It was a nice departure last week, to write about not so serious matters, in order to make fun of everything and everyone (including myself). Today, however, it's back to more serious matters (if you can call computer matters 'serious', of course): Amiga OS4. Or how it will fail utterly if Hyperion/Amiga Inc. don't get their heads out of the sand. Note: Sunday Eve Column.
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As Hyperion have stated repeatedly, they have nothing against a Pegasos port (Some AmigaOne users do due to past rivalry betwen Genesi/Amiga Inc. and MorphOS/AmigaOS) but they would need money to do it and the are legally bound by a contract with Amiga Inc. which prevents them from porting (or more likely selling) to any platform which does not obtain a license from Amiga Inc. Genesi/Pegasos has no such license and with Amiga Inc. seemingly shut down Genesi and all potential hardware manufacturers seem to stand little chance of getting one. I would love to see my Peg running AmigaOS as I bought it due to the limited availability and high price of AmigaOne's
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What about Hyperion getting the license themselves for their wanted hardware? be it a PPC Mac or a Pegasos.
Well, in light of much 'non-info' out there, we're left to speculate on the answer to that one. The past answers (from Hyperion) would basically be, 'we're not a hardware company,' but it's also been stated that in the event it's expected that sales would cover porting costs (and presumably the license fee plus a return), it is a possibility for Hyperion to do it.
This was also brought up in one of the many rounds of 'Why no OS4 for Pegasos' discussions. The best I can
guess on it is this:
Hyperion's working with someone that is already paying them their fees, and has some sales potential. I used to think that was either Troika or ACK (a flex-ATX G3, but cheap, system, and a SoC standalone or A1200 board, also cheap, but obviously neither very powerful). As those projects have missed claimed dates with zero real information from either company, I don't know. They've mentioned or hinted at some other system for the 'high end,' but no more info's been given.
If the first part still holds true and is simply delayed, we're left with- would they rather eat the porting costs or be paid for them? The answer there is obvious, but again, without something to purchase, either a piece of the puzzle is missing, or I really have no clue, and would expect them to port to _something_, assuming they're even able to convince AInc to bless a license/port.
It's possible there is some system or port Hyperion is working on, outside of the two mentioned systems. If there isn't, and both of them turn to vapor, yeah, I'd certainly hope they manage to get AInc's blessing on a Mac or Peg port, or both, and SOON.
Again, no one knows, or at least no one that's talking...hopefully at some point in the future, this simply becomes a bad joke, and hardware is available. If not, then it may still be a bad joke...just in a different way.
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2005-07-06
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I agree PowerPC macs could be a short term solution. There must be a stock of mini's lingering unsold somewhere. It's a great little computer and should possitively fly with the Amiga OS on it. At least they would get their product out there. If they released a stand-alone version that would run on the mini I would certainly consider buying that, for old times sake.
But their best bet is still going x86. Why not target x86 macs ? That would reduce the hardware to support. I don't think piracy is really an issue. The hard core will buy it anyway and for the rest they can use (maybe even desperately need) any exposure to a larger audience they can get.
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Amiga OS 4 running on PowerPC Macs would undoubtedly bring in some money and would be a good short term solution (Even BeOS R5 ran on the supported Macs despite support for all new PowerPC systems having been dropped a long time ago due to licensing problems. It was a revenue stream for Be that made it worth there while to keep up the support) as there are a lot of Macs out there and even a few percent of those already in use and in the distribution channel plus those that will be sold up to the completion of the transition later this year would be a huge market for Amiga OS. The licensing problem still remains however . The port would be more difficult than other platforms such as the Pegasos as the lack of official documentation would force Hyperion to rely on Darwin, *BSD and Linux code for documentation.
The official line from Hyperion about x86 is focused about 2 point,s:
1) It brings you into direct competition with Microsoft, which is not somewhere you want to be. Look at what happened to Be Inc. the second they started to get noticed by the various OEM's then Microsoft used its Monopoly to shut them down.
