Amiga.org
Amiga computer related discussion => General chat about Amiga topics => Topic started by: mlankton on August 27, 2009, 02:28:00 PM
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I'm an outsider looking in. I have had a strong desire to run AmigaOS and MorphOS since they both started releasing. As someone who doesn't have a history with Amiga, I would prefer to get a PegII, to kill two birds with one stone, but I've missed a couple of ebay opportunities. I am not willing to pay the entry fee for a SAM with it's specs and price. I'm still running AmiKit on my Mac until I get my hands on some hardware.
1. If the Mac Mini port is so far along, why doesn't Hyperion finish and release it? I realize that it's a deprecated piece of hardware, but at least it's available, and it would bring new users and developers to the platform.
2. If you're gonna hang on to PPC, make the system cheap enough that people will bite. The specs of a SAM are embarassing compared to the $599 Mac Mini, or a $399 Dell for that matter. $1000 for a SAM system? Really?? and I have a hard-on to run the system, how are most people gonna view that price to benefit ratio? Charge $1k for a system, but include technology that makes it attractive at that price. You have to understand, that besides the Amiga faithful who have to have the latest box, and Amiga developers, this is going to be a hobby box for most buyers.
3. Why not x86? Nothing else would open up the platform for users and developers the way an x86 port would. If it's an issue of drivers, then limit the hardware you support.
I'm just frustrated. I've had an Amiga itch for the last decade, and I haven't scratched it yet.
Amiga, for as long as it hasn't been a going concern, still has this amazing community. NeXT and Be also spawned communities that remained after their respective demises, but not to the extent that Amiga has.
Hyperion has a product that has a built-in following but doesn't seem to do anything to exploit that and grow as a platform. Why would growth of the user and developer bases be a bad thing? As an outsider I don't get it.
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Hyperion has a product that has a built-in following but doesn't seem to do anything to exploit that and grow as a platform. Why would growth of the user and developer bases be a bad thing? As an outsider I don't get it.
And never will until you take the Amiga plunge! lol Seriously - welcome to the site.
Your comments and concerns have all been mirrored and discussed at great length before.
You can perform searches to get answers from a lot of qualified users here. Common
sense really has no place when it comes to this hobby or business. I view the Amiga
platform as a love for the bridge between something electronic and our souls, not to
mention all the warm fuzzies that go along with computing in the 80's.
Unfortunately, bad business practices and greed hover over this platform and there's
nothing any of us can do about it besides NOT purchasing overpriced and underspec'd
product. Then you'll be chastised for rebelling because there are those that will say
if you don't purchase, you're destroying any chance of future products. And it's clearly
evident that the powers that be will never listen to the community, which is ironic because
really, we're all they will ever have. Enjoy what's out there currently or not. I've chosen to
upgrade the snot out of my 1987 A2000 instead and have one incredible legacy system that
does things most (even within the community) people are still in denial it can do. Plus it
plays all the games and classic applications you'd expect it to. In the end, it will always
remain a hobby. The wrong people for the right job who are in control are going to make
sure of that.
Who are the colleges of today hiring? They're teaching kids this new math that shows it's
more profitable to sell 500 people a $1000 computer system than 5000 people a $500
computer system. If only they would get a clue from the rest of the industry, but wait...
haven't they had decades to study a successful business model? ;-)
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You know I think we worry about the big picture too often, the truth is there is no big picture, the Amiga community is never going to be larger than it is today. There are no huddled masses waiting for the Amiga to emerge. We are no longer big enough to pull an "OS X" out of the hat and frankly most of the remaining Amiga users would complain that it's not an Amiga even if it were possible.
You want cutting edge, get a MacPro and an iPhone, that's no longer what the Amiga community is about.
Once you realise that then the whole situation becomes easier, it's retro, it's hobby. Enjoy it for what it is. Get an old 500, a CRT and a lava lamp, put some Chumbawumba, Depeche Mode or Miami Sound Machine on the old iPod and chill out to a game or three.:afro:
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Once you realise that then the whole situation becomes easier, it's retro, it's hobby. Enjoy it for what it is. Get an old 500, a CRT and a lava lamp, put some Chumbawumba, Depeche Mode or Miami Sound Machine on the old iPod:
Anachronism!
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3. Why not x86? Nothing else would open up the platform for users and developers the way an x86 port would. If it's an issue of drivers, then limit the hardware you support.
Here is AmigaOS for x86 - http://www.icarosdesktop.org
There should be no more complaining! It's here, it works, and it's getting better and more compatible every day.
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The easy answer is to just keep using AmiKit emulated Amiga on your Mac or PC. It has the best performance of any of the options, runs the most Amiga legacy software and games and can be moved forward to new hardware when you upgrade your Mac or PC.
It is easy for me to say the above since I have a bunch of Classic Amiga models in my home, and an Efika to run MorphOS. AmiKit via WinUAE on my Dell PC is the fastest and most versatile Amiga I have and my hat is off to all of those that have invested hundreds and thousands of hours of their programming time to create such a complete and great Amiga experience that works on almost all PC hardware of the past and present and should continue far into the future.
