It seems like only yesterday, but in fact it’s already six months ago. July last year, we published our review of AmigaOS 4.1 running on ACube’s sam440ep motherboard, and here we are, six months later, and Hyperion has released AmigaOS 4.1 Update 1. This free update brings with it quite a number of new features, and since I still have the sam440ep on my desk, I could test the new features first-hand.
The most important conclusion I drew in the AmigaOS 4.1 review was that while the AmigaOS is cool, fun, and a whole new world of technology to explore, it also felt like a relic, something that while looking nice and modern, felt more like something from yesteryear than today. This was not aided by the fact that AmigaOS 4.1 just “didn’t let me in”, as I put it.
AmigaOS 4.1 seems to cater too much to the past, instead of looking forward. The developers are catering to the ever shrinking group of classic Amiga users, instead of trying to capitalise on the strengths of the platform to try and bring in new people like myself. I simply don’t get the idea that the developers are trying to advance the platform.
Well, a few things have happened since then (obviously not because of that silly review). The biggest news of course has been the unveiling of a brand new, high-end Amiga: the X1000. Accompanied by a rather intriguing marketing campaign, the X1000 has the Amiga community excited, and if there’s one community that deserved good news, it’s this one – if only because they remained loyal during the dark days years of lawsuits and dirty infighting.
With new hardware comes new software. Hyperion, the company behind AmigaOS 4, has remained very tight-lipped about the software aspect of it all, but seeing the X1000 comes with components and features no other Amiga has ever had, it’s only logical to assume AmigaOS 4 is in for a serious round of improvements. Heck, the CPU alone would require an SMP implementation, and I’d say that justifies a jump to 5.0.
So, in 2010, we’ll have the X1000 covering the high end, while the sam440 from ACube will continue to cover the low end. Before we reach that dichomoty, however, Hyperion continues the development of AmigaOS 4.1 for the AmigaOne, Pegasos II, and sam440, and I can tell you – if this is a taste of what’s to come, then we’ll be having a good meal.
While most of the changes appear to be relatively minor, their impact is not. No better way to illustrate this than by looking at a new feature of Workbench: file manager windows now auto-update. In the original review, this was one of the many issues I had with the file manager, so I’m very glad to have it fixed. Amiga die-hards can still turn it off if they want to (why would you, though?).
Another one of those small changes that makes the AmigaOS feel a little more welcoming is having click-to-front enabled by default. On previous iterations of the operating system, the default behaviour was that you had to specifically click the bring-to-front widget in a window’s titlebar; since this widget is tiny and often obscured by other windows, I found this quite frustrating. I guess I’m not the only one, since click-to-front is now enabled by default, allowing you to double-click anywhere in a window to bring it to front.
There are more far-reaching changes too, of course. There’s a whole new system-wide notification system (think Growl), something the AmigaOS didn’t have before. Intuition has seen improvements too, such as improved rendering, allowing for things like drop shadows on windows. Video memory consumption has also been reduced, and theme support has been improved (and a new theme included).
Workbench has seen more improvements than just the addition of the autoupdate feature. A Startup preferences panel has been added so you no longer need to work with the WBStartup folder. Icons are now scalable, and a new icon set (beautiful!) has been included too.
We can also find a number of improvements when looking at the internals of the operating system. Stability has been improved on the sam440 (actually, AmigaOS 4.1 for sam is out of beta now), and the memory management system has been reworked to increase reliability and efficiency. Paging to and from the harddisk has been improved too. On top of that, hardware detection should be better now (DCC support!).
There’s more to this update than what has been mentioned here, so be sure to head on over to Hyperion’s website to get the details.
Overall, this free update brings quite a number improvements to the AmigaOS, although none of them are earth-shattering. Still, this update shows that Hyperion is willing to make changes to how the AmigaOS works, even if that means altering decades-old customs. With the brand new hardware on its way, this is very good news indeed.
Great to hear about the new hardware. Looks like the Amiga is poised to once again become a serious contender in the alternative OS market!
I am an Amiga fan (not die hard like some people I know), which is why I’ve decided to comment here…
I don’t think in it’s current form the Amiga OS is going to become a serious contender as an alternative OS for a number of reasons…
Firstly, it runs on PPC, my hardware of choice a few years back, but sadly, those days are long gone. Very few people have PPC hardware (I have a G3 tower still), and even if they do, Amiga wont run on it. How are people going to run Amiga?
