At the AmiWest 2004 show in Sacramento KMOS CEO Garry Hare announced that KMOS has acquired Amiga Inc. A few months ago we reported that KMOS acquired AmigaOS4 assets, but now it seems that the whole Amiga, Inc. belongs to this not-so-public company.
KMOS acquired Amiga Inc
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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You need more information on KMOS Inc? Visit thier webside: http://kmos.com/
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I got my first Amiga 500 in 1990, later an A1200 in 1996. I jumped ship in 1999 in favor of the 8bit Intel PCs running FreeBSD. Always enjoyed the platform, and mc68k programming is a joy. It’s sad that C= had such useless managers. They can keep the brand around, but it will never be the same. Just like those new mp3 players with the C= brand.
The PegasosII looks interesting, but I’m afraid it’s “too little, too late”.
I was at Amiwest, and I think there was a lot of discussion that was not recorded between the audience and Garry.
I just woke up after getting home from my 11 hour trip from Sacramento. Arrgh Madness. Never EVER go Greyhound. Lost my baggage and all. Had to ride next to fat snoring Bubba for most of the trip too in a rickety old bus with kiddy size seats. I shoulda flown. I don’t know what posessed me. Anyhoooo.
Garry wants to use A1s in the set-top boxes and these will act as conduits for wireless content to any devices, be they PCs or PDAs. The initial plan seems to me to have been to leverage OS4 to deliver content that would take the form of movies/video, thus Garry talking to Hollywood production/distribution companies and telcos. He told them how his new technology aids them in terms of speeding up broadband delivery via the internet(buying Capacity Networks with tech to transfer large files via the most efficient route). Now, he obviously saw that movies and video are not enough, and he wanted to deliver software to a variety of plaforms wirelessly as well, but with the compatability problems that would be difficult. In that regard, when he said in an earlier interview that AmigaDE was not required to deliver his solution to a customer, he was right. AmigaDE is the icing on the cake.
It was obvious that AmigaDE would solve that software compability dilemma to a great extent. There currently exists AmigaDE players for Linux and Windows as well as a Windows based PDA. It will shortly be ported to other platforms. If you write AmigaDE software it will be compatable with every platform that the Tao Intent engine is ported to(like a Java VM), and apparently this is not a difficult process. AmigaDE(or whatever it will eventually be called) will gain developers, and therefore we will have more software available for the Amiga OS4 platform, which should please Amigans. Apps and Games written in AmigaDE will scale between PDAs, set-top boxes, consoles and Desktops in a more seemless way than Java does!!!! More platforms, means more opportunities for developers to make money.
On top of this, the Amiga set-top boxes will act as wireless routers and automatically save and secure(encrypt?) data that doesn’t fit on your desktop hard disk. Amigas will become synonymous with speedy content delivery, to a variety of platforms wirelessly, and network data security for the home initially, and perhaps later for Small to Medium businesses. I think PDAs and cell phones will somehow be able to access this content when they are in the vicinity. It could enable movies or tv programs to be resized to your cell or PDA for viewing on the go.
Garry most certainly wants to port OS4 to other platforms apart from the A1. He sees that portability and small footprint as key and the reason he bought the AmigaOS in the first place. Apparently there are many PPC enabled devices out there that could be targetted at the right time. He did not say he was porting AOS4 to AmigaDE. An Amiga laptop may soon become a reality.
GARY ALSO SAID THAT THE NEW AMIGA DE VERSION WILL BE AVAILABLE IN WEEKS AND THAT WE WILL BE SURPRISED AT THE IMPROVEMENTS. I am soooooo going to puchase the new SDK. I’ll have written an Amiga compatable app BEFORE I even have OS4. Now, how is this a bad thing for the Amiga community?
It is unrealistic to believe that your average Joe is going to be attracted to the Amiga because of the apps as is the case with most alternative platforms, but rather the way OS4 operates and its other benefits. If software is ubiquitous it aids AmigaOS4. Thus writing AmigaDE apps does not in any way hurt the Amiga platform, and in fact leverages all existing Intent platforms as targets, thus attracting developers who have always complained that the Amiga market is not big enough. Compatability between platforms is the holy grail. Hopefully, AmigaDE wont fail in compatability and performance the way Java is perceived to. No flames please.
