@OldFart

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All sniggering aside, I have the impression that Hyperion is quite, quite capable itself to determine which way to go and I have the impression that at Hyperion they have set themselves a goal which is feasable.

About that; everyone of us that debates about this subject, whatever our favorite CPU, is missing a certain point. We are assuming Hyperion made AmigaOS4 so we could use it on the desktop. They stated some time ago that this isn't the case and they were focusing their efforts in the embedded space. We just got the chance to enjoy it. Perhaps by default.

Now I don't know if Hyerion's intent has changed, but I think we need to take into account that we may not be the focal point, instead of always talking and arguing what would be better for "us."

I don't think we can assune at this point that is's only about us. How selfish! I think I have made a good point here.

As someone mentioned the Amiga Workbench is lacking in capabilities. I think Hyperion is working on a totally new WB, that would actually be rather ambitious.

Having said that I still hope Hyperion ports OS4 to hardware that has a better price/performance ratio than the current SAM board offers. We need more users but to me it seems even old Amiga users can't (or wont) justify the entrance cost for OS4. ATM Amiga simply seems to expensive for what it has to offer, that needs to be changed somehow.

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Do you rally think spending 5 years porting AmigaOS4 to ARM is time well spent?

While I agree this wouldn't be interesting, I hope it wouldn't take that much time: they were supposed to remove hardware dependencies while working on OS4...

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but because of competition you get on x86, and it was clearly stated in the past.

It was also explained why this is *bullshit* and not the real reason. Cause this would also happen on any platform. Actually this will happen on every platform. Linux runs everywhere. So you'll face Linux, which will likely be more supported, comes with an office suite,... That's one. Within a few months, you'll have a second one: ChromeOS, if Android doesn't already run on it. If you go the x86 way, you face, in addition to Linux, Windows and possibly OSX. But that doesn't change one thing. But you face them because you are as expensive as they are. In other words because your OS isn't free. And the only way to make people *buy* your OS, is if they have no competition at all...

- if OS4 was running on iphone 3GS, who would buy it when they could run iphoneOS ? Now, if it was free, who wouldn't try it ? If this was fun, who wouldn't develop some stuff for it ?

We could go on and on... The real problem is (and has always been) money.

If people really cared about the Amiga we wouldn't have 2 solutions totally incompatible implementing the very same APIs,... and none being open source...

If people really cared about the Amiga, 1.x ROMs would be available for a long long time... like Locomotive, Apple, and a lot of others did *years* ago. And anyone could enjoy Amiga emulation... And minimig could be released ready to run, legally, etc.. But again, there is money... As people are not capable of making any product for people of 2009 to buy, the only way to make money is to sell the 25 years old products...

Last edited by Leo on 18-Jul-2009 at 10:38 AM.

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http://www.warpdesign.fr/

@-pekr-
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@gregthecanuck Those processors are pretty much irrelevant, why can't you see that? Do you really want to comparny upcoming ARM devices offerings, and anything real maybe-one-day-coming based upon new Freescale processing? For what I heard, Freescale does not even bother to talk to you, unless you are pretty big company. Those processors are more for network devices and automotive ... As for Hyperion, their goal should be to get the OS out to ppl. And that means - to available devices, and not to maybe-one-day coming ones ...

I stand by my original statement. Changing CPU architecture AGAIN (first was 68k->PPC) would be commercial suicide for Hyperion. Why can't you see that? They simply don't have the manpower to manage a processor family change plus bring many needed enhancements to the OS at the same time. Apple could do it but they had billions in the bank.

In addition, I take issue with your notion of the QorIQ being irrelevant. It is available now, evaluation boards are out there, U-Boot is supported. All it needs is money that is so scarce in Amiga r&d.

Do you also not realize that Intel is going to be coming up with their own line of SoC chips that will more than likely meet or exceed the specs of the ARM products? Will the ARM-screamers then flip over to SoC-x86-screamers?

Amiga OS4x could do well on ARM against Linux because

It looks good. Linux does not. It's just a nicer experience, I expect. No one wants to buy ugliness.

Windows looks good, Amiga OS 3 and 4 look good, AROS looks good.

Windows and Amiga have slightly different looks, but they are both nice.

Last edited by Al4 on 18-Jul-2009 at 11:38 AM.

@Al4

Sorry, but your points make no sense for me...

Come to think of it, their most ambitious project is probably to greatly improve Workbench. It would probably make sense to do that before they port the OS to another architecture.

