What Software does 68K Amiga need?

[Thorham]

Originally Posted by meynaf

It becomes fun when you have tasks allocating many small memory chunks, that's all.

Yeah, should be nice indeed

Originally Posted by meynaf

MP3 always does, doesn't it ?

Not 320kbp ones.

Originally Posted by meynaf

Cruel guy. You don't even hear your HD grumbling about being abused

Originally Posted by meynaf

I would like to know if there are really RIFX WAVE files out there.

Then go look. Yeah, Sox can make them, but they're probably not widely used at all.

[ReadOnlyCat]

Originally Posted by DrBong

Just like anything else really, because it has the software that suits one's needs/wants. If not, then that's fine too......people can stick with regular use of a modern PC/Mac/WHY.

Yes, to each their own. Which is why I used "work" rather than "use". There are very few productivity tasks that it would want to do directly on an Amiga when I have a much slicker/faster and more practical OS and hardware on the side.

However I have no issues with playing on the machine and developing for it, there are plenty of games which the stock machines can run just fine which have never been written (or exist but deserve a rewrite).
I understand that some people like to do things "the old way", such as a walking pilgrimages, rustic holidays in old walls close to the chimney fire and such, and sometimes I enjoy it myself, but on a daily basis there is no question that modern stuff is better.

This said, playing good games is always cool, something that was fun in old times can still be fun today and the machines will never be outdated in this regard.

Originally Posted by Thorham

In my hypothetical OS that would mean that you just never turn memory protection off, at the cost of speed.

Oki.

Originally Posted by Thorham

Yes, it is. Just because the OS doesn't force you to do anything in particular, doesn't mean that you should mess around simply because you can. An OS without memory protection actually forces you to play nice, or your software ends up being crappy.

It is not my job to prevent that my machine rebooted in the middle of something because a program was buggy, it is the OS's.
This slippery slope does not exist: memory protection does not encourage buggy programs since it kills them immediately and safely. It rather allows to identify them immediately ("program MyFavoriteShinyBrowserBuggyAsHel attempted to write at an invalid address and was terminated") and thus allows me to throw them instantly to the trash rather than keep using them not knowing that they are coded horribly and make my system unstable. This means users do not have to do dichotomic searches anymore and encourage selection of good programs.

Rather than breeding irresponsibility, it shines a light on it and allows to prune the weeds out. Not knowing what makes their system unstable on the contrary encourages the average user to keep bad programs running.

Moreover, it can be used to send crash reports to the authors so they can fix those bugs. Again, this encourages good coding practices since being flooded by crash reports is not fun.

Originally Posted by Thorham

I think everyone can agree that optional memory protection is useful for development.

Originally Posted by Thorham

Why use an Amiga, then?

Cf my answer to DrBong above: not for work, but for what it is good at as a retro machine. Dungeon Master will always be fantastic to play on a stock 500/1MB.
As would be a newly written successor to it for the same machines.
(I would just not develop it on an Amiga.)

[Michael Sykes]

Originally Posted by Thorham

A new operating system that's NOT compatible with AmigaOS.

I say Windows 10...
That way we can still use WinUAE for backwards compatibility.

[Thorham]

Originally Posted by ReadOnlyCat

It is not my job to prevent that my machine rebooted in the middle of something because a program was buggy, it is the OS's.

That's what you meant. Well, no, of course not.

Originally Posted by ReadOnlyCat

This slippery slope does not exist: memory protection does not encourage buggy programs since it kills them immediately and safely.

Indeed.

Originally Posted by ReadOnlyCat

As would be a newly written successor to it for the same machines.

Yeah, I've been thinking about a DM clone for 68030+AGA, I even have permission to use the Grimrock 2 assets (just pre-render with Blender, easy), but I'm lazy

[Leandro Jardim]

Just curious.. what are some applications out there that folks wish they had on the Classic Amiga that aren't / are available on other platforms today? Are there any of these seemingly 'simple' to do?

A new version of UAE and UAE4ALL for 68k. I vote also for a new version for NG too. Both ports with the main feaures of their main counterparts.

