Amiga OS 4.x, is the dream over?

[dreadnought]

This is getting bit too metaphysical. What would be an "Amiga", then? Something with chips designed by Miner? Let's be realistic. Nobody has the clout to make it happen neither the market is big enough for custom made chips. It'd have to be FPGA (RPi is great for what it does, but if I was to buy into a new Amiga standard it'd have to be at least 99+% compatible and a bit more than emulation).

But Vampire is an overkill for the "people's" Amiga I'm talking about. Both price and power-wise. We have discussed it in these other similar thread recently... Something like ~AGA + ACA (similar to what ZX NEXT is upgrade wise) . So you can keep the cost reasonable and make it a bit more popular than just the hardcore users.

[Pyromania]

How do you like the Draco? I always thought about getting one.

[gulliver]

The DraCo is a fabulous machine. It is fast and great in all sorts of ways.

Of course, it is not a machine for native chipset usage (hitting harware games and demos), as it lacks the chipset and works directly on RTG. But any AmigaOS friendly game and/or application will run on it like a beast.

And MovieShop, its NLE video software, is a really great piece of software taking into consideration when it was released.

[Lord Aga]

Originally Posted by gulliver

Perhaps you have a bias or a particular preference, and that is your problem.

Then it should be easy for you to prove my bias. Go ahead and stick an RTX 2080 into your A1200 and make the Amiga go faster

You can do that with a Vampire 1200 card. Let's see you do that with an off-the-shelf PC part, since you claim them to be the same.

And we'll see who's biased and has problems

[Thomas Richter]

Originally Posted by dreadnought

This is getting bit too metaphysical. What would be an "Amiga", then? Something with chips designed by Miner?

My two cents on this is that the Amiga is a historical artefact that is worth preserving as it was designed and used in its age, with as little modifications as possible to allow its convenient usage today.

[gulliver]

Originally Posted by Thomas Richter

My two cents on this is that the Amiga is a historical artefact that is worth preserving as it was designed and used in its age, with as little modifications as possible to allow its convenient usage today.

I kind of share that train of thought.

[ealm]

Originally Posted by gulliver

The V4 is as Amiga as a PC is.

Obviously not since the V4 is of 680x0 architecture and is more code compatible with 68000 Amiga software than even a C= A4000/040. And has chipset level support for OCS, ECS and AGA.

With an Amiga case it is practically an Amiga. Though not built by C=, Escom or Quikpak, but by Apollo.

[gulliver]

Originally Posted by ealm

With an Amiga case it is practically an Amiga. Though not built by C=, Escom or Quikpak, but by Apollo.

The same happens with the Mist, Mister and FPGArcade boards, you can put them in Amiga case and they would be "practically an Amiga".

[ealm]

Originally Posted by gulliver

The same happens with the Mist, Mister and FPGArcade boards, you can put them in Amiga case and they would be "practically an Amiga".

Absolutely, though I prefer Vampire myself since it is much faster and doesn't just recreate 68k Amiga but develops it. And with ASIC as a goal.

[coldacid]

With all this quibbling about what is or isn't an Amiga, I think we've forgotten about my original grousing that launched this thread -- what be the fate of Amiga OS 4.x and PPC "NG" hardware?

And another question on this line of thought -- what can be done to still support games, apps, etc. that are exclusively PPC/4.x based (*cough*Blastaway*cough*) in this brave old world where we stick to 68k based hardware?

[klx300r]

Originally Posted by coldacid

......And another question on this line of thought -- what can be done to still support games, apps, etc. that are exclusively PPC/4.x based (*cough*Blastaway*cough*) in this brave old world where we stick to 68k based hardware?

easy support Amiga developers! Blastaway was made on AmigaOS4.1 for AmigaOS4.1 as was BOH (OS4) and Huenison (OS4), (SkillGrid (68k) etc. etc. before that and then 'ported' to other OS's....I know how much hard work was put into Blastaway by Retream (aka Simone Bevilaqua)..the game is on https://retream.itch.io/blastaway for a 'name your price' or can be downloaded with no fee at all SO if people want Amiga developers to continue developing for Amiga PLEASE PAY developers for the time they invest in making such new/original games on Amiga for Amiga!!!! heck if you can afford any kind of Amiga or pay for internet than you can pay more than $2 for an original Amiga created game by a trusted developer...

[coldacid]

No problem here giving value for value, klx300r, but that wasn't what I meant by support.

[Pyromania]

@klx300r

Thanx for letting me know about Blastaway, just supported it.

[klx300r]

Originally Posted by Pyromania

@klx300r

Thanx for letting me know about Blastaway, just supported it.

@ coldacid


can't think of anything more 'supportive' other than buying AmigaOS4 hardware than supporting AmigaOS4 developers financially the best we can

[coldacid]

We can give them all our worldly possessions, but if 4.x is truly a dead end and new PPC Amiga hardware is nonexistent (Tabor notwithstanding) that won't make their games run on 68k. Simone already said he's not going to port Blastaway to 3.x, to continue this one particular example, but surely he's not the only one whose 4.x software will not come to 3.x even if 3.2 and beyond happen to be the best thing since sliced bread.

[spudje]

Face it, even PPC is thriving more on AOS3.x than AOS 4.x at the moment thanks to all the effort put into supporting these PCI PPC cards...

[ealm]

When the Vampire goes ASIC it will most likely outperform any OS4-compatible hardware with a big margin. And the Amiga community can keep controlling and developing the 68k platform, in difference to PPC which is a dead end.

It would make sense to start porting OS4 to 68k now, maybe by creating an OS5 branch that merges OS3 and OS4. Optimal would of course be if kernel and core parts were open sourced and developed jointly with the AROS team. AROS could be to OS5 what Darwin is to macOS.

[manossg]

I have to agree that Vampire and 68K is the way forward.

[coldacid]

And when will Vampire go ASIC? Given the costs involved and the sales volume, I think that's more of an if instead.

As for porting OS4 to 68k, isn't that essentially what's happening with 3.2 and beyond (at least for the non-PPC-specific parts)? That still doesn't solve the issue of running PPC software on 68k-based Amigas.

[Thomas Richter]

Originally Posted by manossg

I have to agree that Vampire and 68K is the way forward.

It is a bit contradiction in terms to modernize a retro machine. Second, I am not a particular fan of ignoring good development practice and ignore guidelines for Amiga hardware development. This said, it is nevertheless a most remarkable achievement, though one that should have been done with less disruption and in a more careful way.