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SnkBitten
South Carolina

Posted Mon Sep 04, 2017 2:11 pm

Amithlon, what really should have been the next step for AmigaOS. This was designed as a stepping stone to hopefully move AmigaOS from 68k to x86 that ended up in lawsuits and copyright issues eventually killing the entire thing.

I started playing in WinUAE after the Amiga 30th and enjoyed it immensely. It reminded me of how much I loved AmigaOS and hated moving to Windows all those years ago. It ran fast, allowed me high resolution and high color screens and reminded me how much I missed AmigaOS (plus how much I had forgotten how to use it...lol ). As I read about emulating Amigas I kept seeing references to something called Amithlon, and that this Amithlon was fast...like very fast. It used old PC hardware.."hey..I have old PC hardware sitting around, maybe some of it would work."

Tracking down Amithlon I finally was ready to give it a whirl. The CD booted on one of my old unused systems.....but I couldn't do much. Screenmodes were locked, it was a small 9MB Workbench Sys: volume.....how do you get this thing installed? Reading more on Amithlon I found a few guides that were generally helpful but not detailed enough to make it easy and straightforward. Plus I didn't want "dual boot" setups, I just wanted a box that was like an Amiga.

The biggest issue was what hardware worked. A lot actually works but in limited functions, ie...you could get it installed on most computers with 1 GB of ram and IDE drives but then you couldn't have audio or networking or hardware accelerated graphics, just your standard VESA modes (though these are still faster than most Amiga RTG cards).

Going through numerous pieces of hardware (motherboards, video cards, network cards, etc..) I finally started to see how to setup, install and configure Amithlon. I've written some extremely detailed guides on the installation process and have compiled an extensive list of supported hardware that has been tested by myself or others. One thing I did discover.....Amithlon is FAST, Wickedly fast. It's the fastest AmigaOS emulation I've encountered. I run WinUAE on an Intel i7 CPU with 32 GB of RAM. Amithlon is faster!

Amithlon is based on x86 hardware, mostly PCI and from a time period of the early 2000's, when Amithlon was released.

So here's my Amithlon setup:

Gigabyte Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L motherboard
Intel Core2Duo @ 4.00 Ghz
(2) 512 MB ram modules (1 GB total) (I get 8,014,584 graphics mem and 790,631,568 other mem)
32 MB Matrox G550 PCIe graphics card
Catweasel MKIV PCI card
Soundblaster Live 5.1 PCI
Intel PRO-1000 PCIe
8x DVD-RW(-/+) Slot loading drive
20 GB SATA dos boot drive (freedos)
256 GB SATA AmigaOS drive
Multi-card USB reader

My Amithlon PC boots off a 20 GB SATA HD which is a FreeDOS installed drive. It boots to DOS and launches a small stripped down linux kernel that initializes Amithlon with a build in kickstart, allowing AmigaOS to see the hardware and you use AmigaOS drivers for the hardware if available. Once booted in to Amithlon, the 20 GB drive disappears and AmigaOS boots off a 256 GB SATA HD. This drive is partitioned out in a 10 GB boot partition and a few 25 GB partitions for Games, Downloads, Lightwave and the like. With the hardware I have, I get hardware accelerated graphics, AHI audio, Network connectivity and USB drive support. I also have the ability to read and write Amiga DD/HD floppies (more on that in a bit).

So I boot to AmigaOS 3.9, I have a workbench screen of 1280x720 @ 32bit color. I download and run applications just like I would in WinUAE or on a real Amiga....the primary difference is they need to be system friendly programs.....those that support RTG and AHI (though you can route AHI through PuhDerBaer for applications that only use Paula).

I mentioned Amithlon is fast....well one of the reasons it's so fast is that in not emulating the custom chipset it doesn't have to deal with any of the timing issues those introduce as well. While this makes it lose compatibility in some things, it makes up for it in speed and works well with system friendly apps.

Here are a few screen grabs (using SGrab) from my Amithlon system, pulled from SysInfo and SysSpeed.
dhrystones.png
Dhrystones from SysInfo

Fast68040.png
SysSpeed - SystemInfo

Mips.png
SysSpeed - CPU/FPU

The machine just screams! I enjoy using it more than WinUAE and overall it "feels" like using a real Amiga. You can't just hit F12 and add more something, you have to have the hardware in the system. Want more drive space, add another drive and set it up in HDToolBox. Want network, add a supported network card. Want USB.....oh wait, WinUAE doesn't do that yet :) (I love WinUAE...just a small jab). I have ShapeShifter running on it (FAST), Netsurf (FAST) and IBrowse (very nice for a quick download off Aminet). I run Lightwave 3D (hacked version) and it's such a joy to use as a 1024x768 layout looks really nice and movement is smooth and fluid. I can drag the time line bar and move it in realtime with full wireframe for the objects enabled (no bounding boxes needed). To get an idea I have a few videos posted in my Google+ page for Amithlon (my sig site has a link to the Google + group).

