Can we take back the Amiga?

[saimon69]

You STILL need AROS, is the so called last hope in case commercial development crashes down and for some reason work on the original OS is legally prevented

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by matt3k

I should have been more specific. AmigaOS did crash randomly that brought the entire system down. It wasn't overwhelming , but it happened I would guess once maybe twice a week. As long as you saved often, you were golden.

AmigaOS on my machines doesn't crash 'randomly' or ever. My A1200 is typically running for 2-6 hours per day, sometimes more than a day - without any crashes. That's because I weed out or fix buggy programs that try to crash the OS.

Email be it YAM or Simplemail are both problematic for email. I was more familiar with SM so I put more time into that one. Very unproductive for many emails in a modern application.

I haven't used YAM in a long time, but when I did it was 100% reliable.

The latest update to SimpleMail (that I can find) says:-

In the current state, SimpleMail is an beta version but it is very stable however as we try to implement every feature so that it works and go then on to the next one. However, SimpleMail grows very fast and with your help it can overgrow YAM soon.

That was back in 2019.

This thread is about whether we should 'take back the Amiga' by buying the OS and making it open source. I'm not sure how that is 'taking it back' since the OS was never ours to begin with, but the implication seems to be that being open source would make it better. That doesn't seem to have worked for SimpleMail.

For fun you should also list all the updates for MorphOS and frequency. They just released 3.18 and 3.19 I would guess would be released this calendar year (given the track of releases...). I wonder how many point releases they have had, likely over 30 or so...

MorphOS isn't AmigaOS, and I am not interested in it since it is no solution for the vast majority of Amiga owners. And MorphOS isn't open source either so...

I also don't understand how having frequent updates is supposed to make an OS better. Until yesterday I was running Linux on my other PC for streaming video, and it was constantly prompting me for updates. Unfortunately that didn't stop it from dying. The PC I am using now hasn't been updated in years because they dropped support for 32 bit - thanks open source guys!

Let's say AmigaOS followed the pattern of needing constant upgrades to fix bugs or whatever. There's no way I will be burning new EPROMs every time a new version comes out, so I will be slipping behind. Then the latest programs won't work because they rely on having the latest OS. This is not the way it used to be and would royally piss me off. One reason I enjoy using the Amiga is that I don't have to put up with that crap.

[stevelord]

I love it when people post about how they can't use an Amiga for modern things, having been using my Amigas for modern things for years. It takes effort and commitment, is usually much slower, and there will always be individual specifics that can't (currently) be easily done (such as VoIP). Still, it's definitely possible to do many things people might want to do today and it's only getting better every day.

[matt3k]

@Bruce Abbott

I will say that 3.2.2 is very stable over all, I was a few versions behind when I did the testing. I would use each of the systems all day to do different job functions. My problem is I patch 3.x to the max and probably need to revisit some of them, lol.

As far as email. An update was mentioned years ago for SimpleMail (responding to my pleadings) and they never materialized. Part of the issue is what hardware you run it on. Even an 060@80MHz on an SSD, it is just too slow to deal with decent sized attachments and it's not easy to make everything pretty to a recipient. If you run SM in MorphOS on a 2.7GHz PowerMac it still is problematic because it just can't deal with the size of things (although it is a bit faster ). Even if YAM and Simplemail were actively developed they have a long road ahead of them.

I like all the offerings in Amiga Land and still play around with them once in a while. To me they are all Amiga because they all give a different vision of what it could have become and you can still run Amiga programs on all of them.

You have a great point, none of these were technically ours, but the OP idea to a stake in Amiga is enthusiastic and fresh. We need that! I don't see open source as the silver bullet or we would have seen it by now imho. To me MorphOS chose wisely with keeping it closed and charging for it It has been updated very well and the developers really are helpful, even fixing code for you.

The definition of what is AmigaOS is extremely hard to have any level of agreement between any 2 people, so I don't get caught up in that.

If you run them side by side by side and spend sometime to tweak the look you can make them all look similar. But the feature slickness and native app set really make a particular platform shine. I got over the whole Apple branded hardware issue(It did take me a bit though) and on a 2.7GHz G5 on Dual 27in monitors it is a dream to use.

I still enjoy 3.2.2 for sure, but I have really come to enjoy MorphOS 3.18 as well. To each their own...

[matt3k]

Originally Posted by stevelord

I love it when people post about how they can't use an Amiga for modern things, having been using my Amigas for modern things for years. It takes effort and commitment, is usually much slower, and there will always be individual specifics that can't (currently) be easily done (such as VoIP). Still, it's definitely possible to do many things people might want to do today and it's only getting better every day.

Great point! I used them all heavily in testing and they all did the job, differently and at much different speeds. Sadly hardware grunt and software tool set/development can save some level of time and headache .

