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With the recent announcement of another project to develop and produce a PPC based Amiga, similar to the Amiga One, do you think this is the right direction that the Amiga as a platform should be heading?
If so, how would you like to see it develop and evolve?
If not, why not, and what would you like to see instead?
Yes.
Things would get very boring if yet another machine was to switch to Intel processors, and there would be more piracy of AmigaOS.
And I can't think of any other suitable processors, since the Amigas have been using PPCs as upgrades for years.
And I really can't imagine Bill wanting to use a different processor either.
I think they should be sticking to the original idea of utlimately making the OS, hardware independant.
Taking a realistic view, the market for non-IBM Compatible computers today is very small and already pretty much filled by Apple. If AmigaOS is only going to run on it's own hardware then it's going to sell in very small numbers indeed. Even platform independent it would be difficult. I mean they give Linux away and it's market share is single figures on desktop computers. Personally I don't consider Amigas with PPC Processors as real Amiga. The real ClassicAmiga has a Motorola 68k inside it.
To be honest, the outlook is more hopefull than it has been for a while for new OSes.
There is a lot of resentment in the UK from businesses because of the way they are forced to upgrade the OS by MS and as a result the hardware.
A small efficient OS running on power efficient hardware, running a half decent office suite could quite easily take the market by storm.
People are more aware of the alternatives like Linux and Mac OS, so there would be no great leap to introduce something new.
I'm sure MS will be aware of this.
I believe this is something they have already done in the lab.
It is quite hard to see any new Amiga OS becoming popular these days outside of the existing dedicated Amiga fan base. It has been too long now since the last of the real Amiga's existed in the marketplace.
Personally I think it should go platform independent. Other projects such as AROS and Amithlon have already gone down this route and have proved popular with Amiga fans.
The problem with the current development of OS4 is that the hardware is proprietary and very rare. Anyone buying into such a system will not have the hardware support or the security of knowing they can get replacement hardware further down the line.
And these days you have to question what the point is of developing your own unique hardware platform, when PC hardware is already very advanced and available cheaply with a lot of support. Would Linux be as popular if it had to be run on a dedicated Unix computer? Of course not.
Linux may be free, but companies still sell support and commercial versions of it and this works well and makes them a lot of money. They wouldn't keep doing it if it didn't.
Personally I think the best route is open source development with a commercial side running in parallel. This works well for Red Hat who run the free Linux distro Fedora alongside it. The development of Fedora feeds directly into the business grade commercial Red Hat. And the same is true of Apple with Mac OS X, as much of that is based on open source code, including the Safari browser.
I think for Amiga OS to survive a similar route needs to be taken, and for it to jump ship and become Intel CPU compatible. PPC CPUs are quickly becoming a dead processor in the PC market now that Apple have abandoned them. It isn't the end of PPC. The PS3 Cell CPU is based around the technology for example, and many PDAs and utilities in the house are using them, but for desktop systems I think they are currently gone.
I think they should continue as they are.
OS4 shouldn't be limited to the Amiga One as there are other systems in development that it should be able to run on, and it is also possible to use it on a Mac Mini, although, I should think that the software for that has been released. If it has, please tell me so I can go and buy a Mac Mini.
If I need a new computer in the future, I won't hesitate to buy an Amiga, be it a PPC upgrade, or an AmigaOne or similar provided that I can afford it. (And hopefully I probably will be able to afford one this year at the expense of all you tax payers ;))
As harrison said, I think it should go platform independent.
But what i really would love to see, is a new Amiga 68K... :D imagine a Amiga 1250 or a Amiga 700... something like that... with capabilities to run old software...
Who remembers that Amiga on a chip project? Someone was developing an A500 on a single chip. That would have been brilliant. Imagine how small the system could have been. Even an A500 on a PCI card! Anyone know what became of the project?
The creator wrote a guide on how you can build it yourself. See http://home.hetnet.nl/~weeren001/
Nice idea, but a bit beyond me. Would be cool to be able to build your own mini A500 though.
They started a thread over at Amiga Org, to see how many were interested. I cant even find the original thread now, so im quessing nothing will come of this. Really liked the idea of having a mini-mig.
The problem with building and selling it would be
a) Kickstart ROM, although I think this could be solved by bundling a copy of Amiga Forever with each one sold which adds about £15 to the cost. I'd imagine giving a licence for AF would allow you to include the KS on a chip.
b) Electronics licencing - Not sure on the exacts of this, but don't electronics have to pass some safety certifications before they can be sold?
