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Running AmigaOS on a PC (The Proper Way)
AmiLover writes: "OSNews is running a review of AmigaXL, a system that allows you to boot AmigaOS on your PC in a way that resembles a regular-booting x86 operating system. Screenshots accompany the article show the latest version of AmigaOS 3.9 running on a Compaq laptop. With AmigaOS 4.0 coming out in March with lots of new features (antialias fonts, better memory protection etc) is AmigaXL the one true future of Amiga, a future that AmigaDE, QNX and Gateway failed to materialize through their involvement with AmigaOS?"
What about the AROS Project which has been running for long ?
Trolling using another account since 2005.
For those of you who don't know, VMWare is a way in which multiple virtual machines can be created on your desktop. What VMWare actually does is it isolates a section of hard drive (appears as a regular file in Linux) and isolates sections of memory (I've had up to 128 MB allocated) and runs a "virtual machine" which runs through a "BIOS" and can do pretty much everything that another computer can do, including running Windows 98 Games!
So, has anybody got this running under VMWare yet?
So, when I think "screenshots," I don't usually assume they're pictures of a laptop from a few feet away.....
Amiga = the computer that won't die. Just to drive home an dprove that point, I just purchased an Amiga 1200 from an old friend for $100. Amiga 1200 with EC040/50, 10megs of RAM, couple gigs of HD spread over 5 HDs, SCSI PCMCIA... I've been shopping around second-hand computer shops looking for a giant PC tower case to move it into. I hope to eventially pick up a PPC + graphics board, install WB 3.9 (has super-pimped/hacked 3.0 right now with most to all of the features of 3.5).
Ahhh the memories. While the Amiga was left behind in the speed wars a long time ago (I forgot how long it takes a simple JPEG image to load!) For ease of use and simple hackability, there never was any competition.
Long live the Amiga! May she never rest in peace!
That's not what I meant.
I am wondering if the Amiga can ever rise from the ashes like the Phoenix?
It is interesting that it will run on both x86 and PPC platforms. This will help it gain ground. Unfortunately they chose QNX as their kernel, which is not only proprietary, but also has few fanatical supporters. (unlike either *BSD or Linux, both of which have lots of fanatical supporters.) It is at least a UNIX like kernel, and very high performance.
It would have been better to emulate Apple in picking a free kernel. Then you would have had the supporters of that OS adding the the core supporters of Amiga. Worse case, how hard would it be to make *BSD or Linux be API compatible with QNX?
All that being said, I would love to see a demo of it, and to see just how fast it is and how well it runs all the programs. I bet we can look forward to ports of open office and mozilla rather quickly as soon as a few developers get their hands on a copy. The full set of GNU tools will also probably be quickly ported to the new environment.
I have a feeling that this is the last chance for Amiga, it is sink or swim. If they don't succeed this time, then it is all over for the platform.
And even then I think that Amiga has a lot to prove in a market that is crowed with Windows, Linux/X and Mac OS X in the top 3 places. No one else is even a contendor on the desktop. OS2 is dead, BeOS is dead. They have to prove that they are worth the price. BeOS was arguably as good or better than the new Amiga, and it never caught on.
-- Never make a general statement.
I used AmigaOS over 17 years ago. And I can tell you, it WAS way ahead of it's time. Not only was it Max OS X, Linux, and Windows of today, it also had the best hardware of today from low end device support to the best graphic technology.
It was a developers machine as well as a user's machine to love.
----
Karma stuck at 50? Add 2-5 inches.. err.. 2-5x Karmas Count to your pen1es.. err.. Karma all naturally and private
I think the big problem is that the 68k cpu line is basically dead. I have to assume that nobody out there is able to design or create the proprietary off-cpu chips that did so much of the Amiga magic. Thus the need for a PPC machine. I don't see a problem here. Of course, if someone can overclock a 68k cpu to like 1GHZ, without creating a small fusion reaction, that might have possibilities.
--- Think of it as evolution in action ---
Exactly same news item was posted on ANN several hours ago. In the comments section, Bernie Meyer, the main programmer behind Amithlon, responds in several posts (1, 2, 3)
I'll be able to use VideoToaster once again?
