AmigaONE X2000

[Gulliver]

What a waste of money and resources...

They instead should invest in getting OS4 of the annoyingly beta status, where it has been lying dormant for years (No proper driver support and incomplete feature set).

A real pitty.

[commodorejohn]

Now that it has been brought up, is there any reason not to go x86 anymore?

Sure: it's boring, ugly crap, and they'd lose a lot of performance relative to modern-ish PPC CPUs by having to run all the existing PPC software in emulation. Additionally, AROS already exists, so it's not like the world needs another of it.

Now, as to all the other questionable design decisions (no Altivec? Seriously? And tacking on useless Xena stuff again? And making a new board when they don't even properly support half the existing ones?) I got nothin'.

[billt]

It makes more sense to provide the hardware first, and then work on the software to use it. It's somewhat harder to do the other way around. I myself would rather see a T4240 kit with lots of cores, but some call me crazy.

If I were the designer, I'd want to add in as many advanced features as possible, so the board supports them when the software catches up, and the user can benefit from such OS upgrades. Or, like my XE-G4, it won't do anything better when OS4 does get SMP support. I'd prefer untapped potential to a blockade.

True SMP simply can't be incorporated into Amiga without breaking the Amiga environment/backwards compatibility in such fundamental ways that you could as well introduce 64-bit, true memory protection and do a proper ISA switch to x86 while you are at it. There is no point in hanging on to the PPC after restarting with a clean slate. So if this has really been the plan, then the "X2000" (and the "X1000" as well for that matter) is redundant and an even worse idea.

Uh, what?! How does that relate to my post?

Using the logic of the guy that my reply was to:

I'm still not getting why they bother with dual-core when OS4 doesn't support SMP?

That kind of logic should lead to questioning your advice, why port to x86 as there is not already a pile of x86 softwares to run on the OS when it gets there... And his question then continues, as why bother with Core i7 or Haswell that have lots of cores that are still not yet supported? I don't get it...

Now, I am not arguing against moving to x86. That would certainly save me a lot of time and effort and money learning how to make a modern and as high-end as one can do PPC laptop. It might be a little less fun, as I enjoy pondering the puzzle, and with x86 then there's a lot of already done options, so nothing fun left to think about.

[klx300r]

@ thread

sorry folks but all this OS4 bashing here just hasn't been the same since Piru left:( hope he is doing well.

[nicholas]

@ thread

sorry folks but all this OS4 bashing here just hasn't been the same since Piru left:( hope he is doing well.

There's not been any OS4 bashing in this thread yet as far as I can see.

[nicholas]

What a waste of money and resources...

They instead should invest in getting OS4 of the annoyingly beta status, where it has been lying dormant for years (No proper driver support and incomplete feature set).

A real pitty.

Indeed, but I think that's the whole point.

It's Trevor's money that it bringing this to market, not Hyperion's.  I'm sure if Trevor actually owned the rights to OS4 he'd do a damn sight better job at improving the OS by investing resources into the needed areas than everyone's favourite wannabe lawyer has so far.

[nicholas]

True SMP simply can't be incorporated into Amiga without breaking the Amiga environment/backwards compatibility

I used to think the same, not anymore though.  At least not to the severe extent most would think so anyway.

[ssolie]

I'm still not getting why they bother with dual-core when OS4 doesn't support SMP?

Can't take a hint?

[klx300r]

Can't take a hint?

shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh:biglaugh::cool:

[nicholas]

Can't take a hint?

I'm looking forward to your demonstration of SMP on OS4.2 at AmiWest this year.

[commodorejohn]

I used to think the same, not anymore though.  At least not to the severe extent most would think so anyway.

I'm curious: how would you go about it?

[takemehomegrandma]

Uh, what?! How does that relate to my post?

That kind of logic should lead to questioning your advice, why port to x86 as there is not already a pile of x86 softwares to run on the OS when it gets there... And his question then continues, as why bother with Core i7 or Haswell that have lots of cores that are still not yet supported? I don't get it...

Remember that we are talking about a clean slate restart in the OS development since SMP simply can't exist inside a traditional Amiga legacy environment without breaking it. You would have to cut the cord to the past, once and for all. To have things like SMP, 64-bit, etc, then old legacy Amiga applications will have to run in some kind of a boxed environment, separate from everything "NG", not mixed in the same environment as it is today (on MorphOS/OS4). UAE probably makes most sense then, like AROS (for 68k apps, most PPC ones worth mentioning can probably be updated as needed and then recompiled (and for whatever ISA)).

All you need to develop things like SMP, 64-bit, etc for your OS is a virtual machine. AROS runs this way, and AFAIK also the MorphOS developers uses this approach for "NG development/ISA migration" (only for development purposes). There is no point in building über-expensive PPC hardware with multiple cores just to develop things like SMP, especially not when PPC will probably be the least preferred architecture to run your "new", SMP enabled OS on. That is simply, well... backwards.

all this OS4 bashing here

Where?

[dammy]

I'm looking forward to your demonstration of SMP on OS4.2 at AmiWest this year.

That'll be cool, hopefully more folks will be at AmiWest this year to see OS4.2 SMP in full blown action!

[nicholas]

That'll be cool, hopefully more folks will be at AmiWest this year to see OS4.2 SMP in full blown action!

Yes, the more that show up to witness SMP on OS4.2 at Amiwest in October the better!

[Stevo]

I'm tempted to buy a ticket to Amiwest to witness SMP on OS4.2! That and the official release of Firefox! And protected runtime memory!

[eliyahu]

@Stevo

ok, ok, take it easy, guys. :roflmao:

i know everyone is kidding, but some folks might actually think such a demo is scheduled for amiwest this year. i mean, it could be, but i rather doubt it. in any case amiwest is a great get-together with amigans of all strips, though most of the folks there tend to be classic enthusiasts.

i highly encourage anyone who can make it to do so, whether or not ssolie shows us something new on the AOS front. i hope to see some of you there!

-- eliyahu