Dave Haynie (lead engineer of C= Amiga) opinion on Amiga Successors

[CHR_ZD]

So what? 9 GB? Modern hard disks have hundreds of gigabytes for very low prices. Desktop systems with 200GB Hard Disks 512/1024MB of ram and fast 3d cards like Nvidia or ATI are priced under 500$

[Legerdemain]

Motherboard chipsets, graphics cards, sound cards, PCI buses, just for a start. I have seen so many (x86) machines come back to me when I had to build them from cheap components requested by the customer, which had obscure chipsets I had never heard of. Windows had to use generic drivers, and my guess is that these drivers make guesses about the hardware in order to maintain compatibility. Needless to say the machines were unstable.

But besides the chipsets directly on the motherboard, all the others, the graphic cards, the sound cards, network cards and the "everything related to PCI" they are the same no matter if you are running PPC or x86. I still don't really see your point? The motherboards will be cheaper, and as long as some fairly common ones are supported (in fact, considering basic motherboards, how much is there really to support?), the rest of the drivers will mainly concern PCI cards... which, again, will be the same no matter what motherboard you use?

If you are talking about AOS4 working on EVERY PC that can be found out there. Yes. Then there will be a problem. But why on earth stick to extremely expensive hardware (PPC), just because there's so many different x86 PC's to chose from? There no one saying that there is a need for every single hardware to be supported, because just like now some few PCI-cards can be supported. Just like now, people would consider what hardware they bought, so I can't really se the difference, besides it just being much cheaper.

[lempkee]

chd: ..ofcourse you wouldnt mind if the OS was 9 GB or TB ..sorta tells more about you than i would like ot know ,  btw the article youre quoting is 3  years old!.

[CHR_ZD]

I am not triggering anyone. What is it? You can't post arguments? So, what is the problem of the article being 3 years old? What happened in the last 3 years to Amiga? A rebirth? I don't see that. It could be 3 years old but it could have been written tomorrow.

[motorollin]

Legerdemain wrote:

Motherboard chipsets, graphics cards, sound cards, PCI buses, just for a start. I have seen so many (x86) machines come back to me when I had to build them from cheap components requested by the customer, which had obscure chipsets I had never heard of. Windows had to use generic drivers, and my guess is that these drivers make guesses about the hardware in order to maintain compatibility. Needless to say the machines were unstable.

But besides the chipsets directly on the motherboard, all the others, the graphic cards, the sound cards, network cards and the "everything related to PCI" they are the same no matter if you are running PPC or x86.

Ok, point taken. If you start adding expansions to the machine then you could start having problems. Speaking personally, I don't need anything more than my iBook provides. The on board video, sound and network capabilities suit my needs perfectly so I don't see why I would need to add any 3rd party addons. Consequently, my iBook is rock solid. I suppose other people would want to expand though.

--
moto

[CHR_ZD]

lempkee wrote:
chd: ..ofcourse you wouldnt mind if the OS was 9 GB or TB ..sorta tells more about you than i would like ot know

Oh please. I see, you are the kind of guy who needs to move on horses because you don't see what improvement a car is.... Why would we need the wheel if we can just push and pull objects around?

[leirbag28]

Ahhhhh!   what a great thread!   but lets keep it positive and encouraging.  Lets send this to Amiga Inc.


I agree with Dave Haynie.....also with Lempkee and Motorollin.


Here is the Deal the way I see it.

The only hope right at this Moment for Amiga Inc (If it were somehow possible that is)  is to recreate the Amiga and release it exactly in the same way as before. Just 10 times more modern, but same principles.

What that is is this:

A Real Amiga...............by Amiga Inc that wns their own Chip plant and owns their own OS.   This AMiga has to absolutely be a Hyrbid between a Game console and Computer just as the A1000..but of course 10 times more powerful than the X-Box 360 at the very least.  A nice business plan for hardware upgrades in advance. but that still allow it to be a custom machine thats not a Mac or PC..........but atthe same time contain Chip slots for a x86 CPU for 100% emulation (or actually becoming a real PC)   witht he capability of running OS X at full speed and Windows Vista at full blown x86 Intel speeds....simply because this Amiga would also be a real PC) But yet is really a Custom Chipset Amiga. Removable gfx chip on the board with a very expandable CPU slot of the same CPU type so that old software continues to work for the next 15 years.

