A special release of the intent Application Development Kit for Windows and Linux is included on the cover CD of the current issue of digital magazine. Intent is the core technology used in the AmigaDE and is also the standard programming and the platform independent content environment chosen by the Open Contents Platform Association (OCPA) for digital consumer devices. Consumer Electronic Giants including Hitachi, Sony, Kyocera, PSION, Nokia, NEC, Motorola, Grundig, JVC, Fujitsu, Sharp, Epson, Intel, Pioneer, Metrowerks, Sega, Bandai and Capcom are supporting the platform. A full new release of the AmigaDE Software Development Kit will become available for general developers later this year. Software developed for intent works with the AmigaDE platform as well.
yes, but what *is* it?
this amiga stuff is sooo confusing
> yes, but what *is* it?
Intent is a very fast platform independent operating environment. Content written for intent is able to function binary identical across all supported OSes and hardware environments. Supported platforms include nearly every embedded OS and/or CPU platform currently available. Intent/AmigaDE can either run standalone or seamlessly on top of legacy host operating systems.
The Amiga Digital Environment has Tao`s technology at its core. Amiga Inc is working closely with the Tao Group to add programming, interface and multimedia enhancements to this core environment. Amiga Inc also provides developer support for content creating software companies and even bedroom developers, something Tao can`t be bothered with much, as they are fully occupied by working with the industry giants.
Regarding the ADK: “The ADK released with digital magazine runs on Personal Computers supporting Windows and Linux (RedHat 7.2) and incorporates intent media libraries, C and C++ compilers, a PersonalJava(tm) engine and various tools.”
Some related links:
http://de.amiga.com/“>AmigaDE Here you can already buy software to see the software running binary identical on across Windows and Linux. Amiga Inc has recently uploaded some demonstration videos of this content running on various consumer devices as well.
<a href=”http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=542“>Interviews</a>… with AmigaDE Software Developers.
<a href=”http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=157“>Interview with the Tao Group.
<a href=”http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=169“>Interview with Wouter van Oortmerssen on SHEEP.
Virtual processor (VP) assembly http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/library/l-amiga3/?dwzone=linu… for the skeptics.
OCPA <a href=”http://www.ocpa.jp/download/OCPA-presentationEN.pdf“>presentatio… PDF. (Install Adobe`s Japanese font pack before viewing.)
Seems that intent has a larger support base than .Net and offers about the same interesting (or not) feature and the ADK seems to come at no cost…
… all this imply it is not that hard to get it to run on any POSIX compatibel X86 Box. Or NOT ?
One very big advantage by using the AmigaDE/intent instead of .Net is that you can use Java as a programming language.
If people would simply embrace this new technology it could bring back competition within the operating system market again. The AmigaDE/intent can easily be ported to any operating system. For instance if BeOS or OS/2 today supported this technology and the AmigaDE takes of, as I know it will, these OSes would be ensured to get new applications, regardless of userbase or eventual financial difficulties.
Also normal consumers should not have to worry about which operating systems their mobile phones, PDAs, STBs, fridges or even desktops are running. This technology can make this a reality. IMO it is about time to stop hyping .Net, we don`t want to worsen the already choking OS monopoly, or do we? .Net isn`t much to be worried about, most companies now know what it means to be dependent on the Redmond bully. It is time for a change and you will see the first results pretty soon.
The AmigaDE can act as a trojan horse by providing a binary identical application layer between Linux, Windows and any other operating system. Let the innovations of the 80s return, not just drivers for newer hardware like CD-writers, 3D hardware, internet modems, all that can easily be accomplished on decade old classic Amigas as well, and has been implemented without access to annual multi-billion dollars profits unlike the OS monopolist. If you would have asked me in 1989 when I bought my first Amiga what computing would be like in the year 2000, I would have said that I expected computers to act instantly to user input, no noticeable boot times and excellent small/elegant hardware. Instead beyond 2000 PCs mostly still are big/noisy/slow booting devices and are less responsive as compared to Amigas from the 80s… It`s time for a change!
> all this imply it is not that hard to get it to run on any POSIX compatibel X86 Box. Or NOT ?
It can easily run on top of any operating system or CPU platform. As BeOS is currently a dead end, it is unlikely however that anyone would take the time to support it. For instance future AmigaOS releases (at first based on single and dual processing PPC compatible systems) will have the AmigaDE functionality fully integrated into it.
