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| 01.Jul.1999 AMIGA |
Amiga: Offener Brief von Jim Collas, Update der Aktivitäten Offener Brief Juni/Juli 1999 von Jim Collas (Deutsch) Update der Aktivitäten (Deutsch) Zusätzliche Informationen (sd) (beim Datenbank-Import in die Meldung integriert, 28.07.2011, cg) Amiga: Jim Collas und Update der Aktivitäten von Juni/Juli 1. Juli 1999, 21:30 GMT+1 Am 1. Juli 1999 hat Jim Collas seinen öffentlichen Juni/(Juli)-Brief an die Amiga-Community veröffentlicht. In diesem Brief macht er deutlich, daß die neue Amiga-Generation revolutionär sein wird und er kündigt die Veröffentlichung konkreterer Informationen zur nächsten Woche sowie für die World of Amiga und AmiWest an. Eigentlich sollte der Brief schon eine Woche zuvor erscheinen. Die Verzögerung kam durch die Überarbeitung des ursprünglichen Textes zustande. Ein Grund war das Feedback von Amiga-UserInnen nach dem er u.a. explizit in comp.sys.amiga.misc gefragt hatte, um besser die Wünsche der Amiga-NutzerInnen verstehen zu können. Aus dem Antworten folgerte er, daß er bisher nicht genug Informationen weitergegeben hat, um die eigenen Pläne unmißverständlich zu beschreiben. Viele neue Informationen enthält dieser Brief selbst zwar nicht aber er geht durch Erklärungen auf das angesprochene Informationsdefizit ein. Um deutlich zu machen, daß die kommende Amiga-Technologie erfolgreich sein wird zitiert er zunächst die Erklärung des Wortes "revolutionary" aus einem Wörterbuch. Danach beschreibt er warum damals der Amiga revolutionär war und daß es in den 80ern ganz selbstverständlich war, Spiele in Assembler zu programmieren. Er hatte sich damals nicht vorstellen können, daß Spiele mal in C++ geschrieben werden würden, da C++ damals, für ihn, für diese Zwecke zu ineffizient war. Heute ist es ganz normal, daß Spiele in C++ entwickelt werden. Ohne eine Hochsprache könnte man der Komplexität der Programme nicht mehr Herr werden. Ein solch grundsätzlicher, revolutionärer Gedankensprung, soll auch hinter der neuen Amiga-Technik stehen. Zur Entwicklung dieser hat Amiga die letzten vier Monate genutzt, um Technologien auszuwerten und die nächste Hard- und Softwarearchitektur zu definieren. Diese Arbeitsphase ist nun abgeschlossen - inklusive der Auswahl von Partnern und den Technologien von Drittfirmen. Einige Informationen über die kommenden Produkte und Techniken kündigt er für die kommende Woche an. Auf 5 bis 7 Seiten werden Informationen über das Amiga Operating Environment(AOE) und den Multimedia Convergence Computer(MCC) veröffentlicht werden. Alle Pläne kann Amiga zum jetzigen Zeitpunkt noch nicht bekannt geben. Einmal, um Mitstreitern nicht zuviel Informationen zukommen zu lassen und zum anderen, weil entsprechende Absprachen mit Partnern getroffen worden sind. Er hofft jedoch auf der AmiWest(23./24. Juli) und World Of Amiga(24./25. Juli), alle Partner und die gewählten Techologien der Öffentlichkeit bekanntgeben zu können. Hierzu wird auch die gewählte CPU zählen. Details zum Befehlssatz kann er noch keine nennen aber es wird etwas interessantes und keine x86er-Architektur sein. Da untersucht wird, ob sich das neue OS auf die vom AmigaOS 3.5 unterstützte PPC-Hardware portieren läßt, könnte man auf dem G4 spekulieren. Doch das OS ist wohl allgemein auf Portabilität abgestimmt. Während Amiga Anfang der 80er noch vollkommen selbst, mit dem Amiga 1000, einen komletten, neuen revolutionären Computer inklusive seiner eigenen Customchips und dem eigenen Betriebssystem entwickeln konnte. Ist es heute so, daß sich z.B. verschiedene Firmen mit sehr fähigen EntwicklerInnen auf die Entwicklung und Produktion von 3D-Chips konzentrieren. Amiga allein könnte hier nicht mithalten und auch andere Firmen wie IBM, Compaq und Apple entwickeln keine eigenen 3D-Chips, sondern benutzen die, dieser spezialisierten Firmen. So wird Amiga solche Technologien Dritter mit in das eigene System integrieren. Hierzu hat Amiga die objekt orientierte Softwaretechnik "AmigaObjectTM" entworfen. Diese ermöglicht es u.a. problemlos verschiedene Techniken zu integrieren, Applikationen über Netzwerke zu verteilen und sie schnell miteinander kommuniziern zu lassen. Dies sind Ideen, die auch allgemein hinter verteilten Systemen(CORBA), Java/Jini und dem QNX-Kernel stehen (auf der QNX-Vorführung, in Köln 1998, wurde eine Applikation von einen Rechner auf den anderen verschoben). Für diese eigene Technik hat Amiga jedoch Patente eingereicht, um sich gegen Mittbewerbern abzusichern, so daß vermutlich einige neue Aspekte dahinter stehen. Das System enthält zudem fertige, leistungsfähige Softwaremodule, die die schnelle Entwicklung beeindruckender Programme ermöglichen sollen. So wird das Gesamtsystem aus eigenen Techniken bestehen, um es einzigartig zu machen und zusammen mit Techniken dritter soll es ein neues, revolutionäres System darstellen. Die Betaversion ist weiterhin fürs 3. Quartal zusammen mit dem AmigaSoftTM Entwicklersystem angekündigt. Die fertige soll im 4. Quartal 1999 folgen. Update der Aktivitäten Neu eingestellt wurden Dave Curtis(Anfang 40) und Dr. Jim Miller. Dave Curtis wird für die Entwicklung von AmigaObjectsTM verantwortlich sein. Er ist einer der Entwickler der CORBA-Architektur und hat bisher für Inprise(Borland), der Object Management Group(OMG) und anderen Organisationen mit Schwerpunkt OOP-Techniken gearbeitet. Bei Inprise war auch der kürzlich eingestellte Rick LeFaivre beschäftigt. Jim Miller wird für die Benutzerschnittstelle und die Softwareentwicklung verantwortlich sein. Er hat bisher bei Hewlett Packard und Apple Computers jeweils im Bereich der Interaktion zwischen Mensch und Technik gearbeitet. Links und Literatur
