Point of clarification. The Intent/Amiga thing runs PersonalJava 1.1 compliant Javacode, while Teapot is PersonalJava 3.0 compliant. As with most wide-sweeping generalizations (including this one), the details eventually get in the way. Things may not be as similar as they seem on the surface.
The Amiga SDK is reviewed, with a lot of detail shed on the Java side of things, at devicetop.com:
"As you can se AmigaSDK performes about 2.5 times faster than kaffe, 3.2 times faster then Sun 1.2.2 and a little faster than IBM jit 1.1.8." I think you have to puff out your chest when you say that to get the full ego effect.:^)
I know the new AmigaOS is touted as being scalable anywhere from servers to cellphones... and there are definitely plans in the works for notebooks and PDAs. It will be based on the Elate/Intent engine by Tao Group, which itself includes a Java VM which works faster than anything Sun has managed to create.
Seems to fall into the same genre (only with all the "yeah right... Amiga's making more promises" flames that get kicked up whenever this topic surfaces) down to the "our Java code kicks Sun's Java code" machismo. Amiga aside, those of you who are interested should check out what Tao and their partners are doing on DeviceTop.com. Looks like Java for PDA might be here to stay.
The previous message is clearly said in jest... but what frightens me is that with NDAs, suits and countersuits becoming so commonplace, bringing a lawyer to your interview might end up becoming a matter of course. It sounds ridiculous at first... but the thought of signing an NDA for something as innocuous as a job interview seems similarly absurd on the surface. With all the legalese that the technology sector has been embracing, having to drag down a lawyer - let alone a translator for all the legalspeak - might end up being the only way to definitively keep your ass out of the fire.
I would think you'd have to pass a certain portion of the preliminary interview before the company would start passing sensitive information to you. It would be at *THAT* point that an NDA would be warranted. But it's one of those blanket matter-of-course things now, much like some of the silliness contained in the ubiquitous EULAs that come attached to software. It's become a knee-jerk, "just in case," reflex.
NDA. EULA. Sheesh. As if we didn't have enough geek acronyms to begin with. Do we have to start collecting the legal ones too?:^)
Don't blame Fleecy Moss for that one! I think it was under the Jim Collas regime that QNX was completely and thorougly alientated from the nouveau-Amiga development process. QNX and Phase5 (Germany) were making strange bedfellows as far as a new direction for a QNX implementation on PPC-boosted (with Phase5 accellerator cards) Amigas.
" I still have some floppies with some A500 software on them. Will they run on the "New Amiga" some people are still having orgasms about? Unlikely. Whatever that is, then, it's not an Amiga."
Quite likely, in fact. The "new" Amiga, according to developer scuttlebutt, will likely be quite able to run the classic Amiga apps in emulation... something akin to kicking up UAE (bleah) on your *IX desktop. Personally I'd rather see it implemented in a more transparent manner, but nontheless, it will be done.
Does that particular feature suddenly make the new machine more of an Amiga than it was before? Does UAE suddenly make your Linux machine an Amiga as well? What about WinUAE? It's a little hard to swallow a Windoze machine being an Amiga. I think there's more to a particular system being Amiga than the ability to execute Amiga 500 software.
Heh heh heh.
I'm still using my somewhat souped-up Amiga4000 on a near-daily basis. Works wonderfully, even next to some of the other "more modern" equipment on the LAN at home.
But I still have an A500 rotting in my parents basement. Had an A2000 rotting under my desk, but I ended up selling it for more goodies for the A4K.:^)
There is product. The release of the SDK is proof postive that Amiga Inc. is making good on the promises they have made, fairly quickly at that. Unfortunately, they are forced to live under the shadow of the repeatedly shattered promises of their predecessor companies. While they're trying to counter the Amiga-promise reputation by not making announcements in advance without product to show for it, the past few years of Amiga users screaming "lookie lookie, we're back this time... see... wait... what? no? oh shit... never mind" is more than a little difficult to ignore.
I have faith that Bill, Fleecy & the gang will be able to put forth an extremely interesting and worthwhile product. They've made a lot of progress in the last few short months... more power to them!
