Ben Hermans still staunchly against x86

[rebraist]

yes. aos for arm. and will there be an aos4 for z80 too?

[the_leander]

x86 would stop all OS4 projects for years and not income in that time.

OS4 has never really produced much income period.

 It would only make costs, not any profit. And who wants to wait another 3-5 years in this situation? when we have more hardware that ever, after commodore

Because the options that are available today are unpalatable?

It is possible to make cheap PPC hardware, look at efica, to adding to it memory slot or two would make it perfect cheap solution for as.

PPC is expensive. Hideously so and getting worse all the time. The reason for the Efica's low cost was due wholly to the fact that it was so limited in terms of hardware (which is why it was so heavily panned). The moment you try to throw expandability into the mix, suddenly you're up at Sam 440 prices again.

I allso remember interview of BeOs developer who blamed that x86 actually killed BeOs

They may well have said it. It doesn't make it true however. The one and only thing that killed BeOS, was Microsoft putting pressure on OEMs to block the OS being sold.

The reason they dumped PPC was because it was hugely expensive to develop (in terms of hardware development) and not particularly fast even when done right...

[rebraist]

If hyperion did succeed in porting os4 to x86, the real problem would be another:
Who does say to all users who were forced to buy very expensive ppc machines to run os4 that their expensive ppc machines become useless and that os4 will work good, if not better, on the new architecture?
In amiga world there's no steve jobs (DEO GRATIAS)...

ii problem: what about acube and aeon?
if this to acube (aeon) is an hobby, passing to x86 could be no problem because it should be the same to sell x86 hw or ppc one.
if this to acube (aeon) is a matter of life and death it could be a problem. but it means too that an entire company live with the earning that about 1000 customers give them. the same earning in x86 world you can hardly make with 10000 customers. x86 is an open market with its benefits but with its laws and if aos4 would be ported to x86 (let's say for 2 or 3 chipset following apple example) why can't i buy an "amiga clone"? surely it will be a benefit for sw house but not for hw producers and hw customers.

[Iggy]

I think you guys are missing a vital point.
If AOS4 was ported to X86 processors, do you really think they'd sell a lot more copies? Or would most PC users still continue to use Windows, OSX, and maybe Linux?
Who would they sell it to? Us, the fanatics willing to still support this market (and there really aren't many of us).

Why are we constantly rehashing our personal opinions on platforms when we already have variants covering every major processor type except ARM?

And I'm baffled at the X1000 bashing. If you don't like the high price (which again folks is primarily caused by the low volume limited market) and you want an X86 machine support AROS. Yes the X1000 is overpriced, but I'm know the designer and Treavor hired to only company I'm aware of that could have built a machine to this spec. It may be the last major PPC system introduced, and yes its definately a vanity machine because its spec are damned nice.
Further if PPCs are dead, why are Appliedv Micro and Freescale still introducing new models?

Again, no matter what your prejudice, there's an Amiga related system available (or about to be introduced) that will suit you.
Totally into pain? Stick with legacy hardware. Its still out there (even NOS systems) and there's still software and hardware being developed for it. And if you're patient (and have a lot of faith) you can wait for the Natami.
Those of us who have gotten over the whole "Amiga" name things and just want to continue to evolve are using MorphOS (and we welcome Hyperion to the PPC table because virtually any software created for AOS4 is likely to be ported to MOS).

And again, want to use only one core of your X86 machine and tout a 3d graphics system that's still pretty buggy? Use AROS, because they will keep improving it.

I've said this before on this forum, but it bears repeating, the diversity of our hardware is not a negative thing its a positive.If you want an Amiga like OS on a specific platform, all you have to do is switch which variant your using.

Stop trying to tell me my choice is wrong. After all, we're all a liittle crazy for continuing to support the development of this stuff this long (when all the major players in the game trashed the reputation of our market with BS and broken promises).

[actung_bab]

Well if you were an Amiga user back in the day,you may just get why some of us DO NOT WANT x86!

But don`t worry there`s always CommodoreUSA for ya,go knock yourself out with that junk.

well said

[Tomas]

If they were secretly planning an x86 port and still allowing x1000 development to proceed, I'd be terrified to work with them in the future.

My point was only that we dont know what is going on behind the scenes.
I have no idea about their real opinions about a x86 port. Personally i highly doubt they will release it anytime soon due to the x1000, but who knows what they have planned for the future. Even if they do have such plans for future then i doubt they would reveal it now as it would hurt X1000/acube.

