Hyperion Entertainment, creator of various Linux game ports and currently working on the next generation Amiga OS, has now unveiled their new dedicated Amiga OS 4.0 website. It showcases important features and is targeted to current and new users as well as potential OEM clients.
It is well written and offers a panoramic view of all new features of Amiga OS 4.0.
It offers also a brief explanation of the unique characteristics which distinguish AmigaOS from other OSes.
And (IMHO) this fact that Hyperion linked online this new site is the first evidence that they are soon to release final version of OS 4.0.
Well written indeed. Well done Hyperion!
Ciao,
Raffaele
Where do I get It? Does it runs on cheap hardware? Will I find any good current apps?
If so, then I really want to have a play with It
no. no. probably
sorry joelito.
OS 4.0 runs on expensive AmigaONE PPC based motherboards.
But, please don’t cry.
Early versions of OS 4.0 were developed on classic old Motorola 68040 and 68060.
There are rumors that a version of OS 4.0 colud be adapted and will be available also (at a reasonable price) for ancient Amiga “Classic” platforms.
*Sniff* Not even an Apple PPC?
DMN
Nope, you’re out of luck. ANd if you thought Apple made expensive hardware…
afaik it also runs on classic amigas as long as they have a ppc accelerator board and a grafic card.
Just wondering.. what would make it impossible to run this on a apple machine? Apple hardware variety is relatively limited and OpenFirmware is documented.
Would be really great if you could grab an old 450 mhz cube and run this on it. I am run it would run great on a 128mb machine (which no modern apple OS does). Not to mention on a macmini…
Or a quad-g5 with 16gb ram? 🙂
Is this a political decision? Frankly I’d gladly pay some money to play with this sofware on my iBook.
Ther’s a kind of “dongle” that makes AmigaOs run only on AmigaOne hardware IIRC.
> Ther’s a kind of “dongle” that makes AmigaOs run only
> on AmigaOne hardware IIRC.
The main reason why it doesn’t run on Apple hardware is that the kernel isn’t adapted to Apple hardware. There is no technical reason that would prevent this from running on it or on any other PowerPC-based hardware.
In fact, AmigaOS4.0 already runs on different (non-AmigaOne) hardware. The adaption to a completely different hardware with a different PowerPC CPU architecture took a single person about one and a half weeks. However, at this time AmigaOS4.0 is only on sale for AmigaOne hardware.
Best Regards,
Hans-Jörg Frieden
Technical Director, AmigaOS4.0 Project.
Ain’t a dozen people who frequent OSNews own a machine which will run this OS.
We’ve got a great OS – but you’re not good enough for us. Only the elite may apply. I find it economically uterly stupid that OS4 can’t be run on any PPC machine, there’s millions of people with macs – that’s a lot of potential revenue. I know that in this day and age we still usually pay before we try, but for an OS that still hasn’t got an xHTML1 compliant browser is not worth buying an entire boxen to try it out.
I have a Mac mini as my only PPC machine and I certainly would pay to have this OS on my Mac. I would buy and install ASAP!
But the probability of me buying a separate AmigaOS4 box is quite remote within the next 6 months and not much better before early 2007.
I really would like to try this OS, and try developing some software in it.
You don’t understand. Its about integration and quality control. Its about not letting your OS run on just any old crappy hardware. Its about giving the users the benefit of a controlled environment, unlike Windows, where just about any old bit of hardware can be plugged in and you have driver hell…
Also, they make their money on the hardware. They would go bust if people didn’t have to buy the hardware to run the OS.
Sound at all familiar?
> You don’t understand. Its about integration and quality control. Its about not letting your OS run on just any old crappy hardware.
That’s patently nonsense.
Re. “Integration”:
The OS is to be made for 3rd party hardware. Hardware just isn’t designed for any specific OS any more. Forget about the old Amiga computer concept, it’s dead and buried by evolution and by everyone involved. But having a hardware vendor buy a licence to sell his hardware to your OS customers does not mean any better “integration” than if your customers were allowed to buy the same hardware anywhere they like. You’re just less likely to get any cooperation or an available hardware platform at all.
Re. “Any old crappy hardware”:
Are you kidding? That’s exactly what the currently single existing “licensed” hardware. Underperforming, obsolete, terminally flawed, extremely expensive, hard to get, slowly produced, unsupported, and minimum legal warranties are blatantly ignored, and now it has even at long last been discontinued — before AmigaOS is even finished and released!
“Quality control”? AInc, the licensors who were supposed to do the “quality control”, had never even seen a Teron/”AmigaOne” when Eyetech got their licence, and the AmigaOS4 project had barely been started by Hyperion when this happened! In practice, Eyetech obviously have a carte blanche permission to flog whatever crap they can find to sell at any given time, without any allegedly licence-stipulated QA/QC procedure whatsoever (see “AmigaOne SE”, “XE”, “Micro”…).
That’s the kind of added value that Amiga Inc’s/Eyetech’s compulsory hardware licensing fraud brought us, not to mention the logical consequence of AmigaOS4 being strangled in it’s crib.
> Also, they make their money on the hardware. They would go bust if people didn’t have to buy the hardware to run the OS.
“They”? “They” (Eyetech) are not someone who has anything to do with AmigaOS. AInc, Hyperion, and their contractors/freelancers/contributors are.
The ones who made money on the “AmigaOne” monopoly were Eyetech, and who cares about whether yet another irrelevant hardware shop loses money? There are gazillions of those, it’s just that we’re not allowed to choose and we and AmigaOS have been made dependent on that one shop for no sane reason at all.
Amiga OS 3.0 was fast on a 14Mhz system! OS 4 doesn’t look like a major step forward (as in they haven’t made it a big bloated yet). IF they ported to Intel it should truly fly. Having said that, I’m a MacOS X fanboy now, and it will take something major to get me off this train. Amiga OS 4 is not likely to be it.
Nice site though, and it brings back some very happy memories. The Amiga was a great machine.
To run an AmigaOS 3.1 clone on x86, try AROS (Amiga Research Operating System). Still in beta, been worked on for years now, DOES NOT run original 3.1 apps, (I’ve tried), but is 100% free.
I´ve followed the “amiga” eversince I stopped using my A4000/ppc a few years ago.
I red the hyperion AOS4 site and I really want this OS but far as I know it does not have ANY hardware right now to run it on. The AmigaONE seems to be out of stock and even if you could buy one it would be expensive. But the AmigaOne was more of a developersystem for AOS4.
There will be hardware to run it on. A team of developer who can develop an OS like this is probably not stupid enough to not port it to potential hardware.
Maybe Pegasos, maybe mac or even playstation or xbox.
Best AOS info site I´ve seen however.
Good work Hyperion! Ill wait for the proper hardware but Im totally behind you
Soon I’ll be releasing my new OS. It is based off an OLD OS that everyone loved, and that ran really fast. Not only that but we have added all the features you would ever want in an OS and it still runs super fast. We’ll have a really cool website up that’ll showcase all the great features of our os.
btw, you’ll need a Fionken 2x mider chip to run this software. (no one but us has this chip, but you should see how fast this OS runs!)
Now where do I sign up for VC?
@ joelito
> *Sniff* Not even an Apple PPC?
A major obstacle seems to be proper hardware documentation and support from Apple. We already know Be Inc’s take on the situation, which made made them move away from supporting Apple hardware (back then there wasn’t much outlook on PPC alternatives, but nowadays the outlook for alternative PPC hardware is better, for instance all leading next generation consoles will use PPC technology, such as for instance the PPC compatible Cell processor, best known for powering the future Playstation3, which is also intented to be used on a large scale in mobile devices, digital TVs, severs, etc.
A quote from a recent interview with Kai Staats, chief-executive of Terra Soft (LinuxUser, issue 52):
“There were times when we would ask for assistance with new product bring-up and call a key Apple engineer for assistance. His response was, ‘Well, I have everything here on my desk, I have the data you need, but I’m not allowed to give it to you. Sorry guys. You know how it is.’ As such we have, with the assistance of the IBM Oz labs and the PowerPC Linux community, reverse engineered every single Apple product that has shipped since the inception of our company.”