That’s right, they have to go out and purchase specific h/w for it. We’ve seen this before with the Mac (still the case to a certain degree). People only bought Macs who only wanted a Mac back in the day (I was one), everyone else steered clear of them because you can’t run Windows (as sad as that fact is). There is no fallback if Amiga OS doesn’t do it for you. The main difference with the Mac is you can put Windows on there if OS X doesn’t do it for you (or put Gnome or KDE over the top of OS X if Apple’s windows management doesn’t do it for you)… With the Amiga h/w, you are kinda stuck if Amiga doesn’t do it for you. Even if you can put PPC Linux on there, the chips are so slow compared to new h/w for AMD or Intel.
What will happen here is all the die hard Amiga guys will buy the new h/w when it comes out (I know at least one guy that might), but those numbers aren’t
numbers (again, sadly)…
Secondly, for the general public, there is nothing about the Amiga OS that stands out as must have. When the iPhone was release, if it looked like the OS’s that Nokia or MS already had (even if it was better), no one would have heard about it other than the Mac guys. It would be lost at sea in a market already swamped by numerous OS’s.
Amiga “currently” finds itself in such a market. It doesn’t matter if your OS boots in 1 second and and task switch faster than any other OS out there. The fact is, Joe Citizen doesn’t know or care. He needs to browse the internet and send emails, maybe the odd letter here or there, chatting, managing my music and photos and at times, creating a nice video or budgeting my home finances. The Amiga may do these things better, but that doesn’t matter, Mac, Win and Lin can do them too.
What is interesting is Linux is free and runs on your current Intel h/w, yet after 20 years it still has 1% of the market, I think that puts it in the serious contender market, but only just. Apple (due to h/w restrictions) manages around 5%. How is Amiga in it’s current form going to be a serious contender?
Again, don’t get me wrong, I love the Amiga and hope to see it do well. I think it can become a serious contender, but not in the market it is currently positioning itself, and I hope it’s only there for now to get the OS up and running.
In my personal opinion, the Amiga window manager looks a lot like OS 9 did for the Mac well over 10 years ago now. I think Apple is going to move a way from what OS X currently looks like to something a lot more like the iPhone UI. Amiga need to already be where the window managers are heading, not where they have been, do something dramatic, risky, fun… I think Amiga did well back in the day for a number of reasons, but one was they took a risk and built back then what was a great experience. They need to think like that again, don’t build a UI for the nostalgic fans of old (let them run their emulators or old h/w), besides, you can never please them 100% anyway. Instead, innovate and show the world what an OS should be like if you want to be in this market.
Apple did it with the iPhone UI, that was nothing like what Nokia and everyone else was doing at the time, they will do it again with the tablet most likely.
I think Amiga OS would sit very nicely on Home Entertainment boxes for instance. It boots incredibly fast, stable and light. You could build less expensive h/w because the OS will make full use of what is already there. They could have saved a lot of time on the UI too, HE tends to have very light requirements.
The phone market is another area it would shine, a small light OS for a small light device.
Amiga could licence the OS to Nokia and others and push Android and Apple with a very nice OS of their own, without cannibalising the desktop or even Home Entertainment markets… Imagine a current model phone running Amiga underneath with a nice touch UI on top. It would run circles over the competition as far as speed goes…
I’m sure there are a lot of places Amiga can sit, but I honestly can’t see it gaining much traction in the current OS market in it’s current form (but I hope I am seriously wrong)…
Talk to anyone (not geeks) and they know of Apple. Talk to anyone and they may have heard of Linux, but most likely not (that has been my experience). Everyone knows Apple, and they have 5% of the OS market (not helped in part by the fact that most people know of Apple because of the iPod and iPhone)…
What Apple did though, was not fight in that market, not try and become a serious contender (Jobs even mentioned that the Desktop battle was over quite a while back). What Apple did do was create a new battle ground and fight there. MS is having a much harder time gaining ground in markets where Apple got there before them (I’m sure the iTablet will be similar, MS have tablet OS, but it’s not really a tablet OS, just a slightly modified desktop one).
Even in the desktop market, Apple tries to differentiate itself, “we are not a boring business machine, we are a hub for your life”, that kind of thing…
If Apple manages to win enough battles elsewhere, they may do a lot better against MS in the desktop market too, but the battle was never really fought there recently, only maintained.