What else did he say? Ah, I asked Garry about porting OpenOffice and he kinda baulked, until I mentioned a browser in the same sentence, and he went off on how a world class browser was of great importance and how it is likely that he will pay developers for a port.
What else?? Errr… Oh, he has no plans right now to change the KMOS name to Amiga Inc, especially as the obscurity kinda assists in the licensing of further technology or the aquisition of other companies. (My vote is for renaming KMOS as Commodore but I doubt it will happen, but then who guessed KMOS would buy AmigaInc? The name Commodore, has far from a negative connotation in the mainstream audience)
Garry mentioned OS4 being a closed source platform is actually more appealing to companies. This may be due to security concerns, and ALSO Garry said that companies practically always mentioned how worried they were over the SCO litigation with Linux. Don’t shoot the messenger!
After the show, I felt confident in Amiga’s future and Amiga Inc’s direction. I felt like it was soooo clear.
We’ll have microA1s and OS4 before Christmas and the new AmigaDE SDK within the month. If this is not the case its time to dispair, but until them I’ve never been so optimistic about the Amiga’s future. I believe that the companies involved have more up their sleeves than they’re letting on, and their excitement was evident at the show. Now, that they have an injection of money, and what appears to be sove business savvy, at last Amigans may see the resurgence of their beloved platform.
As Amiga programmer since 1986, i loved it and hoped a rebirth.
But since several years now, i have no more this hope, because during years i heard/read the same things as in these pages but without any effect.
The only real thing which was done is OS4 but it is 10 years late.
What? Oh, somebody said “Amiga DE”. But who cares about this? Are you using it every day?
Does somebody know why, since many years, Amiga owner make people expect in something they will not bring to them?
As Amiga lover since 1988, i hate to say “I knew it”.
one more time we dreamt, we hoped for a new rebirth and finally we are disappointed by the fact: Amiga is Dead.
Even though OS4 finally shipped before Christmas, it is TOO late for anything. OS4 is already outclassed by all major OSs. Noone is crazy enough to reinvest on Amiga Platform.
It seems like the legacy of the amiga is to move from owner to owner to owner
—
Why not let Apple buy ’em ?
at least the technology would go to good use :p
mini-me
I was a happy Amiga user many years ago, I later switched to linux.
When I read the news about AmigaONE and Pegasos I was
curious but I thought it might be too late and too little.
So I was unsure but in the end I bought a Pegasos.
I can tell you I’m so happy that I did it.
I have many good PCs, an Athlon 2Ghz desctop, a poweebook, a vaio Z laptop. All are good computers but the Pegasos beats them all.
MorphOS is so lightning fast its unbeliveable!
The Pegasos boot so fast and all apps open instandly – its great !
You can not image how responsive and fast this OS is if you have not seen it.
So maybe its late and little but its still GREAT!
Cheers
Gunnar
@Gunnar
The Pegasos boot so fast and all apps open instandly – its great!
Ever try BeOS for x86 computers? It boots very fast (something like less than 6 secs here).
It always comes back to BeOS, doesn’t it? 🙂
<p>
It is surely the best of the undead OSes….
The best thing KMOS can do is to get AmigaOS 4 to work on all the PPC Platforms.
Beige PowerMacs
Current iMacs/PowerMacs/iBooks/Powerbooks
Pegasos
Teron
And any other PPC boards out there.
They ought to contact http://www.microcodesolutions.com and fund the development of the PPC PCI Co-Processor Card.
Sell THAT with AmigaOS for ANY Intel based platform, and suddenly… You could take that old P200MMX machine sitting in the corner, and turn it into an Amiga.