AmigaOS4.0 is nearly done, but not yet finished. Currently the project is still in the investment/development phase and as a development platform (and a system for Amiga enthusiasts), the various pre-release A1 models have demonstrated their value. Lots of 3rd party software has already been released and is being worked on by the Amiga community.
The Amiga community is currently vividly alive:
http://amigaworld.net/modules/features/index.php?op=r&cat_id=1&rev_…
And AmigaOS has turned into an interestingly IMO unique OS with many nice features:
http://uniweb.free.fr/os4videos/os4intuition.avi
Having said this, several alternative hardware projects are currently being worked on as we speak and obviously with this website the designers try to entice more potential hardware partners or solution provides for possible co-operation.
Edited 2005-10-29 19:28
> A major obstacle seems to be proper hardware documentation and support from Apple.
I think you’re being pretty damn disingenous and/or dishonest by leaving out THE all-ruling and all-blocking reason. (Surely you haven’t plain FORGOTTEN, Mike?)
The major obstacle against AmigaOS being ported and sold for ANY hardware at all, including Macs, is Amiga, Inc. and their “Amiga hardware” licensing requirement.
This may sound insane to newcomers, but nevertheless this is how it is, unfortunately. There is no Amiga hardware, the OS is meant to run on 3rd party hardware. All well and good so far, one would think.
But AmigaOS will not be sold boxed to end-users, separate from hardware. It must be bundled with hardware. For AmigaOS to be adapted/ported to and sold with a particular hardware product, a hardware vendor must buy a licence from AInc to be allowed to sell and support his own hardware to AmigaOS users.
Of course Apple will not even dream of doing such a thing, neither will any other relevant hardware vendor.
Apple refusing to share documentation simply is not true, and even if it were, it wouldn’t matter as nobody has bought or is planning to buy a licence to sell Macs to AmigaOS users anyway.
The ONLY existing licensee is Eyetech, who until recently used to sell Teron motherboards under Eyetech’s “AmigaOne” trademark. Eyetech is also the company that helped the uninterested AInc “invent” this retarded compulsory licensing scheme, and Eyetech are also to be consulted before any other licensee (i.e. any would-be Eyetech competitor) is approved! Needless to say, all (both…?) other licence applicants have been turned down or ignored.
Introduction to this mess:
http://amigapop.8bit.co.uk/intro.html
> A quote from a recent interview with Kai Staats,…
Another quote:
“As such we have, with the assistance of the IBM Oz labs and the PowerPC Linux community, reverse engineered every single Apple product that has shipped since the inception of our company. And at the same time, there are individuals at Apple who have gone out of their way to assist us, enabling amazing events to unfold within the confi ne of religious borders. Since we came on as an Apple VAR, we have enjoyed three fantastic account managers who worked miracles on our behalf.”
But, again, it doesn’t matter that the job is already done and well documented. Without a licence it cannot (legally) happen for AmigaOS, and that goes for any hardware, not just Macs.
When “AmigaOnes” were sold, a prospective AmigaOS user couldn’t buy a $500 Teron instead, one would have to buy the exact same hardware but called “AmigaOne” and with an $800 pricetag. This means that any documentation or porting or other development work to run on more hardware is irrelevant without a licence. No documentation or work at all is needed to run on the same hardware with different trademarks. It’s the licensing requirement that is the obstacle.
In other words, AmigaOS4 (and “all future versions”) is stillborn. Unless the compulsory hardware licensing scheme is cancelled, that is.
http://www.petitiononline.com/amigaos/
Thank´s for the petition URL. I hope they´re not stupid.
I remember the old Amigas used to get bundled with a few apps+some games. Anyone know if OS4 will come bundled with Duke Nukem Forever?
It’s come with Duke Nukem Forever, Firefox and Open Office.
No, being serious for a moment, I use Amiga OS4 Pre-release, and I havn’t touched my PC in weeks, it really is a good OS, even now.
Now before the Amiga users get their panties in a bunch, I know that OS4 has betas out there to developers, but I’ve been hearing about this OS for ages, and nothing new has come up for the users. – While Amiga inc, hyperion and the rest have been developing, original amiga hardware is going down the tube, and newer, affordable, hardware is scarce.
I would LOVE to use this OS, but it seems like it will never come out, and no hardware support for common platform hardware (x86 compatibles & macs)
Amigas were ten years ahead of everything at one time. If the world were fair, we’d all be using them now, and probably have computers with AI.
That said, all of the good stuff from Amiga has been incorporated into modern OS’s.
Contemporary Amiga users couldn’t get panties of any sort in a bunch. No women use Amigas. And the males who do will never, ever come into contact with panties in any form unless they belong to their mothers.
> all of the good stuff from Amiga has been incorporated
> into modern OS’s
<sarcasm>Yeah, sure. OS’s such as Windows and Linux have such great and widely used datatype systems.</sarcasm>
Oh, wait, you said “modern OS’s” so that means neither Windows nor Linux qualifies…
Maybe you don’t follow the developments very closely, but development of AmigaOS4 is very rapid now, with existing users of the AmigaOS4 Pre-release getting regular updates (update 3 came this summer and was the last update before OS4.0 final is released).
If you read the website carefully you’ll see that there is nothing preventing AmigaOS4 to come out for the Apple Mac, should Apple decide that they want this OS for their hardware. AmigaOS4 is not limited to a single hardware platform and Hyperion would even be willing to port it to different Processor architectures, if there is demand for it.
> there is nothing preventing AmigaOS4 to come out for
> the Apple Mac, should Apple decide that they want
> this OS for their hardware
LOL. Will Apple pay licences to Amiga Inc and to Hyperion to port and sell alternative OS for their hardware ? You must be joking. In real world Amiga Inc would pay to Hyperion to port AmigaOS into as many platforms as possible. This looks like a joke to me.
AmigaOS doesn’t have memory protection, so your unsaved documents will be lost when other applications decides to take down your system, no real browser, no commercial and almost no usefull software. You can change icons, backgrounds around desktop, that’s pretty much all.
Most software runs on interpreting 68k emulator. Usefull software runs in E-UAE, which you can run on any other platform of your choise.
This is not trolling, it hard to swallow truth. Amiga *a lot* of years ago were respected platform with features nowhere seen before, but now it’s 10 years behind everything. Sad to see unreal fanboy fantasies about “Taking over Windows world”. LOL.
And no-one got licences from Amiga Inc to port AmigaOS4 to other hardware than A1 (few have tried with zero success). Mentioned Troika doesn’t have licence, they just speculate and don’t speak about this topic. Eyetech has monopoly and Eyetech is bust. No more hardware, no more OS sales. It’s borked and rotten from inside. Stay away and better go try AROS on your current box.
> Most software runs on interpreting 68k emulator.
http://www.os4depot.net
639 native applications at time of posting, with more added on a daily basis.
Also, the 68k emulation is completely transparent, so you can run old applications and not tell the difference from native ones. (They run faster than they would have done on an old Amiga that’s for sure!)
> Usefull software runs in E-UAE
Well, very old software runs in E-UAE. The future lies with new software, and there seems to be plenty of that. E-UAE might be useful for playing old Amiga games, and sure you can do that anywhere.
I’ve been using the pre-release version of OS4 as my main OS for several months now, and it’s just been so much more fun and non-stressful than using other OS’s.
A year or two ago, I was using Win2K and something locked up the system bringing everything to a crawl, task manager wouldn’t come up to allow me to kill off whatever was causing the problem, and this wasn’t exactly the first time this had happened. I decided I’d had enough.
I’d been running Linux as a house network internet gateway for a while, and I’d used it a fair bit at work, so I wiped off 2K and stuck Linux on there. So for a while I used Linux as my main machine with an old Win95 install as a back-up for when I needed something that wasn’t available on Linux.
