Mmmm I'm reading now

Update:
Nice read but there are few typing errors

Thanks for this Q&A.

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ikir

Python will replace Arexx!

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There seems to be a recurring theme in the questions - what are the future plans.

The responses confuse me, though:
Quote:

Fleecy, Question 2:As we have said on several occasions...

Quote:

Fleecy, Question 3:The long announced plan has always been...

Where are these kind of things published? Is there a "proper" (i.e. up-to-date) roadmap?

How is a newcomer to all this supposed to find out all of the official plans and news, without resorting to trawling through stacks of news articles, forum posts, etc.

Argh!

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It's about time :) Stupid cyber space.

I tell ya what guys, im a little disapointed. Some of the questions... geezzzz.. Some seem as if they've been aswered before or are just totally obvious! Is it just me?

The only interesting question was 10... even though i didnt know what it was asking, it would have been nice to find out an actual answere. If fleecy had said "I cant say anything because its confidential", i would understand, but to not talk about it because others think he talks to much instead of doing, is a little silly, considering this was set up to hear him speak :)

Hrmm i dont think i have much good to say about it, but i've forgetten what most of it says already :)

1, 8, 9 and 10 where pretty good. And i thought i understood question 6, but it sounds as if this person is getting mixed up between DE/AA and OS4!!! Who chooses these question?

Chunder:

Yes, the roadmap has always been on Amiga Incs site. A little searching should get you there, either by google or manualy!

Re: "Fleecy: Python is being considered as the cross platform scripting language for AmigaOS4. It is still too early to talk about the project as AmigaOS4.0 itself is the priority at the moment but progress is being made in determining how to create a version that will integrate well with and make use of all the new features of AmigaOS4. Important issues to consider include the GUI and how best to implement the concept of the "ARexx port". "

This is BS! The author of the great AmigaPython port told me it had been dropped from OS4, and yet that already includes a great integration with ARexx.

This reminds me of the time that Fleecy and the guy from Tao told me they didn't give a s*** about AmigaOS at a mobile phone developers conference I was at.

As for dropping support for OS3, what is he talking about? They've never offered any support for OS3 themselves, and the other companies that did ditched it 2 years ago! So they've never given any support to drop. Real OS3 support would involve releasing the 68K version of OS4 or a new boingbag with bug fixes in.

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Quote:

The author of the great AmigaPython port told me it had been dropped from OS4, and yet that already includes a great integration with ARexx.

So they must be talking with other people than this guy for doing the Python port/integration? If that is/was a good choice will remain to be seen, but they will have their reasons. It is their OS, they have the responsibility, they have to make the decision. Nothing to argue about before .

The only message here seems to be 'Python will be the scripting language successor for ARexx' (even if I, personally would have liked continued ARexx development.. Started with Rexx on the Amiga, then MVS/zOS, the OS/2 until today).

Quote:

This reminds me of the time that Fleecy and the guy from Tao told me they didn't give a s*** about AmigaOS at a mobile phone developers conference I was at.

Must have been within the 18 months Fleecy is talking about in answer 2 then. I for one am glad AmigaInc. can make such decisions (and even change their mind so much) if they see their original plan does not work. I mean, if the overall target does not change, you can take a different road to travel there. This is the flexibility a startup needs just to stay afloat.

Quote:

They've never offered any support for OS3 themselves

I think he means:

OS 3.5 Support

and the other pages under 'Support'. Boing Bags, MLs, ..

Quote:

Real OS3 support would involve releasing the 68K version of OS4 or a new boingbag with bug fixes in.

OS3 support is not in any way connected to OS4. If you think about it a backport of OS4 would mean that AmigaInc. (and Hyperion) would be expected to continue 68k support until the end of line for OS4 ("If you do 4.0 for 68k why not 4,2? if 4.2 why not 4.5? You know the Kommunity ) Do you really want that?

And well he just basically said there will be no support for OS3 anymore, so no boingbag or such, which was the kind of support they have done before.

Other than that, nice Q&A, AW.net. Good stuff

Ciao, Alex

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Is it me, or has the writing tone changed?

Was this Transcribed by someone (from a dictaphone or something)?

Re: "That's a technical detail I don't want to discuss in the public, what can be said is that we can easily track which loaded code segments belong to which task and the JIT makes use of that functionality."

What about 68k (app) libraries (example: muimaster.library). Code in there does not belong to any task. Why is there differences between code in OS and "outside" anyway. it's 99,999% the same thing.

Whether you have a library in the OS (~resident list) or not (as disk library in LIBS:): the source code would be basically completely identical in both cases.

Quote:

Poster: Georg Date: 13-Nov-2003 16:16:36 Re: "That's a technical detail I don't want to discuss in the public, what can be said is that we can easily track which loaded code segments belong to which task and the JIT makes use of that functionality." What about 68k (app) libraries (example: muimaster.library). Code in there does not belong to any task. Why is there differences between code in OS and "outside" anyway. it's 99,999% the same thing. Whether you have a library in the OS (~resident list) or not (as disk library in LIBS:): the source code would be basically completely identical in both cases.

That was exactly the point I was trying to raise, but it wasn't answered, but with lost of Fleecy speak.

@pods

Um - It may well be there, but it is *extremely* well hidden - I can't find it by browsing and searching through the site.

There's so many different sub-areas (with different styles, facilities and links), but nothing that clearly identifies such frequently asked questions.

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Heres the road map for OS4. I believe a lot of this is correct but notice that some of 4.1 and maybe 4.2 have moved into 4.0!

