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)
Re:AROS ? (Score:2)
If anyone has an extra, just ask; I'll give you my address!
Re:AROS ? (Score:1)
Then again, when Be ported their OS off the proprietary platform, and onto a PC, was the best thing that ever happened to them. Now Be Inc., is worth what? 2 trillion USD?
Re:AROS ? (Score:1)
You are joking right? Be recently went through liquidation and is no longer a commercial entity.
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?
Why not UAE, then? (was: Vm_Ware) (Score:1)
The JIT might not work in the latest version, but 0.8.15 isn't such a bad version, is it?
Re:Why not UAE, then? (was: Vm_Ware) (Score:1)
Re:Why not UAE, then? (was: Vm_Ware) (Score:1)
What type of CPU and what programs? Basilisk II ran all of the shareware 68K games I threw at it fine -- i.e. Maelstrom, Apeiron, etc. on a 400Mhz Celeron.
Re:Why not UAE, then? (was: Vm_Ware) (Score:1, Flamebait)
Re:Why not UAE, then? (was: Vm_Ware) (Score:2)
Re:Vm_Ware (Score:2)
Re:Vm_Ware (Score:2)
Re:Vm_Ware (Score:2)
Re:Vm_Ware (Score:2)
damn it slashdot really needs an "Edit" feature.
Re:Vm_Ware (Score:2)
Amithlon is a whole OS, but its picky about hardware. It is more compatible, which is more important for an amiga user.
AmigaOS XL runs on top of Qnx, in that respect, I would rather have it run ontop of linux or winxp.
Dead parrot sketch... (Score:1, Funny)
Screenshots (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Screenshots (Score:1)
I know what AmigaOS looks like anyway, this is more interesting.
Re:Screenshots (Score:1)
Now, I happen to own a copy of AmigaOS XL (Amithlon and AmigaXL) so I know it's real, but I wouldn't call it proof just because the laptop displays a picture of AmigaOS 3.9.
Re:Screenshots (Score:2)
grin
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!
Re:I'm not dead! (Score:2)
Re:I'm not dead! (Score:2)
Re:I'm not dead! (Score:2)
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:Amiga was so awesome at one time (Score:1)
I bet some fool in marketing at Be Inc., said this same thing, when they decided to kill the Bebox, in its cradle, no less.
"It would have been better to emulate Apple in picking a free kernel."
Um, let me get this straight. A new amiga, without real amiga hardware AND operating system? Yeh, you may want to apply for a job with them. I have a suspicion you'd get along fine there.
The last chance was in the early 1990's, unfortunately. I think newtek killed what was left of Amiga, and who can blame them? They would have killed themselves trying to defend the remnants.
Re:Amiga was so awesome at one time (Score:1)
(Posting without updating the
Re:Amiga was so awesome at one time (Score:1)
Re:Amiga was so awesome at one time (Score:2, Informative)
Not so at all; AmigaOS 4 won't be using any other OS as its kernel.
As for AmigaXL, it consists of two products: Amithlon and (confusingly) AmigaXL for QNX. The latter is basically a modified version of UAE running on QNX which is perhaps what you're thinking of.
It's also not clear that this is a dual-platform approach. Amithlon (and AmigaXL for QNX, and UAE) will only emulate 68k (albeit, extremely quickly) so won't in their current incarnation be able to run AmigaOS 4. But still, it may help the Amiga gain ground as you say (especially all the while AmigaOS 4 is nowhere to be seen).
AmigaOS -- ahead of its time (Score:4, Informative)
It was a developers machine as well as a user's machine to love.
----
Re:AmigaOS -- ahead of its time (Score:1)
Sorry, this was a bit before my time (at least computing time). I started on Apples, and even though Amiga was around, it was going out of style (at least around here).
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:AmigaOS -- ahead of its time (Score:1)
Among other things, yes. Commodore's marketing was awful to say the least, and bankruptcy followed in 1994 leaving Amiga in void for a couple of years. That finally killed the machine for the masses. Yes, I know it is still pretty popular hobbyist machine, but so are for example C64 or MSX.