I think Amiga need to do the same. I honestly want to eventually see a world where OS’s from MS, Apple, Open Source community and Amiga have similar market share. It’s good for everyone.
I’ve been watching Amiga for a while now, since around 2003 or 2004 (I owned a 500 back in the 90’s too) and haven’t seen too much in the way of anything. Lets hope this time they know what they’re doing…
Maybe if the h/w for the Amiga was $100, that might help, I’d buy one, that’s for sure 🙂
He said for the alternative OS crowd. So it would be competing ( in my mind) agains Risk OS, haiku, Sky OS, syllable, ect. I would say that it definitely puts it back into serious contention in that field, but serious contention for second place. I think Haiku should be considered the king of the non *nix alt OS universe.
The problem with Windows holding such an overwhelming market share is that any other OS could be argued as an alternative OS.
So it really depends on whether the original post was talking about Alternative/Hobbyest OS or Alternative/Non-Windows OS
Very thoughtful and well-thought response (sadly, the two aren’t always the same nowadays.)
I’ve still got my original Amiga 2000 and still remember the feeling of wonder when my friend showed me his Amiga 1000. The closest I’ve come since then to getting that great feeling of experimentation and excitement over any computer/OS combination was with BeOS.
I really hope that somehow, the Amiga operating system finds itself a new niche and recaptures some of that amazing feeling and power from so many years ago. While I fully realize that computer hardware has improved by orders of magnitude in capability from the mid to late 1980’s, I think something has been lost in the process. Could be that it’s just age that’s coloring my memories, but … I don’t think so. The sheer accessibility and potential that was embodied by the Amiga line just hasn’t been matched in a very long time, unfortunately. BeOS had that potential; love to see Haiku and Amiga grow and develop potential even more.
Anyway, enough nostalgic rambling! I sincerely hope that Amiga keeps on exciting old & new users alike, for many, many more years to come
Have you ever thought that “THAT’s” the point !!
I mean anymore, you can surf the web and read your email from the library, your work, your car, your phone, your DVD player, your book reader, and even your toaster..
Whoopee!
Same old, same old.
The new Amiga is 100% something new that people have not seen before.
The huge group known as “Apple fanboys” grew because macs are “different” from Windows XP.
Amiga should expect the same…
Apple always had a direction, the Amiga’s direction always had more to do with where the deck chairs were put rather then any logical destination.
Woopee, you can rearrange the icons on your screen and not have them stay there and use a ram disk for god knows what. I’m happy for you, what with video editing, 3 D rendering and writing apps for iPhones I don’t really have time to arrange a few icons. Guess that’s one benefit of not having software to distract you from your icons….
I don’t see how you came from this
to this
When did everything here became about the mythical average Joes, about money and market shares?
The crappy i386 netbooks are just fine for Joe Citizens and no one expects them to buy a machine that runs AmigaOS. Heck, even Linux was too much for them.
In a way you kind of answered your own question.
The way I got to Joe Citizen is because, in order for an OS to become an alternative contender (I take alternative as not hobby, but an alternative to Windows) Joe Citizen needs to use it, in big enough numbers (millions) for it to gain any traction at all…
I might be wrong, but I don’t believe there are millions of geeks out there, and even if there are, we will all soon dry up. For an OS like Amiga or Linux or Mac to be an alternative to Windows, it needs to be taken up by the masses, by the Joes and Janets of this world.
As you noted, Amiga OS 4.1 will not be running on the crappy i386 netbooks anytime soon, so Joe won’t be buying Amiga there.
It won’t be running on the laptops and desktops you buy either. So how is it going to be a contender?
I keep referring to Apple, but I think they are the perfect model in this case. They had an OS that only lived on PPC. The Mac had a lot more software and a dedicated following (which Amiga has all but lost since the late 80’s and early 90’s), but still it struggled for market share. I think it is slowly gaining that now, bit by bit, but it’s a struggle. However, look at the iPod and iPhone and the market shares they have in their respective markets…
This is why I (and no doubt others) have argued that Amiga OS needs to be positioned differently, at least till it gains some traction anyway… I am sure that is the plan looking at the design of the OS. I think the window manager is just a nice layer, but the real selling point will be the OS underneath. It’s light, small and fast.
