OS4 rollout schedule

[KPK]

This thread and some other threads could be summorized into a "ask Hyperion" article with alot of answers...

Just a thought (of filtering out the noise...)

[HyperionMP]

>Ben, you have lost me now. Taking this statement >alone, it appears that Hyperion will give the OS to >the mainboard distributors for a bundled sale, and >take royalties for sold units? That would be a >perfectly normal scheme. Until now, I was under >the impression that Hyperion plans a certified->hardware licensing scheme (on top of selling the >OS and taking royalties).

No. That was never the intention.

It must be recognised however that such a scheme also means that we need to consider carefully whether or not a platform is actually worth supporting or not from a purely economic standpoint unless the producer is willing to guarantee a certain number of sales.

Currently, with the Pegasos I, I cannot see it. It is a discontinued product of which only 600 units were built, quite a few of which are still in the dealer-channel or were handed out for free.

Many of these Pegasos owners might not at all be intrested in OS 4 and the upper limit for sales is 600.

People point to the Cyberstorm PPC version.

The Cyberstorm PPC version of OS 4 was developed for several reasons.

1) it provides a platform for development with all the custom chipsets still in place. Results are obtained faster this way. Proof of concept is important due to the pervasive but understandable skepticism.

2) a lot of people paid good money for this hardware and these people are our customers: they bought games like Shogo, Heretic 2 etc. We want to support them.

3) there is no point in replacing a small PPC market (Cyberstorm PPC and BlizzardPPC) with an even smaller market of more powerful machines (A1).
This will not benefit software developers wishing to target OS 4.

[Elektro]

How many people want OS4 on peg anyway? Must be only a few...

[bloodline]

Elektro wrote:
How many people want OS4 on peg anyway? Must be only a few...

How many want an Amigoid at all? Must be only a f.... :-)

[HyperionMP]

>What is the "minimum number of sold copies" >required for a platform to have OS4?

It is very hard to answer this question in abstracto.

This would depend on the amount of work that would need to go into developing a version of OS 4 for a specific hardware platform.

When the used chipsets are significantly different, this would entail rewriting the device drivers again: USB support, IDE, ethernet, floppy etc. and even simple things like RTC support.

Now obviously the hardware producer could do this inhouse to some extend thus cutting down on our development cost.

It would obviously also depend on the price we would charge per unit but it is clear that you cannot ask for 300 USD per copy otherwise you won't find anybody willing to buy it.

[Elektro]

Amigoid?

[bloodline]

Elektro wrote:
Amigoid?

Sorry that should be Amigoid (TM) :-)

Basicly:
Amiga+ AmigaOS
AROS
Pegasos + MOS
AmigaOS4 + AmigaONE

It's my  expression, and this is how I use it.  :-P

[Warface]

@anyone

Why, BTW, are so many people clamouring for OS4 to be released on a Pegasos? Surely, if MOS is so good, another "technically inferior" OS would not be needed? Or are the 'powers that be' who are central to the marketing the MOS/Pegasos efforts, worried that that it's their product that will be shown to be the technically inferior one?

Just a passing thought................

-john

IMO It has little to do with the superiority/inferiority of MOS versus OS4. On the Pegasos you can use pretty many operating systems, not only MOS.

I never pondered over how superior/inferior MOS vs Linux vs MacOS vs anything. All have their weaknesses and strong sides as well.

I use MorphOS as it is nice and fast. Sometimes when I find some anim files with extreme weird codecs I go to linux, and use mplayer. Need applications as Lightwave, Photoshop, Dreamweaver? MacOS is the choice.

I'd like to have OS4 as part of the collection. Not as an exclusive/have it at all costs operating system, but like the many others. I'd gladly pay for it even a reasonable price.  And I bet many Pegasos users will agree with me.

It's not about OS4 is so fantastic, I will instantly drop MOS away for it's sake. I plan to use all for what they do best. Just as I bet many AmigaONE users, who got used to Linux will time to time boot into linux to do things in which Linux is better. Will it mean that Linux is superior to OS4 in all areas? I doubt that.

