Any plans to increased the AmigaNG software?

[OlafS3]

The push to have new software for an old platform that you cant buy newer, more powerful hardware for, to me isnt a good idea.  I understand..its "cool" to use old Amiga's and run newer apps that push our Amiga's to limits they never saw back in the 90's... but there are 2 really good NG OS's to choose from in OS4 and MorphOS that should have the  most developers concentrating on developing software that showcases their strong points.    I'm for running old Amiga's..but I see their time is done and also their limitations.

new hardware is on the way, most software is 68k, most dev environments are 68k, most documentation is 68k, most users are 68k users (without owning and using AmigaOS or MorphOS). As you said it has some coolness factor f.e. to run DOS games in a amiga environment. I do not see the same when using it on "alien" hardware (people might see that different ). Of course I myself run it on X64 PC in emulation but at least the environment is (more or less) original.

And even if it would be just the known amiga hardware, most users there mean most potential buyers

[TheMagicM]

new hardware is on the way, most software is 68k, most dev environments are 68k, most documentation is 68k, most users are 68k users (without owning and using AmigaOS or MorphOS). As you said it has some coolness factor f.e. to run DOS games in a amiga environment. I do not see the same when using it on "alien" hardware (people might see that different )

..and thats probably the main reason the Amiga never became anything other than a flash in the pan.  Everything was made to be compatible with an Amiga 500.  512k ram, 1 floppy.   If a majority of people think "all new hardware is alien", then they'll be stuck with software thats for underpowered machines instead of working on NG OS software.  But different strokes for different folks.. not my deal.  I have other hobbies I spend money on.  :-)

I do understand the nostalgia of what you are talking about..dont get me wrong..I just think the dev work is mis-guided.

[OlafS3]

..and thats probably the main reason the Amiga never became anything other than a flash in the pan.  Everything was made to be compatible with an Amiga 500.  512k ram, 1 floppy.   If a majority of people think "all new hardware is alien", then they'll be stuck with software thats for underpowered machines instead of working on NG OS software.  But different strokes for different folks.. not my deal.  I have other hobbies I spend money on.  :-)

I do understand the nostalgia of what you are talking about..dont get me wrong..I just think the dev work is mis-guided.

I do not agree that "everything was made to be compatible with A500". That was certainly the case for most of the games, you could not earn money if it did not run on A500. That is not the case for most applications, and I think Amigakit is thinking of those (and not games).

Let me look what I have on 68k... AHI, RTG (24bit), different desktops, compilers, applications like Final Writer, Cinema 4D, lots of compilers (both free and commercial) and so on

The weakest point is 3D because there is no hardware accelleration for it

Of course the hardware is aged now but this will improve in next months (I know at least two FPGA projects becoming reality)

some screenshots:
http://www.aros-platform.de/html/some_software.html

As I understand it there will be both enhanced AmigaOS PPC and 68k versions

[wawrzon]

Perhaps more realistic would be Thilo Köhler's HD-Rec; without a doubt the most comprehensive DAW ever made for the Amiga.

whats wrong with hd-rec as is? its axtually very good software, one of those that actuaöly provide better usability than any of free alternatives that are available for mainstream systems i know off.

hd-rec is also open now and can be improved by third party.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/hd-rec/
it is though written in amiblitz, so it isnt portable, but as long as you can run 68k on your sytem via emulation you are safe.

unfortunatelly it isnt usable on aros68k, since amiblitz probably still hacks with some private gfx stuff, aros is not expecting being modified behind its back.

[wawrzon]

isn't NetSurf-m68k a modern browser for classics?
http://aminet.net/package/comm/www/NetSurf-m68k

Kamelito

it is, though its a different implementation (sdl framebuffer) to os4 reaction frontend and the os4 can probably be considered better integrated with the system. if it provides better functionality is yet to be proven, bundling effort here could be of advantage, but it doesnt seem to happen.

[wawrzon]

I do understand the nostalgia of what you are talking about..

there is roughly as many points of view as many people would post here their opinion. nothing wrong with yours. but dealing with the community as diverse as this you need to find common denominator. and the common denominator is genuine amiga, the 68k code, backward compatibility and clean system compatible programming practice.
software done with these values in mind is able to run on maximal number of devices their owners coinsider more or less "amiga" and therefore it has most positive impact on the scene in general while it costs least resources.

i can understand point of view of ng users as yours, to urge to concentrate on development of either aros, mos or os4, but still i cant see a practical possiblity to convince the widest user base to any of those solutions exclusively.

[OlafS3]

@Olafs3

thanks :-)

just a idea: Raystorm

http://aminet.net/search?query=raystorm

it is opensource:
https://github.com/privatosan/RayStorm

another good application is ignition. I read that it was planned to get ported to AmigaOS but never was

[spirantho]

i can understand point of view of ng users as yours, to urge to concentrate on development of either aros, mos or os4, but still i cant see a practical possiblity to convince the widest user base to any of those solutions exclusively.

