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Re: Amiga.com has a new look
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@magic

The main thing is the most obvious. something is close to happening. Otherwise why bother.

I noticed that Tao is listed. The only thing I find mysterious is the Eyetec reference, as I assumed this was over.

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Re: Amiga Center at Kent
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@Mikey_C

I find the whole thing mysterious indeed.

However, it is so strange, its meaning must be something simple, but I cannot figure.

The town only has 85,000 people, so the multi-millions must refer the the centre's building, the naming rights has to be something a lot smaller.

Maybe it only indicates that Kent for whatever reason has been chosen as a HQ and perhaps programming centre for Amiga Inc hence the goodwill gesture to the local community.

Generating a few local jobs and bringing in some people with money to spend would make any small town bend over backwards, which is how I read the naming thing.

What it does show, reading between the lines, is that Amiga Inc has got something underway in Kent, that is no small thing (well small by big business estimates, but big for a small town, just under city size).

Anything above 20 people coming in, generating about 7 or eight local jobs, would be significant I would suggest.

Speculation, but it is such a strange thing.

ps added later

It is an events centre!! With the Amiga name on it. Maybe there is some show and tell just around the corner.

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Re: PS3 port of AOS4?
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@A1200
Well, let me see I posted here and on AmigaWorld, only here did I start a thread on the topic.

Your estimate of the quality of what I have written, is of course your own privilege to state.

What I don't understand, and fail to see, is why the possibility of spreading the OS to a whole new generation should cause such angst.

I did not make the suggestion, it has been in the official announcements a few times at least.

So why participate in thread only to bag it?

Aside from possible loss of SAM sales, just what is the nub of opposition to running OS4 on Cell in a box that already has been sold in its millions?

This I find unfathomable.

Please explain. Seriously I find this opposition, for unstated reasons beyond, rational comprehension.

At 100 euros which seems to be the OS price for the immediate future, a few thousand sales would hansomely pay back the expense of porting it, anything over that would be profit.

Just what are the undesirable effects of such a port in the long term?

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Re: PS3 port of AOS4?
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@Helge

We have some misunderstandings which should be easy to clear up.

I have no proof of anything except what was said by Amiga Inc at various stages. The story, right at the beginning was that Sony was one of the companies willing to back Amiga Inc, this was before the great stock market plunge on eCompanies. Sony I believe, then decided otherwise.

Was it made up? There was probably something and in those days Sony was looking and getting behind a good many things, so it is likely. By the way it is not improbable meeting and knowing Bill Gates (despite everything he remains a geek of sorts). The Microsoft connection was also an area that Sony was looking towards then as well, and of course Amiga Inc was sniffing there PDA wise at a later date.

However, the Sony connection is by this time is a fairly cold trail. But also Sony PS3 wise have been throwing very wide nets, they are backing this thing big time.
--------------
As for the Hack remark - I meant in terms of consoles like Xbox, not SAM. I am sorry I did not make myself clearer.

It is true that Sony is not supporting any third party OSes, but the download even of the bootloader can be done through the PS3 browser without any PC involvement (3gigs of Yellow Dog, this is not very practical) A simple USB stick should be enough for AOS within the PS3 without requiring a PC of any sort.
--------------
Helge I am sorry for distorting things here. I think especially with SAM coming first, the actual effect of a PS3 port will be fairly minimal. We will have to differ on estimates of the effect.

But if these things happen they are out of our control. I just hope we make the best of it by having one follow the other and both done before October.
--------------
I know and agree with you that Acube/SAM really relies on selling to industrial consumers.

The Amiga market as it stands is too small for anything much. We have a difference here, I think if AOS4 can break out of the bounds of such a small community, it greatly benefits Acube with its potential industrial consumers and software solutions (which seem Amiga based reading their site material).
--------------
On market penetration of otherOS into the "kids" gaming market I beg to differ. As a school teacher, the pressure to have a computer at home for schooling is strong here, in the US and UK, I cannot speak of elsewhere.

Nobody in their right mind would subject a kid to Linux, but AOS4, that is another matter (providing we have the basic apps).

No this market is a new one if simply because there has never been since the old Amiga days at least, a combo computer console. There is no real way of estimate its size, I actually think 20% may well be a low estimate. Based on dealing with school kids and their parents on a daily basis.

