Today, most Amiga users and developers own PCs next to their Amiga platform(s). The PC platform is currently the only “cheap” solution available to give access to modern day hardware. This is why many Amiga fans use it as a development platform or use PCs for applications which aren’t available for the currently dated Amiga hardware platform . Of course, this is soon to change with advent of new PPC based AmigaOS 4.x compatible computers on the horizon, as well as a huge variety of AmigaDE enabled devices. But there is also another way: run AmigaOS on your PC. This article will review a new product, AmigaOS XL, which allows you to run the AmigaOS under any modern PC. Screen shots included.
In the past, AmigaOS emulation was not a popular solution within the Amiga community, as it offers sub-optimal performance. However, after almost a decade of virtually no major hardware advancements and the rapid increase of raw computing power found in modern day graphic chipsets and processors, this eventually allowed AmigaOS to be emulated on PC hardware with acceptable performance. The biggest bottleneck however has been the multi-processor nature of the classic platform, where several chips specialized at certain tasks take the workload off the central processing unit. This ingenious design is hard to emulate on mainstream hardware solutions like that of the PC. For instance, emulating complex Amiga games which run smoothly on ancient 7 Mhz Amigas with only one Megabyte of memory sometimes are rather jerky under emulation on modern day PCs with hundreds of times more raw processing power and memory available to them. During the late nineties, it became apparent to the Amiga community that emulation would play an important role in the future of the platform as the original 68k processor it uses is not being developed anymore and tops at clockspeeds of just 66 Mhz. However, even on such dated hardware, the efficiency and performance of AmigaOS often makes its user feel as if he or she is using a top model modern day computer. The user interface is far more responsive than any other desktop solution available, and features preemptive multitasking between applications, which react immediately at lightning speed. But, when using such classic 68k based platforms for processor intensive tasks like rendering 3D graphics (once an Amiga dominated niche market), or other complex calculations, the platform shows its age and all of the sudden feels like the dated machine it truly is in comparison with today’s mainstream hardware solutions.
During the last couple of years, developers within the Amiga community started to philosophize with ideas of emulating mainly retargetable standards and ripping out as much custom chip dependency as possible, this together with new Just in Time compilation techniques would result in an enormous increase of emulation performance. This brings us to AmigaOS XL, this package was designed to get the most out of AmigaOS emulation on x86 hardware while maintaining compatibility with retargetable AmigaOS standards. Thus for emulation of old Amiga games which depend heavily on classic custom chips it is best to stick with emulation solutions like Amiga Forever in combination with a (pre-configured) AmigaOS 3.0/3.1 enhancement package like “Amiga In a Box” or AmigaOS 3.9.
Many Amiga fans also own PC hardware next to their Amiga platforms despite disliking the fundamental architecture. I myself own a x86 laptop and desktop system for use with alternative OSes and development tools.
The AmigaOS XL package comes with two 68k AmigaOS emulators for the x86 platform, namely Amithlon and AmigaXL for the QNX Realtime Platform. An included CD contains a full release of the free for non-commercial use QNX RtP 6.1 distribution and another CD includes both Amithlon and AmigaXL emulators, as well as AmigaOS 3.9 and full releases of StormC 3.0 Professional, AmigaWriter 2.0, ArtEffect 3.0 and lots of extras. Also included is a small AmigaOS XL logo label to stick onto your computer. This content comes in a nicely blue waved box with bold statements like, “The most powerful and compatible Amiga you have ever seen!” printed on it.
Some printed sheets explain the basic setup of the emulators in both German and English languages. Also included are printed German manuals for both ArtEffect and AmigaWriter. English documentation for ArtEffect, AmigaWriter, AmigaOS 3.9 and StormC is provided for on the CD.
– StormC is an Amiga Inc AmigaOS (68k/PPC) and AmigaDE certified C/C++ developer package. However the version included is only suited for 68k code.
– ArtEffect is a powerful paint program and image processor combined, which supports masks, filter PlugIns and unlimited layers.
– AmigaWriter is a good word processor which supports features like Word document import, footnote management and TrueType fonts with AntiAliasing. It also supports the use of all common and many exotic image formats through AmigaOS datatypes.
One thing that does draw the user`s attention is the look of the standardly provided toolbars for both ArtEffect and AmigaWriter, as they are drawn with use of only few colors. This was done to allow these applications to run well with low specced Amigas. Although they don`t look that bad there are more colorful looking toolbars available for download.
System requirements: Any modern x86 compatible processor. To be on the safe side, Haage&Partner states 500 Mhz and 128 MB of RAM as a minimum. In practice, it will run well on less.
– AmigaXL supports all common graphic-, sound-, modem- and network cards through QNX 6.1. To know if AmigaXL runs well on your system just download the QNX Realtime Platform for evaluation. If you can successfully connect QNX RtP 6.1 to the internet, Amiga applications running within AmigaXL will be able to use this functionality as well. The same goes for sound emulation. AmigaXL has good support for both paula and AHI retargetable sound, but to be able to enjoy this feature, your soundcard needs to be properly supported under the QNX Realtime Platform.
– Amithlon supports a much smaller variety of hardware. I successfully tested it with Matrox G450 graphic cards and the Soundblaster PCI 128. I failed to get Amithlon to work properly with ATI Rage Mobility graphic cards on several systems (used in many Laptops, including mine). Although Amithlon offers greater performance levels as compared to AmigaXL, most people would need to assemble or buy a pre-assemled PC specificly for use with Amithlon so to get the most out of this emulator.
ArtEffect 3.0 running on the AmigaXL emulator
Before installing AmigaXL, you will need to get QNX RtP 6.1 up and running. This is a lightweight realtime operating system well known by many Amiga users, and therefore excellently suitable for hosting Amiga XL. Installing this operating system is very easy to accomplish, it can be done in around 5 minutes. The QNX RtP CD is directly bootable, but also after inserting the CD on a PC running Windows, a setup menu will pop up (in case the automatic startup of CDs is disabled you need to manually double click the setup icon which can be found in the root directory). You will be offered the option to install on a seperate partition or as an image file on a FAT-32 formatted Windows partition. A bootloader menu will automaticly be added on older Windows versions, but if you dislike using the bootloader simply delete the QNX related lines from your Windows config.sys script-file and instead use the CD or a bootdisk to boot into your image filed QNX RtP distribution. You can also use the QNX RtP CD or bootdisk to boot into seperately partitioned installations, so actually no extra bootmanager would be needed. Also must be noted that QNX RtP offers multiuser support, but does not yet have an automatic login option, so you will need to choose a root password and add at least one user to be able to log into the operating system.
To log into the operating system, simply choose to run QNX RtP in the bootloader menu or boot up using a RtP CD or bootdisk and choose to run the Realtime Platform from your harddrive. Login as “root” or a previously specified user and you will boot into QNX6.1. After choosing the correct display setting you will be presented the desktop environment. Finally choose the correct keyboard and localization settings and you`re done.
To install the Amiga XL emulator, insert the AmigaOS XL CD and click on the “Installer” button located under the “Applications” group on the shelf. This will bring up the Package Installer. Subsequently double click the “QNX CD-ROM Repository,” then select “AmigaOS_XL for x86” under the “Emulation” group. (Under “Description,” you will see that Amiga XL uses 21 MB when installed.), Choose to install it, and shortly afterwards you`re done. A new entree was made in the Launch Shelf under “Utilities”. Select it, and you will boot directly into AmigaOS!
