AmiQNX
Developer: Amiga Inc/QSSL
Year of Announcement: 1998
After talks with Be regarding licensing their operating system
for use in a next generation Amiga, Amiga Inc. began to look at
other solutions. After examining a list of possible OS partners and
contacting the company in question, they chose a little known
company called QNX (pronounced Q-Nix) and announced the decision a few months later on
November 13th 1998 and released a FAQ on the
subject. Confidence was high that QNX fit within Amiga Inc's
plans for the operating system, as well as displaying certain
Amiga-centric characteristics that fit in with the Amiga philosophy
(highly efficient, yet small OS). It was further revealed by Alan
Havesmose that QNX were one of the groups contacted for a next
generation Amiga machine developed by Commodore. The choice seemed
to be a dream come true.
Q: How about some technical details?
A: In order to support our vision of a highly scalable
architecture, I reviewed virtually every commercial OS on the
market (well, maybe there was one I didn't look at ). This process
took a bit longer than anticipated, but after thorough review of
Linux, BeOS, Java, QNX, VxWorks and several others, it was clear to
me that QNX was the only commercially proven operating system that
met the majority of our requirements.
Along with the announcement a tantilising feature list of the QNX
Neutrino operating system, including:
- Micro kernel architecture
- Scalable and very modular design
- Fully protected with processes and threads. This is
important, since we need a protected process and thread model for
the markets we're addressing. Virtual memory is also provided. The
process/thread programming model is the natural extension to the
Task model provided in the Amiga Classic.
- Scales from disk-less system with little RAM to hundreds of
transparently networked computers.
- Multi processor support.
- Transparent networking. As an example, QNX allows
transparent sharing of resources over the network. At the press
announcement we showed a demonstration where we move a "live
running" application from one computer to another over the network.
We also showed a QNX version of Doom running with half of the game
on one computer and the other half on another computer. The
displays were next to each other so that you could see Doom work on
the two systems simultaneously.
- Hard real-time. This is key, since it enables significantly
better multimedia applications, where synchronised audio, video and
computer generated graphics are critical. QNX is furthermore POSIX
compliant.
- Full networking support with TCP/IP, browser and
Java.
The Neutrino microkernel was a good choice, delivering core
realtime services for embedded applications, including message
passing, POSIX thread services, mutexes, condition variables,
semaphores, signals, and scheduling. The message-passing
architecture allows OS modules to be enabled and disabled without
rebooting. The kernel was scalable from embedded systems to
powerful SMP boxes. The power of QNX was demonstrated at the
Cologne 1998 show, a game of Doom was started and moved to the left
of the window, whereupon the left half of the Doom window appeared
running on another screen on another machine.
As part of the deal QNX would provide the operating system base,
including kernel, device drivers, virtual memory, TCP/IP stack,
etc. Amiga Inc would concentrate on multimedia, 3D graphics, MPEG,
gaming interfaces, digital convergence APIs, preferences and user
interface. They were also planning to add emulation of Classic
Amiga 68k and PPC systems. The resultant mix would be unlike both
QNX and Amiga systems. The OS may have been based upon QNX, but its
outward appearance would be more like AmigaOS. As Dr. Allan
Havemose stated,
"We will use elements of Photon - we will NOT use
the look and feel of Photon."
News on development went quiet for a while. This was unsurprising,
both companies had to keep some secrecy regarding their plans for
the project, if they were replying to emails or news items about
the deal, there would be little time for development. However,
behind the scenes the events were being driven by political rather
than technical choices. For the third time Amiga evaluated the
Linux kernel. It is unclear why this was done again, if the OS had
failed to meet their standards why review it again? On July 8th,
1999, QSSL announced they had finished their part of the deal.
Under a heading "Delivering our promise to the Amiga community" Dan
Dodge revealed over 40 engineers had been developing the operating
system since the Computer 98 announcement in November of the
previous year. For many the web page seemed wrong; there were no
indications of Amiga's part in the development, the screenshots
pointed to the QNX site rather than the Amiga one as may be
expected, and the carefully worded headed focussed too much on the
Amiga Community. The next day an announcement came from Amiga that
QNX was no longer the OS kernel. The announcement shocked Amiga
users around the world. Why had they not been told? The confusion
quickly turned into anger. Many thought QSSL had not been told of
plans to cancel their contract and had continued development,
oblivious to the fact they were being 'taken for a ride'. Thousands
of emails were sent to Amiga, ranging from pleas to reconsider to
death threats aimed at Jim Collas and his family.