The missing software is a big problem, but we will have a period of grace so long as the basic stuff is there (X11 versions perhaps). The PS3 browser is awkward but seems pretty good, that may get us by for a little while. I don't know if JAVA is present (maybe that is a good thing : )
--------------
Forgive my reference to Linux which I consider hell. I have only recently been using the wonderful X11 server on the OS4 (then my monitor died). It seemed to have made this aspect of Linux quite workable. Indeed I am starting to believe that AOS4 might make a better Linux host than Linux itself after usuing it.

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Re: PS3 port of AOS4?
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@Alkaron
My Swedish is non-existent.

Translations are always difficult.

I would be appreciate your own impression on this discussion. A summing up of what you think Rogues comments might mean.

It is often such impressions which convey precise meaning rather an translations (there are a couple of comments, that either because of translation or technical reference I did not quite understand).

I take it the date is very recent?

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Re: PS3 port of AOS4?
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@magic & @Severin

I apologise, this thread was my first on the forum, and obviously I did not look well enough for any similar threads here.

However, as the only console mentioned by both Hyperion and Amiga Inc for a potential port,and a console that the Freidans at least seemed excited with the idea of writing code for it, such discussions do have a place on Amiga forums.

Plus Sony was at least talking to Amiga Inc, in financial terms some years back. I doubt if funds would be made available now, but a nexus already exists.

As a market, there is nothing to compare to the PS3 for our OS, everywhere else it would be a hack, but anyone owning a PS3 can install AOS on it - in fact it was the least hassle install of Linux I have ever experienced.

You can ignore the thread afterall.

@Helge

It is true that a PS3 port would mean slightly smaller SAM sales in the Community as it now is. And buying both is not a solution. However, the community is such a small market it could not be profitable in any case, and its growth without some other strategy would be slow and unhealthy commercial-wise.

Consider the other side of the coin.

PS3 owners, who end up liking AOS4 as a computing solution and then go to buy a desktop SAM.

This would be many times greater than the small number of potential community members who opted instead for a PS3.

Plus PS3 can never support what a desktop solution could, except of course if the SAM acted as a domestic service server and the PS3 became a processing hub.

The few thousand community members is a marketing joke, no-doubt available HW would rapidly increase it, bringing many back who have drifted away. But no matter which way it is counted, a few thousand is not a market, and that will kill SAM more than anything.

You have to consider a market that is 3 million now, and probably 10 million by the end of the year. A market which in October will have its own free marketing space (PS Home).

0.1% = 10,000 sales of 10 Million owners, 100,000 if it manages just 1%. I would put 10% as the probable conservative penetration give one year (and probably a much bigger PS3 market) . 1,000,000 OS4's.

I suggest that it is reasonable to assume that 20% of PS3 owners will in the end have one otherOS running on their machines. I would suggest this is a very conservative estimate because the largest number of PS3 owners will be kids still doing school, and hence a natural gravitation to loading an otherOS for school work if nothing else.

I also think the PS3 market will grow as parents become aware that they can also give their kids a full working computer easily along with the games. And hence it is a much more educationally sound investment.

As the price over the years comes down. The PS3 is also likely to be a good choice as a home computer.

As the PS3 gets outdated, it will find markets in third world countries, probably more as a computer than as a games console.

There is great significance in what Sony is doing here., we would be very stupid to miss the boat - especially as OS4 fits the console much better than Linux ever could.

The X11 server, may ironically, be a better form of Linux than Linux itself is for many uses.

Bundling OS4 up as a light Linux is not such a bad idea, and there is another market that has nothing much to do with the PS3 but would be opened up if PS3 provided the greater market to spur even just porting, let alone more native apps.

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Re: PS3 port of AOS4?
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@Oppressor

Quote:

Oppressor wrote:
@GregS

By looking at Windows XP, MacOS X or a Linux desktop one might get the impression that established OSes have to be large to be workable - but small systems have actually remained a concern up to this day. Strip a Linux or FreeBSD kernel down to the required set of functions and drivers, link all required libraries into a single application and you have just tailored an embedded OS+application into a mere 1mb of memory. Modularity works on different levels: applications, libraries, drivers, source code, build scripts. The base is usually just a task and I/O scheduler, memory management and framework for drivers.


True, but to do anything like this you need some pretty together programmers, a design that is absolutely thought through from the first instance, and where it is done it has up till now required big bucks and a lot of specialist knowledge.

Use a slim OS to begin with, and practically any experienced user who can script can manage to turn OS4 into what they want. The importance lies in the shift in expertise from experienced programmers to experience users.

