In a live interactive streaming audio/ICQ interview, by UGN at the AmigaExpo in Baltimore, Hyperion released even more interesting details regarding the development of AmigaOS4. Some highlights:* The initial expected end-user release date is planned for May.
* At least one OS update (AmigaOS 4.1) before the end of this year.
* Screenshots to be appearing around the 10th of April, showing intuition’s new look and capabilities. (Birdie, VisualPrefs and MagicMenu functionality is being implementated in a very clean way.)
* Hyperion licensed DOpus Magellan from GPSoft for AmigaOS4.
* Support for Apple hardware is possible, but unlikely as this would require a non anti-competive behaviour by Apple.
* Overhauled version of the DataTypes System planned this year for AmigaOS 4.1 or 4.2, especially geared towards streaming media (encoding/decoding).
* Good Unicode support is being worked on (full implementation in Amiga4.1). Hyperion licensed 12 professional TrueType fonts from Agfa for next generation AmigaOS releases.
* Clean PPC native implementation of ARexx.
* An Overhauled printer system is planned for AmigaOS 4.1
* The new PPC version of the internet browser IBrowse will have much better JavaScript support and stability. Flash player support will also become available for IBrowse.
* IBrowse will utilize a new PPC native version of the highly customizable Magic User Interface. However MUI will not be the standardly endorsed GUI system for AmigaOS, that will be Reaction and BOOPSI.
* Petunia, a very fast PPC JIT 68k emulator will be integrated into PPC AmigaOS.
* Open Office (An open source implementation of Sun’s StarOffice)is being ported.
* ATi provides good support, support for the whole Radeon family is planned.
* A wide variety of PCI soundcard (including SoundBlaster Live!) support will be available for AmigaOS4.
Also check out this transcript of a recent interesting public IRC conference with some Hyperion developers.
moo.. just kidding. eheh
Now, from what i’ve read, AmigaOS4 seems to only run on PPC hardware, but not Apple PPC hardware? Thats sorta umm, well, strange to say the least. I understand that yes it would require a bit of cooperation between the two companies, but cooperating like that can only help both of them.
I don’t think apple would be pleased to introduce the competition’s OS on their platform
Well, the Amiga community isn`t really looking much at Apple hardware, mainly because of their treatment of Be Inc regarding BeOS. We don`t want to become dependent on Apple, we want to offer our own solutions. I believe the functionality integrated in future AmigaOSes, could easily make AmigaOS a big player within the desktop market again.
If it would depend upon the community, AmigaOS would become available for Apple hardware. It would be great if ex-Macintosh hardware clone manufacturers screwed by Apple would put their effort behind AmigaOS, so that Apple would eventually be forced to reconsider their anti-competitive behaviour.
<a href=”http://www.hesbynett.no/hagen/Amiga-Expo-2002-hyperion.mp3“>http…
<a href=”http://members.rogers.com/vjeffery9262/Amiga-Expo-2002-hyperion.mp3…
A large part of the audio file is already as plain text at <a href=”http://amiga.org/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=376&forum=1“&… Amiga.org thread.
Well actually Amiga will be introducing a new Amiga computer in the near future from what I have been reading on their website. They have outsourced both AmigaOS 4.0 and the PPC based Amiga for further development so that Amiga can concentrate on development for AmigaOS 5.
Eyetech (http://www.eyetech.co.uk/) is designing, testing and integrating the PPC based AmigaOne for AmigaOS 4.0 and has already been successful getting PPC Linux to run on it!
Hyperion Entertainment (http://www.hyperion-entertainment.com/) has been integrating and testing AmigaOS 4.0 to run on PPC based technology while Amiga themselves concentrates on the rest of the strategy!
It seems that Amiga is positioning itself for an all out invasion once everything is in place. I have found that Amiga will be presenting more information about AmigaOS 4.0 in late April. Amiga also stated that any OEM who wants to build Amiga computers will have the opportunity and will have licenses designed to take advantage of that strategy!
I personally want to see Amiga succeed which in turn will help further push PPC technology and push the envelope on multimedia technologies as well!
Well actually Amiga will be introducing a new Amiga computer in the near future from what I have been reading on their website. They have outsourced both AmigaOS 4.0 and the PPC based Amiga for further development so that Amiga can concentrate on development for AmigaOS 5.
Eyetech (http://www.eyetech.co.uk/) is designing, testing and integrating the PPC based AmigaOne for AmigaOS 4.0 and has already been successful getting PPC Linux to run on it!
Hyperion Entertainment (http://www.hyperion-entertainment.com/) has been integrating and testing AmigaOS 4.0 to run on PPC based technology while Amiga themselves concentrates on the rest of the strategy!
It seems that Amiga is positioning itself for an all out invasion once everything is in place. I have found that Amiga will be presenting more information about AmigaOS 4.0 in late April. Amiga also stated that any OEM who wants to build Amiga computers will have the opportunity and will have licenses designed to take advantage of that strategy!
