AmigaOS 4.0 for 68k: a viable option forward?

[bloodline]

A6000 wrote:
Most people use a computer for word processing, email and internet access, the amiga can do this with some new software,

The Amiga doesn't have these basic apps already, so why should anyone waste their time with it?

programmers could write this stuff for the community, linux has no difficulty getting programmers to write open source or free software so why are amiga programmers so mercenary.

If you can download Linux for free and it comes with everything one needs to do all the basic stuff a user would want to do why bother with the Amiga...?

[codenetfx]

@ bloodline:

I am familiar with little-endian/big-endian issues since Z80 and 6502 era. It is a difficult problem (if not impossible) to resolve 100% at the binary level when transitioning to a big-endian platform.

Let's think about how critical or non-critical the interaction of 68k with x86 world really is. If you have compiler (or compilers) which can target one or the other environment, there is no issue. If single binary should run in both environments, we have to talk about universal binaries (another term from Apple's vocabulary).

If you want to write software that crosses the 68k-x86 boundary (for whatever reason), you'd have to integrate these applications as if they lived in two different memory spaces, two different CPUS, two different of everything. We are talking pipes, web services and god knows what else here. New APIs. New Library.


How many applications would do this? Probably none, and certainly no existing application running on Amiga OS would do it (they are binaries and don't know any better .

We need 68k mainly for compatibility. The x86 environment is supposed to attract developers familiar with Amiga OS and APIs to develop *new* applications, while being able to run the old ones. Initially, development tools *for AROS* would be needed to jumpstart this. 68K environment also has limitations when it comes to 32 vs. 64-bit and this is another reason why it should be contained in its own "Classic" environment. Future platform must not be constrained with 32 bit.

What you pointed out about Apple and selected few killer apps is absolutely true. Mac OS X started out with very few apps but they were all very good. Apple also had Microsoft's support (with Office) and that means a lot in marketing terms.

Even if all these pieces were working *today*, I very much doubt that any corporate entity would embrace Amiga. Too many companies underestimated/misunderstood/burned/got-burned-with the platform that anyone would think twice before investing a ton of money into Amiga. This is the strongest argument for open source effort. With a good single video driver (video drivers are actually very good even today. You should take a look at "Doom" shipped with AROS) and single good audio driver, AROS would become a viable development platform.

Again, Apple is a good model here: they bake video and audio onto the motherboard and that's it. No hassle with umpteen drivers. When you think about it, Windows is the same; it works flawlessly on Lenovo laptops (for example) and falls on its face on cheap clones with questionable components.

68k platform is history. It is a 30-year old technology and it is a dead-end. PowerPC is also a dead-end in terms of future development. AMD and Intel are the only two companies committed to cranking out new hardware (boards and CPUS and chipsets) that you can rely on. The "only" thing standing between Amiga OS and a-hardware platform are suitable drivers and that is the most difficult part. Good news is that most popular pieces of hardware tend to be well documented (in terms of what they support and what the issues are).

Once everything is working, the question becomes "how is this any different than Mac or Windows?" Amiga would have to have siginificantly better bandwidth for graphics/video intensive development *and* multicore support to establish itself. As of today, Amiga OS does not support multiple cores. Starting next year, Apple will push OS X much stronger into multicore market with the new improvements.

Also, it would have to have better development tools and support from major software manufacturers (from games onward). It is a fairly tall order.

Last 20 years brought about a significant change to the marketplace: even high-end hardware is a commodity. However, as Apple showed, *making it all work together* isn't a commodity.

I keep mentioning Apple because they almost killed off Mac platform in the early 90s. Then Stevie came back and made it really sexy with flashy plastic and same crappy OS. Everyone bought into it. While everyone was busy admiring colorful plastic, Stevie was working on OS X.

Heck, first thing we need is some flashy case for the Amiga. Titanium-alloy thing that looks like it is moving at fast speeds. With only one red LED in the middle. If you put an Amiga back into the beige case, might as well trash it immediately.


Quote from bloodline:
68k is not a problem as long as the 68k programs are not allowed to interact freely with the x86 programs. That is why we want to take the approach of putting the 68k apps into their own little VM world of UAE and carefully control how much interaction they have with x86 AROS.

