-) :-) :-) :-)
-
I'm impressed too. :-D
-
Hey hey!!
I'll read it in detail when I go to bed, but it looks good.
I canny wait.
-
I'm speechless.
-
Wayne, is there any chance of posting an a plain text version of this pdf file somewhere please? Those with only AmigaOS won't be able to view it otherwise.
Edit: no need.
http://www.samurajdata.se/~cj/psview.php3?id=d12d4628&page=1
(This is a pdf to html converter, and a temporary URL. If any of you have problems, go to http://www.samurajdata.se/~cj/ps.html and do it on your own).
-
Ray Akay has said on ANN that he is working on a HTML version of the
Features list.
He will have it posted sometime today on the Amiga site.
(Depending of course on what Time Zone "Today" is on)
- Am about to go to bed. GMT=0
There is also a no frills PDF version in my hands which is APDF
friendly. I am awaiting permission to pass it on...
-
need product...not words.
don't need a release date, need it to be released.
wake me up when something has happened.
-
Here (http://www.ryusworld.webhop.net/OS4Features/features.html)
I converted it on my amiga to html, hope i got the url thing right :-)
-
It sounds really good. :-D
-
For a quick and dirty web version try here (http://amiverse.homeip.net/article.php?sid=63).
-
Looks impressive on paper (or is that screen?! :lol:), but I want to see it released!
Part of me wants to hope that this means OS4 is nearly ready, but I'm not placing any stock in it. Not that it matters much anyway, I am going to have to wait until the end of the year before I can get my AmigaONE now that I am going to Oz. On the bright side tho, my unforseen delay in getting the A1 means that I can see how good other people think it is and see how many (if any) people/companies start developing for it.
Well, looks good, just make sure that it is ready for release in Q1 2003 Amiga INC & Hyperion, I think you may make a few friends if it is!
-
Things like Dopus and Arexx would have been nice .. and some kind of printing support (like TurboPrint bundled on MOS) would be useful too. But besides that .. Not a bad list.
-
Hmm, Okay, I've seen four different text versions already. I think A, Inc. should work on webbing releases too. Then we wouldn't have such a mad dash of duplicated effort.
-
@JoannaK
Don't forget this is only the first release, but I agree, not bad at all!
-
Such a lot of new Intuition features! I didn't think they'd have
time to fix up so much. Some nifty interfaces will be created
I'll tell you. Arbitrily shaped menus...
It also seems they have really worked to make stuff efficient.
ExecSG sounds impressive indeed (you people with better
technical savvy should be more appropriate to make that
assessment though), and all parts of the system API:s have
all these little touches to enhance speed and performance I
doubt many OS:es out there bother with.
Impressive.
.
SlimJim
-
I'm only on page 7 so far, but I do like the way memory is allocated and managed.... I guess I should have expected nothing less from developers who write games for a living....
I'm going to have to re-read this like 5 times to digest it properly.
Anyway soldiering on.....
-
I'm not sure if I care for them using both Reaction and MUI. I wish they would choose one. I have a feeling they only included MUI to support IBrowse, which by the way is an OEM. I hope one is eventually chosen exclusively in favor of the other or cleanly unified somehow in AOS5.
Speaking of IBrowse, this is another key point I hope is resolved soon. It needs to be dumped in favor of a more modern browser (like Mozilla) or bought from the current owner and put under heavy development to bring it up to date. I'd like the see the latter for nostalgic reasons, but unfortunately unless OS4 is a smash hit, I don't see where they could get the money. Mozilla is the obvious choice. Put one or two paid developers/magagers on it, open up a CVS site and let the rest of the community help out. I think Voyager got snubbed because of the MOS support they are including. It's a shame. With a little work, V could be a excellent modern built-in browser.
I'm a little worried about what they did with DOS pattern matching. I thought it was just short of *nix regular expressions without being too *nix-y, which is what I fear they have turned it into. I suppose this isn't THAT bad, but the old pattern matching was so elegant.
In all, I'm very happy with many of the features and I'm excited about the direction Amiga is headed. I'm hoping the weaker points are due to growing pains and will be worked out to make OS5 a serious contender in the industry.