I don’t get it–given that this intent VM is fast, what else does it offer over other VMs? Functionality is certainly not very much different from its competitors. Is it easier to develop for? Maybe not. And most important–is it free (as in speech)? It’s not. So why should I become dependent on this nice VM with it’s closed source nature?
Intent is not an OS.
Elate is the OS. Infact, Elate is a Real Time Operating System, which has the capability to translate a specific code. This means, that Elate can run this code where ever it is.
Intent is based on Elate and is merly just a media library. Providing sound and most of all, a desktop or GUI environment.
VP is Elates main language. This is an compiled version of your C program or Java program. VP stands for Virtual Prcessor, and that is what translates the code. You can compile your code, let it be Java,C or C++ or many others, it can be compiled into VP, which will then be translated and ran as a native version of the code.
> what else does it offer over other VMs?
1) It is a full platform. You can use any supported programming language, as you desire.
2) It can currently work transparent on top of almost any operating system, it could act like just an ordinary application. But it can also hide the host OS/kernel completely from its user. Finally it can run without another host OS as well.
3) The implementation is 100% identical across all supported platforms. Their ultra fast and compact JVM is for instance 100% identical across platforms. Actually even down to the VP written Elate kernel!
4) It allows the usage of platform specific processor optimised code as well. Special instruction sets like for instance Altivec can be supported, although while doing so you are sacrificing binary portability for these parts of your programs.
> Is it easier to develop for? Maybe not.
It will become as easy to develop for as any other solution out there. CodeWarrior development tools and Renderware are among other tools and APIs which will soon become available.
> And most important–is it free (as in speech)? It’s not.
No “revolutionary” new operating system will be open source. It is simply no business reality. Would *you* pay a full time OS design team to come up with innovative new ideas, meanwhile having rival companies (i.e. doing no research at all) to use your ideas and innovations for free?
Don`t get me wrong, open source has an important role in the future. But not in the innovative/revolutionary area of OS design.
> So why should I become dependent on this nice VM with it’s closed source nature?
Tao has huge legal documents protecting all of its partners from Tao ever becoming an abusive monopolist like Microsoft in the future. Not that anyone expects them to do so, but as their partners need some security and the Tao`s sincere management team could change in the future, such industry giants need to have some form of protection.
The emphasis is actually on flexibility. For instance this new technology can easily run on top of legacy operating systems, you don not need to leave your investments behind while still benefitting from advancements of the platform.
Well if Amiga can do all the above said, then I wish them the best of luck and hope that this will finally get all operating systems to a shoulder to shoulder level. I think people should use what they want and not be forced on something because everyone else is using it!!
> Intent is not an OS.
Intent is a package which includes Elate added functionality like a GUI, JVM and for instance fonts.
Here`s a piece I recently wrote in which I tried to explain my view on how things actually relate to eachother as it can be confusing to some:
——
Although the processes of translation is far more efficient as compared to emulation, emulation is a good way to use as just a parallel in my opinion.
—
Imagine an AmigaOS emulator which talks to the underlying OS (i.e. Linux (UAE, Amithlon), Windows (WinUAE, Fellow) or QNX (Amiga XL). By itself the emulator is useless. Run a parallel here with Tao`s Virtual Processor. An host CPU specific translator tool translates VP code into native processor code and the PIL and CII. (This is all part of Elate, but Elate in whole is more).
OK now we have the stuff needed to talk to a virtual CPU based platform or either a virtual Amiga 68k processor based platform. Both solutions only exist in software here. The emulator and translation software (and CII, PIL) are all platform specific and host optimised.
Now we need an operating environment to allow us to interact with these virtual hardware platforms. For example Kickstart 3.1 for the virtual classic Amiga platform or the in VP written Elate kernel for Tao/AmigaDE`s virtual platform. Now we have the all the tools needed to easily write virtual software for both of these virtual platforms. But what if we want to use it for multimedia or maybe want to use a JVM as well? This is what Intent is marketed for, these are pre-made packages of a virtual platform with extensions depending on the tasks for which it will be used. Run a parallel here with needing AmigaOS 3.9 for viewing MPEG/AVI files or maybe listening to playing MP3 files or maybe for a specific font or interface used within a certain end-user program.