@pavlor

Which points?

Linux looking ugly?
port to ARM?

Linux looking ugly ? Come on...

OS4 looks old and outdated. Why I don't partuclarly like Linux, this isn't the case of Linux. There's no need to argue...

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http://www.warpdesign.fr/

@Al4

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Al4 wrote: Amiga OS4x could do well on ARM against Linux because It looks good. Linux does not.

AFAIK AOS4 on ARM looks totally bad, it looks as bad as very OS looks that is nor portet to this architecture.

IMHO there are less than 2000 AOS4 users. I would not be surprised to see more PPC systems running on Linux than on AOS4.

And there are some extreme good looking Screen managers for X11, that could be installed on Linux or included on standard Linux distributions.

Afterstep:
http://www.afterstep.org/screenshots/Transparent.Stormy_Skies.jpg
http://www.afterstep.org/screenshots/Look.Tiny_WinTabs.png

Gnome:
http://tjeb.nl/Desktop_Gallery/gnome_screenshot.png
http://tjeb.nl/Desktop_Gallery/metisse_screenshot.png

KDE:
http://xpenguins.seul.org/images/kde_screenshot.jpg
http://bobtheblueberry.com/unrelated/kde-screenshot-1.png
http://www.ibiblio.org/peanut/linux-os/alinux-kde-screenshots.png

Last edited by Arko on 18-Jul-2009 at 01:22 PM.

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AmigaONE. Haha. Just because you can put label on it does not make it Amiga.

I borrowed this comments from here (#27 & #28):
http://amigaworld.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=38873&forum=2&start=20&order=0

@Arko
I don't find a single one of these screen managers to be good looking. Some of them are ugly and looks amateurish IMHO.

Regarding ARM, the beagle boards are cheap ($149) and would be fun to play with if they ran OS4:)

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If it were to appear on ARM, you could probably buy an Amiga computer for about half the price of the Sam. Pretty sure that's a wise move, both for Hyperion who want to sell it and anyone wanting to buy it.

Whether they are working on it now or not is a different matter, but I think Amiga on ARM would be much more lucrative for Hyperion than Amiga on PPC.

They wanted to get it onto PDAs anyway. I think that was their original main target platform. Are there more ARM PDAs than PPC ones?

@Al4
Hyperion clearly stated that PPC was the future for OS4, so I doubt an ARM port is in the works.

Are there ANY PPC PDA's or for that matter any mass produced PPC hardware usable for AmigaOS4?

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@Troels

The most ambitious project they could do would be one that opened up a new userbase.

Compared to making OS4 in the first place, how could writing Open Office or Java or Flash or improving Workbench be their most ambitious project?

We'll be "surprised", apparently.

Maybe it's scalable to its host hardware and will run on anything from a mobile phone to a server. Maybe it will be better than Mac OS X.

Maybe they are working with a hardware company to make an official Amiga computer, i.e. not an Acube computer.

Maybe their secret is they've got a secret...

Last edited by Al4 on 18-Jul-2009 at 02:38 PM.

@OldFart

OlfFart - I can write down better business plan than Amiga Inc. anyday. Wait, there is no business plan at all, right? I do my own stuff, working for good company here, and running two startups - I would not do any Amiga related business nowadays. Not in the current situation. And that is my answer to why don't I do anything Amiga related nowadays - because I don't want to, and because I don't need to. So, please be slower with your judgements about who is, or is not an enterpreneur.

And yes, ARM or x86 would be the way to go, if you ask me. But I am not even sure about it, unless I think more about - where do I want to go, who are my customers, etc. kind of factors. But keeping to PPC shows only one thing - total lack of business insight and high ignorance. Besides that - who cares what CPU runs underneath? For the OS creator only one thing should be important - target devices. And what is the chance I can buy nice PPC netbook, which lasts for 10 hours on battery for e.g.? Where's 5 - 10 of PPC boards I can choose from for reasonable price? Answer yourself, as for me, I have my answers already.

@Troels

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don't find a single one of these screen managers to be good looking. Some of them are ugly and looks amateurish IMHO.

So millions of Linux users must be wrong ...

Last edited by Arko on 18-Jul-2009 at 03:24 PM.

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AmigaONE. Haha. Just because you can put label on it does not make it Amiga.

I borrowed this comments from here (#27 & #28):
http://amigaworld.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=38873&forum=2&start=20&order=0

@Arko

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So millions of Linux users must be wrong ...