And note: Linux is quite horrible in most regards as a desktop OS (which doesn't stop me using it as such, or even installing it on the machines of the clueless as a virus-proof alternative to Windows), but it's still the only system making real inroads on the desktop.
I find the empirical evidence too hard to ignore: unless you're Microsoft, the only way you're going to make significant advances in today's OS marketplace is to be Open Source. Proprietary releases of the Amiga OS for the PC platform might make a few old Amiga die-hards very happy, but is there really any future in it? Is history going to repeat itself again?
proof, n. A demonstration that a conclusion is implied by certain premises and axioms.
An answer your question from the article:
"Is this the future of Amiga computing?," you may ask. Although this package offers a very valuable addition to the options currently available, the future of Amiga computing lies with PPC based Amiga 4.x compatible computers and other AmigaDE enabled solutions.
Lasers Controlled Games!
In 1989 I bought an Amiga 500. My jaw dropped.
I have never experienced another piece of
technology the way I did the first year I used
amiga. It's sound, graphics, multitasking, and
interface WAS that good... that far
ahead of it's time.
If there were and equivalent to getting laid the ;)
first time it would be the Amiga. Sure
you've had better since, but you will
remember it always. For the record I'll take my
first lay over the Amiga anytime
-J
Since then the industry has changed tremendously, we've been though how many generations of hardware, software, and even OSes. It's nice that an Amiga-legacy has come back but - to what?
Is there anything that Amiga now offers that Be didn't or MacOS X doesn't? Something that Wintel in it's messy but with 90% of the market way can't cough up some half-assed version of? The Linux/BSD/etc. can't reproduce?
Surely there aren't enough Amiga-fanatics out there to support a viable market for running old binaries? And all of those old kewl Amiga apps - they're old hat now - certianly there are better alternatives on other platforms by now aren't there?
What, exactly, does Amiga offer other then seeing an old friend again? I know nothing else is quite like it but after all these years is it really viable as an ongoing concern? Or is it like CP/M, just a joy to see it but of little real purpose other then the familiarity and the odd bit that can still be useful if only because nobody ever did it as well elsewhere?
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
So, the Amiga joins the ranks of Be, Geoworks, OS/2, GEM, and SCO.
They are all also-ran commercial competitors to not just Windows, which commands 99% of that market and comes bundled with 99% of the systems available, but three flavors of BSD, all free-as-in-beer-and-as-in-speach, and a few housand different Linux-based operating systems (distros). Top it off with a few clever, and completely free "other" OSes, like Atheos, and the situation looks grim.
I expect them to enjoy the same long-term success enjoyed by Be and OS/2... which is to say, an ignonimous death after the Nostalgia buffs tire of toying with it.
To be brutally blunt, the only way to introduced a closed platform in the current market is to work it as a total system. Sun and Apple desktops survive in a Windows world by offering a total package... you don't gotta be faster than Wintel, or cheaper than Wintel, but you have got to offer something Wintel doesn't. Comprehensively integrated systems is a damn good start, the insane system speed and responsiveness with limited resources that was a trademark of the Amiga of yore is another area to focus on. Move to Mips, ARM, PowerPC, MAJC, what have you... design a platform, not an OS but a whole platform, and you have a fighting chance.
Emulating a 10 year old architecture on an bone stock PC and then charging for the privelege is a fast track to irrelevancy.
SoupIsGood Food
computer manufacturers and operating system makers are continuing to pander to the lowest common denominator
What would you rather have them do? Go broke pandering to the .05% of the market with some knowledge?
The Joe Windows crowd is the group that has the money to burn and needs someplace to spend it. One can hardly blame mfg's and os companies for wanting to give them a place to do so.
That being said, this does look like a last hurrah attempt to monetize a dead OS architecture.
To celebrate the occasion of my 1000th post, I will post no more forever on Slashdot. Goodbye.
This is hilarious.
e t/802.11/rs485 network that I've ever heard of. I'm a busy little bee, trying to write a VIP stack for linux, and integrate streettalk, ad, and nds all into my strange little OpenLDAP directory. I just got my first PDP-11 a few weeks back, and I've almost got unix v7 running on it. If you want to play guru, bring it on.
