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Author Topic: Opinion Article : Amiga DE a Good Idea, Poor Execution  (Read 13775 times)

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Offline Ohno

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Re: Opinion Article : Amiga DE a Good Idea, Poor Execution
« Reply #44 from previous page: May 24, 2003, 12:03:06 PM »
Quote
However, I've noticed that everyone who says how cool AmigaDE is fails to come up with any real reason why it is cool or why it's better than any alternatives. Since I'm on the outside and will stay that way, I'd be interested to know.


I thought I did tell you before. I like it because I love the technology. The clever way of implementing java in it (I write a lot of java-classes in assembly). I love the fun of it.
I love it for the same reason I love to run Amithlon. I love it for the same reason I'm here at Amiga.org.
Why am I interested in Amiga OS while I get much more functionality with either Windows or Linux? It is a feeling. You either like it or you don't.
Amiga-Anywhere will not be for everyone, just like AmigaOS is not for everyone or Linux is not for everone..

I used to love programming assembly on the commodore 64. I liked C-programming on the Amiga and I hated assembly-programming on X86.
And now I love programming in the AA-environment. Why? I don't know.. sometimes you just like something. Probably a matter of taste.

I'm not trying to convince you to like it and I respect the fact that you DON't like it after trying it. I don't respect people slagging it off without even actually looking at it.

Regards,

Onno
 

Offline greenboy

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Re: Opinion Article : Amiga DE a Good Idea, Poor Execution
« Reply #45 on: May 24, 2003, 03:24:07 PM »
I don't know doody about coding. But I do understand the tiered definitions of what real time is. QNX programmers in-house and third-party write code in a variety of languages including c to build real time applications. This requires expertise and an operating system that is designed for real time in the first place.

...There are some fields where non-real time OSes can be used to do jobs where true real time performance/exactitude/guarantees are not strictly needed, and especially responsive light-footprint OSes (such as MorphOS) can compete in those niches. But one thing is for certain: it isn't the language so much as it is the skill, experience, and expertise (and understanding) of the programmer that determines the best way to do this for any given project. That extends to choice of hardware as well.

QNX considered something along the lines of Tao's approach when they were in the pre-design phase of QNX6 (Neutrino) but decided that skilled OEMs etc would be better off with POSIX compliance, memory protection to meet the expanding sophistication that embedded/infopliance/industrial was beginning to demand, and a microkernel and OS services that were tailored especially for various platforms to have the potential to wring the best performance and real time guarantees they could for all of these.

For developers and OEMs this isn't quite write once read anywhere (but it is very close!). I'm convinced QNX made the right decision for its existing customers, and the many more they continue to garner.
 
 
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Offline greenboy

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Re: Opinion Article : Amiga DE a Good Idea, Poor Execution
« Reply #46 on: May 24, 2003, 03:54:56 PM »
Quote
Wayne Hunt : The problem is, as Bill McEwen admitted to me about a year ago (the last time we spoke), Tao's Intent was "not nearly anything resembling the level of completeness or usability that Tao had presented to us in the beginning".

Once Amiga Inc (then Amino) screwed the pooch bigtime with public and in-Phoenix botched non-negotation with Dan Dodge of QNX (their intended partner), they then DID NOT DO THEIR HOMEWORK when choosing Tao. Perhaps this choice was forced by hurried desperation.

OK - even at that time any relative newbie like me could go to Tao's website and see almost immediately that Tao product design wasn't going to be able to support heavy server use or multidigitalinterenvironmentaleverywheritis (ironically everybody was oohing and aahing at St Louis Gatway2000 at renderings of donut-shaped servers that the Bold New World would be served up by) - But Tao didn't even have MP! Not only that, there was no good way to design it in, nor was there any intent {;} to ever get MP, as Francis Charig unequivocally pointed out after much BS and waffling and posturing by Amiga Inc, as people pointed this slight overlooked item out on various forums!

