Originally, Amiga was playing with a system developed by ...hmm ... I forget there name, but the new AmigaOS was supposed to be based on their technology.
What this did was translate (and optimize) code for a virtual processor into the native code of the machine during the time when the CPU would be waiting on the hard disk. Even device drivers would be written to this virtual processor, and you could run the new OS over Windows or Linux or direct on the hardware. There was talk of even having Playstation and XBOX support. You'd literally be able to run the same software on every computer (or console) in your house. This was supposed to be included in Amiga OS 4.
Now Amiga OS 4 is just a PowerPC OS, and some of it is still 68K code if I remember correctly. The virtual CPU is now pushed back to Amiga OS 5 last I heard. The virtual CPU technology was the only interesting thing they had, and that was years ago and its still not released. All the developement systems they sold for it years ago as if they were about to release it are now practically useless and they've made it into some sort of vapor-ware by delaying its release so long.