Quote:
Just let's not forget that for example a vanilla Mac OS X installation comes with a wealth of preinstalled subsystems, drivers and applications (like a TCP/IP stack, USB stack, shells, ssh, wget, cvs, apache, samba) - these are the things that you are grabbing from Aminet first if you want to get productive with an Amiga nowadays, or at least if you at some point have to interact with the outside world and suddenly find yourself in the need to adhere to communication or programming interfaces - would you with a clean conscience suggest a PS3 consumer to dig out all these things from Aminet and various webpages?


True and these could just as well be bundled up with a later release on something like the PS3, the problem is not so much how much could be included but how much gives all round functionality without overkill.

Quote:
Regarding "solving networking and communications in a sensible way": Sorry, but the ONLY sensible way to achieve this is by implementing the 4 layers of TCP/IP and perhaps by putting a funny user interface on top. "Preempting a need" sounds fishy to me. If by that you mean that you want to be with Amiga OS4 on the Playstation 3 when your anticipated need arises, good. But if you by that you mean that this need for OS4 first needs to be stimulated by the presence of OS4 on the Playstation 3, not so good, because regardless of its own success it may be a huge loss for the SAM, and this is something that should be well justified.


Knowing little about TCP/IP I cannot comment. But using the basic TCP/IP without change and introducing a lightweight Web Server like Kepler (Lua script based) should do the trick without too much fiddle. Permissions etc being handled through the web server, hopefully also overcoming the need for SAMBA as well.

The anticipating needs bit is simpler than it sounds. A 60gig drive with film, photos, and music will fill up, besides which most of such resources in a domestic context need to be centrally shared rather than duplicated. PS3 will need some sort of domestic server sooner or later, why not make room early and make it SAM running OS4 and cut out the competition early.

The Amiga community is not such a big loss, SAM needs a lot bigger market, and so does OS4. Having been slightly involved with another board design some time ago, the problem of marketing it always pointed away from the community and given the existing competition, by finding niche markets the others because of their OS were unsuited.

Domestic service servers, has not been made up over night. It is the niche market, with huge long term growth, that unites the incipient need for server technology with the unsuitability of existing server OSes to cater.

The PS3 opportunity has been on the horizon for a good few years now. Missing this opportunity, which I have reason to believe is not intended to be missed, would be to condemn the OS to hobby status.

Quote:
Having no CPU cooler is nothing special today and that's not the main benefit of the SAM either. The same argument was used by the Genesi folks ("cool computing"), and nothing indeed qualifies just the SAM for that - I'm currently using a passively cooled PentiumIII-based machine as a home server (oh, and it serves all the bloat of Linux quite satisfactory). SAM's main benefit is that it's intended for running Amiga OS4 and that it originates from the inside of the Amiga community. The same cannot be in the least said about the PS3.


Having a cool running CPU with OS4 is the magic combo, its 24/7 power consumption is also an added advantage (I run a very hot intel box that is passively cooled, but it sucks power and on hot days it simply cannot cope).

Reliability is inherent in the PPC type CPU, it is just not obtainable in an Intel chip until it is slowed down to an amble.

Quote:
This is a heck of a twisted argument. So OS4 turns the PS3 into a something that needs a supplement computer, and for the ease of extending it further and not further confusing the user with exotic user interfaces you are suggesting an additional purchase of a SAM based computer? Or should I take this statement in a sense that you are suggesting the use of proprietary protocols for the PS3/SAM-home network? And correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't it be possible to just plug another harddrive into an USB port of the PS3?


It is not just HDs, you are right a portable USB would fix that, but sharing and general expansion (some is possible with the PS3, but it is by design very restricted).

What I am talking about is a number of interlocking markets. The very small Amiga market, which will if both are available will buy both SAM and PS3, for very different reasons. And the huge potential market for the mass PS3 community, where AOS4 can intrude and offer a lot more than Linux for the average user.


Besides which the actual release of ports should be, from what I can make out SAM and then after that PS3 (hopefully by the all important PS Home release in October).

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Re: Supplanting Keyboards
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@Dirk-B

Quote:

Dirk-B wrote:
@GregS

For me a touch screen with configurable keyboard would
be the best choice towards the future i think.

Lets say i want to type alot of flemish words, and you want
to type alot of english words. If we would put the most used
letters on the top or in the middle of the keyboard then that
would speed up our typing. Yes of cource we would need to
learn these new keyboards and adapt to the changes.


