Interview with Trevor Dickinson

[Terminills]

When that part of AROS is bug free, we will see a neat step forward in Amiga like OS development. Which is why I didn't totally discount AROS. But the current releases are way too buggy.

I have one PC with an Nvidia 7600GT video card that I have Multiple variants of AROS on.

But I use an Apple with MorphOS on it because it is stable.

And I have multiple PCs with various versions of Windows because there is software I just can't get in the Amiga community.

Right now, with OpenGL support, both AROS and MorphOS seem to offer superior 2d and 3d functions (compared to AOS3.x and AOS4.x).

But, since GPU manufactures are very tight lipped about there architectures, we have a long way to go to match Windows graphics power (which, btw, so does OSX).

I wouldn't say it's bug free but it is very stable on my box. :-D

[ffastback]

Are you trolling?

Nope, not my intention.  But you are the mod here.  Perhaps this is an issue of semantics.  I see what appears to me to be regular use of proxies there and changing nicks over quite a long period of time.  And my comment related to asking if Trevor deserves such talk for his venture (the insinuations of shady-ness on the part of the company).  If you think my perception of "many" is off thats your prerogative.

[recidivist]

Lots of wealthy people spend more than $200,000 on their  hobbies or in pursuit of personal pleasures.If a dozen more wealthy people underwrote Amiga product or software development out of nostalgia I would cheer them.If it gives Trevor pleasure to share his Amiga hobby with others then more power to him;no one is being FORCED to buy an X-1000.If you  don't want X-1000 simply buy the  best SAM available for the best Amiga)S experience available now.

Amiga is not,and NEVER has been a mainstream computer OS.It was at best an excellent niche OS for the video field for a decade  because of  the special chipset   before the government mandated switch to digital TV.Amigas were number three ,well behind Windows and Macs,and Amigas were doomed by managers who took excessive salaries and had no "love for Amiga".Amigas were also an excellent game machine that Commodore failed to keep developing.

Amiga OS has already been ported to x86;it is called Amithlon.Too bad the developers and IP owner(s) apparently  refuse to allow Amithlon sales and further development.
 Which I believe is a reason IP laws need reformation because  using the laws to prohibit widespread use of an idea just because the originator doesn't want it used is ridiculous.The laws of patent and copyrights were supposed to ensure others didn't make profits at the expense of the inventor or writer not to ensure ideas and inventions stayed buried.

[persia]

Again I don't follow.  Amiga is an OS.  Windows is an OS.  Mac OSX is an OS.  Linux is an OS.    You are saying if we pay $800 - $2000 for a piece of hardware OS4 is no longer is an OS?   If we only run on old Macs MorphOS is no longer an OS?

He's saying it's not a competitor, that's true.  Is that so bad that it isn't in competition?  A competition it has no chance of winning?  Niche players don't compete, they simply exist for the sake of the niche they fill.  Far better to accept this than to true to go after the millions of people who are not and never have been waiting...

[AmigaHeretic]

He's saying it's not a competitor, that's true.  Is that so bad that it isn't in competition?  A competition it has no chance of winning?  Niche players don't compete, they simply exist for the sake of the niche they fill.  Far better to accept this than to true to go after the millions of people who are not and never have been waiting...

Maybe I misunderstood.  It sounded like he was saying if OS4 all of a sudden ran on x86 it is then a competitor with all those other OSes.  

My point was PPC or x86 makes no difference in competition with other OSes or not.  In my eyes none of the Amiga camps compete with Linux, Mac, Win.  I think most of us run one or more those as well.  AmigaOS is just for fun on the side.  

If we are not competing on PPC we are not going to be competing on x86.

In the best of times we had a couple million users.  That wouldn't be blip on the OS radar these days.  

Though having even 10,000+ users would give us more to talk about.

[AmigaHeretic]

Lots of wealthy people spend more than $200,000 on their  hobbies or in pursuit of personal pleasures.If a dozen more wealthy people underwrote Amiga product or software development out of nostalgia I would cheer them.If it gives Trevor pleasure to share his Amiga hobby with others then more power to him;no one is being FORCED to buy an X-1000.If you  don't want X-1000 simply buy the  best SAM available for the best Amiga)S experience available now.

