What's the status of the Cloanto / Hyperion lawsuit?

[Gorf]

Originally Posted by Thomas Richter

Probably nothing. I still have the book and the CD somewhere.... If you ask me, it was another "me,too!" product at the peak of the Java hype. It was based on a virtual machine, same as java, but the VM had registers and wasn't stack based. I did not understand what the unique selling point of this idea actually should have been.

Tao actually predates Java ... and:
It was different from Java in that it could actually compile ahead of time for the target platform - so it is more a VM in the sense of the LLVM-compiler.

code was written in a custom portable assembly language, which was then translated into native machine code when it was loaded into the machine.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9806607

The the basics are known: register machine with very many registers and support for almost every target ISA

VP1 had 16 registers and a pretty simple instruction set. The original incarnation was an assembler macro package. VP2 was way more complicated. It had five register banks (int32, int64, pointer, float, double) of up to 65535 registers each. It was actually a pretty nice system to program in, especially when the assembler got strong typing and structured programming support... yeah, I know what you're thinking.
...
The OS itself was way ahead of its time: it was an asymmetric multiprocessor system, where you could have any number of nodes of different CPU types hooked together via a message-passing system. Code loading was transparent, and devices and filesystems could be attached to any node on the system.

So far for the virtual CPU and the kernel ... but not very much is known about the gfx-layer and how this would adapt to all the different systems out there

It had a blisteringly fast compositing GUI, cutting edge audio synthesis, hardware accelerated OpenGL

says ex Tao-employee David Given ... while Bolton Peck from Amiga Inc. complained:

Their Elate GUI layer was, well, let's say it wouldn't give Amiga Workbench 1.0 a run for its money. Our coding department worked mightily for years to get it going, but it was just too much of a kludge to be really useful in the real world-the promised sound, 2D and 3D acceleration never saw the light of day.

But Given insists:

And here's the GUI in action (it was called the AVE). http://mobile.osnews.com/img/quake.jpg It's running hosted on Windows. It's all composited --- note the transparent windows (unheard of in those days)! The viewflm window in the background is running an animation, which you can see through the transparent overlays while two Quake games run.
This is all done in software, using simple but very, very careful code written by Chris Hinsley. It was amazingly fast.

And now the most interesting part:

It vanished into a lawyer's basement, and so passed out of history. 10+ years of work, gone. NOT THAT I'M BITTER OR ANYTHING.
...
it may be possible that Amiga Anywhere still has an intent license. Which means they might have source code (because it's not like they're going to get builds from Tao any more).

Hence my question: does Mike now have access to this and could he make it available?

[number6]

Originally Posted by Gorf

And now the most interesting part:


Hence my question: does Mike now have access to this and could he make it available?

I don't know if this applies or not honestly, but it is one of those from the Amiga ownership unknown category:

In 2013 Bill McEwen sold what was described as "a package" to the folks I referred to in my prior posting here. The contents of that package were never clearly defined.

#6

Edit: for what it's worth, 2 years later they tried this:
video about their player

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by number6

Granted words are just words, but intent was spelled out:
Here

A tweet that says nothing about intent?

Maybe it's just me, but I don't see reference to "control" here. Quite the contrary.

The only thing referenced here is some unspecified 'agreement' which purportedly would have given Hyperion the right to develop (and sell?) Amiga OS 3.2. What were the conditions?

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by grond

Back then nobody saw a market for OS3 updates (to which all of us should be able to agree) and development of OS3 for "classic Amigas (without PPC accelerators)" simply was a non-issue nobody was even negotiating over. However, since this is the case, we can confer that AmigaOS3 wasn't subject of the agreement (other than for backward compatibility uses in AmigaOS4).

I disagree. OS 4 started out as OS 3, and OS 3.2 is a later version than OS 4. Just because a PPC branch was created doesn't mean the 68k branch was dead. But I guess they would have been in the clear if they had ported OS 4 back to 68k, then stripped out the stuff they added and called it OS 5, right?

Perhaps they should take a leaf from Microsoft's book. Here's how Bill Gates counts from 1 to 10:-

1, 2, 3, 95, 98, NT, 2000, Me, XP, Vista, 7, 8, 10!