Warface wrote:

@anyone

Why, BTW, are so many people clamouring for OS4 to be released on a Pegasos? Surely, if MOS is so good, another "technically inferior" OS would not be needed? Or are the 'powers that be' who are central to the marketing the MOS/Pegasos efforts, worried that that it's their product that will be shown to be the technically inferior one?

Just a passing thought................

-john

IMO It has little to do with the superiority/inferiority of MOS versus OS4. On the Pegasos you can use pretty many operating systems, not only MOS.

I never pondered over how superior/inferior MOS vs Linux vs MacOS vs anything. All have their weaknesses and strong sides as well.

I use MorphOS as it is nice and fast. Sometimes when I find some anim files with extreme weird codecs I go to linux, and use mplayer. Need applications as Lightwave, Photoshop, Dreamweaver? MacOS is the choice.

I'd like to have OS4 as part of the collection. Not as an exclusive/have it at all costs operating system, but like the many others. I'd gladly pay for it even a reasonable price.  And I bet many Pegasos users will agree with me.

It's not about OS4 is so fantastic, I will instantly drop MOS away for it's sake. I plan to use all for what they do best. Just as I bet many AmigaONE users, who got used to Linux will time to time boot into linux to do things in which Linux is better. Will it mean that Linux is superior to OS4 in all areas? I doubt that.

Well said Warface.

I think the kind of people that would even ask such a question are the people that will never use Linux on their A1 so they really can't comprehend why anyone woud want to use more than one OS on their Pegasos.  IMNSHO they're the same kind of people that go to the same barber for 50 years. ;-)

[logain]

@downix
>does not even need to be visible, as the Peg has an
internal USB port.

And most cases have a frontside usb, which makes
it possible to also use this protection against
unauthorized use (children etc)

Its not a bug (in its true sense), its a feature :-D

@ShadesofGrey
>Yes, but somebody still has to pay for the
development of AOS4 on Pegasos, Macintosh,
and/or .

There are not many other platform which could be
inserted there and the Pegasos is (without doubt)
the most interesting one, since many experienced
Amigans already chose this platform as their new
base and theres a growing interest.

>neither Amiga Inc. nor Hyperion have that kind of
capital. Nor do either have the resources to support
Pegasos owners using a retail AOS4 package

Thanks to the HAL of AOS4 this is neither a time nor
much money consumpting task i guess and  the
package remains very much the same. Since
Hyperion develops the OS to the AOne anyways, its
easy to do a Pegasos version which will bring in
additional money and especially developers who
already chose or have a keen interest in the Pegasos
and dont have the intention to buy another (even
more expensive) Platform just for supporting OS 4
too.

>So, what do you think the likely hood is that Amiga
Inc (and/or Eyetech/Hyperion) would allow Hyperion
(err... themselves) to bring AOS4 to the Pegasos?

Amiga Inc. (and Eyetech) have no chance to do
anything by themself  in the so-called Classic
market.
The future of this platform depends on Hyperion
alone and i dont think that anyone thinks that the
remaining 3 employees of Amiga break with
Hyperion, when they would emerge the need
of a Pegasos version.

Hyperion big announced OS 4 for "any suitable
hardware" in April 2002 and just some days later (!)
 Amiga introduced the license scheme which even
got updated twice. And suddently it was very good
and clever as it is now (with shifting arguments from
that date on).

As for the disclaimer: I respect this but have to say
that i´m not single sided too. I am a MorphOS
supporter thats for sure but first of all i´m an
Amigan, who wants every development in this tiny
market be it free or comercial, hardware or software,
´classic´ or future to suceed. There are just a lot of
things going on for more than a year now, which
could leed to a catasthropical result in the end,
which need to be avoided. And at least the "splitting
the market and hope for the best"-mentality can be
easily avoided just by realising the situation and
finally jump own imaginary fences to find an
agreement which is equally good for both and the
whole community.

It would be possible i´m sure..

[meerschaum]

I really dont think many people will want OS4 on Peg anyway... not now... MorphOS looks better and we can only guesstimate if it will perform better... one thing is for sure.... Genesi wants to push MorphOS onto more then just this community in the future... AOS4 seems to be only aiming at a niche portion of this community...

[PMC]

If I may be permitted the indulgence of adding my thoughts to an already tired topic, I'd say that Hyperion have every right to protect their investment.