I think the issue is not what Trevor spends his money on, but the limited resources of the OS4 team.  People that currently use it or want to use may not think it is the wisest thing to bend to the whim of a guy throwing money around when all Hyperion gets in the end for a years+ work is 50 sold copies of OS4.

This has been one of the main arguments against x86 by Hyperion and others.  Not enough resources.  If they port to x86 many repeatedly argued that the other versions will get neglected and features will not be added during the time they are working on the port.  Namely because there are so little resources.

Yet, here we have them using those limited resources to port to something that has 0 future and 50+ sales?  Don't you see the irony in those two things?

[ffastback]

I think the issue is not what Trevor spends his money on, but the limited resources of the OS4 team.  People that currently use it or want to use may not think it is the wisest thing to bend to the whim of a guy throwing money around when all Hyperion gets in the end for a years+ work is 50 sold copies of OS4.

This has been one of the main arguments against x86 by Hyperion and others.  Not enough resources.  If they port to x86 many repeatedly argued that the other versions will get neglected and features will not be added during the time they are working on the port.  Namely because there are so little resources.

Yet, here we have them using those limited resources to port to something that has 0 future and 50+ sales?  Don't you see the irony in those two things?

I seriously doubt Hyperion is "bending to the whim" of Trevor.  And Hyperion has said they believe in PPC, its not just that they think x86 conversion is "too much work" as it were.  For those reasons I suspect Hyperion was thrilled that Trevor came along.

Let me ask you this, your strategies to convince Hyperion otherwise have all failed.  Do you have any new ideas to get them to make the switch?  My bet is that even if X-1000 flops they will just keep along with SAM.  Perhaps they will break down eventually and support PPC Macs like MorphOS.

[runequester]

I think the issue is not what Trevor spends his money on, but the limited resources of the OS4 team.  People that currently use it or want to use may not think it is the wisest thing to bend to the whim of a guy throwing money around when all Hyperion gets in the end for a years+ work is 50 sold copies of OS4.

This has been one of the main arguments against x86 by Hyperion and others.  Not enough resources.  If they port to x86 many repeatedly argued that the other versions will get neglected and features will not be added during the time they are working on the port.  Namely because there are so little resources.

Yet, here we have them using those limited resources to port to something that has 0 future and 50+ sales?  Don't you see the irony in those two things?

Did every SAM machine vanish overnight while I wasn't looking?

[the_leander]

Did every SAM machine vanish overnight while I wasn't looking?

Did PPC become viable for the desktop again whilst I wasn't?

[runequester]

Did PPC become viable for the desktop again whilst I wasn't?

By what definition of viable ?
We already have an amiga OS for x86.

[ffastback]

Did PPC become viable for the desktop again whilst I wasn't?

The point is the X-1000 is not the stumbling block to have Hyperion go x86.  SAM was there before, is still there, and has a new model on the way even.  And even if SAM goes they could always go PPC Mac.  Hyperion is a business that has decided an odd path.  And they have told people not to hold their breath on them ever changing their mind on this x86 desire.

[koaftder]

And Hyperion has said they believe in PPC, its not just that they think x86 conversion is "too much work" as it were.  For those reasons I suspect Hyperion was thrilled that Trevor came along.

Where do you get this crap from? Rouge quite frankly said, on AWN, that he thought AOS 4 on IA32 was a good idea and the only reason it's not under consideration is because they simply don't have the resources to do it. They don't "believe" in PPC, they tied to like a ball and chain.

[ffastback]

Where do you get this crap from? Rouge quite frankly said, on AWN, that he thought AOS 4 on IA32 was a good idea and the only reason it's not under consideration is because they simply don't have the resources to do it.

The user "HyperionMP" at AW.net.

Just a 2 sec search and there was this one (from one year ago):

"we have taken a look at the PowerPC roadmap and there is plenty of life in it including 8 core designs under 30 W.

One of the main benefits of Amiga OS 4.1 is the fact that the geared entirely towards the PowerPC architecture as one of the very few operating systems around. Linux runs fine on PPC but it certainly is not optimised for this architecture in any way."

