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How about an Amiga made with current technology?

Amiga fanatic from way back here.

When you say "Amiga with current technology", what exactly are you referring to?

Both CPU lines the Amiga used are dead.
The true power of the Amiga was how the custom chips worked together; those chips hit an evolutionary dead end about the time Windows 95 was released
The OS, whilst remarkable at the time, is sadly lacking in comparison to today's OS's in terms of services offered (think TCP/IP, for a start)
Amiga, Inc have tried many iterations of a business plan to get going again (think partnership with Tao Group etc)
What applications are there that would drive sales of this device?

Don't get me wrong: I almost always update Amiga Forever to keep an Amiga running for nostalgic reasons. But if a new piece of hardware was available, what would it actually contain, and (more importantly) why buy it?

Nothing is as sad as the faith of Amiga. I'd have linked http://www.amiga.com/ but they're so poor they can't afford web hosting anymore. I remember them selling some games for PDAs last time I visited them. *sigh*

Amiga is still around and doesn't seem to be bothered with legacy issues like Apple and Microsoft are.

Also there are still Amiga users that are happy with their choice.

In case you missed it Slashdot has been reporting on it for a while now. Plus The Amiga is still going on with PowerPC SAM440 and ACube units and still being sold.

Amiga is still around and doesn't seem to be bothered with legacy issues like Apple and Microsoft are.

Also there are still Amiga users that are happy with their choice.

In case you missed it Slashdot has been reporting on it for a while now. Plus The Amiga is still going on with PowerPC SAM440 and ACube units and still being sold.

The only Commodore incompetence was lack of advertising and marketing as Microsoft and Apple had done. The reports of the death of the Amiga were greatly exaggerated and it still lives on in Intel X86 PCs as AROS as a free open source alternative operating system.

It sounds a lot like Amiga Anywhere which is a new platform that developers can use to write games for mobile phones.

In 1988 the Macintosh II series copied a lot of features from the 1985 Amiga 1000 computer. History repeats itself.

You have just articulated the major perceptual obstacle between you and the kernel developers. The kernel developers aren't doing it to scratch your itches - you don't pay them. They're doing it to scratch their own itches, or else to scratch their employers' itches. If you want an operating system with 'a neat line between "system" and "applications"', go away and write one (or pay someone else to write one). Come back and tell us about it when you're done.

If there was a big community that wanted to coalesce around a desktop OS, it would have coalesced around Haiku or AmigaOS. It never has. Why? Because the people who want a desktop OS mostly don't want to do the work.

Sliced HAM (also called many other names) worked by actually using the Blitter to swap what hardware address the palette was at every 64 pixels or so, so several times per scan line, based on a table that the programmer set up that pointed to them. The biggest problem with it was it had to be rewritten for each chipset, because the timing was (by necessity) hard-coded into the Blitter commands.

And actually, the Amiga is still around, just not in the same form. See their home page for details. (Full Disclosure: I worked for a time as their New OS Development Lead several years back.)

This is aimed at the relatively tiny group of users who have continued using the Amiga OS long after its commercial demise...

Create a window manager that is lightweight and borrows a lot of ideas from Workbench.

You know why we do not see ideas like these from C=?

i had no idea they were still making these. does this mean i can buy a lisa? or at least an amiga. it would be pretty dope if they always made everything that had ever been made. get me a new coleco! or a mccormick reaper!

But I doubt if anybody will buy a brand that's crashed and burned twice.

I have this eerie feeling of having seen all this before...

Amiga Anywhere was supposed to create that environment that java wasn't quite able to. You could write a piece of software and have it run on all platforms (PC, Mac, *nix, palm, etc.) but never really went anywhere due to setbacks and poor company management. In the end, I think they just ended up using it to make software for slot machines. :-/

I remember when Amiga was talking about such an environment. Where the lines between appliances were blurred. They dubbed it Digital Convergence but never went very far with it.

The idea was that all of your devices serve a single purpose (they did in 1998, when this was published). But, Amiga had this vision that they'd develop a platform that could live on a TV, a computer, a mobile phone, even a PDA. You could watch TV on your phone. Or you could use your phone over the TV (huh?). Even better, your phone and your TV could be your computer.

The next ten years are definitely going to be interesting. Will Microsoft ever get this thing off the ground? Or will all of the litigation stifle it?

I realize what Microsoft is talking about is a bit different, at least on the surface. But if they have this portable "media OS" they can certainly take it to the next level -- the level of "Digital Convergence".

So the question is, Where are the new operating systems likely to come from?

Plan 9, MacOS, z/OS, AmigaOS, MorphOS, QNX, or other embedded OS.

Okay, in reality, it's more like the Monty Python parrot, but, hey, the Amiga's just really pining for the fjords and is shagged out after a long squawk....

;)

I'm going to go out on a limb here and hazard a guess that if I said, 'NetBSD,'

I know this may sound strange, but you might consider targeting AmigaAnywhere. It'll allow you flexibility to run on many different platforms (WinCE, PocketPC, SmartPhone, Linux, etc...) without having to rewrite code. The AmigaAnywhere platform is based on the Tao Group's virtual processor so it's write once, run anywhere. I'm not deeply familiar with how it all works, but I've heard good things. Something to consider at least.

