AmigaOS Twenty-Five Years of Check-Ins Visualized 82
the_arrow writes "As a celebration of the 25th anniversary of the Amiga computer, Hyperion Entertainment has made a video using the Gource CVS visualization software showing a time-compressed version of 25 years of Amiga development, from the early days of AmigaOS 1.0 to the present. Personal commentary added by one of the current core full-time AmigaOS developers, Hans-Joerg Frieden (a.k.a. 'Rogue')."
Is the Amiga OS (Score:2)
even used outside of a small hobby base?
Re:Is the Amiga OS (Score:4, Interesting)
Television. One of my local channels will still have the occasional Guru Meditation at 0 dark hundred.
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Re:Is the Amiga OS (Score:4, Interesting)
While I'm not sure if it would still be worth migrating, due note that AmigaOS is still under active development on newer (PowerPC) hardware. Now, it's not exactly top of the line stuff - the latest AmigaOS boards are still only at 733mhz, but still, it's out there and kicking (barely anyways).
I've considered buying one of the machines in the past. They're around $750 IIRC. Would be a nice toy to play with. I wish the system was open sourced though. I can imagine the the possible boost in Amiga popularity (not sales, but at least interest and usage) would be a lot higher if it could be ran on commodity x86-64 hardware and was freely available for development.
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I can imagine the the possible boost in Amiga popularity (not sales, but at least interest and usage) would be a lot higher if it could be ran on commodity x86-64 hardware and was freely available for development.
Yes but such a thing is vehemently opposed by the Amiga snobs.
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>>>the latest AmigaOS boards are still only at 733mhz
2000 megahertz. Due to be released in August.
As for open source, you can get upto Amiga OS 3.5 in that format and run it on a PC or Mac. Intel or PowerPC.
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You can't get Amiga OS as open source. The code was copyrighted and never put into the public domain.
Oh, you are trying to conflate AROS with the actual Amiga operating system. Nice try, but that isn't really quite what AROS is. aros.sourceforge. [slashdot.org]net/
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Oh I see. It's like that Windows OS project that attempts to clone the functionality (ReactOS), but isn't the actual OS.
I don't think making the OS 4.x is the answer. The company still wants to make money off the Amiga, just like Apple wants to do with Mac.
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But Amiga is a dead end as far as generating profit goes.
Closest we where was bplan Pegasos with MorphOS.
But creating AmigaOS 4.0 and release the AmigaOne from Eyetech with one OS for each separate platform was just yet another failure of the failed management of Amiga.
I think you can run the same OSes on both machines now, eventually, don't know for sure if all AmigaOnes run MorphOS, but it's too late.
And I think bplan has focused their Efika outside the Amiga market now and the Pegasos is gone.
Only chance
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Having done some research on this throughout the day (obscure OS projects fascinate me), the AROS option looks pretty darned cool IMHO. The new AmigaOS 4 isn't binary compatible with any of the original AmigaOS versions - they run on different processors. As such AmigaOS4 is really just a cloned lookalike that runs old software through emulation.
AROS, from what I've gathered, is essentially the same thing. It's a clone that is source (but not binary) compatible with the original Amiga system. Recompile
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>>>As such AmigaOS4 is really just a cloned lookalike that runs old software through emulation.
One could make the same argument about MacOS after they switched from the 68000 to the PowerPCs. (You need an emulator to run the original Mac binaries.)
Or one could conclude that Apple/Commodore had no choice but to switch processors, since the 68000 series had come to a dead end, and not get hung-up about the CPU.
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One could make the same argument about MacOS after they switched from the 68000 to the PowerPCs. (You need an emulator to run the original Mac binaries.)
Well, yes, but MacOS X actually took off. So not only does it have the name legally, but it's also heavily developed and popular (and popularity means better app support and such).
AROS vs AmigaOS 4 is a bit different. Though AmigaOS has the rights to the name, it's not developed by the original AmigaOS team, nor has it really taken off in popularity. Both it and AROS are essentially niche little hobbyist projects. Between the two, given that neither really has the upper hand over the other, the legal ri
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I think you're splitting hairs. You're trying to claim MacOS is alive and AmigaOS is dead, but that's simply not the case. Commodore went bankrupt, but the Amiga OS managed to survive... continuing on from Amiga OS3.0 to 3.5 to 3.9 and now 4.0
>>>MacOS X actually took off.
