Hyperion and Amiga Inc settle

Ahh poor Amiga, the memories, doubt this will bring a whole lotta good the the Amiga name.

but ... this caught my eye :

"low RAM requirements of the OS would make it perfect for running on Sony's PlayStation 3" arstechnica.com

Now that would be neat
 
I think the amiga OS would be a great mobile OS and could go head to head with winmo 6.5 and android. Unfortunately its too late to the party.
 
I'd say it's good for more than a mobile device, it's more than capable of being a full desktop OS. Given that Amiga hardware was so far ahead of its time, even Amiga OS 3.1 (the last version from Commodore) is still totally usable with the addition of some 3rd party software. Funny that you mention phones, though, because OS 3.9 and older were all 68k based, meaning many mobile phones can run it semi-natively.

Pretty impressive that an Amiga OS 3.1, an OS from 1994, can handle hardware accelerated 3D, hardware accelerated stereo sound, has a file system that can handle hard disks in excess of 1TB, supports up to 1.5GB of RAM, had a massive number of hardware expansion options, the list goes on. These are all features that Windows wouldn't catch up with until years later.

Quick screenshot of what Amiga OS 3.1 can do with a little sprucing up (click for full size). I still need to install Directory Opus on here, that would give me a much better file manager...


To put that in perspective, the version of Windows available at the time was Windows 3.11. I would hardly consider it to still be a usable desktop OS. It doesn't even support running 32bit applications out of the box, and the support that was added later was fairly dismal. Future hardware support is basically nonexistent... I was going to drop in a screenshot of Windows 3.11 for comparison, but I couldn't even get it to run a resolution higher than 1024x768, which is just plain sad.

If it weren't for Amiga's being so expensive, and Commodore going bankrupt around the same time, it's very likely we would be seeing Commodore vs Apple instead of Microsoft vs Apple today.


Now, as for the current situation with Hyperion and Amiga OS 4, they've sort of painted themselves into a corner. When they made OS4 they built it for custom-made PowerPC motherboards rather than generic x86 hardware; easy to develop for (one hardware set), hard to get mass adoption. There's also the option of running it on classic 68k based Amiga hardware (if you have a PowerPC accelerator card installed), but that old hardware is arguably harder to find than the custom PowerPC AmigaOne motherboards. Amiga OS is going to struggle as a desktop operating system until they open it up and allow it to run on other PowerPC platforms (such as older macs) or port it over to x86 so it can run on standard PC hardware.
 
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The Amiga was so great, it made me break my cardinal rule about not buying proprietary hardware. I eventually moved on to an IBM compatible with a Pentium 90 and Windows 95. However, there wasn't a day that went by where I wasn't missing my Amiga 2000 and 1200HD... almost as if it possessed its own heart and soul.

A special piece of hardware that was WAY ahead of its time.
 
Cloanto's Amiga Forever stuff is pretty awesome. I loved my old Amiga 500 and wish we hadn't sold it at a garage sale for $20.
 
I agree Amiga OS3.1 is a great OS even by today standards. Unfortunately later versions really didn't add much, and can't compete with other OS's

Unknown-One said:
I'd say it's good for more than a mobile device, it's more than capable of being a full desktop OS. Given that Amiga hardware was so far ahead of its time, even Amiga OS 3.1 (the last version from Commodore) is still totally usable with the addition of some 3rd party software. Funny that you mention phones, though, because OS 3.9 and older were all 68k based, meaning many mobile phones can run it semi-natively.

Pretty impressive that an Amiga OS 3.1, an OS from 1994, can handle hardware accelerated 3D, hardware accelerated stereo sound, has a file system that can handle hard disks in excess of 1TB, supports up to 1.5GB of RAM, had a massive number of hardware expansion options, the list goes on. These are all features that Windows wouldn't catch up with until years later.

Quick screenshot of what Amiga OS 3.1 can do with a little sprucing up (click for full size). I still need to install Directory Opus on here, that would give me a much better file manager...


To put that in perspective, the version of Windows available at the time was Windows 3.11. I would hardly consider it to still be a usable desktop OS. It doesn't even support running 32bit applications out of the box, and the support that was added later was fairly dismal. Future hardware support is basically nonexistent... I was going to drop in a screenshot of Windows 3.11 for comparison, but I couldn't even get it to run a resolution higher than 1024x768, which is just plain sad.

If it weren't for Amiga's being so expensive, and Commodore going bankrupt around the same time, it's very likely we would be seeing Commodore vs Apple instead of Microsoft vs Apple today.