[the_leander]

I think you guys are missing a vital point.
If AOS4 was ported to X86 processors, do you really think they'd sell a lot more copies? Or would most PC users still continue to use Windows, OSX, and maybe Linux?
Who would they sell it to? Us, the fanatics willing to still support this market (and there really aren't many of us).

I stick by what I said here.

However, if you somehow managed to get the cash and manpower necessary together to do a port, there is a market for alternate OS's. But you would have to limit your hardware choices to something like Mini-ITX if you wanted to avoid the hardware support nightmare that BeOS/Zeta had.

As for how many copies you'd sell, honestly you would have to work damned hard to sell fewer copies than they are currently.

Cost of entry counts for a lot.

Further if PPCs are dead, why are Appliedv Micro and Freescale still introducing new models?

PPC's for the desktop are dead. What's being developed now is primarily for the embedded/telecoms sectors, with of course, the handful of models for the games console market.

I've said this before on this forum, but it bears repeating, the diversity of our hardware is not a negative thing its a positive.If you want an Amiga like OS on a specific platform, all you have to do is switch which variant your using.

Yes and no. Having choice is good, but the division of labour that was required to produce that choice isn't so much.

The only really important thing though is this: To enjoy what you have

[haywirepc]

It would not cost much to get os4 running on any x86 computer.
There are some open source ppc emulators...
They could build something fairly easily to run their current binarys on x86 if they wanted to. They don't, and god knows why.
 
Even if you did port all of os4 to x86 it would not take many years as people have said. 1 person could probably port the whole thing in under a year if he was a competent os development guy.
 
By whole thing I mean the core os, and essential support programs Not
regular apps. Once the os is ported, let others port specific apps.
 
Os4 will die a slow painful death I think. Maybe some day when it gets hopeless enough they will open source it and let someone else
port it to real hardware.
 
Steven

[minator]

They may well have said it. It doesn't make it true however. The one and only thing that killed BeOS, was Microsoft putting pressure on OEMs to block the OS being sold.

Glad someone agrees with me on that.

The reason they dumped PPC was because it was hugely expensive to develop (in terms of hardware development) and not particularly fast even when done right...

AFAIK the reason they dumped PPC was they had no machines to develop for.  They had been targeting Mac clones but as soon as they were cancelled they had no choice but to switch to x86.

[Iggy]

Its funny Alan, I find myself agreeing with you on far to many points.

I like using what I'm using and have been assured that we're sticking with this direction for the time being. But even MorphOS could one day end up on X86 machines. I mean where will we go when the PPC hardware drys up?

Right now, your point on limiting hardware support is extremely correct. There's just too much hardware to consider writing drivers for all X86 related devices. That's why packaged AROS systems make sense (and of course those of us who want to build it ourserlves would just have to focus on similar components).

And if AOS4 goes X86, maybe we can get a firesale price on X1000s (which even though Piru is amidantly against it, I'd love to see a port of MOS for it).

And the basic point of this discussion is economics. Acube's boards are not only high priced but they use some really slow Applied Micro processors. The X1000's even higher priced and is based on a processor that has no future (its funny that when I e-mailed the board's designer over a half a year ago he stated that instead of designing around PA Semi's processors he'd lean toward Frescale's communications oriented PPCs).

Since I can build an AROS machine for only slightly more than I've spent on my Powermac,  the current pricing of AOS4 hardware is hard to defend. Especially when my sub $100 Powermac walks all over Acube's boards (and while used itsa complete computer not just a motherboard).

How can Amigans be expected to pony up $1000 to $2000 when I can assemble a competent X86 system for about $500?

Being one of the people hanging on to PPC based systems, I love a new vanity based too cool for words piece of hardware. I just can't wrap my mind around the pricing.

[haywirepc]

I don't think anyone minds paying for exotic hardware when it actually does things other hardware won't. I have a friend who built a 4 quad cpu
pc (16 cores total) just because he could, and also because he does 3d rendering and other processor intensive tasks.
 
4 quad core processors and motherboard, case, ps, keyboard, mouse, sound and video cards, all cost him less than this x1000 joke.
 
The problem I see is that they are charging ridiculous prices for a processor that any 500$ cheapo pc can absolutely run rings around.
 
