News about AmigaNG
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News about AmigaNG
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Amiga programmers' moods seem to be being uplifted by the rising temperatures. Proof of this is the fresh BoingBag, which currently fixes OS3.9. Really tasty was one announcement for the St. Louis Exhibition: According to Harv Laser, told by Bill McEwen, there would be a PPC-native AmigaOS 4.0. After this message was posted one evening before All Fools Day, it was nice to hear this would be true from Fleecy Moss officially via the AmigaOne mailing list. :-)
The 68k-processor will be emulated by PPC. Problem is, that the original Amiga hardware was triggered by 68k hardware interrupts. To what extent this can be emulated fluently remains to be seen.
Time schedule for release of the next versions is impressive: Version 4.0 will appear in summer, 4.2 and 4.5 will follow at half-year intervals. Version 5.0 is expected at the end of next year. With the rapid update-rate since version 3.5 the lazy politics of bygone years seem to be over. One of the most interesting improvements is the announcement of AmigaDE's multiprocessor capabilities by Gary Peake. This is the same as the portrayal of the Amiga Digital Environment in Amiga World number three. Then at least one system is used to inflate the Amiverse. Other computers may add their puff with their hardware resources without changing its very nature.
We hope that users just have to pay full update price for full new versions in future. Personally I was glad to have purchased the 3.9 update despite the many shareware. My system runs quite stable and many patches are needless now. A second hope refers to the widespread PowerPC hardware by phase5. Will it be supported sufficiently?
The situation in summary:
1. There will be a special AmigaOS4+ for PPC. This also includes support for 68x processor series. How far this is true for version 4.0 is beyond my knowledge at the moment.
2. AmigaDE will run on top of Windows, Linux and also on this special 4+ version.
3. Step by step this 4+ version shall be integrated with AmigaDE.
Last point is best news in fact. Gary Peake stated on the AmiOPEN mailinglist that the classic OS will be expanded to a sort of "homebase" for AmigaDE developers. This variant will be capable of server features, also be usable for mobiles (alas first of which is somehow incongruent to the Amiverse concept).
Thinking this over carefully our system has everything Bill Gates wants to have: We have a functioning video game console, PDAs and Set-Top-Boxes based on Amiga from MeterNet plus the innovative power of 2030 registered developers and soon an operating system capable of giving the .NET strategy a black eye.
Just looking at the OS, the concept of integrating approved shareware into the system has stood the test of many upbraids here and in the mailing lists. This approach makes sense in principle. Those parts of the operating system which are not crucial will develop "on their own" this way. Software, which is expected to come mostly from or has been well proven by the user community, will find its way into the core. Included within the Boing-Bag is the current version of the proven Smart Filesystem (though which still refuses to run on my SCSI harddisk connected to the CyberstormPPC bus). What about ToolManager, SnoopDos, a system monitor and Frogger or SoftCinema with the next version? User surveys would be useful would give useful information in the long run. AmigaOS always had democratic qualities by means of SetFunction() after all. :-) New appliances of all types are searched for on this basis. (The toaster talking to the coffee-machine comes in mind here). A good fifty percent of Am igaDE developers are interested in these "new" application areas - PDAs, mobiles and set-top boxes. The others want to care for the desktop area exclusively or serve both.
The classic OS completely ported to the next version would be a major breakthrough, especially if one imagines the classic Amiga hardware as only one of a variety of hardware platforms running the AmigaDE. True users would not be forced to invest big sums in buying new hardware. On the contrary, the actual user community (surely "hardcore-freaks" after the long-lasting desert road of years before) would be grateful to be first to attain the new "Digital Universe" rank. They deserve it, don't they?
We also enjoyed the message from St. Louis with Dave Haynie giving his PIOS-One hardware specifications to the public. Disregarding the possibility of the new AmigaONE being based on these technical sheets (which can only be hoped for) there is a real chance for appearance of and the chance to buy an AmigaOne (as announced by Eyetech) with the new OS in summer. With all this very good news one should remember that proper system development of this order of magnitude takes time. This aspect will be watched closely. Amiga Inc. wants to rely on the expert knowledge from Haage & Partner here. Should AmigaOS4.0 come out in summer (this means end of September in my experience), with the anxiously awaited usability of all of the "classic" hardware containing native PowerPC support, it will be a sensation that surely would compensate for the many frustrating years with unhappy (foreign) company owners.
Amiga rulez!
P.S.
For the May issue I will do a review of SHEEP; in June I will present a (new?) idea dealing with memory management.
Stefan Czinczoll <sn074cz@uni-duisburg.de>
