Constructive criticism of Hyperion

Im sure hyperion are doing the best they can for all amigans let them do what they do best :)

@poweramiga

Im sure hyperion are doing the best they can for all amigans let them do what they do best :)

I am sure individual or company (group of individuals) can always do better, if they want to

@Hans
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Thank you for that. I do appreciate it.

@all
I'm an Engineer by trade and I don't tolerate ignorance as well as a dedicated PR guy would. So I might get a bit prickly at times. I've learned that is just a part of my INTJ-like personality.

What does anger me is that it is NEVER enough for some people. For example, www.amigaos.net, dev blog, doc wiki, support forum, update server, amiwest programming courses, delivering PR announcements, brokering deals, placating developers, handling internal politics, dealing with rogue beta testers, fixing OS bugs, working legal matters, etc.

If Hyperion wants to hire a PR guy then that is their decision to make.

I'm not a PR guy and I never will be. What I will try to do is communicate important events as best I can. I don't like rumors much so I might reply to them once in a while.

I also need to keep the support forum focused on support and not filled with noise so some topics will continue to get locked and off-topic stuff removed. That keeps our beta testers focused on the real issues and we don't have to wade through junk like this posting day in and day out searching for customer bug reports. The end result is a better, higher quality OS.

That said, I wouldn't mind some constructive and informed criticism. I do not want it in the form of a forum posting which I may or may not ever read. So use email for that please.

@ssolie

Yes, we do know you are not a PR. No, I wish this criticism to remain public, so you can think it over.

Constructive criticism is indicating that you handle users like members of your developer team - in shortest, where iron fist, one direction and focus is probably critcal. But user support forum where not everyone is a developer simply doesnt function like that. Helgis will be Helgis, I will be I, and so on and so forth. Moreover, it often looks like ignorance to completely sane suggestions. If you wish to have more objective veiw ask some non Amigan who is not a personal friend to browse it and give opinion on moderation and how certain Hyperion representatives behave in communication to their own customers.

That is simply not acceptable for today standards, in shortes. Don‚t bite the hands that feed you.

Another point of real serious frustration is lack of long term plan.

Long term roadmap is needed. Some ideas I have posted before, you have probably seen it, and skipped it without comments.

Wish list:

PowerPC alliance
FLOSS alliance, we anyway port most of FLOSS
Long term agreement with all Linux distros to officially support Acube and AEON board, maybe Pegs and A1s if possible
Alliance with PPC AROS, porting some parts of AROS
Ambient and MUI4 ports

If needed Fundraisers even using Kickstarters and Bounties resulting in hiring more manpower and acceleration work on critical components of OS 4.2 and onward

Hyperion blog and support forum with open communication and with knowledgable community mods for each part, not Hyperion boys. Goal is support to users.

New improved AmigaOS 4 website with some articles from old one and some frequent editors and articles, like moving Epsilons blog into it.

On road to AmigaOS 5: Printers and scanners
On road to mobile devices: Wi-Fi, Touchscreen, Power Saving
On road to desktop: multi user, easy to network
On road to Zion: easily portable, CPU independent (hey, are the TAO boys alive

@ssolie

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Yeah agree that's the point ..

@vox

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au contraire. i think ssolie is by far too lenient with idiotic, uninformed, pointless suggestions on the support forum. but see, since i don't think it's my place to give never-ending advice to someone who didn't ask for it in the first place, i don't.

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acting like you can speak for everyone on what should be done is not acceptable in basic ettiquette. don't bite the [developer] hands that feed you.

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what in heaven's name are you on about?! every single year ssolie and hyperion have reiterated the roadmap:

* modern 3D graphics stack
* support for multiple cores
* improvements to workbench
* an updated printing stack
* new filesystem support

... and so forth. not only do they share their roadmap with us -- which i think you'd agree very few companies do, since it's usually considered proprietary information -- they even give us progress reports on a regular cadence. if there's something missing, you can always suggest it in a friendly manner; but unless you're ponying up the money to make it happen, understand that they may or may not accept your suggestion and be OK with that.

look, don't get me wrong. there's nothing wrong with offering well-thought out suggestions for the future. there's nothing wrong with constructive criticism. but at some point you need to accept that maybe, just maybe, the people on the other end see things differently than you. the best thing is to accept it and move on, rather than harp on about it in multiple threads, multiple posts, multiple forums. it turns everyone off.

