Amiga.org
Amiga computer related discussion => General chat about Amiga topics => Topic started by: STUser on November 24, 2003, 04:41:21 AM
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Made you look! ;-)
So what's the real story? Who owns the remnants of Amiga (which are the remnants of Escom, which are the remnants of Commodore)?
Edited by Argo: Changed the topic.
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Well, Amino.. that is, bill mcwean i would have thought. Amiga Inc still own the remains of commodore.
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STUser wrote:
Made you look! ;-)
So what's the real story? Who owns the remnants of Amiga (which are the remnants of Escom, which are the remnants of Commodore)?
You bastard! :-P
As for the remnants, I'm not sure if even AInc knows...
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Long version: Check this (http://amiga.emugaming.com/amigahistory.html)
Short version:
Tulip bought the Commodore remnents and never did anything with it (up to this day). Gateway bought the Amiga related stuff and never did anything with it. In 2000 a bunch of Amiga-fans (or something) bought (licenced?) the Amiga stuff from Gateway and tried to make a write-once-run-anywhere environment with the Amiga logo on it.
They failed utterly and are now hanging on to survive. Meanwhile this company (Amiga Inc) licenced Hyperion Entertainment to produce a PPC version of the AmigaOS. This is to run on PPC boards for Amiga 1200's/4000's and PPC-ATX motherboards called 'AmigaONE' produced by Eyetech (or produced by Mai, but I don't wanna go into that dunghole right now :-)).
And then there is the Pegasos, an ATX-PPC motherboard produced by Genesi which runs an os called 'MorphOS' which has AmigaOS 3.x 68k CPU compatibility.
Basically there are two camps bashing each other to death nowadays. Amiga Inc (the 'red' camp) supporters and Genesi/Pegasos/MorphOS (the 'blue' camp) supporters.
Ofcourse there's also AROS, Amithlon, UAE.
One thing's for sure, Amigaland hasn't become a simpler world since the big C= died :crazy:.
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If someone wanted to build an Amiga computer under licence, who would he go to?
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STUser wrote:
If someone wanted to build an Amiga computer under licence, who would he go to?
Whoever has the license
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Er......only a very smart lawyer would know for sure......but I guess Amiga Inc. Though Gateway still owns all intellectual property and Amiga Inc is licensing it. Or something.
Problem in Amigaland is that there are a lot of people claiming various things and saying a lot of contradictionary things. There's not a lot that's certain....
Soap-opera writers could learn a great deal from all this ;-)
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whoever has the licence
So then it's not clear who owns the IP, such as AGA, the real Amiga OS (3.x), Workbench, etc.?
How are new machines coming to market then? :-o
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STUser wrote:
whoever has the licence
So then it's not clear who owns the IP, such as AGA, the real Amiga OS (3.x), Workbench, etc.?
How are new machines coming to market then? :-o
I'm a little fuzzy who owns the actual chipsets, Amiga Inc own the trademarks, and either own AmigaOS or own the licensing rights. Anything Amiga that Amiga Inc don't own Gateway does.
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STUser wrote:
whoever has the licence
So then it's not clear who owns the IP, such as AGA, the real Amiga OS (3.x), Workbench, etc.?
How are new machines coming to market then? :-o
Well, the new Amiga branded PPC boards have nothing in common (sp) with the old 68k hardware.
Aside from that AInc has a licence to use the Amiga IP/trademarks. So I guess AInc can relicense these.
Help? Someone? :-)
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Gateway has held on to some of the patents, as for the rest only Gateway/Amiga knows for sure. Amiga has either licenced or bought the rest and we dont know exactly what.
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Well, the new Amiga branded PPC boards have nothing in common (sp) with the old 68k hardware.
So no backward compatibility with any old Amiga applications? No common hardware? A totally new OS?
Isn't this the equivalent of "Amiga" selling a rebranded e-Machines Wintel Box with XP and UAE and calling it an "Amiga"?
