Amiga & AROS Archive

Few things in technology are more complex, convoluted, and riddled with literally decades of drama than the Amiga community. Luckily for all of us, a significant step forward has been made today: several of the key corporate players in the community have struck agreements to settle their legal disputes. CIC licenses software and documentation for Commodore’s 8-bit computers from Amiga. In return, Amiga is permitted to continue using the Commodore trademarks in a “historical or descriptive context,” such as old documentation, copyright notices in existing software, or as symbols on a keyboard. The agreement with Hyperion does not change the status of AmigaOS 4 – which was never a point of contention, according to Amiga – but it does specify exactly which code and trademarks the Belgian company is permitted to use . But Hyperion’s involvement in the 68k market will end on December 31, 2027: the licensee may continue to distribute versions of AmigaOS 3 until then, including the as-yet-unreleased AmigaOS 3.3. After that, Hyperion will deliver source code, revision history, and documentation for AmigaOS 3.1.4 and its updates, including all fixes and updates, but excluding AmigaOS 4 code backported into AmigaOS 3.2 or 3.3, to Amiga Corporation and release the developers involved in the project from all obligations to Hyperion. Amiga itself will then take over further development of AmigaOS 3 in the future. ↫ Post on amiga-news.de Hyperion is the company most known for developing AmigaOS 4, and with these agreements in place, they claim they can finally spend time focusing on getting AmigaOS 4.2 out the door. These agreements will also consolidate most of the AmigaOS 3.x code and IP under a single banner, which should make its status quite a bit clearer going forward. Whether or not any of this is actually good and beneficial to the Amiga platform as a whole and its individual branches – 3.x and 4.x, in particular – is anyone’s guess. I don’t think there’s anyone here on OSNews who wouldn’t be interested in, say, an affordable and – most importantly – available AmigaOS 4 machine. While I have no clue if clearing up some of the licensing, IP, and ownership confusions will aid in getting new AmigaOS 4 hardware, it surely won’t make it any harder.

We all know the original Amiga was far ahead of its time, and the Amiga really doesn’t need more retrospectives and glazing. However, that doesn’t mean we don’t want more Amiga retrospectives and glazing. I’m not sure I even saw an Amiga in person until 1987, but I knew just from reading about it that I wanted one. I wasn’t able to make it happen until 1991, so I was pretty late to the game. But even in 1991, an Amiga felt like living in the future. I could load several programs and switch between them effortlessly, with the only limit being the amount of memory I had. I could connect to a BBS with a terminal program, start a download, then switch it to the background, fire up a word processor, and do my homework while the download was happening. In some cases, I could even fire up a game and play a game while a download happened in the background. I could download stuff while I played Civilization, which was pretty great. ↫ David L. Farquhar It’s 2026, I have an incredibly powerful Linux gaming computer, but since I grew up on DOS and Windows, to this day, I still feel the need the close every other application before launching a game. I don’t need to – modern operating systems handle such things just fine, mostly – but it’s so ingrained in me it’s hard to drop this habit. I wonder if people who grew up with more capable computers than whatever DOS nonsense I grew up with are less inclined to do things like this? Or did memory constraints act as an equaliser? Anyway, the linked article doesn’t mention it, but the Amiga is still, somehow, going relatively strong for a platform that’s supposed to be dead. Modern(-ish) hardware is getting a bit harder to come by, but AmigaOS 4 and especially MorphOS are still actively being developed, and even running them in virtual machines on x86 has become about as easy as it could be.

Five years after releasing the Amiga 1000, Commodore was about to launch the Amiga 3000, their first real high-end Amiga. With a 68030 processor, on-board SCSI and a slightly updated graphics chipset, all in a sleek desktop case, the Amiga was truly ready for the era of professional 32-bit computing. But Moore’s law wasn’t the only thing thad had been pressuring Commodore since the release of the Amiga 1000: The desktop metaphor had matured even further, and the competition had been hard at work. IBM had launched OS/2, Windows 3.0 had turned Microsoft’s offering from a proof of concept into something actually usable, and new players had entered the scene – among them NeXTStep, with its polished 3D look. It was time to bring AmigaOS, too, into the 1990s. ↫ Carl Svensson It’s interesting – there’s a lot of focus on the first version of the Amiga operating system and the third one, but you don’t hear a lot about AmigaOS 2.x. It turns out this is rather odd, because as Svensson details, this version came with an absolute ton of changes and improvements, from an entirely new widget toolkit to a brand new file system, and so much more. The new widget toolkit and accompanying style guide also ensured that the operating system looked, felt, and behaved consistently. Remember when we cared about that? There’s so much more cool features, though, like command history, line editing, universal clipboard support and more just for the CLI, as well as something called Commodities. These were tiny little programs managed from a central location, which didn’t even need a GUI to work. Commodities included by default were things like ClickToFront, a focus-follows-mouse option, and more. Oh and of course, BASIC was replaced by ARexx. The list just keeps going, and you should really read Svensson’s article.