Amiga OS 4.1 as a contender in the Hobbyist market “right now” is another matter…
Well AmigaOS 4.x can’t… But AROS ICaros Desktop iMica netbook does it…
http://www.clusteruk.com/SitePortalPage.aspx?siteid=1&cfid=9&did=24
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0Kuvt_qUfg
And OMG… This iMica thingie sports all the Joe User Joe Citizen does on Winnet Intel Atom machines…
– Origyn Web Browser for Aros (Webkit Safari engine)
(And it surf uses Google Suite Office too)
– Email Client
– IM and chat programs
– Graphics Programs
– MPlayer Entertainment Software
(MPlayer can play most movie formats and also play MP3 music files, put a DVD in the drive and watch a movie, play an audio CD, or transfer your albums to your new Aros system.)
– E-UAE and AmiBridge
(To run any Motorla 68K still useful Amiga sofware)
———-
Also we in Amiga are very curious if it will suitable as AmigaOS platform the 199 US$ PPC Based Netbooks “LIME PC”
http://www.limepc.com/
http://laptopcom.blogspot.com/2009/01/199-lime-pc-netbook-with-free…
Sure a PPC core based netbook running AmigaOS rather than Linux will leave in the dust any Intel Atom runnng at same clock speed.
———-
Despite of the fact many people believe that Amigans are a bunch of nostalgic people we are seriously discussing any alternative about our systems future and any alternative to PPC.
Google search on Internet and/or take a look at discussions like these (there are plenty of them on Amiga sites):
http://www.morphzone.org/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?forum=11&…
http://www.amigans.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?post_id=32710
But IMHO converting AmigaOS in IntelX86 code, then it will mean that then AmigaOS will be just one of the “others” alternative to Wintel solution and piracy will hit & destroy AmigaOS immediately.
In the meanwhile the AmigaOS must fill various gaps with other operating systems like Windows and MacOS X, such as it should first gain Multi-User capabilities and SMP (Simmetrical Multi Processing) feature to run on multicore systems.
So in the meanwhile the PPC world it is still a confortable niche in which to grow (A secure pool) without being harasssed by intel based (so called Mainstream) big sharks Operating Systems (which are diving large at sea).
When AmigaOS will be sufficient mature, then it could be interesting to leave PPC world and seek for Intel and/or ARM based platforms.
Edited 2010-01-27 03:47 UTC
The iPhone and iPod work against your argument. They’re both specially purposed devices that do what they do extremely we and present the consumer with a polished, clean way to accomplish a limited range of tasks.
It argues against the A-Eon approach of trying to find some bit of hardware and trying to get people to find out ways to use it…
If you’re not including Linux and OS X (despite them still only have a tiny market shares in terms of desktop installs), then yes I agree.
However Amiga has got a long way to catch up with Linux (which can also run on PPC as well as x86) let alone OS X.
So I can’t see Amiga being a serious contender to anyone but the hobbyist and enthusiast (at least not in the near future).
Unfortunately the big mistake they made was embracing PPC – they would have been better off going to ARM so that rather being on a dying platform they would be position on something that is just taking off. When one takes into account the dual core ARM processors coming on board, the graphics platform being developed by Nvidia – it would have been a lot better for them to go in that direction than embracing PPC.
I always loved AmigaOS’ look&feel, so simple and elegant, yeah, usability used to suck (at least in 3.x) but I don’t care.
Psst… I really like to get a Sam440ep board to try OS 4.1, but they’re so expensive… with taxes, shipping and Amiga OS license the pack goes beyond $500. 🙁
Indeed, even I must admit they they came a long way. Just look at that workbench configuration dialog. So simple and so elegant, and so focused only on really useful options.
Edited 2010-01-26 08:49 UTC
1. It’s going to be expensive. Get over it.
2. It finally exists. If you want one bad enough you’ll pay.
3. The rest of us will be jealous and wish it was cheaper.
4. The rest of us will sit on the fence wishing we were in on the fun.
5. The rest of us will justify not buying one in numerous posts based on the maturity of the OS or the price.
6. We’ll argue it won’t take over the world. (Well, who said it had to).
If it isn’t for you, that’s fine. There is no point being a misery wart and raining on their parade.
“Misery wart” — I love it!
Very well put. If this isn’t for you, if the price isn’t for you, then … nothing to see here, move along. No need to rain on anyone else’s parade.
Try to take the the retro/geek/hobbyist niche first !
Then ex Amigans, then disenfranchised Linux people etc etc .. Then maybe some special purposes niches using the Xorro stuff on the X1000 , provided the X1000 comes …. 🙂
Yeah, you gotta aim low. Very low.
