@takemehomegrandma

It also annoys me that a lot of people think that OS4 is for PPC due to some political/religous reasons and that it's just a matter of making a decision and we can magically have OS4 on x86. Going x86 would mean dropping all backward compatibility. You can't have a little-endian CPU running a native binary which interacts with big-endian software using AmigaOS API. If backward compatibility is lost, then it makes no sense to port the old AmigaOS API anyway, because of its severe limitations, so it's better to make a clean new API which is suitable for full memory protection and SMP. So effectively you're making a new OS not based on the original AmigaOS, which is a much bigger project requiring a considerably bigger budget than OS4. Additionally, you lose any connection to the original Amiga/AmigaOS (you could only run old software via UAE) and it's unclear how many people would think it's worth using such a new OS with hardly any software available, instead of MacOSX for instance, which can also run UAE to run classic Amiga software.

But this has been discussed ad infinitum and I don't understand the point in bringing it up yet again...

@Rit

Quote:

Yes, for the first time in how many years, AMD and Intel have actually taken a bit of a step forward with their processors instead of just bumping up power requirements to get more performance out of the chips.

Apparently, PPC has made even less progress during that time or why would you think they have completely lost against x86 on the desktop?

@Carl-S

I don’t think porting AmigaOS4 to PPC at this point in time is a good idea, the OS needs heavy investment in drivers right now, and there is no support for booth and firewire, there is no support OpenGL this is needed, take on this issues first, x86 can come when we have nothing better to do,

x86 will transform AmigaOS4 into OS whit out software just like AROS, now whit PPC we have access to wade range of 68k program that runs full speed whit out UAE, we have access to some WarpUP program, and 1200 tools and games on OS4Depot, none of this will work on x86, I hate emulators.

I hate when ever I need to start E-UAE on my desktop, just run some AMOS program or some hardware banning program like Hippo Player or some old game and I’m an AmigaOS4 user.

I’m afraid that dividing the developers over PPC and x86 might end in less software for both solutions. MacOS adapted the fat binary standard, PPC and x86 binary in one package, we can do that but there is no guaranty that program compiled and tested on PPC will automatically work whit out bugs on x86, the byte order of short or integer is going to be issue a long time in too the feature. Besides the byte order system on x86 make binary date unreadable by the human eye.

On the Power PC:
The number 1122 looks like 1122 in memory.

On an Intel/AMD
The number 1122 looks like 2211 in memory

And if you store this tow bytes using a PowerPC it to file, and try to read them whit an Intel you get completely wrong number, you end up whit 2211 and number should be 1122.

And this is way AROS can not emulate 680x0 programs while MorphOS and AmigaOS4 can emulate 680x0 programs, yes there exists macros you can put in to your code but the issue is remember to put the macros in to your code, fat binaries most be tested on x86 and PPC to know if they really work.

There is possible to force integers and shorts to organized like whit PowerPC, but it will cost some extra CPU power, this how Amitalon did it, and if we take on this approach on the kernel, then all library’s and devices that are not in that format most at least translate the structures from and to that byte order, maybe this can be done by interfaces and separate entry point to the API’s but that will also cost cpu power, doing the translations inside the API, but do we have all the API functions needed for that? Hacking data strictures is defiantly a no no, under kernel that should support the other byte order format.

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@NutsAboutAmiga

Quote:

I don’t think porting AmigaOS4 to PPC at this point in time is a good idea

Lapsus keyboardis.


I answered "yes" but...
What the Hyperion guys said once about the reason not to port to PC hardware is that they don't want OS4 to gain bad reputation because of people saying "it sucks, does not run on my PC", "crashes on my machine" etc. People would expect OS4 to run on just every PC and it wouldn't, due to lack of drivers. See Linux, many gripes with it come from there. And because of the fast evolution of PC and lack of resource in the Amiga world, it would be hard to cope with the latest hardware...

One intermediate solution would be a custom x86 mobo. What we ("we" meaning also the Amiga mobo manufacturers) would gain would be up-to-date and cheaper/widely available components, which would be especially good for chipsets (DDR2, PCI-E 16x) and, of course, CPUs. We could still have an alternate ROM instead of the BIOS (wasn't U-Boot inteded to be cross-platform?)

Last edited by Lynx on 27-Oct-2006 at 03:31 PM.
Last edited by Lynx on 27-Oct-2006 at 03:28 PM.
Last edited by Lynx on 27-Oct-2006 at 03:28 PM.

