PS3 port thread

[nbarnes]

...and another thing...what will really HELP is the LIMITED amount of DRIVERS required for PS3. Porting to x86 would be a COLOSSAL waste of effort cos then you'll get disgruntled new users going bananas cos device xyz is not supported.

Look at Linux, I've been a stern advocate of this OS for MANY years (before all the nice graphical install routines) but it STILL bugs me (have to muck around with kernel modules and having to rely on Joe Bloggski from Poland to get his finger out for some software incompatibility issue between different releases and "distributions". What a pain in the ar*e! - no offence to anybody in Poland, it's just a fictional example...)

This is NOT what an average user WANTS. It's not what I want at all. We just want things to WORK....and THAT is where the beauty of the PS3 comes in: RESTRICTED amount of hardware to support out of the box. It'll just work and then we can all be PRODUCTIVE doing whatever we want. And THEN, if anybody wants to produce a driver for device xyz then well done you! The important thing is that the BASE system should JUST WORK and we won't get that with an x86 port (sorry guv, don't recognize your NIC, you're screwed mate).

The biggest PLUS though is that a PS3 port (of OS4) would just be plain SEXY, and you can't say that about some bland, anonymous tower system. It'll get HEADLINES.

It has GOT to be the way forward.

Also, remember this: It is EASY to think of many reasons NOT to do something but if we all thought like that we'd never have faked the moon landings ...

 ;-)

[nbarnes]

...and another thing...

The dead horse I'm flogging is called LAZARUS and by God if we flog him hard enough he'll damn well get back on his feet. If we flog him some more he'll win the Grand National.

Why am I here? Last week, I was talking with my new assistant over a problem that we were having at work. My good spec PC (running XP) was creaking and grinding and basically giving me a hard time. Outlook was "not responding" and I was in a hurry. It seemed like forever to fix (pc was locking up) had to reboot etc ,YAWN. How can a 2.5ghz P4 with 1gb of memory run so SLOW under so little load?!
I'd also been struggling with getting a logitec webcam to work on a Debian Linux laptop (fool that I am). I was in a bad mood.

I started saying to him: "give me an Amiga". He didn't know what it was. So I told him.
Now, I was thinking about buying a PS3 so i put two and two together and thought "What a nice pair they would make" and got googling. Sure enough, other people were thinking the same thing and THAT's how I ended up joining amiga.org. I haven't TOUCHED an Amiga since 1993 but it's STILL got a hold. Weird. Got the bug back. Feels good.

[JoannaK]

Tigger: agree on all counts..  I was considering on making my earlier post in this thread longer (with ideas of SPU use in 2d/3d acceleration) but I decided it would have taken too much time and been way too unrealistic for further discussion (as a future Amiga, especially concerning OS4 coder-talent pool).

Edit.. A thought just hit me.. Why aren't there any group of Amigians (not necessarely from *that* forum) who want AmigaOS ported to Nintendo Wii? ... IIRC it also has PPC and (as a bonus) Ati Gfx chip, so it should be even easier target than PS3 or Xbox360 At least it would be decetly priced  ;-)

[nbarnes]

Joanna....shoot me between the eyes if you want...WII's and XBOX 360's=tacky. PS3=sexy.
There are many, many old amigans who haven't kept in touch with what is going on, they don't know about os4 etc.

I'm one of them and it never entered my head to do a google on "Amiga port to WII", the only "google" was for a port to PS3. Why? Why? Ps3=sexy. It may not even be the best technical solution - but it'll work and it WILL SELL.

If any of you have any influence then MAKE THIS IDEA WORK!

Otherwise, you will all be "martyrs to the cause" - which is where some of you feel most comfortable - and then you will all grow old and die and Amiga will die with you.

[Tigger]

JoannaK wrote:

Edit.. A thought just hit me.. Why aren't there any group of Amigians (not necessarely from *that* forum) who want AmigaOS ported to Nintendo Wii? ... IIRC it also has PPC and (as a bonus) Ati Gfx chip, so it should be even easier target than PS3 or Xbox360 At least it would be decetly priced  ;-)

Actually there are a group that think it should be posted to all 3, and you are correct the WII is cheaper, but the issue is no HD, and no real support other OSs.  The big push for PS3 is based on boot alternate OS being an option built into the system, plus it comes with a HD.  The Linux folks already have the SPEs doing parts of Mesa for their system.  Its not a perfect system, but linux sure went on it easy, and hardware you can buy at the local store and run Amiga OS natively on has been away for a long time.
   -Tig

[skurk]

Tigger wrote:
you are correct the WII is cheaper, but the issue is no HD

The Wii has two USB ports and one SD card slot.  So, for example, the SD card could host the OS which contains drivers for external USB HDD's.