Whether Amiga Inc knew all along and was hiding this (those of us in Phoenix surely understood the importance of it), or whether it was another B&F blunder that any newbie user with a little research could figure out in a few hours, this made Tao's product unsuitable for a great majority of the AI-STATED plans of the time.

And as we merrily traipsed along with our leaders of cummunity watching many publicly evident 180-degree changes of gameplan, you might realize that people who were not so infatuated with the potential of Tao were not all that surprised. And Phoenix lost a lot of ground during this time in Amiga circles, and QNX lost a lot of inertia for a desktop (also due to phase5 going under as well), and many Amiga-community developer potential followed the boingless pied piper with the ever-changing tune - who was always willing to tell them whatever it took to get them signed to a ridiculous first-draft license that probably never got within a parsec of a legal consultant and which was a disaster unto itself, and then later replaced in shakey manner with a wall of NDA and SDA.

Well, history makes for strange bedfellows... Microsoft?  MICROSOFT??? Hel-LO?!?! The company that everybody in Amiga Inc used to tout as the way NOT to do it, the evil enemy, the highest satan in computing??? Sheesh!

And thus history is NOT written... And so the world may deflate. Because for what was promised, Tao was not suitable. It sucked, and did not blow ; }
<-- greenboy ---<<<<
 

Offline JetRacer

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Re: Opinion Article : Amiga DE a Good Idea, Poor Execution
« Reply #47 on: May 24, 2003, 08:17:52 PM »
@bhoggett: I should have put in a few "for application programming" here and there. Sorry 'bout that. What I meant was: application programming with C/C++ has no future. Software/hardware layers was the final blow to a sinking ship.

Kernel/driver, etc. programming is a completely different matter. That's what C/C++ is really good at. Creating services and writing support for new hardware (with some asm sprinkled at the top).
*Zap! Zap!* Ha! Take that! *Kabooom!* Hey, that\'s not fair!
 

Offline Francis

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Re: Opinion Article : Amiga DE a Good Idea, Poor Execution
« Reply #48 on: May 25, 2003, 03:53:46 AM »
We will be announcing the launch of 'intent 2' in June. I can't say too much about it here as this is a public forum so please forgive me and remain patient through the next few weeks.

A few comments....

intent is a software platform targeted at resolving fundamental commercial issues faced by network operators, OEMs, ODMs, applications developers and content creators.  We have been building a series of technologies in areas such as AV, Java and various new components and tools that get announced during June. To be able to provide a solution that meets the market's expectations, we have been working on threading them together so that we have a true platform. You'll find that we've been extremely successful in achieving this. The previous ADK and SDKs weren't good enough to enhance our reputation but that should shortly change.

During the last year-and-a-half we have had strong support from the OCPA which ratified the intent core APIs as its standard last year. Membership includes Sega, Konami, Bandai, Capcom, Taito, Qualcomm, TI, Motorola, Intel, Hitachi, Sony, Fujitsu, Pioneer, Epson, Kyocera, JVC, Sharp and Toyota, and so forth. Products on the market or being developed by Philips, Sony, Kyocera and many others supporting devices (DVCs, remote controls, home servers, PVRs, phones, PDAs....) incorporating MIPS, X86, PowerPC, ARM, SH, Embedded Linux, Smartphone, Pocket PC, iTRON, Symbian, VxWorks, the native intent RTOS show the unique breadth of the product as we had promised. We're getting traction from all of the targeted markets of our business.

Comments in the thread about Java support relates to the desktop where memory constraints and other factors make those solutions inappropriate for the kind of devices we are focussed on. In our area, intent is massively outperforming the capabilities of any alternative. Consequently we have been rapidly gaining network operator support.

However, while the Java language is an important part of the platform (I cannot understand comments in this thread that indicate Java has failed or doesn't have momentum), Java cannot be the entire platform because of its many limitations and the ability to transmit to networked devices fun content written in any language including scripting languages is  important if we are to talk about truly open platforms.