Operating systems that I use at least once a month.
NOS's
Banyan VINES 6.0 (with streettalk)
Netware 2.x
Netware 3.x
Netware 4.x (with NDS)
Netware 5.0 (with NDS)
OS's
Apple ProDOS
Apple GS/OS 6
MacOS 6.x -9.x
Amiga OS 1.x - 3.1
Windows 3.0, 3.11WFW, 95, 98, NT 3.1, NT 3.51 NT4, 2000 (all flavors, 2k with AD)
CP/M (for TRS-80 Model 4)
IBM PC DOS 3.x-7.0
MS DOS 2.x-6.22
Novell DOS 7
DR DOS 5,6
Atari TOS/GEM
IBM OS/2 2.1-4.0
RX11
OpenVMS 7.0
Ultrix 4.3
Solaris 7
NeXTstep 3.3
And literally too many 8bit OS's to keep track of. Tandy renamed the trs80 dos's every other week, I just can't remember all the different flavors of minix, cp/m and things named "dos". I have the only integrated ethernet/tokenring/arcnet/localtalk/fddi/atm/econ
I don't see a clear, motivating reason to buy into the new AmigaOS, except for nostalgia.
It is ironic, to me, that all that survives from Amiga is the OS. One of the main reasons that the Amiga line died back because Amiga was even worse that Apple about releasing new versions of the OS.
WTF are you talking about? He's making points about how fast UAE runs on a couple of Powermacs, then you're asking if you'd be able to do the same with Basilisk, which emus 68K only. He's only saying that he feels UAE would be an unknown quantity under XP - he's obviously an Amiga-loving Mac user (as are many). How and why would he be running Basilisk on a Powermac? (I know, via VPC) and FYI, you CAN get a 68K emu for the Powermac to supplant Apple's JIT emu - some think it runs pre-system 7 better. And WTF do you think the Windows 16bit subsystem does?
That was classic intercourse!
well, 68k is sort of still alive, in the form of the Palm in your pocket. yes folks, Dragonball EZ is part of the family indeed. I think Moto also has a line called "Coldfire" which is 68K related. I agree that there's no point to emulating something as wonderful as the Amiga. Moving the Amiga to PPC might have helped 10 years ago, but that's when they would have had to start thinking about it, not now. When was it that PowerPC debuted? 1992? If the Amiga wants to live again (and why should it?), they would have to plan on using a NEW architecture, not even x86 - which is in it's death throes as we speak. By the time a new Amiga COULD arrive, we'll be knee deep in IA64, x86-64, PowerPC G5, UltraSPARC III and possibly even CELL. Maybe a smart move would be to exploit CELL to build a truly powerful custom architecture that could show us what multitasking is all about again.
That was classic intercourse!
"Load the thing down with geforce's galore, and a bunch of fast DSP's for sound." if this is what you're after, why not look at Linux on the PS2? There's some co-pro going on there, and at least that machine has SOME kind of future.
That was classic intercourse!
I use an Amiga daily, so I'll take a shot at this.
For me, the Amiga has no unique features, anymore, that are terribly important. BUT...
I happen to like the scheduler and the GUI's responsiveness. Until about (very roughly) 2 or 3 years ago, the Amiga was much faster and responsive than any mainstream OS. You could beat it with other fringe OSes such as BeOS, but GUIs such as GNOME, KDE, and Windows, couldn't really measure up to it. The catch is that the hardware that the mainstream OSes run on, is so much faster, that at even one tenth (this is very subjective, I admit) of the efficiency, they're able to keep up now. A 300 MHz Pentium running Windows or Linux is a sick joke compared to a 50 MHz Amiga, but a 1.2 GHz Athlon isn't. So this advantage has mostly disappeared, as far as I'm concerned.