However these two are bypassed by making it a 'build it yourself' project. The end result if you have the skills really is quite impressive:
http://home.hetnet.nl/~weeren001/files/Minimig_rev1.JPG
all i can say is
AOS for x86 :D
ZetrO wrote:
Going x86 would for sure make things a bit easier. The hardware is cheap and readily available, and it would be easier for most people to try out the OS if they are interested. Not the worst move that could be made! :)Quote:
all i can say is AOS for x86
I too have wished for years that Amiga OS developers would just ditch the now dated and no longer viable PPC architecture (PPC chip development is no longer focused on computer development, but instead is now completely geared towards integration within appliances and other SFF technology), and instead move forward with an Amiga OS for x86 architecture.
Doing this would instantly remove the need for proprietary hardware, which is always expensive, suffers from delays and short manufacturing runs, and therefore is always hard to source. In contrast x86 architecture is readily available off the shelf, is cheap, and current Linux driver architecture could surely be used to improve compatibility.
It would also suddenly open up the Amiga OS to current PC technology, rather than that of the past. This would surely entice more game and productivity developers to start making products for the Amiga again. Much like Windows, Linux, and now Mac OS, the technology behind the OS is completely the same. It is just the OS and what it can do that makes the difference. This brings great choice to the user, who only has to invest in a single hardware platform, but then has access and the ability to run whichever OS and software they wish. Much better than having a load of custom proprietorial hardware platforms, each incompatible with each other, as was the case in the past.
To be honest i think we should all admit the AOS for anything other than Amiga hardware is a bit of a dead end. AOS on a PC is fine but there would be no point as there wouldn't be any software to run on it. You may be able to run the old Amiga games but at the end of the day thats what UAE is for. The only reason PPC achitecture was used is because it was sold as 68000 code could be easily ported to PPC's as the both chips were made by Motorola. Why would anyone build a x86 accelerator board for either classic amigas or Amiga Ones? The market is extremely limited, the boards would be extremely expensive and by the time a board i sdesigned and new software is written the x86 would be out of date. Then there would be the cooling issues. The board would have to be either zorro (which would be pointless as the bus speeds would be too slow and the achitecture is outdated or PCI. With PCI you would be taking up at least the next 3 slots with the heatsink and fan.
The reality is that OS4 will be the last AOS and the Amigas will then be truely relegated to Fanboys and Nostalgia freaks like us.
You can't continue to support and keep ageing technology in the present, especially as the platform it is all connected into gets older and older. Therefore a future version of Amiga OS should be based on the x86 hardware platform and JIT and other emulation techniques used to support backwards compatibility.
I know the budget isn't comparable, but look at Apple. They moved their complete platform from PPC to x86 and all programs needed to be re-written to make then native and therefore run faster, or at all. Many moaned, but now the move is complete they are happy again.
The truth is that the PPC processor is dead as a computer platform. It has gone off in a different direction and only stayed in development as a CPU for the desktop market for so long because of Apple. Now they have ditched it there is no viable desktop computer market for PPC to continue its development down that route. Therefore the main alternative x86 has to be the logical move for any OS looking to still be here in another 5 years.
In truth i have argued an X86 aproach for years on other forums,
alas the die-hards seem to think that by including an intel based co-processor perverts the Amiga cause (one of the reasons I am not on A.Org)
One could easly run a C7 1ghz x86 companion chip passively cooled or with a laptop cpu cooling unit, the tech has already been designed and implemented all it needs is to be constructed for another use...
one could easly add to this a 68k compatible chip and SDRAM interface
if anyone here remembers the PC286 card for the A500, it had 1MB of ram on board that it could share with the miggy, as well as use chip and fast.
The way i see the x86 AOS, would only really work for me atleast with a transparent 68k emulator that would function in seamless motion as the code-header chunks are inspected and then executed for the right cpu (similar to the warp-up code).
On another more direct x86 AOS (legacy almost free ;) ) I would of hoped Amiga.inc would of adopted a basic linux and bade it thier own, from this there own implementation of OpenGL with enough development it would offered another gamming platform.... hell theres not that much to it these days...
grab a cheap grafix solution,
slap a USB base controller,
yam on a simple CPU
proprietary is for large chip producing corps.