AmigaOS was never designed to run virtually on different platforms, the Intent based AmigaDE however was and therefor allows near native performance. Elate consists of both platform specific and platform independent pieces. These are included in Intent packages. You should run a parallel between <a href=”http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=604“>Amithlon which uses only the minimal Linux pieces to start a virtual AmigaOS platform with “native” Elate/Intent which uses only the minimal pieces developed by Tao/Amiga and partners to run their virtual Intent/AmigaDE platform.
Hope these parallels helped to understand my view on things, of course there is still alot to be said about why these technologies are so damn fast, why the binaries are so damn small, etc.
Mike, you mentioned that AmigaDE can run “transparently” hosted on top of other platforms. I am confused on what this means. Can I launch an AmigaDE application just like a reqular windows application? Meaning, can i launch DE apps without launching the special DE GUI? Can the apps be just regular icons in windows (or any supported OS) or can you only have access to the apps within the DE user interface?
If it is possible to launch apps like native apps to the OS, I am wondering if it will be possible to launch AmigaDE Sheep programs/scripts in the same way. When will this stuff be released anyway? Any idea on how much it will cost to put and AmigaDE environment on my machine? When will Sheep come out and will it be included in handheld versions of DE?
Are there any plans to port elate technology over to qnx rtp 6.x?
thanks for any info,
rishi
This turned into an “Ask Mike” session quite fast, as always when the Boing ball is the topic.
>Intent is based on Elate and is merly just a media library.
>Providing sound and most of all, a desktop or GUI
>environment.
So Intent is the high-level API (gui widgets, gfx, sound) and
Elate contains the low-level functions (files, threads)?
What does the API look like? Is it “complete” or just simple and basic? Compared to class libraries in Java, .Net, Qt, Cocoa? Do I get any OO features at all if I’m using c++, or is it a straight c-like API?
How are the networking features, do I find ORB-like capabilities in there somewhere, like Java RMI or CORBA?
Cheers,
Joshua
> Can I launch an AmigaDE application just like a reqular
> windows application? Meaning, can i launch DE apps
> without launching the special DE GUI?
The technology was designed to allow this functionality from an end-user perspective. The user does not have to know that he or she is using another operating environment. You can actually see this functionality in action in the <a href=”http://de.amiga.com“>AmigaDE player. Although with that you get an icon menu with available AmigaDE software currently installed, however it is not difficult to imagine it to boot an application directly without such a menu. There are great oppertunities here, if all these oppertunities will be exploited to their full ability depends on many factors, afterall Amiga Inc is a commercial company that needs to see revenues from their efforts. Currently they are making alot of money on OEM deals, so Amiga will provide the functionality wanted by these OEMs.
http://www.aminet.net/pub/aminet/pix/mpg/BillSeminar6.mpg“>Here&… demonstrated” rel=”nofollow”>http://www.aminet.net/pub/aminet/pix/mpg/BillSeminar9.mpg”>demon… Photogenics (a popular Amiga graphic application) on the AmigaDE.
> I am wondering if it will be possible to launch AmigaDE
> Sheep programs/scripts in the same way.
Yes, programs written in SHEEP will act similar within the AmigaDE as compared to other programs written in other languages.
> Any idea on how much it will cost to put and AmigaDE
> environment on my machine?
Well the AmigaDE player is already available and sells for 19.95 dollars at Amiga`s online shop (Windows95/98/ME/XP, Red Hat Linux 6.2 and Debian Linux 2.2) However it is currently only meant to show developers that the technology really works.
> When will Sheep come out
When it is finished. No exact dates can be given as things often take longer as expected.
> and will it be included in handheld versions of DE?
Yes, probably.
> Are there any plans to port elate technology over to qnx rtp 6.x?
Yes there will be AmigaDE enabled QNX RtP 6.x powered devices in the future. The Java engine QNX4 was using had intent technology at its core.
Well Mike has done a great job of answering the questions that have been coming up – Thanx Mike!
If you are interested in the potential of the ADK you should check out:
http://www.digitalmagazine.co.uk
also check out:
http://support.tao-group.com
for example code, training course and FAQs. There is a programming tutorial series in Digital Mag too.
