Craig's Amiga Journal 23/10/00

Amiga - Back with a Future!

It's really cool being a member of the Amiga Advisory Council, but at the same time it can sometimes be extremely frustrating. It's cool because I can pass on the feelings and wishes of the community and - in some small way - influence the future of the Amiga. On the other hand, it's frustrating because I occasionally hear little bits of news or information that I would love to pass on to others in the Amiga community, but which I am bound to keep to myself. This past weekend, however, I felt less like an insider and more like everyone else. Because at the ACE 2000 show in Melbourne, Bill McEwen dropped a few bombshells that took everyone by surprise - me included. Before I get to those announcements, however, I should begin at the beginning and speak a little about the ACE 2000 show. ACE 2000 The Alternative Computer Exhibition was promoted as an event for all those other computers that aren't reliant on Windows. That meant - primarily - Linux, Apple and Amiga. You could see MacOSX running, discuss Linux installations, buy Amiga software and peripherals, and talk with and listen to experts on all platforms. It would be an understatement to suggest that the numbers were a little lower than every other show I've ever been to. It would probably also be an understatement to suggest that the numbers were probably a tad lower than the organisers would have hoped for. I arrived a little after three on the Saturday afternoon and found the venue nearly empty. On the two floors of the exhibition at the Melbourne Formula One Grand Prix pit offices there were probably fewer than a hundred visitors. I checked out the MacOS rooms, and drooled over a G4 running MacOSX. I own an older PowerMac running MacOS8.6, and I enjoy using it. From what I've seen so far of OSX, I'm not overly impressed. Maybe I haven't been shown the best features, maybe the people who have been showing it to me don't know much about it themselves yet. But as much as I'd love a G4 Mac (especially one of the cubes, despite the design compromises that have been publicised so much), I'm not after it for the new OS. There wasn't much there to be seen of Linux. I'm led to believe that there were people there to help with the usual 'installation woes', but I didn't see them. Mind you, I'm prepared to accept that that's my fault - I was keen to get to the Amiga stuff. There were most of the remaining Amiga dealer stalwarts there, though the numbers are dwindling. Among them Unitech Electronics, ComputaMagic, and Amiga Technologies. The user groups were represented by Amiga Downunder Users Group (ADUG) and the Melbourne Amiga User Group (MAUG). Dr Greg Perry (GP Software, of DOpus, GPFax and EasyLedgers fame) was there too, along with one or two other developers. There was nothing in the way of new releases, but there was a great deal of bargain basement software and hardware. AmigaDE - the demonstration A small group (maybe forty people) gathered in the seminar room to meet and hear Bill McEwen, Amiga supremo. Bill spoke twice during the day - I caught the second show. The main thrust was to introduce and demonstrate the Amiga Digital Environment - AmigaDE. First of all, why AmigaDE - why not continue to develop the current OS? "It would take six months to port the current OS to the PPC platform," Bill explained, "and even then it would only be emulating a 680x0. It would take twelve to eighteen months to do a true port." "The AmigaDE is a full-fledged Operating System," he continued. "It can run alone as a sole Operating System, or as a real time Operating System on another Operating System." To demonstrate this concept, he took a single floppy disk and inserted it into a laptop running windows. After a few batch files whizzed through (they were actually installing the AmigaDE operating system, and took about seven seconds) the application - a brickout game - started running. We effectively had a game running on an operating system that was running on windows - and all executed from a single floppy in seconds. The real kicker came when he then removed the same floppy disk fromt the Windows laptop and inserted in into a second laptop that was running Linux. From the same disk, the same game started running - again, a game running on AmigaDE, which was running on Linux. It was the same game code being executed in both cases. "Paul Nolan spent months and months trying to port Photogenics to the Linux platform," Bill told us. "It took him three weeks to port it to the AmigaDE, and now he has Photogenics available for Linux and Windows as well as Amiga." Bill fired up Photogenics on his Windows laptop to prove his point.   Next Page...

The Melbourne Formula One Grand Prix pits area. These buildings are used to housing fast, high-powered, technically brilliant, cutting edge technology - so hosting an Amiga (and Mac and Linux) expo seems very apt. Jeff Rose - Amiga dealer, technician, AAC member, passionate Amigaphile, and nice guy. Basil Flinter - Amiga evangelist, Amiga Downunder secretary, AAC member, and tireless worker. Amiga supremo Bill McEwen addresses the small group of attendees. Photogenics - running on Windows thanks to the AmigaDE Steve Kennedy (President of ADUG & CAUS), Basil Flinter and Bill McEwen

Copyright 2000, Craig Delahoy

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Copyright 2000, Craig Delahoy URL: www.ansonic.com.au/craigd/cdamiga.htm	Last modified: 23 October 2000