AmigaOS 4.0 for 68k: a viable option forward?

[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  ).

[ognix]

Piru wrote:

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.

Mmmhh... :-(
if the situation is like this, I can't think things are going to be ok: we, the Amiga system, need a _clear_ direction where to go, for not loosing the few energies remained in many "small rivers" (and this is the present Amiga situation).
And if also who should guide the entire community is behaving that bad, we don't have much hope on going forward.

About Amiga IP, maybe in 10 years, they'll think it's not profitable anymore ( :-? ) and maybe they'll let it go, but such "option" is not so viable...  (I know... just speculations...)

[PulsatingQuasar]

The quick way forward is to finish the G4 Mac Mini version of OS 4 and sell that.

Even though these machines aren't produced anymore there are a lot of second hand machines and these numbers are growing since Mac users are now gearing up for Intel machines. Doing this will ensure 1 to 2 years of free growth in both developers and users that can actually use the OS for something instead of getting too slow hardware or too unstable hardware.
During that time they can then choose another viable hardware platform which is affordable.


A 68k version is useless. Way too slow to advance the OS.

[ognix]

Colani1200 wrote:
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.

Amikit, as the others, are a well done "pre-compiled" complete Amiga system ready for running under emulation: read Amiga OS 3.9 with a lot of add-ons for a better, productive and more modern system, but NOT a new operating system.

The idea of having Amiga 68k with its apps (and some thousands users and more) and Amiga PPC with its apps (and some 1000 users maybe) is not clever, nor a way to make the systems going forward.

Once again, going forward for me means:
- having official OS updates
- clear idea on what system I'm going to develop on
- how many potential users I'll have
- writing one application and not many for three versions of the system.

The present situation is a lot counfusing, and I don't like it absolutely!

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:).  

There are some options, but here comes the price again: I don't see a bright future in (niche) comsumer market for these boards, even considering the economic situation and trends in the western world at least.

[ognix]

KThunder wrote:
[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.

If AROS will provide also 68k and chipset emulation it would be a very good option to go forward (if possible).
Differently we should recompile and/or modify all applications we have (at least the most significant ones).

Anyway I'll drop my hat to all AROS programmers and contributors since their work is really admirable!

[ognix]

Hello everybody again!  \8^)

I just want to summerize some ideas and opinions that came out from this thread:

- beside the technical problems for backporting Amiga OS4 on 68k (in my opinion possible, since it has been written in C mostly, and there are no radical system changes/upgrades), after speaking with some "relevant personalites" :-) in the Amiga scene, this option sadly has to be discarted almost for sure due to the various lawsuits going on between Amiga Inc. and Hyperion;

- for the same juridical reasons also making the OS4 available for other PPC platforms (Sam440, Efika, MacMini, etc) beside AmigaONE and Amigas with PPC is also impossible;

- in this way the only one hope we have for upgrading the Amiga system (at least speaking about the OS) is AROS!

In its more popular flavour, on common x86 machines, by integrating UAE into it to get backwards compatibility (if this thing will be implemented), and in its 68k flavour, for running it on real Amigas (especially in case of system upgrades) and on the Natami boards (hopefully available - www.natami.net).

I particulary like the idea of having a new Amiga in hardware and software: in this thread I spoke mostly about running the OS under emulation, because of the costly PPC boards (but I really like, technically speaking, the Sam440 project).
If the Natami project will come for real, I think we'll have the best we could ask in terms of "amiganism" (maybe not so much computing power, but if the custom circuitry will improve over the present one): of course always at a decent price (even 200 EUR or so would not be bad).

Someone may say I forgot MorphOS: mmmhhh... I my personal opinion it's going somewhere else by itself; I mean I feel it's getting more and more away from Amiga.
So I don't consider it an option for going forward on the Amiga side (despite all the good efforts of developers).

Let's hope AROS project will continue and even accelerate its pace to give us the new Amiga OS (at least) we are waiting for!

Hear u 'n da future!
      Luca "OgniX"   \8^)


P.S. A sad side note: have you visited the Amiga Inc. website recently?
It's a great shame!!!!!  
Selling games for cellphones under the Amiga logo (like Amiga Sudoku)...
Leave them alone... :pissed:

[codenetfx]

I think we need to get the layouts for the PPC boards and start making them one at the time. This would give us both 68K in the existing Amigas and PPC for OS4.

Hyperion is unlikely to port OS 4 away from PPC because of an unjustified concern that running an OS on x86 automatically means competition with Microsoft and Apple. Apple proved it that it "only" takes a really polished product to sell more OS licenses and machines to run it on. Apple went from having really bad hardware and an outdated OS to being a leader in both hardware AND OS in under 10 years.

Theoretical timelines. If it took about a decade for a really nimble company (Apple) to turn things around, how long would it take to turn things around for a less-nimble company? 25 years? 50 years? Do we have that much time?