Now, as for the current situation with Hyperion and Amiga OS 4, they've sort of painted themselves into a corner. When they made OS4 they built it for custom-made PowerPC motherboards rather than generic x86 hardware; easy to develop for (one hardware set), hard to get mass adoption. There's also the option of running it on classic 68k based Amiga hardware (if you have a PowerPC accelerator card installed), but that old hardware is arguably harder to find than the custom PowerPC AmigaOne motherboards. Amiga OS is going to struggle as a desktop operating system until they open it up and allow it to run on other PowerPC platforms (such as older macs) or port it over to x86 so it can run on standard PC hardware.
Click to expand...
 
It has a zorro slot, wonder if you could slap an old Toaster in there.
 
Unknown-One said:
Looks like the settlement is bearing fruit. They're releasing an entirely new Amiga computer, the Amiga One X1000

http://www.osnews.com/story/22693/New_Amiga_Sports_Programmable_Co-Processor_Dualcore_PPC
Click to expand...

The persistance of the Amiga supporters is commendable, but as much as I love the Amiga I thinks its too little too late.

No one uses power pc anymore, who needs a desktop which can't run any popular applications.
Full ATX? Who want's a full size desktop when nettops are becoming increasingly popular?
DDR2? you migh as well use pc133
A 400 mips coprocessor? A Core i7 alone can do 75,000+ MIPS, I won't post 5970 or fermi to save the embarassment

I undestand why they won't switch to x86 (actually, I don't), but they could switch to arm, there is a potential market for tablets, netbooks and nettops. Just imagine a cortex or better yet tegra based Amiga tablet with an Amiga OS that can do everything the ipad can't and its being doing it for almost 25 years.

Once again the amiga takes a wrong turn, it seems the commodore curse is not over.
 
Stoly said:
No one uses power pc anymore, who needs a desktop which can't run any popular applications.
Full ATX? Who want's a full size desktop when nettops are becoming increasingly popular?
DDR2? you migh as well use pc133
A 400 mips coprocessor? A Core i7 alone can do 75,000+ MIPS, I won't post 5970 or fermi to save the embarassment
Click to expand...
Ok, now you're exaggerating a bit :rolleyes:

The architecture hardly matters in this case, because the OS needs all new software compiled for it anyway. All legacy apps are already being dealt with through Motorola 68k emulation.
Full ATX is just fine, it also preserves the Amiga's namesake of being hugely upgradable.
Nothing wrong with DDR2 either, it has enough bandwidth for their chosen CPU, and the latencies are lower than DDR3.
That 400 mips coprocessor is just the onboard one. You can install cards that daisy-chain bunches of them together to harness huge amounts of fully programmable computing power.

Stoly said:
I undestand why they won't switch to x86 (actually, I don't)
Click to expand...
Because a lot of classic Amiga applications rely on PowerPC accelerator boards. The architecture is more familiar to the OS, its developers, and its applications. Not only that, but like Apple, it gives them full control over the OS, drivers, and hardware. They don't have to worry about supporting the billion x86 motherboards in existence, and can instead focus on making their few hardware sets function optimally.

It all makes sense, especially if they aim to get back into the niche markets that Amiga computers used to occupy. We'll just have to wait and see how it pans out...
 
Unknown-One said:
Ok, now you're exaggerating a bit :rolleyes:

The architecture hardly matters in this case, because the OS needs all new software compiled for it anyway. All legacy apps are already being dealt with through Motorola 68k emulation.
Full ATX is just fine, it also preserves the Amiga's namesake of being hugely upgradable.
Nothing wrong with DDR2 either, it has enough bandwidth for their chosen CPU, and the latencies are lower than DDR3.

That 400 mips coprocessor is just the onboard one. You can install cards that daisy-chain bunches of them together to harness huge amounts of fully programmable computing power.


Because a lot of classic Amiga applications rely on PowerPC accelerator boards. The architecture is more familiar to the OS, its developers, and its applications. Not only that, but like Apple, it gives them full control over the OS, drivers, and hardware. They don't have to worry about supporting the billion x86 motherboards in existence, and can instead focus on making their few hardware sets function optimally.

It all makes sense, especially if they aim to get back into the niche markets that Amiga computers used to occupy. We'll just have to wait and see how it pans out...
Click to expand...

I'm I?
I'll give you DDR2, though its on its way out.

I have a hard time believing people will write applications for it when they are better off doing iphone/ipad or google apps. The platform is just not attractive, what's in it that you can't get anywhere else?

Yey for the ATX case, it assures full upgradeability to... what? wait there's nothing to upgrade to, except for Xena. It supports PCIe 2.0 so there's a chance we may find something to put in there.

