Here you can find a show report of last weekend’s multi-platform ‘Fun of Computing 2004’ event which was held in Ilmenau, Germany. The highlight was a demonstration of AmigaOS4. These presentation sheets from a French Amiga event which was held one week prior to this event, shows the current development status of AmigaOS4.
For this show report I also created a small video showing the bootup of Jens’ beta-AmigaOS4 install:
http://webring.amigaworld.net/funcomp/os4betaboot.mpg
I still rember they day I packed up my old Amiga and had to go to windows. I am keeping a close eye on this. If software starts to be relased specify for OS4, I am not intersted in emulating old software, and the price drops to something a little more human. Then I will jump back on board with both feet back into Amiga! The thing that scares me the most is a BeOS type of thing. I loved BeOS, bought it, bought hardware specifcly for it. Then got dumped on like I was a big turd or something. Here’s hoping.
There were also a lot of Pegasos System running MorphOS and Linux around. This was really great.
Yes, I believe there were about 3-4 Pegasos systems present. Some Peg photos are included within the article below.
I’m getting close to buying either an AmigaONE or Pegasos machine to play with.
The one I buy, will be determined mostly by price.
Whichever one is less expensive, is the one I’ll go with.
I’m edging towards the A1 even if it’s more money…
But, money is tight for me.
If I can buy a used A1 or Pegasos Motherboard from someone upgrading to a faster/newer unit, I’ll do that.
It won’t be my main system in any event…
Now, if either of these OS’es would run on one of my PowerMacs, I’d be a happy camper.
I think they’d sell LOTS of copies of either AmigaOS 4.0 or MorphOS if they supported PowerMac Hardware.
I’d buy one of each right away and just have two hard drives, one with each OS in my G4…
Unfortunately, a desire for a larger market seems to be overcome by a desire to stay proprietary…
For the near future the MicroA1-C noard will be the cheapest board available to run with AmigaOS4. It’s a very small board which would even fit into DIY project like using c64, Playstation or Dreamcast cases!
Comparison chart:
http://amigaworld.net/modules/features/index.php?op=r&cat_id=8&rev_…
Some people are even uniting in an effort to design a new A1200-like casing for the upcoming Mini-ITX boards:
The orginal concept Pictures:
http://realitydesign.asn.org.uk/index.php?page=links
Project website:
http://realitydesign.asn.org.uk/
Various DIY Mini-ITX projects:
http://www.mini-itx.com/
What were they using to run Microsoft Word in OS4? One of the screenshots showed Microsoft 4 running inside something that looked like an emulation window.
That should be “Microsoft Word”, not “Microsoft 4”.
That’s an old program called PC-task, which goes way back in the Amiga days around 1990-1992. Back then you could emulate a 286 at about 1-2 MHz on a 68030 Amiga. 🙂 With patience you could run Windows 3.11 and possibly Win95 too although I remember problems with 386 stuff which ran in protected mode. I never tried that, since 68060 was necessary for such reckless stunts, if you didn’t want to fall asleep.
I don’t know how fast it works today or if it’s been updated since it’s been about 10 years I last used it. But it’s there. 🙂
Just imagine all the *great* possibilities besides Word!
Microsoft’s current CEO, Steve Ballmer:
http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/sellswindows.php
Reversi anyone? 😉
Seriously, unless there will be a native PPC version available of PC-Task, it wouldn’t be very useful to me. Actually I used PC-Task in the distant past to emulate some MS-DOS statistical software on an Amiga 1200/030@40Mhz/6MB during my first year in college (Laboratory education back then).
@Al Hartman
But, money is tight for me.
You don’t have to buy it right away. Eyetech and Genesi will still be there in 2005. You can just amass funds until you get just enough to purchase one.
I think they’d sell LOTS of copies of either AmigaOS 4.0 or MorphOS if they supported PowerMac Hardware.
Hyperion nor Genesi wouldn’t be making much money at all. Both AmigaOS4 and MorphOS can’t compete against Mac OS 10.4 “Panther”.
Unfortunately, a desire for a larger market seems to be overcome by a desire to stay proprietary…
And alive. Be Inc didn’t fare too well as mainly an operating system provider.
Hyperion nor Genesi wouldn’t be making much money at all. Both AmigaOS4 and MorphOS can’t compete against Mac OS 10.4 “Panther”.
I don’t agree. I have an iBook for my work and research (Maple no longer exists on the Amiga), and I can’t afford both an AmigaOne and a Mac. I would gladly buy AmigaOS4 to run alongside Panther on my iBook, if Hyperion would release. I would develop for it, too; I wrote some programs on the former Amiga and some them are still on Aminet & run fine in UAE (I’ve tested ’em!)
Hyperion has talked about porting OS4 to Apple HW if only so we could have a portable Amiga at long last. I hope they do; I’d snap it up in a heartbeat, and I have no doubt that a fair number of others would, too.
Until then, I hope they last long enough for me to save for an AmigaOne… Too many other priorities for that money right now.
AmigaOS 4 isn’t based on proprietary hardware – it just happens that the only licensee at the moment is Eyetech. Also, as this is only the preview release I think the decision was to focus on a narrow set of hardware. Quite how they’ll expand this in future I’m not sure, but I know the intention is there.
We’re probably looking at a decent length of time before 4.1 or 4.2 though, so if you want to run AmigaOS now’s as good a time as any.
You are right. But IMO it should be noted that AmigaOS4.0 will be available for BlizzardPPC and CyberstormPPC equipped classic Amigas as well and is actually at the same stage of development as the AmigaOne version.
BTW, with emulators like PC-Task and Mac emulators like Shapeshifter the Amiga was kind of the first pre-emptive multitasking MacOS and IBM/MSDOS/Windows compatible. With AmigaOS runnung on a beefy enough classic Amiga you could start several (single-tasking) instances of these operating system. IMO this would be pretty honorable historical information worth a mention within the computing history books. 🙂
I know that if you have a ppc accelerator you will be able to run os4.. But will os4 support the original chipset fully? And if your ppc board also have a m68k will you be able to run the m68k apps natively?