AmigaAnywhere soon to become AmigaEverywhere

[John Pillow]

The last few announcement from Amiga Games Inc., along with Patrick Roberts' interview on Retro Gamer Magazine Issue 119 (https://www.imagineshop.co.uk/magazi...issue-119.html) prompted me to investigate a little bit.

Nothing new under the sun here, just wanted to share some bits and ask some questions, if anyone is interested (me left the Amiga scene during the AmigaDE/AmigaAnywhere days).

Ok, so, Patrick Roberts is President and Chief Operating Officer of Amiga Games Inc (http://www.amigagamesinc.com).

He is the same Patrick Roberts (https://angel.co/patrick-roberts) that in 2000 designed the AMIE Console concepts (http://www.amigahistory.co.uk/amieconcept.html)

He is the same Patrick Roberts that in 2001 worked at Edivision LLC on some AmigaAnywhere contents (http://www.amiga-news.de/de/news/AN-...00314-DE.html)

Then, going to assume that he's/he'll work closely with Darren Debono, owner at Elysian Labs (http://elysianlabs.com/products/).

Darren Delbono worked as a software developer for 4 years at Amiga Inc., he's now an Amiga Inc. consultant and responsible for the recent AmigaAnywhere-based ports to the BlackBerry devices (http://uk.linkedin.com/in/darrendebono).

And speaking of AmigaAnywhere, noticed the similarity between the AmigaDE user interface (http://www.amigahistory.co.uk/amigade1.jpg) and the AmigaOS5 concept design by Matt Chaput (http://www.amigahistory.co.uk/concept/mockup.jpg)

Is it correct to say that Elate was the OS and AmgaAnywhere (called AmigaDE at the time) was just the software development environment?

A clarification from former Amiga Inc. developer Bolton Peck:

Intent was the underpinning, Elate was Tao's GUI layer. The underpinning was very dependent on host hardware and software-it couldn't even access CD drives or removable media until we made it do so. Their Elate GUI layer was, well, let's say it wouldn't give Amiga Workbench 1.0 a run for its money. Our coding department worked mightily for years to get it going, but it was just too much of a kludge to be really useful in the real world-the promised sound, 2D and 3D acceleration never saw the light of day.

Source: http://www.amigafuture.de/viewtopic....40b30bbd2fc00a

From the images linked above you can see the "AmigaOS5-like" gadgets inside the main "intent/Linux graphics" window. Main window gadget is more similar to the Elate screenshot.

It reminds me - in a way - of AROS Hosted.

Two funny coincidences:

- In 2.000 AmigaDE was called AMIE (like Patrick Roberts' Console concept: http://www.amigahistory.co.uk/de_dev...html#strongarm)

- The initial ideas for Tao's Elate technology came from Chris Hinsley (http://mobile.osnews.com/printer.php?news_id=157), among other things author of Onslaught (http://www.lemonamiga.com/games/list...lling%20Screen).

<del>Putting together all pieces: after all, AmigaAnywhere is/was AmigaOS5 (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/01...os_5_surfaces/) ;-)</del>

So it seems all Tao-based work had been scrapped in AA2, and then the supposedly on-schedule-and-rocking Amiga OS5 was not to be based on Tao technology at all:

Bill McEwen: Amiga OS 5 is NOT built on top of Intent and it is not related to Tao. This is 100% Amiga and yes there is a path from OS 4 to OS 5.

Source: http://www.amigaflame.com/amibillm.htm

Don't know if work started on this Tao-less OS5, but in the end Amiga Inc. admitted AA2 = OS5:

Source: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/01...os_5_surfaces/

Cheers,
JP

[John Pillow]

Small update, with some more notes on Amiga Games Inc.

Known licensed titles so far:

Alien Breed: Tower Assault
Assassin
Battle Chess
Deflektor
Desert Strike
Eye Of The Beholder
Eye Of The Beholder II
Gods
It Came From The Desert
PGA Tour Golf
Rocket Ranger
Super Cars
Super Cars 2
Turrican
Turrican II: The Final Fight
Turrican 3
Valhalla and the Lord of Infinity
Valhalla: Before the War
Valhalla & the Fortress of Eve
Xenon
Xenon 2: Megablast
Zool
Zool 2

What is known so far:

- Games are still owned by the original Companies, Amiga Games Inc. just bought the rights to be able to license mobile versions.
- Titles will not be distributed though current Amiga emulators, they're not ROMs/ADFs.
- The Blackberry releases by Amiga Inc. (http://appworld.blackberry.com/webstore/vendor/21741/) are going to be under the umbrella of Amiga Games Inc., so we can also expect these titles to hit the other announced mobile platforms.
- Graphics and audio filtering will be added to improve quality.
- Amiga Games Inc. has now a library of 200 - 300 titles/licenses (numbers vary depending on source/website).

[Leo42]

- Games are still owned by the original Companies, Amiga Games Inc. just bought the rights to be able to license mobile versions

They're not current ADF but there must be an emulator of some form hidden somewhere: otherwise it would mean they'd have bought the rights to the sourcecode too, don't you think ?

Seems like it has taken years just to get this far with this project, in a few more years no-one will have an android. Id rather see pro-active hardware rather than re-active software.

[John Pillow]

Originally Posted by Leo42

They're not current ADF but there must be an emulator of some form hidden somewhere: otherwise it would mean they'd have bought the rights to the sourcecode too, don't you think ?

You're right.

Amiga Anywhere is/was supposed to be a simple software layer (assuming these titles/ports will use AA), so the model here could be somewhat similar to the Amiga Anywhere Player + classic Amiga titles Amiga Inc. rolled out in 2007 - 2008 (not 100% sure of the date).

So - as it seems unlikely they have access to the original sourcecodes - some sort of stripped-down UAE must be run on top of AA.

A trip down memory lane: [ Show youtube player ]

[John Pillow]

Just guesswork from my part, but Elysian Labs is following Amiga Forever / Cloanto on Twitter, so a deal could be in place (meaning they have a license to use Kickstart ROMs):

https://twitter.com/ElysianLabs/following

On a side note, just noticed that one of the Elysian Labs games is called "Fleecy's World":

http://elysianlabs.com/products/fleecys-world/

Hope Barrie Jon "Fleecy" Moss is still alive and well.

[John Pillow]

Funny, someone posted this thread link over at the Amiga Games Inc Facebook page, and AGI replied:

"There are many more entertaining interviews with Pat about his early mobile work, including one where he says he wants a VCR he can control from his phone."

So it's confirmed their COO is the same Patrick Roberts that designed the AMIE Console concepts and worked at Disney.

Source: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Amiga...22678421089582

[John Pillow]

Updated first post with some clarifications / sources / confirmations.