Reading the rest of the thread, I've noticed a certain person trying to turn what has only been a critic look on Amiga Inc's licensing scheme to a bashing of Hyperion and Eyetech. That's an easy way to keep on spreading myths. So I'd like it to be clarified.

Sorry, but all that has ever been disliked is Amiga Inc's licensing, bundling the OS with a certain hardware.

That has nothing to do with Hyperion's commendable efforts, nor with Eyetech trying to offer something Amiga Inc might accept.

But since nobody here would imagine Amiga Inc doing anything to push Amiga OS, I'm just hoping Hyperion could guarantee Amiga OS a decent userbase by considering an x86 port. Even if they were just planning to use that to get more programs before going with Cell, that would still be better than what we have now.

On the other hand, if Amiga Inc was to threaten them the day they consider giving Amiga OS a broader future, the fault would only be on Amiga Inc.

Last edited by t3g on 25-Jan-2006 at 01:29 AM.

@samface
Quote:

Like I tried to explain to you before, Hyperion was the ones that stepped up when noone else did.

So what? You never know whether someone else would have stepped in if Hyperion didn't. You just can't conclude tat AmigaOS4 wouldn't exist if Hyperion and Eyetech didn't exist.

Say they didn't exist, AmigaInc could have smartened up and concluded the deal with the MOS guys, for instance.

You simply don't know, as you simply can't know what would have happened "only if...". So, please, stop polluting threads with senseless praises.

Quote:

The discussion is about wether we should have gone for the open PC market instead of the PPC and the AmigaOne and it's pretty clear that such project wouldn't have been viable with the given circumstances.

I still can't see those "given circumstances" you're talking about here.

Going x86, while staying compatible with 68k, would have been as easy as supporting Amithlon and developing it (together with AmigaOS) further.

I believe - but Bernie will correct me if I'm mistaken - Amithlon sold more copies than the AmigaONE ever did or - as things stand now - ever will. Plus all the load of pirated copies going around.

So, you see, given the circumstances, it looks like it would have been much more viable, echonomically speaking, to go for x86.

_________________
“It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary
system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.”
~~ Henry Ford

@t3g

Quote:

Just open a subscription, like a 100$ pre-sale of OS4 on x86.

You mean like Amiga Inc. did with the Amiga Party Pack and the Club Amiga offer? Yep, I'm certain the Amiga community would be really enthusiastic about that idea... NOT! I'm sorry but if they were gonna get money from people in the Amiga community, it was only going to be if people got something for their money at the time of the payment. And trust me, they were not going to accept another promise nor do I think Hyperion were all that fond of the idea of making such promise with the possible legal implications that may come with it. Any other suggestions, mr Myth-Buster?

_________________
Sammy Nordström, A.K.A. "Samface"

MINDRELEASE.net - The Non-Commercial Network of Digital Arts.

Samworks D & C - Professional Web Development (in Swedish)

@falemagn

But fact of the matter is that after two years of negotiations, it was noone but Hyperion that managed to come to an agreement with Amiga Inc. regarding a license to develop AmigaOS4. All others that tried failed. If there would have been another possible AmigaOS4 licensee, they obviously failed to even make themselves known during all that time and it is *extremely* unlikely that Amiga Inc. would have waited for them to come around. My claim that there wouldn't have been any AmigaOS4 as it exists today if it wasn't for Hyperion stands and I dare you to prove me wrong.

_________________
Sammy Nordström, A.K.A. "Samface"

MINDRELEASE.net - The Non-Commercial Network of Digital Arts.

Samworks D & C - Professional Web Development (in Swedish)

@t3g

Quote:

In fact, asking me to cash 800$ (I don't have them anyway) to run OS4 on Cell (the first version) in *FOUR* years is out of the question. In four year, today's Cell will just be an outdated processor anyway. Cashing 100$ is more reasonnable, especially because on x86, even if the OS ships in 4 years, I'll still be able to run it on modern hardware at this time.

