Crisot has made available a new demonstration video (xvid avi mirror1|mirror2 MPEG1 mirror1|mirror2) showing the AmigaOS4-beta implementation of the unique AmigaOS feature, screen dragging. For recent user screenshots of the AmigaOS4 pre-release look here.
I’m beginnig to wonder if Windows Longhorn/Vista or Amiga OS 4 will be released first. Both should have already arrived last year originally…
When are we going to see Amigas with G5 processors? Last time I looked the fastest Amiga was somewhat slower than the slowest Mac available.
When are we going to see Amigas with G5 processors? Last time I looked the fastest Amiga was somewhat slower than the slowest Mac available.
That will take a long time to get here. There were two efforts going, but they were proven too expensive. But the G4 isn’t dead yet. New 2 Ghz dual-core Freescale G4’s are on the way, cheaper and lower-powered than ever.
There will be more G4 hardware on the way, before we’ll be seeing any G5 stuff.
The G5 isn’t irrelevant, but an AmigaOne trademark is that you have an extremely responsive and fast machine with hardware that only consumes about 20-30W. The G5 can’t provide that yet.
Don’t be fooled by the size of the processor. AmigaOS4 is screaming fast on even an 800 Mhz G3.
For me, personally, this is what AmigaOS is about. This feature which sadly went partially out as it moved to RTG graphics, is one of those must-have features that makes AmigaOS stand out from the rest. It’s very useful and always instantly responsive.
The video is mildly confusing, because he is switching screens and resolution, much faster than his monitor can handle and also cuts the video feed in the middle of screen drag operations? (lousy editing!) But watch the video and see what I mean by the first paragraph. 🙂
Looks pretty neat. I never knew Amiga OS had that capability. And it’s certainly an interesting way of approaching multiple desktops. If only Apple would get round to implementing virtual desktops in OS X.
I’d say they got there act together. Crap man!
@ Anonymous
> I’m beginnig to wonder if Windows Longhorn/Vista or
> Amiga OS 4 will be released first.
AmigaOS4 is sheduled for release in 2005. Longhorn somwhere for 2006. Of course all kinds of people are already using AmigOS4 prelease update #3.
@ henrikmk
> The video is mildly confusing, because he is
> switching screens and resolution, much faster than
> his monitor can handle
What makes you say that? What monitor does Crisot use?
What makes you say that? What monitor does Crisot use?
Don’t know, but it looks like a standard CRT, which takes a second to adjust to different resolutions by going black between Workbench and the 3D demo he has running on a different screen.
It would have been more fun to watch him switch as fast as he could between Workbench and Personal Paint which are the same resolution. 🙂 This would demonstrate how fast it is, compared to switching virtual desktops under Linux.
I know I can’t keep up with my A4000 with an old 25 Mhz A3640 card when switching screens. 🙂
@ MikeGA
> Looks pretty neat. I never knew Amiga OS had that
> capability. And it’s certainly an interesting way of
> approaching multiple desktops. If only Apple would
> get round to implementing virtual desktops in OS X
Imagine having this feature since 1985 at a time when command line interfaces (like ultra limited MSDOS) were the standard and a singletasking monochrome Mac was considered very innovative. 🙂
Imagine being able to quickly switch between many application in the 80s. Copy & Pasting graphics (4096 colors since 1985) and/or data sheet calculations into a word processor, running all these simultaneously and having an stereo music program (vs the PC’s “beeping” capability at the time) running in the background. 😎
To get an impression of Amigas in the 80s, have a look at these old videos:
http://www.archive.org/details/amiga_2
http://www.archive.org/details/amiga_3
Given that they are PPC based, Amiga OS on Cell in the future? What does ‘the Management’ say?
Then back to the days with a specialised hardware…
It’s probably possible as long as Hyperion gets the chance to have some documented hardware to port OS4 to.
And oh… some time as well. 🙂
Given that they are PPC based, Amiga OS on Cell in the future?
They’d be better off going for the Xenon with its three symmetric PPC cores.
Programs would need to be expensively adapted to take advantage of the Cell’s SPUs, whereas the Xenon cores could immediately be utilised through normal multi-tasking.
(But does AmigaOS actually support multiple processors yet?)
@ nimble
> They’d be better off going for the Xenon with its
> three symmetric PPC cores.
One running copy of AmigaOS4 would need only a fraction of the CPU time of one PPC core. What you saw running in this video was on a G3 at 800 Mhz. The simplified PPC core planned as to be used for the PS3”s cell would be a lot faster and clocked at 3.2 Ghz (for specialized software there are 7 active Self-multitasking of SPEs also clocked at 3.2 Ghz each).
One reason why I believe the Cell to be much more interesting is that the Cell is going to be used in lots more decides than solely for the PS3, like in digital TVs, STBs, servers, etc.
Higher clocked versions are also planned and you can even use mutliple Cells within one system, as demonstrated on the Blade server which uses 2 Cells clocked at 2.4 Ghz and was demonstrated running Linux recently.
> (But does AmigaOS actually support multiple
> processors yet?)
There are hybrid 68k/PPC (also even x86) multi-CPU Amiga systems, but AmigaOS multi-threading support is planned for AmigaOS4.1.
One running copy of AmigaOS4 would need only a fraction of the CPU time of one PPC core.
That’s a given. It’s about CPU-intensive applications. The Amiga platform doesn’t have many developers to spare to try and rewrite those applications for the SPEs. The Xenon’s symmetric architecture would provide a much more straightforward upgrade path, once AmigaOS gains multi-processor capability anyway.
