humppa wrote:
Porting to a dead platform is not a way forward, only the most blinded zealot would think that such a move would be anything other then stupifyingly shortsighted.
Ok then, please point us at the current alternatives on the PPC-market? Are there any other proven, relatively cheap and powerful PPC-platforms that are available in numbers and that have a future path? No?
PPC as a desktop system, beyond highly specialised products like IBM workstations (which cost in the multiples of thousands each) and genesi's forthcoming multi cpu boards is a dead end.
Only highly specialised markets within the embedded industry really use ppc now, and for most of these applications, AmigaOS is in no position to be marketable (most of these things require, at a minimum, memory protection and stability far beyond what AOS can offer).
The only alternative would be to go x86, but before doing that, you would first need to assess what you are really aiming at with your OS.
If you want to go the commercial route and want to target at the desktop users, then there might be no other way than going x86. Hyperions problem is exactly that: I guess they originally planned to make some money with their OS, but how realistic is that on a license-restricted "only-PPC" and "we need custom HW" niche market?
AmigaOS would need to be rebuilt from the ground up again to have a chance in the mainstream. It wouldn't be able to compete with Zeta, let alone one of the big boys as it stands.
There are however niche sectors even within the x86 market, look at the epia platforms from VIA - low cost, specialised hardware with lots of custom chips to play with. I'm genuinely surprised that there hasn't already been a port to epia tbh.
But seriously, give it up on PPC, for the Amiga's needs it's game over.