If you want to try out a modern Amiga operating system, your choices are severely constrained. Both MorphOS and AmigaOS 4 need PowerPC hardware, and at the moment, there’s little to no modern hardware available for purchase to run these operating systems on. The only AmigaOS 4 hardware you can buy is either incredibly outdated, incredibly expensive, or both, and while MorphOS does run on readily available Apple PowerPC machines, those, too, are getting quite long in the tooth and performance simply isn’t keeping up. Until the Mirari becomes available – with the project steadily progressing, I have high hopes – the reality for people wanting to try out AmigaOS or MorphOS is going to be expensive, at best. Or is it? QEMU exists, and QEMU can emulate various PowerPC systems just fine. Shouldn’t it be possible to run these two unique operating systems in a virtual environment on your modern PC, thereby making it trivial for those of us interested in the world of Amiga to dip our toes into the water without having to spend inordinate sums for outdated hardware? It turns out that yes, this is entirely possible, and as I highlighted almost a year ago, George Sokianos has made this process effectively foolproof by developing a custom GUI frontend for QEMU specifically designed to make it incredibly easy to set up and run AmigaOS 4 and MorphOS in QEMU virtual machines. We’re almost a year since that first version, and in that time, Sokianos has updated the tool, called Kyvos, to version 2. It costs a mere €9, and works on Linux (x86 and ARM), Windows (x86 and ARM) and macOS (x86 and ARM). You also get an incredibly detailed manual with step-by-step instructions for every supported operating system and specific emulated machine, which includes instructions for the convoluted AmigaOS 4 installation process, as well as a bunch of other information and helpful tips. In addition, the manual includes links to where you can buy AmigaOS 4 – be sure to use these specific links to buy AmigaOS 4, because Sokianos gets a commission for sales through these links. AmigaOS 4 costs like €30, so it’s not a big investment. MorphOS can be downloaded for free, but after 30 minutes of use, the operating system will slow down and cripple itself, unless you pay for and register your copy for €79. I own a copy for my 17″ PowerBook G4 1.25Ghz, but I think copies are tied to hardware, so I haven’t tried registering it with my key yet. The MorphOS registration tool does not accept virtual machines, so you can’t use it to buy a copy for a virtual machine. Kyvos’ graphical user interface mimics the UI of other virtual machine software like VirtualBox, and it will check to make sure you have all the correct dependencies and requirements installed. The guided setup processes for MorphOS and AmigaOS 4 virtual machines will tell you exactly which operating system ISOs and files you need and makes sure you have them, before setting up the QEMU virtual machines with the optimal settings. Once created, start the virtual machine, and they’ll boot from the installation media. Follow the included manual as you install the operating systems, including some post-install help, and you’ll end up with fully working, network-capable virtual machines running MorphOS and AmigaOS 4. Both installation and setup procedures worked without any issues on my machine, and within like half an our I had to two fully working copies of MorphOS and AmigaOS 4 running on my Linux desktop gaming PC (I exempted myself from the Windows 11 incentive for this one, since my Linux gaming PC is by far the most powerful computer I own). Networking and sound works – AmigaOS 4 requires some post-install steps for those, listed in the Kyvos manual – and I could browse the web right away with the included web browsers. The online update tool for AmigaOS 4 also works perfectly, allowing me to upgrade to the latest version of the operating system and various included components. I’m anything but a MorphOS or AmigaOS 4 expert, so I can’t confidently say much about performance compared to best real compatible hardware out there, but at least for MorphOS I can say it runs considerably faster in this virtual machine than it does on my old 17″ PowerBook G4 1.25Ghz. I feel like AmigaOS 4 runs a bit smoother than MorphOS does, as with the latter I experienced the occasional hiccup and stutter which were absent on AmigaOS 4. Still, both are entirely usable and a pleasure to use. With how limited the hardware selection for these two operating systems is, using QEMU through Kyvos is by far the easiest and most straightforward way to dip your toes into the waters of the modern Amiga operating systems. For a total of around €40, you’ll be running AmigaOS 4 in a very capable and straightforward way, and if and when MorphOS allows registration for virtual machines (they really should), an additional €79 will give you a fully working installation of that unique operating system, too. Kyvos is a complete no-brainer for anyone reading OSNews.

