Admittedly I've no idea how that stuff works, and what software they'd use, but I find it a bit uneasy that they are allowed to use software to edit the images.. unlike what we see in The X Files, there isn't any magic software that can magically reveal extra information.
Are there any details as to how safe this "image processing" is?
But worst of all... the new Amiga should have been the Amiga 5000. WTF with this "One" ?
I think "AmigaOne" is a bit of a cheesy name.. but I can see why they didn't go with Amiga 5000. To me, that suggests just an evolution of A4000, what Commodore might have released in 95-96 had they not gone bust; a machine with PPC.. and 880k floppy and Zorro slots..
I think that's the point here - whilst they could release a machine that picks up where the A4000 left off, you've got to face that it's 2004, and the number of people interested in such a machine would be even less. Also it would be redundant - whilst there may have been a 7 year gap (1995-2002) between official machine releases (although note that A4000s and Zorro A1200Ts have been sold up until quite recently), Amigans have been upgrading their machines with plenty of add ons that have become available, such as PPC and PCI cards. Instead, Amiga have gone for reasonably up to date hardware, not wasting money on legacy hardware, and still maintaining a great deal of continuity with the old Amigas.
The compatible floppy controller might be another way to do that.
Then you can have that - slip a Catweasel into the AmigaOne, and all is well.
The motherboard may be pricey (that's going to be the way with new platforms that are only selling in the thousands at most), but if you don't like the prices of the other hardware, buy the motherboard alone and get the rest elsewhere. Unlike Apple, you have that choice.
No, but you did get those things. There were a few PPC macs with nubus, and PCs had 1 or 2 token slots on up until just a few years ago. Never having had the equivalent on this "new amiga", I hesitate to call it an amiga at all.
But they had them on the old Amigas! I could declare ISA-less PCs as "new PCs", and equally complain that they've yet to release a generation of "new PCs" with ISA slots. They were selling Zorro based A4000s for years.
Design time? Well, maybe that is a cost
Yes, exactly. If they were going to sell millions, then the cost would be negliable, but with a few thousand at most, I imagine that including Zorro slots would cost a lot. Remember how much more expensive the Zorro-based Amigas were (even compared to an A500/1200 that was upgraded with CPU etc), or how much the Zorro add ons for the A1200 were?
Being an OS company (or rather a trademark company farming out the minimal OS work you're doing) is no longer anything special. Especially when you are touting a "computer" that was only ever really cool for its hardware to begin with. Now they want to come up with some marginal PPC mainboard, and be done with it?
Hang on - if you're saying that they need to sell some interesting hardware instead of being just an OS company, then that's one argument (and bearing in mind that they're tying the OS to the AmigaOnes and not being an OS company, I think this point isn't relevant anyway), but I don't see how including *ancient legacy* hardware is going to attract people to the platform.
Besides, if someone wants to save time and money, they should buy a PC, running Windows XP if they are a loser, or an even cheaper power OS like BSD or linux. People even considering running this OS, are not the "I just need a cheap computer that works" crowd.
Well the point is that people pay extra to get something they like. Okay, I'll concede that it's possible that some people prefer Zorro cards to PCI equivalents in the same way people prefer Amigas in general to alternatives.. however I can't say I've ever noticed such people in the Amiga community. Is there a particular Zorro card you are thinking of, or is it something about Zorro in general? Originally you were suggesting Zorro was needed for backwards-compatibility, rather than it being something special in itself.
No idea - 1500-2000 is a reasonable guess, I'd agree. Certainly more than enough that it's worthwhile sending to the duplicators;) Whether it's worthwhile to have spent all this time developing it is another matter.
It would be interesting to know how many AmigaOnes have already been sold, or how many Pegasoses running MorphOS have been sold, as that would give us some idea. At least, Genesi have yet to go bust, though it would be interesting to know whether they are making or losing money on their platform.
Backwards compatibility, source code compatibility, based on the same source code I believe, runs Workbench, similar look-and-feel, yep little in common. Meanwhile, "MacOS" and "Windows" are names which have got used for two and three entirely different OSs respectively (well, in Windows' case, I don't think the original Windows series even counts as an OS in itself, more of a GUI for DOS?), but no one complains.