If we simply integrated the 68k emulator into the OS like MOS and AOS4, then the 68k apps would be allowed to "play around" with the x86 system structures... the problem is that on x86 data is stored : "DCBA" (little endien) and on the 68K the same data is stored: "ABCD" (big endien)... so 68k apps in a x86 environment will read the data the wrong way around, and thus fail.

Things get even more problematic when you use the 64bit x86 verion of AROS (which is probably more advanced now than the 32bit x86 version).. where the 68k apps have no concept of 64bits at all (no 68k Amiga software is 64bit compatible) and wouldn't work even if the x86 was big endien!

All my x86 machines are 64bit now...

[koaftder]

I wouldn't dismiss the retro gamers. There are lots of folks who love to drag out older stuff they've never seen before and rock those games. My cousin who was born in '94 has an NES, genesis and a c64 and he loves those games. Stuff he definitely didn't grow up around.

I went to one of those thrift/retro hip stores in Raleigh a few weeks ago. I saw a bunch of teenagers pining over an amiga 500 playing lemmings.

[Atheist]

bloodline wrote:

We should consider the Amigas' strengths and capitalise on them. They are;-

Efficient AmigaOS, small, fast and adequate.

Antiquated, unstable, insecure, single user, nonPOSIX and no modern software.

Hi bloodline,

Antiquated? Can you explain that?

Single user? YES single user!!! Who brain washed you? Because bill gates SAYS "multi-user is da bomb" Single user is WRONG/FORBIDDEN/BLASPHEMY? I must have missed that memo.

NonPosix? Why do I want "posix", okay, what is "posix" and why do I need it? Never needed it before. (At least I don't think so.)

Who can make modern SW on a computer that's too slow to run it? A 68000 can encode and decode MP3, BUT it's not FAST ENOUGH to. (Ray tracing was slow, BUT Amiga COULD do it. Doesn't mean that, "oh it takes four hours to make a frame, guess we'll leave it to people who own mainframes in their garage.") If there was a 400 MHz 68000, it's probably enough to do it. Motorola stopped making faster 68000 CPUs, so we don't have fast Amigas. An Amiga 2000 could play MP3 too (with no accelerator card!!!). If there was a 700 MHz 6502, an Apple ][ probably could too!

Make modern HW available, and the old SW may be fast enough to do anything that is possible today, even unaltered.

NatAmi60 --- "for great justice!!!! - AYBABTU :-D :-D :-D

bloodline wrote:

Known hardware, few incompatibilities from unknown hardware or drivers.

Stuck on 20 year old technology... it is going to appeal only to Retro Gamers at best.

All we need is new hardware to replace ageing or dead hardware.
Amigas' should appeal to anyone who wants a system to work without trouble or a pile of manuals a metre high.

But we are not going to appeal to anyone who wants to use a computer to do anything that one expects from a computer now.

Well, we are a couple notches below, even with NatAmi60, but it's a better system, that's why we're going that way.... Also, NatAmi60 is NOT the highest level that can be achived, the MHz can still go higher, and we WILL be in their league then, but with smaller OS, smaller productivity SW size, quick responsive feel, etc. etc.

And just general "fun" factor, it's hard to explain.

Macintoshes are more like an appliance now, a refrigerator or microwave oven. PCs are incomplete hodge-podges. Never know if it will be reliable, and you can't manipulate things without them just stop working. Linux, hard to fathom, and constantly in revision, trying to keep up with drivers eternally.

[bloodline]

Atheist wrote:

bloodline wrote:

We should consider the Amigas' strengths and capitalise on them. They are;-

Efficient AmigaOS, small, fast and adequate.

Antiquated, unstable, insecure, single user, nonPOSIX and no modern software.

Hi bloodline,

Antiquated? Can you explain that?

The Entire architecture is based on 80's technology, a few examples;

1. The User interface is based on clipped layers... Modern UIs are based upon 3D surfaces.
2. The Graphics subsystem is based on a palette concept, at 4:3 ratio at very low resolutions and bit mapped gfx... Mondern GFX systems are based on Hi/True Colour, at industry standard ratios, wide screen and there is a move to resolution independent vector gfx.
3. The Amiga Audio subsystem (AHI too) is totally unsuited to modern professional requirements... please read up on "Core Audio" as an example a modern system...
4. The programming architecture is totally outdated... a modern system is object oriented, the advantages of OOP in system programming are too numerous to list here... but, read up on OSX's "Cocoa Framework" and "NeXTStep" to see how modern systems work.

