ARM based Amiga?

[Mrs Beanbag]

Just throwing an idea into the wind here, but with NVidia's Project Denver desktop ARM based CPU threatening to mop the floor with Intel (yeah believe it when you see it), perhaps an ARM implementation of AmigaOS would be a prudent move.  I've waited for so long for x86 to bite the dust, it's kind of amazing how they've managed to keep the 680x0's arch enemy propped up for so long. Plus a surprise victory from the good old Acorn Archimedes, or to my mind the "British Amiga"!

Any thoughts?

[OlafS3]

Aros is already supporting ARM... and AmigaOS will propably never be ported to other platforms because of licensing issues

[SamuraiCrow]

Aros is already supporting ARM... and AmigaOS will propably never be ported to other platforms because of licensing issues

+1

[Heiroglyph]

As much as I like Arm, I don't think another platform is the answer.

I agree with the others, you can't count on software support, even for PPC based platforms.

68k is pretty much the one constant in the Amiga universe, we just need them to be faster, cheaper and available.

[billt]

If Hyperion ever choose to go to different processor that PowerPC, I think ARM would be a great choice. There's already laptops running on ARMs. Nearly all the tablets do. I'm not aware of an ARM desktop, but desktops are falling out of favor these days, and no one says you can't make one the way Acube makes PowerPC desktops, when PPC is no longer a desktop platform. There's a lot going on in the ARM world these days, performance is going up, and I think it'd make a great architecture for AmigaOS.

[Mrs Beanbag]

@Heiroglyph

Well that would be nice wouldn't it, a 3GHz quad core 68k chip, but where are we going to get one of those?

I'm well aware the Amiga has a past, but what concerns me here is whether it has a future.  I think Operating System support for software emulation seems as much as we can realistically hope for.

[Heiroglyph]

I love AROS, but I have a hard time pinning my hopes on it, it's just glacially slow to progress.

Hyperion has the source and the ability to license, but tie to costly licensed hardware.

I could see MorphOS making a good run at Arm once the used Macs run out, but I don't think they are in too big of a hurry to make a new platform either.

Another platform shift would divide the few developers and users into even smaller groups than we have now.

Something like the Natami CPU is probably the better bet for Amiga long term IMHO.

When people think Amiga, they think 68k.  All the beloved software is on 68k, the rest are almost always ports just because the 68k CPU was too slow.

Everyone seems to agree with 68k.  If you don't have one, it's easy enough to emulate, so it has the most broad appeal to all groups.

[adonay]

Amiga is 68k not ARM to me.

[Mrs Beanbag]

"When people think Amiga, they think 68k."

Well I think there is a partial truth in that.  I'd say that would mostly apply to the remaining Amiga fan scene.  To me, the Amiga is 68k too (although more importantly, not x86!).  But if you asked most people in the tech scene, they would say Amiga meant to them the graphics and sound capabilities as well as the responsive multi-tasking operating system and window-based GUI that were ahead of their time.  If you asked most people generally, they'd just remember their favourite games and wouldn't even know what a 68k was.

A modern 68k hardware solution is sadly simply not plausible anymore; but I would agree that any computer calling itself an Amiga should be able to run 68k software seamlessly.

[Boudicca]

+1 but..................

It would be one of the biggest insults to the Amiga.......eventually beaten to death by the child of Acorn Computers and an Irony where Tripos was developed and destroyed by a chip developed only from the same neck of the woods and just a stones throw away from Cambridge Uni, were the Micro Men fought out the 80's computer revolution.

Actually when you come to think of it, full circle would be a fitting end.

[number6]

Aros is already supporting ARM... and AmigaOS will propably never be ported to other platforms because of licensing issues

Not according to Hyperion, who posted in June, 2011:

Then there are some legal issues like some licences being tied to PPC only.

All of this could be worked around however given sufficient funding. E.g. an ARM/X-Scale version of AmigaOS 4.x is perfectly possible.

#6

[Mrs Beanbag]

@Boudicca:

"biggest insults" oh come now let's not get petty!  Or would you rather Amiga was beaten to death by IBM's little minions?

Although the irony does not escape me, but it doesn't stop there.  Of course there was also the Apple Macintosh that also ran on 68k, migrated to PPC and managed to survive with a respectable share of the market only finally to admit that they had to migrate again to the dreaded x86.  Now Microsoft has stated that Windows 8 will be available for ARM, and how willing will Apple be to put its customers through another platform shift?  Apple will be out on a limb clinging to x86 while Windows jumps ship to the Neo-Archimedes!

[Heiroglyph]

@Number 6: That's very interesting.  I wonder which part needs the funding?  Even drivers for existing PPC solutions and Mac computers seem to be quite a stretch, I can't imagine how a CPU change would ever take place.  It's almost like they want someone else to make money for them.

Even then I think my other points still apply, especially the point of further dividing the community.

[billt]

Some people think Amiga is a CPU or Amiga is some special "custom" chips, or whatever. To me, Amiga is the user experience. What the GUI looks like, and more important how I interact with it. It multitasks. I find it agreeable to use rather than an awkward thing to fight into submission.

For those that demand a 68k, you're frozen in time. So are the "custom chips" zealots.

While new PowerPCs still come into being, such as Freescale's exciting new AMP series, PPC zealots are also in an awkward position due to the difficulty in getting them in a form that a) runs AmigaOS and b) we desire. (ie a laptop in my case)

And while ARM doesn't seem to come in a desktop board (that I'm aware of anyway, perhaps I'm just ignorant), we could have them with similar difficulty/expense as we get our PPCs in. But ARMs are already in netbooks! And they already dominate tablets, for anyone who wishes for a REAL Amiga tablet. Not one of those phony things that are Amiga in nothing more than the sticker on the case, however "legal" those stickers may be.

[mechy]

Aros is already supporting ARM... and AmigaOS will propably never be ported to other platforms because of licensing issues

Can't resist my 2 cents here...

yea but too bad:
1> aros has absolutely nothing to do with real amiga's..other than being a native pc wanna be copy.... and now arm aparently.

2> doesn't take advantage of all the existing 68K amiga software out there

3>doesn't run amiga games

4> doesnt run on real amiga hardware(and i don't mean the crap that has boing ball stickers all over it).

5>  oddly aros is to be done for the real amiga? what a joke. so a old,real amiga is supposed to run aros apps written for a 3ghz+ pc? yea that will work really fine.
its the same problem now,we have people coding bloatware for 68K amigaos written on a emulator with 32MB chip ram,and crazy speed,so it crawls and is useless for real 68K machines. its contaminating aminets code base.

Aros is just another fork in the road to take amiga developers off real machines that won't be any use to anyone(except people who dont have a clue what an amiga really is).

Without getting everyone on the same page(remember when we all furthered real amiga's along),i dont think there is much hope of getting anywhere if putting licensing and copyright issues aside.You just cant make good progress when you are split in 6+ directions.

-Mech-