@Hypex

In the early to mid-1990s, I would have argued in support of what you said but I hate to burst your bubbles but Gateway had given out unlimited licensed to nVidia and ATI to Amiga graphics technology when they had the Amiga intellectual properties before the patents expired. When the patents expired, all the good stuff that was in the Amiga graphic technology and others had been improved upon and incorporated into newer technologies with far faster blitters technology which even Commodore / AMIGA did not invent to begin with. All that intellectual properties had been researched over, and then improved upon for wider and faster system buses. Add to that, modern graphics cards have multicore graphic processors (like very fast multi-core versions of the GTIA in the Atari 400/800 with much more sophistication and capabilities than the GTIA.) such as CUDA cores entirely designed and engineered for modern 3d graphics that video cards are designed for.

Amiga albeit ahead of its time was only about 6 years ahead of IBM PC in 1985. Some specific attributes of the Amiga was about 10 years ahead of PC when certain technologies in the graphics and in the operating system made its way into PC graphic cards and Windows operating system. In 1993, Amiga latest graphics was maybe a year or two ahead of PC. Only a few features were not incorporated to PC graphics cards but while they didn't have the benefit of Amiga blitter technology, they were performing equally to by 1997 and in some areas with more color and higher screen resolution. By the time of AGP graphics cards, aside from AGP bus technology, the graphic cards hard started to implement hardware accelerated graphics technology borrowing from Amiga technologies and making substantive improvements in many ways that the resulting technology is substantially different than the old Amiga graphic technology to warrant new patents.

By now, a modern PC will outperform every classic Amiga even with a PowerPC card. A classic Amiga can only go so far until the classic motherboard is nothing more than a fancy intelligent keyboard because the internal bus is too much of a bottle neck.

Honestly, AROS in my opinion is very close to what a modern contemporary 2016 era Amiga would be. Aside from some limitations of drivers and some features due to a lack of a commercial scale operating system development team like you would find at Microsoft or even Apple. However, the team does a great job despite not having the money and workforce.

AROS (with Icaros Desktop & comparable other distros) is exactly in line with a viable contemporary "Amiga" that would be effective and usable in 2016 era computing needs. Obviously, any OS is as good as the available software that can be used on the OS to do the things that is needed to be done in the work force.

The classic Amiga would be too old and slow for many of the 'serious uses' that what I would need a computer for. "Serious uses' is obviously subject to opinion but also in today's day to day use, you need to use a computer that you can get parts for or replace. Like the automobile. You don't go around day to day driving to work in a classic car that is no longer produced and parts are rare or expensive. You use a newer car that you can get parts for to replace if something fails.

In my case with AROS/Icaros Desktop, if a computer fails, I can very easily take the USB thumb drive to another computer board if my Commodore VIC-Slim somehow fails to function anymore. I can easily do that. My custom build desktop would probably run AROS easily.

In short, I have these options. I can do that. I can migrate to newer mobos with relative ease. The OS is still being developed and updated. After all, back in the 1980s, we weren't thinking about how hard it is to get a new Amiga components or mobo. We could take it to authorized Commodore repair technician and this could be done. Commodore was still manufacturing the computers. When that stopped, Commodore computers (including Amiga) would effectively be EOL. Which means, its time to think about replacing it from day to day (working use). In other words, its time to retire the classic computers no longer produced for day to day use. As for running classic games every once in awhile, yes. But for using it for work all day long, it's not something you can be doing all the time.

In MY opinion, I had already moved to PC hardware for day to day use. Using AROS can use the same basic modern hardware that I can run Linux or Windows on. This makes AROS, for example, targettable for day to day use as a legitimate alternative OS for Windows or Linux for day to day use.

Aside from limited AROS 'native software', it's an alternative OS for contemporary computer hardware that you can get with relative ease.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying we shouldn't use our classic Amiga for personal entertainment use but I would not recommend it being used for day to day use. It's time for people to look to more modern computing hardware for their day to day use from AresOne to some modern Amiga X---- computers to modern or relatively modern PC mobo (maybe a Windows Vista or Windows 7 computer being repurposed for running AROS) for something more modern than a computer that's OVER two decades old and hasn't been manufactured in about two decades because use puts wear and tear on the hardware and eventually chips fail. The supply of components are becoming harder to come buy without paying an arm and a leg for.