But c'mon, a single ZorroII slot inline with the PCI? The bridge logic would fit in a single, cheap FPGA. Hell, just for one generation, so there could be some kind of continuity. Or like I said earlier, even just a floppy controller.
Do I get a Nubus slot with my Mac? And I can't find the ISA slot on my PC.
I don't understand what you mean by "just for one generation", when obviously the Zorro Amigas have already appeared for at least one generation. If you mean one generation running OS4, then grab a Zorro A4000 with PPC and run OS4 on that.
Given how dated many Amiga Zorro cards are, I imagine it would be cheaper to buy brand new PCI card replacements (I mean what are we talking about, 20 quid for a graphics card?) than to pay the increased cost for a motherboard that has a Zorro slot.
As for a floppy controller, get a Catweasel. I don't see why, in an age when for years many computers haven't had a floppy at all, when even on Amigas Amiga-formatted disks have rarely used for years (I gave up on Amiga-formatted floppies about '95-'96, and only rarely used PC-formatted floppies after that), why should everyone have to pay the increased cost to include it as standard?
Some Amiga fanatics would buy Amiga-branded toilets
Maybe they would, but most people are just glad to save development time and their money by doing away with ancient hardware.
That you think Macs are useful has nothing to do with the fact that I'd need to buy a new machine to run one. Your comment "Maybe if it was on x86 or Mac" suggests that Mac hardware is sufficiently plentiful - it isn't (sure, it might be more plentiful than AmigaOnes, and it'd certainly be useful to pick up a cheap Mac to run OS4 on, but I'd still need to buy a new machine, and that'd still put me off getting OS4).
If you're now switching your argument to saying that Apple can afford to go for a non-mainstream proprietry platform because Macs are inherently useful, that they are "useful" is your opinion. There seem to be plenty of people who view OS X has something interesting to play around with, but it's nothing they couldn't do on Windows (or Linux, whatever) - this is often cited as a reason by the people who argue for porting OS X to x86. These people certainly wouldn't buy a whole new machine for it.
You can't arbitrarily divide OSs up into "only useful for playing around with", and "useful"; that distinction will depend on the person. With MacOS, there are people who find them useful, and there are people who would just like to play about with them. The same is true of AmigaOS (yes, despite what the "no one cares" trolls here seem to think, there are people who still like to use Amigas).
Both Apple and Amiga have, rightly or wrongly, made the decision to cut out those who would buy the OS to play around with, but wouldn't buy a whole new machine.
I think you're arguing about Amiga Inc, and I'm arguing about OS4.
I couldn't care less about Amiga Inc, and yes I agree they've done quite a lot of damage.
But that doesn't mean that OS4 isn't anything to do with the original AmigaOS, just because Amiga Inc aren't anything to do with Commodore. Anyway, OS4 is being done by Hyperion, so the anti-Amiga Inc stuff is irrelevant.
I'd say MorphOS and AROS have a lot of things in common with the original AmigaOS, but these clearly don't have even the trademarks or source code in common.
Seriously, though, this release (as well as the OS *and* the hardware) seems to be utterly useless because it does not solve any problem that would be solved by other, more efficient and more convenient, means.
I'm sorry, did someone switch our economic system from the capitalist system where companies produce based on what people want and are willing to pay for, to some communist style system where a central authority decides what it thinks are the most efficient and convenient ways for people to do things, when I wasn't looking?;)
If you're worried that OS4 is redundant, then there's an awful lot of redundancy in the capitalist world. Why bother with more than one OS at all?
And I think you're jumping to conclusions by assuming that people are only interested out of pure nostalgia - judging from my time on Amiga forums, this doesn't seem to be the case. Even if the only reason someone uses it is because it's what they have already invested money in, and is what they are used to using, that's not nostalgia, and using it is more efficient and convenient for them.