Quellen
Englisches Original ergänzt: OPEN LETTER TO THE COMMUNITY From Jim Collas June/July 1999 Dear Amigans, I apologize for posting my June (now June/July) letter so late. I was ready to post it last week, but decided to scrap it and re-write it this past weekend for several reasons. One reason is feedback I received from the Amiga community. To better understand the desires of the Amiga community, I have been following many of the Amiga public forums (in addition to reading the thousands of emails sent to me). I have posted in a few of the forums when I felt it was important to clarify information relative to Amiga's plans. In the "comp.sys.amiga.misc'' forum I posted a message requesting feedback on our strategy and plans. The post is in the thread titled "Collas and LeFaivre - thanks for talking''. I received many good insights and suggestions in response to my post, but while reading these responses one thing was clear: I haven't given the Amiga community enough information to clearly understand our plans. The community still doesn't have a clear understanding of our product plans, and what we mean by the term "operating environment.'' This is obviously not the fault of the community but mine in not communicating enough information. This is why I decided to scrap my original letter and address this issue. In the past several months, I have attempted to disclose as much as possible to the Amiga community without disclosing too much to our competition or violating confidentiality agreements with our technology partners. I don't think I have been effective at striking the right balance in this regard, so I just initiated an activity to disclose more of our plans. We are putting together a five to seven page product strategy and technology brief that will be released to the Amiga community within the next week. This brief will help you better understand our overall plans by giving you more details on our new Amiga Operating Environment (OE) and Multimedia Convergence Computer (MCC). The technology brief will also talk about new and exciting Amiga technology. I will talk a bit more about some of this technology later in this letter. This brief will also disclose some of our 3rd party technology choices. We have spent the last four months evaluating technology and defining the next generation hardware architecture and software structure. We have now finalized the architecture and structure. We have also finalized all of our major technology and partner choices. A significant amount of effort and resources went into the evaluation of 3rd party technology - you may be surprised at a few of the decisions but I am confident you will agree that they are the correct choices. Before you read the brief you should understand that we are still not at liberty to disclose all of the details of our plans. I don't want to disclose too much to potential competitors and we are under confidentiality agreements with our key technology partners. Within those boundaries we will disclose as much as we can. The difficult part about not being able to disclose everything is that some decisions don't seem to make sense unless you have all of the information. We have no choice but to work around this for now. As background information for the technology brief I would also like to discuss the concept of revolutionary products and our strategy for implementing the next generation Amiga. REVOLUTIONARY PRODUCTS: rev·o·lu·tion·ary ("re-v&-'lü-sh&-"ner-E): adjective; 1 c: constituting or bringing about a major or fundamental change in the way of thinking about or visualizing something: a change of paradigm <a revolutionary new product> The original Amiga was revolutionary because it drove a fundamental change in computer graphics performance, capabilities, and overall value. It allowed people to do things that couldn't be done with other systems at the time. It moved computers a big step into the future by fundamentally changing the way people viewed and used computers. The next generation Amiga must do the same but in the context of the present computer industry. Faster CPUs and faster graphics alone will not drive a revolutionary new computer platform. They are important but not revolutionary. Revolutionary thinking requires us to let go of past preferences and envision a future that doesn't currently exist. It requires us to develop technology and functions that enable this future vision. This is the spirit of revolutionary innovation. The same spirit that drove the original Amiga development team. The problem is that revolutionary paradigm shifts are difficult to envision before they occur. Let me give you an example. When I was in college, I had a job as a software developer programming video games for the Atari 2600, Commodore64, and Apple II (This was before the first Amiga came out). At the current time, all video games were programmed in assembly language. This was great at the time because it gave you complete control of the hardware. I couldn't imagine programming a game in a high-level language