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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."
FYI: This is the official PPC Amiga (AmigaOne) backed up by Amiga Inc. I'm looking forward to OS4 is finished, the presentation at the WOASE show last weekend was promising.
And even if the box could run Mac OS X, Apple doesn't allow it as stated in their EULA.
(There are other PPC based computers claiming to be Amiga-compatible (Pegasos))
Nicolas Mendoza
Prepare for MSIE 7
Cool news!
:(
If only now they'd release Lotus Turbo Esprit Challenge 2 with TCP/IP multiplayer for it!
Definately one of the cooler games for the amiga way back when...
Cant see it happening though
-- If at first you don't succeed, lie!
Is the 100Mhz speed boost really worth it when you consider that for the Apple price you'll receive the 15" LCD screen? Bear in mind that you'll also have the benefit of dedicated Apple support for OS X, and genuine Mac Hardware. I believe that you can run versions of PPC Linux on the iMac, so unless you really want to run AmigaOS, I don't see any real benefits over the long term.
Tim
Backup not found: (A)bort (R)etry (P)anic
The prospect of being able to buy an inexpensive PPC system from another vendor (besides apple, et al), is great news in purely technical terms - it's another option for replacing legacy x86 hardware, for example - but what are the broader implications?
...
Will there be enough interest in PPC-based platforms for a consumer PPC market to take off? In what areas does PPC in general (as opposed to MacOS, AmigaOS or LinuxPPC in particular) offer signifigant benefits? Apple has certainly found their own way of using this architecture, but I'm sure we all remember Power Computing
As I remember it, hacking away at my Amiga 500 in the early 90's... AmigaDOS 1.0 was more stable than most of the linux distros I have used. Plus it had rockin accessories and a cool customer base. If is on a different platform now (PPC) that might change the perf curve. I really liked the innovative way the H/W was put together on the first Amiga's and if this has a good architecture like that I will be first in line to get mine! If it is the equivalent to a MAC or AIX 43p, no way....
graffix
Apparently you can do this using Mac-on-linux but it is against Apple's EULA. Anyone know how Apple feels about this? Is there an "official" position from the Maconlinux people? I imagine as long as no company starts selling Amigas with OS X pre-installed that Apple would "look the other way" at a bunch of geeks putting OSX on Amigas. It gives Apple more underground geek appeal and promotes OS X more widely. It's not like they would support X on Amiga but I wonder if they would really get upset if a visible group of Amiga-OSX users appeared, along with a few HOWTOs, if there are any secret incantations required to get mol running properly on AmigaPPC. Then again, Apple lawyers have gone apeshit over much less....
Somewhat off topic, but I've been getting a charmingly interesting user agent string in my apache logs lately, (which has the magical ability to segfault my stats engine, webalizer).
that string would be:
tSi Mozilla/5_EXPERIMENTAL (AOS4.1 ALPHA; PPC)
Amiga OS 4.1 Alpha? hrm. Is this string fake? 4.1 when 4.0 isn't out yet?
Strangely enough when you say PC. I think of CGA screens, sounds that go blipp blopp and bad gaming experiences.
Tha Amiga had 4096 colors right from the beginning although 32 and 16 colours where the most popular ones. The resolution was 320x256 -> 640x512. But that was 1985.
Nowadays you can use most of the modern add-on cards out there (PCI, AGP etc.), as long as there are drivers for them that is. Not to mention Amithlon that actually runs on x86s.
Nicolas Mendoza
Prepare for MSIE 7
Is it just me, or does anyone else thing we really need this? The original Amiga was a strange beast, originally developed as a pure games machine, then retooled as a "business computer" it had the genlock device (video could be pumped through and mixed with the machines graphics). It was always an "odd" machine. And I guess that's why these people love it, how can you categorise it? Good at games, useful for video and able to do things like DTP, it was very exciting as a machine.
Now I don't know about everyone else, but I for one get a bit bored these days - machines are dull - really dull. Sure they have whizzbang new CPUs and there are some amazing graphics cards, but they don't quite capture the excitement of those earlier machines.
