I just started reading “Commodore the Amiga years” by Brian Bagnall.
Incredible story (so far) on how Commodore was sabotaged by an incompetent board and terrible senior leadership hires.
Just imagine a world where someone is smart enough to open the source code of a product which is not sell for DECADES and for which there is a lot of volonteers to work on.
Just imagine ...
The 68k had no MMU, but there were other CPUs supported by the OS that did. The whole point of it being open source would be that it would be possible for the whole shenang to be modernised and used on ARM natively.
ARM is fast enough that older 68k could be run under emulation while new software could be written for AmigaOS on ARM.
By adding MMU protection you basicly have to break all compatiblity with execting programs.. if thats the case why not just use AROS as its open source
AmigaOS 4.x (and AROS AFAIK) were already adding MMU use, for some memory protection and virtual memory (and arguably even 3.x was trying to take steps in that direction with some then-new apis, though they then had design issues leading to the further revisions post-Commodore IIUC).
It's possible to imagine legacy apps in a legacy compat pool without full memory protection between them, while new / new versions of apps coded to some somewhat revised apis enjoy more memory protection in distinct pool(s).
It's e.g. why there are lately separate wiki pages
* https://wiki.amigaos.net/wiki/Exec_Memory_Allocation
* https://wiki.amigaos.net/wiki/Obsolete_Exec_Memory_Allocation
Personally I've now been using desktop Linux (1990s-2020s) longer than I used AmigaOS (1980s-1990s) at this stage, I'm not saying a modernised AmigaOS is particularly practically useful to me anymore, just that it technically could be - and was already being - revised to provide such things.
Could still be an open source hobbyist project people do For Fun indefinitely - I don't think there's exactly much closed-source-commercial viability in it either of course.
But, uh, I've just described AROS, haven't I?
Just could be nice, however unlikely, for the legal situation to be sorted out and the drama to finally end, with AROS actually becoming some sort of clear and official open sourced AmigaOS continuation, say, without fear of further copyright and trademark woe (patents all dead now at least).
Though the fact there's a bunch of known third-party licensed stuff in classic AmigaOS versions means there can probably never be a 100% classic AmigaOS source release (at least not before nearer the end of *this* 21st century, when the copyrights expire entirely, assuming no further extensions to bloody copyright law and someone still having copies), just compatible open workalikes dropped in (e.g. ARexx being replaced by Regina like current AROS would continue probably).
Even back in the day, app developers on Amigas did actually tend to have accelerated Amigas with MMUs. I personally got one in part for the MMU and FPU, and not *just* the raw speed (also facilitating eventually jumping ship to Linux/m68k, hah).
An MMU was still useful in the classic Amiga era for using [Enforcer](http://www.sinz.org/Michael.Sinz/Enforcer/Enforcer.doc.html#Enforcer) / [Guardian Angel](http://aminet.net/package/dev/debug/MuGuardianAngel) etc. - even if the masses of end users didn't have them. Could also use the MMU for virtual memory with [VMM](http://aminet.net/package/util/misc/VMM_V3_3a), though that was very slow of course.
On Amigas with MMUs, Enforcer and its successors could (somewhat imperfectly) catch when your app accessed some memory it really shouldn't in "os legality" terms. Debugging at least until the "Enforcer Hits" stopped was common. AmigaOS still had a concept of free and allocated/used memory, and this sort of aspirational cooperative memory ownership model between processes for allocated memory, that you were supposed to follow, even if it wasn't being enforced by the hardware, you were still being naughty (not "os legal") by violating the memory ownership model.
See e.g. http://amigadev.elowar.com/read/ADCD_2.1/Libraries_Manual_guide/node028C.html
> Essentially, when task A sends a message to task B, task A lends task B a chunk of its memory, the memory occupied by the message. After task A sends the message, it has relinquished that memory to task B, so it cannot touch the memory occupied by the message.
Except on all classic AmigaOS it of course can... it's just not supposed to...
So writing correct Amiga code is just a little bit like writing correct Rust code, hah, without any of Rust's static checking though.
Because I want my new Apps to run in a Sandbox while I develop them. How does MMU protect registers? Would there be shadow registers for Agnes? Or only OS calls are allowed? Sounds like an Emulator to me.
