which big society could you accept the help to rebirth the amiga ?

[brett71]

Hey guys,

I'm bored at work this afternoon and just wanted to throw out a couple of questions to you all and get a little discussion started.

1. What qualities or capabilities of the Amiga (the line in general, not any specific model) made/make it such a special machine to you? Have those qualities stood the test of time and are still relevant in 2014, or have PCs and Macs surpassed them or made them irrelevant?

2. Considering how the death of the desktop computer market is being predicted year after year because of the growth of the smartphone/tablet market, if you could develop a brand new computer platform (hardware and OS), incorporating concepts or qualities of the classic Amiga, what might it look like and what concepts or qualities would you include? Put it another way, if you could solve some of the systemic problems with Macs and PCs with Amiga concepts, what might they be?

I hope the questions aren't too confusing. This came to my mind after looking at A-EON's X1000 "Amiga" and its price tag and wondering how hardcore into the Amiga someone would have to be to buy one. Personally, at that price tag, I can't imagine it having much of a chance to be any more than a curiosity.

[robinsonb5]

The best way I can describe what made the Amiga special in my view is just to say that I always felt like I had the machine's full attention. When I turn on a Windows (and to a lesser extent, Linux) machine, it always feels like the machine's busy with its own stuff, and only grudgingly does anything for the user!

[TCD]

Threads merged.

[Mrs Beanbag]

Well the Amiga never had the "best" CPU, the 68000 was already 6 years old when the Amiga 1000 was released in 1985. So forget a new Amiga with the latest Intel chip, I don't want any such dirty architecture. I would actually prefer to go for an Arm chip, they may not match an i7 for raw power but they are so much neater in terms of design, and if desktops are really dying then x86 is likely dying too, where as Arm is on the ascendant.

I personally don't think desktops are going to disappear, there are still plenty of places for them just maybe not all the same places. For one thing, in some applications a full-size screen and keyboard is a must. I couldn't imagine doing my job on a tablet, or even a laptop to be honest. But I do use a PC that is fairly low-powered.

[brett71]

After reading other comments in this thread, perhaps the best aspects of the Amiga that are really missing from computing today is a tightly coded, efficient, responsive OS.

Windows is just too bloated, insecure, and based on an outdated codebase. I wouldn't be surprised if Windows 8.1U1 still contains code that was written back in the Windows 3.1 days, or even earlier.

Linux may be quick and efficient, but it's far too complicated compared to AmigaOS. It's just not newbie-friendly and it probably never will be. I know that distributions like Ubuntu are supposed to make it easier to use, but you've still got the same underlying architecture. In some ways, Linux has its own version of DLL Hell, which is even more complicated to deal with than Windows. And yes, I have used Linux in the past and it's frustrating to deal with when some library fails to update and basically dorks the OS up so bad that you can't roll back and end up having to rebuild the machine.

MacOS is basically Linux (it's really based on BSD, but could be considered a cousin of Linux) with a custom X Server and GUI slapped onto it. I haven't really used MacOS, so I can't speak to whether it improves on either Windows or Linux, but MacOS's biggest disadvantage is probably the price of the machines it runs on. It's not as outrageous as A-eon's X1000, but it's more than just a white-box or home-built PC. I would say though, that Apple's iron-clad control over the hardware and OS probably is a plus in its favor.

So, I guess for me, the hardware isn't so much the determining factor, but having a fast, efficient, user-focused OS that doesn't have a crap-ton of background services running that the user doesn't know what the heck they're for, might be the place to start.

I remember showing a former co-worker, a guy in his mid-20's that was probably still in diapers around the time Commodore went kaput, an Amiga 500 I'd bought off eBay and he was astonished at how fast the machine booted and the OS responded, especially when I told him the machine was only 7MHz.

[Mrs Beanbag]

Everything from Windows XP up to Windows 8 is based on NT so there is no 3.1 code in there, it's a completely different OS.

One great thing about the Amiga was that it had a multitasking microkernel and GUI system in the ROM.

[brett71]

Originally Posted by Mrs Beanbag

Everything from Windows XP up to Windows 8 is based on NT so there is no 3.1 code in there, it's a completely different OS.

One great thing about the Amiga was that it had a multitasking microkernel and GUI system in the ROM.

While the GUI in the ROM was a great thing, I agree, it wasn't so simple to upgrade. I'm sure there were more than one swear word uttered when one of the pins on those damn chips bent or otherwise missed their mark.

[TCD]

I loved the games on my Amiga 500 and many of them left a permanent impression in my spoilt gaming 'career'. I'd even go as far as to say that the Amiga was the first platform that got me stunned by the presentation and the gameplay. It happened afterwards again (strangely enough the Xbox holds a runner up place for me), but no other platform ever came near the 'Wooooow' aspect that the Amiga had in its time.