-
MUI is, as far as I know, included only to support the mass of
already existing apps that use it. Reaction has been "chosen",
-as you put it -waaaay back.
.
SlimJim
-
Did that really say SMP? When did they decide to support multiple processors? :-o
-
It will take time to read it through, but at first glance it seems to be very decent. Little negative if any can be told about the document at first glance. Maybe P96 is the only exception... (3 lines?)
Hope the product this feature list is about will hit the streets soon. The vast amount of details (especially ExecSG, which occupies most of the document) suggests some parts are in real mature state. Looking for a "playable" :-) beta soon.
-
Did that really say SMP? When did they decide to support multiple processors?
Well, one of the devs having a dual G4 could have
something to do with it.
:-)
-
You'r welcome Blomberg :-)
-
Good. Somethings are moving :-)
-
@Ryu
Oh, I didn't add that, one of the mods must have done that, but thx anyway ;-)
---edit---
It seems Ray has added a HTML version to the original site too, but what the hey - one more won't hurt :-D
-
Have you read this:
Address space emulation: The system can emulate alien address spaces, for example
emulate an AGA chipset on a machine that doesn`t have AGA.
It would be nice if that would become real :-D
-
It was nice too se for non-A1 users of AOS4, that support for Mediator was confirmed, in addition to Prometheus! (Not that I wouldn't get A1 as soon as AOS4 is released)...
:-D
-
Hmm.. lets see:
The most important things:
PowerPC support X
68K emulation X
Native MUI X
Other good stuff:
Threads X
Better handling of crashed apps X
Clean DOS X
ELF (not actually mentioned) X
amiga.lib integrated X
Other stuff:
AREXX - not native ?
Reaction - The 3.9 version looks like a mess..
Printing - ?
Misc sniffsnuff here and there I dont care THAT
much about unless its bugfixes or speedups.
Now how about manuals.. printed ??
-
Very encouraging, especially from a developers point of view.
Might be a bit early to break out the champagne yet, but it certainly deserves a :pint: or two!
Good news!
-
Nice, nice & more nice...
More to come me thinks, but nice :-D
Come on lads, keep up the good work, we can't be too far now :-)
-
Seems all quite impressive...also liked the sound on how they have done the 68k Emulation, sounds quite fast to :-)
Looking forward too any more snipets to come.
-
ahh yes but isnt mine sooo much better ;-)
-
Finally some news about os4 :-)
Lots of improvements over 3.9 already.
Hopefully a lot of 'old' 68k software will be ported and improved too to make use of the new functions
(especially the toolbox window function sounds nice, something i didnt even know i was missing until now)
The new amidock looks very interesting.
Lots of functions that are very good (like preventing popups when a game is playing)
some things are not yet clear though;
-Mui is unregistered, can i use my old mui key?
-dvd (rw) support ?or is that only device dependant ( eg. it works with compatible dvd drives too).
-dvd playback? ( or is that mpeg4? i don't know exactly).
- p96 details please :-) , workbench expanded to two monitors? ( or a movie playing to the tv-out)?
-ahi support for sblive (and newer cards), will it do 5.1 surround?
i think it would be very interesting to put the A-One next to my linux box (900mhz) and compare them in day to day use so if someone would like to send me one for this test i would be very happy. :-D :-D :-D :lol:
-
We sure have come a long way from 1.3 :-D. Brilliant work Hyperion and Amiga Inc. you just have provided me with another excuse to get my hands on a new Miggy.
Have a few rounds on me :-D
:pint: :pint: :pint: :pint: :pint:
-
:-o :-D
-
Wow! I am REALLY impressed, virtually EVERY shortcoming ever addressed in a SENSIBLE way and extras thrown in too!
-
We have to congratulate everyone involved in the development of OS4. Even with pressures from the public, they've been strong enough to expand the feature list of the next OS to an unexpected level.
I wouldn't then consider that they've been late on schedule. Now the system can give good impression outside the community.
-
This is great news and very exciting!
Anyone know about Arexx vs Sheep?
Bob C.
-
I havn't read all of it yet, but it looks REALLY good.
And it's OFFICIAL.
After what AmigaInc, Hyperion and EyeTek got from some PPL, I think they deserve an apology and a hand shake.
-
Hi Wayne:
ya know? This actually sounds decent.