I still do development on AmigaOS under WinUAE, but it's because I enjoy it, and prefer it in many ways to alternatives, not because I get nostalgic about it (if it was nostalgia, I'd be firing up AMOSPro, or better still, getting stuck into Spectrum BASIC..)
If they're in fantasyland (and I agree that they probably are), then that proves my very point. If they're willing to spend that money on just a little Amiga-related thing, then it's likely there'll be more people willing to buy OS4.
The only way to defend the original claim (that so few people are interested it wouldn't be worth sending to the duplicators) would be to argue that there was something of great value in this club (and hence, the members weren't in fantasyland), which wouldn't exist in OS4.
Uh, Apple was always done by Apple. Windows was always done by Microsoft.
You missed where I said "how much Amiga Inc have had a hand in this, I don't know or care". I disagree that OS4 not being made by the same company means that it has nothing in common with another product.
Do you think that exactly the same people worked at Apple and Microsoft during those times? And which same company did Linux?
The original Amiga was done by Commodore.
The original Amiga was *not* done by Commodore, but by Hi-Toro. By your logic, every Amiga after the A1000 had nothing to do with the original Amiga.
Amiga Inc. today are simply a bankrupt brandholder who do nothing but skim licence fees from the hardware and software they allow to be called 'Amiga'. So then yes, the new 'Amiga' has nothing to do with the real Amiga.
Even if your claims were true, your conclusion is a non-sequitor.
Out of interest - is there much in the way of CHRP PPC machines? And are they better or cheaper than the AmigaOne?
I mean, yeah, I agree it would be better to have an OS running on as many machines as possible - but it doesn't seem like a standardised set of PPC machines are plentifully available, does it?
I don't think it follows that just because a platform's strengths changes means that it has nothing in common - clearly the OS has lots in common with the old OS, even if the hardware it runs on is no longer special.
Hell, by the early 90's (as you suggest yourself), the Amiga had lost its hardware advantage over the competition. People pointed this out, but I don't remember them saying things like "this A1200, it's not an Amiga".
The strengths from an OS point of view were evident from the start (eg, being a 32-bit multitasking OS with combined GUI and shell, running in only 256k of RAM), they were just overshadowed by the other (ie, hardware) advantages.
It did have a color GUI desktop before macintosh, yes, and that was cool. Nobody, though, chose Amiga for any reason that can not be satisfied by other hardware/software combinations today.
Well this applies to other platforms too. Mac was before Windows and Amiga with a GUI, but other platforms quickly caught up. I bet that any reason people bought those early Macs are things which can now be done on other platforms.
The only analogue I can think of that would show what Amiga would be in today's market is some hybrid of the Playstation 2 graphics and sound with a Mac OS desktop and Cocoa programming.
Better graphics would be great, but I'd rather stick with AmigaOS desktop and Amiga programming, thanks;)
Yeah, because obviously the number of people who would spend $50 on receiving a few news updates is a good indicator (as opposed to just a lower bound) of the number of people who would spend money to buy an operating system.
How come Eyetech, who developed and sell the hardware, haven't gone bust?
Well, how much Amiga Inc have had a hand in this, I don't know or care, but saying that OS4 has nothing in coming with the original Amiga other than the brand name is false.
It has backwards compatibility. There will be a reasonable level of source compatibility (ie, recompiling programs to be native). The OS appears to look and work in a similar enough fashion. IIRC, it may be possible to run this on some of those original Amigas.
If that's not enough for you, then fine, but I presume you agree that MacOS X has nothing in common with the original Mac, and Windows XP has nothing in common with the original Windows, other than the brand names.
Well it's not like they're rereleasing Workbench 1.3.
It's about as meaningful as saying "DOS was cool, but it's had its day" in response to a new version of Windows:/
I assume all three of you are happy.
You said this wasn't a troll?
If it's not at least tens of thousands, I can't imagine this is really/. worthy.
The number of remaining active users must be at least 1000s (judging by the number of "Amiga club" members, for example). I doubt it's 10s of 1,000s - but the number of people who aren't users, but are interested (such as myself) would be a lot higher, and this is surely the more relevant number.