I don't remember having had a single cross word with Bill McEwen since we began our Amiga relationship. We still see Amiga as an important potential contributor of content and other areas of value-add and we have made introductions of Amiga to various blue chip partners or customers of ours including some in the last few weeks. However, remember that intent has not been developed to be a replacement o/s for the desktop but nor have we ever claimed that it was. We have been entirely consistent in our aims and Tao, and we're making strong progress.

All the best
Francis Charig
 

Offline Ohno

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Re: Opinion Article : Amiga DE a Good Idea, Poor Execution
« Reply #49 on: May 25, 2003, 09:37:13 AM »
@Francis Charig

Hi there,

nice of you to drop in here. I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to intent 2. Keep up the good work.

Regards,

Onno
 

Offline The_Editor

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Re: Opinion Article : Amiga DE a Good Idea, Poor Execution
« Reply #50 on: May 25, 2003, 11:45:43 AM »
The "Tao Top Dog" enlightened us  thus:

Quote
We still see Amiga as an important potential contributor of content and other areas of value-add and we have made introductions of Amiga to various blue chip partners or customers of ours including some in the last few weeks.


Thankyou for your continued "faith" in Amiga.  Our platform has been through some seriously hard times ...

 Hopefully, With the release of Os4 imminent, Some much needed interest will be generated as well as some MUCH needed cash to help speed up DE development.
The Reluctant Pom
 

Offline CaptainFrank

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Re: Opinion Article : Amiga DE a Good Idea, Poor Execution
« Reply #51 on: May 25, 2003, 01:15:50 PM »
Hi Francis,

I know I`m probably "jumping the gun" here, but when AmigaOS4 is released, will their be an Intent/AmigaDE Player for it?


Best Regards,


Frank. (also called Francis BTW :-)
 

Offline alx

Re: Opinion Article : Amiga DE a Good Idea, Poor Execution
« Reply #52 on: May 25, 2003, 02:35:27 PM »
Quote
I know I`m probably "jumping the gun" here, but when AmigaOS4 is released, will their be an Intent/AmigaDE Player for it?


No.  IIRC the original roadmap included a DE player for OS4.2

Offline System

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Re: Opinion Article : Amiga DE a Good Idea, Poor Execution
« Reply #53 on: May 25, 2003, 02:41:44 PM »
> Btw, can you imagine Microsoft licensing the kernel from third party?

For win2000 they didn't license it, but hired people from third party ("DEC/Digital" if i remember well) to rewrite completely the former NT kernel.... so it was no "intrernal" work either
 

Offline Derfs

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Re: Opinion Article : Amiga DE a Good Idea, Poor Execution
« Reply #54 on: May 25, 2003, 03:01:41 PM »
Quote
know I`m probably "jumping the gun" here, but when AmigaOS4 is released, will their be an Intent/AmigaDE Player for it?


What has that got to do with him?

next thing people will be asking him when is AOS4 coming out or some other gem.
 

Offline Derfs

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Re: Opinion Article : Amiga DE a Good Idea, Poor Execution
« Reply #55 on: May 25, 2003, 03:07:32 PM »
@bhoggett

Quote
I have two copies of the SDK, one for Windows and one for Linux.


If you dont want the windows one i'll buy it off you for a few quid.
 

Offline System

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Re: Opinion Article : Amiga DE a Good Idea, Poor Execution
« Reply #56 on: May 25, 2003, 03:28:41 PM »
>However, I've noticed that everyone who says how cool AmigaDE is fails to come up with any real reason why it is cool or why it's better than any alternatives. Since I'm on the outside and will stay that way, I'd be interested to know.

I, personally, didn't enjoy programming like with DE since the C64 times... I'd like to have more time left from my "real" job as a programmer to get back and finish some projects started some time ago with my "party Pack"..
 

Offline Ohno

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Re: Opinion Article : Amiga DE a Good Idea, Poor Execution
« Reply #57 on: May 25, 2003, 06:28:26 PM »
@Derf

Quote
If you dont want the windows one i'll buy it off you for a few quid.


