How about creating a Open AMIGA Consortium?

[Einstein]

@abbub, since you've not read the board long enough then it's a good start to search for the relevant keywords (dunno, memory protection, x, y, z..)with the search form

[Einstein]

Sig999 wrote:

Einstein wrote:

Sig999 wrote:

I'm not in the camp of 'The Amiga will rise and kick arse once more!'

Not me either, but I just cannot hope on something that will get its arse kicked by anything, anytime, anywhere

agreed we're kind of like agnostics at mass

Could've agreed back to that, if I only knew the meaning of that expression :-D

[abbub]

I don't really feel that I need to search the forums to know the weaknesses (and strengths, for that matter) of the Amiga OS compared to a modern OS, or to understand the impact that addressing those weaknesses could potentially have on 20 year old software.  ;-)

[Einstein]

abbub wrote:
I don't really feel that I need to search the forums to know the weaknesses (and strengths, for that matter) of the Amiga OS compared to a modern OS, or to understand the impact that addressing those weaknesses could potentially have on 20 year old software.

Not if those software run in a #?UAE box that integrates some essantial resources with the host OS. Needs work ? yes, but far far less than that having been put into all these OS projects, one either plans smart, or one does not, but that's the amiga spirit, at least the contemporary one

[AeroMan]

I just loved the new Natami site !

[JetRacer]

JetRacer opens casket and howls:

Many people totally miss this very important point: the Amiga was everything-in-a-box. A user streamlined package - while the PC was and still is a production industry streamlined concept. At the time of the A1200 the PC could do it all (in one degree or another) - only each plugin card that added an Amiga feature costed as much as an Amiga.

If you want to earn some millions then be the first to introduce a PC in a cast aluminum keyboard with lcd screen fitted with a tiny all-in-one mobo and pre-installed with win vista and a proper powersupply that plugs strait into the wall. Like those draggable gamer laptops minus the substandard UPS. Sell only one model and make them all identical. -It's a piece of the magic formula that made the Amiga sell.

Another part was the advanced user friendly OS with scripts any user could understand. The OS was never an overclockers dream to begin with - first rule of demo/game programming was to get rid of the system (read: OS).

There's nothing wrong with making a modern Amiga compatible machine that can use modern hardware. The discussions soon reach the point where card-slot hardware is banned for not being enough Amiga. The only reason the Amiga chips exists is because no 3:rd party could provide the technology at the time.

The problem with the "pure" Amiga nostalgia concept is that it's a pipleline which eventually joins the one which leads to the sesspool of Commodores infmaous: "Then the kids will upgrade from the Amiga gaming console to a real Commodore PC computer.".

And, oh, feck the free market - it's a luxury we can't afford. Just get thumbs out and let the consortium to pick a (reasonably modern, not junkyard) gfx chipset of either ATI or nVidia and stick with it through thick and thin. There's basicly only one brand audio chip that is soldered onto every AMD/Intel/PowerMess mobo so that's an easy pick for the undesided. Keep it simple, keep it identical. And everyone will keep in line or face extiction when programmers don't bother writing code to support the strays.

Some user: An Amiga consortium risc becoming a giant that's ineffective due to it's own weight?!? You're kidding, right?

Off-topic: Win XP pre-SP2 runs blazing fast and is 100% stable as long as one doesn't use Explorer (and safe if you don't use the net). After installing SP2 everything runs slowly in an "emulation" type sandbox mode for security reasons. The computer is then bogged down to 68020 levels when using the compulsory firewall. A dirty workaround allows high performance tasks to grab 99% cpu. Unless that workaround is triggered the computer leaves a trail of slime with it's constant 10-20% cpu usage - regardless if the user falls asleep or not :-)

[Sig999]

I wanna find a 1200 for under 300 bucks!

(never missed the 'everything in the box' - I just don't look at that as an advantage)

[freqmax]

@biggun:
It's possible to do without the extra copy stage. It's called "zerocopy" and NetBSD has implemented this. You could try it and see if performance improve.

