Amiwest interview with thomas frieden

[Coder]

Keep in mind that if there will be an OS4 released before the end of this year it will be the one for the PPC add-on cards. And as for Amithlon 2, well if you saw one of the topics here on org you see that Amithlon 2 is farrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr from being released.

Coder

[Coder]

Thomas is fairly sure OS4 will be released before the end of the year.

This not the answere I am looking for. Fairly sure? I stated this also to some other people but might it not be a good idea to get some more people onto OS4?

Coder

[jd997uk]

It seems to me that more and more things are beeing implemted in to OS4, which results in things never being done.

Ben Hermans said some time ago that the feature set was locked down. Thomas said today that the only reason things have changed since last year, is to not have things running in emulation, which was the original plan.

.....or you won't keep your time schedule

Schedules are never kept by computer companies.
Basic rule of thumb: Sofware released on time is unfinished software.

-john

[yssing]

Any way, finish it NOW...
and fix the rest in Boing bags...

So we could all have our A1/SharkPPC or what ever and OS4..
Fix the rest later..... I don't care if I have to reboot my system a few times... heck I use windows for crying out loud...

[z5]

Schedules are never kept by computer companies.

Very true indeed! Does anyone here have an interest in pc games? Well, almost all the games, even the very big budget ones with big teams behind it, have at least one delay, sometimes more. And these are delays for months too. Games like Mafia, Duke nukem, Unreal 2, ...

So it is not a strange situation at all. This is the biggest and hardest step ever to be taken on OS.

[Peggus]

So either they mean that they will need two weeks after they finished
the HAL(including A1-drivers), which would allready be quite optimistic,
or they think they could write the low.level-drivers in two weeks, which
is an outright joke.

I'm glad to see you know what you're talking about. It's a rare event on many forums.

Being a hardwareengineer myself I have to agree with you, it does seem overly optimistic to move the entire HAL from phase5 hardware to A1 in just 2 weeks.

[System]

it does seem overly optimistic to move the entire HAL from phase5 hardware to A1 in just 2 weeks.

Amiga Inc / Eyetech and Hyperion work on the "Anti-Scotty principle".  To explain, they always miss their release date estimates by a factor of four  :-P

[Kaminari]

'Before the end of the year'... Oh man :oops:

I wasn't expecting miracles, but I should have known that the June promise was pure BS. I believe I've been insanely patient during the last decade or so, but I guess I'm really done now. I'll come back and take a look around next year, but my Classic hardware will be long gone since then.

Too bad... I really wanted my old Miggy to be pushed to the limit one more time.

[Coder]

They should put more resources on OS4. Then they might be able to come up with a decent release time.

Coder

[Troels_E]

Coder

Who should pay for the increased use of resources?

There are no money in the Amiga market (yet). We need the OS to be released first, apps coming, then people will be more than willing to spend...

[z5]

@coder:

you have to be realistic about this. The amiga market has become very small indeed (in fact, it is a miracle that we are still here imo). Putting more resources into OS4.0 would ofcourse be a good thing but who is going to pay all those people?  I don't think you would be too happy working on something and not getting paid for it (if it's your day job).

In my opinion, it is already quite a miracle that a company dared to take on the challenge and such a big risk. It even is a surprise that they are still working on it. Very big companies like escom and gateway didn't manage to come up with anything.

[Coder]

@Troels_E Date/z5

Offcourse you are right. More resources cost more money. But it shows that at this moment the resources working on OS4 are very little. But let's hope they make it for sure this year.

Coder

[z5]

@coder:

Don't know if 30 people is so little. This is just the most difficult step. If they can make this step, then i think there is a future.  It's a bit like building a house. The outside of the house (the structure in the ground, the bricks,...) is the hardest part and the most difficult part. Because if the structure in the ground isn't good, then the rest will be a nightmare. But if it is, then the fun start when decorating and stuff...

I hope they make it but my life doesn't depend on it. After the numurous fallbacks in the past 8 or so years, i've learned to be relaxed about it. I believe in the team working on OS4 (which has nothing to do with Amiga Inc) and i hope they make it. Nothing more and nothing less. Try to be relaxed about it.

I'm sure that the hyperion team have encoutered major stumbling blocks which they never thought of before starting the project. But isn't this so in every major project. 8-)

We will see at the end of the year. In the meantime, i still enjoy my A1200 like i always did. I use pc too but i keep coming back to my Amiga because i like it and i always have.

[yssing]

What I fail to understand is, why A Inc. seem to put so many (??) resources into DE and not AOS4.. it seems to me that AOS4 is more likely to earn them some "quick" cash....

So i have to agree with coder...

Anyway, as for me, I will stick to what ever comes first... MOS/Pegasos, AOS/A1 or Amithlon....
If it is the latter, then that is just fine.. We could then start by doing some native x86 coding..

[Treke]

Being a hardwareengineer myself I have to agree with you, it does seem overly optimistic to move the entire HAL from phase5 hardware to A1 in just 2 weeks.

Being a softwareengineer myself I have to say to you, that it depends on the way the HAL is written. A well written C++/ASM code needs few hours (the C++ part) and few days (by rewriting the ASM parts), if they are not so silly to put too much ASM code inside ( the times of C2P algorithms which were better from others only by CPU cycles are gone forever , yes, and the one from 'Kalms' was the best ). And I doubt, that it is written in ASM, because one of the goals of the HAL is to be portable, so you will have to rethink it ten times ,what you will write in ASM, and what not, if you are a designer.

re

Treke