> I was a long time Amiga user... started with A500 way back when, so > don't accuse me of not knowing my root.
I've used Amigas for over 7 years. I run one of the most populour Amiga news sites.
> So, let me see... in year 2000, we're finally going to have a shot at > AmigaOS 4.0
Erm, what? AmigaSoft, AKA AmigaOS 5.0 is the next gen OS. Not OS 4.0. You've obviously become lost in all the name changes (first OS 4, then OS5 Dev and OS5 Prod, and now AmigaSoft).
4.0 is a possible future Classic Amiga OS to be developed by Haage and Partner (http://www.haage-partner.com/) although I somewhat doubt it will appear.
> running on a CPU family that's almost as good as abandoned by its maker.
You call x86, PPC and MIPS abandoned by their makers?
> The OS has not been ported to any other CPU...
This isn't going to be a port, this is going to be a new OS. Please get your facts straight. OS 4, if it appears, will be a port to PPC, but as I said, I doubt that will appear.
> granted, it can be > emulated on the PPC but the power of the PPC is wasted on emulation. > Brilliant.
Erm, no. AmigaSoft is likely to emulate the Classic Amiga through something like UAE, but hopefully we won't need to except to see what computers used to be like...
> It's doubtful the OS will ever have memory protection.
Erm, AmigaSoft is to be based on the QNX kernel (Neutrino). With it's microkernel design, leaving pretty much everything running in user space, it probably has better memory protection than Linux. We are talking about the kernel which runs nuclear power stations and the space shuttle!!
http://www.qnx.com/
Read and learn.
> Multitasking, sure. > Dont give me the crap about being able to multitask in 512K... okay so it > can, but are YOU really going to have 512 in Y2K? I don't think so. Memory > is cheap, so this won't be an issue.
Sure, memory's cheap, but effeciency is good. 4MB is quoted on the Amiga web site.
> Will it be multiuser? Sure, in the sense that Microsoft Windows is > multiuser... it's multiuser, just not-all-at-the-same-time.
How the hell can you pretend to know this much about an OS that hasn't even been released yet?
> Will it have remote management/remote display capability? Like X? Doubtful >... you have to sit there in front of the monitor just like you have to > with Windows NT. Another plus.
LOL! Neutrino has AMAZING network/remote management capabilities! Exporting the display is a build in OS feature. One of the demo's QNX performed to show the power of QNX was to network 2 machines, run Doom on one machine, and drag the window over to the machine next to it, so it was half on one machine's display, half on the others over the network. QNX is probably better than Linux in this respect.
> The User Interface? Intuition? God, what a pig.
The UI will be user-configurable (it will have different "skins" - it will have to if they want it to scale well).
> Whoever designed this > thing has no aesthetic sense
Good job different people are working on it then, hu?
>...it took them how long to come up with a decent common file requestor?
Something, I hasten to add, yet to be achived by Microsoft:/
> And the layers! the damn layers! the ROM code for handling layers is > broken beyond belief... god, even talking about this is making me sick.
So? Since when was this relevent to AmigaSoft?
> Ex-Amiga coder
You obviously left ages ago, or you've had your eyes closed for the past year.
Why are they calling it an Amiga if it's a totally different computer? Get real, there's no other way it could be done - AmigaOS in it's current form simply couldn't be brought up to scratch - the likes of MP simply are not possible, not unless you want another Windows... the hardware is old, slow and expensive as hell, so OF COURSE they are making a new machine.
QNX is a very suited OS to the Amiga - a fully real time, protected microkernel OS. OK, so it's not exec, but who cares if Exec doesn't cut it any more?
I think some of you need to take a long hard look at the current crop of OS's.
Linux is lame because it's totally baffling to just about everyone, and needs it's kernel recompiling just to change a few bloody drivers.