-- eliyahu

Sorry, i m an old amigans not in ages but I'm an Amiga user since 1990, return after a long break but more fanatic and enthusiast then before.
I been supported hyperion,Vulcan,click boom , h&p , phase 5, elbox , blittersoft and so and so buying their product I was one of an user group where we was more then 80 ppl. This was in 1996... Years by years we loose people in our group ... Now we are 2 and only I have couple of ng Amiga ...

The users during the ages loose they're interests in Amiga, because many promise not become real (vaporware)or some bluff that spoil the enthusiasm ..eg: the long wait from elbox core logic, the sharkppc , the ifusion, the continue change of the Amiga company road, the end of a dream etc etc..

Now the only amigans that remain in all the world panorama are fanatics , me too..how you call someone who continue using slow hardware without driver and become happy and proud to see a YouTube video in 480p?(me)

Who is try to sell a platform to a fanatic will for sure recive criticism, because all have a vision totally different of the machine and the os from the other.

There is who scream because need a 3d acceleration for run at 10000fps an old game from 2004 , who scream for a better internet , and some people like me scream only for be proud to his philosophy (because Amiga is a philosophy now) and happy to say to his friend <<" remeber I said to you 10y ago the Amiga/Amigaos"is the best choice trash your impersonal and cold pc">>

Note and this is for S.solie and all the staff , the Amiga community is e only community in the world where be only an amigan make 2 people be friends at first time they meet each other.

Communication is important , my job is the communicaton... What we need is stay tune under an big house mother, and take from there the Infos and news constantly.Only the curiosity from other sites for run on the House Mother for read the full news.

This is what an old amigan need and what can be the re beginning of something creative.

Do best your job we are critics but be happy for simple steps (but i think you know)

(Sorry for my English It becoming day to day better... And this thanks to the Amiga community)

@vox

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If developers had to read and comment on every "wishlist" or a "would-be-nice-to-have idea" proposed by Our Clever Community(tm), they would spend all of their time and energy in forums. Especially when 99 per cent of the suggestions are things that have been suggested (and answered) a million times before. In the end it really becomes very tiring and irritable - pretty much like your peevish campaign.

@eliyahu

Well said...

...plus in a small community/market there is no such obvious salesman customer relationship like in an ordinary life.

@vox

My advice is dont be so serious. Take a break. Realize how small the entire circus is today and how easy is to discourage the small group of devs. It looks like you are just impatient. Nothing new to download? So you demand an information. It is easier to wait when you have some encourageing news, yeah I know. But sometimes these guys just have nothing to say because there is nothing to say. Deal with it.
I hope you won't be offended but I've got a second advice Lower your expectations. It helped me a lot in an amiga life...

@tlosm

+1 and very well said! honestly the fact that we are all here today enjoying a fairly regularly updated AmigaOS on new hardware is astonishing in itself so we must be patient and each one of us can help in their own way.

small steps we can only take as we're not the numbers we once were and it's only the pride and passion for our chosen platform that keeps it alive.

@thread

Hyperion and A-EON both need a Marketing team to promote AmigaOS, create News and press packs etc.

But also designing new OS themes and presenting documentation.

I would pay for a monthly subscription system where I receive a General News Bulletin and Developer snippets/docs.

This subscription would pay for the Marketing team.

The Amiwest Tutorials and learning sessions are great examples of this. Once could ask ex Commodore Engineers to contribute in some details etc. Give incentive devs to write documents.

@angelheart

+1


@thread

AOS progress seems painfully slow.
Ways to speed up development must be found.

If single persons health issues stop progress almost for a year, it is a problem that should be solved.
(shared responsibilities for every code module etc...)

And community should be given more ways to help.

And co-operation between OS flavours need to be improved further.


EXAMPLE:
When (currently) I do not have time to help I could assist OS development financially (rather than waste 3000 to use the old OS version on some new HW).