The problem is what would be the point of AOS on a x86 processor? Linux works because it is free and has software support. AOS would cost money and have no software support. As for supporting old architecture, you're right there is no point in supporting the classic or even Amiga one archetecture and as AOS hos nothing to offer anyone the AOS for x86 is pointless. As an OS it offers no innovations and doesn't measure up to any of the newer OS so why bother? It would just be an exercise in futility and a backroom project for fanboys.
Which is actually exactly what the PPC only Amiga OS4 currently is. There are so few PPC powered Amiga's that there is little point in it from a marketing or commercial standpoint. It is only the continuing Amiga fan base that has any kind of interest in it.
And those of us without PPC are completely locked out from it, with PPC cards being so rare now. Therefore what is the difference between the current OS4 running on PPC or x86 hardware?
Moving the future development of Amiga OS over to x86 hardware would instantly open it's accessibility to nearly everyone on the planet. You can build a pretty good PC these days for less than some of the PPC accelerators for the Amiga have been selling for second hand lately!
As for software compatibility. What native PPC software is actually available for OS4? Not much. So what would the difference be? Dual core x86 CPUs are now pretty much the standard, so an extra core could easily be dedicated to transparent emulation for older software support. Therefore opening up a x86 native Amiga OS to backwards compatibility. Plus you could run UAE on it for classic Amiga support if needed (where the custom chip emulation is needed).
I don't think continuing along any development that needs proprietary hardware is a good idea. Although moving to x86 would open up the ability to use the CatWeasel controller for direct access to Amiga floppies.
The other advantage of x86 is that current processors are far ahead of PPC in development and their speed is much faster. And again, look at the technology and hardware available for x86 based systems. Compare that with that available for PPC powered Amigas. Graphics cards many years out of date, and limited support for other cards.
If they continue down the PPC route the Amiga OS will just fall further and further backwards into complete obscurity and eventually vanish.
Why create a new version of Amiga OS for x86? For the future, not the past! We have classic Amigas in our collections, as well as emulation for the past. Amiga fans want a new Amiga OS, running on cutting edge technology again, taking full advantage of the hardware and software created that is in the present.
What future? what you are describing is basically an OS replacement for windows that can be run on a PC that would be able to do stuff that you can already do via UAE but without any of the advantages of other replacement OS's. What i'm trying to say is that AOS is dead in all it's forms. The only reason that there is a slim possibility that PPC boards may be made is because of die hards like ourselves who would like to run AOS4 even though it's nothing special and it's not special because of the CPU but because all it is is a ported version of OS3 with PD stuff thrown in and a prettier look.Quote:
Originally Posted by Harrison
The Amiga and it's OS is dead. Long live the Amiga!!
But, but, but... My point is that I want to see Amiga OS developed properly for the future. Therefore it need to go over to x86. Also as it is all but dead I also think it should go completely open source, making it a great alternative to Linux! Open source also means sudden increased interest in development of both an OS and it's software support.
I know you want to see it developed for the future but even Open Sourced you couldn't go from 3.1 to a decent OS without thousands of people programming 24 hours a day for about 5 years. I say 3.1 because 3.5 and 3.9 are made of shareware and PD so all of that would have to go Open sourced and then if you look at all the other Open sourced amiga software then you'll see that even they have failed so why the OS would succeed i don't know.
As an Open sourced project it would always be at best 3 years behind windows and linux and therefore utterly useless.
Having said that isn't AROS basically what you're after? And thats been going for nearly 10 years and still hasn't become fully useable and is little more than 3.1 with a tart up due to better hardware and still cannot compete with even Win95 or 98. If anything a x86 port of AOS would show how bad an OS it is compared to modern systems and would be the final nail in the coffin. At leats if you're forced to dig out old hardware and conmnect it up you start to live in nostalgia land and become deluded into how good an OS it is.
Please don't get me wrong. I'd love for the AOS to be updated and for Amiga hardware to be able to carry on but the reality is the AOS will never again be a competitor in the computer market even as free software and as an OS there will be better OS's on MP3 players.
The AROS project has made quite a bit of progress during the last year. Already in 2008, work is well under way when it comes to creating a webbrowser and an e-mail client. Besides, the deadline for UAE integration is in May, so it will be exciting to see what will happen on this front.
And you never know what is happening in the future. I don't think the AmigaOS is dead yet, and it could be that something is in store for us in 2008 or 2009. ;)
If it is made open source, made usable for x86, then anything can happen. There's a lot of skilled developers and people still putting an effort into the Amiga, and I'm sure they could contribute with a lot.