And speaking of Xena, that's the one with 400 mips, so it means that even if you cram 150 of them, it still won't match a core i7 much less mid/highend GPUs.

Apple made the switch to x86, so Amiga could do that too. But my gripe is not x86, but keeping powerpc, they could have switched to arm or cortex and aim for the nettop market.

And speaking of markets, what niches is the Amiga x1000 targeting that it had before?

Content creation. Nope already taken
3d animation and modelling. Not even with 1,000 Xena chips
Video production. Well maybe, why not?
Games. Really?
Hobbyists. That one I'll give, but not a real money maker.
 
I am amazed that anyone thought it was worth fighting in court over something so unlikely to have any financial payback.

My A1000 (which I still have) is the most revolutionary computer I every purchased, it was years ahead of the market, but that was 25 years ago. It is just an interesting historical footnote today.
 
Snowdog said:
My A1000 (which I still have) is the most revolutionary computer I every purchased, it was years ahead of the market, but that was 25 years ago. It is just an interesting historical footnote today.
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I have to agree there. I have a (highly upgraded) A2000 that's still in working order, and fairly functional. Upgraded CPU board, PowerPC Accelerator board, video card, Ethernet card, bigger hard disk, CD-ROM drive.

It's very snappy running Amiga OS 3.9 or Linux; can browse the web without a problem, and even run real time 3D games (tried Quake II, though it can probably handle more than that). Tasks like word processing are also, obviously, simple enough for it.

Not bad for a machine from 1989.
 
I'd be tempted to pick one up...I used to love the old Amiga's, and had everything from an A1000 up to a couple A3000's before I moved on to the x86 world.
 
Unknown-One said:
I was going to drop in a screenshot of Windows 3.11 for comparison, but I couldn't even get it to run a resolution higher than 1024x768, which is just plain sad.
Click to expand...


It can go higher with drivers. Try the S3 drivers. I think there are others if those won't work for you, but they generally don't seem to care if it is actually a S3 card :p


EDIT: Also be fair to the poor old, ugly Windows 3.1! It came out in what? 92? I think Amiga OS looked more like this then:

amigaos204.png
:p
 
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MattyC said:
Also, be fair to the poor old, ugly Windows 3.1! It came out in what? 92? I think Amiga OS looked more like this then:

http://www.guidebookgallery.org/pics/gui/desktop/full/amigaos204.png :p
Click to expand...

True, my screenshot is of Amiga OS 3.1 with a bunch of 2010 additions.

To keep it fair, if I had posted a Windows 3.11 screenshot, I would have also updated Windows 3.11 as best I could. I gotta say though, I don't think it's possible to get it up to the same level of looks / functionality / usability as Amiga OS 3.1. :p
 
Amiga does it better.

I still have my 1200 and my 1200 tower (with a 68030 50 mgz cpu) and several 1942 monitors I do have Miami and pcmcia network cards they work in the 1200s.
 
We now have a picture of the Amiga One X1000 motherboard! :D

tease.jpg


And the official website from A-Eon, who are building the hardware: http://www.a-eon.com/6.html

Looks like this thing will actually be built. I can't wait!
 
When I was at my local computer shop back in the 80's I was watching one gentleman play Defender of the Crown. God, did I want an Amiga so bad (yes, to play the game too). Instead for Christmas I got a Commodore 64...win some lose some.

Maybe now, I can have one :)
 
Shikami said:
When I was at my local computer shop back in the 80's I was watching one gentleman play Defender of the Crown. God, did I want an Amiga so bad (yes, to play the game too). Instead for Christmas I got a Commodore 64...win some lose some.

Maybe now, I can have one :)
Click to expand...

I had Defender of the Crown for PC. It ran in 4 color, 320X240 CGA (pre-VGA there was EGA, pre-EGA there was CGA). The Amiga version looked soooo much better.
 
very cool, always wanted an amiga.. i had a tandy 1000 instead.

if they end up making this and its cheap enough i'll grab one.
 
I had an Amiga 1000 with analog color display.
Sold it back in 89 for cash to buy my wifes engagement ring.

Got more miles out of the wife then I ever would have out of the Amiga ;)
 
Cretin said:
I had an Amiga 1000 with analog color display.
Sold it back in 89 for cash to buy my wifes engagement ring.