THis is what an Amiga was and what made it succesful................also we need to take back the TV Overscan correct resolution.and not conform to Microsoft STUPID  "640 x 480 is video standard now but stretched reolution" crap.

Notice how now 320 x 240 and 640 x 480 is now video?  its so wacko....Microsoft and PC incapabilities forced everyone to use this substandard format.

We need an Amiga with HDTV output as its main Native video..but in Double or triple that resolution, being able to be displayed on an HDTV in the same way SuperHiRes in Overscan can be seen on a TV thats normally for 720 x 480 output.

Amigas were always True convergence.  Man I despise PC's! and all the greed for money it entails.   Thats what all these Unecessary new formats are for.....to keep the customer spending unecessarily....there are otherways to do this legitimately with Creative new ideas that people will genuinly would want.

a good example is USB and USB 2.0..same connector...just upgraded.............this is good..............unlike for instance Memory Stick........and Memory stick Pro DUO wich one has to buy a new slot to get to work.....Sny could have made it possible to make it work by keeping the shape the same.
I may be wrong with the memory stick thing here but you get the idea.

AMiga might believe they are going somewhere with the Phone content thing....and they indeed might.........but thats the wrong direction for the name "Amiga"   go ahead and continue that..........but change the name for that deprtment to Commodore.........or Agnus Content or something. Leave Amiga for the good stuff and for its possible coming Glory.

Commodore is being prostituded right now.........Amiga is doing similar.  Lets not do this. its making Amiga fake and commodore fake...........people pick up on this.

Fake fake fake.  this is a formula to shoot oneself in the foot.

Solution is as all I have said.....plus merge Amiga back into one company....owning its OS and a Hardware plant.

At the very least focus on one thing!   even just a plain old Killer Console....then take the moeny and run..and rebuild Amiga as a Computer.

Never ever tell me it cant be done............it can! it always can! If we think out of the box.....never conform to human thought..which always limits people.


I perform at a Club on Saturdays using my CD32 for Visuals.  last week they hired to VJ's using High powered Mac Laptops for Visuals using MotionDive Tokyo and Archaos.

The Club workers were so dissapointed with their crappy visuals, compared to my CD32!!!!   And I suck at animating!

what they liked was the resolution my CD32/SX32 pro outputs and how good and clear it looks!  they were only able to output 320 x 240 to be able to run visuals smoothly and mix them..............I run my Visuals at 752 x 480 where ever I can and still run it smooth.

man it was kind satifsying to hear that. :-)


Amiga makes it Posible.   I can run Flash quality animations on an Amiga and so can you..if you "THINK" out of the box.   How you say? FLASH is just a fancy word that makes people think their computers are up to date.  But take a FLASH anim and convert it to Anim5 or ANIM8_32..........and its still Flash.......it still looks good...........and still high quality..........tell people its FLASH and they willbelieve it..........and it really is............just running on a different Harddrive..thats all!

Iff someone asks me if I can run a Flash presentation for them that they created.......I say sure thing..............I go do it and display it on the projector..........they say "Thanks!"   and never know I ran it in Anim8 format on a different computer..........all they know is their animation looked exactly the same.............I equate it to it bieng made on a DVD.....and just simply transfered to DV tape.........nothing loss really...just its not a DVD anyore...but it is still 720 x 480.

lets not conform!  lets Transform!
transform the way poeple think that is!

[Fraccy]

BeOS was "the Amiga done right" - according to Jean-Louis Gassée, founder of Be Inc.

yellowTAB's Zeta OS is the successor to BeOS (www.yellowtab.com).  Check out the Zeta liveCD to get an idea of how Amiga might look/function on X86.  Quite a few driver issues, as one would expert, but FAST booting, a good collection of applications (GoBe Productive office suite, Firefox, etc.), ports of Linux utils (Bash, NdisWrapper, VLC, etc), and a lot more.

If Amiga moved to X86 right now, it'd have a LOT of catching up to do, not to mention the fact that Zeta is really pretty good.  Is there room for two similarly modern OSs on Intel hardware?

[minator]

If Amiga moved to X86 right now, it'd have a LOT of catching up to do.