Unfortunately I found Linux to be rather trying. Although I work in computing, there’s so much of Linux that is really quite hard to figure out. A lot depends on use of obscure commands, so I found I spent a lot of time having to go on-line to find out how to do stuff. Technically I was able to do this, but it seemed like it was hardly the best way to go about using a computer. Also, if you fail to keep up with the latest distributions, installing new software has a tendency to turn into a game of hunt the RPM dependencies.
And then I finally decided to take the plunge and get an AmigaOne. Compared to other OS’s I just find that AmigaOS is so natural. Maybe it’s because it was the first real OS, I used, I don’t know but everything just works how I expect. With it being a beta OS, it does still crash a fair bit, but even that isn’t particularly frustrating, because of the incredibly fast warm boot (about 6 seconds!).
Ironically, I managed to trash my Win95 install not long before I got my A1, so Linux has become my back-up OS for when I can’t do something on OS4! (Usually when a website requires a modern browser, since Amiga browsers haven’t yet caught up with the likes of IE or Firefox)
> 639 native applications at time of posting, with more
> added on a daily basis.
And ? Numbers mean nothing. There’s hardly any usefull software there.
> Also, the 68k emulation is completely transparent, so
> you can run old applications and not tell the
> difference from native ones
Yes, it’s transparent, I never said any different (atleast until you need to hunt those glue files for libraries, etc). But it’s slow as hell. Running like 68060/50Mhz max speed on current (600/800MHz) A1 is hardly amazing. YEah, and JIT emulation will be released RSN.
> Well, very old software runs in E-UAE.
That old software is only one you have. And I mean productivity applications, with which you atleast can try to do you work.
Oh yeah, Real4D will come to AmigaOS4!!! In next millenium maybe.
> A year or two ago, I was using Win2K and something
> locked up the system bringing everything to a crawl
Yeah, without memory protection it would just crash and burn. But hey, it alteast reboots faaast. You can reboot it more times in a day than windows/linux box :-))
> so Linux has become my back-up OS for when I can’t do
> something on OS4! (Usually when a website requires a
> modern browser, since Amiga browsers haven’t yet
> caught up with the likes of IE or Firefox)
Is that non-DMA-able Linux on your A1 ?
The picture is not rossy as a lot of aw.net visitors try to paint.
i dont think anyone have made the valid point that AOS4 is not YET targeted for the masses!
The foundation of a usable modern USER-OS is of course still missing, with this i mean modern apps like office programs, browsers and other productivity programs etc.
BUT! Teams are working on porting various stuff we need. There are new versions of old amiga apss re-appearing. A new OS4 version of Opus Magellan – that takes over the OS. New native browswers like AWEB and Ibrowse.
the big 2: There is a team for Open-Office, Firefox (theres a fund http://www.discreetfx.com/AmiZilla.html that raised 10K USD to the team that ports it to the amiga platform)
BUT it takes time…when its a hobby os and the coders have real jobs.
So give AOS4 some years to develop into what i can be!
and…certaintly AROS isnt that great either for a modern OS usage either
> theres a fund
Fund has been running for how long ? And after completition (ie five+ years) you’ll still get ported application that everyone in real world used for many years.
> So give AOS4 some years to develop into what i can be!
It is already x years late. Many years ago it was “99% done, just need to set new gcc switches and it’s all PowerPC native”. Sadly now we know the truth. It’s not all native even now.
> and…certaintly AROS isnt that great either for a
> modern OS usage either
The beautie of AROS is that this OS doesn’t hype itself and it really is goo to try and see what AmigaOS is about (and maybe why you shouldn’t use it for seriuos stuff as desktop OS).
> The beautie of AROS is that this OS doesn’t hype itself
> and it really is goo to try and see what AmigaOS is about
> (and maybe why you shouldn’t use it for seriuos stuff as
> desktop OS).
The main reason I’ve never been able to get particularly excited about AROS is that it seems to lack any sort of future. I’m able to get excited about OS4 because it has obvious potential. It’s a path towards the future. AROS is more like… a re-creation of the past.
Surely if someone just wants to try out AmigaOS, emulation is the easiest approach of all?
> It is already x years late.
That seems to be a common problem with development of Operating Systems. (Actually with most software, come to think of it, but since OS’s are quite complex they probably suffer more)
At least, because they did release a pre-release version development and porting of applications has already started. Hopefully this progress will accelerate when a final version appears. I had originally planned to wait for the final version myself, but then I just couldn’t resist the temptation any more.
Given the huge amount of work required to even start to bring AmigaOS up-to-date (It wasn’t exactly state of the art anymore, when Commodore went bankrupt) the time taken to get this far shouldn’t be too surprising. Unfortunately under-estimating how long something will take to do is another common software development issue. There seem to be a lot of signs pointing to the fact that we are nearly at the end of the first part of this long journey anyway.
> Surely if someone just wants to try out AmigaOS,
> emulation is the easiest approach of all?
You have to locate:
a) emulator
b) pirated ROM
c) pirated Amiga OS 3.1 disk (or even Amiga OS 3.9 ISO)
It’s a big no no. You just download AROS-Max bootable ISO and you’re done.
> Given the huge amount of work required to even start
> to bring AmigaOS up-to-date
By up-to-date you mean things like real memory protection, etc ? It will break ALL current applications, or you would need to create separate boxes (just like MorphOS has done) and maybe duplicate resources. But still you need tons of developers to write new apps for your new OS. Another step is to add good multiplatform APIs. You atleast need to fix minigl (it seems OS4 developer team got smarter, ditched their proprietary Warp3D and plan to go for OpenGL). Lots of stuff need to be done. And after all this you get OS without hardware
> I had originally planned to wait for the final
> version myself, but then I just couldn’t resist the
> temptation any more.
I understand, waiting for 4 years after anouncement would kill anybody
Actually the easiest way to try it out would be to buy Amiga Forever 2005. There are three different versions and they offer great value for money. I just bought the premium version to get the two dvds.
I use Os4 daily and cant remember the last time I had an app lock up the whole system.
If on a very rare occasion I do get a program lock, a grim reaper pops up which gives the option to kill.
This still doesnt lock the system and all other programs are accessable, so.
Suppose you need memory protection when using windows tho. 😉
> Numbers mean nothing. There’s hardly any usefull software there.
Hum, so Apache, PHP, Mysql (client), phtreads, FLTK… are useless?
> Hum, so Apache, PHP, Mysql (client), phtreads, FLTK.
> .. are useless?
Yes. You just guess why in this context it is true.
To other poster:
no current AmigaOS3 or OS4 doesn’t have memory protection. Programs change data between themselves and system by passing pointers to memory locations. Every program can trash data and you system will go caboom. Some crashes can be caught, because lots of them will produce invalid memory access or similar, but ussualy after this system becomes less stable or crashes later. One program often makes other unstable.
You obviousely did not follow the developement, as optional memory protection has now been included. It is not forced though, as that would break backwards compitability.
the betas aren’t just for developers, anyone could/can(? are they out of stock right now?) buy them. but on the other hand, i don’t see myself spending so much money on a hobby system, even if it is an amiga.
Yeah, anyone can buy it and the prerelease OS4 will also be included with the board. But as you said, the stock are limited so it aint really easy to get hold of a board these days… I hope this changes when/if troika releases their board.
The website says RAM Disk is One of the unique features of the AmigaOS Workbench. I don’t know which OS implemented ram disk feature first in the history, but I know that such feature is now implemented in most OSes out there like *BSD, Linux, Windows and etc, and quite common. How could they say that is a unique feature? Was it invented in AmigaOS first? Even if it is, I think it is no longer a unique feature of AmigaOS Workbench. Are there any differences from the implementations of other OSes? (technically and/or feature-wise) Thanks.
(I am not trolling or anything, but I am just wondering..)
windows has ramdisk? how? that is a feature that i so much miss.
my vektor06c (a USSR PC in mid-80s) had support for RAM disks. But it was so fckng expensive that I never could afford it
I found a third party app for ramdisks for Windows at one point, but it definitely isn’t built into the OS.
when I read a reply prior to yours, I rekon there’s no ram disk feature built right in in windows by default but a third-party driver. sorry anout that. however, it’s true that OSes like BSD and Linux had the feature built-in for ages isn’t it? my point was that it isn’t (no longer at least) a unique feature of amiga os. please let me know, anyone
I don’t think it’s unique, but it’s being used in a unique way in AmigaOS, and behaves just like any other storage space. The space is temporary, so you can screw around with it as much as you like. It’s just a directory that automatically gets wiped when you reboot. It stretches in size with how many files you put in it. You don’t waste diskspace or have to bother with deleting stuff.
