ECS, AGA, Workbench? No I don't hate them.

[Iggy]

I agree with Rune wholeheartedly.  I bought an Amiga to enjoy what I once had but if Amiga is to have a future, it has to be making an OS for the future; not tied to any hardware (a.k.a. MAC OS) and can be installed on many different types of hardware (Linux, AROS, etc...).  The OS needs to be efficient, not bloated like Windoze.

Considering these post, I am quick to admit that my proposal is not a good idea.
I'll leave the legacy users to their dreams of the Natami and wish them well.
For now, I'm sticking with PPCs (and keeping an eye on the X86 and ARM developments).

We all have our preferences, and I got about all I'm likely to get from 68Ks. Why revisit something that could have been that still causes me great anguish? Hey, the platforms were so good that they linger on via the dedicated self abuse of we fanatics.

Take care all.

Jim

[Iggy]

What a charmer.

Yep, I'm feeling more than little guilty of being a bit too aggressive myself. I mean frankly I think of FPGAs as a form of emulation myself. But there's programable logic available right now that I would hesitate to add to a design because it would simply it.We are all getting a little too hostile.

Amiga.org the Palestine of computer websites.

[Iggy]

I think it becomes such a source of contention because there's a stigma attached to emulation, like it's "not punk enough" or something - it's like the inaccuracy of early emulators was codified as being the nature of emulators in general. I mean, I'm an "original hardware" guy myself, but come on. Strictly speaking, though, FPGAs aren't the same thing as software emulators - they are hardware, even if they have to be soft-configured, and aren't quite as efficient as a dedicated ASIC.

No they lend themselves to low volume projects, but they do suffer some limitation. And frankly, some of the emulators I've seen lately are frighteningly accurate.

[Iggy]

Ah, what the heck, one more post of Ambient.

[Iggy]

Sorry I was agitated and I put my questions in an offensive way; my apologies.
But for me it is very hard to understand the fundamental difference between a SRAM based FPGA and a Flash or anti-fuse based FPGA. The transistors inside the device are working exactly the same way only the configuration is done differently; there are even SRAM based FPGAs that are combined with a Flash die in one package (through system-in-a-package) so no external configuration is needed.

As I am currently employed in the hardware design business I follow closely what is happening in this world through things like FPGA Journal. A lot of the equipment for telecom or networking is using FPGAs now; if you open a Cisco router there is a good chance it contains an FPGA. So for some people here a big part of the internet is now run not on 'real' hardware but on emulation of hardware. Personally I would call is hardware and not software.
This target market is also the reason why Altera and Xilinx try to beat each other with the speed of their IOs.

greets,
Staf.

No, dude that wasn't directed at anything you said. We have a valid difference of opinion here with no clear answer. does a reprogrammed hardware array actually become what its instructed to act as or is it emulatng it? I think both points of view here have enough validity that there isn't a clear answer.

What we were objecting to was the insolent comment using the term moron.
At times things DO get heated here. But you MUST understand that while we often have profound differences of opinion, we do have a common interest and a basic level of civillity and respect for each other.
Hell I love some of the guys (even if we choose to disagree). Franko is very straight forward with just enough of the strangle sense of humor the I grew up with (the Scots like the Irish are fond of baffling you with their humor). Tone007, very terse, concise, cutting and sharp. Karlos, focused on Linux, but open to alternative. Heck I can't cover everyone I've interascted with here, but they've helped me reconsider some of my ideas, they've helped with with problems, and they've amused the hell out of me.

Please, in no way take any thing that has been said recently as a negative commentary of your posts, and please feel free to continue to contribute. I've made the mistake of suggesting someone not do that once too often. And coming from a Country that guarantees free speech, I sometimes forget that not only don't I have that right, but I have got a moral obligation to at least consider the opinions of the speaker.

Take care,
 Jim

Oh, and BTW in another thread I mentioned a PPC motherboard design I'd spent a few months on, on of the core components was a programmable IC that eliminated several complex timing oriented glue circuits I would have had to include in the '90's. So, I to think these things are a fantastic step forward in electronic technology. Imagine being able to write code to contuct a custom IC?
If we'd had this a decade or two ago WE could have built the next Amiga.