Amithlon uses only minimal Linux pieces to start an emulator. One thing that is very impressive is that (if your hardware is supported) you will be able to boot directly into AmigaOS from the AmigaOS XL CD itself. Actually, to demonstrate Amithlon, you don`t even need a harddrive, as everything needed will be stored on a virtual RAM-disk! This is a very nice feature which enables you to easily demonstrate AmigaOS to people who don`t want to be confronted with installing “unfamiliar” (dangerous?) OSes onto their systems. The installation of Amithlon on a harddrive is well described within this article.
Finally, I should tell of the existance of pre-assembled and fully pre-installed AmigaOS XL computers. For instance Haage&Partner demonstrated AmigaOS XL on pre-installed AmigaOS XL systems to Amiga fans at the Amiga 2001 show in Cologne. Also, Extreme Computing will be showing their new AmigaOS XL powered solutions at the upcoming AmigaExpo show to be held on March, the 29th – 31st, 2002 in Baltimore.
AmigaWriter 2.0 running with the AmigaXL emulator
By default, Amiga XL and Amithlon will startup AmigaOS with a 15bit display and 800×600 resolution. To alter this, double click the “System” disk-icon, next the “Prefs” drawer and finally the “ScreenMode” icon. Now you can select your desired ScreenMode. I use a 16-bit display and 1024×768 resolution, as higher resolutions don`t make much sense on the 14.1 inch display of my laptop. (Don`t forget to test a ScreenMode before saving it to your preferences!) Also located in the “Prefs” drawer is a “Locale” preference utility. Start it to select your prefered languages and time zone. AmigaOS XL supports 20 languages; applications installed later on will automatically try to install in and use your prefered languages as well, but I should add that you can also manually overwrite this default application behaviour by the use of Tooltypes (Tooltypes are specify parameters used by programs and can be edited via the icon tab of icon information windows). Also, additional languages can easily be added by the user. Finally, you may want to use another keymap for your keyboard than the American one in the default installation. However, only a German keymap is provided for but others can be easily added afterwards. Other preference programs deal with the printers, sounds, fonts etc used by AmigaOS. You can also manually choose different patterns or background pictures for use with your Workbench desktop, Screens and Windows (all seperately). And finally, new mouse pointers can easily be added and some alternatives are already included.
The general interface will be very familiar to Amiga users of AmigaOS version 2.0 or newer. The Title bar, Windows and gadgets are still in the same style as in 1990. (Actually even the visual ‘free diskspace indicator’ from 1.x versions has been re-implementated into AmigaOS!). The benefit of the familiar standard look is that most ex-Amiga owners will feel right at home. The Close window gadget on Amiga windows are located on the upper left of window title bars, on the upper right there`s a Zoom gadget to quickly switch between two different window size/position settings (Tooltypes), and the most right gadget is for windows Depths, which allows you to change the depth position of windows. One handy tool I like to use is the ClickToFront commodity which can be found in the System:tools/commodities drawer (Note the use of a frontslash instead of a backslash in directory structures). This tool allows you to simply double click anywhere within a window to bring it into the forefront instead of using Depth gadgets. (This is often more useful as compared to having the active window to be at the forefront all of the time or to automaticly bring up the window upon which the mouse pointer is currently positioned.) To activate this functionality, you can simply double click its icon and, if you want to keep using it all of the time, you will simply need to drag the Icon into the System:WBStartup drawer. Next time you boot up your system, this program is automaticly activated. Finally, the upper most right gadget is normally the Screen Depth gadget which allows you to instantly switch between Workspaces, which are called “Screens” on the Amiga.
A fairly new standard included program for AmigaOS is a program starter called AmiDock. Since the release of Workbench 2.0, many Amiga users use handy application launchers for adding new menus and submenus to the title bar menu or add docks with (click-to-launch-application) pictures. AmiDock is very similar to the latter approach and is very powerful. You can simply drag and drop icons of programs or drawers into the Dock. Afterwards you will only have to click the icon located on the Dock to start the represented application or bring up the contents of a certain drawer. You can use endless AmiDocks simultaniously, and in my opinion such Docks are more powerful and user friendly as compared to the Startbars commonly used on other platforms . By default, the AmiDock is snapped to the bottom left screenborder in AmigaOS XL, but you can have them anywhere on your desktop as you desire. Also note that the backdrops used with AmiDock can be changed and that you can choose between a horizontal and vertical orientation. If you are too much attached to Startbars, AmiDock is easily removed from your system and a Startbar utility is easily added for its replacement. AmiDock is located in the WBStartup drawer, simply delete or move it elsewhere and AmiDock will be removed from your system the next time you boot into AmigaOS. Similar programs can easily be dropped into this drawer so that the next time you boot AmigaOS these programs will be executed automatically. You can also assign a start priority to such programs by the use of Tooltypes so that you can tell the OS in which order these programs should be executed.
One other new feature found in AmigaOS is the ability to place GIF animations (with default tool:AnimatedIcon) onto the desktop. It allows AmigaOS users to easily personalize their desktop environment — for instance, by having a rotating boingball somewhere displayed on the desktop. With the use of Tooltypes you can also assign such animations to programs so they act as real animated GIF icons. A very welcome novel idea in my opinion. Also, generally speaking, AmigaOS is extremely modular and customizable, so you can make it function and look similar to most common operating systems in use today. For example, you can add pop up menus, use textures in windows borders, add or change window gadgets or add whatever GUI functionality desired. You could for instance make AmigaOS look more like QNX so to achieve a more unified appearance when using Amiga XL. I recommend downloading the GPLed version of Directory Opus4, as it offers very powerful filemanager functions. Hundreds of such workbench enhancing utilities can be found on Aminet, the world`s biggest collection of freely distributable Amiga software. Files uploaded to Aminet are generally archived in lha format, a with AmigaOS XL included unpacker tool called Unarc supports lha, lzx, arc, arj, zip, zoo and tar archive files. These and many more filetypes are already recognized by AmigaOS XL through the use of a pre-configures file type recognition program called DefIcons. It is a powerful and flexible program and can be found in the preference drawer.
Now for some other handy tips: The Amiga key function is generally assigned to the Windows key on a PC keyboard. Pressing both “Amiga” keys simultaniously together with the Control key will result in an AmigaOS reboot. AmigaOS reboots very quickly into its GUI, more so then any other mainstream OS currently available. During an AmigaOS reboot, QNX and Linux hosts won`t reboot themselves, thus I was able to reboot into a standard AmigaXL configuration with 16-bit 1024×768 GUI in around 12 seconds on my 700 Mhz Duron/ATI Rage Mobility AGP/128MB test desktop system. Copy & pasting of text is done by pressing the right “Amiga” key in combination with “C” or “V” respectively. Pressing the left “Amiga” key together with the letter “M” allows you to page through Screens (workspaces). Pressing the left “Amiga” key in combination with the letter “N” will always bring the Workbench Screen into the forefront. The Command Line Interface is started by double clicking the “Shell” icon located in the System:System drawer. Upper and lower case differences are preserved and displayed within AmigaOS, but the system is not case sensitive. With the up-arrow key, you can bring back previously given commands, and the down-key allows you to go back to given commands in the other direction. The left and right arrow keys will move the cursor left or right without altering the given text. Powerful wildcards can also be used and XTerm-like features can easily be added. Command files for use with the CLI are stored in C: (actually this is the same as System:C), so any new commands can be easily added by dropping a new CLI program in the System:C drawer. The Startup-Sequence scriptfile is located in S: and editing this file is also a method of changing the startup behavior of AmigaOS.
