Following on from here: https://amigaworld.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?mode=viewtopic&topic_id=42756&forum=2&start=360&viewmode=flat&order=0#815594

I've been away a long time - been given an A1200, so thought I'd check in. I see that Amiga is still in a legal limbo bla bla bla...

Surprised to see that AROS on RPi has yet to be fully realised. Then a patreon gets started to do just that - https://www.patreon.com/michal_schulz/overview - by a dude who has the capability and capacity to deliver.

I have to put my $ where my mouth is - and have become a Patreon.

However, a port of AROS to RPi is not enough... to go mainstream, there needs to be branding / marketing / an eco-system to attract users... through the RPi this could be the route to tens of thousands of users... or more!

People need to buy an "Amiga" - and it just works out the box.

https://amigaworld.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=21002&forum=14

I don't know the state of play regarding trademarks / patents - but a modern looking, Amiga branded RPI case, complete with the embossed AMIGA.

I can see some kind of foundation to push this forward... So AmigaOS is unlikely to become open source, but AROS is... and if the case / packaging / branding can be Amiga (as last time Amiga etc trademarks existed elsewhere?) then we're halfway there?

Is that possible?

Last edited by bobson on 24-Aug-2018 at 09:07 PM.
Last edited by bobson on 24-Aug-2018 at 08:46 PM.

@bobson

If you were talking about OS4.x on the Raspberry Pi then I could get excited. Even emulated systems like the A.L.I.C.E. look fun but AROS doesn't cut it I'm afraid.

_________________
"Art challenges technology. Technology inspires the art."
John Lasseter, Co-Founder of Pixar Animation Studios

@BigD

Don't forget E.M.M.A.

https://blitterwolf.blogspot.com/2016/11/amiga-laptop-emma.html

_________________
1 AmigaOne G4XE (OS4 Pre-Release Update4)
Minimig
Sam440ep + OS4.1FE
Sam460cr + OS4.1FE

@BigD

Why doesn't AROS cut it? (I'm not being confrontational - I remember asking such stuff years ago could start a war )

I just googled - and the Alice http://www.amibay.com/showthread.php?98740-A4000-Alice-motherboard-DIY looks extremely impressive - but its not going to be mass market.

I like the idea of AROS on pi because its doable, and satisfies bigger ambitions. It's API and binary compatible with OS 3x - and has the opportunity to get loads and loads of users if marketed correctly. It can be skinned up to look like 4... the icons are open source after all (but I'd suggested its skinned up to look modern - a lot of Amiga stuff still looks like its from 1994)

There seems to be no interest from the owners of OS4 to port it to the Pi... its stuck on hardware that is expensive and is harder to obtain.

Surely growing the userbase is a primary concern? reintroduce a new generation to Amiga. Port a good browser over - and build from there?

If it's the SMP-enabled version, it should FLY!!!!
Then all we'll need is a KODI port. :D

@Lou

KODI / Plex and a web browser...

@Lou

Quote:

If it's the SMP-enabled version, it should FLY!!!!

with SMP AROS would need to break compatibility. On x86_64 we use spinlocks in many weird places (like e.g. inside struct MsgPort, aligned on cache line...) so that sizeof some structures changes.

@bobson

Quote:

I just googled - and the Alice http://www.amibay.com/showthread.php?98740-A4000-Alice-motherboard-DIY looks extremely impressive - but its not going to be mass market.

thats not what they are reffering to. alice should simply have been a x86 laptop with an emulation and pre installed os4 and/or genuine system. it should have possibility to use/invoke host applications (linux/windows?) from under an emulation. same as what apparently aeros is doing with aros. the drawback was though apparently that you couldnt really manage the host application windows even if they appeared over workbench, likely disguised in the same skin as you would manage emulated workbench and eventually you would end up on host desktop instead or something like that.

one way or the other, even though highly advertised and as usual announced year after year, this solution has never surfaced up till now. not that one couldnt set up thing like that himself at home.

@wawa

Sounds interesting - almost like a siamese?

@bobson

for me its just as running a normal laptop, using virtual machines for linux, winuae for amiga and qemu for ppc. i dont need fancy stuff just to trick me to think that im using this all on os4 or something. but thats the matter of taste. there are apparently people who care about such issues.

Quote:

michalsc wrote: with SMP AROS would need to break compatibility. On x86_64 we use spinlocks in many weird places (like e.g. inside struct MsgPort, aligned on cache line...) so that sizeof some structures changes.

Wasn't that a quick and dirty implementation as a proof of concept? How long can that spinlock busy wait? There is no lock free/non-blocking algorithm? You can't do a core task/thread Switch() while waiting?

Of course there are all kinds of issues with trying to keep compatibility on foreign hardware without sandboxing. The FORBID/PERMIT (less common ENABLE/DISABLE) macros from exec/ables.i are common in 68k code and in AmigaOS 3.

a6=ExecBase
addq.b #1,(TDNestCnt,a6) ; Forbid without Forbid()
subq.b #1,(TDNestCnt,a6) ; Permit without Permit()

http://amigadev.elowar.com/read/ADCD_2.1/Includes_and_Autodocs_2._guide/node007B.html

Maybe it could be dealt with by making the ExecBase pages read only in user mode and having the MMU kernel fault handler suspend/restart all cores?