Another fatal thing was slow progress. It took almost *ten* years to get new graphics chipset and more processor power to the lower-end models, and when AGA finally arrived it was too little too late, PC had already got first sound cards and VGA, and more processor power. There were rumors that Commodore had *lost* the original chipset (OCS) designs, and they had to reverse-engineer the chips to be able to make next generation AGA chips compatible.
It is also impossible to make an AmigaOS-compatible operating system with real memory protection without using virtual machines or emulators for older software. Original AmigaOS uses pointer-based messaging, and that's why the OS is so efficient. But unfortunately, that's impossible with virtual memory. So though AmigaOS was still way ahead of its time in 1985, it can't be updated to even 1995 standards without losing compatibility.
Re:AmigaOS -- ahead of its time (Score:2)
Re:AmigaOS -- ahead of its time (Score:2)
In North America anyway. But in Europe, particularly Britain and Germany, the CD32 was doing a remarkably good job handing Sega's ass to it on a plate, right up until Commodore disappeared out from under it.
Re:AmigaOS -- ahead of its time (Score:2)
And it made it worse when our CS teacher (touted to be one of the top Amiga minds in the country) told us that it wasn't a big deal. Particularly when I could pull out my PowerBook and do twice as much, twice as happily, and without putting up with ridiculous shortcomings in the interest of being "more advanced."
Re:AmigaOS -- ahead of its time (Score:2)
Marketing - THATS what killed the amiga - beautiful machine, excellent hardware, great OS (do u know any other OS today that you can mix resolutions on the same screen like 640x200 & 320x200, different bitplanes and all at once? didn't see it anywhere else...
And yet, Commodore (who bought Amiga) managed to screw each time their customers over, over, and over again.
Anyone who where following Commodore in their last few years will tell you about their biggest mistake - making their last machine (Amiga 4000) totally incompatible with everything else - was their biggest mistake. Did I mention how much they screwed their customers?
And people wondered how come Atari ST with less then HALF of the featured kicked Amiga's sales in the butt (neck to neck sales in Europe, sold better then Amiga in U.S)
Oh dear...
not quite (Score:2)
But the underlying concepts weren't new, even at the time: message passing, multitasking, GUIs, hardware acceleration, etc., were already being used in several other operating systems. OSX's ancestor, Mach, was already being developed, and Linux's ancestors, various versions of UNIX, had been out for nearly a decade. Several GUIs, including early versions of X, were also in use.
Also discussed here... (Score:3, Informative)
Ahead of its time (Score:1)
Amiga was one incredible PC and way ahead of its time. I'd certainly love an up-to-date model if the new ones can attain the same type of standards as the old ones.
Does this mean.... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Does this mean.... (Score:2)
Re:Does this mean.... (Score:2)
I might consider buying it (Score:1)
The truth is this thing is a gadget for amiga nostalgics and I would love to see the face of some people when I'll "boot" an AmigaOS on my PC (not really the truth this is still emulation but I don't have to tell them right away and it still would be fun). Is that worth 150 euros?
What are the chances? (Score:5, Insightful)
And note: Linux is quite horrible in most regards as a desktop OS (which doesn't stop me using it as such, or even installing it on the machines of the clueless as a virus-proof alternative to Windows), but it's still the only system making real inroads on the desktop.
I find the empirical evidence too hard to ignore: unless you're Microsoft, the only way you're going to make significant advances in today's OS marketplace is to be Open Source. Proprietary releases of the Amiga OS for the PC platform might make a few old Amiga die-hards very happy, but is there really any future in it? Is history going to repeat itself again?
Re:What are the chances? (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:What are the chances? (Score:2)
I guess it depends on what you call "success." If you mean gaining a large marketshare, Amiga ain't gonna do that. If you mean make a profit, then yes, it's theoretically possible.
No, there's no future in it. I still use my Amiga every day (for all my email and most of my web surfing) but even I know that. But if you can make Amiga die-hards happy enough to write checks, type in credit card numbers, etc. then everybody wins.
is AmigaXL the one true future of Amiga (Score:2)
An answer your question from the article:
"Is this the future of Amiga computing?," you may ask. Although this package offers a very valuable addition to the options currently available, the future of Amiga computing lies with PPC based Amiga 4.x compatible computers and other AmigaDE enabled solutions.