Floppy drives. This is unique for my setup as I was lucky enough to pick up a Catweasel MK4 recently. If you have a PC floppy drive in a system with Amithlon, you can mount PC0: and read/write PC DD disk, but Amiga floppies are out of reach. With the Catweasel (and Amiga drivers) I can read/write Amiga and PC formats, both DD and HD. I recently installed MultiFileSystem (mfs21.lha on Aminet) which has allowed me to have all the mountlist for the different formats under a folder "DF0" in DEVS:dosdrivers/ which will mount the appropriate disk type as needed. Previously if I had all the formats available and I inserted an Amiga HD disk, I would have its icon plus a TD1:??, PD1:?? and PH1:?? icons on the Workbench (TD1 = Amiga DD, TH1= Amiga HD, PD1 = PC DD and PH1 = PC HD formats). Now I just get DF0: and whatever disk type it is. Love it.

If I "need" to use custom chip software I can run E-UAE (68k version) inside Amithlon, though a bit slow (I get about 1.2 times an A1200 in SysInfo under E-UAE). Plus I have real Amiga's I can run custom chip software on or WinUAE if needed.

Amithlon in my opinion could have been the gateway to AmigaOS being a viable alternative to Macintosh and WinXP. Standard PC hardware with low requirements running AmigaOS 3.9, with the ability to run recompiled x86 apps, slowly moving the Amiga away from 68k CPUs to x86 CPUs that have pretty much dominated the world. Had this direction continued I wonder if AmigaOS could have still be in play today? Moving towards mainstream, easily obtainable hardware, with Amiga apps moving even more towards RTG displays and AHI audio, allowing more users to easily upgrade their systems as needed.

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intric8
Seattle, WA, USA

Posted Mon Sep 04, 2017 9:36 pm

That sounds really cool I have to say. Is it not developed anymore? To be completely honest, I'd never even heard of it prior to your mentioning it here. I've only ever heard of AROS and MorphOS.
I enjoy using it more than WinUAE and overall it "feels" like using a real Amiga.
I totally get this. WinUAE is freaking awesome for playing a game or whatever if you have no other choice. But it is the furthest thing from feeling like an Amiga I've ever used. It's literally just the program you want to launch. It's almost on the same emotional level as test-tube babies. Don't get me wrong - I am very glad it exists. And every now and then I use it and am very thankful for it.

But give me an Amiga every time if I have the choice. Thankfully I do. But I also very much respect the incredible journey you took to get Amithlon working.
While this makes it lose compatibility in some things, it makes up for it in speed and works well with system friendly apps.
Does it support classic software at the same level as, say, OS 3.1?

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SnkBitten
South Carolina

Posted Tue Sep 05, 2017 5:12 am

intric8 wrote:That sounds really cool I have to say. Is it not developed anymore? To be completely honest, I'd never even heard of it prior to your mentioning it here. I've only ever heard of AROS and MorphOS.
It was released around 2000/2001 and was available for maybe a year. It shipped with AmigaXL in the same package which was a emulator that ran in QNX and was like a WinUAE to Windows. I think it retailed for around $295 at the time.

It's not being developed anymore, legal issues between H&P and Amiga Inc. caused the developer to end his contract with H&P as he didn't want to be sued, ending his contract made it illegal for H&P to still offer it. A few individuals continued working on the init kernel but it was all based on 2.4 and when 2.6 came out it completely changed the framebuffer method of access for video cards making it near impossible to merger Amithlon's changes into the newer 2.6 tree. I think 2005 was the last time an updated kernel was produced, adding more hardware support. Reading through all the old message post I could find I was able to recompile that version and make small changes to support specifically the hardware I have in my Amithlon, making the init kernel smaller and booting slightly faster.

Does it support classic software at the same level as, say, OS 3.1?
It is Amiga OS 3.9, Kickstart 3.1 based with no custom hardware/chipset support. I can run most anything that isn't hardware dependant. Games are pretty much out unless they are newer and offer RTG support. I download and use the same apps on my Amithlon, A4000T and WinUAE. Stuff like SGrab for screen captures, SysInfo, SysSpeed and DiskSpeed for testing overall performance, Shapeshifter for Mac emulation, ADPro, ImageStudio, PerfectPaint, TVPaint, etc... I used Genesis to initialize the TCP/IP stack until I switched to RoadShow. IBrowse and NetSurf for web browsing.....basically system friendly software. I even run LightWave 3D using ModePro to promote it's native screens to RTG screenmodes. I have ShowAmiga96 presenting a picture during boot (after the kernel initializes) and run AmiDock, Screenblanker, ClicktoFront as commodities and LimpidClock on the Workbench.

There is even the early boot menu (both mouse buttons held while booting) to access bootable HD partitions or boot with no startup-sequence.

This completely controls the underlying hardware. There is no linux mode you can access or control panel you can bring up to change functionality. What you have (hardware) is what you have available. In my case the init kernel has the framebuffer for my Video card with Picasso96 talking to it, and my network card with Roadshow talking through a generic amithlon1_net.device that interfaces the kernel module for it. My Soundblaster live is being accessed with AHI emu10kx drivers from the AHI v6 package.

