@takemehomegrandma

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The way they are working, by introducing certain stuff into the Amiga environment, will break Amiga compatibility and they have seen this time after time. And if they are giving up the compatibility, what was the point with all that efforts of creating the current level of backwards compatibility in the first place?

That only means loosing it on the new environment, which doesn't imply that you can't run it inside the controllated environment they're adding to run the actual software, which was meant *only* as a temporary step until new sw appears to fill the voids.

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That's what I meant with "ad-hoc development without a strategy"!

the strategy plans from 4.0 - 5.0 - whatever were perfectly clear, first, 3.x port to ppc which we already have,even further advanced that what was supposed to be plain AmigaOS4.0.The next steps are starting to get shape right now.

Pager support.

New memory subsystem.

Memory protection.

Nobody said it was going to be easy, or to keep compatibility at source/binary level.But for sure it will be the same AmigaOS API with several improvements.I don't know, and i'm sure neither most Morphos developers don't know how to develop an application that runs outside the os3.x layer.Probably my applications will need modifications to run on the new environment, but i think that it will be *way* easier than adapt to an unknown (at least for me )Quark API.

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Then what's the point in having a 68k JIT compiler at all for example, unless you plan to compile OS4 specific programs in 68k?

That statement doesn't have sense at all.



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Rogue: "The compatibility break is inevitable.

again, that is quoted out of context, we're talking outside the controlled environment.

i will end this discussion here.No point discussing with you while i can do several other *productive* things, both on AmigaOS4 and/or on Morphos/whatever

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@Benji

The funny part in this isn't which OS on this planet was first with a similar concept, the funny thing is that MorphOS was first in an *Amiga* context, and that Hyperion and a great deal of OS4 cheerleaders so loudly mocked this approach for a great number of years (I could easily dig up loads of comments on this) and proclaimed this as one of the main reasons to why people should *stay away* from MorphOS and go for "the real thing" instead (the "but it doesn't use the Amiga sources" being another argument (which OS4 in the light of the current law-suit never did either, or?), and "but it doesn't have the Amiga name" being the third argument (Hyperion's naming of the OS is illegal according to the brand name owner Amiga Inc)). And now the same people that previously told people to stay away from MorphOS because of this feature now decides to go for a similar design approach, and suddenly everyone cheers. *That's* the funny part.

Funny link

There is nothing shocking in the fact that after great enhancements in OS4, the system still has limits compared to other moderns OS.

From a user point of view, what is the problem having an additionnal virtualization layer if we can continue to use the current AmigaOS environnement (and UAE inside and 68k apps with JIT, ...).

We don't have information enough now to judge the whole plans for the future. I don't think it will be decided to kill all the work done to create a totally new system. That won't be the case. I suppose the next big step will concern the way to handle address spaces in the process management.

Systems, software, languages, ... all have an evolution with new features and others deprecated. This is a mandatory condition.

@Ami603

Future versions (provided that the OS will *not* enter a permanent "Amithlon-limbo") will have broken backwards compatibility. I can only take Rogues words for it: "The compatibility break is inevitable. We've seen it again and again", and "moving ahead will include breaking compatibility".

I guess we will see how things really turn out if it ever comes that far in evolution...

@samface

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First of all, I didn't claim to know anything *as a matter of fact* in that post. As should've been clear by the way I expressed myself, it was about how I remembered a certain scenario of events. That's about as subjective as it gets and really cannot be proven "wrong" to begin with. Even if I would have incorrect memories, they are still my memories.

Lots of people mocked various things in OS4 back then, actually mocking the whole project, and stating (later proven to be true) opinions, that nothing would ever come from that project.

At this point I guess it's a good thing to remind everyone else, that the project we are discussing is Amiga inc's OS4 in-house development. Nothing was ever released. Later, Hyperion was allowed to start a similar project, with (imho) separate feature list (even when some ideas were common with both)

When the first feature lists for Hyperion's OS4 project were published, there were unrealistic things like "full memory protection", which many said couldn't be achieved, except with "MorphOS way".
OK, MorphOS might not have been the first OS to have it (but definitely earlier than f.ex. MacOS X), but it proves that it can be done in amiga-compatible environment, so I consider it highly relevant.
Years later those items were just removed with a "we could do it, but it could break too much compatibility" - something that most experienced people stated the first time they saw the feature lists. And you know how they were treated, even if they were only stating the obvious...