The Amiga. (Score:4, Funny)
In 1989 I bought an Amiga 500. My jaw dropped.
I have never experienced another piece of
technology the way I did the first year I used
amiga. It's sound, graphics, multitasking, and
interface WAS that good... that far
ahead of it's time.
If there were and equivalent to getting laid the ;)
first time it would be the Amiga. Sure
you've had better since, but you will
remember it always. For the record I'll take my
first lay over the Amiga anytime
-J
Re:The Amiga. (Score:2)
I'm not so sure, myself. :-)
Will then learn? (Score:1)
I'd love to support it but... (Score:1, Troll)
Amiga as we remember it is dead, and it's not comming back! I've moved on to Mandrake as a desktop.
Still don't get it (Score:4, Insightful)
Since then the industry has changed tremendously, we've been though how many generations of hardware, software, and even OSes. It's nice that an Amiga-legacy has come back but - to what?
Is there anything that Amiga now offers that Be didn't or MacOS X doesn't? Something that Wintel in it's messy but with 90% of the market way can't cough up some half-assed version of? The Linux/BSD/etc. can't reproduce?
Surely there aren't enough Amiga-fanatics out there to support a viable market for running old binaries? And all of those old kewl Amiga apps - they're old hat now - certianly there are better alternatives on other platforms by now aren't there?
What, exactly, does Amiga offer other then seeing an old friend again? I know nothing else is quite like it but after all these years is it really viable as an ongoing concern? Or is it like CP/M, just a joy to see it but of little real purpose other then the familiarity and the odd bit that can still be useful if only because nobody ever did it as well elsewhere?
Re:Still don't get it (Score:2)
How about running multiple resolutions at once? If that sentence doesn't make sense to you then you truly don't get it.
-Jeff
Re:Still don't get it (Score:2)
Nice, but doesn't seem a make-it-or-break-it thang to me, how is it useful to you?
-- Michael
btw I expect (but don't know) that this could be done in MacOS X with it's Quartz layer; might be an interesting thing to look into if you're hurtin' for the feature.
Re:Still don't get it (Score:5, Insightful)
This feature (Screens) is one of the major reasons I still use my Amiga daily (in fact, I'm writing this on it!)
An example: My Workbench (finder, ) runs in a medium-resolution (800x600), 24-bit mode in order to make the icons the right size and the text readable. My paint program is set to run in the highest 24-bit resolution my piss-poor gfx card can handle (1280x960). My C IDE is set to run in 1600x1200, 256 colors.
I can launch both applications and toggle through the three screens quickly with the screen depth gadget. In fact, I can launch a game and still toggle screens (with a key press, since the game is fullscreen).
In combination with MUI [sasg.com] this feature becomes even more usefull. You can set up any number of screen definitions ahead of time, and select which applications go on what screen. For instance, the graphics program and the picture viewer could both share the high-res, 24 bit screen. The IDE and the text viewer could share the extrememly high-res, 256 color screen. (Normally, each application would either run on Workbench or on its own custom screen.)
Screens are probably the hardest to reproduce likable feature of AmigaOS, but there are tons of others:
All of these thing conspire to make me hang on to my dear Amiga, year after year. And the fact that I bloody hate both Microsoft and the PC hardware design.
Re:Still don't get it (Score:2)
I'm still not sure how critical it is to the majority of us nor that it can't be reproduced (and some if it's functioniality seems predicated on remedying other Amiga OS weaknesses) but yes, I can see the advantages. Again, I wouldn't be suprised if MacOS X can't offer much of what you want with some work but it'll never run those 100's of games, at least not natively (hmmm - Virtual PC running....) nor behave like the WorkBench.
Each to his own.
So do you think there are enough folks interested in using Amiga or enough developers willing to support it that it will ever "take off" in any more-then-obscure-hobbyist way? I know anything is possible but do you expect it to happen or are we seeing the cadaver get yet another shock through the heart but afterwards it'll still be laying there on the table, lovely but going nowhere fast?
Re:Still don't get it (Score:2)
I'm not saying that it wasn't a capable system, but I am saying that everything about it frustrated me. Every single aspect of the system. I find that to be a very impressive feat.