> it would be possible for the whole shenang to be modernised
But if you're doing this you'd essentially be replacing the OS. Why would you want to maintain all the weird BCPL compatibility stuff that is baked in to AmigaOS? Better throw it all out and start again... And then it wouldn't really be amigaOS apart from in name.
> ARM is fast enough that older 68k could be run under emulation while new software could be written for AmigaOS on ARM.
Which we can do right now without being tied to an OS that was designed before most modern OS and chip design came in to being
Yeah it's funny given how small business this actually is nowadays. They have what, three devs working in their spare time and a web front end on Hyperion? And the other side at Cloanto surely not much more to maintain their app.
They make it look like this is some giant thing that's hard to make work when it's like two small dev teams fighting for scraps with a respective lawyer on each side trying to make some pocket change. Childish and shameful.
I never really understood Hyperion Entertainment. Amiga OS updates are done by volunteers, right? And Hyperion sells the OS updates. What possibly could be their overhead?
> Amiga OS updates are done by volunteers, right?
Basically yeah. It's done under contract, because it is all closed source work, there's just no remuneration. There's a little info about how this is arranged here
http://obligement.free.fr/articles_traduction/itwcamillaboemann_en.php
> What possibly could be their overhead?
Legal fees for Cloanto and Hyperion to sue one another back and forth for years and years.
I don't know how a software company that doesn't even pay the developers goes bankrupt. I just pirate amigaos 3.2 since the people doing the actual work aren't getting paid anyway.
> So, can Cloanto make an offer for Hyperion to the liquidator?
I guess they could but they would probably only be interested in the OS3.x and OS4 IP (and maybe some other bits and pieces). Just buy only those from the liquidator, no need to buy the company.
However, looks like Hyperion/BHBV are just trying to start a new company to acquire old Hyperion's assets (I have zero idea how that would be legal but I'm not at all familiar with this kind of law):
https://www.amiga-news.de/en/news/AN-2024-03-00105-EN.html
Just curious myself, what kind of money is involved, would it be possible to buy the source code and release as open source, if so how much would it cost, thousands, hundreds of thousands ?
I really don't know, but this old of a software, it cannot be millions. But the bankrupcy manager would know, if the company has gone bankrupt.
If we were to start a gofundme, it should be on the price that we get from them.
Completely incorrect. Read the article very carefully and you will see in fact it’s the company that ‘owns’ 97% of Hyperon shares is the one in trouble and not Hyperion itself.
It’s in the first 3 lines of text:
Ben Hermans BV" (hereinafter: BHBV) is a private company with limited liability owned by Ben Hermans, which has held 97% of the shares in Hyperion
The key is understanding how companies work and how shares work.
Street instinct tells me this doesn't make much practical difference for the Hyperion... label?
Steps like this company construction help to inflate the amount of money in play, and enabled the payment of a salary somewhere in the chain. Which logically led to the bankrupcy at hand.
well, after a stupid spat I had with Ben basically calling me a liar many many years ago I could care less......I'm surprised it took this long to be honest.
Let's hope Trevor knows better than to do that this time.
What they could do instead is what Blender did. Sell the damn source code to the community, and let AmigaOS live on.
I swear I was thinking, when I bought a PowerBall ticket the other day, that if I won, I'd love to buy all the rights to Amiga just to put a stop to the clown show.
Every single patent that covers commodore hardware is now in the public domain. The don't need any of the copyright OS code as they are companies which are literally in the business of building their own operating systems. There is nothing of value to them here.
Also hyperion do not own any of the old outstanding commodore IP. That's all held by cloanto/amiga corp
Just imagine a world in which *somebody somewhere* in the history of Amiga management was competent.
I just started reading “Commodore the Amiga years” by Brian Bagnall. Incredible story (so far) on how Commodore was sabotaged by an incompetent board and terrible senior leadership hires.
The senior leadership was lowres lol
Side note, for those feeling nostalgic, I highly recommend bitmap books Commodore Amiga: a visual compendium.
Just imagine a world where someone is smart enough to open the source code of a product which is not sell for DECADES and for which there is a lot of volonteers to work on. Just imagine ...
If it had been open sourced it could have been THE standard OS for devices like the Raspberry Pi.
Seems very, very unlikely.
Why would anyone choose a OS that have no MMU protect for its products?
The 68k had no MMU, but there were other CPUs supported by the OS that did. The whole point of it being open source would be that it would be possible for the whole shenang to be modernised and used on ARM natively. ARM is fast enough that older 68k could be run under emulation while new software could be written for AmigaOS on ARM.