2) You have a huge amount of hardware to write drivers for, test and certify. Manufacturers and OEMs are not going to be interested in working with a company as small as Hyperion when it took years for them to begin to recognise Linux and BeOS.
Using Intel/EFI Apple Macs means you are still relying on closed, proprietary architecture and so limiting your install base but now you no longer have the support of the manufacturer and so no specs or guarantee that your OS will work with future systems. Plus you just alienated those who want to build their own systems.
The ideal situation for Hyperion would be buy Amiga Inc or to get it (And/or Eyetech) declared bankrupt activate the clause in the OS4 contract which apparently allows them to continue using the Amiga brand it any of the other companies fold.
Another problem is applications, they have only just finished re-targetting the OS to PowerPC and are just starting to see the first of the new native apps work their way through (PowerPC classic cards have been around for a while and so there were some PowerPC native apps available). Plus things like the JIT emulator that allows high speed execution of 68k apps and is almost entirely PowerPC assembly code has only just been released with update 4 and would have to be completely re-writen.
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1) It brings you into direct competition with Microsoft, which is not somewhere you want to be. Look at what happened to Be Inc. the second they started to get noticed by the various OEM's then Microsoft used its Monopoly to shut them down.
People are so keen on Be, why don't you look at Zeta for a change?
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2006-02-28
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Unfortuately Amiga Inc is full of s8. Look at their past conduct with an objective mind and you can only come to the conclusion that they have no intention of doing anything worth wild. It's all just a ploy to eek cash from die hard fans. And even if that's not true, it might as well be --b/c otherwise it means they are just complete morons. Either way it's a no win siutation.
If you are an Amiga fan, your best bet is to get behind AROS. Help those guys out! And then we can forget those loosers who like call themselves "Amiga" --being one of the first Amiga owners, I know for sure, Amiga they're not!
Edited 2006-03-26 20:55
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I would say that Eyetech didn't fail its customers, if it is really to close then it may have failed as a company but it helped bring OS4 to the world and without it there would almost certainly not be an OS4 as we know it today and probably no OS4 at all. It will be sad to see a company as old as Eyetech, one of the last from the Amiga scene, close
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I think the only conclusion you can come to when you look at Amiga Inc. is that they have no interest in the AmigaOS market, they just want to work on the Amiga DE/AmigaAnywhere which is dead in the water due mainly to Java. Amiga Inc. almost certainly has no money left and is dead in the water but even when they did have money they didn't want to spend it on AmigaOS/AmigaOne which is a crying shame. Amiga needs a new owner (again) one that cares about AmigaOS and the technology behind it
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2005-06-29
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Thom, nice writeup. I was just about to do something similar (ie. summing last 5 years for the audience that does not follow happenings).
I would say that AmigaOS has a problem. Thier users still thinks that they can take over the world. OTOH they are surprised that people on C=64 scene can produce an TCP-enabled OS and a CSS-enabled browser.
It's becasue C64 users are ejoying the hobby instead of looking for enemies (like Genesi, but I shouldn't go there, as I'm currently working with them).
Guys, drop the world domination plan, in the world dominated with solutions so powerful and flexible you actually can't hit the OS-scene like that.
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Amiga OS has the problem that Amiga Inc has no money and no interest and Eyetech just has no money. Eyetech on its own wouldn't be such a big problem, ACK and Trokia plus any other company that comes along with a new design or even a Peg2 based design would be able to pick up the ball and after a short(ish) delay we would have new hardware but with the licensing requirements from Amiga Inc. no-one can create new hardware. Someone needs to buy Amiga Inc and/or Eyetech and still have the money left over to make new hardware but who is there left, certainly no-one that's currently in the Amiga market.
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AmigaOS has a problem called Amiga INC. It's a shame that after all those years we're still (well, not all there's few people who run OS, as Thom says -- three people and a cow ;-) in a same place.
In the mean time systems like SkyOS, Zeta, Haiku are moving forward.
Troika is just a hot air for me. I'd love to be proven wrong on this.