Until it was terminated and replaced with NeXT. So if I wanted to be anal like you are, then I could say MacOS is dead. But I won't do that because I think the distinction is trivial and pointless. So if your claim about Amiga
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No, you're repeatedly missing my point. AmigaOS is a niche little OS that is from a commercial standpoint *PRACTICALLY* dead.
AmigaOS4 vs AROS are essentially both AmigaOS 3 inspired OS's written by new developers with very little use following outside of a niche community.
MacOS X is also a rewrite, but with a huge user following. There really isn't even another project in this realm to compare to.
Lets just engage in a bit of alternate history: say in 1997 Apple had gone out of business. They sold the Ma
Atleast Hyperion doesn't suck (Score:2)
Hyperion does suck, and it will continue to as long as it holds out on making AOS that can run on x86 hardware. I'd run it on my MacBook Pro in a heartbeat.
Falcon
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A good friend of mine owns an Amiga from... well, it's an old one. It's hilarious how the GUI feels snappy and responsive and Windows feels slow as shit in comparison.
the Amiga OS (Score:2)
I've considered buying one of the machines in the past.
I had an Amiga 500 but turned it in for recycling. If I could have expanded/upgraded it I would have kept it longer.
I can imagine the the possible boost in Amiga popularity (not sales, but at least interest and usage) would be a lot higher if it could be ran on commodity x86-64 hardware and was freely available for development.
If Amiga OS ran on commodity x86 hardware I bet it would sell. I think it's weird, there used to be an expansion board for Ami
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While I'm not sure if it would still be worth migrating, due note that AmigaOS is still under active development on newer (PowerPC) hardware. Now, it's not exactly top of the line stuff - the latest AmigaOS boards are still only at 733mhz, but still, it's out there and kicking (barely anyways).
I've considered buying one of the machines in the past. They're around $750 IIRC. Would be a nice toy to play with. I wish the system was open sourced though. I can imagine the the possible boost in Amiga popularity (not sales, but at least interest and usage) would be a lot higher if it could be ran on commodity x86-64 hardware and was freely available for development.
I felt the same way. I figured Amiga should of accepted the linux kernel and made it's OS off of that.
But no, they wanted to follow suit of the companies before it and put out old hardware that was too expensive. Everyone and their grandma has a x86 cpu computer, but no, let's produce a new computer that is expensive for the small group of people we have and never worry about it actually being useful to anyone.
Apparently Amiga is cursed or something.
Re:Is the Amiga OS (Score:5, Funny)
Apparently it was hosting their website.
EPG / Prevue Guide channel used them and software (Score:2)
EPG / Prevue Guide channel used them and software for is out there.
http://ariweinstein.com/prevue/viewforum.php?f=1&sid=bf1fe670ec75c75067840925044852ac [ariweinstein.com]
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jC6MKcmETWE [youtube.com]
Proof! ;D
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Whats funny is I saw a local tv ad that was shot in SD - and I recognized a toaster transition (odd thing having worked with a lot of video hardware - often you can tell what the ad was edited in based on the effects alone). There are people that still use the stuff ;).
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and banks still use cobol programs running on big iron mainframes. If it works, it will be used forever. And that scares the capitalists crazy if it ever gets into the public meme-pool.
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I got that from Firefox.
Works fine from IE.
Apply "FTW" as you see fit.
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Oops. Spoke too soon. That was the link to TFA. The link to the video is still borked in IE. YMMV.
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Oops again. Now the whole site's doing it. Troubleshooting is fun!
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You're obsolete, it's now known as Software Failure. Anyways, prepare to press left mouse button to continue. And don't forget to update your Kickstart and Workbench either!
Last update (Score:1)
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It has had quite a few of updates. And I guess many parts of AmigaOS 4 was actually improvements.
However I find it hard to consider anything beyond 3.1 worth much care from my side. Sadly.
