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[News] Amiga Future: Interview ZeoNeoANN.lu
Posted on 08-Jan-2003 08:01 GMT by Andreas Magerl (Edited on 2003-01-08 10:19:49 GMT by Christian Kemp)19 comments
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On the Amiga Future page we release today in the english-part an interview with ZeoNeo.
Amiga Future: Interview ZeoNeo : Comment 1 of 19ANN.lu
Posted by Björn Hagström on 08-Jan-2003 07:21 GMT
Invasion sure looks cool enough.

/Björn
Amiga Future: Interview ZeoNeo : Comment 2 of 19ANN.lu
Posted by priest on 08-Jan-2003 07:32 GMT
YAWN!

Oh boy how I'm bored with the slow progress of AmigaDE (and AmigaOS and ...).
Amiga Future: Interview ZeoNeo : Comment 3 of 19ANN.lu
Posted by Ketzer on 08-Jan-2003 08:11 GMT
In reply to Comment 2 (priest):
At least there *is* progress :)
Amiga Future: Interview ZeoNeo : Comment 4 of 19ANN.lu
Posted by priest on 08-Jan-2003 08:53 GMT
In reply to Comment 3 (Ketzer):
Right! Thanks for reminding.

Things are better than a few years back.
Amiga Future: Interview ZeoNeo : Comment 5 of 19ANN.lu
Posted by Solar on 08-Jan-2003 10:10 GMT
In reply to Comment 4 (priest):
Well... are they?
Amiga Future: Interview ZeoNeo : Comment 6 of 19ANN.lu
Posted by priest on 08-Jan-2003 10:18 GMT
In reply to Comment 5 (Solar):
Surely they are.

We can use more and more PCI devices on our Amigas, soon also AGP.
There is JIT for Amiga emulation systems on x86.
AmigaOS4 is under development.
(and the PPC Amiga clone system even exists and it's lookin a lot better than a few years ago)

etc.. etc...


But surely, if one wants always to be as pessimistic as possible & dig the sh*t out of everything and enjoy it, I'm not stopping. I would just hint that Amiga community is the wrong place for such a person.
Amiga Future: Interview ZeoNeo : Comment 7 of 19ANN.lu
Posted by Lando on 08-Jan-2003 11:01 GMT
Nice interview, thanks!

Invasion looks nice (kinda like Planet Zed minus the scrolling backgrounds). Not sure about the "Infinite length levels" though - might make it a bit hard to complete?
Amiga Future: Interview ZeoNeo : Comment 8 of 19ANN.lu
Posted by Troels E on 08-Jan-2003 11:36 GMT
Invasion looks nice for a PDA game. Offcourse it has a simple gameplay but the gfx looks really good would be nice on one of those Smartphones...

Looking forward to hear more from Zeoneo in the future, thanks for the interview AF & Matthew! :-)
Amiga Future: Interview ZeoNeo : Comment 9 of 19ANN.lu
Posted by Björn Hagström on 08-Jan-2003 11:42 GMT
In reply to Comment 7 (Lando):
I guess it's about getting the highest possible score rather than completing the game ;)

/Björn
Amiga Future: Interview ZeoNeo : Comment 10 of 19ANN.lu
Posted by Solar on 08-Jan-2003 14:44 GMT
In reply to Comment 6 (priest):
I do not belittle the things done in the hardware realm, and I don't want to be doomsaying, BUT if you want to be objective, you have to answer yourself:

- what is the state of hardware AmigaOne vs. the stock Dell / Apple, COMPARED with the power of Amiga vs. stock Dell / Apple five years ago?

- what is the state of software Amiga vs. Windows / MacOS / Linux today, COMPARED with the state five years ago?

- what is the state of OS capabilities, AmigaOS 4 / MorphOS vs. WinXP, MacOS X, RedHat 8 COMPARED with the capabilities of OS 3.1 vs. Win3.11, MacOS ???, RedHat 4/5?

The software (office, browsers, *native* Amiga games as opposed to ports) has been more or less stagnant over the last five years.

While the step A1200PPC -> AmigaOne / Pegasos feels like a big one for the Amiga user, it is not more than catching up *partway* with the industry, at a more than premium price.

I won't get into the OS features discussion, since I have no hardware capable of giving MorphOS a test, and AmigaOS 4 is not yet available, but I seriously doubt it is up to par even with 1998 standards.