Do note that that version will be outdated. It was based on intent 1.1 I believe. We're currently working towards intent 1.3, which had a lot of changes. Programs written for the old SDK will probably not even work on 1.4.

If you want to develop for the Amiga-Anyhwere platform try and contact Gary Peake or Fleecy Moss at Amiga Inc. If you sign a NDA you might get access to an up to date release  ;-)

Regards,

Onno
 

Offline LordArthur

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Re: Opinion Article : Amiga DE a Good Idea, Poor Execution
« Reply #58 on: May 25, 2003, 06:59:39 PM »
@Greenboy

I've been on Phoenix since it started to come together long before amino bought Amiga from Gateway.  I've been lurking ever since, since my expertise wasn't in OS design, or hardware design, which was the primary topics in the beginning.  (I'm sure I'm not the only lurker).

To update your stated history, if I remember correctly, Animo got VC capitol from their associations with Tao.  Meaning, from what I understand, that is where they got the money to buy Amiga from Gateway in the first place.  Not from Tao itself, but VC partners that Tao was associated with or did introductions to or something of that effect.  Tao was probably interested in the idea of "Amiga" developers, and decided to help out.  So of course Amino/Amiga Inc. was going to go with Tao.  It had nothing to do with "picking" it, it had everything to do with how they got their initial money in the first place.  I think they even stated all this publicly online and at shows they visited years back(Amino/Amiga Inc).


And I have a question for you...What happened to phoenix?  I know I'm not privey to all the details that went on behind the scenes, which is why I'm asking.  Phoenix was all about making a new Amiga-like platform because at the time of formation, Amiga was dead because Gateway was sitting on it doing nothing.  Hence the name Phoenix.  Most people in Phoenix, including myself, ever wanted was the current OS(3.1-3.9) to be extended to a PPC native OS on a machine that was faster than the 604s(The holy grail of AmigaOS 4.0, wherever that was going to come from.  That being QNX as core, Linux as Core, even Tao as core, but what was prefered was the current core of AMIGAOS to be core, but it was said that wasn't possible in the time frame).  Phoenix internally choose QNX as that way, partially because of Collas starting the ball rolling that way, and because QNX was interested in helping out (because they wanted to and to expand thier business).   When Amino bought the rights to Amiga from Gateway, they had their presence on Phoenix too, and said, hey, how about checking out Tao.  Since the group had already been making inroads using QNX (even if only ideas), it wasn't interesting to the members of Phoenix.  I can completely understand that, Tao/Intent is no more AmigaOS than QNX was, and people were already playing with QNX, why expend resources in two directions?  Unfortunately, during this time, I can only figuire is when all the bad blood happened behind the scenes between certain founders of Phoenix and Amiga, Inc.  I can only come to that conclusion, because Phoenix didn't jump on the OS4 bandwagon when it was announced that finally, the old Amiga OS was being extended to PPC officially.  That's all most of the developers at Phoenix ever wanted, and it was happening, and instead of embracing it, someone in phoenix decided that there was too much bad blood for them, so they made deals with the opposing side.  To hell with what the original purpose of the organization was.

For business reasons, considering the bad blood that happened because Amiga didn't want to go with QNX, I can understand that road may have been closed so the only other way to go was the opposing side.  Is that what happened?  That is my question.
 

Offline Francis

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Re: Opinion Article : Amiga DE a Good Idea, Poor Execution
« Reply #59 on: May 26, 2003, 12:39:29 AM »
Quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

know I`m probably "jumping the gun" here, but when AmigaOS4 is released, will their be an Intent/AmigaDE Player for it?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

When porting intent to a specific operating system, experience has taught us that the major requirement for the port has been knowledge of the underlying platform, not of intent. Therefore, if we take AOS4, we will achieve the best results if the Amiga specialists familiar with AOS4 do the integration work. Best regards, Francis