amiga-news.de - Transcript of the Coyote Interview with Bill McEwen

08.Sep.2000
Christian Busse Transcript of the Coyote Interview with Bill McEwen
Christian Busse has taken the efforts of creating a transcript from the 2.1 MB MP3 file of the Coyote Flux interview with Bill McEwen:

Bill McEwen: Here's Bill!

Coyote Flux: Well, good day Mr McEwen, you're speaking with Sharwin - I'm from Coyote Flux, an Amiga only software team and I would like to ask you a few public questions - is that possible?

Bill McEwen: Certainly.

Coyote Flux: OK, thank you - first of all: I heard a rumour from some magazines that the German office is about to close after the inventory sales of the Amiga 1200 - is this true?

Bill McEwen: No...?

Coyote Flux: No - OK, thank you. What could you tell me about the AmigaOne?

Bill McEwen: Well, nothing publicly at this time - other than this is a new desktop replacement machine.

Coyote Flux: OK. Then there was another question: Since half a year the Amiga market has started to shrink a little bit in comparison to what it was before, especially because there are a lot of companies and sceners that rather stay with the original Amigas - we spoke to you at the show in Neuss, the World of Alternatives, about porting the current Amiga OS to PPC, we will have to add the following question: You asked for the business proposal at the show...

Bill McEwen: Yes?

Coyote Flux: ... and we would like to know: We want to do the Amiga OS PPC port together with a few others at our own cost together, and we would like to know if that is possible as we think that the Amiga makes a bigger chance of surviving when the older machines get a chance as well.

Bill McEwen: Yeah, no, again, if you send me the information we're happy to take a look at it - we've been in conversations with Haage & Partner about this, we have received their timing, their proposal how long they think it will take...

Coyote Flux: Yes

Bill McEwen: ... we've been looking at market trends and designs, so I'm happy to take a look at what you have - we've not made a final decision on that

Coyote Flux: OK, so there hasn't been a final decision yet about if an Amiga OS PPC port can or will be made?

Bill McEwen: Correct.

Coyote Flux: OK, what do you think about the Boxer?

Bill McEwen: I don't think it will ever ship.

Coyote Flux: And if it WILL be shipped, would you be supporting it?

Bill McEwen: Oh, we already have, publicly!

Coyote Flux: OK, so it won't ever be a problem, the Classic Amiga range will proceed, and the Amiga will, like, go two seperate ways or something?

Bill McEwen: No, I don't see that, because you'll be able to run your Amiga Classic on the new system!

Coyote Flux: Aha, I see, but surely the speed will not be as fast as an original chipset...

Bill McEwen: Actually it will be FASTER with what we're doing - we're not doing it through emulation.

Coyote Flux: OK, cause now it's with the Virtual Processor I suppose?

Bill McEwen: U-huh

Coyote Flux: Cause I have a copy of the SDK at home, but, taking a look at modern CPUs, taking a look at all the parallel processing units and the caching and memory management, I have the feeling that the Virtual Processor will not be running at the speed it SHOULD be...

Bill McEwen: Actually since it's not... the Virtual Processor, since it translates it into native code...

Coyote Flux: Yes...

Bill McEwen: ... and the overhead is to a minimum, there is, what, a two percent performance hit

Coyote Flux: Yes, I understand, but by using a lot of registers that should be emulated or mapped in memory before they can be used, I suppose...

Bill McEwen: Exactly translated on the fly.

Coyote Flux: It's translated on the fly - but where are the registers taken from if I may ask?

Bill McEwen: I'm sorry I didn't hear you.

Coyote Flux: Where are the registers taken from if I may ask? Are they taken from memory, or are they taken from hardware registers?

Bill McEwen: It depends on the implementation...

Coyote Flux: Yes

Bill McEwen: ... if there is hardware available, we will utilize the hardware directly...

Coyote Flux: Yes

Bill McEwen: ... and if we can catch it that way, otherwise if it's not available we will do it in software.

Coyote Flux: OK, I see - but that will slow down, I suppose?

Bill McEwen: Depending on the application - in a desktop environment in most cases you'll have the proper hardware to utilize it, but in a handheld device you might not have the hardware, so we'll have to do it in software.

Coyote Flux: OK, I see, thank you - finally I had a question concerning the SDK: Is it a big success?

Bill McEwen: Yes, actually the sales are ahead of schedule and as of this week Red Hat will begin selling it also.

Coyote Flux: OK, and how many approximately sold in the time it has been on market?

Bill McEwen: Well, we shipped fifteen thousand so far.

Coyote Flux: Fifteen thousand.

Bill McEwen: Yep.

Coyote Flux: OK, thank you very much! That's actually all I wanted to know!

Bill McEwen: Great!

Coyote Flux: OK, thank you...

Bill McEwen: Yeah, I look forward - in fact I was speaking to someone about you in Sacramento...

Coyote Flux: Oh!

Bill McEwen: .. that it looked like you might be the team that might have the best opportunity for us, so I'm looking forward to seeing what you come up with.

Coyote Flux: OK, thank you very much...

Bill McEwen: OK?

Coyote Flux: I will contact you then in the near future, supplying you with the information you might need about how we can port the Amiga OS to PPC, and...

Bill McEwen: OK.

Coyote Flux: ... yes, please keep up the good work then.

Bill McEwen: I thank you very much for your call.

Coyote Flux: OK, thank you as well - bye!

[News message: 08. Sep. 2000, 03:06] [Comments: 0]
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