Re:Still don't get it (Score:2)
ARexx (Score:3, Informative)
An example: I loved doing animation and putting them onto tape. By hand, this involved running each frame through Art Department Professional to resize, deinterlace, and change bit depth; then hitting the "Append" button in my Personal Animation Recorder and adding the changed frame (fields) to an animation.
I wrote an ARexx program that started ADPro and PAR, then waited for new frames to show up in a directory as they were rendered. It would press the appropriate buttons to load the image in ADPro, manipulate it, and save it to disk, then do the same to have the PAR add it to the animation. If I had a serial VCR, it could even have recorded the thing when I was through.
That kind of integration was marvelous. Everything had it. You could automate the most amazing tasks. It was like getting a little command-line utility for every function of a monstrously complex program's GUI. It would be nice to have in Linux; the closest we've got now is Gimp scripting.
Re:ARexx (Score:2)
Re:ARexx (Score:2)
So there's a point but is it unique?
Wintel has VB able to claw into most things and easy to play with as well as ports of most big scripting languages including (I believe) Rexx. MacOS & MacOS X both (and their applications!) support their native AppleScript as well as standard hooks (Open Scripting Architecture) for any number of other languages including Perl, TCL, Phython and even JavaScript. Linux/BSD/etc. of course have all of those scripting languages though few of their larger applications support scripting in any sort of universally structured way (command line switches notwithstanding.)
A great scripting language is a joy and yes Amiga was innovative in that on a GUI platform but that was then, today it's hardly a distinguishing feature. Heck if that were critical we'd be knee deep in OS/2 right now (IMHO a kewler OS then Amiga and having it's own stalwarts.)
i remember the days... (Score:1)
then i spent about £200 ($300) on my 40MB hard disk - i was in awe - i installed the OS to hard disk, and booted from HD - once again my jaw dropped.
at about this time i just had to get my memory upgrade, i think i remember it being a 1MB upgrade, wow, it was great, i made a 1MB ram drive with it when i needed to.
im too excited,
All this and im only 22, LOL
Please enlighten me... (Score:1)
This is not a troll. I'd like someone to enlighten me and possibly other readers.
Re:Please enlighten me... (Score:1)
Maybe I am wrong, if so let me know.
Re:Please enlighten me... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Please enlighten me... (Score:2)
Re:Please enlighten me... (Score:3, Insightful)
I use an Amiga daily, so I'll take a shot at this.
For me, the Amiga has no unique features, anymore, that are terribly important. BUT...
I happen to like the scheduler and the GUI's responsiveness. Until about (very roughly) 2 or 3 years ago, the Amiga was much faster and responsive than any mainstream OS. You could beat it with other fringe OSes such as BeOS, but GUIs such as GNOME, KDE, and Windows, couldn't really measure up to it. The catch is that the hardware that the mainstream OSes run on, is so much faster, that at even one tenth (this is very subjective, I admit) of the efficiency, they're able to keep up now. A 300 MHz Pentium running Windows or Linux is a sick joke compared to a 50 MHz Amiga, but a 1.2 GHz Athlon isn't. So this advantage has mostly disappeared, as far as I'm concerned.
The other advantage is one that only applies to Amiga die-hards. We're just familiar with our old software. If you don't already have an Amiga, you probably don't need this stuff. But I have a hard time giving up:
AWeb: a very nice web browser. Galeon is better in some ways, but missing some features. Netscape 4.x and MSIE (all versions) are very crude. Opera is pretty nice. There's no reason existing browsers couldn't gain the things about AWeb that I like; it's just that they haven't for some reason.
Directory Opus Magellan: a very good file manager. I find Nautilus, GMC (or whatever that older GNOME file manger was called), KDE, Windows Explorer, and yes -- even Mac finder and OS/2 WPS -- to be somewhat slow and clumsy in some ways compared to working with DOpus (it depends on what you're trying to do). DOpus 5.x has a extremely efficient UI, IMHO.
FWIW, I have recently been thinking that the best parts could probably be duplicated in a couple hundred lines of Python, so maybe I'll give it a try. Also, I've heard it's recently been ported to Windows, but I haven't seen it. And I think some older versions of DOpus (4.x) have been cloned for other platforms. So it's not a really unique advantage, but it's still something that the mainstream hasn't latched onto yet.