One of the reasons why the Mac is so damned expensive is that you're paying for both software AND hardware development without the economies of scale that Microsoft/AMD/Intel all enjoy.  Fact is that Hyperion don't need to be in the Amiga market to survive, but I'm damn glad that they - together with those behind MorphOS too - have decided to turn their back on the profitability of the x86 market and do something a little different.  However, to re-write an entire operating system takes time and programmers need to be paid.  I'm sure there's many programmers out there who'd love to have played a part in OS4, but they've got bills to pay too.  

Although I'm quite cynical about things in this so called community of ours, I'm grateful that there are still companies who see a future in it (Hyperion) and individuals who'll try and act to bring something new (MorphOS).

[takemehomegrandma]

@ HyperionMP (and catohagen et al)

About the OS4 on Pegasos issue; IMO, it's in Hyperions interest to get the OS running on interesting hardware. Vesalia is selling the A1 G3 motherboards for €800 and the G4 version for €880. And that is a 133MHz bus, SDR motherboard, without memory, HD, case or the rest of the stuff you need to get going. Sorry, but that's simply not appealing. Some hundred die-hard enthusiast has lined up (not because it's a good deal, but because it's the *only* way to get OS4 running at a fast speed, in a way the entire A1 mobo is a big dongle), but you won't get much more sales of your OS than that.

The Pegasos 1 has pretty much the same specs as the A1 mobo, except it has a smaller form factor, firewire, a digital audio optical connector, etc. But the biggest differense is it's price. The people who simply can not afford the A1 could still afford a Peg1.

The Pegasos 2 will propably be much the same as the Pegasos 1, but it has another Northbridge which supports higher bus speeds and DDR memory. The form factor will propably be the same, and the prices are really attractive. Again, the people who simply can not afford the A1 could still afford a Peg2.

Here is where you want to be! *You* will miss a lot of potential buyers by being tied to the A1 mobo, but it's of course your decision.

To sum it up, the issue is not about whether todays Pegasos owners will be interested in OS4 or not. The issue is about finding decent, good priced hardware for the future OS4 users.

Some questions for you Ben:

From your comments in this thread I get the impression that you (by your AInc deal) are entitled to bring the OS to any kind of hardware of your choice. Is that really true? I was under the impression that you got the exclusive right to develop the OS part of the A1 product, and that Eyetech has the exclusive right to the Hardware part of the product?

Has  Eyetech the right to bring another OS to its hardware and use the Amiga brand for that product?
Has Hyperion the right to bring the OS to another hardware and use the Amiga brand for that (note, you mentioned your OS release for classic Amigas as an example, but IMO that is a bad example, since they allready are amigas from the beginning)?

Regards,

[takemehomegrandma]

meerschaum wrote:

AOS4 seems to be only aiming at a niche portion of this community...

A niche portion of a niche market, that's ... not big!  :-P

[SidMan]

@grandma

It's a starting point.

[takemehomegrandma]

SidMan wrote:
@grandma

It's a starting point.

And where does it go from there? How many people do you really think is interested in paying €800+ for that kind of motherboard just to be able to use OS4? Some hundred people have (?) obviously bought an A1 mobo, but that is the little niche within the community. Who else? Where is the future for OS4?

I mean this as a serious question; I have asked about the future for the OS4 platform many times, but nobody seems willing to talk about it. Why is that?

OS4 is only one part of a whole; OS4 can not run without hardware. There are some ancient CSPPC cards for even older classic Amigas. There is this A1 mobo that can't be sold to anyone else than those die-hard enthusiasts that has allready bought them. But there is also this Pegasos hardware, good price, interesting features. Affordable and appealing. This could mean that Hyperion reaches a lot more of all the Amigans that are interested in OS4 but doesn't fancy (or can't afford) to put up some good €800 just to be able to run it. So Ben, instead of saying things like "OK, here we go again, Genesi perfectly knows what they have to do in order to get OS4 on to their hardware", perhaps *you* should get a license in order to reach the rest of the Amiga community (and soon also outside). There are/will be lots of OS'es running on Pegasos. There is no reason to why OS4 couldn't be one of them. It's in your own interest Hyperion!