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[News] Eyetech Devbox gone?ANN.lu
Posted on 12-May-2000 12:48 GMT by Christian Kemp12 comments
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Justin Van Heddegem writes: The news on the Eyetech website about their Devbox has been removed. Did it come too early? Or was it just a joke?
Eyetech Devbox gone? : Comment 1 of 12ANN.lu
Posted by Mark S. Hone on 11-May-2000 22:00 GMT
Check out Czech(!) Amiga News:
http://www.realdreams.cz/amiga/
There is a news item headed "11.5.2k Correction: TAO/Elate Developer Systems now available from Eyetech"
Basically, Gary Peake is quoted as saying that the website/support stuff is not quite ready and that they wont release dev boxes until everything is ready together.
Hope this helps.
Cheers,
Mark
Eyetech Devbox gone? : Comment 2 of 12ANN.lu
Posted by Christian Kemp on 11-May-2000 22:00 GMT
In reply to Comment 1 (Mark S. Hone):
I would be interested in knowing where this information was originally obtained from. The only place I heard Gary talk about this is covered under NDA (but obviously I'm not perfectly informed, so I may be wrong on this one).
Eyetech Devbox gone? : Comment 3 of 12ANN.lu
Posted by Martin Baute on 11-May-2000 22:00 GMT
In reply to Comment 2 (Christian Kemp):
I heard it too, on the open developer list at Amiga. This is not
covered by NDA AFAIK.
Eyetech Devbox gone? : Comment 4 of 12ANN.lu
Posted by Christian Kemp on 11-May-2000 22:00 GMT
In reply to Comment 3 (Martin Baute):
OK. I only heard it on the AAC list.
Eyetech Devbox gone? : Comment 5 of 12ANN.lu
Posted by Chris Roccati on 12-May-2000 22:00 GMT
: I would be interested in knowing where this information was
: originally obtained from. The only place I heard Gary talk about
: this is covered under NDA....
Comeon, an NDA? The hardware is the farthest thing from being
secret... Now, if anyone wants a "developer machine", I can provide
you with one K6-2-500, GeForce 256 DDR, SB Live! 15 Gigs HD, CDROM 50x
and 128M of PC100 DRAM, 17" monitor, standard floppy, mouse and
keyboard, RedHat 6.2 (boxed) for around 1000 euro. If anyone actually
wants it, feel free to write me.
Eyetech Devbox gone? : Comment 6 of 12ANN.lu
Posted by Carl Mohlin on 13-May-2000 22:00 GMT
In reply to Comment 5 (Chris Roccati):
I don't think I can get the same motherboard Amiga will use from you.
Eyetech Devbox gone? : Comment 7 of 12ANN.lu
Posted by Chris Roccati on 13-May-2000 22:00 GMT
In reply to Comment 6 (Carl Mohlin):
So you need a SPECIAL motherboard to run Elate on a K6 and an AGP
card? From the various discussions held it seemed obvious that the
DEVELOPER MACHINE was running on standard PC hardware, so what's the
difference between your tipical Asus P5A motherboard and the one used
by Amiga, Inc?
Comeon guys, the dream is OVER. All will come out from Amiga, Inc will
be exaclty like Collas promised: Some Java classes running on top of
linux; the extra twist is that the same classes can be made to work on
embedded platforms with the help of Tao's Elate. It's not different
from what Collas (or even Schindler) said; and I still don't see
ANYTHING so *R*E*V*O*L*U*T*I*O*N*A*R*Y* in that.
Eyetech Devbox gone? : Comment 8 of 12ANN.lu
Posted by Henrik Mikael Kristensen on 13-May-2000 22:00 GMT
In reply to Comment 7 (Chris Roccati):
What would be revolutionary in your opinion?
Eyetech Devbox gone? : Comment 9 of 12ANN.lu
Posted by Chris Roccati on 13-May-2000 22:00 GMT
In reply to Comment 8 (Henrik Mikael Kristensen):
As a very wise man once said "I probably can't tell what beautiful is;
but I can for sure tell what IS NOT". The same applies here.
Eyetech Devbox gone? : Comment 10 of 12ANN.lu
Posted by Henrik Mikael Kristensen on 14-May-2000 22:00 GMT
In reply to Comment 9 (Chris Roccati):
So in essence: We really don't know what we want, but we know what we don't want. Right?
In that case it will be an even more difficult job for Amiga Inc. to convince us that something new is good, when we bash something we haven't tried yet.
I'll tell you what I would like: Zero-config, pervasive, wireless networking.
A system which does not crash on the failure of an application.
A system to which you can add/remove drivers and install software applications without rebooting.
A system which would not have its contents damaged by sudden power failure.
A system which can share everything over networking (CPU power, memory, files, printers, database syncing, etc.)
