How much would it cost to port AmigaOS to x64?

[runequester]

With access to AMD or Intel CPU power for pennies on the dollar v/s PPC, and the possibility of purchasing a new OS to run on your machine, there would be new users. Thousands on the conservative side.  Tens of thousands in all likelihood. From there you have a seedbed for forward momentum.  Embedded CPU's in limited quantity is not a viable upgrade path, no matter what the zealots say.

Why didn't AROS make this happen already then?

It's tough enough to get developers to support apple, harder still to get them to support linux, and we're banking on a sudden renaisance for an OS most people today haven't heard about, which would have 20 years of catching up to do, and which would start with zero software support ?


People love to moan about PPC but it's not a difference of "path forward" versus "dead end". THey're all dead ends here.

[Digiman]

The reality is to sell 100,000 units on x86 even OS4 (or even a successor) would need someone with the brand appeal to the general public. This can realistically only be Google or IBM (NOT Lenovo).


Also without some bespoke elegant cases and unique design keyboard and mouse as an exclusive package would it even sell then? Has anyone done it without an identifiable unique brand/style of physical items? (case, keyboard or mouse?)

Apple - they refuse to sell just OS X for general use. Possibly because the OS alone is not enough. Apple are the smartest at marketing.

Microsoft - Mostly 'free' copies of Windows on every new PC/Laptop sold. And most people who upgrade (well downgrade since XP IMO) are conned into thinking their copy of XP is the problem and "need" Win7 when the reality is they just need a clean install of ANY version of Windows every 36 months or less. All it was is Virus/Trojan/Registry bloat or bloated apps NOT XP. Microsoft dominate by default due to attained market share in the 90s via dirty/illegal tactics. They have critical mass, nobody will replace them until silicon computing is obsolete.

Google - Chrome OS vs M$ is going as well as Google+ vs Facebook (dead duck). Partly because the whole internet browser as an OS GUI is a totally retarded fukup but some of it is because Joe public buy machines (with Windows installed and they don't care enough to uninstall it) or a design philosophy (exclusive design shiny white curvy computer with odd keyboard and mouse not just NOT Windows as host OS) and not just an OS.

I guess this is what MOS/Hyperion know and explains lack of x86 projects. Even the A1 X1000 doesn't have a unique keyboard and mouse and looks exactly like a £400 i7 PC housed in a CoolerMaster Silencio 550 case.

[Digiman]

I recently read an article that said it was going to be an all AMD kit. Though any info at this point is not much more than rumor.

dreamcast270mhz, et. All,
   Most people don't need anything more than a computer that can run a web browser. Then next largest computer user group needs a web browser, office software, and streaming ability. Those two groups should cover 85-90% of computer users.
Any major OS can do this, making basically all the same. So why use anything other than Windows. Apple's marketing can't be so good that it garners 15% of the market just on that. Linux isn't for those kind of people. Unless you want to include Android. Then we should include BSD as Mac OS is certified as a BSD.  
Yeah, Amiga OS need some work. Lots of it just to get to that very basic user level. I just don't see it as filling that market. I see it as an some what specialty OS existing somewhere between Mac OS and Linux. Well, it should.
As to the desire for custom chips, we have them already. It that emergence of them on other platforms that helped kill the Amiga marketshare. Sound cards, Graphic Cards, various I/O bus cards. They have just been badly utilized on other platforms for well over a decade. We are just seeing now in the last few years GUIs using the graphics card. Which for the longest time was regulated to games or video decoding. An Amiga OS should, as it always has, utilized these kind of system resources at the system level and not as an addon for specialty uses.

1. Every new user, even spotty little teens, "need" 1080p streaming flash video via Youtube. And given most PCs are sold with 19" monitors 1080p off-line video (AVI, MKV etc) playback also required. Even X1000 class CPU will struggle at decoding 720p and decoding to 1080p desktop rez in VLC. Forget 720p flash video even on x1000 CPU. Therefore PPC is dead without MOS/OS4 port to 3.2ghz IBM Xenon CPU (as sold to M$ for Xbox 360) OR custom HD video playback hardware.

