They should make a Windows like Amiga OS so it runs on a PC

[meynaf]

Originally Posted by dreadnought

Does it really need explaining that laptops are meant as portable machines and thus their normal life cycle is shorter when used in this way, which is what most people do?

If i really used it this way (it happened but was rare) i wouldn't have done the comparison. Perhaps this was too obvious.

Originally Posted by dreadnought

I appreciate you sharing your anecdotal "evidence", skewed, vague, and unquantifable as it is. However, it still says absolutely nothing about larger trends and robustness or lifetime value of desktop/laptop PCs vs 1990s microcomputers (even though it's a silly comparison to start with), for numerous reasons, some of which I have already listed in the previous post.

I've seen enough machines dying - not only mine, by far - to know your comment here is moot. You should know full well older machines are stronger - and not only computers.

Originally Posted by dreadnought

But you can't, for obvious reasons, which would be the same if Commodore somehow miraculously survived.

Obvious reasons, which are ? That i currently can't does not mean it would by principle be impossible. Especially due i already did it once.

Originally Posted by dreadnought

And the virtue signaling that follows has nothing to do with the topic at hand.

It is not less valid for that.

Originally Posted by dreadnought

I don't need to "go there" since that has already been done above in other people's posts - just scroll up.

You were not forced to jump in either.

Originally Posted by dreadnought

This is the point we're replying to, about modern PCs allegedly being laggy etc, not the OP which you are trying to shoehorn here now.

Oh, so when a thread has gone OT an attempt to return to original subject is bad now ? Interesting.
Now, if this particular point is what you want to discuss, let's just do it.
Yes peecees are laggy, at least windows peecees. Most of the time things are fine, but all of a sudden an operation that should have been instant will take some seconds. Or your music player will miss buffers for no reason. Or some huge frame drop in a video. Choose.

[Gorf]

Not sure, if you are for real or just trolling ... well that probably means it is at least well done trolling ..
Some points are quite reasonable, others just hilarious.

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

An 'Amiga-like' OS won't have virtual memory. It will tell you how much memory you have free. If an app can't get enough memory it will tell you. This won't be a problem because a modern PC has so much memory that you shouldn't run out.

"Virtual memory" is a misleading term. Here you are referring to paging out RAM regions to disk - which should be avoided.

But I would like to have the option to "freeze" a certain application and send it to disk at the actual state it is in - revoking it at any time later.

But using a MMU to map and/or protect memory regions (also known as memory virtualization) is a must for a modern system, for stability reasons alone.
But it should be done in form of a single address space, to speed up message passing.

Yes. Which means it should have emulation built in so we can run existing Amiga programs on it. However many Amiga apps have source code that can be recompiled to suit, provided the OS is sufficiently compatible.

Sure ... but I would make that an afterthought:
at some point it will be possible to run UAE for games and use AxRuntime to recompile certain software. But compatibility-issues should not hinder innovation. This should be a fresh start. A system done from the scratch.

It is not like we need yet an other platform to run old 68k software! This can be done on any modern OS via emulation as well as on OS4 and MorphOS.

But what we are missing is a well behaved modern OS for modern hardware.

Don't worry, the OS will take care of this. In order to be more 'Amiga-like' it will limit the resources available to apps.

It should have clean and elegant API, that lends itself to reduction and avoids unnecessary layers of abstraction.
But artificial, non technical, limits are usually a bad idea.

The faster the machine, the less CPU time each task will be given. So apps won't run faster on a more powerful machine, but running more in parallel won't slow it down.

Now we reached that point, where I am almost sure, you are trolling us.

Code complexity will be limited by the maximum number of reloc entries (65535 per hunk, just like AmigaDOS). If an app tries to allocate too much memory at once it will be refused due to 'fragmentation'. If the total memory allocated by an app exceeds 120MB the next 8MB will be put in 'SlowRAM' which is forced to 3.5MB/s read/write speed. A hard limit of 128MB max will be enforced, because no Amiga had more than that so it should enough be for anyone!

I am not sure, why I even quoted that .... lol

- You should be able to close down the computer by just turning it off at the wall, with no danger of corruption provided you wait for at least 2 seconds after any explicit disk writes.

