The Amiga usergroup SEAL has posted some pictures of AmigaOS4 and AmigaOne demonstrations held at the MicroMart Computer Fair in Birmingham last Sunday. Alan Redhouse (Eyetech Group) and Fleecy Moss (Amiga Inc) were present. AmigaWorld.net has now posted the 24th Q&A session with Fleecy and has also started an AmigaOne-XE competition.
…Closed Source Operating System? (Really, I don’t honestly know.)
Is there even room for another Closed Source Operating System? Especially from what I heard about the number of Amiga enthusiasts being much smaller then the number of Apple enthusiasts. (Note: Not all Apple Users are Enthusiasts.)
Sure, I understand that the Amiga was an excellent (if not the ‘ONLY’) platform for video and graphics editing back in the days when Apple, IBM and Microsoft were ‘foolishly’ only dealing with the business desktops, but with the software and capabilities of those platforms as well as Linux, is fostering a love affair with Amiga really going to be able to sustain that OS?
Don’t get me wrong, I am not against having more options, but I do see serious issues with the having large numbers of different API’s and even hardware architectures. The market place simply cannot support all the possibilities. (I really wish it could, but it simply isn’t possible, especially with the development costs behind modern software and hardware.)
Am I completely off-base? Let me know why, I really would like to see Amiga be a player, but we all know what happened to another VERY promising Operating System vendor that was also quite tight in the same niche market as Amiga is. (I am talknig about Be, Inc. of course and I believe that both BeOS and Amiga OS claim to be the best for Audio/Video and Graphical arts work…)
If BeOS couldn’t make it, i don’t see any way that a new Amiga will.
I just don’t see the point of doing it at all. There just isn’t a major advantage to the new Amiga that i can see. Maybe i don’t understand something, but why would i go with Amiga when i have OSX on a G5? Or even WinXP? or Linux? or FreeBSD?
Maybe they really do have something new and cool that i will want, but i havn’t read anything interesting yet.
…why waste ypu bandwith for downloading new shots when you can just download once this:
http://pornel.ldreams.net/asg/
😉
Maybe those who are anxious to buy an Amiga are not looking for something totally new or an advantage… maybe they just want… an Amiga system.
As far as I’m concerned AmigaOS 4 is one of my three options.
BeOS was once on the list, but lack of applications means it’s out now. Still hoping it will pick up though.
Now, I think OS X is the market leader in desktop systems. That is quality and not quantity wise.
WinXP? Sorry, Life is just too short for Windows. Linux? I have yet to try a distro that doesn’t break after some time. And yes, I probably could fix some problems if I had a more intimate knowledge of Linux, but the point is that I want the system to work for me, instead of me working to get the system working.
FreeBSD has caused me very few problems. It generally just works.
Now, the third option is AmigaOS. This is because I find the system elegant (if dated in some respects, but these shortcommings will be addressed shortly) and responsive. There is also a great base of high quality applications available already. Many of which offer features not available on the *nixes or at least not without great cost. A few worth mentioning: Photogenics, Pagestream, PerfectPaint – and many more.
Anyway. Out of the three systems I listed I feel I can get some work done with three of them. I prefer each one for certain tasks (OS X for surfing, word processing, mail and daily stuff), FreeBSD as a server and AmigaOS for graphics and audio work – and the odd game.
Anyway, that’s just my opinion. Take it or leave it
Those are mostly just pictures of the computers. I want to see what OS 4 looks like. URL?
AmigaOS4 is a closed source operating system (but most components could easily be replaced by open source alternatives due to its modular design), but Linux is available for the AmigaOne hardware as well. Debian performs well with the AmigaOne, Yellow Dog Linux was also demoed at the Fair.
AmigaOS4 will target niche after niche. It’s unrealistic to directly take on Apple and Microsoft at this point like Be Inc tried to do. First Amiga users and Linux geeks are targeted, and as more software is ported the platform will gradually expand into new niche markets.
BTW, I especially love the picture of the MicroA1 fitted into a DVD-player case.
http://www.seal-amiga.co.uk/news/301103_mm/09MicroA1DVD.jpg
@ Bob
Here’s an actual screengrab:
http://www3.telus.net/NeRP/OS4_on_A1.png
Many more screenshots can be found at AmigaWorld.net (newer and older ones).
Since when did it become a SIN to have a closed source system? Live and Let live.
BORING newspost. Some photos of a small room crowded with boring computers with -apparently- AmigaOS installed on them. Sigh.
Since when did it become a SIN to have a closed source system? Live and Let live.