I'd say that if several hundreds (or even thousands) custom-made (hand-made?) PPC boards are made for A1200s (or A3000/A4000), that would be far better than any petition.

Aside from that, I still do not fully understand the gripe between Amiga Inc. and Hyperion. I doubt that their lawyers can make sense of it either. If an agreement says that OS can only be sold with a new computer and there is no friggin new computer because nobody is making it, maybe it is time to revise that agreement.

Hyperions! Can you port OS 4 to the iPhone? (in theory, at least). There will be plenty of iPhones going around for years to come. Cool hardware, too.

Plan B: Blizzard PPC emulator?

[AmigaHeretic]

Hyperion is unlikely to port OS 4 away from PPC because of an unjustified concern that running an OS on x86 automatically means competition with Microsoft and Apple.

 :roll:  I agree.  Unjustified is right.

Again, that's as intelligent as saying that VW should make all their cars run only on Diesel not Gas so they don't have to compete in the "Automobile" market.  Sure they won't sell nearly as many as that would be a dumb move, but that doesn't change the fact they are still selling "CARS".

MS, Apple, and Hyperion all sell OSes.  The fact that Apple charges more for hardware and Hyperion doesn't even HAVE hardware to go with their OS as PPC is so difficult/hard to get at a decent price is insignificant in the fact that they all sell OSes.

[stefcep2]

Someone fill me in: what software runs on OS4 thats worth all this hassle?

68k AmigaOS has 1000's of titles written for it.  How long will it take for OS4 to get 10% of this?  

Sure it might be fun and I am curious to see OS4 in action, but a new platform is just not viable.  Me I'll fire up my A1200 for the occasional game or demo, Winuae for serious apps that I want to use every now and then, which perfom faster than a top=flight amiga. Sorry guys I've been an Amiga owner for 15 years or so but the time for all of this passed about 10 years ago

[Varthall]

stefcep2 wrote:
Someone fill me in: what software runs on OS4 thats worth all this hassle?

OS4-only software I use often are DVPlayer and MPlayer for videos, MEncoder for VideoCD authoring (only for the video conversion part) and Milkytracker for module tracking. There are some useful software that use Cygnix-X11, like Abiword and Gnumeric. Other interesting software is the Last.FM client and the Jooleem puzzle game which I'm addicted to these days

Varthall

[persia]

Apple moved from PPC because IBM's priority is games systems not computers, for every PPC Apple there were at least ten game machines.  The advances in computer chips are coming in the x86 world, you want a multi-core laptop for example?  There isn't a good PPC option for that.  The emphasis is games.

Whilst you could argue that the Amiga is a game machine and fits better in the PPC world you also have to realise that the choice of motherboards and chips is far, far more limited.

With x86 you have the choice of motherboards, faster CPUs, more cores, and the ability to run a "productivity" OS (MS or Apple) at full speed.

That final point is a good one.  I don't think anyone imagines that Amiga is or could become competition to MS or Apple.  Amiga is something that you run in addition to you work machine.  A typical Amiga user will always need a PC or Mac as well, so why not have them in the same box?



RIP Dalek Fred

[codenetfx]

The irony in Amiga Inc/Hyperion situation is that Amiga has no competition since it has such dedicated following. Macs used to be sleepy, slow machines, with outdated OSes and still had the strong following. Amiga has excellent hardware, an OS that is *still* competitive (even without Amiga OS4) *and* it has dedicated following.

Most people who buy Macs use them for fairly mundane purposes - surfing, Photoshopping, digital lifestyle stuff and I do not see a single reason why Amiga cannot do the same or better *today* with or without OS 4.

PPC cards are so rare and expensive that without additional "inventory", they only add to the predicament of Amiga OS 4. Following the same thought, if someone was able to design a PPC card, designing an Intel-based card should not be far fetched. Port OS 4 to Intel, then sell the OS CD with the card as one package. If hardware was available, I am sure applications would grow around it fairly fast, given Amiga's user base.

I also like the AROS idea, but lack of binary compatibility is problematic. However, I keep reminding myself how elegantly Apple solved the "old mac" issue with Carbon. Could not AROS emulate "old Amiga" and still pave the way towards the new, running on some cool Intel hardware with clear hardware requirements? I am not aware of "Classic Amiga" emulator (WinUAE) for AROS but it seems like a feasible solution, particularly for games and demo scene. Would not that be cool? 68K that runs way faster via software and a great Intel-based OS underneath.

What nobody wants is some AmigaAnywhere stuff which smells of overcooked java beans. I think we all identify Amiga with some cool metal, silicon and software - not more, but also not anything less.

MorphOS also looks good, but seems to be PPC-based, which is a no-no since there is no hardware available.

The more I think about it, the more I am convinced that binary-compatible WinUAE port for AROS would make Amiga a viable platform once again. And open source to boot.

[codenetfx]

@stepcep2: Running OS 4 is not the goal in itself. The goal is to run the latest Amiga OS on widely available hardware.