Ok, now we are back to reasonable again.
At least the user should always be easily able to spot which resources are in use at any given time.

- The OS should write to disk as little as possible. It should be able to run with full functionality from a write-protected drive.

good point.

Using a floppy disk ...

Is of no concern at all to a new OS.

- The OS should be ROMable and not require a hard disk.

There is no real difference between a write protected SSD and a "ROM".
Not a useful point in todays hardware.

You should be able to boot off a floppy

why would you want a floppy-drive???
Makes no sense ...

- OS components should be modular and able to be replaced by the user without drama. Things like network stacks should be optional addons that are run separately when you want them.

Micro- and/or Exokernal based OS. Yes.
Network-stack should be the same as any other device or task and work in the same way:
Message passing by pointing to a memory region

- No hidden files or registries that store configuration info. No caching icons, combining drivers into a 'blob', or other cheats to make it run faster (that sometimes fail and make it much slower).

All programs/apps with all configuration should be contained to their sandboxed directory or location on disk. (This is something Android and iOS are doing mostly right)

- The OS should run on any PC using generic drivers that give developers the ability to 'bang the hardware' (not necessarily the actual hardware, but an emulation of it like PCs did with VGA, Sound Blaster etc.).

Yes. I would agree to that.
Some less cluttered platform, like a RasPi, with a more limited set of possible configurations, might be an easier starting point.

- The GUI should be designed to look good on a 640x256 4 color screen,

And now we are back to trolling again...

[Retro1234]

Originally Posted by robinsonb5

The Amiga essence for me has always been the feeling that I have the computer's full attention.

You click, the computer gives immediate visual feedback (even if the actual action taken in response to the click takes some time). You right-click, the menu is rendered as rapidly as chip RAM bandwidth will allow - no random half-a-second of disk activity followed by a grudging and jerky rendering. If one program's busy you can flip to another one without fear of triggering a swap-storm and locking up the user-interface for a couple of minutes.

I don't know how much of that would survive the addition of virtual memory - probably none of it if "modern" software was ported across from other platforms.

Which is the crux of the issue - it's not just the OS that would need to be Amiga-like, but also the software running under it. I think it would need an almost monastic discipline from developers to resist the patterns of bloat that are normal on other platforms and retain the minimalist approach. The system-resource equivalent of a vow of poverty!

I agree with all this.

Amiga has kind of missed the boat. Linux is king and can be made to appear and function just like any other OS.

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by meynaf

It might have virtual memory, but as an option that can easily be disabled.

IMO there should be no wait at all.

Why requiring a floppy to boot ? One should be able to boot without any bootable media at all.

I'm afraid such a GUI would be ugly on any modern or semi-modern resolution...

Errh, no.

Er, yes. That's what it needs to be truly 'Amiga-like'. I'm not saying this would be better, just that any differences make it less 'Amiga-like'.

Having a 'modern' screen resolution makes it less Amiga-like. When you do that problems arise with the way the Amiga does things. The mouse pointer gets small and hard to find. The menus at the top of the screen become a pain. You need a sharp high resolution monitor, and if you're old like me powerful glasses to read text in standard font sizes. Or you increase font sizes and create havoc with apps that can't handle it. IOW, all the problems you have with RTG on the Amiga.

For effective use of modern video systems we actually need a less 'Amiga-like' OS. Menus should be attached to windows, not screens. Instead of Workbench functions being on a menu at the top of the screen, they should be accessed via a context menu activated with the RMB. In this way a minimum amount of mouse movement is required to do stuff, which becomes more important as the screen real estate increases.

Isn't this what we already have with emulation ?

No. Emulators emulate every aspect of an Amiga's hardware as accurately as possible. I am talking about accessing PC hardware in a similar way to how coders access Amiga hardware, thus making the OS 'Amiga-like' but on a PC. For example, in AmigaOS you can own the parallel port and then manipulate the hardware directly. You should be able to do the same on a PC, except that it would be the PC's printer port (whose hardware is quite different from the Amiga).