If you are experimenting with settings, possibly radical ones, or other things that might lock up your system, shift your monitor out of sync or render your mouse unusable, what do you do in Windows? You roll back. It’s expensive on disk space and may not even work.
In AmigaOS? You just reboot and everything is back to normal, because changes are not written to disk unless YOU want them to be, when everything is just right.
What isn’t mentioned particularly clearly is that you can also mount a RAD: device, essentially a RAM disk that is persistent across reboots. The RAD disk is fixed in size like a real disk. What can you do with that?
Copy the contents of your system partition, whatever fits in your memory to the RAD: disk. When you reboot, select that you want to boot from it and voila. It doesn’t use the harddrive anymore! This is why AmigaOS can boot from a flash ROM. Also there is no swapping needed, which just makes it even faster.
Needless to say, RAM and RAD disk was extremely useful if you only had a floppydrive and needed temporary storage space, but essentially any kind of slow, small or write-limited storage like Flash ROMs on mobile devices will become almost as flexible as a harddrive based system.
I remember mounting a RAD disk on my very old Amiga 1200 without a harddrive. I could cold boot with a floppy, which could take about 30 seconds. The contents of the floppy would be stored in the RAD disk, so that a reboot would take 2-3 seconds. It’s a way to create high-availability systems, that really only is possible with AmigaOS.
Edited 2005-10-30 00:23
No, ram disk is built into windows, but there is no longer any UI for it. Using some text files and your autoexec.bat you can build a RAM disk up to 32-MB without third party utilities.
You could create an MS-DOS ramdisk at bootup which remained at a fixed size throughout your session. The Amiga’s ramdisk dynamically increased or decreased its size according to how much data was stored in it and how much memory was available for the ramdisk to grow.
Don’t know about any other OSes. Windows ramdisk?? Never heard of it.
There were RAM disk drivers available for both DOS and early versions of Windows that did dynamic sizing but they were all from third-parties. The market dried up when 32-bit paging was added to Wfw3.1/Win3.11.
The dynamic sizing of the RAM: device on the Amiga was interesting but the RAD: device was exciting. IIRC, it didn’t do dynamic resizing but it would survive a warm restart and, if you were lucky and fast about doing it, possibly a cold restart.
In AmigaOS this is different in the way that the RAM-Disk has the same size as your total RAM. All RAMDisks I tried for Windows (for example) had fixed size. So if, say, you define a 100MB RAM-DISK, it will reserve 100MB of your memory for the drive. On the Amiga it works quite differently: you can see the Amiga RAM-Disk as a drive of a dynamic size. So, if you don’t have anything in you’re RAM-Disk, no memory will be reserved (ie: eaten), unlike on Windows, or on any other OS I saw. And as soon as you copy stuff to it, it will eat RAM for it…
The same happens when you remove files from it: if you had 50Mb of DATA in RamDisk and decide to delete it, the memory freed will become available to other programs…
Hope this is clear
Was it invented in AmigaOS first ? I don’t know and I don’t care…
> Windows ramdisk?? Never heard of it.
There are several RAMDisk implementations for Windows. Just to mention one: http://www.superspeed.com/servers/ramdisk.php
Does not seem to be dynamic though. So if you want ramdisk you put say 100 mb aside for it that other programs cant use even if the space is empty.
The ramdisk was quite useful since if I wanted to test some program out I could install it in the ramdisk and I wouldnt clutter my hd up as I do on my XP setup.
Cant use it that way on windows since its made to clutter on all corners of the hd when installing.
> All RAMDisks I tried for Windows (for example) had fixed size.
> So if, say, you define a 100MB RAM-DISK, it will reserve 100MB
> of your memory for the drive.
Also, does Windows ever actually have any free memory. Maybe I just don’t have enough RAM for it but anytime I’ve ever loaded up Windows it starts grinding the hard disk right from the get-go.
Somehow, though the idea of a RAM disk getting paged out to HD is pretty funny! 🙂 (I suppose Windows RAM disk software avoids this somehow – or at least I’d hope so…)
That’s another thing that was impressive when I first started using OS4. You click on an application and because it only needs to load off the disk into RAM it just appears. Before I was used to clicking on an application and then waiting seconds while Windows grinds the hard disk furiously to find space to put the thing.
My A1 has 256Mb. On top of the OS itself, I am running AmiDock (an application bar), a desktop clock, a web server, a web browser (with two windows open), a text editor and a command line shell. Plus a few system enhancing ‘commodities’. I still have 163Mb of memory left.
Does Windows XP even run in 256Mb? 🙂
Apple IIs (and by default with ProDOS IIRC), Atari 800(3rd party), and I’m sure commodore 8bits all supported RAM disks.
…then the Atari STs, Apple IIGS, Amigas(redundant) supported RAM disks in the 16bit world…
x86’s hmmm… I’d bet that there ARE RAM disk drivers out there, but I’ve NEVER seen one, nor actively searched out one…
Various UNIX workstations also supported RAM disks…
i.e. hardly a unique feature, I’d be more impressed with pluggable solidstate mass storage “feature”.
…and yes, I wandered through the site(kind of skimpy to launch yet…) looking for some good info and info about hw support, but all I found were vague assertions, a reference to a single review, and the common it’s not windows so you’re safe from virii commentary.
Support for Apple hw: hmm… netBSD, and FreeBSD are working on Apple ppc support and already work to an extent. Linux works just fine. The lack of documentation excuse is wearing pretty thin, and BSD frees them of releasing source, i.e. GPL infection. IOW the cheapest way to a compatible system would be to snag an A1200(or better) off of ebay(or elsewhere) “upgrade” it to ppc, then get AOS4. (MUCH cheaper than their hardware, or at least for the prices that I have seen A1200s going for on ebay let alone elsewhere…)
that they made some deal with the guys making the motherboards, so that is why the OS is tied to the hardware at the moment. It was something like that.
A mate of mine has been folowing this OS for years and would keep me upto date with how Amiga was going and so forth. I remember we drove 800k’s (around 5-600 miles) to Melborne 2 years ago to see OS 4 in action, and it looked pretty much the same then, only a little unstable.
I hope it does well, and it’s ashame they started out tying the OS to the hardware (just like Apple does), but it was something that they had to do to get the motherboards made. Maybe I’m wrong on that, I’m sure someone here will enlighten us 🙂
Hey Chooch if you are on OSNews…
Hey Thavith! Yeah that’s right, to ensure that the makers of the motherboard weren’t wasting their time, and that they were ensured some sales, they were promised some sort of exclusitivity in the form of a hardware lock.
This is about to change as a new hardware maker is about to finish production of alternative motherboard. I also believe that Eyetech arent really looking at releasing any newer motherboards.
Choochy.
oh…my…god…
I really want to try this out, nice comments all.
hell is wrong with you people? Everytime something is mentioned about amigas it gets dissed badly. Or people start whining about no x86 ports.
aaargh!!
“Imagine the problems that could be caused if an OS designer lays out the gadgets at the top of a window so that the “close window” gadget is right next to the “minimise/maximise” gadgets, making it very easy to hit by mistake?”
http://os4.hyperion-entertainment.biz/index.php?option=content&task…
It would be a good move to port it to apple hardware if possible. Many potential users would try it out and it seems to be extreamly good hardware.
The screenshots on the new Amiga 4.0 page look much nicer than the preview shots I saw about a year ago. It’s too bad that there isn’t a way to easily try this OS on something like a Mac or PC. Who is this OS targeted for?
KMS007 wrote:
>The screenshots on the new Amiga 4.0 page look much nicer than the preview shots
>I saw about a year ago.