[Iggy]

Hey, I want at least few of you to approve (or disapprove), but I'd like to go off target a bit a re-address that issue on the initital power of the PCs X86 processors (the8088 & 8086) vs. processors in alternative systems.
I think people opinion of X86 is clearly influenced by their later generations and I'd like to make a couple points, but I don't want to ponificate w/o general concensus.

[Iggy]

Actually, I'd have to say the opposite. Some people still dislike/mock/whatever x86 cpus based on how they were back in the days when Amiga was competitive. To this day it's not uncommon for people to look down on x86 cpus based on the fact the 16 bit versions (pre 386) were inferior to 680x0 cpus in the mid 80's. Heck, Ive even seen some people convinced that the x1000's pa6t and successors will be competitive, or even superior to current x86 cpus (not sure if that's funny or sad really :-))

GOOD, I'll take that as an approval. While I have X86-64 systems, and they've finally grown to be prowerful useful machines they're still resource pigs that have required decades of constant upgrades to get to this point.

Now as to the processor in the original PC, the 8088. Yes it had 16 bit instructios, yes it ran at 4.77Mhz, BUT it was CRUDE. Remember, I've previously mentioned that I was an early Motorola supporter. So 6800, which gives indirect birth to the 6502, which takes away some of the attention that should have been given to the much better 6809. We don't even have to talk about that super computer level Unix/Xenix monster the 68000 here.
Lets just compare a 2Mhz 6809 in a SWTPC computer to a 4.77Mhz 8088 in a PC. In many operations, the 6809 is FASTER. The PC is limited to running a crude rip off of CPM called MS-DOS. As today, CPU speed is not the only determining factor when considering processing prower. The 6809 suppports position independant re-entrant addressing which allowed it to utilize a time-slicing priority based multi-tasking multi-user OS (Microware/Radisys OS9 - there eventual basis for the CD-i player).
Intel processors could not truly match this kind of capabilty until the '386 was introduced. Ever try to run Windows 3.1 on anything less than a '386? Trust me, I had evalution copies of Win3.0 supplied by IBM before release and I know what hardware they were recommending.
And again, if you think an MS-DOS based Windows system provided true priority based multi-tasking, you're buying into the hype Microsoft put out and your delusional.
In fact, until Microsoft implented the NT kernal, multitasking was an uncontrolled, you might lock it up nightmare.

So congradulation Amiga users! Anytime anyone tries to tell you that a PC had some edge over your system ANYTIME during the active production life of the Amiga, feel free to laugh in their faces.
Because the PC took almost TWO DECADES to catch up to what could be done on early Motorola processors, let alone you much better Amigas.

Should anyone ever question my stance on this, let me be clear, we did not lose this battle based on he technical merits of our systems. We lost due to poor business management, marketing, and the strength that comes with market dominance bringing a wealth of software (even if a lot of it is crap). The PC SUCKED when it was introduced. And each sucessive generation should have been marketed "Windowsx/iX86, this time it sucks less".

We could still do better, sometimes I think you guys are just to timid or you don't remember (or weren't there to witness) how things were at the beginning.

[Iggy]

Hey, that sounds just like Amiga (including OS4.1!)

Luckily the NT kernal has been in use since the 90s.

Yep, but the first non-enterprise related use is in Windows 2000 (which I was rather impressed by) in 2000, and the first version aimmed at the general market was Window XP (can't even remember that date). Of course subsequent versions (Vista, Win 7) have really just be reworked versions of the same thing (but that is nothing new Win95 to WinME are essentially all very similar).

What we still don't have under AOS4, MorphOS, olr AROS is any support for SMP. Now that does place us at a disadvantage over Windows and OSX. Even some form of ASMP would help utilize cores that languish on many NG systems because of support for only one processor.

