Lando wrote:
I'm disappointed that AmigaOS won't be available in fully 64-bit within the next year but at least he says there'll be a transitionary version in the mean-time that will run in 32-bit mode with enhancements for 64-bit systems.
This is pretty much Standard Operating Procedure with every OS out there. Viz the interim MacOS Jaguar for 970, and what the first Windows for AMD64 will look like (though unlike Apple, they're more obfuscating about what it will/won't do).
Linux and *BSD (FreeBSD) are making a bit more of a jump, because they can - less 'penalty' for trying native builds, if you don't like it run the 32-bit tree(s), and so on. (That's with an eye to AMD64, though; I can't remember if the PPC970 needs a bit more 64-bit-mode love somewhere in the kernels before you can get it back to running straight 32-bit code.)
So basically, not really a surprise... and we should remember that one big impact of 64-bit is in the VM system, which is fairly new for us, still something of a work in progress, and so forth. (In other words, tradeoff in terms of development hours; do we want it running with *all the features we want* on 32-bit first, or do we want to delay those for the testing and so-forth to ensure it works/scales portably across 32- and 64-bit systems?)
The Amiga Generation 2 Visual Services Technology sound very impressive also. It seems these are slated for OS4.2 - he doesn't say whether this is the "transitionary" 32/64-bit AmigaOS that will be released in preparation for moving to 64-bit though?
It's not really that hard to read; he's said 4.1 for "AG2" - at least its introduction - and nothing particular about when we can expect 64-bit. Methinks some 64-bit hardware has to hit the market from a non-Apple vendor before anyone can allow themselves to care...
...and if they're going to pull AG2 off, they can try to keep that code 64-bit clean from the start.
No idea if they can pull this off, but it makes sense. Some platforms will beat them to 64-bit, but... You could probably port something like MS-DOS or CP/M to 64-bit rather easily, but Linux 2.4 on 32-bit is still going to be more 'useful,' y'know? Bad metaphor, it'd actually be neat to see AmigaOS as a sort of small, light 'MS-DOS' that can blow video streams or whatnot out of 8GB RAM... but since that chunk of memory is still rather expensive for the home user (have they even sorted the standards for cheap-unbuffered-mass-market gigabyte DIMMs yet?), there's at least a year's time to worry about it.
Anwyay... 4.0 early next year, followed quickly by 4.1 and 4.2, the transitionary 32/64-bit OS (4.5?) and a fully 64-bit OS (OS5?) by August! Very impressive, looks like Amiga Inc have turned the corner!
Man, maybe I haven't been reading these lately, but that sounds a little 'optimistic,' no offense. (We saw what it took to get 4.0 rolling, once it's out, some inertia will be overcome, but still...)
From the pace of things so far, I'd keep my hopes up for a 32-bit 4.1 or 4.2 with an evolved VM (again, not to knock the existing work, just that we know it's supposed to keep improving) and some of these 'AG2' features following "within" ("about") a year from 4.0's launch.
But that'd still put us on par with Win'9x and NT/XP in a number of ways, so it's not something we'd have to complain about. If the next-generation APIs are really well thought-through, then that'll help things 'rocket' toward the capabilities we want. ("64-bitness," the 'mythical' portability of OS5, and so on.)
Edit: Removed one of the redundant uses of "y'know," so I sound like slightly less of an idiot.
