Linked by Eugenia Loli-Queru on Mon 22nd Jan 2007 05:21 UTC, submitted by anonymous
The Amiga is alive - sort of, and AmigaOS 4 is finally out. Ars takes AmigaOS 4 out for a spin to see where the once-popular platform stands these days. "The release of AmigaOS 4 proves one thing: you can't keep a good platform down. But is AmigaOS merely a fun hobby OS to play around with, or does it offer real value? My answer is that it is a little of both. As a fan of alternative platforms, you won't find many that are more esoteric than AmigaOS. But beyond being different for the sake of being different, OS4 provides something more interesting: a chance to experience a whole new way of computing."
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Member since:
2005-10-12
"OS4 will only run on AmigaOne motherboards, which are specially customized reference PowerPC designs that use UBoot as a BIOS. Unfortunately, OS4 will not install on any other PowerPC hardware, including older PPC Macintoshes. The OS is sold as a bundle with AmigaOne hardware, much like Apple does with OS X, and Amiga, Inc. wants to limit the operating system to licensed hardware only.
"This would not be such a big deal, except that the single company that produced AmigaOne motherboards and systems in the past, UK's Eyetech, has ceased production of the systems. So for the moment, one cannot buy new AmigaOne hardware anywhere."
It does seem like a bit of a showstopper? Its the same crazy idea of tying the OS to a particular brand of hardware, and this case shows the limiting case of the disadvantage of this policy, when you do not buy the OS because you can buy no hardware at all, not just no hardware you particularly want, to run it on. They need to cut the thing loose if they want to make anything of it.
Edited 2007-01-22 07:57