One point that is interesting is that the license that ships with the ADK does allow you to SELL your applications to other intent users (and keep them closed source if you want)!
Now let’s say as an example that customer A is a mobile phone company who is going to ship one million units with intent installed, if you create a game (let’s say) and you charge 1 dollar for it then you have potential of up to 1 million dollars revenue. Now here’s the good bit. Customer B also like’s the look of your game and is selling 1 million set-top boxes – then WITHOUT RECOMPILING – your game works on his intent powered set-top you’ve just got yourself up to another million quid
Get the picture 
OK so that is a little contrived but there is definately a lot of potential there. New markets are now being opened up by Tao in the consumer electronics space and all it needs it someone with a bit of talent and a good idea to exploit those new markets.
Anyway read the license and readme in the ADK for full details.
Remember the ADK is FREE (in terms of free beer). So you have a chance to evaluate our technology at no financial cost to yourself.
—
>No “revolutionary” new operating system will be open
>source.
I strongly disagree with that statement. Don’t forget that there is a lot of research at universities. Most ideas originate to one or another of them. Companies take these ideas and build their services around them.
Finally this Elate/Intent combo is not revolutionary as well. It may be well designed, but the concepts behind are old and understood.
>It is simply no business reality. Would *you* pay a full
>time OS design team to come up with innovative new ideas,
>meanwhile having rival companies (i.e. doing no research at
>all) to use your ideas and innovations for free?
This is a common misunderstanding of free software. Licenses and patents can protect you from your rivals. The GPL for instance makes it impossible to rip off some code and make a binary-only commercial product out of that.
>Don`t get me wrong, open source has an important role in
>the future. But not in the innovative/revolutionary area of
>OS design.
See my first part. Your claim that “open source” is important in the future looks misplaced to me. There is no backing to that claim in your post and if you arguing against free software now, why would you be for it in the future?
>Tao has huge legal documents protecting all of its partners >from Tao ever becoming an abusive monopolist like Microsoft >in the future.
How should that be accomblished by “legal” documents? Are they saying–if we ever fail to deliver bug fixes or updates and running out of money we will release our software as open source? I believe your statement cannot convice me.
.net will succeed because it will be bundled with windows
this could be 5x better than the .net runtime system and .net will still be more dominent IMHO.
This is unfortunatly the reality, despite this, there is no reason not to fight it.
One problem I see here:
Tao gives the intent ADK away for free. AmigaDE SDK comes at a cost. intent SW runs on AmigaDE. AmigaDE software does not (necessarily) run on intent.
Ain’t Tao doing Amiga Inc. a real bad favour here?
> Ain’t Tao doing Amiga Inc. a real bad favour here?
The ADK comes for free with digital magazine and is intended for evaluation of the platform. Developers convinced by its potential are also potential future AmigaDE developers, so actually I believe this is good for Amiga Inc. The AmigaDE SDK is pretty inexpensive and gives you access to free developer support.
> Don’t forget that there is a lot of research at
> universities.
This is exactly why open source has huge potential. Many students can easily learn how to design operating systems/applications and play with other people`s achievements. However the good ones will most likely be offered well paid jobs at commercial companies. For instance QNX Neutrino is simply a state-of-the-art kernel, no linux kernel can come close to its well designed kernel. Opening up the source code for the QNX Neutrino kernel would be excellent for many companies, except for QSSL which would probably go bankrupt soon afterwards.
> Finally this Elate/Intent combo is not revolutionary as
> well. It may be well designed, but the concepts behind
> are old and understood.
There is no similar solution currently available which has the same level of flexibility and efficiency. This is what drives companies to this technology. Many OS designers can`t believe their eyes when seeing this technology doing the things it does. QSSL for instance was writing their own JVM for QNX4 and all the the sudden Tao shows up and presents them a superfast and compact Java engine. That is very impressive IMO.
> This is a common misunderstanding of free software.
Free software and Open Sourced software can be very different things. I was talking specificly about Open Sourced software.
> Licenses and patents can protect you from your rivals.
With open source developers can see how you implemented certain features and copu them. With patents you can protect some ideas from competitors, but with a small alteration of an implementation you will have a hard time fighting a company using a similar feature in court.
> I believe your statement cannot convice me.
Such agreements do not need to convince you, but Consumer Electronic Giants.
