Any plans to increased the AmigaNG software?

[OlafS3]

The negotiation for one particular piece of Classic Amiga software that I am having currently involved in will more than likely extend over the date of Amiwest.  

One thing I have learned (the hard way) over the last year, is that software development in the Amiga market is a long process.  We operate full time in this business but most of the developers we work with do not, they do the Amiga work in their spare time (usually reserved for family time).  

Anyway back to today's AMIStore development work ...

If you have success to get updates for 68k software I would welcome that

[OlafS3]

My opinion is probably unpopular..but I'd bail on classic stuff and just spend a majority of time for MorphOS and OS4 software.  I wouldnt even bother buying any new Classic software.

Yes your opinion is "unpopular". You seem to forget what most users in the community still have. A small hint: "not AROS, MorphOS and AmigaOS"

[OlafS3]

The push to have new software for an old platform that you cant buy newer, more powerful hardware for, to me isnt a good idea.  I understand..its "cool" to use old Amiga's and run newer apps that push our Amiga's to limits they never saw back in the 90's... but there are 2 really good NG OS's to choose from in OS4 and MorphOS that should have the  most developers concentrating on developing software that showcases their strong points.    I'm for running old Amiga's..but I see their time is done and also their limitations.

new hardware is on the way, most software is 68k, most dev environments are 68k, most documentation is 68k, most users are 68k users (without owning and using AmigaOS or MorphOS). As you said it has some coolness factor f.e. to run DOS games in a amiga environment. I do not see the same when using it on "alien" hardware (people might see that different ). Of course I myself run it on X64 PC in emulation but at least the environment is (more or less) original.

And even if it would be just the known amiga hardware, most users there mean most potential buyers

[OlafS3]

..and thats probably the main reason the Amiga never became anything other than a flash in the pan.  Everything was made to be compatible with an Amiga 500.  512k ram, 1 floppy.   If a majority of people think "all new hardware is alien", then they'll be stuck with software thats for underpowered machines instead of working on NG OS software.  But different strokes for different folks.. not my deal.  I have other hobbies I spend money on.  :-)

I do understand the nostalgia of what you are talking about..dont get me wrong..I just think the dev work is mis-guided.

I do not agree that "everything was made to be compatible with A500". That was certainly the case for most of the games, you could not earn money if it did not run on A500. That is not the case for most applications, and I think Amigakit is thinking of those (and not games).

Let me look what I have on 68k... AHI, RTG (24bit), different desktops, compilers, applications like Final Writer, Cinema 4D, lots of compilers (both free and commercial) and so on

The weakest point is 3D because there is no hardware accelleration for it

Of course the hardware is aged now but this will improve in next months (I know at least two FPGA projects becoming reality)

some screenshots:
http://www.aros-platform.de/html/some_software.html

As I understand it there will be both enhanced AmigaOS PPC and 68k versions

[OlafS3]

@Olafs3

thanks :-)

just a idea: Raystorm

http://aminet.net/search?query=raystorm

it is opensource:
https://github.com/privatosan/RayStorm

another good application is ignition. I read that it was planned to get ported to AmigaOS but never was

[OlafS3]

This has always been the problem, I think.

Even back in 1992 Commodore will have found it hard to make people use the new OS 3.0 API - but of course now we take it for granted. Developing for OS 2.04 or even OS 1.3 is unheard of.
There comes a point when the people still using the obsolete APIs like OS 3.x have to move on to stay current - it's always been that way, and always will be. Of course the problem now is what do they move on to. To some it's OS 4, to others it's MorphOS, to others it's AROS.... but only ever supporting an ancient platform like OS 3 - even though it's the lowest common denominator, is such a low power platform that catering to that as a primary platform will hold back all the newer platforms.

We need to push forward, otherwise we'll be forever stuck with apps that are made to run on a processor from nearly 25 years ago, and that's no way to stay current.

It's a very difficult one to call, though, and I completely empathise with what you're saying - the "Classic" is the common factor with all of us - and it shouldn't be ignored... but I think it should be treated more as a legacy platform rather than the current target platform. If something runs well on low-spec hardware, make it for OS 3 - but don't hold back progress on our multi-GHz NG machines for the sake of a 20 year-old machine.