AROS is all well and good, but it is really just developing a WB3.1 style port for x86 hardware. I really want to see a completely new Amiga OS developed from the ground up for x86 that utilises all of the ideas and features of the original OS, but brings it bang up to date.
I know I'm dreaming, but I can but hope.
But I do agree that in many regards AROS is the system I've been hoping for as far as the Amiga OS to date goes. And although development has been on going for a long time it has increased a lot recently and is looking much more promising now.
Dreaming doesn't quite cover that, I'm afraid.Quote:
Originally Posted by Harrison
As for AROS. It's only just started working on a web browser and email client??? I know the progress has speeded up just recently but after 10 years it is still little more than a replacement OS for systems running DOS.
While something is still being developed, it's impossible to say it's dead or will never be great again.
Situations can change relatively quickly in the tech world.
Sometimes the change in fortunes can come from a strange source.
I'm thinking of Apple now.
They looked pretty much dead in the water at one point not so long ago.
It wasn't their computers or operating system that turned the company round.
A simple mp3 player that wasn't ground breaking in any way was marketed more as a fashion accessory than a useful device.
There are a lot of people who will buy into that ideology.
The money made from that success encouraged Apple to try the same technique with their OS and hardware.
That and aming products at the multimedia industry has boosted their slice of the pie dramatically.
I am told that in America, sales of PCs and MACs is 50/50.
Don't know how true that is.
Now I'm not saying that the are not going to take prime position away from M$, but then again I wont say that it can't happen either.
It is my belief that with sufficient will from people with a real interest to revitalize the Amigas, they start from the Motorola 68040, use an external derivate of the 68882 and then build up to make it support a second architecture like x86. In terms of chipset, you certainly can have the AAA brought back from the dead and made hardware compatible with AGA and ECS+OCS. Voila, you can have a classic Amiga able to run Windows.
Even with all of the will in the world, if you don't have the money or the resources it will always remain a dream at best. The Amiga world has been wishing for a true successor to the 68K line of Amigas ever since the demise of Commdore, but other than the A500 compareable minimig we haven't seen one. And I don't personally view the AmigaOne as a real Amiga. It isn't really backwardly compatible, so other than the OS looking similar it is a completely separate and different platform.
Most people view the PC as a Windows machine that is Microsoft orientated. However I have always viewed the PC platform as the most modular and open hardware platform available. Yes, it is used to run Windows, but you can also use it to run many other OSs instead. As a hardware platform it is the most developed and up to date of any, seeing the latest graphics cards, sound cards, ram, CPUs, HDDs etc... so personally I don't see a point in wasting money developing proprietary hardware any more. Even Apple ditched that idea a couple of years ago and now just assemble Macs from off the shelf PC parts. Why keep reinventing the wheel. Just the one that already exists.
I think that if the new amiga system is released and they update OS4 to go with it, they should make it a) Open Source and b) add support for current AMD and Intel Processors, we could have amiga OS4 running on intel's ion platform or netbooks as a fast, lightweight OS that is resistant to viruses.
Sorry I've been a way for a while, but here's my two pennies worth!
I think, that they should be concerntrating on making AmigaOS cross-platform.
PPC hardware (especially Amiga PPC hardware) is soooooo expensive and the manufacturers have priced themselves out of the market, not to mention the high price of AmigaOS 4.x
I know some people will disagree, but the x86 platform (or x64 in the future) should be the way to go. Being as there's plenty of emulators for the classic amiga on the x86 platform, it would be easy to say, integrate WinUAE emulation/functionality into AmigaOS 4.x (or 5.x or whatever version it's gonna get next)
Although PPC is a great atchitecture/CPU/platform/whatever, it's not as accessible nowadays (not so easy to find PPC motherboards etc.) and it's not very mainstream.
OK, so maybe the idea is not to be mainstream, but surely the future Amiga doesn't need to become so obscure and highly priced that it ends up turning into a complete flop!
Anyway, that's my opinion(s) ..... discuss!
Exactly my thoughts too. I've been wishing for OS4 to move direction to x86/x64 for years, as has anyone else who uses up to date PC hardware.
It seems to me that the opinion of PPC is firmly divided between those who bought into PPC at the start and upgraded to OS4 and dedicated PPC Amigas. Therefore wanting OS4 to continue its PPC route. And those of us who stuck with the classic Amiga 68K systems, and refused to waste money on the PPC direction, and are the ones who can see it is an expensive dead end to continue trying to stick with PPC.
