@Donar

a) laptop hibernation/standby
b) laptop

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@opi

c) free electricity

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@umisef

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How much does that small, proprietary OS cost per license?

It is free. It is not for PPC but on the other hand it is good reason to prefer TI DSP over PPC.

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50MB is about 50ms worth of video grabbing memory at 1000fps.

It is more than 50ms worth of video because resolutions are relatively small, sometimes as small as 640x64 pixels. But we must be able to display full playback from the last 3-15 minutes if needed. There are four video grabbers on a board so every spare megabyte is needed. And ram is not needed only to store video but for video analysis data.

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And actually, linux does pretty well for embedded applications; When you can capture, analyse and forward 3 million network packets per second, reliably, that's pretty good in my book.

Was that on an embedded CPU at 400-800MHz range? Most embedded CPUs are really low end i.e. running at low frequencies, support only old SDRAM, no FPU, no L2 cache and so on.

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Current linux kernels are certainly written with a thought spared for the worst case --- something which AmigaOS cannot historically claim (its designers fondness for the simple linked list is legendary, and we all know how long it takes to find something in one of them...).

There is nothing wrong on linked lists if you could switch to better suited implementation later. Unfortunately it is not possible on Amiga...

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@itix

Well, we won't get that in Poland, so unless you're talking about my office, I can't count that in.

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@ne_one

Quote:

ne_one wrote: This is meandering a bit, but despite all the poo poos about AA2, if executed properly it does have a much more viable market than a desktop OS. Java is very useful in many contexts, but for things like multimedia and particularly game development there really aren't many multi-platform options outside of Flash. Consider the Nintendo DS market alone at close to 50 million units, then add the XBOX, PS3 and Wii. Then consider mobile devices, set top boxes and kiosks. Being able to seemlessly deploy a product on all of these systems would be a significant coup.

Sure, AA '2' (we've seen no indications to date it's anything more than warmed over (or unchanged) AA _could_ actually make some money. We don't know much about it, and with a few reporting attempts to register for the SDK failing (web site issues), then there is the question as to whether or not McEwen and company can actually _market_ or drive a product in such a fashion that anyone, well, cares.

The questions also arise about how well it works - how well it takes advantage of any underlying graphics hardware, for example. Does the API provide the equivalent of OpenGL, DirectX, can it do hw acceleration or not? If anyone knows, speak up...ahh wait, AFAIK AA2 _still_ requires an NDA, which is insane in this day and age for a product with no market share currently.

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@Donar
The point is not to say 'it can't be done,' simply that past history and performance, or lack thereof, don't make many of these things likely, and AOS-alikes as they exist today, don't offer very much compared to 'the competition' for most, if not, all, applications.

Sure, if someone were to do a tablet, they'd need to do touchscreen drivers. Likewise, it's _possible_ that at some point, there will be a browser than can compete with say, Safari on iPhone. There are some few areas AOS isn't so far behind compared to others...wookiechat is a decent IRC program, as an example, and compares well to most others. But, it's unlikely to sell a platform, or use AOS as the OS for some special platform, based on it having a decent IRC client.

Currently, size and resource requirements are the only things I see that could make running an AOS-like system on an appliance or handheld device even remotely desirable..but there is competition there, and additional software would need to be completed.

Of course, maybe this is unfair, as many of the good AOS devs are tied up nowadays in OS4, MOS, or AROS development itself, rather than writing apps. Once some of them free up, maybe we'll see some movement on some of the software bits required for some of these projects to look more appealing..?

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@wegster

I work as a technician in the health services and I see more and more pieces of equipment (e.g. patient monitoring equipment) becoming effectively an embedded PC running Windows XP.

There is a problem with these devices where you switch it on and have to wait 5 minutes or more for the equipment to boot up to Windows and then load the necessary drivers and software before you can get on with things. I can just picture the following scenario:

"I'm sorry Mr. Smith you seem to be having a heart attack just now, but I won't be able to help you until our defibrillator has booted up."

5 minutes later...

