Hey all :)

Not sure if there is an FAQ or anything, to be honest I haven't looked very much as I'm trying to write a bit of software, while writing a spec, while trying to dodge the boss, who will no doubt give me more work to do if he sees me taking a break for 5 minutes ;) So if im asking a question that has already been answered, please forgive me...

Ok...

I'm a software developer who would like to develop software for the Amiga world...I had already bought a version of the Amiga DE SDK last year, but that was hmmm how should I say an expensive mistake (It appears that development platform is now dead in the water as I haven't been able to get support for it for over a year and I have promptly abandoned projects I was previously working on for that platform).

My question is, If I decided to once again try and start developing for the Amiga again...What should I target...the older OS 3.X market or should I think about tooling up for the AmigaOne and OS 4? Is there any hint of the AmigaOne being launched and OS 4? or is it still in the 'due soon' stage?

I want to contribute software to the Amiga community (since I had an Amiga and remember it with great affection) but there doesnt seem to be a clear way in, I already made a mistake when I bought the Amiga DE SDK thinking it was probably the way forward, so this time I want to get it right :)

@johnktaylor

You can buy a Micro AmigaOne (its a mini-itx board) now (in theory) from any approved dealer - there are some listed on the front page IIRC. It comes with a developer pre-release of OS4, including an SDK.

If you want to contribute, there are plenty of projects that could do with the help of more developers, the most obvious ones being Amizilla (bringing Mozilla to the Amiga), Aweb (bringing KHTML to the Amiga) and AmigaOpenOffice (funnily enough, bringing us OpenOffice).

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@johnktaylor

WELCOME TO AW !

Jerry

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@johnktaylor

AmigaOne and OS4 is the thing you should target. You said it yourself about the DE thing, costed money and nothing happened.

Coder

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@johnktaylor:

Welcome to amigaworld.net!

Buy an micro-a1-c now! The platform is dependant of software developers to grow

Last edited by Restore2003 on 26-Jan-2005 at 04:45 PM.

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[edit]
Fast posters in there! Nothing to add...

Last edited by Lynx on 26-Jan-2005 at 04:50 PM.
Last edited by Lynx on 26-Jan-2005 at 04:50 PM.

@johnktaylor

to AW ...

AmigaOne And Os4 is allready out in developer pre release stage and till now regular updates too.

So do like the rest of us, jump in now and make the amiga world grow, os4 is backwards compatible so if you have experience from 3.x then you surely has something to go with there but also os4 offers alot more and maybe most of all an extensive SDK which imho is some of the best stuff thats graced us for many years (and yes i mean MAAAAAAAAANY)

cheers and enjoy your time here.

let us know what you need to know and i'd say check out Intuitionbase.com too too.

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@johnktaylor

AmigaDE may be integrated in a future version of AOS (AOS5 ?), time will tell !
(it could provide AOS, the Java Support I believe it currently lacks).

AOS3.9 is stagnant (dead ?) I don't think much development will be done for AOS3.9 anymore (except by some bedroom coders).
There should be an AOS4 version for CSPPC/BPPC-ClassicAmiga (but not just yet, you may have to be really patient...)

IMHO the future of Amiga lead to AmigaOne and AmigaOS 4.x.
- The only solution to develop for AOS4 efficiently is to buy an AmigaOne OR MicroA1, but both are now hard to find I believe (But an A1XC may be coming, no dates have been released yet). Of cource I believe you need to know C as I am not sure there are other programming languages available yet for AOS4.

- It may be possible to write Amiga Apps on ClassicAmiga (in C), and then send them to an A1 owner for him/her to compile... But a developer will be able to give you better info (or correct me if I am completly wrong)

Jerry

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- AOS has been ported to ex-86 ! It's called AROS and WinUAE... Or E-UAE on Linux !

- A1XE-G4 up and runing with:
512MB Ram / 200GB and 80GB HardDisks on Sii0680.
AOS4 Final Update / AmiZilla 0.1 Alpha

@johnktaylor

You are exactly the right person to get an A1 for the right reason. Any and all developers (except for virus developers) are needed. There is a great deal of work to do and it is a clean slate. Currently GNU C, C++, VBCC are included. Things are moving at a pretty wicked pace. We have already had two updates to OS 4. The pre-release version of OS 4 is an excellent implementation of an OS. So my advice is to bite the bullet and jump on in. You will be very comfortable in OS 4 if you are used to OS 3.9. Beg, borrow or steal to get an A1.

@johnktaylor

No one can give any guarantees but going with OS4 and an AOne should be a perfect jump start for both new developers and the OS.

All kinds of programs are needed right now so it doesn't have to be anything fancy (but a fully featured gui driven web design application would be nice) and you would be in right from the start.

The market is small atm but the chances of it growing are the best for any new OS I can imagine right now.

Don't count out the DE totally just yet. Things may pick up there in the future but right now info is pretty thin. You could try to get in touch with Fleecy or Bill McEwen if your interest still lies along those lines.

For Q&A you can post here otherwise you can catch up with general questions from Intuitionbase and see alist of available software for OS4 at OS4 Depot!

Welcome aboard!

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@johnktaylor

Well judging from the replies I have received so far, the Amiga community is still as strong as ever (but thankfully not quite as fanatical as another community I could mention that involves the use of a penguin to promote the OS...I currently use that OS by the way...its very good...but can't help thinking that it has become more of a religion instead of something to be used for fun and creativity)

I also accidentally mentioned the words 'Amiga' and 'new AmigaOne' to the other guys in my development team, and ermmm promptly destroyed an entire afternoons worth of productivity as they searched for more information on it.

