We have got two chances at the min.

1) Coders start optimising programs for classic users.
2) Shark makes an appearance at a reasonable price.


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Indeed. Will be interesting to see how many I can run simultaneously. ST emulators don't use many resources and WinUAE only uses around 12% CPU when stressed so I might be able to run more. Failing that I will just set the others running on some of the other PCs sitting here under my desk.
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I'm still hoping more for the Coldfire Dragon to see the light of day. I've pretty much lost interest in the Amiga PPC and OS4 scene due to a lack of any real software development happening for the platform and it now languishing as a purely fan hobbiest sideline to the Amiga range.
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O.K. I've risen to the bait. The whole Amiga scene has no software development and the whole platform of Amiga is purely a fan hobbyist sideline. Coldfire will make no difference to that neither will Shark.
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The difference is that ColdFire will allow most 68K code to work and therefore allow the majority of Amiga software to run much faster. Great for Workbench 3.9 and below, and great for productivity software.

In contrast PPC software is very rare and so any PPC based boards are still going to be next to useless as there isn't much to run on them natively.

This is why I'm still very interested in the Dragon Coldfire as it will allow me to build a towered Amiga and run a lot of classic Amiga software at very fast speeds.
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The NatAmi team, with help from BBRV, are considering using Coldfire for the NatAmi. This is something I read over at Amigaworld.net. They are now in the process of trying to work things out.

If they can get this right, we are in for a real treat.
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ColdFire 68k isn't as compatible as first thought.
The various ways of getting round this, bring the speed to less than that of an 060.
To get full speed, programs have to be reworked.

This puts it the same position as PPC and OS4.

Much of the software for 3.9 can be run under OS4 using the inbuilt emulation.
( Not WHD though )
So on that basis, would be much more interested in the Shark.
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The reality is that as the Amiga hardware market is so small (Harrison himself says he uses an Amiga under emulation most of the time)that any company who produces any accelerator no matter what the CPU is going to have to price the thing so high to make any money that the market will shrink even more. And even if the sales are rspectable then the only software that we'll get will be Unix ported and nothing new of our own. NatAmi will have a CPU slot for Coldfire/PPC/Cell via third parties but because the market will be so small that any CPU upgrades will cost more than the NatAmi in the first place and only the most hardcore of Amiga Fans (notice i say fans because the Amiga market is made up of fans and retro boys like ourselves and no professionals) will be able to throw money at hardware that has no real software support.
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Not true mate.
There is existing PPC technology that can be used and bought cheaply.

The Shark by all account is just a rebadged Sonnet Crescendo and can be bought for a few pounds.

OS4 can be ported to PPC relatively easy.
It's the court case that is putting the mockers on that.

Adding a PPC to an existing Amiga can be done under the terms of the contract, but that does have the added complication of drivers and whatever to connect the two.

If either of the two problems are resolved, money shouldn't be a problem.
I can guarantee more programming to be done for OS4 as more people switched.

That's not to say there will be a timewarp back to the golden age of the eighties or whatever, that wont happen unless something major occurs.
(Think I will start a seperate thread for that.)

At the moment there is a split for Amiga Programming.

Amiga 3xxx
Amiga 4
MorpOS
AROS

Some coders produce for one or more, some for one only and some for all.

If for instance OS3 users were able to migrate to OS4 cheaply enough there would be several benefits.

More coders with neccessary hardware to produce for OS4
A bigger pool of users under OS4 to make it worthwhile coding for.
Perhaps more cooperation between MorphOS and AOS4 coders as they are both PPC based.

As has been said, the Amiga is very much a hobby and fanboy platform, so anything produced generally comes from within this community.
So it's obviously a benefit to have more cooperation.

Watch this space.
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I've just taken a look at the Sonnet Crecendo and the shark and they are two different beasts. Apart from that Elbox have the cheapest at $450.00 (around £230.00) but because it's a PCI card if you don't already have a mediator then you have to buy one of them which is a further $310.00 (£165.00). Don't know about you but that's more than a few pounds.

OS4 is PPC. The court case isn't stopping that. The court case is stopping sales/distribution.

?????

Yes more programming of ports will be done but only by fans. Basically the same people who are programming the stuff now. We will be getting stuff that is about 5+ years out of date and it will run like a pig as it's just a port and the people doing the port will be the ones with the high end machines.

But as i said at the start it won't be cheap to upgrade and as OS4 is little more than a slightly faster graphical update to 3.5 why bother?

They are two different beasts doing a similar thing you may as well try to get M$ and Apple to cooperate more as they both use Intel.

So why call out for new hardware that will deliver very little benefits and empty a huge hole in the pockets of said fanboys. (And this goes for all options of CPU).

I think that what we should be doing is what people are doing with some of the 8bit machines. Exploring the potential of existing hardware and getting the most out of it and get out of this PC frame of mind of asking for "More Power!!!" People said you couldn't do Doom on an Amiga let alone a Spectrum yet they are there and the Spectrum doesn't have any CPU upgrades.
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