Hi everybody,

First: I like AROS, nice OS, nice license !!


I assume every knows that are new "Classic" AMIGAs produced now.

There is the MiniMig http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimig
An A500 clone.

And there is the NatAmi http://www.natami.net
The Natami is maybe best described an A5000 successor.
AGA, Copper, Blitter, native 32bit Trucolor, high resolution, 24bit sound, ATAPI, Ethernet, etc.

Many believe that AROS will be the best operating system for these computers.

AROS for 68k could allow the MiniMig to be equipped with a free, legal OS.

And AROS for 68k/Coldfire would allow the NatAmi to have a free OS.

Many people believe that the NatAmi has the potential for a nice retro-machine which could not only be used to play old AGA games but could also be used for "everday computer tasks" as internet surfing.

In theory the NatAmi could be produced cheap as "Amiga-Joystick" but still have enough memory and the CPU power to surf the internet, watch Youtube etc.

I believe that for such a device AROS woukld be ideal.
Maybe such a device which has the potential to get sold in Wallmarts is an opportunity for AROS too.


I would like to know what the AROS developers think about the possibility of brushing up the 68k port.

Would anyone be interested in doing this?

I think many ex-amiga users would love to see AROS on Natami/MiniMig. And I belive that many will donate to this port if the AROS team asks for this

Cheers
Gunnar

Already exists as Kickstart Replacement One and Kickstart Replacement Two bounties.

Dammy
TeamAROS

Quote:

Yes - I know this.

My question is any developer interested in working on these?

Lets speak it out clearly:
- I think it would be great to get these two bounties done now.

- But some people spread the word that donating to these bounties is lost money as AROS wants to drop OS 3 compatibility anyway and that these bounties will never be made.

a) Are these bounties still possible to do?
b) Is anyone interesting in taking them?
c) Does it make sense to ask people donating to them?

@all interested

http://bbrv.blogspot.com/2008/03/cold ... loper-program-begins.html

R&B

Here is my pov on Amiga Kickstarts and their replacement:

These are mainly a set of libraries put together. And (I guess) a startup code which launches exec.library and others in the right order.

So Commodore could have made a tiny Kickstart which would have be only the startup code: all other parts of the OS would have be on the respective drawers of the booting media (SYS:Libs SYS:Devs SYS:L ...). But some games or programs did start from floppy disks and it was more practical to have some functions already present in the system at boot time.

These libraries were providing functions to programs, in a standardised manner. So if you had to open a window on a new screen, intuition.library gave you functions to do it.

The behaviour of all these functions in all of those libraries is well described in Rom Kernel Manuals and in The Guru Book for example. And AROS was made by coders who implemented these functions, but who only knew about them after reading their behaviour in those books.

RKM and The Guru Book ARE THE CONTAMINED ROOM and AROS IS THE CLEAN ROOM!!!

A skilled developper can take the source code of every library in AROS and compile it for Motorolla 68k. There will of course be some incompatibilities to hunt one after the other. But then every Amiga library can be dropped by its AROS equivalent.

Devices and handlers surely need a similar work, plus the work of porting AROS to Amiga hardware: AROS provides HIDD system, some sort of Paula.hidd and Denise.hidd and so on probably would do the job?

Put all this work together and you can make a new Kickstart without disassemble anything.

So imho AFA is some sort of a beginning of the work for the Kickstart replacement bounties... And Bernd surely could do with some help.

Quote:

I checked the web page (http://amidevcpp.amiga-world.de/afaupload.php). The latest release is from 3rd February 2008, so the project is alive and seems to be doing well :). I think at this point this is the most advanced working 68k 'version' of AROS.

I know that this is the the one bounty that I REALLY want to see done. These bounties would free the classic Amiga.

Wow the kickstart Replacement Bounty's go crazy... they have now (combined) gone up to 2400$ :)

@all interested

We just posted this image on our blog:



That is an EFIKA next to the OLPC. The new reference design we discussed today is based on the MPC5121e. The 5121e has an embedded PowerVR graphic core. The Pixel Qi display will actually ship with the reference design.

For the NATAMI, there will be some solid advantages to being indirectly associated with this development. We can use the same display. We may be able to use the same casework as the OLPC. But most of all, the development involves another Freescale processor. From our perspective, once we confirm the ColdFire can be used, we will be off to the races.

R&B

That would be very cool I think!