There is an inherent problem with keying, as against controlling by keys. The touch screen is great for controls, but for typing there is no tactile response, and moving fingers about in order to type, takes a lot of time to become proficient and is inherently slow.

What we plan is a freely configurable system. In Flemish the most used letters will be different to English, but as a bilingual writer you may prefer doing key placement in your mother tongue.

Some positions (ours is harmonic based) are primary, best suited for the most used letters and punctuation, secondary, third and fourth placed options, are also helped by keyset shifts, where special, mathematical and other typefaces can be moved in and out.

The critical point is visual coordination between letter choices and what is actually being typed, ideally this should be presented in the textline so that you are looking at what you are typing.

Quote:
Paul wrote:
@GregS

I haven't even tried to do more than enter phone numbers, names, etc. into my phone with the phone pad. You're right. It's really a pain.

Just recently I started using a Palm Z22 wtih Graffiti 2 software. I'm not terribly fast at entering text with Graffiti, but it's coming along. It's fairly intuitive, and I think could provide for some fairly quick text entry once one is used to it.


If I remember rightly Graffiti is a gesture based system, and it can be used as a proxy shorthand, but it takes time to learn and can be frustrating teaching it as well as the user - this is inherent in most gesture systems (Quicktype being an exception).

The trick is to take the eyes away from what the hand is doing, allowing the letters to be typed like a musical instrument is played - some tests on similar systems have relative novices typing faster than stenographers.

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Re: PS3 port of AOS4?
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@Oppressor

First and perhaps the hardest thing to accept, is that I don't consider the Amiga community a market. It is basically too small and getting smaller. Even if it was vastly expanded by a factor of 10, it would still be a small market.

My approach to the OS is that has virtues inherent in its design, and another set of virtues due to its neglect over the years. I accept there are also design deficits that in time will need to be eliminated.

Current established OSes suffer from the problem of accumulation, they have bulk devoted to a long history of adapting to standards, fads and integration into bigger systems. The base OS is large with these accumulated "assets".

Much of this depends on how the evolution of Desktop PCs is viewed. To slot OS4 into current uses of PCs is ridiculous, it just does not have the accumulation of assets to allow it be simply used as a replacement for MS, Linux or even Mac. A toe to toe contest with established brands in their market places is no contest at all, OS4 loses.

From my point of view, there is a need for a new market, largely independent of present PC use, but with potential to do things in a different, simple and versatile way.

Finding such a market, establishing ourselves within it, means we do not have to emulate the functionality of currently established OSes, instead we are a in a position to largely ignore them, and concentrate instead of solving net working and communications in a sensible way, with enough marketing padding to ignore many established but not necessarily proficient solutions.

Hence my long established interest in the PS3 as a market, but also my obsession with pre-empting a need, when such consoles are used as computers, for a simple, familiar OS to run domestic server services.

The cutting edge in this is simple, it does not lie in functional overkill, but rather the opposite - that is just enough functionality to deliver services.

Sevenof7 hit the nail on the head.

"The only thing I would say is which do you prefer... AmigaOS or Linux... and which would your mainstream game player who wants to tinker and maybe do a little wp and graphics prefer amnd find easier to use... considering i can't get my head around Linux..."

Linux is severe overkill. Be it for free, even if it is distributed with PS3 - it is a duck out of water for console users who have a need to expand into computer use.

Obviously SAM can have a lot of uses, including as a neat standalone desktop machine, but its use in various special purpose (or general purpose) hubs, is extremely flexible - mainly because of its passively cooled CPU and low power requirements.

But until SAM is produced in its hundreds of thousands, and the price comes down allowing it to be used for mundane as well as high end use it is just speculative.

Now from SAM's perspective, there are countless boards that run Linux, how does it rise above the competition?

As a board that runs OS4 as a desktop, is a quirk rather than an asset. But to penetrate the domestic market, to be come familiar to thousands of PS3 users as a simple way to add a domestic server network using an OS that they are also using on the console - now that is something else again, that is way of establishing the board as something different, versatile, reliable and useful.

Now to be brutal I don't think what the Amiga community wants, or thinks it wants, really comes into any of this. There is a historic dimension to this, a console, with fixed architecture, that sports a CPU capable of making use of other such CPUs, in a case that is a severe cut down on what is normally expected in I/O, yet out of the box has good fast LAN, WiFi, Bluetooth, fast USB, digital audio out, HDMI with superb HDTV connectivity, and only 60gigs of HD, yet allows the playing of film and audio files, that is a console begging for a domestic server.