[ReadOnlyCat]

Originally Posted by Thorham

Yeah, I've been thinking about a DM clone for 68030+AGA, I even have permission to use the Grimrock 2 assets (just pre-render with Blender, easy), but I'm lazy

Man, I wish I did not have other projects to tackle because this is definitely a nice prospect and I would offer to work with you on that.

This said I was thinking of an OCS/68k/1M target. Dungeon Master does a lot of gamy things excellently but it is not a technical gem and there are many aspects of it which could be improved upon. Its competitors on the Amiga have offered much improved graphics and different gameplay but regressed UI wise and were not daring enough gameplay wise (even if I like BlackCrypt a lot).

Even Grimrock actually falls short in many places. Compared to DM design wise, UI wise, and gameplay wise it is as if they failed to identify why DM was great and thus did not know what should have been maintained and improved upon. It is pleasant but only because current machines are powerful and 3D assisted: the graphics luster kind of hides the poor(er) gameplay and design.

I was going to say that maybe we are 100% in off topic territory now but actually this is my answer to the thread main question:

68k Amiga need:
- a new DM clone, technically as excellent as SOTB was and richer than DM was.
- a report of most Amiga arcade ports.
- and this for this to happen: good cross compiling toolchains, remote debuggers, console-development-kit-like hardware and corresponding software.
- also, a coder friendly mini OS to assist loading/executing/debugging of programs from a remote machine

[Zetr0]

Originally Posted by Thorham

Yeah, I've been thinking about a DM clone for 68030+AGA, I even have permission to use the Grimrock 2 assets (just pre-render with Blender, easy), but I'm lazy

That would be quite epic and a project I would really enjoy developing too (you have my envy)

I thoroughly enjoyed both Grimrock 1 & 2 - very fun games indeed!

I would suggest rather than to have just AGA how about an RTG output option as well - for the more expanded machines =)

You could fix the screen size (640x480 ish) just the colour depth to 16 or 24 bit. A 16/24bit RTG version could reduce the processing of assets as 16bit (64k colours) and 24bit (16.7Million colours) are obviously far easier produce than a (heavily) optimised 8bit (256 colour screen)

[matthey]

Originally Posted by Thorham

Yeah, I've been thinking about a DM clone for 68030+AGA, I even have permission to use the Grimrock 2 assets (just pre-render with Blender, easy), but I'm lazy

Do you know the ex-Amiga guys coders personally or did you contact them about a port to the Amiga and they were sympathetic to the Amiga's demise?

Originally Posted by ReadOnlyCat

I was going to say that maybe we are 100% in off topic territory now but actually this is my answer to the thread main question:

I think this is on topic and gets to the root of everything that is wrong about the Amiga. The Grimrock games are high quality indie/fan games based on classic 2D RPG Amiga games (especially Dungeon Master) by some ex-Amiga coders which made it to Linux, OS X and even iOS but *not* back to any Amiga. This reflects on the sad state of the Amiga in so many ways I don't need to repeat. The NG Amiga systems have good enough specs to run Grimrock type games but the snobbish elites like to burn bridges and road block other paths with more Amiga people. Then they wonder why they don't have software development even when they subsidize it. Only Amiga makes it impossible.

Originally Posted by Zetr0

I would suggest rather than to have just AGA how about an RTG output option as well - for the more expanded machines =)

You could fix the screen size (640x480 ish) just the colour depth to 16 or 24 bit. A 16/24bit RTG version could reduce the processing of assets as 16bit (64k colours) and 24bit (16.7Million colours) are obviously far easier produce than a (heavily) optimised 8bit (256 colour screen)

It depends on how the lighting is to be done. The original DM changed the color maps (in the CLUT) to darker versions of the same colors to quickly and efficiently darken the environment. Chunky modes would likely take more processing power to change each pixel, not to mention the higher resolutions. If converting Grimrock games to the Amiga, it would probably be easier to use 32 bit (and maybe 16 bit) chunky like the original but creating a new game with the Grimrock gfx, it may be better to support AGA and 8 bit (CLUT) RTG modes. The minimum specs would require an accelerator, fast memory and AGA or RTG but still be quite reasonable.

[ReadOnlyCat]

Originally Posted by matthey

Do you know the ex-Amiga guys coders personally or did you contact them about a port to the Amiga and they were sympathetic to the Amiga's demise?

