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Chris_Y 
Re: Amiga OS versions and what makes them different/better
Posted on 14-Nov-2021 23:17:09
#41 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 21-Jun-2003
Posts: 3203
From: Beds, UK

@matthey

The NDK is supposed to have included inlines for various compilers, but they don't work. Yes I have had some discussion. Yes I can create them myself with fd2pragma. I'm hoping the next update will fix, as it's something I don't want to speed time on if I don't need to.

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matthey 
Re: Amiga OS versions and what makes them different/better
Posted on 15-Nov-2021 0:16:42
#42 ]
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Joined: 14-Mar-2007
Posts: 1968
From: Kansas

Chris_Y Quote:

The NDK is supposed to have included inlines for various compilers, but they don't work. Yes I have had some discussion. Yes I can create them myself with fd2pragma. I'm hoping the next update will fix, as it's something I don't want to speed time on if I don't need to.


Right. The problems could also be in the .fd files which fd2inline wouldn't fix. It's better to let the devs fix the problems once for everyone. With that said, this wouldn't be the first time function calling compiler problems like this have occurred and sometimes the fixes break other things so plenty of testing would be prudent. Amiga Never Land often feels like a slow motion time warp which can be frustrating.

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kolla 
Re: Amiga OS versions and what makes them different/better
Posted on 15-Nov-2021 7:32:44
#43 ]
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Joined: 20-Aug-2003
Posts: 2859
From: Trondheim, Norway

@matthey

With the number of desirable software requiring ReAction classes being very close to zero, I just don’t see the point of having them installed.

Last edited by kolla on 15-Nov-2021 at 07:33 AM.

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olsen 
Re: Amiga OS versions and what makes them different/better
Posted on 15-Nov-2021 12:09:07
#44 ]
Cult Member
Joined: 15-Aug-2004
Posts: 774
From: Germany

@kolla

Quote:

kolla wrote:
Main issue with DiskDoctor is that it doesn’t doctor disks…


The diagnostic has to precede any form of therapy, though. Given how far the diagnostic goes in the new Disk Doctor, combined with the recovery function and the filters which control what may be recovered, I ran out of time developing a useful repair feature

The original Disk Doctor combined analysis of possible issues with swift "correction". As I understand it, you should know in advance which changes are in store if that "correction" takes place and be able to opt out of what you consider unneccessary or too risky.

Also, what should happen during the repair operation is hard to decide. The original Disk Doctor basically made the "corrected" file system safe again for the validation process to run. You would be able to access the volume and maybe recover data from it. It was not a given that it would be fit for write access.

Quote:

Maybe FileRescue would be a better name?


Naming things in computer science and software development in general is always hard (as in real life, too, come to think of it) and I picked "Disk Doctor" because it's established as being the default tool for rescuing file system data since at least 1986. It also had a reputation which could only be bettered if you tried to take it seriously this time. Names such as these tend to stick, whereas naming tools according to their purpose may not do so well...

Quote:

But really, I never have any need for it, backups and Format is just much quicker.


Yes, but there's always the odd case for which recovering the data from a medium is likely to be faster and the preferred option. For example, let's say you have a regular hourly local file system backup service as a safety net. But just now you want to retrieve a copy of a draft you had been working on for which this time schedule is too coarse. You might get lucky recovering a copy from the volume. This is one of the special cases which the new "Disk Doctor" was made for.

Quote:

And here’s an old bug still present in 3.2…

Quote:

https://youtu.be/L-TNqcvFnSE



Thank you!

That's two issues, isn't it? Firstly, the two windows completely overlap. This is exactly how it should not be done. Secondly, the option to format the second volume is denied without giving any reason or hint. Is the second volume really a writable fixed disk or something else?

Last edited by olsen on 15-Nov-2021 at 12:42 PM.