I for one am glad to see the Amiga haul itself out of the past, maybe it's nostalgia, but whatever if these things can help capture any of the excitement of the Amiga1000 or the Amiga2000 (you could put a PC card in one of those - so you really could "have your cake and eat it") then this will be worthwhile.
Sure I don't think the PC is going to become an endangered species or that this thing will even make much impression over the Mac, but does it have to? If they can make a profit out of these and a few nostalgic geeks can have some fun, it all sounds good to me.
I for one need some excitement!
I think the better place for an Amiga OS system -nowadays- would be into some embedded or portable hardware. The core system was (and I believe still is) very responsive, say near realtime, and small; no protected or virtual memory is required to have it working. In the Ol' days half a meg (0.5 Mb) was enough to run the system, the desktop and some good programs with absolutely no need for a hard disk.
Some good development in the right direction would give us the best system ever on PDAs, cellphones, tablet computers, small control systems etc.
These days much talk of GUI look and feel is bandied about. I don't know how the new Amiga GUI feels, but it looks awful. Maybe that's the last stage in their design and the whole thing is (hopefully) themeable - we can but hope.
Otherwise I'm afriad this just isn't going to sell. In the past the feel was the only part that counted because all GUIs were, let's face it, pretty damn ugly. These days however the look of a GUI (given the high powered graphics hardware sported by commodity machines) is actually rather important. Look how much attention OS X garnered solely on it's looks.
These days you can't afford to have an ugly GUI anymore - sure it can be an option for those people with no aesthetics - you need something that is attractive. I've never understood the people who deride attractive interfaces TBH - I spend 10+ hours a day staring at a computer screen, tell me again why I want it to be merely functional?!
Sure, if you're taking a serious performance hit for the graphics, then by all means turn them off (as linux kindly allows with it's myriad of window manager and desktop solutions), but these days you should b able to get quite a nice GUI for very little cost.
here's some snapshots of what my desktop sometimes looks like: screenshots
Jedidiah
Craft Beer Programming T-shirts
I take it that you don't use amiwm. I actually used this windows manager a few years back (before KDE and Gnome). It has a great retro feel!
Under the lid of my A1000 were the signatures of all the developers, molded into the plastic. _That_ was class.
These people had style. Pity the business model didn't work out.
Yay me!
How's that? As far as instilling that tingly sensation being on the rare, bleeding edge and having a great deal of of hope for new apps generated by the dearth of existing apps? I get that feeling running OS X (on my dual G4 800 and iBook 700), well, at least the bleeding edge part, because the apps are here for OS X.
Don't get me wrong. I purchased the first Amiga sold in the state of Virginia back in 1985, an A1000 from the fist store that was taking stock back then. I've left and come back a few times over the years, having owned that A1000, and A2000, an A1200, a used A500, and most recently another A1200 (towered, '060 -- but sold for the iBook) and A2000 (that I found new-in-box two years ago amazingly). I use the Amiga about every other day to relive the great days. But come on.
The new Amiga is an AmigaOS-compatible machine. It's not an Amiga compatible machine. It will run apps that are OS friendly, but no oldschool apps/games that hit the hardware. And what was the Amiga with its wonderful Hardware Reference manuals for but to invite hitting the hardware?? You may ask why anyone would be interested in running those old apps/games--why not look forward to current and new future apps running on AmigaOS 4.0. Well...if that's the point, then why not just run Linux or some other *NIX (OS X for example)?
As far as I can see, the "heart" of what was Amiga is nowhere to be found in these new machines. Even though I still use my Amiga 2000 happily (I have a 68030 accelerator coming in the mail for it as I write this), I simply cannot see what sort of user benefit comes from these new, seemingly alien machines.
Anyway, I'm all about that feeling. I remember it when I was using that A1000 back in '85. I also remember waves of it using that first A2000 back in '88-'89. Sacrasm aside, it's a fullfilling feeling, well the positive sides of it are. I am reliving the positives of that feeling using OS X and it's fun, fresh. I can't imagine getting that feel from these new machines. What am I missing?
