What Software does 68K Amiga need?

[Xebec]

Hi folks!

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?

Is there a wishlist out there? I know of the bounty sites but was curious what else there might be..

Thanks!
John

[matthey]

The most needed 68k software is a modern C99/C11/C++ compiler which generates good quality code for the 68020-68060 and has good compatibility with GCC/Clang. One mythical program to create them all.

[idrougge]

Modern SSH/SSL implementation.

[DrBong]

@Xebec
Galahad asked the same basic question in a thread a little while back and got quite a few answers......

http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=77271

[Thorham]

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

[meynaf]

We don't need new software, at least not yet. It's new hardware that's badly needed.

Originally Posted by matthey

The most needed 68k software is a modern C99/C11/C++ compiler which generates good quality code for the 68020-68060 and has good compatibility with GCC/Clang. One mythical program to create them all.

And then you'll discover that the hardware is underpowered for the task.

Originally Posted by Thorham

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

And then you'll discover that your brand new operating system doesn't work well with existing hardware.

[Devlin]

I would second a proper SSL/TLS layer for OS3.x

That and the C compiler but then again that is easier said than done.

[Thorham]

Originally Posted by meynaf

And then you'll discover that your brand new operating system doesn't work well with existing hardware.

The problem with a new OS is drivers and software, not that it can't work well with existing hardware. That problem keeps it from being practical.

[Locutus]

Originally Posted by Thorham

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

.....what for? why?

[meynaf]

Originally Posted by Thorham

The problem with a new OS is drivers and software, not that it can't work well with existing hardware. That problem keeps it from being practical.

It can't work well with existing hardware simply because it'll necessarily be more bloat than regular AOS - or else you won't have the features you wish, like full memory protection. Things have a cost.

[Thorham]

Originally Posted by Locutus

.....what for? why?

Because 68k+fastram+chipset can do better than AOS3. That's not to say I really need this to happen, it's hypothetical. Would make for a nice test project, just to see what's really possible.

Originally Posted by meynaf

It can't work well with existing hardware simply because it'll necessarily be more bloat than regular AOS - or else you won't have the features you wish, like full memory protection. Things have a cost.

I don't want it to be like Windows 10 Basically the idea is to do what AOS3 does, but better and faster.

As for full memory protection, I've already explained how I want full memory protection to be an option that can be turned on and off at will, where the main purpose is development (an important part of an OS). Just Enforcer slows things down already. Not to a crawl, but still.

[Daedalus]

Would a new OS that included baked-in memory protection not have a similar performance hit to running Enforcer? and to even include the option of memory protection, all parts of the hypothetical OS have to be built with this in mind, meaning no shared memory space for IPC etc., thus slowing things down. Having an option to disable it is fine, but then all the IPC needs to be rerouted to shared memory in order to gain a little efficiency - otherwise why not leave memory protection on all the time. Turning it off won't give you the full speed benefits of not having the option at all, so you're already losing the edge on responsiveness that AOS has.

There's always NetBSD that has reasonable hardware support and memory protection.

[Thorham]

Originally Posted by Daedalus

no shared memory space for IPC

Tasks can easily share memory.

[idrougge]

Originally Posted by Thorham

Tasks can easily share memory.

Yeah, is there any reason that won't work?

[meynaf]

Originally Posted by idrougge

Yeah, is there any reason that won't work?

There can be many.
If you pass a message to another app, then any data in your message needs to be in shared memory, which may involve extra data copying, buffer allocation for strings, etc.
Exec itself has many linked lists, in which items can be located anywhere (new tasks, interrupts, etc, can be in memory allocated by any task). But most of it runs in user mode. And programs walking these lists also do. Because it's much faster this way.

[Daedalus]

@Thorham

Yep, that's fine, but what's to stop another task accessing that memory once it's marked as shared, possibly resulting in corruption? That's not total memory protection when one task can corrupt another's data, even if most memory isn't shared. It just reduces the risk of issues.

[ReadOnlyCat]

Originally Posted by Thorham

As for full memory protection, I've already explained how I want full memory protection to be an option that can be turned on and off at will, where the main purpose is development (an important part of an OS).

Well, I want memory protection all the time since I am not interested in one unknown program taking the whole machine down because of a stupid bad pointer while I am busy using it. And that includes my own programs because bugs and crashes will always exist. Also I do not want other programs to be able to spy on my memory. Memory protection forces programs to be clean and properly use proper APIs rather than pilfer around public OS structures and fuck things up for every other well behaved tasks.
Keeping programs well behaved is not my job, it's the OS's. I have better things to do than dichotomic searches of crashing programs/drivers.

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?

[Thorham]

Originally Posted by meynaf

Exec itself has many linked lists, in which items can be located anywhere (new tasks, interrupts, etc, can be in memory allocated by any task). But most of it runs in user mode. And programs walking these lists also do. Because it's much faster this way.

Programs don't have any business doing that in most cases.

Originally Posted by Daedalus

@Thorham
Yep, that's fine, but what's to stop another task accessing that memory once it's marked as shared, possibly resulting in corruption? That's not total memory protection when one task can corrupt another's data, even if most memory isn't shared. It just reduces the risk of issues.

The OS can give a receiving task read-only privileges for the received message buffer. If the receiving task wants to reply to the message, it uses it's own buffer, and sends that pointer over. The task that receives the reply then also has read-only privileges for the received buffer.

Originally Posted by ReadOnlyCat

Well, I want memory protection all the time since I am not interested in one unknown program taking the whole machine down because of a stupid bad pointer while I am busy using it.

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

Originally Posted by ReadOnlyCat

Keeping programs well behaved is not my job

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.

Originally Posted by ReadOnlyCat

Now, whether memory protection is worth the cost on an underpowered 030 is a valid debate

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

Originally Posted by ReadOnlyCat

but then again why would I want to work regularly on such a machine?

Why use an Amiga, then?

[DrBong]

Originally Posted by ReadOnlyCat

Keeping programs well behaved is not my job, it's the OS's.

Sounds OK in theory, but not so much in practice......especially in the retro-computing world.

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?

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.

[matthey]

Originally Posted by meynaf

We don't need new software, at least not yet. It's new hardware that's badly needed.

It is the chicken and the egg problem. I agree that we need affordable standard hardware to solve the software problem not that anyone is listening to us.

Originally Posted by meynaf

And then you'll discover that the hardware is underpowered for the task.

GCC 2.95.3 did a good job back in the day. Then came newer C standards, GCC bloat and deteriorating code generation quality. If compilers could generate good quality code, the hardware would not feel so underpowered. Compilers need affordable standard hardware to receive development. This gets us back to the chicken and the egg problem.