Now for some Amiga XL specific features: When paging through Screens (workspaces) with AmigaXL, you will notice that the QNX RtP desktop is considered as just an ordinary workspace. The QNX desktop environment all the sudden has an AmigaOS title bar with a Depth gadget, pressing this Depth gadget will immediately take you back to AmigaOS. Also Haage&Partner wrote a special program located in C: called QNXLaunch, when using this program as a default tool for an icon it allows you to specify QNX programs to be launched when double clicking the specified icon. For instance if you insert the following in Tooltypes “COMMAND=phplay” a double click of the icon will result in AmigaOS switching to the QNX RtP desktop environment and launching QSSL`s Mediaplayer. This feature greatly adds to the feeling of a very well integrated and powerful AmigaOS emulation. One feature supported by Amithlon and not by AmigaXL is that you can burn CDs with software like BurnIT or MakeCD.
Overall, the AmigaOS emulation provided by both Amithlon and AmigaXL emulators is very convincing. The AmigaOS performance is greater as compared to earlier emulation solutions like UAE, especially in the case of Amithlon, but the main benefit for me is excellent stability. To see how stable AmigaXL really is, I did not turn off or reboot my test desktop system for over a week. As I already tested many 3rd party software titles, I decided to only use included programs like ArtEffect, AmigaWriter and to further play with AmigaOS XL software to learn more about its behavior. (Using untested software would have been asking for troubles in this stability test as many Amiga programs look for custom chips and their behaviour are therefore unpredictable). During this whole week the system did not crash once! Only one program hanged for eternity — this was the ViNCEd console handler replacement. I could however continue to use AmigaOS without problems and could just move the window into the background for more convenience. Particularly for a first release, this AmigaOS XL package is amazingly mature with regard to stability.
A major Con is that you cannot use or develop PPC based Amiga titles (you can however use it to rewrite 68k assembler code into better portable C code). The emulation is only limited to 68k code. For instance, Amigadog`s Movie player only runs on PPC powered Amigas, and therefore the DVD playback feature it supports can`t be used with these emulators. Also most classic AmigaOS game titles cannot be used directly when using these emulators. Some newer game titles supporting retargetable standards like Exodus, Freespace and the excellent free internet multiplayer Dynablaster-clone Dynamite do work, however. For more freely distributable and retargetable software I recommend browsing through GFXBASE reviews. Also people are working on solutions for these problems. You can, for instance, already run a port of the Universal Amiga Emulator within the emulated AmigaOS environment, but as with any UAE solution currently available this is far from optimal. A list of software already tested under AmigaXL and Amithlon can be found here.
Another problem which exists with all Amiga emulators is that almost no other systems than Amiga computers themselves are able to read 880 Kb/ 1760 Kb formatted Amiga diskettes. Mainstream diskdrive controllers can`t find the beginning of tracks on Amiga disks, as classic Amigas write entire tracks at a time without the use of sector gaps. Only Individual Computer`s Catweasel ISA based controller can currently add this feature to PCs. Another problem which arises is that newly inserted diskettes are automaticly detected by Amiga drives but not by common PC diskdrives. CD/DVD drives luckily do support this feature, and therefore after inserting CDs or DVDs, a CD icon will pop up on your Amiga desktop and it will work perfectly. The same does not happen while inserting diskettes. Therefore, with Amithlon you need to manually tell AmigaOS that it has to check for a new diskette with the command “DiskChange pc0:”. For Amiga XL it is best to copy the contents of a disk onto your harddrive from the QNX RtP “side.” You can see and move AmigaOS files stored on your harddisk from QNX RtP and vice versa.
One last Pro is that AmigaOS XL comes with a good AVI and Quicktime player called “Action”, which is a cutdown version of “MooVId” that supports 3ivX, OpenDivx among other codecs. A MP3/WAV/AIFF player called “AMPlifier” is also included. For testing the multitasking and multimedia performance of AmigaOS XL, you could use the example multimedia files stored on the AmigaOS XL CD. There are trailers of both “Charlie’s Angels” and “Monsters, Inc.” included on the CD. Copy these files to your harddisk to see how well several movies can be played simultaniously. You can do fancier multimedia stuff while emulating AmigaOS on PC hardware as compared to actual natively written PC operating systems!
A clear picture of AmigaOS XL running on my Laptop
At a recommended retail price of 150 Euros, AmigaOS XL does not come cheap. It, however, offers a great value considering the features and performance it provides. Amithlon and AmigaXL greatly supplement each other to offer one very powerful and flexible AmigaOS emulation package. If you own a well supported x86 PC platform, AmigaXL and Amithlon will both offer a remarkably stable AmigaOS operating environment. Many Amiga developers are already using AmigaOS XL for application development and testing.
“Is this the future of Amiga computing?,” you may ask. Although this package offers a very valuable addition to the options currently available, the future of Amiga computing lies with PPC based Amiga 4.x compatible computers and other AmigaDE enabled solutions. At the Benelux Amiga Show Amiga`s CTO clarified that Amiga Inc. sees a future in the development of Amiga home server platforms. These servers should be able to communicate with all kinds of AmigaDE enabled consumer devices and also connect these wirelessly to the internet. Of course, AmigaOS XL improvements are also under development and it will become an even more powerful and compatible solution in the future. For instance, an Euro update is already available.
AmigaOS XL is a must have package for Amiga fans who also own a x86 PC platform and for every other OS enthusiast who wants to discover alternative ways of implementing software into operating systems as compared to other solutions offered by the mainstream.
Haage&Partner demonstrating AmigaXL on a pre-assembled Silverblue 1800+ AmigaOS XL PC
The Amiga 1000 perplexed the computing industry when it was released in 1985. It was the world`s first multimedia computer which could show up to 4096 colors simultaniously, it supported plug-and-play (called autoconfig) and had many dedicated chips taking the major workload of the main CPU. People in the computing industry could not believe how the orginal designers could have put so much power into one computing device. Other special abilities were genlockable graphics, shared libraries, long file names support with the allowance of spaces, stereo sound and a flexable and fast Graphic User Interface (GUI). But the best feature of all was its 32-bit pre-emptive multitasking. The original designers had to sell the original Amiga technology to Commodore. From then on, the development team worked under Commodore, but the original Amiga designers were very unhappy by many design, funding and marketing decisions made by the Commodore management. Hidden in later AmigaOS versions are Easter Eggs in which the development team states that they made the Amiga and Commodore killed it.
The A2000 and A500 were released in 1987 and were aimed at graphic professionals and gamers respectively. The A2000 is a highly expandable machine i.e. Processor/Graphic Boards, Soundcards, Modems, Video Toasters, etc., can easily be added. Amiga`s special graphic features as well as NTSC/PAL support as standard were important reasons why it became hugely popular at graphic studios (i.e. Disney Studios and Warner Bros) and special effects companies (i.e. later movies include milestones like Total Recall, Terminator II, Jurrasic Park and TV series like Babylon 5 and SeaQuest). But Amigas were also used for critical tasks at, for example, NASA, due to it`s special multitasking abilities and stability. Commodore made much money with its Amiga line of computers without doing major marketing. Most of the profits, however, were spent on IBM emulators for Amigas and support for Commodore`s IBM-clone branch, to the frustration of Amiga fans, developers and original designers. The professional A3000 with a full standard 32-bit hardware architecture was released in 1990 with the support for higher resolutions and a faster CPU as standard. The last computers built under Commodore were released in 1992, namely the A1200 and A4000 which allowed the display more than 640,000 colors simultaniously from a 16.8 million color palette.
