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Please take that ARM comment for what it is: the sacrifices that would have to be made to get AmigaOS working on the x86 platform would be greater than by comparison with the ARM, because you can have it load/store data from/to memory in either big endian or little endian fashion, depending upon how the chip is configured. No such choice exists for the x86 platform.

Having an endian-agnostic OS would fix this problem. I know this cannot be done in 2 months... But you say some new APIs would be needed, a new driver model,... What about implementing new endian-agnostic APIs ? That would be a start at least...

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But I probably won't ever read "Fahrenheit 451" again...

Ah, now that is too bad, particularly in light of recent American book controversies. Fahrenheit 451 will always be relevant. I still have and read my first copy, which I think was inadvertently pilfered from my seventh grade (year) classroom.

Neil Gaiman writes wonderful fantasy, and he's marrying one of my favorite musicians. Can't go wrong there. Alan Moore, while not marrying one of my favorite musicians, also writes wonderful fantasy. I have a very early printing of The Killing Joke which I keep close. Frank Miller is excellent as well.

I've read many of Neal Stephenson's novels (Snow Crash is mandatory for hackers, I think), but the Baroque Cycle has been sitting on my shelf waiting to be read for some time.

Larry Niven and Stephen Baxter write wonderful hard SF, and Isaac Asimov and Robert Heinlein have much to say about anything you'd care to explore.

Honestly, I don't read much American literature (the kind scholars and Pulitzer prizes flock to). It doesn't speak to me the way SF does, despite covering similar themes. 19th century English literature does interest me, however. Tales of the past seem almost as fantastic as tales of the future, I suppose.

Last edited by Trev on 13-Oct-2010 at 04:13 PM.

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Having an endian-agnostic OS would fix this problem. I know this cannot be done in 2 months... But you say some new APIs would be needed, a new driver model,... What about implementing new endian-agnostic APIs ? That would be a start at least...

The toughest part is deciding whether or not to keep any existing software. If you go for a little endian platform, you will have to leave everything behind which cannot be rebuilt to fit the new hardware.

The Amiga software we have today is generally oblivious to the fact that it runs on a big endian platform. Other than, say the original PPC BeOS, which had a POSIX API and with it all the rules and tools that allow for code to be adapted to a little endian host, AmigaOS never even had a notion of having to deal with endianness issues.

And this is where things get ugly: code written for AmigaOS is making assumptions about the platform, and assumptions are those things you don't notice you are making. To build for a platform with unspecified endianness properties you have to be deliberate in how you write your code. In a way, you have to be aware of the decisions you need to be making.

Of course, all of this is irrelevant if you can go for broke and ditch all the software that won't work on a little endian platform anyway. You'd still have to go through the entire source code and identify the bits where little endian issues might pop up. For AmigaOS this is going to be a big plunge since the operating system is comparatively poorly structured, complex and unprepared for such a move.

By comparatively poorly structured I mean that the architecture of the operating system does not follow a consistent design which is reflected by every single part of the system. When Unix was made portable, and the endianness issues were addressed (they didn't have to worry about just big or little endianness, there were four storage layout variants altogether), Unix was still one compact, well-designed kernel with very well-defined interfaces and APIs. By fixing issues in one place, the fixes automatically applied to almost everything they connected to. Unix was the kind of design where this was possible.

AmigaOS does not fall into the same category. I wouldn't know where to start, and how, or actually why porting the operating system to a little endian platform would make good sense.

You might say that Hyperion & friends already did the impossible by making AmigaOS "leap" to the PowerPC platform. There's the impossible, and there's the impossible impossible. It's the latter category which I think the x86 port belongs to.

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Sure there is: Didn't Martin Blom create a version of x86 GCC (for Amithlon) which made memory accesses look Big Endian? Yes that add's some overhead, but I think that'd be more than balanced out by the extra speed you get from x86.

How long ago was that, and was it intended to be used for regular development work? It's one thing to create such a tool, and another to use it for production work. Consider me skeptical that it would have made all the difference in the world. Solve the load/store issues is one part of the problem. You'd still have to wrangle with endianness issues in hardware drivers and draw up guidelines for application software development.

Personally, I would prefer my CPU to use an instruction set architecture that connects with how the CPU actually does its business. You can properly optimize code for something like the Power architecture. But you're lost, and lost all along the way, with today's x86 architecture whose instruction set has little to do with how the actual processing takes place within the CPU.

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P.S. I was surprised to read that FFS2 was also used by MorphOS. Not sure that OS4 uses any MOS components?

This was a one time only deal I made because I was bound by the promise I gave, and because I do not believe in burning bridges.

