Quote:

We need real new OS features and ports. Period. Without software to run a super OS is utterly pointless.

Without the OS features, you cannot have the super apps... and guess what ? some features need partial/complete rewrite of the OS... And that takes time: how long was the PPC transition ? (and it's not even over)

In 1990's we didn't need to be portable: who cares ? 68k rules the world... And then comes 1998, and the end of 68k: that's too bad, we have to rewrite most of the OS, and wait 10 years to have a working OS + ecosystem... And you know what's 10 years in computing ?

Now let's say we don't care about 64bit... 5 years from now, we will need 64bit, because software xx, yy requires it. Ok, let's go 64bit! Well.. we will have to break most APIs, bring new one,... And wait another 10-15 years... Good!

The Amiga didn't need to be 16/32bit in 1985. It would have been fine with a 16bit processor... And there was no 32bit app anyway, and no way to address more than 24bit ram anyway because of the 68000 limitation... Oh, guess what ? They still went 32bit, and thanks to that, we are able to address 2^32 memory now..

The same goes for 64bit, smp,... of course: now it's not needed, there's no software,... does it mean it won't be needed ? The OS should be ready for running future apps, not past apps. Running past apps will always be possible through emulation, layer,... Adding 64bit,... isn't possible with layer,... it needs to be present in the core OS.

The Amiga, as released in 1985 represented future graphics, future os, and a way to have future apps/games: that's what I like. Today, it's all about the past. I'm wondering when that has changed...

Last edited by Leo on 06-Aug-2011 at 06:43 AM.

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@Leo

Yeah I vote for the future, AmigaOS 64bit (thats the best way to go in my opinion)..
We should stop looking back and move forward! If we stuck with lets say 32 bit tecnologi in 2020
thats very very bad situation.. FOOOORRRRWWAAAAAAAARD

_________________
AmigaOne X5000, AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition Update 2 special super 2 cores prepared super edition v75 christmas speciale uniqe quadro prepared AmigaOS... TWO MORE YEARS IS NOTHING IF YOU BEEN WAITING SINCE 1994..

@realize

Quote:

would love for any one of you guys to please explain to me why they are wasting development time on converting to 64bit when we dont even have any apps to use? Or any games? OS4 should already be super fast in 32bit on x1000 so why all of a sudden this need for 64bit? I'm really lost as to what the advantages are.. I mean damn man OS4 doesnt even support GigE and USB2 yet and its 2011 now everyone talks of SMP and 64bit???

I don't think they are working on 64-bit. The talk is just because the PA6T is 64-bit (but can of course also run in 32-bit mode).

I personally don't think 64-bit is a priority. If the OS itself supported more than 4GB virtual RAM it would be sufficient. But running it all in 64-bit (so each single app can itself get more than 4GB) is not something I see necessary in the short future considering the development resources available.

SMP is much more useful because we kind of lack CPU power for some stuff, like video editing, playing HD videos, surfing today's heavy web pages etc.

@Leo

I think we still very much need 68k compatibility. I would be very crippled if they ripped out the emulator. It's not the one "big super duper app/game from the 80's" it is needed for. It's for all the old tools and libs around everywhere, like most of my own software written in E for example.

And 64-bit-wise we still need 32-bit for all current PPC apps too, and Petunia is a 32-bit PPC app so I don't see the problem there. If you don't like it, comment it out from kicklayout and see what unexpected stuff will stop working

_________________
- Don't get fooled by my avatar, I'm not like that (anymore, mostly... maybe only sometimes)
> Amiga Classic and OS4 developer for OnyxSoft.

@Deniil715

Well, CPU`s in all current AmigaOS 4 hardware is 32-bit, as well as OS.

AmigaX1000 will provide new possibilities including 64 bit transition,
but leave it for "after AmigaOS 4.2"

Intresting (when compared to original "quick and dirty" roadmap AmigaOS 4 has grown to something much more exciting,
as well as its fifth incarnation might really have an AmigaOS 4 32 bit sandbox as well as AmigaOS 3 / UAE one, and yes, might be 64 bit.

But that is a long way to go ...

_________________
Future Acube and MOS supporter, fi di good, nothing fi di unprofessionals. Learn it harder way!

Do PCIe SerDes lanes transfer 64bit words faster than 32bit words?