(both very good signs for the future of Amiga)

As for the companies responsible for the new kit...the kabal of KMOS, Amiga Inc, Eyetech, and Hyperion...While I have no doubt they are doing an excellent job...I think they could give the people that keep the aliens hidden away from Mulder and Scully a run for there money...they ain't exactly communicative on what they are upto these days...hopefully they will let us know what they are doing in the *very* near future.

As for me...when I get the cash together (and rip my old pc apart) you will hopefully see some software from me in the near future :)

Thanks for all your help it has been greatly appreciated :)

John Taylor :)

@johnktaylor

You'll find the Friedens very communicative on these forums, and seeing as they are two of the people responsible for OS4, the infomration they provide is very useful.

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@_Steve_

Will have to keep an eye out for them when they appear online ;) Thanks for the info :)

John

@johnktaylor
Quote:

Well judging from the replies I have received so far, the Amiga community is still as strong as ever (but thankfully not quite as fanatical as another community I could mention that involves the use of a penguin to promote the OS...I currently use that OS by the way...its very good...but can't help thinking that it has become more of a religion instead of something to be used for fun and creativity)

C'mon, you mean you don't like some 12YO sp33k1n6 l337 sp36k about how great Linux is, but can't write an init script to save his life, and is only 'there' b/c his friends said it was cool?

It's not _really_ a Linux slam...I love Linux and have for a long time, but the 'community' is becoming...different. The last time I had an idea for a _useful_ Linux 'hobby' project was something for Gentoo specifically..then someone had just hacked something truly evil/wrong/non-engineered together and the rest of the 'l33ts' thought it was the greatest thing since sliced bread...so I gave up on the idea, mostly in disgust. One of these days I really should check just to see how badly that particular 'project' is falling apart by now, or if it even still works. Unfortunately, 'a lot of software' doesn't mean 'a lot of GOOD software.' The kernel team, Linus, and many other people are great/awesome/etc...but there's just too much pure crap out there to easily make a difference nowadays.

Anyways, so I've now got a uA1 on order, and am looking forward to getting back into something interesting, that isn't so flooded by pre-pubescents thinking because they copied some code off of Google, they're 'uber-programmers'...should be fun!

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@johnktaylor

uA1-c and OS4 you can run the Classic Emulator and compile on it two you can also get the emulator to run on a PC full screen and fast too (depending on you spec)

Last edited by aldur on 26-Jan-2005 at 10:20 PM.

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@wegster

Hehehe yeap I know what you mean ;)

I'm looking forward to just creating some good old fashioned fun software again :)

I used to be a bedroom coder (although didn't really produce anything of terribly great significance, lol), then my Amiga died (nasty accident with a RAM expansion pack), the PC thing started to get underway, and then before I knew it, I'm now creating Accessibility tools for Windows and Mac OS X for a company in Northern Ireland :)

I must admit sometimes I just want to play around with code, no particular deadlines in mind, no commercial or community politics to consider, and no L337 kids who are trying to tell a reasonably experienced coder basic programming principles when I have been following them for X amount of years ;) hehehe :)

Incidentally I don't mind working with other coders younger than me or older than me ;) They can teach me new things (for which I am definetly greatful), just don't like being told that something is great when it isn't, and I should do it one way or the other way when that way is obviously wrong (and im not talking about differences in coding styles or different points of view, only plain wrong ideas) :)

anyways think I should probably get back to work :) lol

John.

@_Steve_

Did someone mention my name?

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@johnktaylor

Quote:

As for the companies responsible for the new kit...the kabal of KMOS, Amiga Inc, Eyetech, and Hyperion...While I have no doubt they are doing an excellent job...I think they could give the people that keep the aliens hidden away from Mulder and Scully a run for there money...they ain't exactly communicative on what they are upto these days...hopefully they will let us know what they are doing in the *very* near future.

As a rule, Thomas (EntilZha) and me try to reply to as much questions as possible, but it has proven to be almost impossible to read them all

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@Rogue

Cool ;) At least I know the OS is in a good pair of hands, thats one fear put well and truly to rest :)

It looks very very cool btw :) nice work :) can't wait to work with it :)

...

Now all I need to know is if the hardware platform will be around long enough for me to make some software for it :)

One of the things I'm worrying about at the moment is buying an AmigaOne motherboard, and Eyetech then popping up the following month with a new AmigaOne motherboard with [insert cool new features] and I'm left with a board that cost me £500+ that is rapidly going to become obsolete...Hopefully Eyetech will also keep us updated on the hardware situation. :)

John

@johnktaylor

Please don't get us wrong we are fanatics we are just being nice to suck you into our "cult".


Seriously though you have to look at the real situation, we have new hardware, very significant advances on our old OS and the community is growing. The points you made about religion are valid as it has been my pleasure of the past 18 months to watch this community grow albeit we have arguements and disagreements on the way.

Fact is we are growing and confidence is building. I have the latest greatest PC available (x2) but what I don't have is interest, the Amiga community brings that to me. I reckon this site has 40 new mebers this week or so.

Your religious friends may be shocked to find that you can run Debian Sarge as well as Yellow Dog 3 quite safely under an A1, moves are probably afoot to bring YDL4 too. My friend and I are loooking at bringing GENTOO to the A1 also. On top of that we have Mac On Linux which is extremely powerful.

The A1 has brought fun back into computing for me, the Amiga community was always very active and innovative, hence some folks are scared to even move up from their trusted machines which is quite understanable.

Jump aboard, you will love the ride.

ace