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olsen 
Re: Amiga OS versions and what makes them different/better
Posted on 15-Nov-2021 12:22:02
#45 ]
Cult Member
Joined: 15-Aug-2004
Posts: 774
From: Germany

@BigD

Quote:

BigD wrote:
@olsen

Quote:

olsen wrote:
@BigD

Nobody ever mentions the epic "Disk Doctor" which landed in AmigaOS 3.2. So sad


DiskMonTools works fine (though slowly) for FFS partitions >4GB, so another recovery program is hardly a killer app


Totally unironically the new "Disk Doctor" is, unlike its notorious predecessor, the opposite of a killer app

Seriously, there's a lot more under the hub in "Disk Doctor". It has built-in direct SCSI support, even for large storage devices (thanks to Thomas Richter), for example, in addition to the NSD/TD64 support.

New in AmigaOS 3.2 is support for raw floppy disk access, in case you still have a physical disk drive and media from which need data needs to be recovered. I built this feature with the "FixDisk" tool in mind which appeared on AmigaLibDisk 223. Written by Werner Guenther (possibly "Werner Günther"?) it allowed you to repair and recover floppy disk data where trackdisk.device would fail ("FixDisk" helped me countless times when no other tool would, back in the day). "Disk Doctor" will do its best to do likewise, rereading corrupted tracks and recovering the best sector data attainable.

Now the new "Disk Doctor" is not an interactive tool by any means. It's designed to be used as a shell command, running unattended until it's produced results, such as a diagnosis of the state of a volume or recovering data.

It could have been nicer with a GUI, of course, but the focus was on making the new "Disk Doctor" do the job with only a minimal use of resources available, when all other tools have let you down.

Last edited by olsen on 15-Nov-2021 at 01:24 PM.

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olsen 
Re: Amiga OS versions and what makes them different/better
Posted on 15-Nov-2021 12:37:26
#46 ]
Cult Member
Joined: 15-Aug-2004
Posts: 774
From: Germany

@matthey

Quote:

matthey wrote:

...

IMO, the 68k AmigaOS should have both 68000 and 68020+ compiles available in the distribution.


We discussed this, but in the end had to face the issues of disk space constraints, installation script complexity, the user making the right call when installing either build (pick the wrong one and...), possible QA issues (is the 68020+ code at least as robust as the 680x0 code?) and the need to figure out if bugs reported would concern the 680x0 build or the 68020+ build or possibly both.

This ultimatively comes down to support issues, costs, time and complexity. On top of what we already decided to shoulder.

I wish we could make a 68020+ build and ship it. In my tests in 1998 I found that rebuilding the entire operating system with 68020+ as a target would make for much smaller binaries and would leave more ROM space free for use. You could fit the SCSI "scsi.device" and workbench.library of the A4000T into the 3.1 ROM. However, much of the space saved came from rebuilding Intuition with the SAS/C compiler...

Last edited by olsen on 15-Nov-2021 at 01:25 PM.
Last edited by olsen on 15-Nov-2021 at 12:43 PM.

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olsen 
Re: Amiga OS versions and what makes them different/better
Posted on 15-Nov-2021 12:40:26
#47 ]
Cult Member
Joined: 15-Aug-2004
Posts: 774
From: Germany

@Chris_Y

Quote:

Chris_Y wrote:
@matthey

The NDK is supposed to have included inlines for various compilers, but they don't work. Yes I have had some discussion. Yes I can create them myself with fd2pragma. I'm hoping the next update will fix, as it's something I don't want to speed time on if I don't need to.


Could you elaborate on the issues you are facing?

We started over with the state of AmigaOS 3.1 (as of 1994) in terms of libraries and header files which is why the NDK 3.9 changes were skipped. Ever since then we've been working on improving the NDK and learning what didn't work the last time we thought it would finally do

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matthey 
Re: Amiga OS versions and what makes them different/better
Posted on 15-Nov-2021 22:09:02
#48 ]
Super Member
Joined: 14-Mar-2007
Posts: 1968
From: Kansas

olsen Quote:

We discussed this, but in the end had to face the issues of disk space constraints, installation script complexity, the user making the right call when installing either build (pick the wrong one and...), possible QA issues (is the 68020+ code at least as robust as the 680x0 code?) and the need to figure out if bugs reported would concern the 680x0 build or the 68020+ build or possibly both.


