Where does the future of Amiga lie?

[Dynamic_Computi]

Just because the Amiga is a dead end does not mean that we don't have tens of thousands of people enjoying it. Don't take it personally, Nexus. I consume many, many hours per week making my video series for Amiga's and 8 bit Commodores. I buy brand new Amiga hardware and games, and lots of used retro stuff. Yet I know it is a dead end and will not come back to life in a meaningful way. That does not mean we can't enjoy and love our old machines!
We will get new versions of the AmigaOS for many years, we will get new people joining the Amiga ranks. But it will never reach a critical Mass again. Those days are gone.
The Amiga is dead! Long live the Amiga!

[frank_b]

It doesn't lie with "next gen" systems with 2004 PDA performance at workstation prices.

[Samurai_Crow]

Just a quick note regarding my previous post: Only the chipset core needs to be done on the FPGA. The CPU can be anything as long as there's a JIT.

[Glen M]

Didn't mean to cause any controversy...

There is a lot of talk about FPGA, 68k, PPC etc but why can we not just have a modern Amiga OS to run on existing hardware i.e. an x64 system that can dual boot windows / linux / workbench.

Retro Amiga will always be the 68k machines and I for one won't give up mine. I was merely suggesting that if Amiga had followed the course of what seem to me to be all other platforms we would be using PC architecture for our workbench and still calling it Amiga.

Maybe the overriding issue is that Amiga is to far gone, well over 20 years now, and the user base is so small even to even try to make this discussion relevant.

All I want to do is boot my Amiga, surf the web, watch youtube, play a few games and be happy. Maybe I'll just put a boing ball on my windows desktop and squint a bit.

[Daedalus]

Originally Posted by Glen M

Didn't mean to cause any controversy...

A thread like this is only ever going to reignite all the same old arguments. It's not the first, and it won't be the last, and it ultimately comes down to the fact that different people use their Amigas for different purposes, while generally thinking their particular use case is the most important. To them, perhaps it is, but it is so common in Amigaland (and to be fair, other areas too), for people to think that their way of conducting their hobby is the only proper way. There's also a lot of confirmation bias that goes on, with people mostly only interacting with others who share their opinions due to the particular social media groups, forums and user groups they frequent, therefore leading them to believe that their position is perhaps more popular than it objectively is. When some of these people have their strongly-held ideas suddenly brought into question in threads like these, the passion quickly flares up, fueled by their overconfidence in their own position, and you end up with lots of drama, trolling, accusations and belittling.

There is a lot of talk about FPGA, 68k, PPC etc but why can we not just have a modern Amiga OS to run on existing hardware i.e. an x64 system that can dual boot windows / linux / workbench.

There's AROS, and there has been for a long time now. You have to be careful with your choice of hardware to get the best out of it, but you can have a triple booting system just like that if you wish.

Retro Amiga will always be the 68k machines and I for one won't give up mine.

And neither will I, despite using various next gen systems more than my classics. Ultimately it's your hobby, and if you enjoy it, then that's the most important thing. Not what randomers on the internet say you should be doing.

I was merely suggesting that if Amiga had followed the course of what seem to me to be all other platforms we would be using PC architecture for our workbench and still calling it Amiga.

I think that's pretty obvious. Aside from the proposed PA-RISC route which never materialised, the path established by Apple (68K->PPC->x86/64) was the path the Amiga had started on, and seemed like a reasonable path at the time due to this.

Maybe the overriding issue is that Amiga is to far gone, well over 20 years now, and the user base is so small even to even try to make this discussion relevant.

Indeed. The vast majority of the "normal" users have long since moved on to other platforms for their computer hobbies, leaving a small community with the inevitable concentration of the remaining super-passionate users.

All I want to do is boot my Amiga, surf the web, watch youtube, play a few games and be happy. Maybe I'll just put a boing ball on my windows desktop and squint a bit.

There are some half-decent Amiga-inspired skins for Linux desktops that you might enjoy... But otherwise, mentioning the web and YouTube immediately means you're looking for a platform that isn't classic Amiga. It's just about manageable on nextgen systems, but even then, mainstream platforms are the only way to get a decent experience with these tasks as they require the combination of horsepower and support that simply can't exist in tiny niches.

[Dunny]

Originally Posted by Glen M

Didn't mean to cause any controversy...

There is a lot of talk about FPGA, 68k, PPC etc but why can we not just have a modern Amiga OS to run on existing hardware i.e. an x64 system that can dual boot windows / linux / workbench.

