Amiga, Inc. and Bernd Meyer announce licensing of Amithlon 2.0

[bhoggett]

Fellow is very fast, but is only usefull for old games.

Just thought I'd add a bit to that. Fellow is fast when doing the chipset emulation. It is therefore well suited to old games, and will run some stuff that UAE will not.

However, last time I checked Fellow has no JIT, so CPU emulation is actually quite slow, meaning it is not well suited for applications at all.

For old games, Fellow makes a good solution. For anything else, forget it.

[bhoggett]

On topic I seriously doubt that Amithlon will need to be torpedoed because it will only support AOS3.9 and potentially 5.x. The intervening increments are PPC only.

Torpedoed? If it was going to be torpedoed, Amiga Inc weren't going to get a better chance than this, right? As they obviously have not done it, I don't think the subject is worth discussing any more.

(However, Kronos was suggesting H&P might try and torpedo it themselves, now that they can no longer profit from it directly)

As for the rest, I think Amithlon will go off at a tangent regarding its OS anyway. In the extremely unlikely event that OS5 should actually become more than utter vapour, it wouldn't require Amithlon anyway, and in truth AmigaOS itself is now permanently and irreversably committed to a PPC only future.

The only way that Amithlon will evolve is to slowly replace AmigaOS code with x86 equivalents, possibly by adapting AROS technology. Only time will tell if any of that will happen, but let's face it, no one's future is guaranteed in the Amiga scene.

[bhoggett]

Which suggests that at the back of his mind was Hyperion and not H+P as well as Bens "not on x86" stance.

Well, I can't argue with what it sounds like, but having exchanged a few mails with kronos recently, I know he is far more concerned with what H&P might do than what Ben might do.

After all, the contract between Amiga and Bernie is signed, hardcopies have been exchanged, and I don't see what Ben Hermans would have to do with it. The contract is basically nothing more than a licensing deal. It doesn't give Amiga any say in the future direction of Amithlon at all.

Sure 5.x is utter vapour etc etc but then so is Amithlon s future plans.

Yes, but Amithlon itself is not vapour, whereas the whole entity described as OS5 is just that. There is a difference.

I dont see anything technologically that sayes that AmigaOS's future is irreversably tied to PPC. Perhaps you could elaborate further on that point.

Don't think in purely technology terms, think in practical ones. One of the reasons given why PPC is the right move now is that it will be able to stay compatible with all the PPC-only software already developed. How much more will that factor grow over a few years of a PPC-only AmigaOS? What will be the point to switching to a completely new OS, or supporting a completely different CPU base, when so many companies are being asked to invest in a PPC-only route?  The whole idea of committing to PPC for just a while is completely unworkable. You don't invest all that money and time in a temporary solution. The future of AmigaOS is now wholly dependent on the success of the PPC platform. The decision has been made. There will be no x86 get out clauses on this one. If the PPC hardware route proves a financial disaster, AmigaOS will go down with it. Nothing is surer.

[bhoggett]

Dave, have I mentioned Amithlon 3.x?

Have I said what will happen on Amithlon?

OS5, OTOH, is being touted all over the place.

As for the absolutist view, I prefer to regard it as the realist view.  When presented with the most likely scenario against a possible but highly unlikely one, I'm afraid I'm not going to bet my house on the latter.

You, on the other hard, are free to do as you wish.