A system which my mom and dad could use (very non-techies).
A system which could handle verbal commands as easily as written ones.
A system which does not hide anything from its user, if you don't want it to.
A system which could be as easy to use as a Playstation and as versatile as a workstation.
A system which runs on every computer, no matter what CPU or architecture the computer is based on.
A system for which I can develop applications using a single standard, not having tonnes of different choices. Or else I'll spend most of my time determining which two (or more) programming methods will fit together. (Inspired by Visual C++, which feels like you're creating a program which uses MUI, Triton, Reactor and BGUI at the same time). With no limiting, dictating, restraining doc/view structure (again from Visual C++).
A system which can be operated immediately after turn on.
A system where you don't have to (but free of choice) think in a tree-structure when looking for documents, pictures, music, etc. (I really like Fleecy's idea. Maybe it's because I can see how useful it would be.)
A system which uses virtual memory (free of choice).
Any more things, we really don't know we want?
Eyetech Devbox gone? : Comment 11 of 12ANN.lu
Posted by Chris Roccati on 14-May-2000 22:00 GMT
In reply to Comment 10 (Henrik Mikael Kristensen):
| So in essence: We really don't know what we want, but we know what
| we don't want. Right? In that case it will be an even more difficult
| job for Amiga Inc. to convince us that something new is good, when we
| bash something we haven't tried yet.
Excuse me, what in the java+linux combination you find something we
haven't tried yet?
(snip a lot of thing, that although very interesting are extremely far
from anything you can get with a UNIX+JAVA combo or with the
standalone JAVA on a "digital appliance")
| A system where you don't have to (but free
| of choice) think in a tree-structure when looking for documents,
| pictures, music, etc. (I really like Fleecy's idea. Maybe it's
| because I can see how useful it would be.)
Maybe because is a pipe dream to implement such a thing, maybe because
the filesystem astraction whereas a quite strong constraint in the
design of an operating system is also a fundamental requiremente in
the cooperation with other systems and applications. The basic,
unstructured data layout (like the one implemented in the NewtonOS and
the PalmOS -- so there's nothing so revolutionary in it either) is
suitable only for devices whose storage capacity is minimal and the
necessity of direct communication with foreign system is performed
with the direct cooperation of the foreign system itself; this
situation is acceptable for a very special purpose device (like a PDA)
but is very hard to stretch this operating mode to include larger
devices...
| A system which uses virtual memory (free of choice).
This point is more or less paradoxal: in unix you can't disable the
virtual memory subsystem - applications tend to behave like the memory
was more or less an unlimited resource; at the same time the
stand-alone Elate (according to the public documentation) does support
only a very rudimentary form of dynamic code loading/unloading similar
to the oldest MacOS segment loader.
| Any more things, we really don't know we want?
This is not a point regarding what we want or what we don't; we are
discussing about what Amiga Inc has so far promised that is a
development system running linux, with a custom JVM or a consumer
system running elate and more or less the same custom JVM. None of
these things are REVOLUTIONARY and one does not need to stretch his
fantasy to understand that.
After this you're still free to dream about "Star Trek"-like talking
computers; but rest assured that is NOT what Amiga Inc will bring.
Eyetech Devbox gone? : Comment 12 of 12ANN.lu
Posted by Henrik Mikael Kristensen on 15-May-2000 22:00 GMT
In reply to Comment 11 (Chris Roccati):
|| So in essence: We really don't know what we want, but we know what
|| we don't want. Right? In that case it will be an even more difficult
|| job for Amiga Inc. to convince us that something new is good, when we
|| bash something we haven't tried yet.
|Excuse me, what in the java+linux combination you find something we
haven't tried yet?
You are focusing on java and linux, where I'm talking about Elate as a separate, fully functional stand-alone OS.
I don't know if it would ever be possible to make a Quake 4 engine in Java, running at 30 FPS without hardware acceleration on a 160 Mhz PPC603e with Elate, but we don't know if it could be done. I haven't seen Elate's Java-performance yet. But I will not bash it, before I have tried it. And most of us haven't tried Elate.
I think the Linux+Elate combination should only be left to those who wish to run both simultaneously. (Which may be very needed in the beginning)
|(snip a lot of thing, that although very interesting are extremely far
|from anything you can get with a UNIX+JAVA combo or with the
|standalone JAVA on a "digital appliance")
Java isn't the sole programming language for Elate. Both C++ and VP will be used as well.
|| A system where you don't have to (but free
|| of choice) think in a tree-structure when looking for documents,
|| pictures, music, etc. (I really like Fleecy's idea. Maybe it's
|| because I can see how useful it would be.)
|Maybe because is a pipe dream to implement such a thing, maybe because
|the filesystem astraction whereas a quite strong constraint in the
|design of an operating system is also a fundamental requiremente in
|the cooperation with other systems and applications.
