What hardware makes the AmigaOne different to a Mac?

[mantisspider]

Hi Guys,

Im confused at the moment about the development of the AmigaOne. I figure that all Apple computers are patented and protected so that only they can make them. But what harddware makes the AmigaOne differ from a Apple Mac?

I ask this cos the Apple have got a various line up of machines desktops n laptops, but they all run MacOS. Seeing as the AmigaOne and MacOS are PPC based operating systems, could you just install amiga OS4 on a mac? I would think so as the AmigaOne would recognise the hardware devices as they are generic AGP and PCI components and the CPU is the same but what about all the other components that make up the motherboard?

Disecting the AmigaOne and a Mac.... same components different places?

cheers guys its 4am so this probably doesnt make sense...

oh forget about all the legal issues, if a end user takes upon himself to install os4 ona mac surely its not AmigaIncs responsaiblitlyy

[that_punk_guy]

I think it's a classic case of 'A CPU does not a computer make.' I'm really not terribly clued up on this but it is a different board, and don't forget that even different Amigas needed different versions of the Amiga OS, so straight away it's obvious that it's not simply a case of sticking the install disc in the drive and hoping for the best.

It wouldn't be impossible to port it though. And Macs are such an obvious candidate for the PPC Amiga OS that it's bound to have been considered. I don't know about Apple's feelings regarding other OSs running on their Macs.

But the legal issue is there, I'm afraid. IIRC (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong anyone) it is against the license agreement of OS4 to run it on anything except licensed (ie. AmigaOne, MicroA1) boards,  and the OS is designed not to run on anything else - although it might be coaxed into doing so, either with BIOS  reflashes or cracking the OS itself, both of which probably violate the license agreement as well. Which is lame, but that's just my opinion.

It would be ace to have a "Powered by G5" AmigaOS though ;-)

[Quixote]

that_punk_guy posted:

IIRC (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong anyone) it is against the license agreement of OS4 to run it on anything except licensed (ie. AmigaOne, MicroA1) boards,  and the OS is designed not to run on anything else - although it might be coaxed into doing so, either with BIOS  reflashes or cracking the OS itself, both of which probably violate the license agreement as well.

;-) I agree that running AmigaOS on Mac hardware would be cool.  I have a G3 Powerbook and I can think of no OS I'd rather run on it.  However, you're correct that AmigaOS4.x will not run without specific code being included on the hardware.  At least, that's the way I remember it.

As well as the piracy issue, the main concern seems to be quality control; to support a small number of parts well instead of a large number of parts poorly, as Microsoft does.

[mantisspider]

so unless the amigaOS looks for something specific on the BIOS then it should be cool. even then as u say flashing the bios would solve that too. its the hows that matter. :-D without the os to play with its just speculation however runing OS4 on a laptop would be cool.

[CodeSmith]

It's not quite that simple.  The hardware on a Mac is different from that on an AmigaOne (the northbridge chips, responsible for managing memory and the buses, are different and probably incompatible, so all the hardware registers will be in different places in memory), so you'd need to write an entire Mac HAL (hardware abstraction layer) for OS4 in order to make it work.  This is no longer a crack job, we're talking weeks of hard work, and the reward would probably be getting sued by Apple (they want to sell MacOS too, not just Macs)

Something similar was argued wrt the Pegasos 1 - that's different, because the Pegasos 1 is very similar to the AmigaOne, so it should be a great deal easier to do (both have the Articia S northbridge and VIA southbridges, which are largely compatible with each other).  The pegasos 2, however, is again very different from the AmigaOne (has a Marvell northbridge), so you're back to needing a new HAL.

[Kronos]

@Codesmith

Sued by Apple ? For what ?

HW is HW is HW, and in the case of modern Macs it is documented good
enough (real docu and opensource stuff like Darwin and Linux) to get any
PPC-OS to run on it within reasonable time. You may have some problems
with the very latest models, or with the more obscure features, but the OS
would still run.