Single user? YES single user!!! Who brain washed you?

I like multiuser systems, I can have a public account, for daily use, a private account for my sensitive work and a root account for adjusting system settings. Each account is totally encrypted. if I loose my Laptop or it gets stolen the data on the private account would be safe. Keeping the Root account secure means no malicious programs/viruses and user can adjust my settings or install anything. it keeps my machine safe and secure.

I also have a separate account for my brothers to use when they visit, they can mess it up, break it , have the settings anyway they like... install any crap they like, and all their games etc... and it it all nicely contained in that account... should, I wish I could delete it on one go.

I can also log into my laptop while one account it in action, as another user and run it as two separate machines... remotely or locally...  

Because bill gates SAYS "multi-user is da bomb" Single user is WRONG/FORBIDDEN/BLASPHEMY? I must have missed that memo.

I've never run any Windows system as Multiuser... so no... my first multiuser system was Linux... where my girlfriend and myself had two separate accounts. Now I run MacOS OSX.

NonPosix? Why do I want "posix", okay, what is "posix" and why do I need it? Never needed it before. (At least I don't think so.)

If you want to use any ports from Linux/Unix and 99% of open source software... Then yes, you want POSIX. AmigaOS can't support the fork() function so it can't really support POSIX very well.

Who can make modern SW on a computer that's too slow to run it?

No one.

A 68000 can encode and decode MP3, BUT it's not FAST ENOUGH to. (Ray tracing was slow, BUT Amiga COULD do it. Doesn't mean that, "oh it takes four hours to make a frame, guess we'll leave it to people who own mainframes in their garage.")

:-?

 If there was a 400 MHz 68000, it's probably enough to do it. Motorola stopped making faster 68000 CPUs, so we don't have fast Amigas.

The 68k architecture is not suited to HI-Speed operation... hence Motorola moving to the Coldfire, for future "68k" development.

An Amiga 2000 could play MP3 too (with no accelerator card!!!). If there was a 700 MHz 6502, an Apple ][ probably could too!

No it can't. To play an MP3 you need to decode it in realtime, no 68000 could ever do that. My 68040 could do some weird low quality thing... but it was horrible. the 6502 can't scale to 700Mhz, the design doesn't allow it.

Make modern HW available, and the old SW may be fast enough to do anything that is possible today, even unaltered.

NatAmi60 --- "for great justice!!!! - AYBABTU :-D :-D :-D

bloodline wrote:

Known hardware, few incompatibilities from unknown hardware or drivers.

Stuck on 20 year old technology... it is going to appeal only to Retro Gamers at best.

All we need is new hardware to replace ageing or dead hardware.
Amigas' should appeal to anyone who wants a system to work without trouble or a pile of manuals a metre high.

But we are not going to appeal to anyone who wants to use a computer to do anything that one expects from a computer now.

Well, we are a couple notches below, even with NatAmi60, but it's a better system, that's why we're going that way.... Also, NatAmi60 is NOT the highest level that can be achived, the MHz can still go higher, and we WILL be in their league then, but with smaller OS, smaller productivity SW size, quick responsive feel, etc. etc.

You are just speculating you don't know, and your lack of technical knowledge does not allow you to speculate.

And just general "fun" factor, it's hard to explain.

No, you confuse "fun" with "familiarity". Modern systems are complex and powerful, far beyond the Amiga... but you would have to put the effort in to learn them.

Macintoshes are more like an appliance now, a refrigerator or microwave oven.

Computers are ment to be appliances. Very multipurpose appliances, you switch it on and it does it's job. No messing around, no pain, no struggle.

PCs are incomplete hodge-podges. Never know if it will be reliable, and you can't manipulate things without them just stop working.

XP SP2 has made the situation much better. I admit though, this did cause me problems in my work and thus I moved to MacOSX.

Linux, hard to fathom, and constantly in revision, trying to keep up with drivers eternally.

I thought you liked "fun"?

[Atheist]

bloodline wrote:

Atheist wrote:

An Amiga 2000 could play MP3 too (with no accelerator card!!!). If there was a 700 MHz 6502, an Apple ][ probably could too!