Since Amiga OS is closed-source, with two companies behind OS and Amiga trademark in a deadlock (isn't that ironic? OS knew how to do multitasking 20 years ago and people owning it are in deadlock), we have two options:

1) Wait until happy thoughts and reason prevail. Note that glaciers are melting faster than any progress is made on the Amiga Inc/Hyperion front

2) Find an alternative with an open-source OS (AROS, for example), build "classic amiga" environment within in with WinUAE and maintain the list of compatible hardware (Motherboards, graphics cards, etc.)

WinUAE runs so well on my T40s and X41 (fast + reliable) even though they are a bit dated, that it would be a pity not to integrate it into the future OS platform for Amiga. New software could then be written/recompiled for the new OS and the development could, at least in theory, continue. Linux has an amazing developer support and Amiga (Amiga = OS + Hardware + Software) should have the same. "Classic Amiga" would support 68K development for those who just can't get enough of "Motoroller MC68000". Future apps would have to support Amiga OS APIs *and* a limited selection of Intel-based hardware.

With these thoughts, another question. Which one of the open-source "flavors" of Amiga OS-compatible OSes would be the best foundation for this. AROS or something else? It seems that all "commercial" Amiga OS efforts are using code for AROS anyway (both Hyperion and Amiga Inc use their source code, according to AROS site).

Given that OS 5 may never see the light of day (if history is any guide), getting a 68K emulator to work under AROS seems to be the only feasible/within-reach option to run Amiga stuff on top-notch hardware *and* have 68K as a legacy option for all those applications and games we want to continue using.

What is interesting to me is that Mac OS X did not attract the same kind of application developers as Amiga OS once did back in the day. This gives me hope that if a solid platform existed, same (better!) cool applications would come back to amaze us

[Atheist]

codenetfx wrote:

Since Amiga OS is closed-source, with two companies behind OS and Amiga trademark in a deadlock (isn't that ironic? OS knew how to do multitasking 20 years ago and people owning it are in deadlock), we have two options:

Hi codenetfx,

Yes, I agree. And I agree with the glacier stuff too.

codenetfx wrote:

2) Find an alternative with an open-source OS (AROS, for example), build "classic amiga" environment within in with WinUAE and maintain the list of compatible hardware (Motherboards, graphics cards, etc.)

Too complex, AOS inside AOS? Can the inside one communicate with the outside one?? x86 HW is constantly changing, can AROS keep up?

codenetfx wrote:

With these thoughts, another question. Which one of the open-source "flavors" of Amiga OS-compatible OSes would be the best foundation for this. AROS or something else?

Don't need anything new, it's all available right now!!!

AOS "as-is"! (Doesn't need to be open sourced.)

Dead lead weight Amiga Inc. Del. can NOT stop NatAmi, in ANY way, shape or form.....

NatAmi with AGA extensions, could keep us going for 20 more years, really.

Remember; ANY NatAmi model that is acquired is ONLY a slow version of what IS possible. What's the limit? 3 GHz is the limit!


Amiga could return to it's roots through NatAmi..... HW and SW in harmony. (Or as close as one could get.)

and who's in charge? Y O U !

[codenetfx]

@Atheist

NatAmi looks great but it is not available yet (or not priced yet). I will be following this one as well

More info is available at http://www.natami.net/qa.htm

Special hardware is great, provided the manufacturer can keep up with the demand. I'd rather have Amiga OS on a machine I can put together from high-end components which are readily available and not tied to one manufacturer. However, I am interested in NatAmi although I do not understand your claim about its scalability up to 3GHz. Can you provide more details? Since NatAmi is based on MC68060, how do we get to 3GHz (in theory)?

The most likely scenario for Amiga is that no corporate entity will throw its weight in full into Amiga OS/Amiga Hardware arena. Most reasonable scenario would be a high-end, Intel-based platform (Dual Core, graphics with 512MB RAM, 4 GB RAM (maximum for 32-bit), fastest SCSI we can find, best soundcard we can find). Such a platform would not be outdated in a few years, at which point an upgrade to OS would be due. All of this is a lot of work of course, which is best handled in an open-source scenario. Amiga OS could really use an API extension for multi-processor support down the road.

Next question is "who is going to write applications for open-source Amiga OS?" Probably the same people who wrote all those amazing applications for Linux. Amiga has a big advantage over Linux and Mac OS X: a long-standing multimedia legacy, a ton of useful applications, probably the best possible 32-bit OS kernel out there and an excellent application framework API. Linux lacks many of these things even today and Mac OS X is just starting to pick up steam on the development front. Platform with best applications wins (eventually). Amiga tanked in part because of limited developer support in fields other than graphics and animation.

[persia]

AROS with integrated UAE (not WinUAE, that's the Windows version of UAE) would be an interesting idea.  You could evolve AROS without losing backwards compatibility with 20 year old software.