CGX 4 and P96 SDK

[tone007]

they might be selling rebranded microwaves as we speak

Could be!

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=270542002903

..yes, I bought two, and I would buy a Commodore microwave.

[unusedunused]

I don't know for sure, but I imagine that AROS's implementation of CGX is a thin layer around the HAL and that perhaps you'd end up having to recreate the latter, which may be quite difficult.

yes AROS use a HAL it is written in OO and i think its not very fast and do slowdown on slow systems.

the best way is to support the P96 driver interface and write a wrapper so for classic or winuae the P96 drivers can use.

[Fats]

One word: AROS
Staf.

Follow-up: There is discussion about gfx on the AROS dev list and sonic said that he is in contact with cosmos to see how to cooperate.

greets,
Staf.

[arnljot]

For classic amiga computing there are some operating system components that should be in the public domain.

RTG, P96 or CGX4
AHI, it is open source!
Miami or AmiTCP, don´t care which
Poseidon USB stack, it´s open now for AROS.

And I think AROS and Poseidon USB stack is the example to look to. Chris has made a fantastic piece of software, and it´s his. And at the same time it´s vital to the community, and it needed to reach to other platforms than those he´d be able to support both as a free time project or as a commercial venture.

So a bounty was set up... Now, I know that there might bee too many bounties out there. But I think that RTG and TCP/IP would be two decent things to have opened up. Not only for classic amigas, but for the whole Amiga ecosystem.

I´m not going to push for this, but if a bounty can be agreed upon with the IP holders then I´ll happily contribute. Because as they say, it´s their IP. And they legally own it. So we should look into an incentive for them to open it up.

[wawrzon]

@arnljot: the thing is that chris has set this bounty himself. and it was wegetating for quite some time filled to one fourth or so and if not deadwood's initiative and the current of hype it generated for its crazyness it woulddnt probably be met till today.

it doesnt seem that p96 or cgx ip holders are ready to accept such a bounty. most possibly for the reasons karlos was already talking about.

nevertheless i would support such a bounty (if it was sure to be fulfilled, like in chris' case), i think.

[salax54]

It is obvious that we need hardware support from wherever possible. In these difficult times we live in, some people cant/wont think positively perhaps due to lack of love to the platform, or maybe for minor economic reasons. No matter how long someone keeps their code private, it doesn't look like they'll be making a fortune out of it any time soon. But i respect that it's theirs, and we can't change that. Anyway, i was thinking about another piece of hardware out of which we could benefit: Firewire. Not sure how easy it would be to get support for that one, but since there's already a quite old "Amiga-ish" history in the form of Macrosystem's Casablanca, wouldn't that help a developer do something for the rest of the Amiga platforms? Casablancas were 040 and 060 machines, that had an option for a Firewire module, based in a SONY pcb. Just an idea there, but whatever we can get additional support for won't hurt us...

[Karlos]

Why firewire? Granted it's a better serial standard than USB was, but USB has surely taken over.

[salax54]

I'm not saying FW is better than USB or comparing it with anything, i only wanted to stress that we need hardware support from everything possible. By the way, there's so many makes of DV cameras out there, it might help users do more on the video side..

[Karlos]

Well, with respect, I think things like RTG, USB etc should probably take priority - better to focus on what people already have that could do with improved support before moving on to what they could have.

[wawrzon]

yet again karlos is completely right

[platon42]

But I think that RTG and TCP/IP would be two decent things to have opened up. Not only for classic amigas, but for the whole Amiga ecosystem.

As regarding TCP/IP, someone might have luck contacting Olaf Barthel for his RoadShow/Roadster TCP/IP stack. While the former was released with OS4.x, the latter never saw the light of day probably mostly due to Harald Frank being unable to come up with a GUI. Maybe Olaf is willing to open source it and make it available for Classic Amiga and/or other systems. Might be worth a try.

[wawrzon]

@platon42: cool idea, but is there anyone who knows him personally?

otherwise, gulliver, while you are at it..

[matthey]

@platon42: cool idea, but is there anyone who knows him personally?

otherwise, gulliver, while you are at it..

Olaf Barthel just posted on http://utilitybase.com yesterday. He is one of the most die hard Amiga developers out there. I don't know him personally but I wish I did .

[LoadWB]

The obvious reason Elbox doesn't want this is that they sell expensive kits of (modified) common PC hardware and drivers tied to this hardware. OpenPCI would kill this market for them.

The obviously sad part of this is the simple question of exactly how big is this particular market, and how much blood does Elbox expect to squeeze from it.

[Karlos]

People have been doing all kinds of clever, open source stuff with FPGAs recently. I'm surprised nobody has attempted an open PCI bridge.

[Gulliver]

Olaf Barthel just posted on http://utilitybase.com yesterday. He is one of the most die hard Amiga developers out there. I don't know him personally but I wish I did .

I have just sent a message to Olaf Barthel regarding Roadshow thru sourceforge.net.
Lets hope he agrees to make it public domain!