No it can't. To play an MP3 you need to decode it in realtime, no 68000 could ever do that. My 68040 could do some weird low quality thing... but it was horrible. the 6502 can't scale to 700Mhz, the design doesn't allow it.

An Amiga at only 7.14 MHz could play an MP3 if:

1. It had 256 Megs of ram, and decoded (by that I mean decompresses it) the file into ram: (disk)
2. 256 Megs of ram is not possible ONLY because of the 16/32 bit nature of the 68000 CPU itself, not an AOS issue.
3. It would need 256 Megs of chip ram. Not possible STRICTLY due to the OCS not being able to control more than 512K of ram.
4. AOS can't play MP3, so the file then should have to be converted to a file that OCS could play. Store it in ram: disk, and load into chip ram and play.

Voila!

- edit -
Hmmm, I guess it couldn't get to 44 KHz though. :-(
- edit -

[bloodline]

Atheist wrote:

bloodline wrote:

Atheist wrote:

An Amiga 2000 could play MP3 too (with no accelerator card!!!). If there was a 700 MHz 6502, an Apple ][ probably could too!

No it can't. To play an MP3 you need to decode it in realtime, no 68000 could ever do that. My 68040 could do some weird low quality thing... but it was horrible. the 6502 can't scale to 700Mhz, the design doesn't allow it.

An Amiga at only 7.14 MHz could play an MP3 if:

1. It had 256 Megs of ram, and decoded (by that I mean decompresses it) the file into ram: (disk)
2. 256 Megs of ram is not possible ONLY because of the 16/32 bit nature of the 68000 CPU itself, not an AOS issue.
3. It would need 256 Megs of chip ram. Not possible STRICTLY due to the OCS not being able to control more than 512K of ram.
4. AOS can't play MP3, so the file then should have to be converted to a file that OCS could play. Store it in ram: disk, and load into chip ram and play.

Voila!

Playing is not the same as offline decoding.

1. The amount of RAM is irrelevant. An average 3.5min MP3 decoded to a Stereo 8bit 20Khz IFF audio file would only take around 10megs or ram.

2. The 68K address space allows for 4GigaBytes... the 68000 and the 68020 only have 24 address alines which limits them to 16meg addressable.

3. What does OCS have to do with this?

4. Do you know how long it would take for a 7Mhz 68k to decode an MP3 to an 8bit audio file? And given the lack of FPU... I would suggest days... You like to wait several days with your A2000 doing nothing but decoding an MP3 to a crappy 8bit 20Khz sample just before you can play it?

[itix]

4. Do you know how long it would take for a 7Mhz 68k to decode an MP3 to an 8bit audio file? And given the lack of FPU... I would suggest days... You like to wait several days with your A2000 doing nothing but decoding an MP3 to a crappy 8bit 20Khz sample just before you can play it?

You probably would prefer using fixed point math (FPU on 68k sucks). You can also (probably) tweak decoding algorithm to go faster at loss of quality.

[bloodline]

itix wrote:

4. Do you know how long it would take for a 7Mhz 68k to decode an MP3 to an 8bit audio file? And given the lack of FPU... I would suggest days... You like to wait several days with your A2000 doing nothing but decoding an MP3 to a crappy 8bit 20Khz sample just before you can play it?

You probably would prefer using fixed point math (FPU on 68k sucks). You can also (probably) tweak decoding algorithm to go faster at loss of quality.

I've used fixed point maths on an A500 to do some hi-speed 3d transformations... it worked really well... but I think the final audio quality would be horrible if were to use fixed point maths with a 16 bit precision.

But even then we are talking many many hours... I'm pretty sure...


-Edit-
I tried to run a test, using my A500 and amp072 from Aminet... but it needs the ixemul library.. and I simply don't have the motivation to set this up... any one else bothered?

[Atheist]

bloodline wrote:

Playing is not the same as offline decoding.

1. The amount of RAM is irrelevant. An average 3.5min MP3 decoded to a Stereo 8bit 20Khz IFF audio file would only take around 10megs or ram.

2. The 68K address space allows for 4GigaBytes... the 68000 and the 68020 only have 24 address alines which limits them to 16meg addressable.

3. What does OCS have to do with this?

4. Do you know how long it would take for a 7Mhz 68k to decode an MP3 to an 8bit audio file? And given the lack of FPU... I would suggest days... You like to wait several days with your A2000 doing nothing but decoding an MP3 to a crappy 8bit 20Khz sample just before you can play it?

