Layers.library V45 on the aminet

[psxphill]

+1 We may have had a chance, with things like Amithlon, when they first came out, but now none of the camps have what is needed for any of them to become commercially viable, beyond a hobbyist machine.

Commercial viability disappeared in the early 90's.
 AOS4 and MorphOS will never be more than a crowd funded hobby.

[OlafS3]

As often, this is really a matter of perspective. Especially on "future". Look, I probably should not open up this discussion, but if I really seriously consider what the future should be - at least as far as computing is concerned - then it is not Amiga. It's a nice hobby, for sure, but it's not the future of computing. It is the past of computing.

Future means for me a OS that is in development, new users and perhaps reach a stage where it becomes interesting for small companies. We will never get the big million dollar games or be mainstream again. But even a niche can be interesting. Time will tell.

[kolla]

As often, this is really a matter of perspective. Especially on "future". Look, I probably should not open up this discussion, but if I really seriously consider what the future should be - at least as far as computing is concerned - then it is not Amiga. It's a nice hobby, for sure, but it's not the future of computing. It is the past of computing.

Wow, did you figure out this just now?

[kolla]

At one time I would have agreed, recently he's trashed his own reputation in a dick waving contest.

And that is relevant how? As long as he uses his skills to explore and improve things, I don't really care about the social aspect.

[guest11527]

Wow, did you figure out this just now?

No, about ten years ago. Just my reaction if I hear the words "Amiga" and "Future" in the same sentence.

[trekiej]

I hope this is not too off topic.
How do you think cbm would have used for example an ati graphics card?
Would re-writing or modifying the graphics library made that possible?
Or, is there a whole lot more that would need to be done?
I know that there is rtg and it can be chunky and the amiga had bit-plane graphics.

[kolla]

Commodore was on their way to Windows NT on PA-RISC for the next "Amiga"

[LiveForIt]

never be more than a crowd funded hobby.

Founded? Not if was we quit our day jobs (supporting M$ products) and just work on just Amiga projects, the donates most developers get in the amiga community can sponsor a Spotify account, but does not put food on the table.

What the developers do is more out of love/insanity for the OS and computers and not to make a living.

If some one was actually willing to found software development to get video editing programs, and other essentials to AmigaOS then there is future, but as there are no one with deep pockets, things is going to move slow.

[LiveForIt]

No, about ten years ago. Just my reaction if I hear the words "Amiga" and "Future" in the same sentence.

Even 10 years ago Amiga was pretty poor shape, 20 years ago they should have done things different, 14 year ago they wasted too match time with OS3.5 and OS3.9, they should moved to PowerPC sooner. 10 years ago Appel moved to Intel, and PowerPC desktop market shrunk. While PowerPC is not dead its not what it used to be.

[OlafS3]

Even 10 years ago Amiga was pretty poor shape, 20 years ago they should have done things different, 14 year ago they wasted too match time with OS3.5 and OS3.9, they should moved to PowerPC sooner. 10 years ago Appel moved to Intel, and PowerPC desktop market shrunk. While PowerPC is not dead its not what it used to be.

Even 14 years ago PPC was predictable a dead-end. They should have moved to the dark side (=X86) then.

[modrobert]

Finally I checked this morning the rtg.library branch bug : I changed only one byte ($00 instead of the wrong $04)

Impressive one byte patch!

Thanks for taking the time to actually debug stuff on the assembly level, and giving me another reason to love the Amiga community.

It's not "because they can". Nobody is needlessly destructive here. It is just that software was created under contract, the authors are not necessarily the owners, and the actual owners have no business anymore in the Amiga market, with the responsble persons having already left the company a long time ago, along with insight knowledge on the contract, or possibly even the contract itself.

So what can an author say? If "yes", he's pobably breaching a contract that still exists, even though the owners do not care. Contacting the owners might be hard or even impossible, leave alone they may not even know anything from back then - though that doesn't invalidate the contract. Thus, from a legal perspective, it is of course the safest option not to say anything.

In other words an outsider, not bound by old business contracts like the original authors, can pretty much fix/patch anything under "fair use" considering the age of the Amiga software (and hardware). This could be a way forward, right?

[LiveForIt]

Even 14 years ago PPC was predictable a dead-end. They should have moved to the dark side (=X86) then.

Predictable ? Well some did not agree with this predictions.

PowerPC back in 1998 was doing about the same in the benchmarks as the Intel chips.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IMac_G3

MacOS9 / IMac G3 perty muth saved appel from bankrupcy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2rXhKncGRU&list=PLozRe3PHsxkUzla6CtOex3mCwPZs6UtSD#

Power Mac G5 came out in 2003, and was the one thing that made Appel look to Intel, if I remember correct it was late, this way Appel went with to Intel.

[guest11527]

In other words an outsider, not bound by old business contracts like the original authors, can pretty much fix/patch anything under "fair use" considering the age of the Amiga software (and hardware). This could be a way forward, right?

No, it rather means that an outsider can make a "hack and slash" attack to the software and make the software infrastructure completely unmaintainable becaues nobody knowns for any future applications which version the software had, where the actual bug was, how to fix the bug in first place, and on which version the software depends.

Again, and sorry to sound arrogant again, but this is the difference between software engineering and hacking. Software engineering means to keep the software maintainable, to have a version managenent, a software repository, a revision history and a process how to update software. You may not believe it, but yes, there is a repository for P96.

[modrobert]

No, it rather means that an outsider can make a "hack and slash" attack to the software and make the software infrastructure completely unmaintainable becaues nobody knowns for any future applications which version the software had, where the actual bug was, how to fix the bug in first place, and on which version the software depends.

Again, and sorry to sound arrogant again, but this is the difference between software engineering and hacking. Software engineering means to keep the software maintainable, to have a version managenent, a software repository, a revision history and a process how to update software. You may not believe it, but yes, there is a repository for P96.

This makes sense if the software is maintained, but what happens when it is not maintained due to the limitations you stated yourself in previous post?

Also, think of a solution this time, be constructive, try to think out of the box for a moment instead of stating one excuse after another.

[psxphill]

Predictable ? Well some did not agree with this predictions.

PowerPC back in 1998 was doing about the same in the benchmarks as the Intel chips.

It was predictable because PowerPC was mostly able to compete with x86.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/1998/10/01/microsoft_killed_the_powerpc/

Things have changed now and Microsoft and Intel aren't so close these days. A dual Arm/X86 chip would be more likely to get support.

[guest11527]

This makes sense if the software is maintained, but what happens when it is not maintained due to the limitations you stated yourself in previous post?

It means that somebody must maintain it if there is a demand. Quite obvious? Isn't it that I said multiple times that I'll try to look for a solution? Hacking up the software to infinity is not a solution because it leaves an unmaintainable junk of garbadge. Now tell me again I won't look for solution.