"Almost there Mr. Smith, you just hang in there. Ah, there we go. We can now shock your heart back to its normal rhythm. Oh, wait a minute... The defibrillator has just installed some updates and is automatically rebooting itself. Well now don't you fret Mr. Smith, it will be back up and running for sure in another few minutes. Mr. Smith? Mr. Smith are you okay? Mr. Smith?..."

Okay so that is maybe a bit of an extreme example, but you get the idea!

Another more serious problem with these Windows-based devices is the responsiveness of them. They are totally dire! Some units have touch-sensitive screens so that the nurses or whoever do everything by touching the screen. Sometimes Windows will sit there doing who knows what and the nurse will keep pressing the onscreen button waiting for something to happen. When Windows does eventually decide to do something it ends up doing it about 20 times because of the repeated button presses!

Don't get me started on system crashes and hang ups!

I think if companies want to go down the road of embedded patient monitoring devices they really should look further afield than just using Windows. I think AmigaOS would be great for these types of devices since it boots fast and is a much more responsive system.

Kind regards,

Francis

Last edited by dreamlandfantasy on 14-Jan-2008 at 07:57 PM.

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@dreamlandfantasy

Quote:

Okay so that is maybe a bit of an extreme example, but you get the idea!

We have idea that you have no idea that such equipment don't run desktop software.

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@opi
Quote:

opi wrote: @dreamlandfantasy Quote: Okay so that is maybe a bit of an extreme example, but you get the idea! We have idea that you have no idea that such equipment don't run desktop software.

As I said my example of a defibrillator is a bit of an extreme example, but there are patient monitoring equipment coming into hospitals now that do run Windows XP with the monitoring application running on top of it and these do suffer from the problems I mentioned of slow boot time, poor responsiveness and the occasional system crash/hang.

Kind regards,

Francis.

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Maybe we should look at what users consider when choosing an OS. Most people (myself included) just use whatever is put in front of them, which is usually Windows, but I'm going to assume there's some decision making going on. I'd say the potential user of an OS considers the following:

1. The user experience (how much they enjoy using the OS).
2. Available software.
3. (Power users only) Customisation and automation.

There are other specialist considerations, like security, but there's very little chance of AmigaOS going into devices that required high levels of security (server market, etc...).

Point 1 is why AmigaOS/Workbench and derivatives still has fans, people enjoy using it. Point 2 is a current weak point, but there's no reason this won't change in the future. Point 3 is covered by stuff like AREXX and the simpler architecture which is easier to understand.

In their current state, main reason a user would pick an Amiga-like OS over, let's say, a Linux-based OS is the user experience. If you like using the OS, keep using it, if you don't, you'll pick something with better software support.

Having said that, I would like to see more market share for Amiga products, just to reward those companies and individuals who keep the community going. I'd also like to see AROS bring all Amiga users under one banner, as it's the only OS capable of uniting the red(classic), red(A1) and blue camps. With that done we'd be a much stronger community.

@dreamlandfantasy

Quote:

but there are patient monitoring equipment coming into hospitals now that do run Windows XP with the monitoring application running on top of it and these do suffer from the problems I mentioned of slow boot time, poor responsiveness and the occasional system crash/hang.

I'm not a Windows user, but I find XP quite stable and efficient. Could you name hardware/software solutions for hospital that uses XP and have problems with it? I guess, since you have raised it, you have hand full of examples?

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@opi

Quote:

opi wrote: @dreamlandfantasy Quote: but there are patient monitoring equipment coming into hospitals now that do run Windows XP with the monitoring application running on top of it and these do suffer from the problems I mentioned of slow boot time, poor responsiveness and the occasional system crash/hang. I'm not a Windows user, but I find XP quite stable and efficient. Could you name hardware/software solutions for hospital that uses XP and have problems with it? I guess, since you have raised it, you have hand full of examples?

Actually, that wouldn't be too surprising. On a recent doctor visit, I noticed their software was running on 95...to view X-rays.

I also interviewed some time back in FL to work on 'cath lab software,' which the backend at least, was running on a Sparc 20. I decided I really didn't like the idea of what 'bugs' might do in that industry, and refused the job, but it's a valid example. The last 2 dentists I've had also run their stuff on Windows.