As far as space constraints, the distribution size increases unless separate 68000 and 68020 distributions are available. Amiga distributions are tiny compared to Windows or Linux distributions anymore. Making the 68000 and 68020 distributions available separately would save network bandwidth and download time for the many customers wanting only 68020 binaries. For installed drive and ROM space, the 68020 binaries save space. It is trivial to detect a 68020 in the ExecBase AttnFlags and use that as the default installation option in the installation requestor. Installation complexity increases but many Amiga installers install binaries for Amiga flavors with no problems. With all the Amiga flavors, it seems to be more common than not. Bug report tools should have a field for the binary flavor and many do already. The C code would mostly be the same between the 68000 and 68020 builds. In my experience, SAS/C generates 68020 code of a similar quality as 68000 code and 68020 code in my experience is more tolerate of suspect code and corner cases, for example allowing any memory access alignment. Any code which works on the 68000 and fails on the 68020 or even behaves different should be rewritten and finding the problem is beneficial albeit more time consuming.

I also understand the dev team politics and especially ThoR's stance. "Premature optimization is the root of all evil". ThoR is a super developer and algorithm enhancements should have priority and can certainly make a huge difference as he has demonstrated but compiling for the 68020 is very cheap and offers cumulative small benefits not just in performance but in space savings which is important as 68k Amiga hardware is extremely low end and small footprint.

olsen Quote:

This ultimatively comes down to support issues, costs, time and complexity. On top of what we already decided to shoulder.


I can see keeping AmigaOS 3.2+ compiled for the 68000 (or 68020) only while transitioning quickly toward a goal requiring many changes. However, limiting the goal to always include 68000 hardware likely means the goals will be modest at best. If the idea is to support 68000 FPGA devices and emulation, they usually have 32 bit ALUs, are generally optimized for 32 bit and may have a 32 bit or 16 bit data bus but lack the newer 68020 enhancements so even 68000 compiled code is usually not optimal on them. Optimizing for a 68000 is optimizing for a primitive barely pipelined (if considering the memory prefetch a stage) 16 bit CPU with no caches from 1979. The fact that 68000 optimized code has acceptable performance on all 68k processors is a tribute to the advanced ISA design but is still cringe worthy. There is code which could use a performance boost like the picture.datatype, scalable font rendering and complex scalable Reaction GUIs. Some future heavier enhancements like anti-aliased fonts make less sense when handicapped by 68000 code. If the AmigaOS 3.2 source code was open, I believe a 68020 compile would be one of the first changes available because it is relatively easy.

olsen Quote:

I wish we could make a 68020+ build and ship it. In my tests in 1998 I found that rebuilding the entire operating system with 68020+ as a target would make for much smaller binaries and would leave more ROM space free for use. You could fit the SCSI "scsi.device" and workbench.library of the A4000T into the 3.1 ROM. However, much of the space saved came from rebuilding Intuition with the SAS/C compiler...


There are people who would be delighted and even pay to have a 68020 optimized AmigaOS and especially ROMs with more modules fitting like the originals. Don't tell Ben though or he may get ideas. Supporting 68020 binaries is not high priority but it would be a nice goal to work toward. I believe Amiga users like the efficient and lean Amiga and the small footprint may even be marketable to a larger customer base if mass produced retro Amiga hardware ever happens.

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BigD 
Re: Amiga OS versions and what makes them different/better
Posted on 15-Nov-2021 23:26:11
#49 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 11-Aug-2005
Posts: 7307
From: UK

@matthey

I can't believe 68000 binaries are the only target for OS3.2 currently! It's beyond belief in an age of Vampires and cheap PiStorm boards!

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BigD 
Re: Amiga OS versions and what makes them different/better
Posted on 15-Nov-2021 23:33:43
#50 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 11-Aug-2005
Posts: 7307
From: UK

@matthey

The only 68000 processor I have in my house is in a Sega MegaDrive. It is amazing that that console does what it does and it is truly timeless. The Atari ST and Amiga 68000 machines were more machines of their time. The Amiga 1200 and Falcon were the sweet spots of the 68k computer revolution and 030 cpus were the high point. The Classic Mac isn't interesting without an 040 (or 060 on Shapeshifter) IMHO.