Almost exactly 18 months after 3.19, the MorphOS team has released MorphOS 3.20. This is a major release, as it adds support for the upcoming Mirari PowerPC motherboards, which we talked about when that project was first announced. I’m quite excited about the Mirari, and can’t wait to have one, and MorphOS is the one operating system I really want to run it on. I have an almost mint condition PowerBook G4 17″ specifically for MorphOS, but the hardware is simply too outdated to keep up with modern demands, which is sad, because MorphOS can clearly keep up if it had modern hardware. So, MorphOS 3.20 adds support for the Mirari platform and its various components, like its thermal management solution, networking, and so on. MorphOS 3.20 also expands the number of support Radeon graphics cards, improved support for various HDMI and DisplayPort ports, better support for multiple monitors, and overall better graphics performance in general. There’s also SFS2 support throughout the operating system so MorphOS now supports file sizes of up to 4GB and partition sizes of up to 2TB. The Ambient UI has also seen extensive work to improve performance and stability, as well as add a bunch of new features. Several new applications and utilities are included in MorphOS 3.20, such as DriveImager, MirrorBackup, SMARTDoctor, OFHTTP, OFHash, OFDNS, Replace, and Automator for scripting and controlling MUI applications. Iris has been updated to version 1.53 and now includes the new Contacts companion application for CalDAV-based address books. FlowStudio received extensive improvements for project management, printing, Markdown support, and development workflows. Networking and connectivity have also been improved with updates to OpenSSH 10.3p1, TLS 1.3 support in RDesktop, expanded SMB2 filesystem improvements, and improved USB, audio and multimedia subsystem stability. Numerous system libraries and frameworks including MUI, ixemul, Cairo, Harfbuzz, Freetype, OpenSSL4, and ObjFWRT have been updated or significantly modernized. ↫ MorphOS 3.20 release announcement Of course, there’s also the long list of smaller changes, bugfixes, and performance improvements. MorphOS has wide support for Apple PowerPC hardware, which is probably your best bet for using the operating system for now, at least until the Mirari becomes available for purchase.

We recently talked about Apple’s pre-Mac OS X dabblings in UNIX, but Apple wasn’t the only computer and operating system company exploring UNIX alternatives. Microsoft had the rather successful Xenix, Atari had ASV, Sony had NEWS, to name just a very small few. The Amiga, too, wanted in on the UNIX action, and as such, released Amiga UNIX, based on AT&T System V Release 4. The Amiga UNIX website is dedicated to everything you would ever want to know about this operating system. This site is dedicated on preserving Amix’s history and sharing information and instructions on what Amix is, how to install it (either on real hardware or in emulation) and what can you do with it. Mainly, it tries to cater to people who wish to run AMIX for whatever reason on their hardware. By documenting experiences with it, it is hoped that subsequent SVR4 junkies will find the way more smooth than it might have been without any guidance at all. For even a relatively experienced modern Unix or GNU/Linux administrator, System V UNIX is sufficiently different to present difficulty in installation and administration. Not so much in moving around between directories, and using common utilities that persist to this day – although many of those are hoary and somewhat forgetful in their retirement – but of doing more in depth tasks and understanding the differences. ↫ The Amiga Unix Wiki If you wish to run Amiga UNIX yourself, you’ll either have to have one of the original two models sold with it – the 2500UX and 3000UX – or one of the Amigas that meets the minimum requirements. Another option is, of course, emulation, and WinUAE has support for running Amiga UNIX.

