After a break of about half a year, there is a sign of life from Hyperion Entertainment again. The company has made a new SDK available for download. But what is it? And what do you need it for? This and other questions will be answered in this and other articles.
If you ever wanted to develop for Amiga OS 4, this seems like a good time to dive in.
I wish the Amiga community had concentrated their efforts on AROS (FOSS, x86, 64-bit, SMT) and drop Amiga OS 4 or MorphOS (proprietary & paid, runs only on legacy PPC hardware, limited to one CPU core and 2 or 4 GB RAM)
I agree generally – Amiga hardware is getting quite old and there’s a limited timeframe for it to be viable. Even with FPGA support the “classic” target environments are the walking dead. Hyperion has been a terrible caretaker for the Amiga OS really IMO for lack of expanding the availability and interest in the software.
As I said above, Hyperion is a company developing proprietary software, they cannot just take a copy of AROS and get cracking, nor can they release a version of AmigaOS on semi-supported hardware like old PPC Macs and charge money for it.
Amiga’s real problem is the dependence on PPC in general. This limits even MorphOS (who are a charity and can do anything they want) to PPC hardware, and AROS is not really a true AmigaOS anyway.
Not sure why you don’t think that AROS isn’t a true AmigaOS, it’s actually the closest to a real one out of any of the current PPC based ones. For one, it’ll actually run on 68k. It’s also based upon the 3.1 API of the operating system.
@joscher The work on AROS has been accelerated due to the Vampire systems that they wanted to be able to have come with an Operating System that wasn’t tied to requiring proprietary kickstart roms. The compatibility is becoming rather great for 68k software as well.
The whole point of AROS is that it’s *not* a true AmigaOS, just like how ReactOS isn’t a true Windows. Simply running on 68k doesn’t make it AmigaOS, otherwise Linux would be AmigaOS too. Besides that, while AROS does indeed run on 68k, it’s still pretty lacking there, and while the most accomplished branch is on x86, it lacks the integrated compatibility with 68k software that both OS4 and MorphOS use to great effect.
And, of course you realise that AmigaOS has moved on since 3.1, so while compatibility with 3.1 is all well and good, it doesn’t make AROS any more “Amiga” than OS4 or MOS, since they’re not only based on the 3.1 API, but also provide binary compatibility with it, something MorphOS cannot do on x86. OS4 is even based on the 3.1 source code… And finally, 3.9 came out over 20 years ago and is a superset of the 3.1 API, and newer versions of AmigaOS both on 68k (OS3.2) and PPC (OS4) implement this API too.
So no, aside from the obvious trademarking etc., AROS is not a true AmigaOS.
I think the term “Amiga community” is a bit vague, as it refers to 3 separate entities:
1. Hyperion, who are developing the original AmigaOS (PowerPC-only)
2. MorphOS, who are developing a clone of AmigaOS (PowerPC-only)
3. AROS, who are developing an API-compatible OS to Amiga OS
Hyperion cannot just take AROS and get cracking on it, especially considering they develop proprietary software for profit.
I think anyone, who is still holding to the Amiga as some sort of viable computing platform, also suffers from some kind of masochistic tendencies. So the current situation is perfectly suited for their needs.
Since the release of the Apollo Core 68080, there’s a niche market for classic OS3.x programs or games whereas AmigaOS 4 runs on a limited amount of machines, that are expensive and outdated anyway.
According to Hyperion 4.2 will have SMP, making the X1000 feel a lot less dated as it can then use the as of now idle core of the PA6T and the P5020 in the X5000. A-Eon could probably easily update the CPU to a P5040 as it uses the same cores in a future version of the motherboard, however that is still a ten year old CPU by now, though still rather snappy in most tasks. (the P5020 is 12 years old and the PA6T is almost 16 years old by now)
4.2 is also planned to have Gallium3D and mesa.
I don’t see how the Vampire would expand the market for OS3.x software, when it is not even properly compatible with the Amiga.