My ultimate dream is OS4 on Efika that will bring cash to Hyperion, but we'd have to wait for Amiga INC corpse to rot.
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I really want Trokia to work and it seems there is real work going on but there does seem something fishy about it and I don;t know how they are going to resolve the licensing issue with Amiga Inc. in there present state. As I keep saying, someone needs to buy them. I'll give 'em a tenner for it, £15 if I get the bike ;-)
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Our solicitor has told us that we can not comment on the deal with Hyperion due to legal proceedings, but i can say we tried and failed, due to this we now are leaving the Amiga scene.
Thank you for supporting us all for many years.
PS - The last orders we received last week will be sent out before our closure.
Alan Redhouse
Edited 2006-03-26 21:32
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@ the so called "Redhouse" who wrote these news:
>>>>>
By Redhouse (-0.22) on 2006-03-26 21:29:24 UTC in reply to ""
Our solicitor has told us that we can not comment on the deal with Hyperion due to legal proceedings, but i can say we tried and failed, due to this we now are leaving the Amiga scene.
Thank you for supporting us all for many years.
PS - The last orders we received last week will be sent out before our closure.
Alan Redhouse
Edited 2006-03-26 21:32
>>>>>
There are some evidences (and other people in ohter threads claiming) that you are an impersonificator.
So I ask publicly the moderators to check your position and MORE check your identity, and finally to check also for the news you are posting about Eyetech situation, and if these will find false, then it is up to them to take right decisions and actions.
If I am wrong, and you are the real Alan Redhouse from Eyetech, then I ask you to apologize me, and the moderatos not to take actions against you.
Sincerely,
Raffaele
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there are 141 assorted user submitted ones here http://amigaworld.net/modules/features/index.php?op=c&cat_id=6&... and 9 slightly older (2004 and before) ones here http://amigaworld.net/modules/features/index.php?op=c&cat_id=6&...
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As a former Amiga user with a ton of second thoughts about Genesi as a company I can only say: good summary and analysis Thom. Today, I believe that the Pegasos is more or less the only viable option (in Amigaland terms, a slightly larger sheep herding village...sorry user base than today) to get AmigaOS into circulation.
Yes, yes, there are a couple of AmigaOne users who will disagree but as Thom pointed out - they got their HW already and there aren't too many of them (not to mention the cost of the HW when it was available...scary*).
* Yes, yes, small production runs equal high costs.
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sadly without Amiga Inc. there are no viable options, Hyperion need to find a way to activate the part of their contract that they say will allow them to continue in the absece of any of the other Amiga partners as both Amiga Inc and Eyetech are looking like they aren't going to be doing anything in the near future
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well apart from Hyperion probably being privy to more information than the rest of us I would have to say that it is the reported clause in their contract which protects them in the case of the collapse of any other Amiga partners and delivering a final solution to the existing user-base of a few thousand AmigaOn's plus the Cyberstorm PPC/Blizzard PPC accelerator cards for classic Amigas. If they were to stop now at thist latest hurdle then they would be throwing away years of hard work for nothing.
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If that's the main reason why they would continue work, then they are all fools. To throw good money after bad is the worst business sense anyone could have.
If they don't have a date of completion, and a respectable plan to recover all that they have spend on the project, as well as continuing profits, then they should get out now. If they have no control over the OS itself, then they have nothing.
It seems as though there are no more than a few who are interested at this stage, and there are fewer every day.
I joined Omega.org to see what is going on, and to give occasional help, if I could. But it looks grim.
I have no interest in buying a machine, and I don't know anyone else who does either.
It's sad, but its time has gone.
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There was no backup plan, we truly believed we could handle the whole Amigaone situation. No other new hardware is allowed without authorisation.
Our Solicitor has tried to contact Amiga Inc for many months but received no reply, please note taking legal action towards Amiga Inc and Hyperion was used as the last resort (other ways failed).
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http://amigaworld.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=18378&am...
