Amiga OS 4.x, is the dream over?
 

It's been years and years since there have been any actual updates released for it. Hyperion has focused on created updated version of 3.1 for m68k based systems. And the Tabor board is already being derided as a flop before it's even been released. From all the signs, it seems like the 4.x branch and PPC support for Amiga in general is abandoned.


This makes me pretty sad, since I actually enjoy using OS 4.1 more than any of the 3.x versions out there, even if it's only through wonky, unsupported emulation. Should I just give up all hope?

Unfortunately I can't say too much for contractual reasons. But I can tell you that OS4 is not abandoned. It is a separate project from OS3.2 and not affected by it.

Can you at least say if/when we might get an update of something other than MUI? And if it'll be 4.1.7.2, 4.1.8, or 4.2?


It'd certainly be nice if Hyperion would actually say something official, but the company blog hasn't been updated since 2017 and other than 3.1.4 and court stuff there's nothing being said on the company website about Amiga OS for about as long. Even if it's not the case, it really feels like PPC Amiga / OS 4.x has been put up in the attic and locked away.

Trevor Dickenson owns ExecSG and development continues on that front.

And I wonder if any of that development will ever be seen by anyone who doesn't have a Tabor.

@coldacid, have you tried this site, OS4Depot? They have a lot for OS 4.X, but it wasn't that you was asking for. You wanted a upgrade to an OS that's nearly 5 years old and had only one update to their latest FE version. Well I hope they some day comes out with Update 2 or push the version number to 5, but it's up to Hyperion and the developers.

@ma693541 of course I've been to OS4Depot and I've gotten quite a bit out of there. But yeah, what I'm asking for is about the OS and the platform itself, not just what software people are releasing for it.

Well, speaking of machines that can run AmigaOS4, you have the X machines and Amiga-One, but they are very costly, hard to get one now and dont't run on the "Classic" PPC architecture.

The lack of available hardware, never mind affordable, is a big part of this sense of abandonment as well. A single X5000 motherboard costs as much as two or three up to date gaming PCs, and the other PPC Amiga hardware out there is so scarce as to be non-existent. Sure, there'll be Tabor -- eventually -- but even with it there's not much interest but a whole of of derision. And I'm unsure if that's because of it having been essentially vapourware for years or if it's just general disdain for next gen, PPC Amiga.

Meanwhile, on the m68k side, there have been all kinds of projects, both hardware and software, to keep things moving along. Over a decade of FPGA-based Amiga clones out of the community, and of course Vampire accelerators and their own clone board. If the community cared, surely they could have come up with an open design for a PPC based board that could run OS 4.x, but as far as I can tell, nobody's ever seriously considered it. There's just barely enough interest for a new commercial board every few years.

PPC from an FPGA is about 10% of the speed of a 68080 core due to the full MMU support etc. It can't be made faster without breaking the rules.

Well, I wouldn't expect anyone to emulate a PowerPC processor in an FPGA, especially as PPC chips are still readily available. I'm just pointing out how there's all this effort and all these projects for m68k based hardware, but nothing comparable for PPC -- just the little trickle we get, every so often, out of A-EON, and nothing besides.

When MOS Team will release x86-64 version of their OS, i think OS4 in PPC version will die soon. I don't know the sense to continue to develop for an hardware that slowly is going to be abandoned from any dekstop producer.

At least we can run "Classical" PPC on our hi tech PC gaming machines thru WinUAE, even my 5 year old Dual-Core Lenovo G50 running at 1.5GHz can do that, but only small Workbench games works without glitches in sound or graphics.

But one could use this board and use the FPGA to create compatibility:
https://www.xilinx.com/products/boar.../1-25rm3z.html

Something like that would sure be nice.

It'd also be nice if Hyperion would release the necessary information to get AmigaOS 4.x running on any PPC hardware, too, rather than just those few boards they've blessed or have otherwise been talked into supporting. I'd be a very happy camper if I could run AmigaOS on a PPC Macbook or a custom PPC board (like that PPC+FPGA board, or a Minimig-like using PPC instead of m68k, etc.). Perhaps if there were more such options for running 4.x things wouldn't seem quite so dire for it.

Let's face it, the situation we are in there is nothing "NG" in Amiga NG any more. For the past decade or more, Amiga OS4 has been nothing more than an excuse to sell archaic, overpriced computers. I do get it, people would love to use an Amiga OS machine even in 2020, but unfortunately what we have on offer is certainly not something which can be used for normal day-by-day tasks.

I was one of those who backed up the A1222 Tabor board with the early bird offer, but later decided to get a refund as it has been pushed back again - at this point I am not sure even it will happen. Even though Amiga OS has always been my choice, I am now keeping an eye on MorphOS since they announced an x86/x64 port is on the way - although I am not interested in purchasing old Mac hardware which is the reason I am not a user right now.

You and everyone else should accept that Amiga no matter wich version, is a hobby OS in hobby hardware. It is NOT a day-by-day computer, it will never be.

There is NO comeback for a Amiga, but you decide what your hobbies are. If you hobby is Amiga, you can make sure that there is a continuum for your hobby by supporting it. I'm very happy with my Amiga OS4 machine, it is perfect hobby machine.

I agree....to a point. If even browsing or watching YouTube is a problem it goes beyond the hobby threshold for me. I'm not expecting it to run Photoshop obviously.

I'd be happy if OS4 would get more developer support and was more amenable to hardware hacking. I'd be even happier if it the community at large didn't treat it as an evolutionary dead-end.

but isn't it?

I admit there may be quite some things done right ... a overall cleaner implementation. But so is MorphOS and (partly) AROS ... and even the old 3.x is getting some love lately

So there is nothing that makes OS4 really special - it is implementing the same APIs all over again ... and these do sadly lack many things you would expect from a "real" operation system.

And to make things worse: is does it on a hardware architecture that is abandoned. And even on that dead architecture it limits itself to very few implementations ... implementations that offer nothing over other PPC machines, except being slower and more expensive.

And even on this not-so-special machines the OS lacks often hardware support ...

So yes: "It's dead Jim"