@abbub:
Modularity is the key to avoid the complexity trap. I also think USB for lowend devices is needed, eventually. Not now because the stopgap solution (PS/2) let's us focus on other issues. In the meantime prices for an implementation will go down.

@Sig999 post 3/26 22:00:
Ethernet can cure all those storage needs. I think the filesystem networking doesn't have the 4 GB limit.

@JetRacer:
 (1) "Amiga was everything-in-a-box. A user streamlined package"
 (2) "each plugin card that added an Amiga feature costed as much as an Amiga"
 (3) "The only reason the Amiga chips exists is because no 3:rd party could provide the technology at the time."

Good points JetRacer!
I think this kind of summarize the economic driving factors behind the Amiga.

I think I should point out from an electronics designers point of view. That adding yet-another-chip to an existing pcb is very cheap unlike doing the same with an external card.
 
So an hw/sw true box would be an FPGA+PPC with a PCI slot I guess. And the amiga spirit compatible would be efficient & modern asic cpu + fpga.

[JetRacer]

@freqmax: Typical afterthought on my part. Yes, buying a chip off nVidia or ATI like any other OEM is a very cheap way to get a modern Amiga.

Also, if ATI / Nvidia won't sell directly then just call some of the billions of OEM's up and see if they're ready to play.

-- edit --

@Sig999: Think of it this way - when the Amiga was released it had graphics equivalent of the most expensive nVidia card , sound like a 5.1 24-bit system, it plugged into a HDTV 1080 and it costed like the cheapest x86.

Today things have changed - except for one vital thing we also see in x86 mobos. Which is cheaper; the all-in-one mobo with quality 5.1 sound 1Gbit network, S-ATA, etc. or to expand a bog-standard mobo with nothing? Don't you agree that having all that for almost no additonal cost and only having one or two PCI slots is getting some serius value for your money?

Who will buy a $3'000 / 1'500 EUR amiga bundle anyway? Because that's the price segment the expand-it-all Amiga will end up in.

---

And for the sake of everyones sanity can someone please re-cap this in a new thread. I almost lost my will to live already at page 9.

[abbub]

freqmax wrote:

@abbub:
Modularity is the key to avoid the complexity trap.

In terms of software, you mean?  Well, it can help, but all too often a modular approach to software development ends up with modules wrapping themselves around each other in a cycle of dependencies (Often for good reason...there is something to be said for not reinventing the wheel...) and then you're back to the complexity.  I'm not saying it's impossible to avoid this, just that it's difficult.  (And that it comes at a cost.)

[Sig999]

@Sig999: Think of it this way - when the Amiga was released it had graphics equivalent of the most expensive nVidia card , sound like a 5.1 24-bit system, it plugged into a HDTV 1080 and it costed like the cheapest x86.

Actually I prefer to think of it as it actually WAS - you see I had an Amiga back then, and I'd just been forced to buy a PC because my bridgeboard wasn't going to cut it anymore.

When the Amiga was released (A1000) the PC did 16 colors and the Mac did 2... but that's not what you're talking about , you're talking about the 1200... that's around 1992 - around 93 ish when it came to Australia.

So, why don't we look at it like the 1200 was doing 256 colors in AGA, with a possible 16 million.. The PC card I bought to run Winblows 3.1 on did about the same, and with a Soundblaster 16 thrown in cost me around 300-350 bucks.

The 1200 did not cost 300 bucks - or if we say that each card cost the same as an amiga - 150 bucks.  My 500 cost 1000 when I first bought it - several years later when I got my 2000, it cost about the same.

Lets bring in some historical reference - to put it in perspective.... The PC was well on it's way to feature recovery - and the year after the 1200 was released, it started taking back the games market when DOOM was released.

