At one time the RISC Amigas would be powered by Hewlett Packard PA-RISC chip... remember that? That seems a distant memory now that the Amiga (TM) is going PowerPC (TM), and everyone's trying to Light their Fire.
PowerPC boards are shipping. Programs are available for PowerAmiga. C compilers will compile to PowerPC. PowerPC is just as good value as any Pentium, and a top of the range 604 will easily outstrip the fastest PC.
And all the while, Gateway 2000 and AI sit back and say that they are still considering other alternatives to the PowerPC. The immediate reaction is to say that this is sheer stupidity; they should be supporting the PowerUP program as actively as possible, and not sitting back... but is PowerPC the best choice?
One of the main reasons for PowerPC was surely CHRP. With a bog standard Power PC box, you could run a zillion OSes... MacOS, BeOS, Unix, OS/2, Windows NT (which is set to eventually replace the DOS/Windows 95/98 line, anyway), and, of course, AmigaOS (not to mention pOS).
A few years later, the reality is different. Windows NT has been dropped for PowerPC, OS/2 never made it, Unix in various flavours runs on anything, anyway, and BeOS is due out on Pentium soon, anyway. Sure, things are happening; the release of BeOS means it isn't just MacOS on PPC, and the PIOS ONE machines are designed as multi-OS machines, but even so, CHRP looks far less of a convincing argument to port AmigaOS to PPC.
There is also the worrying thought of whether PPC may actually have a future. Motorola and IBM have announced their commitment for embedded PPCs, that is, those use in non-computing applications, a far bigger market than the Mac. Which will be even more true if Apple should go bust.
As for the Exponential chips (the PowerPC compatible ones), well, they are now bust...
A gloomy picture, isn't it? (And if you've just ordered a PowerUP board, I'm sorry...) That's not to say that PowerUP is a bad thing, after all, it better than just sticking with the 680x0 series! I'm just saying that, looking long term, PowerPC may not be the choice.
The alternatives? The main contenders have to be the Alpha processors, and the Pentium.
According to rumour, when the Alpha was developed, before Windows NT was around, Digital wanted a decent OS to run on it. You know, 32bit, preemptive multitasking, efficient - sound familiar? But Digital were refused permission by C=, isn't that just typical. Who knows how different things would be now if the AmigaOS had been on Alphas for years... That didn't happen, and they developed VMS instead. And later, along comes Microsoft with Windows NT.
The Alpha processors would provide the fastest performance available, no question. At the low end, older processors of Pentium performance are available, and just as cost effective. At the highend, the Amiga would be able to compete again as the coolest rendering machine in town. We could see Alpha workstations shipping with the efficient 'new' AmigaOS, as an alternative to Windows NT, as well as any 'official' machines from AI.
At first, the Pentium sounds like heresy, but it should still be considered. Okay, there are problems generally related to crap things inherent in Intel x086 processors (er, don't ask me for details...), so the things which we all hate about PCs, like hardware compatibility conflicts, would plague an AmigaOS port too. But on the otherhand... Supposing you could run the AmigaOS on a PC, several Amiga programs were ported to run on the PC with AmigaOS (totally Amiga, no Windows in sight), and there was emulation to run Amiga 680x0 binaries, just like you would expect on a PowerPC - would you rush out and buy a PC?
Everyone harps on about how PowerAmigas could also be PowerMacs in their spare time, but a PentiumAmiga could be a PC in its idle moments. As for BeOS, as I said, I've heard it's to be ported to the Pentium, anyway - and which version of BeOS do you think will receive more support in the long term?
Of course, I mentioned Amiga emulation. This is a very important process in porting the Amiga to another process; with efficient emulation, you don't have to have a ported OS immediately, just as the PowerMac has been running most of the OS in emulation.
The important features of emulation, IMHO, are that: It must be efficient, and transparent. So you click on a 680x0 program, and it loads via emulation automatically, no need to load up some dodgy emulator.
What about UAE? Previously, I have scoffed at people who said that this could be such a valid emulator for Amiga 680x0 binaries. It's slow (A500 on a Pentium?), and doesn't support AGA. But UAE is still under development, what could a future version bring? Just imagine if UAE for the PC could do Amiga emulation as efficiently as a PowerMac emulates a 680x0 Mac (say, a P200+ giving '040/'060 speeds). That would be more than enough for 'old' programs. Now imagine it supported all modern Amiga hardware, particularly AGA, and PC graphics cards could be used direct by Amiga programs that supported RTG. AGA emulation (or chipset emulation in general) is one major slowdown for UAE, but most modern applications (and now, games) support graphics cards with RTG, and now sound cards with AHI, so in theory this can be redirected to the PC's cards with virtually no slowdown. And also imagine if Amiga companies start, er, Pentium-UP, and write Amiga applications for the Pentium processor... (rumour has it that MUI author is considering writing MUI libraries in Pentium code specifically for UAE).
If all that happens, it's time to buy that dirt cheap Pentium... and use it as your next generation Amiga!
The only thing lacking would be a real Amiga disk drive to read 880k Amiga floppies (the same problem plagues the PIOS ONE, btw), but in this age of hard drives, CDs and Zips/LS-120s, it's not a major problem, espcially not long term.
If you think that's a good idea, then please write, or maybe tell me your thoughts on the Amiga's future.
Mark