A new Amiga Classic ?? Discuss!

[macto]

I guess it depends upon your perspective, and I'm not terribly fond of emulators.  There's something distinctly unsatisfying about turning a reasonably fast computer into a pitifully slow one, which is what happens to a PowerPC running UAE.  A number of you are claiming fantastic performance.  I can only assume that is because of optimisations unique to WinUAE.  I have seen worse examples, such as a 1 GHz G4 barely emulating a Macintosh Plus (8 MHz 68000) with Mini vMac.  While most of the emulators I've run into do a great job with video, audio support is disappointing.  Problems range from emulator X not supporting audio, at all, on Unix implementation Y to timing problems distorting the audio.

The other issue is hardware upgrades.  If I want a faster Amiga, I can throw an add-on board into my A2000.  If I want ethernet, presumably I can find something which suits my needs.  If I want faster emulation, I have to buy a new computer.  If I want to add ethernet support in emulation, I have to wait for somebody to add that feature to the emulator.  (While I know how to program, I'm not much of a programmer.)

Needless to say, in my books a hardware Amiga is much more interesting -- even if it is based on the 680x0.  As for PowerPC based Amigas: I will look at the AmigaOne and Pegasos when the opportunity avails itself.  But I want to see one in the flesh.  Most of the descriptions and screenshots are woefully inadequeate.

[GreggBz]

I'm guessing that a lot of the substance of AROS is re-engineered linux. Nothing wrong with that, but it's certianly is'nt using the old code from Amiga OS 3.1. I did read the instalation and FAQ pages at the site some time ago, (They mention Linux/FreeBSD a lot)

I just downloaded and burned the boot ISO, and tried it out. Yes, it's nothing like Linux. But wait.. and Xbox is nothing like a PC either.

I'm not supper educated about it here, I don't know, I only tried it once. I did read up on it though.. and from what I understand they are using linux and the code from linux to expediate development, again, nothing wrong with that.

Anyway, they day I can boot Workbench 3.1 on my Game Boy, that's a dream of mine, neato-torpedo. How many geeks would but an alternative operating system for their portable devices for 29.99?

[drwho]

I just realized something. Quite a few posts back in this thread, someone mentioned that people weren't interrested in the topic anymore.

It's a hell of a lack of interrest that generates this many posts I guess. :-)

- Mike

[haymiggan]

I'm the happy owner of an Amiga Access and it serves as a support unit to my main A1260 system. Play games in TV-Window on main system, so i don't have to freeze other tasks.

But time has run out for classic amiga hardware systems like that, today an x-box can emulate amiga games in such a quality that satisfy the most. I just tried UAE on x-box the other day, and was quite impressed.

But of course, there are those who likes the real thing and can notice the difference between emulated and real, even though it's a thin line.

But if someone did make an mini amiga, i'd prolly buy it anyway

Cheers all,
Haymigga

p.s. here's my tower btw; Pic 1
pic2

[Holley]

Unfortunately I don't see any difference between emulating an Amiga, and booting Workbench on non-Amiga hardware - there would be if there was some magic way to run 68k code on an x86, but only on a speed basis.  The hardware would be a PC, and it would behave like an Amiga (as AROS does) ... note that I'm not talking about booting from an Amiga-on-a-card installed in a PC.

Running UAE on my work laptop Pentium3 1200MHz can blow my 25MHz '040 A3000 out of the water on processor heavy apps, never mind anything else.  Audio and Ethernet support is fine, and as stated elsewhere there's no reason you can't replace the Windows shell with UAE in 'GUI bypass' mode, and just use your PC as an Amiga.  WinUAE is now the lead version BTW, so yes, it's ahead of even the Unix version.  Macs have a 68k emulation layer for old apps in the OS anyway, so I don't know why another emulator might run quite so ineffectually ...

PCs are cheap enough that upgrading the processor & MB for more emulating speed isn't a big deal (the rest is easy to make as quick as the fastest Amiga extras), IMO theres only four reasons to be using a classic Amiga right now - to access old floppy disks, to use the raw 68k speed of a high flying '060, to access PPC programs, or for the love of it.  I have my A3000 for the first and fourth reasons.

Oh, and of course there's if you want to use a Toaster!

[seer]

@GreggBz

I'm guessing that a lot of the substance of AROS is re-engineered linux.

No, not like that.. Aros may be developed on Linux boxes and runs hosted on a Linux or as a standalone OS.. It's the closest thing to an X86 Amiga OS we have.. And it's getting better everyday it seems.. Who knows, a full workin Amiga X86 OS in 2005

[Im>bE]

misspost, pls delete.

