How about creating a Open AMIGA Consortium?

[abbub]

^^^

Absolutely.  Any chance of a 'modern' Amiga is about 12-15 years too late at this point.  Love it for what it is, not for what it could have been or may be in some wild pipe dream.

[abbub]

AeroMan wrote:
And you can't say that Windows doesn't eats your computer's performance.

I can.  The processor on my machine sits completely idle over 75% of the time, and the other 25% of the time it's going full bore when I'm encoding video.  I also think this is a foolish argument.  Windows XP SP2 is rock solid.  I deal with HUNDREDS of XP SP 2 machines a day.  It's hands down the best operating system Microsoft has ever produced.  If you're getting blue screens on it, you've got a hardware issue or some third party software issue.  If it's performing sluggish, you don't have the proper resources to run it (Should I complain about the performance of 3.9 on a 68020 with 5 MB?)

In my experience with Linux, OS X, and Windows, we've really reached a point where a modern computer almost has too many resources for *most* users... (Given that most users do light word processing, email, and web surfing.)

Mac is REALLY nice, but it is expensive, and it is difficult to find software for it. This is why I don't buy a new one

Mac is not really that much more expensive than other NICE PCs.  (Yeah, I'm aware that you can go down to Best Buy or your local appliance store and buy a 400 dollar machine, but you get what you pay for.)  Given that you can now run Windows software (both natively and virtualized) I'm finding the "can't find software for it" argument to be more and more a relic of the past.  What software do you need that you can't find for it?  (In my experience, the only real software gap I've encountered is decent Map/GPS software.)

If you haven't given OS X a try, you really should.  The linux zealots that go on and on about 'linux on the desktop' are missing the point that unix on the desktop is here in OS X and has been for years.

Am I the only one in the world who's not comfortable with those OSs and thinks a modern Amiga could fills my expectations?

What would a modern Amiga have that would make you feel comfortable?  Where does 'comfort' derive from in an operating system?  What do you want in a modern Amiga OS to do that one of the other solutions (Windows, Ubuntu, OS X, etc.) don't already provide?   (I don't know how you can talk about not being comfortable with what modern operating systems have to provide if you haven't used OS X.  It's by far the cream of the crop (though it does have it's own set of hassles, I'll admit).

[abbub]

Sig999 wrote:
If they can recapture the fun of the old machine, they'll have a winner. My PC doesn't keep me up till midnight flipping through old books and wading through pages of 68k assembly.  Linux doesn't make me stop mid-coffee and run to the keyboard to give something 'just one more try'...

Well, I can't speak for anyone else, but part of the 'fun' of it for me is the simplicity.  When you start introducing modern hardware, the features of a modern operating system, etc., that simplicity has a tendency to vanish.

I mentioned in another thread that I was amazed and amused to find the mainboard schematics for my A2000 in the back of the user's manual.   That simply doesn't happen any more.  Maybe to a certain degree because the schematic would be useless to most consumers, but I'd argue that, to a larger degree, it's because the systems we buy today are much more complex than the classic Amiga.  The classic Amiga is to the modern computer what my 1972 VW Bus is to my 2002 Jetta TDI.  I can do limited amounts of work on my TDI, but for any serious repairs, I need tools and knowledge that are largely beyond my scope to acquire.  The '72?  I can pull that engine and rebuild it in the back room.  (Much to the girlfriend's chagrin...)

Likewise, the OS required to support this modern hardware scales up quickly in terms of complexity and needed resources.  Look at linux.  Sure, you can get a small footprint of linux that boots and runs very fast on very limited resources.  But start adding the trappings of a modern OS like Windows or OS X to your linux box and you soon find that it also starts demanding more and more resources as the complexity of the user interface and available tools goes up.  That's the nature of all operating systems.  These things don't come for free.

I'm still curious as to what the modern features people want to add to Amiga OS, and how they intend to implement these without the Amiga OS morphing into the existing operating systems they're seeking to avoid.

[abbub]

Sig:  So, on the one hand, you have projects like Minimig making your hardware desires possible.  Modern storage medium, modern keyboard, modern mouse, etc. with A500 compatibility.  I get that, in the same sense that I get the DTV hacks.  Backwards compatibility with a smaller, more efficient, modern design.

The key being backwards compatibility with the classic Amigas.  And it strikes me that if you start tampering too much with the OS in order to modernize it, you're going to run into problems with that compatibility...forcing the software to run under constraints (or without constraints, in the case of HDD size) that it was never designed to deal with  and that it's completely untested on.

