Amiga Anyware

[Bobsonsirjonny]

Amiga have been working on a thing called Amiga Anyware. Basically its an SDK.

The idea is that code written can run on any device. In order for this to work a HAL (hardware abstraction layer) sits on the machine in question, and interperets the code so that it will run on said device. The HAL is often around 3K - 15K.

The device in question obviously has to have the resources available for the software to work - for example its pointless in trying to run some voice recognition software on a device without a mic, or a paint program on a device without a screen.

Code is totally portable - effectivly Amiga Anyware is a platform - just one that is not physically there. Its not Emulated either - but if you think in terms of emulation it may be easier to understand.

You can write a game, run it oin your PDA, PC, Linux Box, Set top Box, and GP32 - GP32 would be the best device though as its erganomically suited for playing games the benefits are that your code is totally portable - and therefore there will be more software available, and development will be faster!


I emailed Amiga, and got a reply saying that they have been watching the GP32 for quite sometime.

Amiga no longer make hardware, and sadly look like they are not goinna be makeing anything else with there present situation...

 

[Bobsonsirjonny]

I forgot to mention. An Amiga Anyware player (the environment it runs in) exists for Linux, and linux has been ported to the GP32. And a strongarm HAL exists.

 

[Dozer]

The linux emulator hasnt been completed and it doesnt work properly yet. It may never work, its a huge project

 

[Bobsonsirjonny]

I know porting an entire OS is - but the Kernal shouldnt be too big a deal. Im sure a strong Arm version of the Linux Kernal must exist, hell Linux is more epidemic than SARS!


But my point was Amiga Anyware may help speed up development.



Amiga Anyware

 

[Tobriand]

The Kernel for Linux exists... I'm told the problem is that its very hard to write a loader to run the thing off an SMC, rather than a problem with the ARM 9 Kernel...

 

[Dozer]

The gp32i or whatever its called (the other mobile version) ran linux kernal

 

[NiN^_^NiN]

If amiga anywere can get running on the gp32 then we can run the software dosbox or whatever it was its been ported to amiga platform so we should be able to play commander keen

h34r:

 

[EvilDragon]

Ah, nono, sorry to bust your bubbles, but Amiga Anywhere has NOTHING to do with the old Amiga and therefore will NOT run Amiga programs.
It's a completely new software platform developed by Amiga Inc.

The special thing about it is, that you only need an Amiga Anywhere OS or Player for your OS to run the software.
It exists for Linux, Windows, Amiga, mobile phones, etc.

The idea behind this is that you can run the software on any machine, regardless what OS you are using.

 

[NiN^_^NiN]

AHHH U BURST MY BUBBLE

oh well back to the drawing board.

h34r:

 

[khephren]

I'm an old Amiga head- and still use both my A1200 and A4000, but personally I think amiga anywhere is a waste of time. It's mostly just a rehash of TAO intent. And no one seems to develop for it. I think they missed their chance, they should have ported the AmigaOS over to PDA's not created something new, and inferior. I think i'd rather see a working Java or Flash implementation on the GP myself. (or an Amiga emu!)

 

[Bobsonsirjonny]

Sure its based on intent - but intent was more for embedded systems. This is a re-application of the technology, and I thought it would fit in nicely with the GP32's modle.

Amiga Anyware was being developed with a goal to porting the entire OS to it so taht it can run on any hardware - is totally scaleable so you'd have it for your Desktop and PDA.. But sadly iwth there present situation it looks unlikely that they will do it - but Hyperion might.

In the mean time there is an OS called AROS - The Amiga Reasearch OS - Development started in the dark days when Amiga was essentially in limbo. Its open source, and is being developed for a number of Platforms including PDA's.

Now if they had more people behind it a working Amiga OS would be out sooner than later Anyone want an Amiga compatable OS - wiith extra features for the GP32?? This wouldn't be emulation - this owuld be native, and modern B)

AROS

 

[khephren]

If your going to run binary compatible Amiga games and apps, you'll have to have to have an emulation layer, even for AROS. Personally, I like the look of what they are doing with AROS, and have been keeping a beady eye on it. I think these things would be better off on a proper PDA though, the lack of keyboard/mouse/touch screen really hamstrings the GP for use as a PDA. I never understood why AMIGA started developing 'amiga anywhere' when the OS patents they had actualy bought would have been much better for a PDA machine. I mean, with a few tweeks you can get workbench to run on a coldfire mobile CPU, which runs at 100's of MHZ. And it's got a very small CPU and memory overhead, and a host of apps/games already to go. I'd have loved to see an amiga PDA, maybe in the old PSion formfactor, oh well....

It's taken ages for hyperion to port the OS to PPC, I can't see it ever ending up on intent. If I just see OS4 at all, I will be happy.

 

[Bobsonsirjonny]

AROS already have a working 68K emu of sorts - a guy who goes by the name of Gaidheal is working on it. Its apparently going to be intregated into AROS in such a way as to be transparent.

Your point about an Amiga OS PDA makes sense - and would have been a cool route, but they wanted out of hardware. At the time content for PDA's was limited, and they hoped to capitalise on all the community members development skills to build a folio of software that would rock the PDA world. Microsoft seemed to like the idea as they did a deal with em, and in the states you can buy Amiga Anyware game packs branded by M$.. which kinda defeats the point of write once run anyware - but at the time i thought this was great news as they had a steady revenue stream and i figuered this would filter down to OS 4.

As for ColdFire - some people were trying to develop a coldfire accelerator ages ago, but it just wasnt really practicle. Coldfire isn't as 68K compatable as people think - for most things it is, but the Amiga uses bits that the coldfire left out.
It could have worked, but the OS would have had to have been patched up to the gills - almost a re-write!!



I also think its unlikely that we will see OS 4 on intent - partly cos of Aincs current financial woes - but OS 4 sits upon a HAL - so once written it should be very easy to port... They estimate it'll be out by the end of the year - and this time I think they will hit the deadline as they have been taking it on tour, and showing people the fruits of their labour.

 

[khephren]

It would be nice to see OS 4 ported to differant platforms, maybe using 'anywhere' as binary exchanger between the different platforms of Amiga (then again I guess Java could be used for that as well). Personally even if the coldfire idea doesn't work (and it is getting late in the day, I remember this idea being bandied about before amiga format went CD!) You could still do a cool amiga portable using a coldfire processor (which is fully 020 complient and goes up to 66mhz). Although PDA's are getting so fast they will probably be able to emulate the amiga soon although probably only games, and probably only at low 020 speeds. no chance of final writer or lightwave I always inagined a PDA Amiga as something like the Psion series 5, but with a 640x480 display.

 

[Chip]

Isn't this the exact same concept as Java? With the only real difference being that there's quite a bit of software written in java...

 

[Bobsonsirjonny]

@ Chip

Essentially the same - but this is a far more efficient implementation. For example - for JAVA to work you have to code in JAVA.... For Amiga Anyware - you may use whatever language suits. You compile it down to Amiga Anyware's virtual processor - which runs atop a HAL

So where as Java is a language - AA is in effect a new platform - a virtual hardware B)


Java's also kinda screwy since M$ wanted a piece of the pie... and then their is .net witch from what I understand is meant to woek similar to AA, but in a real round about arsed up way...


@ Khephren

PDA's are grosely overpowered when you remove windows CE. Its like stripping fat from arteries.. An Amiga OS PDA would have been soooo efficient - all that power and very little overheads


Anyway - I gotta go fly cos I'm off to Amsterdam now See you all in a few days!