All this is not doomsaying, but stating facts. If you want to keep Amiga alive as an alternative, you have to face the facts. (Even when the "PPC only" camp is doing a terrific job of brainwashing people into believing otherwise.)

As for "belonging in the Amiga community", well, I took my leave from that "community" quite some time ago. I still hope for you, and that's why I sometimes cannot keep my mouth shut. If you think I am wrong about the facts, fair and well.
Amiga Future: Interview ZeoNeo : Comment 11 of 19ANN.lu
Posted by takemehomegrandma on 08-Jan-2003 15:31 GMT
In reply to Comment 1 (Björn Hagström):
> Invasion sure looks cool enough.

Really?! Space Invaders with more colours. Well, I guess that everybody's taste is different, and I don't really want to belittle their efforts, but IMHO this is just as (un)interesting as Birdie Shoot.
Amiga Future: Interview ZeoNeo : Comment 12 of 19ANN.lu
Posted by priest on 08-Jan-2003 16:00 GMT
In reply to Comment 10 (Solar):
@Solar

>I do not belittle the things done in the hardware realm, and I don't want to
>be doomsaying, BUT if you want to be objective, you have to answer yourself:

Argh... there are so many things. People prefer different things.

IMO: there are more positive developments than negative.

>- what is the state of hardware AmigaOne vs. the stock Dell / Apple,
>COMPARED with the power of Amiga vs. stock Dell / Apple five years ago?

I think that really is like comparing apples and oranges. If one would have vanted x86 back then one would have bought it... but anyway.

(I picked ~y1997 CPUs)

060/50 vs P2/333 (&MPC750) ... 6x RAW performance difference (if MMX is ignored)
G3/600 vs P4/3HGz ... perhaps less than 5x RAW performance difference (if SSE ignored)
G3/600 vs G4/867mhz (cheapest powermac to try to add price in the picture) ... powermac only 1/3 faster (if Altivec is ignored)

((yet another point ... I'm perfectly happy with the 600MhzP3 at work, the company option is P4/2.4Ghz and it is not enough faster to ground a upgrade .... for example SW compile time would improve only <20%))

Zorro vs PCI ... ~8x difference
AGP2x vs AGP8x ... ~4x difference in theory, less than 2x difference in practice

3D then ... we were a lot slower, no much 3D games...
3D now ... we can use almost the latest 3D cards, and there are 3D using games now

Hmmm... what is a stock machine...
But anyway, even the above comparisson should indicate that the situation is not as grim as it was in 1997.

And (IIRC) five years ago there was not even sight of a major improvement for Amigans. Now there seems to be coming 10x improvement in performance!

People had to use very pricey custom HW. For example I was pretty much forced to keep on using buggy A4k and buggy graphic HW, now I'm able to choose and buy new HW.

>- what is the state of software Amiga vs. Windows / MacOS / Linux today,
>COMPARED with the state five years ago?

Five years ago I saw other platforms running away in front of us.
Now I see possibilities of being able to port load of thoas apps "back" to Amiga. (90% of the apps I want never went away)

I've seen developers wanting to come back to the platform. Not just going away like during previous years...

>- what is the state of OS capabilities, AmigaOS 4 / MorphOS vs. WinXP,
>MacOS X, RedHat 8 COMPARED with the capabilities of OS 3.1 vs. Win3.11,
> MacOS ???, RedHat 4/5?

And what are the things that one really needs... I still like the AmigaOS way of doing things.

Five years ago there was no AmigaOS development. Now there is.

>The software (office, browsers, *native* Amiga games as opposed to ports) has
>been more or less stagnant over the last five years.

Yes. But they still work. And now there is enough power to run ported office apps, even netscape.
(also x86 emulation possibilities are improving, as well as powermac emulation)

>While the step A1200PPC -> AmigaOne / Pegasos feels like a big one for the
>Amiga user, it is not more than catching up *partway* with the industry, at a
>more than premium price.

Right. In 1997 that was not a possibility.

...

>All this is not doomsaying, but stating facts. If you want to keep Amiga alive
>as an alternative, you have to face the facts.

It has not been a real alternative since 1994 when the R&D and production ended. (at Escom times the HW was too obsolete already)

When one can buy new HW, it is more of an alternative than in 1997.

But it wont be alternative for joe the average computer user. Not now, most likely not ever again.

