@agami

Heh...

When you buy into a platform, you should expect it to stick to said platform for the duration.

Especially a platform that is practically hobbydriven.

He doesnt decree anything per see, beyond answering some of the questions at AmiWest, and his personal views. Which actually matters considering how few devs there are.
And how little there are in way of resources.

Last edited by Overflow on 14-Feb-2019 at 02:46 AM.

@Amigo1

Quote:

I think it's a typo.. he surely meant CG (Current Generation).

Another one.

After looking at the context I thought it might have been a simple NG. But that would be stretching it for s a typo.

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A much more obvious acronym would be CGA (Current Generation Amiga) which as a side note, has fantastic graphics! Much more so than EGA (Elderly Generation Amiga).

Haha!

Well currently I'm at CGA. Slowly heading towards EGA. But I'vre still got some colour yet..

Quote:

I'm really looking forward for the Next Generation Amiga, should it ever become reality.

Aren't we all. Something we could all go original ganster style at with the NGA.

@Thread

The only sane answer is PPC and when that ISA isn't available any more we all pack up our toys and embrace emulation on x86. Until that day let's enjoy what we have. There is not money for marketing, a relaunch or even to port ImageFX, Octamed and Bars and Pipes to PPC so why expect the OS to be ported to ARM or x86-64? Buy a Vampire for retro compatibility with knobs on or a Tabor to push the platform forward there is nothing else IMHO and rightly so. Amiga had its chance and blew it, this is its second wind and why screw it up when hardware and software is available at the same time unlike the Eyetech days!

Last edited by BigD on 15-Feb-2019 at 11:57 PM.

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

@all
The 68k has slowly moved ahead of ARM and PPC+POWER after the word spread to more 68k friendly communities. The "chosen" Amiga architecture of PPC has dropped back to 4th place!

Quote:

BigD wrote: The only sane answer is PPC and when that ISA isn't available any more we all pack up our toys and embrace emulation on x86.

PPC is not sane when it is already unprofitable and will become less competitive over time. Emulation is the end of development. Is Amiga technology coming to the point where the "NG" users are so embarrassed that they want it to go away?

Quote:

Until that day let's enjoy what we have. There is not money for marketing, a relaunch or even to port ImageFX, Octamed and Bars and Pipes to PPC so why expect the OS to be ported to ARM or x86-64?

Who said there was no money? Are you judging by Hyperion's inept business and deal making abilities? Have you considered that Hyperion's clenched fist not only keeps technology in but also keeps investment out?

Quote:

Buy a Vampire for retro compatibility with knobs on or a Tabor to push the platform forward there is nothing else IMHO and rightly so. Amiga had its chance and blew it, this is its second wind and why screw it up when hardware and software is available at the same time unlike the Eyetech days!

R&D and product development has a pipeline like a CPU. It is important to minimize stalls as they can be costly. The point of the poll was to consider what should be in the pipeline after Tabor. Is it wise to keep filling the pipeline with PPC products? Is it better to wait while bubbles form in the pipeline?

@matthey

seriously, in 2019 with lots of options (both OS and hardware) with already professional base why should any serious investor invest the money in something like AmigaOS?

Assuming the project fails and money is lost (nothing special there) and the investors normally not deal with own money but money from others, don´t you think they would get in trouble themselves when explaining the decisions

Quote:

OlafS25 wrote: seriously, in 2019 with lots of options (both OS and hardware) with already professional base why should any serious investor invest the money in something like AmigaOS? Assuming the project fails and money is lost (nothing special there) and the investors normally not deal with own money but money from others, don´t you think they would get in trouble themselves when explaining the decisions

Going bigger with the Amiga and competing in the desktop market was the wrong business plan as demonstrated by Hyperion. I don't want to invest there either. Going smaller with the Amiga and 68k for the retro, toy, hobby, and embedded markets has not been attempted. The $5-$35 U.S. Raspberry Pi has sold over 19 million units. The $59 U.S. NES Classic outsold the PS4, XBOX One and Nintendo Switch for awhile and the NES Classic and SNES Classic has sold more than 10 million units. There are embedded market businesses who want to produce millions of small footprint devices for the *hot* IoT and some are interested in the 68k. This is where I want to invest. I have talked to potential investors too. There are even potential investors in the Amiga community which have been ignored. A few million dollars U.S. is a small amount of capital to raise. Low performance ASICs are cheaper to develop and mass produce than ever before and can be used for longer than ever before. The risk-reward looks acceptable to me considering that even partial financial success should give the Amiga very affordable hardware and a much larger user base.