Provided that it is (or will be) possible to start a program from the SD card, then this should be plausible...

[bloodline]

koaftder wrote:

With all the AmiDream posts I've been reading for years, its shocking that AROS doesn't get the love it deserves. It's the AmigaOS that runs on platforms that already exist. No dongles, no weird hardware, and most importantly, no freaking corporation to drive it into the ground.

I think it because the people who shout the loudest are the ones who only care about the "Name" (tm) and for some reason adore the PPC (Something I'll never understand)...

[bloodline]

Tigger wrote:

I love when people with no technical background make posts like this (NOT).   First of all, Keyboard and mouse (and for that matter external Blu-Ray burner) plug in just fine, all of them are running on Linux on the PS3.  Graphics acceleration.  If you understand nothing else after this post, learn this.  Because of the direct tie between the cell and the RSX, the graphics (even through the hypervisor) are faster then its possible to do an Amiga One, Samantha, Panda or Megetherium.   Linux isnt running slow graphics on it, its pushing around HD video and full speed, something that can only be dreamed about on the other current contenders for OS4.  The Cell is a 3.2 Ghz G5 quality PPC, even without any enhancements, it will still run all the PPC code they have now 5-6X faster then the fastest AmigaOne and much much faster then Samantha.

That's true the PS3, as cripped by the Hypervisor as it is, is still much faster than an other PPC solution we could buy, exacpt perhaps the XBox (but we wouldn't want to be seen with a Microsoft product now would we...)

But do we really want to be limited to a system that is just a bit better than the Amiga One? Or do we want a nice open system that we can expand and upgrade as far as our funds and devoted devs can take us?

I've been the advocate for x86 since McFleecy bought it, but the time to port to the PS3 (a month for someone competant, 3 months or so for the Frieden brothers) vs a port to x86 (several man years for competant people, infinite time for psuedo twins in there parents basement) isnt a good comparision.   Do you have a better PPC based option or not, because Hyperion isnt interested in porting to x86 and right now they have the source code.
    -Tig

I really don't think an x86 port would take that long, there is simply too much example code and documentation... not to mention AROS... to not get a well written (in nice C) OS ported from the PPC to the x86 in a very short space of time... If anything I would expect the PS3 port to take longer, how many examples and documentations exists to build a brand new OS for it?

Anyway it's a mute point... OS4 isn't going anyware fast (neither the Samantha, the PS3 or the x86)... Download the nightly build of AROS and enjoy it on a nice cheap PC :-)

-Edit- And lets not forget that the PS3 is a games console with a design life. Sony may support it for 3 perphaps 4 years... by which time it's going to look VERY old and slow... then they may decide to use a new CPU, perhpas even an x86! Throwing AmigaOS 4 right back to square one...

Games consoles are nothin but games consoles, they are always behind the Technology curve, they make life easy for someone who just wants to play a game... I was looking at Oblivion on my friends Xbox 360... and I couldn't help but notice how poor the graphics were compared to runing it on my MacBook Pro... or even my two year old Athlon64 3200 with a GeForce 6600 graphics card...  

[JoannaK]

Tigger: that Wii-thingy was supposed to be joke ... I'm not seruously expect port for it anyhow.

Bloodline: Console lifetime is of course depenmdent of company making them (M$ seems to have shortest lifetime-expectancy), but based of previous Sony history somehitng like seven to ten years could be my guess for PS3. Most likely 4-5 years as their top line model, then similar time as an low-end entry level product.

In comparision ... Remember it ain't long time ago when Sony still had PSX/PSOne on sale, reaching full 10 years of sales and well over 100 million sold worldwide. And PS2 is nowdays seven years old (had one major model upgrade/ cost cut) it still oversells many newer systems (PS3 and Xbox360) and it managed to overlive camecube and original Xbox, thus having a *HUGE* 115+ Million sold.