2. Custom chips of note are all on the graphics cards today, but Windows designs and generalizations of DirectX duct tape solution since the days of VoodoFX vs Open GL vs PCVR 3D card drivers hides this. Even AMD's Zacate E-450 CPU is custom hardware (2 Athlon 64 cores and ATI 6300 GPU combined on ONE chip).

3. Not essential to go all Apple and use standard PC motherboard design. Xbox 360 and PS3 use PC GPU + RAM + I/O chipset BUT achieve a 100% performance increase due to better (for the purpose) OS and a non PC superior motherboard compared to 2006 top end Wintel PC for 60fps 1080p gaming using a Nvidia 6800GT based GPU.

Just porting OS4 to a general PC market will mean it is slower than potential speed on a handful of locked down spec of machines IMO and why OS alone = small potatoes IMO.

[Jupp3]

Well, if you only use KDE applications, maybe, but good luck with that...

I'd say it's still bigger group than all (system friendly) Amiga applications (all GUI toolkits combined)

-EDIT-
Maybe the actual "amount" might not be better, but the "coverage of basic needs" (office software, proper text editor, media player etc.) is.

[cha05e90]

I'd say it's still bigger group than all (system friendly) Amiga applications (all GUI toolkits combined)

-EDIT-
Maybe the actual "amount" might not be better, but the "coverage of basic needs" (office software, proper text editor, media player etc.) is.

...and that leads to which conclusion? Say what you mean!

[commodorejohn]

I'd say it's still bigger group than all (system friendly) Amiga applications (all GUI toolkits combined)

-EDIT-
Maybe the actual "amount" might not be better, but the "coverage of basic needs" (office software, proper text editor, media player etc.) is.

That may be, but I wasn't intending to say that AmigaOS beats out Linux - just that Linux UI is an unholy mess of warring standards applied with wild inconsistency to the extent that my two-week attempt to switch over last November left me wanting to kill people.

Back on topic, I simply don't buy that many more people would use an Amiga-derived operating system if it were on x86. Hardware cost is prohibitive for OS4, but you can get a decent MorphOS machine for $10 from your local school's storage closet, and it's hardly taken over the world. Nor has AROS exactly shown up on the mainstream radar...

[Iggy]

...Even X1000 class CPU will struggle at decoding 720p...

Not true. I've decoded 720p on a G4 Powermac under MorphOS and as Fab has stated a G5 could decode 1080p just fine.

[dreamcast270mhz]

I just roll with Ubuntu or Debian when I have installed linux, but I have to say DragonFly BSD is looking up from here, it has some Amiga inspiration apparently.

And Digiman, don't mindlessly attack the PPC standard with fallacies. It has its flaws, yes, but RISC processors at the same speed as an X86 are far better, especially if you consider the contemporary NetBurst architecture, it runs circles around it. My G4, runs circles around my friend's P4HT at 3 Ghz. The NetBurst is dated, yes but tis a proof that x86 isn't always foolproof. OTOH, my mini C2D does decode my BluRay rips better, but granted that it has faster versions of the decoding software I use to decode the matroshka files

[A3KOne]

Why didn't AROS make this happen already then?

It's tough enough to get developers to support apple, harder still to get them to support linux, and we're banking on a sudden renaisance for an OS most people today haven't heard about, which would have 20 years of catching up to do, and which would start with zero software support ?


People love to moan about PPC but it's not a difference of "path forward" versus "dead end". THey're all dead ends here.

AROS is a good idea, but the last time I tried to use it, it had zero usability. I couldn't get it installed on one machine, and the other wasn't supported.  Had there been an Amiga machine with a reasonably competitive price to performance ratio, many people would have gotten on-board ages ago.  Unfortunately, all that materialized were bug ridden machines that once the bugs were removed, were so far out of date as to be ridiculously overpriced v/s new tech.