@overflow

Quote:

When you buy into a platform, you should expect it to stick to said platform for the duration. Especially a platform that is practically hobbydriven.

Good point. This was why I was thinking that if ARM was to be pursued, then it should be after the PPC on the X5000 and Tabor have run their course. Consistency is important.

Maybe an Accelerator could be created for the X5000/A1222 in the future that has an ARM processor on it; this would, if desired, allow the Amiga to progress from PPC to ARM.

@BigD

Quote:

Buy a Vampire for retro compatibility with knobs on or a Tabor to push the platform forward there is nothing else IMHO and rightly so.

This will be my dilemma. Buying the 68k standalone or the Tabor. Leaning to the Tabor as I like OS4.

@ matthey

Quote:

Is Amiga technology coming to the point where the "NG" users are so embarrassed that they want it to go away?

This would be an interesting new poll. Let it be, though. Many X5000 customers seem to be happy with their PPC systems.

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I don't want to invest there either. Going smaller with the Amiga and 68k for the retro, toy, hobby, and embedded markets has not been attempted. The $5-$35 U.S. Raspberry Pi has sold over 19 million units. The $59 U.S. NES Classic outsold the PS4, XBOX One and Nintendo Switch for awhile and the NES Classic and SNES Classic has sold more than 10 million units. There are embedded market businesses who want to produce millions of small footprint devices for the *hot* IoT and some are interested in the 68k. This is where I want to invest.

I may have missed it in this thread, but which 68k processor (020, 030, 040, etc) and which Amiga Chipset (AGA, AAA, etc) were you going to choose in order to get the price between $50-$100?

@OlafS25

Quote:

seriously, in 2019 with lots of options (both OS and hardware) with already professional base why should any serious investor invest the money in something like AmigaOS?

True. Even Trevor has mentioned that his investment was a labor of love and he wanted an A5000. I do hope, though, that he gets a good chunk of his money back. The reason I previously mentioned installing PPC Linux on an X5000 was because it would, I think, help to sell more X5000 systems; thus, Trevor could get more of his investment back. Linux is production quality whereas AmigaOS 4 is not there yet.

@matthey

Quote:

matthey wrote:

This sounds good to me but it has to be understood that NES-classic and similar projects had the rights to publish a large bundle of popular commercial software of the day. Most of Amiga's classics, most importantly games, may be considered abandonware but they are not public domain. That new entity wouldn't have automatic rights to publish or bundle them.

This project would also have to happen without the Amiga brand as the owners have different ideas, centred around AmigaOS4 (correct me if I'm wrong).

So probably this idea doesn't belong in this thread on AmigaOS. But it does look like a more promising economic endeavour to me, if the people behind 68080 and AROS are onboard.

If fact I've had for sometime a personal "dream project" that could be accommodated to such an arrangement.

The idea would be more in line with some of the original "Amiga philosophy" but paradoxically most of the ideas in the space are as anti-Amiga - in this particular respect - as it gets.

For instance:

- Fixation with identifying platform with OS (a solidly post-Amiga idea that dominated the late 90s, 00s, 10s and seems to be fading away now).

- The idea of bundling a lot of bloatware and "productivity software" with the computer (something that was completely alien to Amiga times and is also fading away now with web services and - admittedly poor but better than the bloat - "cloud" services). Microsoft Office no longer drives most computer purchases, in fact most computer purchases are rubbish you-own-nothing mobile devices.

- high priority to backwards compatibility, when Amiga originally was the polar opposite to this philosophy when it originally came into existence. Now, I do understand that nowadays the classic machines are so low spec to current hardware that this is easy to fix through emulation. Still, not all decisions from 1985 should be considered sacred. There's no good reason to prioritise compression formats, filesystem conventions etc from 1985-1992. The "non-classic" mode should absolutely go for whatever makes more sense leaving quirks to a separate classic mode and they don't need to play together any further than inter-process communication (as Apple did with rhapsody/classic back in the late 90s).

