One unified OS for the future?

[Heiroglyph]

The problem is that the Classic would need so many upgrades to come close to the performance of even a Sam440, that there'd be no Classic left! You'd need to upgrade everything, and the actual machine would be little more than a keyboard and disk drive dongle.

From a software standpoint, there is no reason the 68k OS couldn't be at the same functional level as OS4 or MorphOS and thus almost completely source compatible and often binary compatible.

You could make some money off of Classic users while solidifying yourself as the market leader.

Having a larger percentage of the users and developers on your platform improves the community rather than working on incompatible alternatives.

If there was a unified platform, more resources could be expended on fixing either one of them.

Sure, some developers would leave if one of the two PPC OS's was gone or if they merged, but if 50% of the developers are working on something incompatible, 50% of them are only adding to the chaos.

[arnljot]

+1 one partly to who ever said first "why discuss something that will never happen".

There is a deep mistrust between AOS4 and the MOS camp. Bring up the name Ben Hermans and see how the flame wars start... Just reread this thread and you can feel the palpable distain between the two different "camps" world view of who are in the right and who are in the wrong...

Even after all these years and all of the lost opportunities.

Yes, it would make sense. Yes it would be better to work together to pull coding resources towards common push forwards. But itx sums it ups quite succinctly, there is only one API that MOS and AOS4 have in common AHI. The rest they went there separate was, not only on the apprehension of reality, but on P96 vs CGX, MUI vs Reaction etc... At every turn they parted ways...

And all through this thread everyone has more or less argued the virtue one over the other, all rejecting the reality today that Intel compatible processors being from Intel or AMD are the only real alternatives today for end users for affordable hardware. And still no one has mentioned AROS???

Yes the MOS people can bash the AOS4 crowd over the head every time with the "low price" of second hand Apple Mac hardware in every argument when ones virtu is discussed over the other. But that doesn't change the fact that MOS compatible hardware isn't made anymore, and that the MOS capable hardware is getting rarer every day that passes and that more and more sellers are getting wise to it's value due to the prices middle aged amigians are willing to pay for it. So yes it's cheaper, but for what you get it's still expensive.

A unified next gen Amiga effort between AOS4, MOS and AROS would be nice. John Lennon Imagine fantastic even if it was for X86-64 processors. Heck, I'd even cheer for an ARM implementation!

What we need to do as Amiga users is to tell the application developers is to be multi platform. To try to be as "3.1 API" compatible as possible, and to deliver targets to AOS3.x, AOS4, MOS and AROS. It's a terrible cost, and it's holding us back...

But you can't ask me to pick one favorite.

I had the beta of AOS4 on classic. I have MOS on the Efika. I have OS3.x on classic. I have AROS on virtualization.

I love(d) them all. Most of them I still love.

But I can't say that one is more deserving than another to live on. And I know that I can't ask them to unify, as I know the people involved are too entrenched and have too much baggage with each other.

MOS will never have the speed or performance of AROS.

AROS will never have the compatibility of MOS. And I don't know AOS4 well enough to know what will be lacking there. But I'm sure I wouldn't be fully satisfied with it either...

And whats missing from my rant? Well, Amithlon. Another way the Amiga legend could have evolved...

Despite this rant, I have accepted where the Amiga legacy is now. It's fractured, but still living on.

MOS guys seem to be mostly focused on bringing it to new PPC hardware.

AOS4 devs seem to be slowly evolving (emphasis on slow) and only doing "new" hardware (new in quotes, as with the speed it's evolving, the hardware is old as new "payable" releases are done).

AROS guys are doing the "current" fad (with the exception of Toni Wilen who were doing a 68k version)

And Amithlon was killed off in a lawsuit (or threat of one) and never evolved at all...

So why focus on the OS devs? Focus on the app devs, and make sure they understand well were the users are. Tell them that they are "all over the place", tell them that you want to use your software key on AOS3.x and MOS, or on AROS and OS4 or what ever combo of amiga like OS's...