You to keep you in sync. :-)
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2005-11-13
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If you sign a contract to market an OS that lacks a hardware platform, and that contract forbids you developing and marketing such a platform, then you deserve to wear a tee-shirt that says "I'm The Stupid Guy The Other Guy Is With".
If the Amiga people -- whoever they happen to be -- have confidence in their OS, then the obvious solution is to take a leaf from Apple's book and go into the hardware business. If they aren't willing to take the risk that Jobs and Wozniak took, why should they expect anyone else to take the risk of buying their product?
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2005-11-13
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If you sign a contract to market an OS that lacks a hardware platform, and that contract forbids you developing and marketing such a platform, then you deserve to wear a tee-shirt that says "I'm The Stupid Guy The Other Guy Is With".
If the Amiga people -- whoever they happen to be -- have confidence in their OS, then the obvious solution is to take a leaf from Apple's book and go into the hardware business. If they aren't willing to take the risk that Jobs and Wozniak took, why should they expect anyone else to take the risk of buying their product?
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When the contract was signed Amiga Inc gave Eyetech Inc and Hyperion VOF the rights to use the Amiga name and the AmigaOS 3.9 source code as well as any patents. Hyperion would provide the OS and Hyperion the OS. Other companies wanting to provide hardware would have to acquire a license from Amiga Inc to stop piracy, make Amiga Inc. money from licensing fees and protect the investment that Eyetech made and the huge risk that they took.
Now Amiga Inc is virtually bankrupt and have become an un-contactable ghost company which means no-one else can become a licensee. Due partly (mostly?) to the large time gap between the release of the hardware and the OS becoming usable Eyetech have no money to do another production run of AmigaOne boards which means there is now no hardware to run the OS on as the initial release (4.0) approaches completion.
Apparently there is a clause in the Hyperion contract that would allow them to continue in the event of the loss of any of the Amiga partners. Obviously we don't know the exact details and wording of the contact but as one of the Hyperion partners is a lawyer you would expect them to have negotiated a good deal and not let themselves get screwed over in the contract. I suspect that that clause doesn't come into effect until the partner is declared bankrupt which neither Eyetech or Amiga Inc has been yet. Eyetech is however famous for not communicating for a long time before making a final announcement which prevents announcing products it later can't deliver or can't deliver on time (vapourware) which they have been stung with before but does lead to concern about the state of the company and the AmigaOne. It just seems that this time there won't b an announcement other than Eyetech has ceased all Amiga related operations and is retargeting to x industry or even ceased to trade/exist
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Once described as the computer that would not die, today its definitely dead.
I was using the Amiga between 1987 and 1999 as my primary computer. My company was the Amiga distributor in my country from 1990 till Commodore died in 1993. Even after that we continued to sell and support it till 1999 when it was obvious that there was no way to save it.
For the younger people today, the Amiga is another legacy platform/os, just like all the old computers: C64, Atari, Apple II etc. What non prime-time Amiga users fail to understand is that between 1985 and 1993 Amiga was THE shit! It was lightyears ahead of anything there was. All the interesting software where available only for the Amiga. It had a fully multitasking os, full screen video playback and 24 bit (12 bit by default) graphics. You couldn't play a decent game anywhere but the arcades or on the Amiga. At the same time you had DOS and Apple Mac plus (Win95 was released 2 years after the Amiga was dead). It took 7 years for Microsoft and Apple to catch up to the Amiga with Win2k and OS X.
Non of us bought the Amiga because "it is a nice little computer, with a nice OS, so it makes a nice alternative platform. Maybe if they try hard enough, it could offer what the big OS's offer today in 5 years time!" We bought it cause it kicked ass!
My point is: There is no way that the Amiga could ever challenge WinXP, much less OSX. So it can never have any significance in the history of computing from now on, at least in the way it changed the world of computers in 1985. So, let it rest in peace. If you want to see what it was all about try UAE/WinUAE.
All this talk of the Amiga coming back is getting a little boring after 13 years...