The only thing that Apple may do is what they did when they feared that
MacOS was loosing out against BeOS, close their HW and starve the competition
to death. But that shouldn't be a problem since OS4 would still have it's "own"
HW, and honestly I don't think anybody would expect OS4 to be a threat for Apple
within the next years.

Piracy could be fought with a USB-dongle, just as effective (if not more) than
bastarized BIOS  ;-)

But .....
This would make it impossible to hide OS- and licence-costs within the HW
and the price tag for the OS may turn out to be rather high when all that is to be
payed with it.

It is also questionable wether the total number of people prepared to buy OS4
in any form within the next 2 years would justify support for more than 1 piece
of HW (+CSPPC and maybe BPPC).

This is offcourse a small chicken&egg problem as the HW that is to be expected from
MAI/Eyetech within that time won't be able to raisea wave of *WOW* outside this
community.......

[CodeSmith]

@Kronos:

The ones writing the HAL could be sued by Apple under the DMCA for reverse-engineering, since Apple does not release that information.  Since the DMCA is a federal law, it's got a pretty stiff penalty.  I wouldn't want to be the one in court with *that* hanging over my head.

About the "bastardized BIOS": since the rom is now flashable (and has been for a while), it is no longer the source of the "pirate protection".  I've heard it said that the protection is still there, just somewhere else on the motherboard.  I couldn't tell you where, though, I'm not part of the group "in the know".  Therefore the protection is now a lot like a USB dongle, only it doesn't take up a USB slot.  Best of both worlds, IMHO: Hyperion gets protection vs pirates, I get to do what I want with the board.

Alan has already said that his main customer is not the Amiga community, but industrial systems and kiosks.  Those guys are a lot more impressed by low power consumption and low heat output than by Intel and GHz.  Look at Bill Buck, he's also got bigger fish to fry with his Marvell-based solution: set-top boxes, where again GHz is unimportant.  Until there's a whole lot more Amigans, we're going to have to settle for this sort of sharing.

I think we'll both be surprised by the number of AmigaOS4 users by this time next year... remember, Alan was pitching the use of AmigaOS to the Chinese in his last visit, instead of Linux.

[Kronos]

@Codesmith
DMCA is an US-law, and Hyperion a belgian company .....

But  ...

There is no need for reverse-engeneering as Apple themself released that
info to the public (with the Darwin-sources).

"industrial systems" does spell Linux, and would contradict statements that
the "feature" ain't no bug cos linux isn't the target, but putting that aside, it would
still be very hard for Eyetech to get a foothold in that market without a global
player backing them, and with the reputation that MAI have earned themselv
in that market. It's also rather questionable why they would go with Eyetech
instead of directly contacting MAI.

We also have to wait wether a ITX-A1-G3 will fair good against VIA's next generation
of C3s (which will be much cheaper and are just as cool), or a G4 against a board with a mobile Pentium (again cheaper and about as cool).

Kiosk can mean a lot of things, but I would guess at info-terminals in supermarekets
and suchlike. No lets say that Walmart would order 2 of these for every one of their
shops. Would be something like 2-5000 boards, still far to little to mean a descent
income for Eyetech,AInc,Hyperion and MAI.

China:
That must have been the most hillarious plan in Amiga-history (sorry).

Now, why are the Chinese so eager tpo drop Windows ?
Cos it does cost so much, and is controlled by a foreign company.
How dos AOS fit into that equation ?
My guess is that they will take a linux kernel (x86), and built their own closed-source
OS ontop of it, securing the goverment complete control over every PC in the
country.