AROS will, eventually, fit the bill quite nicely. It is precisely what you're after - a reimplementation of a kind-of-3.1-compatible AmigaOS with a workbench and CLI. It will never become the mainstream though, not even close to Linux as it has really terrible compatibility with expansion cards such as graphics or sound cards and is unlikely to ever be brought fully up to date simply due to the rate that new PC hardware is being created. Hell, I can't even get it running on my old laptops at native (1366x768) resolution.


I see the new Apollo Core/Vampire boards as life support, to be fair. The number of actual Amigas out there will very shortly begin to dwindle. Eventually there will be no means to repair them at a cost that the hobbyist can stand - and so new "all-in-one" boards like the Vampire will keep things usable.

Emulation will always be around, of course, and that will be the main Amiga usage for the vast majority of those that are interested.

[daxb]

Originally Posted by Daedalus

A thread like this is only ever going to reignite all the same old arguments. It's not the first, and it won't be the last, and it ultimately comes down to the fact that different people use their Amigas for different purposes, while generally thinking their particular use case is the most important. To them, perhaps it is, but it is so common in Amigaland (and to be fair, other areas too), for people to think that their way of conducting their hobby is the only proper way. There's also a lot of confirmation bias that goes on, with people mostly only interacting with others who share their opinions due to the particular social media groups, forums and user groups they frequent, therefore leading them to believe that their position is perhaps more popular than it objectively is. When some of these people have their strongly-held ideas suddenly brought into question in threads like these, the passion quickly flares up, fueled by their overconfidence in their own position, and you end up with lots of drama, trolling, accusations and belittling.

Yes, this is so true. People should always try to remember that they often in a filter bubble: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filter_bubble So, getting information from as many different sources is a good idea.

[Pyromania]

Life's perplexing modern questions.

1. What happens when I die?

2. What's the meaning of life?

3. What's a (REAL) Amiga in the modern world; Classic, FPGA, Next-Gen, Emulation (VM), Offshoot (AROS,MorphOS)?

4. Insert your own here

[Predseda]

42

[malko]

Originally Posted by DamienD

[...] For me though, WinUAE is the only future of Amiga... I really couldn't care less if you disagree with my opinion

As a second option :
If there weren't all the well-known problems of the Amiga world*, I would like to see a future through a new version of Amithlon** and with an integrated (Win)UAE for all NDOS programs.
Broadly speaking, kind/sort of UAEthlon ! .

Having to install an OS like Wind-hoz to enjoy a "real user experience" is not a cup of tea .

Most people already use PC equipment to run emulators without it stir them unduly, so why not an UAEthlon...

*(see the current squabbles in courts and other so-called IP's problems)
**(new core and drivers supporting plethora materials (not limited as the initial release was))

[Dunny]

Which is precisely why I run Amilator - yes, it's emulated but it runs as fast as the CPU allows (with JIT which can switch on/off on the fly) and runs a classic chipset for whichever flavour of Amiga you care to choose. Because it's a stripped-down Debian running FS-UAE on boot, you've not got that extra layer or OS to get through before you can play.

It's pretty comparable (and more compatible!) to Amithlon, though Amithlon does use the native PC hardware as Amiga devices AFAIK - but compatibility with modern PCs is virtually non-existent in Amithlon and you don't get native chipset emulation without running an extra UAE layer.

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by nexus

everyone should escape the nightmare of social media
that itself is gonna be scary when we have embedded devices in our body connected to 24/7
i see that already happening soon

And that's just the beginning. The future is Biological computing, designer DNA, true telepathy and hive minds. Eventually it won't just be old silicon that's obsolete, but also old people. Hopefully by that time I will be dead...

Originally Posted by Daedalus

A thread like this is only ever going to reignite all the same old arguments.

It's all part of the 'retro' experience.

But things are different now. The PC may still be king, but its empire is shrinking as cell phones and tablets take over. People are dusting off their old Amigas and finding that with modern enhancements they can be just as much fun as ever - if not more. Being 'obsolete' is no longer a hindrance, it's an attraction!

The explosion of cheap powerful hardware and DIY resources has opened a whole new world for classic Amigas, making possible things that were just pipe dreams back when we first made those 'same old arguments'.

I just bought an A500 for NZ$120. Back in the day they weren't much good for anything but playing games, and serious upgrades were ridiculously expensive. But now I can throw in a Vampire and have more computing power than was ever dreamed of - or build a TF530 with 50MHz 030, add a 2GB CF card, burn an EPROM with custom Kickstart and connect to the network with a Plipbox - or even design and build my own hardware with programmable logic and professional quality circuit boards - all for very little money.