@Lynx

Quote:

One intermediate solution would be a custom x86 mobo

A custom X86 mobo probably will be as expensive as A PPC mobo but without the excuse of be something different.

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@Benji

Quote:

Benji wrote: @Carl-S Here is the strange thing - ask someone if they would spend $50 on OS4 for x86 or $500 on a complete PPC board in a case with OS4... I would go with the latter - because its different, lower power/quieter/smaller... I have all the x86 boxes I want, they all came with Windows which does fine for what I need. I dont know anyone at the moment with old or "spare" x86 boxes that needs an OS, and if I do I point to Ubuntu or Beatrix... The compelling reason for OS4 for me is that its different! Replacing all my Windows installs with OS4 wouldnt work. Install it on the PS3, or PSP or the old iPAQ I hardly use (now Windows Mobile is worse than XP etc IMHO) or something different and its much more interesting.

Go ahead then, and ask some of your friends. Let's make it reasonable though, as I wouldn't expect to see OS4 go for $50, nor at this time would I expect a complete system for $500, so make it $100 for OS4, to run on a spare system, if they had one, or say, $800 for a 'special system.' I expect for most of them you'll cross that 'entertainment expense barrier,' where to them, it now becomes a more significant purchase, and they'll likely say no, unless it offers them something they truly want or need, and can't get elsewhere (which, face it, besides nostalgia and/or hobby purposes, OS4 really doesn't currently).

I wouldn't replace all of my Linux and Unix boxes with OS4...OS4 can't do what they do, but I would gladly grab one of my spare systems, or even buy a system to run it, as long as it was proce competitive, and COULD at some later date be made to be of some use, whether running Linux as a media server, or whatever...once I 'upgraded' OS4 to newer hardware. I also know plenty of people that have a spare x86 box laying around, P3, Athlon, PPC, or P4s..

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@Fransexy

Quote:

Fransexy wrote: @falemagn Quote: I couldn't live without MP and VM I couldn´t live without responsiveness, MP and VM are only buzzwords. Windows has memory protection and in fact crash more often than my miggy.At the end what is important is that a system be stable and less important is what makes the system stable. Virtual memory? i prefer virtual memory on demand, if a app need more memory i prefer a requester than says not enough memory and decide if is worth enable virtual memory as using HD as memory slowdown the system. VM isn't a buzzword when you need it, say for video editing, or even compiling large coding projects in some cases. It's the difference between 'it works' and 'it crashed or failed to complete.' Most people however, want their system to 'work,' not have a requester pop up in the middle of a several hourc ompile, for example.. VM isn't a huge deal, and I expect that's there in current betas. I find it near impossible to believe Windows crashes more for you than AOS4, unless you're running Win 95 or so? I don't LIKE Windows, but often leave XP up in a VM on top of my Linux workstation for work, sometimes a week or so at a time, without issues, and being actively used for testing code. XP is generally stable 'enough' here. I can usually lock up OS4 within a day to a week, when using it actively..so, do I think MP is _useful_? Yes. Would I prefer to have it in OS4? Yep. Woulkd I be OK without it, if it meant keeping classic sw compatibility? Yes, hoping it's addressed later, but the only way I could see this offhand would be like MOS, dumping the classic apps into a sandbox of sorts.. Quote: Is scary that the marketing machinery has made their job very well, and has made people believe in the GHZ, buzzwords and in the "big is better".Even has convinced a few Amigans that knew that not all is MHZ.Sirs this is the Amiga, you don´t need 3 GHZ only to be able to open a window

You DO know, that no matter how hard Apple tried to propogate the 'Mhz Myth' as fact, they've now gone Intel, and it was never really accepted all that well? Within reason, a slower CPU can 'compete' and perform with a higher one, such as the G5 vs P4s, but we're talking about 2Ghz vs 3Ghz or so..or AMD chips vs Intel, which have been able to compete around 2/3rds the CPU speeds, but those were also 'state of the art' chips at those times, not a 1Ghz or less G3 or G4 which becomes severely outlcassed by G5s/PPC970, let alone current gen Intel Core 2 chips, as an example. As there's 'no replacement for displacement,' there's also no replacement for CPU speed in some cases.