Hi bloodline,

I thought that a file that big would HAVE to be in CHIP ram, and OCS can't control more than 512K. Also, the 68000 can't control more than 16 Megs, and in the case of OCS, max ram is 8.5 Megs. BUT, if there was a 68000 that has 32 bit pins in/out (NOT the 68020 core) and was working at 7.14 MHz it COULD play a converted, ram resident, MP3 file!

Are you sure 20 KHz is max playback?

Pretty good for an obsolete machine, huh?

[bloodline]

Atheist wrote:

bloodline wrote:

Playing is not the same as offline decoding.

1. The amount of RAM is irrelevant. An average 3.5min MP3 decoded to a Stereo 8bit 20Khz IFF audio file would only take around 10megs or ram.

2. The 68K address space allows for 4GigaBytes... the 68000 and the 68020 only have 24 address alines which limits them to 16meg addressable.

3. What does OCS have to do with this?

4. Do you know how long it would take for a 7Mhz 68k to decode an MP3 to an 8bit audio file? And given the lack of FPU... I would suggest days... You like to wait several days with your A2000 doing nothing but decoding an MP3 to a crappy 8bit 20Khz sample just before you can play it?

Hi bloodline,

I thought that a file that big would HAVE to be in CHIP ram, and OCS can't control more than 512K.

It requires little CPU time to stream from FastRAM to ChipRAM... and since the Audio file would be between 7 and 10 megs you would have to have it in FastRAM.

Also, the 68000 can't control more than 16 Megs, and in the case of OCS, max ram is 8.5 Megs. BUT, if there was a 68000 that has 32 bit pins in/out (NOT the 68020 core) and was working at 7.14 MHz it COULD play a converted, ram resident, MP3 file!

This is NOT playing the mp3 file... it is offline decoding it... and it would take forever.

Are you sure 20 KHz is max playback?

To be honest 20Khz is pushing it with the 68000. The absolute maximum is related to the Screen Refresh DMA... so normally that's about 28Khz... but with the streaming from FastRAM, I would expect to loose quite a bit of bandwidth.

Pretty good for an obsolete machine, huh?

No, absolutely as one would expect for such old hardware.

Anyway this is an irrelevant discussion. Since this thread is about the OS.




I have attempted to run amp072 on UAE with A500 settings (OS3.1 and ixemul.library 47.3 and the various math libraries) but the program keeps putting out an empty wav file, and will not play the audio at all (not even using the mono and the frequency div by 4 options). In short the 68k cannot do it.

Your theory has been tested, and does not work. -Edit- I can Email you an ADF set up for your own testing if you don't believe me.

[ognix]

Hello!

I'm here again. :-)
Well, of course the Amiga is a hobbyist computer right now, or a hobby itself.
Please don't say: "I'm still using Amiga as the main computer for all of my tasks.", "I'm using my Amiga for taking care of my personal balance.", "I'm using my Amiga for editing my videos.".
Of course we can do all of this and more, but we are enthusiasts and we know how to cope with some problems and limitations we have on our system (sometimes we just not complain).
But speaking about Bob, the average user, he is not absolutely attracted by such a system, nor he will abandon his PC with Windows or Mac for the Amiga.

If you think that the main aim is stealing some quotes from the Windows and Mac user base, well, it's better for you to open your eyes on your Amiga and its situation.
This would be blindness and pure madness! We are not in the end of the 80s, nor in the 90s.

We should focus on maintaining the present (active) user base and maybe improving it regaining some "old" users that left for other systems: they would not abandon their present system completely (either Windows, Mac or Linux), but if the Amiga option is viable, not so costly and "positively seen", he/she will "try again".
But how could this be achived?
I won't stop saying this: we need a clear direction where to go, an official way forward, or better, "a widely recognized way" by the entire community (since Amiga Inc. has to be forgotten - I deleted its web site from my bookmarks as well).

That was the reason because I liked the idea of having Amiga OS 4.0 for 68k: it's an official release, working on real Amigas and under emulation, and so wide user base (so no MorphOS splits).

But during discussions we discovered that this won't happen for sure, as presently the lastest "official" Amiga OS, working on (few) PPC platforms is at a deadline: no Amiga Inc., no Hyperion, no future in this direction.
Maybe you can run OS 4.0 on MacMini, but this is just a nice geek trick and satisfaction (done with some stolen files AFAIK), and really not a way for going on.

