News from AmigaChrome.
Where the work stands, what lands next and what is still left to do. Plans here are plans: each date says what we are aiming for, not a promise that it is finished.
The road to AmigaChrome 0.30
We are aiming to release AmigaChrome 0.30 on 31 October, ahead of the launch on 5 November. It comes in four parts:
The platform
The .deb install and the Raspberry Pi card, with Cradle, the AC090 68k core and the AC460 PowerPC core. Updates arrive as signed patches on a public release channel, and AmigaChrome checks each patch's signature before running it.
Guest software
ACStorage, ACRTG, accontrol, ACClip and ACDrop for AmigaOS 3.x, and AmigaOS 4.1 versions for AC460 instances.
OpenUp 0.8.0
The open libraries, one switch per library. A library goes in only once it has been built with our GCC 16.2 toolchain and its side-by-side comparison with OS 3.2 is clean.
OpenFiles 0.4
The open file manager, now with servers as places: FTP and FTPS.
The Open ROM ships as a preview in 0.30. Our open exec boots with OS 3.2.3's other modules today. A ROM that is open all the way to Workbench is our November goal.
Three weeks
Merge and go green
- The faster AC460 JIT and AC460 instances on the Pi appliance
- An AmigaOS 4.1 toolchain for building PowerPC guest software
- Open exec as a ROM module, handing library loads to open ramlib
- ROM-safe builds of the open modules, with no writable globals
- Every main branch green
The release path, end to end
- Signed patches live on the dev channel
- Cradle builds, tests and deploys modules into lab copies of an instance
- Open exec plus OS 3.2.3's modules boots to a Shell from a script, every time
- AmigaOS 4.1 accontrol.device, ACClip and ACDrop built and tested
- OpenUp candidates compared side by side with OS 3.2
Beta, then stable
- 27 October: 0.30 beta on the beta channel
- Field test on a PC, a Raspberry Pi card and a .deb install
- OpenUp 0.8.0 assembled, with input.device 50.2 and lowlevel.library
- Release notes and the download page
- 31 October: 0.30 on the stable channel, if the beta finds nothing blocking
Still to do after 0.30
- An open ROM with no OS 3.2.3 modules at all: strap, dos, the handlers and the Shell running on a 68k, then Workbench
- workbench.library and icon.library under their real names
- The rest of the open C: commands, including LoadWB, Mount, Assign and SetPatch
- A PowerPC AmigaOS 4.1 appliance image
- More PPC460 JIT speed: a lazy condition register, return-stack caches and a faster TLB-miss path
- AmigaOS 4.1 booting natively on a G4 Mac mini, which is a research project
OpenAmigaPython: Python 2.7.18 for the classic Amiga
OpenAmigaPython 2.7.18-ac2 brings the last release of CPython 2 to AmigaOS 3.x on the 68k. It builds on the amigazen project's AmigaPython 2, which continues Irmen de Jong's original Aminet ports, and adds what AmigaChrome needs: a build anyone can repeat, an OpenUp package, and optional use of AmigaChrome's services.
Real Python on a real Amiga
The 2.7 language and standard library, networking over bsdsocket.library with TLS through AmiTLS, and Amiga-native modules: AmigaDOS, ARexx, ASL requesters, catalogs and icons. A smaller SlimPython build is included too.
AmigaChrome when it's there
Python -m amigachrome.info reports which of OpenMulticore, OpenService, OpenCrypto, OpenTLS, bsdsocket and ACControl are available, without opening any of them at startup. Large flat-buffer work can be offloaded to other cores. The interpreter itself stays on CPU0, and anything that fails falls back to the 68k.
Reproducible, and in OpenUp
A reproducible VBCC cross-build for AmigaOS 3, with a file manifest and SHA-256 checksums for each release. OpenUp installs it as its own part, with Python: assigned and on the command path.
The acN suffix is our build number; Python compatibility stays at 2.7.18. Open source: OpenAmigaPython on GitHub.
Open exec is merged
Our clean-room exec.library has every one of its 152 jump-table slots wired, and its self-test ROM boots and passes all 31 checks. In a lab, it has already brought up an AmigaShell and Workbench running over OS 3.2.3's other modules. That was one run, by hand, and Workbench came up through the failsafe path, so making that boot clean and repeatable is the next step.
Exec is the base of the Open ROM, and the place where full multicore starts.
New on this site
Open ROM
Progress towards a fully open Kickstart, step by step, and how it changes things from OS 3.2.3.
API documentation
Cradle's REST API and MCP tools, our autodocs and the jump table of every open library.
News
This page. We'll post here as each milestone lands.