And the software side has also changed dramatically. No longer do you have to pay an arm and leg for a good C compiler, or worry about about your precious game disks getting corrupted. Thousands of 'abandonware' titles are freely downloadable, commercial applications have been open-sourced, cross development is cheap and easy and you don't even need a real Amiga!

Even if the old arguments are the same, the conclusions may be quite different. Computing isn't so expensive now, everyone has a PC already and classic Amigas don't have to compete against them. Amiga will never take over the world, but so what? (it was never going to). And 'Retro' computing may be a niche market (like a lot of other things), but right now it's booming!

Rather than wringing our hands about where the Amiga's future lies, we should just get on with doing what we want with it. The future of Amiga is to be itself.

[d4rk3lf]

Originally Posted by Dunny

What do you see happening that will bring the Amiga back to the masses, to the mainstream? How will AmigaOS topple the behemoth that is Microsoft and Windows?

How about this:
One of Amiga fans becomes billionaire (doing something unrelated to Amiga), and then he thinks: "Ok, I got 20 billions, I'll keep 1 billion to myself, and will invest 19 billions in research for Amiga".
So, we got A6000 big tower with 68100 processors (24 of them), 512GB Ram, and is ideal for VR games.
And A700 (everything in keyboard) version (12 processors), and 256GB ram.

[kolla]

Originally Posted by d4rk3lf

How about this:

One of Amiga fans becomes billionaire (doing something unrelated to Amiga), and then he thinks: "Ok, I got 20 billions, I'll keep 1 billion to myself, and will invest 19 billions in research for Amiga".

So, we got A6000 big tower with 68100 processors (24 of them), 512GB Ram, and is ideal for VR games.

And A700 (everything in keyboard) version (12 processors), and 256GB ram.

You are aware that a whole new operating system would be required to run on this?

[Samurai_Crow]

Originally Posted by kolla

You are aware that a whole new operating system would be required to run on this?

No worries! Just use Haiku as the base and put a hosted environment on top of it.

[arcanist]

Originally Posted by d4rk3lf

How about this:
One of Amiga fans becomes billionaire (doing something unrelated to Amiga), and then he thinks: "Ok, I got 20 billions, I'll keep 1 billion to myself, and will invest 19 billions in research for Amiga".
So, we got A6000 big tower with 68100 processors (24 of them), 512GB Ram, and is ideal for VR games.
And A700 (everything in keyboard) version (12 processors), and 256GB ram.

If I had money to burn I'd hire a fleet of engineers to replicate the chips/boards/cases/monitors/peripherals for all the old computers. Set up some fabs to recreate the original chip processes for authenticity. Get some licenses for all the old software and restart tape, disk, and cartridge production.

No "improved" versions of anything!

[Samurai_Crow]

Originally Posted by arcanist

No "improved" versions of anything!

Just watch the prices of those chips balloon over ten times the prices of FPGA-based solutions.

[fatboy]

For me the Amiga is what it is, a classic machine of it's time that can still be appreciated and enjoyed today (if you own one). Personally I've never been interested in an NG Amiga, but fair do's to those who want to spend ££££ on niche hardware..... it's their dosh ? Can't really see a 'mainstream' NG Amiga hitting the retail shelves any time soon. So I'm happy keeping my A1200 alive as long as possible..... the classic line is Amiga.... everything else is just 'something' else with an Amiga badge stuck on it ?

[meynaf]

Originally Posted by kolla

You are aware that a whole new operating system would be required to run on this?

Give me 2 years and 1 million $$$ and I write it !

[Paul_s]

Originally Posted by Dunny

Yes, that's all very nice and stuff, but would you kindly answer the question please?

What do you see happening that will bring the Amiga back to the masses, to the mainstream? How will AmigaOS topple the behemoth that is Microsoft and Windows? What amazing new Amiga system will bring the game developers back to the fold? How do you see the Amiga becoming the most used platform in Enterprise/Business use?

Believe me, I'm all for it, really I am but I just cannot for the life of me see how. The Vampire is a lovely piece of kit, but it's just too slow to compete against PCs as they are now. And I don't see anything else on the horizon, do you?

All I see on the horizon is the same old stuff year in year out with the PC market (that includes Apple). I don't think the Amiga will ever go mainstream or be as popular as it was in the late 80's/early 90's - but I've always felt the Amiga should be left in the past and development left to the legacy machines..