There are hybrid 68k/PPC (also even x86) multi-CPU Amiga systems
But there’s no special operating system support for them, right? The PPC or x86 just acts as a kind of coprocessor?
AmigaOS multi-threading support is planned for AmigaOS4.1
Are you sure they call it multi-threading?
Afaik multi-threading means the ability to split your application into (pseudo-)parallel threads. AmigaOS always supported that, it’s just that its “threads” are called “tasks”.
> There are hybrid 68k/PPC (also even x86) multi-CPU Amiga systems
But there’s no special operating system support for them, right? The PPC or x86 just acts as a kind of coprocessor?
That’s correct. PPC and 68k apps run on this hardware platform perform poorly, because you need to add-on memory management (WarpUP or PowerUP) between those cpus. The performance is not optimal, because of task switching penalties when switching between AmigaOS and WarpUP/PowerUP operation.
AmigaOS4 turned this around by adopting the PPC as main CPU and emulating the 68k, handling all this inside the kernel, making performance much faster.
Thus the 68k is not functional on those PPC A1200/A4000’s that run the AmigaOS4 prerelease.
@ nimble
> But there’s no special operating system support for
> them, right? The PPC or x86 just acts as a kind of
> coprocessor?
The x86 CPUs were mainly used to boot MSDOS/Windows, next to or inside AmigaOS at good speeds.
The PPC expansion boards were used to run PPC WarpOS (AmigaOS 3.9 default included PPC support OS by H&P) or PowerUP (Phase5) software. Actually WipeOut 2047 as shown within the video isn’t an AmigaOS4 native game, but the PPC WarpOS version running inside a wrapper.
BTW, these PPC boards can in the future also be used to run AmigaOS4 on classic systems:
Old demonstration video:
Hardware specs: Amiga 1200 with Blizzard PPC accelerator card with the CPU clocked at 166 Mhz, 128 MB RAM and BlizzardVision (Permedia 2) graphics card.
http://intuitionbase.com/multimedia/OS4_BPPC.avi
> Are you sure they call it multi-threading?
Yes, the difference explained (AW thread from 2003):
http://amigaworld.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=1056&for…
> Are you sure they call it multi-threading?
Yes, the difference explained (AW thread from 2003):
http://amigaworld.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=1056&…
I see.
But this doesn’t answer my original question: does AmigaOS4 have symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) support, i.e. can it distribute tasks and threads onto multiple processors?
But unfortunately this alone is not driving me back to the platform.
How is memory protection doing? How well is the tcp stack doing? Where’s a decent browser to be found?
I need answers, a possible new Amiga for me is “on hold” until those issues are resolved, no matter who solves them first either AmigaOS or MorphOS..
@ Anonymous
> How is memory protection doing?
Partially implemented. Full memory protection is planned for the future.
However AmigaOS4 comes with the Grim Reaper which prevents most system crashes when software crashes (also attach gdb to the crashed program).
Ancient AmigaOS4 Grim Reaper screenshots:
http://amigaworld.net/modules/features/index.php?op=r&cat_id=6&rev_…
> How well is the tcp stack doing?
An AmigaOS4 native TCP/IP stack is included. AmigaOS4 comes with an easy to set up Internet/Network Wizard.
How is memory protection doing?
Partially implemented.
What’s missing? Or more to the point: what’s actually there?
How is memory protection doing?
Mmm… fairly well I guess. There is partial memory protection in OS4 for PPC applications, I think, and much better stack overflow handling.
In short, stability is much better and it’s much harder to bring down the entire OS, but it’s still possible…
I suspect the kernel will continue to develop, even after OS4.0 is done. There are still some things that haven’t reached the public yet, in terms of kernel features.
How well is the tcp stack doing?
Roadshow is there. Done. 🙂
Where’s a decent browser to be found?
Well, the thing is that there is a mysterious lack of effort going in porting either Firefox or the KHTML engine. Currently, there is iBrowse and AWeb as the most decent browsers, but the current state of both would fall under the category “ridiculous”. 🙂
I’m the project manager of the AWeb APL Lite browser and have been pleading for a port of KHTML for about 2 years now. Until now, efforts have been less than satisfactory.
Mmm… fairly well I guess. There is partial memory protection in OS4 for PPC applications, I think, and much better stack overflow handling.
In short, stability is much better and it’s much harder to bring down the entire OS, but it’s still possible…
I’m glad to read this, I look forward to the day I can do kill a task and not bring the entire thing down, not to mention crashes.
Roadshow is there. Done. 🙂
In terms of features how does it compare to Miami? (I do not try to be a bastard here, just do not know how good Roadshow is) What about net apps, ping, telnet, ssh client, etc.
I’m the project manager of the AWeb APL Lite browser and have been pleading for a port of KHTML for about 2 years now. Until now, efforts have been less than satisfactory.
I used to love Aweb, its ability to have a list of ongoing connections and being able to cancel them if stalled is still unmatched.
Roadshow is a port of a BSD stack, I don’t remember which of them now. It’s got everything and more which Miami offers.
Ping and various ethernet statistics tools are part of the OS, but telnet and ssh has to be downloaded from aminet (currently, ssh requires ixemul which isn’t available to non-betatesters, I believe).
What’s really nice with Roadshow is that if you hold down both mousebuttons when you boot, and enter the Early Startup Menu and select Boot without Startup-Sequence (which is boot straight into a shell and do nothing, for those who aren’t familiar with it) the stack is active. you can ftp and whatnot straight from there, making recovery so much easier.
