Hello.

I have a several questions about modern situation of Amiga.

I believe that AmigaOS 4 is really good operating system. I also believe that the X1000 is quite good computer.

Is there any marketing plan for the future at the new Amiga? I want to know the path, the road map of future developments.

Can we expect for SMP at the new versions of AmigaOS 4? I think that is stupid to release a quite expensive X1000 and don't make support for SMP and Xena.

Also I think, that we need a port of JVM - there is Jamiga and I want to participate at this project. And we need some library which should implement fork() and thread support for AmigaOS.

_________________
A1200 + (looking for bppc060) + bvppc + Indivision AGA MKII + OS 3.9
A3000 + OS 3.9

@coriolis


Quote:

Is there any marketing plan for the future at the new Amiga? I want to know the path, the road map of future developments.

There is no roadmap as this will be in version X.Y.Z or be developed whit in X months, years.

The development teams are too small, and AmigaOS has become a part time effort for most developers.

If there was about 10 times number of customers then there is today, then that development might gone faster.

AmigaOS 4.X is not a competer to the main stream operating systems, it mostly a OS for nostalgic people that wont some thing more then a classic computers can deliver and so preserving the operating systems identity while modernizing is the what the plan is.

Driver support, SMP, Memory protection being the most important subjects. Printers and Office applications has been low on the priority list, AmigaOS used mostly as Media player and fun develop stuff on kind of boks, but you can also run old applications on it.

Quote:

Can we expect for SMP at the new versions of AmigaOS 4? I think that is stupid to release a quite expensive X1000 and don't make support for SMP and Xena.

First you need the hardware then you can write software.

Yes SMP is on the list of things to be add support for, its planed for AmigaOS4.2.

A signal processor like the Xena chip is most likely useless, not because you can't do anything whit it but because no one in there right mind will risc attaching home mede electronic to a computer so expensive.

Theres is planes for less expensive high end AmigaONE computer from A-EON, in the future it will also have multiple cores.

Last edited by NutsAboutAmiga on 03-Dec-2012 at 08:24 PM.
Last edited by NutsAboutAmiga on 03-Dec-2012 at 08:21 PM.
Last edited by NutsAboutAmiga on 03-Dec-2012 at 08:19 PM.

_________________
http://lifeofliveforit.blogspot.no/
Facebook::LiveForIt Software for AmigaOS

@NutsAboutAmiga

Quote:

A signal processor like the Xena chip is most likely useless, not because you can't do anything whit it but because no one in there right mind will risc attaching home mede electronic to a computer so expensive.

You are right, being right-handed is more fun!

I would have preferred an Fpga with memory and connections to useful places, muxing the typical port wiring through it, to the Xmos chip. But I'm interested to see what happens with it.

_________________
All glory to the Hypnotoad!

@coriolis

" I want to know the path, the road map of future developments."

Me too!

IIRC, there will be some kind of improved roadmap communications, If I understood ssolie's Amiwest info correctly.

"Can we expect for SMP at the new versions of AmigaOS 4?"

Yes. It is announced for v4.2.
IIRC, the kernel guy has been ill and not able to contribute to AOS4 for a while.
So, there are some delays, I think.


"I think that is stupid to release a quite expensive X1000 and don't make support for SMP and Xena."

One can consider x1000 as a stepping stone to new technologies.
It was first to enable:
-dualcore CPU (dualcore is the modern way to multiprocessing)
-xena & xorro (I/O/bridge chip to see what can be done...)
-PCIe & RadeonHD (way to latest GPU's and OpenCL processing)
-High price is because of the rarity of the CPU & new technology presented to PPC space ("designed formulticore" PPC chip first time on desktop, embedded memory & PCIe controller on PPC desktop, SB600 on PPC, xcore on dekstop device...)

One OS support is done for those, more (cheaper, morecores) HW will be made.

Only future will show what can be get out of xena & xorro.
The developer material for xena has existed only a short while, and because x1000 is so rare, not much is so far done with it.

btw. I hope amigans have more to say in the future, about what they want in their OS and HW.

For example I like the idea of xmos chip, but I'm not sure if x1000's implementation is a good one. At least x1000 requires extra xorro card to get I/O out & to make xena usefull.



BTW.... when trying to refresh my knowledge of PPC970MP I found this:
https://www.power.org/documentation/ppc970mp-reference-design/
I did not know earlier that reference design exist for that at all...

(x1000 has PA6T CPU which has some similarities with PPC970MP, like Power core instead of PPC core, PA6T has more stuff integrated)

Last edited by KimmoK on 04-Dec-2012 at 08:42 AM.
Last edited by KimmoK on 04-Dec-2012 at 08:35 AM.

_________________
- KimmoK
// For freedom, for honor, for AMIGA
//
// Thing that I should find more time for: CC64 - 64bit Community Computer?

