@number6
If memory serves correctly (and it may not) I thought that Troika had sent Hyperion a "reference motherboard" (i.e. a board somebody else produced, upon which they are supposedly basing their design).

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Author of the PortablE programming language.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue...

Believe it or not, these sorts of quarrels are why I keep coming back here

Ok, so stupid intro text..

But in reality, i wanted to know if some one some where knew/knows anything.

Yes, I was kinda bored.

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@Yssing

Seriously, if this thread continues I'll put a link to the streamed audio from the Big Bash event in 2006! All my optimism for what Troika were designing for the 'Amy' went out the window at that point. I've never felt so ashamed to be an Amigan. It really was unbearably amateur and pipe dream stuff! The guy brought the equivalent of prototype non-working breadboard! This is the equivalent of bringing Lorraine to the 1984 CES show without it actually working! He waffled on about timelines and shipping dates when he had no chance of getting it manufactured!

We need professional Amiga-devoted designers to drive Amiga hardware forward like ACube not wannabe electronics junkies who mean well but end up blowing up other people AmigaOnes in the process of 'designing a new CPU module' (looking at you ACK). ACK is an absolute joke and should stick to mending toasters! If your a technically minded 'fan' then I think it's safer to all parties if you stick to software. Eyetech were a sound Amiga repair and accesories developer but when given the task of bringing the Amiga Ones to market, even they bit off more than they could chew.

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@BigD

I helped organise that event, believe me, you weren't the only one who felt let down.

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@BigD Quote:

We need professional Amiga-devoted designers to drive Amiga hardware forward like ACube not wannabe electronics junkies who mean

Really, SOMEONE has to try, and if there are no other takers then I really have no problem if a "wannabe electronics junky" wants to have a go.

The key point is to not misrepresent yourself as being much bigger & more accomplished than you actually are. Sadly both ACK & Troika seemed to ignore that, and so a lot of people ended-up getting disappointed when they ran into problems. (There is a big difference of showing an optimistic view of yourself, and blatantly lying. The optimistic view is called marketing, while blatant lying is deception & possibly fraud.)

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@Thread

Surely this thread (and the one linked to by #6) makes it clear that the only possible chance the Amiga under Hyperion has, is a shift to more readily availible hardware. ie; not PPC boards cobbled together by bedroom soldering iron armed Amigans. I'm not wanting to start "that" argument all over again, but throwing less and less money at a problem is not going to make it go away.

Either somebody spends a lot of money for a seachange or we just keep throwing pennies down the drain till we run out of pennies.

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@SpaceDruid
ACube's Sam440ep is hardly "cobbled together by bedroom soldering iron armed Amigans".

Of course, with 20-20 hindsight it is obvious that Amiga Inc should have chose x86 not PPC in 2001 for OS4. But Hyperion is now stuck with this decision, as it would cost a bomb to write & integrate a JIT PPC emulator for an x86 version of OS4. So IMHO, OS4 has to succeed or fail on PPC. (If it is mildly successful, then maybe there will be enough cash & time to write that JIT PPC emulator - who knows what the future holds?)

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@ChrisH

I'm not talking about what we should have done given hindsight, I'm talking about what should happen NOW. Yes, a seaschange in any direction is going to cost money, but then so is continuing on a doomed path.

If Hyperion doesn't have the funding then perhaps its about time we looked at new ways of going forward. Since every company or business involved in any large or small way in Amiga development is reliant on there being hardware of some form and an OS to run on it, perhaps its time for every company or business involved in any large or small way in Amiga development to stop acting on their own and form a coalition?

If we can all throw our money onto the table we will have an idea of how large the pot is, and if its not enough then we should start looking for other groups to join. None of the various camps that split off in other directions with PPC are in any better a long term position than Hyperion and if people are able to snap out off their ego driven positions to grasp the reality then there should be no real barriers to moving forward (as long as this time round the legal details are made clear at the begining in undisputable clarity to prevent exploitation later by any of the parties).

Another advantage of the various current PPC OS development teams sharing the costs and development would be for the software developers who wouldn't need to create seperate ports of their software for the various OS's (or at least the process would be considerably easier) meaning each OS would have more software making it more desirable for potential customers as well as helping fill the gaps that we have in the current situation.