> In terms of features how does it compare to Miami? (I
> do not try to be a bastard here, just do not know how
> good Roadshow is) What about net apps, ping, telnet,
> ssh client, etc.
I seem to recall that Roadshow is based on the BSD network stack, and as far as I have seen it is fairly complete.
Network programs are to a large degree works in progress. Clients for ftp, ping, telnet etc. exist and some servers (Apache has been ported).
I would expect this to be resolved in time. (Now if I only could find the time to write a telnet daemon to complement my telnet client we would be one step closer)
In short, stability is much better and it’s much harder to bring down the entire OS, but it’s still possible…
I’m glad to read this, I look forward to the day I can do kill a task and not bring the entire thing down, not to mention crashes.
Mike mentioned the Grim Reaper, but I should mention it here too: When an application crashes, you can choose to continue running it(!), kill it, reboot or you can actually start debugging it, if you have the SDK and the sources to the application. You can also print out stack traces, memory dumps and debuginformation to send to the developer.
While it does contribute something to the stability to the entire OS, it’s a boon for the developer to be catered this way. We didn’t have this before and it makes it much easier to produce stable applications.
A screenshot of Grim Reaper in action:
http://www.amiga-magazin.de/magazin/a01-04/amigaOS4/komfortables06….
Since OS4 still doesn’t provide resource tracking, libraries and such AFAIK still aren’t flushed automatically and through too much memory pollution, it’s still necessary to reboot, but it’s much harder to guru OS4.
I believe resource tracking is planned for later OS4 versions.
> I believe resource tracking is planned for later OS4 versions.
Resource tracking has been in AmigaOS for a long time as well. It’s disabled by default because some old programs still expect e.g. memory to be around after exit.
I like that idea. I used to use AmiWM on my Linux box a while ago, mainly because it was really quite a light-weight window manager. One thing that I would have liked to have seen (I know it wasn’t part of the original Amiga Workbench ideas though) was to have the ability to drag the Screens around horizontally as well as vertically. So effectively each Screen acted much like any other “normal” window.
I certainly like what I see here though.
@Thymox
Screen dragging was only vertical because it was a hardware feature. The graphic chip and Amiga monitors could manage different resolutions/screen frequencies on screen at the same time, which could obvioulsy bee only in different vertical screen scan zones.
Joachim
@Thymox
Screen dragging was only vertical because it was a hardware feature. The graphic chip and Amiga monitors could manage different resolutions/screen frequencies on screen at the same time, which could obvioulsy bee only in different vertical screen scan zones.
Joachim
That was then, this is now.
Sure, the old Amiga hardware would effectively only support such a feature for vertical screens due to the different “scan zones”, but this is new screen dragging and surely the hardware that AmigaOS4 will be utilising will be able to cope with both vertical and horizontal?
I liked the screen dragging of yore, I just feel that with a new generation of Amiga we/they should stop trying to make things so much like the old Amiga… take the principles and extend them!
Grant.
@ nii_
> Given that they are PPC based, Amiga OS on Cell in
> the future? What does ‘the Management’ say?
> Then back to the days with a specialised hardware…
They said the cell is very interesting technology. There are some new features planned (in detail) for AmigaOS4.1 which could IMO make the OS a prefect match for the Cell technology.
IBM held an interesting presentation (focuss on the Cell) at the recent AmiGBG Amiga fair:
http://amigaworld.net/modules/features/index.php?op=r&cat_id=1&rev_…
Last I heard, Sony plans to include Linux on it’s hard drives, unless it can strike a deal with Apple, in which case it would ship with OSX. Though I heard that Steve Jobs did not like the Sony’s multi-cored CPU.
Also I’ve heard that game developers like Microsoft’s approach with 3 CPU’s, as opposed to a multi-core CPU.
Anyhow, my point is that if Amiga would approach Sony after Apple denys them, then maybe Amiga could be the OS shipping with Sony’s next gen game console/computer.
Of course Sony is as evil as Microsloth so maybe that would not be good, that and the fact that they are dis-honest as hell. Then if the cpu is hard to code for, then no one would want to code for Amiga on that system either.
Maybe Amiga could license it’s OS for the XBOX.
Last I heard, Sony plans to include Linux on it’s hard drives, unless it can strike a deal with Apple
You heard wrong, or better jump to the first assumption. Kuturagi only said that running non-linux OS on PS3 would be possible if vendor would be interested. And next question was about OSX, and the answer was: “Yes, it would be possible”.
This all followed with “jump-to-conclusion-before-you-use-your-brains-MacInsider” rumors.
Anyhow, my point is that if Amiga would approach Sony after Apple denys them
Again, porting any-OS to Cell is vendors decision and not Sony related (nor will they forbid that). Almost all PS development tools are linux based ( there is a great interview on http://www.lugradio.org/episodes/33 )
Now the reality for you
Sony doesn’t really care which OS it ships with. What Sony cares is lowest price and possibility feature (linux has all that at $0). It doesn’t really matter if they ship with OSX or say that OSX runs on PS3. But 100$ difference at such low price is probably too big.
