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PPC Amigas Go On Sale
nastyphil writes "After a wait of almost 10 years and passing through a series of owners' hands, new Amiga hardware is on sale. G4 processors at up to 800 Mhz.
Development of AmigaOS 4.0 has been continuing at a steady pace by Hyperion and will be ready for release early 2003."
I believe it can run MaconLinux which in it's turn can run Mac OS X.
Nicolas Mendoza
Prepare for MSIE 7
I'm going to disappoint you, but the GUI _is_ adjustable just like AmigaOS GUI always has been.
Those screenshots with brown, blue, green and whatnot is the preferences of that specific developer's computer. Actually those screenshots aren't even of an AmigaOne PPC. It's PPC version of Workbench running on a classic 68kAmgia with a PPC-card in it.
Beware though, according to this interview with Ben Hermans, Hyperion (makers of OS4.x) there will be more Intuition (Workbench) screenshots soon.
Nicolas Mendoza
Prepare for MSIE 7
SIGH, more Amiga-clueless people pretending to know what an Amiga is.
There IS no textmode on an Amiga!
Just looked through the mol docs and didn't see anything about Apple's EULA. What I did see is this: "MOL can run on non-Apple hardware. APUS hardware (Amiga PowerUp System) is currently unsupported, but work is in progress." So apparently it doesn't run out of the box on Amigas, though who knows about the new G4s.
... is that really necessary? Can you run mol-on-mol like this, and keep going until your computer explodes?
Another interesting tidbit from the front page -- "Linux can be booted inside MOL"
What would be really cool is if the MOL guys figure out how to install AmigaOS 4 on Apple PPCs using mol.
Actually, they were named Agnus, Fat Agnus, Super Fat Agnus, and Alice. Alice was the final incarnation of the chip, from the Amiga 1200 and Amiga 4000's AGA chipsets. There might have been others in the specialty Amigas, such as Dave Haynie's prototype "A3000+" which was (according to rumor) only produced in two specimens, but there was no Obese Agnus in a general-production Amiga. :)
Six sick
What would be really cool is if the MOL guys figure out how to install AmigaOS 4 on Apple PPCs using mol.
This might be difficult since the new Amigas have special Firmware, very closely related to the classic Amiga's "KICKSTART" roms.
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
Moderation Totals: Wrong=2, Stupid=3, Total=5.
Back in the days the Amiga was easier to configurate, had better multimedia capabilities than *any* platform, the best multimedia applications (video, at least). Some video/audio apps still outperform anything you can get for linux today.
That said, I am still not sure why a "normal" user should get a new Amiga instead of a Linux box today. No memory protection (planned, though) and no application advantages.
But, if you are an old Amiga user, interrested in the latest Amiga technology and also have an interrest in running a pretty cheap PPC box (LinuxPPC?), then this might be something for you.
--
"I'm surfin the dead zone
In the twilight, unknown"
Here you can find a summ up of what has been announced at a recent Amiga show held in the UK. The article includes links to show reports and Audio recording from the presentations done by Amiga Inc, Hyperion and Eyetech.
Here you can read an article which takes a closer look at the AmigaOS4/AmigaOne solution. The article is a couple of months old and does not include the latest informations given at the WoASE show.
And finally here you can find more information about MorphOS/Pegasos, a promising Amiga-like rival system.
The 450/500 GBP prices (roughly 704/780 USD) are just for the mobo with CPU, not a complete system. Assume another $20 for shipping (which would be cheap!), and you're looking at $800USD just for the mobo. You still need to add memory, a case, video card, HDD, CD[-RW]/DVD[-+RW], keyboard, mouse, and monitor.
Lets assume for sake of argument you're going cheap, cheap, cheap, so:
You're now running $320 in basic components, bringing the price up to $1045-1120 (700/800MHz variants.) Or you can get an eMac for $1100 (700MHz) that upgrades you to a CD-RW with a better video card, modem, and FireWire port that is pre-installed with a currently shipping copy of OSX. Alternatively, $1300 gets you an iBook with a 12.1" screen (slightly smaller 30GB HDD.)
Having decided to buy the AmigaOne mobo anyhow, you now have the option of running PPC Linux or waiting for the new OS. Either way, you miss out on the commercial product support for Linux (DB/2, Oracle, Sybase, et. al. are x86 binaries, not PPC.) Assuming pure open source is just fine by you, you've still got a box that is woefully underpowered to a similarly priced/configured AMD system (and maybe even Intel P4.)
Much as I loved my Amiga 1000, I just can't see any reason I'd want one of these new "Amiga" systems. Most of the reasons I loved my A1000 just aren't valid anymore -- everyone has hardware accelerated video and audio now, video capture and processing cards are common, and I'd rather be coding *nix than a system with no mind/market share.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Actually they do. Let me explain, in 1994 my Amiga was equiped with a cool 4MB Retina BLT Z3 graphic board (1900×1426 8bit 70 Hz or 1024×768 24bit) and 16-bit Toccata soundcard (48KHz).