I am not sure why you only thought of these pessimistic possibilities.
Why not the simplest reason: because they think it is a cool idea which does not cost them anything?

Originally Posted by matthey

The Grimrock games are high quality indie/fan games based on classic 2D RPG Amiga games (especially Dungeon Master) by some ex-Amiga coders which made it to Linux, OS X and even iOS but *not* back to any Amiga. This reflects on the sad state of the Amiga in so many ways I don't need to repeat. The NG Amiga systems have good enough specs to run Grimrock type games but the snobbish elites like to burn bridges and road block other paths with more Amiga people. Then they wonder why they don't have software development even when they subsidize it. Only Amiga makes it impossible.

Note: it could be that I completely misunderstood what you meant but as you wrote things your point of view seems weirdly self centered to me. Please accept my apologies for the paragraphs below if this is just a phrasing/context issue.

Aren't you generalizing out of thin air?
Elites? Burn bridges? Choosing to code on a modern machine does not make anyone an elitist, there is no law which forces anyone to like retro coding. People have priorities and we have no business deciding these in their stead.
"Then they wonder why[...]". When did the Grimrock guys wonder about anything? It looks like you are creating a whole ecosystem in your head which has no relation whatsoever with the actual situation.

I am not sure why the Grimrock guys can be faulted for anything Amiga wise. They were kind enough to give Torham access to their IP for free, why does that reflect in any way for the sorry state of Amiga development (according to you)? They have no more obligations to the Amiga community than anyone else on the planet.

I'm not sure why anyone ought to do anything that you deem to be important. If you want some change, then impulse it and see if others follow you but if no one cares then you have your answer: other people's priorities differ from your own and that is it.

Be the change you want to see in the world and do not expect others to do it for you.

[idrougge]

I'm sure any developer considers a target platform numbering in the thousands preferable to a target platform targeting one or two thousand users. After all, coming from the PC world, that must be an amazing difference.

[DrBong]

Originally Posted by Leandro Jardim

A new version of UAE and UAE4ALL for 68k.

Wouldn't that be too slow for anything below PPC, even if optimised? The last one uploaded to Aminet was geared up for use with Amithlon or similar set-ups rather than real hardware IIRC. Also, if my past memories are anything to go by, Ami 68K emulation is probably not all that sweet on A4000 + Cyberstorm PPC.

[Leandro Jardim]

Yes, it would be much slower than Wintel, but I would like to see it done with the UAE newer releases for a "proof of concept". I love hardware emulation/simulation of any machine and I think that is too cool to launch old programs from the Workbench desktop, be it 68k or NG.

That said, I vote to see more emulators ported for Amiga, not only UAE, but newer fMSX versions, OpenMSX, Nestopia UE, FCEUX, SDLTRS, ATARI800, STEEM, etc. I LOVE hardware emulators/simulatorsof any kind, even old LCD handheld ones.

The Amiga scene has a few coders that make ports of Wintel/Linux SDL games and apps for the Amiga, "maybe" they port some of that apps one day.

I really would like to see NovaCoder to port one of that, unfortunately he is not porting any games anymore and probably he is not programming anything on the Amiga anymore too, but I wish to him luck, thanks for all the fish. I hope someday for him with all that luck to go back to the scene and start porting that f**king apps for us.

[Thorham]

Originally Posted by Zetr0

a (heavily) optimised 8bit (256 colour screen)

That's what I was going for.

Originally Posted by matthey

Do you know the ex-Amiga guys coders personally or did you contact them about a port to the Amiga and they were sympathetic to the Amiga's demise?

I contacted them on their forum. The Amiga's demise didn't seem to be factor. It's probably because Amigas aren't their target platform.

Originally Posted by matthey

I think this is on topic and gets to the root of everything that is wrong about the Amiga.

Amiga is just old, it's a hardware platform that started in 1985 and ended in the mid 90s, what do you expect?