>It’s too bad that there isn’t a way to easily try this OS on something like a Mac or PC.
Yes. There is alternative solution.
It is called AROS (Amiga Research OS). But it is based on AmigaOS 3.1 API.
You can install it on X86 Intel PC, Apple PPC MAC (as native system and alternative to MacOS X and Windows), and various flavours of Linux (Hosted).
It is not AmigaOS 4.0, but it could be useful if you want to look closely to what Amiga is, and its philosophy.
You can try also AROS LIVE CD, which works without installation.
Take a look at http://www.aros.org
AROS System is almost complete and tcp-ip stack is being worked on.
It lacks of a decent browser but a demo of clone version of “Mosaic” (latest one) is avaliable to test some sites and internet capabilities of this completely new OS.
AROS is searching for developers. He who want to help could join the project and help to build it, maybe adding some good productivity software.
From http://www.amiga.com/amigaos/?PHPSESSID=812abeaafaef4a3d3fbe20b2597…
the Amiga, Inc. website:
“In 2001, Amiga, Inc. licensed the development of AmigaOS 4.0 to AmigaOne Partners, collectively Hyperion VOF and Eyetech Group Ltd.”
***
“AmigaOne Partners have the right to distribute AmigaOS 4.0 into the AmigaOne desktop computer market and into Cyberstorm PPC enabled devices. Distribution into any other market or device requires a licensing and distribution agreement with Amiga, Inc.”
So to distribute it with Apple machine compatability, Amiga, Inc would have to agree. One hopes they might.
Edit:
Item 13 from here http://os4.hyperion-entertainment.biz/index.php?option=content&task…
also says that AmigaOS4.0 should be cheep to run. Lets hope.
Edited 2005-10-30 03:24
The website looks nice, and they certainly have plenty of functionality in their GUI environment, but I can’t seem to find any kernel/OS-related information on their website?
What’s this Amiga 4.0 thing supposed to be like from a developers, or even an OS dever’s viewpoint?
Again KMS007 wrote:
Who is this OS targeted for?
AmigaOS is targeted to people who want to use their machines without being used by them.
AmigaOS is fast, reliable, no power consuming and it does not stole resources, it is elegant in design, responsive, light.
Typical installation takes up 17 megabytes into a modern hard disk.
MEGABYTES of installation into a whole GIGABYTES free hard disk.
It occupies only some megabytes of memory, (Max 4 typically) into a ram space of hundreds of it.
(Modern PPC Amigas are equipped with 256MB, 512MB, 768MB or even 1 Gig or 2 Gig.)
Even its RAMDISK is dinamically allocated (ram disks form other systems have fixed amount of ram space allocated at startup) and it stole 0 bytes if empty, and upto maximum available top location of your memory addresses.
It could be used to store temporary data, or it hosts data in transit from CD to CD (now DVD to DVD).
AmigaOS to run needs only a maximum of 30 threads and processes and open libraries.
Even a newbie could learn the processes running and avoid presence of malware, spyware, and so on.
AmigaOS works at your command. It is not cryptic or secreted as Windows is.
It does no run hidden processes.
It does not spy your behaviour and does not report to third parties what are your preferences in MP3’s, Movies, Audio CD’s as Windows Media Player is used to.
AmigaOS does not treat you as “forever stupid joe-user” as Macintosh uses to treat its users, and keep them in a cage, or in a infancy cradle.
AmigaOS does not require you will became an Information technology geek, or computer nerd, as to learn using Linux and how the whole Linux thing works.
You could learn to use AmigaOS in half an hour. In 2 (two) days you rule the system.
In a month (30 days), you could start experimenting your first “dirty tricks”, and rearrange system to create virtual devices as you like.
AmigaOS is at your command.
Do you need more?
Can we get a fast new AmigaOS4 PPC machine in an old Amiga500 case? Silent too! New sockets at the back (USB, DVI, etc) and maybe a DVD drive or multicard reader on the right instead of the floppy drive would be nice too.
There will be new hardware for AmigaOS 4
http://www.troikang.com
Eyetech is not the only one that have a AmigaOS licens for there hardware
> Even a newbie could learn the processes running and avoid presence of malware, spyware, and so on.
A newbie wouldn’t know where to start on the AmigaOS.
> Does Windows XP even run in 256Mb? 🙂
Of course it does. But that’s not the point, is it ?
The news item is about OS4 iirc…
>My A1 has 256Mb. On top of the OS itself, I am running AmiDock (an application bar), a desktop clock, a web server, a web browser (with two windows open), a text editor and a command line shell. Plus a few system enhancing ‘commodities’. I still have 163Mb of memory left.
Now that’s impressive !
Where can I get it ?!
Come on… What if you run out of memory ?
What if you want to edit big pictures ? 163Mb is far from being a lot when working on big pictures with undo data,…
I’m sorry but I don’t see how you can compare an OS which lacks (full) memory protection, (full) resource tracking & swap with current OS like Win/Linux/MacOSX…
I think it is of importance also take into concideration that a few of the posters here is
only here to make OS4 look bad becuase they have
a personal agenda. The best is if you get to try
OS4 yourself.
> I think it is of importance also take into
> concideration that a few of the posters here is
> only here to make OS4 look bad becuase they have
> a personal agenda
I think facts speak for themselves. You don’t need to invent lack of memory protection, lack of real software, etc to make system look bad. It’s just the way it is. OS4 might be nice hobby system, I won’t argue with that, but it’s really stupid thing to think otherwise. It won’t take over any desktop OS market. Even RiscOS has more software.
>The best is if you get to try OS4 yourself.
Where can I download it?
Ram disk, dynamic Ram disk…
Can’t you speak of other features?
Take a Look at WHAT A *REAL* MULTITASKING IS:
Take a look at MULTIPLE SCREEN DRAGGING.
Any programs in AmigaOS can open an entire screen of their own…
And the screen could be shared with other programs as “public” screen…
On AmigaOS we are NOT FORCED only with multiple windows…
On AmigaOS we are NOT DEALING only with spanning panels…
On AmigaOS we are NOT LIMITED only with multiple screens…
On AmigaOS we could have programs which deal with their preferred resolution screen and color depth…
…And now AGAIN (as in chipset based classic old Amigas) we users can GRAB screen edge at our wish, AND SCROLL IT DOWN TO REVEAL UNDERNEATH SCREEN, and being amazed at beautiful power of this OS, which allows us of take a look at two different programs really running together…
Why do people keep saying OS4 lacks memory protection? The website clearly says that it has memory protection (presumably that implies “full” memory protection, since they didn’t see fit to state otherwise).
take a look if you don’t believe my words.
We have all we need to be productive. Power with lower consumption of hardware resources…
– Browser
http://aweb.sunsite.dk/
http://arstechnica.com/images/amiga/aweb.png
http://off.free.fr/aweb/ai_aweb_001.png
– DTP
(Pagestream)
http://www.grasshopperllc.com/
(Ghostscript)
http://www.amiga-magazin.de/magazin/a12-97/ghost/gs1.gif
Famous Amiga Tiger (now well known Ghostscript demo)
http://www.amiga-magazin.de/magazin/a08-04/ghostscript/bild5.gif
(Tiger was realized with Professional Draw and Professional Page eons ago)
Not to mention AmigaTeX… 😉
– Emulation
UAE
AmigaOS emulates even itself (Old classical Amigas) and allows use of ALL elder programs and games.
