Amiga OS 5 prediction

[jarroyo]

I have been speculating and trying to piece together how in the world Amiga Inc. can claim to have a new OS, so called “OS5” in what can be perceived to be a relatively short period of time with limited resources, and claim that it will be better than Mac OSX.

My 2 cents, and pure speculation

Amiga OS5 will be based on QNX’s Neutrino along with all the related tools, Photon GUI, IDE, etc. The development effort on behalf of Amiga Inc is probably focused on “Amigafying” that environment and bringing the Amiga look and feel, as well as some software basics to said platform.

Supporting information

In the following article dated Feb 6, certain claims are made by PA Semi, namely that:

“The Neutrino real-time operating system from QNX Software Systems and its related Momentics Development Suite have also been ported to the PA-6T platform”

http://www.itjungle.com/tlb/tlb020607-story01.html

In an article authored by Thom Holwerda back in 2004, the merits of QNX where outlined as well as its potential to be a fully featured desktop OS.

http://www.osnews.com/story.php/8911/QNX-The-Unexpected-Surprise/

While other OS’s and IDE’s are slated to run on the hardware platform, they are mostly Linux / Unix based, and similar to Mac OS X “Darwin / FreeBSD” Based microkernel.

The only way Amiga Inc. can claim to be better is to be different. A linux clone would not provide this for the company. Additionally Linux on top of a microkernel may not be a good thing. The article goes on to say..

"[...] Unix's syscalls all are synchronous. That makes them a bad target for a microkernel, and the primary reason why Mach and Minix are so bad - they want to emulate Unix on top of a microkernel. Don't do that."

In this respect AOS 5 would be better…….

Why then all the hoopla over OS4? simple, market fragmentation. Two different dev environments as well as the fact that Hyperion would market the OS as an “Amiga” brand, and A Inc would be heading towards a different direction.

Thoughts?......

[AmiKit]

OS5 is never going to happen.

[whiteb]

Bloody hell, OS4 is not even out yet and he is talking about OS5 ?

LOLZ

[Housey]

I think he's talking about OS5 because Bill did.

Anyway, I think the QNX scenario would be great.  But I'll doubt OS4 will make it to new hardware, let alone OS5.

Personally I wish Bill would stop going on about mobile devices, it's just boring now.. was ok 6/7 years ago when they first started saying it.   :madashell:

[jarroyo]

I am talking about OS5 because Bill did. Additionally, the QNX Neutrino is already running on the PA Semi hardware. This means the "amigafying" of Neutrino/Photon GUI is all A Inc would be spending time and resources to bring to market.

In essence, OS5 already exists, and is running on the hardware.

A Inc would simply need to make sure OS4 does not ship, hence the lawsuit, because it would fragment the market.

If A Inc does have the money, giving Hyperion 25K to make it go away would be cake..

[motorollin]

jarroyo wrote:
the QNX Neutrino is already running on the PA Semi hardware. This means the "amigafying" of Neutrino/Photon GUI is all A Inc would be spending time and resources to bring to market.

What would be the point of that? Might as well install Ubuntu and use an Amiga skin :roll:

--
moto

[Housey]

again, I think its a nice idea but unlikely to happen.  To be honest I don't think Amiga have the sense to pull it off.  QNX to me is an awesome OS, very cool and now open source?

[jarroyo]

It is open source....

The reason why they would not do Ubuntu is because of the similarity between what Apple did with their OS, which is essentially a flavor of Unix.

Bill's prior statement was that it would be superior to Mac OS X, hence my "prediction" that AOS 5 would be a "flavor of Neutrino"

I cannot believe Bill and company would be able to build something from scratch with limited time and resources.

[motorollin]

OIC, so you're saying that OS5 will be a flavour of QNX in a similar way to how OSX is a flavour of BSD?

--
moto

[jarroyo]

Correct!

It is different enough from the Apple / Unix pedigre.
It is, based on my reading, better than Mac OS X.
It is, already running on the PA Semi hardware, at least since February of this year from a dev perspective.
It is something that A Inc in its current state could "handle."

Think about it, why would A Inc choose such a robust piece of hardware, and then place the existing Hyperion OS4 on it?

Is OS4:
SMP enabled, 64 Bit, etc...?

[jarroyo]

For those interested in how I came to this prediction

PA Semi News
http://www.itjungle.com/tlb/tlb020607-story01.html

Eval of QNX as a desktop OS. This one is a bit old.
http://www.osnews.com/story.php/8911/QNX-The-Unexpected-Surprise/

Bill calimed superior audio capabilities
http://www.qnx.com/products/middleware/multimedia.html

Superior architecture over Mac OS X
http://fusion.qnx.com/3/8483/246.07_Neutrino_bro_P5.pdf?tid=385329_bH_1006044735&ending=246.07_Neutrino_bro_P5.pdf

I can only wish.....

[Zac67]

That's a very possible scenario - but it does make sense and that completely contradicts AInc...  :-P

[Lemmink]

OS5 will be as real as the Amiga center in Kent......

[jarroyo]

Lets be honest, starting an OS from scratch is not an easy thing.
There is a plethora of OSes out there that are far superior and further established, but little known. A unix clone would simply not suffice, and was done already by Apple.

A company like AInc can simply re-brand one of these as their own, and focus on software / features to add value and set itself apart from the rest.

Apple did what I am predicting A Inc will do if they want to keep things afloat. Mac OS X is Jobs old Next Step OS company that he created after he left Apple. When he returned to Apple he bought is own company, dressed up the Pig and called it Tiger..:-)

Imitation is the greatest form of flattery, but we can beat them with their own tactic. Jobs probably did it to pay himself, A Inc could do it to leap frog everyone.

[jarroyo]

What Amiga Center...;-)