Other Amigans may list other apps that they like, or violently disagree with my favorites. Whatever. I guess the point is that, no matter how dead the Amiga may seem, it had many years of life, and in that time, a very large library of software was written, some of ahead of its time. The remaining Amiga users are probably pretty used to the apps.
There are some little things too, like "assigns" (a way to use a sort of shorthand for a long path) which you can kinda fake on Unix-like systems with softlinks in your root, I guess.
A feature request... (Score:1)
Where's the platform? (Score:4, Insightful)
They are all also-ran commercial competitors to not just Windows, which commands 99% of that market and comes bundled with 99% of the systems available, but three flavors of BSD, all free-as-in-beer-and-as-in-speach, and a few housand different Linux-based operating systems (distros). Top it off with a few clever, and completely free "other" OSes, like Atheos, and the situation looks grim.
I expect them to enjoy the same long-term success enjoyed by Be and OS/2... which is to say, an ignonimous death after the Nostalgia buffs tire of toying with it.
To be brutally blunt, the only way to introduced a closed platform in the current market is to work it as a total system. Sun and Apple desktops survive in a Windows world by offering a total package... you don't gotta be faster than Wintel, or cheaper than Wintel, but you have got to offer something Wintel doesn't. Comprehensively integrated systems is a damn good start, the insane system speed and responsiveness with limited resources that was a trademark of the Amiga of yore is another area to focus on. Move to Mips, ARM, PowerPC, MAJC, what have you... design a platform, not an OS but a whole platform, and you have a fighting chance.
Emulating a 10 year old architecture on an bone stock PC and then charging for the privelege is a fast track to irrelevancy.
SoupIsGood Food
Cloanto's Amiga Forever (Score:1)
Anyway, for people looking for a slightly lower cost (but legal) solution, check out Amiga Forever [cloanto.com], a commercial distribution of UAE [linux.de] that comes with *every* version of the Amiga Kickstart ROMs and Workbench disks! And this isn't a warez CD either... these are legitimately licensed from (insert current company that owns Amiga's IP). I believe it also includes some commercial software and software that will allow you to mount Amiga hard drives as network drives under Windows. Might be worth a look for former/current Amiga fans.
dazed and confused (Score:1)
If not, then this really is just sort of an oddity. Off hand, I'd think that the AmigaOS would have some advantages in that:
Could this be an alternative to desktop for Linux? I'm sure it would be tough, but is it feasible to utilize the Linux kernel instead of QNX (I think it was)? I'm really asking here. I don't know much about kernel hacking as my job is at the application layer.
I also don't want to start any desktop wars. But as much as I like KDE and BlackBox (for VERY different reasons/purposes, obviously) it doesn't seem like they are as "user-friendly" (idiotproof?) as they should be. Perhaps Amiga/Linux could be an alternative desktop for Harry Homeowner. (although it seems as though some features would have to be unloaded as the Linux kernel supports those features).
Anyway, I thought I'd throw it out there and ask...
Emulation is still good (Score:1)
I recently got a copy of Amiga Forever 5.0 [cloanto.com], and I tried out WinUAE with that. I also installed AmigaOS 3.9 to it and it worked just fine. Even when I am not really a big Amiga fan (more of a foamy-mouthed Commodore 64 user =) I must say I'm really impressed... With the JIT stuff and the bsdsockets, it worked fast and supported network. A real, hardware C64 can do ISDN (with proper RS232 buffering, of course), but now I have an emulated Amiga that does DSL =)
(Screenshots? 1 [beastwithin.org] 2 [beastwithin.org] 3 [beastwithin.org])
Of this stuff, I have to say I'm impressed, too - no need to boot to some other OS to run another, which means some more stability - UAE 0.8 isn't 100% stable yet. Very nifty.
(And I think Amiga hardware was pretty nice, but PC got ahead of it at last (after so many years!) when they ditched ISA bus and got USB input devices.)
I need to get the JIT + bsdsockets for *NIX UAE soon. Too bad the fullscreen modes in X11 UAE often suck - DGA, with its r00t requirement, means trouble. Anyone working on a SDL port?
