PPC Amigas Go On Sale 436
nastyphil writes "After a wait of almost 10 years and passing through a series of owners' hands, new Amiga hardware is on sale. G4 processors at up to 800 Mhz.
Development of AmigaOS 4.0 has been continuing at a steady pace by Hyperion and will be ready for release early 2003."
Paula? Is that you? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Paula? Is that you? (Score:5, Insightful)
Agnus was just a memory controller and blitter (Block Information Transfer Chip), with extra hardware to control the CopperLists (Coprocessor Instructions for such things as Colour Register manipulation and handling of sprites).
Agnus was replaced by the Fat Agnus which could allocate 1 meg of ChipRam (Video/Sound memory - memory that could be access by Denise and Paula).
Later, Agnus was replaced by Super Fat Agnus, which could allocate a full 2 megs of Chipram.
Finally Agnus was replaced with Alice, the AGA version, and Denise was placed with Lisa.
There would be no reason to call the processor by any name other than it's own. And since the new Amiga design does not have a truely Custom Chipset in old Amiga fashion, this new Amiga isn't truely an Amiga in anything other than name.
Very sad indeed that they're praying on the hopes of the few remaining Amiga fans. I would support this platform by both switching over to it and developing for it, but the hardware is only so-so at best and the OS is obsolete before even being completed.
If they want me back, they're going to have to do a whole lot better than this.
Re:Paula? Is that you? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Paula? Is that you? (Score:2)
I never used to be the "Wait and see" type when it came to the Amiga. An Amiga 1200 and then an Amiga 4000, years of broken promises, and a whole slew of delays has changed that.
I still watch the Amiga with a passing interest, but I'm certainly not about to buy a new one anytime soon.
Re:Paula? Is that you? (Score:2, Funny)
That would be "Rubenesque Agnes" or perhaps "BBW Agnes"
Re:Paula? Is that you? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Paula? Is that you? (Score:3, Informative)
The A3000+ had 100 units produced, and were standard AGA amigas, running Alice, Lisa and Paula.
The AGA's replacement was AAA, found in the 3 Nyx motherboards. They replaced the 3 custom-chips with 4:
Andrea -- replaced Agnus. Added a RISC-like semi-processor to the copper, to speed up operations. Also added new modes to the blitter, like pattern fill.
Denise was replaced by 2 chips:
Linda -- A line display buffer, could decode video-stream instructions on a line-per-line basis.
Monica -- The actual display chip, contains the color-palettes/color decode tables, the HAM display system, playfield decoder, sprite display system, etc. Also had the added ability to do video-input.
Mary -- Paula's replacement. This chip actually surpasses even chips availible in PC's now. Contained raw, CGR, MFM, RLL and bitplane mark encoding. The "Floppy Controller" was so advanced it could push a CD-ROM or low-speed hard drive. 64kHz sampling rate, 8 channels, 12-bits of audio volume, could sample in 8 or 16 bits, supported digital out directly, and of course the ability to use channels to modulate another channel.
AAA was on revision 2 when Commodore went under. By all practicality, it was 14-18 months from completion. The design was altered to become the last Amiga chipset commodore worked on: Hombre. Hombre dumped sprtes and planar video, replaced the copper with a PA-RISC CPU with the copper commands added, and PCI support for inclusion on an expantion card. An evolved Hombre could compete even today, but the money needed and time demand makes that a pipe dream as well.
GUI (Score:4, Insightful)
On a G4 there surely has to be another OS with better interface. I vaguely recall something... Can't remember. I'll ask the donkey.
Re:GUI (Score:5, Informative)
Those screenshots with brown, blue, green and whatnot is the preferences of that specific developer's computer. Actually those screenshots aren't even of an AmigaOne PPC. It's PPC version of Workbench running on a classic 68kAmgia with a PPC-card in it.
Beware though, according to this interview with Ben Hermans [cciinter.net], Hyperion (makers of OS4.x) there will be more Intuition (Workbench) screenshots soon.
Well Duh. (Score:3, Insightful)
Amiga came out with a machine with "virtually" 4096 colors display due to its custom on-board graphics chips, a servicable but inelegant GUI, and built in digital stereo audio. This enabled it to be the PlayStation2 of its day. It was easy to program and developers jumped on board from the beginning.
It's popularity among gam3rz led to it's software being the most pirated around, and while the gam3rz were trading their Psygnosis games, they also copied all of the office/productivity/graphics software around, to the point where it was easier to get a pirated copy of a $100 word processor or $300 MIDI sequencer from the clerk at the mall software store than to find a store that carried the package for sale, even if you had the money to spend (True story.)
Amiga was loved to death by W4r3ZaX0rz and dead it will stay, because its real advantage as "ultimate gaming hardware" will never be regained.
Re:GUI (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:GUI (Score:2, Funny)
Re:GUI (Score:3, Informative)
Note however that the GUI can be fully customized to suit the taste of the user. Similar but more advanced as you can currently do with classic AmigaOS. Here [gfxbase.com] you can view some examples of what can be done with the GUI with even the classic AmigaOS.
Re:GUI (Score:2)
When the GUI allows to replace ugly shades of green with ugly shades of pink, you guys freak out like it's a work of art. Windows does exactly the same shit since 95 and there you'll barf it an ugly OS. I see NOTHING in AmigaOS that is better looking than windows.
Note to moderators (always talk to moderators. If not, they feel insulted and mod you down) : I'm strictly talking GUI here, not the guts of the OS. The article talked bout kewl gui, and I'd like to correct that. AmigaOS GUI is birdypoop IMHO. In the attic. With a fork.
Re:GUI (Score:3, Interesting)
When the GUI allows to replace ugly shades of green with ugly shades of pink, you guys freak out like it's a work of art ... The article talked bout kewl gui, and I'd like to correct that. AmigaOS GUI is birdypoop IMHO
There's more to a GUI than simply how it looks. Interfaces aren't intended to be hung up on your wall and looked at, they're there to be used.