What do you Amiga folk think of this? What keeps you with Amiga if they're making completely incompatible hardware and software? What makes an Amiga an Amiga?
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Actually OS4 will have an 68k emulator to allow 68k OS-friendly programs (those that will run RTG screens while leaving Workbench mulitasking) to run on PPC CPU's. This excludes 99% of the games.
And yes selling the Amiga1 PPC boards with an Amiga brand is a very touchy point with a lot of folks :-).
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So why not just buy a Linux system with UAE? If the OS, architecture and everything else is different, what's the point?
I guess I am just confused. :-D
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The point is progress and geekiness, young lad ;-). Same reason why someone would buy a Pegasos, the new Acorn RiscOS machine or even a Medusa (or what were the names of those Atari-clones?).
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STUser wrote:
So why not just buy a Linux system with UAE? If the OS, architecture and everything else is different, what's the point?
Did you ask something similar when the Mac moved from 680x0 to PowerPC? Probably not.
Migrating amiga from 680x0 to PowerPC has proved controvertial to many (many prefer x86), but most agree that a new CPU was a must if the platform was to continue in any meaningful way.
Still talking about the architectural issues, the custom chips, once the platforms strengths are now extremely dated compared to off the shelf hardware. Most serious users have gotten gfx cards, sound cards, PCI expansion busses etc. and so even for many existing 680x0 users, the 'architecture' is not as it once was. The migration to A1 won't be that big a deal.
The OS isn't really that different, either. Sure its' compiled for PowerPC, but it is still an evolution of the existing OS. Dont get me wrong, it does have some very new functionality added and the kernel is completely new. Also 680x0 emulation and other features are obviously a must to support older applications.
However, it will run on classic amigas that have the apprropriate hardware (basically a powerpc accelerator - for now CSPPC or BPPC). It just happens to run even better on the A1 hardware which is considerably more up to date.
If you look at Pegasos platform, you can already see that all this works in principal. It is just as different from the classic amiga architecture as the A1 is and has a PPC native OS with similar 680x0 emulation and OS3.x compatibility.
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Did you ask something similar when the Mac moved from 680x0 to PowerPC? Probably not.
No, because the transition was seamless. All the classic Mac 68K apps worked perfectly on the Mac OS for PowerPC. I think that's a little different than a completely new platform that keeps the brand and has an emulator for legacy apps.
many prefer x86
x86 is a dead end. PowerPC (and AMD64) are the chips of the future.
Still talking about the architectural issues, the custom chips, once the platforms strengths are now extremely dated compared to off the shelf hardware. Most serious users have gotten gfx cards, sound cards, PCI expansion busses etc. and so even for many existing 680x0 users, the 'architecture' is not as it once was. The migration to A1 won't be that big a deal/
As long as the OS, look and feel, etc. are preserved as well as a degree of compatibility with the prior Amigas, I'd say it's an Amiga.
Would someone with an A1200 be able to easily migrate to the new Amigas?
Who is manufacturing them?
What is the commercial channel for them (distribution-wise)?
I'm not trying to be obtuse here, I am just trying to figure out how one would go about evaluating and buying one of these mythical beasties.
Right now, my understanding is that it's not much more than a motherboard you have to fit into your own case. I think to be successful, it needs to be more than that -- it needs to be an integrated solution with out-of-the-box setup and a strong degree of backward compatibility.
I think there could be success selling Amigas as user-level machines that lack the "Microsoft tax" -- a Macintosh for less, if you will. :-)
As for my beloved ST, she is dead, dead, dead as a separate platform I am afraid. :cry:
However, the best ST apps like Calamus and Notator live on as Mac OS X apps -- in fact, Calamus runs in a MultiTOS emulation environment on PCs and Macs. That's good for me, though there's a lot about the ST I miss on "modern" systems. :-(
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OT:
Does anybody remember a user named 'Funeral' ?