@all
I recently made some comments about an AmigaOS Raspberry Pi port in the following thread.

https://amigaworld.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=40773&forum=14&start=500&viewmode=flat&order=0#814924

If it is not possible to convert to big endian mode early (bootloader), then it should be possible to convert to big endian mode with the following instruction.

SETEND BE

The problem is that the instruction is deprecated in ARMv8 even though it is usually available on current ARMv8 hardware. The next Raspberry Pi may not support it which would be embarrassing and catastrophic to an ARM AROS port depending on it. Also, the instructions remain little endian which makes it feel like a kludge for debuggers, disassemblers and other development tools. Compilers and development tools will need a proper big endian ARM target or require many switches to get BE data with LE code. It would probably be best to break compatibility and do a proper LE port of AROS for ARM with SMP. I know how important software compatibility is but preserving compatibility and adding modern features would be difficult enough with a BE CPU and custom hardware.

AmigaOS on LE CPU - Sandbox compatibility only but modern features like SMP are possible
AmigaOS on BE CPU - Compatibility without modern features or sandbox with modern features
AmigaOS on custom BE SoC (CPU+Amiga custom chips) - Best chance for compatibility and features

@bobson

Quote:

Port a good browser over - and build from there?

Porting a modern browser to AROS is a problem, since AROS doesn't have memory protection[1], and it's not safe to use a system without memory protection on the Internet. I know you're recently returned, but I've been banging my spoon on my high chair about this for a while now.

If you want to use AROS on the Internet, you would be better off using the hosted version so you can use the host's web browser and be (comparatively) safe.

There is still value in a hosted version of AROS for the RPi. The AROS nightly builds work well hosted on Linux, but they are fairly primitive. The really nice versions of AROS are the distributions, but they have limited hardware support. So getting something like that over on RPi would still be a big win.

On the other hand, AROS native on RPi would be really cool, even if one couldn't do much with it. I would be happy for either, since the hardware investment is so low.

---

1. It's probably possible to add memory protection to AROS, but it wouldn't be backward compatible -- programs would have to be written to use it. I expect it would be a lot of work.

Last edited by bison on 25-Aug-2018 at 04:31 AM.

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"Unix is supposed to fix that." -- Jay Miner

@bison

https://www.aeros-os.org

_________________

@matthey

Quote:

If it is not possible to convert to big endian mode early (bootloader), then it should be possible to convert to big endian mode with the following instruction.

as you might have red (or maybe it was tim that pmed me about it?), one of the reasons michal picks up on this project is that newer compilers apparently offer opportunity to define endiannes on the fly, so aros structures can be effectively turned to be big endian, and therefore be made compatible with amiga. which would allow the same approach on running 68k code within aros on arm as os4 and morphos do. im not sure about little endian archs.

thats at least, how i get it.

Last edited by wawa on 25-Aug-2018 at 08:28 AM.

@bison

Quote:

Porting a modern browser to AROS is a problem

aros version of odyssey 1.25 is reasonably recent. and it could be updated. it has endian problems admittedly, so it doesnt currently work on ppc or 68k.

the concerns of security are another matter. but this is a problem common to all amiga like platforms. i think we need to accept the situation that these are outdated platforms that will never offer features expected on a contemporary system.

Last edited by wawa on 25-Aug-2018 at 08:31 AM.

@wawa @bison

Could memory protection be introduced - with a sandboxing for the classic Amiga stuff? else the whole exercise is pointless...

I thought thats what AROS was - an Amiga OS compatible api, running in a sandbox + some enhancements?

Last edited by bobson on 25-Aug-2018 at 09:23 AM.
Last edited by bobson on 25-Aug-2018 at 09:20 AM.

@bobson

Quote:

Could memory protection be introduced - with a sandboxing for the classic Amiga stuff?

Anything is possible. The better question is perhaps whether anybody is actively working on this and how soon this might become available to end users.

Quote:

else the whole exercise is pointless...

An overwhelming amount of popular human activities are pointless.

Quote:

I thought thats what AROS was - an Amiga OS compatible api, running in a sandbox + some enhancements?

Given your note about AROS becoming a mobile phone OS in another discussion thread, you might want to read up a bit more on what AROS really is.

@BigD

You already own AmigaOS? At least the version you can use in emulation?

Just to show support?

If not how can you compare AmigaOS and AROS if you own and use neither of them?

@OlafS25

I watch YouTube, read blogs and I follow the compatibility, development and features of both. I still use OS3.9 regularly and see AmigaOS 4.x as an upgrade and AROS as simply a side step that no one (obviously a generalisation) can be bothered to use.

I said I'd be 'excited' if it was AmigaOS on a Pi. I'm allowed to express whether AROS excites me or not. What does AROS do that my Classic 'Miggy doesn't do better? What specific software will be written specifically to support and push forward AROS like software for the Vampire or AmigaOS does? Bottom line why bother to use AROS other than to mess around with old programs and resize a few Amiga windows like you could do on a Vampire or accelerated Classic machine?

_________________
"Art challenges technology. Technology inspires the art."
John Lasseter, Co-Founder of Pixar Animation Studios

@BigD

So how much work would be involved in porting OS4 to RPi / ARM? or are we better off binning it all, and starting again?