I'm still not clear, so please correct me if I'm wrong.

I thought that it wasn't really going to be the new OS, it was just taking the Tao elate and putting Amiga branding on it - ie. it couldn't run any existing Amiga software. It existed, you could buy games to run on it but it wasn't anything to do with the existing Amiga OS. There was supposed to (eventually) be some way to run Amiga software emulated or something.

AmigaDE was the 'full developer' thing that you used to develop tao/intent apps. And AmigaEverywhere was the sort of portable runtime.

"Amiga DE is an updated version of Tao Group's Elate operating system. As part of the agreement, Tao Group provided the embedded OS, while Amiga Inc. develop the 'Usability Layer', drivers, and codecs required for a consumer market. "[0]

[0] http://www.bambi-amiga.co.uk/amigahistory/amigade.html

Disclaimer: while I was an admirer of Taos' tech from when it was new, I very rarely actually touched it myself. I played with a demo RiscPC at a show in Wembley, and that's about it.

My understanding (much of it from prior HN threads -- go back and read all the earlier discussions; someone posted links, and it's totally worth it!)

* Taos 1.x was a very basic, almost skeletal. This ran natively on some Acorn ARM kit, and via a DOS loader on x86-32, and some other CPUs.

* Taos 2.x was a much more complete OS and was renamed. Confusingly, to 2 different names; and more confusingly, with embedded formatting. >_<

Int_e_nt was on, El_a_te was the other, I think. Life is too short.

Elate was the bare-metal version. Intent ran under other OSes, but not as a guest or VM, because x86 couldn't do that yet.

(As I wrote:

https://www.theregister.com/Print/2011/07/11/a_brief_history... )

My understanding is that Amiga wanted both, and would run one on bare metal on its own kit, but that the other, runtime version would be made available for other platforms. So, Amiga games authors could write once and run anywhere.

Amiga's own version would have an Amiga-like desktop UI which Amiga Inc. would write.

The runtime wouldn't have a UI, and would just launch apps.

It was, in its way, a good plan, and they should have pressed ahead with it.

I think QNX stole the thunder, and that never went anywhere.

Result: well, AmigaOS 4.x is slowly limping along, and there's MorphOS, which was promising, but both are tied to elderly PowerPC kit.

And there's AROS which seems to be faltering.

I've never used it either, I remember it back from Gateway 2000 days, and an article on OSnews. I have read those HN articles, interesting stuff.

More pieces of the puzzle - intent vs. elate.

If you've got time, here is a LONG tale (with links to sources) about the Amiga Gatgeway/ Hyperion saga legal saga..

https://sites.google.com/site/amigadocuments/home

I never had an Amiga growing up, but AmigaForever & Amikit work well as emulators.

I wish Amiga (also RiscOS), made a sort of Carbon API but for Amiga OS. Cleaned up to work with the new kernel, memory protection for Amiga/ pre-emptive multitasking for RiscOS, source code code be ported relatively easily.

Then the problem would be the "alternate OS problem", how to get money by writing apps for a new api, with a small user base? ( cough BeOS).

ps. You're comments are always quite interesting and informative.

> a sort of Carbon API but for Amiga OS.

That's a great idea! I reckon you should write up that idea as a blog post and see if you can get the community to offer some proposals, and maybe get some AROS, MorphOS and Hyperion (AOS 4) folks to chip in.

> ps. You're comments are always quite interesting and informative.

Thank you very much! That's really good to hear. :-)

Unfortunately, I don't have code, cash or technical knowledge. Also, the Amiga was cool, but like say an SGI workstation (or any Unix workstation really), or an AS/400 or Tandem Nonstop (my personal nerd favs) I don't know what I'd actually do except run some demos. So my blog post would go something like (this is supposed to be deadpan truth, not caustic sarcasm) :

Hi, I've never owned an Amiga, or used one on a daily basis, but I play around with Amikit on my pi400 sometimes because it's interesting to me. Also, I played on my neighbour's Amiga around the time that Hot Shots came out. It had text-to-speech and a flight simulator (Falcon?) but we couldn't figure out how to take off.

I think it would be cool to have a sort of Carbon API for Amiga cleaned up and modernized, so apps could be ported to a new kernel relatively easily.

Sadly, I have zero money to donate to this cause. As well, I don't have the technical knowledge to document an API, and/or note its shortcomings and/or write a new one.

So, lazy-webs lets do this!

ps. I did write a mini-game called "Time Waster 2000" in Visual Basic 3 sometime during the 90s if that helps.

:-)

I'd do it anyway. Stick it in some of the subreddits about Amiga stuff, see if you can get the idea some discussion.