I think AmigaNG nailed it in that it all comes down to the "what makes an Amiga an Amiga" question. Personally, I fall closer to the opposite end of the spectrum: to me, the Amiga is about an elegant hardware architecture that was designed alongside and tightly integrated with an elegant system-software architecture, running on a very nice, assembler-friendly CPU. While I don't disagree that AmigaOS is a fine piece of software (though I haven't used 4+ and can't really speak for that,) it's just one of the components - removing any of them significantly diminishes the appeal for me. That's why Linux/Amix on the Amiga is more of a "oh, look at that" novelty, PPC accelerators hold no interest for me, and stuff like AROS on a PC is kind of boring.
That's not to say that I begrudge devotees of any of the above their own little triumphs, but it does make me wonder, if the software is so plainly what matters, why bother retaining any hardware compatibility, especially going to all the bother of designing a new system around an old processor?
And this is what I really don't understand. If you feel like this about legacy hardware, why are you essentially proposing to build what amounts to a different kind of legacy hardware? The oldschool 68k processors are out of production, stop at 32-bit data bus width, and don't go above 100MHz. If your attitude towards legacy hardware is "get over it and move on," why go to all this trouble? Why not just go with an existing board for a modern architecture and save yourself time, money, and trouble?
(And no, I won't "get with the program," thanks. Some of us value the full Amiga architecture more than being "truly competitive.")
I agree with you on all points and have no intention of giving up my PPC hardware (even though X86 is tempting and the future might be in ARM).
And I don't begrudge the diehard Amiga loyalists their attachment to their legacy hardware. The fact that it can still be used productively is a testament to the integrity of the original concept.
Lord knows I would NOT want to have to suffer with an old PC, but an Amiga would still retain its appeal.
I do get frustrated at times with the negative take so many of you have on NG systems. Not your cup of tea? Hey, that's cool, but it is mine. I've the fact that I've got a fair level of legacy compatibility (which is constantly increasing) and I can play games like QuakeIII.
Doom on an Amiga was cool for its time, but fragging someone online with more mordern graphics just makes me smile.
And I appologize for posting the Ambient screen shot on Franko's thread. Its not fair to compare hardware that is seperated by that many years of development. I mean, yeah, it looks cools, but when I look at the workbench screens you guys are posting all I can think is "Windows didn't look this good for several generation and Mac was Black & White - Damn that still looks modern".