Having to pay a premium for the privilege of using a desktop OS that still believes that the stack size belongs in user preferences is a difficult sell.
€@Naysayers
Amiga was not developed steadily in the past due to a series of unfortunate events, so don’t take that as an example of what’s to come (Hyperion feared that they might lose their work and development was intermittent to say the least).
Right now things have changed and after the lawsuit settlement it will be pedal to the metal, with a ton of modern features taking the place of old ones all the time.
A note on the looks: they are extremely customizable, and there is an ongoing project at entwickler-x website to improve it quite a bit.
Mine looks like this (no window is selected):
http://img25.imageshack.us/img25/6856/dax411.jpg
More infos here:
http://www.entwickler-x.de/amigaguiprojekt.php
Woah, translucent windows! Is it real? Can this really be done? In real-time?
I call shenanigans. It’s science-fiction. There’s no way it’s a real screenshot.
Oh Boy “Oh Boy!!!! I just can’t fathom how awesome the 2000s are gonna be! I hope it supports modems and Netscape runs on it, because then I am in!
Edited 2010-01-27 03:45 UTC
Love that screenshot! Beautiful icons & nice transparency
@MissingBeOS
Thanks. The icons are the new standard ones.
AmigaOS has some sort of built in WindowBlinds/WinCustomize suit which is 100% OS legal (no hacks needed).
There were also many other improvements under the hood that are allowing for new features to be added to existing software and for others to be ported (ie:Blender).
Of course if you start form “behind”, you need to cover extra miles to recover the lost ground, still i can’t understand how people can feel compelled to state the obvious and make a fool of themesleves…
Edited 2010-01-26 15:06 UTC
Are the icons PNG or SVG? Either way, very nice!
If the AmigaOne X1000s (it is AmigaOne, the Amiga name in computers doesn’t belong to Hyperion) are produced and if they come at a reasonable price tag there’s still the issue of why would some one buy one?
In 1985 it was an immature market, now we have hardware and software that is very well developed. Catchup is all well and good, but in the end it’s just tomato sauce, There needs to be a reason to buy it, more than nostalgia, nostalgia doesn’t mean beans when you carry a €1500 price tag (could be more, there’s no price yet for X1000).
The thing is a dream for virus and worm writers, so if it ever becomes popular you’ll have to deal with that. There’s no software, so you’ll have to deal with that. No memory protection, no multi-core support.
I am still looking for a reason to buy it, if I want an alternative I just open up Virtualbox and fire up Haiku, I’ve just saved myself €1000s….
I loved the Amiga back in the ’80s but frankly Hyperion is just animated the corpse of a dead machine. I programmed for Amiga, I demoed Amiga, I evangelised Amiga. When Amiga died, I went to death bed vigil parties, and swore Amiga would never die and awaited the resurrection. It didn’t come.
Amiga will always be a part of me, but this thing, it’s not Amiga, Amiga was forward thinking, not a misty eyed recreation of the past. I am sad that this is where Amiga ended up, it would have been better to let it die with dignity.
 @7Valleys
I see a tendency to speak about future products based on what was true a year ago.
And while doing so you fail to realize that all you are asking is indeed coming. Not all the features you mentioned at once, but some in each update (and they are hard at work).
Software is no problem if you exclude 3D games (2D ones are heavily covered) as apps that handle basically anything are either present or in the works as we speak.
Aos developers and Amiga Programmers know what’s missing and are working at filling the gap.
Things have been slow up untill now because there was no clear direction (with the lawsuit and all) but things have changed, attacking a newly re-born platform (settlement was signed on 30th of September 2009) based on yester year (as I’ve seen done here sometime) is rather pointless.
I believe the previous poster was referring that if you are going to ask a lot of monetary value from your customers, you better provide a product with a significant value propostion.
As it stands, requiring your customers to shell over a thousand bucks… just for the privilege of being beta testers of a platform which is generations behind in HW, even further behing in the SW department, with no killer applications (or any major apps really) to speak of, and which bear little resemblance for the original system it is supposed to trigger all those “melancholy impulses.” All of that doesn’t seem to be much in terms of providing significant value in exchange for the expense that getting this platform up and running entitles…
@tylerdurden
Performance can be achieved in may ways these days, (Teraflops through GPUs and up to 106.000 Mips through transputer-like Xmos CPU clusters) so I don’t think the X1000 is much behind anything.