There were differences of opinion on strategy,
implementation, and licensing terms that we spent months and months
trying to negotiate. I stepped into the middle of this and was
personally involved in the negotiations for over four months. Linux
started as our back-up plan, just in case we couldn't reach an
agreement, and it ended up as the preferred choice. I can't go into
details but remember that things aren't as simple as they seem from
the outside.
- Jim Collas
In hindsight the unfolding events were not as clear as they seemed.
QSSL did know about Amiga canceling the agreement but had pushed
ahead with development. Even if they did not become the official
Amiga they were determined to get some of the mindshare. For months
Amiga users had been boasting about the advantages of QNX in
comparison to Windows or Linux. Why not take advantage of the good
will that had been created and convert some Amiga devotees to the
QNX cause. For weeks angry Amiga users rejected the choice. As Moo
Bunny eloquently summarises, the users felt betrayed by the parent
company.
Our frustration with the Linux announcement stems
from this core problem: we don't trust Amiga Inc. This LOOKED like
a betrayal - it STILL looks like a subtle violation of trust (how
long did they know? there have been NO MENTIONS of QNX on amiga.com
since Collas came aboard!). This LOOKED like a technological step
backward - and the tech brief hasn't done much to alleviate it (X
does not mark the spot). This LOOKED like a choice made for purely
political reasons - a notion not disputed by Amiga Inc. This LOOKED
like an "undo the previous administration's work" - remember Linux
was rejected once. Most of all, this LOOKED like the latest
iteration of "whoops, forget everything we said last time, this is
our technology plan now" - the notion that these press releases
have an unspoken "expiration date" after which anything not
explicitly said to be still in the plan is instead to be considered
OUT.
- Moo Bunny
Meanwhile QSSL were busily working on a hardware partner for their
move into the Amiga market. A few days later they announced the
partnership with Phase 5 and the development of the AMIRAGE workstation. They had been planning to
release a "personal" version of the QNX OS since 1997. Once they
had been introduced to the Amiga they could capitalize on the
"Classic Amiga" market by releasing a PPC version of their OS. The
move caused some bad feeling in the Amiga camp but Jim Collas,
president of Amiga seemed anxious not to repeat the bickering that
had plagued the WarpOS Vs. PowerUP PowerPC decision. However, he
could not hide the disgust he felt regarding the move,
In my opinion their statements are misleading. It
was my assessment that QNX would have launched personal QNX into
the Amiga community even if we had reached an agreement with them.
You can see where I would have an issue with this. It would have
confused and split the community as they are attempting to do
now.
- Jim Collas, in a Usenet posting, 11/7/99
Suggestions of QNX wishing to split the market fell on deaf ears.
Many were just happy that such a respectable company were
developing for the Amiga. Dan Dodge and a number of QNX
representatives have made their presence known on the Team Amiga
Mailing List, Amiga users can sign up for developer software. Amiga
had failed to do many of these things. Why support those who had
not given support in return?
QNX on Amiga
The QNX Neutrino OS for PowerUP boards is set for release during
the 4th quarter of 1999 (Winter, fall, or whatever you want to call
it). It will be freely available for Internet download, as well
being shipped with the phase 5 Blizzard and Cyberstorm G4
accelerators. Phase 5 have also promised a "Classic Amiga" emulator
based upon the one developed for the A\Box
and pre\box. How this affects the Amiga
market remains unknown. If Amiga cancel their plans to release a
version of the "Amiga OE" for Classic Amiga systems, equipped with
PPC, many of the diehard supporters are likely to swap to a
developer that actually considers their opinions and views. Dave
Haynie, former Commodore engineer has already put his money where
his mouth is, and has been developing a QNX-based set-top box
called "Phoenix". Amiga may be looking to attract a whole new
market with the Amiga OE but they are in danger of losing their
supporters that kept the machine alive for so many years.
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