There's nothing better free on offer to them.

@Hypex

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At this point we are missing a bit of clarity, as to whom "AInc" refers too. Amiga, Inc. may have sanctioned AmigaOS4 but they didn't write it nor choose the hardware for it. And in any case, whoever was in charge of managing it, what's wrong with supporting Amiga hardware companies? Why should they be told to shove off when they suppoted the Amuga for all those years? But, do you remember the first version of AmigaOS4 that Amiga, the "Inc." announced? It was an x86 OS! Yes, that's right, OS4 was a development platform that was on a standard PC, intended to be a middle solution. Until a "real" Amiga platform was created. Amiga wanted to make "AmigaOS4" as an x86 OS. Yet, along with others, you seem to be blaming Amiga, Inc., for refusing to make an AmigaOS on x86. Look at their profile! They are all about x86! They shoved it in our faces from the very beginning, and why do people forget this?

Amiga Inc. does not deserve anything but bashing, for what they did to Amiga platform. I worked for 4years for Amiga review, Czech Amiga news, so I think I had rather good insight into the situation. Well, as Amiga is not much important for me last 8 years, I might forgot some things. But - this is how I remember it:

- x86 was not meant for AOS! It was meant for AA SDK and Matrox gfx card was required. I know it, because I am owner of AA1 SDK and I bought Matrox at that time

- other x86 relation might come from initial plan to support Amithlon, which then Amiga Inc. abandoned, clearly because they feared the competition! That was another stupid move on their side!

- Amiga was not all that open! They wanted Genesi to prevent AOS to be ported to their PPC HW. Is your memory so shalow?! They wanted to block it in both HW level (special chip was supposed to be on the MB) and also licence-wise. This was so stupid, that being a shareholder, I would sack person who came up with such a nonsense, which goes against the core business - to sell AOS for various HW. There was way too much hatred between the red and blue sides, which helped to ruin the oportunities.

- Once again - the reason to not port to x86, was two sided - technical effort, and business protection - nor Amiga Inc., nor Genesi wanted to port to x86 back at that time, because of those two reasons. Besides that, there is nothing really bad to support own companies/developers, but there was too much political agenda involved ...

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Who to blame for OS4 being a dying desktop platform? Hyperion? Eyetech? Jay Miner chosing a 68K? No, I wouldn't blame them, I would blame sometihng else: Circumstance. The PowerPC was the most logical at the time, Apple used, and it solved the big endian problem. Rather like real Amiga hardware, it has beocome a legacy. It was also logical to port the whole AmigaOS (well most of it) to the same CPU. Also solving the big endian problem, and the Amiga software base had already started supporting PowerPC so this was another logical step. That powerful PowerPC's can't be bought for cheap prices is not OS4's fault. Blame the PowerPC resellers!

PPC was viable decision in 1996, in Escom times, when Haynie, Kittel and possibly others helped to define the transition. Later on, PPC was logically choosen by Phase5. It might be logical some 5-8 years ago, but I doubt it is viable platform today.

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Regarding Genesi, what in particular do we most care about them? It's MorphOS! Genesi may have "Armed up" bu chosing ARM. But that's where it ends, it's only a piece of hardware. MorphOS won't be running on an ARM Genesi board. I don't know if they have any plans too, I haven't read anything yet.

Isn't AOS ported to PegasosII already? This is one of few PPC boards it runs on. So how can't such a vendor be potentially important for the OS vendor? Genesi clearly goes ARM way, Freescale too to some extent. The more potential boards avaialble, the better for the OS itself ...

I am not sure I want to continue in this discussion, as we might be slightly off topic here, no? I think I made my arguments clear enough, so did others My wish is AOS to be ported to some nice ARM or x86 based netbook, then I might buy it. ARM might be more logical and business protective solution than x86. But I am not going to put my money in any PPC board. Call me stupid, but that is my decision ....

@gregthecanuck

I have no problem to agree to anything you said, really. ARM or x86, I don't care. PPC, OK, good too, but we should keep in mind the reality. And the reality is - I don't have enough PPC related options. New CPU offerings of FreeScale will not save the situation, not until someone takes the chance and implements new board for us.

I am not low level coder, but it is really difficult to think for me, that porting to new CPU architecture would take more than 1 year. Not having enough of man-power is of course a bad thing, but not having viable new HW to run my OS on is even worse