The shown OS4 movie players are:
DVPlayer (commercial, shareware):
http://amigos.amiga.hu/dvplayer/
MPLayer (free, open source)
http://www.os4depot.net/filedata/snapshot/652_1_snap.png
http://www.amigasoft.net/
However here’s a video of two other great movie players AmiDog’s AMP and the default AmigaOS4 movie player MooVID:
http://uniweb.free.fr/os4/moovidamp.avi
AmiDog is also famous for developing/porting many different emalators to AmigaOS4/classic AmigaOS. Currently he is working hard on a playstation emulator also perfectly supporting hundreds of PSX games.
At AmiGBG he demonstrated his latest version of FPSE for AmigaOS4 which includes Warp3D support (3D hardware acceleration) as well as support for the newly shown AmigaInput, which has support for various USB Gamepads and joysticks. He had original playstation gamepads connected to his AmigaOne using an USB->PSX Connector and the games which were being shown ran with full perfomance and with indistinguishable genuine gameplay. AmiDog also demonstrated dual screen multiplayer support using two graphic cards within one A1 setup!
Great stuff!
http://www.amidog.com/fpsedb/
Screen dragging was useful – back in the 80s when you had to compromise. Back then, you could have either a high resolution or lots of colors, but not both at the same time. Screen dragging on the Amiga (switching the screen mode when the electron beam is halfway through the screen) was a solution to overcome that limitation somehow.
But nowadays, graphics chips do 1600×1200 at full color depth easily. In a good windowing system, each window can work in its own color space. Where’s the need for separating things on screen when we can have them more flexible in windows by now?
But nowadays, graphics chips do 1600×1200 at full color depth easily. In a good windowing system, each window can work in its own color space. Where’s the need for separating things on screen when we can have them more flexible in windows by now?
But would you want 100 windows on your Workbench?
Screens are meant for separating things to give you a clean sheet to work with, like virtual desktops, except that you can intermix your screens, see multiple screens simultaneously in full detail in real time, sort them as you like, you can drag/drop between screens and switch between them, literally so damn fast, the monitor can’t keep up.
It’s nice, if you want to do some file-management, press Amiga-M and in 1/50th of a second, you’re looking at your fullscreen text editor or paint program.
Mike talks about MacOS, but fullscreen games are just as relevant. Try pausing a game in WindowsXP and return to Windows. Does it always work without crashing something? How long does it take? Can you switch back again without crashing something? With AmigaOS, switching display layer is a standard feature and always instant.
As a former MorphOS user I have to gratulate the OS4 team for still working on OS4 and making all these huge improvements step by step.
As being an victim of regular attacks and diffamation from other MorphOS users I know how hard it is to still support a project as big as OS4 and to not lose interest due all the crap people pull on one.
I am thankful to the people who keep supporting OS4 and help during the development process. From the released videos and the released screenshots it looks to me that OS4 indeed makes better progress than MorphOS does.
I do recall the times where MorphOS people kept pointing with their fingers on OS4 and telling them how rude and immature they are and even I needed nearly two years to realize who the real rude and immature people are.
Now what did remain from MorphOS ? The entire OS is split up in dozen of parts. The OS itself, Ambient needs to be leeched from another place, still all the features that was promised are missing (no TCP/IP stack, no 3d drivers and all other technology separate downloadable from dozen different places). So many places that I lost overseight on whats going on. Even the new team-morphos site (where you need to register) seem to be driven by whom actually ? No email address, no webmaster, not even sure wheter it’s a fake website or not or whom I am giving my personal data.
Hyperion is doing a fabulous job here with OS4, not that they keep working on the OS itself, they also keep releasing new versions of their GNU toolchain with most recent versions of GCC and other things not like the MorphOS people who keep telling one that new versions of GCC are broken and so on. Now what progress does MorphOS actually make despite that random people keep writing random hacks to improve some functionality. This truly is not the right direction.
Go Hyperion, you are doing a great work – I feel ashamed having set on the wrong horse but then, looking back at that time it was the only logical conclusion which has turned out to be wrong.
@ Anonymous
> But nowadays, graphics chips do 1600×1200 at full
> color depth easily. In a good windowing system, each
> window can work in its own color space. Where’s the
> need for separating things on screen when we can have
> them more flexible in windows by now?
What you talk about is the usage of Amiga screens in general and not per se the new screen dragging feature as demonstrated in the video. For me both are extremely useful.
Let me give you an example from the early days. I was using 68k MacOS faster running within AmigaOS (through “emulation”) on its own (full)screen than any Mac could at the time. The ability of screens allowed me to swicht back and forth between both MacOS and AmigaOS (same resolution) almost instantly, running MacOS inside an AmigaOS desktop window would be an a lot less convincing experience (albeit can be done, is is handy sometimes, like running a classic Amiga emulated inside AmigaOS4 within a window).
One of the things I like most about AmigaOS is it’s amazing flexibility, it’s possible to open applications within its own screen or on the main desktop=> You decide => You customize! 😎
Some basics behinds screens usage:
http://hammer.prohosting.com/~amifaq/screens.html
Mike Bouma wrote:
“AmigaOS4 is sheduled for release in 2005. Longhorn somwhere for 2006. Of course all kinds of people are already using AmigOS4 prelease update #3.”
AmigaOS4 has been sheduled for release every year for the past 5 years. It’s like Bigfoot and UFO’s. Lots of people have seen it, but the public at large doesn’t have it.
“AmigaOS4 has been sheduled for release every year for the past 5 years. It’s like Bigfoot and UFO’s. Lots of people have seen it, but the public at large doesn’t have it.”