The other advantage is one that only applies to Amiga die-hards. We're just familiar with our old software. If you don't already have an Amiga, you probably don't need this stuff. But I have a hard time giving up:
-
-
I also use my Amiga for mail, using a program called Serious Voodoo. But I suspect that today's mailers on other platforms are just as good; I just haven't tried them. But when I first started using it in 1996 (?), the mainstream didn't have any decent GUI mailers with PGP integration (which I'm guessing is commonplace now).AWeb: a very nice web browser. Galeon is better in some ways, but missing some features. Netscape 4.x and MSIE (all versions) are very crude. Opera is pretty nice. There's no reason existing browsers couldn't gain the things about AWeb that I like; it's just that they haven't for some reason.
Directory Opus Magellan: a very good file manager. I find Nautilus, GMC (or whatever that older GNOME file manger was called), KDE, Windows Explorer, and yes -- even Mac finder and OS/2 WPS -- to be somewhat slow and clumsy in some ways compared to working with DOpus (it depends on what you're trying to do). DOpus 5.x has a extremely efficient UI, IMHO.
FWIW, I have recently been thinking that the best parts could probably be duplicated in a couple hundred lines of Python, so maybe I'll give it a try. Also, I've heard it's recently been ported to Windows, but I haven't seen it. And I think some older versions of DOpus (4.x) have been cloned for other platforms. So it's not a really unique advantage, but it's still something that the mainstream hasn't latched onto yet.
Other Amigans may list other apps that they like, or violently disagree with my favorites. Whatever. I guess the point is that, no matter how dead the Amiga may seem, it had many years of life, and in that time, a very large library of software was written, some of ahead of its time. The remaining Amiga users are probably pretty used to the apps.
There are some little things too, like "assigns" (a way to use a sort of shorthand for a long path) which you can kinda fake on Unix-like systems with softlinks in your root, I guess.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
I've heard both the people like you, that claim the OS is what was great, and those that think it was the hardware. You're both right, and both wrong.
It was the combination of the two, that made it great. If you have just the hardware, then at best it's another machine to port linux to (not even that, considering the era we're discussing), and at worst, it's a machine that has no OS. That went out of fashion in the 1970's.
If you have just the OS, then it's another OS for the x86 monstrosity. You get to compete with the likes of OS/2, BeOS, even Openstep. All of which were admirable on a technical basis, but had no viable chance in the marketplace.
But you put the two together, and at least for a little while, you have something both whizbang and new, a thing unto itself. That even happened with Be Inc, though briefly.
but if you want advanced custom hardware, someone's gotta pay for it. A small company could barely manage a custom mobo these days, let alone a CPU. Maybe you could take the DSP route but I doubt it, people ARE trying, but going nowhere fast. With something like the PS2, you have a chance to create a new platform that happens to have been designed from scratch with co-processing in mind and high bandwidth hardware. It looks like a chance to build something new and different, powered by Sony's cash and burning desire to compete with MS properly. There won't be a new Amiga, but there might be a new platform free of MS and Intel.
That was classic intercourse!
Anything but what? Rich? Tell me something I don't know ...
However, if you add up the total aggregate of wealth, the lower middle class is where you aim if you want to market something. To run a growing, successful company, you have to aim at that market, because it is the one that is growing. The elite computer users are going to form such a small market that you'll go broke trying to supply and support them (though they are likely to need the least support).
As for the free market failing, what would you suggest? There are no viable alternatives that don't rely on some degree of "being nice to each other" (which might be nice, but you can't count on it).
My suggestion is that you quit whining about how the free market is failing and get out do something constructive. What? I don't know. I'm going to keep working in the free market system until someone provably comes up with something better.
To celebrate the occasion of my 1000th post, I will post no more forever on Slashdot. Goodbye.
"But I do know that a lot of lower end production companies still use Amigas for their video editing." err, I don't think so. You could put together a PC based edit system for 1500 on a PC or 2000 on a Mac that would crucify ANY Amiga Toaster - no-one in business uses such ancient HW these days. I work in TV, the last AMiga I saw in use was in 1996, and that was in a room full of Macs (it was a fully tricked out 4000 running Toaster, looked pretty shabby next to an Avid).
That was classic intercourse!
