Inside The New Amiga
Line
For some time it's been rumored that the new Amiga operating system would consist mainly of TAO Group's Elate software. While Elate is a part of the new Amiga toolset there is much more to it then that. It's almost more correct to say the Amiga won't have an operating system at all. There also won't so much be a new Amiga as there will be an extended Amiga family. However, don't panic. The reason for making such seemingly incomprehensible statements is that the new Amiga is based on ideas much different from the old. It has to be, because the world has changed that much. New ideas are needed to lead in today's computing environment.
Today's computing needs transcend a simple operating system; it calls for an operating environment. The Amiga environment is the set of software that will take the place of a traditional operating system in all Amiga based systems. You could continue to think of it as an OS, but that might lock you into a viewpoint that could hide much of the environment's potential.
The Amiga family will consist of any device with computing power capable of running the Amiga environment. It could be anything from a cell phone to a large server class computer. Will there be Amiga desktop computers? Absolutely. Games consoles? Yes again.
Please keep one thing in mind while considering the new Amiga environment. It wasn't designed this way just to be different. It was designed to leapfrog other computer architectures, the way the original A1000 did back in 1984. Further, it was designed to take the basic Amiga feel and excitement into the next computer generation, rather than allowing it to be left behind.
The Amiga environment consists of several elements. Most of these elements already exist and are being utilized by their various owners for a great variety of uses. However, most of these elements are specific in their scope and serve only a focused function. Amiga recognizes the great potential of these elements or technologies and understands how to bring them all together into an environment that will exploit their power and combine their strengths. Amiga is synergizing these technologies with Amiga concepts under the blanket of an Ami environment. Without Amiga, these technologies would continue to exist as islands, but Amiga is combing them into a continent.
The Elate "Deterministic Operating System" from the TAO Group, is only one of these elements, but a key one. In general terms, Elate is a Run Time Operating System (RTOS). The advantage of an RTOS is in the way it handles multitasking. An ordinary general purpose OS (GPOS) does its best to service each task in the most efficient manner. This can often lead to some tasks not being scheduled precisely, in turn leading to problems such as frame rate variation in videos (in other words, jerky motion). An RTOS uses fixed scheduling, so these variations will not occur.
Another part of the TAO suite is intent. (Yes, it's spelled all in lower case). intent comes in two pieces; the JTE (Java Technology Edition) and the intent Multimedia Toolkit. Quite simply, intent provides the best Java engine anywhere. Java programs work under intent the way they were intended to work; fast, very fast. At Amiga 2K the TAO environment was shown running Doom and Quake at the same time. In fact, several Quake sessions were going at once. Then the demonstrator fired off several utility programs as well. Nothing slowed down. Most impressive of all, each of these programs was running in a separate Java session, and as noted, each was blazingly fast.
Perhaps even more amazing was the fact that the TAO products were executing on top of Linux, so there was another entire OS level between them and the hardware. The hardware was a powerful 500 MHz PC, but you'd certainly not see this level of performance from a standard Windows machine. One secret of the TAO speed is the modular way it handles Java. Only the pieces of code needed to do the work at any given time are actually loaded into memory. As a result, the computer can operate at efficiencies that can't be duplicated by other implementations of a Java engine.
You shouldn't think the use of Linux forces an Intel or similar processor into Amiga's hardware. Buried in the middle of the TAO environment is a concept called the Virtual Processor (VP). The VP really is a concept rather than an actual independent piece of code. In practice, it means that your programs, the TAO environment, the Java Engine--all of it--compile to run on this Virtual Processor. The native hardware is accessed through the VP, which is easy to set up for virtually any real processor made. This allows the actual Amiga environment to be completely hardware independent. As soon as the latest version of any processor family is released, the Amiga can take advantage of it. Being locked to aging or unsupported hardware will never be a problem.
It's also possible to eliminate the host operating system entirely. Linux could be completely removed from the equation, and TAO could run directly on the hardware in native mode. This alone would provide another significant boost in speed and efficiencies, perhaps as much as 35% to 50%.
This hardware independence, combined with the efficiencies of the TAO software, also means just about any processor or computing platform can be used. This is how it's possible to envision the Amiga environment running on everything from cellular phones to the most powerful computing platforms available. In fact, Sun has already demonstrated Java games running on cellular phones using TAO. There's no reason why those phones couldn't carry the Amiga logo of compatibility if desired.
There's another, less obvious, benefit to the user from the extremely flexible approach Amiga is pursuing. This benefit is the use of industry standards currently closed to us. For example, at present Amigans have no real access to Java, except by setting another computer next to their Amiga. The new Amiga environment will not only provide the first useful Java capabilities for Amiga users, it will actually be among the most capable Java running machines on the market. Those Amigans who've gotten PCs just to be able to browse Java based sites on the World Wide Web will be able to do it from their Amiga browsers as well.
In addition, Amiga's ability to combine leading technologies into one environment will allow much easier integration of other industry standards into the Amiga environment. Currently it's possible to view MPEG or QuickTime videos on the classic Amiga, but this depends on obtaining the right shareware or third party add-ons, and how well it works is partly dependent on your specific graphics card. The new Amiga will at last provide a common platform for not only these video formats but such other common standards as Home Audio Video Interoperability (HAVi), a wide variety of audio and other data formats, and, in fact, just about everything PC or Linux owners now use that haven't been available to Amiga users in the past. Furthermore, with an RTOS as part of the Amiga environment, anything in video or audio will work more reliably than on other platforms.
And how will these new Amigas look? The styling of the future Amiga systems will match the innovation of their interiors: sleek and elegant. When conceptual designs were presented to attendees at the Amiga 2K trade show in St. Louis they were impressed. However, these concepts were merely a shell covering an even more impressive interior. That's the part that really shines.
Over the next few weeks more details will be forthcoming on how the TAO environment will come to be wrapped in the Amiga environment. Read 'A Guide To The AmiVerse' in this issue for an overview of how the Amiga pieces will function and relate to each other. Once all these pieces are in place, in line with the plan Amiga is already executing, an Amiga with the zing and feel of the original will assume its place on the computing stage. It will be an Amiga with clear ties to its heritage, but will also be leading the charge into the next generation of computers, just as the A1000 did when it took the computing world by surprise. The biggest problems for Amigans may be to not act as smug as they feel.