OS4 moves to x86. What happens next?

[nicholas]

Wow, I'm still on their donors list, from back before they had a goal.

Doesn't look like they'll ever hit 20k!

Maybe they should hit up Commodore USA for money and become the latest new-AmigaOS?

[tone007]

Time to run off and register Commodyne.com .net and .org, I think!

[nicholas]

Time to run off and register Commodyne.com .net and .org, I think!

Make sure to make outlandish claims about your future products and start accepting pre-orders before even showing anything of substance!

[EDanaII]

The assumption in these threads tends to be "we could run amiga OS on any PC and it'd be rad". And that would rad, but it won't be reality.

Absolutely - I'd love to see AmigaOS4 running on a cheap x86 machine.  But it's simply not practical.

What you say is true. I certainly don't disagree. But leaving it on PPC is even less practical. You need developers to build your code. For that you need money. To do it effectively, you need lots of money. Selling PPC machines to 10 users at 1500$ a pop ain't gonna do it. Selling x86 machines to 500 users at 300$ a pop stands a better chance. And the lower the price, the more likely you will sell it to more users. This too is reality.

So, for many of us here, the argument ain't "doing x86 is rad!" Instead, the argument is "doing PPC is suicide!"

[Argo]

Really, guys.
   I took a break from woodworking and checked my email only to find a bin full of reported posts from this topic. Don't feed the trolls. Report them. Don't let them ruin topics.
I'm opening this back up. Play nice. Thanks.
Now back to my afore mentioned Woodworking.

[Heiroglyph]

So, for many of us here, the argument ain't "doing x86 is rad!" Instead, the argument is "doing PPC is suicide!"

Totally agreed.

I'm not against using available PPC hardware or PPC based OS's, but in another few years they will be just as outdated and hard to find as classic 68k based hardware is now.

[slaapliedje]

I had always thought AmigaOS on a Cell processor would simply rock.  It's basically the next generation PPC is it not?

slaapliedje

[Argo]

I know the PS3 uses 3 Cell processors. What I'm not sure of is are they full general CPUs or are they specific in function or somewhere inbetween?

[Argo]

What you say is true. I certainly don't disagree. But leaving it on PPC is even less practical. You need developers to build your code. For that you need money. To do it effectively, you need lots of money. Selling PPC machines to 10 users at 1500$ a pop ain't gonna do it. Selling x86 machines to 500 users at 300$ a pop stands a better chance. And the lower the price, the more likely you will sell it to more users. This too is reality.

So, for many of us here, the argument ain't "doing x86 is rad!" Instead, the argument is "doing PPC is suicide!"

There is no reason other than money and time that Hyperion and partners could not do what Apple did in moving from PPC.  Just pick specific "PC" hardware to support, just like they do now. They could then take advantage of the economies of scale in the market for "PC" hardware.
I know some of you out there would still complain about being locked in to only the supported hardware, just like now, but the cost of purchasing a system would be so much cheaper.

[the_leander]

I know the PS3 uses 3 Cell processors. What I'm not sure of is are they full general CPUs or are they specific in function or somewhere inbetween?

From what people using linux on PS3 have said, it's dog slow - considerably slower than the G5's it is often compared against.

Something about it being an in order processor verses the G5's out of order execution. Also the SPEs are virtually useless outside of a few very specific purposes and they require quite a bit of hand tuning to get any real performance out of...

Anyway, great in principle, but in practice... At least with Linux not so much.

[the_leander]

I know some of you out there would still complain about being locked in to only the supported hardware, just like now, but the cost of purchasing a system would be so much cheaper.

Mini-itx/EPIA. As platforms go, they're fairly consistent and pretty cost effective.

[Amiga_Nut]

I know the PS3 uses 3 Cell processors. What I'm not sure of is are they full general CPUs or are they specific in function or somewhere inbetween?

There is only one CELL processor in the PS3. The CELL Processor has 8 'cores'. The main one, the PPU, is the same as one of the three cores in the Xbox360's Xenon CPU, the remainder 'cores' in CELL are weaker units called SPUs. Also I think the CELL PPU can only execute a single thread*, but the Xenon CPU cores can each execute two threads*

CELL probably isn't suited to running an OS unlike Xenon which runs some cut down version of a Microsoft OS already seeing as Xbox uses DirectX and standard ATI graphics controller. Also CELL is much more expensive to produce than Xenon for IBM. Neither are as powerful as an i7 but still Xenon is the ONLY CPU any one thinking of designing an OS4 compatible motherboard should be looking at, there is no excuse for G5 OTT priced or G4 underpowered stuff from the mid 00s

*never trust the internet