As a developer or consumer this is what mainly should matter to you. 
Mike,
> The AmigaDE SDK is pretty inexpensive and gives you
> access to free developer support.
but you surely don’t mean the Amiga SDK that costs 99$ and, still, doesn’t offer any significant advantage over intent? The very one that’s, still, missing all the features that were promised when it came out (3D, GUI, sound…), that, still, has many bugs as soon as you drop VP in favour for C or C++?
I am not calling Amiga Inc. names, here. But they promised “one year free updates”, and that all the missing functionality would be available “real soon now ™”, and that’s been one and a half year since. I know, dot.com downfall, funding issues, September 11th – I have been defending Amiga Inc. from flames and name-saying long and loud, but where *is* that support they promised, where *is* that great developer infrastructure? amigadev.net? Surely not…
(To the unwary, originally AmigaDE was intended to become the replacement of AmigaOS. But, for technical problems as I understood, they had to drop that plan in favour of a two-way approach, AmigaDE and AmigaOS 4. However, since then AmigaDE has made *no* apparent improvements.)
I have been Amiga advocate and evangelist during the darkest of times. But faith does carry you only that far…
> but you surely don’t mean the Amiga SDK that costs 99$
> and, still, doesn’t offer any significant advantage over
> intent?
It is true that you need to sign a NDA before getting access to the currently available update. There are many reasons why there hasn`t been an official update yet. One of which is that some enhanced intent parts aren`t ready yet. It makes no sense to already add things on top while the foundation for it isn`t ready yet. You can rest assured however that you will get your update for free, as promised, when ready for release. (Very soon now ™)
> But, for technical problems as I understood, they had to
> drop that plan in favour of a two-way approach
There are features Amiga wants to see in new AmigaOS releases which aren`t desirable on many embedded devices. A design overhaul would result in an unwanted performance penalty. Also by porting and modernizing AmigaOS towards new hardware, AmigaOS compatibility is preserved.
> However, since then AmigaDE has made *no* apparent improvements.
You can see some of Amiga`s work in the form of the AmigaDE player. More is soon to come from both Tao and Amiga.
You can meet other AmigaDE-developers at #developer on irc.reefer.org (IRC)
>Opening up the source code for the QNX Neutrino kernel
>would be excellent for many companies, except for QSSL
>which would probably go bankrupt soon afterwards.
There is no need for Neutrino–the L4ka project creates µ-kernels that match Neutrino in quality and speed. Look at http://l4ka.org
>Such agreements do not need to convince you, but Consumer
>Electronic Giants.
As a developer or consumer this is what
>mainly should matter to you.
No. It matters to me even more than to those giants. They have at least the money to buy proprietary solutions or even other giants. I am not talking here about an embedded OS inside of my toaster. Im arguing against those who try to convince me to develop for AmigaDE or Intent. As a developer I have to choose development tools and platforms which either have a huge market backing or are “future-safe” which equals to open source. Elate/Intent and AmigaDE neither has market forces behind it nor is it future-safe.
I am an owner of the AmigaDE SDK. What you have to remember with Tao-Group technology is it is more than an SDK. $99 may seem expensive compared to .NET and Java (both free), but the Tao-Group Virtual Processor system is totally different and more valuable than other software.
I am sure most of you are familiar with Transmeta and how their CPU functions. It is a modern VLIW (super-RISC) CPU running an x86 *translator* in software. That software is on a ROM chip, but it is just software. In the future Transmeta can use their same CPU and write a PowerPC translator. The Tao-Group VP does the same thing in the opposite direction.
Tao-Group VP is a modern (super-RISC) instruction set and memory model (little-endian). It is at least as remarkable as Transmeta’s VLIW (but for different reasons and features). Unlike Transmeta, the VP does not exist in hardware. It is *translated* to the target CPU at *load time*. Translated software stays around for the next execution. If the software is transferred to another machine, just the VP executable is transferred and retranslated on that machine. The VP instruction set is a full CPU instruction set. The translator takes into account special instructions and pipeline staging on the target platform. An entire operating system can be built upon VP and run on more than a dozen platforms. Buying into Tao-Group technology should be just as compatible with open source ethics as buying a machine with a Transmeta CPU. Linux could be ported to compile under the C to VP compiler. If you think of VP more like hardware, than software, an open source developer can relax a bit.