As far as I know, if there is any code that AmigaOS 4 uses which also shows up in MorphOS, it is there because it came from the same source and was used by permission. For example, you would expect that the JPEG code as used by datatypes which appears in either operating system would come from the same original authors (the IJG).

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Ah, now that is too bad, particularly in light of recent American book controversies. Fahrenheit 451 will always be relevant. I still have and read my first copy, which I think was inadvertently pilfered from my seventh grade (year) classroom.

I had read the book long before I had to face it again as the subject of English class. Taking it apart and looking at the bits and pieces in class did not do it much good. Funny thing: what the book supposedly had to say, according to what was taught to us, disagreed with what I later learned were Ray Bradbury's intentions.

Plays seem to take less damage than novels do, when they end up being the subject of class. I can still see "Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf?" as a great play, but "Fahrenheit 451" has lost all its appeal to me.

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Neil Gaiman writes wonderful fantasy, and he's marrying one of my favorite musicians. Can't go wrong there. Alan Moore, while not marrying one of my favorite musicians, also writes wonderful fantasy. I have a very early printing of The Killing Joke which I keep close. Frank Miller is excellent as well.

Both Neil Gaiman and Alan Moore are great writers, in any medium. Alan Moore's work in comics still stands out, and if it weren't for him, I probably would have never touched another comic in the last ten years. I did not really appreciate what the medium could do until I hit upon "From hell".

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I've read many of Neal Stephenson's novels (Snow Crash is mandatory for hackers, I think), but the Baroque Cycle has been sitting on my shelf waiting to be read for some time.

I literally read the Baroque Cycle back to back when it came out in paperback. But I still have trouble getting into "Anathem".

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Larry Niven and Stephen Baxter write wonderful hard SF, and Isaac Asimov and Robert Heinlein have much to say about anything you'd care to explore.

I am still working up to the SF of the 50'ies and 60'ies. Joe Haldeman is far as I've got, and I hope to read more of Philip K. Dick's work which he did in the 60'ies.

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Honestly, I don't read much American literature (the kind scholars and Pulitzer prizes flock to). It doesn't speak to me the way SF does, despite covering similar themes.

Same thing here. I reckon it might be a generational thing. To accept genre fiction as having value is uncommon in the high-brow department since it has not been around for long enough to be considered as "certified good". I came to trust my own judgement, and as large as the field is which genre fiction covers, you are always ready to make discoveries, if you are curious enough

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19th century English literature does interest me, however. Tales of the past seem almost as fantastic as tales of the future, I suppose.

Depends upon the writer's perspective. One of these days I'll have worked up enough courage to start on Dickens. Luckily, Dickens never was the subject of English classes where I went to school

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I literally read the Baroque Cycle back to back when it came out in paperback. But I still have trouble getting into "Anathem".

Already finished Anathem some weeks ago (parallel to the soccer world championship) - nice read. But I must admit that I had the german translation...

Edit: Thinking about making a Workbench backdrop with a new slogan: "It's not over yet!"

Last edited by cha05e90 on 13-Oct-2010 at 08:25 PM.

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Taking it apart and looking at the bits and pieces in class did not do it much good. Funny thing: what the book supposedly had to say, according to what was taught to us, disagreed with what I later learned were Ray Bradbury's intentions.

The marvelous thing about literature is its openness to interpretation. Many authors, some of my favorites included, feel they hold an interpretive and creative monopoly on their works. In reality, a story on the page is only half a story. It's the mind of the reader, not the author, that truly brings a story to life. The author is merely a guide, albeit it a creative one.

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I did not really appreciate what the medium could do until I hit upon "From hell".

I haven't read From Hell, although I've seen the Johnny Depp film. That doesn't count, obviously. I think Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns is what really pushed me to look beyond the art--which I certainly appreciate--and into the story itself. As a teenager, I was also very much into Heavy Metal, Tales From the Crypt (and other EC stuff), and anything else that didn't treat its audience like children.

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I am still working up to the SF of the 50'ies and 60'ies. Joe Haldeman is far as I've got, and I hope to read more of Philip K. Dick's work which he did in the 60'ies.

I read The Forever War in a hotel room in Seattle earlier this year. Excellent novel. Although it's ties to America's involvement in Vietnam are clear, it's not difficult to draw parallels between it and today's "war on terror." (The ending felt like it belonged in a Douglas Adams novel, though. Still, great book.)

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One of these days I'll have worked up enough courage to start on Dickens. Luckily, Dickens never was the subject of English classes where I went to school.

