Righto, I'll try to answer the various questions, but first I feel the need for a disclaimer:
I haven't had any personal contact with Bernie for nearly a year now, so I have no inside information whatsoever. What I've posted in this thread so far is public knowledge from the mailing list, and what follows is in most cases my interpretation and understanding. As such, it should be assumed that it may be inaccurate, in whole or in part.
@uncharted
What about Umilator or whatever it was called? I thought that was enirely Bernie's own work.
Yes, it was called Umilator. It's not necessarily accurate to say it was entirely Bernie's work as it still contained some legacy UAE code (as does Amithlon) but it did not contain any of Harald Frank's work or IP whatsoever.
IMHO it is highly unlikely the project would be revived as it was then. There is still the issue of third party licensing (some of which is resolved, perhaps all of it) and then there is the inevitable hassle that would be received by anyone involved. Bear in mind that the personal abuse and threats going around a year ago did not originate from H&P.
There is also the inevitable fact that circumstances have changed. Bernie now works full-time and he has recently moved house. It is highly unlikely he'd be able to devote the same time to such a project that he used to.
Also I'm really interested in finding out more about that Mac emulation project he showed at usergroup meeting.
I know absolutely nothing of this beyond what was made public on the websites. To refresh everyone's memory, it was an Umilator style system based on PPC architecture rather than x86. It was(is?) Bernie's intention to make this run on Macs as well as Pegasos motherboards. When ready, such a system would be released under the GPL and the user would have to install any proprietary software themselves.
My guess is that if we are ever to see any of the Umilator work released, it will be as an x86 version of the above rather than a commercial product with inclusive licenses.
It's also worth noting that H&P have made no official announcement regarding Amithlon. This is not surprising, as the contract they insisted was still in effect giving them publication rights still has 12 months to run and AFAIK there is no clause allowing them to drop their responsibility without penalty before the due date of expiration. I don't expect to see any official statement from H&P on this matter.
@T_Bone
You know, I was wondering if Amithlon could be used for 68k MacOS... Macthlon?
You mean running 68k MacOS as opposed to AmigaOS? As it stands: no, although parts of the technology could of course be reused for such a project. The JIT part is already integrated into the x86 version of BasiliskII and of course you can run Shapeshifter under the emulated Amiga on Amithlon.
@that_punk_guy
I thought the 'thlon' bit came from the fact that it runs on x86 hardware...?
It comes from the fact that it was developed on (and basically optimised for) an AMD Athlon processor. "Amithlon" was the development codename for the project and not necessarily the product name. That's why Amiga Inc talked about "AmigaOS x86" when they demoed it at the 2001 AmiWest show. However, the codename was leaked during the intensive interest that followed the show and it stuck, becoming the official name when H&P got the publication rights later.