It's not clear to me that say, BeOS (which gets front page Slashdot coverage), still has more active users than the Amiga. Occasionally new operating systems (eg, AtheOS, SkyOS) get mentioned on Slashdot, and I can't believe that they have more users too.
Can someone help me understand why this platform is still getting development effort?
Well, Hyperion are either mad, or they think there's money to be had. Amiga Inc got $65700 just by charging membership for the aforementioned Amiga club.
I'd need to buy an entirely new computer just to play around with a Mac..
I can certainly see your point that an x86 release would have its advantages (I'd certainly buy it, if only to play around with, but I'm not going to buy a new computer). But MacOS X clearly falls into the proprietry-platform category too.
You can still run games on it I presume, just not the 10 year old ones..
Not that I'm claiming it's going to be particularly good for games of course - it's hard to tell what niches it might reach into at such an early stage. The point is though that it appears to be more than capable of running the vast majority of Amiga software that would presumably be of primary interest to Amiga users who didn't leave the platform 10 years ago or more.
1314 people joined the "Amiga club" which costs $50, which suggests that the idea that barely anyone is interested in the OS belongs in fantasyland.
If they were worried about no one buying it, don't you think that the duplication cost is going to be rather insignificant compared to years of development costs?
AFACT, this is the first bit of non-vaporware out of the Amiga world in about 10 years.
As long as you ignore the OSs AmigaOS 3.5, AmigaOS 3.9 and MorphOS; the OS/emulator Amithlon; the PPC motherboards Pegasos and Pegasos II, yep there's been none at all.
How many failed Amiga Resurrection Projects have there been? 6 or so?
Who cares how many failed ones there have been - it's the non-vaporware ones that are important. There were plenty of delays (Copeland? Rhapsody?) before Apple finally moved to OS X. Anyone can make a vapor announcement, I don't see why the fact that various PC companies were hopeless with doing anything with the Amiga should detract from what other people manage to do.
Yes, it would be 90% of old games, but I don't think the main purpose is to run 10+ year old games when you could more cheaply run an emulator on any machine, or pick up an A500 out the trash;)
It is clear to me how come Trolltech isn't offering a free Windows port. They want to stay in business and the Windows world has a crapload of money to purchase licenses from them.
I agree, but it would at least be honest of them to say that it's because that's where the money is, rather than trying to suggest it's because of some moral "we only support GPL platforms" idea (which also implies Windows is somehow bad - which of course is the exact opposite of what it should be, if it's providing them with money).
If Bill Gates suddenly went Open Source I'm sure Trolltech would follow.
Well, it would still be true that the Windows port would generate them money, even if Microsoft suddenly went open source.
I wonder how much Microsoft will have to release as open source to get them to change their mind (since they have released a little as open source, I believe - Apple haven't released OS X as open source, which I think was the original poster's point, even if using the word "hack" wasn't the best choice, so it is unfair to ask Microsoft to open source Windows).
Which is exactly what they did -- and it's an almighty coincidence if that wasn't what prompted TrollTech to release Qt under the GPL.
Er, I wasn't saying that there weren't any alternative toolkits on Linux (there are alternative toolkits on Windows too).
Because you are judged by your deeds, not your words. It's better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.
And how do you know the deeds of any given Windows user, versus any given Linux user? I could make the same comment to anyone who advocates that something should be opensourced, and/or ported to their platform.
Anyway, if you're that concerned about Open Source software, why don't you ditch Windows altogether and move to a real Open Source operating system, such as Linux or one of the BSD variants?
Because Linux and BSD do not meet my needs in the slightest (not that I think Windows is particularly special - there are plenty of OSs that come higher up on my list).
Anyhow, that's irrelevant - don't turn this into an "I think Linux/BSD is best therefore that's all anyone should use" argument.
Why on earth can I only be concerned about open source if I use an open source OS? I, along with plenty of developers, happily release open source software on closed source OSs, it would be a shame to lose that.
Slashdot Mirror
Admittedly I've no idea how that stuff works, and what software they'd use, but I find it a bit uneasy that they are allowed to use software to edit the images.. unlike what we see in The X Files, there isn't any magic software that can magically reveal extra information.
