amiga-news.de - IRC Log - Live Chat with TAO-Group and Fleecy Moss

19.Jan.2000
amiga-news.de IRC Log - Live Chat with TAO-Group and Fleecy Moss
As announced yesterday by John Porter, Amiga Oasis Online hosted a live chat with representatives of the TAO Group and Fleecy Moss. I participated in the Chat, and logged it:

IRC-Log - LiveChat with TAO-Group and Fleecy Moss - 19.01.2000

<[breed-away]> ok everyone be patient, we just waiting for the guys to rejing :)
<sNAK3^RP> i wonder how many ppl are not using there normal nicks???
<sNAK3^RP> lol...u can imagine how many arnt
<[breed-away]> I Would like to welcome Francis Charig and Fleecy Moss to the room
<[breed-away]> plus other members of Tao group watching :)
<[breed-away]> Are you ready to get started Francis?
<situation> Here we go...
<Senex> 1) One thing "Amiga Aurora" (my suggestion for the new OS's name) MUST have: Screens - so how about Screens, Datatypes, FFS-support? 2) Why not calling the product family just "Amiga", i.e. "Amiga Aurora", "Amiga XYZ", etc.? GA
<Charig> We will be working with Amiga, taking a close look at the existing features and making sure that the new system will have the same or greater functionality.
<Netsplit^> when can we expect to be reaching for our checkbooks, to buy something new from u guys & when might it be. GA
<Charig> Bill's in the room and Fleecy can't talk! :) Announcements on this will come when the product is ready to ship. No more hype!
<Urizen> Will you support hardware-accelerated OpenGL? GA
<Charig> intent(TM) supports hardware accelerated 2D and 3D graphics. As for the 3D APIs that sit on top, we encourage all 3D APIs to be ported across. Have you heard of Renderware? :)
<tOmAsH-BB> What is the real cooperation level of TAO and Motorola? I mean, does Motorola want to use your (Amiga?) software, and vice versa?
<Charig> It is publicly known that Motorola is releasing connected appliances utilising Tao's software (e.g. Timeport P1088 smart phone, see announcement 8.1.00)
<dreamstar> Q: will Elate be used as the next generation OS of future Amigas? GA
<Charig> Specifics on this will announced shortly. :)
<Firebird^> Hello Mr. Charig, my feeling about Gateway 2000's (Old Amiga Inc.) plans for using Linux as the OS of the new machines is that it would be a mistake. It wouldn't be an Amiga, just a Linux box with the Amiga name slapped on it. I hope this isn't going to be planned. ;)
<Charig> That was a statement!
<Elektro> fleecy: please describe the new amiga Computer(!) thnx :) GA
<Charig> "It's lovely and cuddly" says Fleecy
<sNAK3^RP> Q: well there be a Os4.0 chipset...GA
<Charig> If you mean, "a new chipset for a new Amiga" then the answer is that the new Amiga has been designed to be hardware independent, hence Tao.
<Charig> This is why we are partnering together.
<Charig> Also I want to add a couple of other points.
<sNAK3^RP> Q: will we still have Os as such...GA
<Charig> The main objective today is to correspond about intent(TM) rather than have extrapolations about the precise configurations of the new Amiga.
<TheB> What is the Amiga "history" that TAO has? It doesn't seem very comforting that you have to take a look at the Amiga to figure out what it's about. (As for Firebird's statement.. that's true of any new "Amiga".) And as for this 'hardware independent' Amiga.. is that like java? :) GA
<Charig> Have you looked at our website to see what technology we offer?
<amiga-news_de> 1st question: TAO: It was reported that you helped in the Amiga buyout. How much of this was "your idea", means, are you tech supplier, partner, or even more? 2nd question: Will there be free Tao and/or Amiga documentation, for the "just curious"?
<situation> In future, One question at a time, please, we have a lot of people wanting to ask questions
<fleecy> We talked to Tao when looking for partners and got so horny about each other that Tao dropped us some VC names and made introductions and recommendations about Amiga.
<fleecy> Tao is our foundation supplier. Amiga will be providing all the support. Anyone who signs up to develop will have access to full APIs.
<Swarfega> Apple's new OS X has a lot of it's GUI done with vectors, which allows easy scaling, rotating, etc. of pretty much anything on the screen. Will that sort of thing be possible with new Amigas (or is the OS extensible enough to allow people to write their own interfaces)? GA
<charig> We are not intending to have matrix style transformations embedded in the lowest layers of the graphics subsystem as this inherently slows down all other graphics functions.
<charig> Such vector type operations are available higher up.
<charig> ...where they should be.
<charig> Remember... elegance through simplicity and performance.
<dark4ces> would there be any performance benefit to writing code in VP assembler rather than higher-level languages? GA
<charig> There will be the same benefit that writing an assembler over high level languages offers in any other environment.
<charig> You trade off slightly higher development effort in order to gain tighter, faster code.
<charig> Remember that writing in VP gives you the advantages of assembler but no portability drawback.
<sNAK3^RP> monolog: rendering will be faster:))))
<AmigaDragon> (1) Will the new system (HDW or SW) have equivalent (or higher) filesystem support such as CrossDOS/CrossMAC including Windows longfilenames? (2) Fleecy, will we see, sometime in the not too distant future, AmigaOS (classic) Open source? GA
<fleecy> Me and 4 of the dev team have been VP for 2 days now and it's nothing like traditional assembler, more like C with the crap bits taken out. You'll find out soon.
<situation> People, One question at a time, please
<fleecy> Answer to AmigaDragon - Q1 - You can mimic multiple file systems + they also have their own high performance native file system.
<fleecy> Amigadragon (2) - our lawyers are looking into it but it is a much more complicated web than anybody could guess.