Where you have this stupid 4 years from ? What makes you think that the Cell will not be developed further when they already got it to run at 5.x Ghz in their labs ? There is NO indication that the Cell architecture :

- will not be developed further than its currently planned incarnation for the PS3
- a port of PPC OS4 to Cell takes as long as a port to x86 (it's pretty safe to assume it will be considerably less effort)

@samface

I can't prove you wrong on something which is impossible to know. In hindsight we only see that the one who was able (which in itself is nothing to be proud of) to make a deal with AInc about AOS4 was Hyperion. Fact of the matter is, we just don't know what would have happened if Hyperion wouldn't have made the deal, and you don't either. So, can you please take this argument out of your posts, as it's totally irrelevant anyway?

How about replying to the other part of the post, instead? The one about the alleged difficulty, "given the circumstances", to go x86, that is.

_________________
“It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary
system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.”
~~ Henry Ford

@falemagn

Quote:

So what? You never know whether someone else would have stepped in if Hyperion didn't. You just can't conclude tat AmigaOS4 wouldn't exist if Hyperion and Eyetech didn't exist.

That OS4 would not exist can never be safely concluded. Thats correct. What we know from fact is that at the time when there was room for negotiations, no one else was willing to do the job under the given terms (AInc's in that case).

"Say they didn't exist, AmigaInc could have smartened up and concluded the deal with the MOS guys, for instance."

If Hyperion didn't exist (hypothetically) the whole scenario is moot. sam is "praising" (as you put it) Hyperion for taking the job when no one else did it. It's still a fact that no one else back then was willing to do it and stepped up - there was plenty of time for interested parties to do this. So i think there is nothing wrong with someone expressing his thanks to Hyperion that they did actually take it up.


Quote:

Going x86, while staying compatible with 68k, would have been as easy as supporting Amithlon and developing it (together with AmigaOS) further.

First of all, it was a shame that a good product like Amithlon had to die. Bernie sure had something incredible there.

Sadly, the only promising x86 approach was done by Bernie. It failed. While it is sure nice to wonder about economics and sales numbers, no one else tried even if it was so economically interesting as you put it. I do not know if AInc approached Bernie at sometime, but i would doubt it taking their history into account or at least the terms would have been unacceptable. Basis of the probability of a successful scenario would always be bound to the behaviour of the licensee, namely AInc. Assuming that they would have "smartened up" is daring to say the least.

@falemagn

Quote:

I still can't see those "given circumstances" you're talking about here.

What problems do you have with recognizing the fact that the AmigaOS4 project wouldn't have been able to survive without the funding from AmigaOne sales? What problem do you have with recognizing the fact that developing an OS for a limited set of hardware setups costs less than developing an OS for an open computer hardware standard with thousands of various hardware setups? What problem do you have with recognizing the fact that Hyperion and their partners have extremely limited resources and problems with funding the AmigaOS4 development as it is?

Quote:

Going x86, while staying compatible with 68k, would have been as easy as supporting Amithlon and developing it (together with AmigaOS) further.

Well, H&P managed to put an end to that. Besides, we already have Cloanto's Amiga Forever which provides the exact same functionality but with more hardware compatibility since it runs on Windows instead of Linux or QNX.

Quote:

I believe - but Bernie will correct me if I'm mistaken - Amithlon sold more copies than the AmigaONE ever did or - as things stand now - ever will. Plus all the load of pirated copies going around.

Now that was an odd combination of "ever will" and "as things stand now".

Anyhow, I don't doubt the AmigaOS4 would sell more if it was available for the PC market and compatible at the same level as Amithlon. However, I distinctively remember that despite that it was an emulator with hardware compatibility provided by either Linux or QNX, it still had it's fare share of hardware incompatibilities (I tried it once but never got it to work with my standard nvidia graphics card, not even if I tried the QNX version). Do you realize how much more work that would have to go into AmigaOS4 just to reach the same level of hardware compatibility? And until they get a return on their investments, how do you suggest that development should be funded?

Quote:

So, you see, given the circumstances, it looks like it would have been much more viable, echonomically speaking, to go for x86.

You keep focusing on possible returns on investments without a plan for how to earn a capital to invest first. Not that I'm against long term plans, but short terms plans are equally as important.

Last edited by samface on 25-Jan-2006 at 10:02 AM.

_________________
Sammy Nordström, A.K.A. "Samface"

MINDRELEASE.net - The Non-Commercial Network of Digital Arts.

