AmigaOne

[Severin]

Originally posted by Enverex
Actually the KDE desktop environment for Linux has looked like that for years (just remove some of the panel bars from it, and use a blue skin).

Yeah, I could get OS3.9 to look like that too. The giveaway that they're trying to copy amigaos is the gadget placement round the window... and the ram disk of course...

It looks pretty, but then we all know the famous bill gates (of hell) quote "If you can't make it good, make it look good".

[Unknown_K]

It looks pretty, but then we all know the famous bill gates (of hell) quote "If you can't make it good, make it look good". [/B]

When did gates say that? I never heard of it.

Anyway screenshots for an OS or a Game dont mean anything to me (the pic does look nice for an OSX rippoff). An os is only usefull for managing your desktop, letting you easily get to your files and run your apps all without crashing the system while your doing it.

Macos 7-8-9, Windows 3.x/95, DOS 1-6.22, are not as stable or allow multitasking (some not at all) like my windows 2000 machine. But I still use all those OS because its the only way to get the apps /games I like running on the hardware that was available at the time. You noticed I didnt include LINUX in there, thats because I havnt found an application I use that needed linux to run (no matter how stable linux is if you have nothing that runs on it its worthless on a desktop).

Amiga OS 1.3 reminded me of windows 3.1 somewhat. I have 2.0 with manual but no machine to run it on. version 3.0 runs very stable on my a1200 and is easy to use once you play around with it (I need to get the manuals one of these days). But to be honest besides installing new hardware/drivers and ocasional disk utilities I barely ever used the OS for anything deep, its just there so I can load and run my games. And this is from a person who used to write DOS batch files and hack around in windows registries back in the late 80's to early 90's. Today you can do whatever you need on a machine without scratching the surface of what the OS can do.

All this brings me to say that while the screenshots look nice, somebody better make sure there is compelling software to run on it or you might just as well make a poster size print of the desktop doing nothing and get back to your windows, linux, osx, macos 9, dos machine to get your computing done.

[SilentBob]

Well, I keep toying with the idea of getting an A1. But I'm still not sure. Don't know what I would use it for. Maybe the same as what I'm using my PCs for, minus the gaming... Because I doubt we'll be seeing things like HL2 for OS4 anytime soon. I haven't really been productive with my PCs in the past years (unlike I was with my Amiga in the good old days). Just gaming and watching movies/tv series. But I'll probably get one, even if it is just to support sales of the thing.

[Fred the Fop]

Originally posted by SilentBob
Well, I keep toying with the idea of getting an A1. But I'm still not sure. Don't know what I would use it for. Maybe the same as what I'm using my PCs for, minus the gaming... Because I doubt we'll be seeing things like HL2 for OS4 anytime soon. I haven't really been productive with my PCs in the past years (unlike I was with my Amiga in the good old days). Just gaming and watching movies/tv series. But I'll probably get one, even if it is just to support sales of the thing.

That's exactly my point.
What the heck will you do with the thing, that your PC, Mac, WinUAE, or the like can't?
Sure there are a few apps written for OS 3.9 & 4 that professionals like a few of our board members here will use. That's absolutely wonderful.
But for anyone else, it's worthless.
It is.
Then we have left is the Mega-geeks and the fanatics buying them.
Your idea to buy it to support sales is absolutely ridiculous.
Save your money man..get real.

[fiath]

Originally posted by SilentBob
But I'll probably get one, even if it is just to support sales of the thing.

That is an odd reason!

No disrespect intended to Amiga Inc. (who may or may not be doing a good job - I don't follow recent developments) but it is really only an Amiga in name (to me at least, perhaps philosophy too, but as I said, I don't follow it).

Its not like you would be supporting the original people involved.

[Unknown_K]

Originally posted by fiath
That is an odd reason!

No disrespect intended to Amiga Inc. (who may or may not be doing a good job - I don't follow recent developments) but it is really only an Amiga in name (to me at least, perhaps philosophy too, but as I said, I don't follow it).

Its not like you would be supporting the original people involved.

I think he meant he is supporting the hobby. While all the amiga equipment, addons, and boxed games I purchased in the last 2 years doesnt support amiga inc directly, it does keep the amiga community alive with a cash infusion so what other companies can come in and milk some more money out of the faithfull. If nobody wanted to buy old equipment anymore every amiga related buisiness would close up shop overnight and that would be the end of it.

The difference between me (the old school gamer) and somebody purchasing the A1 (just to support the amiga) is that I dont really care if the NEW amiga computer market is viable or not (great percentage of users are like this) and wont spend money on new equipment I wont/cant use.

[Mr Creosote]

The Pegasos II was annouced as ready for sale a while ago, but I've not heard of anyone who's actually got one yet.