Harald Frank demonstrating Amithlon on his PC
Meanwhile, Commodore`s PC branch began to make major losses which resulted in a bankruptcy in 1994. The last product to come from the Amiga team under Commodore was AmigaOS 3.1, which was a very good and stable Operating System. The Amiga technology changed hands several times during many years of legal fights and bankruptcies of new Amiga owners. Then finally in 1997 Gateway bought the Amiga technolgy and promised to bring back the Amiga computer into the stores, but strangely and suddenly, Amiga`s new president resigned and sold all his $11 million dollars worth of Gateway shares simultaniously to when the current Amiga CEO and enthusiast Bill McEwen was fired by the Gateway management team. The project eventually got cancelled but on 1 January 2000. Amiga`s CEO Bill McEwen and Amiga`s CTO Fleecy Moss announced that they bought the Amiga technolgy and products for millions of dollars.
Today, there are many leading Amiga community figures like hardware designers and famous programmers working for Amiga, Inc. Many people will only remember the Amiga computer as an old 1MB 7 Mhz system from the 80s running WB1.3. This is mainly due to many IBM clones companies doing massive marketing for their machines and making the Amiga close to invisible to the general public.
Things have changed much over the years, but even through after many years of having no proper support from an owner company, the Amiga community continued to advance the platform. Today, Amigas are mostly highly expanded machines running with top 68k and older PPC CPUs. AmigaOS developers are currently working with various hardware companies like the Eyetech Group, Elbox, Merlancia Industries, bplan GmbH, Matay and others to further advance the platform with new G3/G4/G5 PPC processor and PCI/AGP hardware solutions.
It is hard to estimate how many Amiga users or fans there are today. However, judging from the existance of thousands of Amiga related websites, thousands of people visiting dozens of Amiga shows annually, and hunderds of thousands of pagehits generated by main Amiga community portal websites, it must still be quite substantial. Amiga users left worldwide are mainly coders, graphic artists, hackers and other computer professionals who are proud owners of their machines but use other platforms as well.
PCI Spy utility running on Amihtlon
About the Author:
Mike Bouma is a long time Amiga user and developer, well known member of the Amiga community, member of the ‘Phoenix Developer Consortium’, and owner of the ‘AmigaRing‘. He can be reached via email on [email protected].
Great article, but a few small problems:
“Then finally in 1997 Gateway bought the Amiga technolgy and promised to bring back the Amiga computer into the stores, but strangely and suddenly, Amiga`s new president resigned and sold all his $11 million dollars worth of Gateway shares simultaniously to when the current Amiga CEO and enthusiast Bill McEwen was fired by the Gateway management team.”
Translation?
Also, the photos gave me a headache. Please focus them properly in the future.
I’ve always wanted an Amiga, and I still do
> Translation?
Well Fleecy Moss stated in an interview that Gateway was scared because of Microsoft making threats. It was about something like Gateway losing good deals on Windows if they would go up against Microsoft. This would have hurt Gateway`s business too much, so they can`t be entirely blamed for this. However http://www.haage-partner.de/amiga/CommodoreBillboard/GatewayPromoti… who was Senior Vice-President of Gateway 2000 before heading Amiga Inc did not get enough financial resources and was not even allowed to make his own decissions needed to pull the Amiga platform forward, therefor all he could do was leave.
> Also, the photos gave me a headache. Please focus them properly in the future.
Oops some tumbnails were not intended to be linked to their full size images because of this. This will soon be corrected.
It was hard to find anything on performance except for a few short sentences. Playing video okay, reboot 12s, UAE is not optimal when compared.
How fast is the emulation? What kind of x86 machine do you need to get the responsiveness and performance of a “base” Amiga? (whatever that is nowadays…)
It would be interesting to get to know more about the emulation tech, the integration with QNX was interesting. And more on the technical differences Amithlon<->AmigaXL. (yes, I followed links to FAQs and stuff. I need to know more. Damn you for wasting my time with interesting topics.)
A lot of the article covered Amiga-specific stuff that I am already familiar with. I would really appreciate a more technical in-depth article, or just some pointers to where to find such information.
>>Well Fleecy Moss stated in an interview that Gateway was scared because of Microsoft making threats. It was about something like Gateway losing good deals on Windows if they would go up against Microsoft. This would have hurt Gateway`s business too much, so they can`t be entirely blamed for this.<<
Yeah an look at Gateway now, they are close to near death! So either way they still lost!!
Nice work Mike Bouma. I have not had an AmigaComputer for years now. Im now looking for a cheap A1200 with harddrive so i can much around in AmigaOS. I would also like to try OpenBSD on an Amiga
.
Nice artile btw.
Joshua Q wrote:
> It was hard to find anything on performance except for a few short sentences.
Benchmarks suggest that on a 1 Ghz Athlon the emulated AmigaOS on AmigaXL equals the performance of a 450 Mhz 68040 powered Amiga. With Amithlon it suggests the performance of a 1070 Mhz 68040!?
However in real life the emulated Amiga does not feel like several times the speed of a true 66 Mhz 68060 powered Amiga (it feels extremely fast though, faster than any other mainstream OS out there). Although during 3D rendering and other complex computer calculated tasks you do get amazing performance results.
Here are http://www.amithlon.com/product-amithlon-bench.html“>some comparing a 1.3GHz Athlon Amithlon powered PC to the performance of an A3000/CSPPC with 66 MHz 060 and 233 MHz 604e PPC.
I have several Amigas, and often like to bust them out of the closet once in a while to
marvel at the technology, which is very old now, and play a few games. I had
every model at one point, but sold a couple of high end ones, as they were taking
up alot of space, and I really could not use it for a “main” computer. I keep the older
models (even a 1000!) around for fun once in a while and have some nice Amiga monitors
that give a SUPER picture. But I was wondering…what is the point of beating a dead
horse in the Amiga OS. The Amiga OS was definitely ahead of its time and gives
blazing performance, even on the old hardware. The problems lay in the fact that the
strength of the Amiga was not just the OS, but the hardware, that was basically hand
crafted into a computer of enormous power at the time. Nowadays though, even if you
had an Amiga OS computer that was PPC based and fast as hell…what software would
you run? No one seems to mention that the new Amiga platform is a new OS with
virtually no real modern applications…so what is the point? Web browsing? I mean
my Amiga 3000 was good running Linux, which gave the machine some modern useability
but even that was slow and limited…
Dano.
What is the state of MIDI suport on either platform. What legacy midi or audio sequencers are supported by Amithlon or Amiga XL.What soundcard support is there. Finally when will the amiga emerge from the silent movie era. We should all read subtitles under amiga graphics. What support is ther for AC 97, creative labs or other sound standards. Amiga as usual great graphic performance and total audio incompetence.
Daniel DeMerchant wrote:
> The problems lay in the fact that the strength of the Amiga was not just the OS, but the hardware
Yes the performance benefit of future Amiga platforms compared to modern systems will only come from better AmigaOS performance. Nowadays it is impossible to do the same with regard hardware as compared to the revolution Amigas caused in 1985. Just look at the size companies producing graphic chipsets nowadys. It is impossible to both create better chipsets and also develop a new powerful AmigaOS simultaniously.
