Comparing Apples and Amigas

[OlafS3]

From what I have read, Commodore had money troubles and delayed development of AAA until it was practically too late, they then realised it was too late, cancelled AAA and started on Hombre, which was also too late and the company folded.
If Commodore had better management they would have brought out a AAA based Amiga at the right time and continued selling Amigas, they did licence the Z8001 processor for use in another aborted project so they could have licenced the 680x0 and made it part of future chipsets.
It is amazing how these management types believe they are worth million dollar paychecks with absolutely no evidence to back up their demands.

the basic difference between the apple community and the amiga community was that there was always apple as company leading the development and thus forcing the developer and user to go with them. Would Commodore have survived the same would have been the case for amiga. There would some form of AmigaOS (however it today would look like), no MorphOS or AROS. 68k would propably only existing as emulation (if ever) because they would have changed the hardware. Chipsets propably would not exist anymore. It would be a different machine today. But that did not happen, AROS is the oldest OS, MorphOS was started in the late 90s, there were the last 68k updates around 2000. That was the first split in NG and 68k. Then AmigaInc. decided to do their own "official" OS and the PPC platform started to divide too. I think what I read was that at the beginning both AmigaOS and MorphOS were running on classic hardware supporting PPC accellerators but both supporting different standards. I read discussions that this would destroy the last remainders of the market. Then arguments between Ben H. and MorphOS teams started and escalated with Ben H. claiming that MorphOS (and AROS) are illegal using 3.1. sources. And since then we have our current situation. All are using different (closed) standards and different components and are different on API level. But it is how it is.

When I have summarized something wrong be free to correct me. That is what i read in different sources.

[OlafS3]

My opening post was really asking "if Apple owners can accept the changes to their platform, why can't Amiga users do the same".

There is no single company, but we should be able to deal with that and move on as a fairly united community.

EDIT, There is no single company in the PC market either.

On PC you have windows dominating the market

[OlafS3]

Is 68k emulation on NG Amigas good enough to create a virtual 68k platform that is compatible with classic machines to the extent of running classic software, only faster?
Is it possible that the various APIs can evolve into a unified API across all Amigas or are we stuck with systems that will never be compatible.

A unified API? I believe not. For that the systems are already too different. And all camps have too big EGOs. And all platforms have developed in different directions.

[OlafS3]

IMO it came down to one thing-they all wanted to make the biggest buck...and it started with Amiga International not wanting to pay what 3rd parties wanted to paid for having their software included in OS 3.5- MUI I believe was the first choice GUI, but deemed too expensive by Amiga Tech, so we got Reaction (a tarted up Class Act).  The included TCP stack apparantly wasn't paid as agreed, but included anyway.  

Then H&P claimed they didn't get paid in full for OS 3.9 so that was another dispute.

phase5 were the only ones that actually got a PPC working on the Amiga, and wanted control of both the hardware and the software.  To me it looked like H&P saw it as a Microsoft opportunity-bugger the hardware, its the software that matters and they wanted to be the ones to control the PPC OS.  Hence the first split on the ppc market.

If they actually worked together and pooled their resources then things may have been better-but in the end it was all about MONEY and GREED.  I wonder if any of them have actually made anywhere near enough money to at least cover their time.  I doubt it.

It seems that Phase 5 and H&P hated each other. I have read about Prodad trying to make a new modern GUI and tried to convince the others to support it. If all parties involved had really worked together the chances would have been better. The only chance would have been to agree on one standardized platform, but there we are at the big EGOs again.

[OlafS3]

Because Mac users have a superiority complex and are rude as heck on most forums.

I try to get along with those using other hardware or variants but it seems some people see that I use UNIX and automatically discredit what I say as heresy. That's neither fair nor makes a good representation on the community. I think we need to remember that the everything we say is totally public and that a ton of users may be offended by our petty disagreements. Nobody wants that now do they?

You can take a look at aeros:
http://www.aeros-os.org/

It is combining both Linux and AROS and could go in your direction. People here use a lot of different OSs for everyday use and work and nobody (or almost nobody) hates your preferred choice. But this here is a Amiga forum and I do not see how both are connected.

[OlafS3]

Thanks for the info but I'd rather just stick with BSD, GNU/Linux does not meet my standards for usage and adding stuff on top doesn't really change that. I use FreeBSD and IRIX as my daily driver while tracking DragonFly BSD, once DragonFly BSD is ready for desktop use I'll switch to that.

And look at my other thread - it seems that infosec is either not appreciated by some members of the community or they're so dense that because I'm a UNIX user I'm somehow a traitor.