Windows is lame because it can't do anything without touching the swap file, has a horrible GUI (so does Linux, btw, Windows is lame, but at least it has some sort of uniform look...), is a nightmare to fix when things go wrong, has... well, I'm sure you all know the problems by now:)
BeOS is lame because nobody supports it, and it only support x86.
AmigaSoft is aimed to be a bombproof OS, with a powerful and more uniform UI, which combines power, ease of use, stability and expandibility in the one OS, not, as it is now, spread out among many OS's. I just hope they manage it:)
Well, I do an awful lot of ARexx, and personally I think it's one of the best additions to the Amiga.
It's an extremely versitile language - I use it for everything from mailbox checkers with GUI's/Appicons, to maintaining my web site - if you have a look at http://www.amisite.co.uk/, all the news there is maintained by a small set of ARexx scripts. The email notification system is also ran by ARexx using direct SMTP via the virtual tcp: device.
To cap it all, ARexx is also piss easy to learn - certainly much easier (with generally more readable results) than the likes of Perl, and I've not even started going on about how easy it is to control applications via ARexx ports...
As it is, nobody knows what scripting language will be used predominantly for OS 5. Rexx is a possibility, and would be a very good choice if implimented in a similar way to the current Amiga, but the likes of Perl would be more familiar to people outside the Amiga. Rebol looks like a nice language, but to be honest, from what I've used of it, I'm not amazingly keen on it.
With a little luck, OS 5 will be flexible enough to let you use pretty much any scripting language you want. Modularity is meant to be one if the things they are aiming for...
Regards
Tom
Editor of AmiSITE, Owner of the ARexx mailing list
Slashdot Mirror
And emailers, and (more) newsreaders, and IRC clients, and TCP stacks, and.... well, there's a "Better than official" version of ICQ, but ICQ sucks :)
Anyway, this new machine and OS carries the Amiga name, but it ain't gonna be just another, faster A4000, it's a totally new architecture.
29.RamDisk:> wget http://www.windows2000test.com/status.htm1 :32-- http://www.windows2000test.com:80/status.htm
--11:5
=> `status.htm'
Connecting to www.windows2000test.com:80...
Connection to www.windows2000test.com:80 refused.
Kinda says it all I think =)
So what if they have a shite webserver running a shite OS?
AmigaOS isn't suited to servers, well, even less suited than NT, so what's your point?
Then what happened to all this about Be dropping PPC support?
> I was a long time Amiga user ... started with A500 way back when, so
... in year 2000, we're finally going to have a shot at
...
... okay so it
... it's multiuser, just not-all-at-the-same-time.
... you have to sit there in front of the monitor just like you have to
...it took them how long to come up with a decent common file requestor?
:/
... god, even talking about this is making me sick.
> don't accuse me of not knowing my root.
I've used Amigas for over 7 years. I run one of the most populour Amiga news
sites.
> So, let me see
> AmigaOS 4.0
Erm, what? AmigaSoft, AKA AmigaOS 5.0 is the next gen OS. Not OS 4.0.
You've obviously become lost in all the name changes (first OS 4, then
OS5 Dev and OS5 Prod, and now AmigaSoft).
4.0 is a possible future Classic Amiga OS to be developed by Haage and
Partner (http://www.haage-partner.com/) although I somewhat doubt it will
appear.
> running on a CPU family that's almost as good as abandoned by its maker.
You call x86, PPC and MIPS abandoned by their makers?
> The OS has not been ported to any other CPU
This isn't going to be a port, this is going to be a new OS. Please get your
facts straight. OS 4, if it appears, will be a port to PPC, but as I said,
I doubt that will appear.
> granted, it can be
> emulated on the PPC but the power of the PPC is wasted on emulation.
> Brilliant.
Erm, no. AmigaSoft is likely to emulate the Classic Amiga through something
like UAE, but hopefully we won't need to except to see what computers used
to be like...
> It's doubtful the OS will ever have memory protection.