Just thought I'd mention that the latest issue of Amiga Future (German print magazine dedicated to the Amiga and everything related) contains a review of the Pegasos II, so they apparantely got one.

[SilentBob]

Originally posted by fiath
That is an odd reason!

No disrespect intended to Amiga Inc. (who may or may not be doing a good job - I don't follow recent developments) but it is really only an Amiga in name (to me at least, perhaps philosophy too, but as I said, I don't follow it).

Its not like you would be supporting the original people involved.

Hey, I'm an odd guy. : And I've always considered the Amiga the best computer, since I had so many good times with those I've owned (500/1200/4000)

Well, I might or might not an AOne. And yes, I am aware that the A1 hasn't really got much to do with the old skool Amigas apart from mainly the name and the OS... So what I really want to do is upgrade my old Amigas (1200 w/030-50 & 4000 w/040-25) with faster CPUs. Go 060 for both of 'em. Oh yes, and a graphics card is a must have ofcourse.

[Severin]

Originally posted by fiath
No disrespect intended to Amiga Inc. (who may or may not be doing a good job - I don't follow recent developments) but it is really only an Amiga in name (to me at least, perhaps philosophy too, but as I said, I don't follow it).
Its not like you would be supporting the original people involved.

Amiga Inc. have very little to do with the A1, Eyetech Designed it, had it built, they have a licence from Amiga Inc. to use the name, Hyperion are writing OS4 and again have a licence too.

To me the 'Amiga' is the OS, not the 'chip set' that most peeps whinge on about as being amiga, we didn't have the same crap when it went from OCS to ECS or ECS to AGA, there were no complaints the it wasn't an amiga without the OCS chip set... It was all ooo's and ahhhh's about how much faster / better the new chips were... If you are even remotly honest you'll admit that any currently available pci/agp gfx card beats the shit out of AGA, same for sound cards.

Since 1996 I've hardly ever used the aga chipset on my A4k, as I put in a gfx card, IO card, sound card, LS120, SCSI etc. no one would doubt it's an amiga, WTF can't people see that about the A1. After all, who here who upgraded their old amiga's hasn't wished they could go and get a cheap bit of pc hardware instead of bloody expensive Zorro stuff or pay 150 quid for a few pci slots for their 1200?

All they seem to whinge about is that it won't play 10+ year old games (which it will with cloanto doing a uae version for OS4). Try playing 10 year old PC games on XP...

[Unknown_K]

All they seem to whinge about is that it won't play 10+ year old games (which it will with cloanto doing a uae version for OS4). Try playing 10 year old PC games on XP... [/B]

I'm sure there is a group who has alot of expensive PPC/060/video toaster hardware they cant transfer to the A1. So if your basically starting over UAE might be good enough on a MAC or PC, hard to justify the A1 hardware.

The gamers will end up just using 68k hardware or UAE, dont think the A1 was ever really targeted to them anyway.

We can assume all we want, we will know whats going to happen a year after the A1 hardware and OS4 are widely available. The initial bugs should be worked out and sales records will show if it flops or not by then.

Be nice to compare it to the CommodoreOne that should be available sooner or later. Hardware compatible (well kinda chip emulated) to the old C64 with modern addons.

[spotUP]

I have an AmigaOne. And one more in Up Rough (Varthall) and a whole lotta other dudes in Up Rough are thinking of getting themselves a MicroA1. What do we do? We make demos, and it will be lovely to produce demos on the AmigaOne for sure. Seems like a big part of the Amiga scene is going PPC. Either AmigaOne or Pegasos. They are so similiar that it will be a piece of cake to port your demo from one system to the other. I am not worried about a split of the scene, sane democrews will release their demos for both systems. Read the just released issue of The Official Eurochart to find out some more about the scenes current state.

[adolescent]

Originally posted by Severin
After all, who here who upgraded their old amiga's hasn't wished they could go and get a cheap bit of pc hardware instead of bloody expensive Zorro stuff or pay 150 quid for a few pci slots for their 1200?

All they seem to whinge about is that it won't play 10+ year old games (which it will with cloanto doing a uae version for OS4). Try playing 10 year old PC games on XP...

Why bother? If all you want to do is use cheap PC hardware and play emulated games, then by all means just get a PC. The main problem I see with the A1 is that it's not cost effective for what it can currently do. For the $1000 I could get an x86 that would run circles around the A1, run a better version of Linux, and have much more hardware and software support. Sorry to say but the recent pics of AOS4 running Quake aren't exactly awe inspiring.

[fiath]

Originally posted by SilentBob
Well, I might or might not an AOne. And yes, I am aware that the A1 hasn't really got much to do with the old skool Amigas apart from mainly the name and the OS... So what I really want to do is upgrade my old Amigas (1200 w/030-50 & 4000 w/040-25) with faster CPUs. Go 060 for both of 'em. Oh yes, and a graphics card is a must have ofcourse.

OS? What does the A1 OS have to do with the classic Amiga's OS? Don't get me wrong, that is a serious question. Severin?

AFAIK it was built from scratch (which is a very good thing) and so other than the Amiga name coming with it, as far as I can see, it has as much to do with the classic Amiga as MorphOS. Would that be correct? I guess both are "modelled" after it - or just insipred by it.

Ultimately, if you use an Amiga now, and want to upgrade it. *Then* I can see a reason to get an A1. I have a good friend who is the same. His (pretty impressive!) Amiga is his sole computer, and so therefore an A1 is a viable upgrade route for him - just as long as he can dual-boot with Linux for the things he can't use the A1 for...

I was just a little surprised because I thought it was "just" to support the community. Which makes no sense to me. I'm glad that isn't the case!

[fiath]

Originally posted by Severin
Amiga Inc. have very little to do with the A1, Eyetech Designed it, had it built, they have a licence from Amiga Inc. to use the name, Hyperion are writing OS4 and again have a licence too.

I assumed Amiga Inc. were directing the effort. So is Amiga Inc. just a middle man? Hmmm....

To me the 'Amiga' is the OS, not the 'chip set' that most peeps whinge on about as being amiga

*snip*

Eh? I know that wasn't *directly* aimed at me, but did I say anything about the chipset? Why would anybody want that in a modern computer??

But I meant the whole thing. As above. What does the OS have to do with the classic Amiga? I'd like to know. All I can see so far is a company buying the Amiga name and making a computer (okay, it seems actually not) using the same philosophy, look & feel etc. Is it any more than that?

Don't get me wrong, that's fine. It caters for all though people that don't want Windows/MacOS/Linux but something they are used to. Its just for me, I don't see anything Amiga about the new Amiga. It is a machine in its own right that happens to share the name.

All they seem to whinge about is that it won't play 10+ year old games (which it will with cloanto doing a uae version for OS4). Try playing 10 year old PC games on XP...

That is bizarre. Perhaps they want to pay $2000 instead, which is would probably cost to reverse-engineer the OCS/AGA chipset (since I heard the original VLSI blueprints were lost) and refab them using FPGA.

[Enverex]

Originally posted by adolescent
Why bother? If all you want to do is use cheap PC hardware and play emulated games, then by all means just get a PC. The main problem I see with the A1 is that it's not cost effective for what it can currently do. For the $1000 I could get an x86 that would run circles around the A1, run a better version of Linux, and have much more hardware and software support. Sorry to say but the recent pics of AOS4 running Quake aren't exactly awe inspiring.

You can get a high end x86-64 system for that now, which just puts it down even further.

faith: How is the A1 really an upgrade route for him, when none of his current Amiga software will run on it? That only makes the Amiga as viable as buying a PC or Mac, as there is nothing transfered other than the name.

[fiath]

If you are talking about my friend. He doesn't plan to get rid of his old Amiga for exactly that reason. He just wants to be able to move on, have an upgrade route. He prefers the familiar way the A1 works over Mac/PC.

I can't remember his exact reasons, but they seemed perfectly sound.

His may be a more unique situation since he writes/ports stuff. I guess a normal user would be more limited. But familiarity is a strong tie for some people.

[P-J]

Originally posted by Enverex
faith: How is the A1 really an upgrade route for him, when none of his current Amiga software will run on it?

It will, throught JIT emulation built into OS4.

[Puzzle]

Maybe someone should write the programs "Pegasos on AmigaOne" and "AmigaOne on Pegasos". Just like MacOnLinux.

[Severin]

Originally posted by fiath
OS? What does the A1 OS have to do with the classic Amiga's OS? Don't get me wrong, that is a serious question. Severin?

OS4 is a PPC rewrite in C of OS3.9 with all the chipset dependancies, bcpl, old cock ups etc. removed and new features added to bring it upto date. go to the Features List and have a browse, also read some of the publically available CAM articles here.

Amiga Inc. supplied Hyperion with the source for the previous OS versions so It is a legitimate update to 3.9 based on the previous source, unlike MorphOS which is written to look like AmigaOS but as they didn't have access to the previous source is going to do things differently and could lead to incompatabilities.

[Severin]

Originally posted by P-J
It will, throught JIT emulation built into OS4.

Erm, well sort of... The JIT bit isn't finished yet, but the basic emulation is done, badly written software (hardware hitting) that doesn't follow the official guidlines probably won't run, but if it runs on a gfx card on a classic then it will probably run on an A1