Running AmigaOS on a PC (The Proper Way) 256
AmiLover writes: "OSNews is running a review of AmigaXL, a system that allows you to boot AmigaOS on your PC in a way that resembles a regular-booting x86 operating system. Screenshots accompany the article show the latest version of AmigaOS 3.9 running on a Compaq laptop. With AmigaOS 4.0 coming out in March with lots of new features (antialias fonts, better memory protection etc) is AmigaXL the one true future of Amiga, a future that AmigaDE, QNX and Gateway failed to materialize through their involvement with AmigaOS?"
AROS ? (Score:5, Interesting)
Vm_Ware (Score:5, Interesting)
For those of you who don't know, VMWare [vmware.com] is a way in which multiple virtual machines can be created on your desktop. What VMWare actually does is it isolates a section of hard drive (appears as a regular file in Linux) and isolates sections of memory (I've had up to 128 MB allocated) and runs a "virtual machine" which runs through a "BIOS" and can do pretty much everything that another computer can do, including running Windows 98 Games!
So, has anybody got this running under VMWare yet?
I'm not dead! (Score:4, Interesting)
Ahhh the memories. While the Amiga was left behind in the speed wars a long time ago (I forgot how long it takes a simple JPEG image to load!) For ease of use and simple hackability, there never was any competition.
Long live the Amiga! May she never rest in peace!
Amiga was so awesome at one time (Score:3, Interesting)
It is interesting that it will run on both x86 and PPC platforms. This will help it gain ground. Unfortunately they chose QNX as their kernel, which is not only proprietary, but also has few fanatical supporters. (unlike either *BSD or Linux, both of which have lots of fanatical supporters.) It is at least a UNIX like kernel, and very high performance.
It would have been better to emulate Apple in picking a free kernel. Then you would have had the supporters of that OS adding the the core supporters of Amiga. Worse case, how hard would it be to make *BSD or Linux be API compatible with QNX?
All that being said, I would love to see a demo of it, and to see just how fast it is and how well it runs all the programs. I bet we can look forward to ports of open office and mozilla rather quickly as soon as a few developers get their hands on a copy. The full set of GNU tools will also probably be quickly ported to the new environment.
I have a feeling that this is the last chance for Amiga, it is sink or swim. If they don't succeed this time, then it is all over for the platform.
And even then I think that Amiga has a lot to prove in a market that is crowed with Windows, Linux/X and Mac OS X in the top 3 places. No one else is even a contendor on the desktop. OS2 is dead, BeOS is dead. They have to prove that they are worth the price. BeOS was arguably as good or better than the new Amiga, and it never caught on.
Re:AmigaOS -- ahead of its time (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes.
I'd have to say just about everything that could go wrong did go wrong.
Still it was a cool machine. It was the innovator in cheap video production. Or rather NewTek was with the Video Toaster.
Even so, there are still a number of names around that first started on the Amiga. A lot of the 3D rendering packages like Lightwave started on the Amiga. Some of the game makers are still around like Psygnosis. Jim Sachs was a noted Amiga artist and is responsible for the Aquarium screen saver which is part of the Microsoft Plus! XP pack. etc.
Re:What are the chances? (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Still don't get it (Score:1, Interesting)
It was when running animation or color-intensive application was impossible under 640x480 with its 16 colors.
These days with 1600+ resolutions running at 32 bits multiple resolution does not make sense at all.
Re:I wept silently to myself, when I read this. (Score:2, Interesting)
It was the combination of the two, that made it great. If you have just the hardware, then at best it's another machine to port linux to (not even that, considering the era we're discussing), and at worst, it's a machine that has no OS. That went out of fashion in the 1970's.
If you have just the OS, then it's another OS for the x86 monstrosity. You get to compete with the likes of OS/2, BeOS, even Openstep. All of which were admirable on a technical basis, but had no viable chance in the marketplace.
But you put the two together, and at least for a little while, you have something both whizbang and new, a thing unto itself. That even happened with Be Inc, though briefly.
Re:I want my ASSIGNs! (Score:1, Interesting)
Assign PICS: Work:Pics
Assign PICS: Work2:Gfx/MyPics ADD
Assign PICS: DF0:Pics ADD DEFER
cd PICS:
(all those directories become part of PICS:, but DF0:Pics only if there happens to be a disk with such a directory in the drive...)
Assigns are generalised $PATH variables that are
part of the FileSystem, not simple env variables (which the amiga _also_ had, and which were also
part of the filesystem in ENV: (currently used) and ENVARC: (saved across reboots, ENV: loaded from ENVARC: att boot time))
Other good feature - differentiation between the DRIVE and the DISK-IN-THE-DRIVE. If you put a CD in CD0:, you could access it via CD0:, which was always the disk currently inserted in the first CD drive - but you could also access it by its volume name, say MYCRAPPYCD: - and the OS would know you meant "MYCRAPPYCD, no matter what drive it's in.". This little point makes using removeable media much, much easier, and is a core feature of any OS worthy of being called a "Desktop OS". Note how few supposedly "Desktop" OSes get this wrong...