On the software side their working on it and finally for the “mainstream” useless talk, once and for all: this is NOT aimed at the main stream.
Way to completely miss the point…
Amiga as a system is a good decade (or two really) behind in SW. Nowadays, people can run all sorts of niche OS, which support far larger bases of HW (and most of them at a much lower cost than this PPC thingie), and in most cases the OS itself can be had for free.
Taking on the current market with an approach that is over 2 decades behind in order to offer technology which is over 1 decade behind… can’t be construed as any sort of logical value proposition. Alas, if these guys manage to sell enough copies to sustain that half assed business model…. then more power to them I guess.
However, on a personal level. If I want to revive the old Amiga days of my youth, I can either spend a couple of bucks for a used one, or fire AmigaOS up on an emulator that will run faster than any Amiga would have ever done nativelly. And then satisfying my craving until the next time. I would most definitively not go out of my way and invest over $1K on a fairly outdated HW platform running an OS which in real terms does very little, and has basically no application support… and that at the end of the day, the only thing “amiga” about it is reflected in a few court order proceedings…
Edited 2010-01-27 04:00 UTC
@tylerdurden
You are missing the point on all levels.
AmigaOS is a fun operative system that is now back on the evolution path, AmigaOne X1000 is modern albeit different HW that takes the concept of Heterogeneous computing at heart by offering a way of exponentially expand both Flops (via GPU) and Mips (via Xmos miniclusters) at the user demand (which makes it VERY Amiga, and by the way a big paper from Commodore’s engineers about New Amiga developments after AAA, was revealed showing the X1000 was designed following those directives to the letter).
But the the biggest mistake is your vision of the market.
Hyperion is doing this for a niche they already know and cater for, so all that description of “how the world is today” is pointless.
And by the way, Joe Poor Average was not the first to buy an HD-TV, he was not the first to buy a PS3 (etc. etc. etc. etc.) he is the last, if ever.
But you should also understand that not everybody is poor, 1000 might sound a lot for many but they are peanuts for a number of people (in the geek world) that exceeds many thousands of times the numbers Hyperion is aiming at.
Those kind of customers will buy a machine for 1000 different reasons but “bang for the buck”, as when they spend what they have in mind is “FUN” not “convenience”.
They might want a system that is as custom and exotic as it gets.
They might want to be part of the re-birth of a glorious platform and be there first hand as it happens. They might want a peculiar computer only you and a few others have as they don’t enjoy being part of the Borg (Dell/HP/Apple) or the People Republic of Netbooks and Free Open Source OSs.
There is people who get a kick spending 50.000 on a car, and those that get even more out of their 1000 purchase.
Edited 2010-01-27 09:28 UTC
I think that AmigaOS and the “Amiga World” as a whole is just not for you.
You are right, at the moment it’s hard to see why to buy a system like that for these kind of prices. But, you know what? Ten years ago I said the same thing about Apple users. Much too expensive hardware, for some elitist Media Agency dweebs.
Well, we know now, things changed.
Those dweebs persisted, Jobs came back, things turned around.
And yet, even these days I have discussions with people, telling me “why should I pay 1000 Euros for a Macbook Pro, if i can get almost the same thing for 400 if I buy a Windows machine?”.
You can probably build your dream PC for 100 Euro, or our of some trash and put a freeware OS on it.
That doesn’t mean other people are not willing to pay more money for their computers and OS.
And who are you to tell them what to do or not.
I am not in any way saying, btw, that Amiga will ever be a “force to be reckoned with again”. Nothing is indicating this.
But, it seems things are finally getting a lot better lately, and that’s what counts for Amigans these days.
So who are you to rain on that small parade?
I hve no problem with XMos, it’s interesting stand alone technology, but what I can’t fathom is what is the purpose of the expensive microprocessor board A-Eon wants to graft to it. I mean they
1) aren’t on the bus and can’t really access memory
2) can’t do floating point
3) Would take 256 of them to reach the computing power of a good core 2 duo.
Somebody really hasn’t thought this out, beyond this are cool let’s stick them onto our machine.
1)The on board X-mos can act as a memory server to the expansion card.
2)The machine might draw extra Mips from the X-mos tech, and extra Flops from GP-GPU, at the user demand. Furthermore 2nd generation X-mos chips were hinted at this year conference, that will include an FPU.
The Xorro slot will accept expansion cards populated with these too.