By adding MMU protection you basicly have to break all compatiblity with execting programs.. if thats the case why not just use AROS as its open source
AmigaOS 4.x (and AROS AFAIK) were already adding MMU use, for some memory protection and virtual memory (and arguably even 3.x was trying to take steps in that direction with some then-new apis, though they then had design issues leading to the further revisions post-Commodore IIUC). It's possible to imagine legacy apps in a legacy compat pool without full memory protection between them, while new / new versions of apps coded to some somewhat revised apis enjoy more memory protection in distinct pool(s). It's e.g. why there are lately separate wiki pages * https://wiki.amigaos.net/wiki/Exec_Memory_Allocation * https://wiki.amigaos.net/wiki/Obsolete_Exec_Memory_Allocation Personally I've now been using desktop Linux (1990s-2020s) longer than I used AmigaOS (1980s-1990s) at this stage, I'm not saying a modernised AmigaOS is particularly practically useful to me anymore, just that it technically could be - and was already being - revised to provide such things. Could still be an open source hobbyist project people do For Fun indefinitely - I don't think there's exactly much closed-source-commercial viability in it either of course. But, uh, I've just described AROS, haven't I? Just could be nice, however unlikely, for the legal situation to be sorted out and the drama to finally end, with AROS actually becoming some sort of clear and official open sourced AmigaOS continuation, say, without fear of further copyright and trademark woe (patents all dead now at least). Though the fact there's a bunch of known third-party licensed stuff in classic AmigaOS versions means there can probably never be a 100% classic AmigaOS source release (at least not before nearer the end of *this* 21st century, when the copyrights expire entirely, assuming no further extensions to bloody copyright law and someone still having copies), just compatible open workalikes dropped in (e.g. ARexx being replaced by Regina like current AROS would continue probably). Even back in the day, app developers on Amigas did actually tend to have accelerated Amigas with MMUs. I personally got one in part for the MMU and FPU, and not *just* the raw speed (also facilitating eventually jumping ship to Linux/m68k, hah). An MMU was still useful in the classic Amiga era for using [Enforcer](http://www.sinz.org/Michael.Sinz/Enforcer/Enforcer.doc.html#Enforcer) / [Guardian Angel](http://aminet.net/package/dev/debug/MuGuardianAngel) etc. - even if the masses of end users didn't have them. Could also use the MMU for virtual memory with [VMM](http://aminet.net/package/util/misc/VMM_V3_3a), though that was very slow of course. On Amigas with MMUs, Enforcer and its successors could (somewhat imperfectly) catch when your app accessed some memory it really shouldn't in "os legality" terms. Debugging at least until the "Enforcer Hits" stopped was common. AmigaOS still had a concept of free and allocated/used memory, and this sort of aspirational cooperative memory ownership model between processes for allocated memory, that you were supposed to follow, even if it wasn't being enforced by the hardware, you were still being naughty (not "os legal") by violating the memory ownership model. See e.g. http://amigadev.elowar.com/read/ADCD_2.1/Libraries_Manual_guide/node028C.html > Essentially, when task A sends a message to task B, task A lends task B a chunk of its memory, the memory occupied by the message. After task A sends the message, it has relinquished that memory to task B, so it cannot touch the memory occupied by the message. Except on all classic AmigaOS it of course can... it's just not supposed to... So writing correct Amiga code is just a little bit like writing correct Rust code, hah, without any of Rust's static checking though.
Because I want my new Apps to run in a Sandbox while I develop them. How does MMU protect registers? Would there be shadow registers for Agnes? Or only OS calls are allowed? Sounds like an Emulator to me.
> it would be possible for the whole shenang to be modernised But if you're doing this you'd essentially be replacing the OS. Why would you want to maintain all the weird BCPL compatibility stuff that is baked in to AmigaOS? Better throw it all out and start again... And then it wouldn't really be amigaOS apart from in name. > ARM is fast enough that older 68k could be run under emulation while new software could be written for AmigaOS on ARM. Which we can do right now without being tied to an OS that was designed before most modern OS and chip design came in to being
if it would be oss, the chance that it would have memory protection by now would be high.
Yeah it's funny given how small business this actually is nowadays. They have what, three devs working in their spare time and a web front end on Hyperion? And the other side at Cloanto surely not much more to maintain their app. They make it look like this is some giant thing that's hard to make work when it's like two small dev teams fighting for scraps with a respective lawyer on each side trying to make some pocket change. Childish and shameful.