This has always been the problem, I think.

Even back in 1992 Commodore will have found it hard to make people use the new OS 3.0 API - but of course now we take it for granted. Developing for OS 2.04 or even OS 1.3 is unheard of.
There comes a point when the people still using the obsolete APIs like OS 3.x have to move on to stay current - it's always been that way, and always will be. Of course the problem now is what do they move on to. To some it's OS 4, to others it's MorphOS, to others it's AROS.... but only ever supporting an ancient platform like OS 3 - even though it's the lowest common denominator, is such a low power platform that catering to that as a primary platform will hold back all the newer platforms.

We need to push forward, otherwise we'll be forever stuck with apps that are made to run on a processor from nearly 25 years ago, and that's no way to stay current.

It's a very difficult one to call, though, and I completely empathise with what you're saying - the "Classic" is the common factor with all of us - and it shouldn't be ignored... but I think it should be treated more as a legacy platform rather than the current target platform. If something runs well on low-spec hardware, make it for OS 3 - but don't hold back progress on our multi-GHz NG machines for the sake of a 20 year-old machine.

There's no simple solution (as usual for the Amiga world....)

[OlafS3]

This has always been the problem, I think.

Even back in 1992 Commodore will have found it hard to make people use the new OS 3.0 API - but of course now we take it for granted. Developing for OS 2.04 or even OS 1.3 is unheard of.
There comes a point when the people still using the obsolete APIs like OS 3.x have to move on to stay current - it's always been that way, and always will be. Of course the problem now is what do they move on to. To some it's OS 4, to others it's MorphOS, to others it's AROS.... but only ever supporting an ancient platform like OS 3 - even though it's the lowest common denominator, is such a low power platform that catering to that as a primary platform will hold back all the newer platforms.

We need to push forward, otherwise we'll be forever stuck with apps that are made to run on a processor from nearly 25 years ago, and that's no way to stay current.

It's a very difficult one to call, though, and I completely empathise with what you're saying - the "Classic" is the common factor with all of us - and it shouldn't be ignored... but I think it should be treated more as a legacy platform rather than the current target platform. If something runs well on low-spec hardware, make it for OS 3 - but don't hold back progress on our multi-GHz NG machines for the sake of a 20 year-old machine.

There's no simple solution (as usual for the Amiga world....)

the picture is much more mixed than that. I am pretty sure that if you would count the 68k user most users are using UAE of any sort, a minority has hardware (mostly heavily expanded) with faster processor, more ram and even graphiccard. The assumption by many MorphOS/AmigaOS users is that 68k is unexpanded A500 or A1200. That is not the case and I am pretty sure that in near future there will be FPGA options to expand and improve the hardware. I for example am testing 68k software on my 68k environment (like Raytracers) and I do not see it holding back anything. What improvements are there on AmigaOS or MorphOS that justify specific software? What API improvements are there? If anybody wants to sell software on amiga he has to do it in a way that it runs on as many platforms as possible and 68k is (in form of UAE) available everywhere. AROS 68k has the same API as the big brothers, so where it is "holding something back". Basically 68k is a compiler option. The only problem about 68k is that many of the few remaining developers chose AmigaOS or MorphOS as their main platform and did not support 68k anymore. That resulted in that 68k versions often were older and in some cases not existing. From technical view I do not believe that there is a real problem.

[Wilse]

whats wrong with hd-rec as is?

It's not that there is anything wrong with it - I already made the point that it's miles better than any other attempt at a DAW on the Amiga.
That being said, there are many restrictions that, after a couple of years, eventually pushed me away from using it as my DAW and ultimately the Amiga, although I believe many of these are hardware or OS related and not something Thilo could have done much about.

One example (and I think this is more a limitation of the Amiga than HD-Rec), having the ability to record several inputs at once.

hd-rec is also open now and can be improved by third party.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/hd-rec/
it is though written in amiblitz, so it isnt portable, but as long as you can run 68k on your sytem via emulation you are safe.

Yes, if I was a bit younger and had time to both learn amiblitz and spend on HD-Rec, it's something I'd be looking at.
Who knows, I may get around to it yet....

[wawrzon]

It's not that there is anything wrong with it - I already made the point that it's miles better than any other attempt at a DAW on the Amiga.

the last few weeks i have been underway and looked to record multiple tracks with my bass guitar via na old radio as an amp to the suface pro, the only computer i had with me. i didnt have any multitrack recording software with me except samplitude i consider unsatisfactory and looked at some options. i must say the only reason why i didnt pick up hd-rec under uae again, being annoyed with everything else, was that uae doesnt work well with touchscreen. maybe its just me, but imho hd-rec is great, simple and intuitive tool to make raw recording and cut/edit them on the fly without having to fight with countless input settings that only make your recording sound dull instead of crisp.