Pop a nice Radeon 7000 PCI card and the PPC Card in it, and go…
There’s an opportunity here for KMOS to seize…
I too was at AmiWest, in fact I interviewed Garry Hare for the audio broadcast. My personal view is the milestones have been set, we need to wait and see if they can make them. First is the whole T-shirt thing, they have till the end of August before that becomes a failure. Next is the Amiga DE SDK and player update, I’ll give them till the end of October before they fail on that one. Again with AmigaDE I give them to the end of the year to start “shouting from every roof top”.
It’s probably a good thing OS4 and the AmigaOne hardware are still independant of KMOS and Garry Hare at the moment. As for the AmigaOne don’t expect any ATX form factor systems for a few years the push will be the Micro AmigaOne (Mini-ITX) or the AmigaOne XC (Micro-ATX). Best I could figure the Micro AmigaOne’s price will be between 700 and 900, which includes the onboard video and audio. I’d guess November for OS4 release, I’ve always said it will be 4 months after the JIT is in. Currently the JIT is “still being integrated” so no idea when they will deliver. As for the current state of OS 4 it is running very nicely on my CyberStorm’d A4000 (604e@233).
In short give them a few months no need to trust Garry till he actually delivers. That said, keep in mind that Bill McEwen delivered some things too, just ran out of money. Let’s hope Garry’s pockets are deeper.
OS4 and the Amiga One will happen, it’s up to us to buy it when it does!
Bill “tekmage” Borsari
Why not look into Augmented Reality for home and theater use? The Amiga OS would be well suited for it. I did all of my AR lab work with an Amiga 2500/Video Toaster combo, and it worked really well. I couldn’t imagine using a PC for that kind of stuff. I’m sure Newtek could build you a ‘Toaster on a Chip’, at this point in time.
In the hopes that he is reading this thread, here’s a link to a research paper I wrote on the subject a few years ago. Remember me if you get funding for this sort of thing.
All Future Movie Studios and Televisions To Run BeOS
http://bedoper.com/bedoper/2004/twentyfifth.htm
In all of that I didn’t see much that indicates that KMOS is interested in exapanding the home user market. It seems that the A1 will remain so expensive as to be a non issues to anyone that isn’t a diehard Amiga fan with a boatload of money to waste on hardware that was outdated in 2000. OS4 might be great. But it is still way, way too expensive and it doesn’t appear that KMOS is interested in getting us former Amiga users back. Too bad.
Yes, all that info is hard to take in.
Serisously, did you actually follow the link before posting it?
@Ronald
>>The Pegasos boot so fast and all apps open instandly – its great!
>
> Ever try BeOS for x86 computers?
> It boots very fast (something like less than 6 secs here).
6 second boot time is great
– its comparable with MorphOS. 🙂
Actually I’ve tested BeOS on my Vaio.
(Pentium M 1.7Ghz (1MB cache) 1GB main memory.)
But I did not install BeOS natively I used a virtual machine.
Inside the virtual machine it ran quite okay
but it was some magnitutes slower than MorphOS.
This could have been caused by Virtual PC of course.
I don’t know if BeOS running natively would be faster than MorphOS.
All I know is that MorphOS flyes even on the cheap
entry level Pegasos with only 600Mhz CPU.
And MorphOS needs basicly no memory –
its not like bloaded Windows, Linux or OSX systems.
For all who have not seen MorphOS
here is a link to some user screenshots:
http://www.morphzone.org/modules/myalbum/viewcat.php?cid=9
The screenshots are quite nice but they don’t show the speed
of MorphOS of course.
When I got the Pegasos, my girlfriend got my *old* Athlon 2Ghz.
The AMD is not a bad machine but everytime I work on it,
it feels like working on frozen molasses. 🙂
Booting Windows or Linux starts to be real pain
if you got used to MorphOS.
-Gunnar
OS4 and the Amiga One will happen, it’s up to us to buy it when it does!
Unless they drop prices considerably (read as “by a minimum of 50%”), it ain’t going to happen.
I also find it funny that your post makes it look like it’s expected of us users to support this latest version of Amiga despite many failings, and broken promises on the Amigas behalf.