It's thanks to savvy marketing that Apple has managed to resurrect itself into the viable computer company it is today. Apple was all but dead in the water without the facelift and aggressive media attention that Apple has managed to garner.
If anything, it's a lesson to other developers that you have to keep your system alive and kicking in the minds of consumers if you're going to attract the kind of support you're going to need to maintain momentum. Apple's super-cool surprise announcements don't hurt either. It's an example I wish the oft-beleagured, probably cursed Amiga Inc. will be able to follow -- though they have significantly more catching up to do.:^)
When it come to marketing, corporate development would seem to have the edge over open development models like that from which Linux springs. Will the big players (RedHat, Corel, etc...) prove this assumption wrong?
"note to story submittors: if video clips aren't viewable under Linux, I can't view them to consider them for posting, so don't bother submitting those quicktime clips"
I guess this stance doesn't apply to the posting of the other members of the Slashdot crew. All I see on that classic videogame ad site is QuickTime, QuickTime, QuickTime.
Bah. I'm not booting into another OS just to watch these. Maybe someone should convert the ads to Real.:^)
Definitely very VERY strange. I don't remember seeing this posted on the main page (and having broken a toe recently, I've been propped up checking Slashdot far too often). I too saw in the Older Stuff slashbox... only mine indicated ONE comment.:^)
Nothing wrong with that, except that all the other adjacent stories seem to be up in the several hundreds as far as posts are concerned.
I don't know if I'd run out and call this a bug in Slashcode though. I'd call it a feature! I look at this way. No hot grits. No Natalie Portman naked, petrified, shaken nor stirred. No races for first post bragging rights. No ASCII art of beer, sheep, or beer with sheep. No flamebait. No bitching about karma and moderation. No trolls.
My, oh my! This just might be the next logical step in the evolution of Slashdot!
Of course... having publically professed all of this just opens the floodgates for all of the above. Ya just can't win, can ya?
Following up to my own follow up... since I'm sure SOMEONE will bring this quote up and accuse me of not reading the article or something like that:
"According to a survey by a Wharton School of Business professor, 70 percent of Napster members polled reported they've used the service to sample music before buying it, the brief added. "
I find these numbers exceedingly hard to belive on their own. I smell one hell of a bias... lots of people who would otherwise grab all the MP3s they could will turn around and give the "oh, I buy lots of CDs anyway, I'm just SAMPLING the music before I buy" arguement in the right circumstance.
So what you're basically saying is that we need some sort of Rosetta Boot Disk in order to get civilization up and running sufficiently to read whatever we manage to put on the other "permanent" media.
I'm sure there are a lot of people who share your sentiments with regards to using MP3 distribution as a method of sampling songs, with your purchases of CDs being targeted to those albums which really stick out. But taking your example of Joe Average Teenager, I've talked to plenty of people who have invested in CD burners "so I'll never have to buy another CD again, I'll be cheaper just burn my own!" Very few turn around and decide to give back to the music makers by purchasing CDs from bands they would like to support. FREE MUSIC is a pretty heavy duty draw keeping them out of high priced record stores.
I think your attitude is commendable, but rare. Why raise a cow when you can get the milk for free?
This would certainly put a major wrinkle into the plans of the RIAA, to say the very least. I'm forced to chuckle at the awful irony of the organization - who has been thumping lawbooks and screaming cries of legality - being halted by an obscure piece of legal trivia.
Many will herald it as a major victory for freedom lovers everywhere if Napster is successful in its defense. But think for a moment. The music industry at present is fuelled by large amount of cash. Sure, much of it is corporate gluttony, but can you imagine what would happen to music as an industry if musical copyright went flying right out the window?
It's forseeable that one can put together decent quality musical recordings on a slim budget. But what about promotions, tours, music videos, movie soundtracks, and everything else that makes the music industry hum while sating consumer appetites? Will any appreciable portion of the music we know and love continue on without the "protection" of copyright?
What would be next? Movies? Certainly most of the major blockbusters that leave us ooohing and aaaahing would have a much more difficult time getting funded if protected distribution channels (yes, yes, for profit, no less) collapse? I want my Matrix sequels, goddammit!