[grelbfarlk]

I for one, am outraged. That, Hyperion has backported or forwardported or sideported anything from AmigaOS4 back to AmigaOS3.x. Since I don't have an AmigaOS4 machine, except for the CSPPC, which doesn't run AmigaOS4 that well. I mean it's nice, it's certainly nice, except I'd rather be running AmigaOS4, except running on the numerous PPCs I have in my A4000s which would run it well, but they don't. So this is Hyperions fault. Outraged.

[redblade]

Originally Posted by jbenam

Gotta love how delusional they were thinking that AmigaOS3.1 could be used for IoT - it didn’t (and doesn’t yet to this day) even have a TCP/IP stack.

Commodore released a TCP/IP stack but the community chose AmiTCP/IP

[jbenam]

Originally Posted by redblade

Commodore released a TCP/IP stack but the community chose AmiTCP/IP

Have you got any more info on that? I don’t remember reading anything of the sort ever being released by Commodore but I might have missed somehow. Thanks!

[rzookol]

Originally Posted by jbenam

Have you got any more info on that? I don’t remember reading anything of the sort ever being released by Commodore but I might have missed somehow. Thanks!

Check for AS 225 (Original commodore) and I-Net225 (newer version included in AmigaSurfer package or standalone version). It wasn't compatible with bsdsocket.library. Internet stuff had two versions for each stack (Amitcp based and AS 225 based).

https://www.amigareport.com/ar406/review5.html

[jbenam]

Originally Posted by rzookol

Check for AS 225 (Original commodore) and I-Net225 (newer version included in AmigaSurfer package or standalone version). It wasn't compatible with bsdsocket.library. Internet stuff had two versions for each stack (Amitcp based and AS 225 based).

https://www.amigareport.com/ar406/review5.html

Cheers, never had an A2065. I knew it had to have some built in TCP/IP stack but never investigated further.

I guess that in typical Commodore fashion it was too little too late.

[Gorf]

Originally Posted by rzookol

Check for AS 225 (Original commodore) and I-Net225 (newer version included in AmigaSurfer package or standalone version). It wasn't compatible with bsdsocket.library. Internet stuff had two versions for each stack (Amitcp based and AS 225 based).

It has a "socket.library", which provides the same unix-like interface as the bsdsocket.library ... the bsdsocket.library ist part of Amitcp and other IP-stacks exactly to provide compatibility

There is also a AS225R2 compatible socket.library for AmiTCP:
http://aminet.net/package/comm/tcp/socket_lib12

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by jbenam

Cheers, never had an A2065. I knew it had to have some built in TCP/IP stack but never investigated further.

I guess that in typical Commodore fashion it was too little too late.

The first network hardware for the Amiga was Ameristar's Arcnet and Ethernet cards for the A2000, introduced in 1988. Commodore's first Amiga networking product was the A560 Arcnet adapter for the A500, introduced in 1989. It had an autoboot ROM and could also take 1MB of FastRAM. In 1990 they produced the A2060 and A2065, which were developments of the Ameristar designs. The software used with these units was Commodore's own AS-255 TCP/IP stack.

Commodore then developed the SANA-II standard which allowed anyone to write their own network card drivers. AS225r2 was only released to developers, but eventually became I-Net 225 published by Interworks (who developed the icard PCMCIA Ethernet card for the A600 and A1200).

In 1993 AmiTCP was developed by a group of students from the Helsinki University of Technology. This free open-source software also used the SANA-II driver standard, so now anyone could create their Amiga network solution without having to buy expensive hardware and software.

In the PC world the most popular local area networking software was Novell Netware, which used the IPX/ network protocol derived from Xerox's IDP. Originally It used a 68000 based file server, but later became peer-to-peer, with the cheaper Netware Lite being introduced in 1991.

IBM had a TCP/IP stack for OS/2 in 1992. Microsoft first pushed their proprietary LAN Manager and NBF protocol, then when that failed they reverse-engineered Novell's IPX, finally switching to TCP/IP in 1995.

