@Karlos

Quote:

OS4 was ported to PPC, much of the effort of which was porting or to C for portability sake. Porting it back should be much easier.

I say port the entire thing back to 68k, only distribute OS4 as 68k binaries from now on and it can all run on Petunia for the A1 owners and the emulator/hardware of our choice for everyone else.

Win/win!

@Hans

Quote:

Hans wrote: @BigD Quote: HD video playback on a Sam?! That's hard to believe ... Quote: Have you seen the PiStorm32 playing 720p video on an A1200 without any hardware acceleration? No, I haven't.

Then allow me:

https://youtu.be/IHsSE0S0aAY

720p software decoding using a 68K binary. This is what Emu68K can do with a Pi4 right now. The built-in video acceleration hasn't even been tapped yet.

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I don't know of any OS features that would require any OS to use any specific CPU architecture.

Exactly my point. The only remaining justification for the spare kidney selling cost of next gen PPC hardware is that it runs OS4. Those are often used to justify each other. You can run OS4 on a classic with PPC and it's OK, but underpowered to truly appreciate it.

My contention is that a new generation of high performance 68K emulation renders it all redundant. There is no technical reason why OS4 or MorphOS could not be ported to run on 68K and have just as good an end user experience on something like the PiStorm. And let's not even consider where an updated Amithlon could take it on modern PC hardware.

The best of all worlds. You can run it on an actual classic, on a PiStorming monster classic, in UAE of on any other mature 68K emulation/reimplementation of your choosing, including PPC. After all, if the code is portable a PPC native build of the kernel and critical resources can remain, even if most of the rest moved over.

I would not be surprised if there would be more sales in a month if OS4 68K were released for high end classic, UAE, PiStorm etc than there have been PPC sales in total.

*So many fat thumb typos.

Last edited by Karlos on 02-Mar-2023 at 11:42 AM.
Last edited by Karlos on 02-Mar-2023 at 10:31 AM.
Last edited by Karlos on 02-Mar-2023 at 10:26 AM.

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@Bosanac

Quote:

Bosanac wrote: @Karlos Quote: OS4 was ported to PPC, much of the effort of which was porting or to C for portability sake. Porting it back should be much easier. I say port the entire thing back to 68k, only distribute OS4 as 68k binaries from now on and it can all run on Petunia for the A1 owners and the emulator/hardware of our choice for everyone else. Win/win!

hear, hear!

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The Illusion of Choice | Am*ga

OS4 can be fun, forget some of the naysayers, yes their not that many exclusive apps / feature but it can be just fun using an AmigaOS that can do modern things. It why Im a fan and still like OS4, its the closet Amiga world has gotten to the more modern desktop solution.

Now after saying that it is unfortunate where the market is today, stuck on PPC hardware that is unfortunately a dead CPU really at this point, and then we got Hyperion, that either run out of money, good will or talent to really continue developing it.

Plus I reconsigned the sad truth that OS4 needs many more devs and users to support its goals, like to support and have a modern web browser it requires full time devs really unfortunately.

It why I have kinda switched to Amikit XE as it really push what a 68k can do on emulated platform and has the great Rabbit hole feature that allows you to run modern app nearly as if they where part of the OS. It might be the only way around the issue of lack of apps.

But even after saying that I still enjoy OS4 (I wish my X1000 didn't have some gremlins, I enjoy a lot more)

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@amigang

Would you honestly care if your OS4 was running under emulation on a high performance JIT?

Especially if that JIT was something you could just run whenever you like on your PC, or standalone, or in an original classic machine?

I don't see myself as a nay sayer, I just think 68K has far more appeal and potential and it would be awesome to see OS4 backported. Even moreso a merge (where it makes sense) with 3.2. maybe even call it OS4.3.2 lol.

Last edited by Karlos on 02-Mar-2023 at 03:03 PM.

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@redfox

Thanks for the welcome everyone!

I just ordered 4.1 FE for AmigaOne XE and micro from Alinea so they're shipping it from Germany. Can't wait for it to get here. As to software, there seems to be a ton on OS4 Depot to try out. I have been using Hollywood on AROS and WinUAE in the mean time so I will definitely use that on OS4. There also seems to be some updates available through "The Enhancer" so I might look at getting on that. Thanks.

NathanH

@NathanH



Use it or lose it dude!

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@NathanH

I hope your systems bring you a lot of fun and last longer than mine did after resurrecting it. It's shame it went when it did, I was actively contributing to OS4 at the time. It could've been all the card swapping (Voodoo, R100, R200) that contributed to it.