I strongly doubt anyone would revoke musical copyright en masse, via. these legal chicken scratchings or otherwise. But it does throw a nice monkey wrench into things. Perhaps this will force both sides to be more reasonable with regard to their near-political stance on the issue.
Imagine the chaos that would be caused trying to release something as bloated as Windoze as Open Source. I wouldn't be surprised if M$ tried using SUNs arguement next time they're confronted by "set the code free" activism.
Of course, Sun is only making excuses for the process taking so long, as opposed to using this explanation to completely scuttle the project. They, at the very least, deserve credit for that much.
I get the impression that notice is a blanket statement covering all documents available on the Microsoft website, as opposed to anything specific to the Kerberos spec (like "trade secret" designations). If anything, they probably have that there as a knee-jerk insertion to all their documents, and for the most part don't even entirely realize it's there.
Unfortunately, I do notice some pretty hefty attempts to regulate distribution nontheless... "will not be copied or posted on any network computer or broadcast on any media"... "distribution outside the classroom requires written permission. Geesh, M$. Lighten up!
"...the music industry could easily build a closed commercial news distribution service superior to rogue freeware Napster."
Who was the research genius who thought up this brilliant earth shaking concept? Of COURSE the music industry could embrace digital distribution of their content, and because they're fuelled by so much capital, they could probably put together a really slick and well marketed system. People would flock to it.
But they haven't. They've been content with their high priced markups on CDs, and until now haven't really been pushed to do anything about that. Sure, distro channels like Napster encourage illegal distribution of copyrighted material, but legalities aside... I'm just glad it's giving the music industry a sufficient kick in the bloated backside to compel them to do something substantial in the way of innovation.
It will be interesting to see how this pans out. I'll be keeping track of the news while listening to my MP3 collection with XMMS.:^P
Squid-chompin' Fleecy was most certainly one of the ol' guys. But stating that is quite difference from the insinuation of "we created Multi-Media computing" that seems to be inherent in their statement. You could easily get into a bizarrly existential debate over the difference between one we and the other we, and where the line between one we and the other we lies, and that a horse is a horse, of course, of course... but that would hurt my brain at this hour.
Now, if the majority of the "we" that DID bring up the Classic Amiga line back in the 80s were to get involved in the current project, wooh... that would really get a whole lot of people excited.
I still have one of the original Amiga 4000 posters on my wall (over my A4K, natch). The slogan on it is "The most powerful multimedia computer ever built by Commodore. Or anyone else."
Ah, but you will immediately hear from the Amiga camp that the Classic Amigas can be booted from a mere floppy with full GUI, CLI, multi-tasking and the lot. Comparing it to a non-X implementation of Linux on a floppy doesn't really hold water.
(of course, the fact that a good chunk of the Amiga kernel resides in the hardware Kickstart chip rarely gets factored into the equation, so I leave it to you to duke out the kernel-to-kernel faceoff silliness)
And 50 megs for an OS? Not bad, I guess, if you're going to use something fairly stripped down. I always loved the fact that I could install the complete Amiga OS (on what, 3-5 non-HD floppies) in the time it took just to BOOT my friend's WinNT monstrosity...
You're probably jumping the gun a little with regards to just how cozy Amiga Inc. and Corel were getting. The announcement was one of a "strategic partnership," but that announcement seemed to be printed all over Amiga's side of the fence, with little mention of it on Corel's end.
It looks like their "partnership" with Corel boiled down to the fact that the AmigaOS SDK would work with Corel's linux distro... with possible future Corel development being aimed at interoperability with the AmigaOS environment - but likely only once Amiga demonstrated a working product and a userbase for Cowpland to hawk his wares too.
In other words, I don't think Amiga Inc. would be too adversely affected if Corel botches it's merger prospects.
That's the problem. The "classic" line of Amigas is only being supported by third party efforts. Amiga Inc. isn't doing jack with them... and since the market is so washed out, hardware developers have rapidly lost the impetus to produce seriously kick-ass -- or at least, up to date -- hardware for the Amiga.