Genesi's plan is a bit different:
1) Sell Pegasos2 in low quantities (<10000) as small servers and to special-interest
groups (like us, or "we hate x86"-Linux/BeOS/BSD-freaks).
Would be enough to recoup Genesi's R&D-costs, but offcourse not Marvell. But that
isn't neccesary as Genesi are not Marvell's only costumer  ;-)

2) Sell costum HW with costum SW for costum needs.
(what follows is what I gathered in rumours bout the STB-deal).
A pay-TV-company wants to sell their programms in a country that we would consider
part of the "2nd world", a country where people do have enough money to buy a
real good TV set (or just want it sooooo bad), but not enough to put a PC and/or a
modern game-console next to it.
Now, this company would offcourse fear someone cracking their code, and thats
why they want it to only run on non-standard-HW, and offcourse it also has to be
closed source.

Add to that that mass-producing of a board built around an embeeded PPC
(403 if I'm not mistaken) may actuall be cheaper than doing the same with a x86.

I don't have much trust in any of both side ever being more than a footnote in the
history of computing, but I do see much more resources (and resources spend
wisely) n the blue side than I see on the red, which still seems to think having the
"name" means guaranteed market-success.

[Corrie]

I have read the specs of the AmigaOne and really it doesn't excite me that much. To me it simply looks like a PC with the potential to run the AOS4.

I am aware of money restrictions and so forth but I would have prefered the Amiga to make it's own hardware that was unlike anything else on the market, for example, a design of Zorro 4 slots to run Amiga only peripherals.

Maybe I am dreaming a little, but thats why I got an Amiga in the first place, it was so different from all other systems on the market. I am simply not interested in using PC PCI peripherals in an Amiga. It defeats the purpose of having an Amiga in the first place, I might aswell use a pc.

Just a thought...

[Van_M]

I am aware of money restrictions and so forth but I would have prefered the Amiga to make it's own hardware that was unlike anything else on the market, for example, a design of Zorro 4 slots to run Amiga only peripherals.

To achieve what? Having a custom interface that will probably run expensive add-on cards at much lower speeds than the competition (PCI, PCI-X, PCI-express)? This sounds like "I want to be different just for the sake of it!". The days of the 80's have passed for good. What chances does a company have to penetrate the market if the supporting hardware is:
1) Custom built
2) Expensive
3) From companies that don't have the financial resources to offer serious support (cyberstormPPC anyone?).

[ajk]

@Corrie

It is nothing but stupid to have "custom" hardware if there are no benefits.

The reason Amigas had custom hardware in the first place was that there were no good off the shelf parts available, now there are. Besides an ATI chip for example is nothing but custom hardware, specifically designed to offer good graphics performance. It's just on a standard AGP board so it can be connected to many different motherboards.

Many Classic Amiga users now have upgraded to using PCI slots anyway, so the AGA or whatever there originally was isn't used any longer.

[vortexau]

Corrie wrote:
I have read the specs of the AmigaOne and really it doesn't excite me that much. To me it simply looks like a PC with the potential to run the AOS4.

I am aware of money restrictions and so forth but I would have prefered the Amiga to make it's own hardware that was unlike anything else on the market, for example, a design of Zorro 4 slots to run Amiga only peripherals.

Well, unlike YOU I'm not made of money!  I like the fact that my A1XEG4 system is $2000AUD cheaper than an A4000 (1992/3), and $3000AUD cheaper than an A3000 (1990).

Not to ignor the fact that the motherboard itself is cheaper than GVP's 1991/2 GForce 030/40/4 Accellerators for the A2000.

Folk will add PCI-boards to these A3k/4k models just to avoid paying the prices for ZorroIII Cards.

Maybe I am dreaming a little, but thats why I got an Amiga in the first place, it was so different from all other systems on the market. I am simply not interested in using PC PCI peripherals in an Amiga. It defeats the purpose of having an Amiga in the first place, I might aswell use a pc.

Just a thought...

Dreaming was okay in the '80s - now, we have to be practical.  Today's AGP Graphic cards outclass, and are more affordable, than ANY ZorroII/III Graphic card ever made!  Even the CBM engineers realized that the existance of PCI made further Zorro-development unrealistic.