[wawrzon]

This has always been the problem, I think.

where there is a problem one needs to seek solution, where there is not, you will not even notice. so what?

Even back in 1992 Commodore will have found it hard to make people use the new OS 3.0 API - but of course now we take it for granted. Developing for OS 2.04 or even OS 1.3 is unheard of.

first of all they broke the backwards compatibility, which was a bad move and splitted the user base. you have had to user kickstart switches, and therefore people stuck to 1.3 and were hesistant about especially 2.x, where there is almost no software for and also 3.x which was introduced almost simultanously with aga machines. it was by any means wrong politics towards the users, and it didnt help the platform for sure. yet even at that point it didnt kill it definitely, because it was still alive. this kind of approach today is simply suicidal.

There comes a point when the people still using the obsolete APIs like OS 3.x have to move on to stay current - it's always been that way, and always will be. Of course the problem now is what do they move on to. To some it's OS 4, to others it's MorphOS, to others it's AROS.... but only ever supporting an ancient platform like OS 3 - even though it's the lowest common denominator, is such a low power platform that catering to that as a primary platform will hold back all the newer platforms.

it will hold them back from splitting any further, which under the given circumstances is a good thing, definitely. except one of them had so much own dynamics, that it was actually able to take off for the future on its own. alas there is no such option, lets not fool ourselves.

We need to push forward, otherwise we'll be forever stuck with apps that are made to run on a processor from nearly 25 years ago, and that's no way to stay current.

in fact this is the bigest and most used pool of software you have acces to, whatever amigalike system you are sworn to. if you desperately need to push forward at the cost of losing it, be my guest, just make your choice and dont complain later of no company.

It's a very difficult one to call, though, and I completely empathise with what you're saying - the "Classic" is the common factor with all of us - and it shouldn't be ignored... but I think it should be treated more as a legacy platform rather than the current target platform. If something runs well on low-spec hardware, make it for OS 3 - but don't hold back progress on our multi-GHz NG machines for the sake of a 20 year-old machine.

are you implying, we are holding you back? how? none of us has any say on which way to develop os4 software, its entirely up to os4 companies and fans. i refuse to be blamed about that.

There's no simple solution (as usual for the Amiga world....)

if there was, this wasnt be a problem to discuss. im sorry, but a simple demand to thrash  your amiga into a bin and follow any of ng alternatives wont work any better as it did up till now. want a solution, then face it.

[kamelito]

The ideal solution to me would be an Amiga NG 100% compatible with the Classic. (no I don't want an *UAE*)
If I launch ASM-ONE it will work and if I poke to HW registers it will perform like the classic does. So a collaboration between A-EON and Mike from FPGAArcade to build an add-on card using Mike technology to make that possible

Kamelito

[wawrzon]

The ideal solution to me would be an Amiga NG 100% compatible with the Classic. (no I don't want an *UAE*)
If I launch ASM-ONE it will work and if I poke to HW registers it will perform like the classic does. So a collaboration between A-EON and Mike from FPGAArcade to build an add-on card using Mike technology to make that possible

Kamelito

ever thought about the combination of gunnars accelerator boards with aros68k? no, neither is 100% finished but its closest to what you are demanding for, it seems.

[Rob]

What improvements are there on AmigaOS or MorphOS that justify specific software? What API improvements are there?

The compositing engine in OS4.1 brings hardware acceleration to a lot of 2D drawing functions such as alpha blending, scaling, texturing and more.

Target 68k and you can forget about using those features.  Use those features and you can have some pretty cool software that gives a more compelling reason for people to add OS4.x hardware to their collection.

Ringhio is handy for notifying the user of events.  It would be fairly easy to have OS4 version that supports this and 68k version that doesn't.

Those are just 2 things I can think of.

Personally I'd rather see compositing used wherever and whenever possible especially if software using it attracts more users.

MorphOS has layers3d.library which I think has a lot of the same functionality of the compositing in OS4.1.  

MorphOS has Reggae which can probably best be described as datatypes on steroids.

I'm sure MorphOS users would prefer software fully exploits these powerful features too.

If you just target 3.x and everyone gets the same thing no matter what system they are using then there's really no little point in having MorphOS, OS4 and to a lesser extent AROS.

[itix]

Even back in 1992 Commodore will have found it hard to make people use the new OS 3.0 API - but of course now we take it for granted. Developing for OS 2.04 or even OS 1.3 is unheard of.

I develop for Kickstart 2.0 and I have even gone so far that i have removed Kickstart 3.0 dependencies to get there.

In some cases i have made my programs Kickstart 1 compatible if it is possible without too much effort (lack of CreateNewProc is biggest obstacle).

I see no problem there. Other my sw then might require the latest MorphOS version.