Amiga's kernel

[DiskDoctor]

AmigaOS is like a microkernel, in as much as everything is modular, sitting on top of a simple memory/process/interrupt management core... but Amiga OS doesn't suffer the performance penalty of other microkernels because it has no security at all.

A microkernel protects the core from all the other parts of the system, so you can in theory replace/upgrade/restart/break any part of the system without taking down the rest of the system, this is the power of a microkernel...
AmigaOS doesn't and thus is atypical (by missing out on this one key advantage of a microkernel, the trade off being that AmigaOS is faster and more memory efficient than regular microkernel) .

As a matter of fact I see no harm in denying this feature.  Actually I don't think the harm in question is even comparable in scope to that one while using MSIE on an unprotected and badly secured/managed Windows desktop (which is roughly 80% world's personal computers' installation scheme).  Besides making any application registration layer (I mean certificates) solves the problem thoroughly.  All bad things we can see now is just an outcome of tremendous efforts of porting/writting apps for this very system.

I saw both Amiga and Morphos on local fairs yet in February and I was astonished by their performance.  Second time in my life.  First time was when I saw A500 back in those days.  Amiga nowadays is the only part of computer world which doesn't follow the Moore's law.  You can buy underpowered Sam and do whatever AOS is designed for and do it efficiently.  No matter the time or system (or processor if we're talking mobile), you always have to wait for everything.  Such a scalable system as AOS has a bright future I think, but maybe in 5-10 years.  Simple justification - computer OSes (mainly proprietary) appear in practically all digital equipment, get a 15$ mp3player and you'll see the market I mean.  Such systems like WinMobile, Symbian, even Android, WebOS are to fat for them already.  There goes the Amiga - that's how I see it and why I adore it.  But of course I prefer Amiga as a desktop :lol:

[DiskDoctor]

Rubbish, Modern computing is getting better exponentially!

True but as long as you're getting most recent HW spec on each major release.

Besides I saw nothing for years, except for OSX release that is surpassed by Windows until now.

Nothing new.

WinXP for example was a polished version of W2K, with much less dll-driven exceptions.  W2K was the eventually stable (beta) version of Win95, WinNT actually.  Nothing happened until Vista, actually Vista was scr*wing up drivers policy and ripping off OSX UI.  I just got myself WIn7 which I find impossible to distinguish from Vista, jsut like 98 and ME. So from my perspective, more progress happened in Amiga world than in Windows world in the time of 1995-2009.

You say better graphics, cheaper RAM, faster and multi-core processors.  So what?  What for?  To make a new system supported?  Bollocks!  This is not a progress anymore - it is a scale effect lobbed by vendors to stabilize their income from selling HW.

Linux on Kubuntu example - nothing changed between 8 and 9 release, just most stuff is broken now since it's "just" released version.  What change might one expect from Linux anyway?  New gcc?  More Windows resemblance?  More ports, rip offs?  Drivers?  DivX codecs?

Macs allright, many new things have been appearing since 10.0 OS.

But those Windows issues for example - this is FMCG-like actions just to preserve clients from running into Macs, efficient actions though.

OK bloodline if you mean Macs fine, I agree it makes the whole thing undoubdetly better.  But keep in mind it would be 5% population and zero % office population.  These people ought to see hardly any change for last several years, if non-mac users report any progress it means they are properly targeted by MS marketing or misled by Linux mimics.

One more thing - I'm talking Desktop area only, servers - different story.  But Amiga is a desktop system, right?  And mobile for a change, as an ex-Palm owner all I can see now in smart mobiles is reverse-engineering the Palm world apps dated approximately on 2001/02 with everything slowed down by 5 x with 10 x better processor, more RAM, more etc.  So this is going down, not up.

This whole thing is embarrasing.  If like Databases you're talking - fine, the progress is huge.  But excluding servers and desktop macs there is NO actual (by a measure of computer science) progress here.

Sorry I must be blind or completely miseducated etc.  Or at least tasteless, aren't I?

[DiskDoctor]

You really want me to answer that?

You completely didn't comprehend my posting and act as a defender of "whatever is around now".  Despite the fact whether such thing as "the present day" require defense per se by anybody living in that peculiar moment, please focus on ICT acronym for a while.

Or IT&T if you prefer.  Well you have to distinguish IT from communication, though it is hard nowadays but it's possible for the purpose of this very analysis.

All I said was that 2009 desktop/office/mobileos/mobileapp IT sucks as the market to me.  As in 2009.  I would expect that to have happened in 2001.  But I stressed on OSes, didn't say a thing 'bout communication.  The internet, networking, mobile, email, SOA - great stuff but this doesn't belong to the topic being disputed.  If you consider computing as ICT - well, mabye I don't get something but computing was calculations to me always.  Calculations, processing, visualizing, designing.  So ICT as a whole, including communication and internet, especially mobile and wireles techs - that's fine pretty much, agree here but that is not in the scope of the discussion.

One thing I have to agree with is that many serious tasks back then, requiring mainframe power, now are available at home.  I mean DTP, CAD n stuff.  That's fine, too.

So to say again - if I was back in 1995 and someone showed me Windows7 and said it would be in 2009, I would say "shouldn't this ship in some five years now"?  But if you say 2009 but add wifi, internet, GSM/HSxPA - now you've done it.  I confess.

But this is not just computing.  HSxPA phone in roaming isn't computing at all.  Not in 2009, not yet.

I hope this sums up my thoughts pretty much.