Unless you have a supply of extra mobos and parts to keep such a classic computer up and running for years to come, you're best to minimize use so as to prolong the life and migrate the day to day uses to newer computer hardware that is still manufactured and supported or a solution like AROS where you can migrate AROS to newer computer hardware with relative ease.

I support AROS in this key respect. I can get any part I need for an AROS computer pretty much anywhere as long as there are people keeping AROS updated with progression of new hardware that comes out. That is what makes AROS great because even if the original AROS developers had discontinued doing development, other people can take up the mantle and march forward.

AmigaOS 4 is a viable option but PPC cpus and mobos are not as prevalent so I would go with AROS over AmigaOS (personally).... nothing personal against Hyperion or AmigaOS 4 PPC.

Maybe, I might get AmigaOS on a PPC computer someday just for running AmigaOS 4 but right now, it's not a priority.

@Wildstar128

While I see your points what I don't see is the context from which you are replying too. Can you quote from my earlier post(s) so I know what you are referring too? Thanks.

I've tested AROS myself. To me it has the same problem as any other OS on the PC. While it tries to give the Amiga experience it is ruined by using things like a Linux bootloader. A menu of resolutions with some GRUB version in the background is not very Amiga like. Nor does it look neat. Apart from that it is customised as it needs to read the hybrid MBR Amiga FS to boot so work could be put into making it more Amiga like or AROS like. It's hard to share or install AROS along with any other OS like that.

While the AmigaOne machines share practically everything sans CPU with a PC I suppose they do try to make an effort with a dedicated machine. And the firmware is now getting more Amiga like and moving up to 1995 standards. Even if most of the focus these days is on the OS and not particular hardware.

@Wildstar128

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm getting the feeling from reading your posts that you are talking about day to day use?

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All the way, with 68k

@Hypex

Quote:

I've tested AROS myself. To me it has the same problem as any other OS on the PC. While it tries to give the Amiga experience it is ruined by using things like a Linux bootloader. A menu of resolutions with some GRUB version in the background is not very Amiga like. Nor does it look neat. Apart from that it is customised as it needs to read the hybrid MBR Amiga FS to boot so work could be put into making it more Amiga like or AROS like. It's hard to share or install AROS along with any other OS like that. While the AmigaOne machines share practically everything sans CPU with a PC I suppose they do try to make an effort with a dedicated machine. And the firmware is now getting more Amiga like and moving up to 1995 standards. Even if most of the focus these days is on the OS and not particular hardware.

Well, so you're evaluating whole operating system environments with their "pre-boot" menus. Have you ever considered applying for a system architect or a platform technical expert job for any big IT company? I guess you already show all the skills you'd need.

Seriously.




(for the real serious answer, I'd have many technical details to let you understand the inconsistency of your statements, the need for the "linux bootloader" which even happens not to be "linux" at all, since it is *just* a bootloader, a OS-agnostic one, why the resolution menu items are good only for loading AROS in VESA mode and so on, but I would annoy everyone, I guess)

Last edited by paolone on 26-Aug-2016 at 12:44 PM.

Freakin Helgis. (Shakehead)

I just now bothered to read that crap and it looks like Hillery did a fine job for him.

If you think he's bonkers(?), THERE ARE 22 PAGES IN THIS THREAD.

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Tinkering with computers.

@Signal

Helge on the verge!

Last edited by Raffaele on 26-Aug-2016 at 03:36 PM.

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"When the Amiga came out, everyone [at Apple] was scared as hell." (J.L. Gassée, former CEO of Apple France and chief of devs of Mac II-fx, interviewed by Amazing Computing, Nov 1996).

@paolone

Quote:

Well, so you're evaluating whole operating system environments with their "pre-boot" menus.

First impressions count. And it starts at the boot. So to evaluate the whole that should be included.

Quote:

Have you ever considered applying for a system architect or a platform technical expert job for any big IT company?

No I want to get more training first. And last night I was reminded again by a friend how I should go to uni and study programming because of all the cute girls there.

Anyway my point was about presentation. Which all Amiga boot loaders suffer from these days. It's easy enough to run AROS hosted but hard to share it natively.

@Hypex

Quote:

Anyway my point was about presentation. Which all Amiga boot loaders suffer from these days. It's easy enough to run AROS hosted but hard to share it natively.

But these are all implementation details that are easy to address.

The real underlying issue is that many members of the community are still affected by the "not invented here" syndrome.

The Amiga itself was cobbled together to begin with and many of these "Amiga way" manifesto claims are based on arbitrary decisions that were made just to get the box out the door.