Dickens is mandatory here, of course. It's possible that at least one of my copies of A Tale of Two Cities escaped from a school as well. I'm not a kleptomaniac, really. Books just want to be free is all. Try Jane Austen if you want a confusing romp through the late 18th century.

The closest I've come reading anything in a language other than English is Camus's L'Etranger. I didn't make it very far. The most recent English translation is wonderful, though--no attempts by the author to "explain" the text during the translation.

EDIT: Other current SF authors I really enjoy are Greg Bear and Iain M. Banks. I read my share of pop trash as well, e.g. Charlaine Harris's Sookie Stackhouse novels, upon which the series True Blood is (very poorly) based.

Last edited by Trev on 13-Oct-2010 at 08:48 PM.

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That was an interesting read. Thank you for that.

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You mean the 64-bit architecture that's an extension of IA-32? The "real" 64-bit platforms made a splash in the late 90's, but it's taken more than a decade for 64-bit architecture to catch on in the consumer desktop space.

Last edited by Trev on 13-Oct-2010 at 11:25 PM.

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Already finished Anathem some weeks ago (parallel to the soccer world championship) - nice read. But I must admit that I had the german translation...

I preordered the book when it was announced and received the hardcover edition in time for Christmas. Ever since then I stumbled after the first 20 pages and could not see much of a reason to continue. I have tried this four times over so far. Which is weird, since I literally could not stop reading the Baroque Cycle books.

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Thinking about making a Workbench backdrop with a new slogan: "It's not over yet!"

Blimey, could that be a meme?

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The marvelous thing about literature is its openness to interpretation. Many authors, some of my favorites included, feel they hold an interpretive and creative monopoly on their works. In reality, a story on the page is only half a story. It's the mind of the reader, not the author, that truly brings a story to life. The author is merely a guide, albeit it a creative one.

Trust the tale, not the teller?

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I haven't read From Hell, although I've seen the Johnny Depp film. That doesn't count, obviously.

All the adaptations of Alan Moore's work fared very poorly. That even includes the best-intentioned "Watchmen" movie, which I found bordered on being really, really boring.

In some cases the original medium is used so well that an adaptation can only suffer from the translation to a different medium.

In the case of "V for vendetta" I actually thought that going from black & white drawings to colour robbed the book of its effectiveness.

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I think Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns is what really pushed me to look beyond the art--which I certainly appreciate--and into the story itself.

Frank Miller is the big exception of being a writer and a visual artist. When that combination works out well, the results are spectacular.

So far I have avoided the DC/Marvel comics. I never could get my head around the concepts driving their serials. Even if it's Frank Miller or Alan Moore who are continuing the Batman storyline, the story is still about a character I cannot relate to, or find in any form interesting.

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As a teenager, I was also very much into Heavy Metal, Tales From the Crypt (and other EC stuff), and anything else that didn't treat its audience like children.

Lucky you. I grew up on Disney comics, with the occasional original Belgian or French comics thrown in (Disney's European comics used to be written and inked in Italy and France, if I remember correctly). This sort of thing becomes boring by the time you grow up to become a teenager. I did not buy or read any comic books for more than 20 years.

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I read The Forever War in a hotel room in Seattle earlier this year. Excellent novel. Although it's ties to America's involvement in Vietnam are clear, it's not difficult to draw parallels between it and today's "war on terror." (The ending felt like it belonged in a Douglas Adams novel, though. Still, great book.)

"The forever war" is quite accessible in letting you pin down what of story it's an allegory of. That bit was quite obvious, and the story is told well. But what I found in the story I did not see before was how it treated time dilation as an essential story element.

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Try Jane Austen if you want a confusing romp through the late 18th century.

i did my best to make sense of the Brontë sisters novels, but it didn't work out for me. The kind of society they depict, and the actions of their characters almost made it look like some sort of science fiction to me

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The closest I've come reading anything in a language other than English is Camus's L'Etranger. I didn't make it very far. The most recent English translation is wonderful, though--no attempts by the author to "explain" the text during the translation.

So far I've read and finished reading books by Russian, Greek, Italian, Dutch, Persian and Chinese authors. You see patterns in how stories are built and told, and some cultures value the very act of storytelling more highly than others. I found that when the emphasis is on didactics, as is so often the case with German authors, the books become unreadable very quickly.

Try Umberto Eco's first two novels if you can

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after the first 20 pages

Oh yes, I know what you mean, especially after having read the B cycle or Cryptonomicon. But I really *wanted* to read it - and after some 100-200 pages it really started making fun... I had a similar situation with Eco's Pendulum - it really started making fun after some 300 pages or so...

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Blimey, could that be a meme?

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nice article.
it fills me of expectation for a bright future.

g0blin

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