While I applaud Amiga Inc.'s efforts in firing up a new Amiga paradigm, I still think they need to think about the machines that are already out there. They HAVE a wonderful OS which needs support NOW. Yeah, they released OS3.5, but that was really 3.1 with a whole lot of patches. They need to take some of that money of theirs and push some seriously smoking hardware.
The 68060/50MHz + PPC603e+/200MHz in my machine now is nice, and works fast with the current AmigaOS (which barely touches that PPC chip), but faster chips won't appear unless the OS is designed to take advantage of them. Chicken and egg, Bill and Fleecy, chicken and egg.
My personal beef isn't with the above statement, it's with Amiga Inc.'s use of it. They insinuate that they are the same group who were responsible for the revolutionary computing concepts of the Amiga 1000 and it's descendants. As anyone who has been paying attention (intentionally or otherwise) to the Amiga saga knows, Amiga has changed hands more times than a baton in a relay.
I think Amiga Inc. is trying a little too hard to take credit for the innovative concepts introduced by others. At the very least, though, I have to give them credit for doing what they can to remind the world that the Amiga as we know/knew it was truly a remarkable machine. Whether the new products inspire the same kind of devotion remains to be seen.
Amiga Inc. released the SPECS for the developer box back in April. That's what they promised, and that's what they delivered. As far as actually releasing the software tools for the new AmigaOS development environment, they specificially didn't make any promises as to a delivery date.
The Amiga market (or what remains of it) has been plagued for years by empty promises. Bill McEwen and Fleecy Moss emphatically stated that they would not be giving "teaser announcements" with estimated due dates because Amiga users have been jerked around enough as it is. From here on in, they make announcements when they've got something to SHOW for it.
If Forth (or in this case pbForth) can be adapted to program the LEGO Mindstorm bricks, what about other programming languages?
I for one would love to see Perl for LEG0. Do any such extensions for Perl exist, or are they in the works? Could other languages be adapted for LEGO? Forth is admittedly rather archaic, and few people program in it any more. Might open the appeal of the Mindstorm to a greater community.
Slashdot Mirror
Point of clarification. The Intent/Amiga thing runs PersonalJava 1.1 compliant Javacode, while Teapot is PersonalJava 3.0 compliant. As with most wide-sweeping generalizations (including this one), the details eventually get in the way. Things may not be as similar as they seem on the surface.
The Amiga SDK is reviewed, with a lot of detail shed on the Java side of things, at devicetop.com: "As you can se AmigaSDK performes about 2.5 times faster than kaffe, 3.2 times faster then Sun 1.2.2 and a little faster than IBM jit 1.1.8." I think you have to puff out your chest when you say that to get the full ego effect. :^)
http://www.devicetop.com/dt/editorial?showcase
No really. I'm going now.
--- [DrPsycho] Coping with reality since 1975.
Seems to fall into the same genre ( only with all the "yeah right... Amiga's making more promises" flames that get kicked up whenever this topic surfaces ) down to the "our Java code kicks Sun's Java code" machismo. Amiga aside, those of you who are interested should check out what Tao and their partners are doing on DeviceTop.com. Looks like Java for PDA might be here to stay.
I'll stop rambling now. :^)
--- [DrPsycho] Coping with reality since 1975.
I would think you'd have to pass a certain portion of the preliminary interview before the company would start passing sensitive information to you. It would be at *THAT* point that an NDA would be warranted. But it's one of those blanket matter-of-course things now, much like some of the silliness contained in the ubiquitous EULAs that come attached to software. It's become a knee-jerk, "just in case," reflex.
NDA. EULA. Sheesh. As if we didn't have enough geek acronyms to begin with. Do we have to start collecting the legal ones too? :^)
--- [DrPsycho] Coping with reality since 1975.
Of course, Phase5 is dead now...
Quite likely, in fact. The "new" Amiga, according to developer scuttlebutt, will likely be quite able to run the classic Amiga apps in emulation... something akin to kicking up UAE (bleah) on your *IX desktop. Personally I'd rather see it implemented in a more transparent manner, but nontheless, it will be done.