How is VP different than Java or .NET? They offer write-once-run-anywhere, right? This is where we need to make some distinctions from Java and .NET.
Java and .NET use stack-based virtual machines. RISC based machines, which enjoy a large number of fast registers, are reduced to 4 registers under Java. x86 uses about 7 registers natively. All Java registers are occupied with stack management. I can’t speak for .NET but I imagine this feature/limitation is there as well.
VP uses a register based model. Programming in ASM one can make a program fast by using registers. If only 7 registers are available one can get a boost by putting the data needed now into those 7 registers. Data needed later is moved onto the stack. This register and stack management can become hard work. This is where VP really helps. VP allows for unlimited amounts of registers. There are registers for 8-bit byte, 16 bit, 32 bit, and 64 bit values. One can program in VP with a self-induced register limit, managing the registers and stack more manually. If one wants the speed boost of a register based system without the hassle, then one can trust the VP translator to keep you data close by as an unlimited amount of registers are used. Let the translator move data in and out of the native registers as needed.
There will be a whole generation of computer science students that do not know how to really control a computer. Sure they will have ASM courses but will just assume they won’t have to worry about registers, memory or performance on a stack based system like .NET or Java. But BeOS has shown us (no, this is not off-topic just because BeOS was written in C++) that when someone clears away the bad ideas of legacy systems, 3-year-old computers feel brand new again. That is the goal behind VP. ASM is not a bad idea, 12 different instruction sets are a bad idea.
VP adds to the virtual instruction set a good API. It includes a light-weight process system and an object-based system. The object-based system can allow one to right objects in ASM and get great code management and reuse. Also, methods/functions in VP do not require that the entire object be loaded or even translated. VP code is translated little by little as each method in a class is used. Those translations remain for the next execution. It is a good balance between execution speed and translation.
Those are some things that make Tao-Group VP special. Hope you all take a look.
>ASM is not a bad idea, 12 different instruction sets are a bad idea.
Programming is ASM *is* a bad idea. There is no abstraction to the hardware and most of the problems you try to solve by programming don’t fit into fetch-compute-store circles. So why would one like to stay closer to the hardware than to the problem domain? For execution speed of course. However except from some very experienced ASM programmers compilers generate better ASM than humans do while higher level languages give you the possibility to stay close to the problem domain.
Try to code projects which are millions of C++ lines long. How would you understand this beast if it were written in ASM, which would mean perhaps billions of lines? You can’t!
>Try to code projects which are millions of C++ lines long. How would you understand this beast if it were written in ASM, which would mean perhaps billions of lines? You can’t!
VP has object-based ASM:
ncall avo,setflags,(pix1,FAVO_ALPHA|FAVO_HIDDEN,FAVO_ALPHA|FAVO_OPAQUE:-)
; IF YOU WANT TO SEE THE IMAGE REMOVE THE “HIDDEN” FLAG
How is that hard to read? “ncall” calls a method (you can use different calls to decide if a method should stay in memory after the call is complete). The object is “avo”. It is written in asm and is for creating GUIs. “setflags” is a method of that that class. Notice the field values that start with FAVO? It’s all good
What a sales job this has turned into for Amiga Mike.
But unfortunately the Cover CD is Taos ADK.
>Programming is ASM *is* a bad idea. There is no abstraction to the hardware
umm.. VP ASM is 100% abstracted from the hardware! Because of it being written for Elate, it’s often more efficient and easy to use than C!
you should have a look at VPASM, it’s really neat
>umm.. VP ASM is 100% abstracted from the hardware!
>Because of it being written for Elate, it’s often more efficient
>and easy to use than C!
Maybe I did not make myself clean enough. By “abstraction from hardware” I do *not* mean mean the physical hardware but the underlying principles–it’s close to the von-Neumann machine. OO or functional languages differ substantially in these principles and are thus closer to the problem domain and are therefore more abstract.
>OO or functional languages differ substantially in these principles and are thus closer to the problem domain and are therefore more abstract.
I don’t know what to say but that you are not looking at the problem correctly. If OO or functional support gets closer to the problem domain, well VP ASM has it! All that ASM lacks is some instructions (or macros) that provide for calls to objects and methods/functions. VP ASM has that. The only other issue with ASM is cross-platform development. Again, problem solved and a great deal of control and power is put back into the hands of developers.