http://rcdrummond.net/uae/screenshots/uae-os4_1.png
http://classicwb.abime.net/classicweb/features/dualboot.png
– Graphics
Candy Factory (Web related graphical effects)
http://www.zeoneo.com/images/candy2pre-04.png
http://www.zeoneo.com/images/candy2pre-01.png
http://www.zeoneo.com/images/candy2pre-05.png
– Instant messaging
Jabberwocky
http://jabberwocky.amigaworld.de/
http://jabberwocky.amigaworld.de/bilder/jabberwocky.png
AmigAIM
http://www.amiga-magazin.de/magazin/a03-00/internet/internet01.gif
– Internet Radio
Aminet Radio (and it saves also)
http://amigazeux.net/anr/
http://amigazeux.net/images/ANRG3PP.gui.png
– Music
(Hd-Rec)
http://www.hd-rec.de/
http://www.hd-rec.de/HD-Rec/bilder/hdrec_scrshot001_med.gif
http://www.hd-rec.de/HD-Rec/bilder/screenshots/hdrec_scrshot003.png
(Octamed soundstudio)
http://www.medsoundstudio.com/amiga.htm
http://www.thecryptmag.com/Online/31/Images/omsscopy_snap.jpg
– Networking
(Amiga Samba)
http://www.amigasamba.org/
http://www.birrabrothers.com/tiger/data/samba/gfx/smbclient_show_al…
http://www.birrabrothers.com/tiger/data/samba/gfx/smbclient_connect…
http://www.birrabrothers.com/tiger/data/samba/gfx/pc2.jpg
(Amiga VNC)
http://dspach.free.fr/amiga/avnc/
http://www.fortunecity.com/skyscraper/shangri/1314/grabs/AmigaVNC.j…
http://dspach.free.fr/amiga/vva/vva-shoot2.png
http://www.stom.co.uk/amiga-mediator/content/tutorials/vnc/images/p…
(Apache+MySQL)
http://amigaenreseau.free.fr/pic/web/apache.gif
– PDF
http://www.amiga.poldek.one.pl/amiga/amigapdf/apdf.png
– P2P
Should I had posted of it? 😉
– Players
AmigAMP
http://www.amigaamp.de/Pictures/Screenshot-small.jpg
DVPlayer
http://amigos.amiga.hu/cobra/download/DvPlayer_Preview.png
mPlayer
http://www.mplayerhq.hu/homepage/images/shot-Amiga-02.jpg
– TextEditing and aid in coding & debugging
GoldEd
http://www.amiga-magazin.de/magazin/a01-03/golded/bild01.png
http://www.amiga-magazin.de/magazin/a11-02/vorsau/vorsau01.png
– Videotitling… and MUCH MORE: -AUTHORING-
http://www.airsoftsoftwair.de/en/news.html
http://www.airsoftsoftwair.de/images/products/hollywood/19_shot1.jp…
http://www.airsoftsoftwair.de/images/products/hollywood/shot31.jpg
Hollywood works even into standard Workbench screen (no more Scala hacks):
http://www.airsoftsoftwair.de/images/products/hollywood/shot7.jpg
Author your program in VISUAL sytle:
http://www.airsoftsoftwair.de/images/products/designer/b_shot6.jpg
http://www.airsoftsoftwair.de/images/products/designer/shot1.jpg
And also take a look at the video:
http://www.airsoftsoftwair.de/binary/HollywoodDemo.mpg
Should I had posted more programs??? ;-))))))))))
P.S.:
Read also articles from third party professionals about Amiga OS:
http://arstechnica.com/reviews/os/amiga.ars/1
Wot about audio evolution4?
http://www.audio-evolution.com/AE4/index.html
SimpleMail:
http://www.audio-evolution.com/AE4/index.html
http://simplemail.sourceforge.net/screenshots/simplemail-main-0.25….
> Aminet Radio (and it saves also)
>
> http://amigazeux.net/anr/
>
> http://amigazeux.net/images/ANRG3PP.gui.png
It is AmiNetRadio (a common mistake to connect it with Aminet, but there’s none!) and the gui you are showing is not working on OS4 (or at least not as intended).
>> Aminet Radio (and it saves also)
>>
>> http://amigazeux.net/anr/
>>
>> http://amigazeux.net/images/ANRG3PP.gui.png
>
It is AmiNetRadio (a common mistake to connect it with Aminet, but there’s none!)
>
Do I?
>
and the gui you are showing is not working on OS4 (or at least not as intended).
>
Sorry, I apologize.
I used another OS version screenshot due to error.
But does this mistake void in any way the fact that this program runs flawlessly on AmigaOS 4.0 too?
> Take a Look at WHAT A *REAL* MULTITASKING IS:
Yes, tell me: what’s “real” multitasking ?
I thought Win(NT/+), Linux, MacOSX,… were doing multitasking since years. Do you mean these OSs do not implement “real” multitasking ?
> Why do people keep saying OS4 lacks memory protection?
Because that’s true ? And why ?
Because many people tried to do it before them and came to the conclusion it wasn’t possible without breaking many (if not all) apps ?
The only solution is to have multiple boxes (this is the Mac (classic), WinNT (DOS/Win3), MorphOS (classic Amiga+MOS PPC) approach). And, correct me if I’m wrong, but OS4 does not have this kind of sandboxes…
It is, however, possible to implement *limited* memory protection. This is what MorphOS is doing for example… But it won’t replace real memory protection.
>>> Take a Look at WHAT A *REAL* MULTITASKING IS:
>Yes, tell me: what’s “real” multitasking ?
multitask threads to applications with preemptive system maybe using roundrobin or other good algorythms, but any application has more than simply input-output windows and its memory resources.
Here on AmigaOS any application can have its own screen and run almost completely indipendent.
>
I thought Win(NT/+), Linux, MacOSX,… were doing multitasking since years. Do you mean these OSs do not implement “real” multitasking ?
>
Had I stated that they have not?
>
Why do people keep saying OS4 lacks memory protection?
Because that’s true ? And why ?
>
Memory breaks and lacks are performed by programs that have been written with bugs.
1) AmigaOS4 has its Memory protecting solution
2) It gives ALSO Memory protection for old programs that have been written without Memory protection in mind
3) Amiga Community signals to the users what are the programs that generate memory errors. People on Amiga are warned to avoid these programs.
Programs breaking memory and causing gurus will be abandoned.
Darwinian evolution.
>
Because many people tried to do it before them and came to the conclusion it wasn’t possible without breaking many (if not all) apps ?
>
Read carefully. AmigaOS4 HAS memory protection for ALL NEW programs. Old programs have limited only but they tend to be encapsulated in restricted memory zones.
>
The only solution is to have multiple boxes (this is the Mac (classic), WinNT (DOS/Win3), MorphOS (classic Amiga+MOS PPC) approach). And, correct me if I’m wrong, but OS4 does not have this kind of sandboxes…
>
Multiple boxes are already present into MorphOS PPC.
However all API and all drivers are still into Amiga Compatibility Box, this is why all system crashes due to Amiga-side crash.
When all drivers will be rewritten only for MorphOS and Amiga API will be used only for old Amiga APPS, it will chrash only Amiga Box, and it will be restarted only that box.
>
It is, however, possible to implement *limited* memory protection. This is what MorphOS is doing for example… But it won’t replace real memory protection.
>
Have you read carefully old MorphOS and AmigaOS4 docs regarding it?
Have you tried to use new OSes (at least at a show or at a computer fair), and try attempts to cause memory breaks?
When these error occurs by chance, actually it causes lesser damage than an old AmigaOS 3.1 “yellow” or “red” guru, and you can continue working.
I cant run it on Apples and I cant run it on current PCs. Why should I bother?
NEXT feeble attempt at bringing an 80s platform into the 90s (erm 2000’s) please.
These guys are too busy patting themselves on the back with their unique RAMDISK feature and DATATYPES and MULTIPLE SCREENS!!! OMG THE FEATURES ARE AMAZING!! LETS DUMP ALL OUR EXISTING HARDWARE!
I dont thinks so. Whats so special about the Amiga hardware now? NOTHING just as much that is special about APPLE hardware; NOTHING! ITs all STOCK HARDWARE. We are being forced to buy an AMIGA badged peice of hardware just like we are being forced to buy Apple badged hardware just to run an OS that can just as easily be run on any other hardware.
Does Amiga make money on the hardware like apple? There is nothing special about it, oh woopie doo its a PPC, thats all, so was apple.
I will run it once I can run it on my existing laptops, either directly , via VMWare, or emulator or some whatever way. Until then, its a GEE THATS NICE.. MOVE ALONG NOTHING TO SEE HERE:
>I cant run it on Apples and I cant run it on current >PCs. Why should I bother?