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STUser : the Pegasos / AmigaOne have nothing to do with the original Amiga. BUT MorphOS / AmigaOS 4 are AmigaOS compatible (MOS is compatible with 68k, PowerUP, WarpUP & MorphOS executables), as long as you use programs which don't try to access the original amiga hardware directly. That is to say, programs that can use AHI for the sound, a GFX card.
AmigaOS4 or the MorphOS A/Box really work the same way as AmigaOS, with many enhancements of course, and designed to run on up to date & standard hardware.
So, we're still on amiga :)
On my pegasos (Morphos) I use : amirc, ibrowse, simplemail, amitradercenter, jabberwocky, aminetradio, mplayer, fxpaint, imagefx, mysticview, earth 2140, wipeout2097, mame, golded, ... Some natively MorphOS compiled, some transparently 68k/PUP/WOS emulated. All at a great speed with a great comfort :)
(however, it's difficult to make a choice now for potential new users, as the Pegasos II is currently being manufactured so not ready yet (pre-order), the pegasos I being sold out, and as there's also AmigaOS4 which looks interesting but not ready either :)
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@STUser
Dude, check out
http://www.morphos.net/
and here
http://www.pegasosppc.com
for a good overview of the Pegasos (but beware
of necessary, yet annoying marketspeak;). It
lacks "the Name", but as somebody very familiar
with AmigaOS, I was literally BLOWN away by
how cool this system is when I tried it at
a computer show earlier this year. It runs
many amiga apps which don't rely on the old
custom chipsets (so no old A500 games, but
morphOS does have UAE) yet is vastly improved
in just about every way...
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That's a pretty good overview of the Pegasos and Morphos. For "the other side of the fence", look at http://os.amiga.com/os4/ (http://os.amiga.com/os4/) - there you will find the feature set and screenshots of AmigaOS 4 (currently in closed beta, rumoured to go into open beta in December sometime). The AmigaOne is very similar to the Pegasos, some will argue this but for for all intents and purposes they are the same.
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> it needs to be an integrated solution with out-of-the-box setup and a strong degree of backward compatibility.
How far back exactly? We're talking almost 20 years! Even Windows software doesn't last that long while being able to run on current hardware.
Heck, I've got Exchange Server 2000, which won't even work properly on Windows Server 2003!
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STUser wrote:
Well, the new Amiga branded PPC boards have nothing in common (sp) with the old 68k hardware.
So no backward compatibility with any old Amiga applications? No common hardware? A totally new OS?
Motorola never "Athlon’ed" the 68K in the magnitude of the modern X86 processors.
Isn't this the equivalent of "Amiga" selling a rebranded e-Machines Wintel Box with XP and UAE and calling it an "Amiga"?
What do you Amiga folk think of this? What keeps you with Amiga if they're making completely incompatible hardware and software? What makes an Amiga an Amiga?
Refer to the reasons why some pundits buy MacOS X/PowerMac G5(PowerPC 970) instead of using MacOS 8.1 on 68K emulated X86 PC/68K Mac with a slow PPC add-on/on some wana’be Mac clones .
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x86 is a dead end. PowerPC (and AMD64) are the chips of the future.
Note that AMD64 encapsulates X86-64/X86-32/X86-16/IA-32 domain.
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Has Amiga Inc Intellectuals? Or any property for that matter?
:-P :-D
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Gateway Own the IP, Amino (Later called Amiga) Inc. Licenced it.
The Trademarks and brand names are all owned by Amiga Inc.
Most of the Amiga Patents expire in 2003. Their value is limited... The vaule of the TradeMark is quite high still though.
If you wanted to make an Amiga comptatible, the simplest (cheapest) way would be to build either a 68K or PPC machine and run AROS (http://www.aros.org) on it. :-D
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mac 68k to ppc transition almost (IF NOT) killed APPLE , mostly because their 68k stuff didnt work on ppc macs.
you need to do some research before u say stuff like that...
anyway later on they made several ways of getting more and more 68k stuff to work on ppc, its taken them long and infact its not perfect now even..