Amiga Incorporated

Yeah, Windows is all alone too.

Living dead products on some of these... The Commodore company has been purchased, you can buy a brand new Amiga, etc...

http://www.commodore.ca/news/2004/december.htm

http://www.amiga.com/

Amiga is still manufacturing computers.

No, they aren't, and the Amiga computer died a decade ago.

OTOH, what is happening is that Hyperion Entertainment are porting and updating AmigaOS to version 4 on licence from Amiga, Inc., a company formed in 2000 by a marketing exec from the previous Amiga-owners Gateway. AInc in turn has allegedly switched owners twice since then, during litigation.

AmigaOS 4, and beyond, are meant to run on third party PowerPC hardware. Nobody is designing or even specifying standards for any hardware specifically for AmigaOS.

One controversial decision that bothers many current and prospective AmigaOS users is that the hardware market will have to be separated from "the rest of the world". Despite the inexistence of any Amiga hardware and AInc's irrelevance to the hardware market, AmigaOS must only be sold bundled with hardware, and only from vendors who have acquired a licence from AInc. These hardware bundles must also provide some form of hardware/vendor-licence verification mechanism ("anti-piracy measures"), which currently is supposed to consist of added code to the firmware.

The only licenced hardware today is sold by the single existing licensee, Eyetech, which is the same company that was "consulted" when these AmigaOS distribution policies were formed. Currently they sell Mai Logic Teron series motherboards, with their exclusively licensed (owned?) stickers saying "AmigaOne", plus a 60% heftier price tag.

For more on this, please see my homepage.

By not being developed, I meant the original Hard/Software, not the new AmigaOne and AmigaOS 4/Pegasos/etc. BTW, How'd you get a beta of OS 4?? I have yet to see any updated info since KMOS has taken over (although in interviews, they state that work is in progress).

Related Links:
http://www.kmos.com/
http://www.amiga.com/
http://os.amiga.com/products/one/

By not being developed, I meant the original Hard/Software, not the new AmigaOne and AmigaOS 4/Pegasos/etc. BTW, How'd you get a beta of OS 4?? I have yet to see any updated info since KMOS has taken over (although in interviews, they state that work is in progress).

Related Links:
http://www.kmos.com/
http://www.amiga.com/
http://os.amiga.com/products/one/

Really? What's This then?

And neither do you!

http://os.amiga.com/

No article about fractals could be complete without mentioning Elenas excellent ZonXplorer fractal package for AmigaOS 3.5+ and MorphOS (running on the Pegasos PPC). Check out her stuning pictures in her gallery.
I hope her webpage can handle the load, it's sure enough worth a visit.

Isn't this company/product the original vapor ware.

No.

As a long devout Commodore user, who had made his way through multiple C64s, and a huge array of Amigas, I find it almost criminal to view this new site. What next, are they going to release an "A-a-a-a-a-a-amiga"? (in the style of the ebay scam Powerbook thing). Not only is the grammar on that site shockingly bad, but the only thing on there that has ANY resemblence to the Commodore brand is a crappy joystick with 30 games that no-one would want to play. Where's Wizball? Where's The Last Ninja?

So, basically, they are attempting to wipe out all of Commodore's history post-C64, and jumping straight to MP3. Why? Because they don't have the rights to the Amiga (thank god). Want to see what's happening with that little flagship? Go here - a darn sight more interesting than that little bandwagon of naffness.

I find it really depressing when some company buys a legacy name (such as Infrogrames did with Atari) and begins peddling merchanidise using that name, hoping for the retro-cool aura surrounding it to bring it sales.

• AMIGA OS is...nononono
• nooo. I have it now >
• no...now APPLE!!! that one is is DEFINITELY...
• no wait. that last one, that's if your a fag. that's right.
• FUCK!!!
• Okay. I have it now...
• I rememeber
• (hey I'm a programmer who can store MULTIMENSIONAL ARRAYS in his head!)
• DREAMCAST is...

There will be no "more modern" AmigaOS. Several months ago Amiga, Inc. sold off its AmigaOS rights to its investor Itech, which in turn sold them to a newly created corporation called KMOS. KMOS does not stand for anything. Its only "product" is AmigaOS. It is incorporated in Delaware, which is a notorious tax and regulation shelter.

Now, there are three things you could believe:
1. That Itech dumped the Amiga IP on a dummy corporation in order to protect its Amiga, Inc. investments from ongoing lawsuits, similar to the Novell/Canopy shuffles. (most likely)
2. Alternatively, that KMOS CEO (and seemingly sole employee) Garry Hare is really serious about moving AmigaOS into the cellphone market. (a little bit likely)
3. Or else, against all likelihood and the public statements of its CEO, that KMOS's primary goal is to get a new, working AmigaOS up and running.