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@HenryCase

Quote:

HenryCase wrote: Maybe we should look at what users consider when choosing an OS. Most people (myself included) just use whatever is put in front of them, which is usually Windows, but I'm going to assume there's some decision making going on. I'd say the potential user of an OS considers the following: 1. The user experience (how much they enjoy using the OS). 2. Available software. 3. (Power users only) Customisation and automation. There are other specialist considerations, like security, but there's very little chance of AmigaOS going into devices that required high levels of security (server market, etc...). Point 1 is why AmigaOS/Workbench and derivatives still has fans, people enjoy using it. Point 2 is a current weak point, but there's no reason this won't change in the future. Point 3 is covered by stuff like AREXX and the simpler architecture which is easier to understand. In their current state, main reason a user would pick an Amiga-like OS over, let's say, a Linux-based OS is the user experience. If you like using the OS, keep using it, if you don't, you'll pick something with better software support. Having said that, I would like to see more market share for Amiga products, just to reward those companies and individuals who keep the community going. I'd also like to see AROS bring all Amiga users under one banner, as it's the only OS capable of uniting the red(classic), red(A1) and blue camps. With that done we'd be a much stronger community.

The problem may be in your ordering. Some people can only USE the OS with available software, and only _enjoy_ the OS for 'power user features.' Which, Linux and others have AOS beat hands down for the most part. (#s 2 and 3, #1 is subjective..)

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@wegster

Quote:

I noticed their software was running on 95...to view X-rays.

a) He did mention XP as being unstable and life threatening
b) How's X-Ray scan viewer life threatening?

Still, I'll keep being skeptical. While I visit doctors once per 6 years, so I don't have first hand take on that (lucky me) I just can't believe someone is using desktop OS as embedded platform in highly-critical missions.

If that's the case, I would blame anyone who came up with such idea. Not the OS itself. Would you blame my bike for loosing F1 race?

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@opi
Yeah, I think there's the difference, really. As front-ends for viewing data, that isn't really mission critical, err, life criticial. it IS bad if they crash, but not life threatening. I'm with you, in that I don't think Windows is being run on _truly_ critical systems that can affect life or death.

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@wegster

Quote:

The problem may be in your ordering. Some people can only USE the OS with available software, and only _enjoy_ the OS for 'power user features.' Which, Linux and others have AOS beat hands down for the most part. (#s 2 and 3, #1 is subjective..)

You can enjoy using an OS without using power user features, just ask any Mac fan.

What I was trying (and failing) to say before is that other than how much a user enjoys using an OS (which as you stated is a subjective matter) and the software available, there isn't much (on a user level) to choose between operating systems, as they all more or less do the same thing.

If more Amiga related software development starts happening, we wouldn't ask ourselves 'what can AmigaOS's do' but rather what can't they do.

One way we could speed up application development would be to use AROS as the base development platform for all Amiga related operating systems. A ReAction interface library implementation could be useful to assist with this (easier porting between OS4 and back). That way we cut down the energy required to build new stuff (take a look at web browser developments for example, so much duplicated work like three different implementations of WebKit).

Last edited by HenryCase on 15-Jan-2008 at 01:36 AM.

@opi

Quote:

opi wrote: I'm not a Windows user, but I find XP quite stable and efficient. Could you name hardware/software solutions for hospital that uses XP and have problems with it? I guess, since you have raised it, you have hand full of examples?

Here are a couple of examples that spring to mind:

1. We have embedded PC-based monitoring systems running Windows XP that interface with foetal monitors. The PC-based monitors process the information gathered from the foetal monitors in realtime and also relays the data back to a central station at the nurses station.

The problems with these systems are the long boot up times before the system is ready for use (5 minutes or more) and also the responsiveness of the system during use. These units use a touch screen for data entry, etc. and very frequently Windows will seem to hang with the 'Not responding' legend appearing in the application's title bar. Here nurses have a tendency to keep pressing the buttons on screen and when Windows does eventually unhang itself it reacts to all of the button presses.

There are also problems occasionally with the networking between the monitor and the central station. Sometimes it is a configuration problem which can be easily fixed, but sometimes a reboot of the monitor is required (roll on the long shutdown and boot up times!).