Since most upstarts go bankrupt (IE Be Inc., etc…) and leave a perfectly good operating system to dust. Most people are not willing anymore to commit to another O.S. knowing they’ll go bust very soon. And if you’ve been up to date on the history of Amiga companies going under since Commodore, you’d be reluctant too. Right about now Amiga Inc. is very indebted and may go bankrupt anytime soon. See here for more info: http://amiga.emugaming.com/amigahistory.html
Also remember that “Open Source” is IN. And closed source is OUT. It’s good to know that Xs source is out there that can be improved by anyone and be ported to any platform(<— This very useful and uber-cool).
It was very sad to see BeOS wasted and locked away in some warehouse when it could be molded into something a lot better. The plumbing was ok. It just needed a fine tuning and support for newer hardware. I bought all their version from 3.1 and up. It was a breath of fresh air compared to Windows and Macintosh (OS 9 and lesser).
IMO AmigaOS 3.X should have been open sourced a long time ago. Think about it. AmigaOS for the x86. Intel would be very pleased to have it running on their line of CPUs. There would be a lot more Amigans right about now instead of the small pockets of lunatics scaring of any newcomers that doesn’t “agree” with their “Faith”.
I think the Amiga community should not be under estimated. The Amiga has been through so much and still lives. OS 4.0 and the PPC hardware is just a step on the way to becoming competitive and eventually bringing new innovation back to the computer market.
Yogi28
“Is there even room for another Closed Source Operating System?”
What do we have now? One choice of closed source operating system, and possibly, a second if you go to the right shop. A few others in very small markets perhaps. The market isn’t exactly at bursting point in terms of choice.
“Don’t get me wrong, I am not against having more options, but I do see serious issues with the having large numbers of different API’s and even hardware architectures. The market place simply cannot support all the possibilities. (I really wish it could, but it simply isn’t possible, especially with the development costs behind modern software and hardware.)”
Of course different APIs and hardware is generally not a good thing – I’d hope that different platforms will move towards open standards. But I find it strange that you think it best that the market would be better off with just a single company. I don’t think monopolies are a good thing.
Hardware-wise, things have moved towards a common standard (even though the motherboard may be different, most of the other components are compatible between PPC and x86 – and anyway, even within the PC market, you have different motherboards and CPUs). Things are moving that way too with software with things like bytecode and OpenGL. Though unfortunately, that one company in particular seems to enjoy resisting this move towards the common standards that you want, preferring to push people towards Windows-only standards.
And as for BeOS – yes, Be died, so maybe Amiga will too. But then someone saying “Be died, MacOS will too” a few years ago would look rather silly too. If anything, the strategy of AmigaOS 4 (and MorphOS come to that) is following one closer to Apple than Be (ie, running on their own platform rather than just selling the OS).
The nice things to me about AmigaOS are (in no particular order):
A) It is UNDERSTANDABLE.
The footprint on disk is very simple and logical.
You can explain it COMPLETELY to someone in less
than 15 minutes. Once you get used to logical
directories, multi-assigns, volumes, etc… it
is very cool compared to Windows and Linux.
B) It is LIGHTWEIGHT.
No registry!
No Gigabyte-range O/S installations.
C) It is EMBEDDABLE.
Want to boot instantly? Put the whole darned
startup logic into flash memory.
D) It is RESOURCE EFFICIENT.
Due to the lack of layer-upon-layer of API
support (such as on Windows) and the almost
real-time design of the OS the responsiveness
of the system is amazing even when run on much
lesser hardware than current PCs.
Similarly the memory requirements are much less
than comparable installs of Windows.
That’s my take…
Ciao!
I believe there is room for both closed source and open source development. IMO most of the time closed sourced projects result into higher quality results. For instance why should a programmer work many years on a software title and see his life’s work being used for free by some other programmer or company?
IMO a operating system should just be modular and flexible enough so that components can be replaced with either closed source or open source alternatives. I believe to think that either open source or closed source are bad is too Black&White.
A thing to add:
The OS is very “honest”, and allows tools like SnoopDOS to exist.
Having problem with a program, that can’t run and returns no error messages? Debug it with SnoopDOS and see what libraries, the program is requesting. Maybe one is missing?
AmigaOS is one of those OS’es where mysteries hardly ever exist. If something fails, it’s very easy to figure out what goes wrong, because it’s so simple. Therefore you don’t need advanced tools to fix problems for you, like those Norton utilities for Windows and removes a layer of complexity there. 🙂
>>AmigaOS is one of those OS’es where mysteries hardly ever exist. If something fails, it’s very easy to figure out what goes wrong, because it’s so simple.
True. There was a shipmate of mine in the 90’s that had a small amiga (it reminded me of my old Apple2c in terms of looks) and it was amazing what he could do with it. But what IS a mystery is how do you get AmigaOS?? I looked all over their website (and I look at it every time there’s an osnews article about it) and I still don’t understand what AmigaOne is, AmigaOS 4, how you get ahold of it, if you have to buy an Amiga computer in order to get it, if you can buy the OS and then the hardware yourself, etc…
It seems to truely be a hobby OS only but its a big mystery, their web site is the most confusing non-answering site I’ve ever seen.
