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I'll try to explain a little bit of the history of the OS, to help explain the various factions in the Amiga community... When Commodore was producing Amigas,

I'll try to explain a little bit of the history of the OS, to help explain the various factions in the Amiga community... When Commodore was producing Amigas, the Amiga OS that ran on top of them ran from the Amiga OS 1.x series to the Amiga OS 3.x series, with Amiga 3.1 being the last version that was produced before Commodore went bankrupt. After Commodore went bankrupt, the future of the Amiga was uncertain. Some Amiga users began debating how to take the platform forward. After a lot of debate, this culminated in the decision to start by creating an open-source OS based on the design of Amiga OS 3.1, which could be used as a platform for future improvements. This became the AROS project. Ownership to the official Amiga assets (OS, patents and hardware) changed hands a number of times. The common pattern seemed to be a purchase by a PC manufacturer, who would then outsource the development of the platform through a dedicated subsidiary. First owners were Escom. Second owners were Gateway. Gateway was purchased by Acer at one point, so I believe the current owners are Acer. However, as mentioned previously, official development of the platform was managed by subcontractors, that went under names like 'Amiga Technologies' and 'Amiga Inc'. Another OS split would happen because of the lack of new hardware coming from official sources. During the time when the official owners of the Amiga appeared increasingly incapable of bringing new hardware to market, a series of PowerPC accelerators appeared for classic Amigas (classic Amigas are based on the 68k family of processors). At first, these PPC accelerators would run on software designed to work alongside Amiga OS 3.x, but in time this evolved into a dedicated PPC-based OS for Amigas. This became MorphOS. What about the official developments? So after Amiga OS 3.1 there were two additional releases in the 3.x series, 3.5 and 3.9. IIRC of these releases were developed by a company called H&P (Hauge & Partner, or something like that). At one point, it looked like MorphOS would become AmigaOS 4.0, however a couple of the H&P developers formed a new company called Hyperion and convinced Amiga Inc to let them develop the PPC version of Amiga OS, which became the Amiga 4.x that exists today. There were various other twists to this tale that I've glossed over, but notable mention should go out to Amithlon (sp?), which was an unofficial AmigaOS port/emulator for x86 hardware. At one point there was some hope that this could've been used to pushed the Amiga forward, but it never got the official backing it needed. So in terms of the remaining factions, it's arguable that four remain: 1. Classic Amiga (68k-based AmigaOS, running on either real or emulated hardware). 2. AROS. 3. AmigaOS 4.x. 4. MorphOS. In terms of software releases, there's still a small amount of new releases, but killer apps that would be worth investing in the platform for are thin on the ground. Closest to that you'll probably find is Hollywood, but it's available for non-Amiga platforms now too: http://www.hollywood-mal.com/ http://www.hollywood-mal.com/

stinkytaco 11y ago
Wasn't part of the appeal of Amiga its unique hardware? The dedicated co-processors? In some ways, it was very ahead of its time in this. Is the PPC version able to replicate this somehow?
- ZenoArrow 11y ago
  Yes, the big draw was the hardware acceleration, and the software this enabled. There were many Amiga users who barely used the OS, and just played games instead (the OS was split over two parts, the Kickstart that would run from a ROM chip, and the Workbench that was run from floppy disk or hard drive. If you played games, you only needed the Kickstart). However, as the competition caught up to the hardware of the Amiga, the importance of the OS in setting the Amiga apart increased. The PPC Amigas don't really have custom co-processors. One or two of the PPC Amigas has an embedded microcontroller or FPGA, but they're not very powerful. You're also able to use some dedicated PC GPUs. With regards to the future of Amiga hardware, what interests me more than the PPC machines are the FPGA computers/accelerators. For example, MiST board is able to recreate Amiga hardware in FPGA, along with a number of other classic computers. http://lotharek.pl/product.php?pid=96 http://lotharek.pl/product.php?pid=96
  - nickpsecurity 11y ago
    Good explanations. What's more interesting is the Amiga model of CPU + accelerators is becoming the new default in high-performance applications. There could be a revival of OS's natively supporting accelerators of a niche market that cares about that sort of thing. My favorite example is Cavium's Octeon's that basically nobody has heard of: http://www.cavium.com/OCTEON-III_CN7XXX.html http://www.cavium.com/OCTEON-III_CN7XXX.html The Octeon II's often go for around $200 on eBay. They have 16 cores, multi-Gbps network acceleration, onboard crypto, Linux support, and use little power. That's the kind of shit that has potential. Maybe that plus a good FPGA for high-end model where main SOC is multiplexed like usual but one app at a time gets FPGA and/or GPU. A bunch of simple cores, the right on-board accelerators, and FPGA could combine in performance-critical apps to blow Xeons out the water despite being on older process nodes. My old prediction and dream gets even closer to reality with the rise of the "semi-custom" businesses of AMD and Intel that do this on a case by case basis for their x86 lines. And Intel's acquisition of Altera w/ likely FPGA circuitry in future Xeon's. You can already buy a FPGA desktop from Pico Computing in small form factor. I envision something a bit more integrated into OS API and management systems.

stinkytaco 11y ago

Wasn't part of the appeal of Amiga its unique hardware? The dedicated co-processors? In some ways, it was very ahead of its time in this. Is the PPC version able to replicate this somehow?

ZenoArrow 11y ago
Yes, the big draw was the hardware acceleration, and the software this enabled. There were many Amiga users who barely used the OS, and just played games instead (the OS was split over two parts, the Kickstart that would run from a ROM chip, and the Workbench that was run from floppy disk or hard drive. If you played games, you only needed the Kickstart). However, as the competition caught up to the hardware of the Amiga, the importance of the OS in setting the Amiga apart increased. The PPC Amigas don't really have custom co-processors. One or two of the PPC Amigas has an embedded microcontroller or FPGA, but they're not very powerful. You're also able to use some dedicated PC GPUs. With regards to the future of Amiga hardware, what interests me more than the PPC machines are the FPGA computers/accelerators. For example, MiST board is able to recreate Amiga hardware in FPGA, along with a number of other classic computers. http://lotharek.pl/product.php?pid=96 http://lotharek.pl/product.php?pid=96
- nickpsecurity 11y ago
  Good explanations. What's more interesting is the Amiga model of CPU + accelerators is becoming the new default in high-performance applications. There could be a revival of OS's natively supporting accelerators of a niche market that cares about that sort of thing. My favorite example is Cavium's Octeon's that basically nobody has heard of: http://www.cavium.com/OCTEON-III_CN7XXX.html http://www.cavium.com/OCTEON-III_CN7XXX.html The Octeon II's often go for around $200 on eBay. They have 16 cores, multi-Gbps network acceleration, onboard crypto, Linux support, and use little power. That's the kind of shit that has potential. Maybe that plus a good FPGA for high-end model where main SOC is multiplexed like usual but one app at a time gets FPGA and/or GPU. A bunch of simple cores, the right on-board accelerators, and FPGA could combine in performance-critical apps to blow Xeons out the water despite being on older process nodes. My old prediction and dream gets even closer to reality with the rise of the "semi-custom" businesses of AMD and Intel that do this on a case by case basis for their x86 lines. And Intel's acquisition of Altera w/ likely FPGA circuitry in future Xeon's. You can already buy a FPGA desktop from Pico Computing in small form factor. I envision something a bit more integrated into OS API and management systems.