@coriolis

This doesn't directly answer your question but it's always something

Quote:

For the future beyond the recent update to AmigaOS 4.1, Hyperion Entertainment will be working on improving USB support and on improving tools such as the Shell.[42] Some of these new features and improvements will become available in further updates once testing is complete. Such ongoing improvements will continue alongside specific working goals linked to the recently revealed AmigaOne X1000 project, which Hyperion Entertainment has undertaken in partnership with A-Eon Technology. These goals include the introduction of a multiprocessing solution to make full use of the X1000's dual core processor,[43] and may include special support for the XCore XS1-L1 processor. Other goals in the long term include Java support[citation needed] and improvements to the graphics subsystem to overcome documented limitations in the AmigaOS and its 3D capabilities.

Discussions at AmiWest 2010

In October 2010, at the yearly Amiga show, AmiWest, AmigaOS 4's future and anticipated features
were planned/discussed and/or announced including:

   * 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

_________________
AmigaOS 4.1 FEu2 on Sam440ep-flex 800MHz 1GB RAM
C128, A500+, A1200, A1200/40, AmigaForever 2008+09+16, 5 x86/x64 boxes
Still waiting (or dreaming) for the Amiga revolution...
m4rko.com/AMIGA

I think that AmigaOS should have a support for basic software and libraries. Yes, we don't have iTunes, iPhoto, but there are a lot of basics things that we should have at current stage. For example JVM, POSIX-compatible library (fork() and threads)

JVM will give Eclipse and a lot of Java software (J2EE servers/libraries, Minecraft :)) )

_________________
A1200 + (looking for bppc060) + bvppc + Indivision AGA MKII + OS 3.9
A3000 + OS 3.9

And major question: are there any plans for extending AmigaOS user base? There should be an articles at popular IT resources, adverts and so on. We really need new souls :) Today our community consists only by old Amiga-fans and there we will have less and less people at future

_________________
A1200 + (looking for bppc060) + bvppc + Indivision AGA MKII + OS 3.9
A3000 + OS 3.9

@coriolis

This things have been overdiscussed in many years now. We are small and to get out it takes both money, hardware, more mature/modern OS and 3rd party apps which we lack of alot. And there is the splitted community, AROS/OS4/MOS/UAE etc...

We have some hardware but its pricey and avaible in small batches, even now people are waiting for their SAM's/X1000s etc. And new hardware is in plan but all this takes time. So without bigger batches theres no point. And then its mature OS, ok with os4.2 we start to get at least new gfx system. Timberwolf needs to be mature, officepackage is not finished. The all 3rd party apps. What can we really get others interested ?

We are not there yet.

Edited by Mod. Trolling

Last edited by Darrin on 06-Dec-2012 at 04:59 AM.

_________________
AmigaONE. Haha. Just because you can put label on it does not make it Amiga.

I borrowed this comments from here (#27 & #28):
http://amigaworld.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=38873&forum=2&start=20&order=0

@Arko

Quote:

>And we need some library which should implement fork() and thread support for AmigaOS. This is already available in the ixemul library.

ixemul does not support fork(), but only vfork() and also ixemeul does not support AmigaOS4 (I know there was a version floating arround but it was only really for getting old ixemul based code to run, and not useful for maing new code , no support in SDK etc)

fork() is simply not the way AmigaOS works, and is not needed anyway. Windows does not have it and you can port stuff to windows (from linux, I mean).
In perl I used large chunks on windows code to rebuld the fork emulation for AmigaOS, it works fine.

threading as in pthreads is supported already by pthreads.

_________________
BroadBlues On Blues BroadBlues On Amiga Walker Broad

@SMP/AMP/BMP

I believe BMP will be pretty close match with the implementation being made. (some legacy code rely on fixed scheduling & every OS thing running on single core)

Other than that, it would be very nice to know more how is multicore support proceeding & how it is going to be implemented.

One thing is sure, there is no other option than to support multiple cores in the future. So we can be 100% sure that every Amigan flavor will have it sooner or later. We know some SMP elements have been designed and implemented in the kernels of AOS4 and MOS (perhaps already also in AROS) and things like Gallium3D is being built to fully utilize multicore system, etc...

@JAVA

It would be nice to have. Anyone with time & competence should consider supporting it. Perhaps also some new reward bounties should be thought out to encorage developers.

_________________
- KimmoK
// For freedom, for honor, for AMIGA
//
// Thing that I should find more time for: CC64 - 64bit Community Computer?

@coriolis

One of the main reasons for making the x1000 was to get a dualcore cpu amiga, so that they could start making support for dualcore.

_________________
I'm an antique. Don't light my fuse

@KimmoK

Quote:

SMP elements have been designed and implemented in the kernels of AOS4 and MOS

MorphOS has different design because it runs in ABOX on top of Micro kernel called Quark, organal they taked about developing a QBOX as a next generation MorphOS enviroment, there is big debate about where to go next.. drop Amiga support for more UNIX like minix system, or stay AmigaOS3.x compile and continue develop it.