- In fact, following up from that last point, rather than looking at fads and mainstream culture, the idea would be to rethink the "computing machine you own" (within the current constraints)

Maybe because I haven't been disconnected from the Amiga community for 20+ years, but my initial impression is that a lot of people aim to bring the platform from 30 years ago to the mainstream standards of 15 years ago. Regardless of that weird focus, cool and interesting stuff happened. I will revise this judgment as I go along as I admittedly have only seen MorphOS and AmigaOS4 in online videos.

Last edited by muyuu on 19-Feb-2019 at 03:19 PM.

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davidf215 wrote: This would be an interesting new poll. Let it be, though. Many X5000 customers seem to be happy with their PPC systems.

The X5000 hardware is nice enough but the price is not. Also, the poll shows that most Amiga users are expecting an end to PPC and/or prefer another architecture.

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I may have missed it in this thread, but which 68k processor (020, 030, 040, etc) and which Amiga Chipset (AGA, AAA, etc) were you going to choose in order to get the price between $50-$100?

Preferably, the CPU would be most like the 68060 with missing integer instructions put back in hardware and hardware support for self-modifying code to improve compatibility (the Apollo Core is most similar to the 68060 and has shown what is possible for compatibility). The 68060 CPU core is a fairly modern and efficient in-order superscalar design with lots of room for modern improvements.

The chipset would be AGA with chunky support for modern RTG modes and improved audio hardware for RTA. There are at least 3 AGA FPGA implementations currently used in Amiga FPGA hardware. The logic required for all this is minimal.

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True. Even Trevor has mentioned that his investment was a labor of love and he wanted an A5000. I do hope, though, that he gets a good chunk of his money back. The reason I previously mentioned installing PPC Linux on an X5000 was because it would, I think, help to sell more X5000 systems; thus, Trevor could get more of his investment back. Linux is production quality whereas AmigaOS 4 is not there yet.

The X5000 supports several flavors of Linux. I expect it is better Linux hardware than the Tabor with the non-standard CPU. Also, PPC support has been dropped in many Linux distributions.

@matthey

Quote:

R&D and product development has a pipeline like a CPU. It is important to minimize stalls as they can be costly. The point of the poll was to consider what should be in the pipeline after Tabor. Is it wise to keep filling the pipeline with PPC products? Is it better to wait while bubbles form in the pipeline?

What you say is sensible business thinking. However, the Amiga businesses don't resemble 'real' businesses. While Cloanto has monitised AmigaForever successfully, I don't expect the AmigaOne project to survive the death of PowerPC as it's profits are less apparent (probably non-existant). As I stated ALL efforts should be in updating SOFTWARE not the OS itself. The end user does not enjoy opening and closing the spatial paradigm window system in Workbench as an activity in itself, they actually want to run software!!!!

If a switch to x86-64 / ARM breaks classic software compatibility due to endian issues then we might as well stick with AROS or emulation IMHO.

Also, the Eyetech AmigaOne project suffered 'stalls' in availability of hardware and software and the community endured. The normal rules do not seem to apply. If A-EON can't sell the Tabor why would it be able to sell ARM or x86 machines?! A-EON are the driving force of the Amiga NG scene and yet they are primarily a hardware initiative while still struggling to kickstart AmigaNG software development! There is NO incentive to produce a $100 machine with less profit margin potential. Jens is more likely to be able to create an Amiga in a joystick with a licence from Cloanto.

Last edited by BigD on 19-Feb-2019 at 05:13 PM.
Last edited by BigD on 19-Feb-2019 at 04:49 PM.

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

@BigD

Quote:

Eyetch AmigaOne project suffered 'stalls' in availability of hardware

Years of trying to fix broken aspects of the h/w stole time from development.
You can bet this played a part in bringing new models to "market", as did any denials about the real problems with said h/w existing.
Personally I don't think the combination of devs and outsiders who finally tackled the issues ever got the credit they deserved for increasing functionality.

#6

_________________
This posting, in its entirety, represents solely the perspective of the author.
*Secrecy has served us so well*

@Thread

Considering the P96 issues with iComp vs Cloanto, I don't think a cheap Amiga in a joystick product is on the cards any time soon We can't play nice as a community with an old piece of graphics driver software never mind work together on a piece of mass market consumer electronics

Last edited by BigD on 19-Feb-2019 at 05:21 PM.

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

Quote:

muyuu wrote: This sounds good to me but it has to be understood that NES-classic and similar projects had the rights to publish a large bundle of popular commercial software of the day. Most of Amiga's classics, most importantly games, may be considered abandonware but they are not public domain. That new entity wouldn't have automatic rights to publish or bundle them.