OK, now there's "partial memory protection" in OS4, which many people claim to be mostly useless. As memory protection it doesn't make much difference, but every program that uses it uses new API functions. And if there ever will be this "non binary / (fully) source compatible AmigaOS with sandbox", I believe that those programs utilizing the new API are a lot easier to port.

@takemehomegrandma

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Future versions (provided that the OS will *not* enter a permanent "Amithlon-limbo") will have broken backwards compatibility. I can only take Rogues words for it: "The compatibility break is inevitable. We've seen it again and again", and "moving ahead will include breaking compatibility".

Was that also not the case when moving from 1.3 to 2.0? What's the difference? Other OS'es also lose compatibility to some degree when making major changes/improvements.

@COBRA

Quote:

Quote: Future versions (provided that the OS will *not* enter a permanent "Amithlon-limbo") will have broken backwards compatibility. I can only take Rogues words for it: "The compatibility break is inevitable. We've seen it again and again", and "moving ahead will include breaking compatibility". Was that also not the case when moving from 1.3 to 2.0?

No, it wasn't. What we are talking here is a TOTAL breaking of compatibility, not just "some badly coded programs ceasing working" (as was with 1.3=>)

There are some 1.x programs that also work on MorphOS (and I assume on AmigaOS3 OS4 aswell)

@takemehomegrandma

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All that time, money, work hours, tough nuts to crack, etc, turned out to have been completely *in vain*?

Isn't slowly becoming apparent to everyone that this has been happening since 1994?

I'd love to see a released OS4 with hardware but now it's all stuck in legal limbo with no comment as to how long it will take to sort out - (a year? 2?) how likely does an OS4 release look now?

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@ChrisH

It never ceases to amaze me that people feel the urge to get a comment I made and drag it to another site. If you wanted to discuss the matter, you could have done it over at Amigans instead of this, but I guess that you are afraid that the ####ting brigade doesn't have that much leverage on amigans.net so you need to bring it here.

FWIW, I am not saying that AmigaOS 4.0 is a dead end design. However, everybody with half a brain cell will agree that to evolve the current design, you need to do something about the way certain things are handled right now.

Apple did the same thing. They invented the Classic environment for binary compatibility, Carbon for source code compatibility, and Cocoa for the new stuff. This is very similar to what we want to do:

- A virtual environment to run classic OS 4 binaries in.
- A compatibility library that will allow you to compile OS 4 source code to the new system, trying to stay as compatible as possible and to go with as little changes as possible, with possibilities to narrow down incompatibilities (like with Carbon where you could "close" system structures and use new accessor functions).
- A new API for the "native" stuff.

The virtual environment may still be self-hosted for resource-limited devices, and will be continued to be developed.

If you really think that AmigaOS can be developed into a more modern system without doing this, you must clearly have a different idea about "modern" than I have. But memory protection is a must, and it simply is NOT POSSIBLE with the open structure approach that we have right now.

Now, if you want to continue to discuss this, I welcome you (or others) to go to amigans.net. I will certainly not discuss it any further here, especially when quoted out of context and presented under a stupid headline that is only meant to attract trolls.

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It's quite hilarious to see how Hyperion is actually "inventing" MorphOS in 2007, after all they said and all they did against MorphOS in general and this feature in particular. What can one say? Now they are copying a core idea of MorphOS they have been mocking for so long. Well, I can't say I'm surprised, not anymore.

Well, except that MorphOS is actually focusing its development on the "old style" OS, and not the new one... I guess that Hyperion will surely not concentrate their efforts on the old Exec-based OS if they were to go this way...

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@Jupp3

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No, it wasn't. What we are talking here is a TOTAL breaking of compatibility, not just "some badly coded programs ceasing working" (as was with 1.3=>)

No, we're not talking about total breaking of compatibility. Do you know what a sandbox is, and why it is used?

@ChrisH

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To which I have to say I am *stunned*. Never mind that this is very close to how MOS was designed, he's basically saying that OS4 (as it exists now) is a dead-end design, that will be relegated to a sand-box. It means they've given-up on the core OS4 idea of extending AmigaOS in a compatible way, and future changes will be highly incompatible. They might as well call it OS5...

