Interview with Trevor Dickinson

[Iggy]

I, myself, am baffled as to what AmigaOS users think they would bring to the X86 market.

1) an OS w/o memory protection
2) that doesn't support more than one processor core
3) with no outstanding legacy software that can't be matched or superseded by applications in other X86 OS'
4) a 32 bit OS in a market that is rapidly moving to 64 bit (and eventually to  128 bit)
5) an OS which in its multiple variations does not support modern GPU hardware like shaders

Given time, I could come up with many more flaws to this argument.

Right now, Amiga users are basically hobbyists that use an alternate OS out of personal interest. AmigaOS is not a viable competitor for Windows, OSX, and maybe not even Linux.

Personally, I hope we stay with PPC architecture. It differentiates us from the rest of the market and RISC code is easier to work with than CISC code.

I use MorphOS. I don't see the MorphOS development team supporting any other type of processors for the time being. AmigaOS is welcome competition and I hope Hyperion manages to keep it viable.

If you are so interested in an X86 alternative, use and support AROS. While the current release contains some flaws, the eventual roadmap for this AmigaOS offfshoot could make it quite an impressive system.

[Iggy]

I thought Gallium3d supported shaders.    which would mean hopefully so does Aros. :-D

When that part of AROS is bug free, we will see a neat step forward in Amiga like OS development. Which is why I didn't totally discount AROS. But the current releases are way too buggy.

I have one PC with an Nvidia 7600GT video card that I have Multiple variants of AROS on.

But I use an Apple with MorphOS on it because it is stable.

And I have multiple PCs with various versions of Windows because there is software I just can't get in the Amiga community.

Right now, with OpenGL support, both AROS and MorphOS seem to offer superior 2d and 3d functions (compared to AOS3.x and AOS4.x).

But, since GPU manufactures are very tight lipped about there architectures, we have a long way to go to match Windows graphics power (which, btw, so does OSX).