Got more miles out of the wife then I ever would have out of the Amiga ;)
Click to expand...

and by miles, do you mean... :eek:
 
As a long time Amiga user and enthusiast, I'd be delighted if it *ever* made any kind of a come back on the US market. Sadly, i just can't see it happening myself. He mentioned at one point that the X1000 isn't near as groundbreaking as the original (how could it be?), but when he went on to say that the machine they were showing as a demo would cost North of 1500 pounds, I almost stopped watching at that point simply because in this day and age, there will never be enough people to invest that kind of money into something that will probably not be able to keep up with the existing PC's on the market, or offer them anything more than they could get with a $800 computer from Best Buy.

I understand that a business needs to be semi profitable in order to continue to move forward and innovate, support R&D, etc., but in this day and age you've got to really have something *really* special to charge that kind of money. Otherwise, if you can't develop and market a machine that is affordable and attractive to the public, you've already lost the race before it's begun.

I miss my Amiga computers...all of them. I've had several starting with the original A1000, several A500's, an A600HD, a couple A2000HD's, two A3000's maxed out with ZIP RAM and running the latest OS (V3.1 at the time), and finally an A4000. All of them wonderful machines, fantastic to learn on, groundbreaking computers for the time and great fun for entertainment as well.

It's unfortunate that Commodore wasted the technology and innovation that the Amiga brought to the table and rocked the market with back then. I'll continue to watch this side show called the AmigaOne X1000, but I just can't see it getting off the ground... :(

Long live the Amiga, even if it's just in my memories...
 
I think you'll be able to build your own (using their motherboard, at least) for considerably less than the price of one of their complete systems.

I don't think they're going after the PC (or even Mac) market. At this point, just getting ahead of desktop Linux would be a huge milestone and a major achievement. With Desktop Linux as fragmented and lacking in broad standards as it is, it might not be too difficult for a singular platform like the Amiga to pass it up in usage.
 
Unknown-One said:
I think you'll be able to build your own (using their motherboard, at least) for considerably less than the price of one of their complete systems.

I don't think they're going after the PC (or even Mac) market. At this point, just getting ahead of desktop Linux would be a huge milestone and a major achievement. With Desktop Linux as fragmented and lacking in broad standards as it is, it might not be too difficult for a singular platform like the Amiga to pass it up in usage.
Click to expand...

The problem with that, is that Linux has good hardware support.

You can build a dual quad core Xeon + hyper threading (16 threads) 32 Gig whore of a box with SLI or something insanely stupid like that.

Or, you can take the low row and run it on an Atom, Via or even Arm.

Or, you can take the cheap road and built a linux workstation from spare parts.

Hardware wise Amiga is outmatched in all cases.

Software wise Linux is also doing well. You got good software for anything from email, web, etc. With Amiga you're going to have to re-write all that stuff from scratch or hack up the open source stuff to get it working on that platform. Again, linux will be way ahead. You can out match someone by porting all their software over.

There is nothing really here that makes it more compelling than Linux/freebsd. What would I get out of it by switching?
 
I loved my Amiga and I still have an A1000 boxed up somewhere around here.

But I don't see any point trying to build some kind of modern Amiga.

Maybe an add in card, that would allow near perfect emulation of an Amiga and read old Amiga floppies and support the new OS in dual boot or VM.

But a new non compatible separate box. That is really dead in the water.
 
I always lusted for an Amiga but never got one. My 1st PC was an 10mhz XT-Turbo. It had a monochrome graphics card so I had run a program called sim-cga to play some games.
 
I loved the Amiga and owned a ton of them. Still have an A4000 with the "Video Toaster" installed in it. I can't bear to get rid of it. If you don't remember what it is then just Google it. And that's my point. The "new" Amiga will never do anything unless they have some sort of special "niche" hardware that does a really cool job, cheaper than anybody else and better. That's what the Toaster did and that's what they need now. If not then all they have is an underpowered computer with a really cool.... but outdated operating system on it that nobody will care about, except the 100 or so that will want to buy this computer just to play with it.
 
budec said:
The problem with that, is that Linux has good hardware support.
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I shouldn't read the forums while eating breakfast. I just laughed so hard I blew hashed browns out my nose.

Desktop Linux has better support than Amiga OS as it currently exists, no doubt. Even so, I would not call Desktop Linux's hardware support "good" by any means. Not enough hardware manufacturers and OEMs make drivers for Linux, basically leaving huge swaths of PC hardware unsupported unless a community member happens to come along and write a driver.

When building a Linux PC, I have to look for parts that are known to be supported, otherwise I'll most likely end up with incomparable hardware somewhere in the box. Building a modern Amiga is going to be pretty much the same thing for now.

budec said:
You can build a dual quad core Xeon + hyper threading (16 threads) 32 Gig whore of a box with SLI or something insanely stupid like that.

Or, you can take the low row and run it on an Atom, Via or even Arm.