It would be nice to try and get it working, for old time's sake but I'm sure something pretty fundamental died.

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@NathanH


redfox

@Karlos

Quote:

My contention is that a new generation of high performance 68K emulation renders it all redundant. There is no technical reason why OS4 or MorphOS could not be ported to run on 68K and have just as good an end user experience on something like the PiStorm. And let's not even consider where an updated Amithlon could take it on modern PC hardware. The best of all worlds. You can run it on an actual classic, on a PiStorming monster classic, in UAE of on any other mature 68K emulation/reimplementation of your choosing, including PPC. After all, if the code is portable a PPC native build of the kernel and critical resources can remain, even if most of the rest moved over. I would not be surprised if there would be more sales in a month if OS4 68K were released for high end classic, UAE, PiStorm etc than there have been PPC sales in total.

Interesting idea. It might be easier to add PPC JIT emulation to the PiStorm, though...

Quote:

I don't see myself as a nay sayer, I just think 68K has far more appeal and potential and it would be awesome to see OS4 backported. Even moreso a merge (where it makes sense) with 3.2. maybe even call it OS4.3.2 lol.

I realized recently that backporting to OS 3.x is harder than originally thought. The OS4 library interfaces throw up some challenges:
- Library interfaces can have functions with the same name, whereas that would cause a naming clash with OS3 style library functions (and yes, name clashes do now exist)
- Some libraries have multiple interfaces. The ones I know of are low-level stuff that applications don't normally touch, but there may be other cases
- Interface functions have a "Self" pointer, which make it possible to have varargs functions without a first named parameter (due to the hidden self parameter). Only recent C standards allow this, which in turn means you need a very recent C compiler to support it

Hans

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@Hans

I don't know about PPC-JIT. My experiences of it via QEMU are mixed, to say the least. I just don't see the benefit of sticking with the ISA when all the PPC software worth a damn is already implemented in high level, portable compiled languages. If it were all abandoned binaries without source, I'd be more inclined to agree.

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I realized recently that backporting to OS 3.x is harder than originally thought

To be clear, I'm talking about porting OS4 itself to 68K, not porting OS4 applications to 3.x. Important distinction. Obviously the applications would need to be ported once the OS is.

Regarding the other technicalities, well, the library name clash sounds like a self inflicted injury to me. As for compiler maturity, how recent is recent? Part of the required effort would be to move the compiler and toolchain too.

As for specifics, there's also no reason why the 68K build would need to implement library interfaces identically if access to the interfaces is mediated through macros/attributes/extensions. If software is directly playing with the pointer table instead of using the Exec provided methods, that is surely bad granola.

Last edited by Karlos on 03-Mar-2023 at 09:56 AM.
Last edited by Karlos on 03-Mar-2023 at 09:44 AM.

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@Karlos

3.2.1 aint that great IMHO, especially when I had to spend a week or so setting up many of the basic things that wouldve taken one evening with Os4.1FE

Having said that my friend was telling me even 3.9 had a lot more from the install disc on offer, pitty that. I dont even have an ami dock standard with the 3.2.1, apparently again my friend mentioned this came standard with 3.9

Where 3.9 lacks is SIZE with partitions, 3.2.1 can have more than 4gb partitions sizes, so thats a bonus.

I myself have been using 3.2.1, and find myself enjoying os4.1 fe more and that was when Ive gone out of my way to get my old hardware to a useful state, by allowing it to have some form of HDD and its even SD hot swappable.

Again, for me, I feel like I wasted my money on 3.2 (and free update 3.2.1) that could have been invested into furthering a purchase for modern gen.

As for software, OS4.1 FE can use a large portion of the 68k software natively without need for emulation. So technically it's only the 68k games one needs to emulate.
Again I find this point MUTE, as most Amiga users will have a 68k machine lying around or a windows machine to emulate using AmiKit to play said games.

Its not so much the games for many of us if we're honest many these days using the likes of STEAM or Playstation or what not to play modern games, and simply go back to older games in the in between nostalgic moments.