The guys now into MOS/AOS4/AROS or boing ball development are doing a great job. And people who are putting money into it like Amigakit and Trevor are doing obvious love affairs with their nostalgia. Thank you and kudos for that.

But it'll "dry up" without content. And for an operating system that means software.

Amistore has been mentioned here. That is a golden opportunity for the amiga community and the players to show that they want to build an Amiga ecosystem. Make it work and be available on AOS3.x, AOS4, MOS and AROS. It could be a great service to those who create amiga based software. Aminet was like this. All amiga based software was/is welcome. The user sees the software clearly annotated with what will it work with. It was a great platform for software developers to reach a huge user base back in the day. Amistore should first and foremost be for the developers. Then the users will come. When the developers are motivated and rewarded for putting their software there.

Just imagine Andreas Falkenhahn having one listing there for Hollywood, available on all amiga based platform, "one buy it now button" for all his versions of Hollywood. One button to rule all versions of all the four platforms...

Then, with that in place. Maybe the OS devs would be motivated down the road to harmonize and collaborate...

I apologise for the long rant...

[ElPolloDiabl]

A PowerPC card for the A4000 is a good idea. Expect a $1000 price tag though.

[Heiroglyph]

A PowerPC card for the A4000 is a good idea. Expect a $1000 price tag though.

So both cheaper and faster than the current hard to find ones! Nice.

I'm being sarcastic, but the current prices for those things are just stupidly high.

I'd much rather see all resources put into FPGA, Arm or x86, but we're still battling over which PPC OS is right.

[guest11527]

I'd much rather see all resources put into FPGA, Arm or x86, but we're still battling over which PPC OS is right.

That's a pretty central point, and the reason why I stay away from MOS or AmigaOs 4. Basically, I don't understand their product and/or development policy. One dead obsolete platform is here replaced by another dead obsolete platform, giving me as a user a solution short of a problem. Thus, I don't quite understand what the intent with all the "ng"-Amiga is supposed to be, and didn't even back then.

Switching to x86 would have made some sense for users, but apparently the vendors currently try to take the user base hostage to finance the Os development by selling - sorry to say - outdated an overpriced hardware to users. I understand of course that if that switch would have been made, Os development could have not been financed by hardware sales, and hence it would have been unavoidable to open source the operating system to attract enough developers. Of course, that would have destroyed the business of selling the Os, but it would have preserved the Os, and might have established a platform for other products. And that, in the end, would then create income for the vendors. I mean, nobody is living from Os sales nowaways anymore. Including Microsoft.

One way or another, what happens here looks to me pretty much like throwing good money after bad money. Investments have been made to accquire the Aos rights, but there's currently no reasonable way to return these investments without damaging their own market - and that's what is currently happening by trying to sell non-competative products to a fan-basis for prices that would not be acceptable on a truely fair market.

My best guess is that, sooner or later, this market is also going to die away (because, ehem, the fans are... sorry) and then it's too late. Thus, I'm really short of seing any vendor creating some type of perspective here that could attract new users or could create a new market. A true plan (avoinding the word "vision") for the future is really asked for. All I can say is that the current plan (if it is one) is IMHO not going to work. Or, at least, it is not working for me and not catching my attention.

[wawrzon]

@thor, heiroglyph
+1!

[wawrzon]

A PowerPC card for the A4000 is a good idea. Expect a $1000 price tag though.

good idea? it has been attempted lately. expect it not to happen, simple as that.

[fishy_fiz]

Will never work. As much as anything there's different hardware routes.
Why would aros or mos want to adopt the ultra expensive/10-20 year old performance route? Doesn't make much commercial sense at all to begin with, and even less sense to drop affordable/easily obtainable hardware for something that's much more expensive and much less powerful (in the case of aros at last, mos h/w I guess isn't too dissimilar).
There's also the fact that one system in particular (near as I can tell) is trying to portray itself as a professional business, whereas the others (especially aros) are done soley as a labor of love. Somewhat incompatible agendas.

