@Hans

the blame game anyway makes no sense to me. The situation is now there and will not change. The "momentum" (as you wrote) every platform had is gone now. We can try to enjoy what we have and try to make things better. A "revolution" certainly can and will not happen.

NG is only a small niche anyway, most current users and developers are interested in 68k stuff

Last edited by OlafS25 on 16-Jan-2023 at 12:03 PM.

@Trixie

I was thinking more along the lines of a scrappy startup. Big corporations rarely know how to do a lot with meagre resources.

Hans

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@OlafS25

I didn't use the word momentum. My main point was to stop blaming things/people that you can't change, and focus instead on what you could do better yourself.

As for lost momentum, looking at the "Amiga computer" graph for the last 20 years on Google trends paints a pretty vivid picture of the decline.

Hans

Last edited by Hans on 16-Jan-2023 at 12:31 PM.
Last edited by Hans on 16-Jan-2023 at 12:30 PM.

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@Karlos

Quote:

It never ceases to amaze me that people expect a level of professionalism and corporate vision for the platform.

Why would it amaze you? When somebody - anybody! - sets up a registered company and starts earning revenue from customer sales, I do expect them to act professional and with a business goal in mind. Regardless whether we're talking about a niche retro platform or a big corporate world.

@Hans

Quote:

I was thinking more along the lines of a scrappy startup. Big corporations rarely know how to do a lot with meagre resources.

I was thinking the same. We don't have any big corporations in Amiga lands anyway.

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@Trixie

It was more the "corporate vision" side. That said, what's professional about trying to continue the commercial development of an operating system coupled to unaffordable vanity build machines that cost more than a typical PC and deliver a fraction of the performance? You might get away with this for a single application on some niche platform but an entire OS is a different story. No part of the current OS4 development makes commercial sense and therefore the case can be made that it's unprofessional to try.

In a sane world, one where all the relevant people acted professionally, the whole thing would've been opened up years ago and become a community effort. Instead various parties cling to the remains that nobody outside this community gives a crap about, endlessly slugging it out it pointless litigation.

So, why was it again you expected professionalism? Because you paid money for something?

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@Trixie

I agree, it seemed like there would be enough money and leadership in the late 90's to run with an NG solution. Sadly as history has shown us the lack of good leadership, infighting and personalities made it an unappealing mess.

The open hostility between the camps was just crazy really . I wonder if the choas kept away other sane leadership? Sorta reminds me of when the railroaded Tom Rattigan out of Commodore in the 80's after he saved the company with the 500 and 2000 and restructuring. It was losing money and he saved it, but Gould was jealous, I guess we can go back to the beginning for bad leadership:).

@Hans

Quote:

In theory, if AmigaOS 4 didn't exist then all AmigaOS fans would have jumped on the MorphOS bandwagon instead. There's an element of truth to that.

I can understand that. It would mean that AmigaOS itself would have come to a dead stop. Only to be continued by a copy of it. There there is the Amiga OSx86 crowd that were left unsatisfied for a number of years.

Against that is the 68K crowd that didn't want Amiga to change into anything else and evolve.

Quote:

However, blaming external circumstances for "failure" (as in, didn't get a big enough chunk of the market to grow) is short-sighted, and an easy way to avoid looking critically at your own mistakes. I personally think that each of the NG AmigaOS flavours had a chance to "capture the market" and become sustainable if they'd had a better approach, or at least had not made so many blunders. None of the teams presented a clear vision of AmigaOS' future that resonated with users, and then followed through on it. The next excuse would be "we have scarce resources," to which I'd say "yeah, but you could do a lot better by directing those resources/talent more strategically."

For each one there is a split off the original. A big feature was 68K compatibility. Which OS4 and MOS did a fine job of supporting, as long as it wasn't games. Except for modern games designed for PPC and RTG, but even then, it was hit and miss as PPC Amiga games didn't always exactly work out of the box.

AROS lacked any official sources aside from official include files, same as MOS, but provided a solution to satisfy the x86 crowd. It was unable to maintain 68K compatibility so it was a case of native or bust. Relying on open source projects for those Amiga applications.

In any case, there become a time when it was too late for any Amiga OS or hardware to survive on. In the post Commodore world while Amiga assets lay in limbo or purgatory, depending on who was playing throw and catch. It still is with companies suing each other over assets that have no worldly value. They just seem to hold assets hostage now in order to siphon money out. Whatever came became too late when it came years later. However, there was still an Amiga revival with new hardware to buy, in whatever flavour you like. It was exciting early on and lasted for about the better part of a decade as the excitement tapered off.

