the AmigaOS 4.0 Features have been revealed!

[whabang]

The kernel is written in C? I thought it was to be totally rewritten to PPC ASM.
The feature list looks impressive. Quite an update from 3.1.

[Allen]

Ok...looking good, although as pointed out in earler posts the text should be adjusted.

It looks like AI just posted a page they made ages ago without really reading it...i.e. Exec is written in 68K ASM...they should not have even bothered putting that in.  It is unnecessary and could (in this case has) cause FUD.  

Not what we need right now.

The logo on the orther hand is fantastic.

Allen

[lionstorm]

AFAIK the plan was to convert all 68k assembly to C and generate ppc code from that as C is more portable than 68k assembly. I am not a programmer, I understood that from posts.
LionStorm

[Allen]

Yep.  That's how I understood it too.  So I doubt they will be using PPC ASM at all...well hand coded ASM that is...also have you seen PPC ASM?  

It is a bit of a nightmare to say the least, it is far better to let a compiler figure out what needs to be done and optimise your code for you...unless you like bleeding from your ears!  :-)

Really getting excited now as you can finally see what AI/Hyperion have been doing for the last few months/years!!

Allen

[xeron]

Woo! Kick-ass! I just want this NOOOOW!

PPC native CD Filesystem

with limited Mount Rainier support (use your CDRW as a floppy)

Thats pretty damn cool

Recovery and Salvage tools for FFS2 and SFS

Hope its better than DiskDoctor (the last salvage tool to ship with AmigaOS :-) )

AmigaInput API (for multimedia controller devices)

The amiga has needed a unified multimedia controller system for ages... lowlevel.library just isn't enough!

Web-browser (Ibrowse 2.3)
MUI PPC (for legacy applications)

I wonder if these will be demo versions?

Reading/printing of PDF files

I hope its better than what we have at the moment. I mean, APDF is great for what it is, but its not as good as whats available on windohs and linux...

Generic PPC native PCI library

I hope this supports Mediator. Elbox aren't exactly keen on generic PCI libraries!

[Coder]

@Tickly

I am sure Ibrowse is a full version. It would not be a good idea to ship demo software with it.

Coder

[4pLaY]

3.5/9 had a limited version of Aweb! i guess it wont be a DEMO version at least i HOPE so but most likely it wont be full version either! then again i could be wrong.

[Coder]

I just think there should be a fully working browser coming along with OS4.

Coder

[redrumloa]

I just think there should be a fully working browser coming along with OS4.

Well if nothing else free Aweb could probably be included in the contributions archive. Then again Ibrowse will be PPC native..kick arse!
 :-D

[MAD]

Hoya!

YYYYYYYYYYYYYYEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That's what I call arse-kicking news!!!! :-D :-D :-D

Be VERY funky!!!

M A D

[System]

its very good to see things are getting nearer and seems to be well and kicking.

my biggest concerns are solely about the webbrowser - none of the old amigabrowser cut it any more (and havnt for several years). a good move would be to get the latest build of mozilla running instead.

/stone

[System]

Actually, no.  According to Bill McEwan at the AmiWest conference, Exec SG is *still* in MC68K and *is being* ported to PPC native.  The following quote from Emanuel's show transcripts should clarify things

(Bill McEwan's first speech) So, what you get in the AmigaOS 4, and this will be all written down better than what I have here: Second generation Exec, it is written in 68k Assembly and it's being ported over to PowerPC.

:-(

[Coder]

I think there is a confusing part, when they say:
"it is written in 68k Assembly " they always talk about the Exec of previous AmigaOS's. Not about ExecSG wich is the new Exec for OS4.

Coder

[hnl_dk]

Quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I just think there should be a fully working browser coming along with OS4.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Well if nothing else free Aweb could probably be included in the contributions archive. Then again Ibrowse will be PPC native..kick arse!

I'm sure AWeb gets PPC native as soon AmigaOS 4.0 gets released :-D

[redrumloa]

I'm sure AWeb gets PPC native as soon AmigaOS 4.0 gets released

Oh I agree:-) This will be a good situation for us wanting a good browser. The Ibrowse guy will be competing against a quality free browser. He'll have to keep it ahead of Aweb featurewise to justify it's cost.

Cool!

[System]

I think this kind of wraps it up.  This is an extract of the phone interview with Thoms Frieden of Hyperion.  Also taken from the AmiWest 2002 transcripts.

T(thomas Frieden): Well, yeah, just recently we finished the ExecSG kernel. Well, "finished" is not really correct, we finished it in a state that is more or less the same [unintelligible] more than the original Exec. But right now we're also updating the memory subsystem, because we now have a purely physical memory system, but what we want to do is, we want to make the memory system virtual... Hello?

and soon after in the conversation, this . . .

T: Well, yeah, in the original concept we wanted to base OS4 mainly on emulation. For example, we wanted to have a purely native PPC kernel, but [unintelligible]  most of the modules as 68k and emulate them. But we found out that this solution is not the optimal solution. Of course it's not optimal, but it's lacking in a lot of parts... Some of the responsiveness that was one of the cornerstones of the Amiga operating system was lost due to this emulation. We decided that most of the important stuff has to be PPC as well. Additionally, for the first, we wanted to have a rather simple virtual memory system, something like VMM, more of... more like an add-on to the original system, but in the meantime we found out that even that would be not... It would really make the whole system more [unintelligible] , so we decided to go for a real virtual addressing scheme, and that is what we are currently working on [unintelligible] back to Exec.

Right.  So what does all this mean?  I guess taking my 2 posts together, and making some deductions about what was said we have 3 conclusions:

1/. ExecSG will definately be ported to PPC native as portable C(?).
2/. ExecSG is either not finished (still in MC68k) or is going to be used in OS 4.0 in a "good enough" state (also MC68k).
3/. *If* ExecSG gets used in a "good enough" state in OS4.0 (as MC68k), then no-one has told us *when* the PPC native version of ExecSG will ship, or if it will ship as an update (kernel patch?) or as an OS revision. (I prefer the former!)

Any opinions ppl?