AmigaOS 4.0 for 68k: a viable option forward?

[ognix]

Hello everybody!

I don't log so often here on Amiga.org, and I mostly read news and forums daily, but this time I wanted to express my opinion on the current Amiga situation, regarding the OS especially.
My idea about a possible and _viable_ way to continue and grow our Amiga experience is to release the Amiga OS 4.0 for 68k.
The reasons that lead me to this solution are the following:
- Amiga OS 4.0 is PPC-based and presently there is no recent hardware where running it (with "recent" I mean on sale and production right now);
- even if some projects (Sam440, Efika, etc) will reach the "mass" production state, they will be very very expensive (since the small production and niche market), not to count that even the present hardware solutions are very very expensive, nor have a (good) future;
- PPC failed to reach a sufficient user base on the consumer computer industry: I know... there are XBox and PS3 (with its Cell PPC-based architecture), but they are not sufficient for giving a good and long future for the PPC family of microprocessors (and Apple "helped" a lot on this side): why sticking with it? Just for being "no-x86"?
- 68k emulation goes hundreds times faster than the fastest 68060 "real thing" on present machines, and works well;
- making the OS 4.0 available for 68k will mean having a good user base made of the so called "classic" Amigas (maybe starting from a 68030 machine as minimum) and emulator users.
This means more people to sell the package to (more money to earn), and more developers (and more motivated since the bigger user base).
- AFAIK Amiga OS 4.0 is written in C mostly so it could be ported with no big hurdles and not much time (not immediate, with some work, I know).

What do you think about this?
Many people will complain about the future of the platform would be "no hardware platform" and just emulation: I was on their side some years ago, but not now.
I'd love so much to have a nice custom and "special" harware where to run my beloved Amiga OS (and the Amiga was and is a great mixture and cooperation between software and hardware), but I won't spend 500 EUR or so on a motherboard, even if I'm an amigan since 1989! (and it won't resemble the orginal Amiga hardware philosophy anyway)
And I'm sure most of the people agree with me, especially in this situation of unclarity and divisions in the Amiga scene (see MorphOS, AROS).
I prefer going on under _good_ emulation (even with a Amithlon-like system - eg. X-Amiga Project) and having some new software for my computer and large user base, than having a costly and special board, and share my experience with other 1000 people in the whole world, so letting it die after a few years.

This is where Amiga is going on right now in my opinion...
The user base shrunk a lot in these last 8 years and I think now it's quite stable (from my feelings - BTW, how many active Amiga users around the world? Any clue?)

But I won't go further on this uncertainity and I'll stick with my _Amiga stuff_, either my Amiga 500, 1000, 1200, 4000 or WinUAE (in this last case, a system to call and use x86 code directly for computing demanding tasks a-la-Amithlon would be great).
This uncertainity is surely due to Amiga Inc. as well, which is following Commodore mistakes very well, blocking good ideas and proposals and not giving a clear directions doing real things (Amiga DE... mah! ).

And speaking about Amiga Inc. mistakes we come back to the OS: sincerely I don't know which troubles are going on between them and Hyperion, but I hope that development of Amiga OS won't be stopped; if I'm not wrong I remember that Hyperion signed a contract that gave a kind of independence to them regarding the release of the OS.

Ok, I finished.
I hope I gave some material to speak on... and maybe one day Amiga Inc. will be owned by us, the users!

C u 'n Da future.
   Luca "OgniX"

P.S. Many thanks to those producing and selling hardware for our Amigas!
P.P.S. If my idea encounters a good favour, could an on-line petition help?

[Jeff]

Some good ideas, really. In my opinion not possible. We already have Amiga OS 4.0 released and most people still can't use it. It doesn't look like this is going to change anytime soon.

[Varthall]

It really depends on what do you use and what you want from the Amiga/AmigaOS. Unfortunately (or perhaps it's a better thing, after all) there will be always different requirements and expectations from the users. Personally, I'm more for the custom, albeit costly hw choice.

[xeron]

The thing is, not only is OS4 PowerPC specific, so is all the software written for it.

[jj]

Plus the fact that OS4 on 68k will crawl

[meega]

ognix wrote:

 could an on-line petition help?

 :lol:

[Piru]

if I'm not wrong I remember that Hyperion signed a contract that gave a kind of independence to them regarding the release of the OS.

