Executive Update - Amiga Status Announcement

[Argo]

Really, people.

Get a good bussiness book, read it.
Get "The Art of War" by Sun Tzu, read it.
Get "A Book of Five Rings" by Miyamoto Musashi. read it.

We in the West have learned well from those in the East.

All will then be clear, Grasshoper.

[Argo]

Ah, a whisper in the dark. Thank you.

[redrumloa]

While I have openly supported Amiga Inc since the beginning, I have to agree here with "Ryan" and "Christophe" that this latest press release seems more of a way to protect their money flow and to force manufacturers to pay them (ala Microsoft) than about any imaginary "Quality Control".

While I see yor point, there definately needs to be more quality control and support by so called 'Amiga' hardware companies.

[Argo]

I know a lot of the current Amiga user base aren't going to buy A1's - they'll stick to (sloooow) 68k, nasty XL or get a Shark. The A1 boards are expensive after all. And there is the question of their very limited upgradeability...

Sounds like my Amiga 1200. It's amazing what those hardware developers have come up with.

[Alkemyst]

I guess what I mean is that I would like to have seen eventually "100" manufacturers making "200" different boards, all to the Amiga baseline architecture (much like Mobos of the PC world).
 
anyone can make An AmigaPPC mobo.
 
where does it say they can not ?
 
but its no good you going out & buying unsupported gfx cards & sound cards.
 
& it aint like there are loads of openPPC mobos out there for use to choose from.
 
this is just the start damnit give it time to grow.

its not Amiga.inc fault that there are
not loads of open ppc mobos out there. for the home user.
 
infact there are none atm.

& for getting G4 cpu's right now at the start & trying to get around the Apple's grip on it with the deal with motarola
would mean putting loads of £ up front to get them.
 
the mobo is not closed at all like a Mac.
 
the rom is a flashrom the openbios will always be there it will have AmigaOs stuff added to it.
 
look at it being like your libs draw where you can add more libs to give more functions.
adding a lib does not stop all the over libs from working nore does it try to replace them.
 
& even if there was 100's of types of openppc mobo you would still to start of with being limited to just a few as drivers have to be made
& you cant just make loads of them over night & even BeOs had problems getting drivers made fast enough trying to support to many PC mobo types at once when they started out & ppl got febup
of BeOs not runing on the pc they just bought.
 
this is all about lack of money you cant just expect eyetech or hyperion to
bring out stuff as if it was on the scale of the pc world.
on the first try of going fullout ppc.

even windows-XP will not work on all pc mobos & im even talking about some mobos just 8 months old.
 
so you see win-xp add on tv & think hey i like that & run out & buy a pc mobo & put it all together your self.
 
woould you like an un cert-ed mobo or one that is knone to work with Win-xp.
 
& what are you thinking of runnig on the Aone beside linux & other opensource Oses wich can run on it when ppl get there hands on one.
 
if think you will get a leagal version of mac os on it then forget that. Apple aint going to do that.


 

[Seehund]

(Somebody claiming to be) Alan Redhouse, Eyetech wrote:

Yes, you will be able to buy a linux-only (actually non Amiga OS) board, and subsequently buy the OS4+ROM upgrade package.

From the Subject line (it seems only Eyetech will be producing "Amiga Ones" from now on) I take it you are only talking about your company and the boards you will be distributing, or are you saying that what the Executive Update says is incorrect?

"Eyetech's AmigaOne series of PPC motherboards" are among the licensed products. So, you already have a complete series of boards that have been reviewed and certified by Amiga Inc? Or are general carte-blanche licenses handed out in advance to certain companies?

I don't know if it's worth noting that an Amiga Inc. Executive Update is written with British English spelling for the first time... Bah.

[KennyR]

Who says the Shark is vapor? For almost 8 months people have being saying both the A1 and OS4 are vapor. Oh, but loooky...here they are. Vapor! is normally the cry of people who don't like something but can't find any good reason why they don't. I thought Codename Chicago was vapor - until out popped Windows95, the Abomination of Mankind. If the Shark fails to come out, AInc lose 1000s of potential customers of OS4. I doubt they will allow this easily.

As for emulation, correct - it can work both ways. But given what has gone before, i believe bplan will not want to emulate OS4. Some MOS folks have been rabid about wanting nothing to do with it, stating it as being coded by people who know nothing about the Amiga's insides and should go back to coding games. MOS and pegasos emulation on OS4 is the likelier prospect at the moment - especially if pegasos fails - which, let me just put clearly before the flames burn: I do not want to happen.

Lots of software on MOS - well, its mainly just direct ports of (fairly trivial) 68k stuff. I don't doubt that OS4 coders could hammer out the same stuff in a few months. So far, though, (and prove me wrong) there isn't anything in MOS yet that is truly great or innovative - apart from MOS itself. MOS has had at least a year.  No games. Only one planned that I know (Feeble Files). And no big apps. Not good.