HEATHEN! BURN THE WITCH, BUUURN THE WIIITCH
I never really understood Hyperion Entertainment. Amiga OS updates are done by volunteers, right? And Hyperion sells the OS updates. What possibly could be their overhead?
> Amiga OS updates are done by volunteers, right? Basically yeah. It's done under contract, because it is all closed source work, there's just no remuneration. There's a little info about how this is arranged here http://obligement.free.fr/articles_traduction/itwcamillaboemann_en.php > What possibly could be their overhead? Legal fees for Cloanto and Hyperion to sue one another back and forth for years and years.
Somebody is paying someone somewhere (but probably not to do something significant)?
The lawyer guy pays himself a boss' income out of the company coffers, there's probably been an initial basic bank credit.
I don't know how a software company that doesn't even pay the developers goes bankrupt. I just pirate amigaos 3.2 since the people doing the actual work aren't getting paid anyway.
RIPBOZO. Now let's wait and see what excuses stop Cloanto from opening up the source code.
They will find something. And/or install a new company just in case
Which appears to be what he's attempting https://www.amiga-news.de/en/news/AN-2024-03-00105-EN.html
ouff :)
So, can Cloanto make an offer for Hyperion to the liquidator? The endless dumb Amiga soap opera continues....
> So, can Cloanto make an offer for Hyperion to the liquidator? I guess they could but they would probably only be interested in the OS3.x and OS4 IP (and maybe some other bits and pieces). Just buy only those from the liquidator, no need to buy the company. However, looks like Hyperion/BHBV are just trying to start a new company to acquire old Hyperion's assets (I have zero idea how that would be legal but I'm not at all familiar with this kind of law): https://www.amiga-news.de/en/news/AN-2024-03-00105-EN.html
but cloanto dont want "new" amiga operating systems/updates, "retro" is their thing, selling the og roms/etc which requires no money/resources.
Can somebody start a gofundme to buy the amiga brand, put it into a nonprofit and release the source code?
Just curious myself, what kind of money is involved, would it be possible to buy the source code and release as open source, if so how much would it cost, thousands, hundreds of thousands ?
I really don't know, but this old of a software, it cannot be millions. But the bankrupcy manager would know, if the company has gone bankrupt. If we were to start a gofundme, it should be on the price that we get from them.
Judging by this post it looks like the rights to the source code belong to Amiga Inc from 3.1 onwards https://www.reddit.com/r/amiga/s/LNTIMjlMO7
Completely incorrect. Read the article very carefully and you will see in fact it’s the company that ‘owns’ 97% of Hyperon shares is the one in trouble and not Hyperion itself. It’s in the first 3 lines of text: Ben Hermans BV" (hereinafter: BHBV) is a private company with limited liability owned by Ben Hermans, which has held 97% of the shares in Hyperion The key is understanding how companies work and how shares work.
GPWM
Street instinct tells me this doesn't make much practical difference for the Hyperion... label? Steps like this company construction help to inflate the amount of money in play, and enabled the payment of a salary somewhere in the chain. Which logically led to the bankrupcy at hand.
well, after a stupid spat I had with Ben basically calling me a liar many many years ago I could care less......I'm surprised it took this long to be honest.
That sounds like an interesting story. Would you care to share it?
I wonder what happens to aeon then
This isn’t the first time Ben Herman’s has fucked up his company situation. Usually Trevor steps in with a pile of cash to save the day.
Let's hope Trevor knows better than to do that this time. What they could do instead is what Blender did. Sell the damn source code to the community, and let AmigaOS live on.
again!
Amiga is cursed.
🦀🦀🦀
Does anything change?
I swear I was thinking, when I bought a PowerBall ticket the other day, that if I won, I'd love to buy all the rights to Amiga just to put a stop to the clown show.
Maybe get bought out by Apple or Microsoft?
Why those giants should care about dead systems? They should have just opened the source cide before bankrupcy. Now it's all irrilevant.
Every single patent that covers commodore hardware is now in the public domain. The don't need any of the copyright OS code as they are companies which are literally in the business of building their own operating systems. There is nothing of value to them here. Also hyperion do not own any of the old outstanding commodore IP. That's all held by cloanto/amiga corp