My predictions are that they will miss all the deadlines you’ve noted, and that sometime next year, we will again hear of the Amiga changing hands, albeit at a reduced price over this years transaction (which is of course a reduced price over last years sale, which was a reduced sale when compared to the previous years sale, which was of course…)
Not to sound all doom and gloom, but let’s look at the records of the “Amiga Supporters” over the years… Nothing has came true, and nothing has been released since… Wassit 1998 that WB 3.0 came out? Maybe earlier than that (I’m guesing at dates here… I haven’t owned an Amiga in like 15+ years!).
My point that it’s getting old having all the Amiga optimists praise the new bosses (same as the old boss!), telling us realists that we should just shut up & support them like good little droids, when in reality, it’s us realists that have been proven right time and time again.
The Amiga is no longer viable. Open sourcing might help keep it alive somewhere, somehow, but like BeOS, it ain’t going to happen.
Current Amiga hardware is overpriced as hell, and will not generate enough sales to keep a newly boughten, 10x loser OS afloat in todays market.
To just blindly follow these snake oil salesmen around with our dollars in hand is to deny the facts. If you have lots of extra money lying around, it might be a neat, albeit expensive toy, but it’s not something that the average PC user will purchase.
It won’t run Windows, it will run Linux, but at a slower speed than hardware that’s 1/4 it’s costs will, and although you can kludge OSX onto the new PPC boards (with the help of Linux), it’s still a (slow) workaround, which can disappear anytime Apple sees fit to modify their startup sequences.
Let’s face facts and call a spade a spade here. The Amiga is a fading star, which long ago lost its chance to compete with modern-day PC’s. Unless the Amiga owners realize this fact, stop all hardware/licensing req’s, and release the OS for generalized hardware (read as Apple boxs, or x86 boxes… Something that can be re-purposed once the Amiga fails again), they may as well give up now.
And if you want to keep living the delusion of “Just another month and I’ll finally get that shiny new Amiga”, feel free, but stop trying to group us free-thinkers as pessimists and trolls. That moniker may have been true if we were posting this back in 1992 or so (as many of us were then too!), but history has proven us to be correct time and time again since then.
@Mr Banned
Err, well I only want to point out that
there are 3 (three) next generation Amiga OS out.
AOS 4 – not yet finished.
Runs on AmigaONE which are a bit expensive.
MorphOS – out since years, quite polished OS
which runs on Pegasos. Pegasos is much less expensive
than AmigaONE and faster and on my opinion better hardware.
AROS (www.aros.org)
free open source, reimplenetation of AmigaOS.
Very promising but not yet finished OS which runs on
x86, PPC and classic 68k hardware.
We have three Amiga operating systems
One for people which like to by an OS by the name
and not by features. – AOS4
One for people which want the best avaiable Amiga OS for PPC. – MorphOS
And one for open source fans and x86 lovers – Aros.
Cheers
Gunnar
Thanks for the “heads up”. I’m aware of the various Amiga off-shoots, but my comments are regarding only the true, corporately owned Amiga.
MorphOS is neat, but is more an attempt at creating an OS inspired by Amiga in my eyes. Promising stuff though, and it does run on much more economical hardware!
AROS is, as you pointed out, an attempt at recreating the original AmigaOS on modern hardware. Neat idea, but I’d rather use MorphOS’s more modernized OS if I were pressed to choose.
And of course the near mythical AOS4, which was what my comments were directed at.
I understand your point about there being 3 Amiga’s, but 2 of those are really alternative OS’s to Amiga, rather than forks of the same OS (to me at least. I’m sure the users of these OS’s have their own thoughts).
Though I stand by my comments re: Amiga/OS4, your points are good ones, and may help explain the growing debacle that is modern day Amiga to those less informed. Thanks! 8)=
“OS4 but it is 10 years late”
Better late than never. And there are a lot of people that are excited. New hardware and a new OS. It can only get better from here. There is no point ruminating on what could have been, but just get a load of what we are getting. Chill.
“Even though OS4 finally shipped before Christmas, it is TOO late for anything. OS4 is already outclassed by all major OSs. Noone is crazy enough to reinvest on Amiga Platform.”