I'm not saying they hate x86.  I am saying its not just that they are considering the effort to go x86 when sticking with PPC but also that they clearly still believe in PPC.

[koaftder]

The user "HyperionMP" at AW.net.

Just a 2 sec search and there was this one (from one year ago):

"we have taken a look at the PowerPC roadmap and there is plenty of life in it including 8 core designs under 30 W.

One of the main benefits of Amiga OS 4.1 is the fact that the geared entirely towards the PowerPC architecture as one of the very few operating systems around. Linux runs fine on PPC but it certainly is not optimised for this architecture in any way."

I'm not saying they hate x86.  I am saying its not just that they are considering the effort to go x86 when sticking with PPC but also that they clearly still believe in PPC.

That's some selective quoting there.

What the post said was that they a) don't have the resources b) they've spent too much money on ppc c) they're afraid that if they ported to x86 folks would just steal it.

In addition to that, and the issue has been discussed to death already, a move to x86 would be prohibitively costly. So far OS 4.x has cost well over 2 M euro to develop. That's 2.75 million USD. A move to x86 would halt all existing OS 4 development (i.e. complete feature freeze) and subsequently nearly all development time would be spent on dealing with the wide variety of x86 based hardware. In essence, Amiga OS 4.x development would grind to a complete halt and all this on the fairly far-fetched notion that tens of thousands of existing x86 owners would be willing to pay for a copy of OS 4.1 rather than just downloading a copy somewhere. No thank you, we have taken a look at the PowerPC roadmap and there is plenty of life in it including 8 core designs under 30 W. One of the main benefits of Amiga OS 4.1 is the fact that the geared entirely towards the PowerPC architecture as one of the very few operating systems around. Linux runs fine on PPC but it certainly is not optimised for this architecture in any way.

The later parts are just excuses to make it look like there's a future in PPC for the platform because obviously they're not going to flat out admit they're  running up against a wall. If they actually had the resources to port to IA32/AMD 64 and continue supporting the existing users, they'd do it in a heart beat.

[the_leander]

By what definition of viable ?

Hmm lets see:

Does PPC offer any roadmap by any current manufacturer for a general purpose PPC ISA processor that is even remotely competitive with even mid range x86?

No. Everything is being aimed at specialist markets - either high performance highly specialised stuff like Cell and Xenon for consoles, or SoC's based on the 603/604 that have been married up to any number of weird and wonderful kit.

The PA6T is currently the fastest PPC available, costs £450 (according to TD) and can barely compete with dual core x86 cpus that cost a tenth of that. Oh and there is nothing on the horizon that'll be coming out to top it due to lack of demand in the markets that PPC still exist in.

We already have an amiga OS for x86.

I'd be a bit careful saying that too loudly or too often

The user "HyperionMP" at AW.net.

Just a 2 sec search and there was this one (from one year ago):

"we have taken a look at the PowerPC roadmap and there is plenty of life in it including 8 core designs under 30 W.

First off: Citation needed. Both for where this claim came from and the claim itself.

HyperionMP, aka Ben Hermans, not exactly a tech guy or known for his honesty.

You will not find any such chip currently on any manufacturers books. I doubt very much any such chip existed even on tape. The PA6T offered the theoretical option of tying (IIRC) 4 or 6, but no one has ever, or will ever produce such a chip. PA Semi currently only work on ARM for Apple.

But even if by some miracle Ben was actually telling the truth. An 8 core chip just means 7 cores of wasted wafer as far as OS4 goes.

One of the main benefits of Amiga OS 4.1 is the fact that the geared entirely towards the PowerPC architecture as one of the very few operating systems around. Linux runs fine on PPC but it certainly is not optimised for this architecture in any way."[/I]

OS4.x is coded in C. C is portable. And being geared entirely toward a dead end arch is in no way a benefit.

I'm not saying they hate x86.  I am saying its not just that they are considering the effort to go x86 when sticking with PPC but also that they clearly still believe in PPC.

Some people believed Tony Blair and George Bush were smart, honest decent people too. Delusion is kinda cute like that.

[the_leander]

Rouge

:lol: