AmigaOS 3.1.4 withdrawn from market after Amiga

[Dunny]

To be fair, I had an A1200 with 1230-IV and a 360MB HDD. Didn't need any patches for workbench etc - it just worked. Same for the A1200 when I got it new, I didn't need to acquire patches for anything.

[krautguy]

oh there is some movement! You can order copies of 3.1.4 also on amigaonthelake.com ... i bet this is good news for american users.

And according to a1k.org forums the first deliveries in europe were confirmed, so it is actually possible to buy this thing for real.

[nexus]

Itec demanding $$
https://docs.google.com/file/d/1CKJJ...-n7kwhyUj/edit

[malko]

Did you count how many times this phrase is present ?

Itec lacks knowledge or information sufficient to form a belief as to ...

It's like some kind of hypnosis while reading.
How a company lacking so much knowledge or information can give his voice ?

[kolla]

Originally Posted by Dunny

To be fair, I had an A1200 with 1230-IV and a 360MB HDD. Didn't need any patches for workbench etc - it just worked. Same for the A1200 when I got it new, I didn't need to acquire patches for anything.

Well, first thing one must do when installing OS 3.1 on any system, is restoring protection bits (http://aminet.net/package/util/boot/FixWB31).

How one experience "it just works" is very subjective. Just because "it just worked" for you, doesn't mean everything was bug free and "just worked" for everyone and for all use cases. I can go anecdotal too... I also had an A1200, with 3.0 kickstart, and Blizzard 1230-III with SCSI kit. Did it work out of the box? Sort of, but it was very slow. I needed fast i/o for animation, and that was tricky, work-around was to use money on as much RAM as possible. Solution came eventually in the form of a patch (http://aminet.net/package/util/misc/1230ScsiFix16), but by then I had installed Linux on the system, doing animation on Amiga was no longer something I made money from, and so I instead used AmigaOS on an A3000 with brand new OS 3.1 kickstarts. The A3000 came with its own can of worms, with CV64, P-IV and A2065. When I in 1997 bought CSPPC/CVPPC that didn't exactly help on the "hack and patch" situation. Then there was A600 and Apollo-630, and SX32Pro, and both these systems only got somewhat reliably stable when ThoR came with 68030.library in his MuLibs package.

[daxb]

Originally Posted by kolla

Well, first thing one must do when installing OS 3.1 on any system, is restoring protection bits (http://aminet.net/package/util/boot/FixWB31).

I didn't know that this exists. So I never run it or manually set all the protection bits and I guess that the most didn't too. As far as I can see the system runs fine with the default protections bits (rwed).

But OS 3.1 needs some updates at least (SetPatch, fastfilesystem, Installer, ...). Oh, Installer is installed at the wrong place (SYS: ) by default.

[DamienD]

Originally Posted by daxb

I didn't know that this exists. So I never run it or manually set all the protection bits and I guess that the most didn't too. As far as I can see the system runs fine with the default protections bits (rwed).

Same here

[Dunny]

Originally Posted by daxb

I didn't know that this exists. So I never run it or manually set all the protection bits and I guess that the most didn't too. As far as I can see the system runs fine with the default protections bits (rwed).

But OS 3.1 needs some updates at least (SetPatch, fastfilesystem, Installer, ...). Oh, Installer is installed at the wrong place (SYS: ) by default.

I didn't do any of that. I had no internet access, so I got all my software from mates and magazines. The most I ever did was install MWB and AMOSPro so I could code on it and play games. Never touched the OS at all - it just worked.

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by kolla

So you didn't have a 060, graphics card, usb host controller or large hard drives, did you.

060 yes, graphics card yes. What size of hard drive was 'large' in 1997, and was USB even available? My A3000 was far from being 'just about any Amiga hardware' yet I don't remember having to install any 'unofficial' patches just to get OS3.1 working on it.

However I do remember having to install 'unofficial' drivers on my PC just to get the USB working properly, and so many 'official' Microsoft patches it made my head spin. And just getting XP to install at all on a 'modern' PC (let alone with the correct drivers etc.) is hit and miss.

So perhaps some patches were required to get exotic hardware working on my A3000, but I don't remember because it wasn't a big deal.

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by kolla

The A3000 came with its own can of worms, with CV64, P-IV and A2065. When I in 1997 bought CSPPC/CVPPC that didn't exactly help on the "hack and patch" situation. Then there was A600 and Apollo-630, and SX32Pro, and both these systems only got somewhat reliably stable when ThoR came with 68030.library in his MuLibs package.

So you installed some exotic hardware and - horrors! - extra software was needed to get it working? Exactly how was the OS supposed to support a foreign CPU and graphics chipset all by itself? That's what vendor-supplied libraries and device drivers are for (and it's not the OS's fault if they are unsatisfactory).

BTW I had an Apollo-630 in my A600 and it worked fine without any 3rd party 68030 libraries - except when it popped off the 68000...

[kolla]

Originally Posted by Dunny

The most I ever did was install MWB and AMOSPro so I could code on it and play games. Never touched the OS at all - it just worked.

MagicWB came with a patch that alters which pens are used for icons. Congrats, you patched the OS.

[Pyromania]

What happened to DoomMaster? Only he can handle this dispute now.

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by kolla

MagicWB came with a patch that alters which pens are used for icons. Congrats, you patched the OS.

And of course he needed that 'patch' just to make even plain OS3.1 work! Or not.

What is the function of the MagicWB-Demon?

The MagicWB-Demon is a little program that is started in the startup-sequence. It is responsible for the high speed of MagicWB (icon build-up etc.) in all possible screen depths (i.e. number of colors). Without it the icons would be displayed in wrong colors or MagicWB would be very slow and consume a lot of chip memory. It is a remedy for some misconceptions in the AmigaOS concerning multi-colored icons. The demon is not a hack, it is highly system compliant and should be considered as an extension to the operating system.

Binary Patch

This type of patch modifies the program executable—the program the user actually runs—either by modifying the binary file to include the fixes or by completely replacing it.

[kolla]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

Binary Patch

Oh, so this is it comes down to, throwing wikipedia urls at each other...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patch_...)#Hot_patching

[kolla]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

Exactly how was the OS supposed to support a foreign CPU and graphics chipset all by itself? That's what vendor-supplied libraries and device drivers are for (and it's not the OS's fault if they are unsatisfactory).

It's the fault of CBM and AmigaOS to not support retargetable graphics out of the box (and ditto for retargetable audio). So, it was left to third party vendors, not to just develop graphic cards drivers for AmigaOS (which is not even possible), but to develop the entire framework, and patch it into the OS at runtime.

But let us go on...

Wanted to use PCMCIA? Third party reset-fix.
Noisy floppy drive? Third party no-click
Serial port issues? Third party serial.device
Want to use IDE devices, like CDROM? Third party IDEFix
...

So this is where your hard earned money goes to when you earnestly want to support the 'amiga community' : copyright trolls and their lawyers.

Disgusting

[wawa]

Originally Posted by kolla

It's the fault of CBM and AmigaOS to not support retargetable graphics out of the box (and ditto for retargetable audio).
...

this wasnt a fault, it was a strategy.

[kolla]

Originally Posted by fierman

Disgusting

They show by example how we should regard license agreements and copyright issues in Amiga land... so feel free to follow their example.

[hth313]

Originally Posted by kolla

But let us go on...

Wanted to use PCMCIA? Third party reset-fix.
Noisy floppy drive? Third party no-click
Serial port issues? Third party serial.device
Want to use IDE devices, like CDROM? Third party IDEFix
...

To be fair, they could not do the noisy floppy fix as it was not compatible with every third party drive.

I suppose they could have put it in as an option, but it would mean one more thing that not knowledgable people could fiddle with and mess things up. There were simple work arounds that annoyed or knowledgeable people could apply.

[hth313]

Originally Posted by kolla

They show by example how we should regard license agreements and copyright issues in Amiga land... so feel free to follow their example.

You mean applying your own interpretation to legal rights or suing others? Perhaps both?

I have a better idea. When it comes to matters with little monetary value, collaborate with open source instead.

Find side projects or other ways to earn money from it. Or put it the other way around, that OS project is just an enabler for what you are really doing.