> Nowadays though, even if you had an Amiga OS computer that was PPC based and
> fast as hell…what software would you run?
First of all the new PPC AmigaOS includes a powerful integrated 68k emulator (By Haage&Partner). So software working correctly on AmigaOS XL should work just fine with these new PPC based systems as well.
Secondly Hyperion Entertainment has stated that alot of effort is being made to make sure that the AmigaOS stays compatible with currently available PPC software. Their own PPC titles currently available, http://www.hyperion-entertainment.com/_amiga/heretic2_game.html“>… Shogo” rel=”nofollow”>http://www.hyperion-entertainment.com/_amiga/shogo_game.html”>Sh… and http://www.hyperion-entertainment.com/_amiga/freespace_game.html“&g… RealSoft” rel=”nofollow”>http://www.realsoft.com/”>RealSoft 3D (a very popular Amiga program a decade ago) to the new platform and their Amiga game port of SiN is already finished, but is being held back until new powerful hardware is released in combination with AmigaOS 4.0. The Hyperion guys are very talented for example in their spare time they http://www.amigaextreme.com/cgi-bin/displayshots.r?sent-path=11/“&g… in just a matter of days and it will surely be in available in a stable form by the time the new hardware and OS are available. (The Quake II source was only recently GPLed). Hyperion also own the Amiga rights to many other entertainment titles including http://www.amigaflame.co.uk/amihssof.htm“>Soldier , http://www.amigaflame.co.uk/amimaj.htm“>Majesty Worms:” rel=”nofollow”>http://www.hyperion-entertainment.com/_amiga/worms_screenshots.html… Armageddon.
Nice article. I liked the intergration with QNX that H&P did. I wonder is there any such like integration between the two emulators? i.e. do you have to have 2 copies of everything, or can both emulators somehow share the same Amiga partition? – if not the main OS partition the data partition, that has all your apps and stuff?
I wish something an emulator like Amithlon would exist for the Atari OS.
Hey Eugenia, what about some Atari/Mint etc. News?
Mike –
Great article – once again you have done us all a service in getting the Word out to a more general public.
I can’t speak of the QNX-based emulation, but I have been
experimenting with audio on Amithlon. It is at an early stage.
Sound output from a SB-128 works, but there is sometimes some
crackling if another program is using a hard disk. This is being
addressed in the update. There is no record input as yet.
MIDI output from the serial port works, but not input. MIDI on the
sound card is not yet supported.
I expect substantial improvements in audio support in the forthcoming
update. The main thing to notice now is the extremely high speed in
programs such as SoundFX or Audio Evolution. I’ll post a comparison in
a few minutes.
OK, I’m sold. Now where can I obtain these products in the U.S.?
d@
This compares the time taken for a task on an Amiga A4000 with 68060
CPU, versus an Amithlon setup with a 1.7GHz Athlon.
I wanted to reverse the order of the samples in a 44 Megabyte sound
file. I digitised this from a 4-track tape played on a 2-track tape
recorder, so two of the tracks were backwards.
The software is AmigaOS 3.9 with FFS file system in both machines. The
IDE drive and IDE hardware are both faster on the Amithlon machine, as
well as the CPU. The audio program used is Samplitude.
Load 44 Meg from disk to RAM project: 55 secs on A4000, 5 secs on
Amithlon
Reverse sample: 12 secs on A4000, 2 secs (or less) on Amithlon
Export AIFF file back to disk: 70 secs on A4000, 3 secs on Amithlon.
Totals: 137 secs on A4000, 10 secs on Amithlon.
That gives a good fast computer that I can use for real work without
hanging around. Once the drivers are available for a variety of sound
cards, Amithlon will be a very useful platform for audio.
I love the amiga dearly – i’d prolly still be usin one if my 1200 and 50 Mhz 060 didn’t short out – i use macs right now – haven’t switched to OS X yet since I’m poor and apple expect all their customers to be rich bastards aherm – anyway my point is couldn’t they make a version of this for os X ? and wouldn’t that help somehow the development of PPC sw for the new os?
This article has me very interested in trying this. I’ve never used an original Amiga but I’ve always wanted to. The price however is kind of high for a “quick try”. Could anyone tell me or point me to a place I could find out the kind of hardware compatibility? For example I find myself doubting it’d have support for things like USB and maybe even CD-RW drives as well as DVD and such ( as well as QNX considering they appear to run together seemlessly? ). Thanks!
…and take the place it deserves in the land of computers. That is, the top position!!!
…and fight off PCs! PCs stink…even with Dual Pentium 4s and 1 GB of ram, the PC feels sluggish, slow as hell, Windows sux, BSOD every now and then; Windows break after installing any new game…some say that their Win2000 box is stable as a rock. Yeah, but they haven’t tested anything new (hard/soft) in their machines for years!
…and bring back the home computer/back bedroom programming fun!…an include-all box like 1200, with PPC CPU, super-duper 3D graphics, and Amiga O/S…price range up to 400$…
…and show the world how dumb Commodore was and how genius the Amiga developers were…
…and remind Atari ST ex-owners why the Amiga was superior….
Long live the Amiga!!!
I remember back when Commodore had first gone under and people were bidding for the remains that an ex-Commodore UK guy (who happened to be leading a group that most Amiga fans seemed to want to win the asset auction) said that Commodore’s final management team really wasn’t as bad as Amiga fans believed–they were really trying to clean up messes made by the previous team and weren’t able to do it.
Two entertaining factoids I remember: one of the previous management teams had talked with Jean-Louis Gassee when he was at Apple about taking over Commodore’s engineering group. JLG made a counterproposal of taking over the entire company and bringing out a new computer: a multiprocessor machine with a new software architecture designed from the ground up for multiprocessing and smooth multitasking. This was similar to the original Newton idea he was championing at Apple (the Newton that came out had almost nothing to do with the first Newton project). Commodore’s management didn’t like the counter proposal and it never happened, of course.
The other one was that Escom wasn’t actually the highest bidder for the Amiga assets: a group that was a partnership between a major Amiga distributor in Orlando, Florida, and a major PC company was. The PC company was primarily interested in Amiga’s patents, and CAE (the distributor, if I’m remembering the name right) was interested in continuing development on the Amiga line–which the PC company had agreed to help with. The company wasn’t the PC company that ended up with Amiga, though–it was Dell.
Interesting piece, but I’m afraid it’s not a review. It’s a piece of Amiga evangelism in the wrong place.
We don’t need to be told about AmigaOS. We don’t need to be told about AmigaOS apps, or about how good or bad they are, or anything about Amiga itself.
There’s about 5 pages of irrelevant stuff in there.
This is meant to be a review of an emulation package.
There are, as I understand it, two emulators.
Identify them. What are the differences? What do they do? Why use them instead of UAE or Fellow?
Start with one. Explain what it is and how it works. Explain how it’s installed and used. Comment on how well it works. Criticize its failings, don’t just praise its strengths.
Then take the 2nd. Do exactly the same.
Now, compare the two. Explain the differences. Take 1#. Point out where #1 is better than #2, then where #1 is worse than #2. Now take #2 and do the same.
Now, comment on the overall package. Compare it to any competitors: UAE, Fellow, AiaB, AmigaForever. Compare it to a real modern Amiga.