[Im>bE]

Off the top of my head:

Amiga classic rocks.
New amigas with their os's will/does probably too.

What upsets some classic users, like me,
is that new amigas use the amiga name
to get publicity, and so 'we' feel
that they should return the favour
by supporting classic users.

Or so I think...

[drwho]

In a way, I agree with this opinion.

It's kind of a double edged sword really, on the one hand, when I see the "new" Amiga's I don't see what makes them Amiga's at all. Maybe OS4 will change my view of this.

On the other hand, it is nice that the name 'Amiga' gets the exposure that it does from these new machines.

Although, aside from all of this, in reality, I don't expect, nor do I think that it is practical, for anyone to support the classic hardware.

I think that I am most pleased that this community is here, no matter what happens. Plus, ebay and other outlets have provided me with a wealth of "new old stock" to play with that I could have never afforded when I first started with the Amiga.

- Mike

[iamaboringperson]

I'm guessing that a lot of the substance of AROS is re-engineered linux. Nothing wrong with that, but it's certianly is'nt using the old code from Amiga OS 3.1. I did read the instalation and FAQ pages at the site some time ago, (They mention Linux/FreeBSD a lot)

It's its own stand alone OS, nothing to do with Linux!

(From where do you get that idea?)

[GreggBz]

OK, My inital reply in this thread was wrong, but not entirely.
I read this,
From the AROS Homepage

"AROS can run natively on the Intel and Amiga computers, but not quite as good as it runs on Linux. AROS library functions are made to run under Linux first, internally using Linux kernel and library calls. This way a programmer has got the opportunity to bother about the implementation of the whole system first, and to bother about the technical details in a later stadium. People are currently working on making the "native" AROS more impressive. The results are very impressive and it is perfectly possible to use AROS as a real (and only) Operating system on an IBM PC compatible machine."
 


This is where i get that idea.

[Tekoneiric]

I for one would like to see a classic Amiga in a ATX or Mini-ATX form. One that included ethernet, USB, enough room for a gig of memory and other stuff to keep from having to upgrade it. If a company needed chips, I would even give up my A4000s, A3000s, CD32 and A500s for the chips as long as I would get a couple ATX or mini-ATX boards in return.

[macto]

AROS developers are probably using Linux code, either verbatim or as reference.  They would be foolish not to, as it seems awfully difficult to track down proper documentation for a lot of hardware.

I tried the AROS boot floppy.  It looked like a fine start.  Of course, it may have looked a lot better if I had a CD burner to try out a more complete distribution. ;-)  Alas, I'm away from my machine -- which is why I had access to an i386 in the first place!

[AmigaVolks]

I collect classic air-cooled VW's ,as well as owning a turbo New Beetle, and this argument over "clasic" vs. modern Amigas is very similiar to the one in the Volkswagen community. Some people think any water-cooled Volkswagen is not a "real" VW, while many people use a modern VW for everyday commuting, and their classic Beetle for "motoring' for pleasure. The argument whether it is "practical" to run a '66 VW or an A1000 is ridiculous; practicality is not the point-newer is not always >"better". Bulding a "new"' classic Amiga is like hot-rodding a classic car- you might not want to drive it to work every day , but that does not mean it is not worthy in its own right.
I know "jurasic Camper" likes classic VW's , ( I have a bus too!) . If there are any other VW/Amiga ownerws out there I'd like to hear from you.

[gizz72]

Hi everyone,

Gee, I was thinking the opposite. Making 'Classic' Amigas run newer machines like a P4. That's what I used to believe the Amiga was capable then. One example was the A500 expansion(can't remember what was it) that had a 286pc expansion so you could run MuStardDOS v6.xx then. Or a certian bridge board for A2,3,4000 where you have 586 HW or Emplant boards. They used to say they'd just(probably) need time to build HW/ROM(?) for SEGA, SNES, C64, but unfortunately didn't(Correct me if i'm wrong). Read it on an ADs back then on Amazing Computing. Now that's >'hot rodding' an Amiga.
>May lightning strike me< :-P
 :lol:  :lol:
Good day to all Amigans!:-D

[mikrucio]

Ill tell you all what we need.

All i want for my A1200 desktop is
A video card cybergfx capable that sits in the original
case. thats all.

is that really hard to make?>

i would pay $400 bucks for it.

yes this would be great.