Linux OS's all share the same basic foundations, users still choose particular versions on their own merrits, The big difference between the two is the openness of the source. The linux model could work with a closed source as part of a coalition allowing each party to maintain their brands. Its been done before in other industries, the only thing stopping it is the will of the parties involved (And I'm including Amiga Inc if they are needed for legal reasons in this, they have hardly been reaping the benefits of the path they chose).

Either everyone stands together and has a chance of making a success of this, or we all stick to the status quo, gradually getting weaker to the point when a coalition is no longer a viable option.

Sorry for any glaring oversights, errors or faults in logic. I'm posting this quickly as a rather large lightning storm is approaching my house and I need to shut my computer down quickly. Hopefully I've explained it sufficiently for readers of this to understand what I'm suggesting.

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@SpaceDruid Quote:

I'm not talking about what we should have done given hindsight,

Neither am I!

Quote:

I'm talking about what should happen NOW. Yes, a seaschange in any direction is going to cost money, but then so is continuing on a doomed path.

I do not know Hyperion's financial state, but the signs seem to be they can't afford to write a PPC JIT for x86 (at the moment), and this IS the middle of the world's greatest recession in a very long time (perhaps 70 years?), with the banks being very reluctant to lend money.

Plus they still seem to think that OS4 on PPC stands a chance. Even if you don't... Maybe their secret "most ambitious project" has some bearing on this?

Quote:

perhaps its time for every company or business involved in any large or small way in Amiga development to stop acting on their own and form a coalition?

That was tried at least once before. Called Pheonix something or other I think. Never seemed to result in anything much that I noticed (although Genesi, bPlan & MorphOS cooperating might have been one side-effect???).

Quote:

Another advantage of the various current PPC OS development teams sharing the costs and development would be for the software developers who wouldn't need to create seperate ports of their software for the various OS's

Might be possible, and I certainly would like to see it. But Hyperion's previous design decisions seem aimed (usually only as a side-effect of improving OS4) at making OS4 software less compatible with OS3 & MorphOS. Even if Hyperion's stance has softened in that regard (and I don't know if it has), their previous design decisions will still make that more difficult. But as OS4 & MorphOS still share OS3 heritage, it is not impossible.

I'm not sure who would lead such a project, but that would greatly affect the chances of success.

P.S. I didn't know that SpaceDruid technology was susceptible to lightning strikes. Now we know your weakness!

Last edited by ChrisH on 06-Jun-2009 at 10:19 AM.

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@ChrisH

Quote:

I do not know Hyperion's financial state, but the signs seem to be they can't afford to write a PPC JIT for x86 (at the moment), and this IS the middle of the world's greatest recession in a very long time (perhaps 70 years?), with the banks being very reluctant to lend money.

That situation came about partly because banks were giving toxic loans (which a tiny company in a tiny marketplace with very little in the way of projected sales in order to repay the bank loan most certainly would qualify). Whenever we get out of this recession, you can bet your butt that nobody will be giving loans like that again for a very very long time. So waiting isn't going to improve anything and each day the community gets smaller, the mountain to climb gets bigger and the likelyhood that anything can be salvaged becomes less and less.

Quote:

Plus they still seem to think that OS4 on PPC stands a chance. Even if you don't... Maybe their secret "most ambitious project" has some bearing on this?

Its not just me, its all the hundreds of posts from potential interested customers that post on mainstream technolgy websides whenever OS4 gets a mention that lose interest the second they see the hardware and the price of that hardware. It's also been voiced many times within the community itself.

This "most ambitious project" is going to have to covered in fairydust with a sprinkling of awesomeness to make anyone outside of the community consider it, my own expectations are that it will make some existing community members happy or even very happy, but that will do diddly squat to improve the long term chances of the platform as the existing community simply isn't large enough to go forwards at anything like the pace it needs to. I hope I'm wrong.

Quote:

That was tried at least once before. Called Pheonix something or other I think. Never seemed to result in anything much that I noticed (although Genesi, bPlan & MorphOS cooperating might have been one side-effect???).

It was called "The Phoenix Platform Consortium" and it was about the still reasonably boyant Amiga developers wrestling control of Amiga from Gateway who were doing nothing. Outside of that one goal (which was reached by the Amino buyout), there was no real reason for any of the partners to work alongside each other as there was still a market big enough to support competition. In the 10 years since that time that market has gone and the situation has changed completly.

