Dave Haynie (lead engineer of C= Amiga) opinion on Amiga Successors

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motorollin wrote:
I can see Dave's point, that in order to attack the market and really be successful Amiga need to appeal to existing Windows and Linux users, i.e. those who are using an x86 platform. This means porting AmigaOS or a clone to an x86 platform. But I fear that would compromise the speed and stability that Amiga Classic/AmigaOne/MorphOS users enjoy.

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moto

But you've missed Dave's more important point... Why bother using cheap industry standard parts (ie PCI), as the A1 and Peg do... but not use a nice cheap CPU as well?

I agree that MacOS X has a huge advantage over Windows just because the engineers know exactly what hardware it runs on and can test it completly.

But AmigaOS going X86 doesn't mean you can't do that... if drivers are only written for specific hardware components... then you can force the users of the OS to stick with certain harware... unless they choose to write their own drivers.

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motorollin wrote:

The machines that were built with well known boards with widely used chipsets were rock solid.

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moto

Exactly, so only support specific boards and you will be fine...

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motorollin wrote:

bloodline wrote:

motorollin wrote:
The machines that were built with well known boards with widely used chipsets were rock solid.

Exactly, so only support specific boards and you will be fine...

Isn't that exactly what they have done, with the A1/Peg? That is what I was getting at when I talked about Amiga/Apple being stable because they restrict the hardware their OS will run on.

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moto

Specific as in "nForce4", for example... ie cheap and reliable.

-Edit- Exactly what apple are doing. Now they are using totally off-the-shelf harware, they can cut costs and increase performance!

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Nitro wrote:
Sad really can`t agree with him. My G-3/600MHZ Pegasos2 running Mplayer on MorphOS, plays Divx video, that my Athlon 1GHZ WinXP locks up and can`t handle.  Cheaper is not always better.  Apple makes the switch to jump on the money train.      Eating their own words that the PPC is better.  

Steve Jobs wanted to move the Mac to x86 as soon as he was rehired by Apple... it was only IBM promises that kept him with the PPC... IBM failed and gave up with the desktop PPC.

Sony doesn`t seem to want to switch.  

Sony don't make PPC desktops.

They seem to produce tons of PPC machines that sell less than $150.  One word "CELL"  

Sony haven't made a PPC machine yet, and the PS3 is in a horrible state at the moment... they had nothing to show at the CES!

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leirbag28 wrote:
@cv643D

 (ie a 486 is about the same speed as a 040).

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I know what you are trying to say.....but just a sidenote.

a 486 is NOT the same speed as an 040...........though they were in competition with each other at the time and existed around the same time............an 040 will destroy a 486...........an 040 plugged into an Amiga is more like a Pentium II in my experience.

Mathematically calculating...........Yes a 486 will render about the same or faster.  But in actual use..a 486 is super unusable...........heck........my CD32/SX32 pro is 030 50 Mhz and its faster and smoother than any Pentium II.

Just amore satisfying experience is what I really mean.

an 030 cant play Quicktme or edit Video like a Pentium II, but when it comes to responsiveness..........Ah man! Amiga kills in this area.

I cant use a Pentium II today....too slow!.......  but my CD32  however, is my main machine and even use it over my Pentium 4!

Actually, when I used to run AROS on an old 25Mhz 486 it ran exactly as my 040 Amiga does... similar response times etc.

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countzero wrote:

@ Dr_Righteous wrote:
Ahem what? Linux is being used to aid in development. So what? I still say done right, and with enough community support, AROS has a chance to unseat Linux as the number 2 x86 OS.

AROS cannot qualify as an operating system until they have their own kernel. I would like to remind you that it has taken nearly 10 years for linux to become what it is today (with a support AROS will never have). Also being the number 2 x86 OS does not mean anything anymore because x86 will be obsolete in a few years time. Right now it's too late to design an OS for this architecture.

Oops, perhaps we should get rid of those old documents :-(

AROS has be a stand-alone operating system for over 6 years... It does have the ability to run on top of Linux (or FreeBSD) to allow easy development (though some developers use VMware to get similar functionality without the need for Linux). Aros can and does run without any other OS required.

If you want to see AROS running all by itself, just try out the AROS-MAX distribution.

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boing wrote:
Interesting that Dave rightly complains  (about PegasOS box and Amiga Oee) "They're both just PCs with PPCs. Nothing more, nothing less" and yet he in effect argues for sticking the OS into x86.

...which would make it just a PC with AmigaOS, Nothing more, nothing less.

You've missed the point of what Dave is saying!!! Why bother having all these cheap PC peripherals, and then connect them to an expensive underpowered CPU* via an expensive buggy north-bridge.

Just go the whole hog and get the whole system standard!

*You do realise the the G4 has remained architecturally unchanged for 6 years, just a few process tweaks to bump the clock speed, nothing more!! CPU technology has moved on... The Athlon64 and the new Intel Core chips are several generations ahead of even the best G5 (which has had little work done on it for 4 years).

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Nitro wrote:
@T_Bone
Yes Sony does not sell an OS or a computer.  What I never understood is everyone says that the cost of PPC is so high because there isn`t a large demand for PPC.