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the last post was aimed at STUser and so is this one, since you know so much about mac and how the transition in 95-97 went on...please tell me how they ran 68k stuff on the ppc :)
oh and how do they do it now?....
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They way understand it is:
Amiga Inc owns the Trademarks and the OS.
Gateway retained the patents as an asset and as a result increases the value of there company.
When the patents expire I imagine Gateway will write these off in fincancal year losses a devalued asset.
Amiga have a licence to use the patents.
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@STUser
OS4 will run most software that runs on modern classic Amigas. A basic A1200 is not a modern classic Amiga, but an A1200 with a fast accelerator and a graphics card is reasonably modern and most software, including games, that works on one of those will also work on OS4.
As long as your system isn't already badly outdated, the transition will be fairly smooth. The OS itself has all that OS3.9 does, with a lot of improvements.
There is UAE of course for old games and stuff, but it will need an update.
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AOS4 or MOS /AROS for that matter will run any program that uses the OS and doesn't bang the hardware directly. So if the application is old doesn't matter, there are some old apps that used the OS.
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STUser wrote:
Would someone with an A1200 be able to easily migrate to the new Amigas?
Who is manufacturing them?
What is the commercial channel for them (distribution-wise)?
I'm not trying to be obtuse here, I am just trying to figure out how one would go about evaluating and buying one of these mythical beasties.
There will be no more "Amigas", in the sense of hardware made with AmigaOS in mind, designed or specified by a central Commodore-like "Amiga company". Amiga, Inc. does not have anything to do with hardware.
AmigaOS 4 and beyond will instead finally run on third party hardware. The first target for porting will be the Mai Logic Teron series motherboards, which also are distributed under an "AmigaOne" trademark. Of course things like Apple Macs and Genesi Pegasoses would be other obvious target hardware platforms for a PPC desktop OS like this.
Good news so far, but IMO the advantages of finally getting away from only "Amiga specific" hardware are made moot by a compulsory licensing scheme, created by/in cooperation with the distributor of these "AmigaOne" boards:
A prospective AmigaOS user may only buy his hardware from a dealer with an Amiga, Inc. distribution license, and AmigaOS will not be for sale separately to be installed on the exact same hardware sold by a normal, "unlicensed" dealer.
To get such a distributor license, the hardware dealer must provide a hardware market control device (a.k.a. "anti-piracy protection" allegedly to protect AmigaOS(!) - currently this consists of added code to the hardware's firmware to prove it's bought on a restricted "Amiga" market), he must bundle AmigaOS and provide end-user support for that, and pay a license fee for using the "Amiga" trademark.
I think it's pretty damn obvious that this can accomplish nothing but to reduce the number of platforms AmigaOS will be ported to, it'll reduce the number of hardware vendor options for already chosen target platforms, it'll increase hardware prices, and it makes the reviving AmIgaOS excercise rather futile, as all this makes sure it can never gain market share over the current insignificant numbers. All that's come out of it is an artificially created hardware market for selling a few hundred $500 motherboards at $800.
Funnily enough, no other licensee exists but the company that helped with consultation when the scheme was created. I can't see why Mai Logic, Apple or Genesi aren't jumping at this fantastic opportunity... :P
I think there could be success selling Amigas as user-level machines that lack the "Microsoft tax" -- a Macintosh for less, if you will. :-)
:D
If someone would get licensed for selling Mac hardware to us stupid AmigaOS users who don't know how to buy hardware, it'd be "a Macintosh for more". Just like it's "a Teron for more" right now.
Anyway, see this site (http://amigapop.8bit.co.uk/intro.html) of mine, or the site in my .sig for more. This has been discussed over and over again here, which I'm sure someone will point out sooner or later... ;)
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mac 68k to ppc transition almost (IF NOT) killed APPLE , mostly because their 68k stuff didnt work on ppc macs.