Hard drives?

U Serial B ?

How do sound cards handle 64bit data?

If 64bit is better than 32bit, why not 128bit?

Why does my 64bit Linux box run better and faster with the 32bit version OS?

Should hardware designed specifically for 64bit come before the software?

How big of a bit bucket will be needed when we go to 64bit ASCII?

@Deniil715

IMO, anything that removes the (already small) software base we have is definitely a bad move.
Upgrading to 64bit wouldbe great if we had lots of developers lining up to provide the software. That's sadly not the case.

I'm trying to save up the money to get an X1000 when it comes out. It won't be easy.
At least, I'll have the luxury of seeing how well it performs before I part with such a huge amount of cash.

@Mechanic

Quote:

Do PCIe SerDes lanes transfer 64bit words faster than 32bit words?

My humbe guess is that they will be transferred at half the speed since they are twice as big.

Quote:

Hard drives? U Serial B ?

It does not apply to these devices. They have their own defined protocol that the drivers (i.e. the CPU) will have to conform to one way or the other.

Quote:

How do sound cards handle 64bit data?

They also don't have to handle 64-bit adresses. Remember, 64-bit is maily about addresses being 64-bit, not data being 64-bit. Sound cards mainly handle 16-bit data, or possibly 24-bit data for highend cards. DMA transfers will probably have to happen in 32-bit space so the driver needs to make sure of that.

Quote:

If 64bit is better than 32bit, why not 128bit?

Complete overkill. Remember that 64-bit is not twice as much as 32-bit. It is 4 billion times as much. 64-bit is mainly about address space and 2^64 (16 exa)bytes of RAM is plenty even for masstorage in forseeable future.

Having wide data busses is another thing. Like the 32-bit G3/G4 CPUs have 64-bit data busses to run with the SDRAM. Gfx cards often have 128-bit wide busses for high-speed transfers but they still deal with 24 or 32-bit gfx.

Quote:

Why does my 64bit Linux box run better and faster with the 32bit version OS?

Because all addresses require twice as much memory in 64-bit and that will make programs larger and data transfers (which often include lists of addresses) larger and therefore slower. Higher memory usage also means more cache misses by the CPU which makes it even worse.

64-bit OSes and programs does NOT run faster than 32-bit! 32-bit is smaller and therefore faster in most general cases. Scientific math calculations is probably an exception since in this case also the data itself is often 64-bit, not just the addresses, and then the CPU can handle it natively in 64-bit mode.

Quote:

Should hardware designed specifically for 64bit come before the software?

Yes, it has too. How else could you develop 64-bit software??

Quote:

How big of a bit bucket will be needed when we go to 64bit ASCII?

ASCII is 7-bit with 8-bit extensions like Latin-1. We already have UTF-8 which is an ASCII extension with 16, 24 and 32-bit characters as part of it. There is UTF-16 which is purely 16-bit (IIRC) and UTF-32. And a whole bounch of others as well.

The 32-bit charactersets can address 4 billion characters. That is enough to hold all the characters in all the languages in the world. There is no need for 64-bit until we have the need to map the characterset for all the aliens in the universe as well. Perhaps not even then.

_________________
- Don't get fooled by my avatar, I'm not like that (anymore, mostly... maybe only sometimes)
> Amiga Classic and OS4 developer for OnyxSoft.

@Deniil715



Quote:

Deniil715 wrote: Quote: How big of a bit bucket will be needed when we go to 64bit ASCII? ASCII is 7-bit....

So 56bits would go in the bucket.

Quote:

There is no need for 64-bit until we have the need to map the characterset for all the aliens in the universe as well. Perhaps not even then.

Good one.

It just grinds on my nerves when people get all hyped on the 'more is better' bandwagon.

I wonder how much heat a fully loaded 64bit system would produce.

Never mind, I would not want to be the guy operating the bellows to keep it cool.

@thread

It seems pretty definite that the X1000 will come with OS4.2. But what is going to be new in 4.2? Maybe this was answered somewhere else, but I can't find it.

_________________
X5000 / microA1(OS4.1 FE U2) / CodeBench / Imagine / Blender
Lightwave 2019 / Microsoft Visual C++

Glad to see the A1X1000 project is moving forward, however I'm phasing out all my desktops through eBay in favour of laptops/portables. Hope Trevor & Co. can recoup the original investment and more, so maybe there'd be something much more compact such as an A1-500X, I'd love that.