Of course I don't know what the article was referring to when it talked of a "kewl GUI", but there are some little (but important) things that I like about AmigaOS (compared with Windows, at least).
For example, menus at the top of the screen rather than attached to each window (which is important because it means you can access them quickly just by shooting the mouse to the top of the screen, rather than having to click in a small area).
Additionally, thanks to toolkits such as MUI and Reaction, there seems to be a lot more Amiga programs whose interfaces are automatically resizeable; you resize the window, and everything inside automatically resizes in a sensible manner. Of course other platforms can do this too, though my experience with Windows[1] is that it is less common. I feel like screaming everytime I see a window that has some too small GUI item like a text box, and then find it won't let me resize the window.. I suspect that a lot of the reason for this is that it's easier for the programmer to create fixed interfaces, especially with "Visual" languages; the aforementioned Amiga GUI toolkits otoh are designed so that the windows will always be resizeable, unless you explicitly forbid it.
[1] Windows is now my main OS, before anyone suggests I have little experience of it;)
Re:Ugly GUI (Score:2, Informative)
As with so many OS'es, you must experience it before you can understand this. Let's just say this: it never gets in your way; it lets you do what you want to do in the way you feel like doing it.
If you are performing a task you do not do often, or if you are a rank beginner, you can do your task graphically. Activating a new device? Just doubleclick on it. Installing it permanently? Just drag it into devs:. Changing screen resolution? Move a slider.
And if you are an experienced user doing the same thing over and over again, you can automate that using the systemwide pervasive scripting language, ARexx. The language is not great but because it hooks into just about every single application you can use it to perform any task you want to do, automatically. The raw power of this feature (ie. the ability to bring any number of applications together to do what YOU need) cannot be overestimated.
Of course there is a commandline too. It is the only OS that has the following commandline command:
> list all files since yesterday
(list = ls, all = -R, files = don't show directories, since yesterday = only files since a certain date)
And if you do not like some OS behavior, you can always change it. The net has huge amounts of interesting patches: different ram-disk behavior, different window management, different looking controls, different schedulers,
The kernel, exec, is a true microkernel. Since AmigaOS lacks memory protection there is virtually no context switch overhead. You can add devices on the fly.
The bulk of the OS (exec, graphical subsystem, windowing subsystem, most devices, many libraries) are loaded from a 512KB ROM. This helps explain the sub-10s boot time.
The major disadvantage is of course the lack of memory protection. Similarly, there is no virtual memory. There are some virtual memory solutions in the form of patches, but these rely on applications correctly specifying DMA- and interrupt-accessed memory - which often is not the case.
Linux can learn a lot, and improve considerably, by taking some of the Amiga features on board. Systemwide scripting support in all applications would be a good start.
Re:Ugly GUI (Score:2)
>only OS that has the following commandline
>command:
>
>> list all files since yesterday
>
>(list = ls, all = -R, files = don't show
>directories, since yesterday = only files since a
>certain date)
find . -type f -ctime -1
Matt
The PPC family of users (Score:5, Insightful)
Several Amigas (Score:4, Interesting)
And even if the box could run Mac OS X, Apple doesn't allow it as stated in their EULA.
(There are other PPC based computers claiming to be Amiga-compatible (Pegasos))
No Amigas (Score:5, Informative)
No, there are no "new Amigas." No, nobody will make any "new Amigas."
Hardware has no longer got anything to do with anything "Amiga."
Once upon a time (almost two years ago), the UK Amiga shop Eyetech became "hardware partners" of the new company "Amiga Inc." They were to provide actual new PPC Amiga hardware, and contracted the German firm Escena [escena.de] to design it. This failed. I'm sure those "AmigaOne 1200/4000" motherboards are still praised somewhere on the horribly outdated amiga.com web site.
Instead, AmigaOS 4 and newer will run on third party PPC hardware. That could of course have been fantastic news, but for some reason Eyetech, as a thank you for services not rendered and already being a "partner," got to invent a compulsory hardware-licensing scheme [8bit.co.uk].
In order to see AmigaOS run on a piece of hardware, a hardware vendor has to:
AmigaOS will NOT be sold separate from hardware.
Not very surprisingly, Eyetech is the only distributor that has accepted Amiga Inc's and Eyetech's rules. They are now distributing Mai Logic's Teron CX [mai.com] and Teron PX [mai.com] POP motherboards under the trademarks "AmigaOne SE" and "AmigaOne XE" respectively. (NB: the 4 figure price listed on Mai's Teron CX page is for a developer board including unlimited dev tech support, they sell their commercial version for $500). The market for the exact same hardware is split up into one microscopic "for AmigaOS" part and one "for everyone else" part.
If you're interested in AmigaOS, you're not allowed to buy it. You have to buy a new Teron board via the sole Amiga Inc-licensed hardware distributor Eyetech. You aren't allowed to buy a board cheaper directly from Mai. A very easily made port to other POP boards like e.g. the Pegasos, or to (in comparison) cheaply and abundantly available PowerMacs can't happen until someone decides to become an Amiga Inc licensee and AmigaOS distributor, and renames the hardware to "Amiga."
In one blow, AmigaOS by default lost every possible hardware option on the planet, except for the "licensed" one.
"Why do they not want to sell AmigaOS?" you ask. Who knows. Amiga Inc is a newly formed company that has nothing to do with AmigaOS (and certainly nothing to do with any hardware), their interest lies in selling their "content engine" AACE/AmigaDE to PDA and mobile phone vendors, and distributing third party developers' little games for that thing. Apparently, and judging from their silence in response to e.g. this petition [petitiononline.com] from AmigaOS fans, they seem to just not care as long as they get some licensing cash from a few Teron boards sold to trademark fanatics. The only apparent beneficiary of this damn ludicrous mess is the sole licensed hardware distributor, Eyetech. Hyperion [hyperion-e...inment.com], the company that has taken over AmigaOS development, has repeatedly stated that they themselves naturally are interested in seeing AmigaOS run on as much hardware as possible, and since AmigaOS no longer is tightly coupled to custom chips or something like that, the HAL is very easily portable.