Of course, at first, the diehards will spend, but soon the level of excitement on its release and and further growth will reach fever pitch and it will be as difficult to shut us up as it is the BeOS people(kidding). Jeez, what do you need your OS to do and why don’t you think that OS4 can’t do it for you?
Developers may be interested in investing in AmigaDE as it is cross platform, and even leverage its Java capability, just in case it crashes and burns.
“Why not let Apple buy ’em ?
at least the technology would go to good use :p”
The tech would be killed. And anyway, what would Apple want with a competing OS?
“MorphOS is so lightning fast its unbeliveable!
The Pegasos boot so fast and all apps open instandly – its great !”
I didn’t see it boot, but I was REALLY REALLY impressed with the speed. I have a 2.4ghz P4 with XP and its a dog compared to what I saw. Even the browser was rendering everything instantly. I didn’t even know browsing could be that fast!!!
“Ever try BeOS for x86 computers? It boots very fast (something like less than 6 secs here).”
Wow Wee!!! So does Windows 3.11. Errr. Does EVERYTHING need to gravitate back to BeOS?
“It always comes back to BeOS, doesn’t it? 🙂
It is surely the best of the undead OSes….”
BeOS is undead? Who the hell knows anything about BeOS other than a bunch of geeks. At least a lot of people have heard of the Amiga. Is there a new BeOS based machine coming out? Oh, its on a PC. Didn’t notice as I was too busy running Windows. Sigh.
“That said, keep in mind that Bill McEwen delivered some things too, just ran out of money. Let’s hope Garry’s pockets are deeper.”
KMOS has a major investment/financial firm behind them, which he wont name, that we’d all have heard of apparently. Sounds like big bucks to me, provided he can convince them to keep giving him money.
:Fom the Augmented Reality site posted by Sandwich boy
“Not only will you be able to watch what you want, when you want, you’ll even be able to pause, rewind and fast-forward it. Naturally, BeOS is integral to the technology. What other OS can manage the incredible amount of data necessary? What other OS can deliver the seamlessly integrated, highly responsive user interface? None, that’s who.”
Err…. I thought you were describing an Amiga actually. Garry Hare says he has content distributors interested in using his routing tech, aquired through the Capacity Networks purchase. He also has a telco interested to start sending out these machines like you do digital cable boxes. Seriously, Amiga is closer to to getting into the living room than BeOS is by a long margin. Bearing in mind Garry’s past online speeches there may even be a rental model involved for home usage.
“In all of that I didn’t see much that indicates that KMOS is interested in exapanding the home user market.”
Say what? Did you listen to his speech? Its all about the home market!!!! If you mean desktop market, then realistically we can only expect about 20,000 units, but even a 100,000 would not be enough to sustain the market. That is why there will be a push, both towards the embedded space, as well as the set-top box arena and of course mobile devices through AmigaDE. Aren’t the bases covered?
“It seems that the A1 will remain so expensive as to be a non issues to anyone that isn’t a diehard Amiga fan with a boatload of money to waste on hardware that was outdated in 2000”
We’ll see. OS4 will be ported to other PPC devices and anything that runs OS4 will be called an Amiga. The price of the microA1 will be adjusted, it is said, to be as expensive comparably speaking, as the Amiga 1200 was. Partnering with a telco is sure to drive the price down. Lets reserve comment until the price is announced shall we.
“it doesn’t appear that KMOS is interested in getting us former Amiga users back”
Huh? Of course they are. Especially the developers. What do you want him to do get you back? What would be good enough in your mind? Giving them away for free? If you love the platform, you’ll be back for sure. Otherwise you may just end up with the AmigaOS in another guise, perhaps through a set top box. Who knows.
There’s a market, why else buy the company, and its being pursued and when we get even more info you may just change your mind. But right now, it seems that everyone has some preconceived ideas, and pessimism, as we’ve all been burnt. Its hard to believe its all finally coming together now, but it is. I’ve seen the fruits of their labour at the show. IT IS REAL AND IT IS COMING SOON.
“To just blindly follow these snake oil salesmen around with our dollars in hand is to deny the facts.”