For 2000-3000$, I can build a 16 core x86 beast that would absolutely
smoke anything the x1000 can do. Kinda hard to decide instead, I'm
going to buy a 2ghz ppc with amiga os, oh and only one core will
be useable by my os... ? They are joking right?
 
Steven

[ferrellsl]

I don't think anyone minds paying for exotic hardware when it actually does things other hardware won't. I have a friend who built a 4 quad cpu
pc (16 cores total) just because he could, and also because he does 3d rendering and other processor intensive tasks.
 
4 quad core processors and motherboard, case, ps, keyboard, mouse, sound and video cards, all cost him less than this x1000 joke.
 
The problem I see is that they are charging ridiculous prices for a processor that any 500$ cheapo pc can absolutely run rings around.
 
For 2000-3000$, I can build a 16 core x86 beast that would absolutely
smoke anything the x1000 can do. Kinda hard to decide instead, I'm
going to buy a 2ghz ppc with amiga os, oh and only one core will
be useable by my os... ? They are joking right?
 
Steven

Well, that's supposing that the X1000 even sees the light of day.  I very much doubt it will ever make it to market.  Trevor has already missed the summer deadline for release and since he didn't have anything new to show at AmiWest it's doubtful that he'll meet his next deadline.  It's beginning to parallel the last Amiga hardware fiasco courtesy of ACK Software Controls and Adam Kowalczyk.

The specs of the X1000 sound amazingly similar to what Adam was cooking up back in 2007.  See here for more info:  http://www.osnews.com/story/17866

[SamuraiCrow]

As stated at AmiWest 2010, they still have no interest in x86.

As a platform, I'd rather be stuck on the FPGAs than to have to support all the hardware that exists for x86 commodity PCs.  The best option, however, is still "all of the above" if you can get drivers for it.

A large portion of the advances of AROS are from the Gallium drivers for NVidia graphics cards.  The Radeon drivers all require LLVM and will follow when I get LLVM ported to AROS.  (I've already taken the bounty.)

I think LLVM will make a much more palatable target than any one processor architecture will by itself, especially since almost all AROS software is written in C.

The AmigaOS 4.x may take a similar turn since the XMOS toolchain is based on LLVM also.  Hyperion has also deprecated PPC Assembly language on OS 4 in favor of C and C++.  It's just a matter of time until everybody makes the switch to LLVM and Clang.  (Clang has a much more liberal license than GCC, after all.)

[Iggy]

No, unlike ACK this hardware has been seen and it was designed by a company with a good track record that delivers what it promises.
It bugs me that you guys doubt that, I enchanged e-mails with the Xena's designer months before his company was revealed as the source of the design.
Blame Hyperion. This board requires a lot of new drivers and they just don't have the development resources to get this port out quickly.

I'm still amuzed that some of you disparage MorphOS when they have numerous developers working on their OS. What does Hyperion have? Two?

Hey, maybe if Treavor had sent a populated motherboard to the MOS team (instead of a bare one) he would have an OS by now (then again, maybe not, MOS developers won't release products until they're throughly debug and work right).

Don't worry, you'll see X1000s eventual (although I'd bet the OS won't be perfect out the door). And I'm still willing to bet that there will be a few fanatics with money burning holes in their pockets that will buy them.

I'll keep looking for a G5 Powermac, maybe buy n AROS system, and bank the other $1000.

[Heiroglyph]

I'm not sure how supporting every x86 device is considered a problem when we've been scrounging up PCI Voodoo3's and 5v ATI cards on ebay for years and thought it was just grand.

If we had support for just one or two current pieces of hardware we'd be ecstatic.

[Everblue]

First of all, I wished I could get my hands on an Amiga OS4.1 machine but for the following reasons I went for Morphos instead:

1. I got a Powermac G4 for free (these can be found for cheap anyway)
2. It is way more powerful than any Amiga OS4.1 capable machine I can buy
3. It did not make any sense for me to pay nearly 1000 Euro to be able to run Amiga OS4.1 when MorphOS does the job just as well (if not even better).

Sure, you may argue that MorphOS is 'not Amiga', but once you start using it, it will be hard to notice that its 'not AMiga'.

If Hyperion decide to bring on AMiga OS4.1 to PPC MACs, i would get it and have a very nice dual OS machine, but I cannot justify spending big euro when what I got does the job so nicely.