Next gen Amiga

[DamienD]

I never get involved these type of threads; don't know enough about the "NG" OSs / target hardware and don't care.

Classic Amiga all the way. I totally agree with what you've said PortuguesePilot

...but cool that people still develop / experiment and find something they enjoy.

[jPV]

Originally Posted by AmigaEd

I've never used and never actually seen MorphOS in use, but in what ways does the Trance emulator differ from UAE?

Trance emulates the 68k CPU only, nothing else. MorphOS is Amiga compatible otherwise, and old 68k programs run in the OS just like native programs by using MorphOS PPC native resources.

UAE emualates the whole machine, which is naturally much slower. So, basically old 68k programs runs much faster on MorphOS than under UAE, because they use PPC native libraries, graphics subsystems, etc. And there isn't emulation overhead anywhere else but on the CPU, which OTOH isn't much slower than running native programs, because Trance is a quick JIT emulator (or maybe not even emulator but binary translator or recompiler).

And naturally 68k programs share all the same resources with PPC programs in this case. They can interact which each other, they share the same memory space, use the same filesystems, use the same libraries and other OS components. I can use 68k programs' ARexx ports etc from MorphOS and I can install 68k libraries, drivers, filesystems, etc for MorphOS to use. There just isn't any difference if the program you run, or binary you use otherwise, is native or "emulated".

UAE, on the other hand, is on its own sandbox, emulating whole machine, doesn't share any resources (except filesystem in limited way), and uses a separate operating system, so they're for totally different purposes.

[grelbfarlk]

If you consider MorphOS a Next Gen Amiga-like the best performance per buck is a PowerMac G5-funny that a MorphOS license costs as much or more than buying the machine.

OS4x hardware is pretty expensive and not all that common-you can't run it on a cheap used Mac. See X1000, X5000, AmigaOne, etc.

Classic Amigas, regardless of what you put in them are not Next Gen, they're just Classic Amigas with extra stuff.

[phx]

Nothing without the 68k, the custom-chipset or the original OS will ever be an Amiga again.

The only reason for using an NG Amiga for me is a faster development machine for cross-compiling, which still gives me a bit of Amiga-feeling while using old tools like Cygnus-Ed.

I do all my development and daily mail on a Pegasos2 running MorphOS and OS4. But I rarely develop anything with these operating systems in mind, but mainly for classic Amigas or portable software.

[Amigajay]

Amiga is dead long ago, regardless of what has come and gone since, the soul of the Amiga was the OS, KS and custom chips, nowadays just chucking processing power at stuff is what boring PCs were all about, and no offense to anyone whos clinging on that way but they aren't Amigas in all but name.

[ajk]

@PortugesePilot

Are current Apples then not Apples? The Amiga followed - or tried to follow - the same path to PowerPC, but due to commercial realities it did not happen the same way. And Apples have since further moved onto the current Intel architecture.

I don't imagine anyone really cares if they can run Photoshop 1.x natively on a modern Apple, it's all about being able achieve things with up-to-date software. That is a reasonable analogy behind MOS and OS4 too, using a familiar OS but in a contemporary environment. Yes, it is not a goal a lot of the Amiga scene is interested in, which is perfectly fine.

The PC never needed to make this choice as there has been a continuous evolution of the core CPU architecture. But this was not an option with the 68k, no matter how much we might have wished it to be.

Anyway, for anyone who followed the Amiga scene in the late 90s and early 00s, this horse has been beaten to death over and over again and fruitful conversation is unlikely to follow

[jPV]

Originally Posted by PortuguesePilot

Wasn't "Amiga" the whole chipset+processor combination? Wasn't the chipset (OCS, ECS and AGA), specifically, which MADE the Amiga? Then if you take that out of the equation, how can you still call it an Amiga? Genuine question. I would really like to know your (and anyone else who considers NG to be "Amigas") answer to this.

I guess for the big audience Amiga was originally about the chipsets and hardware in 80s, and a games machine which "nobody" booted to Workbench ever. But I think it's very short-sighted to make a definition just by that.

Many people started to use Amigas like "real computers", in productivity use and did use its operating system, and expanded it with all kinds of expansions. It was pretty early when even Commodore itself did make graphics cards to offer alternative to OCS/ECS/AGA, and then there came audio cards, serial and parallel cards, network cards, etc. You basically could use Amigas without any "chipset" features at all. This all was possible in early 90s, and later when Amiga users tried to stick with the mainstream, it became common thing on Amiga. Only truly Amigaish feature which was shared by all was the OS itself.