Large public?? If you don’t buy an AmigaOne, what you can do with the OS4 Installation CD?? Slide it between your buttocks 😛 ?! With MorphOS you can do the same…
I’ve an A1 and I USE OS4. If you want to see AmigaOS4 or MorphOS you need to buy an AmigaOne or a Pegasos.
@ Anonymous
> AmigaOS4 has been sheduled for release every year for
> the past 5 years.
Well, like is generally the case within the computer industry, plans have been revised and updated over time. Originally there were plans to release a near fully 68k emulated version, which was deemed unsatisfactory. So back to the drawing boards, etc the official release shedule turned into “When it’s done!” (Which is *still* the *official* release date)
Instead later on they released pre-releases to anyone interested. So in a sense AmigaOS4 is already released and is the pre-release is IMO actually by far the most advanced option currently available to people interested in AmigaOS.
Who the heck is deleting my comments all time? Look, whoever you are, I’m getting a bit tired of not being able to express my opinion, ok? Do you work for the proprietary piece of shit Microseft corporation or what?
Theyre still boasting about a feature that was there in the 80s, no wonder the Amiga is DEAD.
Looks cool. Not really essential nowadays since on the original Amigas, the really cool thing was that you could drag screens of completely different resolution/bitdepth, by using Copper hardware magic, which came in handy in those memory restriced days (hires vs. manycolors). However even today it could still be useful to mitigate desktop clutter. Anyways, it is a nice elegant, no-nonsense GUI feature – not much of that nowadays.
Btw, this AmigaOS4 looks really slick.
@ Anonymous
> Looks cool. Not really essential nowadays since on
> the original Amigas, the really cool thing was that
> you could drag screens of completely different
> resolution/bitdepth, by using Copper hardware magic,
Some early graphic cards supported this feature in combination with AmigaOS too. But in a world dominated by MacOS and MSDOS at the time, sadly this hardware feature (showing multiple screens with different properties within one display) wasn’t of much interest.
> which came in handy in those memory restriced days
> (hires vs. manycolors).
IMO in the future we ideally would go towards vectorised graphics, then all the software dimensions will be displayed as they were designed for (like multi-res screens support on classic AmigaOS/MorphOS/AmigaOS4 allows, running everything on the desktop currently can result in some software looking like thumbnails on higher resolution screens) but with the best optional screen resolution and of course with the ability to instantly drag screens around.
Will it work with DUAL DISPLAYS? 64bit? My laptop?
No, NOT INTERESTED THEN.
I mean screen dragging
just add more than one screen (not virtual one) and drag the drag bar you’ll see……..
Enlightenment (0.16) has something very similar to this for a long time. You can drag the desktop around. I never really used that feature, though.
Anyway, AmigaOS looks really cool in that video and I hope the guys will be successful with it (and maybe sell moderately priced hardware with it? hint hint).
Whats the dev kit like? Can I run it with Visual Stuiod on my laptop?
Can I run it in vmware?
No? NOT INTERESTED
I aint going to GCC command lines.
What is different in this and the AmigaOS 3 I have here on floppy disk, doesnt look like years of effort to me.
Just OSS it and let it die already.
Maybe I can run Duke Nukem Forever on the next Amiga!
I’m sure Enlightenment wasn’t the first but they have had desktop dragging since the first time I used it 3 years ago (probably much longer).
I know very little about AmigaOS but it looks like an interesting project, would love to get my hands on an Amiga box and play with it a bit.
^oops…. i didn’t read all the posts this was already said^
@ re_re
> I’m sure Enlightenment wasn’t the first but they have
> had desktop dragging since the first time I used it 3
> years ago (probably much longer).
Well on the Amiga platform Screen dragging by end-users goes back over 20 years.
However screens aren’t identical to dektops. Amiga application usually open their own dedicated public screens (or on the main desktop, as is customizable). For instance usually you can easily customize screens by editing the Tooltypes information (Tooltypes are specify parameters used by programs and can be edited via the icon tab of icon information windows. For instance by editing the Tooltypes information you can easily choose the language this software should use (if other than you usually preferred on if availble), screenmodes, priority, etc).
Just check the reasons the Enlightenment developer choosed to develop that feature (and the whole Enlightenment thing)
He was an Amiga user back in the day.
Nope, as mentioned before, that’s planned for OS4.1.
I suppose it could make into 4.0 (I’m not coding it, so I don’t know for shure), but I doubt it.
Nope, as mentioned before, that’s planned for OS4.1.
That was about multi-threading.
But what about SMP, i.e. actually using multiple processors instead of just time-slicing a single one?
What about security model for the internal event system? (this is a major flaw in Win32)
Is it a broadcast to all for all those that want to listen (ala Win32 event messaging) or is it subscribe to certian events and only if they have authorization to receive those events?
Thats what is needed in the year 20×0, not this 80s multiple dragable screens malarky.
What is the size of the team dedicated to Amiga OS and what is the hardware team size?
How serious are they really taking it, not seriously enough me thinks if this is the best theyre doing.
What is the size of the team dedicated to Amiga OS and what is the hardware team size?
There are probably around 20-30 people working on the kernel, intuition, graphics, Workbench and core programs and utilities, not counting betatesters.
Hardware is licensed on a per company basis and is separate from OS development. Eyetech delivers AmigaOne hardware right now, while at least one other is in the pipeline, emphasizing on very cheap, small and very low-power PPC systems. Further two more are rumored.
How serious are they really taking it, not seriously enough me thinks if this is the best theyre doing.