Re:No Amigas (Score:3, Informative)
It's totally irrelevant if it's a dongle in ROM or a requirement to paint the southbridge chip blue.
Other hypothetical licencees are "free" to choose another method, like a USB dongle - which serves as an excellent illustration of why the silly "anti piracy" excuse I've seen used is total and utter bollocks. A USB dongle is no more secure just because a hardware vendor is forced to supply it with his hardware, than it is if it's supplied with a separately sold copy of AmigaOS!
No, Thendic haven't said that they'll get a license. They have said that they'd love to see AmigaOS run on their hardware, the Pegasos mobo.
In the Normal (non-Amiga) world this means just that, that the software vendor ports his software, prints "runs on hardware X" on the CD cover, and tries to SELL as MANY COPIES as possible of his software!
No, the license is not free. There might be no fee, but there are royalties to use the licensed "Amiga" trademark. It wouldn't matter even if that would be free - there's still a licensing/bundling/OS-selling-and-supporting/dong
Do you think Apple will be interested in an Amiga license for their Macs? Do you think that even if someone else licensed/dongled a batch of Macs and distributed them with AmigaOS, it would be OK to not let AmigaOS and its customers have access to the ENTIRE Mac market, regardless of vendors and bundling/licensing agreements?
It's a sick situation, and it's killing AmigaOS.
Mmmmmm Amiga! (Score:4, Interesting)
If only now they'd release Lotus Turbo Esprit Challenge 2 with TCP/IP multiplayer for it!
Definately one of the cooler games for the amiga way back when...
Cant see it happening though
Re:Mmmmmm Amiga! (Score:2)
Lotus Turbo Esprit Challenge 2 with TCP/IP multiplayer
I think I just had an orgasm... *stares at the big Lotus Esprit Turbo SE poster above his bed as a reminder of his fascination with the aforementioned game*
what does this mean? (Score:5, Interesting)
Will there be enough interest in PPC-based platforms for a consumer PPC market to take off? In what areas does PPC in general (as opposed to MacOS, AmigaOS or LinuxPPC in particular) offer signifigant benefits? Apple has certainly found their own way of using this architecture, but I'm sure we all remember Power Computing
Does anyone know... (Score:3, Funny)
-
Re:Does anyone know... (Score:3, Interesting)
Be careful what you wish for... The CommodoreOne [commodoreone.com] is already in development. Individual Computers (makers of the Catweasel, featured on
I still can't believe
Where are the games? (Score:2, Insightful)
Will this new AMiga OS work? (Score:2, Funny)
dodgy Amiga Mozilla user agent string (Score:3, Interesting)
that string would be:
tSi Mozilla/5_EXPERIMENTAL (AOS4.1 ALPHA; PPC)
Amiga OS 4.1 Alpha? hrm. Is this string fake? 4.1 when 4.0 isn't out yet?
Do we need this?! (Score:5, Interesting)
Now I don't know about everyone else, but I for one get a bit bored these days - machines are dull - really dull. Sure they have whizzbang new CPUs and there are some amazing graphics cards, but they don't quite capture the excitement of those earlier machines.
I for one am glad to see the Amiga haul itself out of the past, maybe it's nostalgia, but whatever if these things can help capture any of the excitement of the Amiga1000 or the Amiga2000 (you could put a PC card in one of those - so you really could "have your cake and eat it") then this will be worthwhile.
Sure I don't think the PC is going to become an endangered species or that this thing will even make much impression over the Mac, but does it have to? If they can make a profit out of these and a few nostalgic geeks can have some fun, it all sounds good to me.
I for one need some excitement!
Re:Do we need this?! (Score:5, Interesting)
My point here being, if we want a new Amiga can't you just let us have it? I'm starting to get a bit frustrated over all those "Amiga is Dead", "Let it rest in peace" that constantly hits the comment section when something new Amiga-related has arrived.
Using an Amiga on a 68060 processor is as a matter of fact much more responsive than any Linux or Windows or OSX computer I've used (graphical interface that is). The only ones competitive in speed and fast look'n'feel must be OS9 or BeOS which both are pretty dead. And don't give me the OBOS etc. speach...
Nicolas Mendoza
Re:Do we need this?! (Score:5, Insightful)
What defined the Amiga was the integration between the OS and the hardware. The OS alone on standard hardware doesn't make much sense IMHO: Linux or *BSD or, hell, even Windows is better these days. I don't know what hardware does currently offer something like the extreme multimedia capabilities of the original Amiga hardware+software because I'm not interestad in that kind of stuff, but certainly it's not standard PC hardware. I guess you would have to buy a Silicon Graphics or something like that.
Re:Do we need this?! (Score:3, Interesting)
The problem, though, is that there's so many hardware companies out there making the new stuff that no independent custom solution could hope to compete.
The OS, on the other hand, still has heaps of cool features. That really nice shell, easily modifiable startup sequences. Twin state icons with proper information backing them up. Really nice handling of devices, libraries, fonts and so on. Datatypes. I could go on...
The hardware, done now, isn't a sensible dream. The OS is. So, for those who liked the OS, why not try that? If that doesn't appeal to you then no matter.
Re:Do we need this?! (Score:2)
So I'd like to see Amigas like the old ones, exciting and different, but as capable (well ideally, more so) as modern PCs. There seems to be no reason this can't happen - and this is an important second step (the first being the original developer boards).