The Amiga market was already moving towards 3rd party developed hardware solutions back then, sadly this slowed down due to the unfortunate situation of the time. But fellow Amiga users who only owned standard unexpanded Amigas drooled all over my machine, so I believe more people would have expanded their Amigas with 3rd party hardware solutions, if they could afford it at the time.
These new Amigas will run a PPC native port of AmigaOS and the hardware is fully licensed, so IMO an Amiga. (BTW Future 3rd party PCI solutions are planned for adding legacy classic Amiga hardware support.)
Actually these are just some preview screenshots by some AmigaOS programmers demonstrating some OS functionality. The are some great graphics artists doing their best for the platform as well, and soon (probably within a week) you will see new AmigaOS4 screenshots, likely reflecting this.
Note however that the GUI can be fully customized to suit the taste of the user. Similar but more advanced as you can currently do with classic AmigaOS. Here you can view some examples of what can be done with the GUI with even the classic AmigaOS.
I keep hearing this about AmigaOS, and I still can't figure out what definition of "realtime" you're using. I learned that a realtime operating system is one that can guarantee a response to an external event within a given time.
AmigaOS patently does not satisfy this condition, because any running task on the system can disable interrupts, and therefore multitasking. Any program that need to walk the Exec list does so, which means that multitasking is disabled for varying amounts of time depending on the contents of the Exec list.
(My memory is hazy. Can't programs also install their own interrupt handlers? That, too, is going to lead to varying, unknown latencies.)
' "APUS hardware (Amiga PowerUp System) is currently unsupported, but work is in progress." So apparently it doesn't run out of the box on Amigas, though who knows about the new G4s.'
APUS is a PPC accelerator board setup on what are now dubbed 'Classic' Amigas. MOL runs quite happily on the AmigaOne, including the G3 versions if you compile Altivec support into the kernel.
No, there are no "new Amigas." No, nobody will make any "new Amigas."
Hardware has no longer got anything to do with anything "Amiga."
Once upon a time (almost two years ago), the UK Amiga shop Eyetech became "hardware partners" of the new company "Amiga Inc." They were to provide actual new PPC Amiga hardware, and contracted the German firm Escena to design it. This failed. I'm sure those "AmigaOne 1200/4000" motherboards are still praised somewhere on the horribly outdated amiga.com web site.
Instead, AmigaOS 4 and newer will run on third party PPC hardware. That could of course have been fantastic news, but for some reason Eyetech, as a thank you for services not rendered and already being a "partner," got to invent a compulsory hardware-licensing scheme.
In order to see AmigaOS run on a piece of hardware, a hardware vendor has to:
AmigaOS will NOT be sold separate from hardware.
Not very surprisingly, Eyetech is the only distributor that has accepted Amiga Inc's and Eyetech's rules. They are now distributing Mai Logic's Teron CX and Teron PX POP motherboards under the trademarks "AmigaOne SE" and "AmigaOne XE" respectively. (NB: the 4 figure price listed on Mai's Teron CX page is for a developer board including unlimited dev tech support, they sell their commercial version for $500). The market for the exact same hardware is split up into one microscopic "for AmigaOS" part and one "for everyone else" part.
If you're interested in AmigaOS, you're not allowed to buy it. You have to buy a new Teron board via the sole Amiga Inc-licensed hardware distributor Eyetech. You aren't allowed to buy a board cheaper directly from Mai. A very easily made port to other POP boards like e.g. the Pegasos, or to (in comparison) cheaply and abundantly available PowerMacs can't happen until someone decides to become an Amiga Inc licensee and AmigaOS distributor, and renames the hardware to "Amiga."
In one blow, AmigaOS by default lost every possible hardware option on the planet, except for the "licensed" one.
"Why do they not want to sell AmigaOS?" you ask. Who knows. Amiga Inc is a newly formed company that has nothing to do with AmigaOS (and certainly nothing to do with any hardware), their interest lies in selling their "content engine" AACE/AmigaDE to PDA and mobile phone vendors, and distributing third party developers' little games for that thing. Apparently, and judging from their silence in response to e.g. this petition from AmigaOS fans, they seem to just not care as long as they get some licensing cash from a few Teron boards sold to trademark fanatics. The only apparent beneficiary of this damn ludicrous mess is the sole licensed hardware distributor, Eyetech. Hyperion, the company that has taken over AmigaOS development, has repeatedly stated that they themselves naturally are interested in seeing AmigaOS run on as much hardware as possible, and since AmigaOS no longer is tightly coupled to custom chips or something like that, the HAL is very easily portable.