*The Catweasel card I have has an Amiga 4000 keyboard input as well as a mouse/joystick input. Those work when installed in a PC, I haven't tried them with Amithlon yet....which could add even more "Amiga feel" :)

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evenmore

Posted Wed Sep 27, 2017 2:30 pm

I remember reading about Amithlon when it was announced in the Amiga magazines in 2001. I never really paid that much attention, as I had an A3000 with a Picasso II at the time and didn't work on PC that much. A few years later, when I moved to working full time on a PC for work purposes and my Amiga was less and less used, I started becoming more interested in Amithlon though by this stage the project had sadly died a death. I installed it, and found it to be much faster than my A3000, which I used mainly for programming purposes at the time. Since then I have moved onto Linux, but I still dream about Amithlon.

Last year I bought old computer parts and built a dedicated Amithlon machine. Unfortunately I was never able to get the USB working on it, and the screenmode doesn't really work well with my wide screen monitor. I can run WinUAE on Linux on this I7 processor and it seems a little bit faster than my Amithlon machine on my Athlon processor. But I still feel the Amithlon machine is the closest thing to a real Amiga. I have the same feeling seeing it boot up that I did with my old A1200 and A3000. We have a lot to be thankful for, for being able to emulate our beloved system.

As you say, Amithlon, rather than PPC, should have been the bridge between the classic and the next generation OS. It makes so much more sense.

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SnkBitten
South Carolina

Posted Thu Sep 28, 2017 3:45 am

Check out my site in my signature, the guides I have walk through USB configuring and creating screenmodes. Of course your hardware has to be compatible but I've had very good luck with USB on just about every device I've used. Screenmodes are dependant of having a hardware accelerated/supported graphics card and using Picasso96Mode to define your resolutions.

I have 1680x1050 @ 32bit (native monitor resolution) and a 1280x720 @ 32bit (my default setting as the higher resolution mode makes things a bit too small). I had to create those modes though...

UMC http://aminet.net/package/driver/video/umc is a great tool to get you started as it can help you find a starting point to work with your screenmodes...
From a shell type:

umc 1024 768 60

Which will return the settings to enter in Picasso96Mode for a 1024x768 @60 Hz screenmode. So for me, some modes work best at 60 Hz, some better at 75 Hz and so on...... You have to know the min/max frequencies your monitor supports as well (horizontal and vertical).

I'd like to test Amithlon on an i7 motherboard. There are a few early i7 boards that may be compatible (using the ICH10R chipset) as my Amithlon motherboard using the ICH10 chipset works extremely well (sata/ide/usb). I've found a few that have 1 or 2 PCI slots with additional PCIe slots. I've found two PCIe cards that work (video and networking) so as long as there is one PCI slot (audio) it should be feasible to have an i7 Amithlon setup. The ICH10R added Raid support over the ICH10 chipset.

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SnkBitten
South Carolina

Posted Tue Oct 16, 2018 9:35 am

For fun I purchased the latest 3.1.4 KS/WB from Hyperion, A500/A600/A2000, A4000D and A4000T versions. The 4000 versions for the two 4000's I own (4000D and 4000T) and the A500/A600/A2000 version for my Amithlon system.

I put the 3.1.4 KS into smallird.gz (where Amithlon contains the kickstart) and followed the script on Aminet to migrate a 3.9 system to the updated 3.1.4 files. This went well enough, making sure to retain all the Amithlon specific stuff needed in the Startup-Sequence. First issue was that I could no longer save Time and every boot/reboot the time would be 12:00AM, January 1, 1978. Quite a pain having to remember to set Time each use/reboot, especially since I transfer files back and forth with my PC's over a NAS box.

It seems the new battmem.resource and battclock.resource are incompatible with Amithlon. I'd need to replace these in kickstart with the older ones or just remove them completely since Amithlon injects them at boot from .bin files. This led me to Doobrey and his ROMSplit and Remus utilities. I, and a friend, provided him the funds to purchase 3.1.4 for all models except the A1200 (which he said he had access too already). For this he has provided me an updated (experimental) version of ROMSplit and Remus.

Using the experimental version of ROMSplit I was able to split out the modules from Kickstart 3.1.4 and then remove the incompatible .resource files for the battery clock. Swapping in this newly compiled Kickstart into Amithlon's smallird.gz I was now able to save the current time and and have it correct at each boot/reboot.

So far I'm not seeing much overall difference in performance, which I really didn't expect either. Running SysSpeed I get very similar results as my baseline Amithlon run, though some graphics test are a bit faster and some are a very small bit slower.

Amithlon also has issues with the new cd file system so I'm using the stock Amithlon Cachecdfs system.

So Amithlon OS 3.9 with the new updated underlying 3.1.4 Kickstart and newer libraries/datatypes/devices, etc.....

I may keep it this way though I may give a complete rebuild of pure 3.1.4 a go and just replace in what I have to have for Amithlon to function. Maybe 3.1.4 plus BestWB and then the specific Amithlon devices/libraries/stuff.





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