AmigaOS4.1 does not run top of anything and so it has more in common whit traditional operating systems, it possible to modernize its always a tread off between comparability and improvements.

The core concept of any Amiganoid OS is that calles functions are done by direct jumps and not by interrupts, and that most system can be accessed by snooping sheard memory, at low latency.

_________________
http://lifeofliveforit.blogspot.no/
Facebook::LiveForIt Software for AmigaOS

@coriolis

For threads there are pthreads.library. But you have Amiga tasks/processes as well. Not to be forgotten. Most other posix things are available if you include unistd.h in your project. The clib/newlib which will automatically be linked contains all of this posix code including vfork().

Full featured fork() is a special case that by design can never exist in AmigaOS. It's purpose is to make an identical copy of a process including everything; allocated memory, opened windows, opened files, created semaphores etc. And all in an exact copy of the local memory space with only the return value of the fork() call and the pid being different!

Such an operation cannot ever be made in AmigaOS due to the shared model of AmigaOS. File handlers, window pointers, allocated memory blocks (except MEMF_PRIVATE memory) are all globally sharable between *all* tasks in the system, if desired. This means that all this memory is global and cannot be virtually copied into another identical virtual space.

Not without a major or complete rewrite (into being Linux) of AmigaOS anyway.....

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

Here is my two cents...

While I appreciate the fact that A-EON has created the X1000, I don't see how the Amiga OS4 "scene" has benefited from a computer that costs 3000 Euro, only available in very small quantities, and has features that the operating system doesn't make use of, and at this rate, might never will.

If someone has big money to splash on the Amiga it would be more beneficial if:

- funds are spent on the creation or updating of ORIGINAL Amiga software (seriously if I wanted to use Linux software, I'd get a Linux box and use that)
- create system which is more price/power effective than the Sam460

Any one of the above mentioned points would bring more people to the OS4 world. At the current stage, there is no way you can sell an OS4 machine to someone who has no nostalgia for the Amiga system.

Amiga in the old days did well because it was strong on these fronts:

Hardware, operating system, software, price.

_________________

@coriolis
Quote:

Can we expect for SMP at the new versions of AmigaOS 4? I think that is stupid to release a quite expensive X1000 and don't make support for SMP and Xena.

Yes, you can expect multi-core support in AmigaOS 4. Xena support is already available via the xena.resource. We are still working on utilizing the built-in local bus support for Xena.

_________________
ExecSG Team Lead

@Arko
It's Trevor Dickinson and not "Trevor Dick" and you bloody well know that.

_________________
ExecSG Team Lead

@ssolie

To be fair, TrevorDick.

_________________
Troll - n., A disenfranchised former potential customer who remains interested enough to stay informed and express critical opinions.
opp., the vast majority who voted silently with their feet.

@Everblue

Here is my two cents...
>how the Amiga OS4 "scene" has benefited from a computer that costs 3000 Euro,
-It's the only available platform to develop our niche OS for multicore CPUs
-It was the first platform to enable PCIe slots

>at this rate, might never will.
-drivers for latest GPUs are out (now in 2D, soon in 3D)
-multicore support is being built (perhaps the biggest feature since AOS 1.0 ?)

>If someone has big money to splash on the Amiga it would be more beneficial if:

So far no one had the big money. (AmigaInc had a lot but it was wasted)

>- funds are spent on the creation or updating of ORIGINAL Amiga software (seriously if I wanted to use Linux software, I'd get a Linux box and use that)

Also developers need powerfull HW to make the R&D pleasant.
Sometimes porting is the fastest way to get something to run natively, like new programming tools.
But yes, also I love to see new Amiga original SW. (small, fast, simple to master)

>- create system which is more price/power effective than the Sam460

Community can try to do their own HW & work to get OS on that.
(in my calculations SAM460 kind of power can be built with 100eur PPC parts, double the performance with 200eur parts)

ACube and A-Eon tries to not make a lot of loss & paying for the R&D.
If they had the R&D for free, system would be cheaper.

(high volume is not really possible before we have more original SW & feature goodies)

>At the current stage, there is no way you can sell an OS4 machine to someone who has no nostalgia for the Amiga system.

It's "just" difficult.

>Hardware, operating system, software, price.

Community can help on those. If the help is not appreciated, then community should forward AROS.

_________________
- KimmoK
// For freedom, for honor, for AMIGA
//
// Thing that I should find more time for: CC64 - 64bit Community Computer?

@Boot_WB

And looking two spaces down would show his full name as Trevor Dickinson.

_________________
My personal blog - CritAnime.com

Admin at Commodore Gaming Wiki