With all of this said, I support both camps of Next Generation Amiga systems and have purchased my Efika with plans to eventually help the MorphOS community by improving my programming skills and producing useful code that others will want and use on their own MorphOS systems.
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I have an 8 core 2.8GHz Mac Pro with 14 gigs of ram. I'm an old NeXT guy, and once I made the transition to Apple I saw beyond the Mac GUI and recognized my old system, even better than it had been before. I love it, and would never be without one.
I use AmiKit on my Mac. I also use Aros in VirtualBox on the Mac. They're both fun, but I still want to run OS 4 and MorphOS. I'll just have to wait until the right deal comes along on a Pegasos I guess, unless Hyperion has something more compelling up their sleeve.
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FYI, it's the MorphOS Team that's working on a MacMini port, not Hyperion (at least publically). We might see the results of their efforts this year.
The buggy OS4 beta for MacMini that leaked out was far from being a usable system. Seems to be dead in the water, though - a strategic blunder, if you ask me.
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That pretty much rounds it up i'd say, we'll just have to wait and see what hyperion whips up. Souffle de la amigaos.
I agree with you matt, a port to available powerful hw would be worth it, any hw with just a little more grunt would do, like a ydl ;D
Nice article btw.
http://www.connectedinternet.co.uk/2009/08/26/amiga-state-of-the-union-august-2009/
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Theres a thread about this thread.
http://amigaworld.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=29459&forum=2
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I was one of those people who had a PC and an Amiga and was enthused by both. For me it was no huge leap to shift my hardware interests from Amiga to PC (or any) architecture, so I dont have the same nail biting longing for new hardware many stalwart Amiga fans have.
Confirmed hardware agnostic and probable Amiga heretec. :o(
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I'm on the inside looking out!
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well i bit the bullet and bought a Sam and OS4.1...I fully support Hyperion and Acube for their efforts!
when you see the crazy prices people pay for classic amiga ppc cards and systems it makes me shake my head when the same people think that a Sam and OS4.1 are expensive??
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well i bit the bullet and bought a Sam and OS4.1...I fully support Hyperion and Acube for their efforts!
when you see the crazy prices people pay for classic amiga ppc cards and systems it makes me shake my head when the same people think that a Sam and OS4.1 are expensive??
They're the same people who prefer buying exotic and pricey hardware, instead of helping (either by coding or financing) the AROS project, which would finally re-create the Amiga OS and free it from age-old, silly and pointless legal issues and wars between companies.
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@paolone
Please don't be so belligerent. It was bad enough with MorphOS vs. AmigaOS wars, let's not try and start an AROS vs. AmigaOS one....
@mlankton
The problem is that the Amiga is expensive, that's a fact. But don't think of the SAM as being a computer like a PC is, it'll always lose. At the moment the Amiga hardware will always be slower and more expensive... but the point is a PC can't run AmigaOS (no, neither AROS nor MorphOS are AmigaOS). Think of it as being the only machine available that can run AmigaOS - which it is (at the moment). So it's only 800MHz? It makes little difference for most things.
If you want to get into the modern Amiga you'll have to bite the bullet, I'm afraid. But remember one thing - a loaded SAM system is much much cheaper than a high-end classic Amiga when it came out. In fact a loaded SAM is cheaper than an A500 when it came out, in real terms.
Buy a Sam 440. If you don't like it - sell it. The depreciation on them is tiny compared to most machines. I don't think you will though.....
(Incidentally I own an A1 G4 and a Sam 440ep and I have no intention of letting either of them go.)
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The problem is that the Amiga is expensive, that's a fact. But don't think of the SAM as being a computer like a PC is, it'll always lose. At the moment the Amiga hardware will always be slower and more expensive... but the point is a PC can't run AmigaOS (no, neither AROS nor MorphOS are AmigaOS). Think of it as being the only machine available that can run AmigaOS - which it is (at the moment). So it's only 800MHz? It makes little difference for most things.
If you want to get into the modern Amiga you'll have to bite the bullet, I'm afraid. But remember one thing - a loaded SAM system is much much cheaper than a high-end classic Amiga when it came out. In fact a loaded SAM is cheaper than an A500 when it came out, in real terms.
Buy a Sam 440. If you don't like it - sell it. The depreciation on them is tiny compared to most machines. I don't think you will though.....
That applies only if you for some reason have this weird notion that AROS and MorphOS would somehow be less "Amiga" than AmigaOS itself. For most parts they're equal. In some cases AROS and MorphOS surpass it. For now AROS doesn't have transparent 68k emulation and has less software, however.
MorphOS will soon (no, I won't be confirming any dates) be available for Mac mini G4. From any objective point of view that surely will be much more attractive as a "test drive" platform: You will be able to test MorphOS for free (the .iso will be available for download, just burn it and boot the mac off it by holding the 'c' key when powering up).