Re:Do we need this?! (Score:2)
Personally I had an Amiga for five years and was all set to buy an A4000 when Commodore hiked the price. I'm glad they did since it allowed me to snap out it and buy a PC instead. I did love my Amiga and it taught me valuable lessons, including a love for the command line, but its day and been and gone. Commodore blew it big time. Besides, moving to the PC meant I could play with OS/2 2.1 and Linux and these were just as much fun.
Nowadays I fire up UAE if I want to run an Amiga. I see no point in a new PPC version.
Re:Do we need this?! (Score:2)
Re:Do we need this?! (Score:2)
Amiga & Microsoft play together (Score:2)
The triangle: Amiga, Microsoft, Sendo. Here's a related article [microsoft.com]. I thought I would state it as obviously there are many people who care whether they are supporing Microsoft by buying something or not :))
Re:Amiga & Microsoft play together (Score:2)
Great news, but... (Score:2, Interesting)
Some good development in the right direction would give us the best system ever on PDAs, cellphones, tablet computers, small control systems etc.
Re:"Near" realtime? (Score:3, Informative)
AmigaOS patently does not satisfy this condition, because any running task on the system can disable interrupts, and therefore multitasking. Any program that need to walk the Exec list does so, which means that multitasking is disabled for varying amounts of time depending on the contents of the Exec list.
(My memory is hazy. Can't programs also install their own interrupt handlers? That, too, is going to lead to varying, unknown latencies.)
Dear god... (Score:5, Funny)
Hell must be a cold, cold, cold place by now. At this rate, I expect my quantum computer to arrive by Christmas.
Re:Dear god... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Dear god... (Score:2, Funny)
CmdrTaco switches to mac
Dell sells iPods
Amazon made a profit
Now where's Duke Nukem Forever?
GUI look (Score:3, Interesting)
Otherwise I'm afriad this just isn't going to sell. In the past the feel was the only part that counted because all GUIs were, let's face it, pretty damn ugly. These days however the look of a GUI (given the high powered graphics hardware sported by commodity machines) is actually rather important. Look how much attention OS X garnered solely on it's looks.
These days you can't afford to have an ugly GUI anymore - sure it can be an option for those people with no aesthetics - you need something that is attractive. I've never understood the people who deride attractive interfaces TBH - I spend 10+ hours a day staring at a computer screen, tell me again why I want it to be merely functional?!
Sure, if you're taking a serious performance hit for the graphics, then by all means turn them off (as linux kindly allows with it's myriad of window manager and desktop solutions), but these days you should b able to get quite a nice GUI for very little cost.
here's some snapshots of what my desktop sometimes looks like: screenshots [stuff.gen.nz]
Jedidiah
The GUI is just fine (Score:2, Insightful)
Talking about looks there exists a lot of patches for the old AmigaOS which makes it look good.
But then again, I don't care that much about looks, i care about comfortability. That's why i use ratpoison as window manager aslong as i don't need a stupid program like gimp which uses a lot of windows.
Re:GUI look (Score:2)
Jedidiah
Amiga???? (Score:5, Insightful)
You might as well put an Amiga sticker on your mac or PC...
Re:Amiga???? (Score:4, Informative)
The Amiga market was already moving towards 3rd party developed hardware solutions back then, sadly this slowed down due to the unfortunate situation of the time. But fellow Amiga users who only owned standard unexpanded Amigas drooled all over my machine, so I believe more people would have expanded their Amigas with 3rd party hardware solutions, if they could afford it at the time.
These new Amigas will run a PPC native port of AmigaOS and the hardware is fully licensed, so IMO an Amiga. (BTW Future 3rd party PCI solutions are planned for adding legacy classic Amiga hardware support.)
It runs AmigaOS (Score:2, Insightful)
2. Same reason you can call PPC Macs for Macs.
3. It runs AmigaOS.
Re:Amiga???? (Score:4, Informative)
The new Amigas are nothing whatsoever to do with the old Amigas. They don't run the same hardware (or even any relation to it), and they're not made by the same company (anyone remember Commodore?). There's also no binary compatibility.
If I installed this PPC AmigaOS on an iMac would it be an Amiga? Nope. If I installed OSX on one of these new "Amigas", would it be a Mac? Nope. Hell, if I got TOS running on an original 68k Amiga would that make it an ST? No!
Computer names are defined by the hardware first, branding/manufacturer second, and OS last.
If Amiga Inc wants to make PPC machines and install some version of AmigaOS on them, well more power to them, choice is always a good thing. But to somehow say this is an evolution of an A1000 is crazy IMHO.
For the latest new on AmigaOS4/AmigaOne (Score:5, Informative)
Here [osnews.com] you can read an article which takes a closer look at the AmigaOS4/AmigaOne solution. The article is a couple of months old and does not include the latest informations given at the WoASE show.
And finally here [osnews.com] you can find more information about MorphOS/Pegasos, a promising Amiga-like rival system.
Amigas had craftsmanship (Score:3, Interesting)
Under the lid of my A1000 were the signatures of all the developers, molded into the plastic. _That_ was class.
These people had style. Pity the business model didn't work out.
Re:Amigas had craftsmanship (Score:3, Interesting)
The two most classy machines of that era shared that feature. I recently picked up a Mac Plus [blakespot.com] and cracked it open to do a 1MB -> 4MB RAM upgrade and grabbed a shot [blakespot.com] of its signed interior.
blakespot
Big German Amiga Fair - 7th and 8th of December (Score:2, Informative)
To see what last year's main German Amiga Fair was like, watch this great video coverage [virtualdimension.de]. The upcoming big German Amiga fair will be held on the 7th and 8th of December 2002 at the Eurogress in Aachen.