There's no simple solution (as usual for the Amiga world....)

the picture is much more mixed than that. I am pretty sure that if you would count the 68k user most users are using UAE of any sort, a minority has hardware (mostly heavily expanded) with faster processor, more ram and even graphiccard. The assumption by many MorphOS/AmigaOS users is that 68k is unexpanded A500 or A1200. That is not the case and I am pretty sure that in near future there will be FPGA options to expand and improve the hardware. I for example am testing 68k software on my 68k environment (like Raytracers) and I do not see it holding back anything. What improvements are there on AmigaOS or MorphOS that justify specific software? What API improvements are there? If anybody wants to sell software on amiga he has to do it in a way that it runs on as many platforms as possible and 68k is (in form of UAE) available everywhere. AROS 68k has the same API as the big brothers, so where it is "holding something back". Basically 68k is a compiler option. The only problem about 68k is that many of the few remaining developers chose AmigaOS or MorphOS as their main platform and did not support 68k anymore. That resulted in that 68k versions often were older and in some cases not existing. From technical view I do not believe that there is a real problem.

[OlafS3]

The compositing engine in OS4.1 brings hardware acceleration to a lot of 2D drawing functions such as alpha blending, scaling, texturing and more.

Target 68k and you can forget about using those features.  Use those features and you can have some pretty cool software that gives a more compelling reason for people to add OS4.x hardware to their collection.

Ringhio is handy for notifying the user of events.  It would be fairly easy to have OS4 version that supports this and 68k version that doesn't.

Those are just 2 things I can think of.

Personally I'd rather see compositing used wherever and whenever possible especially if software using it attracts more users.

MorphOS has layers3d.library which I think has a lot of the same functionality of the compositing in OS4.1.  

MorphOS has Reggae which can probably best be described as datatypes on steroids.

I'm sure MorphOS users would prefer software fully exploits these powerful features too.

If you just target 3.x and everyone gets the same thing no matter what system they are using then there's really no little point in having MorphOS, OS4 and to a lesser extent AROS.

From what me have been told MorphOS (AROS/3.X) and AmigaOS are developing differently so if you use specific functionality of AmigaOS you are stuck to AmigaOS user (around 1000-1500 user I would guess) or you use MorphOS specific functionality then you are tied to the MorphOS user base. 68k is by far the biggest part and (if written properly) runs on AmigaOS and MorphOS too so from a commercial point of view it makes much more sense (as long as the specific features do not give obvious big advantages). Also writing PPC versions often means rewriting big parts (f.e. look at what happened with Art Effect and StormC AmigaOS ports). Magellan is a real exception but mostly there are reasons why the software never was ported. If you stay on 68k you can take the existing sources and add new functions and remove bugs (much less time than rewriting it).

There might be projects where it makes sense to drop 68k completely but that depends on the project.

[OlafS3]

I'd have thought that most users and developers of NG systems would like to see an increased user base.



You have to reinvent the wheel for each application that way unless developers share/open source well documented routines for other to use and will the hardware be there or will it be slow software rendered stuff.

Again most people wanted an increased user base for there NG system of choice, dont' you?



Generally they use the new features because it makes development easier or perhaps allows for features that might not be possible/as fast otherwise.

Amiboing make heavy use of compositing in their games and there's also LiveForIt-mplayer, neither are getting handed bundles of cash for using the new (a number of years old actually) OS features.  They do it because it allows them to do something better, the whole reason the OS devs put the features in in the first place.



Thanks for the technical correction.



The user may not care what code is responsible behind the scenes but it doesn't stop them appreciating the result.  Was Reggae developed in the hope that nobody would bother to use it?




Faster than 68k software on Amithlon, for instance.  So you want a better UI and better hardware support but you don't want the software to take advantage of it, strange?


Ultimately devs will develope for 68k, multi platform or a specific NG system based on their design goals and whether they need/want to use better feature offered in the NG systems.

Wrong ... that is the widespread view in the so called NG camp. If people think commercial they want to sell software. Why was MS-DOS successful? Because of its great features? It was successful because of the huge user base (=huge number of buyers). Simply as that. So if you think in economic terms (what is not widespread at amiga developers right now) you do not care if AmigaOS or MorphOS give you any advantage as long as this features do not give you advantages that are so big that they justify the small number of potential csutomers. Or you are convinced that AmigaOS will become the next big thing like A1000 and you want to jump onboard early. I do not see this here.

[OlafS3]

That might be true, but how many of the people still 'using' m68k-amigaos belong to the target audience of a software developer?

Software development on 68k completely died down a decade ago. What was released after that is either a port of something maintained by outspoken PPC supporters (YAM, Wookiechat...) or written in AmiBlitz - which means that due to the limitations of the compiler, there'll always be a 68k built even if the developer doesn't care much about 68k (i.e. HD-Rec). As a platform for desktop users, 68k is in much worse shape than AmigaOS 4 or MorphOS. As in: "Even more dead".