What’s in the box? What manuals? What’s the help like? What’s the support like?
Specify its EXACT hardware requirements. Explain an optimal config, a minimal one, and the difference it makes.
Explain its cost and where to get it.
Summarise, in ten words each, its pros, its cons, and an overall verdict. Award it points out of ten for performance, ease of use, features, functionality, compatibility, value for money and overall.
*That* is a review.
This piece, however enjoyable, isn’t.
But thanks for it! I enjoyed it. It just didn’t tell me what I needed to know: do I want it? Is it worth buying?
—
Liam P.
[echoed on /.]
It is my understanding that AmigaXL is built ontop of QNX and is just a 68K emulator with redirection of services to the QNX layer for hardware etc. Whereas Amithlon is built ontop of a minimal Linux core (very minimal) and is also a 68K emulator but is also capable of calling into native x86 code. Amithlon is in part by the same guy who did the JIT for UAE (its my understanding that the JIT in UAE is an early version of the Amithlon code that he ‘gave’ to the UAE people and hence is less mature and less stable than the Amithlon version).
I’d also have liked to have heard more (do a follow up!) as I admit to being tempted.
I was just wondering if you purchase an AmigaXL cd with the OS on it and install it just like any other operating system? Also does it run most native Amiga apps…and from what they stated doesn’t it also run QNX apps? Wish I could check this OS out but I believe they stated you need at least a 500mhz processor and my 233mhz doesn’t come close to that. Also I think this OS is great for using QNX as the base seeing as though i run QNX now and again and am very impressed with it.
>>> Liam Proven “We don’t need to be told about AmigaOS.”
The package includes AmigaOS 3.9 why wouldn`t people want to know what they buy? You think everyone knows the feature OS 3.9 provides already?
Also 95% of you state as missing is actually written about in the review! Are you sure you have actually read it? 😉
Maybe you didn`t like to have the background information included. I personally wouldn`t have wanted it any other way. I would like to see more high quality articles like these. :-))
Two different products. One intended for the army of die hards, bound to eventually fade out – only verbally supported by AInc. The other (DE) is what AmigaInc are actually working on, the product with a future.
Its like comparing a future version of DOS 8.0 with .NET.
<PS> AInc need to work **faster**.
>> The problems lay in the fact that the strength of the Amiga was not just the OS, but the hardware
>Yes the performance benefit of future Amiga platforms compared to modern >systems will only come from better AmigaOS performance. Nowadays it is >impossible to do the same with regard hardware as compared to the revolution >Amigas caused in 1985. Just look at the size companies producing graphic >chipsets nowadys. It is impossible to both create better chipsets and also >develop a new powerful AmigaOS simultaniously.
So then what is the point here? Basically Amiga hardware can not be any
better than what is available already you mean.
>> Nowadays though, even if you had an Amiga OS computer that was PPC based and
>> fast as hell…what software would you run?
>First of all the new PPC AmigaOS includes a powerful integrated 68k emulator >(By Haage&Partner). So software working correctly on AmigaOS XL should work >just fine with these new PPC based systems as well.
So basically you can run the 15 year old Amiga software. Games making up
the large portion of them. Can’t you just run an Amiga emulator on a PC
or use an old Amiga for that?
>Secondly Hyperion Entertainment has stated that alot of effort is being made >to make sure that the AmigaOS stays compatible with currently available PPC >software. Their own PPC titles currently available, HereticII, Shogo and >Freespace should be able to work on the new OS. They are sure that eventual >problems (if there are any) can be easily fixed with only simple patches. >Similarly cuurently available professional PPC applications should be able to >function without problems or will be portable to the new platform without much >effort. Hyperion will also port RealSoft 3D (a very popular Amiga program a >decade ago) to the new platform and their Amiga game port of SiN is already >finished, but is being held back until new powerful hardware is released in >combination with AmigaOS 4.0. The Hyperion guys are very talented for example >in their spare time they ported QuakeII in just a matter of days and it will >surely be in available in a stable form by the time the new hardware and OS >are available. (The Quake II source was only recently GPLed). Hyperion also >own the Amiga rights to many other entertainment titles including Soldier of >Fortune, Majesty and Worms: Armageddon.
And basically some games that have been ported over to the Amiga that are
readily available for the PC.
This is what I am talking about. There is no longer any Killer App for the
Amiga like the Genlock and there is no way to make hardware that is more
capable than what is found in MACs and PCs. So why to we need to resurrect
a platform that 100 people in the world are going to buy? Hell even
the MAC is just in single digit percentage of user space. I think that
its kinda a waste of time, despite how cool the Amiga OS was. There
is just no real purpose anymore. Lets be realistic people and put our
energy into projects that are really going to make a difference.
Dano.
Dano:
So, you don’t like it. I do. And I’ll never use Linux, as it won’t ever compare.
>Compare it to any competitors: UAE, Fellow, AiaB, AmigaForever.
Aiab, and AmigaForever Are just UAE.
Dano:
>So basically you can run the 15 year old Amiga software. Games making up
>the large portion of them. Can’t you just run an Amiga emulator on a PC
>or use an old Amiga for that?
You’re forgetting that most Amigans aren’t really interested in playing old games and using 15 year old apps. Quite the contrary is in fact the case.
AmigaOS4 is just a temporary step, like emulating 68k on PowerMac’s were, towards the real deal: AmigaOS 5. AmigaOS 4 is supposed to give a stable base for running PPC based code within AmigaOS as well as developing all the necessary extras (3D, sound, Virtual Memory, Memory Protection, GUI-streamlining) towards maturity, preparing to go for OS 5 during this development time.
Most crucial is the final let-go of AmigaOS 4 from the old Amiga hardware, which all previous version still depends on. This opens up the possibility to run AmigaOS4 on almost any PPC-based open hardware.
In time AmigaDE and AmigaOS 4 will “meld” together. Ultimately the AmigaOS as we know it will run in a sandbox enviroment on OS 5, switching places with the current role of AmigaDE. We’ll still be able to run *current* AmigaOS apps, but OS 5 apps will be primary focus.
AmigaOS 5 will provide server side services, whereas AmigaDE will provide client-side stuff. It’s a client OS for your PDA, set-top box, cellphone, fridge, whatever. Together they’ll run your home network, providing you with digital content on as many devices that contain a CPU as possible.
So much for nostalgia, huh? 🙂 As you can see, it’s not only about satisfying current Amiga users. It’s the preparation for the coming Amiga users. If all goes well, a few more than “a hundred” people will be using Amiga-apps within a couple of years…
Try reading the Amiga World Magazine issues on Amiga.com as well as their technical updates which come once in a while. They show you how it all fits together. 😉
Zenja:
Amiga Inc. are working as fast as their business partners allow them.
Could someone give an example of a system that runs well with both emulators ?
Dano, you miss the point. Amiga is going to produce the best OS ever. This website is called OSNews which is covering alternative operating systems. In your view all that work on alternative OSes is just for nothing as Windows already exists. Be a little more open minded will ya…
Also there are lots of PPC professional applications available for PPC Amigas. All the Amiga game players have moved on to Windows or own a playstation. On the Amiga you could boot straightly into games from CDs and diskettes, the gamers are the ones currently using Amigas as they never grew attached to the OS as they could bypass it.
> Could someone give an example of a system that runs well with both emulators?
What I gather from friends and this article a very good AmigaOS XL system would contain.