@thinkchip

Quote:

thinkchip wrote: @thread It seems pretty definite that the X1000 will come with OS4.2. But what is going to be new in 4.2? Maybe this was answered somewhere else, but I can't find it.

Presumably X1000 support (usage of dual core PVR Efficient and XMOS chip), RadeonHD driver 3D - Gallium 3D.

All we can see for now is
"Brand new OS features like hardware accelerated OpenGL are reserved for AmigaOS 4.2 which is currently planned for release along with the powerful AmigaOne X1000 platform."

Once again, new features promised at AmiWest 2010 were:

In October 2010, at the yearly Amiga show, AmiWest, AmigaOS 4's future and anticipated features were planned/discussed and/or announced including:[44]
Multiple core support (SMP)
New Exec scheduler
Selectable policy for scheduling (may include per task)
Scheduling of task groups with internal scheduling of tasks within that group
Scheduling of tasks across multiple CPU cores (may include core affinity)
Support for real-time scheduling
Graphics and Gallium3D
Enables access to full OpenGL implementations like Mesa
Compositing may be done via Gallium3D
Opens the door to replacing the entire graphics subsystem
multi-header support
USB 2 support
Support for more than 2 GB of RAM


If most of these make OS 4.2, that would be just great

Last edited by vox on 07-Aug-2011 at 10:06 PM.

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Future Acube and MOS supporter, fi di good, nothing fi di unprofessionals. Learn it harder way!

@

Off topic

A couple of new photos on A-EON site in news, Golden Child.



Just in case they got missed.

Last edited by Mechanic on 07-Aug-2011 at 10:31 PM.

@Leo

Quote:

Leo wrote: ... most applications have all already been ported/replaced by PPC native ones.

I highly doubt that.
Where are e.g. my PPC-native CAE-CAD-CAM-CNC applications then (NewIO, LogicWorks, MaxonCAD, DynaCadd, Cycas, ...)?
Or Maxon Cinema 4D and the like?

I think there's still a lot of work to be done before one can claim that "most applications have all already been ported/replaced by PPC native ones"...

_________________
Ciao

Dandy
__________________________________________
If someone enjoys marching to military music, then I already despise him.
He got his brain accidently - the bone marrow in his back would have been sufficient for him!
(Albert Einstein)

Quote:

Where are e.g. my PPC-native CAE-CAD-CAM-CNC applications then (NewIO, LogicWorks, MaxonCAD, DynaCadd, Cycas, ...)? Or Maxon Cinema 4D and the like?

What can you do with Cinema 4D you cannot with Blender ?

Of course, not every single app will get a port/replacement... But most already have, that's for sure. Now, if you're waiting for every single 68k app to have a port, you can wait forever... Just like MacOS would still be classic, XP would still be DOS-based, and Linux would still run Linux 0.1 apps...

_________________
http://www.warpdesign.fr/

@Leo

nah you know it's not true.
amiga will rule the world again soon it will beat windows and mac and everyone will be using it.
you know why? because amigaos doesn't need no overhaul nor updates or api re-rewrite. because os3.1 api era was perfect. the holy grail of computing.
who care about 64bits OS, memory protection, resource tracking, unicode...and so on. if you're a real amigan all you need is to be able to play superfrog forever.
re-writing api to have modern features would be the same as to say os3.1 api wasn't perfect and it's not possible. i'm looking forward to perfect backward compatibility for 2013...onlyyy amiiigaaAaa ...

@freeaks

Quote:

amiga will rule the world again soon it will beat windows and mac and everyone will be using it.

This point about "beating" windows and Mac has come up so many times, and I don't understand why people make those comparisons. Certainly the Amiga X1000 won't "beat windows and mac and everyone will be using it." But that's not necessary anyway. Amiga X1000 can succeed in a localized, modest way that enables the platform to survive and possibly even evolve to increase it's appeal within the niche it will hopefully find.