Samworks D & C - Professional Web Development (in Swedish)

@IceDragon

Quote:

IceDragon wrote: @falemagn Quote: So what? You never know whether someone else would have stepped in if Hyperion didn't. You just can't conclude tat AmigaOS4 wouldn't exist if Hyperion and Eyetech didn't exist. That OS4 would not exist can never be safely concluded. Thats correct. What we know from fact is that at the time when there was room for negotiations, no one else was willing to do the job under the given terms (AInc's in that case).

I still say "so what?". I mean, why is that even remotely interesting and what relevance does it have to any kind of fruitful discussion we can have here, in this very thread?

Quote:

"Say they didn't exist, AmigaInc could have smartened up and concluded the deal with the MOS guys, for instance." If Hyperion didn't exist (hypothetically) the whole scenario is moot. sam is "praising" (as you put it) Hyperion for taking the job when no one else did it. It's still a fact that no one else back then was willing to do it and stepped up - there was plenty of time for interested parties to do this. So i think there is nothing wrong with someone expressing his thanks to Hyperion that they did actually take it up.

Let's look at it from a bit less fanatical point of view, shall we?
Instead of praising Hyperion, why not blaming AInc for the failed earlier (and subsequent) attempts at making deals? I mean, what if, say, MOS had become the official AmigaOS, would he still be praising its developers? It might seem like useless question, but it's very important to understand what really motivates certain people, like Sammy, in spending so much time stressing seemingly irrelevant points, whilst avoiding the really important ones.


Quote:

Quote: Going x86, while staying compatible with 68k, would have been as easy as supporting Amithlon and developing it (together with AmigaOS) further. First of all, it was a shame that a good product like Amithlon had to die. Bernie sure had something incredible there. Sadly, the only promising x86 approach was done by Bernie. It failed.

It failed 'cause of AInc's mismanagement of the issue, not because the product wasn't well accepted by customers, or because it didn't have a market. There's been plenty of talks about this issue, no need to rehash the argument, I hope.

Quote:

While it is sure nice to wonder about economics and sales numbers, no one else tried even if it was so economically interesting as you put it.

No one else tried to do what? Sell Amihtlon again? Then I'm afraid you don't know the real story behind the product: to sell Amithlon you need a license for AmigaOS. If you don't have such a license, you can't sell it, as simple as that.

Again, the fact Amithlon "failed" is solely due to mismanagement by the licenser, not because of the market.

And we can see the numbers and compare: Amithlon was a best seller, unlike the AmigaONE.

Last edited by falemagn on 25-Jan-2006 at 10:07 AM.

_________________
“It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary
system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.”
~~ Henry Ford

@falemagn

Quote:

And we can see the numbers and compare: Amithlon was a best seller, unlike the AmigaONE.

Show me both sales figures - NOW!

Man, nobody knows if AOS4 would sell in the same quanitity like Amithlon if it was avaible in an x86 version. In my opinion OS4 would fail in fact of the hardware compatiblity.

I preffer the PPC way!!

_________________
Ei gude wie!
I love my AMIGA Collection...
2x A500 (1x 1MB) OS1.3
1x A600 (40MB HDD) OS2.05 (broken joyport)
1x A1200 (68030/50, 32 MB Fast RAM) OS3.1
1x A4000D 040/40 (48 MB Fast), OS3.9, Fastlane Z3, CV64, Deneb, Indi AGA
1x CD³²
1x µAOn

@IceDragon

Quote:

Where you have this stupid 4 years from ? What makes you think that the Cell will not be developed further when they already got it to run at 5.x Ghz in their labs ?

That doesn’t proving anything in regards to mass production issues. Besides the “fat” multi-X64 cores and against a future CELL, refer to “AMD Accelerator”.

_________________
Ryzen 9 7900X, DDR5-6000 64 GB RAM, GeForce RTX 4080 16 GB
Amiga 1200 (Rev 1D1, KS 3.2, PiStorm32lite/RPi 4B 4GB/Emu68)
Amiga 500 (Rev 6A, KS 3.2, PiStorm/RPi 3a/Emu68)

@samface
Quote:

What problem do you have with recognizing the fact that developing an OS for a limited set of hardware setups costs less than developing an OS for an open computer hardware standard with thousands of various hardware setups?