Are there any details as to how safe this "image processing" is?
But worst of all... the new Amiga should have been the Amiga 5000. WTF with this "One" ?
I think "AmigaOne" is a bit of a cheesy name.. but I can see why they didn't go with Amiga 5000. To me, that suggests just an evolution of A4000, what Commodore might have released in 95-96 had they not gone bust; a machine with PPC.. and 880k floppy and Zorro slots..
I think that's the point here - whilst they could release a machine that picks up where the A4000 left off, you've got to face that it's 2004, and the number of people interested in such a machine would be even less. Also it would be redundant - whilst there may have been a 7 year gap (1995-2002) between official machine releases (although note that A4000s and Zorro A1200Ts have been sold up until quite recently), Amigans have been upgrading their machines with plenty of add ons that have become available, such as PPC and PCI cards. Instead, Amiga have gone for reasonably up to date hardware, not wasting money on legacy hardware, and still maintaining a great deal of continuity with the old Amigas.
The compatible floppy controller might be another way to do that.
Then you can have that - slip a Catweasel into the AmigaOne, and all is well.
The motherboard may be pricey (that's going to be the way with new platforms that are only selling in the thousands at most), but if you don't like the prices of the other hardware, buy the motherboard alone and get the rest elsewhere. Unlike Apple, you have that choice.
No, but you did get those things. There were a few PPC macs with nubus, and PCs had 1 or 2 token slots on up until just a few years ago. Never having had the equivalent on this "new amiga", I hesitate to call it an amiga at all.
.. however I can't say I've ever noticed such people in the Amiga community. Is there a particular Zorro card you are thinking of, or is it something about Zorro in general? Originally you were suggesting Zorro was needed for backwards-compatibility, rather than it being something special in itself.
But they had them on the old Amigas! I could declare ISA-less PCs as "new PCs", and equally complain that they've yet to release a generation of "new PCs" with ISA slots. They were selling Zorro based A4000s for years.
Design time? Well, maybe that is a cost
Yes, exactly. If they were going to sell millions, then the cost would be negliable, but with a few thousand at most, I imagine that including Zorro slots would cost a lot. Remember how much more expensive the Zorro-based Amigas were (even compared to an A500/1200 that was upgraded with CPU etc), or how much the Zorro add ons for the A1200 were?
Being an OS company (or rather a trademark company farming out the minimal OS work you're doing) is no longer anything special. Especially when you are touting a "computer" that was only ever really cool for its hardware to begin with. Now they want to come up with some marginal PPC mainboard, and be done with it?
Hang on - if you're saying that they need to sell some interesting hardware instead of being just an OS company, then that's one argument (and bearing in mind that they're tying the OS to the AmigaOnes and not being an OS company, I think this point isn't relevant anyway), but I don't see how including *ancient legacy* hardware is going to attract people to the platform.
Besides, if someone wants to save time and money, they should buy a PC, running Windows XP if they are a loser, or an even cheaper power OS like BSD or linux. People even considering running this OS, are not the "I just need a cheap computer that works" crowd.
Well the point is that people pay extra to get something they like. Okay, I'll concede that it's possible that some people prefer Zorro cards to PCI equivalents in the same way people prefer Amigas in general to alternatives
No idea - 1500-2000 is a reasonable guess, I'd agree. Certainly more than enough that it's worthwhile sending to the duplicators;) Whether it's worthwhile to have spent all this time developing it is another matter.
It would be interesting to know how many AmigaOnes have already been sold, or how many Pegasoses running MorphOS have been sold, as that would give us some idea. At least, Genesi have yet to go bust, though it would be interesting to know whether they are making or losing money on their platform.
I know, though the original poster said "Amiga world", and wasn't just talking of Amiga Inc.
The OS has little in common with its namesake
Backwards compatibility, source code compatibility, based on the same source code I believe, runs Workbench, similar look-and-feel, yep little in common. Meanwhile, "MacOS" and "Windows" are names which have got used for two and three entirely different OSs respectively (well, in Windows' case, I don't think the original Windows series even counts as an OS in itself, more of a GUI for DOS?), but no one complains.
