@tsifnori

Probably Hyperion terribly underestimated the liveliness of their business partner and came up with an extremely silly plan to extend on AmigaOS4 until it (in their phantasmal understanding of civil law) could be declared theirs. In my country contracts are there to signify the intent to operate on the terms of a mutual agreement, and I would expect this understanding to be universal enough to apply in Belgium as well.

If someone steals a car and drives around with it for years, would it appease the owner that it had been repainted and equipped with cool accessoires? I don't know if it was incompetence or deliberateness to delay the product by 4 years, but it caused immeasurable damage, not only to Amiga Inc., but to other market contenders as well, which I can't restrain myself from repeating.

Luckily the Friedens have nothing to do with all this annoying stuff, as they keep pointing out, they are just contract workers. I only wonder who the dorks are that are running Hyperion.

@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.

But that's not the point and I respect that this doesn't matter from a user's perspective. 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?

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.

I agree that Linux is severe overkill for... well, doing pixel graphics like in DPaint, I guess. As for doing wp [sp? - webpages?] and especially serving files, handling internet and LAN connectivity and play back media, I'm not so sure.

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.

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?

I'm not saying that OS4 on the Playstation 3 couldn't under no circumstances make some sense, but wouldn't it be better to get it out on hardware first that was specifically designed for OS4? I think that there is not much enthusiasm left to be wasted for experiments on fantastic escape plans.

@GregS

If I understand you correctly, what you're suggesting is that the SAM should be thought and advertised as a peripheral supplement to the PS3, both running Amiga OS4. But along the lines of this reasoning, I fail to see the necessity for Amiga OS4 on the PS3 in first place, and especially on the supplement device.

Clarification on this matter seems crucial for your argument, as it deals with the notion of a market, consumer requirements and sales estimates. You even take it to the point where the alleged market potential could overcome dissents between Amiga Inc. and Hyperion, which seems a dubious argument to me. We know nothing about the details of this conflict, so how could we possibly solve a problem which isn't ours and nobody has chosen to grant us insight to?

First we should agree on what kind of market we are talking here - the Amiga enthusiast market or a media centric, home theatre consumer market. For the latter (and all the retro enthusiast's irrationality put aside), customers tend to behave opportunistically, and one should try to (in that order) identify and satisfy an existing consumer need. I suspect that you're not only trying to achieve things in the wrong order (we have a product, now we just have to tailor a need around it), but even to weld contradictional things together (the PS3 poses a serious threat to the SAM, let's come up with some synergistic use for both of them).

So, when you're talking of market opportunities, why should _either_ of the devices be equipped with AmigaOS4 in first place, and is there any need for a supplement device at all? For a media consumer (who has been identified as techophile, as she needs an initial willingness to install an operating system on the PS3), wouldn't of all things Linux be the logical choice regarding cost, widespread availability, drivers, software and support in forums? Note: Yellow Dog Linux for the PS3 has been distributed with tech magazines in Germany.

Regarding the supplement device: Linux is capable of serving NFS, Samba and CIFS rather well, and in fact I'm using it for this purpose at home. There's hardly any need for a costly desktop, single-user operating system to fulfill a free server, multi-user operating system's purpose. Generally the benefit of that supplement device seems far-fetched to me, as technically affine people already have a computer (or even a second computer for media serving).

The PS3 is a selling point and DRM enforcement device for Sony, and from a media consumer's viewpoint it makes enough sense as it stands. Hardware access under Amiga OS4 would be limited, as guest operating systems are running under control of a Hypervisor. This is precisely what a majority in the next-generation Amiga community has always despised: virtualization.

The SAM, on the other hand, is just a PPC motherboard and still has to find its niche, yet it's likely to run Linux in 90% of all instances. The only thing that unites them from an Amigan's viewpoint is an instruction subset in their ALU. That alone doesn't make them complementary, just the opposite, as Amiga OS4 on the PS3 would grievously harm sales of the SAM board in the Amiga marketplace, and we should decide on what we as a community prefer.

@GregS

You might be interested in this thread:
http://amigans.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=553

@Mikey_C

Admitting that we all contributed our share to the misery and that it's self-inflicted is the first step. Not only companies, protagonists and wanna-bes of all kinds have failed, this applies to users and developers alike. At some point in the Amiga past we all either came up with a stupid idea that was poorly executed or we fell for a stupid idea that was poorly executed.

Phase5's PPC/PowerUp was probably the most stupid HW/SW combination ever conceived, but it fell into a directionless vacuum and was adopted by people who were eagerly awaiting direction. Hardly understood by its customers and lacking everything ranging from an OS to compilers and a 68k emulator, it made inroads into the marketplace and paved the way for all kinds of fragmentation. This together with the compiler and RTG splits is when the cracks in the community set in. To their defense, Phase5 had a legitimate interest in selling products; it's not their fault that their incomplete design was adopted, and the same can be said about the fiascos to follow.

