Right now my A3000D is ooc since I towered it. I couldn't figure out how to strap the cd-rom drive for address 4 on the SCSI so I wasn't able to install the drivers for the Mediator PCI/Zorro III bus and I think I blew out the diskette drive. If I can get it all back up I am thinking of upgrading it to a 040@50MHz and 512MB of RAM. I think this will get me to where I need to be for right now. I've been keeping track of the X1000 and, yes, I know, it's a bit expensive, but common guys, most of you are software hackers and don't really understand the hardware end.
One of the primary lessons to learn about hardware is it is very difficult to port an operating system to a completely open architecture which you have with the WinTel universe...actually, there is little unity in that diversity. As an example, right now I'm slumming on an HP Pavillion I bought in 2005...ok, here's the deal. I went about 20 years with undiagnosed hypothyroidism and I got lost in the brain fog. I understand hardware. I'm a retired U.S. Navy Electronics Technician. I had to design, build, and program (in assembly) a microcontroller for a college course based on the 6800, which is much easier to program at the assembly language level than a X86. But to be able to program it in assembly I had to do what is called memory mapping. It's how the microprocessor addresses different functions like memory, I/O, etc. The bottom or top memory addressed is hardwired into to processor and this is where first instruction of your bootstrap program is located. From there anything can be changed,
Now back to my HP, well, it doesn't run a plain vanilla version of Windows XP, because that wouldn't run. That is where the OEM licenses come into place because HP reconfigures Windows to be able to run on it's machines and it won't run on say, a Dell computer or even on a different HP computer. I tried to install Linux onto it but it was just to complicated to find all the drivers so it would work on my HP. This is the problem boys. IF the AmigaOS gets ported to an Intel Processor the most successful and cost efficient means is to design the OS to run on a particular Intel computer. Apple did this; they redesigned their own Intel based computer system that they control and they could redesign their OS around. To port AmigaOS to run on any WinTel platform, and that is what most of you gents have been talking about, is a monumental task that a small company like Hyperion just can't accomplish and actually a not so small of a company like Microsoft won't.
Now remember guys, that it's the WinTel manufactures, whether it be HP, Dell, ect, that reconfigures Windows to run on their machines. Unless they follow the strict guidelines that Microsoft controls (memory map), which most of the major manufactures always deviate from to create custom hardware. So, you see the problem in porting the AmigaOS to every WinTel system out there. There are just too many variables. Now it's possible to port it to a standardized mother board that will run plain vanilla Windows from Microsoft, that is the only goal that would make sense.
And that is my two cents.
This is the same reason AmigaOS 4.x has to be configured to run on different AmigaOne platforms. That is what the whole deal is with the beta testing on the X1000 is all about; to see if there are any bugs in the OS specifically on the X1000.
