| ME: Here's Bill! |
| CF: Well, good day Mr McEwen, you're speaking with Sharwin - I'm from Coyote Flux, an Amiga only software team and I would like to ask you a few public questions - is that possible? |
| ME: Certainly. |
| CF: OK, thank you - first of all: I heard a rumour from some magazines that the German office is about to close after the inventory sales of the Amiga 1200 - is this true? |
| ME: No...? |
| CF: No - OK, thank you. What could you tell me about the AmigaOne? |
| ME: Well, nothing publicly at this time - other than this is a new desktop replacement machine. |
| CF: OK. Then there was another question: Since half a year the Amiga market has started to shrink a little bit in comparison to what it was before, especially because there are a lot of companies and sceners that rather stay with the original Amigas - we spoke to you at the show in Neuss, the World of Alternatives, about porting the current Amiga OS to PPC, we will have to add the following question: You asked for the business proposal at the show... |
| ME: Yes? |
| CF: ... and we would like to know: We want to do the Amiga OS PPC port together with a few others at our own cost together, and we would like to know if that is possible as we think that the Amiga makes a bigger chance of surviving when the older machines get a chance as well. |
| ME: Yeah, no, again, if you send me the information we're happy to take a look at it - we've been in conversations with Haage & Partner about this, we have received their timing, their proposal how long they think it will take... |
| CF: Yes |
| ME: ... we've been looking at market trends and designs, so I'm happy to take a look at what you have - we've not made a final decision on that |
| CF: OK, so there hasn't been a final decision yet about if an Amiga OS PPC port can or will be made? |
| ME: Correct. |
| CF: OK, what do you think about the Boxer? |
| ME: I don't think it will ever ship. |
| CF: And if it WILL be shipped, would you be supporting it? |
| ME: Oh, we already have, publicly! |
| CF: OK, so it won't ever be a problem, the Classic Amiga range will proceed, and the Amiga will, like, go two seperate ways or something? |
| ME: No, I don't see that, because you'll be able to run your Amiga Classic on the new system! |
| CF: Aha, I see, but surely the speed will not be as fast as an original chipset... |
| ME: Actually it will be FASTER with what we're doing - we're not doing it through emulation. |
| CF: OK, cause now it's with the Virtual Processor I suppose? |
| ME: U-huh |
| CF: Cause I have a copy of the SDK at home, but, taking a look at modern CPUs, taking a look at all the parallel processing units and the caching and memory management, I have the feeling that the Virtual Processor will not be running at the speed it SHOULD be... |
| ME: Actually since it's not... the Virtual Processor, since it translates it into native code... |
| CF: Yes... |
| ME: ... and the overhead is to a minimum, there is, what, a two percent performance hit |
| CF: Yes, I understand, but by using a lot of registers that should be emulated or mapped in memory before they can be used, I suppose... |
| ME: Exactly translated on the fly. |
| CF: It's translated on the fly - but where are the registers taken from if I may ask? |
| ME: I'm sorry I didn't hear you. |
| CF: Where are the registers taken from if I may ask? Are they taken from memory, or are they taken from hardware registers? |
| ME: It depends on the implementation... |
| CF: Yes |
| ME: ... if there is hardware available, we will utilize the hardware directly... |
| CF: Yes |
| ME: ... and if we can catch it that way, otherwise if it's not available we will do it in software. |
| CF: OK, I see - but that will slow down, I suppose? |
| ME: Depending on the application - in a desktop environment in most cases you'll have the proper hardware to utilize it, but in a handheld device you might not have the hardware, so we'll have to do it in software. |
| CF: OK, I see, thank you - finally I had a question concerning the SDK: Is it a big success? |
| ME: Yes, actually the sales are ahead of schedule and as of this week Red Hat will begin selling it also. |
| CF: OK, and how many approximately sold in the time it has been on market? |
| ME: Well, we shipped fifteen thousand so far. |
| CF: Fifteen thousand. |
| ME: Yep. |
| CF: OK, thank you very much! That's actually all I wanted to know! |
| ME: Great! |
| CF: OK, thank you... |
| ME: Yeah, I look forward - in fact I was speaking to someone about you in Sacramento... |
| CF: Oh! |
| ME: .. that it looked like you might be the team that might have the best opportunity for us, so I'm looking forward to seeing what you come up with. |
| CF: OK, thank you very much... |
| ME: OK? |
| CF: I will contact you then in the near future, supplying you with the information you might need about how we can port the Amiga OS to PPC, and... |
| ME: OK. |
| CF: ... yes, please keep up the good work then. |
| ME: I thank you very much for your call. |
| CF: OK, thank you as well - bye! |
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