But c'mon, a single ZorroII slot inline with the PCI? The bridge logic would fit in a single, cheap FPGA. Hell, just for one generation, so there could be some kind of continuity. Or like I said earlier, even just a floppy controller.
Do I get a Nubus slot with my Mac? And I can't find the ISA slot on my PC.
I don't understand what you mean by "just for one generation", when obviously the Zorro Amigas have already appeared for at least one generation. If you mean one generation running OS4, then grab a Zorro A4000 with PPC and run OS4 on that.
Given how dated many Amiga Zorro cards are, I imagine it would be cheaper to buy brand new PCI card replacements (I mean what are we talking about, 20 quid for a graphics card?) than to pay the increased cost for a motherboard that has a Zorro slot.
As for a floppy controller, get a Catweasel. I don't see why, in an age when for years many computers haven't had a floppy at all, when even on Amigas Amiga-formatted disks have rarely used for years (I gave up on Amiga-formatted floppies about '95-'96, and only rarely used PC-formatted floppies after that), why should everyone have to pay the increased cost to include it as standard?
Some Amiga fanatics would buy Amiga-branded toilets
Maybe they would, but most people are just glad to save development time and their money by doing away with ancient hardware.
That you think Macs are useful has nothing to do with the fact that I'd need to buy a new machine to run one. Your comment "Maybe if it was on x86 or Mac" suggests that Mac hardware is sufficiently plentiful - it isn't (sure, it might be more plentiful than AmigaOnes, and it'd certainly be useful to pick up a cheap Mac to run OS4 on, but I'd still need to buy a new machine, and that'd still put me off getting OS4).
If you're now switching your argument to saying that Apple can afford to go for a non-mainstream proprietry platform because Macs are inherently useful, that they are "useful" is your opinion. There seem to be plenty of people who view OS X has something interesting to play around with, but it's nothing they couldn't do on Windows (or Linux, whatever) - this is often cited as a reason by the people who argue for porting OS X to x86. These people certainly wouldn't buy a whole new machine for it.
You can't arbitrarily divide OSs up into "only useful for playing around with", and "useful"; that distinction will depend on the person. With MacOS, there are people who find them useful, and there are people who would just like to play about with them. The same is true of AmigaOS (yes, despite what the "no one cares" trolls here seem to think, there are people who still like to use Amigas).
Both Apple and Amiga have, rightly or wrongly, made the decision to cut out those who would buy the OS to play around with, but wouldn't buy a whole new machine.
I think you're arguing about Amiga Inc, and I'm arguing about OS4.
I couldn't care less about Amiga Inc, and yes I agree they've done quite a lot of damage.
But that doesn't mean that OS4 isn't anything to do with the original AmigaOS, just because Amiga Inc aren't anything to do with Commodore. Anyway, OS4 is being done by Hyperion, so the anti-Amiga Inc stuff is irrelevant.
I'd say MorphOS and AROS have a lot of things in common with the original AmigaOS, but these clearly don't have even the trademarks or source code in common.
Seriously, though, this release (as well as the OS *and* the hardware) seems to be utterly useless because it does not solve any problem that would be solved by other, more efficient and more convenient, means.
;)
I'm sorry, did someone switch our economic system from the capitalist system where companies produce based on what people want and are willing to pay for, to some communist style system where a central authority decides what it thinks are the most efficient and convenient ways for people to do things, when I wasn't looking?
If you're worried that OS4 is redundant, then there's an awful lot of redundancy in the capitalist world. Why bother with more than one OS at all?
And I think you're jumping to conclusions by assuming that people are only interested out of pure nostalgia - judging from my time on Amiga forums, this doesn't seem to be the case. Even if the only reason someone uses it is because it's what they have already invested money in, and is what they are used to using, that's not nostalgia, and using it is more efficient and convenient for them.