As you say, PPC is no longer easily accessible. And PPC Amiga design continues to utilise out of date technology. Slow FSB, IDE and obsolete ram types.
For OS4 to truly be of interest it has to support modern multicore CPUs, have support for newer system architecture with faster DDR3 ram, newer AGP and PCI-E graphics cards (linux can so why can't Amiga OS), and most importantly it has to embrace the modern connection types we now take for granted, such as USB2/3, and SATA.
I'm not sure how it would work if the OS were Open Source. Who would step up to work on it? Who would support it?
I do however love the suggestion of integrating WinUAE into an x86 version. That would work perfectly. WinUAE is a brilliant 68k Amiga emulator which can emulate classic Amiga system much faster than any real 68k CPU ever could, and would be the perfect legacy solution for the OS. The one hurdle to overcome is to somehow integrate legacy Amiga hardware support. Catweasel is the perfect controller for this, to allow direct access to real Amiga floppy disks, as well as Amiga joystick, mouse and keyboard ports. But the software and compatibility would need to be improved.
Imagine, a x86 Amiga OS4, bundled with a directly supported and better working version of a PCI/PCI-E Catweasel controller, and integrated seamless WinUAE (thing XP mode in Win7). That is my dream for the future of the Amiga.
In fact, if the OS was bundled with such an I/O card, and designed so it would only work when it was present, it would solve the issues argued over the port to x86 signalling the death of Amiga OS due to piracy.
Harrison, it looks like we're thinking along the same lines here.
I like your idea of a 'Catweasel' card being a sort of 'dongle' for the OS .... that'd solve the piracy issue.
My only issue is ..... if WinUAE emulation were to be integrated into OS 4.x/5.x/whatever, then what about getting/obtaining Kickstart ROM images of 1.x -> 3.x :hmmm:
These would need to be distributed with the OS for it to be considered a 'complete' solution, surely not!?! What about the copyright issues that come with that?
What about the card being able to accept real Kickstart roms? Maybe 2 or more slots for them?
Now that's a BRILLIANT idea.Quote:
Originally Posted by Harrison
You could have 3.0 or 3.1 ROMs
Or even 1.3 or 2.0 ROMs (if you so wished)
It could even be made to support 1.4 Beta ROMs as what's in the early A3000, and then boot Kickstart from hard disk (just like the early A3000)
Also, whoever is selling the OS might be able to arrange some kind of licensing deal to bundle the card with kickstart roms as standard. Have KS3.1 fitted as standard with legal licensing would be a great option. Or you could license KS rom files that only worked when the card is detected. Again, solving the copyright and piracy issues.
There are many fairly simple solutions to the KS issue in my view, and it is just excuses when you get those in the industry saying they can't do it for whatever reason.
If someone really wanted to do it, I'm sure it could have been easily made reality.
Imagine if one of us had won that 50+ Million on the Euro Lottery last Friday. Some of the money could easily have been used to do such a thing. How much is Amiga Inc worth?
I'm sure the Kickstart on a card idea would be possible. The idea isn't new as for many years Emulators, Inc made the 'Gemulator ROM Card' which allowed you to use real Macintosh ROMs with their Gemulator/Softmac products, and the freeware vMac. That is an ISA card though.
I think the problem with choice of processor is that it already runs on the PPC and porting the OS to another platform may take too much effort for the developers. Making it open source would hopefully solve this.
Apple seemed to overcome the switch from PPC to x86 CPUs fairly well, so I can't see it being the biggest problem ever. A lot fo software is cross compiled for the 2 platforms, especially in the Linux world.
Obviously the biggest issue is optimising the code to make it x86 specific to take full advantage of the CPUs.
The only other main alternative is to move to a different RISC CPU, which wouldn't require as many changes to the code, and for that ARM is the logical choice, but you would still be stuck with proprietary hardware again which is always more expensive.
But the difference with Apple is that they are a big company with quite a big market share (in comparison to the Amiga). And lots of people claim that Apple have had an x86 version of MacOSX for many years before it was released. And the fact that it is unix based probably helped.
The open source NeXTSTEP underpinnings of OSX definitely helped. Even before Apple took over and turned it into OSX it was already running on Motorola 68K, RISC and most importantly Intel x86 CPUs, so Apple already had a head start in the x86 code development. Plus, as you say, Apple is a huge company (now second only to Microsoft by a small margin in terms of cash wealth and the success of the iPod and iPhone).