– AMD Athlon processor
– Matrox G450
– Soundblaster 128 PCI
– RTL-8029 compatible networking card
– PS/2 mouse
NeoWolf >>> For example I find myself doubting it’d have support for things like USB and maybe even CD-RW drives as well as DVD and such ( as well as QNX considering they appear to run together seemlessly? ).
As the article states Amithlon allows you to write CDs (so does support CD-burners) and AmigaXL does`t. Also USB devices working on QNX RtP will work under AmigaXL as well. DVD players are supported but the article says that DVD playback is only available for PPC Amigas and therefor can`t be used on these emulators, since they don`t emulate PPC code.
> “Could someone give an example of a system that runs well with both
emulators? What I gather from friends and this article a very good
AmigaOS XL system would contain. – AMD Athlon processor – Matrox
G450 – Soundblaster 128 PCI – RTL-8029 compatible networking card –
PS/2 mouse”
That’s pretty close to the system I assembled, which is working well.
I used a cheap graphics card with a TNT2 chip, and an Adaptec card for
SCSI drives taken from existing Amigas.
The only reason to specify a 500MHz processor is that running an
emulation effectively halves the CPU speed, so a 233MHz CPU will give
you only a 116MHz Amiga. That speed increase would hardly be worth the
money. A 500MHz CPU will give you a faster Amiga than any currently
available.
Personally, I would advise 1.4GHz upward. This is routine for PCs
nowadays. Likewise, the minimum RAM is 64 Megs, but with 512 Megs
being so cheap now, why use less ?
There’s no need to sell the OS short by using outdated hardware.
If you have an old PC, it would be better used as a print server or a
router.
For PC users like Dano… there is no need for anything other than Word/Excel/Powerpoint. Little does he know that in Universities around the world, Linux, Unix and Mac OSes are more common than Windows. The most printed products have been created on a Mac and output via a Unix Server… Stability Dano… that is something that every OS offers over your wide selection of Windows OSes (3.1/95/98/ME/2000/NT/XP/CE). I know I manage a farm of servers which are mixed… RedHat Linux, Sun Solaris(Unix), Mac OS X, NT and 2000. NT’s failures keeps me running back into the coldroom!
> OK, I’m sold. Now where can I obtain these products in the U.S.?
>
> d@
http://www.softhut.com/cgi-bin/test/Web_store/web_store.cgi?page=ca…
I am very interested in the Amiga and am interested in trying this product. How up-to-date is the Amiga free software scene? I am a BeOS fan and am looking for an alternative. If the Amiga OS is as powerful as people say it could do as a replacement.
Is there a web browser? Office App (I imagine that the Word export feature on the WP mentioned is out of date now)? DVD Playback?
Web/Office/DVD’s and programming is all I use my PC for (aside from trying out countless OS’s). If it can do this I may invest.
> Long live the Amiga!!!
The Amiga was THE best computer made, incredibly way ahead of it’s time (the Mac only managed to catch up 10 years later, and Wintel has yet to) … but that was in another millennium.
Unfortunately the Amiga died many, many, many years ago, thanks to Commodore’s hopeless marketing and inept management (a “business style” almost followed by Apple), followed by MANY utter failures to resurrect / continue it which were marred by simialr problems.
It ain’t coming back and it’s ridiculous (bordering on insanity) to think even for a minute that it can. Any new computer released now would be an “Amiga” in name only, owing nothing to it’s illustrious predecessor, and even then it would have to be impossibly super “insanely great” to make enough of a market share for any intelligently run company to bother with.
Yes, Wintel machines are a complete joke and the much better Mac is overly expensive (and currently verging on the weird side on design), but it’s time to let Amiga rest in peace – still with us in great memories of days gone by.
……………… R.I.P ……………..
……………. Amiga …………….
……….. 1980 – 1994 ………..
. Gone, but not forgotten .
:,o|
>>For PC users like Dano… there is no need for anything other than Word/Excel/Powerpoint. Little does he know that in Universities around the world, Linux, Unix and Mac OSes are more common than Windows. The most printed products have been created on a Mac and output via a Unix Server…
PC USer? I own 5 Amigas, 5 PCs running a mix of Windows, OS/2, and Linux?
Still think that my range is limited?
>> Stability Dano… that is something that every OS offers over your wide selection of Windows OSes (3.1/95/98/ME/2000/NT/XP/CE). I know I manage a farm of servers which are mixed… RedHat Linux, Sun Solaris(Unix), Mac OS X, NT and 2000. NT’s failures keeps me running back into the coldroom!
Who is arguing that? But doesn’t stability come from Unix systems now,
especially in network-space? No one has answered the question, what is the
killer app for the Amiga OS, besides the fact that its neat to create a
“better OS”?
Everyone knows that the Genlock and the Video Toaster were the killer apps
for the old Amiga….
Dano.
> Long live the Amiga!!!
The Amiga was THE best computer made, incredibly way ahead of it’s time (the Mac only managed to catch up 10 years later, and Wintel has yet to) … but that was in another millennium.
Unfortunately the Amiga died many, many, many years ago, thanks to Commodore’s hopeless marketing and inept management (a “business style” almost followed by Apple), followed by MANY utter failures to resurrect / continue it which were marred by simialr problems.
It ain’t coming back and it’s ridiculous (bordering on insanity) to think even for a minute that it can. Any new computer released now would be an “Amiga” in name only, owing nothing to it’s illustrious predecessor, and even then it would have to be impossibly super “insanely great” to make enough of a market share for any intelligently run company to bother with.
Yes, Wintel machines are a complete joke and the much better Mac is overly expensive (and currently verging on the weird side on design), but it’s time to let Amiga rest in peace – still with us in great memories of days gone by.
……………… R.I.P ……………..
……………. Amiga …………….
……….. 1980 – 1994 ………..
. Gone, but not forgotten .
:,o|
Dave:
Is there a web browser?
There are several reasonable browsers. AWeb is the one which comes standardly with AmigaOS. Although when using AmigaXL you could also get Opera for QNX RtP as these two work together pretty well.
> Office App (I imagine that the Word export feature on the WP mentioned is out of date now)?
No it is not out of date. The version of AmiWrite included is fairly up to date. However the newest version also supports FinalWriter and Wordworth Import. (Two very popular wordprocessors for the Amiga from the past)
> DVD Playback?
As the article stated, only if you own an Amiga with a PPC. They never ported it to 68k as it is too slow to handle decent quality playback. Although AmigaOS XL could easily handle it when running on modern day PCs it is not sure if it will get ported.
Web/Office/DVD’s and programming is all I use my PC for (aside from trying out countless OS’s). If it can do this I may invest
Dave:
>I am very interested in the Amiga and am interested in trying this product. How up-to-date is the Amiga free software scene?
Up-to-date? I’m not sure what you mean. I currently buy commercial SW for my Amiga, developers need the money…
But you can check the latest “free” SW, for examble from here:
http://ftp.sunet.se/~aminet/recent.html
There are sites for all sorts of apps (like ports of games using SDL).
>I am a BeOS fan and am looking for an alternative. If the Amiga OS is as powerful as people say it could do as a replacement.
Amiga does have more applications, but perhaps not as much modern applications or support for modern HW.
Check these examples for the HW situation:
http://www.elbox.com
http://www.vgr.com
>Is there a web browser?
Yes, several. But they do not have all the bells and whistles of the latest netscape or IE. But Amiga browsers do have also some unique features.
For some web pages you need to spoof the name of the browser, for some other sites you might need to run netscape or IE in Macintosh emulation window. Or on PPC Linux (but Linux does not multitask with AmigaOS, not on Amiga). If you emulate Amiga on top of another OS, like on top of QNX (AmigaXL) you can use the browser of QNX.
Later AmigaOS will capable to use also browsers for intent (Espial, etc.).
>Office App (I imagine that the Word export feature on the WP mentioned is out of date now)?
There are apps like AmigaWriter, PageStream, TurboCalc, etc. that might fill your need.
btw. What office apps does BeOS have?
And there are free tools to convert word documents and excel sheets. (not sure how good those are)
>Web/Office/DVD’s and programming is all I use my PC for (aside from trying out countless OS’s). If it can do this I may invest.
Go ahead and try Amiga, but do not throw away your current work tools…
Dano:
IMO: There are no “killer” apps currently.
For me the Amiga mainly is a nicer way to do things. In future AmigaDE will be totally different, but still so similarly nicer way to do things.
MacManiac:
>Unfortunately the Amiga died many, many, many years ago,
Define “dead”, please.
IMO: Amiga is not dead, not “really” dead.
– Amiga Inc, the company, exists
– new applications/updates appear every now and then
– new games/game ports appear every now and then
– new HW appear every now and then
– amigas can use PC HW, new drivers appear every now and then
– new OS versions are released and developed (also a clone OS)
– new motherboards are being developed (also a clone motherboard)
– new future application layer / environment is being developed (HW and OS independent)
>thanks to Commodore’s hopeless marketing and inept management
…
But Commodore is now dead, Amiga is free from it’s dungeon.
>It ain’t coming back
Not in it’s previous form in the mainstream of desktop computers.
(at least not in the next few years)
>Any new computer released now would be an “Amiga” in name only, owing nothing to it’s illustrious predecessor,
Why??
For me the Amiga has been more than the old HW, even more than the lovely OS. It’s about better way of doing things, it is about MY WAY.
>and even then it would have to be impossibly super “insanely great” to make enough of a market share for any intelligently run company to bother with.
Amiga Inc is not going via the traditional way when they are going to take the “name” forward.
All I can say is: stay tuned !
>Yes, Wintel machines are a complete joke and the much better Mac is overly expensive (and currently verging on the weird side on design), but it’s time to let Amiga rest in peace – still with us in great memories of days gone by.
For those who feel themself tired with Mac / Windoze, and perhaps want to experiment with something different, try out AmigaOSXL (or AmigaDE). You might even like it, but it really is a personal thing.
> Amiga does have more applications, but perhaps not as much modern applications or support for modern HW.
AmigaOS (68k/PPC) also has more modern applications. The lack of software was the most important one why BeOS failed.
I’d be interested in this package simply for the fact that I can consolidate my Amiga world with my PC into one box, which is what a lot of people have with multi-os systems. The Amiga is still my favorite platform, and as much as it pleases me to see the effort being put into these emulators people should realize there’s no future for this system unless it conforms to the established status quo of modern-day pcs (main processor, gfx card etc…) Running the os native on the PPC will greatly help, especially if it could be installed on the Mac. This solution, as archaic as it is (two emulator systems? piggiback on qnx?) is realistically just a curiosity, not a viable solution for professionals.
Dano!
Looak at http://www.audiolabs.it and try the demo of ProStationAudio. This is a modern program, that is worth to buy a modern PC with Amithlon or even old Amiga and use it as a base machine in professional Sound Studio. This gives you the solution, that can’t windows program do and it is a big concurency to Mac based apps like ProTools, but much much cheaper. It works very good on Amithlon, that give PSA really good CPU power to manage multiple audio tracks with realtime effects.
Amiga lives. I have created two successful dual boot setups already, the best uses Win98SE & QNX/AmigaXL with a BootMagic/PartitionMagic 4.0 boot up. Having used Amigas as my home computer since 1986 I am finally happy again.
Using QNX is cool too, since its Voyager browser runs Java applets! I do not know if this means Java applets run on the browsers in the Amiga screen, though. But it would not suprise me.
If anyone needs a copy of this AmiThlon/AmigaXL OS in the US, I purchased mine from my friend Marv Birkinbine of Maxximum Video Creations. His email is [email protected], and is still supporting Lightwave 3D and Toaster/Flyer systems, from here in Boise.
Enjoy it, I know I am.
There`s an updated version of AmigaOS XL available at http://amigaosxl.haage-partner.de/index-e.html
“It is impossible to both create better chipsets and also develop a new powerful
AmigaOS simultaniously.”
I doubt. Jim Collas, as it seems, was close to it with their MMC, when Gateway/Gates?
wasted the achievements. BE was, too, but lacked heart and money.
No compromises, and the difference grows. Its a matter of money, yes, but you dont
need megablaster hyperspeed chipsets, and you dont need 900.000.000 Euro.
The other way round it is true-for “modern” crap OSes you need tons of megabytes,
hd space, and buses with weaker design clocked at brutal rates, just to make up
for overall inferior design.
A cool OS of QNX/BeOs style makes up a lot for “slower” buses and CPU with properly
designed hardware.
Take a close look at what neat details and tricks people put into amiga or other cool
boxes, and you will see, in my opinion, how much could be achieved with more
intelligence, instead of dimple minded brutal g/mhz force. (Which is almost all
“innovation” peecee technology consists of since years-more hz there, more hz here,
more data lines there.)
How sweet and smooth it would run, what a babieeh, blasphemic love for a machine
it would cause, people would collapse in front of it, cause “no time for meals”.
You need talented engineers, as talented they were in 1984-1990 (Zorro III, Videoslot
etc.), but no prob, they are there. A good heap of money. Some unbending intent to
do it. And a good loud laugh for Gates when he gets afraid someone might build a
proper system after all those years with ridiculous hilarious winbloat
pains.
But people lack courage, just as Gateway. It may be illusion, but who knows,
maybe they really had a good chance, and WASTED it.
In my view, its not that its not possible-its that people dont want it.
They dont want it, same as they dont want nuclear plants to be replaced by
wiser technology, just because they are afraid of some risk and expense that
could last for some years before real research pays off.
So they get what they deserve.
Nowadays I use my Amiga only for games. I would like to use Amithlon so I could have all my Amiga games and PC games on one computer. Does anyone know how well games such as Genetic Species, Alien Breed 3D 2 (no RTG), Gloom Deluxe etc., and Breathless (this one also has no RTG)would run on a 1 ghz Athlon, 256 meg, Voodoo 5, Soundblaster Live? Or if they even run at all? (especially the nonRTG games)
Dreamweaver:
Don’t buy Amithlon ONLY for games – it is not designed for that.
However:
Modern RTG/AHI games should work great (although I find Genetic
Species keyboard controls are broken…). There is an unfinished
RTG version of AB3D2, but the menus do not work under
Amithlon.
You can run AmigaUAE really good under Amithlon, with suitable
tweaking, although it is not *perfectly* smooth. Pre-AGA games
are generally fine.
UAE: AGA games such as Breathless *may* run, but at reduced
gfx quality. Chunky pixels via AGA copper will NOT work, so
AB3D, Gloom & Xtreme Racing do NOT work.
I would like to thank the Amiga community and all other interested people for their warm response to my article.
I`m sorry that I was not able to respond to all the emails! The positive enthusiasm makes writing Amiga community articles very rewarding. 🙂