Quote:

But Hyperion's previous design decisions seem aimed (usually only as a side-effect of improving OS4) at making OS4 software less compatible with OS3 & MorphOS. Even if Hyperion's stance has softened in that regard (and I don't know if it has), their previous design decisions will still make that more difficult. But as OS4 & MorphOS still share OS3 heritage, it is not impossible.

Rome burning while Nero fiddles. Yeah, its patheticaly sad if its still going on in this current market and assuming it was true origionaly. I can see the thinking at the time, but cutting ones nose to spite ones face rarely works out in the long term. Maybe if the various parties (all of them) could take a look back at their actions and ask themselves if it really was the best road to take given their current state (PR #### aside), then some sense might be obtained and we as a community can go forward and upwards. Its all possible, its just limited by how important ones ego is to the various parties.

Humble pie tastes fantastic when you are starving. But sometimes people refuse to eat, even though the outcome is assured.

Quote:

I'm not sure who would lead such a project, but that would greatly affect the chances of success.

It would have to be somebody not involved in the politics which probably means somebody from the outside. In many ways, that would be for the best. A business heart, rather than an emotional one gives the best chance of sucess. There is no shortage of unemployed businessmen at the moment. Maybe this recession can turn out to be a good thing? Failing that, we should see if Mitchie fathered any puppies.

Quote:

P.S. I didn't know that SpaceDruid technology was susceptible to lightning strikes. Now we know your weakness!

Only when we post to forums when sitting on top of a tree wearing a tinfoil hat and a spangly metallic 70's disco jumpsuit. What? Don't tell me I'm the only one that does that?

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You are talking and talking and you tend to forget that hardware to run OS4 is here. Check ACube systems website.

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@elwood

...that nobody outside a small minority within the community is interested in buying...

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@SpaceDruid

"I hope I am wrong".

You are wrong but you will need to stick around for a while.

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@SpaceDruid

In addition to that, and the issue has been discussed to death already, a move to x86 would be prohibitively costly.

So far OS 4.x has cost well over 2 M euro to develop. That's 2.75 million USD.

A move to x86 would halt all existing OS 4 development (i.e. complete feature freeze) and subsequently nearly all development time would be spent on dealing with the wide variety of x86 based hardware.

In essence, Amiga OS 4.x development would grind to a complete halt and all this on the fairly far-fetched notion that tens of thousands of existing x86 owners would be willing to pay for a copy of OS 4.1 rather than just downloading a copy somewhere.

No thank you, we have taken a look at the PowerPC roadmap and there is plenty of life in it including 8 core designs under 30 W.

One of the main benefits of Amiga OS 4.1 is the fact that the geared entirely towards the PowerPC architecture as one of the very few operating systems around. Linux runs fine on PPC but it certainly is not optimised for this architecture in any way.

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@all

Quote:

Hyperionmp wrote: @SpaceDruid In addition to that, and the issue has been discussed to death already, a move to x86 would be prohibitively costly. So far OS 4.x has cost well over 2 M euro to develop. That's 2.75 million USD. A move to x86 would halt all existing OS 4 development (i.e. complete feature freeze) and subsequently nearly all development time would be spent on dealing with the wide variety of x86 based hardware. In essence, Amiga OS 4.x development would grind to a complete halt and all this on the fairly far-fetched notion that tens of thousands of existing x86 owners would be willing to pay for a copy of OS 4.1 rather than just downloading a copy somewhere. No thank you, we have taken a look at the PowerPC roadmap and there is plenty of life in it including 8 core designs under 30 W. One of the main benefits of Amiga OS 4.1 is the fact that the geared entirely towards the PowerPC architecture as one of the very few operating systems around. Linux runs fine on PPC but it certainly is not optimised for this architecture in any way.

And there we have it, no change to x86.

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@Hyperionmp

I get why you want to keep on with upgrades to OS4. I really do. Personaly, I would have dropped the dead donkey, played a shell game and renamed myself HyperHyperion before sueing myself and reclaiming my IP back and leaving the old company stuck with my development costs... I kid, I kid...