And it makes perfect sense to the rest of the world to make Amiga OS open source. If anyone was being realistic about the OS, it is in no way mainstream. How many copies of Amiga OS 4 and 4.1 have been sold? That number is limited to the number of working PPC powered Amigas still in operation at the most, which can't be that many. Hyperion therefore have a very finite marketplace to sell their OS to, although I would say they can guarantee that all current PPC Amiga users are likely to purchase a copy of each new version, so they do at least have that. Although that is always being to be a very limited market with no room for real expansion or commercial success.
However, hasn't the ability to port Amiga OS to other platforms been held up until now by the on going dispute between Amiga Inc and Hyperion? In the settlement statement they stated:
"Hyperion is granted an exclusive, perpetual, worldwide right to AmigaOS 3.1 in order to use, develop, modify, commercialize, distribute and market AmigaOS 4.x (and subsequent versions of AmigaOS including without limitation AmigaOS 5) in any form, on any medium and for any current or future hardware platform under the exclusive trademark “AmigaOS” (Amiga operating system) and using other associated trademarks (such as the “BoingBall” logo)."
For me, the crucial wording in that statement is "in any form, on any medium and for any current or future hardware platform". This would indicate the license now grants them the right to port the OS over to other hardware platforms, which sounds like they were not able to do before.
The problem with PPC on the Amiga is it got mis-directed whilst C= were still in business.
Some of you guys may have read my remarks about Amiga & PPC elsewhere on the Web, so I'll be brief here, to save beating my gums all over again.
The very idea of having a PPC chip in your Amiga back in the day, was for Paralell processing & that got buried with the final demise of C= and those infamous words thereafter: "....just 2 more weeks.
Those 2 more weeks got turned into summat like 7 years before the Classic Amiga ever saw OS4 in the guise of "OS4.0 Classic", which left the Amiga raped of an awful lot of hardware supported under the Bastardised OS when it was released.
Because OS4.0 had been made to run on Pee Cee based hardware for those 7 years, Hyperion Entertainment basically ported this crap over to run on the Classic Amigas with PPC cards & left the Amiga flapping around in the wind like a crippled cripple.
Under OS4.0 Classic, 060 based stuff is emulated in a shocking way, meaning an 060 running OS3.9 will absolutely annihilate a 240Mhz PPC using iBrowse 2.4 etc etc, basically because it cant emulate jack.....
If any re-direction could be found, OS4.0/4.1 for the Classic Amigas needs re-writing to run under 68XXX code & utilise the PPC chip in Paralell to accelerate the program being run. In a nutshell, Im' sure its the Pee Cee architecture/OS4.0 coding that cocks everything up, as the way the memory is addressed on OS4.0/4.1 Classic is very different to the 68XXX side of things.
I feel that if they could re-code OS Classic to function faster, the limited bandwidth of the Amiga would still make it too damned chuggy, even if Stan in Poland upgrades your PPC to 333Mhz. He's a darling btw & I have a lot of respect for what this guy has done for the Amiga scene in recent years. ;)
With the recent addition of the up and coming PPC card using an 040 with USB & VGA onboard, I'm sure my comments about the Amiga's lack of bandwidth should register with the more astute of you, but I bet paralell processing isn't even on the agenda with this new card. If it could be done, your 68XXX/PPC based amiga would absolutely fly.
Tbh, the direction of the PPC based OS4.0 classic was wrong from the start, but 7 years of "just 2 more weeks" kinda screwed things beyond imagination
They own the name and the source code. Personally, I'm more of an AROS developer nowadays anyway... AROS has new source code with chipset independent Graphics.library that is backward compatible to CyberGrafX 3 for graphics card support. It also has a different name that is nearly as well recognized as Amiga is any more.Quote:
Originally Posted by Harrison
Other than that, it runs most Amiga software in the 68k version. Once the Copper support is added and GCC or Clang compilers debugged and optimized for 68k, it'll replace AmigaOS anyway. What do we need the name or old source code for.
When AmigaOS 4.x came out, Hyperion added an interface data structure to the library handle of every PPC shared library. This is supported by a slow addressing mode on PPC. It makes the OS slower than it has to be. MorphOS is better but still not completely compatible with chipset emulation.
I suspect now the game-changer for the Classic Amiga is FPGA-based processor softcores. This could bring us 250 MHz+ performance out of an '060 compatible processor.