Uh, no that's AmigaOS (4.0 - 4.5) which will be PPC only. As far as I can tell there is no plan to shift away from PPC for AmigaOS5, which will be an entirely new system (4.0 - 4.5 will be a port of OS3.9 to PPC gradually whilst adding new feature sets in, Virtual Memory, new GFX subsystems, MESA API etc etc) However even on the Amiga sites the arguement runs as to whether OS5 is to be hardware indpendant, as it fully and seamlessly integrates the DE package.
AmigaDE is a platform independant system which can run hosted on a bunch of OS' (Linux, PalmOS, WinCE, Win32) and uses Tao Groups VP technology for fast binary compatibility.
Check Amiga Inc. for a press-release type announcement, but the tech update is quite well done (enough info without too much development tech -that stuff can go in the developers section of the site)
With so many people now abandoning BeOS, they will need a home. And the Amiga looks to be a home for all the orphaned Be users.
IIRC a lot of Amiga people moved to BeOS over the years, as BeOS promised a lot of what they liked about the Amiga but on new hardware and with more modern OS features.
I think some (probably less than half) will look to move back to Amiga, as that claims to be offering all that they moved to BeOS for, but most will probably just stick on with an undeveloped and unsupported OS, exactly as they did with Amiga for at least another 3 years.
The current Amiga team are working on what they call AmigaDE which is a platform independant system which can run natively on hardware or hosted on another OS (the rather limited SDK is currently available for Linux or Windows)
The basic underlying technology for it is Tao's Elate/intent system (http://www.tao-group.com/)
The above lengthy post is relating to what Gateway's Amiga team were talking about doing, and originally intended to use the QNX kernel, but then switched to Linux before going all quiet when the aforementioned Jim Collas left when Gateway fired Bill McEwan.
Bill McEwan got together with a guy called Fleecy Moss and formed Amino, obtained some finance and bought Amiga from Gateway (although Gateway retained some patents) Their new system is very different from the Amiga - I'm hoping to see it arrive and have at least a modicum of success, but I feel the only connection between it and Amiga of the 80's will be the spirit of trying to do something new, and doing it well.
As for hardware - there are two companies working on AmigaOne machines (systems based around a hardware spec announced by Amiga Inc - now a software only company) Eyetech are doing an interesting upgrade system, essentially a stand-alone board designed to run the new AmigaDE which connects to the A1200 or A4000 Motherboard, so that you can use the old 'Classic' Amiga software using the new PPC processor and PCI bus, and brand spanking new DE software natively. The other company is bplan - much suspected of being the latest incarnation of Phase 5 who were very good at bringing (admittedly often hugely late and overhyped) upgrade paths to the 'Classic' Amiga (most noticably the PPC accelerator boards)
Good sites for information are (to name a few);
http://www.amiga.com/ Amiga Inc site
http://www.amiga.org/ Amiga news site
http://www.eyetech.co.uk/ Eyetech site
http://www.bplan-gmbh.de/ bplan site.
Cal
M$ do license like hell - originally Word was a WP for the Amiga, which they licensed (and then bought) check the 'About' in IE next time you are unlucky enough to use it, and try to remember what happened to NCSA Mosaic. Also do the terms JPEG & Indeo mean anything to you, and that is only one piece of software.
Philistine! If there's one thing we Amigans love more than spouting off about how great our new Amiga is going to be (as someone else pointed out, every 6 months or so without anything actually happening*) it's going on about how fabulous our current, out-of-date, takes bloody ages to do the kind of things most users currently want, and then does them badly, on the basis that it has a elegant, compact and pretty OS.
Unfortunately we then let ourselves down by saying that the Amiga OS is more stable than, say, Windows. Fine, maybe it is in it's purest form, but then in it's purest for it isn't as utilitarian and pretty as Windows, only when we use some of those glorious hacks and kludges that have kept the Aminet and Amigans going for the last 6 years, at which point it instantly loses the stability we hold so dear (and what difference does stability make when it only take 7 seconds to reboot - has anyone heard of Autosave, or RAD disks?)
The difference here is that something actually seems to be happening, this appears to have frightened so many of the Amiga community that they can't go on whinging about how misused and abused they have been by the corporate world since 1990 and how great the New Amiga is going to be, because there is actually going to be a New Amiga, and when it happens, if it isn't the be-all, end-all sex-on-a-CD (and that's another topic:) they will have been proven to be the bunch of insular fools they have been tainted as being by the rest of the computing world for so long.