Erm, AmigaSoft is to be based on the QNX kernel (Neutrino). With it's
microkernel design, leaving pretty much everything running in user space, it
probably has better memory protection than Linux. We are talking about the
kernel which runs nuclear power stations and the space shuttle!!
http://www.qnx.com/
Read and learn.
> Multitasking, sure.
> Dont give me the crap about being able to multitask in 512K
> can, but are YOU really going to have 512 in Y2K? I don't think so. Memory
> is cheap, so this won't be an issue.
Sure, memory's cheap, but effeciency is good. 4MB is quoted on the Amiga web
site.
> Will it be multiuser? Sure, in the sense that Microsoft Windows is
> multiuser
How the hell can you pretend to know this much about an OS that hasn't even
been released yet?
> Will it have remote management/remote display capability? Like X? Doubtful
>
> with Windows NT. Another plus.
LOL! Neutrino has AMAZING network/remote management capabilities!
Exporting the display is a build in OS feature. One of the demo's QNX
performed to show the power of QNX was to network 2 machines, run Doom on
one machine, and drag the window over to the machine next to it, so it was
half on one machine's display, half on the others over the network. QNX is
probably better than Linux in this respect.
> The User Interface? Intuition? God, what a pig.
The UI will be user-configurable (it will have different "skins" - it will
have to if they want it to scale well).
> Whoever designed this
> thing has no aesthetic sense
Good job different people are working on it then, hu?
>
Something, I hasten to add, yet to be achived by Microsoft
> And the layers! the damn layers! the ROM code for handling layers is
> broken beyond belief
So? Since when was this relevent to AmigaSoft?
> Ex-Amiga coder
You obviously left ages ago, or you've had your eyes closed for the past
year.
Why are they calling it an Amiga if it's a totally different computer? Get real, there's no other way it could be done - AmigaOS in it's current form simply couldn't be brought up to scratch - the likes of MP simply are not possible, not unless you want another Windows... the hardware is old, slow and expensive as hell, so OF COURSE they are making a new machine.
:)
:)
QNX is a very suited OS to the Amiga - a fully real time, protected microkernel OS. OK, so it's not exec, but who cares if Exec doesn't cut it any more?
I think some of you need to take a long hard look at the current crop of OS's.
Linux is lame because it's totally baffling to just about everyone, and needs it's kernel recompiling just to change a few bloody drivers.
Windows is lame because it can't do anything without touching the swap file, has a horrible GUI (so does Linux, btw, Windows is lame, but at least it has some sort of uniform look...), is a nightmare to fix when things go wrong, has... well, I'm sure you all know the problems by now
BeOS is lame because nobody supports it, and it only support x86.
AmigaSoft is aimed to be a bombproof OS, with a powerful and more uniform UI, which combines power, ease of use, stability and expandibility in the one OS, not, as it is now, spread out among many OS's. I just hope they manage it
Well, I do an awful lot of ARexx, and personally I think it's one of the best additions to the Amiga.
It's an extremely versitile language - I use it for everything from mailbox checkers with GUI's/Appicons, to maintaining my web site - if you have a look at http://www.amisite.co.uk/, all the news there is maintained by a small set of ARexx scripts. The email notification system is also ran by ARexx using direct SMTP via the virtual tcp: device.
To cap it all, ARexx is also piss easy to learn - certainly much easier (with generally more readable results) than the likes of Perl, and I've not even started going on about how easy it is to control applications via ARexx ports...
As it is, nobody knows what scripting language will be used predominantly for OS 5. Rexx is a possibility, and would be a very good choice if implimented in a similar way to the current Amiga, but the likes of Perl would be more familiar to people outside the Amiga. Rebol looks like a nice language, but to be honest, from what I've used of it, I'm not amazingly keen on it.
With a little luck, OS 5 will be flexible enough to let you use pretty much any scripting language you want. Modularity is meant to be one if the things they are aiming for...
Regards
Tom
Editor of AmiSITE, Owner of the ARexx mailing list