That's something of an understatement, any of the Amiga/like OSs needs what is essentially a complete rewrite, MorphOS at least has the Quark kernel but no Q-Box API to speak of.  BeOS had a modern kernel and API 10 years ago.

Is there room for two similarly modern OSs on Intel hardware?

No, one will have to use AMD hardware :-D

[koaftder]

anyway i find this thread insulting to our efforts with both OS4 and MorphOS , afterall they are the future OS's you guys will most likely use (since this is still an Amiga board...aint it?....)  (aros and morphos works closely at some parts it seems and winuae is getting better every day but the future of OS4 and MorphOS last i checked was not X86....)

Dont see it as insulting, but more as constructive criticism. The things that need to be done to bring the platform back into the limelight arent happening. Maybe somebody will listen and put forth some products worth buying.

[Savan]

@CHR_ZD

am not triggering anyone. What is it? You can't post arguments?

You posted a article that does not put the Amiga in a positive light. If it is not pro Amiga, you will be shot down in flames (see how f/cked up this thread has turned  on aw.net, all thanks to a moderator)

Coincidence that thread has vanished, supposedly due to a forum reshuffle.

[Doppie1200]

who are your customers?

I think that says it all.

I use Windows XP on PC and it does everything I want a computer to do.

That statement goes for the mayority of people on the globe.

Amiga had the image of a toy when it went down. For the people that still remember the thing it is still a toy.

Yes, a toy! Even the die hard Amiga fundamentalists.

Once there, you don't have applications yet. So it's just a toy.

There is not even a decent browser on the amiga.
And would there be one I'd need something RTG to make it go.
And then we would have....

....just PCs with PPCs

So those who are still working on Amiga things are not doing anything what will shake the world.

Maybe someday when all microsoft goes bad and the AmigaOS is that cheap and is able to run on stock hardware, people might take notice.

I think I'll have more chance being struck by lightning or win the lottery (which I do not participate in).

I'm going back playing SWOS on my Amiga which is a toy to me for a long time. And that is what it will always be.

Nice article dave.

EDIT:
As I understand those fundamentalists are to be found at AW.net on which I would be shot on sight for my point of view.

[Plaz]

I always thought Dave was a super smart guy. Still do.

Plaz

[cv643d]

The future of AmigaOS is x86.

I have always felt whenever I have used Workbench 3.1 that why must the OS be locked down to specific hardware. WB is to nice to be locked to a 600 dollar motherboards or classic amigas with 300 dollar turbo boards.

Think about it. If WB 3.1 was x86 I could probably run it reasonably well on my old 486 (ie a 486 is about the same speed as a 040).

[leirbag28]

@cv643D

 (ie a 486 is about the same speed as a 040).

-------------------------------------------------------

I know what you are trying to say.....but just a sidenote.

a 486 is NOT the same speed as an 040...........though they were in competition with each other at the time and existed around the same time............an 040 will destroy a 486...........an 040 plugged into an Amiga is more like a Pentium II in my experience.

Mathematically calculating...........Yes a 486 will render about the same or faster.  But in actual use..a 486 is super unusable...........heck........my CD32/SX32 pro is 030 50 Mhz and its faster and smoother than any Pentium II.

Just amore satisfying experience is what I really mean.

an 030 cant play Quicktme or edit Video like a Pentium II, but when it comes to responsiveness..........Ah man! Amiga kills in this area.

I cant use a Pentium II today....too slow!.......  but my CD32  however, is my main machine and even use it over my Pentium 4!

[Hyperspeed]

Amiga Format magazine in the UK compared Quake running on an AGA '060 system to it running on a 486 DX100.

The DX100 is alledgedly faster than the Pentium-1 60Mhz so I would tend to agree with this. It just seems faster as AmigaOS is so efficient.

I think the PowerPC '601' was made to compete with the Pentium-1, the '602', 603(/e) & 604 with Pentium-2 etc.

I admire Dave Haynie (doesn't he have an electric hybrid car?) and his programs have saved my life... but I think the old Amiga engineers' favour for PCI and x86 may have been a contributor to the demise of Amiga more than Commodore's poor business decisions. If only the AAA chipset had been completed!

:-)