"The Amiga" (Score:5, Insightful)
That's dead. I left the Amiga scene four years after Commodore went toes up. It was finally time to go when most of the talented, dynamic people had fled the platform for greener pastures: BeOS, Linux, even Windows. All that was left were the "somebody should" people. Y'know, the people who say "somebody should do X," but do nothing themselves. Well, except for the well-meaning, insane people who would try to run Amiga development companies on a wing and a prayer before collapsing into financial ruin. That reminded me very much of the "ghost dancing" of the plains Indians as they tried to fight a force that was extinguishing their whole way of life.
All that's left now are some real die-hards who are happy to just now get Quake II, a company that has salvaged the Amiga name from the post-Commodore disaster, and an outdated operating system. This new hardware is a fine thing for those die-hards. It'll give them new hardware, faster machines, and new OS features. It's not enough, though, to even reverse the Amiga Diaspora and bring back all the talent and drive that made for such a rich user community. It's certainly not enough to bring in significant new blood.
I wish Eyetech luck. I hope they can make a profit on the AmigaOne, that there are enough die-hards to keep it going. I just won't be back, because it's not "the Amiga" anymore.
Sync (Score:4, Insightful)
Interrupts also work on the user level - I am not sure how linux works, but a user level program could request to be added to a list of interruptable processes for a specific event. I am not sure how large the latency of an interrupt is, but I think most OSes can manage something below 10ms.
As for the sound, I find it extremely strange that people use mixing buffers the way they do in current linux games. If you know what is the sample-rate of the audio card and what position of the buffer it is currently reading from you can have SFX with latency that is NOT dependent upon the length of the mix buffer. Simply predict in which memory address you should write to, so that you are just ahead of the audio DMA. (I wouldnt think there are any cards that dont support DMA right now..).
a little pricey... (Score:3, Insightful)
I believe one of the AmigaOSs was the first true multitasking OS on a PC level system in existence... it would be really interesting to see how far they have come now. Linux PPC can't be all that bad either... perhaps even Darwin runs on these things [or could be made to anyway]
Features from AmigaOS that I miss (Score:3, Interesting)
The device system. Need to pipe something over TCP/IP? Just use TCP:. Need to open a console for whatever reason. Just use CON:. Etc. etc.
Full localization of all programs through a library (it still amazes me that programs for Windows are released in different language versions).
Dynamic size RAM disk, always present. Just copy something to RAM:, and there it is. No more temp files all over the place.
Revocerable ram disk (RAD). A ram disk that survives booting, and can even be booted from.
Datatypes. A kind of codec architecture for every kind of file. Programs didn't need to know what a gif file, a jpeg file or a text file was or how to show them on screen. The os could handle that.
Long filenames from the start. A jpeg picture was always picture.jpeg.
Fully user patchable. Any os function could be patched with SetPatch. The only reason people have been able to use it up until now (and also a virus writers dream in the old days).
System wide scripting/IPC with Rexx (ARexx really). All serious programs were fully scriptable with ARexx. Extremely powerful concept.
Screens. Think of them like virtual desktops. But every program could have one if you wanted. Flipping screens were instantenous and if you dragged them, you could even have split-screen resolutions (although this was more thanks to the hardware).
A powerfull shell, aswell as a nice intuitive (but not overly, like the Mac) graphic environment. Linux got this. Windows still doesn't.
These were just some of the features that made AmigaOS a tinkerers dream. Sheer elegance all the way. It saddens me that Linux, with it's monolithic and archaic approach, is the best viable os alternative at the moment. People growing up with computers nowaday have really missed out on something special.
mandatory (Score:3, Funny)
At Least Three Markets (Score:3, Insightful)
And I guess I'll throw another group into this category: there may be people who have actually been following whatever Fleecy's software team has been doing and think that it's a good idea. (I am very ignorant about this.)
Why this software goal requires a different hardware platform, is difficult to explain, and is controversial. Maybe the Mac guys can explain it to you. ;-)
(Some of your Penguinheads might fall into this category, although I think prolonged exposure to the overall Unix environment, can kill this type of thinking. When you start thinking that X11 is a good idea, it's probably too late.)
Looking at the prices, I don't think the revolution is here yet. But if it's ever going to start, it has to start somewhere. These projects can possibly create at least some installed base, which may lead to there being a real "cheap PPC" market down the road.
(Some of you Penguinheads might be in this category as well.)
Nostalgia alert! (Score:3, Informative)
I'd tag along with my dad to meetings and we'd get floppy disks from Fred Fish. We had Digi-Paint, which used a b&w camera that could take color images using red, green and blue cellophane - pretty ingenious at the time. Then there was Deluxe Paint III, with animation and animated brushes and tutorials on VHS (I remember creating the bouncing ball demo). I also learned how to use MED (a music editor) and Deluxe Music for writing out scores. These were some real tools that taught you how to be clever. And every application could run off a floppy - with only 20MB of hard disk space you had better be able to run things off floppies.
Speech synthesis was another wonderful thing - the program I used even made a simple mouth that would animate when it spoke!
I think the Amiga's crash was the best I've ever seen too - Guru meditations! Somebody at Commodore realized that if they could make you laugh at a crash, the problem wouldn't seem so bad.
When my dad decided we should take the plunge into PC's, I was disappointed at how far behind they were. Sound cards?? Amigas had built-in sound! Mouse drivers? The Amiga's mouse worked right off the bat! And don't get me started on those damn 8.3 filenames. Windows 3.1 was a beast, and where's the icon for the hard disk? But it had a CD-ROM drive, eight megs of ram (when most new computers had four- we splurged), and hundreds of megabytes of hard disk space. And I knew other people who had PC's - that was important. Now that I'm a Linux user I don't know if I have any needs that an Amiga would fill. I hope I'm wrong.
Re:The old days (Score:3, Informative)
Re:The old days (Score:2, Funny)
Shit. I misread that as "I believe it can run MalcolmX"
That's a switch (Score:3, Funny)
I still miss my old Amiga. We had some good times. --snif-- I doubt I'll get this one, though, as it's probably more fun to sit around and be nostalgic in a diffuse kind of way.