Oh, and one thing I'll note you do not see under any Amiga related OS' are those stupid DLL libraries. What sub-genius at Microsoft thought a flat, monstrous database of library files was a good idea? It's a great way to corrupt your OS. is any su

[Iggy]

Not quite, though. The Amiga had preemptive multitasking from the get-go, while Windows and Mac took upwards of a decade (ten and seventeen years, respectively) to get that far. Amiga crashes are more due to a lack of memory protection (which, again, neither competitor had for a good while, though they did achieve it sooner than preemptive multitasking.) That can be fixed with any Amiga accelerator that includes an MMU, whether on the board or on-chip in the CPU.

Also, the NT kernel has existed since the early '90s, but it didn't become commonplace outside the business world until Windows XP, in 2003.

I'm glad you posted that John. I'd have to say its a point that everyone mentioning '386. '486, and Pentium processors keeps forgetting. Window3.0 to WindowsME are all DOS based. I remember selling these version all being marketed as priority based preemptive multitasking systems and thinking "Oh yeah where's the task scheduler and how is priority set?". But you now there's an old Republican trick that seems to work in computer marketing too. If you just keep repeat some BS line long enough, and significant number of the people who are too lazy to verify your claims will believe you.
All Windows variants prior to NT were more of a multitasking as long as some obscure process that is under no supervisory process decides to use up all the systems resources, going it an uncontrolled loop, etc.

The Amiga may have meditated, but Windows had the horrifying (and often system corrupting) blue screen of death. Anyone miss BSODs? I went back a reinstalled some variants like Win98 recently to see if there was any nostalgia value. It was just as unplesant as I remembered.

There are a few people playing with retro PC, but frankly I think they must be into pain.

I sold PCs along side our 68K computers and I have no fond memories of the painful growing period that belonged to the early PC. Amiga was cool out the door. Might have pooched the shoot later, but it was never that painful.

As I've said before, people only think kindly of the PC because it sucks a lot less than it used to.

[Iggy]

Maybe I was just lucky, but I went from DOS to Win3.1 to 95 to 98 (even a brief stint with ME) to 2000 to XP to Vista to 7, and I was always able to get what I needed to done without much trouble at all.

I like to think of it more as skill than luck, though.

You must be one of the luckiest PC users on the planet. Virtually no one I know hasn't faced an unretreivable crash under an early versions of Windows.

I remember the first time I tried to overclock an SATA RAID array equipped PC. Man! Who would think you could destroy the integrity of your hard drives contents when that part of the hardware isn't affected by the overclock?

I'm actually quite impressed with how bulletproof the last few versions have gotten. They can even rebuild some missing or damaged OS components. And no more BSOD (heck I don't get many crashes of any kind).

[Iggy]

I'm no expert, but I'd chalk it up to a combination of Linux gaining popularity with the techies (once it became accessible for mere mortal nerds in the early 2000s) and Apple saying "Unix? Yeah, we'll take some of that," and going from a pretty, user-friendly OS buried under 17 years of cruft and kludge to a pretty, user-friendly OS completely re-tooled around a full-featured, time-tested architecture (after some, uh, initial issues, I'm told.) It takes a lot to make a behemoth like Microsoft rethink their game, but suddenly having two credible competitors, one for each end of the market, going up against a pile of feces like Windows ME and a company reputation for developing software as solid as a Soviet-bloc compact car will do it.

Hey no fair! I kinda liked the Lada. Where else are you going to get a Fiat124 based sedan with a crank handle for when the starter fails? Don't go disparaging solid com-bloc hardware with your libelous comparisons!

[Iggy]

All versions of OSX prior to 10.5 were absolute dog faeces tbh.

Harsh Nicholas. I've got a copy of 10.4 (Tiger) and I don't think its that much worse than 10.5 (but then I don't really care for OSX either - which explain why the OSX hard drive lays near my MorphOS/Ubuntu based Powermac ready to be installed in case I need firmware updates).

And besides, its not <10.5 thats dog feces, its Steve Jobs soul (if he still has one).