Very seriously. The OS has over the past 5 years basically been rewritten from the bottom up. Much care is taken in doing things properly. Many things have been done with AmigaOS4 which was said to be impossible to implement, back when OS4 development started, such as memory protection and built-in 68k emulation. Granted, things are moving rather slowly, but delivery hasn’t failed so far.
There is even more stuff awaiting with the SNAP graphics driver system, NOVA (DirectX9 level 3D), most likely a new sound system, a beefed up Workbench plus there are many things we haven’t seen yet…
Same answer there, it’s planned for OS4.1.
I would rather be interested in running it on my current 64bit laptop than having to buy seperate hardware.
Memory protection isnt 100%, why DX and not OpenGL?
Is this going to be like Linux crapfest with so many different companies providing bits n bobs bundled ? If so then im definately not interested.
I see nothing about security models, even system security and more. Memory protection isnt all there after all this time.
Its still 80s in the Amiga world, time to catch up. 68k emulation, for the life of god please just MOVE ON!
why DX and not OpenGL?
Nobody said anything about DX. NOVA will have about the same capabilities as DirectX9, e.g. using vertex and pixel shaders. The current implementation is based on a Warp3D compatible MiniGL system.
Is this going to be like Linux crapfest with so many different companies providing bits n bobs bundled ? If so then im definately not interested.
Its still 80s in the Amiga world, time to catch up. 68k emulation, for the life of god please just MOVE ON!
Yes, you really should move on. Why do you keep posting, if you are “definitely NOT interested”?
“why DX and not OpenGL? “
Note he said DX9 level, but it was said by one of the OS4 developers this week that W3D Nova was being dropped in favor of full OpenGL.
“Is this going to be like Linux crapfest with so many different companies providing bits n bobs bundled ? If so then im definately not interested. “
It is going to be like licensed companies providing a fully functional system with AmigaOS4 installed. ie. Complete systems… The companies will not be “doing their own version” of OS4 like in Linux, if that’s what you mean. What they will be doing is not unlike any PC board manufacturer does. They build a board on specs that will fit with OS4. The only difference is that they have to pay the license fee for the OS… think Mac clones.
“Its still 80s in the Amiga world, time to catch up. 68k emulation, for the life of god please just MOVE ON!”
Not at all. There are plenty of PPC native applications underway and/or already released “quick ports”. The future is with native apps, and we know that. There are, however, alot of older 68k apps that are rather nice to continue to be able to use, while waiting for PPC equivilants or ports to appear. Nobody is coding new apps in 68k.
Could we run this on the old G4 Apple power Books that are being phased out if we can get them cheap enough?
If not then who is going to pay more than the price of a power book for an Amiga? Really, NOBODY.
Has it been designed from the ground up to be bi endian to aid porting to other hardware or is it tied to an overpriced processor? While powerPC is Bi endian, G4 and G5 Apple removed that feature, god knows why.
What about underlaying security models or are they just going to be another game console, even then they need security for online pay to play etc.
What about IDEs for devs, anywhere I can find info on them?
68k apps, really, Apple supports old CPUs via emulation or translation for how long, 4 years if that? How old is the 68k, please.
What bout endiness on the Amiga code? How portable is it.
If I want a games console Ill buy an XBOX 360 (or PS)
Im a HUGE fan of the Amiga but the past DECADES been promised so much yet delivering so little, I think its good to question and challenge things, I definately want it but I aint going out to buy another doorwedge to run it.
Think Mac clones, yeah that worked out well for Apple *g*
Can this run on Apple PowerPC laptops is what I want to know, if it can id go out and buy one for it, or Id wait for the price to drop as they migrate to Intel.
Can I take control over the entire platform just by “Attach To Process” or “Inject Message into Message Queue” here type attacks or is it secure, Im guessing its not so secure in the event handling.
ARE THEY EVEN THINKING ABOUT SECURITY??? Im guessing NO.
One thing Ill beg of Amiga developer team is, STANDARDS STANDARDS STANDARDS; SECURITY SECURITY SECURITY. Glad they chose OpenGL over some custom thing, otherwise who is going to invest a company into YET ANOTHER SDK for game engines.
Im 100% laptop and mobile computing now as its a necessity, how well does the Amiga platform deal with roaming and mobile devices and other mobility things.
Is it a single user system? Im guessing YES. Where can I find a roadmap for amigaOS? Where is it going to be in 4 years from now? Still stuck in the 80s?
I like the way you dont like being challenged or questioned about REAL LIFE issues that AmigaOS has to deal with. Stick your head in the sand then.
Is this how the developers will behave if I start releasing exploits, they’ll stick their head in the sand?
I get marked -1 for a post that questions their security of the platform? Tell that to the potential buyers and developers. Ie., people like me
Ignorance pays dont it
I DONT LIKE TO HEAR WHAT YOU SAY, OMG HE IS QUESTIONING US, WHAT SHALL WE DO, I KNOW; LETS IGNORE HIM! WE’LL SELL BILLIONS! OUR SYSTEM IS PERFECT DAMMIT PERFECT!
Sorry for the following question…
How old are you?
What about underlaying security models or are they just going to be another game console, even then they need security for online pay to play etc.
AmiSSL has been available for a long time, but what does security have to do with game consoles? This is a desktop operating system which happens to fit on an 8 MB Flash Card or fully read-only drives.
68k apps, really, Apple supports old CPUs via emulation or translation for how long, 4 years if that? How old is the 68k, please.