The Amiga's strength was not its OS (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't see a clear, motivating reason to buy into the new AmigaOS, except for nostalgia.
It is ironic, to me, that all that survives from Amiga is the OS. One of the main reasons that the Amiga line died back because Amiga was even worse that Apple about releasing new versions of the OS.
Re:The Amiga's strength was not its OS (Score:3, Insightful)
What I find the most nostalgic about this /. discussion, is that some of
you Amiga-is-the-hardware guys are still around. ;-)
I replaced as much of my A3000's hardware as I could with GVP, VillageTronic, and Phase 5 "cyber implants" at the first opportunity, because the Amiga hardware was so limiting. I remember when I had to choose between talking to my modem at 115200 bps, or displaying 4 bitplanes on my hires screen, because the chip bus'es bandwidth was maxed out. Amiga hardware was great in the 80s, but lame in the 90s. But once I took care of the hardware limitations, the Amiga still kicked ass well into the late 90s and I'm still using it today... no thanks to the Amiga hardware.
I want my ASSIGNs! (Score:1)
Is anyone else missing the absolutely wonderful ASSIGN command? Sigh... Still, 13 years after I got my first A500 I long for this long gone command.
I want my pics:, mp3: and games: again, not just stupid c:, d: etc. Unix paths doesn't do it for me either and the same for soft and hard links.
Give back the ASSIGN command to me and give it to me NOW!
What's the big deal about the Amiga? (Score:3, Informative)
About 10 years ago, a number of business associates (well, friends, really) and I had a company that used the Amiga extensively. We built, from the ground up, an embedded control and data collection system using Amiga computers. The average facility we installed with this product (yes, we sold it) went for about 70K.
Why the Amiga? Several reasons :
1) it was built for NTSC/PAL output. We needed to get signals to TV's for display.
2) it had state of the art graphics. I believe the only other "standard" at the time was VGA or SVGA.
3) it was *really* fast, compared to the X86 machines of the day. This was probably due more to the custom chips than the CPU clock...
4) it was built by very intelligent people who put a lot of thought into the design of it. The Zorro bus (peripheral card bus) was pretty straightforward to connect with. We built a single card design that worked on an A2000/3000/4000 and the A500.
5) it was cheap. Really really cheap for what you got (about $300 per A500 and this had everything we needed in a nice, small package).
6) apart from the lack of an MMU (generally) and memory protection, the OS was a dream to program and the system a dream to use.
7) we liked it. What can I say? We liked it. In addition to the company that built this embedded system, we had a computer store that dealt in the Amiga and Video Toaster.
We had to kill the product when Commodore went the way of the Dinosaurs. It's too bad, really, because we would have liked to continue.
I still love the Amiga - but it's not ever going to be a viable system to use again. I really *do* hope that the hardware and software guys who built the Amiga system get together and build a *real* piece of hardware and software again.
Think about the custom chips for a minute -
You had the blitter : basically an area based logic unit. Big deal? Well a buddy of mine wrote a program that could run a hi-res screen, some blitter code and very very little CPU and iterate through life (the simulation - not reality) at about 30 frames per second. No discernable CPU use. It wasn't until about '96 that I saw similar achievements on X86 hardware.
You had the copper : the chip that allowed for multiple resolutions. It defined how to output graphics information and at what resolution : take a hi-res screen with x colors and allow it to be dragged over a low res-screen with x*256 colors. There's nothing I've seen since that can do this.
You had the graphics chips themselves : Agnus and Portia (or whatever). They did all the work of putting out the display, along side the other two custom chips.
All of the use of the CPU was in processing - everything was basically DMA, everything ran the same memory interleaved with the CPU. It was *sooo* cool and so very quick.
A couple of my partners wrote a program called Amoeba Invaders (space invaders clone) (through our company Late Night Developments - we were young and thought it was a cool name). I could run about, oh, 20 copies of this game concurrently because most of the animation was done with the custom chips and not the CPU - and this was on an Amiga 1000 (68000 system).
But... Commodore was run by business folks who wanted to make a buck. And they did. And when they were happy with the buck they'd made, they killed it.
So, the Amiga was waay ahead of it's time. But it's now dead and technology has certainly improved well beyond what the Amiga excelled at.