An Amiga online store like Steam would probably work if the Amiga user base was large enough and online. Licensing deals would be required and not all games would be available. Abandonware sites would likely continue to operate until there was enough money being made from the store.

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This project would also have to happen without the Amiga brand as the owners have different ideas, centered around AmigaOS4 (correct me if I'm wrong). So probably this idea doesn't belong in this thread on AmigaOS. But it does look like a more promising economic endeavour to me, if the people behind 68080 and AROS are onboard.

There is a storm in Amiga land and it is blowing over the rigid old dead wood. I think this will open up opportunities. While it is easier to move to more popular architectures, the largest Amiga user base of 68k users will not follow to a new architecture where the Amiga has been assimilated. Also, that land is filled with entrenched and battle hardened giants. AROS x86_64 broke Amiga compatibility and added SMP but has less software than 68k or PPC. AmigaOS would be late to the game and unlikely to do any better. We need to work together to develop our land with our technology before invading foreign and unfamiliar soil.

Quote:

If fact I've had for sometime a personal "dream project" that could be accommodated to such an arrangement. The idea would be more in line with some of the original "Amiga philosophy" but paradoxically most of the ideas in the space are as anti-Amiga - in this particular respect - as it gets. For instance: - Fixation with identifying platform with OS (a solidly post-Amiga idea that dominated the late 90s, 00s, 10s and seems to be fading away now).

Do you mean the AmigaOS supporting standard hardware again? This makes more sense today again with Moore's Law ending. The fast pace of chip technology broke down vertically integrated businesses (OS design->hardware design->chip fab). C= was vertically integrated but too slow to react to technology changes often due to poor management. Chip fab is specialized, competitive and capital intensive today but hardware design for low performance hardware is relatively cheap and not capital intensive. With technology slowing, efficiency is important again so advantages that can come from better OS and hardware integration (ala consoles) and chosen architecture specialization can be leveraged (I like the idea of going smaller using the 68k to reduce price and device size).

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- The idea of bundling a lot of bloatware and "productivity software" with the computer (something that was completely alien to Amiga times and is also fading away now with web services and - admittedly poor but better than the bloat - "cloud" services). Microsoft Office no longer drives most computer purchases, in fact most computer purchases are rubbish you-own-nothing mobile devices.

It is cheaper to make free software available online. C= was successful later at bundling, largely discovered by the efforts of C= UK marketing. The Batman pack and a price drop helped C= sell more than 1 million Amiga 500s in 1989. It is too bad the C= UK guys were unsuccessful in their bid to buy the Amiga as they did a great job of marketing and managing what they could control.

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- high priority to backwards compatibility, when Amiga originally was the polar opposite to this philosophy when it originally came into existence. Now, I do understand that nowadays the classic machines are so low spec to current hardware that this is easy to fix through emulation. Still, not all decisions from 1985 should be considered sacred. There's no good reason to prioritise compression formats, filesystem conventions etc from 1985-1992. The "non-classic" mode should absolutely go for whatever makes more sense leaving quirks to a separate classic mode and they don't need to play together any further than inter-process communication (as Apple did with rhapsody/classic back in the late 90s).

Sure, HAM is largely outdated but takes very little silicon to support. I use PFS on my Amiga 3000T with CSMK3 68060@75MHz Amiga and it is awesome with 30 MB/s drive access. We need modernization and modern technology makes it easier today while giving a better chance to maintain compatibility. The Amiga has some baggage but it is less than most other platforms had.

Quote:

- In fact, following up from that last point, rather than looking at fads and mainstream culture, the idea would be to rethink the "computing machine you own" (within the current constraints) Maybe because I haven't been disconnected from the Amiga community for 20+ years, but my initial impression is that a lot of people aim to bring the platform from 30 years ago to the mainstream standards of 15 years ago. Regardless of that weird focus, cool and interesting stuff happened. I will revise this judgment as I go along as I admittedly have only seen MorphOS and AmigaOS4 in online videos.

Rome was not built in a day. The Amiga technology is different and needs to be explored as modernized. Some users would like to throw away most of the Amiga technology and assimilate to foreign hardware where it is alien and uncompetitive.

A modern platform would be 64bit and support SMP and have full MP. Integration like Petunia would be impossible (or better it would be possible theoretically but needed lots of extra work). Integration of 68k would be only possible wuth UAE and feel different. Software would be needed to be adapted and recompiled, who would do that?