Although, if you are ONLY opening a window, then, no, you don't need fast CPUs...but try to do some video editing one day, or rendering, and you'll certainly wish you hadn't been so casual about CPU speed!

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@Fransexy

Quote:

Cheap often it is interpreted like low quality, so be careful cheap hardware is a weapon of double edge

Like the A1s? Low quality, with some issues, yet amazingly overpriced for what they are?

That's exactly the problem _solved_ by commodity hardware that can be had at lower prices, as well as higher quality than we've seen so far. I'm not saying Samantha or Panda would be low quality, as I don't know, but they will certainly be more expensive than a commodity system...we just got the worst of both with the A1s (although _something_ was indeed needed...I just hope things improve over the A1s in quality, performance, AND price..)

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@AmiDelf2

Quote:

AmiDelf2 wrote: No x86 please, just not that. Its not Amiga and it wont do any good now. Regards, Michal, editor of Amitopia, www.amitopia.net & www.radionitro.net

Did you have a valid reason for this, or just some obscure belief half hidden in the back of your head?

I agree, it won't happen in the current situation, yet people simply saying, 'This is bad' without giving reasons, seems to be more a shared community thought or mantra, and not weighing any benefits that might be had there..

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@Raffaele

Quote:

Raffaele wrote: @TheDaddy None knows about Moana! The ones and the "Only" who knows are the magical trio of Samantha doing alchemical projects, and spellings, and mixtures with new hardware. One voice rumor said they had spended their very last money to bought a batch of 5 or 10 PPC 8641 evaluation processors, (8641 is the new double core G4 clocked at 1,7 GHz each). But we are waiting first about their launch of Samantha. Any other project it is far to came... -(I HATE WAITING FOR EONS NEW HARDWARE!)

I agree with the sentiment of your last sentence (waiting for hw), but stop the baiting and trolling, please..it's not adding anything real to the discussion at hand.

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@wegster

Quote:

Like the A1s? Low quality, with some issues, yet amazingly overpriced for what they are?

I always have seen the A1 as developers boards, not consumers ones.An I think that Eyetech always cosidered them as that and wanted to make better versions for consumer use in following revisions but all we know that eyetech fail

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@AmigaBlitter

Quote:

AmigaBlitter wrote:

Step 1 of effective communication:
- make it obvious who you are talking to. Note this post says, @AmigaBlitter? Isn't that.....cool, and useful?

Step 2:
- Actually have something to say.

You've now inserted 2 random undirected emoticons into the thread so far, and said nothing. Knock it off, there's enough OT in the thread without spam adding to the mix.

And no, don't reply to me in thread, PM me if you must, preferably with content.

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@Rit

Quote:

Rit wrote: I voted No. One of the reasons why I want to have a PPC Amiga is that i86 processors are too hot, cannot be passivly cooled without a tank of a case, too power consuming and they are just awful. Amiga's will just become all about the Mhz and performace of the CPU like PC's are, there will be confusion about whether their Amiga has enough power to run a certain game, just like we have with PC's. Basically your just transfering all the bad things about todays "PC" world onto the Amiga. I think the Amiga should be more standardised which will greatly help the "fun" factor of having one, and people wont be thinking "Oo, should I have bought the 3.5Ghz one or the 4 Ghz?" etc etc. And what about boot times? Does it mean saying goodbye to beautiful quick boots and hello PC BIOS? No thanks.

Core 2 Duo consumes between 25-50watts.
A PPC970 ('G5') consumes about 40w when clocked down to 1.2Ghz.

PPC chips at slow frequencies, and embedded, are decent enough in power consumption, but let's stop believing the fallacy about they are still significant improvements vs x86, shall we?

The PowerMac G5s used water cooling because of the amounts of heat dissapated...so, this basically invalidates your entire first paragraph...no 'tank of a case needed' for many/most/(all?) current x86 chips, while the G5 certainly had some beefy coolers in the PowerMacs..

Or, were there other 'bad things' you meant to mention, but didn't?

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@Fransexy

Doesn't have to be custom at all. You pick one currently available board, one chipset then write the drivers to suit. As new boards come out with better specs, the owners of OS 4 say "xxxx board is fully compatible with OS 4. Its available from your Amiga dealer". Whoever writes the drivers has already had access to the board and writen the appropriate drivers for it *before* Amiga states it is compatible. Apple did exactly that with the Pentium 4-based Developer machines when the Intel transition was announced.