[StevenJGore]

Originally Posted by stevelord

I love it when people post about how they can't use an Amiga for modern things, having been using my Amigas for modern things for years. It takes effort and commitment, is usually much slower, and there will always be individual specifics that can't (currently) be easily done (such as VoIP). Still, it's definitely possible to do many things people might want to do today and it's only getting better every day.

Great news! Looking forward to joining my Microsoft Teams work calls on my A1200, using Office 365, syncing my CF card with OneDrive, accessing secure Exchange emails, and being able to view any website correctly (that's not Aminet).

[matt3k]

Originally Posted by StevenJGore

Great news! Looking forward to joining my Microsoft Teams work calls on my A1200, using Office 365, syncing my CF card with OneDrive, accessing secure Exchange emails, and being able to view any website correctly (that's not Aminet).

Point taken, lol.

FYI you can do a lot of what you listed in MorphOS .

[Minuous]

@Korodny:

>You are (illegaly) redistributing the OS 3.9 Reaction classes yourself, please stop making a fool out of yourself.

No. That isn't my site, and the archive was not uploaded by me, I was not even aware it was there. Please check your facts next time you decide to make such accusations and insults.

[Thomas Richter]

Originally Posted by Korodny

No, it's in the hands of Ben Hermans, who so far managed to drive away and/or betray pretty much every "passionate developer" working on AmigaOS - with the notable exception of olsen. By my count, the current 3.2 team is at least the fourth AmigaOS development team slaving away for Ben.

Ben does not make technical decisions. The technical decisions are in the hands of the developers.

[Pyromania]

Originally Posted by StevenJGore

Great news! Looking forward to joining my Microsoft Teams work calls on my A1200, using Office 365, syncing my CF card with OneDrive, accessing secure Exchange emails, and being able to view any website correctly (that's not Aminet).

LOL, doing those things used to bore me to death at work. I consider not being able to do it on the Amiga a great feature! I want to use the Amiga for fun not remind myself I’m stuck at work in office.

[StevenJGore]

Originally Posted by Pyromania

I want to use the Amiga for fun not remind myself I’m stuck at work in office.

Which is exactly why I have my A1200, to escape all that! But I'm under no illusions about what modern things it can do.

[OlafSch]

Originally Posted by StevenJGore

Which is exactly why I have my A1200, to escape all that! But I'm under no illusions about what modern things it can do.

to me the real challenge is to do things on it and configure it in a way that was seen impossible before

it is hobby so I do not want to use it as main system. Not only software is missing but also there are security problems

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by matt3k

My problem is I patch 3.x to the max

That could be part of it, or you just be using buggy programs. I run The Enforcer all the time and it's amazing how often I get hits when trying out new programs.

Part of the issue is what hardware you run it on. Even an 060@80MHz on an SSD, it is just too slow to deal with decent sized attachments and it's not easy to make everything pretty to a recipient.

My idea of a 'decent sized' attachment is something small and lightweight enough that I can actually use it on my Amiga. Huge jpegs and pdf's are out. Even if the mail program could 'handle' them my Amiga doesn't have the resources to view them. Which is fine by me. Email was supposed to be for sending text messages, in the same way that letter size envelopes are for sending letters of a few pages not 24 x 36 inch posters or 200 page novels.

As for 'making everything pretty to a recipient', my email recipients get plain text and perhaps a small attachment if they are lucky. My modern smartphone can't even receive attachments (so don't try to send me one!).

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by OlafSch

to me the real challenge is to do things on it and configure it in a way that was seen impossible before

It's amazing to still be able to interact with this website, search via Google, download code from github etc. on a 30 year old home computer that probably had more compatibility issues when new, considering all the roadblocks that have been put up against it over the years. Even TLS with 256 bit encryption hasn't stopped my 50MHz 030 from doing the job, despite it having less than 1% of the resources of a modern PC.

it is hobby so I do not want to use it as main system. Not only software is missing but also there are security problems

I don't have any security problems on my Amiga. Scammers hate me!

I once strung a scammer on for over an hour going through the motions - even after I told him I had an Amiga - which he found out was a 'home computer used for playing games in the 80's and 90's'. Idiot never caught on that his backdoor program wasn't going to run on my Amiga, and there was nothing on my system that he could use to scam me with anyway!

[Karlos]

No, you can take back your Amiga. Everywhere that sold them closed down years ago...

[Olaf Barthel]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

That could be part of it, or you just be using buggy programs. I run The Enforcer all the time and it's amazing how often I get hits when trying out new programs.

New Amiga hardware may not feature MMU support, and software which is created via cross-development no longer gets to crash & burn on the native hardware while it is being developed (you had to learn and adapt so that you could get anything done in the first place). There is progress here, but also stagnation and regression.

It used to be really difficult to create stable software on the humble Amiga 500, 1000 and 2000 back in the day because memory corruption leaves little traces in real time. Things have changed to make this the default state now, it seems