Mount Amiga filesystem images on macOS/Linux using native AmigaOS filesystem handlers via FUSE. amifuse runs actual Amiga filesystem drivers (like PFS3) through m68k CPU emulation, allowing you to read Amiga hard disk images without relying on reverse-engineered implementations. ↫ Amifuse GitHub page Absolutely wild.

Are you still using your Amiga with the 1.3 version of Kickstart, but would you prefer an updated version of Workbench with a long list of additional features, improvements, and other niceties? Old Blue Workbench is a Workbench replacement for Amigas running Kickstart 1.3 written by Mats Eirik Hansen. It adds a ton of features and improvements, such as enhanced menus in the Workbench 2.0 style, improved windows with things like lasso select, icon sorting, and more, and browser windows for navigating the filesystem. You can also add a dock with drag and drop support, launch applications at startup, define your own menus, and a whole lot more. It’s free, and if I had an old Amiga I would love to try this out.

We removed ads from OSNews. Donate to our fundraiser to ensure our future! We’re not done with the AROS news quite yet, as Andrzej Subocz published another update with the latest news from the AROS community. Some of it we already covered, but a lot it we haven’t. For instance, there’s the initial version of a partitioning tool for AROS, called QuickPart. For now, it’s in read-only mode, but once it’s complete, it will allow users to do, well, partitioning. Work has also begun on porting SDL2 to AROS, replacing the aging SDL 1.2 version currently available. On top of all that, there’s a lot of work on new and improved network drivers for the 64bit version, an extensive amount of changes and improvements to the build system, C library, datatypes, and much more. Subocz’ full report has many more details, so head on over and read up.

We removed ads from OSNews. Donate to our fundraiser to ensure our future! Covering the Amiga world is always a bit of a crapshoot, since for what is surely an incredibly small segment of the computing world, it happens to be incredibly complex, with multiple competing Amiga-ish operating systems and hardware platforms, all worsened by many empty promises and bitter animosity flying every which way. This makes it hard for an outsider to get a firm grasp on what’s going on, but as always, I’ll try my best. The news here is that AmiKit has released a new browser for the classic 68k Amiga that can load modern websites. The browser is called AmiBrowser. AmiBrowser is an HTML 5 capable web browser built for 68K with Zune/MUI. Ituses ARM libraries to power the native rendering of the web pages. ↫ AmiKit press release AmiBrowser is exclusive to AmiKit’s own Amiga-like hardware, the A600 GS and A1200 NG, both of which are replacement boards for the original Amiga 600 and 1200, respectively. How do these machines work? Well, they come in the shape of their original counterparts, but with far fewer chips, and one crucial addition: a little Orange Pi Zero 3 (in the case of the A1200 NG, at least) daughterboard that contains the actual ARM SoC that powers the machine. The way this setup works is that the Orange Pi Zero 3 boots into a minimal Linux environment with a launcher-like interface, which can in turn load up the Amiberry classic 68K Amiga emulator that can communicate with its ARM Linux host. It’s inside this 68K emulator where the actual operating system runs. This Amiga-like operating system is called AmiBench, which is, very simply put, a modified variant of the 68K version of AROS, combined with libraries and components that can make use of the ARM processor. And so we finally arrive at this new browser. This new browser runs the Chromium Embedded Framework in the host Linux environment on the ARM processor, forwarding its rendering towards a native 68K Amiga/AROS application that’s running inside the 68K emulator. In between the CEF running on the Linux host and the native Amiga 68K application running inside the emulator sits a glue layer that takes care of the communication between the two sides. It’s an interesting approach to a very difficult problem: how do you run a modern browser on a hardware platform – 68K, in this case – that is horribly outdated and far too slow to deal with modern websites? It’s an interesting approach, but it also feels a little bit like a house of cards. That being said, if the choice is between no access to the modern web and shaky access to the modern web, I’d still choose the latter.