Here's a list of the Amigas I've gone thru, for what it's worth.
blakespot
-- Heisenberg may have slept here.
iPod Hacks.com
Here's an interesting thread on ex Amiga hardware guy Dave Haynie's views on the new Amiga stuff. Of course, everyone knows that the x86 instruction set's shite, but he says performance wise it's the only way to go (and wait for Itanium for a clean architecture).
By that logic Macs aren't Macs as they have nothing in common with the orginal other than being from the same company.
Apple switch processors, uses PCI uses AGP, uses USB1.1, uses Firewire, etc. None of that was in or around in the days of the original Mac.
I wonder when they're coming out with the new Vic-20?
/. a few days ago) has signed on to sell the board when it goes into production.
/. didn't accept the story about this when I submitted it. I mean, it's a new C=64 being developed by one cute Electrical Engineer (see bottom of page)
Be careful what you wish for... The CommodoreOne is already in development. Individual Computers (makers of the Catweasel, featured on
I still can't believe
Here are some of the features from the original AmigaOS (now nearly 20 years old) that I still miss in operating systems today:
The device system. Need to pipe something over TCP/IP? Just use TCP:. Need to open a console for whatever reason. Just use CON:. Etc. etc.
Full localization of all programs through a library (it still amazes me that programs for Windows are released in different language versions).
Dynamic size RAM disk, always present. Just copy something to RAM:, and there it is. No more temp files all over the place.
Revocerable ram disk (RAD). A ram disk that survives booting, and can even be booted from.
Datatypes. A kind of codec architecture for every kind of file. Programs didn't need to know what a gif file, a jpeg file or a text file was or how to show them on screen. The os could handle that.
Long filenames from the start. A jpeg picture was always picture.jpeg.
Fully user patchable. Any os function could be patched with SetPatch. The only reason people have been able to use it up until now (and also a virus writers dream in the old days).
System wide scripting/IPC with Rexx (ARexx really). All serious programs were fully scriptable with ARexx. Extremely powerful concept.
Screens. Think of them like virtual desktops. But every program could have one if you wanted. Flipping screens were instantenous and if you dragged them, you could even have split-screen resolutions (although this was more thanks to the hardware).
A powerfull shell, aswell as a nice intuitive (but not overly, like the Mac) graphic environment. Linux got this. Windows still doesn't.
These were just some of the features that made AmigaOS a tinkerers dream. Sheer elegance all the way. It saddens me that Linux, with it's monolithic and archaic approach, is the best viable os alternative at the moment. People growing up with computers nowaday have really missed out on something special.
When the GUI allows to replace ugly shades of green with ugly shades of pink, you guys freak out like it's a work of art ... The article talked bout kewl gui, and I'd like to correct that. AmigaOS GUI is birdypoop IMHO
There's more to a GUI than simply how it looks. Interfaces aren't intended to be hung up on your wall and looked at, they're there to be used.
Of course I don't know what the article was referring to when it talked of a "kewl GUI", but there are some little (but important) things that I like about AmigaOS (compared with Windows, at least).
For example, menus at the top of the screen rather than attached to each window (which is important because it means you can access them quickly just by shooting the mouse to the top of the screen, rather than having to click in a small area).
Additionally, thanks to toolkits such as MUI and Reaction, there seems to be a lot more Amiga programs whose interfaces are automatically resizeable; you resize the window, and everything inside automatically resizes in a sensible manner. Of course other platforms can do this too, though my experience with Windows[1] is that it is less common. I feel like screaming everytime I see a window that has some too small GUI item like a text box, and then find it won't let me resize the window.. I suspect that a lot of the reason for this is that it's easier for the programmer to create fixed interfaces, especially with "Visual" languages; the aforementioned Amiga GUI toolkits otoh are designed so that the windows will always be resizeable, unless you explicitly forbid it.
[1] Windows is now my main OS, before anyone suggests I have little experience of it;)
I'm an old fan of the Amigas and paid hard earned/stolen/borrowed money for my Amiga 500 w/SupraDrive/Clock and Amiga 1200 w/RAM exp/750HD but this whole haphazard attempt to profit from the nostalgia seems misguided. There's certainly little to no entertainment or productivity value to be had when compared to PeeCee offerings that have had years and years to not only bridge the gap but blast right past anything the Amiga ever offered other than the hardware cursor which is still more responsive than any Windows box.
