OLPC hacked to run Amiga OS

Clearly a match made in heaven, the doomed-but-beloved Amiga OS has been made to run on the maybe-doomed-but-beloved OLPC. It's not running natively, sadly, so the real hack here is getting the Amiga Forever emulator running on NickNeg's baby, but still, this combination is just beautifully tragic.

[dat @ Jan 10th 2008 12:36AM]

why?

[jtc970 @ Jan 10th 2008 12:49AM]

For reasons your too young to understand

[dat @ Jan 10th 2008 12:53AM]

run video toaster?

[Bobs @ Jan 10th 2008 1:32AM]

why not?

[Guy @ Jan 10th 2008 5:23AM]

Sensible Soccer...

[Chebwa @ Jan 10th 2008 9:18AM]

To run Knights of the Crystallion.

[Reader @ Jan 10th 2008 12:57AM]

Sweet?

[Chris @ Jan 10th 2008 12:58AM]

That reminds me of an even crappier version of windows 95.

[Ian @ Jan 10th 2008 1:24AM]

Sigh. AmigaOS was so far beyond Win95 architecturally it's not even funny. There's more to an OS than bling.

I suppose most posters here don't even remember the days of true choice in the PC business.

[m @ Jan 10th 2008 1:54AM]

i remember the days of which you speak, but i think we have a lot more choice now. this is especially true when you include emulation: the fact that i can play arcade Scramble on my notebook blows my mind.

[bobartig @ Jan 10th 2008 2:00AM]

Well considering that amiga os was a GUI and in 16 bit color 10 years before win95, I'd say that's not so bad. Seriously, a full decade ahead of windows.

I grew up playing video games on my uncles amiga, stuff like defender of the crown, shadowgate, deja vu, and bard's tale. Graphics were like literally 8 years ahead of PC's. Besides being the advent of pc video editing, amigas were the high end gaming machines of their time. Not that you'd expect kids these days to know.

Unfortunately, amiga os is all but irrelevant and forgotten these days.

[ethana2 @ Jan 10th 2008 4:19AM]

http://www.dell.com/content/topics/global.aspx/alliances/en/linux?c=us&cs=555&l=en&s=biz
http://direct2dell.com/one2one/archive/2007/12/19/38924.aspx

Behold. The days of choice return. 'bout time.

[Alexander @ Jan 10th 2008 10:44AM]

@ethana2: Linux has always been a choice. There is no reason to buy it pre-installed on a Dell. It just takes work, and that's more than some people want to do.

Not that there is anything wrong with that.

With that said, I made the plunge (more like a bellyflop for the first few months) and switched to Ubuntu exclusively. And I have to tell you: It's a blast. Using my computer is challenging again. But that's just me.

[Chris @ Jan 10th 2008 12:59AM]

That looks like a crappy version of windows 95 running on something out of Toy Story

[N1keAddict @ Jan 10th 2008 1:08AM]

FIRST!!!!!


jk

[ark_v2 @ Jan 10th 2008 1:08AM]

Why would ANYONE do that?!

[The_Steven @ Jan 10th 2008 1:23AM]

For the same reason some people want to run OS/2 Warp on a CRAY I.

Because you have access.

[jake3w2 @ Jan 10th 2008 1:23AM]

But can it play Lemmings?

or Rick Dangerous or Speedball or ...

[ChrisB @ Jan 10th 2008 1:26AM]

Epic win.

[Opus @ Jan 10th 2008 1:33AM]

looks like windoze 95...nice comment. except this was true 32 bit pre-emptive multitasking in 1985!

[boss sauce @ Jan 10th 2008 1:45AM]

I'm putting a sticker like that on my OLPC when it arrives.

[roflercopterer @ Jan 10th 2008 1:46AM]

HEY! It really is a meager OS

[charlie @ Jan 10th 2008 2:03AM]

I always hated that clown

[MSX2TurboR @ Jan 10th 2008 2:16AM]

Because Amiga OS can give you more access to other apps than OLPC linux.
Pictured Amiga OS is 6 mega bytes in size.
Better and faster than emulating windows 95 on OLPC, certainly. That's why.

[ethana2 @ Jan 10th 2008 4:17AM]

If you want a custom compile with the matchbox wm and no excess device drivers, you could nigh match that, with much higher binary compatibility for mainstream proprietary apps.

[MSX2TurboR @ Jan 10th 2008 2:24AM]

Running Amiga OS emulator also can be used to benchmark the hardware and software. Will particular emulator or virtualisation software run fast on this hardware. Is it possible to do this and that? How do I measure the speed and performance of the hardware when the hardware is not fast enough to run latest games like Metal Gear Solid 4? You have fun doing that, this certainly not a job or career for your future.

[samphilomath @ Jan 10th 2008 3:14AM]

Why wont they give details how they made this happen?

I could think of some other amazing OS (DSL, xfce, Puppy Linux) to run on the OLPC.

At least we know its possible. Come on people! Hack! Hack away.

[samphilomath @ Jan 10th 2008 3:14AM]

When will someone make an tutorial "How-to add other OS on the OLPC"?

[jonouk @ Jan 10th 2008 4:44AM]

if you need one, you shouldn't change the OS

[John1983 @ Jan 10th 2008 5:19AM]

Because Amiga OS, while obsolete for modern needs (even version 4 or 5 don't support Skype, Flash, Windows Media, MPEG-4, etc.), gives the user a unique feeling of understanding and control of the system. Much more so than Windows or Linux. Within Amiga Forever you can use an open source C compiler, an Amiga SDK, and get access to thousands of sample applications with source code (on Aminet), and this is beautiful for a kid who wants to learn with a limited budget, if you ask me. I wish Cloanto reach an agreement with the OLPC people to make Amiga Forever available for free on every OLPC.

[oli_hd @ Jan 14th 2008 9:39AM]

John1983 said: "(even version 4 or 5 don't support Skype, Flash, Windows Media, MPEG-4, etc.)"

Actually you should give Frogger NG a whirl, even the 68K version has decoders for WMV and Mp4 although on a 50Mhz 68060 it sucks the PPC version (clocking an "amazing" 233Mhz) does well.
Amiga Forever uses a JIT emulator so will run much faster than a real 060 so you can play those vids actually. :)

As for flash, Mplayer has been ported to OS4 but not 3.9 yet, that would sort out the .flv

Skype is a no no though, but hey we still have IRC :)

[Varthall @ Jan 11th 2008 12:07PM]

Well at least for Windows Media and MPEG4 the can be viewed on Amiga with MPlayer or DVPlayer.

[khu @ Jan 10th 2008 5:45AM]

the poster clearly understands the score. his/her comment "beautifully tragic" is just spot on and i like it very much! i post to mention an x86 version of amigaos 4 which was once made! i ran it on my pc and it worked fine (you boot off a livecd). true native amigaos on intel. this was in about 2001 i think.

[BlackRider @ Jan 14th 2008 11:03AM]

Amiga OS clone for x86 is still made as open source project on http://aros.sourceforge.net/

[khu @ Jan 10th 2008 5:46AM]

the poster clearly understands the score. his/her comment "beautifully tragic" is just spot on and i like it very much! i post to mention an x86 version of amigaos 4 which was once made! i ran it on my pc and it worked fine (you boot off a livecd). true native amigaos on intel. this was in about 2001 i think.

[Tim Brown @ Jan 10th 2008 6:19AM]

That reminds me, must dust off my 500 and have a session on Speed Ball, Lemmings and good old Sensible Soccer. [SIGH] Those were the long forgotten days of game play over graphics.