Yeah. Isn't this something like what was planned for the OS5? Sounds wery much like it.

@Samwel

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If we want modern features like support for multiple processors and memory protection then plenty has to change. I thought everyone understood this?

Agreed. That's true. Sooner or later things have to change if you want more modern features.

@COBRA

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Quote: No, it wasn't. What we are talking here is a TOTAL breaking of compatibility, not just "some badly coded programs ceasing working" (as was with 1.3=>) No, we're not talking about total breaking of compatibility. Do you know what a sandbox is, and why it is used?

Yes, we are talking about total(*) breaking of compatibility between the new and old environment - what's the point of the new API if everyone used only the sandbox? Imho it would make sense to modify most important programs to work with the new "broken" API, so that they don't depend on sandbox environment (which likely would be optional, even if most people want to have it), could have access to fancy stuff like REAL memory protection, automatic resource tracking etc.

(*)Okay, maybe not "total total", many CLI programs likely work on both (especially those, that can be compiled to many platforms without any changes to code) but with software that does anything "platform specific" such as opening window etc. will likely need code modifications between the old and new systems.

@Rogue

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It never ceases to amaze me that people feel the urge to get a comment I made and drag it to another site. If you wanted to discuss the matter, you could have done it over at Amigans instead of this, but I guess that you are afraid that the ####ting brigade doesn't have that much leverage on amigans.net so you need to bring it here.

Site Netiquette: We share one common ground, we are all Amiga users! Respect other opinions, even though you may not agree. Everyone is entitled to their say, but please do so in a courteous manner.

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@ChrisH

I read about this too. This is quite surprising, really...

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@takemehomegrandma

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What can one say? Now they are copying a core idea of MorphOS they have been mocking for so long.

Are you trying to say that MOS developers invented the idea of sandbox etc? Yeah right, sure. That idea is much older than that. It really is not something which you can copy from MOS.
And how much MorphOS has used that feature? AFAIK almost not at all. MOS developers seem to think it's just a "cool thing".. All developers seem to care only AmigaOS 3.x compatibility. What's the point of sandboxsystem if it's not really used?

Last edited by miksuh on 15-Aug-2007 at 12:49 PM.
Last edited by miksuh on 15-Aug-2007 at 12:49 PM.
Last edited by miksuh on 15-Aug-2007 at 12:45 PM.

This isnt directed at any one in particular, but the whole "your side said blah blah blah about amigaos/morphos 3 years ago" thing is kinda silly..

@Jupp3

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OK, MorphOS might not have been the first OS to have it (but definitely earlier than f.ex. MacOS X).

No, OS X was earlier - by years.
When I was writing about MOS in 2002 -2004 many of the concepts were there but the implementation was at best "partial".

e.g. they had the Quark kernel but the ABox is only partially hosted on top, the drivers for instance were still controlled directly by the ABox, not by the QBox which the final design is meant to do.
Also, at that stage there was very little in the QBox - All the work then was in the ABox and nothing of any significance was being done in the QBox.

I don't know if any of this has changed in the intervening years.

OS X on the other hand has the hosted classic OS and the modern OS X and have been shipping them for quite some time.

For those interested in when AmigaOS became a dead end design - the predecessor to OS X: NeXT was shipped as a desktop system with full memory protection back in 1988, nearly 20 years ago. Looks wise Workbench 2.0* is a complete ripoff of NeXT.

*yes, that's 2.0

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@Jupp3

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Yes, we are talking about total(*) breaking of compatibility between the new and old environment

Obviously every time a new version of the OS is released with new features, new software which will use those new features will not work with an older version of the OS. When we had the switch from 1.3 to 2.0, a lot of software started to use the new API functions introduced in 2.0, a lot of old functions have become obsolete, etc. Creating a new process, etc. was all done differently, using different API functions under 1.3, as well as creating a message port, or whatever. So most newer software required AmigaOS 2.0 and did not work under 1.3. The same happened with the 2.x to 3.x switch. As for backward compatibility, a lot of old software which was not coded in a system-legal way broke, and there's nothing the OS developers can do about that, apart from not making any improvements to the OS and leaving it as it is (e.g. discontinuing its development). As for backwards compatibility, that's exactly what the sandbox is for. The old applications run inside a virtual environment, in a single address space, which is interfaced to the new environment. Nobody is talking about a total break of compatibility.