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Re: What USB do you miss on OS4?
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@rwo
I like the dazzle video digitiser. But to be useful editing tools would be needed. There are probably better ones available, but it is cheap at least (only up to SVHS though).

Scanners would be the other, but mine are old and I do not where that technology is these days, if we had good OCR it would compliment that.

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Supplanting Keyboards
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I am presently working with a small company to use a common hand held device as a Keyboard typing replacement.

Obviously I can't say too much about it but a bit of background would not hurt.

First, as most people know the "QWERTY" design was created to slow typists down by putting the most used keys in the most awkward places. This was because the original typewriters often suffered key-jams with overly fast typists.

A more sensible keyboard arrange which never caught on was the "Dvorak layout".

Touch typers find it too hard to train out of QWERTY, and most of the rest of us Hunt-&-Peck, so any keyboard arrangement is as good as any other - hence "DvoraK" never achieved widespread use.

The problem is that Hunt-&-Peck is inherently slow but leads to familiar problems in writing on a computer. Missing words, especially joining words, plural and singular mix-ups, general jumps in the text and other oddities.

This is from looking at the keyboard and refocussing on the screen, the little words are forgotten in the process.

Two electronic approaches have been used to overcome these and other problems.

1) Using gestures, usually through a "pen", but more suited to a gear-stick (with tactile feedback).
2) Harmonics, using combinations of a few keys to produce a large number of letters.

The inherent problem with both these approaches is that require either touch screens or some other special device, plus people have to be persuaded train themselves.

Our approach leans heavily to harmonics, though arguably gesture is also being used.

The trick is finding an everyday electronic device that people already use and adopting to act as a typer.

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Re: Is it indifference or is it maturity?
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@number6
"For most I speak with, it begins with a feeling of being powerless to affect change. That, in turn, leads to indifference. Quite insightful really, when you realize there are thousands of people in the community who expressed the desire for change at one point or another."

There is another aspect "passion". You cannot feel legitimate passion for something that is completely beyond your control.

You can only feel passionate about those things you may be able to influence.

Recognising the lack of influence can only go two ways. Indifference (the lack of passion) or transference onto an aspect you think you can influence.

Changing tact is not always that easy, especially when it is hard to work out what can be influenced by passion, argument and ideas.

The trolls have passion, if little good sense. They have targeted Amiga Inc, and it works to a degree, isolating it, cutting off effective communications etc.,. The plan, is destructive, just bring it down so the OS is up for grabs, and I am not referring to Hyperion in this (that is more complex, and more likely to be resolved).

The passion for destructive trolling is entirely negative, nothing can be allowed to escape, no idea, no debate, no hope, all has to be blighted. That is why they leave nothing alone, and why it becomes increasingly frustrating to talk about anything without a constant background of irrelevant distractions.

On the other hand, changing tact, and trying by enthusiasm ideas and debate to influence future directions, is a way ahead and useful to to the companies involved.

SAM, other than selling to the small Amigan community, does not have on the face of it bright future. SAM as a cool running but "slower", "older" Cpu design seems to lock us in another backwater. Yet it is our only hope in current silicon.

The problem to my mind is how we are framing it, and the locked-in Desktop model is the number one problem in this.

SAM has some great characteristics, not the least its passive cooling 24/7 design. This fits it into many potential roles aside from being a small Desktop clunker.

Think of SAM in as many roles as possible, that would help, that are not simply a Desktop machine. Its not hard, to get excited about it as a mini server, a control device (cattle counting and water control on isolated stations - solar panel/battery powered). As a robust general communications hub (imagine trying to run an INTEL box in Australia's dusty deserts. We have thousands of remote settlements). various forms of portable uses. Etc.,.

In all this a quick booting light OS that is easily customized for special purposes (the KIOSKing interface).

Now with risk of being shot down -- imagine OS4 complementing SAM distribution by a more than adequate fast terminal PS3.

SAM is vital in this, along with other Amigaboards, to broaden out what can be done. Passively cooled CPU, you can't get a better design for multiple and diverse use.

Find the passion in what can be influenced however indirectly. Ideas are cheap, good ideas are rare, but it only takes one good idea to change things.