These "next gen" systems aren't that much different from the fully expanded Amigas what active Amiga users had at the late 90s. It was a small, but rewarding step to jump from flaky fully expanded towered A1200 to Pegasos1 for me. Practically all RTG programs which I was using on my graphics/audio card equipped Amga did continue working on MorphOS, but faster than I could have ever believed.

Using Amiga programs on NG machine isn't the same as using an emulator. The whole operating system, its structure, and its contents is pure Amiga, but rewritten and feature boosted. NG operating systems are done by amigans, for example, the original CGX developer became a MorphOS developer, and brought and updated CGX as the MorphOS graphics system, and so on. It's all based to Amiga, so I find it a bit offensive to not count these to Amiga family.

[Photon]

I think you want this as a dev machine for banging the hardware, and then I can't recommend PPC or NG over WinUAE, just run the UAE GFX driver? Obviously you might still want one for trying it out, AFAIK the communities there support and enjoy them as much as the Amiga community does Amiga, and there is some overlap. Nothing wrong with that, if you want it cheap then there is basically only some used old Mac as option, PPC boards are really expensive.

As for a fast development machine, just your favorite text editor and a good commandline compiler/assembler, like something gnu based seems more attractive. I've actually been thinking too long about setting up a Linux dev machine, I should just do it to see what it's like.

[jPV]

Originally Posted by grelbfarlk

If you consider MorphOS a Next Gen Amiga-like the best performance per buck is a PowerMac G5-funny that a MorphOS license costs as much or more than buying the machine.

I find it pretty great. I rather pay 79e for the OS and 50e for the machine, than 30e for the OS and 2000e for the machine

Isn't it great that you can find that powerful machines, which can run Amiga compatible OS, for that little money nowadays? I'm happy to pay something for OS developers who make a huge work for us for practically nothing. They should get more respect.

[grelbfarlk]

Originally Posted by jPV

I find it pretty great. I rather pay 79e for the OS and 50e for the machine, than 30e for the OS and 2000e for the machine

Isn't it great that you can find that powerful machines, which can run Amiga compatible OS, for that little money nowadays? I'm happy to pay something for OS developers who make a huge work for us for practically nothing. They should get more respect.

I do think it is great, I didn't mean to imply it "isn't worth it" or some such thing. It's just "funny" to pay more for the software than the hardware. Something I've heard Amigans complain about at various times building PC computers, "The Windows license is the single most expensive component".

I do have a MorphOS machine for WarpOS development and it's pretty nice and I don't regret the 79 EUR it cost.

Similarly I would be happy to spend 79 EUR on an OS4.1 license for the same Mac Mini if it was available, but it is not.

[AmigaEd]

Originally Posted by grelbfarlk

Similarly I would be happy to spend 79 EUR on an OS4.1 license for the same Mac Mini if it was available, but it is not.

I concur! For me, sharing in the OS4 experience has always been a far off dream because of the associated hardware costs. It is only now that the dream is starting to seem possible for me if I can run it under emulation. I really do hope that there continues to be progress in this direction.

[knightbeat]

Originally Posted by jPV

Well, it's the next generation from the 68k systems. So what's wrong with the name? And when this name became common (around end of 90s and early 00s), we had pretty competitive hardware too. Pegasos and AmigaOnes weren't that obsolete then. Pegasos 2, for example, was pretty fine and affordable for its time. PPC Macs, which are the most reasonable solutions nowadays, are massive step and generations ahead the old shaky 68k setups. Operating systems are also progressed much from AmigaOS 3.9 times and "next gen" refers more to OS than HW under it, and I just couldn't go back from MorphOS to 3.x systems for daily use anymore. So, do you have better suggestion for the "next gen" name? I think it's still quite justified.

Excellent points, though it does feel strange referring to the AmigaOne and Pegasos 2 as nextgen when they've been available for more than a decade. It'll get even more confusing if/when MorphOS x64 is released (will this be next-next gen?). I prefer the simpler approach of just calling them OS4 PPC MorphOS PPC and AROS x86/x64/whatever machines.

[jPV]

Originally Posted by knightbeat

Excellent points, though it does feel strange referring to the AmigaOne and Pegasos 2 as nextgen when they've been available for more than a decade. It'll get even more confusing if/when MorphOS x64 is released (will this be next-next gen?). I prefer the simpler approach of just calling them OS4 PPC MorphOS PPC and AROS x86/x64/whatever machines.