I haven't even read it yet (thought I'd read the comments first), but if you like it, it *must* have some decent features.
Robert.
-
I wish people would not exaggerate that list.
The list mainly is about identical to the previous one. Things are just explained more detailly. Most AOS4 fans already knew all that.
Now. Take deep breath, and relax.
I wish only one more feature for AOS4.0 and that is the "it's shipping" -feature.
-
@blubbe
Printed manuals are not to much of a problem. Simply send the PDF to a 'Quick Print' bureau and have them do it for you (those of you that are students will probably still be entitled to your discounts ;~) . You can then choose how you want it bound. ie spiral, lever arched, hard or soft back, etc.
The AREXX issue has been known for a while now. The original writer of AREXX was f#{ked by C= and since then has no interest in anything to do with Amiga. The license was only for the platform as it was, so porting it over is a big no-no. However, since AREXX is very easy to copy across from OS3.x, well go figure! Also it has been mentioned that 'Python' is being looked at as a replacement, which many people have said is A Good Thing.
@charlatn00
Alan (Eyetech) mentioned the dual G4 in his post on the A1 ML in December. It's been no secret since. Promised for later this month are photo's of the card itself.
@all
There's not too much anyone can decry about this document. It's well put together, full of information rather than buzzword-ology (hey, everyone needs an ology you know :-D ). Crikey, even JoannaK (on this list anyway) has not been too negative about it ;-)
-john
-
There's not too much anyone can decry about this document. It's well put together, full of information rather than buzzword-ology (hey, everyone needs an ology you know ). Crikey, even JoannaK (on this list anyway) has not neen too negative about it
Don't be afraid, nothing's enough. :-) Ppl are content with this feature list for a few days, a few weeks, but soon they will demand more. Even the previous feature list was born because of demands and complaints about lack of updates.
-
Nice to see an update at last!
Quite an informative read.
Now if I could only get my hands on OS4! ;-)
-
The features list is an impressive read. Now if we could just get our hands on the real thing..... that would be the best! :-)
-
I love the memory allocation!
Even my W2K work collegues thought that was pretty cool!
Allen
-
Just to clarify a few points:
1. Arexx is not dropped from OS 4.0, it is included "as is".
That's the reason it was not mentioned in the document.
(Note that the source-code is almost entirely in 68K ASM and we doubt it is legally even possible to port it to PPC. We are working on a replacement WITHOUT DROPPING AREXX)
2. Some people seem to have misinterpreted the part in the description of the memory handling related to AGA.
This means that it will be possible to "fake" the presence of chipmem on systems without chipmem so that more legacy applications will work.
It does not mean that AGA is somehow "emulated".
-
Just to clarify a few points:
1. Arexx is not dropped from OS 4.0, it is included "as is".
That's the reason it was not mentioned in the document.
(Note that the source-code is almost entirely in 68K ASM and we doubt it is legally even possible to port it to PPC. We are working on a replacement WITHOUT DROPPING AREXX)
2. Some people seem to have misinterpreted the part in the description of the memory handling related to AGA.
This means that it will be possible to "fake" the presence of chipmem on systems without chipmem so that more legacy applications will work.
It does not mean that AGA is somehow "emulated".
-
Just to clarify a few points:
1. Arexx is not dropped from OS 4.0, it is included "as is".
That's the reason it was not mentioned in the document.
(Note that the source-code is almost entirely in 68K ASM and we doubt it is legally even possible to port it to PPC. We are working on a replacement WITHOUT DROPPING AREXX)
2. Some people seem to have misinterpreted the part in the description of the memory handling related to AGA.
This means that it will be possible to "fake" the presence of chipmem on systems without chipmem so that more legacy applications will work.
It does not mean that AGA is somehow "emulated".
-
Just to clarify a few points:
1. Arexx is not dropped from OS 4.0, it is included "as is".
That's the reason it was not mentioned in the document.
(Note that the source-code is almost entirely in 68K ASM and we doubt it is legally even possible to port it to PPC. We are working on a replacement WITHOUT DROPPING AREXX)
2. Some people seem to have misinterpreted the part in the description of the memory handling related to AGA.
This means that it will be possible to "fake" the presence of chipmem on systems without chipmem so that more legacy applications will work.