Amiga & OS X (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Amiga & OS X (Score:5, Informative)
Another interesting tidbit from the front page -- "Linux can be booted inside MOL"
What would be really cool is if the MOL guys figure out how to install AmigaOS 4 on Apple PPCs using mol.
Re:Amiga & OS X (Score:5, Informative)
This might be difficult since the new Amigas have special Firmware, very closely related to the classic Amiga's "KICKSTART" roms.
Re:Amiga & OS X (Score:2)
Re:Amiga & OS X (Score:3, Interesting)
Since not owning a board but having the Firmware would be piracy, I can't see someone buying the board just to get a copy of the Firmware, so most people will likely just pirate the ROM.
This is of course assuming Amiga Inc. doesn't think smart and sell the ROM images out-right for use with such software. There is certainly money to be made off of the honest people.
Pirate are going to pirate regardless.
Re:Amiga & OS X (Score:2)
It is right there in the faq:
Q: Does MOL run on non-Apple hardware?
A: It does. MOL runs for instance on the Pegasos board, the Teron board and on AmigaOne hardware. In short, MOL should run on any PowerPC hardware (with the except of 601-based systems). However, the EULA of MacOS prohibits its usage on non-Apple hardware (it is of course perfectly legal to use MOL to boot a second Linux though).
Re:Amiga & OS X (Score:3, Informative)
APUS is a PPC accelerator board setup on what are now dubbed 'Classic' Amigas. MOL runs quite happily on the AmigaOne, including the G3 versions if you compile Altivec support into the kernel.
Re:The old days (Score:5, Informative)
That said, I am still not sure why a "normal" user should get a new Amiga instead of a Linux box today. No memory protection (planned, though) and no application advantages.
But, if you are an old Amiga user, interrested in the latest Amiga technology and also have an interrest in running a pretty cheap PPC box (LinuxPPC?), then this might be something for you.
What's special about Amiga... (Score:5, Insightful)
1) Cool hardware. It could do cool stuff: colorful screens, good sound, Hold And Modify mode, everything DMA-driven to waste as few CPU cycles as possible, blitter, copper,
2) Cool OS. Incredibly efficient, multitasking, windowing, and yet understandable. Files had logical names. There was a pervasive system-wide scripting language. You could modify OS-behavior in any way you saw fit. It did what you wanted it to do, without ever bothering you.
Amiga users like either the hardware or the software, but rarely both
The new hardware is not all that spectacular. Sure, PPC is nice, so is a big fat 3D card, but it isn't _cool_ like the old hardware was. You cannot fuck around with it and do cool hacks. Everybody else had it a long time ago.
The new software is not all that spectacular either. Other OS'es have learned about multitasking, and the brilliant original concepts got diluded by outside influences (I'm not saying those are wrong, but simply inappropriate for AmigaOS).
And then of course there was the other people you knew who had an Amiga. They made it fun: showing off cool hacks, borrowing each others' software (yeah, I know, that's what helped kill it in the first place...), seeing amazing demo's. The new platform will have to start from scratch in this regard.
In short, although I am happy people are still working on Amiga, I do not really see the point. Amiga should stand for massively powerful hardware, an elegant OS, and amazing innovation. What I see is a standard (not all that powerful) PC, using the same old OS except that it now has UNIX-style libraries.
I still have my A4K, which I used regularly up until about two years ago. I turn it on about once every three months, but the spark is gone.
Re:The old days (Score:2)
Re:The old days (Score:3, Interesting)
How's that? As far as instilling that tingly sensation being on the rare, bleeding edge and having a great deal of of hope for new apps generated by the dearth of existing apps? I get that feeling running OS X (on my dual G4 800 and iBook 700), well, at least the bleeding edge part, because the apps are here for OS X.
Don't get me wrong. I purchased the first Amiga sold in the state of Virginia back in 1985, an A1000 from the fist store that was taking stock back then. I've left and come back a few times over the years, having owned that A1000, and A2000, an A1200, a used A500, and most recently another A1200 (towered, '060 -- but sold for the iBook) and A2000 (that I found new-in-box two years ago amazingly). I use the Amiga about every other day to relive the great days. But come on.
The new Amiga is an AmigaOS-compatible machine. It's not an Amiga compatible machine. It will run apps that are OS friendly, but no oldschool apps/games that hit the hardware. And what was the Amiga with its wonderful Hardware Reference manuals for but to invite hitting the hardware?? You may ask why anyone would be interested in running those old apps/games--why not look forward to current and new future apps running on AmigaOS 4.0. Well...if that's the point, then why not just run Linux or some other *NIX (OS X for example)?
As far as I can see, the "heart" of what was Amiga is nowhere to be found in these new machines. Even though I still use my Amiga 2000 happily (I have a 68030 accelerator coming in the mail for it as I write this), I simply cannot see what sort of user benefit comes from these new, seemingly alien machines.
Anyway, I'm all about that feeling. I remember it when I was using that A1000 back in '85. I also remember waves of it using that first A2000 back in '88-'89. Sacrasm aside, it's a fullfilling feeling, well the positive sides of it are. I am reliving the positives of that feeling using OS X and it's fun, fresh. I can't imagine getting that feel from these new machines. What am I missing?
Here's a list of the Amigas I've gone thru [blakespot.com], for what it's worth.
blakespot
Re:Seriously, who is going to use this? (Score:3, Flamebait)
Re:Seriously, who is going to use this? (Score:2, Insightful)
If the computers were dirt cheap, maybe they would be good for something. But now it would just have nostalgia value for the Amiga-tinkerers. I live with one so I can relate.
Re:Seriously, who is going to use this? (Score:2, Informative)
It's a completely new architechture, that brings the platform to more current standards. You won't be able to run any old A500 games on it, just system-friendly apps and games from your workbench.