[dammy]

Will never work. As much as anything there's different hardware routes.
Why would aros or mos want to adopt the ultra expensive/10-20 year old performance route? Doesn't make much commercial sense at all to begin with, and even less sense to drop affordable/easily obtainable hardware for something that's much more expensive and much less powerful (in the case of aros at last, mos h/w I guess isn't too dissimilar).
There's also the fact that one system in particular is trying (albeit comically) to portray itself as a professional business (which is ironic as its attempts to do so have been the most comical parts), whereas the others (especially aros) are done soley as a labor of love. Somewhat incompatible agendas.

Not only incompatible agendas, incompatible intellectual properties.  MOS folks, in theory, could (and more then likely would never do so) change to open source their code.  Portions of OS4, OTOH, has tainted code with IP belonging to who ever owns (Cloanto?) AmigaOS (68K) because the OS4 original core Devs had access to the AmigaOS 68K source code when developing OS4. Only way for a unified OS that includes OS4 is for everything to swing to OS4 as open source and that would surely end up as a full blown disaster.  Basically, merger of MOS and OS4 is impossible.

If the combine communities want a single unified OS, it will have to be based on open source (at least to start) with whatever code can be legally ported with clear intellectual property ownership and leave the closed and or tainted code behind. Good news is such an approach will leave certain legacy issues in the dust bin of history.

Now that will more then likely suck the last of the oxygen out of one or both camps but if you want a new beginning, you have to bring the old journey to it's final conclusion.  Sadly, that can be too painful for some to do.

Alrighty, back to lurk mode...

[yssing]

Why would aros or mos want to adopt the ultra expensive/10-20 year old performance route?

Really?
So 1994 HW is on par with AmigaOne x1000?

[fishy_fiz]

No, but a bppc/csppc is about that mark. A Sam440 is about the 15year mark. X1000 is the 10yr figure I've mentioned.
Perhaps when trying to be clever you should consider the entire quote youre trying to twist?

[Heiroglyph]

Really?
So 1994 HW is on par with AmigaOne x1000?

He said 10-20 years, so if anything he was being optimistic.

10 years ago Mac G5s were up to 2.5GHz, close to 1GHz faster than an x1000.

The base model in 2004 was similar to an x1000 at 1.8GHz though.

Your comment actually only made the situation seem worse.

[fishy_fiz]

Heh, now I want to benchmark some 20year old pc gear. Given hardware drivers available 3d in particular might be interesting.

Back on topic though, yes, the "OS4 hardware is slow/expensive" conversation is old/tiring, but it happens to be an actual consideration if any thought is given to a merger. While those that do purchase a Sam/A1-X1000 seem happy enough with the quality of the hardware it's a pill that's just too hard for others to swallow, especially when they're already happy with their hardware running a very similar system and much the same software that's much cheaper and either just as fast, or a lot faster.
For the price of an a1-x1000 I could buy an i7 AROS machine, a g5 mos machine+license, some amiga-oid software and/or donations and a new tv.
I simply wouldn't have interest in pursuing the hobby anymore if I was forced into the OS4 price/performance eco system.

[Spectre660]

@fishy_fiz
The x1000 would give me more fun than the combination of an i7 AROS machine, a g5 mos machine+license and a new tv .
An some would have more fun just looking at the money in their bank account .

[yssing]

Well to be fair the cyb/bliz PPC was from 97, not 94.

The SAM440 although slow, is still alot faster than CyberstormPPC. The Pentium 3, form aorund 97/98 might have been clocked at the same speed as the SAM440, but with slower memory busses and, the introduction prices, was not really that low was it.

Preliminary test shows x5000 to be a lot faster than G5 macs.

Anyway, I can afford new amiga os hardware, I don't care much about the price, I do care that it is not old used hardware with a mac logo. But to each his own.

[Heiroglyph]

Can anyone give an unbiased pro/con list for current MorphOS and OS4 that doesn't involve hardware?

For example, MorphOS lacks a proper debugger and that's a show-stopper con for me.

I hear that you can use a debugger on OS4, but I can't personally attest to it.