@kolla

Quote:

Apple’s relationship with ARM goes way back - Apple was one of the founding partners of Advanced RISC Machines back in 1990, and they used ARM in the Newton series, long before the iPod. Sorry, iPhone… eh iPad. Apple were also using x86 for development of OSX between 1996 and 2001 (Rhapsody) as well as in products such as some early airports. I am quite confident that they make sure that their toolchain remains rather architecture agnostic and code tested on multiple architectures, so they easily can change architecture whenever there is need for it.

Although I've read plenty of Arm articles and early history, somehow I missed the Apple connection. Even more bizarre is I just read through about 5 articles about Advanced RISC Machines and each had a mention of Apple! They might be called Apple RISC Machines from what I read.

It makes me wonder why they didn't think to use ARM ahead of PPC. Aside from the Motorola involvement. Or even move from PPC to ARM then.

BSD OSX made it easy for them in a number of ways. They didn't remain tied to an old MacOS and could replace it while being able to keep compatibility in the transition. The PPC likely helped as it could execute classic code without emulation since by then they had moved to PPC. By the time x86 rolled around they didn't have that luxury but the core CPU speed was fast enough to compensate by emulating PPC. Perhaps an irony to the VirtualPC Mac software that had emulated a PC on PPC.

@rzookol

Thought it might be that in the back of my mind. It's not a new problem though. PCI is little endian like USB so has to be worked with. Early Amiga video cards had PC modes. I also booted Linux on my A1 with some NVidia card years ago and it showed right up so with supported drivers it can work on big endian.

@Hypex

Quote:

Against that is the 68K crowd that didn't want Amiga to change into anything else and evolve.

That's a subset of the 68K crowd. I was a proponent of the PPC initially. However it seemed to go off in two directions. One had the "source authenticity" for want of a better description but got embroiled with increasingly expensive, unreliable hardware. The other wasn't the "official" continuation but continuously pushed the bar while aiming at second hand kit that remained affordable and was generally the "best of breed" of PPC desktop hardware of the era.

But both were doomed to fail as soon as the last mainstream desktop vendor jumped to intel.

I don't recall how long ago it was that I came to the realisation that it was all one gigantic folly but it was probably the day I got Amithlon working that this view cemented. An old PC made of spares ran 3.9 at a speed that made my then still functional A1 800MHz G4 look like an embarrassment. Sure there are much faster PPC machines today, but I'm sure that they'd be equally outclassed by a similar 68K emulation on contemporary PC kot costing a fraction as much.

Most Amiga software is for 68K and original hardware. The only thing PPC has going for it are "native" exclusives and the OS enhancements. I can only wonder, what percentage of said PPC software exists in a form that couldn't (for technical rather than legal) backported to 68K running on a high performance emulation solution? Almost nothing, and that includes most of the OS.

The PPC did not deliver 64 bit or SMP, so in terms of those aspects, it's not an improvement over a 68K emulation of comparable performance.

The one family of arguments against this used to be that any emulated 68K machine has no real lineage or isn't truly hardware compatible, or insert zealous reason here, etc. However accelerators like PiStorm upend that completely.

So, back on topic:

I would love to see an OS4/68K port (with full RTG support), running on my A1200/PiStorm, running my entire 68K software catalogue (without resorting to UAE to do it), by the end of 2023.

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@Karlos

Which will go x86 first, MorphOS or OS 4.1? It’s only a matter of time. It would be funny if someone got MorphOS running on M1 Mac hardware.

Last edited by DiscreetFX on 16-Jan-2023 at 05:21 PM.
Last edited by DiscreetFX on 16-Jan-2023 at 03:50 PM.

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@SHADES

Quote:

SHADES wrote: @Lou Don't forget memory. 32 bit OS systems aren't really enough these days, regardless of the compute power and modern browsers have a much larger memory footprint than they used to. Then, there is Haiku, (a BeOS clone/reimplementation) which seems to be able to implement ALL of this stuff and is constantly being developed. It seems quite Amiga-like in feel to use as well. Much more so than Linux anyway.

Which is why I specified AROSx64-MP...

Would be nice if you could just put a linux wrap on it and throw it into a single or dual core AMD.

@kolla

Quote:

kolla wrote: @Lou I’ve recently have had to “get into” Windows again, after about 20+ years absence - and that is a nightmare! It’s actually amazing how little has changed, everything that sucked 20+ years ago is still the same, or worse. More nonsense has been added, very little removed. Stuff that used to be cumbersome has become ridiculous (for example already overcrowded property windows are now insanely overcrowded - and more often than not, fixed to same crazy tiny window size - certificate properties for example - wtf!). And documentation for it all is like a labyrinth on a swamp, that slowly takes you in circles a few times until it points either to 404 or to an URL on a site that no longer exists… Microsoft makes all alternatives look good!

Yes, it sucks. It continues to suck and suck more with each revision. That's why I'd love an alternative... Though - as much as it sucks, it's still much easier than Linux.