Last edited by BigD on 15-Nov-2021 at 11:34 PM.

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Chris_Y 
Re: Amiga OS versions and what makes them different/better
Posted on 15-Nov-2021 23:39:06
#51 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 21-Jun-2003
Posts: 3203
From: Beds, UK

@olsen

Quote:
Could you elaborate on the issues you are facing?


Lots of linker errors, probably best to point you back to our original discussion at https://github.com/bebbo/amiga-gcc/issues/222#issuecomment-899099508

Aside from that, some of the fd/sfd files are missing (basically anything to do with ReAction), so the 3.9 NDK is still required in order to rebuild the inlines.

I had to build them myself for vbcc too, but can't remember if I was getting similar problems.

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Steady 
Re: Amiga OS versions and what makes them different/better
Posted on 16-Nov-2021 0:22:20
#52 ]
Regular Member
Joined: 1-Nov-2004
Posts: 211
From: Melbourne, OZ

@BigD

Well, recent-ish hardware releasees have been fast 68000 processors, such as in aca500 so that's another reason to keep plain 68000 code for the time being.

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BigD 
Re: Amiga OS versions and what makes them different/better
Posted on 16-Nov-2021 0:58:04
#53 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 11-Aug-2005
Posts: 7307
From: UK

@Steady

Quote:
Well, recent-ish hardware releasees have been fast 68000 processors, such as in aca500 so that's another reason to keep plain 68000 code for the time being.


And how many of those boards are out in the wild? All the buzz is for Warp 1260, Vampire/FireBird/IceDrake and PiStorm boards IMHO. I hardly think that 14Mhz 68000 chips are the way forward for Classic development

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kolla 
Re: Amiga OS versions and what makes them different/better
Posted on 16-Nov-2021 7:36:27
#54 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 20-Aug-2003
Posts: 2859
From: Trondheim, Norway

@BigD

The thing is that 68000 chips are the most available real 68k chips you can still get hold of, it isn’t that many years since official 68SEC000 was in production and there are several 68000 clones from other manufacturers. The Minimig is 68SEC000, and there are several new boards for Amiga that now use these chips, and they can be clocked much faster than back in the days. What would be the point in limiting number of systems and potential customers of the OS?

In reality - even in “020+ only” Os 3.9, there’s surprisingly little that truly was built for 020+.

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amigang 
Re: Amiga OS versions and what makes them different/better
Posted on 16-Nov-2021 10:28:18
#55 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 12-Jan-2005
Posts: 2018
From: Cheshire, England

So as I understand it

AmigaOS 3.2 -
Is the best most stable, bug free version of AmigaOs on 68k, the reason is its not called AmigaOS 3.9.2 is due largely licensing etc, like others point out, OS3.2 is less about the extra little add ons and flash stuff you got with OS3.9. It actually backported some of the improvements made for OS4 to 68k platform.

AmigaOS 3.9 -
Still a great setup and if it works why break it, there are a few Boing bag updates you can find, even community made ones that improve it. So dont worry if this is all you run. its what my classic Amiga runs.

AROS / APOLLO -
Open source OS, target platform has been AmigaOS3.1 so I think it match's that, the Apollo OS is a much more focus 68k version of Aros and of course improves support for Vampire V4 hardware. Icaros is likely the best 86x version.

AmigaOS 4.1.7 -
PPC version of the OS, thanks to it being on newer hardware, newer standard can run on it. likely the best version of the OS but stuck on PPC hardware.

MorphOS
Again PPC OS, people will argue which is better OS4 or MorphOS, I never used MorphOS but in terms of features I feel they both have there small advantages and disadvantage but maybe not enough to discern which is best.

Last edited by amigang on 16-Nov-2021 at 10:33 AM.