As said, it mostly refers to the OS rather than HW it's running on. In any case we need some common term to separate original 68k stuff from the current what-should-we-call-it generation in practise. Some easy term which covers all variations of it. At least these operating systems are still under active development, so "next" isn't that obsolete in that regard. But I guess this term is what we users use, and not that much decided by any official party And since there haven't been any "next next" level of operating systems yet, or that much different new hardware platform either, there hasn't been need to call them as 2nd or 3rd generation...

[Samurai_Crow]

Originally Posted by jPV

As said, it mostly refers to the OS rather than HW it's running on. In any case we need some common term to separate original 68k stuff from the current what-should-we-call-it generation in practise. Some easy term which covers all variations of it. At least these operating systems are still under active development, so "next" isn't that obsolete in that regard. But I guess this term is what we users use, and not that much decided by any official party And since there haven't been any "next next" level of operating systems yet, or that much different new hardware platform either, there hasn't been need to call them as 2nd or 3rd generation...

If it were up to me, the current generation could be just as well supported software-wise if someone rebooted the AmigaDE idea and made an ahead-of-time code generator backend that would support install-time dynamic binding for the drivers.

[MigaTech]

Unofficially, the very last Amiga was the A5000. < 64BIT, AAA chipset 128MB/256MB Fast Ram! I am amazed no one has mentioned this? Even if it didn't get past 3 prototype motherboards!

They were not fiction these boards existed!
http://www.amigahistory.plus.com/a5000mag.html

If this beast had of made manufacture, we would all be having a totally different conversation right now!

Try answering this one: If the A5000 was launched, what Generation would it of been? Next or 4th?

[AmigaEd]

My addiction began with the A1000 and what made the Amiga attractive to me was the both the innovation in hardware and software. Was it perfect? No! But when compared to the computers I'd owned and seen up to that point, in that price range, it was Freaking Awesome! It is still this unique mix of HW and SW that keeps me coming back to it.

For me the Amiga has always been a marriage of both the hardware and the software but there is also a reality in the form of economies of scale. I'm sure the Amiga development team recognized this when they chose to utilize the 68k family of processors. If Commodore had continued to exist and if the Amiga was going to continue to be a commercially viable platform, isn't it likely that both the hardware and software would also need to evolve? Of course it would!

As much as I love 68K ASM and the custom chip set, fully integrated, 100% compatibility doesn't really seem to go hand in hand with the idea of progress and possibly not the "next generation" of anything.

Generally what is more likely in any "next in line" of a commercial product is something that carries forward the best features of the predecessor while at the same time adding some new and possibly innovative elements.

We live in one of the greatest times ever for electronics and computer development. The computing power that is available for extremely low cost is astonishing. Further astonishing is the fact that nearly any of this can be in hobbyist's hand and turned in to something really useful. Look at what has been done with the Arduino and RPi. These are also good demonstrations of what happens when a community is unified. I can tell you one thing though, I'd rather be emulating Linux or Android on top of AmigaOS on my RPi rather than the other way around. Non-sense you say? Well that is exactly the problem that our community has "grown" into. We've grown into being quicker to dismiss and say "No" then to say "Yes" and go for it. The "Maker" community on the other hand, their just making it happen.


Honestly, isn't it time we peeled back the film from our eyes and took a look at the reality. It's pretty easy to see that the direction of some of what is out in the Amiga world is just going to continue to hold the community hostage and is never going to amount to a hill of beans! This can be seen by the fact that nearly nothing has happened in the last 20 years. Isn't it time we got this monkey off our back?

There are motivated individuals and small groups working on projects that are more innovative than anything the "logo" holders have done. The AROS project, the FPGA projects, the emulators, these our our best hope and as such we should get behind these projects before we all die fighting over the last functional Chinon FB-354 floppy drive!

LONG LIVE AMIGA!

[McTrinsic]

MigaTech, the site you quote clearly states that the A5000 was pure fiction.

[MigaTech]

Originally Posted by McTrinsic

MigaTech, the site you quote clearly states that the A5000 was pure fiction.

Yes I did that on purpose because most people do not know that the A5000, made it to at least 3 prototype motherboards!

One of which was a developer board.

[utri007]

Originally Posted by Galahad/FLT

Right, so whats the best method of next gen "Amiga" on the cheap?

Is it a PowerMac G5 or is it an Aros x86 solution?

Thoughts please.

It really doesn't matter. Only thing required is lots of money!

Current form next gen OS is just for hobbyists, it woun't ever be more (or less)

A1222 would be my next buy, when released.

[Photon]

Originally Posted by DamienD

Classic Amiga all the way

Some call the generation after Commodore Amigas Classic, just so you're aware. Just weird to me Anyway.