Personally I am a great fan of the Amiga, because it does things the way I like to do them, and no matter what foolish and outlandish things I have done to the OS I haven't had to reinstall for 4 years (apart from the 3.1->3.5 upgrade) that I hope it all does come good, even if it doesn't take the world by storm, if it works the way I want to do and allows me to use hardware of the caliber available to PC and Mac users then I shall eb happier than a paedophile in Kindergarten.
Slashdot Mirror
AmigaDE is a platform independant system which can run hosted on a bunch of OS' (Linux, PalmOS, WinCE, Win32) and uses Tao Groups VP technology for fast binary compatibility.
Check Amiga Inc. for a press-release type announcement, but the tech update is quite well done (enough info without too much development tech -that stuff can go in the developers section of the site)
----
"God hates me."
----
"God hates me."
Sorry all - forgot to format &/or preview.
:)
I shall berate myself appropriately for being a lamer
Cal
----
"God hates me."
The current Amiga team are working on what they call AmigaDE which is a platform independant system which can run natively on hardware or hosted on another OS (the rather limited SDK is currently available for Linux or Windows) The basic underlying technology for it is Tao's Elate/intent system (http://www.tao-group.com/) The above lengthy post is relating to what Gateway's Amiga team were talking about doing, and originally intended to use the QNX kernel, but then switched to Linux before going all quiet when the aforementioned Jim Collas left when Gateway fired Bill McEwan. Bill McEwan got together with a guy called Fleecy Moss and formed Amino, obtained some finance and bought Amiga from Gateway (although Gateway retained some patents) Their new system is very different from the Amiga - I'm hoping to see it arrive and have at least a modicum of success, but I feel the only connection between it and Amiga of the 80's will be the spirit of trying to do something new, and doing it well. As for hardware - there are two companies working on AmigaOne machines (systems based around a hardware spec announced by Amiga Inc - now a software only company) Eyetech are doing an interesting upgrade system, essentially a stand-alone board designed to run the new AmigaDE which connects to the A1200 or A4000 Motherboard, so that you can use the old 'Classic' Amiga software using the new PPC processor and PCI bus, and brand spanking new DE software natively. The other company is bplan - much suspected of being the latest incarnation of Phase 5 who were very good at bringing (admittedly often hugely late and overhyped) upgrade paths to the 'Classic' Amiga (most noticably the PPC accelerator boards) Good sites for information are (to name a few); http://www.amiga.com/ Amiga Inc site http://www.amiga.org/ Amiga news site http://www.eyetech.co.uk/ Eyetech site http://www.bplan-gmbh.de/ bplan site. Cal
----
"God hates me."
M$ do license like hell - originally Word was a WP for the Amiga, which they licensed (and then bought) check the 'About' in IE next time you are unlucky enough to use it, and try to remember what happened to NCSA Mosaic. Also do the terms JPEG & Indeo mean anything to you, and that is only one piece of software.
----
"God hates me."
Quick question - is this something to be proud of? Scary memories of a soot-stained DVD (is that where they got the name from?) in Mary Poppins...
----
"God hates me."
Philistine! If there's one thing we Amigans love more than spouting off about how great our new Amiga is going to be (as someone else pointed out, every 6 months or so without anything actually happening*) it's going on about how fabulous our current, out-of-date, takes bloody ages to do the kind of things most users currently want, and then does them badly, on the basis that it has a elegant, compact and pretty OS.
Unfortunately we then let ourselves down by saying that the Amiga OS is more stable than, say, Windows. Fine, maybe it is in it's purest form, but then in it's purest for it isn't as utilitarian and pretty as Windows, only when we use some of those glorious hacks and kludges that have kept the Aminet and Amigans going for the last 6 years, at which point it instantly loses the stability we hold so dear (and what difference does stability make when it only take 7 seconds to reboot - has anyone heard of Autosave, or RAD disks?)
The difference here is that something actually seems to be happening, this appears to have frightened so many of the Amiga community that they can't go on whinging about how misused and abused they have been by the corporate world since 1990 and how great the New Amiga is going to be, because there is actually going to be a New Amiga, and when it happens, if it isn't the be-all, end-all sex-on-a-CD (and that's another topic :) they will have been proven to be the bunch of insular fools they have been tainted as being by the rest of the computing world for so long.
Personally I am a great fan of the Amiga, because it does things the way I like to do them, and no matter what foolish and outlandish things I have done to the OS I haven't had to reinstall for 4 years (apart from the 3.1->3.5 upgrade) that I hope it all does come good, even if it doesn't take the world by storm, if it works the way I want to do and allows me to use hardware of the caliber available to PC and Mac users then I shall eb happier than a paedophile in Kindergarten.
* with the expection of the last 6 months.
----
"God hates me."