Again I feel your point on the emulation front is kind of mute. Especially since OS4.1FE with runinUAE does a fantastic job with emulation if one really wants to go down that path for games. (But why bother when most of us have a 68k machine lying around)

And to point out about Operating system use and EASE of use I would easily go OS 4.1 FE over any other 68k iteration atm (I get it OS4 came out for classic, but if we are to only talk about anything but os4.1 for classic then there we go, os4.1 FE is by far the easier OS for even a non Amiga person to be able to atleast come to terms with IMHO)

Anyway, I'll leave you be with your viewpoints, but what Ive said is through my own experiences between various 68k machines versus the sam flex, and every time hands down generally the sam flex with its OS4.1FE simply works almost drama free.

Cheers

Last edited by Gebrochen on 03-Mar-2023 at 10:28 AM.

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@Gebrochen

Quote:

As for software, OS4.1 FE can use a large portion of the 68k software natively without need for emulation

I'm sorry that is simply not true. Don't confuse emulation with UAE which exists to run applications that depend on custom chips. All 68K code running on OS4 is "emulated", whether by the interpreter, petunia JIT or UAE.

The only way OS4 would run 68K code without emulation is it it were itself 68K. Which is what I'd like to see.

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@Karlos

Quote:

Would you honestly care if your OS4 was running under emulation on a high performance JIT? .

No I wouldnt. I not one who really care what the Amiga experices runs on anymore.

I just would love a next gen Amiga system.

I said this in a blog " Here the sad truth that we all kind of know, the Amiga community is just too small to keep up with the main stream programs. I want to see the Amiga push forward largely so I can boot up my Amiga more often and do more work and play round on it, but let’s face it Modern web site/apps, like Spotify are not designed with Amiga in mind. But if hacks / work around like Rabbit Hole help get these programs/services useable from within the AmigaOS, well I just think that’s great"

Thats kinda where Im at with my thoughts and journey to find the best next gen Amiga now.

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@Karlos

I don’t think they get it, and I’m not entirely sure as to why.

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All the way, with 68k

@Karlos

Quote:

To be clear, I'm talking about porting OS4 itself to 68K, not porting OS4 applications to 3.x. Important distinction. Obviously the applications would need to be ported once the OS is.

Sorry, I thought you suggested both, with back-porting OS4 into 3.2 being meant by:
Quote:

Even moreso a merge (where it makes sense) with 3.2. maybe even call it OS4.3.2 lol.

Hans

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@Hans

To elaborate, backporting OS4 to 68K and then including any 3.2 enhancements/fixes that make sense for the 68K target. Maybe there aren't any that would still be applicable.

The goal is to have OS4 running on 68K and that 68K running however the end user prefers: Real 68020+ as an absolute minimum, 68040/60, Vampire, Emu68K, UAE, Amithlon (I wish).

As fun as it was in the day, to me the PPC itself is an absolute dead end and the biggest single obstacle to furthering OS4 - and to a lesser extent MorphOS - that exists today.

It serves no purpose today except as a dongle: an unnecessary bit of hardware to prevent running of software on anything else. In this case a very expensive dongle.

Last edited by Karlos on 03-Mar-2023 at 01:28 PM.

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@agami

I think the reason is, with the exception of Hans and AmigaNG, some people feel there's some necessary connection between OS4 and PPC.

There isn't.

There will be challenges, without doubt, porting OS4 to 68K. The toolchain being the first.

However this is largely how it began: as 68K. The OS wasn't ported from 68K to PowerPC; it was mostly ported from 68K assembly language to C. PowerPC is just what I was compiled for.

Only a tiny portion of the OS depends on PPC due to the use of assembler, bits of very low level glue, the occasional bit of performance optimisation for certain functions like block memory operations.

FWIW I am not against a dual distribution with native OS4 for PPC - people invested a lot in their hardware. However I think OS4 itself needs to peel itself away from PPC as a dependency.

I'm less interested in porting OS4 to other architectures directly, except where 68K emulation is transparently included (runs directly on the OS, not via UAE). The Amiga began as a 68K platform and almost all the software written for it is for 68K. Lots of that is no longer available as source.

And besides, AROS has that angle covered.

Last edited by Karlos on 03-Mar-2023 at 01:51 PM.
Last edited by Karlos on 03-Mar-2023 at 01:46 PM.

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@Karlos

emulator is emulator. nothing more than emulator.
if someone write software for emulator it means has problems with head.

pistorm is wortless crap that made amiga nothing more thna docking station for rpi.
which is stupid because amiga keyboard and mouse where copied from pc 40 years ago.

ppc amiga hardware is still interesting because it is not pc.
It if fun to use something other than pc.

x86 and arm are boing. it is job.
no reasons to spend free time on it.