Also some of the names have changed, for example, the tcpip stax that was said to be in 4.o is now named "roadshow", not what was said in the article. Plus this is very old, other things are bound to change!

@pods
Thanks for that - but you've justified my point entirely!

Fleecy is stating that such-and-such was announced/agreed/documented ages ago - except the documentation is out of date.
The only way to find out what's changed is to read through every forum posting, news article, and all the associated "noise"

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Quote:

from roadmap AmigaOS4 will not only be able to run existing AmigaOS applications (this requires an Eyetech AmigaOne with a AA system attached to it to provide the AA chipset),

Is this accurate? What does it mean? I have no idea that you could get AA PCI plug in gubbins. (Is this what the catweazle thingy is )

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Hey there

why don't you get a few mails together from others on what they would like to see in an updated roadmap and I'll see what I can do.

As for writing style - some of the questions were answered by the AmigaOS4.0 team. As I was in a rush, I didn't transcribe them this time.

As for evading one of the questions, I don't believe I did. Someone asked about using a 32 bit per colour resolution and I said that such advanced features were being considered (or something like that) but that I couldn't talk about Vega because it is a work in progress at the moment and I've been hung, drawn and quartered before for talking about things we were considering but which never happened.

cheers

fleecy moss
cto
amiga inc

'As far as AmigaOS3 is concerned we have to look at the business arguments for continuing to support it.'

They support AmigaOS3? Why can't I get any Support reps on the phone? Maybe what he means is supporting OS3 by releasing an OS3.10 or something?

Quote:

Poster: BrianK Date: 13-Nov-2003 15:26:31 'As far as AmigaOS3 is concerned we have to look at the business arguments for continuing to support it.' They support AmigaOS3? Why can't I get any Support reps on the phone? Maybe what he means is supporting OS3 by releasing an OS3.10 or something?

Perhaps they mean actively supporting os3.x software/tools/hw???

Personnally I would go for a clean break, so software can progress without the chains of legacy support. (e.g. WinXP->Win95->Win3.1->Dos )

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OMG, look at #9!

128 bpp float based ARGB? What kind of obsessive overkill is that? Jeez, why not use doubles and go for a round 256 bits per pixel?

Incidentally, I should add even 3.x uses a device independent 32-bit per channel format for palettes (a fixed fraction). Converting that to any other format simply involves discarding the unneeded bits.

For drawing functions that do shading etc, specifying colours in floating point makes some sense, I agree. It's not a lot different from setting vertex colours in opengl/warp3d.

However, using that level of colour detail in truecolour BitMaps would be utter lunacy. I accept that applications like PhotogenicsHDR need 32 bits per gun for processing images at high colour definition but there isn't a display device capable of that level of ouptut resolution.

Furthermore, the whole point of 24-bit RGB is that the human eye can't readily distinguish more shades than that anyway. Even state of the art gfx cards only output 10 bits per channel (usually as part of a calibrated output).

So IMHO, ultimately for raster displays it would be a total waste of memory and processor time (to convert the floating point image data to a normal ARGB pixel format).

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Doing stupid things for fun...

Quote:

Poster: Karlos Date: 13-Nov-2003 15:49:58 OMG, look at #9!

that was my question!

I understand your point completely. However what I had in mind was the problem with multiple colour add/alpha operations. With 8 bits per channel you have to clamp the result after each operation, where as using a float you can do it at the end of all the operations. Result is less precision in the overall effect is lost.
[edit] which is what you kinda mentioned, but I don't read so well and missed that bit [/edit]

Quote:

Furthermore, the whole point of 24-bit RGB is that the human eye can't readily distinguish more shades than that anyway. Even state of the art gfx cards only output 10 bits per channel (usually as part of a calibrated output). So IMHO, ultimately for raster displays it would be a total waste of memory and processor time (to convert the floating point image data to a normal ARGB pixel format).

I don't expect this type of functionallity any time soon, but in IMHO, in the future 2+ years gfx cards will be heading in this direction, mainly in the interal registers for pixel shaders etc.

Or failing that, I'm going :)

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Mobileconnect wrote:
Quote:

This is BS! The author of the great AmigaPython port told me it had been dropped from OS4, and yet that already includes a great integration with ARexx.

The only argument I see is that you claim Python support has been definately dropped from the AmigaOS 4.0 release while Fleecy claims Python support is still being considered for AmigaOS4. Since AmigaOS 4.0 and AmigaOS4 are not the same thing, I can't be sure this is BS.

Quote:

This reminds me of the time that Fleecy and the guy from Tao told me they didn't give a s*** about AmigaOS at a mobile phone developers conference I was at.

According to the ancedotal evidence I have, I believe this to be true at one point in time. At that time they believed Tao's solution would solve all their problems in one go. However, Fleecy also wrote:
Quote:

As we have said on several occasions, the AmigaDE was always a technology set from which we were to develop product lines. The first product line we talked about was Amie, which was to be a Smartphone to Server operating environment. However, after 18 months of experience with Intent, it became apparent that it would not be able to span such a wide vision, being better suited to a content solution. This allowed us to restart AmigaOS development, with the aim of developing it over time into something approaching the original Amie concept, whilst implementing the Amiga Anywhere and AACE product lines from the AmigaDE technology set.

So he admits they made a mistake and they are correcting their error. No BS there.

Quote:

As for dropping support for OS3, what is he talking about?...

This one you are bang on and I have some personal experience with their "support" to back me up. I think Amiga Inc. should just drop official support for all previous AmigaOS versions today and let the community support itself. We're obviously better at it anyway. The only thing I would ask is that they either host the various BoingBags and the SDK or allow free (as in freedom) public distribution.

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