[daemonios @ Jan 10th 2008 6:46AM]

I get nostalgic every time the Amiga comes up. Really, what a machine and what a community! You had them games (Ultima V and VI, Elvira - Mistress of the Dark, Monkey Island 1 & 2, Loom, Speedball, Carvup...), you had them mods, you had Deluxe Paint, you had AMIGA POWER and AMIGA FORMAT =) *sigh*

Too bad they didn't make it upgradeable - the Amiga died when the PC got sound cards, VGA and CD-Rom and you could choose different types of CPU, memory, hard disk, etc. I still like to have a go at it though and there's a couple of excellent emulators for this (WinFellow, WinUAE).

[sadddam @ Jan 12th 2008 5:19AM]

"
Too bad they didn't make it upgradeable" - what are you talkin about? every amiga model was upgradebale, even the low-end ones (500, 1200). the 2/3/4000's are massive beasts (esp. the 4000t). amiga had and has video, sound, lan cards from the very beggining. its just that a lot of people has an a500 with 1mb ram and thats all they know about amiga.

the modern os versions (os4 and morphos) had modern features (mpeg4, divx, vmw plays perfectly). java, flash, css-browser still missing.

and this screenshot shows a very ugly, basic workbench screenshot (which is still far more nicer the win95/98 was), look at a recent amiga workbench/ambient screenshot and judge then.

www.amigaworld.net
www.morphzone.org

[dudeInAmerica @ Jan 10th 2008 8:38AM]

I miss the Amiga.
Shadow of the Beast, Agony, anything from CinemaWare, Moonstone, AMOS, Digiview, Deluxepaint were all great pieces of software.

It was just and exciting platform. I'd love to have that excitement back.

[Longdown @ Jan 10th 2008 8:39AM]

Flashback, Cannon Fodder, The Chaos Engine, Micro Machines, Time Bandit, James Pond, Worms, Syndicate... The best games from Team17, CodeMasters, Bullfrog and the Bitmap Brothers- And you're wondering why someone stuck Amiga OS on a kids computer?

[james @ Jan 10th 2008 9:13AM]

The CLOWN!

[Superevil @ Jan 10th 2008 9:27AM]

Can it run BeOS?

[Superevil @ Jan 10th 2008 9:27AM]

Can it run BeOS?

[Hax Or @ Jan 10th 2008 10:36AM]

Try it!

[dp @ Jan 10th 2008 9:41AM]

probably a lot of you have seen this but i'll mention it anyway as it's a worthy read for old-school fans and late-comers alike. really interesting read.

http://arstechnica.com/articles/culture/a-history-of-the-amiga-part-1.ars

[pipper @ Jan 11th 2008 12:07AM]

Ohh dear, all you young users will never know the thrill of being there at so many world firsts.

parallax scrolling,Blitting,scrollable dragable hardware screens that are unsurpassed even today, 32bit CPU,3d virtual head sets in the arcades running Amiga kit inside the boxs,and many more things you take for granted today (except parallax scrolling and true hardware indipendent screen scrolling, you still cant do that right LOL)

REMEMBER kids, this is 1985/86, what could YOUR machine do at this time?.

BBC Micro Live (1985) - Commodore Amiga Debut
http://youtube.com/watch?v=IS-NYK-8KL0

100 Amiga games in 10 minutes!
http://youtube.com/watch?v=hUoJBerFDsA&feature=related

Commodore Amiga Commercial (1986)
http://youtube.com/watch?v=iUKKLzD4Pto&feature=related

Old Amiga Commercial 5
http://youtube.com/watch?v=hTsbvE84tCs&feature=related

as already stated, AMINET the worlds first and largest Freeware and shareware collection on the planet, as in 'free as beer' long before linus and his crew made that saying popular.

"ethana2
@ Jan 10th 2008 4:17AM
If you want a custom compile with the matchbox wm and no excess device drivers, you could nigh match that, with much higher binary compatibility for mainstream proprietary apps.

