AmigaOS and The x86 Question

[freqmax]

MIPS, Coldfire, ARM etc.. looks nice. What pesters me most about x86 is the total lack of good engineering.
Let's stay on big-endian with linear addressing, besides that cpu doesn't matter too much. Just the manufacturer have a good feature plan. Don't forget that ARM definitely use their legal department!, which may spell problems in the feature for any FPGA re-implementations like minimig.

Coldfire has one advantage, it's supposedly similar in instruction set to m68k so a port can be easy.

What AmigaOS has over other OS is Speed! and small resource need. Let's compete with the strong sides, and not bother to compete where AmigaOS has it's weaknesses.

[DiskDoctor]

coldfish wrote:

Where to try Amiga OS in 2009?

That pisses me off too, mate.

Despite of the fact that I want it already, some people might wish to try it.  Cuz a sam440 bundle costs lots of money.

I got decided when I SAW it live on local fairs.  I would go for it anyway I think.  But for sure, there are many people thinking, especially facing the price (say, many people on the east have to multiply the price by the factor of 2-5...)

So Hyperion should really consider it, especially about their situation.  

On the other hand if you're an Amiga guy, you should afford.  But for many people, Macs are expensive, iPhones are expensive, HTC/Eseries etc. So really, why this policy??

You can always go torrent but this is not the way out, is it?

[yakumo9275]

freqmax wrote:
What pesters me most about x86 is the total lack of good engineering.

dude, put the crack pipe down.

[sim085]

What was really an Amiga? On OS or a Machine!?

[freqmax]

yakumo9275, Yes x86 is an example of good Marketing, not engineering. If you don't count the amount of work put into patch engineering

[takemehomegrandma]

billt wrote:

This seems like a rather odd reasoning to me: we cannot compete if we run on x86, but we can compete if we run on underpowered, overpriced hardware, with no option for people to try it out before buying?

When did people have option to try it out before buying? I never got to try it before buying my A500 way back in the good old days. There was no "free demo" hardware to borrow from Commodore to evaluate OS1.3 on before I paid up.

...and the Amiga has never been a cheap hobby either, so ridiculously expensive hardware is completely justified, right?

You can try a demo of MorphOS before you buy, a nice feature that will become more obvious when it is released for the Mac Mini (the closest to standardized hardware the Amiga has ever come).

Maybe not something you can take for granted, but a nice feature indeed! A competitive advantage worth highlighting. As is reasonable priced hardware, for that matter.

[DiskDoctor]

DiskDoctor wrote:

coldfish wrote:

Where to try Amiga OS in 2009?

That pisses me off too, mate.

Despite of the fact that I want it already, some people might wish to try it.  Cuz a sam440 bundle costs lots of money.

I got decided when I SAW it live on local fairs.  I would go for it anyway I think.  But for sure, there are many people thinking, especially facing the price (say, many people on the east have to multiply the price by the factor of 2-5...)

So Hyperion should really consider it, especially about their situation.  

On the other hand if you're an Amiga guy, you should afford.  But for many people, Macs are expensive, iPhones are expensive, HTC/Eseries etc. So really, why this policy??

You can always go torrent but this is not the way out, is it?

Me stupid.  One has to have a hardware to test it on.  But there are many people with machines capable of running AmigaOS4, not having the OS installed.

So it concerns smaller userbase actually, still being some sort of a problem.

[bloodline]

freqmax wrote:
MIPS, Coldfire, ARM etc.. looks nice. What pesters me most about x86 is the total lack of good engineering.

The modern x86 is an example of amazing engineering! Why don't you read actual technical documents before you make grand sweeping statements...

Let's stay on big-endian with linear addressing,

Why big-endian?
What is so special about it?
What makes big-endian any superior to little-endian?

Linear addressing? As in a flat address space? all modern CPU's have that, and the x86 comes with a fantastic MMU as well, its virtual memory support is possibly the best of any CPU!!!

besides that cpu doesn't matter too much. Just the manufacturer have a good feature plan.

I agree 100%

Don't forget that ARM definitely use their legal department!, which may spell problems in the feature for any FPGA re-implementations like minimig.

How, what? why?

Coldfire has one advantage, it's supposedly similar in instruction set to m68k so a port can be easy.

No easier than any other CPU...

What AmigaOS has over other OS is Speed! and small resource need. Let's compete with the strong sides, and not bother to compete where AmigaOS has it's weaknesses.

AmigaOS has weak task and Memory management... that puts it off the radar for almost all applications now... I can't think of one single modern application (other than perhaps as a teaching tool) where I would choose AmigaOS over Linux, now... the ship as they say has sailed...

[takemehomegrandma]

Flashlab wrote:

people whining on forums are not going to change the legal obstacle that prevents this port from happening.

What legal obstacle? Haven't Hyperion showed clear enough that they don't give a {bleep} about their contract with Amiga Inc? What's the difference, in terms of "legal obstacles", between making a Sam, Pegasos and x86 port?

[terminator4]

This article adds little to no value to anything whatsoever.  What a waste of time reading it.  A "toy operating system" - well that goes well to say what the author is writing for and what he thinks of Amiga OS.  He's nothing but a hobbyist who wants to try and play with an OS.  I have news for you pal, get yourself UBuntu, its free and you get free software.  Amiga platform is like Apple/Mac.  If you want Mac OS X you need to buy their hardware.  Yes, they do have it running on X86 now, but the hardware is still Apple's.  PPC is the natural evolution, and you're mistaken that you need Ghz and gigabytes of memory for OS4.  
Any X86 port, would mean the end of Hyperion, and OS4 and any OS4 development.  I can just see the hundreds of folks who are downloading the iso off piratebay.  The serious users who see OS4 as a serious OS, will buy the hardware and software.  The freeriders will stay out.  The cost of hardware and software is used to offset the development cost (it's not just the price of a cd!)
End of discussion.  But hey, everyone is entitled to an opinion no matter how smart/stupid it is. :-D

PS needless to say, even OS4 for Sam has already leaked out.  Way to go, don't blame the companies that support amiga, when one day, nothing will be sold or available and AMIGA OS will rest in peace for the last time.

[terminator4]

@billt
I agree.  There are dealers and users that demo OS4 all the time.  Even if they aren't an invite to a show is all that is needed.  I think there are many people that are simply so broke and so used to picking up cheap peecee that Amiga OS is not really for them (small market, small economies of scale).
And that goes without saying also for some old classic hardware for Commodore Amigas.
I'm simply calling a spade a spade, not beating around the bush.

[freqmax]

Maybe people will get their hard cpu lesson when dis-trusting computing(R) is turned on by M$ or another organisation..

[boinger]

what to heck is x86

[adz]

DrZarkov wrote:

We are in a very difficult situation...

Define "we". The Amiga community is so segregated that it's no longer possible to group it under the rather broad title of "we".

[adz]

Logic is something that has left much of the Amiga community long ago.

Pretty much sums it up.

[freqmax]

Yeah, lowperforming stuff to hillarous prices won't work in the current market. And the x86-pc have caught up in some ways with cpu caches, pci bus, s-ata etc..
Something that is lacking is the performance bottleneck from protected mode/mmu, In conjuction with badly written operating systems.

boinger, Intel 8086 and compatibles