Much later when I revisited the Amiga I learnt about the 'innards' of AmigaOS and have to say that I really liked the ideas that were put into it. One could really argue that a lot of OSes simply do it wrong compared to AmigaOS.

I wish modern OS makers would learn from the good ideas of the past, but I don't think that 'resurrecting' anything with the label Amiga is a good idea or would really have an impact on the major market. I do however hope that some of the rather great ideas would come back

[Mrs Beanbag]

Originally Posted by brett71

While the GUI in the ROM was a great thing, I agree, it wasn't so simple to upgrade. I'm sure there were more than one swear word uttered when one of the pins on those damn chips bent or otherwise missed their mark.

Well! One can flash BIOS ROMs from software these days so this need not be a problem on a new Amiga.

I have wondered how much it is possible to fit into a BIOS chip actually, whether some microkernel-based Linux variant could fit on one.

[robinsonb5]

Originally Posted by Mrs Beanbag

I have wondered how much it is possible to fit into a BIOS chip actually, whether some microkernel-based Linux variant could fit on one.

QNX, maybe? Remember their fully-functional-OS-on-a-floppy demo?

There's also LinuxBIOS of course, but as I understand it that's basically just the kernel, not a functional OS?

[Amiga1992]

Let the Illuminati resurrect the Amiga.

[Dan]

what is illuminati ?

well how about this:
Amiga would still be the best PC in the world if
"the law of attraction" hasnt hitted in.

Why ? Look back in the days, when intel was making
its advertisements, they made a slogan, and i guess
everyone of you have heard it in some way:

"Intel inside"

well short time after Someone from the (i guess)
amiga community brought out the slogan:

"intel outside"

if you ask me what the law of attraction has to do with it, look
(supposed you have an intel processor)

Start your winuae and look what is outside!


To answer on the topic:
Again back in the days Sprites,sound,ammount of collors and ammount of ram
and ofcourse the joysticks were the measurement points. Not the processor speed
not like now : "the windows newversion is running faster on this terraherz computer than
windows-previous version on gigahertz computer"


And the variety of hardware which is available on the PC market makes the pc not really unique.
it makes it even worse. because you have to go for the named manufacturer of the hardware or else you will have not so good pc.
yes now everyone can have a pc which "fit his needs" or "which is affordable"
but then the hardware is not the same.

The new amiga should have Real Sprites (without the limitation of the old machines)
not like todays pc's which still need to emulate(so to say) them.
ALso it should have very fast processor and very fast custom
chips and coprocessors. It would have 512bit architecture.
and maybe they would choose the basic change in the computer history
defining 1byte as 64bits not like the good old 8bit system.

The os should be free of any kind of limitations (no drm
no hidden streams etc)

i have many ideas, but the typing on this phone is not a pleasure.


(written on my iph...)

oh right, why should it be a society which is allready existing
and having its monopol on the market risking their ex....
(note to me)right i should not make/set any limiting beliefs ^^

[Mrs Beanbag]

512 bit architecture? 64 bit "bytes"? what have you been smoking?

[Amiga1992]

Come on guys. Give it your best shot. I know you can do it.

[Dan]

Originally Posted by Mrs Beanbag

512 bit architecture? 64 bit "bytes"? what have you been smoking?

think big ^^

back in time (if time exists at all) someone invented a wheel.
it was round and good.

then someone invented a bicycle. it had 2 wheels and it was better.


then a car with 4 wheels (fasterrrrrr)

and now the train count the wheels and compare the speed.

i mean, really. back then everything was new and expensive.
the decision(remember the y2k bug?^^
) that 1byte shall have 8bits was someones decision.
and a part of this decision had to do with price.
and now the industry has acepted it. and everything got smaller and cheaper.

but its still the old definitions that rules over the nowadays hardware.
a real change would be in new definitions.

(i'm trying to keep me awake, working in the night shift)

[TCD]

Originally Posted by Akira

Come on guys. Give it your best shot. I know you can do it.

I like this one:

[Dan]

ok here is more to think about the revival of amiga.


they surely wont revive the old slow hardware when there are
allready machines which are better and faster, and even beeing able to
emulate the old ones.
So the new amiga PC has to be something better than what we have now.
And one if the question is: does it need to be compatibile with the old machines ?
Or would an software/hardware emulation satisfy the needs of compatibility?

[TCD]

So it would not be an Amiga anymore? Like if you want to run the good ol' stuff, you'd have to emulate? Like that?

[Dan]

see my edit of the previous post^^

well i guess aros is doing similar thing atm ?

[TCD]

One could say it does It's surely worth a try since it's free and all that