100% closed is not the issue. COMPETITION is. Maybe Sony would be as bad as MS (experience says they won't be), but you KNOW they're looking for a finacial return too. It's obvious that Sony wants a way out, they'd LOVE to run a new system on their laptops. Sometimes, just being different is enough - they don't have to be saints too.
That was classic intercourse!
The Amiga was waay ahead of it's time. Yeah, sure, you've heard this before, but I know of what I speak. No kidding. Let me explain.
About 10 years ago, a number of business associates (well, friends, really) and I had a company that used the Amiga extensively. We built, from the ground up, an embedded control and data collection system using Amiga computers. The average facility we installed with this product (yes, we sold it) went for about 70K.
Why the Amiga? Several reasons :
1) it was built for NTSC/PAL output. We needed to get signals to TV's for display.
2) it had state of the art graphics. I believe the only other "standard" at the time was VGA or SVGA.
3) it was *really* fast, compared to the X86 machines of the day. This was probably due more to the custom chips than the CPU clock...
4) it was built by very intelligent people who put a lot of thought into the design of it. The Zorro bus (peripheral card bus) was pretty straightforward to connect with. We built a single card design that worked on an A2000/3000/4000 and the A500.
5) it was cheap. Really really cheap for what you got (about $300 per A500 and this had everything we needed in a nice, small package).
6) apart from the lack of an MMU (generally) and memory protection, the OS was a dream to program and the system a dream to use.
7) we liked it. What can I say? We liked it. In addition to the company that built this embedded system, we had a computer store that dealt in the Amiga and Video Toaster.
We had to kill the product when Commodore went the way of the Dinosaurs. It's too bad, really, because we would have liked to continue.
I still love the Amiga - but it's not ever going to be a viable system to use again. I really *do* hope that the hardware and software guys who built the Amiga system get together and build a *real* piece of hardware and software again.
Think about the custom chips for a minute -
You had the blitter : basically an area based logic unit. Big deal? Well a buddy of mine wrote a program that could run a hi-res screen, some blitter code and very very little CPU and iterate through life (the simulation - not reality) at about 30 frames per second. No discernable CPU use. It wasn't until about '96 that I saw similar achievements on X86 hardware.
You had the copper : the chip that allowed for multiple resolutions. It defined how to output graphics information and at what resolution : take a hi-res screen with x colors and allow it to be dragged over a low res-screen with x*256 colors. There's nothing I've seen since that can do this.
You had the graphics chips themselves : Agnus and Portia (or whatever). They did all the work of putting out the display, along side the other two custom chips.
All of the use of the CPU was in processing - everything was basically DMA, everything ran the same memory interleaved with the CPU. It was *sooo* cool and so very quick.
A couple of my partners wrote a program called Amoeba Invaders (space invaders clone) (through our company Late Night Developments - we were young and thought it was a cool name). I could run about, oh, 20 copies of this game concurrently because most of the animation was done with the custom chips and not the CPU - and this was on an Amiga 1000 (68000 system).
But... Commodore was run by business folks who wanted to make a buck. And they did. And when they were happy with the buck they'd made, they killed it.
So, the Amiga was waay ahead of it's time. But it's now dead and technology has certainly improved well beyond what the Amiga excelled at.
I saw this thread on an emulator and have one thing to say. So what? I liked the Amiga because of the hardware and the software. No emulator so far has been able to do a good job of the hardware that made the Amiga greater than the OS. Oh well.
Interesting piece, but I'm afraid it's not a review. It's a piece of Amiga evangelism in the wrong place.
We don't need to be told about AmigaOS. We don't need to be told about AmigaOS apps, or about how good or bad they are, or anything about Amiga itself.
There's about 5 pages of irrelevant stuff in there.
This is meant to be a review of an emulation package.
There are, as I understand it, two emulators.
Identify them. What are the differences? What do they do? Why use them instead of UAE or Fellow?
Start with one. Explain what it is and how it works. Explain how it's installed and used. Comment on how well it works. Criticize its failings, don't just praise its strengths.
Then take the 2nd. Do exactly the same.
Now, compare the two. Explain the differences. Take 1#. Point out where #1 is better than #2, then where #1 is worse than #2. Now take #2 and do the same.