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Re: PS3 port of AOS4?
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@MikeB & all
"...to push even more capable solutions (for example multiple higher clocked Cell processors, more RAM, expansion slots, video input, etc."

I have taken this out of context, to draw attention to a simple strategic nexus between PS3 and SAM.

1) The characteristics of SAM begin its passive cooled relatively slow (compared to the CELL) CPU, its good PCI configuration. It would make a nice little Amigan Desktop.

2) The PS3 has limited (maybe nil) expansion possibilities, the I/0 lacks firewire (for video), in fact any audio/video input, no real internal expansion ala PCI or its like, it has fast LAN, easy to setup WI FI, and limited HD options

3) It is complemented by the PSP, which is acts as a remote both for the PS3 and also can be Universal IR remote (IR is also missing from the PS3).

4) Critically the PS3 practically pulls customers into buying a true HDTV at 1080p.

I am currently working with a company to produce a much better method of typing into the PS3 without a keyboard (at least for Latin and Greek type characters sets). That is an aside, but has implications re "otherOS".

And there is the Chinese market just over the horizon.

There is a lego-like combination in these four points. Something a bit beyond, simply getting a larger market for OS4, by porting to the PS3.

People make reference to the legal negotiations between Amiga In and Hyperion, as if we can influence that! Rather any lawyers worth their salt would first come to a compromise that allows business to go on - possibly a trust fund for moneys likely to be in dispute - so I don't think either party is likely to be sitting on its hands in this period.

Money solves a lot of ills and will spur on settlement, but money needs a viable market. PS3 offers that like no other. And this is something both companies have already expressed an interest in. More over, for at least three years it has been sitting there underneath all the other plans.

PS3 discussion, and I do not mean the sort of tripe experienced on some other forums, but somewhere like here that will draw attention and be clearly argued, will be read by both Amiga Inc and Hyperion, and SAM's company, that could have a beneficial effect. Essentially the legal dispute between the former two, is not about ownership, that is the form of the argument, that is about royalties.

Royalties is the end product, how much, what proportion of sales will be paid to Amiga Inc. The last bit is what part of the code is handed to Amiga Inc for OS5 purposes, another thing that could be solved by money-flow and payment even without resolving every aspect of IP, or indeed any.

The more the potential size of the market via PS3 is talked about, the greater spur on both companies to have their lawyers come up with a workable solution. In any case there is unlikely to be any restraint on Hyperion developing ports, for that would be mutual suicide.

Negotiations will not settle things like IP ownership - ever, they can only provide a legal framework where these issues become workable solutions. IP issues get solved in court, and both parties are wise enough not to go down that path unless all other options are exhausted - again the potential for money flow, through a large market potential, make such a tactic also suicidal.

Put the legal dispute into perspective, rather changes things. PS3 as a very large potential market - translates into a massive injection of cash.

Which brings me to the win-win involved in the 4 point lego set above.

HDTV makes computers useful anywhere in the house. In Australia, after a hiatus of any true HDTVs we are now seeing them advertised in numbers and much lower prices.

That strangely enough is the primary block - a device that in the next few years will become much more common, and has relatively little to do with PS3 (except gamers will be demanding them, asking about them, and perhaps have already moved things on a bit), or AmigaOS.

The second block is naturally the PS itself, in millions of homes already and millions more in the near future.

The third block is a robust, quick booting and cheerful otherOS running on it. OS4 is a perfect fit on a games machine.

The fourth, but not last, is SAM, or other Amiga Desktop, and small Desktop, boards, that are ideal to give an immediate solution to the lack of ready expansion for the PS3, first as a HD host, printer sharer, BlueRay burner, but also AV channeller - a domestic service server in other words. It will not take long for PS3 users to fill their disks.

SAM's passively cooled CPU and two PCI slots offers opportunities here, and the fact that AmigaOS has practically no server features is a bonus (there is no excessive cludge). All AmigaOS running on SAM has to is present shared and private HD space for PS3 users within a single household and then there is a market for it to, far bigger than anything the Amiga community could possibly provide, and an edge for the board to be seen and then used in other contexts as well.

SAM, even just as a HD server, can support (based on 2 X IDE and 2XPCIx 2 HDs each) six HDs, and on a basis of 500gig - that can be as high as just under 3 tetrabytes.