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I don't think that anyone in their right mind thinks that the classic Amiga hardware will ever return but there seem to be people holding out hopes that the Cell processor will hold new hope for consoles (Playstation 3) and embedded devices (some Toshiba HDTVs). In order for the Amiga to make a comeback these are the types of devices that AmigaOS should be targeting.
The end consumers may not fully grasp the possiblities of AmigaOS on embedded devices and set-top boxes yet but these are the precise devices that Amiga Inc. has been trying to target.
Computers nowadays are cheap commodity hardware that anybody can buy. Nobody is going to be impressed with an old OS on new hardware alone. We need new hardware to grow with the times.
I'm not sure if it's going to be AmigaOS since it's not far ahead of the pack anymore but it is small and relatively powerful for the memory footprint. This makes it well-suited for the precise set-top consoles and HDTVs that can use it.
I was sad to see the classic Amiga die an untimely death. I would be even sadder if it were only allowed to live on substandard hardware like my MicroA1-c. (If you got a good one you're one of the many lucky users out there. I wasn't one of them.)
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True. The Amiga was designed to be superior. So it either be superior or be dead.
A little silent machine could be nice to have though, but this machine should be called Amiga Mini =)
AmigaOS is dead too. There is so little progress since the 3.1 version. Adding of TCP etc is just a little visible thing. But the whole OS internals must be completely redesigned.
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Hmm very uninformed Article you have written above.
At first, If you had informed yourself on Sites like amigaworld.net, amigaone.de than you would experience that Os4 has a lot of more Users than the 3 Man and a cow. And many people are working with the AmigaOne Computers daily. People like me.
I agree in one point with you, the hardware situation is not soo good as it should be and could be better... but wait a few weeks and we will see if it gets better 
Secondly, if you had read some articles on amigaworld.net than you would know that the Pegasos Open HW Design is NOT RoHS compliant, so you have to change the design of the board and who should do this? Hyperion? A Software Company?
At third, for your damn "Please gimme OS4 on x86" "i want os4 on x86" whining you should not only look at the competition side... if AmigaOS should be avaible on x86 you can count the seconds till an pirate version spreads the net and kills this OS - yeah that would be a pleasure... 
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At first, If you had informed yourself on Sites like amigaworld.net, amigaone.de than you would experience that Os4 has a lot of more Users than the 3 Man and a cow.
Sarcasm, people, sarcasm.
Secondly, if you had read some articles on amigaworld.net than you would know that the Pegasos Open HW Design is NOT RoHS compliant, so you have to change the design of the board and who should do this? Hyperion? A Software Company?
From what I've been reading on AW is that RoHS compliance was not determined?
At third, for your damn "Please gimme OS4 on x86" "i want os4 on x86" whining you should not only look at the competition side... if AmigaOS should be avaible on x86 you can count the seconds till an pirate version spreads the net and kills this OS - yeah that would be a pleasure...
It's not whining. I actually dismissed this option. Secondly, you did not read the article at all, did you? I *specifically* mentioned piracy. It might be custom at AW to just spout without thinking, but here people prefer if you actually read articles before commenting on them.
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Ah come on. Don't blame AW.net for your failure not to investigate your statements correctly.
Maybe you should read the following post:
http://amigaworld.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=18378&am...
And i aks you here, why do you ignore the postings of Rogue and EntilZha?
"Sarcasm, people, sarcasm."
Yes! You are the master of the OS4 community and you know all market sales... the holy grail. Please forgive me my lord... THIS is sarcasm!
"From what I've been reading on AW is that RoHS compliance was not determined?"
bbrv says in his own blog and on older AW.net Threads that the Pegasos Open Hardware Design is NOT RoHS compliant and have to be changed.
I Personally like the Pegasos II Boards and i would love to see OS4 running on them! But search for the topic in the aw.net forums and you will get any answer for your OS4 on Peg questions!
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"Hmm very uninformed Article you have written above."
As one that has followed the developments in Amigland closely since 1993 I'd say it's spot on, admittedly with a slight tounge in cheek regarding the 3 men and a cow.