The problem is very simple: that's a red herring.

Whilst it's obviously and blatantly true that the more variables involved, the more the time spent on coding a sw which can account for all those variables, and the more the cost, that simply is not the case at hand, as loads of other people have so far unsuccessfully tried to explain to you.

Dealing with one processor instead of another one doesn't prohibit you to still target one subset of all possible hardware configurations. What problem do you have with that?

But heck, just look at AROS: it can boot and work flawlessy on a multitude of different machines and configurations, with different chipsets and all that. All done in the spare time of one single developer.

Sorry Sammy, you just have no idea of the costs involved, the effort needed, and all that is required to target the x86 hardware and perhipherals. You simply have no idea.

So yes, that's the problem I have with you: you talk of things that have no knowledge about.

Quote:

Now that was an odd combination of "ever will" and "as things stand now".

How so, "as things stand now" is just another version of your "given the circumstances" or, say, "if this trend continues". What's wrong with that?

Quote:

Anyhow, I don't doubt the AmigaOS4 would sell more if it was available for the PC market and compatible at the same level as Amithlon.

And that doubt is based on what reasoning, exactly?

Quote:

However, I distinctively remember that despite that it was an emulator with hardware compatibility provided by either Linux or QNX, it still had it's fare share of hardware incompatibilities (I tried it once but never got it to work with my standard nvidia graphics card, not even if I tried the QNX version)

Mmm... right, so tell me, exactly which NVIDIA card does AOS4 support?

Right.

Quote:

You keep focusing on possible returns on investments without a plan for how to earn a capital to invest first. Not that I'm against long term plans, but short terms plans are equally as important.

Actually, it's you who keep stating that selling AmigaONE's would have somehow earned them this capital to invest, which to me sounds less plausible than if you had told me Elvis is still alive. Ever tried to listen to Hyperion and Eyetech about this? They keep saying that AmigaOS4 is worked on by prople who have earned exactly ZERO from their work, so far. And the hardware has earned Eytech nothing but troubles, or so Alan said.

Exactly how selling 1500 or so AmigaONE's would pay for more than 4 years of development on AOS4 by the various people involved?

So, Sammy, would you please stop stating as facts what in reality are just wild and unsubstantiated guesses of yours?

_________________
“It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary
system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.”
~~ Henry Ford

@falemagn

Fabio, you're on the edge of making this a philosophical debate. Like, do we really *know* anything at all, can we really trust what our senses and our intellects tells us, etc?

Ever heard of Occam's Razor? Yes, the theory that says "the simplest answer is usually the correct answer". The issue we're currently discussing is a perfect example; even if we can't conclude the theory that the AmigaOS4 wouldn't be if it wasn't for Hyperion as an absolute truth, it's an extremely plausible scenario for the given circumstances. Amiga Inc. originally planned to discontinue the entire classic AmigaOS product line but was pressured by certain parties in the Amiga market to change that decission, how likely do you really think it would have been for Amiga Inc. to make another try if the negotiations with Hyperion would also have failed? Who would have been able to stop Amiga Inc. from discontinuing the classic AmigaOS product line then?

But hey, just for you, I'll change my wording to that it is the most plausible scenario. There, feel better?

_________________
Sammy Nordström, A.K.A. "Samface"

MINDRELEASE.net - The Non-Commercial Network of Digital Arts.

Samworks D & C - Professional Web Development (in Swedish)

@cHaOs667

Quote:

Show me both sales figures - NOW!

I think Bernie posted them in this very same thread. Just wade through it, don't be lazy.


Quote:

Man, nobody knows if AOS4 would sell in the same quanitity like Amithlon if it was avaible in an x86 version. In my opinion OS4 would fail in fact of the hardware compatiblity.

It would sell way more than if you tied with overpriced and underspecced hardware, that's for sure. Use common sense, if you don't want or are not able to use basic economic knowledges!

Quote:

I preffer the PPC way!!

Do you realize that you are part of a insignificant minority of the whole potential market?

_________________
“It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary
system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.”
~~ Henry Ford

@samface

Quote:

But hey, just for you, I'll change my wording to that it is the most plausible scenario. There, feel better?

This is not about me feeling better, it's about you stopping to stress uninteresting and irrelevant points, and focusing on the real meat instead.