Getting hardware to run AmigaOS 4.1 or MorphOS on isn’t always easy, cheap, or even possible in the first place. Luckily, there’s now an incredibly easy and straightforward way to emulate these two operating systems: Kyvos, developed by George Sokianos. Kyvos is a user-friendly frontend for Qemu, designed to streamline the creation of AmigaOS 4 and MorphOS emulated environments on Linux, macOS, and Windows. Pronounced “kee-vos,” this name is inspired by the Greek word “κύβος,” meaning cube, symbolizing these virtual systems running within the host OS. Setting up an AmigaOS 4 or MorphOS system is effortless with Kyvos—just a few clicks, and you’re ready to go. A helpful wizard guides users in locating or downloading necessary dependencies, including Qemu and 7zip binaries. ↫ George Sokianos Of course, nothing is stopping you from following guides online to build your own Qemu virtual machine and associated complex command to start it, but Kyvos takes all that work out of your hands and makes it incredibly easy, all wrapped in a nice graphical user interface. It’s available for Linux, Windows, and macOS. All you need is Kyvos – which is free, but Ko-Fi donations are appreciated – and a copy of either AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition or MorphOS. Based on a toot by Hyperion, the developers of AmigaOS 4.1, you need the version for the AmigaOne board specifically, which will set you back about €30 for a boxed copy (I’ve asked if there are any download versions for sale as well). A copy of MorphOS costs about €79, and can be bought from inside MorphOS after installation. Note that you can also use MorphOS without a license, but it will slow down its performance after about 30 minutes until you reboot. I’m stoked to try this out, as I’ve been wanting to review both of these operating systems again, since my previous reviews of Amiga OS 4 (from 2009) and MorphOS (also from 2009) are horribly outdated at this point. MorphOS on old Apple PowerPC hardware just doesn’t cut it – believe me, I’ve tried – and AmigaOS 4 hardware is quite expensive and outdated at this point. Until – and let’s face it, if – the Mirari comes out, easy emulation through Qemu might be an option.

The work towards making the 64bit version of AROS a viable choice is continuing, as is the work on AROS’ web browser, and developer Krzysztof ‘deadwood’ Śmiechowicz gave an update a few days ago detailing the progress that’s been made – and it’s extensive. First, the beta version of Odyssey 3.0, the web browser for AROS, can now load a whole slew of important websites, like YouTube, Google Docs, and Discord, which is a big deal for an alternative operating system like AROS. Odyssey uses Apple’s WebKit as its browser engine, and it’s obviously important to make sure it runs on the 64bit version of AROS. Speaking of 64bit, more and more applications are being recompiled to add 64bit support, with the stated goal being to have at least the best application in each category available in 64bit. A major issue is that certain pieces of hardware that work in 32bit do not yet work in 64bit. As a temporary solution, they’re going to make use of the virtualisation route AROS Portable uses to plug the gaps in 64bit hardware support until such support is realised. AROS Portable is basically a Linux distribution that runs a virtual copy of the 32bit version of AROS. It’s clear that a lot of work is happening in the 64bit space for AROS, which is crucial for the long-term viability of the project. AROS is still the easiest and most accessible way to get a taste of an Amiga-like experience since it runs on plain x86 hardware, so it’s important to keep that dream alive.

WinUAE has released version 6.0.0 of the Windows version of the UAE Amiga emulator, packing a truly terrifying number of changes, improvements, and fixes. Major update to custom chipset emulation. Internally almost everything in main chipset emulation has been rewritten. Fastest possible/JIT mode chipset timing/sync had major changes which can cause side-effects. Bugs are very possible, especially in very rarely used features. ↫ WinUAE website Going through the changelog is dizzying, ranging from an almost complete rewrite of the main chipset emulation for internal cycle accuracy, to running the emulation of the Denise/Lisa chips in a separate thread for better performance, to a ton of fixes and smaller updates.

Amiga lore is full of exciting tales. Many of them are retold to demonstrate how the incompetence of Commodore’s management destroyed a platform that, by rights, was destined for success. Coulda, shoulda, and the Amiga woulda risen as rightful ruler of all other computer platforms, forever and ever. Amen. One of those stories is about how Sun Microsystems allegedly showed interest in the Amiga 3000 during the early 1990s. It’s a classic Amiga anecdote, usually recounted without much reflection, and one I’ve certainly helped perpetuate. Alas, the more I think about it, the less it adds up. Fact or factoid? Let’s speculate! ↫ Carl Svensson Great speculation with some solid reasoning and sourcing. Considering that had been some minor joint marketing between Sun and Commodore, my money is on the talks around that deal birthing rumours about more extensive Sun involvement in the Amiga 3000. At this point in time, however, decades after the fact and with several conflicting account, it’s unlikely we’ll ever get a solid answer.