Additionally Mac mini G4's are everywhere: You're very likely to find one from your family or friends for example, in which case you can try MorphOS totally for free. If you like it, you can look into securing your own hardware.
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@mlankton
The problem is that the Amiga is expensive, that's a fact. But don't think of the SAM as being a computer like a PC is, it'll always lose. At the moment the Amiga hardware will always be slower and more expensive... but the point is a PC can't run AmigaOS (no, neither AROS nor MorphOS are AmigaOS). Think of it as being the only machine available that can run AmigaOS - which it is (at the moment). So it's only 800MHz? It makes little difference for most things.
If you want to get into the modern Amiga you'll have to bite the bullet, I'm afraid. But remember one thing - a loaded SAM system is much much cheaper than a high-end classic Amiga when it came out. In fact a loaded SAM is cheaper than an A500 when it came out, in real terms.
Buy a Sam 440. If you don't like it - sell it. The depreciation on them is tiny compared to most machines. I don't think you will though.....
As someone who did exactly that, bought a Sam440Ep when it and OS4.1 was first announced waited 2 months for delivery then sold it about 2 months after that, I must say that I was very disappointed with the Sam/0s4 package.
Before I get into details maybe a little of my background will help mitigate the flaming responses.
I have worked in the IT industry for approximately 15 years as a Analyst/programmer and had many other side positions along with that and have recently set up my own IT services company, In that time both professionally and personally I have had experience of just about every mainstream platform there is. I am currently sat in my office surrounded by machines of just about every type, an assortment of PC's running various OS's from Vista down to bare Dos and various Linuxes (what is the plural of Linux??), An assortment of Sun workstations, Silicon graphics workstations, IBM RS6000's, a smattering of macs and of coarse several amiga's including a Pegasos 2 (Yes I do count the Peg as an Amiga). And that list does not even count the various of Enterprise gear in the garage.
Professionally and personally I believe in using the best tool for the job, I'm not someone who has to have the latest and greatest must have whizz bang machine just because its 2% faster than the previous model. My main machines are a 4 year old P4 3.2 xp Box and a Sun WZ2100 Workstation running Ubuntu Linux (This was the fastest PC you could buy back when it was released in 2004 but I didn't get it till earlier this year) but it does have 16 gig of ram which is perfect for running lots of VM's :)
I love the Amiga because it was that platform that got me interested in serious computing in the early 90's.
My experience of the Sam and Os4 were a major let down probably because I already had a Peg 2 running Morphos 2. My general feeling was that the package was a major step back for me.
Some of my reasons are these :-
1) The boot loader, can't even remember the name (most of the experience has been sent to the trashcan in my mind) It one of the most uncooperative and annoying pieces of software I have ever used, why they didn't take the opportunity to move to open firmware I'll never know.
2) The CPU, 667 MHz is fine with me I use many machines day to day with far lower clocks than this but the fact that Acube decided to use a CPU with next to no caches or any speed enhancing features meanes that lots of CPU cycles are used in wait states for data that would be sat in cache on a decent CPU.
3) USB yes the Sam has USB 2 but OS4 and its archaic USB stack doesn't support it. As I moved most of my storage from scsi and fibre arrays some years ago I went to external usb2 drives for pure data storage if speed was not an issue. I found the lake of USB2 speeds impossible to live with in any machine I want to use seriously. The fact that my 2 main 68k Amigas (4000d in tower and 3000d) both have USB2 thanks to Deneb makes its absence for OS4 even more painful.
4) OS4 itself (flame retardant underwear to maximum) My personal feelings about OS4 is that it is only a slight improvement over 3.9 (and in some ways a step backwards) It cannot claim to be the next generation when IMHO Morphos is years ahead of it in looks feel and responsiveness.
It was my intention to buy OS4 for my peg but I feel at the moment (especially in light of the recent comparison benchmarks, which I do take with a pinch of salt) I feel I would be wasting over £100 on software that I would not use.
I am not a freetard and have put my money where my mouth is to support innovation in my Amiga Hobby where I see it, I registered Morphos 2 on the day it was released, pre ordered my Sam on the day it was first available at Amigakit (BTW great service) and ordered 2 Denebs on the day they were announced (further feeding my USB2 fetish).
As for the price excuses for Sam been so expensive I'm sorry the Sam's were designed and sold as embedded broads for industry not just as the saviour of the amiga. I think its plain that industry said NON and we are the only user base deemed gullible enough to have the aimed at us, until both Acube and Hyperion rectify the short comings of the current release Sam/OS4 than I will also say NON and keep my few remaining pennies in my pocket.
To offer an alternative opinion the fellow user group member who bought my Sam uses it everyday and couldn't be happier with it so maybe all of the above opinions are just me but I do stick to them. :-D
The above are my own honest opinions which may not match yours, I am happy to debate then but trolls will just be ignored, I'm to old to get wound up buy idiots any more. As someone once said "Arguing on the internet is like competing in the the special Olympics. You may win but your still retarded".
Gaz