If they’re selling what you want, then how are you being used. You pay the premium as no-one else is giving you what you want. I doubt that Amiga One owners feel used somehow, in fact they think the company has done them a favour. Maybe, its time for you to turn from the dark side.
“If you have lots of extra money lying around, it might be a neat, albeit expensive toy, but it’s not something that the average PC user will purchase.”
Yeah, but since when has being an Amiga user been inexpensive? Of course it wont even rate as a blip against PC sales, but what does? Lots of people grew up on Amigas and now have the disposable income to spend on such a toy. And why shouldn’t they. Boys will be boys and they want to have fun, and why shouldn’t they want an Amiga?
Alernative OSes and hardware are a niche(duh!)…just like BeOS, Linux and Mac. Why should Amiga meet with less success, if it caters for what a segment of the greater market want?
As to the expense, how can people justify buying $1000 graphic cards, yet that is a viable market. If people are willing to pay the price, then let them have it. If you don’t then don’t. There’s still a lot of people that think it is a great investment and when costs come down you may too.
“but history has proven us to be correct time and time again since then.”
Well, prepare to be proven wrong. Guys, we think its finally happening and we’re excited about it. Take it for what you will. Honestly, why rain on the parade. so you wont buy an Amiga so you’ll be proven right? (LOL!)
There is a new Amiga OS (that is potentially portable).
There is a new Amiga machine (its a start).
There is a broader market to leverage using AmigaDE(we’ll even have apps on OS4 ya know ;-).
These didn’t exist before. Why the pessimism?
This isn’t vapour. I’ve even seen and touched them.
The pieces are falling into place.
The wait will soon be over!!!!! And people are excited!!!
Why gripe about what people are excited about because you’ve been burnt in the past. These are different folk afterall, and they REALLY look like they will deliver.
@Mr Banned,
I agree with all your comments but the last sentence
>I understand your point about there being 3 Amiga’s
> but 2 of those are really alternative OS’s to Amiga,
> rather than forks of the same OS.
IMHO all three of them are new implementations.
AROS is a rewrite but very close to the original OS3.1.
Its binary compatible to old Amiga programs if you run it on 68k hardware
– for other ports you’ll need to recompile the apps.
AOS4 is a complete new OS (currently) available for PPC.
Its a new OS – but in the spirit of the original Amiga OS.
It provides a binary compatibility layer to run old 68k apps.
It has some enhancements over the old OS.
MorphOS is like AOS4 a complete new written OS which
in the spirit of the original Amiga OS.
It provides a binary compatibility layer to run old 68k and old PPC Amiga apps.
IMHO MorphOS and AOS4 are both nice, slim and fast OS
like the old Amiga OS was. They both use the same good
concepts of the Amiga OS and mostly the same technices.
Both are enhancements but none of them is the old Amiga OS.
None of them has more Amiga roots than the other.
MorphOS and AOS4 are both developed by some old Amiga geeks.
None of them is developed by the old Amiga OS crew.
Hyperion made a deal and got the name AOS4.
My point is that there is no real reason why Hyperions OS
is called AOS and MorphOS is not called AOS, is just because
one company made a good deal to get the name.
Both operating systems are as close to the original AmigsOS as the other.
There is just one big difference – MorphOS is quite polished already
and Hyperions OS needs some more time.
Cheers
Gunnar
My simple opinion
AOS4 – too late, too expensive.
MOS – Hard to get, still a little too expensive
hardware can be hard to find.
AROS – Personally my favorite. Will never go away or stop being devloped. Problem is not enough devs. I always here about people thinking AROS is great but very few people step up to the plate. It is a shame really. Amiga is a great Desktop OS, Aros likewise would make a great Desktop OS.
AmigaOS 4.0 is the official AmigaOS as contracted out to Hyperion by the official owner of the Amiga Ip, AmigaInc. AOS4 began with the OS3.x source code and is an evolution of that. MorphOS did not start with the original source code, and reverse engineered its OS just as the AROS project did. Hyperion had to change practically every OS3.9 code routine to get it to work on PPC. They have also made many enhancements, thus it is an evolution.