I still do development on AmigaOS under WinUAE, but it's because I enjoy it, and prefer it in many ways to alternatives, not because I get nostalgic about it (if it was nostalgia, I'd be firing up AMOSPro, or better still, getting stuck into Spectrum BASIC..)
If they're in fantasyland (and I agree that they probably are), then that proves my very point. If they're willing to spend that money on just a little Amiga-related thing, then it's likely there'll be more people willing to buy OS4.
The only way to defend the original claim (that so few people are interested it wouldn't be worth sending to the duplicators) would be to argue that there was something of great value in this club (and hence, the members weren't in fantasyland), which wouldn't exist in OS4.
Uh, Apple was always done by Apple. Windows was always done by Microsoft.
You missed where I said "how much Amiga Inc have had a hand in this, I don't know or care". I disagree that OS4 not being made by the same company means that it has nothing in common with another product.
Do you think that exactly the same people worked at Apple and Microsoft during those times? And which same company did Linux?
The original Amiga was done by Commodore.
The original Amiga was *not* done by Commodore, but by Hi-Toro. By your logic, every Amiga after the A1000 had nothing to do with the original Amiga.
Amiga Inc. today are simply a bankrupt brandholder who do nothing but skim licence fees from the hardware and software they allow to be called 'Amiga'. So then yes, the new 'Amiga' has nothing to do with the real Amiga.
Even if your claims were true, your conclusion is a non-sequitor.
(non-CHRP) PPC machines.
Out of interest - is there much in the way of CHRP PPC machines? And are they better or cheaper than the AmigaOne?
I mean, yeah, I agree it would be better to have an OS running on as many machines as possible - but it doesn't seem like a standardised set of PPC machines are plentifully available, does it?
I don't think it follows that just because a platform's strengths changes means that it has nothing in common - clearly the OS has lots in common with the old OS, even if the hardware it runs on is no longer special.
;)
Hell, by the early 90's (as you suggest yourself), the Amiga had lost its hardware advantage over the competition. People pointed this out, but I don't remember them saying things like "this A1200, it's not an Amiga".
The strengths from an OS point of view were evident from the start (eg, being a 32-bit multitasking OS with combined GUI and shell, running in only 256k of RAM), they were just overshadowed by the other (ie, hardware) advantages.
It did have a color GUI desktop before macintosh, yes, and that was cool. Nobody, though, chose Amiga for any reason that can not be satisfied by other hardware/software combinations today.
Well this applies to other platforms too. Mac was before Windows and Amiga with a GUI, but other platforms quickly caught up. I bet that any reason people bought those early Macs are things which can now be done on other platforms.
The only analogue I can think of that would show what Amiga would be in today's market is some hybrid of the Playstation 2 graphics and sound with a Mac OS desktop and Cocoa programming.
Better graphics would be great, but I'd rather stick with AmigaOS desktop and Amiga programming, thanks
Yeah, because obviously the number of people who would spend $50 on receiving a few news updates is a good indicator (as opposed to just a lower bound) of the number of people who would spend money to buy an operating system.
How come Eyetech, who developed and sell the hardware, haven't gone bust?
Well, how much Amiga Inc have had a hand in this, I don't know or care, but saying that OS4 has nothing in coming with the original Amiga other than the brand name is false.
It has backwards compatibility. There will be a reasonable level of source compatibility (ie, recompiling programs to be native). The OS appears to look and work in a similar enough fashion. IIRC, it may be possible to run this on some of those original Amigas.
If that's not enough for you, then fine, but I presume you agree that MacOS X has nothing in common with the original Mac, and Windows XP has nothing in common with the original Windows, other than the brand names.
Well it's not like they're rereleasing Workbench 1.3.
:/
/. worthy.
It's about as meaningful as saying "DOS was cool, but it's had its day" in response to a new version of Windows
I assume all three of you are happy.
You said this wasn't a troll?
If it's not at least tens of thousands, I can't imagine this is really
The number of remaining active users must be at least 1000s (judging by the number of "Amiga club" members, for example). I doubt it's 10s of 1,000s - but the number of people who aren't users, but are interested (such as myself) would be a lot higher, and this is surely the more relevant number.