Amiga has word processors, web browsers, irc clients, what have you. You start them from your workbench and run them in windows and screens, a bit like you would do if you use X11 or Windows.
This is not a souped up A500! Nothing of the original hardware architechture is left, this is why you can't run those hardware bangers. Actually, my A4000 won't run most of the old games either thanks to all the expansions that make it better for workbench use.
Times change, my friend. What if I told you that Linux can only run two tasks, the other outputting A and the other outputting B? That's about what you're saying of the Amiga.
Have you ever used a proper Amiga, or just an unexpanded old A500 or A1200?
Re:Seriously, who is going to use this? (Score:2)
Have you ever used a proper Amiga, or just an unexpanded old A500 or A1200?
That's just it - an unexpanded old A500 *IS* a proper Amiga to the vast majority of the people old enough to have tried or owned one. I've seen more Amigas than most of the geeks I know, but to me a proper Amiga is an old unexpanded (OK, maybe the 1 Meg expansion) A500. They totally rocked, and that's probably because they were very useful without all the fancy schmancy stuff that caused later Amigas to become more like an incompatible PC than the cool original piece of hardware it originally was.
I'm not agreeing with the original poster or anything - I'd just like to point out that your cool A4000 and its likes are mere droplets in the ocean of old A500's.
Re:Seriously, who is going to use this? (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree that there are certain things about the AmigaOS that I absolutely loved.
the C: and DEVS:, and LIBS:. The way everything in the S: directory was there for a reason. I loved how STARTUP was handled, and I loved how you could modify the icon properties to change startup options of programs.
Some things about Amiga OS have not been matched since, not even by Linux or BeOS (Yes, Linux fans, AmigaOS did some things much nicer than your precious little unix wannabe.)
On the other hand, most other operating systems have completely evolved past the Amiga. Protected memory, built in virtual memory. REAL retargetable graphics instead of a nasty hack. REAL retargetable sound instead of a nasty hack.
There are checks and balances when comparing any of the many operating systems, and what it boils down to is that none of them are perfect.
Amiga OS suffers from severe obsolescense, lack of modern software support, and a GUI that is over 13 years old.
Linux still suffers from the "let's throw files in places that only a seasoned unix user will think to look for them" mentality that is standard with all Unix workalikes, and the commercial industry still touches on it with a bit of uncertainty and a whole lot of fear.
Windows sucks on too many levels to mention, but at least it has market dominance and a whole ton of games (for what that is worth anyway).
Mac OS X has a whole lot going for it, but unfortunately it draws in a whole bunch of moron users and thus using it might be hard for the tech-savvy user to admit. "Yes... I... uh... hmm.
BeOS is dead kind of like the Amiga, only it's not quite as rotten yet.
Of course, there are going to be tons of morons who will swear FreeBSD is dead, but blah. It's like all the other Unix operating systems. If you love Unix, you won't use anything but, if you don't already love Unix, it may take you years before you ever get comfortable enough to try it.
When comparing all of the operating systems, it's not easy to choose one that I would say is "On top", but it's pretty easy to pick out the ones that are certainly on the bottom, even if they don't necissarily deserve to be there.
Re:Seriously, who is going to use this? (Score:2)
Er, no. Linux distributions suffer from the ``let's throw files in weird places no one will look for them, then throw together some god awful configuraton tool to try to hide the fact we haven't thought any of this through'' mentality.
The traditional unix places generally made sense, Nothing like a couple of decades of slow development to get things right.
Re:Seriously, who is going to use this? (Score:2)
You know, Linux distributions DO make things worse, but Unix by it's own design has a very steep learning curve.
The file hirarchy of Unix is also one of it's worst things, if you ask me. I was simply pointing out that in this respect the Amiga OS was (in my opinion) far superior to Unix.
Of course, the Amiga OS wasn't a multiuser operating system, either.
Re:Seriously, who is going to use this? (Score:2)
>places that only a seasoned unix user will think
>to look for them" mentality that is standard with
>all Unix workalikes, and the commercial industry
>still touches on it with a bit of uncertainty and
>a whole lot of fear.
Um, modern distributions "suffer" from the "let's throw files in standard locations, which are actually pretty to learn even if you're not already familiar with them, and besides, the package manager can list the files for a particular program, so you can easily find them even if you're completely clueless."
Matt
Re:PPC LINUX, OSX (Score:3, Interesting)
Is the 100Mhz speed boost really worth it when you consider that for the Apple price you'll receive the 15" LCD screen? Bear in mind that you'll also have the benefit of dedicated Apple support for OS X, and genuine Mac Hardware. I believe that you can run versions of PPC Linux on the iMac, so unless you really want to run AmigaOS, I don't see any real benefits over the long term.
Tim
Mobo vs. complete sytem (Score:3, Informative)
The 450/500 GBP prices (roughly 704/780 USD) are just for the mobo with CPU, not a complete system. Assume another $20 for shipping (which would be cheap!), and you're looking at $800USD just for the mobo. You still need to add memory, a case, video card, HDD, CD[-RW]/DVD[-+RW], keyboard, mouse, and monitor.
Lets assume for sake of argument you're going cheap, cheap, cheap, so:
You're now running $320 in basic components, bringing the price up to $1045-1120 (700/800MHz variants.) Or you can get an eMac for $1100 (700MHz) that upgrades you to a CD-RW with a better video card, modem, and FireWire port that is pre-installed with a currently shipping copy of OSX. Alternatively, $1300 gets you an iBook with a 12.1" screen (slightly smaller 30GB HDD.)
Having decided to buy the AmigaOne mobo anyhow, you now have the option of running PPC Linux or waiting for the new OS. Either way, you miss out on the commercial product support for Linux (DB/2, Oracle, Sybase, et. al. are x86 binaries, not PPC.) Assuming pure open source is just fine by you, you've still got a box that is woefully underpowered to a similarly priced/configured AMD system (and maybe even Intel P4.)
