Introduction
Hyperion Entertainment and co are working hard to get the AmigaOS ported to the PPC platform. Ben Hermans (the managing partner of Hyperion) can be described as the leader of the project - he's very busy man but still agreed on doing a 'little' interview :) I hope that the following paragraphs fill some gaps and ease the waiting...
A copyright notice: I hope that nobody takes words out of context, or spreads or translates this interview without permission. It's always polite to ask before!
Juha Niemimaki: 1. How and why was Hyperion founded?
Ben Hermans: Hyperion was founded in April of 1999 by myself because I was frustrated by the lack of Amiga software taking advantage of the PPC cards and 3D graphics. In the knowledge that games like Doom and Quake had sparked upgrade cycles on Wintel, I decided to contact Amiga games developers in order to license and port Windows games to Amiga. The first person I contacted was Steffen Haeuser who subsequently put me in touch with Hans-Joerg and Thomas Frieden. The rest is, as they say, history.
Juha Niemimaki: 2. How long have you been using an Amiga?
Ben Hermans: I was one of the first people to have an A1000 in Europe. It was a model with 256KB of memory which required you to boot the Kickstart from floppy. When was that, 1985?
Juha Niemimaki: 3. Why did you decide to develop OS 4?
Ben Hermans: It became increasingly clear that H&P was not willing to undertake this work and the negotiations between Amiga and the MorphOS team had collapsed. Contrary to what some people believe, this had nothing to do with me or Hyperion. The reason was simply that Amiga and the MorphOS team did not agree on the conditions for cooperation.
One of the conditions was that Amiga Inc. wanted to decide the direction of the OS and the technology which was brought in by third parties. Their idea was that they had just paid almost 5 million dollars for the OS and that this entitled them to some degree of control.
The second stumbling block was that Amiga wanted a clear separation between hardware and software development to ensure competition in the hardware field. It was simply not convincing that people who had a direct financial stake in a specific hardware product (=the Pegasos) would give non-discriminatory software support to hardware produced by their competitors such as Eyetech or Elbox. The arrangement whereby one single entity would control both hardware and software would mean the creation of a monopoly in the vein of Commodore. We all know what happened there: Commodore went bust and this spelled the end of hardware and software development for years. There was little desire to see history repeat itself. We need competition in the hardware market because it drives down prices for consumers and puts pressure on producers to provide adequate customer-support.
I have always believed that if the Amiga platform is to become a thriving and sustainable niche-market again, we would need to try to attract people back to the platform who have not used an Amiga for years. The best way to do this, is by using the Amiga brandname which is still very recognisable and powerful.
If you look at the amount of mainstream press attention OS 4 and the AmigaOne has attracted (I even got an invitation to appear on German TV), the value of the brand quickly becomes clear.
Beos was an OS which was frequently described as the "son of AmigaOS" but the fact that it wasn't called "Amiga" prevented it from attracting much mainstream attention or former Amiga users.
The conclusion was clear: we needed to transition to PPC (partly because the were already more than 8000 Amiga users with PPC hardware), modernise the OS and push it into the market by using the Amiga brand.
Since nobody else was going to do it, we decided it was a matter of "do or die" for the AmigaOS.Juha Niemimaki: 4. How does the project differ from game development? It must be challenging to lead and organise such a big team of Amiga developers?
Ben Hermans: Game development is of course quite different in terms of the team-size. We have teams of 2-3 developers per game, OS 4 has about 30 developers working on it.
We started the OS 4 project with a more or less clear list of features that we wanted implemented.
We then attracted the right people for the job. As a result, every developer knows exactly what he is supposed to be working on. All of the developers are top-notch people with a proven track-record of developing Amiga software and I've found all of them to be quite professional and dedicated. They organise themselves as we all have a common goal: the rebirth of the platform.
My main occupation up to this point was the legal side of the project. All of the developers needed to be placed under NDA, contracts needed to be negotiated and concluded with each developer, the contracts for 3.5 and 3.9 needed to be replaced for the most part because they were unsatisfactory etc.
If I would have been able to charge my usual fee, I'd be rich by now :).Juha Niemimaki: 5. What happens to the OS 4.x source-code after release of OS 4.0? What happens in the event of bankruptcy of Hyperion or Amiga?
Ben Hermans: The OS 4.x source-code is stored on a CVS. If Amiga goes bankrupt, our license agreement allows us to continue development of OS 4.x indefinitely. Likewise, if Amiga doesn't develop OS 4.0 further, we can continue ourselves. If Hyperion goes bankrupt, Amiga can assign the development to another company.
Juha Niemimaki: 6. What's Hyperion's role with OS 5?
Ben Hermans: OS 5 is still in the planning stage. The idea is ofcourse that a lot of work can be recycled from OS 4.x development. You'll always need a TCP/IP stack, a 3D API etc. I'm confident that Hyperion will play a role in OS 5 development although hopefully a more limited role.
Juha Niemimaki: 7. Which were your biggest problems so far?
Ben Hermans: Finding the right people for each individual job and the funding of the project.
Juha Niemimaki: 8. Will the Friedens be back in public after the OS 4.0 release?
Ben Hermans: I doubt it and frankly I would advise them against it. Fact of the matter is that some so-called Amiga users (many of whom have not used an Amiga in years) find it necessary to ressort to personal attacks rather than civilised debate. If you don't like the fact that OS 4.0 runs on PPC and not x86, fine, don't buy it and use AROS or organise your own OS 4.0 for x86 project. If you think the Amiga is dead and all we are doing is pointless, fine, leave us alone and go elsewhere. But don't insult people personally, that's simply weak.
Juha Niemimaki: 9. What will be the official development environment of OS 4.x?
Ben Hermans: GCC with full debugger support.
Juha Niemimaki: 10. Will we see new Hyperion game releases for the new Amiga generation later this year?
Ben Hermans: Absolutely. We still have three people working on games and we will be releasing new titles after the launch of OS 4.0. Plus we'll remaster some of our current games for OS 4.0.
Juha Niemimaki: 11. What is your opinion on AmigaDE?
Ben Hermans: Currently only useful on PDA's. We do work together with the DE developers and this has resulted in source-code exchanges (for instance the new datatype system for DE or AmigaInput). The DE could become useful for OS 4.x as the preferred environment to sync with your PDA and to run Java.
Juha Niemimaki: 12. When will the Hyperion website get updated? Will there be a specific OS 4 site?
Ben Hermans: Time permitting soon and yes, we do indeed plan a separate site.
Juha Niemimaki: 13. Is it difficult to port existing OS 3.x software to AmigaOS 4.x?
Ben Hermans: Not if it's written in C. If it's entirely in 68K ASM, you'll need to do a complete rewrite ofcourse.
Juha Niemimaki: 14. What's the status of the Amiga Openoffice port?
Ben Hermans: I don't know. This has nothing to do with Hyperion apart from the fact that Hans-Joerg Frieden has agreed to serve as a technical consultant and has donated source-code.
Juha Niemimaki: 15. When will the developer material be published?
Ben Hermans: Not decided yet. Olaf Barthel is working on a new edition of the Rom Kernel Manual.
Juha Niemimaki: 16. When are you going to take pre-orders of OS 4?
Ben Hermans: When the OS 4 CD goes gold.
Juha Niemimaki: 17. Do you have a message for Amiga users around the world?
Ben Hermans: Yes: this time it's for real. New hardware and the best AmigaOS yet with more updates on the way. You've all waited for a long time and your patience will finally be rewarded.