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OlafS25 
Re: Amiga OS versions and what makes them different/better
Posted on 16-Nov-2021 11:22:48
#56 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 12-May-2010
Posts: 6321
From: Unknown

@matthey

I do not think it is the target of 3.2 to create a kind of "NG 68k OS" but to conserve and optimize the current platform and replace most of the patches. "Unifying" the 68k platform I think was mentioned to replace 3.5, 3.9, patches and so on.

I do not see this happen, finally it will be another branch.

To really "modernize" the OS you also need better hardware (processor and RAM and perhaps graphic card) and that would mean people need accellerators and the OS would not work on standard hardware. And it would require 3rd party software licensed like network stack or RTG support. That is not planned obviously.

Last edited by OlafS25 on 16-Nov-2021 at 11:26 AM.

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Hypex 
Re: Amiga OS versions and what makes them different/better
Posted on 16-Nov-2021 13:25:15
#57 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 6-May-2007
Posts: 11180
From: Greensborough, Australia

@prmetime

I find it hard to answer this as I certainly know but there are things I take for granted. However when running on an older system I am reminded what is missing. But I wouldn't consider your position to be ignorant as you are looking for answers on subjects you don't know about and not purposely passing it off.

To put things into context I've recently used OS 3.1, 3.9 and 4.1. I would say OS4.1 easily beats both.

On booting 3.1 is fast but simple. 3.9 is annoying without a ROM as it boots twice. 4.1 needs Kickstart loaded bit is fast enough after that.

In use I don't know how we used 3.1. The shell is primitive. Drag and drop doesn't work. It doesn't even have a normal text editor you can load from an icon. By 1994 standards it was lacking in user friendliness and too sloppy.

3.9 is better. But only because of the extra software included. Half of which was shareware IIRC. However it has its bugs. Unarc is faulty with newer Lha files and I found no solution, even using LhA directly is broken. The icons and interface look old. Sure they can be replaced but it's still an old OS. The windows and fonts also look old now. But at least it is compatible with a wide range of software.

4.1 is better as a few things were cleaned up. CDs are auto mounted. ENV is internal. The shell can be drag and dropped. Drag and dropping across screens. More modern window design with modern shadowing effects. Modern truetype fonts. Themes with presets for different resolutions. Just in use it does things and has features the others don't. I am so used to some that I would need to use 68K to list what is missing. For what you want, I would say 4.1 is best but, it does cost if you don't emulate it. And, that is if you don't need full 68K compatibility or Amiga games. Otherwise, OS3.9 emulated would offer a better solution. But, with internet browsing, OS4.1 would win.

Last edited by Hypex on 16-Nov-2021 at 02:13 PM.

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Hypex 
Re: Amiga OS versions and what makes them different/better
Posted on 16-Nov-2021 13:30:29
#58 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 6-May-2007
Posts: 11180
From: Greensborough, Australia

@BigD

Quote:
I like AmigaOS 3.9 with BB 1 & 2. It works well enough with AmiDock and unarchiving apps straight out of the box.


I find it doesn't. Like on Linux, I find newer -lha5- LhA files break in Unarc. Never found a fix. This is because I'm using LhA which is newer on OS4. Though I'm sure the sources are old so don't know why a 68k fix wasn't made.

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OlafS25 
Re: Amiga OS versions and what makes them different/better
Posted on 16-Nov-2021 13:35:22
#59 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 12-May-2010
Posts: 6321
From: Unknown

@Hypex

Drag & Drop in the shell?

Otherwise I think I can beat it with my configured magellan desktop

Last edited by OlafS25 on 16-Nov-2021 at 01:37 PM.

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Hypex 
Re: Amiga OS versions and what makes them different/better
Posted on 16-Nov-2021 13:37:59
#60 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 6-May-2007
Posts: 11180
From: Greensborough, Australia

@Chris_Y
Quote:
Most of what is missing is replaceable by 3rd party stuff on Aminet. The core OS is better, which is the important bit.


Isn't that what OS3.9 was as well?

Personally I prefer a complete OS to include features as standard. And not rely on a PD library. But even with OS3.9 I have to replace that VincED C64 shell interface with KingCON.

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