Or, you can take the cheap road and built a Linux workstation from spare parts.

Hardware wise Amiga is outmatched in all cases.
Click to expand...
Are you seriously about to claim that the dual core PowerPC processor in the X1000 is slower than all Atom, VIA, and ARM CPUs? I highly doubt that.

Besides that, you're completely misunderstanding their business model. They're working with the same mindset as Commodore used to, and that Apple uses now.

1. Sell a limited number of hardware sets to minimize the number required hardware drivers.
2. Lock the OS to this platform to prevent people from sapping your hardware revenue, and to prevent the OS from being run on unsupported hardware.
3. Market it as a secure and stable system thanks to the above two points.
4. Profit.

That business model has kept OSX's market share well ahead of Desktop Linux. If it can work for Apple, it can work for the Amiga. They just need to get the boing-ball rolling.

budec said:
Software wise Linux is also doing well. You got good software for anything from email, web, etc. With Amiga you're going to have to re-write all that stuff from scratch or hack up the open source stuff to get it working on that platform. Again, linux will be way ahead. You can out match someone by porting all their software over.
Click to expand...
They don't really have to rewrite anything. The Linux community was nice enough to write a gigantic library of open source software that just needs to be slightly tweaked and recompiled for Amiga OS.

There's also the option of running a side-by-side kernel (like coLinux or andLinux on Windows) that allows the native execution of Linux applications on Amiga OS.

budec said:
There is nothing really here that makes it more compelling than Linux/freebsd. What would I get out of it by switching?
Click to expand...

I'd use it over Linux simply because it's a singular uniform platform with a set of fixed standards. Linux has a serious problem with fragmentation; there are too many options and too many ways to do one thing. Too many people with their own ideas about how something should work writing redundant software over-and-over again.

I'd use Amiga OS over Desktop Linux just to get away from that mess.
 
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Unknown-One said:
I shouldn't read the forums while eating breakfast. I just laughed so hard I blew hashed browns out my nose.

Desktop Linux has better support than Amiga OS as it currently exists, no doubt. Even so, I would not call Desktop Linux's hardware support "good" by any means. Not enough hardware manufacturers and OEMs make drivers for Linux, basically leaving huge swaths of PC hardware unsupported unless a community member happens to come along and write a driver.

When building a Linux PC, I have to look for parts that are known to be supported, otherwise I'll most likely end up with incomparable hardware somewhere in the box. Building a modern Amiga is going to be pretty much the same thing for now.


Are you seriously about to claim that the dual core PowerPC processor in the X1000 is slower than all Atom, VIA, and ARM CPUs? I highly doubt that.

Besides that, you're completely misunderstanding their business model. They're working with the same mindset as Commodore used to, and that Apple uses now.

1. Sell a limited number of hardware sets to minimize the number required hardware drivers.
2. Lock the OS to this platform to prevent people from sapping your hardware revenue, and to prevent the OS from being run on unsupported hardware.
3. Market it as a secure and stable system thanks to the above two points.
4. Profit.

That business model has kept OSX's market share well ahead of Desktop Linux. If it can work for Apple, it can work for the Amiga. They just need to get the boing-ball rolling.


They don't really have to rewrite anything. The Linux community was nice enough to write a gigantic library of open source software that just needs to be slightly tweaked and recompiled for Amiga OS.

There's also the option of running a side-by-side kernel (like coLinux or andLinux on Windows) that allows the native execution of Linux applications on Amiga OS.



I'd use it over Linux simply because it's a singular uniform platform with a set of fixed standards. Linux has a serious problem with fragmentation; there are too many options and too many ways to do one thing. Too many people with their own ideas about how something should work writing redundant software over-and-over again.

I'd use Amiga OS over Desktop Linux just to get away from that mess.
Click to expand...

Thing is that the Amiga was like decades ahead of the competition when it first came out, but now its decades behind. There's nothing hardware wise that is attractive about the new Amiga in any way.

Now if it was designed to meet an specific market, say HTPC, Internet TV,slate or netbooks. Then it would stand a chance.

And I really hope they don't use the same mindset as commodore. That's what killed the amiga in the first place.
 
I kind of agree on this. They should at least make it super compact to fit in a tv cabinet and market it as a htpc/ tv computer. add a tv tuner and make it like a DVR with browser. There probably won't be a big enough market. Besides M$ and Apple have secured them selves as the big players being house hold names. Do you go to best buy and see a Amiga section? I doubt anyone would buy one at a B&M store.

The concept cool, but ultimately pointless. I mean If I can build one of these for under a $100 I would just to tinker but I doubt it will be cheap.
 
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