>As for "belonging in the Amiga community", well, I took my leave from
> that "community" quite some time ago. I still hope for you, and that's why I
> sometimes cannot keep my mouth shut. If you think I am wrong about the facts,
> fair and well.

I have not left and I'm not blind either.
One does not need to bee too optimistic to see that things look better than a few years ago.
Amiga Future: Interview ZeoNeo : Comment 13 of 19ANN.lu
Posted by priest on 08-Jan-2003 16:04 GMT
In reply to Comment 12 (priest):
By this "perfectly happy with the 600MhzP3 at work" I mean I'm happy how windows behaves when compared to the 2.4 Ghz system. Both suck, though.
Amiga Future: Interview ZeoNeo : Comment 14 of 19ANN.lu
Posted by Christophe Decanini on 08-Jan-2003 16:12 GMT
In reply to Comment 10 (Solar):
Solar you are right. Even if MorphOS AmigaS4 will have a micro kernel and a very responsive GUI, they won't match today desktop standard anytime soon.
As for the x86/PPC discussion it would not change this problem.
It is clear that selling the HW is a very important point to be able to be able to support OS and application development.
Thendic / Genesi is showing it. The money they are making on the Pegasos is used for the OS / software development either directly (Thendic employees) either indirectly by supporting external developpers (IOSPIRIT, MOL, EPIC, TITAN, individual developers, ...).
For less than 500$ you can buy a Pegasos mobo. It is not like it is not affordable.
Amiga Future: Interview ZeoNeo : Comment 15 of 19ANN.lu
Posted by Christophe Decanini on 08-Jan-2003 16:15 GMT
BTW we are completely OT.
Amiga Future: Interview ZeoNeo : Comment 16 of 19ANN.lu
Posted by Anonymous on 08-Jan-2003 17:22 GMT
In reply to Comment 14 (Christophe Decanini):
You claim that A4.0 and DE

>won't match today desktop standard anytime soon.

Which depends on your def.--but in many was this seems an erroneous statement, as the desktop will, while other OS elements will have to be developed further.

But then you after stating the above you go on to laud MorphOs, which tells me you haven't played with it in its current state.

Yes we are once again off-topic. :-)
Amiga Future: Interview ZeoNeo : Comment 17 of 19ANN.lu
Posted by Some Perro Wero on 08-Jan-2003 23:23 GMT
In reply to Comment 16 (Anonymous):
I use a Duron 800 with windows 98, and altho I am not thrilled at the response times, I still get by, I play some fairly recent games at satisfactory speeds. Given that windows 98SE is the butt of all OSes with all its innherent crashes, I hold much more hope for the potential of an A1 even at 600Mhz. Thats a whopping 10 times faster clock cycle than the last A4000 right?

Well if the microkernel is maintained at the low overhead speeds as before (with utra responsive and fast task and message switching) then amazing things will happen on AOS4, rest assured! Many people forget that even XP, is an appalling platform for serious music programmers that want realtime synthesizing. Ah well not everyone programs here I guess. But it should be apparent, from the inherent memory leaks and slowdowns, that m$ has a real issue with thier OS philosophy. To each his own.
Amiga Future: Interview ZeoNeo : Comment 18 of 19ANN.lu
Posted by Solar on 09-Jan-2003 06:14 GMT
In reply to Comment 12 (priest):
Because people righteously complaining this is OT, I keep it short and to two points:

The relative hardware comparison now vs. five years ago rapidly deteriorates when you take into account that the PPC boards *were* available by 1998. (About as much as the Pegasos today, but well...)

And "desktop standards" doesn't refer to how your workbench looks or behaves, but to the standards in the desktop market (as opposed to workstations or servers).

EOF
Amiga Future: Interview ZeoNeo : Comment 19 of 19ANN.lu
Posted by priest on 09-Jan-2003 13:23 GMT
In reply to Comment 18 (Solar):
I try to make mine even shorter.

I've tried y1998 PPC boards. For example the average speed of 040+603/200 is not any higher than single 060/50, because majority of the apps run on the 68k (99.99% of the apps of y1998). (nowhere near the 10xCPUspd,5xHDDspd, etc... jump that we are going to see now)

Anyway, no use to continue this issue. To my eyes things seem better than a few years ago, to your eyes it does not look like that, that's it.
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