How dead is the AMiGA OS this time?

[the_leander]

gdanko wrote:

Piru wrote:
@Agafaster

no reason, other than linux being freeware, and both Morphos and OS4 arent. they would need to do it official like, which would mean approaching Apple.... you can work the rest out!

Why would anyone need to contact Apple?

I think Hyperion babbled about not being able to port to G4 Macs because Apple has the design locked down so they cannot get documentation or some such. This is a load of crap since Yellowdog and Debian and Gentoo exist for Macs.

It's not as clear cut as that, remember BeOS was also unable to run on any mac hardware post iMac due to the same reasons.

Yes it is possible to work around it as linux has done. But, it takes time and resource that Niether Be Inc had or Hyperion has.

But beyond that for a moment. What would be the point in porting to yet another dead end platform?

PPC Macs are no longer produced, indeed the only folk producing anything that could conceivably be considered a PPC desktop system are IBM and Genesi (as and when their new dual G5 board is released) and they are both more geared to the high end workstation market then the joe public consumer grade desktop system.

If AOS isn't ported to a platform that has a reasonable lifespan, then it's game over.

I'm sorry, but as it stands, outside of being ported to something like the GPx2 or x86 mainstream, AOS with the current encarnation is it for the platform. Same goes for MOS realistically.

[the_leander]

Piru wrote:

But beyond that for a moment. What would be the point in porting to yet another dead end platform?

PPC Macs are no longer produced

There are 1000x more PPC Macs than A1/Pegs combined, and they will continue to be available via ebay etc for a long time. Sounds good enough reason to me.

We played this game before.

We played it for 12 years with our current kit.

Porting to a dead platform is not a way forward, only the most blinded zealot would think that such a move would be anything other then stupifyingly shortsighted.

Yes, there's a lot of this kit floating about the place, but no more will ever be built again, even with the current AOS4 codebase, with the limited resources at hand it could take a couple of years just to port to one or two of the available models. If you truly want a future for your platform of choice, then your only option is to move to something that also has a future.

If you port to PPC mac, you are just hammering in another nail into the already overly secure coffin of the Amiga.

[the_leander]

humppa wrote:

Porting to a dead platform is not a way forward, only the most blinded zealot would think that such a move would be anything other then stupifyingly shortsighted.

Ok then, please point us at the current alternatives on the PPC-market? Are there any other proven, relatively cheap and powerful PPC-platforms that are available in numbers and that have a future path? No?

PPC as a desktop system, beyond highly specialised products like IBM workstations (which cost in the multiples of thousands each) and genesi's forthcoming multi cpu boards is a dead end.

Only highly specialised markets within the embedded industry really use ppc now, and for most of these applications, AmigaOS is in no position to be marketable (most of these things require, at a minimum, memory protection and stability far beyond what AOS can offer).

The only alternative would be to go x86, but before doing that, you would first need to assess what you are really aiming at with your OS.
If you want to go the commercial route and want to target at the desktop users, then there might be no other way than going x86. Hyperions problem is exactly that: I guess they originally planned to make some money with their OS, but how realistic is that on a license-restricted "only-PPC" and "we need custom HW" niche market?

AmigaOS would need to be rebuilt from the ground up again to have a chance in the mainstream. It wouldn't be able to compete with Zeta, let alone one of the big boys as it stands.

There are however niche sectors even within the x86 market, look at the epia platforms from VIA - low cost, specialised hardware with lots of custom chips to play with. I'm genuinely surprised that there hasn't already been a port to epia tbh.

But seriously, give it up on PPC, for the Amiga's needs it's game over.

[the_leander]

tonyvdb wrote:
I dont think I have seen anyone mention OS 3.9 for the Amiga. It runs very well and if you add a Mediator board and put the 4000 into a tower case you get a very functional computer and its alot of fun working on the towerising project. The Mediator alows you to use some of the cheep PCI sound and graphic cards in your Amiga while still giving you Zorrow II & III slots for Amiga hardware.

Great systems, but they are not only dead end platforms, but also starting to get very fragile due to age.

I love seeing the old girls at Amiga meets, but as time goes on their numbers will continue to dwindle.

[the_leander]

gdanko wrote:
Releasing for G4 Macs would grow the platform exponentially. With the small footprint of the OS, a 1 GHz Mac G4 that sells for $100 on craigslist would be a smoking fast MorphOS machine and you could still play your Amiga games. When it comes down to it, MorphOS is the future of AmigaOS.

Tbh that $100 would be better spent on a pc laptop of the same vintage and run amitholon on it.

Same software, faster hardware and an upgrade path ahead of you.

[the_leander]

gdanko wrote:

I love seeing the old girls at Amiga meets, but as time goes on their numbers will continue to dwindle.

I don't know about that. I've seen some that are fragile and others that are in GREAT shape. Fortunately most of mine are of the latter.. excellent condition!

As time goes on that proportion will only increase toward the fragile end of the scale.

What surprises me the most about all of this is just how much of the old kit works at all!

Good to know there are people out there that look after it all  :-)