I saw this thread on an emulator and have one thing to say. So what? I liked the Amiga because of the hardware and the software. No emulator so far has been able to do a good job of the hardware that made the Amiga greater than the OS. Oh well.
Nice piece, but it's not a review (Score:2, Insightful)
Interesting piece, but I'm afraid it's not a review. It's a piece of Amiga evangelism in the wrong place.
We don't need to be told about AmigaOS. We don't need to be told about AmigaOS apps, or about how good or bad they are, or anything about Amiga itself.
There's about 5 pages of irrelevant stuff in there.
This is meant to be a review of an emulation package.
There are, as I understand it, two emulators.
Identify them. What are the differences? What do they do? Why use them instead of UAE or Fellow?
Start with one. Explain what it is and how it works. Explain how it's installed and used. Comment on how well it works. Criticize its failings, don't just praise its strengths.
Then take the 2nd. Do exactly the same.
Now, compare the two. Explain the differences. Take 1#. Point out where #1 is better than #2, then where #1 is worse than #2. Now take #2 and do the same.
Now, comment on the overall package. Compare it to any competitors: UAE, Fellow, AiaB, AmigaForever. Compare it to a real modern Amiga.
What's in the box? What manuals? What's the help like? What's the support like?
Specify its EXACT hardware requirements. Explain an optimal config, a minimal one, and the difference it makes.
Explain its cost and where to get it.
Summarise, in ten words each, its pros, its cons, and an overall verdict. Award it points out of ten for performance, ease of use, features, functionality, compatibility, value for money and overall.
*That* is a review.
This piece, however enjoyable, isn't.
But thanks for it! I enjoyed it. It just didn't tell me what I needed to know: do I want it? Is it worth buying?
--
Liam P.
[echoed on OSnews]
Factory new A1200 and a bit of a rant. (Score:4, Funny)
A few years ago, I lived a coupla miles from the old Commodore Sweden HQ and they didn't take down the old sign until recently and every time I passed by on my bike or in my car, I'd shed a tear thinking about the good times I had with my amigas and how different the world could have been, if only... If only Irving Gould and Mehdi Ali hadn't been such greedy bastards. They must have been grown out of a baboon's ass - there is no way in hell those two idiots could have been born and raised by humans. No, I'm not bitter. I'm BITTER!.
Let me go, I feel much better now! No, don't make me run XP again - NOOOOOooooo!
Re:I wept silently to myself, when I read this. (Score:1)
Re:I wept silently to myself, when I read this. (Score:1)
Re:I wept silently to myself, when I read this. (Score:1)
that's very disappointing, then.
Re:I wept silently to myself, when I read this. (Score:2)
Re:I wept silently to myself, when I read this. (Score:1)
This does not an amiga make, however.
Proprietary coprocessors? No one is asking you put an agnus or denise on a new Amiga. Certainly not me. What we are asking for, is for McEwen to create an architecture with some token legacy compatibility, a single Zorro slot, or perhaps the video slot would be better. We're asking for a bunch of coprocessors, even if they are off the shelf. Stick a few GeForces on the thing. Give us a power users machine. For god's sake, manufacture a keyboard with the proper "A" keys, and the Help. If it were USB, all the better. Put a floppy controller on the thing that can read proper amiga disks. Any single one of these things, would make it a true successor in my eyes. They're not willing to do that.
And it wouldn't be a bad thing, if it were more a power user's machine, and less something designed for the AOL crowd. That means 64bit PCI, and some firewire ports.
Re:I wept silently to myself, when I read this. (Score:2)
Re:I wept silently to myself, when I read this. (Score:1)
Re:I wept silently to myself, when I read this. (Score:3, Insightful)
computer manufacturers and operating system makers are continuing to pander to the lowest common denominator
What would you rather have them do? Go broke pandering to the .05% of the market with some knowledge?
The Joe Windows crowd is the group that has the money to burn and needs someplace to spend it. One can hardly blame mfg's and os companies for wanting to give them a place to do so.
That being said, this does look like a last hurrah attempt to monetize a dead OS architecture.