So.. *IF* this now launched PS3 reaches similar figures that eralier Sony consoles it'll likely to stay on production allmost a decade and to have 100Milion+ systems sold...  And even if it happens to flop (relatively) and sell only 10 million it would still be quite acceptable target for OS porting.

And for 10 years from now? Who knows? Who cares? With the trend of last 10-15 years, is there anyone around with *any* interest to any Amiga related???

[bloodline]

JoannaK wrote:
Tigger: that Wii-thingy was supposed to be joke ... I'm not seruously expect port for it anyhow.

But the Wii is a much normal design than either the PS3 or the Xbox 360...

Bloodline: Console lifetime is of course depenmdent of company making them (M$ seems to have shortest lifetime-expectancy), but based of previous Sony history somehitng like seven to ten years could be my guess for PS3. Most likely 4-5 years as their top line model, then similar time as an low-end entry level product.

Ok, so you don't want to upgrade you computer for 10 years... If that were the case, why are we even having this disscusion... the A1200 is good to go! No need for new systems.

In comparision ... Remember it ain't long time ago when Sony still had PSX/PSOne on sale, reaching full 10 years of sales and well over 100 million sold worldwide. And PS2 is nowdays seven years old (had one major model upgrade/ cost cut) it still oversells many newer systems (PS3 and Xbox360) and it managed to overlive camecube and original Xbox, thus having a *HUGE* 115+ Million sold.

Compared with how many x86 systems shiped in the same period?

So.. *IF* this now launched PS3 reaches similar figures that eralier Sony consoles it'll likely to stay on production allmost a decade and to have 100Milion+ systems sold...  And even if it happens to flop (relatively) and sell only 10 million it would still be quite acceptable target for OS porting.

Again only if you want your platform frozen in time at 2007... and with the Console manufactures lack of need for real backwards compatibility (new machines can just emulate the older ones), the OS will be stuck on a dead platrform (again!!), no the OS won't get access to the emualtion and even if it did, what good would that be?

And for 10 years from now? Who knows? Who cares? With the trend of last 10-15 years, is there anyone around with *any* interest to any Amiga related???

For fun, download a free clone of AmigaOS run it on cheap hardware, have fun!!! ;-)

[Tigger]

bloodline wrote:

That's true the PS3, as cripped by the Hypervisor as it is, is still much faster than an other PPC solution we could buy, exacpt perhaps the XBox (but we wouldn't want to be seen with a Microsoft product now would we...)

A least two of the Xbox360 updates have killed linux on purpose, I dont think advocating a hardware platform that works to ban you from running on it, isn't a good plan, it might be even dumber then choosing the Teron.

But do we really want to be limited to a system that is just a bit better than the Amiga One? Or do we want a nice open system that we can expand and upgrade as far as our funds and devoted devs can take us?

There isnt a better PPC option.   The only thing you might want to update that you cant easily is the memory.

I really don't think an x86 port would take that long, there is simply too much example code and documentation... not to mention AROS... to not get a well written (in nice C) OS ported from the PPC to the x86 in a very short space of time...

I'll make it simple for you, you're wrong.  8 people for 6 months and thats good people with the code and the tools they need, I do alot more of this then you do, and thats in the neighborhood of what we would bid to do the job.  If you are implying that we have nice PPC code easy to port to x86, I think thats hilarious.   What comment from the Friedens has made you think that they have followed best software practices (or even any software practices).

If anything I would expect the PS3 port to take longer, how many examples and documentations exists to build a brand new OS for it?

At this point there are 9 linux ports, I got 20K that says I can get OS4 running on it in 30 days with the source code.

-Edit- And lets not forget that the PS3 is a games console with a design life. Sony may support it for 3 perphaps 4 years... by which time it's going to look VERY old and slow... then they may decide to use a new CPU, perhpas even an x86! Throwing AmigaOS 4 right back to square one...

The Terons were made for about 2 years (they've been out of production now longer then they were made) so I'm not sure being worried about the PS3 being dropped from production in 7 or 8 years is an issue.  I doubt any 2 year old x86 board is still being manufactured, the PS3 will have a longer life then a normal computer.