such as C++ because it would be so incredible inefficient. It just seemed like an unrealistic proposition. Well, the world changed. You can't manage the complexity or extravagance of today's games in assembly. You need sophisticated tools and a high-level language like C++. This was a revolutionary paradigm shift that was hard to envision years before it happened. Keep this section in mind as you read the technology brief that will be released. It is not enough to bring out an incremental product. It must be revolutionary in order for all of us to succeed. You must think in a different dimension to understand the revolutionary nature of the next generation Amiga environment. The technology brief will help you understand this future vision - I look forward to getting your continuing feedback on our directions. PRODUCT IMPLEMENTATION STRATEGY: Our strategy for implementing the new Amiga is to integrate the best technology in the industry into a new, efficient, exciting, and revolutionary computer platform focused on the future. It is important to understand this strategy so that you can better understand some of our decisions. The computer industry today is much different than it was when the first Amiga was designed. The initial Amiga was designed when the computer industry was at its infancy. The computer industry has now matured and the dynamics have changed significantly. The industry is replete with companies developing and supplying great technology and components. As an example, there are many excellent companies offering sophisticated high-performance 3D graphics chips. All of these companies have one goal in mind: to develop and ship the best 3D graphics solution. These graphics companies have many world-class engineers. Trust me, I know these companies well. To think that we could design our own 3D graphics chip that was better is not reasonable. This is why all leading computer companies (IBM, Compaq, Gateway, Apple, et al.) now depend on 3rd party graphics companies. It was clear to them that internal resources couldn't compete with companies specialized in this area. This is the normal cycle of a maturing industry and is the reason why we can't think in the past when creating a revolutionary product for the future. Does this mean that the Amiga won't be unique or lead in performance? Absolutely not! Firstly, you shouldn't define performance by exclusively using narrow benchmarks of today's industry. We need to focus on addressing the next computer revolution rather than competing with the last one. Secondly, an extremely efficient architecture will make the most out of commonly used components like 3D graphics chips. We can get remarkably impressive performance by coupling an industry leading PCI/AGP graphics chip to the extremely efficient architecture of the new Amiga. On the CPU side we have selected a CPU that will bring exciting new capabilities to the Amiga. I can't disclose what instruction set it uses at this time because of confidentiality agreements. I can tell you that it's very exciting and NOT an x86 architecture processor. Our plan is to disclose the CPU in several weeks at the World of Amiga and AmiWest shows. At this time I hope to disclose all of our technology choices and partners. In order to pull this great technology together and develop our next-generation platform, we are also developing our own technology in key strategic areas. This technology will allow us to make the product unique, integrate 3rd party technology and create the final revolutionary product. For example... A TEASER: The technology brief will also include the description of new Amiga technology that I think is particularly exciting. It is an object-oriented technology developed by Amiga called the AmigaObjectTM. The AmigaObjectTM is a powerful software structure that enables easy integration of technology, distributed computing, high-speed network transactions, and communication between applications. They are also powerful software building blocks that will allow people to build impressive applications quickly. AmigaObjectsTM are portable and transferable across platforms allowing AmigaObjectsTM to proliferate throughout the network, the Internet and the world. Do I have your attention yet? This is just one piece of the new Amiga operating environment. It is this type of technology that will allow us to build a revolutionary computer platform. We can discuss this technology because we have now filed patent disclosures giving us some protection against competitors. More on this in the technology brief. IN SUMMARY: The upcoming technology brief will be released early next week. While it will of necessity be at a fairly high level, it will still be the most comprehensive description to date of the new Amiga product and operating environment. I think it will go a long way in helping you understand Amiga's future and the new products. I am very excited about releasing this information and getting your response. After you read it, I think you will agree that Amiga and the Amiga community has a chance of driving the next computer revolution. Sincerely, Jim Collas President, Amiga UPDATE ON MAJOR ACTIVITIES BY AMIGA Operations/Planning:
[Meldung: 01. Jul. 1999, 08:00] [Kommentare: 0] [Per E-Mail versenden] [Druck-Version] [ASCII-Version] | ||
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