In fact it is 4 men, a cow, and a bunch of forum-flaming sheep.
"At third, for your damn "Please gimme OS4 on x86" "i want os4 on x86" whining you should not only look at the competition side... if AmigaOS should be avaible on x86 you can count the seconds till an pirate version spreads the net and kills this OS - yeah that would be a pleasure... "
Yes, we've all seen how Mac OS X has vanished from the face of the Earth.
There's a BIG difference between relasing an OS for ALL x86 computers (Windows, Linux, BSD) and releasing an OS for SPECIFIC x86 hardware (Mac OS X).
"I agree in one point with you, the hardware situation is not soo good as it should be and could be better..."
This whole mess comes from the fact that Hyperion et al targetted PPC (mostly for historic reasons) in the first place.
And the situation is no "not so good" it is non-existant simply because there is NO hardware available.
"but wait a few weeks and we will see if it gets better "
I waited for years and years. Then I gave up and went over to the Mac camp and don't regret it for a second. Sadly, this waiting is what have completely killed off the Amiga market.
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"At third, for your damn "Please gimme OS4 on x86" "i want os4 on x86" whining you should not only look at the competition side... if AmigaOS should be avaible on x86 you can count the seconds till an pirate version spreads the net and kills this OS - yeah that would be a pleasure... "
Kill what ?
Please.
There is nothing Amiga to kill that hasn't been already dead and rotting for ages.
AmigaOS doesn't need money to be developed. In fact, it almost use none, because as far as I know (knowing one of the devs and one guy who used to work for hyperion), most of the devs are doing it unpaid, as a hobby (which is why it takes ages)
Beside, I would submit that it would actually take more, much more than mere seconds for an hypothetical pirate x86 version of amigaos to spread accross the net. Something more like eons, because twelve years of almost stagnancy have made it the very definition of irrelevant.
And having an x86 version would force the amiga community to face this, and they don't like that "reality" thing very much.
Edited 2006-03-27 09:38
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The amiga community stopped making sense a long time ago.
Just read some of the comments there: http://amigaworld.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=18378&am...
Some of them claim that they stay on the platform because of the community. I left it years ago for this very reason.
What's left of the amiga community is a bunch of reclusive and delusional crackpots rejecting almost any technological advancement that has occured in the rest of the world since the demise of commodore. I'm pretty sure that in this day and age you can still find people there claiming that memory protection is bad.
They still believe that there is some commercial market on the platform.
They don't like open source. Open source = linux, linux = bad because it's obviously way ahead of amigaos in terms of development, community, and future and they can't face that kind of reality.
They could flock to AROS and make it good, and they could have a kick-ass, modernized open-source amiga OS running on commodity hardware...
But no, they're apparently somehow convinced that a proprietary OS running on some proprietary hardware, using a processor not even used by any major desktop platform anymore (good luck finding desktop grade power pc processors and related components guys) is the way to go.
Reading those comments, some of them still apparently think about AmigaOS as being competing for the same market as windows, linux and macosX.
Actually they are only a handful, and divided and fighting each other, probably some kind of strange contest to figure out which of pegasos/morphos or a1/amigaos is the most irrelevant and doomed. I fail to see how they can expect to accomplish any of those pipe dreams in those conditions.
I'm not sure they even realize that amigaos4 is developed mostly by people doing it as a hobby on their free time after work. I think only the Frieden brothers are paid to do this.
Edited 2006-03-27 09:20
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I've never seen any of the Hyperion people claim that memory protection is slow, in fact there are rudementry memory protection systems in OS4 to stop programs walking over parts of the kernel. The problem is that the AmigaOS API was never really designed for memory protection (IIRC the early 68k series chips had no MMU hardware for memory protection) and there are far too many apps that ignore the API specs (Notice MorphOS doesn't have it either for the same reason) so while you could change the API/ABI and break all exsting apps but there just aren't enough new apps to make this viable.
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