Your arguments are not really valid.  It still boils down to - OS4.x on hardware that people can actually buy and use for minimal cost (or they may already have), verses OS4.x on custom hardware that costs 10x the price of more powerful commodity hardware.  Either way you go, you are still facing the same issues on the software side.  At least with PC hardware there is a potential market in the thousands.  With custom hardware, it is a handful of fanatics - not a viable user base.

Hyperion stated when they started the update of AmigaOS that one of the results would be improved portability - the potential for porting the OS to other platforms with much less work needed.  Given the market choices there is really no argument for supporting PPC over x64.  The only argument is whether to continue AmigaOS on x64 or not at all.

If Hyperion or whoever owns AmigaOS has any intention of a future for AmigaOS, x64 is the only choice.  If they continue the PPC route, the platform is no longer in limbo - it is officially dead.  I hate it, but it is the truth.

[dreamcast270mhz]

I don't think OS4 has any viability on most X64 hardware, but I do think if we put it on something like Genesi's ARM boards, then it would be very viable as it would then be on low cost hardware which is powerful enough for most work.

[commodorejohn]

If Hyperion or whoever owns AmigaOS has any intention of a future for AmigaOS, x64 is the only choice.  If they continue the PPC route, the platform is no longer in limbo - it is officially dead.  I hate it, but it is the truth.

"Officially dead?" Is there some kind of certifying authority for OS livelihood? Does "official" death happen when there are zero users left? Or is it when the OS is no longer under development? Or when all disks containing the OS are wiped out? Because, uh, none of those things are at all true for either PPC Amiga-NG OS. Even for 68k Amigas only one of those is true, and the fact that that remains the case twenty years after the death of Commodore suggests that it's not likely to change in the immediate future.

Or is this some new definition of "officially" that means "not actually official at all," like how people use "literally" to mean "figuratively" these days?

[Iggy]

I don't think OS4 has any viability on most X64 hardware, but I do think if we put it on something like Genesi's ARM boards, then it would be very viable as it would then be on low cost hardware which is powerful enough for most work.

Agreed, for an OS that doesn't support true SMP OS4 on an X86/X64 platform would be a waste.
ARM is low cost and a viable alternative.

[A3KOne]

I just roll with Ubuntu or Debian when I have installed linux, but I have to say DragonFly BSD is looking up from here, it has some Amiga inspiration apparently.

And Digiman, don't mindlessly attack the PPC standard with fallacies. It has its flaws, yes, but RISC processors at the same speed as an X86 are far better, especially if you consider the contemporary NetBurst architecture, it runs circles around it. My G4, runs circles around my friend's P4HT at 3 Ghz. The NetBurst is dated, yes but tis a proof that x86 isn't always foolproof. OTOH, my mini C2D does decode my BluRay rips better, but granted that it has faster versions of the decoding software I use to decode the matroshka files

...you know, in most applications, the 1.6Ghz D510 trounces a 3Ghz P4HT?

An Intel Atom CPU that is considered a squirrel running around in a cage by comparison to other modern CPU's outperforms a P4 @ twice the clock speed.

Seriously.

That is 10 year old Tech.

[desiv]

... but I have to say DragonFly BSD is looking up from here, it has some Amiga inspiration apparently.

Oh yeah!!
Matt Dillon ROCKS!!!

desiv
(OK, I never really got "INTO" BSD, but I have nothing against it, and Matt is awesome..  I was a PAID user of DICE (Dillon's Integrated C Environment) for the Amiga..)

[dreamcast270mhz]

Hmm? I got my prescott core P4 Dell in '04, so thats eight years. And thats pretty sweet there, but since Netburst wasnt too efficient with its pipelines it doesnt surprise me.

[dreamcast270mhz]

I know someone whose a dev for DFBSD, and he entertained some q's for me about the OS in late '08. Can't remember his name for the life of me, but he lives in C'ville VA