Thanks to this, AmigaOS4 can use hundreds (thousands?) of existing 68k apps and games, right here and now, right out of the box. Without this, the transition to PPC would be much rougher, maybe impossible and OS4 would have a much smaller userbase, simply because many older Amiga apps still are 68k. It’s a fact that has nothing to do with age, but the amount of apps available for 68k.
Emulation is much faster than a real 68k processor, matching that of a 3-400 Mhz 68060 processor. It’s there for compatibility and it’s so transparent, that you won’t notice whether its a 68k or a PPC program you are running, except for speed differences. It’s also so finegrained that 68k apps will take advantage of PPC libraries, if they are present. This is possible, because emulation is handled at the kernel level.
It doesn’t bog down AmigaOS4 at all to have 68k emulation, and all you’d get would be pissed off users, that can’t run their favorite 68k apps, if the feature would be removed by release. Remember Directory Opus Magellan? That’s still 68k…
Also another argument is that many core components early on were still 68k, such as the graphics library. Without that, it would have taken another 6-12 months before we would see the first beta! You need so many 68k elements that a 68k emulator is necessary. That’s how OS4 ran early on. This is a very good testbed for the kernel based 68k emulation, so it could be tested, while components were ported to PPC. Quite clever, right?
This is much, much more advanced than what Apple did with MacOS8-9 emulation.
New apps are of course not developed for 68k if they are AmigaOS4 only.
What about IDEs for devs, anywhere I can find info on them?
Hyperion Entertainment has offered an SDK for AmigaOS4 since the first prerelease a year ago.
http://www.hyperion-entertainment.biz:8080/news/2005-08-05
What bout endiness on the Amiga code? How portable is it.
If they wanted, it could probably be back-ported to 68k, but as far as I know, the code is big endian (PPC) dependant, but I don’t know…
AmigaOS4 is way more portable than ever before, so if Hyperion finds time and money to port to a little endian platform, maybe that’ll happen.
Can this run on Apple PowerPC laptops is what I want to know, if it can id go out and buy one for it, or Id wait for the price to drop as they migrate to Intel.
As long as Apple don’t provide developer documentation for their hardware, it won’t happen now.
Quaint.
What use is this, if the only way you can use it is to purchase a machine more overpriced than an Apple, and then some. The only market OS4 has left is the die hard fans who just won’t accept it and move on.
It’s been said time and time again, the one thing you need to make any platform, no matter how old is, productive, is a modern browser. Where is Firefox on Amiga? There’s $10K up for grabs at amizilla and still it hasn’t been done. Firefox has been succesfully ported to OS/2 And RiscOS!!
If Amiga wants to go anywhere they need to do a few things:
* drop the proprietry hardware and go for standard x86/PPC builds so we can install it on any commodity hardware.
* Make it free in a trial version so we can part with our cash once we know we actually like it. People like to try things first. Amiga will get you knowhere if the only way to know if you want it is to be a hardcore fan.
“The only market OS4 has left is the die hard fans who just won’t accept it and move on.”
Most if not all of so called die hard fans of amiga also have macs &/o windows machines but none of these give us the fun computer experience that AmigaOS bring us.
I think that people belive more in “words” than in “facts”.People criticize AOS because lack of memory protection but windows have memory protection and crashes more frequently that the AMIGA.it´s curious that people that criticize amiga never used it, maybe if they use it they will see the “facts” instead of the “words”
“it´s curious that people that criticize amiga never used it, maybe if they use it they will see the “facts” instead of the “words””
And how can they use it if they have to pay a huge amount of money to use it, when they only have “words” to go by if it’s worthwhile..
do you see what I’m getting at here?
Words? I’m one of the organisers of the AmiGBG show in Sweden ( http://www.amigbg.com ) and every year, in Sweden, UK, Germany, United States, Italy, Hungary, and probably a handful of other countries that I haven’t named here, there are shows to let people like you try the machines out. If you were interested, you’d find out about the closest one, and then come visit.
Not to mention the various usergroups which often holds meetings, where anyone may come to try out the hardware and OS. It’s not like it’s impossible, if you live in Europe, it’s not even very hard.
This machine and OS is not for everyone. And for those that hasn’t tried the machine/OS and criticise it: Please, do ask questions, be curious, we will try to answer them as best as we can. But don’t criticise it without having tried it. We’re doing this for fun, out of love for something that we grew up with and learnt to cherish.
Well, I used to be an Amiga user for about 10 years, I loved the amiga to the point that when I moved to windows Win2k SP1 was out. Didn’t moved to Win95 nor 98 nor ME, nor NT4 but to Win2k SP1.
Believe me, having to reboot the machine because an app crashes, once, twice, tenth times is something I do not want to experience again. Yes, my Amiga 4000 used to boot (060/50mhz/CyberStorm SCSI-II) in less than 30 seconds. But that doesn’t solve the issue that after booting I had to reopen all the programs again and resume, just to start all over after a while.
And no, I’m not saying that the Amiga was unstable like that, but while debugging apps yes, it was, and a lot, not to mention when you installed any incomptatible or buggy system patches.
I want the Amiga back, but I want a proper OS too, I want an Amiga with full mem protection, otherwhise there is no new Amiga for me. And please, with a minimum of QA done on the OS, MorphOS is a joke in terms of QA.
So theyre using AmiSSL to secure INTERNAL event messages for application message queues? Great!