Originally Posted by matthey

It depends on how the lighting is to be done. The original DM changed the color maps (in the CLUT) to darker versions of the same colors to quickly and efficiently darken the environment. Chunky modes would likely take more processing power to change each pixel, not to mention the higher resolutions. If converting Grimrock games to the Amiga, it would probably be easier to use 32 bit (and maybe 16 bit) chunky like the original but creating a new game with the Grimrock gfx, it may be better to support AGA and 8 bit (CLUT) RTG modes. The minimum specs would require an accelerator, fast memory and AGA or RTG but still be quite reasonable.

If I can be arsed to get off my lazy behind, then it's going to be AGA+Paula+68k, where the object is to get it to run well on a 50mhz 68030 (hopefully less than that) with some fastmem, and get it to run full screen.

It's more about an updated Dungeon Master clone with a better audio visual presentation and a modernized interface, rather than making a Grimrock port. I'm certainly not pre-rendering anything in 32bit/hires, etc.

[DrBong]

Originally Posted by Leandro Jardim

Yes, it would be much slower than Wintel, but I would like to see it done with the UAE newer releases for a "proof of concept". I love hardware emulation/simulation of any machine and I think that is too cool to launch old programs from the Workbench desktop, be it 68k or NG.

I'd sure love to see an optimised port of a newer release for PPC. A "proof of concept" 68K port would be a fair bit of work for little reward IMHO, not to mention it's a bit nuts running 68K emulation on a 68K Amiga when you have WHDLoad patches, degraders etc.

That said, I vote to see more emulators ported for Amiga, not only UAE, but newer fMSX versions, OpenMSX, Nestopia UE, FCEUX, SDLTRS, ATARI800, STEEM, etc. I LOVE hardware emulators/simulatorsof any kind, even old LCD handheld ones.

Now this is something I'd like to see! More up-to-date net and Office suites would be very much welcome too.

I really would like to see NovaCoder to port one of that, unfortunately he is not porting any games anymore and probably he is not programming anything on the Amiga anymore too, but I wish to him luck, thanks for all the fish. I hope someday for him with all that luck to go back to the scene and start porting that f**king apps for us.

Yep, he burnt brilliantly like a firework while he had the time and energy to devote to the Ami scene.......but unfortunately for us he probably has a real life to get on with and enjoy! I wish him luck and hope he returns one day too!!

[matthey]

Originally Posted by ReadOnlyCat

I am not sure why you only thought of these pessimistic possibilities.
Why not the simplest reason: because they think it is a cool idea which does not cost them anything?

Thorham must have contacted the Grimrock creators to get permission. These were just the 2 most likely cases I considered.

Originally Posted by ReadOnlyCat

Aren't you generalizing out of thin air?
Elites? Burn bridges? Choosing to code on a modern machine does not make anyone an elitist, there is no law which forces anyone to like retro coding. People have priorities and we have no business deciding these in their stead.
"Then they wonder why[...]". When did the Grimrock guys wonder about anything? It looks like you are creating a whole ecosystem in your head which has no relation whatsoever with the actual situation.

I am not sure why the Grimrock guys can be faulted for anything Amiga wise. They were kind enough to give Torham access to their IP for free, why does that reflect in any way for the sorry state of Amiga development (according to you)? They have no more obligations to the Amiga community than anyone else on the planet.

I'm not criticizing the Grimrock creators at all. They sound like great guys to allow their materials to be used. I don't blame them for not doing a port to the Amiga which is dead. I'm criticizing the Amiga owners which are a hindrance to the Amiga. They keep on...

...as emulated Amigas outnumbered NG Amigas.
...as PPC dies and only handicapped embedded CPUs are used.
...as emulated Amigas outperformed NG Amigas.
...as FPGA Amigas outnumbered NG Amigas.

Originally Posted by ReadOnlyCat

I'm not sure why anyone ought to do anything that you deem to be important. If you want some change, then impulse it and see if others follow you but if no one cares then you have your answer: other people's priorities differ from your own and that is it.

Be the change you want to see in the world and do not expect others to do it for you.

I have been programming and developing toward what I believe the Amiga needs (compiler enhancement). It is difficult for me to get people to work toward supporting the Amiga, standards and enhancements when the 68k AmigaOS is not developed and all the Amiga groups are going different directions. I am very frustrated with the current situation. We are getting a 2nd chance with FPGA technology and wasting it. The Amiga has been going nowhere for decades but the status quo is still the name of the non-game. Sad.