Quote:

BigD wrote: What you say is sensible business thinking. However, the Amiga businesses don't resemble 'real' businesses. While Cloanto has monitised AmigaForever successfully, I don't expect the AmigaOne project to survive the death of PowerPC as it's profits are less apparent (probably non-existant). As I stated ALL efforts should be in updating SOFTWARE not the OS itself. The end user does not enjoy opening and closing the spatial paradigm window system in Workbench as an activity in itself, they actually want to run software!!!!

I don't expect Hyperion to survive the death of PPC but I do expect AmigaOS 4 to be acquired.

Investing in software gives the chicken and the egg problem. IMO, affordable hardware is the way to increase users and developers.

Quote:

If a switch to x86-64 / ARM breaks classic software compatibility due to endian issues then we might as well stick with AROS or emulation IMHO.

AROS broke compatibility with x86_64 and that was the right choice. It may be the better choice with ARM too. Once compatibility is broke, they can add SMP and memory protection support without customized hardware. The only problem is that they need all new software and lacking software they have trouble attracting users and developers.

Quote:

Also, the Eyetech AmigaOne project suffered 'stalls' in availability of hardware and software and the community endured. The normal rules do not seem to apply. If A-EON can't sell the Tabor why would it be able to sell ARM or x86 machines?! A-EON are the driving force of the Amiga NG scene and yet they are primarily a hardware initiative while still struggling to kickstart AmigaNG software development! There is NO incentive to produce a $100 machine with less profit margin potential. Jens is more likely to be able to create an Amiga in a joystick with a licence from Cloanto.

ARM SoCs are cheaper than PPC SoCs and Thumb2 has a smaller footprint allowing for a cheaper and smaller board. ARM AArch64 is going bigger losing some of the advantage. The 68k can have a smaller footprint and better performance than Thumb2 allows without requiring a license from ARM and we retain compatibility. AArch64 is not a bad choice if deciding to break compatibility but, again, there will be a software problem.

Quote:

BigD wrote: Considering the P96 issues with iComp vs Cloanto, I don't think a cheap Amiga in a joystick product is on the cards any time soon We can't play nice as a community with an old piece of graphics driver software never mind work together on a piece of mass market consumer electronics

That is a problem whichever direction the AmigaOS goes.

@matthey

Quote:

the poll shows that most Amiga users are expecting an end to PPC

The pool has been manipulate up and down. X86_64 was at 52% or something like that now it's down to 43% and 68k was at 5% now it's up to 20%

I can dump up the PowerPC to 20% to correct the error if you like

What as for future of CPU's what happen it depends is 100 years from now 1000 years from now, is one day from now, there is no timeframe. The ARM was dead but came back doe to changes in economics and licensing of the technology. It's impossible to say. I expect it be here many years to come, but do expect it do maybe not be extremely successful if continues on the same path. That is not the same as saying it the end for Power or PowerPC. Just look how hard it was to kill Amiga or even the 680x0 cpu, all the FPGA projects LOL

as for the future of AmigaOS it will be emulation, real hardware and clones like AROS/MorphOS, and its going to be like this for many years to come, its best accept this and work on Open Source platform like Hollywood, Amos2/AmosKittens, BlitzMax cross platform libraries and platforms and game engines.

What I'm almost 100% sure of is that where few PC games or programs will be backported to 680x0 and hand optimized to make run at any decencent speed. so in the end it will be speed of 680x0 that kills it, the PowerPC is a bit too expensive so its not going to sell like hot potato, that's for sure, but alternatives is bit fussy with solving fansing of drivers on AROS, I expect the platform not gain a lot popularity. if the fanasing of AROS is solved and if they manage to port over some useful programs to it, so not just empty desktop with where few productivity apps, and maybe some apps that are unique to AROS so you have to use OS then maybe it have chanse, I expect most useful apps will be ported to Windows and Linux, make the point of using anything AmigaOS like mute or pointless, unless your a retro nerd, so again i do not see any growth on any AmigaOS / AROS / MorphOS, it might be the retro platforms will be pile of forgotten binaries and source code. in a few decades.

Last edited by NutsAboutAmiga on 19-Feb-2019 at 09:18 PM.