What's "going on"?
Going on is new OS releases, new software releases, new hardware.
In this moment Amiga is really "retrocomputing", and not "present computing", and despite I like soooo much retrocomputing (C-64 rulez! ) ), this is something Amiga doesn't deserve.
It (or she ) still has some hidden powers for the making a better future in computing, something which is somehow even difficult to clearly explain... we just want to express our view about computing!

For what we discussed about it seems that AROS is the only hope for getting a new OS release for a wide user base, even if not in short time, with potential for evolve.
Once the 3.9 compatibility is got (at function level), we have a starting point and we can improve from there.
When hopefully UAE will be transparently integrated inside of it (in a VM or whatever), for getting Amiga legacy stuff to work, it could be released in various flavours: the main one (as from most AROS supporters) x86, 68k and PPC.
x86 for running the system on off-the-shelf components, on huge computing power machines; this would permit an easy "try again" to ex-Amiga users.
68k for running it on real Amigas (so without UAE) and hopefully Natami systems.
In this way the hardcore Amiga user will recognise AROS as an official release, and feel the continuity of the system, not switching to a completely new one.
And for Natami this would provide the system a join up into community, promoting it as a viable way for those who like so much OS and custom hardware integration and want to upgrade (this would need some cooperation between AROS developers and Natami responsibles of course, but could be done).
PPC flavour would be good for those who spent thousands euros on their systems in these years.

Would be nice to see inside the development environment of AROS, a clean and elegant way to compile your application for all the available platforms with just a few mouse clicks (maybe it's not as easy as it seems).

With this you may say that only "old people" from the 80s and early 90s will be interested and will use the system: well, we cannot ask for more than this right now.
Once we reached a better situation (if so), we'll see how to improve more.

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


P.S. Please don't say "Please, port Amiga OS on the iPhone." otherwise I would ask "Port the Amiga OS on my kitty."!

[koaftder]

Lets not forget about MOS my friend. It's out now for sale on (slow, but nice) hardware you can actually buy. In a few weeks we'll have it for our ppc mac minis.

[arnljot]

koaftder wrote:
In a few weeks we'll have it for our ppc mac minis.

Sorry for being harsh but: Is this fact or rumor?

/A

[codenetfx]

@ koaftder:

MOS? PPC? Please give us more details.

For the readers of this thread, I have to qualify my interest in Amiga as somewhat experimental: writing applications with Amiga APIs (Intuition) is not a very difficult task (in C, if you have Amiga Kernel/Hardware/Intuition manuals) and with a UI framework (such as Zune in AROS) it should be even more straightforward. (Note to AROS: Name "Zune" is very unfortunate). I also have some experience with Objective-C, another great application and UI framework. In my recent posts, I mentioned AROS as a possible platform to keep Amiga's application framework alive. 68k development (in assembler) is a waste of time going forward as much as I hate to admit that.

Whether Amiga can do MP3 or not is a question of hardware. Every *modern* sound card has a powerful DSP which can decompress MP3 in real time. 68K processors have no place in the digital-lifestyle world. Amiga OS does not have to "run" on 68K to be an Amiga OS. However, Amiga OS has to have *real* multi-tasking with a very small memory footprint. Anyone who wrote software on Amiga knows how elegantly a multi-threaded application can be implemented and how efficient it can be. The next level would be the multiprocessor support. Do you think Hyperion and Amiga Inc will add multiprocessor support? Of course not. This could be the single biggest advantage of a future Amiga OS - automatic scalability across all available cores. Intel is planning a release of 80+ core CPU in a few years and this is the direction all *great* OSes will be going. Applications will also have to change from single-CPU model to a multicore model to take advantage of new hardware.

My point here is that sticking to something that's been out there for 20+ years is very limiting. One has to take what is portable (application framework, efficient kernel) and extend it for new hardware to *maintain* great performance.

Retro gaming should always remain a part of Amiga OS and UAE is excellent for that. However, future applications should be written for a new Amiga OS.

I am trying to figure out how much time I can give to AROS project and where could I "jump in". I also wonder how many people out there are thinking the same.

[arnljot]

seems like the thread died just as it got interesting