If you believe the last one then I'd like to interest you in some Florida real estate that I'm selling through my own Delaware corporation. Face it, AmigaOS is finally dead this time. Move on to AROS or something, or just stop deluding yourself entirely and move to Mac or Linux or XP.

Really? I can think of some notable exceptions.

And you guys thought that Mac gaming was behind the times! Sheesh!

This is a PowerPC native port of AmigaOS.

It's a standalone OS, which runs on the new AmigaOne motherboards and is currently being worked on, to work with the older dual CPU (68k&PPC) add-on cards by phase5. (One of which, I have in my Amiga 1200)

The whole of AmigaOS and Exec (kernel) have basically been overhauled and modernised and given memory protection (which will work with new OS4 native programs that make use of it) and can be turned off for OS3.x compatibility. Not to mention a new file system, virtual memory and everything else a modern OS should have. (without needing a shutdown procedure)

68k programs are emulated via a JIT emulation system, to be fully integrated into the OS itself, so "classic" retargettable programs such as Wordworth, Final Writer etc all work without problems, at super-fast speeds :)

As for a reason for it to exist, AmigaOS is an OS of such efficient nature, I've been using it for years on this "old" hardware of mine. If it's fast on a 25mhz 68040, what do you think it's like on an 800mhz G4? That's just one reason...it does what you want it to do, and it runs circles around anything else I've used.

http://os.amiga.com for more info and features. And the url provided in the topic too, of course :)

AmigaOS4 is going to rock :D

Here are the answers to most of your questions.

I won't get into the full history of the Amiga hardware platform, a clever frankenstein of processors. The old Amiga was a 68k platform primarily, the "new" Amiga runs on a PowerPC platform called the AmigaOne. For those who care, the OS was ported using the same technique that Apple used to port the MacOS from 68k to PPC, using a 68k emulator for as yet unported code.

Here's more info in AmigaOS4, features, screenshots, etc. Looking forward to this!

If you want an OS with more balls, try Amiga!

The damn systems keep Overheating

This deal has already happend in April 2003!

Great information politics, Amiga Inc...!

Their only capital is the trust of some spirited, hard core nostalgians. These politics trash this completely..

rpp3po

:)

Actually, that infamous lie was "On Schedule and Rockin'".

But that was for the "AmigaOne PPC/1200", the development of which had already been suspended at the time of that announcement.

As you can see, AmigaOS 4.0 and 4.2 was "on schedule for release Summer of '01".

Ok, the link for the word "switch" in that story is a link to Linux.
Give me a fucking break!!! That's not the only option.

True. :)

Oops, for some reason the links www.eyetech.co.uk/amigaone/ or AmigaOS didn't show.

Amiga says it is signed and you're SOL after 19 January, 2046, 03:14:07.

" As was outlined above, the Amiga measures time in seconds. As it turns out, the number of seconds to accumulate until 19 January, 2046, 03:14:07 will form the largest value a signed 32 bit integer number can hold.....AmigaDOS, which always treats time as a signed quantity, will consider this date to be invalid because it is "negative". " -- Amiga.com

Well thats a good reason to purchase an AmigaOne at a dealer closest to you, beofore AmigaOS4 is released and get the OS for free.

Or you could purchase the Pegasos and get MorphOS (an Amiga like operating system) for free.

Actually, new Amigas are available now, and they are also not far away from releasing AmigaOS 4.0.
The previous version of the OS, v3.9, was released less than 2 years ago, so I'm not so sure about the "aging-platform" talk.

Actually, new Amigas are available now, and they are also not far away from releasing AmigaOS 4.0.
The previous version of the OS, v3.9, was released less than 2 years ago, so I'm not so sure about the "aging-platform" talk.

Bribing people to port new, resource hungry software to a decade-old platform is an exercise in frustration. Now, someone else in this thread said that the AmiZilla port is more aimed at the "new and exciting" AmigaOS that everyone's been promising for the last five years. Hey, that would be great. My impression was that some poor bastard was taking on the task of porting Moz to his A500, and that just struck me as futile and impractical.

Bribing people to port new, resource hungry software to a decade-old platform is an exercise in frustration. Now, someone else in this thread said that the AmiZilla port is more aimed at the "new and exciting" AmigaOS that everyone's been promising for the last five years. Hey, that would be great. My impression was that some poor bastard was taking on the task of porting Moz to his A500, and that just struck me as futile and impractical.

Yes, the Amiga is dead and buried. The story is a bit misleading.

"Port Mozilla to AmigaOS and similar/compatible OSes" would probably have been more accurate.

AmigaOS might get a chance to live on in version 4, on off the shelf 3rd party hardware, if the company that whimsically calls itself "Amiga Inc." would only give it a chance instead of actively doing all they can to kill it in its cradle. Then there's things like the API compatible MorphOS and the open source AROS.

And no, Lionel Ritchie and skinny ties have never been great.

Irrelevant little pissant companies can come up with DRM schemes too, you know.
(Of course, that's an example of full-fledged insanity and the killing off of their own commercial software product, but they seriously believe e.g. the Open Hardware community will buy into it)