Help savingAmigaOS and a free PowerPC market
Except that Mac's are made by Apple, and were always made by Apple. If they want to release two different machines and call them both "Mac" - that's their choice. Add to that the (limited) binary compatibility and you have a family of machines, even though the hardware has changed.
The new Amigas are nothing whatsoever to do with the old Amigas. They don't run the same hardware (or even any relation to it), and they're not made by the same company (anyone remember Commodore?). There's also no binary compatibility.
If I installed this PPC AmigaOS on an iMac would it be an Amiga? Nope. If I installed OSX on one of these new "Amigas", would it be a Mac? Nope. Hell, if I got TOS running on an original 68k Amiga would that make it an ST? No!
Computer names are defined by the hardware first, branding/manufacturer second, and OS last.
If Amiga Inc wants to make PPC machines and install some version of AmigaOS on them, well more power to them, choice is always a good thing. But to somehow say this is an evolution of an A1000 is crazy IMHO.
---- Den ene knappen er powerknapp, den andre er Bender voice knapp "Bite My Shiny Metal Ass"
Say what you will about the limited hard drive space, but the Amiga could do more with 170MB back then than most computers can do with 170GB today. It was very efficient with regards to disk space.
I used to know a guy who set up kiosks and displays for movie theaters using Amiga hardware. He had systems that allowed people to interactively search and view movie times, view movie trailers (from a laser disc), and do all kinds of fancy overlays and screen wipes. All this for an entire theater, including the OS, software, graphics, and data, would only fill about 10MB of disk space. How much do you think it would take these days to do the same thing?
For every post, there is an equal and opposite re-post.
Actually, correction:
The A3000+ had 100 units produced, and were standard AGA amigas, running Alice, Lisa and Paula.
The AGA's replacement was AAA, found in the 3 Nyx motherboards. They replaced the 3 custom-chips with 4:
Andrea -- replaced Agnus. Added a RISC-like semi-processor to the copper, to speed up operations. Also added new modes to the blitter, like pattern fill.
Denise was replaced by 2 chips:
Linda -- A line display buffer, could decode video-stream instructions on a line-per-line basis.
Monica -- The actual display chip, contains the color-palettes/color decode tables, the HAM display system, playfield decoder, sprite display system, etc. Also had the added ability to do video-input.
Mary -- Paula's replacement. This chip actually surpasses even chips availible in PC's now. Contained raw, CGR, MFM, RLL and bitplane mark encoding. The "Floppy Controller" was so advanced it could push a CD-ROM or low-speed hard drive. 64kHz sampling rate, 8 channels, 12-bits of audio volume, could sample in 8 or 16 bits, supported digital out directly, and of course the ability to use channels to modulate another channel.
AAA was on revision 2 when Commodore went under. By all practicality, it was 14-18 months from completion. The design was altered to become the last Amiga chipset commodore worked on: Hombre. Hombre dumped sprtes and planar video, replaced the copper with a PA-RISC CPU with the copper commands added, and PCI support for inclusion on an expantion card. An evolved Hombre could compete even today, but the money needed and time demand makes that a pipe dream as well.
Karma Whoring for Fun and Profit.
I moved to the Amiga in 1988, after learning all about BASIC on a C-64. I was only 10 at the time and had a budget of $0 so I relied on my parents for games, demos etc. but there was a users group - two actually, the Latham Amiga Users Group (LAUG) and the Capital District Amiga Users Group (CDAUG).
I'd tag along with my dad to meetings and we'd get floppy disks from Fred Fish. We had Digi-Paint, which used a b&w camera that could take color images using red, green and blue cellophane - pretty ingenious at the time. Then there was Deluxe Paint III, with animation and animated brushes and tutorials on VHS (I remember creating the bouncing ball demo). I also learned how to use MED (a music editor) and Deluxe Music for writing out scores. These were some real tools that taught you how to be clever. And every application could run off a floppy - with only 20MB of hard disk space you had better be able to run things off floppies.
Speech synthesis was another wonderful thing - the program I used even made a simple mouth that would animate when it spoke!
I think the Amiga's crash was the best I've ever seen too - Guru meditations! Somebody at Commodore realized that if they could make you laugh at a crash, the problem wouldn't seem so bad.
When my dad decided we should take the plunge into PC's, I was disappointed at how far behind they were. Sound cards?? Amigas had built-in sound! Mouse drivers? The Amiga's mouse worked right off the bat! And don't get me started on those damn 8.3 filenames. Windows 3.1 was a beast, and where's the icon for the hard disk? But it had a CD-ROM drive, eight megs of ram (when most new computers had four- we splurged), and hundreds of megabytes of hard disk space. And I knew other people who had PC's - that was important. Now that I'm a Linux user I don't know if I have any needs that an Amiga would fill. I hope I'm wrong.
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