It's not clear to me that say, BeOS (which gets front page Slashdot coverage), still has more active users than the Amiga. Occasionally new operating systems (eg, AtheOS, SkyOS) get mentioned on Slashdot, and I can't believe that they have more users too.
Can someone help me understand why this platform is still getting development effort?
Well, Hyperion are either mad, or they think there's money to be had. Amiga Inc got $65700 just by charging membership for the aforementioned Amiga club.
I'd need to buy an entirely new computer just to play around with a Mac..
I can certainly see your point that an x86 release would have its advantages (I'd certainly buy it, if only to play around with, but I'm not going to buy a new computer). But MacOS X clearly falls into the proprietry-platform category too.
You can still run games on it I presume, just not the 10 year old ones..
Not that I'm claiming it's going to be particularly good for games of course - it's hard to tell what niches it might reach into at such an early stage. The point is though that it appears to be more than capable of running the vast majority of Amiga software that would presumably be of primary interest to Amiga users who didn't leave the platform 10 years ago or more.
1314 people joined the "Amiga club" which costs $50, which suggests that the idea that barely anyone is interested in the OS belongs in fantasyland.
If they were worried about no one buying it, don't you think that the duplication cost is going to be rather insignificant compared to years of development costs?
AFACT, this is the first bit of non-vaporware out of the Amiga world in about 10 years.
As long as you ignore the OSs AmigaOS 3.5, AmigaOS 3.9 and MorphOS; the OS/emulator Amithlon; the PPC motherboards Pegasos and Pegasos II, yep there's been none at all.
How many failed Amiga Resurrection Projects have there been? 6 or so?
Who cares how many failed ones there have been - it's the non-vaporware ones that are important. There were plenty of delays (Copeland? Rhapsody?) before Apple finally moved to OS X. Anyone can make a vapor announcement, I don't see why the fact that various PC companies were hopeless with doing anything with the Amiga should detract from what other people manage to do.
That would be, what, 90% of them?
;)
Yes, it would be 90% of old games, but I don't think the main purpose is to run 10+ year old games when you could more cheaply run an emulator on any machine, or pick up an A500 out the trash
The AmigaOne has been selling for over a year now IIRC.
It is clear to me how come Trolltech isn't offering a free Windows port. They want to stay in business and the Windows world has a crapload of money to purchase licenses from them.
I agree, but it would at least be honest of them to say that it's because that's where the money is, rather than trying to suggest it's because of some moral "we only support GPL platforms" idea (which also implies Windows is somehow bad - which of course is the exact opposite of what it should be, if it's providing them with money).
If Bill Gates suddenly went Open Source I'm sure Trolltech would follow.
Well, it would still be true that the Windows port would generate them money, even if Microsoft suddenly went open source.
I wonder how much Microsoft will have to release as open source to get them to change their mind (since they have released a little as open source, I believe - Apple haven't released OS X as open source, which I think was the original poster's point, even if using the word "hack" wasn't the best choice, so it is unfair to ask Microsoft to open source Windows).
Which is exactly what they did -- and it's an almighty coincidence if that wasn't what prompted TrollTech to release Qt under the GPL.
Er, I wasn't saying that there weren't any alternative toolkits on Linux (there are alternative toolkits on Windows too).
Because you are judged by your deeds, not your words. It's better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.
And how do you know the deeds of any given Windows user, versus any given Linux user? I could make the same comment to anyone who advocates that something should be opensourced, and/or ported to their platform.
Anyway, if you're that concerned about Open Source software, why don't you ditch Windows altogether and move to a real Open Source operating system, such as Linux or one of the BSD variants?
Because Linux and BSD do not meet my needs in the slightest (not that I think Windows is particularly special - there are plenty of OSs that come higher up on my list).
Anyhow, that's irrelevant - don't turn this into an "I think Linux/BSD is best therefore that's all anyone should use" argument.
Why on earth can I only be concerned about open source if I use an open source OS? I, along with plenty of developers, happily release open source software on closed source OSs, it would be a shame to lose that.