Wow, that couldn't be more wrong! The Mac OS 7.5.3 and 7.5.5 that worked on the first Power Macs WAS mostly 68K code. Apple Power Macs out of the box could run 68K and PPC code via Apple's emulator. The first 601-based PowerMacs ran 68K MacOS applications faster than top of the line Quadras.
you need to do some research before u say stuff like that...
I owned one of the first PowerMacs, so I think that qualifies. :-D
anyway later on they made several ways of getting more and more 68k stuff to work on ppc
Actually, that's inaccurate as well. They worked hard to get RID of 68K code on the legacy Mac OS. OS 7.6 was the first classic OS to have more PPC code than 68K code, and it wasn't until 8.0 that 68K was completely expunged.
its taken them long and infact its not perfect now even..
Actually, it's old hat now. If you want to run a 68K app on a present PowerBook or Power Mac, you need to run it within the Classic OS environment under Mac OS X.
the last post was aimed at STUser and so is this one, since you know so much about mac and how the transition in 95-97 went on...
I got a Macintosh when the Atari scene started slowing down in the mid 1990s.
please tell me how they ran 68k stuff on the ppc
Native seamless software emulation within the "Classic" (9.x and under) Mac OS. For a while, whilst 68K Macs were still popular, developers shipped "fat binaries" that included 68K and PPC code in one package. That's long since unnecessary, since 68K hasn't been supported since, I believe, 8.0.
oh and how do they do it now?
Software emulation built into the Classic OS (frozen at 9.2.x). When you boot an old legacy Mac application under OS X, it starts an instance of "Classic" (which is basically a sand box within which an entire instance of Mac OS 9.2 runs). Then your 68K app runs under the 9.2 OS running within the Classic environment under OS X. Confused yet? ;-)
I think the 68K emulation also can be called from within OS X, but am not sure. There are 68K emulators that work under OS X, like NoSTalgia (ST emulator) and, of course, UAE.
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If someone would get licensed for selling Mac hardware to us stupid AmigaOS users who don't know how to buy hardware, it'd be "a Macintosh for more". Just like it's "a Teron for more" right now.
Hmmm. . . would the PegasOS or Amiga OS 4 run on UAE running on a Macintosh?
I'd love to play with the new "Amiga" OS (much like I play with the new "Atari" OS, MagicMac) but I cannot imagine forking over for another system with components that I already mostly have in my old Titanium G4 PowerBook.
Besides, I am saving up for one of those new 12" ones. ;-)
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Neither the amigaOS 4.0 or MorphOS (Pegasos is the name of the hardware that Morphos runs on) will run on UAE for mac. UAE emulates the 68k hardware (custom chipsets etc.) while the above mentioned OS'es are PPC native. The best chance you can have is that some "pirate" group wil make a solution like MacOnLinux but the other way around (morphos on mac) OR an installer disc that tricks the proprietary dongles on the mac firmware and installs Morphos while the firmware thinks it's installing MacOS X. AmigaOS doesn't have a chance going to the macs. Even for Pegasos the chances are quite slim.
If I'm wrong to any of the above, please correct me :-).
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STUser wrote:
If someone would get licensed for selling Mac hardware to us stupid AmigaOS users who don't know how to buy hardware, it'd be "a Macintosh for more". Just like it's "a Teron for more" right now.
Hmmm. . . would the PegasOS or Amiga OS 4 run on UAE running on a Macintosh?
The current UAE (e.g. WinUAE) doesn’t emulate PowerPC processor, thus no go for AmigaOS 4.0 (PowerPC edition).
It’s possible one could program MOL like virtualisation box on any PPC HW (with sufficient computing power), but such action may involve compromising the copy protection of AmigaOS 4.0 thus breaking DRM.
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Actually, that's inaccurate as well. They worked hard to get RID of 68K code on the legacy Mac OS. OS 7.6 was the first classic OS to have more PPC code than 68K code, and it wasn't until 8.0 that 68K was completely expunged.