Yes the x86 way has been argued to death and no, there is no guarantee of success should you go there, but surely its a better chance than not trying? If you can't afford to do it alone, why not go with the joint effort with a coalition? Are your rivals so secure in their own beds that the option could not be discussed? Do you despise one another so much that you'd rather your own decline than to see them jointly share a success with yourselves?

Don't answer it (not that you would). Its clear from your postings that you don't consider yourselves to be at this stage yet. Though I fear that by the time you do, it will be too late. Lets consider then that you have one of the Barclay twins locked up in your basement with a drip from his little toe fed directly into your interest payments on your 2 mill OS4 development costs (I'm a right cheeky blighter ain't I? ).

Will PPC ever offer a performance/price ratio even close to x86? (or for that matter, do any other non-PPC options?) This forthcoming 8 core design sounds promising from a performance perspective, but it sounds expensive.

I can't help the feeling that you are setting all your fishing nets in the Aral Sea though. No matter how saline the shrinking water becomes, you bought your fishing boat and you'll be damned if you are going to move it to the Black Sea to join the fishing fleets there because it was such a struggle to get the boat floating in this one.

This PowerPC roadmap seems a mighty big gamble. If it works out for you then you can ask me to provide the drinks for the party (As long as its my home made wine) and I'll happily come along and eat some of that humble pie I mentioned before. I'd say I'd eat my hat, but I've had it since 1974 and I've grown quite attached to the thing, though thats mostly because of the mold rooting itself into my scalp.

I really hope I get a chance to replace the Mac to my left (my fun computer) with an Amiga, and 8 cores sound nice. I only hope others outside our small community think so too.

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@Hyperionmp

Is this the bugger?

Quote:

Freescale jumps to 45nm with embedded Power core by Nick Flaherty Wednesday 17 October 2007 Freescale Semiconductor is to jump directly to a 45nm process for its embedded multicore Power Architecture devices shipping next year, reducing the size and power consumption of the chips by half compared to today's 90nm process. A four core chip and an eight core device will be built on a 45nm silicon on insulator copper process by IBM and Chartered Semiconductor, initially for 3G and WiMax basestations. "This new multi-core communications platform will be designed for 45nm silicon-on-insulator technology, skipping a whole generation of process technology and delivering power reduction and integration advantages that will advance the state of embedded computing," said Michel Meyer, chief executive of Freescale at last week's Freescale Technology forum in Paris. The chips use a new interconnect fabric called CoreNet that will support more than 32 1.8GHz e500 Power processors on a core, as well as having the capability to add StarCore digital signal processor cores, expected in 2009. This fabric allows each core to have its own level 1 and level 2 cache, but still be fully synchronised with each other and with a shared level 3 cache on the chip. Click Here! The chips also have separate dedicated engines for security, packet processing and resource management that also link to the fabric. "We have also incorporated our on-demand application acceleration technology, which is a collection of on-chip IP that helps to quickly secure and route traffic," he said. "This enables a network-based anti-virus solution that not only scans network traffic at the line rate but also mitigates active viruses and virus outbreaks." Freescale has been working closely with high level simulation company Virtutech to develop models of the chips so that software developers can start working now before the chips are ready. The simulation environment allows high speed functional simulation but also links to a slower, cycle accurate simulator for debugging the code. Freescale is planning a dedicated SERDES high speed serial interface specifically for debugging the chip rather than using the networking interface.

@Hyperionmp

Quote:

In addition to that, and the issue has been discussed to death already, a move to x86 would be prohibitively costly.

Quote:

A move to x86 would halt all existing OS 4 development (i.e. complete feature freeze) and subsequently nearly all development time would be spent on dealing with the wide variety of x86 based hardware.

Logical decision.


Quote:

No thank you, we have taken a look at the PowerPC roadmap and there is plenty of life in it including 8 core designs under 30 W.

But nobody can say, when these CPUs will be really avaiable. I lost my faith in PowerPC long time ago. What is the most powerful PowerPC CPU of our time? 970MP from the year 2005 - three times slower than Core i7.

Though, I will support developement of OS4 and buy overpriced and slow hardware designed for it. I like AmigaOS, thus I can do some mad things like this.

@marko
Quote:

And there we have it, no change to x86.

No and it never will. That's why I moved on. OS4 is a too expensive hobby for me being in the middle of family life, having a house loan to pay, kids to feed. etc. Best of luck, I hope it works out for Hyperion in the end though.

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