The Amiga was only a blip on Billy-Boy's radar - but the thought that DOOM was installed on more PC's than Windows 95 actually phased him.

To be 100% clear though - I hated windows until XP, which I find 'ok for work' - I've never liked Doom.  But I was there for the Amiga's arrival, rise, and eventual fall. I remember the hey day when the 040 equipped Amiga could still hold it's own against the first Pentiums, and how we laughed when the first bugs in that system appeared (division by 0? Only Pentium makes it possible!).

But let's keep our advocacy based in Reality - please.

As for all-in-one solutions - I am loathe to buy a laptop because if something breaks or becomes obsolete, I pretty much have to buy a new laptop.

I won't buy any new Ami system that follows the same paradigm as the 500/600/1200 for the same reasons.

All in one Mo-bo's today, you can switch all that stuff off and go with better systems if you choose - that's the way I'd prefer to go.

[ChuckT]

What is your opinion to this?

Does it make sense to create a AMIGA HW Consortium?
It think we should put the best brains together!

The way to start is to prevent what happened:  The reason I offered to go spelunking at the site of the old MOS technology buildings is because everything in Amiga's future hasn't been preserved or given to Amiga's public.  In the video "Deathbed Vigil", Commodore still gave its employees exit interviews.  Why would a company give exit interviews in the first place while it was alive?  Maybe to preserve and learn from what the employee was last working on.  In their case, they were out of a job and thought that it was over.  Those who are unfamiliar with the technology would have to learn what they did really fast and without directions might not be able to recover everything without exit interviews.  Amiga must not just be a computer company but it must preserve the future as well.

Assign documentation to every work and require it as payment to be a member.

[abbub]

ChuckT wrote:

The way to start is to prevent what happened:  

For that, we'll need a 1982 Delorean DMC-12 and a flux capacitor.  A Mr. Fusion would come in handy, but isn't absolutely necessary.   ;-)

[ChuckT]

I think if there is stock ownership, it should be ammended so that we have access to the specs and information.  I think that Amiga should belong to the public if the companies involved are not going to act in good faith.

abbub wrote:

ChuckT wrote:

The way to start is to prevent what happened:  

For that, we'll need a 1982 Delorean DMC-12 and a flux capacitor.  A Mr. Fusion would come in handy, but isn't absolutely necessary.   ;-)

[persia]

You can't beat PC pricepoints.  With a PC you can buy incredibly cheap hardware that probably won't last, but it will have drivers.

The Mac on the other hand specifies the hardware and is tuned to that specified hardware.  This was the Amiga approach as well.  It's more expensive, limits your choice of hardware but provides a far more satisfactory user experience.  PC crashes are often due to badly written drives or hardware incompatibilities.  The choice is quite simple, support everything to an ok level, or support a limited amount of things and do it very well.

[JetRacer]

@ sig999: Well, I was actually writing about the A500 (I'm a 75'er). At the time it was technicly possible to get a PC to do what an A500 with gen-lock and sampler could do. But the economics was horrible - just like the quality of the result.

@ persia: The Amiga wasn't more expensive than a PC at it's time (not A500 nor A1200). The Macs were more expensive.

The Macs have zero 3:rd party products to attach (atleast that's Steve Jobs wish). The Amiga have/had a range of 3:rd party expansions of which a fair share employed the same dirty custom implementations we see in Windows today.

Today Macs run Linux with Apple GUI. And your soundbite there sounds awfully close to the Linux guys favorite argument: "compiled for hardware" which Steve Jobs knicked in a speech.

Macs are expensive - that far I agree. Fact: identical hardware is always cheaper due to bulk sales. What you're saying there sounds more like Apple propaganda trying to shift focus away from the cost it takes to run the company and how it affect the horrendous price of the Macs.

Drivers are not an issue; those can be harvested from Linux for a number of processors. Which we've seen happen frequently in the past for the PPC (or whatever acronyme-of-the-day applies to modern G3-G5).