3)Again no, 256 of them generate 105.000 mips which is more than a Core I7 (quad) Extreme which tops at 76.000 Mips. The PS3 Cell including all SPUs tops at 25.000 Mips, Source : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Million_instructions_per_second#Millio…
I am afraid you are also jumping to conclusions, as after many investigations and speculations people far more informed had to realize they don’t actually know how the X-Mos tech, “merges” with Amiga at both software and HW level.
A representative from Hyperion stated that is “very tightly integrated” into the system, so it would be better to wait for the details.
I will never get why Hyperion refuse to support Apple ppc hardware. It is cheap and easily available. The old mantra “no license, no hw documentation” seems rather void to me, when the license issue has obviously resolved and the MorphOS guys just showed that enough hw documentation is available.
I run MorphOS on hardware (Mac mini G4 1.5 GHz) I obtained for the price of a nettop and which has compareable hardware specs, but just flies, fies, flies due the fast MorphOS.
Next MorphOS release will include support for the big box G4 powermacs, which are dirt cheap. I would suggest Hyperion to go a similar route with OS 4.1.
Call it HyperionOS.
Ahh..sour grapes biased towards Ainc. or other privately initiated Amiga-like side projects….gotta love’em.
Amiga inc. handed the Amiga source code to Hyperion and they develop the OS. Simple as that. (the fact that after a lawsuit Hyperion also ended up on top doesn’t change that simple fact).
They handed over the source code so that they should developed it for AmigaInc. Then they hold it as a hostage for years.
So if I leave my car at the workshop for cars. And wan’t it back when the car is ready. It ain’t my car anymore.?????
It’s HyperionOS now, nothing else.
“JohnSmith Repairing” might end up keeping your Mercedes 500SL but even if they become the new owners, the change in ownership doesn’t turn the car into a “John Simth 500SL” It will remain what it is, a Mecedes 500SL.
The story is long and troubled but they settled this way (with Ainc signatures on it), And Aic. cannot develop the OS anymore nor license the old OS (not even something similar according to the fully published settlement paper) AmigaOS is legally in Hyperion hands right now, nobody can do anything about it, whether they like it or not.
Edited 2010-01-28 15:54 UTC
Then it’s not AmigaOS anymore
It’s HyperionOS period.
Have you even read any of the court documents?
I read them all line by line.
AmigaOS is not called AmigaOS because it belonged to Amiga-Inc. (Delaware or what not) Even Amiga inc. was called Amino before it, so you are saying that whatever they might had developed should have been called AminoOS?
Is like saying that since Commodore bought Miner and Morse company than the OS became “CommodoreOS” as soon as a new version was made by Commodore (ie:2.0/2.1/3.1) by other people not related to the original Amiga group from the early 80s. Nonesense.
They had it, and could make whatever with it and nor you nor Miner himself could have had the slightest influence on its evolution.
There is a Chronology a Sourcecode, and the fact that the settlement states that the only evolution that original sourcecode (that dates back many years) will see, is called AmigaOS and only Hyperion can do it sell it and do as they please.
Simply put, another piece of that chronology, AmigaOS is now in the hands of Hyperion as it was in the hands of Amiga Inc before and as it was in the hands of Commodore even earlier (all three were not the original creators of the OS and yet they could do as they pleased with it in their respective times).
Edited 2010-01-28 20:19 UTC
Hail TheDax
It’s HyperionOS nothing else.
@Dodit
😀
That was fun
Anyway, we have different opinions that is clear, both stand in our heads and they say heads are whole worlds whithin themselves.
It would be good sometimes to check this opinions against the real-world just to make sure.
Outside, in the cold world Hyperion says they have exclusive rights to Amiga OS past and ownership of its future.
If you think you can prove them wrong, sue them and see if what they say its a fantasy or the truth 😉
Edited 2010-01-28 20:54 UTC
Fun.. Yeah i know.
But you compare AmigaInc that bought the rights to AmigaOS with a company that have hold AmigaOS as a hostage for years.
Hyperion haven’t bought AmigaOS. In my eyes they have done something really nasty, they have behaved dishonourably and have not keept their word or agreements.
Thats why they could rename it to HyperionOS also.
@Dodit:
Bill McEwen, is that you?
How is the “Snowman Generators for mobile phones”-Business these days going?
Hope ya fine.
Edited 2010-01-28 21:06 UTC
No, and please tell me when to laugh.