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Quote:

NutsAboutAmiga wrote: The pool has been manipulate up and down. X86_64 was at 52% or something like that now it's down to 43% and 68k was at 5% now it's up to 20% I can dump up the PowerPC to 20% to correct the error if you like

I observed the x86_64 votes shoot up about 100 votes in a matter of minutes shortly after I created the poll. The 68k votes increased over a longer time period and correspond to the following post on a 68k friendly web site.

http://apollo-core.com/knowledge.php?b=1¬e=19492&z=hWKV5G

Us 68k guys don't need to cheat as we are the majority. All we need to do is turn out in a fair poll.

Quote:

What as for future of CPU's what happen it depends is 100 years from now 1000 years from now, is one day from now, there is no timeframe. The ARM was dead but came back doe to changes in economics and licensing of the technology. It's impossible to say. I expect it be here many years to come, but do expect it do maybe not be extremely successful if continues on the same path. That is not the same as saying it the end for Power or PowerPC. Just look how hard it was to kill Amiga or even the 680x0 cpu, all the FPGA projects LOL

The original ARM had growing pains too.

1) only supported 26 bit addressing (64MiB) and upper PC register bits used for other purposes
2) ISA was optimized for a particular CPU design (predication and shifting difficult for some designs)
3) PC register is explicitly alterable which is difficult for some designs and wastes a GP register
4) no MMU, FPU or co-processor support

The 68k does not have these issues but also has some challenges to modernize.

ARM went from ARM32 to Thumb to Thumb2 and now to AArch64. Each ISA has its strengths and weaknesses but it was the small footprint of Thumb2 which allowed ARM to be accepted into the huge market of small embedded devices. AArch64 is more performance oriented but moves away from that. While performance is better, it has not been good enough to push into the server and laptop markets. ARM is here to stay but it seems to be wandering with the new ISA supported by its reputation.

Quote:

as for the future of AmigaOS it will be emulation, real hardware and clones like AROS/MorphOS, and its going to be like this for many years to come, its best accept this and work on Open Source platform like Hollywood, Amos2/AmosKittens, BlitzMax cross platform libraries and platforms and game engines.

legacy emulation = dead
no hardware = dead
expensive hardware = life support

Quote:

What I'm almost 100% sure of is that where few PC games or programs will be backported to 680x0 and hand optimized to make run at any decencent speed. so in the end it will be speed of 680x0 that kills it, the PowerPC is a bit too expensive so its not going to sell like hot potato, that's for sure, but alternatives is bit fussy with solving fansing of drivers on AROS, I expect the platform not gain a lot popularity. if the fanasing of AROS is solved and if they manage to port over some useful programs to it, so not just empty desktop with where few productivity apps, and maybe some apps that are unique to AROS so you have to use OS then maybe it have chanse, I expect most useful apps will be ported to Windows and Linux, make the point of using anything AmigaOS like mute or pointless, unless your a retro nerd, so again i do not see any growth on any AmigaOS / AROS / MorphOS, it might be the retro platforms will be pile of forgotten binaries and source code. in a few decades.

The 68k has good performance traits and had performance which was competitive with x86 and PPC. Dual port the data cache, add a 3nd integer pipe and more caches (at least an L2) like the x86 did and it will fly without the complexity and energy use of aggressive OoO or micro-oping.

If nothing is done, the Amiga will surely be forgotten in a couple of decades. Already, some computer savvy younger people I talk to have never heard of the Amiga.

@matthey

Quote:

I don't expect Hyperion to survive the death of PPC but I do expect AmigaOS 4 to be acquired.

This could be tricky, depending on who actually owns the code.

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

@matthey:

Quote:

The X5000 hardware is nice enough but the price is not. Also, the poll shows that most Amiga users are expecting an end to PPC and/or prefer another architecture.

Indeed. The ending of PPC support in Linux is certainly a bad sign for PPC. Regarding the X5000 and A1222, maybe an ARM accelerator could be developed in the future so that those who purchase the X5000 and A1222 now could eventually upgrade to ARM (or whatever CPU is chosen).

Quote:

Preferably, the CPU would be most like the 68060 with missing integer instructions put back in hardware and hardware support for self-modifying code to improve compatibility (the Apollo Core is most similar to the 68060 and has shown what is possible for compatibility). The 68060 CPU core is a fairly modern and efficient in-order superscalar design with lots of room for modern improvements. The chipset would be AGA with chunky support for modern RTG modes and improved audio hardware for RTA. There are at least 3 AGA FPGA implementations currently used in Amiga FPGA hardware. The logic required for all this is minimal.

