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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'm only interested if they rename the PPC chip "Even Fatter Agnus".
Well, as a bit of a Mac zealot, at least now I know that my kind aren't nearly the most fanatical people using PPC these days.
I'm only interested if they rename the PPC chip "Even Fatter Agnus".
Agnus was just a memory controller and blitter (Block Information Transfer Chip), with extra hardware to control the CopperLists (Coprocessor Instructions for such things as Colour Register manipulation and handling of sprites).
Agnus was replaced by the Fat Agnus which could allocate 1 meg of ChipRam (Video/Sound memory - memory that could be access by Denise and Paula).
Later, Agnus was replaced by Super Fat Agnus, which could allocate a full 2 megs of Chipram.
Finally Agnus was replaced with Alice, the AGA version, and Denise was placed with Lisa.
There would be no reason to call the processor by any name other than it's own. And since the new Amiga design does not have a truely Custom Chipset in old Amiga fashion, this new Amiga isn't truely an Amiga in anything other than name.
Very sad indeed that they're praying on the hopes of the few remaining Amiga fans. I would support this platform by both switching over to it and developing for it, but the hardware is only so-so at best and the OS is obsolete before even being completed.
If they want me back, they're going to have to do a whole lot better than this.
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
Moderation Totals: Wrong=2, Stupid=3, Total=5.
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
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....
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'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
I really don't care if AmigaOS "makes a comeback", I want to continue using and developing AmigaOS, and as such I am dying to get my hands on an AmigaOne XE and OS4.
:( Use a MAC. I know... I know... but hey!"
I agree that there are certain things about the AmigaOS that I absolutely loved.
the C: and DEVS:, and LIBS:. The way everything in the S: directory was there for a reason. I loved how STARTUP was handled, and I loved how you could modify the icon properties to change startup options of programs.
Some things about Amiga OS have not been matched since, not even by Linux or BeOS (Yes, Linux fans, AmigaOS did some things much nicer than your precious little unix wannabe.)
On the other hand, most other operating systems have completely evolved past the Amiga. Protected memory, built in virtual memory. REAL retargetable graphics instead of a nasty hack. REAL retargetable sound instead of a nasty hack.
There are checks and balances when comparing any of the many operating systems, and what it boils down to is that none of them are perfect.
Amiga OS suffers from severe obsolescense, lack of modern software support, and a GUI that is over 13 years old.
Linux still suffers from the "let's throw files in places that only a seasoned unix user will think to look for them" mentality that is standard with all Unix workalikes, and the commercial industry still touches on it with a bit of uncertainty and a whole lot of fear.
Windows sucks on too many levels to mention, but at least it has market dominance and a whole ton of games (for what that is worth anyway).
Mac OS X has a whole lot going for it, but unfortunately it draws in a whole bunch of moron users and thus using it might be hard for the tech-savvy user to admit. "Yes... I... uh... hmm.
BeOS is dead kind of like the Amiga, only it's not quite as rotten yet.
Of course, there are going to be tons of morons who will swear FreeBSD is dead, but blah. It's like all the other Unix operating systems. If you love Unix, you won't use anything but, if you don't already love Unix, it may take you years before you ever get comfortable enough to try it.
When comparing all of the operating systems, it's not easy to choose one that I would say is "On top", but it's pretty easy to pick out the ones that are certainly on the bottom, even if they don't necissarily deserve to be there.
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
Moderation Totals: Wrong=2, Stupid=3, Total=5.
Hell must be a cold, cold, cold place by now. At this rate, I expect my quantum computer to arrive by Christmas.
This
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
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"
How can these machines be called Amiga. They have nothing in common with the original Amiga and are just pretty standard and boring PPC machines.
You might as well put an Amiga sticker on your mac or PC...
True warriors use the Klingon Google
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.
...was two things:
... Then there was PAL/NTSC compatibility of course.
;-)
1) Cool hardware. It could do cool stuff: colorful screens, good sound, Hold And Modify mode, everything DMA-driven to waste as few CPU cycles as possible, blitter, copper,
2) Cool OS. Incredibly efficient, multitasking, windowing, and yet understandable. Files had logical names. There was a pervasive system-wide scripting language. You could modify OS-behavior in any way you saw fit. It did what you wanted it to do, without ever bothering you.
Amiga users like either the hardware or the software, but rarely both
The new hardware is not all that spectacular. Sure, PPC is nice, so is a big fat 3D card, but it isn't _cool_ like the old hardware was. You cannot fuck around with it and do cool hacks. Everybody else had it a long time ago.
The new software is not all that spectacular either. Other OS'es have learned about multitasking, and the brilliant original concepts got diluded by outside influences (I'm not saying those are wrong, but simply inappropriate for AmigaOS).
And then of course there was the other people you knew who had an Amiga. They made it fun: showing off cool hacks, borrowing each others' software (yeah, I know, that's what helped kill it in the first place...), seeing amazing demo's. The new platform will have to start from scratch in this regard.
In short, although I am happy people are still working on Amiga, I do not really see the point. Amiga should stand for massively powerful hardware, an elegant OS, and amazing innovation. What I see is a standard (not all that powerful) PC, using the same old OS except that it now has UNIX-style libraries.
I still have my A4K, which I used regularly up until about two years ago. I turn it on about once every three months, but the spark is gone.
To me, the Amiga was special. It wasn't just a chipset, or an operating system. Indeed, there were the games and the demoscene that banged away at the hardware and made it really perform. There were the digital artists and animators who used the fantastic software of the time to take advantage of the machine's capabilities to create great works. There were electronic music composers galore putting out more MODs than anybody can count. There were the users who adored the multitasking operating system which boosted their productivity and enjoyment. There were the programmers who filled up Aminet with software. There was the desktop video production revolution begun with the Video Toaster. And there was the team of dedicated people designing and building the machine itself. "The Amiga" was a gestalt of all these things; hardware, operating system, and a wonderfully creative, vibrant user community.
That's dead. I left the Amiga scene four years after Commodore went toes up. It was finally time to go when most of the talented, dynamic people had fled the platform for greener pastures: BeOS, Linux, even Windows. All that was left were the "somebody should" people. Y'know, the people who say "somebody should do X," but do nothing themselves. Well, except for the well-meaning, insane people who would try to run Amiga development companies on a wing and a prayer before collapsing into financial ruin. That reminded me very much of the "ghost dancing" of the plains Indians as they tried to fight a force that was extinguishing their whole way of life.
All that's left now are some real die-hards who are happy to just now get Quake II, a company that has salvaged the Amiga name from the post-Commodore disaster, and an outdated operating system. This new hardware is a fine thing for those die-hards. It'll give them new hardware, faster machines, and new OS features. It's not enough, though, to even reverse the Amiga Diaspora and bring back all the talent and drive that made for such a rich user community. It's certainly not enough to bring in significant new blood.
I wish Eyetech luck. I hope they can make a profit on the AmigaOne, that there are enough die-hards to keep it going. I just won't be back, because it's not "the Amiga" anymore.
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