You are welcome to "use a pc" but that would limit you to UAE and AmithLon!

[Seehund]

@mantisspider

The difference between a Teron and a Mac? From an AmigaOS technical view, you could actually say they're the same thing: they're both hardware, and they both need AmigaOS drivers written for them to have AmigaOS run on them.
It's the same basic architecture, but different chipsets and components. (Plus that the Macs have entered the 21st century with DDR-SDRAM and whatnot)

Kronos is spot on.

Just like with Terons/"AmigaOnes", or whatever purely hypothetical "Amiga licensed" hardware that might appear in the future, AmigaOS drivers need to be written. Those don't "just appear" any easier just because some vendor decided to sell some units to a restricted "Amiga" market.

Macs are of course an (or THE) obvious target platform for a desktop/home user PPC operating system without any hardware "of its own", like AmigaOS4+. The sales of one single Mac/PowerBook model/configuration exceeds the total number of all Terons (as well as Pegasoses, for those who want to flame from a "campist" perspective) sold by several orders of magnitude. The hardware is already in use out there, in vast numbers when compared to what's "Amiga licensed". There's a healthy second hand market. You can buy the hardware practically anywhere. On a dirt cheap G3 PowerMac/Book without the raw power to run MacOSX quickly enough, I'd prefer AmigaOS4 any day over Linux with GNOME2/KDE3.

These days Mac hardware is for all practical purposes not any more "closed" than your everyday x86 motherboard. With Apple's own open-source Darwin + drivers, not to mention the Mac/PPC branches of Linux, *BSD and OpenDarwin, we're talking more about "porting" than "reverse engineering".

Someone mentioned that Apple would have something against AmigaOS running on their hardware. Of course they wouldn't. They'd get to sell some more Macs, and each new Mac comes with MacOS anyway. Apple would of course have everything against buying a license from AInc to sell Macs with dongled firmware as "Amigas" bundled with AmigaOS and enduser support, but that harebrained policy of AInc's simply must be reconsidered. Hopefully AInc will one day remember that there no longer is any "Amiga hardware", that they don't design or specify hardware, and that they can't make sales of their own software product (AmigaOS) dependent on fantasies about control over another market that's entirely independent from AInc, namely the hardware market.

Someone mentioned the DMCA. It's not applicable to writing drivers for Mac hardware, even if reverse engineering actually would be involved. No copyright protection mechanisms would be circumvented. Besides, the DMCA is an American law.

Anyway, regardless of what happens with AInc's "let's pretend there's a need for Amiga hardware" policy, we won't see AmigaOS for any Mac in version 4.0. If nothing changes with regards to said policy, we'll never see AmigaOS for Macs, or any hardware other than what Eyetech might find for that matter.

[Seehund]

vortexau wrote:

Well, unlike YOU I'm not made of money!  I like the fact that my A1XEG4 system is $2000AUD cheaper than an A4000 (1992/3), and $3000AUD cheaper than an A3000 (1990).

Not to ignor the fact that the motherboard itself is cheaper than GVP's 1991/2 GForce 030/40/4 Accellerators for the A2000.

Not that comparing the prices of Amigas to modern hardware makes all that more sense than to show that computers have gotten cheaper over the decades...

But yeah, going "custom" on us would be nuts, given the budgets and engineering resources of the companies we're talking about. The hardware is out there. Make the software run on it and sell it, and let the hardware companies do what they do best; design and sell hardware.

[/quote]
Dreaming was okay in the '80s - now, we have to be practical.  Today's AGP Graphic cards outclass, and are more affordable, than ANY ZorroII/III Graphic card ever made![/quote]

Heh, I wouldn't be surprised if a single Radeon 9800XT outclasses all Zorro graphics cards ever made put together, and it's cheaper as well!

Imagine a Beowulf cluster of Picasso IVs!

[carls]

But what about a further development of MacOnLinux for A1/Pegasos? MOL is said to work on them IIRC.