Re:I wept silently to myself, when I read this. (Score:1)
The power users may be a much smaller group, but if they buy less than 1 mid-to-high end system per year, it's because they're between jobs at the moment (not that that stops all of them). They're people so fed up with the consumer garbage, that they'd pay a premium for something truly made for them. As it is, they end up buying stuff meant for the corporate enterprise, simply to get cool stuff.
The free market fails even more miserably every year, and this is an example. A smaller market, yes, but one that isn't being catered to very well, if at all. That happens when companies are allowed to get too big.
Re:I wept silently to myself, when I read this. (Score:2)
Anything but what? Rich? Tell me something I don't know ...
However, if you add up the total aggregate of wealth, the lower middle class is where you aim if you want to market something. To run a growing, successful company, you have to aim at that market, because it is the one that is growing. The elite computer users are going to form such a small market that you'll go broke trying to supply and support them (though they are likely to need the least support).
As for the free market failing, what would you suggest? There are no viable alternatives that don't rely on some degree of "being nice to each other" (which might be nice, but you can't count on it).
My suggestion is that you quit whining about how the free market is failing and get out do something constructive. What? I don't know. I'm going to keep working in the free market system until someone provably comes up with something better.
Re:I wept silently to myself, when I read this. (Score:1)
You say these things as if you were a true progressive. The past teaches us nothing, and unless it's a fresh design finished in the last 30 seconds, it's worthless right?
Do you even own an Amiga? Did you ever?
Re:I wept silently to myself, when I read this. (Score:2)
Re:I wept silently to myself, when I read this. (Score:2)
Re:I wept silently to myself, when I read this. (Score:2)
Re:I wept silently to myself, when I read this. (Score:2, Funny)
Operating systems that I use at least once a month.
NOS's
Banyan VINES 6.0 (with streettalk)
Netware 2.x
Netware 3.x
Netware 4.x (with NDS)
Netware 5.0 (with NDS)
OS's
Apple ProDOS
Apple GS/OS 6
MacOS 6.x -9.x
Amiga OS 1.x - 3.1
Windows 3.0, 3.11WFW, 95, 98, NT 3.1, NT 3.51 NT4, 2000 (all flavors, 2k with AD)
CP/M (for TRS-80 Model 4)
IBM PC DOS 3.x-7.0
MS DOS 2.x-6.22
Novell DOS 7
DR DOS 5,6
Atari TOS/GEM
IBM OS/2 2.1-4.0
RX11
OpenVMS 7.0
Ultrix 4.3
Solaris 7
NeXTstep 3.3
And literally too many 8bit OS's to keep track of. Tandy renamed the trs80 dos's every other week, I just can't remember all the different flavors of minix, cp/m and things named "dos". I have the only integrated ethernet/tokenring/arcnet/localtalk/fddi/atm/econ
Re:I wept silently to myself, when I read this. (Score:1)
Re:I wept silently to myself, when I read this. (Score:1)
At least, that's the plan.
Re:I wept silently to myself, when I read this. (Score:1)
Compared to what ? A floppy disk ?
Near Realtime Performance : Double Bollocks!
Compared to What ? A pocket calculator ?
'Near Realtime' is an oxymoron. Either the OS is 'realtime' or its not. There is no such thing fanboy as 'near' realtime.
That so called IPC 'feature' you lovingly refer to also crashed the OS hard when any errant process decides to take a detour round the memory map of what is an unprotected OS. Passing the address of a data structure in some other process space & then inadvertantly changing it when you are not supposed to is not a good idea.
You aren't that fscking section 8 called Steve Giovenella by any chance ?
Curmudgeon
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:Why would you want to actually boot AmigaOS? (Score:5, Informative)
As a production platform for film, music, etc, the Amiga is quite obsolete. You do not want to run Deluxe Paint when you have access to Photo Shop, don't you?
Actually, Photoshop is not exactly very hot for pixel-level editing, which is the thing DP focuses most on. If I'd have both DP on Amiga and Photoshop on Windows/Mac running in front of me and I'd have to draw for example a small icon from scratch, I'd use DP. (Although then again, IMO Brilliance was a better program than DP for that ;) For most heavy-duty graphics work Photoshop is superior, but it's not the best tool for everything.
Re:3 machines in one (Score:2)