Ignoring the A\Box stuff best chance it had of a resurrection was probably around the 1999 days when Gateway-Amiga wanted to build a fresh OS upon QNX Neutrino and Photon.
The Linux-switch and much more the virtual machine Tao-Group Elate stuff for Linux and WinCE was major failures and idiocy.
To try to upgrade and moderniz
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And M$ could learn a few things (that they didn't already steal and try to implement) about UI responsiveness, and NOT RANDOMLY STEALING FOCUS FROM THE TOPMOST WINDOW I'M TYPING INTO.
Sorry. I use AmigaOS (3.x) every day in addition to Windows, CentOS/Ubuntu/Debian Linux, and MorphOS. It's still one of my favorites. And my two 17-year-old A3000s are doing fine, thank you for asking. :)
[appropriate captcha: teletype]
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Google gmail steals tab focus and afaik there's nothing I can do about it.
Sucks arse, especially since it takes so long to load that you've most likely started doing something more interesting while waiting for your mails to come up.
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While I was a huge fan and enjoyed my Amiga usage I have never read the Amiga Hardware Reference Manual or know much at all about the internals of the OS. Though of course I know about datatypes and how you loaded different filesystem-, monitor- or printer drivers on the spot (or at start-up) very intuitively and such things.
Anyway, yes, much was great. OSes like Syllable probably borrows some, Matt Dillon may have done for his DragonFlyBSD and so on to.
But nothing says and it most likely wasn't the best OS
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Both Windows and Mac OS have system wide plugin systems ... no one bothers to use them.
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For those that enjoy bashing the Commodore Amiga, let's consider a few simple "features" and what kind of hardware you need to get the job done:
- 8 bit sound and 4000 colors
== 1985 Amiga with 7 MHz CPU and 256K of RAM
== or 1992 Mac Quadra with 25 MHz CPU and ~8000K of RAM
== or 1993 Windows PC with 100 MHz 486 and ~16,000K of RAM
- preemptive multitasking
== 1985 Amiga with OS 1.0 or higher
== or 1995 IBM PC with Windows 4.x (95)
== or 2002 Mac Quadra with OS 10.x
plug-and-play addon cards
== 1985 Amiga. Easy as
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[correction]
- preemptive multitasking
== 1985 Amiga [68000] with OS 1.0 or higher
== or 1995 IBM PC with Windows 4.x (95)
== or 2002 Mac [PowerPC] with OS 10.1 and up.
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Sound) I know there was a Slashdot article about a year ago about how sound quality (mostly MIDI?) had changed over the years on PC. I do wonder if it had to go so far as existing 100 MHz 486. Maybe, doubt you needed one to use it. Heck, I think 66 MHz 486 could play MP3s, My 68030@50MHz 1200 could not without going mono and 22 kHz.
Palette) HAM is a special scenario:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hold-And-Modify [wikipedia.org]
It's more or less a hack which let you either pick a color from the palette at hand or modify ONE o
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>>>HAM is more or less a hack
So? It's still the first time a computer could create photorealistic porn. ;-) You sure as hell couldn't download the latest Swimsuit Issue or Playboy on an 80s Mac or PC, but it could be done on an Amiga.
My friends were jealous. ;-)
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>>>could only display 32 of them simultaneously
(points to 1985 Amiga showing a slideshow of 80s-era Swimsuit Issues). That's 4000 colors my friend. You sure as hell couldn't recreate this slideshow on an 80s Mac or PC. They were still stuck at black-and-white and 4 or 16 colors, respectively.
And even for games, the 64 color limit on Amiga was still more colors than what my friends' IBM PCs did (4 or 16).
Yeah I know the VGA arrived in 1987, but who could afford the $3000 pricetag??? Nobody.
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Mac and PC games in the 80s sucked because of the lack of colors (or sound).
Lack of colors means that games suck? You're delusional [wikipedia.org].
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That's not really what I said - I was making the point that, given the choice between playing a game on the 64-color Amiga or a 4/16 color PC, the PC version of the game sucked.
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I was making the point that, given the choice between playing a game on the 32 color Sega Game Gear or a 4 color Nintendo Gameboy, the Gameboy version of the game sucked.