Mr. and Mrs. Smith, would most likely like the idea, because it has a closer resemblance to what they experience in their daily lives than tree structures.
Smith Junior, who is a hardcore UN*X user would most likely stay with his directory structure oriented interface, because he likes it, and everything is arranged just as he wants.
Hiding the directory structure from Mr. and Mrs. Smith in their daily operation of their AmigaNG would be a solution. It's there, and it functions just like a convetional filesystem, but they never see it. It will be able to communicate with other systems in a conventional way.
|The basic, unstructured data layout (like the one implemented in the NewtonOS |and the PalmOS -- so there's nothing so revolutionary in it either) is
|suitable only for devices whose storage capacity is minimal and the
|necessity of direct communication with foreign system is performed
|with the direct cooperation of the foreign system itself;
Stuffing all files into one single directory isn't revolutionary. Everyone can do that. It's how you, as a common user, access the files which makes the revolution.
|this situation is acceptable for a very special purpose device (like a PDA)
|but is very hard to stretch this operating mode to include larger
|devices...
Nope, because how you access the files makes the difference. I haven't used a Palm, but I bet you can't ask it: "Show me the picture of mom's new car.", instead of tediously browsing a list of jpg's or a herd of icons. (if you can, then I take it back :-)
Using proper accessing methods allows you to store thousands, even millions of files in the same space (seen from Mr. and Mrs. Smith).
Restrained by the list-type reviewing of files and simple wildcard-searching methods makes tree-structuring a solution to ease file-reviewing.
The user doesn't have to think about filetypes. Was it a gif or a jpg? Word 6, 7 or 8?
I dare to think that way, because I can see how much more useful it would be to Mr. and Mrs. Smith. Using a directory structure in a file system is so in-grown an idea to tech-people, that they find it hard to imagine other ways to handle many files.
| A system which uses virtual memory (free of choice).
This point is more or less paradoxal: in unix you can't disable the
virtual memory subsystem - applications tend to behave like the memory
was more or less an unlimited resource; at the same time the
stand-alone Elate (according to the public documentation) does support
only a very rudimentary form of dynamic code loading/unloading similar
to the oldest MacOS segment loader.
Hmm.. you are right. A virtual memory option would require altering the Elate OS on a low level.
|| Any more things, we really don't know we want?
|This is not a point regarding what we want or what we don't;
*SNIP*
|None of these things are REVOLUTIONARY and one does not need to stretch his
|fantasy to understand that.
I would call doing something others can do, but *orders of magnitude* faster, revolutionary. It's nothing to stretch your fantasy about, but it's still revolutionary.
A car that would go 1000 miles on a gallon would be revolutionary. It doesn't do anything new. It does the same as the others, just much better.
Napster is revolutionary, because something that was tedious and slow before, suddenly became very easy, if we disregard the fact that many musicians hate it.
Revolutionary is therefore not necessarily about fantastic ideas no one has thought up yet.
MP3's are very revolutionary, because some people though up some complex algorithms to encode and decode CD-quality sound at 1/12th the space normally needed. That's not an incredible idea either, but just technology which has caught up. I believe it's possible to do a 1:100 ratio or maybe even a 1:1000 ratio compression and still retain CD-quality. We just have to figure out how.
|After this you're still free to dream about "Star Trek"-like talking
|computers; but rest assured that is NOT what Amiga Inc will bring.
I hope that (on a little more primitive level) it is, or else they won't stand a chance in the computer industry. I think that if Fleecy delivers pep-talk instead of telling us what we will see in a couple of years from Amiga, then he should keep quiet.
But even if Amiga's ideas look very 'vapory', I think such computers are quite feasible. We just haven't found out how to do it yet. Maybe... just maybe, Amiga has. I know Fleecy can be very unorthodox, when it comes to ideas, but we can only hope, they really have figured out how to do this.
It's a standard reaction from us: "It can't be done. It's impossible. Our computers are way too slow for that kind of complex processing."
I remember when Wolfenstein 3D came out. Sure it's old stuff today, but everyone discussed back then how it was done. It could run on a 286. If it was shown on a 286 in 1986, people would say it could not be done without prerendering everything in a 3D program before showing it on screen. Someone just tried a programming technique, which hadn't been used before.
That's an example of how a piece of software can be revolutionary. Where would the 3D industry be today, if the Wolfenstein 3D idea had stayed in the programmer's head, thinking: "Nah, it would never work..."?
I'm also very sure that voice recognition programs which can read a persons emotional state of mind, and separate between several people shouting at the computer are possible. We just haven't figured the technology out yet.
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