It does not mean that AGA is somehow "emulated".
-
Just to clarify a few points:
1. Arexx is not dropped from OS 4.0, it is included "as is".
That's the reason it was not mentioned in the document.
(Note that the source-code is almost entirely in 68K ASM and we doubt it is legally even possible to port it to PPC. We are working on a replacement WITHOUT DROPPING AREXX)
2. Some people seem to have misinterpreted the part in the description of the memory handling related to AGA.
This means that it will be possible to "fake" the presence of chipmem on systems without chipmem so that more legacy applications will work.
It does not mean that AGA is somehow "emulated".
-
Just to clarify a few points:
1. Arexx is not dropped from OS 4.0, it is included "as is".
That's the reason it was not mentioned in the document.
(Note that the source-code is almost entirely in 68K ASM and we doubt it is legally even possible to port it to PPC. We are working on a replacement WITHOUT DROPPING AREXX)
2. Some people seem to have misinterpreted the part in the description of the memory handling related to AGA.
This means that it will be possible to "fake" the presence of chipmem on systems without chipmem so that more legacy applications will work.
It does not mean that AGA is somehow "emulated".
-
Just to clarify a few points:
1. Arexx is not dropped from OS 4.0, it is included "as is".
That's the reason it was not mentioned in the document.
(Note that the source-code is almost entirely in 68K ASM and we doubt it is legally even possible to port it to PPC. We are working on a replacement WITHOUT DROPPING AREXX)
2. Some people seem to have misinterpreted the part in the description of the memory handling related to AGA.
This means that it will be possible to "fake" the presence of chipmem on systems without chipmem so that more legacy applications will work.
It does not mean that AGA is somehow "emulated".
-
Just to clarify a few points:
1. Arexx is not dropped from OS 4.0, it is included "as is".
That's the reason it was not mentioned in the document.
(Note that the source-code is almost entirely in 68K ASM and we doubt it is legally even possible to port it to PPC. We are working on a replacement WITHOUT DROPPING AREXX)
2. Some people seem to have misinterpreted the part in the description of the memory handling related to AGA.
This means that it will be possible to "fake" the presence of chipmem on systems without chipmem so that more legacy applications will work.
It does not mean that AGA is somehow "emulated".
-
YIIIIHAAAA!!! :crazy: :crazy: :crazy:
Looks damn good to me. Would like to hear the oppinion from some of you technical experts out there.
Is this REALLY good news???
Why is it good news???
Is The Exec NG fast compared to Windows and Linux ???
Long live Jay Miner.....cheers old chap :pint:
-
Yiiiiiihaaaa Ben no need tp repeat it ...
Why is everybody so fuzzy about a featurelist ?
Quite pointless as long as I haven't seen a working beta. :flame:
>virtual chipmem
So it's just the same as the 8mb "chipmem" that I had on Amithlon
for the last year ? O.k. nice, but nothing big. And yes I would
could imagine that this could be usefull for that other OS too.
-
Just for the record:
OS 4.0 won't have AGA emulation as such.
-
Why do you want to see os4 so desperately kronos? You have your morsos go crash it.
-
Re: Arexx.
Just curious, Arexx hasn't been changed since the 1.3 A500 days has it? I mean....the Copyright message still says something like 1987 IIRC.
-
Reaction is the GUI for OS 4. MUI is included for those programs that need it, and to faciliate easy porting - it wouldn't make sense to expect people to first move to a whole new user interface if we claim source code compatibility.
Wait until you see the new IBrowse ;-)
Finally, don't forget this is preliminary. There are some thing that didn't make it in this list...
-
It would be nice if that would become real
Note that it says this is a possibility, not that it is/wil be implemented. It is just a means to show off how neat the memory subsystem is ;-)
-
So it's just the same as the 8mb "chipmem" that I had on Amithlon
for the last year ? O.k. nice, but nothing big. And yes I would
could imagine that this could be usefull for that other OS too.
No, it could actually be made into a full-fledged AGA emulation, since you would be able to catch read/writes to the AGA area when set up correctly (i.e. the page fault handler would do the work). We don't intend to do this, though, but if someone is crazy^H^H^H^H^Hmotivated enough, he could try...