I tried updating video drivers on a fresh Ubuntu install and it was a cluster-frag. I said frak-it and just ran another unlicensed instance of W10...

@Tomppeli

Quote:

Tomppeli wrote: 1. The court case to end. 2. 1222 being released.

Amen.

Spud

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@Hypex

Quote:

Perhaps an irony to the VirtualPC Mac software that had emulated a PC on PPC.

You are aware about what happened to that piece of software?

Last edited by kolla on 17-Jan-2023 at 12:47 AM.

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@Hypex

Quote:

Is the hardware model just not supported? Must have some quirk if it can't be resolved by using supported cards.

According to https://www.morphos-team.net/hardware, it only runs on PowerMac 7,2 and 7,3 (A1047). Both of mine back then were, and the one I've held onto is 11,2 (A1117/A1177) PCIe-based.


Quote:

Don't know. Isn't an x86/64 port now obsolete? It will soon be 20 years since Apple moved to x86. And a few years ago they started moving away from it. In fact, the iPhone and iPad could be said was the moment where they started moving away. Now Arm is an official fork of mac/OSX. Perhaps the MorphOS team should focus on an Arm future instead. Both AmigaOS4 and MorphOS have been chasing Apples tail since Apple moved off 68K. They catch up to PPC and while there Apple then jumps ship to x86 just after going PPC64. Eventually moving to x86/64, while both AmigaOS4 and MorphOS remain stuck on PPC32. By the time they move off they will be targeting an obsolete CPU. Maybe just skip playing catchup and port to ARM64 now. After all, if Apple moving away from the best CPU they can get at the best price, there has to be a good reason for it. ARM is the new PPC.

The key factor for MorphOS survival is a new "hardware host": Not just a new ISA.

While skipping x86-64 and moving straight to Aarch64 could be reasonably justified across a range of factors, unless MorphOS is looking to get into the hardware game most of those factors a moot.

And unless the target hardware is a Raspberry Pi 4(00), then the ARM camp has very little in terms of easily available, diverse, and economical hardware for the end user. But if the MorphOS team implements some decent levels of abstraction as part of the x86 move, a future ARM move could be made easier.

Who knows, maybe the MorphOS team surprises us all with a NeXTSTEP/OS X move and they have MorphOS 4 (x86-64) running on top of a Linux or BSD kernel.

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@Karlos

Quote:

@Trixie It was more the "corporate vision" side. That said, what's professional about trying to continue the commercial development of an operating system coupled to unaffordable vanity build machines that cost more than a typical PC and deliver a fraction of the performance?

One of the big blunders I alluded to, was when someone (ACube?) created and demo'd a PowerMax AmigaOS 4 port. Instead of gratefully embracing this gift, the project got killed. Just one example of a litany of mistakes.

Quote:

No part of the current OS4 development makes commercial sense and therefore the case can be made that it's unprofessional to try.

Trying what looks foolhardy to others has little to do with professionalism. Professionaism is more about setting and living up to good standards in integrity, timeliness, communicating honestly, letting people know what you're going to do, and following through, etc,

Quote:

So, why was it again you expected professionalism? Because you paid money for something?

Because basic professionalism isn't that hard...

Hans

_________________
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https://keasigmadelta.com/ - More of my work.

Back on topic:
- I'd like to see all lawsuits, etc. to come to an end
- The A1222 finally being released would be nice, and I'm sure some are looking forward to receiving their Sam460
- Hopefully System V54 will be released
- It would be great to have more developers writing software for AmigaOS

EDIT: Oh yeah, it would be awesome if I wasn't the only graphics driver developer for AmigaOS 4.x any more.

Hans

Last edited by Hans on 17-Jan-2023 at 06:51 AM.

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@agami

Quote:

agami wrote: According to https://www.morphos-team.net/hardware, it only runs on PowerMac 7,2 and 7,3 (A1047). Both of mine back then were, and the one I've held onto is 11,2 (A1117/A1177) PCIe-based.

11,2 is "unofficially" supported nowadays. It means it isn't fully supported system, but it still works pretty nicely if you replace the gfx card and insert a network card. Some people think these are generally the fastest systems for MorphOS, because of the graphics speed (PCIe).

Here is more information about it, and a comprehensive summary of supported computer setups can be found here.


Quote:

And unless the target hardware is a Raspberry Pi 4(00), then the ARM camp has very little in terms of easily available, diverse, and economical hardware for the end user.

I bought a Raspberry Pi 400 recently, but it actually was quite difficult to find. All shops in my country were out of stock, and I only found two shops in Europe to buy them, and even on those stocks were quite limited. Other RPi models on those were out of stock too... so it doesn't feel to be easily available currently :)

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