I didn't fall for the PPC stupidity. I was watching the Amiga community falling apart and stopped adopting new hardware and developing software. But, being entirely human, I'm not exempt from stupidity; Hoping for a new concept, I followed a few years later Amiga Inc. by buying their SDK and developing for DE. But contrary to what they promised, focusing on the DE, they turned by 180 degrees and started supporting the classic OS again! I think that Amiga Inc. had to turn into a letterbox affair since this inconsistence has caught the eyes of their investors.

Some of my fellow Amigans followed the Pegasos, others next to me started using emulators, but in the end we all were followers, minions, and frivolously giving up which once summed up the Amiga quite nicely: Unity. Now I think that's just the natural way how cultures degenerate in secession wars when leaders which they accommodated to die all of a sudden. The only reasonable conclusion is: Do not accommodate to leaders!

I don't like letting a lengthy post end in indifference and fatalism, so what next? I suggest that we put aside all the crap of the past, ranging from PPC cards, Pegasoses, emulators, AmigaOnes, DE and the like and start thinking on our own terms. Perhaps the next Amiga is the one that we may build in unity again, without leaders? I can't say that AROS "is it", I was personally thinking of something more like an open-source incarnation of the DE, but I would agree to different models as well, including OS4. But then we would have to seize the OS, steal it, rename it, open source it, whatever... it's not a viable path if it denies me control as a user and developer.

As this is all very unlikely to happen, I can assure you that I'll stay here with you to turn off the lights.

@Outcast

> hey look AmigaInc

There is no one looking.

@Jurassicc

> If hyperion were to sign up as PS3 developers, after all they are a games company, do you think they would get access to the hardware reference docs then.

I can't speak for the PS3, but signing up as a developer for the Playstation 2 is expensive, and the process of getting a game title out is difficult and full of conformance tests, all on behalf of Sony's quality demands.

> But would this mean that OS4 would have to be published by Sony in the same way games are.

It's not going to happen this way. Hyperion may produce a game title or they may port an OS - either way, the rules to play by are all set by Sony. What I would expect from a PS3 port is that there is no access to Bluray, no direct access to the graphics hardware and no access to PS2 compatibility. The PS3 is a DRM enforcement device, and it stinks.

I'm not sure if I would want to buy a PS3 just for the sake of OS4. OS4 is unlikely to profit from the PS3, as the PS3 is an extremely controlled and hostile environment, like everything coming from Sony. Access to the more interesting parts of the hardware (besides the Cell) may turn out to be limited, if not nonexistent.

I doubt that there will a big future for Cell outside the PS3, and I've come to this conclusion after I visited seminars where IBM revealed its haphazardness and lack of ideas when it comes to selling it to a mainstream development scene. It may end as the average "yet another processor for settop boxes", but no sooner than its price dropped to a tenth or twentieth of what it is now. If things don't improve in this regard, the Cell will equally fail to support the future growth of the platform.

My affinity towards gaming and home theatre is close to zero, as I regard consoles basically as cash desks, so the PS3 part is of no excuse for me either, and I'm saying this in the light of doing active Playstation 2 development for recreational purposes (see http://ps2.neoscientists.org/ for details). First things first, let's first get Amiga Inc. out of the picture, and then we are free to decide which platforms may offer a fruitful environment for the advance of the Amiga.

Hello, my name is Timm, I'm living near Darmstadt, Germany. I'm an Amiga user and developer since 1987. Amiga-wise I own an A3000, an A600 and a Pegasos. My main interest in computers is developing software with strong leanings towards operating system design and multimedia.

> Now do you see my point? "I should be ok" sure. "you are ok so long as you don't open a port" sure. But what if someone does?

In one word: Don't.

The Amiga is hardly suited for serving documents to a publicly exposed network, and it is definitely unfit for running CGI scripts -- at least by the means of executing binary code. What I would find myself halfway comfortable with, though, is when the webserver (and all accompanying CGIs) were written in safe scripting languages, i.e. pointer-less, with automatic memory management. But I still wouldn't run such a setup unless I had written every single line of code myself.

Use Linux oder *BSD for serving documents to the outside world, that's what they are made for. Get a VServer-enabled kernel or use 'jails' and setup your software in a virtual environment. You can even mess around with half-finished scripts in a public network then. OS3 and 4 simply lack the needed features for that.

> In any incarnation is AmigaOS secure enough to risk connecting to the internet with your private data on the system?

If you even have to ask this question, then it's secure.

> Every other OS out there has holes and flaws and I was wondering ( in the light of a lot of people investigating the retro classic market ) if it is worth building a list of what you should and should not do with an Amiga online?

Most other operating systems provide something to the outside world which is deemed a "service", that is, it has got something to offer. If for an outsider there is no point in using your computer, then there's no lever to abuse it either.

> Is the advice always: Use a hardware firewall.

This is generally a good idea, but in the case of an Amiga, not really needed. And it has not even something to do with obscurity, just with the absence of services. So ask yourself what services your Amiga offers to the network. If the answer is "nothing" (which is likely), then there's nothing to worry about.