It seems to truely be a hobby OS only but its a big mystery, their web site is the most confusing non-answering site I’ve ever seen.
Yeah, Amiga Inc. has serious communication issues. When they were communicating, they promised a lot of things they couldn’t deliver when they said they would, at one point even claiming development was taking place on OS4 when, in fact, it was not. They received a lot of flack for that. So their new strategy is to say nothing until they’ve got something ready. The result is that MikeB does most of their PR work. I don’t mean that offensively; that’s just what it looks like to me — Mike, if they’re not paying you, they should. 🙂
In reality, the AmigaOne HW is being developed by Eyetech, Inc. under a license from Amiga, Inc. and AmigaOS 4 is being developed by Hyperion Games under a license from Amiga, Inc. You can find information at these websites:
http://www.eyetech.co.uk/search.php?SearchStr=&SearchCat=AMA1
http://www.hyperion-entertainment.com/_amiga/index.html
If you want an AmigaOne running OS4, you have to wait a while yet. If you want to run old Amiga hardware with old AmigaOS, you can try classic distributors like softhut.com or compuquick-amigadirect.com
Where do you live? There will be a public demonstration of AmigaOS 4 running on AmigaOne hardware this Saturday in Charlotte, if you can make it.
To start, I was an Amiga user and supporter in the past. I no longer use Amiga, but keep my eye on where it is going.
Amiga in the past was ahead of its time, and offered the best system during its hay day. Today I only see one area that is being worked on that the Amiga could compete in. This is the Micro Amiga, the Mini-ITX system. I think a system that small would put the Amiga at the top of class for Mini-ITX systems. Its competition would be the VIA EDEN boards, but the Eden is slow. They claim 1gz EDEN speeds, but in reality the performance is much less compared to even a Celeron. The only other system that can compete would be a Pentium Mobile based Mini-ITX board. I have a 1.6 GHz Pentium Mobile laptop, and I am very impressed with its speed (1.7 ghz is max you can buy I think currently for Pentium M). The Mini-ITX Amiga could offer both the top of the line G3/G4 (what is it upto now, 1.25 ghz). This would be very comparable, if not better then the other two offerings (since PPC seems to hold its own verus X86).
I don’t consider a Pentium 4 Mini-ITX since it runs way to hot (thus increasing noise also) and uses too much power. The only other PPC offering out there in a small form factor is the Imac. I have personally considered getting one of those, but don’t like how the LCD has to be attached. I also think buying an Amiga Mini-ITX plus a LCD would be cheaper then buying an iMAC.
Where does Amiga OS 4 come in? Amiga has always been a very optimized, small, and easy to use OS. If Amiga has small footprint hardware, a small footprint OS would be a perfect match. They could have mini-ITX boards in anything (as shown in some pictures, and http://www.mini-itx.com) and even put the whole OS in ROM if they want for other devices.
Amiga will not win any room in the desktop or workstation market since that is already full and Amiga OS4 will offer no more than OS X. I do think they have a chance of going into a micro-desktop (information appliance) type market. I just hope they move fast enough before someone else grabs the market (like Intel, since they just released a SPEC opposite of the Mini-itx one). I basically think this market will be a hybrid between and full desktop, and a laptop. Something in a room that is small, quiet and uses little power, yet allows you to do 90% of the tasks you do on a computer (surf, office apps, basic gfx, and games).
So Ronald,If everyone is Getting Drunk and Jumping infront of Cars, you’ll also join them cause its IN!?
Software not being open source has nothing to do with the comapny going bust. And, they can release the code to the public when they go bust.
Its the developers RIGHT to choose how to publish their code, Not some FASHION of being IN!
Mike Bouma,You got exactly what I meant. Thank you for being reasonable.
@CodeSlasher (IP: —.server.ntli.net)
Your analogy is flawed. “Open source” isn’t “Getting Drunk and Jumping infront of Cars“, it’s what’s helping the industry right now. Putting pressure on Microsoft to put out better software. Everybody should be grateful for it!
I wish Amiga Inc the best but it too, like it’s predecessors, it will fail (#4?). The company has no money, deeply in debt and there are over 5 lawsuits against Amiga Inc. It needs a huge cash injection to get it back on track anytime now and a new CEO.
Amiga Inc is the weirdest company I have ever read on. It’s got a product, AmigaDE, and it’s sitting somewhere collecting dust. They are desperate for funding yet they aren’t pushing AmigaDE to every PDA platform? Zeoneo still hasn’t released Crossword Evolution. It’s not a console game so it should not take as much time as an X-Box game to make.
Amiga Inc is so fvcked up it’s not even funny.
Ronald,
You are listing Management problems, not problems cause by the software not being open source. Thant what I’m saying to you.