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by Gorf

"Virtual memory" is a misleading term. Here you are referring to paging out RAM regions to disk - which should be avoided.

That's one aspect of it. But I'm talking about virtual memory in general. To be 'Amiga-like,' code should use physical addresses like it does on the Amiga.

But I would like to have the option to "freeze" a certain application and send it to disk at the actual state it is in - revoking it at any time later.

That could be a useful function, but Amiga OS doesn't do that so...

But using a MMU to map and/or protect memory regions (also known as memory virtualization) is a must for a modern system, for stability reasons alone.

Memory protection is a different story. If the OS can do that and still be 'Amiga-like' that's great. I run the Enforcer which catches some violations, but not all of them.

But it should be done in form of a single address space, to speed up message passing.

Yes.

at some point it will be possible to run UAE for games and use AxRuntime to recompile certain software. But compatibility-issues should not hinder innovation. This should be a fresh start. A system done from the scratch.

I agree. Just because this OS is 'Amiga-like' doesn't mean it has to be compatible with Amiga binaries (or disk formats, or hardware).

But what we are missing is a well behaved modern OS for modern hardware.

Now we are talking about something a bit different from AmigaOS - something better. I'm all for that!

It should have clean and elegant API, that lends itself to reduction and avoids unnecessary layers of abstraction.
But artificial, non technical, limits are usually a bad idea.

Definitely.

Now we reached that point, where I am almost sure, you are trolling us.

Not trolling, just setting boundaries. If we are talking about making an OS that is better than the Amiga rather than 'Amiga-like', this thread drift should be acknowledged.

why would you want a floppy-drive???

To be 'Amiga-like'. BTW most of my PCs have floppy drives too. Pretty much essential with retro PCs that don't have any other convenient way to get software into them. Also I like floppy disks.

[Gorf]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

That's one aspect of it. But I'm talking about virtual memory in general. To be 'Amiga-like,' code should use physical addresses like it does on the Amiga.

Not really necessary - as long as all tasks live in a single address space it is Amiga-like enough. Virtual memory can mitigate the fragmentation problem by regrouping pages - for all tasks it would still look like a single address space.

Virtual memory can also help to establish and guard virtual hardware registers - so for the coder it would still look like hitting the metal, while in reality a driver/device take care of talking to the real hardware. This also would make it easier to multiplex real hardware resources.

That could be a useful function, but Amiga OS doesn't do that so...

So what?
Suspending a task and send it to disk fits very well the Amiga spirit, as long as the user is in full control over this.

Memory protection is a different story. If the OS can do that and still be 'Amiga-like' that's great. I run the Enforcer which catches some violations, but not all of them.

It sure can, as long as we keep it a single address space OS. The MMU can be used to make only some regions readable and some others read/writable.
Only one old (and very questionable) "feature" has to die: hooks.
Hooks need to be replaced by messages ... so get the same responsiveness every task can yield the time it would have left on its schedule to the task it has send its message to.

I agree. Just because this OS is 'Amiga-like' doesn't mean it has to be compatible with Amiga binaries (or disk formats, or hardware).

exactly

Now we are talking about something a bit different from AmigaOS - something better. I'm all for that!

Not trolling, just setting boundaries. If we are talking about making an OS that is better than the Amiga rather than 'Amiga-like', this thread drift should be acknowledged.

Ok.
I don't really see a problem in calling something modern and much better than the legacy Amiga OS still "Amiga-like". We are >30 years later now.
So putting "Amiga-like" in today's context, will quite naturally lead something that is different in many areas.
And of course It would be logical to take that as an opportunity to make it better.

To be 'Amiga-like'. BTW most of my PCs have floppy drives too. Pretty much essential with retro PCs that don't have any other convenient way to get software into them. Also I like floppy disks.

For retro experience, just use retro hardware and retro OS.
If we want a well behaved modern OS for modern hardware, we probably need to let such aspects go

(I admit I would like to have M.2 SSD modules in Floppy like cases, that can be exchanged just that easy ... but this definitively falls into the category "gimmick".)

[BSzili]

I think this thread is proof that we can make a what-if thread even without Hammer's info-dumps