Don't get me wrong. I didn't mean to say that you're wrong to dislike games that have few colors. I'm just saying that "it sucks" is in the eye of the beholder. I do not have knowledge of 80's PC/Mac game successes, but no one can deny that Nintendo's Gameboy dominated the handheld market, so I chose that as my reference.
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April 2010.
When was AmigaOS last updated. (Score:2)
Amiga OS is being updated now, however it only runs on PowerPC hardware. Hyperion has released 4.0 and 4.1.
Falcon
So.... (Score:2)
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Are they hosting the website on an A500?
That I don't know.
But if they where (not on an A500 I suppose ...), what OS would they had used?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiga_Unix [wikipedia.org]
http://www.amigaunix.com/tiki-index.php [amigaunix.com]
But of course it would had worked with more common stuff aswell:
http://www.debian.org/ports/m68k/ [debian.org]
http://www.netbsd.org/ports/amiga/ [netbsd.org]
http://www.openbsd.org/amiga.html [openbsd.org]
Oh, and this Google hit reminds of the days of doom [slashdot.org]:
http://www.amigahistory.co.uk/linuxchoice.html [amigahistory.co.uk]
Site down already? (Score:1)
Database Error: Unable to connect to the database:Could not connect to MySQL
Is the site already slashdotted, or is it just random downtime? Would have been interesting video. Use vimeo next time?
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It looks just like some bouncy, checkered balls to me. ?
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You might as well provide a link to it,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ga41edXw3A [youtube.com]
Link Fail (Score:2)
Database Error: Unable to connect to the database:Could not connect to MySQL
Visualization and graphic designers seem to maintain Hyperion Entertainment's website as well.
Imortal (Score:2, Funny)
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Such things don't seem to guarantee anything...
http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=evilentity [distrowatch.com]
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If they implemented that web server on it, it must have left the curtains open this morning.
Not Amiga (Score:3, Informative)
Even the hardware companies that are making "PPC" hardware have no license to use the word "Amiga". All the machines are "AmigaOne" which is a trademark from a company named Eyetech in 2001 and not related to "Amiga" at all.
Nothing Amiga to see here people.
Re:Not Amiga (Score:4, Informative)
I don't know how you can be called +5 informative when you didn't even answer the question: WHO has the right to the name Amiga?
As far as I can tell, it's owned by the present company that developed the OS 4.x and will soon be released an Amiga X1000.
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After they're lawsuit with "Amiga" Inc. they are careful now to never used the word "Amiga". You can find much of their old product/news items use to use the word "Amiga Operating System", but like I said, after the lawsuit they are very careful always using "Amigaos" and never "Amiga"
The "Amigaos" word that has never been trademarked nor copyrighted as you can see if you do a search.
"Amiga" is owned by a company named Amiga Inc. Th
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released an Amiga X1000.
Again, the company making an the A1-X1000 (http://www.a-eon.com/) has no right to word Amiga. The company is a partner with the guy that trademarked "AmigaOne" and so I do believe they use that.
However you will notice that company never calls their computer an "Amiga".
These are people that think the Amiga name has some value and are trying to confuse people that they are releasing stuff with the Amiga name when they are not.
Think about that. It's lame enough to release something Amiga that
Re:Not Amiga (Score:4, Interesting)
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I have one of those 'new Amigas'. It's not very fast (it'll play a DVD, barely) but I have a blast with it.
The OS looks like an Amiga, works like an Amiga, has draggable screens like an Amiga, and runs more of my old Amiga sofware than my Amiga 3000 Tower ever did. (Once you put a VGA card in an 'original' Amiga, all bets are off for running 'real' Amiga games.)
And it even crashes like an Amiga; often. The big difference? Nine times out of ten, I can recover from a Software Failure / Guru Meditation and at
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>>>If Commodore had never gone out of business and kept making Amigas all these years, I doubt the latest models would resemble the original
You're right. They probably would have followed the same path that Apple did..... switching from 68000 to PowerPCs, and then Intel (because their processors are cheaper).
A modern Mac looks nothing like the 1994 or earlier Macs. It's not even the same OS anymore. Likewise a modern Commodore Amiga would not be the same as its original 68000 cousins.