Ok, lets get something straight... PPC is not a CPU. It's an "Instruction Set Architecture" (ISA for short). This is simply the language the CPU "speaks" nothing more nothing less, it's a compiler option. What is FAR FAR FAR FAR FAR more important when thinking about running an OS is the PLATFORM architecture, this is what Operating systems are written for.

What you must remember when someone says PPC, they could mean any CPU that "speak" PPC. The ISA has little to do with performance (I know there are some issues here, but I'm talking about the overall picture). For example the G4 and the G5 are architecturally totally different beasts, nothing like each other in any way... they just happen to use the PPC ISA.

Now with all this in mind, the idea of porting an OS (lets say AOS4 for sake of example) from the A1 to a Normal PC woudl be much eaiser than porting AOS4 from the A1 to a Playstation3. The reason is that the A1 and a standard have a very similar platform architecture... the PS3 is something totally different, no one knows what's going on inside there and that's how Sony like it.

In the mid 90's the 603 and 604 line of CPU's were really great (they happen to use the PPC ISA by the way), but that was 10 years ago, and the G4 is still based on the 603!!! intel and AMD has pushed ahead using the latest ideas and developments to make new architectures which give better performance and use less power... Now IBM have no intention of investing in the G5 and Freescale are more than happy with the G4 (744x), ther are currently no CPU's using the PPC ISA which is suitable for a modern laptop, and with no developement from IBM or Freescale their usefulness on the desktop has come to an end.

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Nitro wrote:
@bloodline
Ok there is enough logic in your post, that even I can see that the only future for now is x86.  Scary.

I should clarify that, if IBM and/or Freescale were to pump some serious money into their CPU products, they could easily make PPC competitor to the current x86 offerings. IBM proved this when they made the PPC 970 (G5), which was designed to compete with the AthlonXP (The AMD K7)and the Pentium4 (intel Netbust)... which it did very well! Now they need to compete with processors like the Athlon64 (The AMD K8) and the new Intel Core Duo (Intel Yonah)... so a new architecture is required.

Don't worry about the idea of x86, it's just an ISA :-) as I said before... it's nothing more than an option in the compiler, if AMD wanted they could put a PPC ISA frontend on to their K8 architecture and create a really powerfull PPC chip (ok, there are a few technical issues that would need to be addressed... the K8 is geared towards x86, but the theory is correct).

-Edit-
The Apple switch to x86 is due to this stagnation of desktop capable PPC chips. intel was chosen to provide the CPU's for the first range of x86 Macs because;

1. They have huge capacity, so no cpu shortages like Apple suffered with from both Freescale and IBM
2. They do great discounts for volume buyers ;-)
3. intel provide a complete solution... from the cpu, to the chipset to the motherboard design. Steve Jobs keynote address a few days ago cleary stated that intel had done the Hardware work on the new Macs!

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Nitro wrote:
I wonder what kind of a bussiness path IBM will take.  Like you said they could design processors to compete with processors like the Athlon64 and Intel Core Duo.  They big question is will they?  Bill Gates said that Linux is nothing to worry about, it was IBM.  

IBM aren't interested in the desktop (They never really have been!), they recently sold off their PC devision. IBM make "super computers", chips for others (AMD, Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo the list is endless) and they sell services...

If there is a stagnation of development of desktop capable PPC chips, like you said, then the only clear path for many of Amiga developers is to go to PC hardware.  A smart move by Airsoft Softwair, as to develope in all directions with Hollywood 2.0.

I don't see where the next desktop PPC cpu is going to come from, Apple couldn't either.

There really isn't any need to make a desktop/laptop PPC CPU... the companies which produce PPC CPU's are doing very well in the embedded market (Cars, washing machines, games consoles etc...).

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A3KOne wrote:

Nitro wrote:
Why should OS4 be ported to x86?  I think AROS has came along way.  Anyone who feels they must have an AmigaOS on x86 can use it.  It`s open source, Aros users are all for people helping to develope it.  It may one day be better than OS4.  They choices are all ready in front of everyone.  It doesn`t have a big AMIGA sticker on it. (Just for hobby users)

And you have answered the "why" question.

Aros has came a long way....It may ONE DAY be better than OS4...

OS4 could be recompiled to x86 in no time (and probably already has been) and in an instant it would be lightyears ahead of Aros.  The Amiga community has always been fractured by people wanting to protect their interests as opposed to moving the platform forward.  It looks like Aros is potentially another one.  If AmigaOS was ported to x86, what would that do to Aros?

Nothing would change for the AROS team, AROS isn't x86... it multiplatform! Actually the x86 version of AROS might gain some software if anyone made something for the x86 verison of AOS4 :-D

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Fats wrote:

A3KOne wrote:
It appears that Aros may have created yet another faction that does not want any future for Amiga unless it is of their design.  At least that I what I get from some of the posts.

Maybe this is true for some vocal part of the AROS users. (Like people with blood in their nickname :-D). I'm a developer working on the build system of AROS and in the future I would want to use this work to make it easier to make programs running on all amiga-like systems, of course if time permits.
I also own an A1 and develop for AROS. I happily use both. Other AROS devs are doing the same with Pegasos.

greets,
Staf.

Hey Staf, you know that I would buy an x86 version of AOS4, I've said it a few times on the mailing list :-D