Also as there is lack of superb cheap PPC HW, I could put some money into a bounty to assist the open development of such HW.

If anyone thinks that OS4 development is too slow and wants to help do something about it then you are welcome to pick up or create a new project on http://OpenAmiga.org.

@orgin

Projects are there already, but only a few was taken

@samo79

Hence "pick up".

@KimmoK

if you have too much cash, i'm certain you could use them to hire a dev full time on os4. i'm almost certain steven wouldn't mind that at all.

@orgin

The problem with picking up project is : users dont know how to program for AmigaOS 4 !!!!!

AmigaOS 3.x has Purebasic, Amos Pro, Amiblitz etc even assemblers - all that is LOST with the new OS4 systems.

Where is the Amiblitz equivelent for OS4
Where is a games creation suite for OS4, even Amos for OS4 would be enough for users to get started making games.

The Amiga chipset is what allowed users access the graphics hardware easier than any OS routine did - thats what helped create games fast, but also had its limitations.

Now AmigaOne systems are the same as other PCs for their GFX requirements, nothing unique anymore the magic is lost.

I dont know if a shader version of AAA chipset can be written - at least then we give game devs the appearance of banging hardware as the good ol days.

Amiga software used to run like 'magic', 'it just works' even Amos Pro does not need much to get running, no messing about with make files, configs or compile errors. no compat probs. nada. say what u will against it. but it darn well works perfect with 20 year old code !

@angelheart

Mate ... something change in years ...
Amos was what now is Multimedia Fusion 2 on windows...
or Unity for All the os .. this is the evolution.
For programming AmigaOS and Relative just need to know C++ and how the old amigawork. Everything is the same .
before you have a lowlevel.library now you have a lowlevel.library
and the same is for all sys call.
Yes if you need to program Asm code for sure now is different because now is a PPC asm and not 68k asm.
About Blitz basic and Amos ... better not speak about :)

for make games and programs you can use Hollywood :)

@ angelheart

If you want AMOS you can try XAMOS on AmigaOS 4.x.

Who said that AmiBlitz doesn't work on AmigaOS 4.x?

@Angelheart

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Learn some of the languages that runs on AmigaOS4

Phyton:
Tutorials and all over the net, and its easy, you can make every thing from games, scripts, web pages.

ARexx:
Good old Amiga language works prefect, nice language to communication between programs,

Hollywood:
Cross platform programing language, easy to program, whit lots of advanced commands.

C/C++:
You find in the SDK, this program language for real programmers, the OS written in this language.

AS:
is the assembler provided whit GCC, you can write powerpc assembler in it, it not recommended but you can, I suggest you write inline assembler in C/C++ instead

You have a number of basic options.
SDLBasic, CBMBasic, XAMOS and “Brandy”

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AmosPro sucks, not system friendly never was.

Have you checked out XAMOS it runs on AmigaOS4.

PureBasic? Whats that?

AmiBlitz3 works I believe.

“assemblers” again you have options here you can write PowerPC assembler in “AS”, or you can download the VBCC package where you find “vasmm68k_mot” in the package:

Read my blog see how you use it:

http://lifeofliveforit.blogspot.no/search/label/680x0%20assembly

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Hollywood, you can consider C its only a tiny bit harder.

Where is a games creation suite for OS4, even Amos for OS4 would be enough for users to get started making games.

Do you want me to make you one, pay me 500000 NOK for a year and I make you one

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First of all what you say is wrong, the only thing your doing, is make shore it does not run on anything else then what you have.

Second of all, once the you have opened a screen or allocated a bitmap or opened a window, you can write into it using assembler.

Setting up the hardware resisters your self, and assuming the hardware is there is a bad, bad thing to do, your locking your self to the hardware, so it can be upgraded.

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You can have lot of magic moment optimizing code in assembler, or learning a new programming language, actually I find it fun to experiment whit OpenGL and Composition.

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Yes if some one puts a FPGA a on PCIe card you can do that, but I bet its going to be slower then all of top graphic cards you can buy.

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Have you checked out xamos?
Besides if you have some thing old you need to run, you can run it in a emulator if nothing else works.