As others have said, this thing is not the Amiga reborn. Hacking Workbench to work with new hardware and calling it 4.0 will never be profitable; not even on a novelty scale. The thing isn't even backwards compatible which would be the only reason I'd buy one. Using a cable to make two computers act like the old one by itself does not count as backwards compatibility. 1 + 1 != 1
I still have an Amiga 1200 in my closet with an entire packing box full of (probably)magnetically migrated floppies. If I want to watch the SpaceBalls demo for the 2000th time or play "Shadow of the irritatingly difficult Beast" I'll pull that out and load it.
This thing just cannot compete in todays market and I feel very sorry for the investors, early adopters and most importantly, the hopeful developers and designers whom I have much respect for. I'm sure they've put their hearts and souls into this effort and it saddens me to think about the eventuality of this endeavor.
Now I'm just SAD...
AC
(The one before was my first post to Slashdot) (I have corrected the new lines, I hope... :)
Well, in its time, I LOVED Amigas because they were a far better design that competing architectures:
- Custom chips for specialized tasks.
- True multitasking OS, including dynamically mounted filesystems and device drivers.
- Built in graphical environment.
- True AutoconfigTM (PNP-like).
Only now consumer PC hardware is getting close to that innovation level (once technologic advancement and Moore's law is taken into account).
PC hardware got up with Amiga rather quickly (custom graphic/audio chips, specific cards for specific needs). It took several years for this to happen after beeping 8086's and 80286's.
They lack, anyway, true PNP support. While Autoconfig was REAL "Plug & Play", what today we actually have is "Plug & Install the f***ing broken drivers if you have them for your current Winslows version & Play if you are lucky". In Amiga the driver came in a ROM with the hardware, and you could install filesystem drivers directly into the partition table, so you could take your WhoKnowsWhichFS-formatted hard-drive to your friend's computer and read it flawlessly after pluggin it.
About operating systems, it's true that the original design for AmigaOS left out very important things, like memory protection, virtual memory, security and a truly generical device model.
These shortcomings were the main problems for the system to evolve further, but may be understood taking into account the state of the HW those days (neither 68000 or 8086 knew what an MMU unit was).
But the important thing about the OS (and with lesser importance the HW) was innovation. Nobody had true multitasking then in a home computer (Macs, windows and GEM had stupid, fake multitasking). Nobody got an environment so straighforward, easy, dynamic, versatile and simple.
Windows doesn't have yet all those dynamic features, and even Linux is still catching up (like recent developments for devfs and not so recent kernel modules, for instance).
I won't advocate for the resurrection of the Amiga. I would rather prefer to be able to use a current platform, equally elegant and innovative.
BeOS was the closest thing I saw for a long time. Hard to kill like Unix, friendly to configure like Amiga. What a shame that we allowed Microsoft to kill it!
I think I would currently bet for Linux as my innovation horse, although being so heavily Unix-based, it will never have the elegant, easy to understand philosophy the Amiga had. I only hope the unsurpassable massive power of Free Software allows it to be successful where BeOS failed.
If you don't follow Amiga-news then you might think it's dead. That's understandadble. But thats the mistake what people usually make. If you or majority of people don't hear something awhile it does not mean it does not exist anymore. Usually people stop following things they don't care or which they THINK don't exist anymore. And when all people around you use PCs and all you hear is PC this, PC that, then it's understandable you think something like Amiga is dead. If you don't hear anyone talking about it then how could you know it still is alive. That's what Windows does to other OSs, most of todays kids don't even know MacOS exists, but is MAC a dead platform ? I don't think so :) If you would have followed Amiga-forums you should have noticed that there was lot's of energy and action all these years.
So Amiga newer was dead for us, maybe it was dead for mainstream guys, but BeOS, Linux and MAC are dead for mainstream too and those still exist so why couldn't Amiga ?