That is what Ben Hermans was eager to point out, that he actually devised the contract in a way that it had such independence in case things went south.

Well, look where it got them (Hyperion).

The Amiga IP is the only even remotely "valuable" part of the Amiga Inc. They are not going to let it go.

[Colani1200]

I really don't see the point in this. For 68k, you have a number of excellent choices already (like Amikit, Amigasys and the like). Plus a thousand times more applications running on top of them.

ognix wrote:
Amiga OS 4.0 is PPC-based and presently there is no recent hardware where running it (with "recent" I mean on sale and production right now)

There is plenty of suitable hardware on sale and production. Unfortunately A. Inc doesn't want OS4 to run on it (if they want it to run at all :roll:).  

[KThunder]

[color=ff0000]Aros[/color][/b] for everything, a viable option forward!!!

you need to say it like an announcer though :-D
seriously skip amiga inc. blah blah altogether.

[redfox]

@ognix

I have also been wondering about Amiga OS 4.0 for 68K for some time.  In the early days, the developers had to start somewhere, so I suspect they created some 68K stuff to prove some of the concepts they would use later on.  Only the people who were directly involved would know for sure.

The contract for Amiga OS 4.0 clearly indicated that it was for Power-PC.  There was also a general movement away from the Commodore Amiga chipsets, but I don't remember if this was actually part of the contract.

Unfortunely, time progressed, the AmigaOne hardware ran into difficulties, OS4 was late, and the existing licensing scheme does not allow for any other motherboard to be used instead of the officially sanctioned Eyetech AmigaOne motherboards, (and the old Classic Amiga machines with certain PPC accelerator boards).

Amiga Inc and Hyperion are no longer cooperating in any way with each other.  They have taken their grievances against each other to the courts.

So we get to wait ....

---
redfox

[persia]

The 68K has seen it's day, it just doesn't have the power to run OS/4.  It didn't phenomenal things in it's day, but that day is long gone.

Really truely all you need is to get os 4 running on old Mac PPC equipment.  It's plentiful, cheap as chips and well made.  Moana was close but Hyperion stopped the project.  

And here's another question, can you serious talk about writing another OS?  Look at AROS and it's struggles.  Sadly the AMiga community has shrunk.  Moana would be child's play compared with rewriting OS 4.  

Look at OS X, they had to break billion dollar industry leader Intel's trusted platform module, all the OS 4 needs to break is a boot loader and we can't do it.  

 

[ognix]

by Varthall on 2008/6/20 14:11:03

It really depends on what do you use and what you want from the Amiga/AmigaOS. Unfortunately (or perhaps it's a better thing, after all) there will be always different requirements and expectations from the users. Personally, I'm more for the custom, albeit costly hw choice.

Hello!

I'd love custom hardware, and I'd like having a special computer away from the mass (of PCs), but if the price for this is death, I say no.
With "death" I mean no advancements in the whole system, OS upgrades and applications.
If the custom hardware is bought by around 1000 users around the world, I don't think Amiga will go that much forward.

If they could manage to create a motherboard with processore in the range of 350 EUR, maybe it wouldn't be that bad, but I seriously doubt...
...of course problems with  Amiga Inc. should be solved...  :-?

[ognix]

xeron wrote:
The thing is, not only is OS4 PowerPC specific, so is all the software written for it.

"Fortunately" (I know depends on the point of view) there are not many specific Amiga OS 4.0 applications, and most of them have the 68k counterparts, so this is not a problem.

...but I know you (much probably Amiga OS 4.0 user) want more OS 4.0 apps!  :-)

[ognix]

JJ wrote:
Plus the fact that OS4 on 68k will crawl

I don't know exactly for sure, but from what I've read on comments about OS 4.0 it runs and boots very fast on PPC machines, so I assume that programmers retained one of the important postive aspects of Amiga OS: lightness.

But this is an issue that should be clarified by who made it.

[ognix]

meega wrote:

ognix wrote:

 could an on-line petition help?

 :lol:

Maybe I could say "survey", just to check how many interests there could be, by giving some notes on the minimum hardware requirements for running it on real Amigas.

I think that running it in a useful way under emulation only could not "appear nice" to the public: it's not a technical thing, it's just a "bad feeling" that would limitate very much sales (we know, we are Amiga users, we want the real thing! :-D  ).