/sarcasm
Anyone know where I can buy an amigaone + aos4 pre-release in sweden? There sold out on ggsdata. ( http://www.ggsdata.se/ )
@ WiLLiE
> Anyone know where I can buy an amigaone + aos4 pre-release in sweden?
AFAIK, last month the last few remaining MicroA1s were sold out at the A1 dealers worldwide. To quote two of the latest AmigaOne owners:
elcabron: “my ua1 works perfectly well” (bought a MicroA1 July from RELEC)
captainmoomoo: “Boy does this system feel good to use!” London Univerisity teacher, received his MicroA1 on 27 July 2005 from Amont Informatique.
According to my sources new AmigaOne-XE (Standard ATX) and MicroA1 (Mini-ITX) boards will soon become available again.
Apparently the Swedish A1 dealer Guru Meditation has ordered a large number of boards (you might want to check with them):
http://www.gurumeditation.se/
Who really cares about an anonymous troll?
Hardware is a comoddity these days, even Apple knows that.
Amiga has neither the resources or market share to be custom, the only thing custom these days is games consoles (even less than they used to be) and supercomputers.
Since this is a desktop OS (or setop box- make up yer mind) its going to have to compete with issues they have to compete with.
Fun and experience, yeah that was when PC’s sucked with EGA and DOS and Apples where overpriced monochrome toasters. Times moved on dude.
Must be fun playing Stunt Car Racer with your only friend over RS232 if thats what you call FUN AND EXPERIENCE.
Sheesh.
“Fun and experience, yeah that was when PC’s sucked with EGA and DOS and Apples where overpriced monochrome toasters. Times moved on dude.”
You ever understand that you read? i say that i have also PC´s (with various OSS installed) and MACS and believe me that are not ega or monocrome, are modern computers and none of these fullfeed my computer needs (or maybe BeOS).Only Amiga makes me happy working with computers.
I have a few amigas right here but do you think Im investing more time and money to a system thats half arsed, No thanks.
I like probably 99% of other Amiga users moved on.
Its bad to challenge and question things? Obviously it is, but in reality all we want is a better system. Its in their and our interests to have it better, better for their wallet and better for our experience, and better for developers who without you WOULD HAVE NOTHING. Oh and Im one of those said developer’s.
Where can I actually -buy- one of these?
“blah blah windwos has memory protection but it crashes too”, I know, they got problems so lets ignore it, were still better!!! WE’ll SELL BILLIONS!
end to end security and authentication (right down to every damn event in the message queue should be authenticated and so on).
BILLIONS I TELL YOU BILLIONS! WORLD DOMINATION NEXT! WE’ll get there by sticking our head in the sand! Man its like Journey to the center of the earth.
It seems like 50% off all the posts in this thread are by Anonymous IP: 62.255.32.—), ranting to himself.
*sighs*
SHUT UP SHUT UP!! IM RIGHT YOUR WRONG , I’ll SELL BILLIONS OF AMIGAS!
Some people really can’t seem to move on and only talk about it.
Good thing some actually do some productive work instead of just mouth off about it.
Thanks for your reply.
>Apparently the Swedish A1 dealer Guru Meditation has ordered a large number of boards (you might want to check with them):
http://www.gurumeditation.se/
I’ll keep whatching that site then.
Yeah but dont forget the Amiga is 80’s technology so we have to compare it to other 80’s technology!
“Yeah but dont forget the Amiga is 80’s technology so we have to compare it to other 80’s technology!”
And windows, linux and macos are what? 80’s Technology. Who cares if they have a few years of development since. They were’nt invented yesterday. Have you even USED OS4 or are you just determined to put it down before trying it?
Never mind… don’t answer, because I suspect I know the response… And no, I don’t have my head in the sand. I have an OSX equipped mac and a Windows XP Pro machine right here in front of me, so I know what Windows security is all about. It’s crap, always has been, always will be. Those machines bore me to tears. So you just keep your head shoved up Microsoft and Linux arse, that’s where twits like you belong.
Next question…
That’s pretty sweet. Having never used it, I don’t know how useful it is.
I used to use various desktops (in linux, windows via Hydra, etc.), but I stopped after a while because I stopped being effective with it. Having to remember which desktop had the email and chat, which desktop had the editor, which desktop had the browser… To me, it’s just easier to alt+tab or select the proper icon from the task list.
What ya gona do about it, get all Amiga users to gang up on me? All 4 of u?
Its the ATARI TT ; yeah Transputers, thats something the Migi never had
Bite me.
http://www.atarimuseum.com/computers/16bits/transputer.html
A whole 16 bits to play with in parallel!
I remember Turrican and Speed Ball on my Amiga 500… I miss those days…
Please get rid of all messages from Anonymous (IP: 62.255.32.—). I know that the current system allows one to raise the threshold to avoid anonymous posters, but there are some anonymous posts that are worth to read. Even if the registered users used all their moderation points for today for mod down these posts, they couldn´t keep up with this troll.
DeadFishMan
@ Anonymous
Your IP seems to indicate you’re from the UK.
If you’re interested you could get to test AmigaOS4 at the upcoming Big Bash event on the 24th of September in Peterborough:
http://www.amigabigbash.net/
If this doesn’t suit you (want to use it running earlier, etc):
3rd of September User Group meeting in Scunthorpe showing AmigaOS4 on classics:
http://www.intuitionbase.com/SCAG/
Personally I intend to leave for an Italian Amiga fair within a couple of days (some OS4 related surprizes planned by exhibitors):
http://www.pianetaamiga.it/index.html
how about some moderation here huh?