Does that particular feature suddenly make the new machine more of an Amiga than it was before? Does UAE suddenly make your Linux machine an Amiga as well? What about WinUAE? It's a little hard to swallow a Windoze machine being an Amiga. I think there's more to a particular system being Amiga than the ability to execute Amiga 500 software.
Heh heh heh. I'm still using my somewhat souped-up Amiga4000 on a near-daily basis. Works wonderfully, even next to some of the other "more modern" equipment on the LAN at home. But I still have an A500 rotting in my parents basement. Had an A2000 rotting under my desk, but I ended up selling it for more goodies for the A4K. :^)
There is product. The release of the SDK is proof postive that Amiga Inc. is making good on the promises they have made, fairly quickly at that. Unfortunately, they are forced to live under the shadow of the repeatedly shattered promises of their predecessor companies. While they're trying to counter the Amiga-promise reputation by not making announcements in advance without product to show for it, the past few years of Amiga users screaming "lookie lookie, we're back this time... see... wait... what? no? oh shit... never mind" is more than a little difficult to ignore. I have faith that Bill, Fleecy & the gang will be able to put forth an extremely interesting and worthwhile product. They've made a lot of progress in the last few short months... more power to them!
If anything, it's a lesson to other developers that you have to keep your system alive and kicking in the minds of consumers if you're going to attract the kind of support you're going to need to maintain momentum. Apple's super-cool surprise announcements don't hurt either. It's an example I wish the oft-beleagured, probably cursed Amiga Inc. will be able to follow -- though they have significantly more catching up to do. :^)
When it come to marketing, corporate development would seem to have the edge over open development models like that from which Linux springs. Will the big players (RedHat, Corel, etc...) prove this assumption wrong?
Bah. I'm not booting into another OS just to watch these. Maybe someone should convert the ads to Real. :^)
Nothing wrong with that, except that all the other adjacent stories seem to be up in the several hundreds as far as posts are concerned.
I don't know if I'd run out and call this a bug in Slashcode though. I'd call it a feature! I look at this way. No hot grits. No Natalie Portman naked, petrified, shaken nor stirred. No races for first post bragging rights. No ASCII art of beer, sheep, or beer with sheep. No flamebait. No bitching about karma and moderation. No trolls.
My, oh my! This just might be the next logical step in the evolution of Slashdot!
Of course... having publically professed all of this just opens the floodgates for all of the above. Ya just can't win, can ya?
"According to a survey by a Wharton School of Business professor, 70 percent of Napster members polled reported they've used the service to sample music before buying it, the brief added. "
I find these numbers exceedingly hard to belive on their own. I smell one hell of a bias... lots of people who would otherwise grab all the MP3s they could will turn around and give the "oh, I buy lots of CDs anyway, I'm just SAMPLING the music before I buy" arguement in the right circumstance.
I wonder how big the kernel would have to be? :^)
(please leave your Civ jokes at the door)
I'm sure there are a lot of people who share your sentiments with regards to using MP3 distribution as a method of sampling songs, with your purchases of CDs being targeted to those albums which really stick out. But taking your example of Joe Average Teenager, I've talked to plenty of people who have invested in CD burners "so I'll never have to buy another CD again, I'll be cheaper just burn my own!" Very few turn around and decide to give back to the music makers by purchasing CDs from bands they would like to support. FREE MUSIC is a pretty heavy duty draw keeping them out of high priced record stores.
I think your attitude is commendable, but rare. Why raise a cow when you can get the milk for free?
Many will herald it as a major victory for freedom lovers everywhere if Napster is successful in its defense. But think for a moment. The music industry at present is fuelled by large amount of cash. Sure, much of it is corporate gluttony, but can you imagine what would happen to music as an industry if musical copyright went flying right out the window?
It's forseeable that one can put together decent quality musical recordings on a slim budget. But what about promotions, tours, music videos, movie soundtracks, and everything else that makes the music industry hum while sating consumer appetites? Will any appreciable portion of the music we know and love continue on without the "protection" of copyright?