The big issue as I see it is whether you lose backward compatibility. That's the big reason why Windows sucks and will continue to suck through Vista as well. Apple knew very well the shortcomings of OS 7/8/9 during the 90s and sort various solutions to fix it. In the end, it came down to them buying BeOS or NeXT (both companies were run by ex-Apple superstars with big egos ;-p ). Apple bought NeXT. Jobs helped restore Apple (even though Gil Amelio had taken a number of good steps forward before Steve came back). Publicly, Jobs got new hardware out and restored faith in Apple. Behind the scenes, OS X was being prepared. Seeing as NeXTStep had already made the shift to x86 in the past, its development cycle was kept on par with PPC and x86. They managed to do some software trickery to keep Classic (OS 9) software working until new versions came out, that could also take advantage of advances in the OS. We now have the same situation with Rosetta built into the Intel versions of OS X, allowing PPC programs to still run (although with a performance hit).

I think you have to draw a line in the sand at some point and lose the past. If Amiga OS is going to make any dent in the future, it at least has to be on par with what is currently out there. Otherwise it is a hobby OS, like SkyOS.

You can't rely on the fact that IBM are now supplying all those cpus to the big 3 consoles. Consoles have 99% of the time never been backward compatible, so it will be quite easy for Microsoft/Nintendo/Sony to ditch their ppc-based cpus for something different when the next generation consoles come out. Geez, the original Xbox was Intel-based. There is nothing stopping Microsoft coming out with an AMD/ATI console-specfic chipset for the next Xbox. IBM will then just churn out PPC cpus for their "big iron" machines, which have never been suitable for the desktop. So that leaves you at the mercy of Freescale. Why do you think Apple turned to IBM to make the G5?

Here's my conspiracy theory - Carl is drumming up support for OS 5. We all know from Bill that OS 5 is definately on the cards, and is being developed in-house by Amiga Inc rather than by a third party. Isn't anyone else a little curious about the events in the last month or so? Bill pops up out of the blue for a Q&A with Amiga users, Discreet FX say they are going to buy Amiga Inc, then Carl turns up at Amiwest then does a hit-and-run on the forums. These aren't small time guys coming up with plans to make a new PPC board, or modify a set-top box board. These guys are big players in Amiga's history (well, not so much Bill!). Is Rebol the basis for OS 5? Something's up, but I just can't put my finger on it!

@Fransexy

Quote:

Fransexy wrote: @wegster Quote: Like the A1s? Low quality, with some issues, yet amazingly overpriced for what they are? I always have seen the A1 as developers boards, not consumers ones.An I think that Eyetech always cosidered them as that and wanted to make better versions for consumer use in following revisions but all we know that eyetech fail

Actually this is a bone of contention, and indeed why some left. I've not seen Redmelons in ages and I lost his telephone number - he bought an Amiga One as it was advertised as final hardware.. he even showed me the print advert that said this. There was no mention about it being developer. The A1 was seriously borked.

I could see the logic in going the Mai route. The option was B Plan... ex phase 5 (remember Phase 5 was a company many had issues with) and untested..

Mai appeared to be established. It turns out this wasnt the case, and it blew up in Eyetechs face... but the bottom line is that users got hurt.

@wegster
Quote:

The PowerMac G5s used water cooling because of the amounts of heat dissapated...so, this basically invalidates your entire first paragraph...no 'tank of a case needed' for many/most/(all?) current x86 chips, while the G5 certainly had some beefy coolers in the PowerMacs..

One of the main reasons Apple went Intel is because no G5 was on the horizon cool enough to put into a notebook.

It's also noteworthy that while many have reported CPUs burning up on the supposedly low-power AmigaOne - a PPC system which was produced about the same time as my D800 work laptop which has never overheated yet runs at twice the clock speed of an A1.

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@lavo

Quote:

Here's my conspiracy theory - Carl is drumming up support for OS 5. We all know from Bill that OS 5 is definately on the cards, and is being developed in-house by Amiga Inc rather than by a third party. Isn't anyone else a little curious about the events in the last month or so? Bill pops up out of the blue for a Q&A with Amiga users, Discreet FX say they are going to buy Amiga Inc, then Carl turns up at Amiwest then does a hit-and-run on the forums. These aren't small time guys coming up with plans to make a new PPC board, or modify a set-top box board. These guys are big players in Amiga's history (well, not so much Bill!). Is Rebol the basis for OS 5? Something's up, but I just can't put my finger on it!