I personally want to see Amiga succeed which in turn will help further push PPC technology and push the envelope on multimedia technologies as well!
I would like to try AmigaOS 4 but i will not buy new hardware just for that. I like my comp and i don’t want to change it (maybe except new gfx card which will be.. ATI probably
Mybe if AmigaOS 4 will be something extraordinary, revolutionary etc.. maybe than i’ll think about getting new hardware.
This has a chance of becoming revolutionary, i think. AmigaOS:generic PPC hardware::Microsoft Windows:generic x86 hardware?? I wonder if this PPC hardware will run the PPC BeOS? either way, it would be great to be able to assemble a PPC based computer like we can with x86 today.
ty
yea, that would be great, for one thing it would stir up all x86 hardware manufacturers to be better than the PPC alternative
Truthfully, the new Amiga itself isn’t very exciting. At this point, I don’t give a honk about Amiga. What does interest me is the new hardware platform. There is now somebody manufacturing PPC based motherboards/systems based on an open spec, like the x86 machines. If the thing catches on in any way, it will probably induce other manufacturers to manufacture clones, vendors and open sourcerors to port their operating systems/applications to it, and voila!, x86 has some competition as a commodity platform. Whether or not this does anything for Amigans is subject to debate. But if a (long overdue) commodity alternative rides in on the Amiga’s coattails, then hey, I’m all for it!
I don’t understand what so exiting with the PPC. A long time ago (around 1994), it was supposed to be a competitive platform to the X86. It never really ralize that and now the difference of speed is increasing every month in favor of the X86 (Intel or AMD).
The Itanium or the Hammer are much more exiting than the PPC.
As far as I know, there is nothing with Motorola or IBM to compete.
perhaps, but if people are willing to develop for PPC, i’m not complaining.
besides, if the platform picks up, the chip itself will surely be enhanced at faster rates. This probably would’ve happened a long time ago if apple hadn’t made it so tough to develop oses for their hardware.
ty
You might be right as far as pure performance goes, even if the G5 blows everyone’s doors off initially. But if, say, 2 Ghz is enough for you performancewise, then once you arrive there you might be willing to start trading performance for having smaller, cooler-running machines. Then the PPC’s more efficient architecture would be an advantage.
The hardware is not the big thing here. Infact its only a small part of the package. AmigaOS is the big winner and for the past few days, every day has been a little different and that much more exciting. I wasnt going to get an AmigaOne, i was going to wait. However, if AmigaOS4 looks as good as it is, i may just have to buy one.
However, buy new hardware does concern me. I may wait for 4.2 when skinability is introduced.
But, it does sound as if AmigaOS will be a big problem to Apple in years to come. Not to mention the PPC boards! – But apple also has a great OS, which is nice to the newbie and powerful for the geek.
AmigaOS is going tohave to provide something revolutionary to overcome apples MacOSeX!!!
lets face it, it took Motorola 2 years, almost, to get to 7400 G4 from 500Mhz to 1000Mhz, and production of the latter is so small they can barely meet Apples needs.
Motorola is in serious financial trouble.. they keep revising the G4 – G5 roadmap – IE delaying it because they cant get a production line running with any sort of commercial yield.
IBMs G3s are more available but Big Blue is hardly marketing them .. and even they are only shipping at 700Mhz. Some reports claim IBM could produce at 1Ghz+ easily but Apple wont ship a G3 thats faster than a G4 and they couldnt sell the chips if they did….
……but Amiga’s screwed if it tries to be dependant on only one chip manufacturer.
If only AMD could buy Motorola – can you imagine the kind of chip and AMD power-PC would be?
>>If only AMD could buy Motorola – can you imagine the kind of chip and AMD power-PC would be?<<
Yeah that would be interesting. The PPC architecture is already a better design than x86 due to legacy in the x86 architecture. Intel is just beating an already dead horse and extending the pipeline (the P4) to the ends of the earth to gain slight performance isn’t very efficient if you ask me! Some guy said something about the Itanium, yeah Intel can’t seem to get that right just yet, so what’s so exciting about that?! AMD’s SledgeHammer isn’t out yet, so we still have to wait!
To be honest Apple needs to just takeover the PPC techno from Motorola and build the chips themselves! Most people are right here, Motorola keeps snoozing while Intel and AMD is finally catching up, so Apple has to rely on a company that seems to be sleep walking! Maybe if this G5 is as good as everyone says it is, then that might perk up ole Motorola, and get them to be alittle more competitive in the CPU arena than just trudging along like a snail?!!
what will those poor asm programmers do if x86 would just disappear?
I guess if AMD wanted to switch architectures, they would provide some sort of emulation of x86 to allow a transition.
There`s another follow up interview online, done by the usergroup SWAUG. Check it out: