Media files and a transcript of Alan Redhouse’s AmiGBG speech are now available for download. The speech was held at a Swedish Amiga show last Saturday and includes information on plans for a MicroATX version of the AmigaOne-XE board, to be targeted mainly at server farms and a SE-lite version targeted at embedded uses.
There are some initial AmigaOne benchmark comparisons available, using Linux and taking out of account the G4’s performance improving Velocity Engine (Altivec):
http://personal.inet.fi/cool/pekosbil/a1benchmarks.htm
Some screenshots of Debian Linux running on the AmigaOne-XE:
http://www.pointdesign.at/content/amigaone.html
Pictures of the SE, XE boards upcoming Dual CPU modules:
http://www.soft3.net/pages/pictures.php
Regarding the show there were about half the amount of visitors as compared to AmiGBG 2002, where 400 people showed up, as most people are waiting for the release of AmigaOS4.
Interesting video!
What did he say he demonstrated with the CD32, I am not that well versed in Amiga land language anymore. I couldn’t understand what it was that he demonstrated.
What is the URL (Or Mirror sites) for the video then please
Regadrs
Darren
@ John Blink
> What did he say he demonstrated with the CD32
At a recent seminar in Taipei, Alan demonstrated an old Amiga CD32 with 4 MB of memory running SCALA presentations software and multitasking between various other programs. The audiance of around 200 top PC manufacturer executives could not believe it, because it’s only a 14 Mhz computer!
SCALA is excellent multimedia presentations software The software was being bundled with various classic Amiga models (all Amigas include standard NTSC/PAL TV output support) in the past. This Amiga software was used by many TV stations and was the premier multimedia presentations solution available at the time.
@ Darren
> What is the URL (Or Mirror sites) for the video then
> please
amigbg2003_alan_225kbps.rm
ftp://paula.tidstrand.com/amigbg2003_alan_225kbps.rm (Sweden)
ftp://hydra.acggbg.org/amigbg2003_alan_225kbps.rm (Sweden)
http://amiverse.homeip.net/mod.php?mod=downloads&op=getit&lid=4 (US)
http://www.df.lth.se/~hagar/amigbg/amigbg2003_alan_225kbps.rm (Sweden)
amigbg2003_alan_80kbps.rm
ftp://paula.tidstrand.com/amigbg2003_alan_80kbps.rm (Sweden)
ftp://hydra.acggbg.org/amigbg2003_alan_80kbps.rm (Sweden)
http://amiverse.homeip.net/mod.php?mod=downloads&op=getit&lid=4 (US)
http://www.df.lth.se/~hagar/amigbg/amigbg2003_alan_80kbps.rm (Sweden)
I have been trying to get a program I wrote working in WindowsXP running on a 32″ plasma monitor. It basically embeds a couple of web browsers onto the display, and a couple of areas to “scroll” messages. The problem is the animation is choppy and stops ans stutters. I have tried everything to get the scrollers to run smoothly including trying DirectX and OpenGL implementations (both have driver support from KyroII chipset).
It is ridiculous as I remember 10 years ago my Amiga doing things like this without even breaking a sweat! I could probably get it going using FreeBSD but the card doesnt have driver support.
Just another PPC linux-board. Nothing new. AOS4.0 claiming to be
delivered some 2 years ago.
@ hgm
The current AmigaOS4.0 is very different and far more advanced than the original AmigaOS4.0 (chipset dependencies, largely 68k emulated), which was planned 2 years ago. Another OS development team is now leading the project. Also the current AmigaOne hardware is very different and far more advanced, the original AmigaOne design was cancelled by another 3rd party hardware partner.
Good one, you had me going for a bit!
The good thing about the AmigaOne board is increased survivability compared with previous, so even though AmigaOS4 may not become a success, it would be a cheap way to run MacOSX at least under Linux.
Maybe some day there will be a “Macthlon” as with Amithlon, when you just install a minimum Linux with an optimized MacOnLinux that lets you boot directly into MacOSX.
What I still miss are some benchmarks on this compared with the real Macs…
As for its illegitmacy, it seems that Apple has ignored the fact that Pegasos can be sold as a MacOSX solution, so it may work… at least until it poses a threat against Apple hardware sales. 🙂
@Mike:
>The current AmigaOS4.0 is very different and far more advanced than the original AmigaOS4.0.
More advanced but still outdated when compared with ANY other (mainstream) OS…
>Also the current AmigaOne hardware is very different and far more advanced, the original AmigaOne design was cancelled by another 3rd party hardware partner.
But still outdated…
@ Leo
IMO most OSes have their advantages and disadvantages. AmigaOS4 is designed to be ultra compact, efficient (as in performance wise as memory usage wise), responsive, modular and configurable. Regarding the first three points AmigaOS will likely always be lightyears ahead of its mainstream competition, namely MacOS X, Windows and Linux. Those are some of the most important reasons why there still are so many AmigaOS fans today.
I just wanted to point out, that an Amithlon-like product which laready exists would have been achieved far more easily, but would have been more limited in usage (i.e. compared to Amithlon which has been released with the official backing of Amiga). However, the current team thought it would be very important to redesign AmigaOS as cleanly and future proof as possible, adding many new fundamental features to make the Operating System up to date while retaining its unique advantages.
“More advanced but still outdated when compared with ANY other (mainstream) OS…”
That kind of comment tends to boil down to “it is not based on Unix”.
AmigaOS has different priorities from the network-and-server oriented OSes. As a lightweight, responsive OS, it is very competitive for single-user desktop systems. The use of linked lists as the standard data type in the OS makes it very scalable.
The main thing missing is a native version of Java.
@DonCox:
I’m sorry but as a desktop user, I don’t wanna use an OS without minimal memory protection… (I’m not talking about Virtual Memory which is not so necessary now that 128/256Mb seems to be the minimum…)
I used the Amiga for years… and I’m still using it but only through UAE…
Does the OS really needs to be aimed at the server market to feature Memory Protection ? BeOS was aimed at server market ?
@ Leo
Full memory protection is planned for future AmigaOS releases. This is a good example of which kind of design goals AmigaOS developers had to take into account, when designing AmigaOS4.
For example also other server targeted services will become optional.
@Mike
I appreciate the fact that there are still a lot of Amiga fans out there. I remember the A1000 and the A500 days, they easily outclassed Macs and PCs of the time. I am not sure if the same can be said today. Regardless, given that AmigaOS is more advanced than its contemporary counterparts there does not seem to be a business model or focus of what AmigaOS is going to be.
Why bother with PPC hardware if it is outclassed by X86 even when you factor in Altivec?
Whats the point in promoting Linux on this platform? Is Amiga attempting to build a platform, an OS or both? Sorry for the newbie questions. It seems that whenever I see posts on Amiga I never get a clear picture on what they are trying to accomplish. It may benefit the Amiga community if there was focus so that people not in tune with the Amiga world can readily understand what are the goals of this OS. With Windows I can count on it being everywhere and compatible with everything, its the standard desktop OS out there. Apple’s focus seems to be delivering a slick UI with neat looking hardware. Linux seems to be rapidly evoloving to one day challenge Windows. I don’t know where AmigaOS is going.
> Regardless, given that AmigaOS is more advanced than its
> contemporary counterparts there does not seem to be a
> business model or focus of what AmigaOS is going to be.
There is a straight forward business model of what AmigaOS is going to be. Initially mainly multimedia (Video, Sound/Music professionals) and embedded niche markets are being targeted. The AmigaOneSE-lite will be the first low cost product produced in mass to target the general consumer market.
> Why bother with PPC hardware if it is outclassed by X86
> even when you factor in Altivec?
You haven’t seen Alan’s presentation, have you? PPC hardware does offer advantages for various market segments. Also AmigaOS is expected to go multi-platform when the OS is transformed into a 64-bit OS.
> Whats the point in promoting Linux on this platform?
As you know server farms are also being targeted and Linux has already proved its value as a free server OS alternative. Everything which will improve AmigaOne/Teron hardware sales is good for covering hardware developing costs and therefor can reduce the price of Amiga systems for general consumers as well.
> Is Amiga attempting to build a platform, an OS or both?
Both. 1) A platform similar to Macs, but very open to alternative operating systems. 2) An version of AmigaOS4 targeted at classic PPC enabled Amigas. 3) A platform independent OS/layer, initially targeted at cellphones and PDAs.
I can see the merit in the above aims. Besides, Amiga can already do alot in its current form. But all it needs is a push towards newer h/w and a complete port to PPC which is what its doing. The amigaone and os4 will be the shot in the arm it so desperately needs. And embedded systems and kiosks is where the $$$ is baby!
Small footprint OSes for Laptops and h/w agnostic desktop solutions is also a admirable goal for the future.
“I’m sorry but as a desktop user, I don’t wanna use an OS without minimal memory protection… (I’m not talking about Virtual Memory which is not so necessary now that 128/256Mb seems to be the minimum…)”
As a desktop user, there are things I don’t wanna use an OS without, which the Amiga OS has.
However, it is well known that there is a conflict between full memory protection and the Amiga’s fast message-passing system. We don’t want to lose the latter, but the Hyperion team seem to have found ways to greatly improve the situation.
The other thing that is needed, IMO, is a good safe language for writing Amiga application programs. Most of the memory corruption that causes crashes would never happen if people didn’t use C for writing high level code.
While it is possible to write bug-free code in C, it is much harder than it needs to be.
After all, what we want is not memory protection as such but a computer that never crashes. Protection is just a way to limit the ill effects of crashes that shouldn’t happen in the first place.
“Why bother with PPC hardware if it is outclassed by X86 even when you factor in Altivec?”
You’re talking about same number of *Hz (ask AMD about that one 😉 ) or same power consumption?
PPC wins on both hands down.
Not only is memory protection a bandaid solution for the shortcomings and inherent problems with m$ style OSes but it is almost obselete if your system crashes 0.0001% of the time.
I would much rather a rock solid OS with ultra fast message switching running on low specced machines, than a hulking P4@4Ghz running an OS that is the gigabytes of size. Call me biased by m$ OSes fail on all accounts, and in the end memory protection means squat when you crashed for the 50th time in a month.
I agree with Oberto. I don’t know what Amiga Inc. is doing (my opinion: NOT MUCH) & I’ve been an Amiga user since 1986.
Jim Steichen, author of AmigaTalk