"

you forget, this 6 meg is a generic standard install, not some special minimum compile distro, infact its a little on the large side if you ask me, it can be got far lower than that if we are to take your custom config ideas, the RAD was and still is a very cool idea that even linux doesnt seem to have a replacement for today.

thats a Recoverable Ram Drive in case your wondering, put your OS on a ram drive do a soft reset and it boots from that ram drive in a flash, infact far faster than todays flash with linux or windows ,you get the idea right...

"jake3w2
@ Jan 10th 2008 1:23AM
But can it play Lemmings?

or Rick Dangerous or Speedball or ...
"
if you mean the emulator, sure it can , and many more apps and games, THOR was the best Email/News,BBS and lots more app thare had ever been, its a shame the creators never did port it to the OS today, as theres still nothing to match it, and its perfect to help the kids with these OLPC machines to learn and creat anew, and have FUN, remember that KEY WORD, its vital for creativity remember it,FUN.

http://aminet.net/
"Aminet is a set of interconnected WWW and FTP servers hosting freely distributable Amiga software. Established in 1992, Aminet belongs to the Internet's oldest software repositories, the total size of the archive has recently crossed the 30 GB barrier."

"
The history of Aminet



1991: ICU, a club of swiss computer science students, uses an Amiga 3000UX donated by Commodore Switzerland to host a FTP archive at amiga.physik.unizh.ch. In addition to offering many packages for AmigaOS, the server also acts as the official Amiga UNIX anon ftp site. About 40 users log in each day.
January 1992: Urban Dominik Müller is appointed as the administrator of said archive and immediately introduces the .readme collector, the one thing that defines Aminet to this day. On January 16th, the new FTP archive is announced on comp.sys.amiga.misc.
April 1992: After the most popular Amiga software archive at ab20.larc.nasa.gov is taken offline, its users are switching to other FTP servers - many of them to amiga.physik. The server is unable to handle the increased traffic, that's why Swedish Amiga user Peter Sjostrom establishes the first mirror at ftp.ludd.luth.se. More and more mirrors are added, in December 1992 the regular announcements posted to Usenet already list 8 international mirrors.
June 1992: The term 'Aminet' is used for the first time to refer to amiga.physik and its assorted mirrors.
August 1992: Urban Müller releases the first version of 'Aminet Download Tool' (ADT), a FTP frontend that offers comfortable features like searching for files and displaying recent uploads.
June 1993: The first Aminet CD-ROM is released.
June 1993: The main server generates too much traffic and has to go offline.
...

"

put simply for the non Amiga style OS users reading, try it ,the UAE emulator is everywere,and the CD is cheap as chips,so see if you have FUN learning another way.

[Caddy @ Jan 11th 2008 8:23AM]

Bet it cant run OS4 though.

[popper @ Jan 11th 2008 1:43PM]

if you really want to run OS4 rather than the current OS3.1 JIT,your probably going to need at least MMU emulation.

if your willing to put the effort and time required into it, then go and take the code out of QEMU and i think pear also has some working MMu code, then get to work on finding and intigrating a JIT Altivec to MMX/SSE* mapper , to help optimise the many Altivec memcopy options coming to your PPC linux distros (works great on generic PS3 BTW and getting even better)care of the Amiga like coders in this thread
http://www.powerdeveloper.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=1426&postd...

finally , collect up all your best x86 hardcore coders and try and make it all intigrate as best you can, to come as close to the altivec clock for clock speed as you can make it, its not going to be anywere as fast but you might get it 'good enough' perhaps if you have or know someone with the skills and time/interest to do it ...

if you look ,you might even find some cash incentives from the likes of the AROS bountys if your willing to add code to that initative too....
http://aros-exec.org/modules/news/

funny how its still the amiga style coders and what have you, that are still leading the way in advancing this so called freeware codebase!

[AmigaDog @ Mar 17th 2008 10:38PM]

I Miss my HARDWARE MULTITASKING Amiga!

I could format multiple HD's while playing a game and do other things all at once. A PC STILL CONNOT do this!

Many Killer Apps. got thier start on Amiga like LightWave 3D!

Long live AMIGA FANS!