A m68k port of AROS is nice for creating free/libre emulator distributions without depending on AInc. And it's a good gimmick for those people who collect, repair and polish old hardware and then want to have a shiny Workbench environment running on it that almost looks like it belongs to this century.

For everything else, m68k-AROS simply appeared way to late - which seems to be the common theme for AROS in general. If AROS would have been there when Amithlon took shape, the Amiga scene might look very different these days. But it wasn't, and now it's 2014.

I am not angry, I have no problem with different views

First (as Wawa said) too late for what? I do not expect it to become mainstream, I think there is a chance to become a niche and reverse the trend (shrinking community) to a certain degree. That it is "obscure" like you call it is a chance because "obscure" means different and this might turn in interesting for some. Copying Windows or Linux without comparable resources has to fail and there I see one of the reasons why the so called "NG" failed, another one is that both AmigaOS and MorphOS were too late too to really make a difference. Nobody of us can change history, yes Aros should have concentrated on 68k as first platform then they would have progressed faster and might have made a difference in the 90s but that did not happen. All were focused on new hardware instead of trying to build up on what they had (what is still the case at many of the NG devs). I now think that 68k (and for me that mostly means Aros 68k) offers the chance to build up on the existing code base with many years of work in it. Additionally it is possible to easy adapt or even simple compile Aros software (X86) to 68k. I do not see this as "dumb" even if you think different. I appreciate your experience from many years but even you can be wrong. And I am not the only one who has this (or similar) ideas.

[OlafS3]

That might be true, but how many of the people still 'using' m68k-amigaos belong to the target audience of a software developer?

Software development on 68k completely died down a decade ago. What was released after that is either a port of something maintained by outspoken PPC supporters (YAM, Wookiechat...) or written in AmiBlitz - which means that due to the limitations of the compiler, there'll always be a 68k built even if the developer doesn't care much about 68k (i.e. HD-Rec). As a platform for desktop users, 68k is in much worse shape than AmigaOS 4 or MorphOS. As in: "Even more dead".

A m68k port of AROS is nice for creating free/libre emulator distributions without depending on AInc. And it's a good gimmick for those people who collect, repair and polish old hardware and then want to have a shiny Workbench environment running on it that almost looks like it belongs to this century.

For everything else, m68k-AROS simply appeared way to late - which seems to be the common theme for AROS in general. If AROS would have been there when Amithlon took shape, the Amiga scene might look very different these days. But it wasn't, and now it's 2014.

I never said that Aros 68k will be the main desktop system or mainstream OS again, time have changed and no chance anymore. In opposite to how many NG users see the future I think the only chance is to have it as a kind of toy, a fun system you enjoy to use, play games, program, perhaps even do raytracing or whatever but as a pure hobby platform and not as a main work platform. For working you have Windows, Linux, Mac already, nobody needs AmigaOS, AROS or MorphOS additionally. That does not mean that there are some hobbyists who do that but for vast majority of people. I understand that already and have never said something different. But in todays world even a niche can be much more bigger than what we now have.

Aros 68k can run on
amiga hardware
emulation
new FPGA hardware

for amiga hardware it misses needed speed optimizations, as long as not new people step in I fear that not much will change
Emulation is working good
For new FPGA hardware there is a good chance that it will be adapted

BTW I think that is one of the main problems of "NG" because people mostly think about how they can get the same features as the "big" platforms but not how they can be really and feelable different and I think only difference makes it possible to "sale" something.

Much depends now on the involvement of devs and users how development will go on.

[OlafS3]

How well does DOpus 5.90+ work on AROS/m68k? I would very much prefer that as OS for FPGA systems

Yes it is. I use it on Aros Vision as desktop replacement

Both the old Magellan and the new version work

[OlafS3]

I think that porting programs to any Amiga-like system that can support the program i question would be the right strategy to go. We have lost so much by all the infighting and bickering. It's time to try a new strategy: co-operation!

Unfortunately the OS devs seem not very interested in it. One solution would be to have modern class libraries that hide the differences. That would also make it easier for outsiders to start programming. I am a pascal fan so Free Pascal would be first choice for me there . I hope I can do more in the near future there (besides optimizing Aros Vision and adding online documentations for it). The only problem is that the newest version of Free Pascal is not available for all platforms.

[OlafS3]

If you're a Pascal fan could you theses program compile under Amiga to we could translate Z80 source code to 68k?

http://files.programmersheaven.com/ASM/68000/z80conv/

Kamelito

It does not look very complicated. I can try if Free Pascal can compile it