Persia: you really hit the nail on the head, with regards to the hobbyist thing.  That's what drew me back to playing with my A2000.

[abbub]

Einstein wrote:
Explain please!

It's pretty self-explanatory, isn't it?  

When you start adding features to an operating system, the complexity of that system goes up.  Want to add a web browser?  Well, you'll also need to add a TCP/IP stack and the network drivers for your supported hardware, as well as a way to configure all of that.  Then someone says, "well, we now have built in networking, so why not go one more step and add wireless? , which opens a whole other can of worms.  You add something like simple USB support, but why doesn't the mouse wheel work when I have my USB mouse plugged in?  You'll have to add support for that so that the wheel is  standardized throughout all of the programs.  And third mouse button support that's also standardized.  And I want those multimedia keys on my USB keyboard to do something, so we should have a way to configure those in the OS, too.  And so on and so fourth.  

Before long, adding all of these little tweaks and add-ons results in an OS that now has a 500 MB footprint and needs a half a gig of memory just to boot.  All of the simplicity (and speed) of the OS is gone.  You're left with yet another operating system in a sea of operating systems, and chances are, you've also left real Amiga support somewhere behind you, because convincing programs written in 1988 to play nice on a modern system is a daunting task.  Of course, you could probably port UAE to your new Amiga, and run your Amiga software on your Amiga under emulation...?!

If you havent noticed what features some people want in the OS then it's pretty hopeless explaining forever and ever ...and ever, isn't it ?

One person on here (Sig1999) has answered my question with regards to what he feels are modern features... >4 GB support and the ability to use PS/2 keyboards.  (Though I'd argue that PS/2 keyboards are just a stop gap, and for real future proofing you'd need USB.)  In any event, I'm not sure how you expect me to 'notice' something that very few people have commented on.

[abbub]

Einstein wrote:
So you mean it will be more complex *internally*, I could swear it sounded it would get more complex for end users. But what did you expect, on the other hand if yuo hate complexity then why not not just ditch the OS in favour of MS-DOS, or better yet, hardware hitting application framework (drivers), and just get rid of the overhead that's added to he OS b/c the need of multi-tasking ?

Because running OS X, XP, or Ubuntu is a lot easier than finding a browser, email client, and TCP/IP stack for MS-DOS and juggling with the memory manager in CONFIG.SYS to get it all working.  

But I think you're taking my thoughts out of the context of this particular thread.  My thoughts regarding the complexity of the operating system is that  the things that make the Amiga unique (largely intangible and undefinable, I think) would be lost in this transition to a modern OS.

On here, there's talk of modernizing the Operating System and Hardware.  My question is (and has been) to what end?  

As I've said, in the case of Minimig, Natami, etc., I can see it.  You're basically creating a hobby machine that has access to modern peripherals.  In other words, you're creating a clone (using modern hardware) of a 20 year old system.

But going beyond that and trying to create a new, high tech Amiga  with 'state of the art' graphics, processor, etc., and a new OS to run on it...  I don't get it.  Seems like using a Workbench-emulating window manager on a linux or BSD system with PC hardware is probably a better, easier solution.

Than it's possible that you started reading this board (and others) yesterday, in that case it's understandable.

Well, two weeks ago, but your point remains.

[abbub]

Sig:

I totally see where you're coming from, and I agree with it.  I think that, to a certain degree, the amount of collectors (there are quite a number of people on this board with 3-6 Amiga's listed in their sig) have created a scarcity of 'classic hardware' that makes the 'new clones' all the more attractive.

[abbub]

I don't really feel that I need to search the forums to know the weaknesses (and strengths, for that matter) of the Amiga OS compared to a modern OS, or to understand the impact that addressing those weaknesses could potentially have on 20 year old software.  ;-)

[abbub]

freqmax wrote:

@abbub:
Modularity is the key to avoid the complexity trap.

In terms of software, you mean?  Well, it can help, but all too often a modular approach to software development ends up with modules wrapping themselves around each other in a cycle of dependencies (Often for good reason...there is something to be said for not reinventing the wheel...) and then you're back to the complexity.  I'm not saying it's impossible to avoid this, just that it's difficult.  (And that it comes at a cost.)

[abbub]

ChuckT wrote:

The way to start is to prevent what happened:  

For that, we'll need a 1982 Delorean DMC-12 and a flux capacitor.  A Mr. Fusion would come in handy, but isn't absolutely necessary.   ;-)