-
You guys forgot to mention one of the most important improvements in my eyes:
Support for standards such as DVD, MP3, fonts, grafic formats without 3rd-party patches and tools. Native USB and removable drives support. Have you seen that "VideoCD" thing? Even in M$ WindowsXP it's better to use 3rd party tools such as ASUS DVD2000 to watch VideoCDs and we have it built in.
I like the support for peripherals and drives very much.
GREAT WORK HYPERION!!!!!!!!!
Now it's time to release the product and Eyetech the AmigaOne.
I have already heard from Linux users, they are considering buying the AmigaOne, because they don't want to stick to Intel hardware anymore.
-
I'm a little worried about what they did with DOS pattern matching. I thought it was just short of *nix regular expressions without being too *nix-y, which is what I fear they have turned it into. I suppose this isn't THAT bad, but the old pattern matching was so elegant.
I doubt much has been done to it - some scripts rely on the more advanced features, and ASL requesters are commonly called with ~(.info|.backdrop) as the default pattern filter. If anything has been done, it would have been expanded, otherwise you risk compatibility.
Whoever mentioned ARexx: there were some small updates done for OS3.5/9 but I'm not entirely sure what they entailed.
Chris
-
Well, it sure is good to see that everyone is still alive!
Haven't heard from Amiga Inc., Hyperion, or anyone else in a coon age.
Very nice!
-
Wait until you see the new IBrowse
I hope that means it looks really good. :-)
Well, I've read over the feature list twice, and I must say that I was quite impressed with what I've read. That said, I'm cautiously awaiting the release of OS4.
If it is as good as the feature list sounds, then I will be back onboard 100%. I was beginning to worry that this was all a big waste of time and that we would wind up with something like a "slight upgrade" to the OS, but the list here outlines much more than that, especially the extras like application.library, Altivec stream support and SMP that was not expected. For the first time in a long time, I'm actually anxious to get my hands on a new OS.
Thanks Hyperion, and keep up the good work.
-
Is The Exec NG fast compared to Windows and Linux ???
In a word: No
In two words: Not even close
In Three: Doesn't even compare.
ExecNG had context switching times posted (context-switching being a key for any microkernel OS). I took those (1ms for a simple switch, 4ns for round-trip) and compared.
LinuxPPC 2.4.18, unoptimized, had such times of 0.8 and 2.6. Optimized, using a rtKernel, they got 0.6 and 1.8, respectively.
Windows NT 4.0 PPC-version, had a time of 0.85 and 3.1ms, respectively.
Now, I don't have MorphOS's times, but when I do I'll be glad to post them here for comparison.
-
Extremely fast context switching times: 1 microsecond on a 600 MHz G3.
Extremely low latency for IPC: Signal "roundtrip" times below 4 microseconds
NB: microseconds. 4microseconds (sorry, I know the symbol but have no idea how to type it on this Windows thingy) is 0.004ms. That's fast!
Let's re-run your comparison:
Linux 0.6 1.8
WinNT 0.85 3.1
ExecSG 0.001 0.004
btw the times for MacOS9 were quoted at the WOA-SE, these were good but still slower than OS4/ExecSG on similar spec hardware.
Chris :-D
-
In the Amiga writeup, it states clearly ms, being microseconds. I thought initially they ment nanoseconds as well, and double checking on the other OS's, they were rating their context switching in ns, not ms. So, Amiga either still doesn't measure up, or *really* doesn't measure up.
-
I think you'd better try run those tests again, especially if you can't even distinguish between microseconds and milliseconds.
I get the distinct impression you don't really know what you are measuring and how to do it.
Anybody who has ever used NT knows that it is not exactly known for being responsive.
-
@Ben:
Anybody who has ever used NT knows that it is not exactly known for being responsive.
I'm using it now and agree; it's not exactly zippy.
-
ExecSG 0.001 0.004
Incredible... well done lads....!
sKy
-
What the hell are you talking about? Linux has context switching times of about 1 to 4 microseconds. ExecSG has stated 1 microsecond. Sounds rather like this is on par.
Just for the records:
ms = milliseconds
us = microseconds
ns = nanoseconds
We stated one microsecond. So again, what is your point?