Hyperion Entertainment: Clarification of Current Situation

[kolla]

My main problem with the "NG" is that there's nothing NG about them, they have the exact same limitations as old AmigaOS3 and suffer from the exact same problems.

[kolla]

You mean like only being able to run on genuine Amiga, being limited to about a 75 MHz processor, with no modern expansion bus or video card suppor support, right?

No, only being able to address the same limited ammount of RAM, no memory protection, no security, no SMP, same ancient and outdated networking stacks.

[kolla]

@kolla

A-EON is involved in a few projects at the moment which involve both OS 3 and OS 4 versions to be developed at the same time.

The developer involved has commented on the huge differences and advancements between OS 3.9 and the current 4.1 in terms of core libraries.  This has slowed development down as a lot of AmigaOS 3.9 functions have to be patched or written from scratch.

Hardly surprising, but just because OS4 is different does not mean it is so much better. From what I have heard, between AROS, MorphOS and OS4, it is the latter that stands out as the oddball that is tricky to support. Anyways, my understanding is that MorphOS may break away from legacy soon and become the first true Amiga NG system.

It would be great from a developers point of view if OS 3.x was keeping pace with OS 4.1 in development terms as it would make porting a lot easier.

They can target AROS instead and improve the OS too.

[kolla]

Amigas can handle 1.5GB of memory?
I mean, I'm sure the OS could address it, but I don't think a 68k processor can, nor do I think you could stuff that much into an Amiga.

What makes you think so? Ask AmigaKit how many 256MB BigRAMPlus cards you can use in a 5 zorro slot A4000T?

And anyways, how is that relevant? My point is that OS4 etc do not support more either, and in being OS3 "compatible", it is stuck for no good reasons.

Then there is support of html5, DVD playback, better sound solutions, tinyGL, etc.
Sure, Amigas with OS3.1 can handle all that, right?

None of that is impossible because of limitations in the OS, that is correct. What is impossible is to prevent any piece of software from monitoring and reading any address in the memory of the computer, with all the implications that has in the age of online banking etc.

[kolla]

The only truly viable way forward is a new modern platform, with a user experience based around what we recognize as Amiga. This means throwing away compatibility with legacy sodtware, but it also means opportunities to reimplement old software concepts in a modern setting. And porting software from other platforms, and getting software support from outside of "amiga land" would also be much easier.

[kolla]

I actually don't agree with that, because at that point you might as well run OSX, Windows, or Linux and use UAE to keep legacy applications.

Yes, and this is currently what I do, because nothing Amiga offer me a modern alternative. Sadly, neither OSX, Windows nor other OSes offer me the Amiga experience. OSX offers the MacOS experience in a modern setting, but I want the Amiga experience in a modern setting. Don't you?

[kolla]

What is the "Amiga experience" for you?

From the top of my head...

* GUI available from boot
* graphical early startup
* boot without startup-sequence is still with GUI
* top screen bar with system information
* menu pops up using RMB
* multiselect from menu creates an event chain that is executed when RMB is released
* screens with their own unique properties, resolutions, colour depths etc, private to the application or public
* Save|Use|Cancel

Plus a lot more I am sure. My point is just that nothing technically stands in the way of reimplementing what I mean with "amiga experience" in a modern and secure way. Of course, amiga programmers see this entirely differently.

[kolla]

What makes me think so?
Because only the 040 and 060 can address that kind of memory (and then only with an mmu).

Not true, and also not relevant. Any 68k CPU with 32bit addressing space can deal with that ammount of RAM, given that the rest of the hardware permits it.

And, as I stated before, Zorro bus is too dated.
You want to run your memory via that?

It is not relevant for the discussion where you put that RAM. Someone could make a CPU card for A3000/A4000 with 2GB RAM on board, it is technically doable and AmigaOS would support it.

Seriously, anytime you want to benchmark any Amiga against my G5 you'll see how rediculous your statements are.

And my old minimac with 16GB RAM runs in circles around your G5, especially if you are running MorphOS that only supports one core and is limited to 2GB(?) of RAM, just like AmigaOS is. Which was my point.

[kolla]

Would I be correct  assuming that someone could do a 32 bit Microprocessor  CPU with  2 Gb that AmigaOS would run on that?

My understanding of things...

The 68k architecture supports an address speace that is up to 32bit bit wide, meaning up to 4GB. AmigaOS also supports 32bit memory addressing, however many of those addresses are reserved (chipram, various I/O) and cannot be used as FastRAM for the CPU, which practically reduces the ammount of possible FastRAM to 2GB. And this is the same limitation, whether you are running OS3 or OS4.

I am not sure what you are asking, but someone could make 68k processor card with 2GB (gigabyte - Gb is gigabit, 2Gb would be 256MB) and AmigaOS should run fine, yes. I don't have access to WinUAE here, but how much system RAM is it possible to add to a system config in WinUAE?

[kolla]

You don't think I have tried with Linux and umpteen different DEs for the last 20+ years? No, you cannot just configure Linux to do the above.

[kolla]

Actually, that IS a misunderstanding.
While the 68000 is 32 bit, early versions can only address 24bits of memory.

Hence I wrote "up to", I am well aware that older 68000 and 68EC020 have smaller address space, 16bit and 24bit, but that is totally beside the point as the issue we were discussing is the upper limit. How much RAM can a modern 68SEC000 (which is the one produced still) address?

[kolla]

@ Kolla Have you tried one of the smaller Linux distros? You can get Xfce desktop which is lot like you asked for.

Of course I have. Just to be clear, I have worked professionally with linux in various incarnations for more than a decade, I have maintained my own patch set for the linux kernel for a long time, I have buildt from scratch and maintained two Linux distributions, one for m68k and one for bigendian ARM, I was maintaining and patching KDE3 and Qt3 on my own before TDE showed up... I pretty much know Linux in and out at this point, though the entire systemd hoople may throw me back to BSD.

And look at the points I wrote, Linux do not offer any of them, not even close, I really do not understand how you guys can suggest Linux. Xfce does not offer one single thing of what I listed up (and besides I cannot stand GTK, and prefer LxQt over Xfce any day).

[kolla]

Iggy, are you reading what Thomas is writing? OS4 suffers from the exact same limitations, which was my entire point. Now, of course you can do funny tricks to support more RAM on OS4, but same tricks also can work for OS3, and who knows, maybe Gunnar will decide to make Phoenix with 64bit memory addressing and someone with skills and resources updates exec and whatever else in OS3 to support this. But noone seems willing to deal with the real issues of AmigaOS, which all boils down to memory management, protection, security and networking.

[kolla]

@kolla
AROS makes a clean break from legacy. Someone just needs to modify it to how you like it.

No, AROS makes no clear break from legacy, on contrary, its main focus and goal is being legacy compatible.

[kolla]

I didn't say there would be no software, by providing a functional and compliant posix layer, you already have plenty of software ready. By offering a platform rich with tools to develop with, a solid foundation to develop on, and very few strings attached, software will emerge.