_________________
“It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary
system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.”
~~ Henry Ford

@falemagn

Quote:

I think Bernie posted them in this very same thread. Just wade through it, don't be lazy.

Sorry not found it yet but looking further

Quote:

It would sell way more than if you tied with overpriced and underspecced hardware, that's for sure.

How many User does have Aros on x86? 10? At first AROS is cheap and secondly it runs on x86 but is has not more Users than MOS or AOS!

Quote:

Use common sense, if you don't want or are not able to use basic economic knowledges!

Explain me the AROS thing and for your argument with basic economic knowledges you can ask the same by yourself. Why should i port an OS to an Hardware which is dominated an single OS (95-98% Market share on x86 PCs) which has thousands of drivers and tons of software that are cheaper and better than on my other x86 OS??
OS4 on desktop is designed only for us geeks not for the normal user. The Future of OS4 lies in the embedded market which is one of the PPC strenghts. Here you can gain marketshare and money, not in the x86 world.

_________________
Ei gude wie!
I love my AMIGA Collection...
2x A500 (1x 1MB) OS1.3
1x A600 (40MB HDD) OS2.05 (broken joyport)
1x A1200 (68030/50, 32 MB Fast RAM) OS3.1
1x A4000D 040/40 (48 MB Fast), OS3.9, Fastlane Z3, CV64, Deneb, Indi AGA
1x CD³²
1x µAOn

@cHaOs667

Quote:

How many User does have Aros on x86? 10? At first AROS is cheap and secondly it runs on x86 but is has not more Users than MOS or AOS!

AROS isn't ready for a daily usage yet, none of its devs tries to hide that fact, there's really nothing surprising about it. Couple it with the fact that AROS on x86 cannot run 68k code transparently, and you have your explanation.

Quote:

Why should i port an OS to an Hardware which is dominated an single OS (95-98% Market share on x86 PCs) which has thousands of drivers and tons of software that are cheaper and better than on my other x86 OS??

Why is it so hard for some of you to understand that that's not really an argument against AmigaOS on x86? You're always in competition with windows, not matter what hardware you run your OS on. If you wanted to run Windows, you'd be running it right now instead of AmigaOS, on whatever hardware. Why would AmigaOS on x86 change that?

_________________
“It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary
system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.”
~~ Henry Ford

@cHaOs667

Aros is not ready for the typical user yet. Thats why the userbase is thin. Wait a year or two and you will love it! Its a great amiga feeling over it. And its yours if you want it, it runs on your PC and its for fun! Dont let go of your windows/linux just yet! It wont prevent you from using OS4 eather!

BTW Aros is not developed by ONE singel developer as someone said. Maybe some port is though.

@dolen

Quote:

BTW Aros is not developed by ONE singel developer as someone said. Maybe some port is though.

That someone must be me, I guess. I am one of the AROS developers, so obviously I didn't mean to say that there's only one developer working on AROS. I rather meant that the x86 native port, with the hardware it supports, is mainly due to one single developer, Michal Schulz.

_________________
“It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary
system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.”
~~ Henry Ford

@IceDragon

Quote:

Where you have this stupid 4 years from ?

I don't now if I even have to reply to this. "Four years" was a reference to the OS4 on Amiga One - in case you haven't noticed.

Looking at the time it takes to developp PPC mainboard and expansion cards (and this is for a well known processor) I doubt anybody in the Amiga market would be able to developp any Cell hardware faster. My guess is more that it will be slower. *Then* OS4 port can start (the same way they lost a long time coping with the AmigaOne small problems).

At least, with x86 you can start the port right now, that's not the same story if you expect any Cell hardware, which will be delayed (like any Amiga hardware, that's not a critic, just a fact)

Quote:

What makes you think that the Cell will not be developed further when they already got it to run at 5.x Ghz in their labs ?

Of course Cell will be developped. Who would be stupid enough to say the contrary?

The question is, when a Cell 2 is out in 4 or 5 years (the life expectancy of the PS3) how long will we have to wait till somebody builds Amiga hw with it? G5 has been out for a long time... Where are the G5 Amiga we could expect to see?

Last edited by t3g on 25-Jan-2006 at 11:49 AM.