What are the advantages of Amiga...

[Hans_]

AmigaOS is fast and responsive even on low specced machines. I like the OS structure, and the APIs (for writing software) are cleaner than on other OSes. Just a pity that the software selection is rather limited these days.

Hans

[Hans_]

Piru wrote:
As an operating system AmigaOS is rather limited and outdated: No memory protection, no resource tracking, no POSIX stuff. Due to this AmigaOS lacks some important software, such as decent web browser, office suite and so on.

We have pthreads. :-P
Ixemul provides some POSIX functionality, but it's incomplete. My understanding is that being POSIX compliant is not enough to get a lot of software ported. It's the myriad of other dependencies too. It would certainly make it easier though.

Hans

[Hans_]

adz wrote:
I'd like to see you use an Amiga process the 15MB RAW file my Nikon D200 spits out, or better yet the 25MB RAW from the D2X and then try and work with the resulting 60MB+ TIFF.

I'm sure my Amigaone could do that no problem. Not as fast as a dual core PC for sure, but it should still be able to do the job just fine.

Hans

[Hans_]

adz wrote:

And where exactly can one purchase a said AmigaOne? Whilst I'm there, will I be able to purchase an AmigaOne compatible RAW coverter too? How about PhotoShop, is that availiable as well?

Yes I know that availability is an issue. Software wise, there's no OS4 native image procesing software available yet, so there's no software taking advantage of altivec (hopefully that will change soon). ImageFX probably has a RAW import module (haven't checked though).

Back to serious mode... Yes, I guess an AmigaOne could do it, if one, there was software availiable, and two, you didn't mind waiting a good while for your filters to process. I've tried working with said files on a PowerBook G4 866MHz with 640MB RAM and it is painfully slow.

My A1's specs are about the same so I'd expect performance to be similar.

Besides, I personally don't subscribe to the concept the the AmigaOne is even an Amiga, so from my point of view, my initial comments are still valid.

Well my A1 looks and behaves just like an Amiga with Amiga OS4. What makes it not an Amiga? Lack of custom chips? If Commodore hadn't gone bankrupt, they would have made Amigas with PCI slots, and eventually ditched custom chips for standardised components, once they were up to Amiga's standards. All computer manufacturers were heading in that direction.

Hans

[Hans_]

MikeCarter wrote:
Wow all this sounds so famillier, though in the RISC OS world we are not lacking an Office alternative or photoshop alternative, just video, java, and a decent modern web browser, we have Netsurf but thats missing Javascript.

Actually, we have ImageFX, FxPaint and a few other photoshop alternatives. They work well too. The only disadvantage is that they're have no Amiga OS4 native versions, so it's running under 68k emulation. They're still pretty fast though. Our office alternatives are getting old, and can't import/export to MS Office.

So would what would be a good way of getting into Amiga,

Wait to see what the out come of this new amiga hardware is?

Upgrade exsisting hardware?

Emulation?

Emulation would be the fastest. Look at AmigaForever. However, I'd recommend keeping an eye out for new hardware. I have Amiga OS4 and it's definitely a big improvement over OS 3.9.

Hans