For example, I have talked with a lot of people that are exhausted with the virus vulnerabilities of Windows and even Mac. And Linux is not really a feasible option for most consumers unless you have a tech guru in your family. So, there seems to be a small niche of people who really just want to be able to surf the internet, write emails, type term papers etc. and are very frustrated with PCs that get polluted with junk and start ignoring them for minutes at a time. A few people I've talked to have said they'd pay more for a computer that wouldn't subject them to the sluggish, degrading performance that plagues most PCs.

Certainly price point is a big deterrent, but the volume of consumer computers sold is very high by comparison to the size of the Amiga community. Even if a small fraction of a percent of that market were to buy an Amiga, those numbers could be enabling of a future for the platform.

So, given the sheer numbers, it doesn't require "beating them all" to be successful enough to survive. And surviving might even allow another rev of the hardware. And after that... who knows, maybe a future Amiga X500 could address the price point issue and even more people may walk across the bridge to a machine that doesn't spend more time frustrating you, than serving your needs.

Whatever the outcome, it will be very interesting to see how things unfold for the X1000 over the coming months/years. At least, I'm very happy to see someone make an honest effort to bringing the platform back. The spoils go to the risk takers. And certainly there is a huge risk of failure here. But what if, against all odds, it succeeds...

Last edited by jingof on 08-Aug-2011 at 10:39 AM.
Last edited by jingof on 08-Aug-2011 at 10:35 AM.
Last edited by jingof on 08-Aug-2011 at 10:31 AM.

_________________
Vic-20, C-64, C-128
Amiga 1000, 3000
AmigaOne X1000

@jingof

The computing industry is rather funny compared to other industries.

In other industries the question is: Can you make money on it?
In the computer industry the question is: Can you beat Microsoft?

Obviously, if we're gonna hold new contenders to that sort of standard we'll all be stuck with Microsoft, won't we?

_________________
This weeks pet peeve:
Using "voltage" instead of "potential", which leads to inventing new words like "amperage" instead of "current" (I, measured in A) or possible "charge" (amperehours, Ah or Coulomb, C). Sometimes I don't even know what people mean.

@olegil

"Beating Microsoft" is something that cannot be done. By Amiga or anyone else.
They could self-destroy, but I can't see any other way.

Having said that, my forced usage of Windows while my A1 is out reinforced my belief: I dont want this.

The laptop has a CPU that is more than double of what I have on my A1, yet it feels slow. If I was using the latest WIndows, it'd be understandable, but I'm using XP, not nearly has demanding processor-wise.

I feel little to no control while using it, it leaves the user out.
It does what needs to be done (certainly many more than an Amiga is capable), but it's all done in a way that you don't feel part of.
Installing a simple game or app is enough to make me tear up my hair in disgust.
A friend that is helping me out with this, given my inexperience, manages to do the job, but doesn't seem to really know what's going on.

Not an experience I will remember fondly... ;)

Quote:

jingof wrote: ..whatever the outcome, it will be very interesting to see how things unfold for the X1000 over the coming months/years. At least, I'm very happy to see someone make an honest effort to bringing the platform back. The spoils go to the risk takers. And certainly there is a huge risk of failure here. But what if, against all odds, it succeeds...

my money's in for SUCCESS for our Amiga market and don't give a crap about Microsoft when I'm at home enjoying my future X1000

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c64-2sids, A1000, A1200T-060@50(finally working!),A4000-CSMKIII
! My Master Miggies- Amiga 1000 & AmigaOne X1000 !
mancave-ramblings
X1000 I BELIEVE

@olegil

Quote:

In the computer industry the question is: Can you beat Microsoft? Obviously, if we're gonna hold new contenders to that sort of standard we'll all be stuck with Microsoft, won't we?

Yes, exactly. Why throw in the towel, just because you can't beat Microsoft? I'd settle for .01% of their size. Certainly no reason to give up before it's even tried.

Truth be known, I'm excited enough about the X1000 to believe it has a real shot.. But, I fully realize that's a very subject thing. Still, can't wait to get my hands on the hardware and see if it lives up to the anticipation.

Very happy to see how thoroughly these guys are testing Nemo. Should be a solid piece of kit at least.

Last edited by jingof on 09-Aug-2011 at 11:30 AM.
Last edited by jingof on 09-Aug-2011 at 11:29 AM.

_________________
Vic-20, C-64, C-128
Amiga 1000, 3000
AmigaOne X1000