Expect to see smaller faster programs for VP
Mike -> Intent is a package which includes Elate added functionality like a GUI, JVM and for instance fonts.
Are you saying here that Elate is the added functionality?
If so, im disagreeing. Elate is THE RTOS (Real Time Operating System) You can run Elate with out intent. However, you will only see command line stuff. Intent provides the GUI blablabla and all the rest of the goodies like sound and graphix…
Hi
Intent is based on TAOS, an old desktop OS (1994). TAOS have a great multiprocessing capability, including running on Xplorer MPP (German) with 64 PowerPC CPU. Is the same capability exist in INTENT?
It is very difficult to get the magazine outside Europe.
I had sent e-mail, Fax to the publisher but there is no reply at all.
Any idea how to get this magazine?
What is the ISSN number?
Thank you.
It is cool that amigade will run on qnx rtp. Since RTP will run on the handheld devices such as compaq and the new sharp, I can replace linux with rtp and then host amigade onto rtp…should be a good combo.
I have to say i am still a bit confused about amiga OS 5.0. Is this based on the same kernel as OS 4.0 or is it a completely new OS written from scratch. Hopefully it is a completely new “big OS” as the legacy 4.0 stuff is meaningless to a new amiga/tao fan such as me. I find the amiga community interesting though…some are loyal, some are pessamistic, some are outspoken, some are quiet…and most don’t live here in the US. Hmm..maybe i am in the wrong country..lol
Also I heard that amigaDE has no memory protection or VP. Hmmm… I guess it is better to have safe languages than memory protection…but i wonder if this will limit the types of apps that can be developed for amiga DE. Guess I still have much to study in terms of OS architecture.. They must have a good reason as they seem pretty bright… speaking of which… What are some good books to learn the guts of how computers really work. I can program now..but i feel as though i don’t understand what is going on underneath. I’m excited to try VP and hope that it will provide a good learning experience for me… x86 assembly always turned me off…
Finally! A real, small, simple and elegant OS that I can run on everything from my Handheld to my Desktop. Try that with MacOS X. :p
(hopefully it will see the light of day..) all this good technology is again bringing back my interest in computers…
Rishi
Mike B, I hope you’re billing Amiga for all these Slashdot/OSNews marketing posts!
>What a sales job this has turned into for Amiga Mike.
>But unfortunately the Cover CD is Taos ADK.
Unfortunately?
I thought Mike said it clear enough.
It is a learning opportunity and “Software developed for intent works with the AmigaDE platform as well.”
The more the merrier.
I wonder why they didn’t just put it up for download then they’d get even more devlopers. As it is I haven’t had much luck finding the magazine let alone the issue with the ADK. The search continues.
A couple of things worth pointing out looking at the posts here.
1) You don;t have to program in VP assembler to use intent. We are language agnostic – you can use C/C++, Java or VP. I even recently used an (unsupported) port of Python for a project on intent. One of the advantages of having the ADK out is that hopefully other developers will port new languages to intent as required.
2) intent is primarily a multimedia platform. It has a realtime operating system kernel at its heart, but that is only a relatively small part of the overall system. The RTOS functionality was referred to as Elate in the past, but we now focus on referring to the whole package as intent.
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Dear Mike Bouma
Umm, you could use Java in the form of J#.
Plus, if other OS make an implementation layer of the EMCA standard of .NET CLR, then it could very well run on that OS.
Java is not a standard, not part of any standards body, controled by Sun. With their acts lately, heck, I wouldn’t trust Sun (First they say StarOffice would forever be free, then they start charging for it… stuff like that)
Intent (or AmigaDE) has been seriously proposed as a way of standardising the multiple different configuration environments on different Linux systems, for commercial software development (e.g. games). Its graphical capabilities are certainly superb – with alpha-blending, and very fast response.
If the Windows/Linux/Mac runtime were distributed free of charge, including a browser plugin, for use on the desktop, it would beat .NET hands down. If it could be configured to be the default JRE and Java browser plugin, it would breathe new life into Java, because it is much faster than conventional JREs.
Remaja,
Note that Tao’s Java technology is fully Sun Authorized.