Because its amazing!
>NEXT feeble attempt at bringing an 80s platform into >the 90s (erm 2000’s) please.
If your not bothered about this, one why bother reading into it and two why bother posting here?
I just dont get it.
>These guys are too busy patting themselves on the >back with their unique RAMDISK feature and DATATYPES >and MULTIPLE SCREENS!!! OMG THE FEATURES ARE >AMAZING!! LETS DUMP ALL OUR EXISTING HARDWARE!
People have just pointed out the advantages of datatypes etc and youve gone off on a tangent talking crap about a system youve never used.
>I dont thinks so. Whats so special about the Amiga >hardware now? NOTHING just as much that is special >about APPLE hardware; NOTHING! ITs all STOCK >HARDWARE. We are being forced to buy an AMIGA badged >peice of hardware just like we are being forced to >buy Apple badged hardware just to run an OS that can >just as easily be run on any other hardware.
You say this crap about being forced to buy apple or Amiga badged hardware, no one is forcing you.
You have your own mind.
The same goes the other way round, If I want to buy a pc from a shop these days you end up with windows on it. But I dont see you saying anything bout this?
Grow up.
>Does Amiga make money on the hardware like apple? >There is nothing special about it, oh woopie doo its >a PPC, thats all, so was apple.
At the end of the day people like you should be put down at birth.
Why bother comenting if your just gona take the mick all youve done now is made yourself sound like a stupid spoilt child.
Now ill go back to using my A1 on OS4 that im posting this from.
::At the end of the day people like you should be put down at birth.
Your post was good up until you said this, which destroys your credibility and makes you sound like a psychopath. Still, I agree with the objective points you made.
>Your post was good up until you said this, which >destroys your credibility and makes you sound like a >psychopath. Still, I agree with the objective points >you made.
Sorry about that ive brought myself down to that level,
I was getting wound up whilst writing, and started abusing him.
I agree there was no reason for this comment and im sorry if its caused any offence.
PS
Im no cyclepath! 🙂
ram disk on linux is /dev/shm. Every newer 2.6 kernel and every distribution has them , it’s also a part of posix. It is fully dynamical and is 512 bytes big if empty.
Eh? I don’t get it. Why doesn’t all the Amiga/MorphOS/AROS developers just port datatypes, multiscreening and the other worthwhile features (if any) to Haiku-OS (aka. OpenBeOS, which was actually inspired by AmigaOS)??? Why the obsession with a CPU architecture?
Or just get a Mac. It gets the job done nicely. I don’t miss my Amiga.
Yeah, Beos is dead…
Datatypes are already ported..
You people don’t seem to have a clue how OS developement works. Sure, Amiga might be possible to port to x86, but you people don’t seem to realize it 1) cost a lot 2) takes time. Get a clue.
And what’s all this whining about AmigaOS not supporting any other hardware than AmigaOne or MicroA1(the mini-itx variant) boards. Apple does it and nobody seems to have a problem with it? I don’t see any of you people whining that you should have MacOS X for x86. Get over it.
If you people want OS with universal hardware support, you will lose most of the features that makes AmigaOS usefull. You can’t have the cake and still eat it, not with current developement resources anyway.
And for people asking “Why should I want one?” or “Why do I need one?” – You don’t. If you need to ask, this product is not for you. Keep using what you are using at let other people enjoy their preference.
PS: OSNews.com is really starting to suck ass these days. I hold most of your responsible.
Hyperion are associated with crooks, so anyone with sense would never do buisness with them.
I saw people mentioning that AmigaOS doesn’t have memory-protection, but the site lists
“Improved kernel: Memory protection, virtual memory, improved stack management, improved crash protection, improved scheduling for pre-emptive multitasking, resource tracking and more.”
So does the AmigoOS have true memory protection, or only for new apps, or something in between?
Eyetech have made getting hardware more trouble than its worth and the hardware comes without a warranty, so if it brakes you (the user) will have to splash out more money on repairs.
An anonymous cow… EHM call him/her, anonymous person wrote:
>Eyetech have made getting hardware more trouble than its worth
> and the hardware comes without a warranty, so if it brakes you
>(the user) will have to splash out more money on repairs.
Almost true.
(I have Pegasos-amiga so i don’t care of it. Genesi support is 100% even with single user who have problems.)
But, well to be honest I heard also of this beautiful AmigONE happy-ending story:
Regarding the infamous problem of underpowered resistors nearby AmigaONE USB ports which avoid the hot-plugging-unplugging of these devices…
…I heard that italian resellers and remaining Amiga repair centers take care of this problem by offering a fix soluion and asking the users only the payment which covers the expenses and motherboard post shipping from user to repair enter and vice-versa.
The Os might seem nice but honestly when you see how hard the hardware is to find and how low their specs are that I prefer to go buy something half cheaper that will run a bsd or so and give me power and freedom (as in “all sources” so i can tinker anything).
Amiga should die and rest in peace.
People that go into stores to buy a computer just don’t care about it if it’s not on the store, with performance and prices to match what they see there.
([email protected])
Gilbert Fernandez wrote:
> The Os might seem nice
> but honestly when you see how hard
> the hardware is to find and
> how low their specs are that
> I prefer to go buy something half cheaper
> that will run a bsd or so and give me power
> and freedom (as in “all sources”
> so i can tinker anything).
If you think the OS is nice, well try a look at AROS. It is Amiga-“like”, it is evolving and it gives you all sources as bsd or any other open source OS.
http://www.aros.org
Regarding the other question:
> Amiga should die and rest in peace.
Listen to me pal.
If this “Palladium TCPA” thingie will take place worldwide, you will bless the fact Amiga OS is still alive and kick-START-ing.
it is important to have as many TCPA-free OSes worldwide. AmigaOS is one of these.
I agree with DRM.
Movie makers have all the rights to earn money from their work. Video sellers have all the right to gain money from selling DVD’s.
But DRM hardware must be integrated only in DVD readers, writers. !STOP!
While I don’t agree with TCPA.
Hardware should be only mine. Privacy should be mine.
I want to choice and buy all the peripherals I want, from any manufacturer.
I don’t want I am forced to buy hardware which runs only with certified OSes.
Well TCPA seems to be an imposition from above, and it is loop-a-round.
You buy the hardware, then you are forced to buy the OS which is capable to generate TCPA settings.
You buy the OS, then you are forced to buy only TCPA hardware to run it…
Security?… Bah! It is the kids’tale of the moment.
– Regarding private security (Viruses, Malware, spware, exploits):
Security should be passive and active, but it doesn’t be confused with the freedom to choose from any vendor, any kind of hardware and software.
TCPA it is only a method lead by big hardware manufacturers to cut the throat to little manufacturers who don’t have money to certify their products.
And more it is an attempt by Microsoft to force all manufacturers to pay in order to continue their business, and be forced to be enlisted in Microsoft databases, and MORE to destroy Linux market.
– National security: (Spies, terrorists)
TCPA is perfectly useless. Terrorists? They will continue to send in internet communicates and messages by broadcasting from terrorists countries.
Only a bare example: To avoid police intelligence, italian mafia now abandoned cell phones and communicates transferring of drugs by exploding fireworks in private parties.
Old methods defy technology…
Intercept communications is useless… hardware and software solutions to prevent crime, they give up.
That’s my 2 cents.
To continue our discussion about OSes:
I hope AmigaOS will stay amongst those OSes which are capable to run on uncertified (and free) hardware to let me free to run free software on free hardware, without controls from above.
I pay all my duties for the whole human society by:
– Follow laws
– Pay my bills (and the goodies and services I purchased)
– Respect my dues, my deliveries and job dates
None can force me to buy hardware and software who prevents me to integrate my programs into the OS.
Non can force me to buy hardware and software which spies me and reports my customer preferences to third parties.
Windows Media Player is simple and bare example of software which collect and report to data-miners informations that will be used to enhance market studies and advertising campaigns.