<TheRiley> if someone wanted to build an "Amiga"-desktop based on, say, the POP-standard, and use your new OS , would you support it (and if, how)? could the new OS run on phase5 Amirage for example? (ok, that's 2 questions, but they overlap so much that they are basically one :))
<charig> 1. Yes. 2. Bill was talking to Gerald Carda yesterday. :)
<HaXoR^> Mr Charig / Fleecy, is it just a coincidence this conference happening immediately before the transmeta cpu lauch(5pmGMT)? GA
<charig> Yes. We are hardware independent.
<Cpt_Hbl^> How long has Amino/Amiga and Tao been co-operating ? We know all about Fleecy/Bill/Petro but how does Toa feel about Amiga community? GA
<[breed-away]> Yup, it was supposed to happen yesterday.....
<charig> We have a large amount of respect for the Amiga community which is why we have been working cooperatively with Bill and Fleecy for some months, determined to make this really happen.
<BJS> The Time of Homecomputers of the 80's r over, i mean, what does a CHRP board with an strange OS with Amiga in common, other than the name, it's just marketing. and the things done from 1994 till now r only done for the existing userbase and they shrunk, how will u encourage others to buy amiga?
<charig> By providing the best platform.
<Thy> Do you plan to do advertising ? Considering that it should be worldwide, can you afford that ? To have the best machine is not enough if nobody knows that. GA
<charig> Yes. We will be doing advertising (Tao and Amiga) with our partners.
<Senex> How many developers are working currently on "Amiga Aurora" (i.e. the new OS <g>), and how many of them are from Amiga, how many from Tao? GA
<charig> Amiga has a dozen engineers growing, Tao has 60 + plenty of blue chip partners.
<RUiNa> Q: Please take this all as one general question about marketing. With consoles and settop boxes allowing more ability and connectivity, and with super low pc prices, do you feel we'll compete with these pricewise or are you moving towards some other newer market? we all know marketing was the original amiga downfall. is the marketing planned and being taken care of by pro's? GA
<charig> Yes. We like to call them "hookers".
<FryG_away> Q:will there be any new updates for WB3.5 ? GA
<fleecy> We have a transitional plan for the Classic that we will announce with our partners.
<Nico_Barbat_amigaOS> Francis, Bill told on the press-conf. that you are an long-time Amiga-fan - in which effect could this be useful for the *developer* group? WHO is actually working on the new OS? GA
<charig> I'll take those in reverse order.
<charig> We already have the foundation layer. I'm not going to discuss o/s specifics today. The entire Tao engineering staff is working on software which will be utilised by the Amiga community.
<charig> Remember that it is not just that we are fans, we also have major Amiga engineering history at Tao.
<sNAK3^RP> Q: in what year will we see the Adverts or price lists.amiga has NEVER died..GA
<charig> This year.
<|MB|> Hello. I am a convinced amigaist, but in what this new repurchase is it different from the precedents? How long will last your new development? GA
<charig> What?
<Szczepan-BlaBla> Does new Amiga (or what is named) will have full support for "Classic" Amiga apps running just like normal one ? I mean that I can use any current program to edit/view/etc. any file from disk (not like it is in UAE). GA
<charig> Announcement soon.
<ioni> Will there be PCI, AGP, USB, etc. ports in the 'new Amiga' ? And support for them ? ga
<charig> We will support all significant hardware standards.
<Reticuli> fleecy stated earlier: "anyone who signs up to develop will have access to full APIs"... The API's WON'T be public domain? Is this wise? The Amiga excelled because of the back bedroom developers who just decided to have a quick dabble one night and has survived years in the wilderness because anyone could program it without having to become a formal developer. Or did I misinterpret that answer? GA
<charig> You are assuming that the development kit is going to be expensive... it won't be.
<CraiK> Q: I have got several commodore amiga computers including amiga 500, 1200, and CD-32, along with commodore 64. All i want to know is, what do you expect the future of the AMIGA world will be like (in general)? bright or dark? I just want you to make me feel comfortable about the AMIGA's future. I come from the middle east, btw just to let you know that we also DO care about the MIGGY ;) and thank you very much for your time, sirs. GA
<^PaulaCIA^> CraiK Commodore are dead, Amiga is owned by Gateway 2000 for more info go to www.amiga.de !
<[breed-away]> heh
<situation> oops, I think your bot needs updating, breed
<[breed-away]> eck, must update Paula!!!
<[breed-away]> slaps Gateway 2000 about a bit
<Erchin> lol
<DanDude2> hehehe
<GuardianBOB> heh heh yes you should.
<JoeSchmo> MUHAHAHAHA
<Gaijin^> lol.. yeah :P
<charig> Of course it is going to be bright. Tao's heavily in demand with so many global consumer electronics companies.
<jws72512a> Will new Amiga/Tao OS System run on IBM PC box? GA
<charig> We regard the Amiga as a fundamental part, not just of our strategy but the whole future of digital content.
<situation> Okay, I've not asked a question yet, so here goes... How confident are you at taking on the industry giants, Microsoft, Intel, et al... and winning?
<charig> Tao is already becoming very successful and we know that the co-operation will accelerate our success, Amiga's and the community.
<sNAK3^RP> well guys thx for <maybe> given us some hope...we look forward to new things......
<charig> Thank you and Goodnight from Reading England :)
<situation> Thanks very much for giving us your time
<situation> round of applause, please
<[breed-away]> I wish to thank Francis Charig, Fleecy Moss, Bill M and the other guys from Tao for turning out..
<Erchin> many many thanks to everyone
<[breed-away]> im sorry to those who didnt get there questions answered
<situation> Thanks everyone for being so patient... we ran this whole system by hand, 'cause we didn't have time to set up proper scripts (Translation: mb)

[News message: 19. Jan. 2000, 08:00] [Comments: 0]
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