Much as I loved my Amiga 1000, I just can't see any reason I'd want one of these new "Amiga" systems. Most of the reasons I loved my A1000 just aren't valid anymore -- everyone has hardware accelerated video and audio now, video capture and processing cards are common, and I'd rather be coding *nix than a system with no mind/market share.
Re:Wow, great!!! (Score:2, Informative)
Yeah but you cant compare CPU's on Mhz alone..
The architecture the current P4's and lower are built around has its roots back in the late 70's, PowerPC's were designed some years later..
I do recall a 4mhz Acorn RISC CPU that ran rings around a 16Mhz 68030 for speed..
Re:Wow, great!!! (Score:3)
Re:Wow, great!!! (Score:3, Insightful)
Why not? I mean for integer stuff at least, a P4 spends a lot of its time copying data between the sparse set of registers, and there's a limitation on the instructions that can actually be paired to get maximum throughput. The extremely deep pipeline also means there's a high penalty for incorrect branch prediction. The legacy 386 stuff makes the CPU extremely inefficient.
The facts about floating point are a little harder to come by. Nevertheless, a different processor architecture will allow much better internal parallelism. The x86 series of chips still has latency issues, reducing performance here. A G3 is about twice as fast as a Pentium 2.
Incidentally, do you realise that a Pentium would run at about 3 times the speed of a 386 clocked at the same rate?
It may well be that an 800MHz G3 is not as fast as a 2GHz Pentium 4, but don't make the mistake of making any estimates based on clock speed.
Finally, I should point out this is not designed to be the ultimate in speed. It's only trying to be competitive, not a world beater. Just has to be as fast as a typical pentium CPU.
Davie Haynie on x86/PPC... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:brand name....backfires (Score:4, Insightful)
why? because thats all the PC had when the amiga of the time was showing 4096 colours (HAM) at 640x512?
it lways seemed unfair that the amiga, which had damn advanced for the time graphics and sound, was written off as a mere "games machine" yet what drives new pc hardware now?
dave
1985 vs. NOW (Score:2, Interesting)
Tha Amiga had 4096 colors right from the beginning although 32 and 16 colours where the most popular ones. The resolution was 320x256 -> 640x512. But that was 1985.
Nowadays you can use most of the modern add-on cards out there (PCI, AGP etc.), as long as there are drivers for them that is. Not to mention Amithlon that actually runs on x86s.
Amiga did not HAVE a textmode! (Score:4, Informative)
There IS no textmode on an Amiga!
Re:Amiga DID have a textmode! (Score:2, Funny)
Maybe it was one of the Atari Amiga models ?
Re:Amiga DID have a textmode! (Score:2)
Re:Amiga is Stable (Score:2, Interesting)
By the way, this new Amiga is nowhere like a true Amiga in terms of chipset. It's just a PowerPC with PCI, AGP, USB and all the usual stuff you'll find in a not-so-modern PC. Note the southbridge (what would *that* have been called in the original Amiga?) is a now-outdated Via part, the same I have in my PC.
Re:Amiga is Stable (Score:2)
Re:A beige box. (Score:2)
I *want* a "PC" - whatever the heck that might mean these days - but most importantly, I want Architecture. I'm sick of buying Intel, and I don't want to buy into the intel concept by getting AMD instead, either. x86 can go whistle, I want ppc or alpha. And I want to run NetBSD on it, too, as forcing linux to run on various bits of kit (amiga A500+, anyone? Psion 5MX?) has lost its appeal with me. I have intel with Gentoo, FreeBSD and OpenBSD atm; need to complete the set!
So who else do we know who does G4-800 chips? One answer: Apple. And how much do they cost? about 2x-4x as much as this new amiga effort. So by sacrificing apple's proprietary mobo and peripherals, I fulfil my desire for "Architecture" and slice the cost right down. That's looking pretty peachy to me.
Now, the really worrying and annoying thing is that clause about needing some "enabler" to get OS4 to run on it. I read it like this: they want me to pay for something (always dodgy) that helps them fight me. Erm, yeah, right, time to open-source it and sell CDs with added manuals or other value for $20. *Then* I'd be interested in the OS.
Re:A beige box. (Score:3, Insightful)
Mod this up! I'm tired of people comparing the price of random stripped down equipment with the price of a fully loaded Apple box. Usually it's people comparing the price of a headless white-box PC vs an Apple system that includes an LCD display, sometimes even the Cinema display. This time it's someone comparing a bare CPU board (not even a case and power supply!) with a fully loaded high-end Mac.
Don't forget to count what your time is worth to tinker with all this crap and get it working... call it at least $10/hr. And that's time to go shopping for all this crap and to open the boxes too. So what if you happen to like putting computer parts together... that's less time you could be spending playing Counterstrike. Er, except Counterstrike won't run on this thing when you're done. All you've got is a pretty toy with all the (in)compatibility of Mas OS X and none of the apps.
Someone else has already posted that once you go through your shopping list (case, power supply, video card, RAM, hard drive, keyboard, mouse, display), you've already spent enough to go ahead and get a 15" iMac. Not only does the iMac look better, but it's got a properly supported OS that's had two years to get stable, not some beta that'll be released Real Soon Now.
If you're going to compare prices, why not compare the price of an Amiga board ($600-$800) with your typical ATX mobo and AMD/Intel CPU, which runs more like $200-$300, or even less if you don't mind something "old" like a 1GHz Celeron or Duron.
Re:A1200? (Score:3, Informative)
I used to know a guy who set up kiosks and displays for movie theaters using Amiga hardware. He had systems that allowed people to interactively search and view movie times, view movie trailers (from a laser disc), and do all kinds of fancy overlays and screen wipes. All this for an entire theater, including the OS, software, graphics, and data, would only fill about 10MB of disk space. How much do you think it would take these days to do the same thing?