Well If they want to know my preferences of buyer, in order to sell their products, services and goodies…
(and they sell their goodies TO ME, AND YOU, AND US ALL)
…then “it is THEY” who should pay third party marketing surveys to obtain infos on mine, yours and his/her preferences…
…AND NOT “it is me” who should PAY THEM, by buying Windows with built in Windows Media player.
And more, I do not want to see TCPA hardware and software to prevent me to see my the marriage of my parents or my old birth 16″ family movies, the birth and vacancies of me, and my sons (movies that I transferred to DVD’s) because the hardware assumes that these movies are “stolen” because these does not accomplish TCPA DRM. How bad!
>Amiga should die and rest in peace.
>People that go into stores to buy a computer just don’t >care about it if it’s not on the store, with performance >and prices to match what they see there.
Why should it die ? If you dont want it, dont use it. But please leave it up to the people to make their own choices.
Not all people want to use windows, some are fed up with it and not all people want to use linux either. More choice is good – without choice there is no innovation.
I wish people will have chance to try it out at some point.
AOS4 is the fastest behaving desktop OS there is.
And it’s the most stable version of AmigaOS so far.
At work I have to reboot XP daily to keep on working. AOS4 reguires less re-boots and boots up in a few seconds.
Well mr. Anonymous… you wrote:
>I wish people will have chance to try it out at some point.
>
>AOS4 is the fastest behaving desktop OS there is.
>And it’s the most stable version of AmigaOS so far.
>
>At work I have to reboot XP daily to keep on working.
>AOS4 reguires less re-boots and boots up in a few seconds.
Well… it is true that AmigaOS has memory protection. But you can activate it or deactivate it, in order to keep OLD AMIGA CLASSIC programs to work.
Another benefit of the fact it can be used without memory protection is the fact this OS sholud not read-write continuously on the Hard disk, so you can:
1)hard reset it in any moment.
2)switch off entire computer, and it will not harm the hard disk in any way.
At least it will not harm the hard disk as well as there are not pending any writing activitiy of HD…
But to be honest, pal… listen to me.
Amiga is good, but also XP is quite normally stable.
If your Windows XP requires one or more reboot during day activity, there is something not good in the OS installlation or in the hardware or some faults.
XP works flawlessly for many days, and it not requires reboots, nor it will show blue screen of death.
One friend of mine here in Naples, Italy, has got the known record of XP continue activity into our little IT geek community.
He used XP for almost 4 months during daily work without blue screens of death.
Sorry. Obviously I don’t know of records outside our little community. World is sooooo big!!! 😉
I think that is easy (and quite normal) that other people worldwide could have done better with XP.
So my little advice to you is: CHECK YOUR XP INSTALL.
> Well… it is true that AmigaOS has memory
> protection. But you can activate it or deactivate it,
> in order to keep OLD AMIGA CLASSIC programs to work.
In which fantasy book you’ve read it ?
> Another benefit of the fact it can be used without
> memory protection is the fact this OS sholud not
> read-write continuously on the Hard disk, so you can
You have no clue. Memory protection has nothing to do with it, it’s just the way write-cache works.
It is true…
Amiga.
From what I saw in this discussion, it is ture.
Or you love it or you hate it, without having people who stay in the middle.
“Or you love it or you hate it, without having people who stay in the middle.”
Shure there are. They just don’t bother posting here.
back when I had my Amigas like 15 years ago there was no memory protection and yet Win 98 crashed a hell of a lot more than my Amiga ever did. XP is an improvement but still not 100%.
People that didn’t use an Amiga in the past just want to compare features and most likely pass on it, especially with the expense of the hardware but it’s more about the design, responsiveness, having nothing to frustrate the crap out of you, ie. no reinstalls and being in full control of an easy to understand OS. If there’s a problem, you can troubleshoot it, there’s no mystery about what’s going on behind the scenes and all these things make computing more enjoyable. You’d be hard pressed to find Amiga users that didn’t customize their OS in looks and functionality. Can’t say I’ve ever felt the urge to do anything but select a background with Windows.
BTW, I’m also quite sure that there was a version of the ram disk for the Amiga that was both recoverable and dynamic.
“People that didn’t use an Amiga in the past just want to compare features and most likely pass on it, especially with the expense of the hardware but it’s more about the design, responsiveness, having nothing to frustrate the crap out of you, ie. no reinstalls and being in full control of an easy to understand OS. If there’s a problem, you can troubleshoot it, there’s no mystery about what’s going on behind the scenes and all these things make computing more enjoyable. You’d be hard pressed to find Amiga users that didn’t customize their OS in looks and functionality.”
Hmm… In the past you had to install patches and drivers to keep it usable. MCP, PowerUp/WarpUp libraries, CGX, MUI, AHI, ClassAct, Triton, BGUI, NewIcons, ASL replacements, VisualPrefs, Birdie, CyberGuard, MungWall, Warp3D, rtgmaster… pfffft.
Luckily I had to reinstall everything only once and surely Win98 needed reinstall every 2nd month.
“BTW, I’m also quite sure that there was a version of the ram disk for the Amiga that was both recoverable and dynamic.”
There was although USB memsticks emulate recoverable RAM disk quite well…
Ronald Vos wrote:
>Datatypes are already ported..
Sure? On what alien OS are the datatypes been ported?
Are they integrated into this system or are the datatypes only a curiosity for the users?
It is not the portings of ramdrives, datatypes, etc. into alien system who gives to these alien OSes the same capabilities of Amiga…
It is the way these capabilities are integrated into OS and apprecciatred by the prorammers and the users.
AREXX (Amiga version of REXX) for example is useful.
Rexx is beautiful. OS/2 has it. There are portings of it for Windows and Linux, but these portings are not deeply embedded into OS, and this fact results this language is only but a simple curiosity exhibit…
While on the contrary, AREXX (Amiga version of REXX) for example is USEFUL, not only “beautiful”.
Any Amiga program has Arexx port, (because programmers widely accepted it) so this script language can be used (by the users) with profit to:
1) integrate all productivity software and create an enormous meta-application,
2) two or more program can interact,
3) the OS commands can be used as program features of any sinle software,
4) the user can automate whole OS,
etcetera, etcetera.
Remember. It is not only the portings on alien systems which made same working environment.
Another annoymous skeptic criticized:
>>>
Hmm… In the past you had to install patches and drivers to keep it usable. MCP, PowerUp/WarpUp libraries, CGX, MUI, AHI, ClassAct, Triton, BGUI, NewIcons, ASL replacements, VisualPrefs, Birdie, CyberGuard, MungWall, Warp3D, rtgmaster… pfffft.
Luckily I had to reinstall everything only once and surely Win98 needed reinstall every 2nd month.
>>>
Sure on modern Windows XP you have to install, test, deinstall, reinstall things like these:
Java J2E virtual machine, audio codecs, video codecs, non-standard video codecs (as in some video-capture cards), patches to system, SP1 Service Pack, SP2 Service Pack, new Visualbasic runtime dll’s at any upgrade of it, BIOS updates, non-standard drivers (as in some digital photocams), perform tweaks on the infamous Register, install IE patches-&-plug-ins (or alternate avant-browsers and its updates), firefox patches-&-plug-ins, and most notably DIRECT X UPDATES…
SO WHAT?
It is not the same thing?
Unfortunately no.
On old Amigas you can discard all changes made to system…
While even on actual Windows, if you update to new critical releases, like SP1, or Direct X 8,9,10,11, etc. you couldn’t take it back unless you don’t have a security backup.
Sure you know about the infamous fact that SP1 slows down lots of machines, because it was not optimized well for a certain number of hardware assembled solutions.
Try to take back from this situation if your machine slows down…
On modern Amigas many of the things like Class-act, and reaction are integrated into system. You can also install things and then discard it all, and the only critical update is BIOS-FIRMWARE update.
>>>
There was although USB memsticks emulate recoverable RAM disk quite well…
>>>
And we have these USB thingies on Amiga also…
So what???
On other system you have *not integrated into OS* software recoverable RAM solutions.
On Amiga we have both software (integrated into system) and hardware (USB) solutions. Twice than other systems.