Any plans to increased the AmigaNG software?

[itix]

Hi

AmigaKit is primarily Classic based really, not AmigaNG.  The vast majority of our customers are Classic users.  There are a lot of talented MorphOS developers out there, whom were former Classic developers, so we are all aware of their talents. If a MorphOS developer came to us with a good idea and it made commercial sense, then we would consider it, of course.  Especially if we could back port it to Classic too.

There is many titles you could port from MorphOS to AmigaOS but they are open source and maybe not so interesting commercially.

[itix]

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.

I develop for Kickstart 2.0 and I have even gone so far that i have removed Kickstart 3.0 dependencies to get there.

In some cases i have made my programs Kickstart 1 compatible if it is possible without too much effort (lack of CreateNewProc is biggest obstacle).

I see no problem there. Other my sw then might require the latest MorphOS version.

[itix]

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.

Excuse me but why would developer give a damn if his software helps to generate more HW sales?

Lack of nice API calls like alpha blending and such is good argument to not have 68k build (you have to provide your own method to do that) but idea that developers are here to promote others work (OS developers or HW developers) is daft.

Unless you are OS/HW developer of course.

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

Are developers getting paid if they use one of new features?

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

In fact it is built-in to layers.library.

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.

Actually it does not matter as long as it does its job. Reggae is more flexible and advanced but user dont give a damn. If they did, you would not use OS4 anymore

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.

Wrong. Even if you are just using 68k applications in MorphOS you benefit from greater speed, better user interface, hardware support and selection of software that comes as a standard.

[itix]

..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.  :-)

That is just Commodore's fault they didnt make new Amigas compelling enough. Kickstart 2.0 made sw development easier and it gained popularity in productivity sw market. But to regular users, no.

[itix]

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

Do you ask Windows developers to not support Win95 anymore because of that?

Users/developers certainly wish there is more new and neat applications coming in the future and the platform is growing. But I dont think developers supporting 68k are slowing us down. MorphOS is growing nicely and I think that only way to boost that growth is to boost OS development. Writing new software must be made easier and that is task to OS developers.

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.

It is up to developer choose what APIs he uses, what systems he supports and how much time he can or want to invest. I write the software for MorphOS only but if it looks I can port software to AmigaOS quite easily and I have time to do that I might do that. I have developed bunch of (slow) alpha blending functions that are compatible to CGX and so on. If it is too slow, too bad, buy faster Amiga. I have even replacement memory pool or AllocVec() routines so I can go to support even 2.0 or 1.3. Usually I cant because I am using MUI in GUI applications.

So I have limits what I am not ready to trade off for backward compatibility but may occasionally build 68k binaries without using any Kickstart 3+ calls.

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

I would not mind but I am happy with MorphOS as a user and developer.

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

That is what I do. Then later I can write replacement functions for missing pieces. Maybe.

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.

What is so special in MPlayer? I presume there is no decent build for 68k and if there is there is no GUI and it would be too slow for real 68k. 68k build tools might be horribly out of date making porting too difficult and so on.

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?

Reggae is part of OS and OS components are using it. I think MUI is not using it and relies on datatypes (IIRC, I have not checked it lately) but it is just using it to load images. No really reason to invest time to rewrite working code.

Users can ask if 3rd party programs are using Reggae and if not ask to add it. Developer may agree or not, it is his choice. We provide the toolbox and developers pick their favorite tools from there.

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?

I dont have any specific needs in my mind at the moment. There is new software in development taking advantage of new APIs, like ebook readers. I suppose they use Unicode and charset conversion APIs provided by the MorphOS and not relying on 3rd party libraries. I dont have any ebooks yet.

[itix]

@itix
what concerns your cgx replacement for alphablending functions, is this c or (68k?) asm, for chunky or planar graphics? would you consider to contribute it to aros(68k) if it was of advantage for them? i would happily establish a contact to krzysztof or neil.

I dont think you want that. It is slow generic ReadPixelArray() + modify pixels + WritePixelArray() without any optimizations. It only works for ARGB. But it has properly working GlobalAlpha parameter, I think.

[itix]

@wilse

I think Lyle is referring to missing volume control on some sound cards. They did not want to use software volume control but poke directly to some register instead and lyle found solution to that.