Think laterally, and there is money in this market. Money for Amiga Inc, Hyperion and SAM. It is not just a matter of a PS3 port, that is too narrow and misses the point. If you are concerned about resolving the legal issues dangle a great wad of cash, just out of reach - enough reason to settle things and get up from the table and grab it - that is an aspect of PS3 which seems to escape notice.

Now add the last element - marketing the OS4 port. In October there will be PSHome a direct link to the market, those that already own PS3 and a proportion who will already be thinking of "otherOS". Consider 1% of 10 million x $100 per unit, that is not a bad start to making OS4 a success and also from Amiga Incs point of view opening the way for OS5 also.

Leave PS3 alone as boring, let this opportunity slide away, then I can expect little for the future.

Generate some excitement, some simple ideas on how to make the most of it and that might resolve things on all fronts - after all we can do precious little but talk, so let the talk have some greater purpose.

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Re: PS3 port of AOS4?
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@AmiDog
Not a bad idea to introduce it into a growing market.

Though I do believe that charging as much as a PS3 game (loaded with fundamental apps) would make it competitive (using Linux is a good marketing tool for getting another OS IMHO).

Giving away several thousand copies for a few months might be a great way of immediately widening the market.

However, Amia Inc and Hyperion need money. As a stunt it would be a good way of getting started - especially if avatar agents gave away coupons in PS Home just as it was started.

If there was a limit of say 5,000 give-aways (simple download), followed up by 5,000 half-price coupons (download plus disks), and then a full priced buy would be easy to introduce (download followed by disks naturally). All of which could be done within PS Home. Outside buyers using normal channels at full price (who knows maybe even Sony would subsidise the exercise - I think they are really very keen on PS Home being a success).

Currently a good PS3 game costs about $AUS100, I can't see that being a problem for AOS4 + vital apps.

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Re: PS3 port of AOS4?
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Just popping in


@Oppressor
Thanks Oppressor, and yes it is interesting, in fact it a quote from Hyperion I have not seen before and a very encouraging one.

Hopefully the legal matters will be tidied up soon (especially as it is already over 3 months ago).

I hope the IBM SDK may solve some of the technical problems, but there is an upbeat tone in this quote about taking care of both - so I live in hope.

The fact is with such a big potential market, I suspect all parties will want to resolve things as quickly as possible on the legal front.

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PS3 port of AOS4?
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Just popping in


Amiga Inc mentioned it as an area of interest, Hyperion also, I seem to remember, and the Frieden Brothers were keen.

Obviously the recent release of the SAM board has priority, though I know nothing about whether or not anything is happening.

At the moment the PS3 sales have hit about 3 million units, in October a small price drop is expected with the release of PS Home, but what really interests me is otherOS a feature of PS3 gamesOS.

The otherOS option which I have used to install Yellow Dog Linux as easy to use. You can set it as the default boot in PS3 or boot whenever and back again. Plug in a USB mouse/keyboard and away you go.

I have been interested both in the Cell processor and PS3, the promise of being third OS friendly for some years now. I have been more than pleased with it (and so have my sons) since getting it a few weeks ago.

IBM has recently released an SDK for the Cell processor with PS3 options. In short, everything needed appears to be in place.

My guess is that it will not take too long before PS3 hits 10 million units and that is not even considering the potential in the next few years for the Chinese market (where a games and computer combo would find a large welcome).

I dislike Linux, and it sits pretty unhappily on the PS3, whereas AOS4 would fit beautifully INHO, though we need some emergency basic apps (X11 ports could fill the holes). Mind you as Linux goes it actually is the smoothest and fastest version (on the Cell) on any platform I have seen it run.

AOS4's quick booting would also fit (Linux at its best is slow), AOS4 takes a shorter time than most PS3 big games to load. The bright and cheerful Desktop fits like a hand for a well made glove.

Consider the market, even if only 1% bought OS4. But aside from this there are other things, that I have been surprised to find which could make it even easier for AOS4 to sell itself.

PS Home, about to be released as a restricted Beta, and in August as a public Beta for a full launch in October.

The best idea is to have a look at "Second Life", PS Home will not be the same of course, but there will be an overlap.

A 3D world inhabited by walking talking avatars, who can spend and play as they please. A place for fun and commerce, plus a place to introduce PS3 gamers to an OS that they may wish to install.

Not just a market, but also a means of marketing cheaply.

Surely a once in a lifetime opportunity for our OS.

And wouldn't cool running SAM be a perfect little domestic server to PS3 "work/playstations", also running AOS4?

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