So we see that Commodore was actually way ahead of the 'industry standard' in introducing TCP/IP to their machines, and their driver standard formed the basis of future Amiga networking developments.

In 1996 I developed a SANA-II driver for the CNet CN40BC PCMCIA network card, proving that you didn't need a proprietary card designed specifically for the Amiga. Since then many other drivers have been developed for various PC network cards. We can thank Commodore for making that possible.

[Pyromania]

Originally Posted by grelbfarlk

I for one, am outraged. That, Hyperion has backported or forwardported or sideported anything from AmigaOS4 back to AmigaOS3.x. Since I don't have an AmigaOS4 machine, except for the CSPPC, which doesn't run AmigaOS4 that well. I mean it's nice, it's certainly nice, except I'd rather be running AmigaOS4, except running on the numerous PPCs I have in my A4000s which would run it well, but they don't. So this is Hyperions fault. Outraged.

Have patience, soon the angels from heaven will hand deliver with white glove service AmigaOS 5.0 to your doorstep. It’s better than OS X! McEwen will call you after just to make sure that you have 1000% satisfaction. It will be better than a personal Amazon Prime delivery given by Jeff Bezos in person.

[TCD]

Originally Posted by Pyromania

It will be better than a personal Amazon Prime delivery given by Jeff Bezos in person.

If he wins the cage fight that is.

[Hedeon]

Originally Posted by grelbfarlk

I for one, am outraged. That, Hyperion has backported or forwardported or sideported anything from AmigaOS4 back to AmigaOS3.x. Since I don't have an AmigaOS4 machine, except for the CSPPC, which doesn't run AmigaOS4 that well. I mean it's nice, it's certainly nice, except I'd rather be running AmigaOS4, except running on the numerous PPCs I have in my A4000s which would run it well, but they don't. So this is Hyperions fault. Outraged.

Bit off-topic maybe:

It was tantalizing close to get it on those PPC cards in 2015/16. I had a talk with Hyperion at Amiga30. Still, your Amiga would then be dongle as everything needed for OS4 should have been on the PCI side of things, so including gfx, sound, mass storage, keyboard, mouse etc. And no access to the amiga chipset (with the current PCI bridge solutions). And the cards were rare so not much money could have been made, I guess. But I probably would have done it for free. Only in 2019-2022 or so the Ragnarok/Apocalypse cards were a-plenty (300+ on Ebay). The restriction to A3000/4000(T) didn't help either. And the source getting split up between AEon and Hyperion. The latter being the real deal breaker.

[grelbfarlk]

Well I know I am supposed to be mad at somebody, I'm glad it wasn't misplaced, and that I should be mad at Hyperion for this and to some extent Aeon. I think Aeon wouldn't be on board because they would not be selling boards, maybe.

[TCD]

I'm too confused to be mad at anybody.

[Umpa]

My opinion is Cloanto are doing a great disservice to the Amiga scene. All they want to is sell and own outdated technology whilst at the same time prevent future innovation.

I don't really know how they actually make money selling this stuff, if it were not for them we would have much better Amiga computers. They are like fleas on a dog sucking the life out of it.

That's what I think - your opinion might be different.

[kriz]

I agree 100% Umpa.. Cloanto (Michael Battilana) have been horrible for the Amiga scene, a true grifter!

[copse]

I'd be very surprised if there was ever much of a market for new Amiga computers. I suspect that the retro market and capitalising on the people who look fondly on the past is much more lucrative. The community is doing a great job in creating new solutions like TF and pistorm and so on to cater for the actual viable retro market.

That's my theory anyway.

[grelbfarlk]

Originally Posted by copse

I'd be very surprised if there was ever much of a market for new Amiga computers. I suspect that the retro market and capitalising on the people who look fondly on the past is much more lucrative. The community is doing a great job in creating new solutions like TF and pistorm and so on to cater for the actual viable retro market.

That's my theory anyway.

Well it depends on what you call a market.


We've had a decade of duplicating Amiga board designs, there's mATX Lisa and various A4000, A4000TX, AA3000+, A500 reloaded (I guess), GBA 1000, in total how many have those been built? Maybe 1000 total?