6 ms·
This is fascinating. I love the virtual processors dispatch queue concept (new to me) and I think I found my lunch reading for today. I also immediately went
by sbarre 2y ago
This is fascinating. I love the virtual processors dispatch queue concept (new to me) and I think I found my lunch reading for today.
I also immediately went to eBay to see how much old Amiga computers cost, and....
Wow, they are pretty much not available? All I could find was parts listings, and the odd "mainboard as-is" for like $1,000 or more...
I had no idea Amiga computers from the 90s were so rare now.
- _joel 2y agoThat ship sailed quite some time ago, it seems. At least for OG, unless you want to spend large amounts. I wish I'd kept my 500+ now too.
- icedchai 2y agoTell me about it! I had both an A500 and A3000 in the 90's. I sold both for a pittance...
- InsideOutSanta 2y agoMy mom gave my Amiga 500 away when I was on holidays.
- sbarre 2y agoOof.. I feel that pain, we had an Apple IIe that I taught myself to program on in the 80s, it was basically the genesis of my life and career, and oddly enough kind of a family heirloom for me.. When I left for university in the early 90s, my dad donated it to a local library without even asking me first. To be fair I had never expressed my desired to keep it, it was just in the basement in a box. So it wasn't that big of a deal but I know he feels guilt for that one to this day, once I explained how I felt.
- morning-coffee 2y agoOuch. I feel for you both. I count myself lucky... I still have my IBM PC XT in the basement (runs and my son plays Zork II on it) thanks to my Dad not only shelling out for it in 1983 but hanging on to it over the years. But I empathize for other reasons... my Mom gave away my huge bag of Legos, including all the cool Space stuff, that I wish I still had. ;)
- sgt 2y agoI also have regrets. You know, one time I had a 1084S Commodore monitor - pristine condition. One day it didn't want to turn on, and after a few weeks I just threw it in the trash. So ... incredibly stupid! People like me should get the death penalty.
- icedchai 2y agoI left my 1084S in my parents' basement, and they eventually threw it out. It had a fiddly power button but was working otherwise.
- actionfromafar 2y agoThey are more common in Europe, since they sold better there. (Except the Amiga 1000.) There are also several reimplementations, either with FPGA or "real" 680x0 CPUs. This Serena operating system fascinates me in several ways. I have said it before, but I think one very cool thing about the Amigas is how they are the missing link between "too simple" 8-bit and 16-bit DOS computers and our modern computers. They are advanced enough to run modern(-ish) software and simple enough to be reimplemented faithfully several times over by various projects.
- galangalalgol 2y agoI have the a1000 I learned on as a kid. And the c64 from before that, but I keep saying here that the 32bit microcontrollers are fairly close approximations that use less power and have more processing. You can't get bloat though because they still have ram constraints tied to the mmu that can only do page protection, just like the amiga... Could even use the DACs to spit out s-video maybe?
- icedchai 2y agoThe Amiga was my first exposure to a computer with a "real" OS: tasks/processes, memory management, IPC, shared libraries, etc. I first learned C on an Amiga. It also taught me to be careful: a bug in your program with no memory protection would often mean a crash/reboot ("Guru Meditation" error.)
- gxd 2y agoThere is no reason to get the original unless you're a committed retrocomputing enthusiast or collector (I am a retro games collector and decided against getting an original anyway). You can get an exceptional emulation experience using WinUAE or https://www.amigaforever.com/ https://www.amigaforever.com/ (which is also WinUAE based).
- teo_zero 2y ago> I also immediately went to eBay to see how much old Amiga computers cost Please note that Serena targets a Motorola 68030, so anything below an Amiga 3000 won't qualify.
- ekianjo 2y agowould that work with a A1200 equipped with an acceleration board?
- sgt 2y agoYes it will, I have an Amiga 1200 with a Blizzard 1230IV accelerator board. They were super common back in the day. Its 68030 runs at a whopping 50MHz, so you pretty much have to wear a seatbelt.
- teo_zero 2y agoI had a Blizzard myself, and I kind of remember it was equipped with a 68EC030, that is a 68030 without MMU. And I suspect the reason Serena requires a 68030 is in fact its MMU.
- jdboyd 2y agoThey specifically mention A2000 as supported. I assume that requires an '030 accelerator card then, but an A2000 with '030 card is probably much cheaper than an A3000 or A4000.
- pjmlp 2y agoWe loved them, a great gaming computer, multitasking, already had sound and graphics chips we could program for, multitasking (although Guru Meditation could happen quite frequently), an extensible OS with plugins, dynamic libraries, scriptable applications. Meanwhile on PC land, Windows 3.x had just come up into the scene. As the only PC guy on our group, I really enjoyed the demoscene meetings where I could improve my Amiga skills.
- sbarre 2y agoYeah I was in the same boat, most of my friends had Amigas (a rare thing in Canada) and I had a 286SX at the time.. But it was fun to compare notes and see what they could do that I couldn't (or vice-versa). Loved the demoscene, I was always blown away by what they released.
- guestbest 2y agoShipping is prohibitively expensive including UPS and just like 15 year old flat screen televisions, sellers will rip out components to cut down on costs. I once saw a horse saddle get shipped to Argentina from Texas for 36 dollars through UPS in 2004 in a flimsy cardboard box. I can’t imagine the cost these days
- christkv 2y agoI’ve been eyeing the vampire v4 standalone. FPGA reimagining of the amiga with backwards compatibility
- galangalalgol 2y agoIt doesn't seem like it tries to emulate any of the constraints the original Amiga had. Is it essentially just a way to run newer versions of amigaos on modern hardware?
- christkv 2y agoIt still to the metal coding but evolves the platform a bit it seems adding i guess a bit the future that could have been if Commodore had been run well.
- snvzz 2y agoToo proprietary, and no ecosystem to speak of. (as a consequence of the former) I'd look at minimig-aga and other such open hardware efforts.
- icedchai 2y agoI have one and it's cool, but doesn't give me the same feeling as the original hardware. Perhaps I'm just old.
- basementcat 2y agoJust a quick note that the Vampire may not implement the subset of the 68851 PMMU in the '030 and may not boot this OS (or NetBSD or Linux).