[Thorham]

Originally Posted by matthey

I'm criticizing the Amiga owners which are a hindrance to the Amiga. They keep on...

...as emulated Amigas outnumbered NG Amigas.
...as PPC dies and only handicapped embedded CPUs are used.
...as emulated Amigas outperformed NG Amigas.
...as FPGA Amigas outnumbered NG Amigas.

Doesn't that tell you something about what many people actually want?

[matthey]

Originally Posted by Thorham

Doesn't that tell you something about what many people actually want?

Yes. Businesses usually try to sell what many people want and try to expand into markets where there is the most demand. How many decades and bankruptcies does it take to learn?

[modrobert]

I'm getting that amiga.org/amigans.net vibe at EAB, the topic here is "What Software does 68K Amiga need?", with emphasis on 68k (not NG).

[DrBong]

Originally Posted by ReadOnlyCat

Now, whether memory protection is worth the cost on an underpowered 030 is a valid debate to have but then again why would I want to work regularly on such a machine?

Originally Posted by DrBong

Just like anything else really, because it has the software that suits one's needs/wants. If not, then that's fine too......people can stick with regular use of a modern PC/Mac/WHY.

Originally Posted by ReadOnlyCat

Yes, to each their own. Which is why I used "work" rather than "use".

I understood what you were getting at in your post, but I'm not sure that you have in kind if you're intimating that my reference to "use" missed your point. That's why I used "software" as opposed to games and regular "use" referred to work in the context that you mentioned it (and, in itself, doesn't exclude work of course).

There are very few productivity tasks that it would want to do directly on an Amiga when I have a much slicker/faster and more practical OS and hardware on the side.

That's your choice obviously, but the OS and hardware doesn't guarantee quality software. Poor software is poor software is poor software period (and poor = unintuitive = user-unfriendly = non-existent etc., as the case may be). That's why quite a few people still prefer to do pixelling and music-making, for instance, on older platforms. I can certainly understand where some of these people are coming from. I recently tried out a few recommended pixelling apps for PC and they were abysmally unintuitive and counter-productive to regular work with them. Gimme PPaint any day of the week and twice on Sundays thanks! Equally, gimme AutoCAD, Cinema 4D etc. for PC/Mac for 3D modelling.

I understand that some people like to do things "the old way", such as a walking pilgrimages, rustic holidays in old walls close to the chimney fire and such, and sometimes I enjoy it myself, but on a daily basis there is no question that modern stuff is better.

There can be no absolutes for mine simply because individuals vary widely in the daily work needs/wants they have of their computer systems. If a modern platform did cater to all more-than-casual computer users, then the likes of Microsoft, Apple, Intel etc. wouldn't have any serious competition in their respective core markets.

All-in-all it doesn't sound like you've used a high-end classic Amiga for any great length of time (and perhaps other retro 16/32-bit platforms) and experienced some of the very good serious niche software available.....particularly that which came out in the latter days of the Ami. When that's true, it makes it hard in this instance for one to make a comparison of retro and modern platforms and offer a balanced POV.

This said, playing good games is always cool, something that was fun in old times can still be fun today and the machines will never be outdated in this regard.

Some might say the same about certain areas of productivity, and they wouldn't always be off the mark either Horses for courses, horses for courses......

Originally Posted by Ratteler

I'm dreaming here, but I would love OpenOffice and Blender3D.
Gimp, Inkscape, and FreeCAD wouldn't hurt either.

+1 for Gimp - great little gfx app!

Originally Posted by modrobert

I'm getting that amiga.org/amigans.net vibe at EAB, the topic here is "What Software does 68K Amiga need?", with emphasis on 68k (not NG).

Yep, and I wish the mods would step in and advise them to either start their own threads or take it to PM/Amiga.org etc. instead of continually spiralling off-topic into neverending hair-splitting/pissing contests and hijacking other people's threads. People have PM'd me recently about this problem, which I can't say has happened before with any frequency in the 15 years here on EAB.

[Zetr0]

Originally Posted by Thorham

That's what I was going for.

It has been a long standing desire of mine to develop a Dungeon Crawler of sorts - if the time comes when you want to jump in this project, I would love to help =)