To be fair this system is relatively new so it could just be that the problems we are having could be down to some teething problems.

2. There was a long drawn out saga in one of the casualty departments where I worked. In the casualty department there were are number of bedside patient monitors which communicated to a central station system consisting of three PCs (one dealt with the monitors connected via the wired network, one dealt with the monitors connected via the wireless network and the other dealt with processing the data from the wireless network). The central stations ran on Windows NT and every few weeks or so at least one of the systems would hang or crash.

In one instance that I am aware of a patient actually went into cardiac arrest (heart attack) which never got flagged up on the central station since it had hung up. Luckily one of the nurses just happened to overhear the bedside monitor alarming as they were passing. As a side-note I ended up turning up the alarm volume on every monitor to a level so that they could be easily heard from the nurses station in case something like this ever happened again.

Another seriously major problem that we had was if the PC dealing the processing of the wireless network data crashed it could actually generate a lot of noise on the wireless network and cause all of the wireless monitors to instantly crash when they tried to initiate the wireless communication (I should point out that the patient monitors themselves don't actually run Windows, only the central station PCs).

As far as I am aware (I no longer work there) the problems with the central station PCs in casualty were eventually sorted out, but it did take over two years for the company to get it sorted. The patient monitors also had their software upgraded to make them more resilient to any network noise.

As I said earlier I am seeing more and more hospital equipment that use embedded PCs with most running some flavour of Windows.

Kind regards,

Francis

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@opi

Quote:

opi wrote: Still, I'll keep being skeptical. While I visit doctors once per 6 years, so I don't have first hand take on that (lucky me) I just can't believe someone is using desktop OS as embedded platform in highly-critical missions. If that's the case, I would blame anyone who came up with such idea. Not the OS itself. Would you blame my bike for loosing F1 race?

I believe that the main reasons for building a medical device (or anything for that matter) around the Windows platform are:

1. Most programmers are familiar with Windows and the development tools.
2. Using Windows (or even Linux) saves time since you don't have to worry about developing your own OS to do what you need to do.
3. It's cheaper to buy a PC board and expand on it rather than develop an entirely new board from scratch.
4. Familiarity. Most people are used to the Windows way of doing things so it makes it easier for staff to learn how to use the system.

In my experience hospital equipment that runs on embedded PCs with Windows are a lot cheaper than comparable equipment that use their own custom designed software and hardware. The time to market should also, in theory, be quicker too.

Like most things it's all down to time and money.

Kind regards,

Francis.

Last edited by dreamlandfantasy on 15-Jan-2008 at 03:55 AM.

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@wegster

Quote:

wegster wrote: @opi Yeah, I think there's the difference, really. As front-ends for viewing data, that isn't really mission critical, err, life criticial. it IS bad if they crash, but not life threatening. I'm with you, in that I don't think Windows is being run on _truly_ critical systems that can affect life or death.

I don't think Windows should be used at all for life critical systems, but it does get used.

I do remember seeing an early attempt at a monitoring system that used an OS developed in-house by a company that was a complete nightmare to use. Some years later I saw a later version of the system that used Windows as it's OS.

I guess they had so many problems with their own OS it was just easier for them (and probably better for the end user) to switch to Windows.

Kind regards,

Francis.

Last edited by dreamlandfantasy on 15-Jan-2008 at 03:54 AM.

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@wegster

Quote:

The point is not to say 'it can't be done,' simply that past history and performance, or lack thereof, don't make many of these things likely, and AOS-alikes as they exist today, don't offer very much compared to 'the competition' for most, if not, all, applications.

If you put it that way i could only assume the following:

a) Genesi brings MorphOS / AROS to the attention of THTF and it could be ported / bundled with the LimePC. Or users install MOS / AROS themselves on these devices (if it gets ported).

b) I think Discreetfx is interested in reviving the Video Toaster. They are interested in AOS (style systems) and i think they offered a free Videtoaster Flyer Board if someone could FPGA them one of the chips that are needed on it.

c) Years ago AHT Europe wanted to develop a STB that would first use Linux and then AROS. They are still in business and attended the CES. Don't know if they are interested in AROS anymore.

I do not know of any other company that could be interested in Amiga like systems.

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