[Kronos]

8 months ago the A1 (Predator+ based) and AOS4 (H&P) were vapor.
A1.5 and HyperOS4.0 are two completly different products.

MorphOS-SW currently in development:
Papyrus (complete Office-Suite)
Motionstudio
The Thendic-Stuff

AOS4-SW currently in development:
Maybe a few a Hyperion-Ports

[KennyR]

I didn't say A1 and OS4 were the same product. I said that at one time, both were put down as vapor by MOS supporters, and turned out not to be.

As for the software list, ok, point conceded. (I did ask you do prove me wrong) ;-)

At the same time, be sure that the OS that has more users and more publicity will surely have more software available. This is a fact. Whether this will be OS4 or pegasos is yet to be seen. But I know who my money's on.

[Kronos]

I didn't say A1 and OS4 were the same product.

Nor did i  :-)

I just stated that current HW and SW has nothing in common with
what should have been released in last November.

About the user-base:

Petros Power-Computing has sold quite a few Amigas to Indian
TV-Stations and so on. Now he is supporting MophOS/Pegasos.

If German users are put to the choice of A1+AOS4 or Pegasos+MorphOS
this is what would happen (IMHO):

30% Pegasos
25% A1
45% leave me alone with your PPC-crap

And don't forget that the german market has a huge impact.

[Chathurawind]

>MOS has had at least a year. No games. Only one
>planned that I know (Feeble Files). And no big apps.
>Not good.

You missed a lots of announcements then.

[Dr_Righteous]

Ok, time to settle things once and for all.

Classic+PPC Amiga gets OS4 for Classic+PPC (released first)

A1+ROM will run OS4 (released second)

A1-ROM will run Linux only, unless OS4+ROM pack is purchased afterwards (A1SE dev boards?)

bPlan and AI have never had any agreements, so hang it up untill they do (which will either happen, or Pegasos will die, IMHO)

Other developers will either have to support the ROM, or bundle OS4-ROM with their products. Only those developers will have access to OS4-ROM, as it will be strictly an OEM version.

Hardware upgrades for ROM supported systems will require transfering the ROM from the old board to the new board to support OS4... Thus additional copies of OS4 or OS4+ROM will not be needed unless you intend on running both machines. In which case you're supposed to be running seperate licensed copies of the OS anyway! :-D

Relax folks... This is nothing new for the Amiga, nor is it anything to panic about.

[Chathurawind]

As far as trying to help control the piracy of the OS, whats to stop sombody from doing a similar trick like on the classic Amiga's of having a 3.0 hardware ROM, kicking up an image of a 3.1 ROM into non-volitile mem and then rebooting? PC boards have an option to "shadow" their BIOS in mem to speed it up, it makes me wonder if the A1 will too. So, now sombody figures out a way of doing just this when the A1's come out, they make an image of the ROM and have it load into ram, reboot and use the 4.0 ROM then continue loading. Point being, anit-piracy tactics rarely stand up to pirates for very long, and I don't think selling software bundles is going to help either. Perhaps an over the phone registration would work for each copy of the OS4, like with WinXP? Same serial number used more than once in a quarter, and you have to send them your orginal CD to get sent a new one, with a new serial number. I dunno...anybody else have better ideas to curb piracy?

[Chathurawind]

After some discussions over at ANN, the AmigaOS4
licensing issues seem to result in a long chain of
reasoning: The 'FACT's are all official stuff, the
'CONCLUSION's are just that- hopefully objective
conclusions from the facts.


FACT:  AmigaOS4 cannot run without specific stuff in FlashROM.

FACT:  When Eyetechs PPC-based board has these ROM extensions
  installed, and thus can run AOS it is called an AmigaONE.

CONCLUSION1:   When this AmigaONE is sold, it has to be bundled with
AmigaOS, as the license states that all licensed boards capable
of running the OS must be sold with it.

CONCLUSION2: When Eyetech's board hasn't got those ROM extensions
installed, it CANNOT run AOS4. It is also not an
'AmigaONE' anymore. This board can be sold by Eyetech
for Linux users wanting to use the HW.


FACT: License states that AOS4 will never
be shipped unless together with hardware. Exception
is PPC-classic users.

[dev.board buyers are not considered regular users, and will supposedly get
the OS together with Flash-update as separately
arranged (mentioned by Ben at ANN)].

I couldn't find any unbiased 'CONCLUSION:' to this one.
I guess it is up to each person to decide wether
this is a good or bad thing.

PRO: The OS is sure to support the hardware it runs on.

CON: You cannot buy a separate AOS and smack it in a
random unlicensed third-party PPCboard.

.
SlimJim

[Alkemyst]

well the cookies seem to work now

well they do with IB2.2 i have not had to re enter my nick & PW

[Chathurawind]

>bPlan and AI have never had any agreements, so
>hang it up untill they do (which will either happen,
>or Pegasos will die, IMHO)

The Amiga market isn't even the main target market.
How easy do you think Petro will sell the Pegasos to
those Indian companies he sold A1200s before?
Think about it.