:-D
Why can I run MacOS 8.0 in a 68k Mac emulator then? Even 8.1 works.
8.5 was the first PPC only MacOS..
What was thrown out in 8.0 was code supporting CPUs under 68030 (officially pre 040, but 8.0 and 8.1 have been shown to run on 030 Macs)
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Jope wrote:
Actually, that's inaccurate as well. They worked hard to get RID of 68K code on the legacy Mac OS. OS 7.6 was the first classic OS to have more PPC code than 68K code, and it wasn't until 8.0 that 68K was completely expunged.
:-D
Why can I run MacOS 8.0 in a 68k Mac emulator then? Even 8.1 works.
8.5 was the first PPC only MacOS..
What was thrown out in 8.0 was code supporting CPUs under 68030 (officially pre 040, but 8.0 and 8.1 have been shown to run on 030 Macs)
AFAIK, All versions of OS8 were distributed in both 68k and PPC versions...
They were developed in paralell, just as Apple is rumored to keep an x86 version of all it's OS'es.
(Well Darwin exist for PC aswell, right?)
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So no backward compatibility with any old Amiga applications?
OS4 will run ppc amiga software aswell aswell as some 68k software through some emulation layer
No common hardware? A totally new OS?
It is the same OS.. It has just been ported to ppc :-)
Isn't this the equivalent of "Amiga" selling a rebranded e-Machines Wintel Box with XP and UAE and calling it an "Amiga"?
Not at all.. This machine runs the real AmigaOS and also runs ppc software natively. Do you really expect a system based on the highly outdated 68k cpu?? a cpu that has not been produced since ages? whats the point with "new" hardware that still uses the same outdated chips as the classic system? then you could just aswell just use a classic one..
What do you Amiga folk think of this? What keeps you with Amiga if they're making completely incompatible hardware and software?
Incompatible with what? AmigaONE cannot run classic amiga 68k software without emulation, since the PPC cpu is a totally different processor.. The amigaone runs software that is written for native ppc without any emulation.
Same story with macs also when they changed to ppc cpus..
What makes an Amiga an Amiga?
The name.. and also the fact that it runs AmigaOS
No, because the transition was seamless. All the classic Mac 68K apps worked perfectly on the Mac OS for PowerPC. I think that's a little different than a completely new platform that keeps the brand and has an emulator for legacy apps.
Why do you think 68k apps worked under ppc? EMULATION!! just as AmigaOS/AmigaONE will have...
Hmmm. . . would the PegasOS or Amiga OS 4 run on UAE running on a Macintosh?
Sadly not :-( Since UAE does not have PPC emulation yet.. Hopefully it will have one day though :-)
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whabang wrote:
Jope wrote:
Actually, that's inaccurate as well. They worked hard to get RID of 68K code on the legacy Mac OS. OS 7.6 was the first classic OS to have more PPC code than 68K code, and it wasn't until 8.0 that 68K was completely expunged.
:-D
Why can I run MacOS 8.0 in a 68k Mac emulator then? Even 8.1 works.
8.5 was the first PPC only MacOS..
What was thrown out in 8.0 was code supporting CPUs under 68030 (officially pre 040, but 8.0 and 8.1 have been shown to run on 030 Macs)
AFAIK, All versions of OS8 were distributed in both 68k and PPC versions...
They were developed in paralell, just as Apple is rumored to keep an x86 version of all it's OS'es.
(Well Darwin exist for PC aswell, right?)
Of course Apple keep x86 (I imagine an x86-64 one) version of all the software.... Apple are not stupid, they probably have Sh*tHot PPC emulation in there as well, if the PPC bubble were to burst (not saying it will), they would jump ship in no time.
They probably have x86 versions of all their computer models in reserve too.
Apple (more specifically Steve Jobs) are a very clever company, and they would not let a simple thing like the death of a CPU get in their way.