Pros and Cons of Amithlon type systems

[EDanaII]

Don't even think it could handle the custom chipset emulation very well so almost all games & demos were a no go on it. Always seemed to me from what I read about it, a pretty pointless exercise to tell the truth...

Holding on to the custom chip set, especially at that time, would have been like strapping a horse to the front of your car and expecting people to be impressed. The custom chip set was a means to an end and by the time Amithlon came around, that end was largely achieved. For those of us no longer interested in Amiga games, the chipset was pretty pointless, and for myself, who would have loved to have seen AmigaOS move forward, Amithlon became another means to an end.

As an earlier poster pointed out, Amithlon allowed you to mix and match x86 and 68k binaries and would have allowed for a smooth transition to Intel. AROS, for example, is trying to build smooth 68k emulation into the OS, but is having some difficulty. If they had adopted the Amithlon approach they would have had it already.

All in all, it's a shame it failed. It's quite possible AmigaOS would have been years ahead of where it is now had it not. Que sera, sera...

[EDanaII]

@ Heiroglyph:

Long story short, that's why I'm looking at reviving Amithlon without the IP problems but I was curious as to what people liked/disliked about the original.

You have that skill set? If so, then I'm impressed.

I'm no expert here, so I may be talking out my S, but... if you can do this, consider two options: first, use what AROS has already got and just build a workbench that can behave like Amithlon. I doubt it's as simple as that, considering the issues that Emumiga is having.

Probably the better option, however, is to parallel Bernie's work. This creates something closer to Anubis, which I personally favor, because of the driver and memory protection issues.

But, like I said, I'm probably talking out my S.

It's a shame, he's an awesome developer and has great ideas. Plus he's just too nice to have that happen to him. Where is karma when you need it?

I remember Bernie from his Comp.Sys.Amiga daze. He had quite an attitude back then and I, Aram Iskenderian and Luca Diana, among others, got into many a heated argument with him. I think he was, as with many, pretty disappointed over the that state of things back then. I'm certainly glad he decided to use his powers for good and not evil with Amithlon and, yea, it's a shame everything ended up the way it did.

[EDanaII]

@ Heiroglyph:

The things I'm still weighing out are how much to emulate vs. pass through to the Amiga side (all PCI? SCSI? USB?) and which OS to use as a base.

Well, speaking from my perspective, since you're gaging interest, I would lean towards whichever makes it more flexible for expansion. The thing I liked best about the original Amithlon was that it did represent a way to move things forward.

Bernie was already rethinking how devices were handled for v2 and seemed to be going more emulated to increase compatibility. (No special Amiga side drivers to write)

Personally, I think compatibility is one of the things that is holding back  Amiga derived systems. IMHO, AROS is stuck without MP, SMP and useful drivers because it aims at 3.1 compatibility. I feel OS 4.1 and MorphOS are similarly stuck because of PPC compatibility.

That's why, for example, I had no issues with Bernie when he lost the custom chipset compatibility. It just made better sense to do so with all the more modern and powerful graphics cards available at that time.

Don't get me wrong, I don't have an issue with 68k compatibility, but not so that it holds you back from moving forward. Naturally a balance should be struck.

Once again, my two cents, if it's really even worth that.

[EDanaII]

I didn't make it clear, but I meant better hardware compatibility, not software compatibility.  Beyond OS legal apps isn't something I'm interested in, that's what full system emulators like UAE are for and they are beyond reasonably complete.

Awesome. Then you definitely have my interest.

I'm gathering, though, that this is to be a private/personal project rather than an open-sourced one. If it is, you might wanna consider the open-source option, since it there would be less risk what happened to Amithlon happening again. Obviously, you could also recruit some help and engage others in the best way to attack the problems that arise.

What are we up to now? Six cents?

Best of luck, nonetheless, on whatever you decide.

[EDanaII]

Part of my reasoning is that Haiku is more of a spiritual successor than most other OS's, but is far more advanced.
It has SMP, memory protection, virtual memory, datatypes, responsive UI, it's multi-media centric and has a good selection of drivers.  It also boots to a usable desktop in 8 seconds. (not counting BIOS crap that can't be helped)

Doesn't Haiku have the same limitation that AROS has in regards to drivers? I assume you'd want to support a limited set of architecture first, but wouldn't the ideal be to ultimately support as broad a range of hardware as possible? Am I missing something here?

I have nothing against Haiku and I'm definitely not a Linux fan, but wouldn't you want to start with something that had a fairly broad foundation?

Just curious.