Very nice. So new hardware for Classic Amiga. Running AmigaOS 3.1 natively? I like this option. Trevor mentioned at AmiWest 2018 that they are considering updated software packs for 3.x. This would be a good fit, I think.

Quote:

An Amiga online store like Steam would probably work if the Amiga user base was large enough and online. Licensing deals would be required and not all games would be available. Abandonware sites would likely continue to operate until there was enough money being made from the store.

Amiga now has an online store like Steam. It's AMIStore. Good idea.

Quote:

While it is easier to move to more popular architectures, the largest Amiga user base of 68k users will not follow to a new architecture where the Amiga has been assimilated.

Here's an idea for another poll... Q: "Which AmigaOS platform would you prefer? Options: AmigaOS 3.x 68k Classic, AmigaOS 4.x 68k, or AmigaOS 4.x PPC.

Quote:

It is cheaper to make free software available online. C= was successful later at bundling, largely discovered by the efforts of C= UK marketing. The Batman pack and a price drop helped C= sell more than 1 million Amiga 500s in 1989. It is too bad the C= UK guys were unsuccessful in their bid to buy the Amiga as they did a great job of marketing and managing what they could control.

I think this is a key part of the success of Amiga in the mass market. A bundle of software that people want on a capable computer at a competitive price. I think this is also why the Amiga attracted many artists to the platform back in the 80s and 90s. The Amiga provided artist software on a system capable of running it at a cost less than the competition. I think a combination like this may help to sell your standalone idea to more than simply Amiga fans.

Quote:

I don't expect Hyperion to survive the death of PPC but I do expect AmigaOS 4 to be acquired.

Hopefully. My guess would be either A-Eon or Cloanto. Or maybe Amiga, Inc.

Quote:

Investing in software gives the chicken and the egg problem. IMO, affordable hardware is the way to increase users and developers.

Not that the X5000 and future A1222 don't increase the number of users and developers, but your affordable hardware would probably help to increase it faster. A newly produced standalone Amiga 68k device would, I think, bring back previous AmigaOS users for a retro experience, and maybe some would stay to develop software for the device. These options are all viable.

Quote:

legacy emulation = dead no hardware = dead expensive hardware = life support

Good assessment, I think.

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The 68k has good performance traits and had performance which was competitive with x86 and PPC. Dual port the data cache, add a 3nd integer pipe and more caches (at least an L2) like the x86 did and it will fly without the complexity and energy use of aggressive OoO or micro-oping.

Hmm. This would be interesting to implement and to see the result. Any way to simulate this for analysis?

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If nothing is done, the Amiga will surely be forgotten in a couple of decades. Already, some computer savvy younger people I talk to have never heard of the Amiga.

Better marketing may help. That costs money, though.

@BigD

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I don't expect the AmigaOne project to survive the death of PowerPC as it's profits are less apparent (probably non-existant).

Do you think this includes AmigaOS 4.1? I would hope it would survive to the next platform.

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If a switch to x86-64 / ARM breaks classic software compatibility due to endian issues then we might as well stick with AROS or emulation IMHO.

This is an interesting point. I'll have to think about this. It does have SMP already and is API compatible with OS3. Maybe it could be upgraded to be compatible with OS 4.

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As I stated ALL efforts should be in updating SOFTWARE not the OS itself. The end user does not enjoy opening and closing the spatial paradigm window system in Workbench as an activity in itself, they actually want to run software!!!!

Yes, people by solutions mostly. Updating AmigaOS 3 with a modern ATI graphic driver (as done with OS4) would be a boost for it. The 3.1.4 updates from Hyperion are good too in order to have file systems on OS 3 that are larger than 4GB. In regards to Amiga art software, motion capture and bones animation would be a good implementation, too.

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If A-EON can't sell the Tabor why would it be able to sell ARM or x86 machines?!

If Aaron's presentation from Amiwest 2018 is correct, the A1222 is going to sell and potentially sell more than the X5000.

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Considering the P96 issues with iComp vs Cloanto, I don't think a cheap Amiga in a joystick product is on the cards any time soon

This is sad. I'm not sure why people buy old Amiga technology and then demand more money than the small market can handle. A Linux solution, I think, would be a better option for making money in the computer industry than P96 would be.