|
Hyperion Entertainment, in partnership with A-Eon Technology, are working hard to breath new life into the Amiga platform. Hyperion purchased all rights to Amiga OS 3.1 (the last version by Commodore) and has been building up OS 4 for quite some time. They've recently contracted A-Eon to build them a custom PowerPC based motherboard, which is making its debut in the Amiga X1000 (A reference to the first Commodore Amiga, the Amiga A1000). For a full overview of the hardware, see its Wikipedia page. I'm still a big Amiga fan, always have been. I still have two working A1000's and a souped-up A2000 that can run Amiga OS 3.9. With all its upgrades, it's still a decent machine (which is impressive since the A2000 came out in 1987). I'd be running OS 4.1 on it, but sadly I don't have a PowerPC Accelerator board for it (yet). The X1000 is shaping up to be a good all-around machine, Amiga OS still has a loyal and rather large fanbase, software is getting written for and ported to Amiga OS 4 all the time... what would you think of a potential comeback? If they play this right, I think it has the potential to easily become more popular than any single Linux distro. |
|
I've been a big fan of PowerPC Processors. It was a mixed emotion when Apple, Inc went Intel.
The Amiga Toaster setup was great for video production, but I was happy with the Macs at the time. The only reason Apple stuck to PowerPC for so long is because it prevented running MacOS on standard x86 PC hardware (outside of slow emulation). The PowerPC processors they employed in the last of the PPC macs were outclassed on release day by x86 processors. I'd much prefer they use x86 for the Amiga X1000, but there's a practical advantage to using PowerPC for Amiga software (besides keeping the OS proprietary to their hardware).
Now, that said, there are far faster x86 processors available than the PowerPC dual-core that they're putting in the X1000. It's not exactly hard to emulate a 68k Amiga at full speed on an x86 system either, but Hyperion Entertainment would have to write their own libraries from scratch (or license the use of UAE's JIT recompiler code). They'd also lose their hardware exclusivity, because it wouln't be long before someone figured out how to get Amiga OS 4 to boot on any old x86 machine once it was ported to the architecture. I think we'll see an x86 Amiga eventually, but they'll most likely still require a PowerPC add-in card. That would give them an easy way to handle Classic 68k and PowerPC compiled applications, while also giving them a piece of hardware to tie AmigaOS to. |
|
Update: Mozilla Firefox has made the jump to Amiga OS. The project name for the Amiga port is "Timberwolf," and the first Alpha version is available here. Considering the state of other written-from-scratch Amiga web browsers, this is a major jump forward for browsing the web on OS4. |
|
Apple designed their own X86 system, and their OS does not run on a standard X86 system. The problem with getting any operating system to run on any system design having a plethora of variables in the memory mapping, it varies from system to system even within a single manufacturer like HP. This is why the OEM has to modify the operating system (Windows) to run on a particular platform. Right now I'm using an HP Pavilion (2005) running XP and I cannot install SP3 from Microsoft as it will cause problems. And HP isn't going to provide a version of SP3 that I can install on this computer. This is why you have to be careful with installing Linux on an X86 system as drivers may not be available for say, the printer port, which may be located in a nonstandard memory location. Now, Hyperion could come out with a port of OS4.x that will run on a particular X86 platform, but it is much easier to use something like AmigaXL that uses the OEM's drivers. The problem with AmigaXL was they never bothered to get licenses for the use of the operating system. But it would be very difficult to make AmigaOS to run natively on every possible configuration of a WinTel system. |
|
One thing most Piece of Crap (PC) users don't understand is the AmigaOS doesn't require a lot of horsepower or harddrive Real Estate. Right now my A3000 is OOC but I surfed the web with it pretty well with only a 25MHz main processor and only 18MB of RAM, 2MB of ROM, and a 10MB System partition on my 50MB harddrive. (OS3.9) I had to replace the harddrive because it was dying, not because I even came close to using all of it. OS4.x will run reasonably well on a 603e 266MHz PPC. So the X1000 will be a strap on your seat belts fast. But it's a high end system. The new A500 will probably be more like a entry level system, although I don't like it's limited expandability. Personally I would rather get my A3000D (towered) working again and through in an 040@50MHz for now and wait until I can afford the X1000. Personally I would prefer 4GB of RAM, although I don't think it would need that much for most conditions, but 4.2 will have a 4GB RAM limit. What I would like to see is an "assign" that will allow the future virtual RAM to be reassigned to a flashdrive or an SSD. If I get the money I will buy the X1000, but with an 80GB SSD and a 250GB physical harddrive. The SSD (Solid State Drive) would have the System partition for faster boot up since they are so much faster than standard harddrives. |