Just a note about PegasOS and MorphOS. PegasOS2 is an officially released and complete product yet Genesi have barely sold more than the developer A1 boards. Tell me if I’m wrong about this. What do you think is going to happen to make PegasOS and MorphOS take off? Its had its run. Its out, its complete and its going nowhere fast. You sell a few boards running Linux to Freescale because there is no competition.
The A1 is not even released and has already got a userbase. The A1 is going to take off when it is officially released though isn’t it? PegasOS sales are poor because people realise that AmigaOS is the official Amiga OS and that A1 is the official hardware. AmigaInc now has more money to aid its development than Genesi has. AmigaInc’s product is the way forward and most Amigans realise it.
> Ever try BeOS for x86 computers?
> It boots very fast (something like less than 6 secs here).
I have in my bedroom amigas, macs, pcs running windows, qnx, beos, linux.Beos is more fast booting than windows but i never see nothing that is more fast than qnx or amigaos.in the same speed hardware (same cpu clock, same harddisk speed, same memory speed….) amiga and qnx are the fastest operating systems.Beos on 266 mhz pc is slooooowwwwww (is in the pc i have install beos, but faster than windows), on a 266 mhz machine amigaos is faaaaaaasssssssst.I use all operating system and amigaos is the more responsive of all operating system only qnx can compete with amigaos.I hate windows because if i have ten minutes for computing this time is only consumed in boot and shutdown, at least in anything that is less than 1 gigaherz.
@BigBenAussie
Oh boy, what a toll.
> AOS4 began with the OS3.x source code and is an evolution of that.
The original source code was to big parts assembler.
– So you need to completely write it again to port it to PPC.
– As all parameters and behaviors of all OS function was
fully documented and even the source of big portion was availble.
Everyone who has ever developed on Amiga knows that every
function of the Kernel and all the libraries were fully documented.
I still have all the book somewhere.
I see no real advantage in having access to the code or having
access to the description and to the printouts of the code.
Don’t you have the AmigaKernel listings?
They were published – I still have them.
-Gunnar
> what do you need your OS to do and why don’t you think that OS4
> can’t do it for you?
I need a decent browser, an up-to-date java implementation (and by “java” I of course mean J2SE) and an office suite. None of these exist for the Amiga. At least not at the moment, and unfortunately it seems unlikely they will in the foreseeable future.
@Markus Sundman
-Browser
Ports of Mozilla and KHTML (Konqueror/Safari) are underway
but none is finished yet … So no update one now maybe soon.
-Java
Well there is a port of Kaffe and there is Jamiga (JRE 1.4.1)
Last time a looked Jamiga was still alpha.
-Office.
Okay office is no problem 🙂
Papyrus – its a very good office suite!
Papyrus is available for Windows, Mac and MorphOS/Amiga
Gunnar
> -Browser
> Ports of Mozilla and KHTML (Konqueror/Safari) are underway but none
> is finished yet … So no update one now maybe soon.
I wouldn’t hold my breath. Well, Mr Hare thinks it’s important to have a decent browser so maybe KMOS will finance some project. Still, it’ll take a lot of time.
> -Java
> Well there is a port of Kaffe and there is Jamiga (JRE 1.4.1)
> Last time a looked Jamiga was still alpha.
Kaffe – ROTFL… please..
Jamiga – yeah, it’s at version alpha 0.0.3. It’ll take a long time until they get awt and swing running well. As soon as the final version of tiger (J2SEv5.0) hits the streets people will want to use that. It’s of no use to have a working 1.4.1 when the rest of the world is running 6.0.
> -Office.
> Okay office is no problem 🙂
> Papyrus – its a very good office suite!
> Papyrus is available for Windows, Mac and MorphOS/Amiga
Nice. I didn’t know of that one.
I just tried it out on a Windows box. (Too bad there is no English demo of version X.) It seems a bit buggy, but all in all it’s pretty impressive, especially considering its size. (The Windows version is ~3.5 MiB to download and takes ~7 MiB of disk space when installed.)