It is a little difficult to understand (and explain) when you do not know what happened in the recent past. There were a couple of times (in this case) Linux supporter trying to sell their distribution as "Amiga" to the people so some are perhaps a little too sensible on that.

[OlafS3]

I see. I guess I gotta earn the trust by showing that I'm not out for money ( I have a great job as a datacenter tech currently ) And that I'm not interested in pushing BSD or System V as Amiga - thats not the case at all. I'm just a UNIX user who doesn't want Amiga users to think GNU/Linux is the only option out there for a more practical OS.

I see...

then you should make a thread on "other operating systems" and not compare it with Amiga (any variant) and say "xyz is better". On that people react a little sensible. Better stay here on amiga-related topics. We are aware of the shortcomings and tackling them already. There are a lot of interesting things you can do (even without multi-user support and memory protection). Or (when f.e. ARIX is officially there supporting SMP) than it is interesting to discuss about concepts and ideas but not in a negative way.

[OlafS3]

It's simple.  
 
Too many idiots in Amiga community try to fight with powerpc.  
 
This jihad against powerpc is the main reason why amiga now is where Apple was in 1999.  
 
68k is too slow, x86 is useless because it does not allow for easy integration with the old 68k Software.  
 
Apple succeeded move to x86, because Jobs was smart enough to first make the transition to Unix on powerpc, then transitions to other other processors.  
 
Too many stupid people in the Amiga community wants to skip this necessary step to x86.  
 
Thats why on Amiga after all these years we still have something like Mac OS 9, and we never will have anything like Mac OS X.

What would be different when we would all use PPC? Nothing in my view. Apple would still have dropped PPC. The situation would not be better.

[OlafS3]

I'm not saying anything is any better. I have a 3000 coming Tuesday after all - I intend to get it online and working as a hobby desktop. I was merely pointing out why its nothing more than a hobbyist OS currently and why people thinking its anywhere ready for a general use OS are more than a little short-sighted.

If it makes you feel any better, IRIX is in the same boat. The only way that will survive is if SGI/Rackable decide to release the source. And from the looks of it thats at least going to be awhile.

Some dream of using MorphOS or AmigaOS (or AROS) for everyday use and perhaps (to a certain degree) it is possible. It depends where and for what you use it. None of the variants is ready to be used as desktop at work (and I do not think that there are chances to change this). Aeros is combing Aros and Linux apps to add missing software. Generally it is a hobby OS (the same for all).

[OlafS3]

I hope you are not talking about AROS. AROS is open source and free for everybody to use wherever he wants including on MOS or AmigaOS4.

What AROS devs drop something they have invented in favor of a unified API? That is what I mean

I had an argument with one of the AROS devs because I said Wanderer is not important anymore because a more modern Desktop (Magellan) is there. I was told I would threaten AROS because I use it as "container for Amiga software".

Or others who wanted to take part told me that to all their ideas answer was "No". Stubborness is common for all camps today. Personally I do the best from the situation right now and found my niche.

[OlafS3]

I'm not sure this has any relevance at all - should Apple have adopted the same logic?

Post Commodore, Amigas did not embrace PPC to "take on Apple".  Apple made a decision to move to a platform that performs better all-round (x86/x64), not to "take on Windows" (if they had made the decision for that reason, it would be regarded as a failure as their desktop/laptop market share is still something like <10%).

As I understand it (but I can't find a corroborating source for this), the only reason that Apple didn't make that decision sooner was that Steve Jobs fell out with Intel because they wouldn't give him the good deal he was looking for.

If Commodore had survived and made the move to PPC (or whichever hardware platform), the majority of the community would have gone along with it as long as the OS was basically still there.  Those who didn't want to go along with it would have found another platform (or perhaps there would have been an effort to create something 'Amiga-like' while trying to avoid the wrath of Commodore).  Considering I still have a soft spot for my Amiga-using roots, I'm pretty sure that if Commodore was still around today and had produced something with an Amiga-ish that wasn't a complete joke, it would very likely be sitting alongside my PC right now.

my long post has vanished

Short version:
if Commodore would have survived there would be only a split between parts of the 68k community (who would not have followed the route) and one official NG OS based on total different hardware (no custom chips f.e.). Regarding the topic common API, because of different reasons (emotional, technical, decisions that are already done) I do not see any chance now, only "if" one of the camps becomes so successful that others are forced to follow. And successful means winning users outside the community. As long as it stays like right now nothing will change and there is no pressure on the core devs either.