The Pegasos user group had a look at the developer pre-release version of AmigaOS4.
OS4 Presentation Report with Picture Gallery
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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AmigaOS 4 looks prettier than I previously thought… It looks… …pretty…
give me!!
OK, a new OS is always going to be a problematic development process, but the description they give sounds way worse than the reports from 4 years ago of the dev preview of Mac OS X 10.0
If they can’t even provide a full-version web browser and the core 68k emu technology is not working properly – somethings wrong.
The 68k emu is working properly, it was even used for core OS components, before these got ported to PPC. Only the JIT compiler is not yet integrated. But as more and more programs are ported to native, the 68k emus will loose importance anyway.
You have always to remeber that OS4 is currently in a state where it is intended for developers only, not for endusers. I think the issues that still exist at the moment will be fixed for the final release 🙂
I only hope the microA1 will be ready when OS4 comes out, so we will have a hardware that is a bit cheaper than the current A1.
PS: Did I mention that OS4 has also been evaluated by IBM? :-)))
“The 68k emu is working properly, it was even used for core OS components, before these got ported to PPC. Only the JIT compiler is not yet integrated. But as more and more programs are ported to native, the 68k emus will lose importance anyway.”
That time is several years away. Many Amiga programs will never be ported because the companies concerned have gone bust or left the Amiga market. The Typesmith font editor is one example.
IMO emulation will be a normal feature of future OSes. There is no good reason why programs should have to be constantly recompiled for different hardware.
BTW does anyone know of a way to run a Mac program that requires System 6 or earlier?
“OK, a new OS is always going to be a problematic development process, but the description they give sounds way worse than the reports from 4 years ago of the dev preview of Mac OS X 10.0 ”
I used 10.0.3 and that was far less stable than this *pre-release* of AmigaOS 4. In other words this is more like the beta version of OS X – and don’t get this wrong: it’s more usable now and runs more old apps than OS X did at the time.
“If they can’t even provide a full-version web browser and the core 68k emu technology is not working properly – somethings wrong.”
The emu technology works great. The web browser is only included for convenience. The proper version will be in AmigaOS 4 when it is released and not sooner.
Again. This is a *developer pre-release*. I can’t see why people have such a hard time understanding this.
I have to ask. What’s the point? I don’t believe Amiga will ever be a truly viable OS outside the hobby arena.
I put it in the same league as BeOS/Zeta.
I loved BeOS when Be was still in business, but sadly the end came and I moved on to OS-X. Isn’t Amiga in the same boat? I don’t see how it can ever be a commerical success at this point.
<“I have to ask. What’s the point? I don’t believe Amiga will ever be a truly viable OS outside the hobby arena.
I put it in the same league as BeOS/Zeta.
I loved BeOS when Be was still in business, but sadly the end came and I moved on to OS-X. Isn’t Amiga in the same boat? I don’t see how it can ever be a commerical success at this point.”>
Maby it will never be a commersial success, but I think its great to
see what a hand full of people can do for the litle Amiga comunity still out there. I hope the new OS and hardware can ceep the Amiga stay alive, I for shoure would miss it if its gone.
———————
I loved BeOS when Be was still in business, but sadly the end came and I moved on to OS-X. Isn’t Amiga in the same boat? I don’t see how it can ever be a commerical success at this point.”>
———————
So!! Will you stop loving windows, OsX and other systems, when the companies that have develloped them are liquidated??
The Amiga could definately be a commerical success. They need to get the word out about this machine. How many of you have actually used an Amiga? What that OS does on 10 year old hardware is amazing. I’ve never seen an OS like that before. I am scared to think of what it will do on a G4 once they get it finished. WOW!
You also shouldn’t forget that MacOSX was developed by a big company. I read somewhere that about half a billion dollars was spent on its development.
AmigaOS4 has been developed on a shoe string budget, or as one of the OS4 developers said (not 100% correct quote): “With a budget, smaller than IBM’s pencil budget” 🙂
I think it’s an amazing feat that they got this far at all.
BTW does anyone know of a way to run a Mac program that requires System 6 or earlier?
Try Basilisk II: http://www.uni-mainz.de/~bauec002/B2Main.html
You need a copy of System 6 (i heard it can be downloaded somewhere drom Apple’s web site for free) and a Mac ROM image.
Basilisk II runs on BeOS, *NIX, AmigaOS 3.x, and Windows.
“Try Basilisk II”
I’ll check it out. Thanks.
“The Amiga could definately be a commercial success. They need to get the word out about this machine.”
I think it needs to be a bit nearer to finished before they start shouting about it. Perhaps another 6-12 months.
I use amigaOS 3.0 on my 12 year old Amiga1200. It is fast, it is fun, and there are a lot of games (for free) on the net..
Say 1220 games or so, for free, on http://www.back2roots.org
So i am using my trusty 1200 with 030 50mhz and 8meg ram + 2 giga HD reguarly. When she brakes down, i will burn her like it was a real funeral, and post the pics on the net.
I even have an amiga 600, so i can run amigaOS 2
Re: BTW does anyone know of a way to run a Mac program that requires System 6 or earlier?
I’d probably recommend ARDI’s Executor.. it has the benefits of not needing Apple ROM files OR MacOS since it has it’s own versions of both built in to the emulator… and Mac programs don’t know they arn’t running on MAC’s.
You can download it from http://www.ardi.com for either Win32 OR Linux.
Hope this helps also.
” I don’t believe Amiga will ever be a truly viable OS outside the hobby arena.”
I think “hobby arena” is realistic target amongs other computer niche use (stb, multimedia kiosks, education systems).
For desktop use. AOS need to get those general desktop needs better fullfilled than how it does today. Then people need to be convinced that AOS means less fuss and hickups than WinDOS and more efficiency when compared to OSX (etc…).
But most likely it never passes Apple sales numbers. I would be satisfied in 1% of computers/OSs market share at the end of this decade. It would mean enough users to make application development (more) profitable again & get the momentum going (actually, then the Amiga market might already be bigger than ever before).
(it seem that at least some AmigaSW companies managed to get profits even with just 1000-2000 sold game/application copies)