Now, comment on the overall package. Compare it to any competitors: UAE, Fellow, AiaB, AmigaForever. Compare it to a real modern Amiga.
What's in the box? What manuals? What's the help like? What's the support like?
Specify its EXACT hardware requirements. Explain an optimal config, a minimal one, and the difference it makes.
Explain its cost and where to get it.
Summarise, in ten words each, its pros, its cons, and an overall verdict. Award it points out of ten for performance, ease of use, features, functionality, compatibility, value for money and overall.
*That* is a review.
This piece, however enjoyable, isn't.
But thanks for it! I enjoyed it. It just didn't tell me what I needed to know: do I want it? Is it worth buying?
--
Liam P.
[echoed on OSnews]
Liam P. ~ "Intelligence is a lethal mutation." (me)
A few years ago, I lived a coupla miles from the old Commodore Sweden HQ and they didn't take down the old sign until recently and every time I passed by on my bike or in my car, I'd shed a tear thinking about the good times I had with my amigas and how different the world could have been, if only... If only Irving Gould and Mehdi Ali hadn't been such greedy bastards. They must have been grown out of a baboon's ass - there is no way in hell those two idiots could have been born and raised by humans. No, I'm not bitter. I'm BITTER!.
Let me go, I feel much better now! No, don't make me run XP again - NOOOOOooooo!
Money for nothing, pix for free
As a production platform for film, music, etc, the Amiga is quite obsolete. You do not want to run Deluxe Paint when you have access to Photo Shop, don't you?
Actually, Photoshop is not exactly very hot for pixel-level editing, which is the thing DP focuses most on. If I'd have both DP on Amiga and Photoshop on Windows/Mac running in front of me and I'd have to draw for example a small icon from scratch, I'd use DP. (Although then again, IMO Brilliance was a better program than DP for that ;) For most heavy-duty graphics work Photoshop is superior, but it's not the best tool for everything.
Everyone who makes generalizations should be shot.
The nicest thing about the Amiga, that no one has mentioned yet, was the extensive integration with a scripting language. ARexx was a Rexx variant that allowed developers to expose the internal functions of their programs, and it was a joy. That integration was worth learning a new syntax for.
An example: I loved doing animation and putting them onto tape. By hand, this involved running each frame through Art Department Professional to resize, deinterlace, and change bit depth; then hitting the "Append" button in my Personal Animation Recorder and adding the changed frame (fields) to an animation.
I wrote an ARexx program that started ADPro and PAR, then waited for new frames to show up in a directory as they were rendered. It would press the appropriate buttons to load the image in ADPro, manipulate it, and save it to disk, then do the same to have the PAR add it to the animation. If I had a serial VCR, it could even have recorded the thing when I was through.
That kind of integration was marvelous. Everything had it. You could automate the most amazing tasks. It was like getting a little command-line utility for every function of a monstrously complex program's GUI. It would be nice to have in Linux; the closest we've got now is Gimp scripting.
For geek dads: Contraction Timer
If real3d was your fave app you might be interested to know that its direct descendant, Realsoft 3D is available on Windows and (just about - working beta) Linux.
Choice of masters is not freedom.
But the underlying concepts weren't new, even at the time: message passing, multitasking, GUIs, hardware acceleration, etc., were already being used in several other operating systems. OSX's ancestor, Mach, was already being developed, and Linux's ancestors, various versions of UNIX, had been out for nearly a decade. Several GUIs, including early versions of X, were also in use.
I'm hurt. No troll, I work in Soho (yes, I'm British) for a TV post-production company. We work in the episodic, gfx and high-end corporate market. Our company had a single Amiga/Toaster up until 1994 (among many other systems). These days we have 12 Avids (2 Symphony), 1 Editbox, 1 "Floctane", 1 DS, 1 linear Digibeta 3 machine suite, 2 DPS Realitys' and 2 FCP/Digital Voodoo machines. I happen to know Aardman's set-up quite well, and they use a heck of a lot of DPS Perceptions over there. never saw an Amiga though. We DO have ONE client (an animator) who uses Toaster on WinNT, but it seems a troublesome set up.
That was classic intercourse!