What would be next? Movies? Certainly most of the major blockbusters that leave us ooohing and aaaahing would have a much more difficult time getting funded if protected distribution channels (yes, yes, for profit, no less) collapse? I want my Matrix sequels, goddammit!
I strongly doubt anyone would revoke musical copyright en masse, via. these legal chicken scratchings or otherwise. But it does throw a nice monkey wrench into things. Perhaps this will force both sides to be more reasonable with regard to their near-political stance on the issue.
Of course, Sun is only making excuses for the process taking so long, as opposed to using this explanation to completely scuttle the project. They, at the very least, deserve credit for that much.
Unfortunately, I do notice some pretty hefty attempts to regulate distribution nontheless... "will not be copied or posted on any network computer or broadcast on any media"... "distribution outside the classroom requires written permission. Geesh, M$. Lighten up!
I need more coffee. And some punctuation.
Who was the research genius who thought up this brilliant earth shaking concept? Of COURSE the music industry could embrace digital distribution of their content, and because they're fuelled by so much capital, they could probably put together a really slick and well marketed system. People would flock to it.
But they haven't. They've been content with their high priced markups on CDs, and until now haven't really been pushed to do anything about that. Sure, distro channels like Napster encourage illegal distribution of copyrighted material, but legalities aside... I'm just glad it's giving the music industry a sufficient kick in the bloated backside to compel them to do something substantial in the way of innovation.
It will be interesting to see how this pans out. I'll be keeping track of the news while listening to my MP3 collection with XMMS. :^P
Now, if the majority of the "we" that DID bring up the Classic Amiga line back in the 80s were to get involved in the current project, wooh... that would really get a whole lot of people excited.
I still have one of the original Amiga 4000 posters on my wall (over my A4K, natch). The slogan on it is "The most powerful multimedia computer ever built by Commodore. Or anyone else."
*sigh*
(of course, the fact that a good chunk of the Amiga kernel resides in the hardware Kickstart chip rarely gets factored into the equation, so I leave it to you to duke out the kernel-to-kernel faceoff silliness)
And 50 megs for an OS? Not bad, I guess, if you're going to use something fairly stripped down. I always loved the fact that I could install the complete Amiga OS (on what, 3-5 non-HD floppies) in the time it took just to BOOT my friend's WinNT monstrosity...
It looks like their "partnership" with Corel boiled down to the fact that the AmigaOS SDK would work with Corel's linux distro... with possible future Corel development being aimed at interoperability with the AmigaOS environment - but likely only once Amiga demonstrated a working product and a userbase for Cowpland to hawk his wares too.
In other words, I don't think Amiga Inc. would be too adversely affected if Corel botches it's merger prospects.
While I applaud Amiga Inc.'s efforts in firing up a new Amiga paradigm, I still think they need to think about the machines that are already out there. They HAVE a wonderful OS which needs support NOW. Yeah, they released OS3.5, but that was really 3.1 with a whole lot of patches. They need to take some of that money of theirs and push some seriously smoking hardware.
The 68060/50MHz + PPC603e+/200MHz in my machine now is nice, and works fast with the current AmigaOS (which barely touches that PPC chip), but faster chips won't appear unless the OS is designed to take advantage of them. Chicken and egg, Bill and Fleecy, chicken and egg.
I think Amiga Inc. is trying a little too hard to take credit for the innovative concepts introduced by others. At the very least, though, I have to give them credit for doing what they can to remind the world that the Amiga as we know/knew it was truly a remarkable machine. Whether the new products inspire the same kind of devotion remains to be seen.
I had a point. Where'd it go? :^)
The Amiga market (or what remains of it) has been plagued for years by empty promises. Bill McEwen and Fleecy Moss emphatically stated that they would not be giving "teaser announcements" with estimated due dates because Amiga users have been jerked around enough as it is. From here on in, they make announcements when they've got something to SHOW for it.
I for one would love to see Perl for LEG0. Do any such extensions for Perl exist, or are they in the works? Could other languages be adapted for LEGO? Forth is admittedly rather archaic, and few people program in it any more. Might open the appeal of the Mindstorm to a greater community.
Oh. Who am I kidding. Every geek wants LEGO. :^)