Games consoles are nothin but games consoles, they are always behind the Technology curve

PS3 runs linux pretty well, it graphics are very fast, its cheaper then the other PPC options, and its got a good warranty and high availability, thats alot of the reasons we pushed for x86 in the first place, hardware you can get in town and hardware you can replace if you system dies.
    -Tig

[Tomas]

jorkany wrote:
It IS pretty funny that some people don't seem to understand what the PS3 is a game console. I'm sure they are the same people who have a kitchen drawer full of bent butter knives from using them as screwdrivers.

Is this so odd when Sony is marketing the PS3 as something more than a console? No wonder that people expect it to actually do the same tasks as a computer then.

[jorkany]

Is this so odd when Sony is marketing the PS3 as something more than a console? No wonder that people expect it to actually do the same tasks as a computer then.

A computer or a digital entertainment center? I have yet to see a single television ad, newspaper brochure, or store display advertising the PS3 as a computer replacement here in the U.S. Maybe things are different elsewhere in the world.

Sure, Sony has provisions to use the PS3 like a computer if you really, really want to. But nearly every major game console from the Intellivision to the Dreamcast has had some sort of computer expansion option, and none were very successful. Heck, the PS2 even had an official version of Linux, but you don't see a community of people using PS2s as Linux boxen. How is that any different than the PS3?

I'm sure it's also more than a coincidence that the people on these forums who most want to see the PS3 as a computer are also people who want to use OS4. I bet if affordable, reliable hardware had ever become available for OS4, none of those people would give the PS3 a second glance; they just see the PS3 as a last chance for OS4 because it has a PPC architecture. If a digital camera based on PPC came out, they'd be all over that as a "computer" too.

[Tigger]

jorkany wrote:

Sure, Sony has provisions to use the PS3 like a computer if you really, really want to. But nearly every major game console from the Intellivision to the Dreamcast has had some sort of computer expansion option, and none were very successful. Heck, the PS2 even had an official version of Linux, but you don't see a community of people using PS2s as Linux boxen. How is that any different than the PS3?

One of the differences is, that its the first console to come standard with a Harddrive and with the built in ability to boot another OS.  In addition, lets be honest here, in modern terms, the PS3 is much more a computer then an a500.  It connects to the web, it can use modern moniters, it comes with a HD, it has USB ports, it has ethernet, etc.  

I'm sure it's also more than a coincidence that the people on these forums who most want to see the PS3 as a computer are also people who want to use OS4. I bet if affordable, reliable hardware had ever become available for OS4, none of those people would give the PS3 a second glance; they just see the PS3 as a last chance for OS4 because it has a PPC architecture. If a digital camera based on PPC came out, they'd be all over that as a "computer" too.

Oh come on Jorkany, you are way too smart to believe the digital camera crap you just posted.  The PS3 is an interesting idea, because its fast, cheap, easy to get one, and is PPC based because porting OS4 to x86 is way beyond the wonder twins powers.  In addition, if OS4 never gets another update, or you decide you dont want to play with it anymore, you can always use it to play Blu-Ray movies or play games on it or even run linux pretty damn well, unlike the Teron boards which without OS4 are pretty much worthless for doing anything but slow and poorly running linux.
    -Tig
   

[Jose]

@bloodline

"I think it because the people who shout the loudest are the ones who only care about the "Name" (tm) and for some reason adore the PPC (Something I'll never understand)..."

If Amiga even has any change to make a come back, the "Name" the name would help, alot, so it does matter. But I think you mean those that follow AInc. because of the name, the I agree, not many around anymore it seems.

"..adore the PPC..."
:horse: If Intel was not in bed with Microsoft for all they're world domination interests I'd agree with you, meanwhile PPC, if it ever succeds, would give a much helthier market and a product with an identity and some peculiar advantages (like processing power / Watt). The oportunity is here and probably has never been better with all 3 main consoles using PPC, "now or never" springs to mind. I'd bet for never, but cross my fingers for the 1st.
I think the average Joe doesn't even care about processing power as he used to, wich has become enouph for almost everything, it's about graphic cards GPU's but guess what, PPC systems can have PCIe dont' they ?

To resume I have nothing against AROS, but...it's too much X86 oriented.

[iamaboringperson]

The PS3 is a nice machine...

It would be great to port AROS to it, however don't forget to buy those excelent High-Def games and Blu-Ray movies! Make sure you get Motorstorm, Resistance, and Genji, to name a few! :-D