Carl wrote Exec...

The Friedens wrote Exec SG.

The Friedens have been approached to write the kernal for OS5.. we dont know if they have said yes or no.

Could Carl have also been asked to write the kernal for OS 5?

/conspiracy mode off.

@lavo

Quote:

lavo wrote: @Fransexy Doesn't have to be custom at all. You pick one currently available board, one chipset then write the drivers to suit. As new boards come out with better specs, the owners of OS 4 say "xxxx board is fully compatible with OS 4. Its available from your Amiga dealer". Whoever writes the drivers has already had access to the board and writen the appropriate drivers for it *before* Amiga states it is compatible. Apple did exactly that with the Pentium 4-based Developer machines when the Intel transition was announced. The big issue as I see it is whether you lose backward compatibility. That's the big reason why Windows sucks and will continue to suck through Vista as well. Apple knew very well the shortcomings of OS 7/8/9 during the 90s and sort various solutions to fix it. In the end, it came down to them buying BeOS or NeXT (both companies were run by ex-Apple superstars with big egos ;-p ). Apple bought NeXT. Jobs helped restore Apple (even though Gil Amelio had taken a number of good steps forward before Steve came back). Publicly, Jobs got new hardware out and restored faith in Apple. Behind the scenes, OS X was being prepared. Seeing as NeXTStep had already made the shift to x86 in the past, its development cycle was kept on par with PPC and x86. They managed to do some software trickery to keep Classic (OS 9) software working until new versions came out, that could also take advantage of advances in the OS. We now have the same situation with Rosetta built into the Intel versions of OS X, allowing PPC programs to still run (although with a performance hit). I think you have to draw a line in the sand at some point and lose the past. If Amiga OS is going to make any dent in the future, it at least has to be on par with what is currently out there. Otherwise it is a hobby OS, like SkyOS. You can't rely on the fact that IBM are now supplying all those cpus to the big 3 consoles. Consoles have 99% of the time never been backward compatible, so it will be quite easy for Microsoft/Nintendo/Sony to ditch their ppc-based cpus for something different when the next generation consoles come out. Geez, the original Xbox was Intel-based. There is nothing stopping Microsoft coming out with an AMD/ATI console-specfic chipset for the next Xbox. IBM will then just churn out PPC cpus for their "big iron" machines, which have never been suitable for the desktop. So that leaves you at the mercy of Freescale. Why do you think Apple turned to IBM to make the G5? Here's my conspiracy theory - Carl is drumming up support for OS 5. We all know from Bill that OS 5 is definately on the cards, and is being developed in-house by Amiga Inc rather than by a third party. Isn't anyone else a little curious about the events in the last month or so? Bill pops up out of the blue for a Q&A with Amiga users, Discreet FX say they are going to buy Amiga Inc, then Carl turns up at Amiwest then does a hit-and-run on the forums. These aren't small time guys coming up with plans to make a new PPC board, or modify a set-top box board. These guys are big players in Amiga's history (well, not so much Bill!). Is Rebol the basis for OS 5? Something's up, but I just can't put my finger on it!

Good post, one with actual content! :shocking

The only thing I'd add is about losing backward compatibility. With as small of a market AOS current has (for 'desktop use,' anyway, I don't think 'we' can afford to. Having _some_ software is certainly better than none nowadays, to gain at least some small number of users and developers. Establish OS4 as a viable platform, with enough new/native apps, and then it becomes feasible to 'break with the past,' or embed a UAE like solution or other means to run older apps in some fashion. Until then, I don't think it's a great idea from any standpoint, except perhaps for 'embedded use only,' which most of us don't really care about.

Nice consipracy theory, btw

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@wegster

1 - Maybe i have something to say to myself

2 - Yes, i have something to say, weggy.

3 - oops - I reply to you in thread...

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@AmigaBlitter

Quote:

AmigaBlitter wrote: @wegster 1 - Maybe i have something to say to myself 2 - Yes, i have something to say, weggy. 3 - oops - I reply to you in thread...

Then say it to yourself, without hitting the 'reply' button. Take a day off for being unable to understand a very simple request of Staff, and/or intentionally ignoring it.

Last edited by wegster on 27-Oct-2006 at 04:50 PM.

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