Why is there an interest beyond WB3.1?

[methodman]

I know this sounds dumb but the Amiga scene was really built on WB1.3 to 3.1.
I have no understanding of what an Amiga after this is? Is Amiga 4 a free OS? There is no discussion about any of this. Software. There is no beyond Amiga 3.1 Fred Fish collection is there? It's like the BEOS who remembers it. There isn't that much collected for it and what is the investment purpose? I am just trying to understand where this fits into the scheme of things. I am not trying to offend.

[Thalion]

It's more the question of what kind of Amiga Enthusiast you are. Are you rather an Amiga Fan/User of nostalgic reasons or are you an Amiga Fan/User who still wants to be with the latest developments and go beyond what was originally available during the Commodore days.
And to answer the question Amiga OS4 is commercial.

[fitzsteve]

Os3.9 is a nice improvement over 3.1 but you need an 030 and at least 8mb ram to enjoy it. 4.1 is only for ppc bases amiga's and a hobbyist os in my opinion. It's not free but recently final edition was released which is only about 30 quid. The hardware however can be very expensive, but there is emulation in winuae.

[B14ck W01f]

What? There are no "Main" forums on EAB anymore?

[jPV]

Originally Posted by methodman

I know this sounds dumb but the Amiga scene was really built on WB1.3 to 3.1.
I have no understanding of what an Amiga after this is? Is Amiga 4 a free OS? There is no discussion about any of this.

If you were a gamer, you probably have no interest beyond 3.1. But if you were using your "classic" 3.1 (or 3.5, or 3.9) Amiga as far as you could in daily use (by expanding it to 060, graphics cards, sound cards, networking, USB etc), next generation systems (OS4, MorphOS, or even AROS) are a very logical step forward. Target of these next generation systems are the former "high end" Amiga users.

The next generation systems allow you to replace your aging pathced up hacky expansion piles with newer hardware with built-in features with no caps leaking problems etc. They also offer much more speed in every respect (you can do more modern browsing, watch movies etc), updated OS features, and just let you enjoy your Amiga hobby even further for years to come.

I, for example, did use my A1200/3.9/Magellan2/060/128MB/100GB/Voodoo3/DelfinaLite/100Mbps/USB/TV-card/etc machine as my main daily machine up to 2004, and then got it cheaply replaced with Pegasos and MorphOS, and I could continue using my beloved 68k software from my Amiga installation but with much newer, faster, and more reliable system. I'm still using MorphOS as daily machine but with even newer and faster hardware, and even with laptops. I don't believe I would be an Amiga user anymore if this wouldn't have happened. I'd have been forced to start using some other system which I'd dislike, and probably just having few games on real Amigas occasionally.

Software. There is no beyond Amiga 3.1 Fred Fish collection is there?

Of course there is, that's just plain wrong claim. Aminet became the world's largest software collection (when comparing to any platform) in late 90s. Most of the big companies made their last big versions of their programs in late 90s too. Internet really took off on Amiga late 90s too, and Amiga got lots of nice internet software for any use. MUI allowed much more configureable GUIs and was easy for programmers, that brought all kinds of stuff. These were all later than oldskool Fish collections.

Amiga was very lively after the Commodore too, and I'd say that best years ever were around 1997-2000 when you got lots of high end software, great expansions, even new OS updates. Internet really united Amiga users for a while. Only gaming was in bad shape, although you started to get some games which take advantage of the new expansions.

Classic Amiga software dried up pretty much in 2005 or so, but with next generation machines you still get new software which go beyond the classic capability.

It's like the BEOS who remembers it.

I don't know much about BEOS apart for few news and one quick try, but as far as I understand, there isn't such massive legacy software collection for BEOS to support the newer developments, like the Amiga has.

OS4 and MorphOS both run the old system friendly Amiga software like natively (they have 68k CPU emulation and their native API is Amiga compatible), and you can build up your systems with mixed 68k and native binaries. That has helped the situation a lot, because you don't need to have native applications for every use from the start.

Maybe AROS (x86) has been more like BEOS then, because it's not binary compatible with the classic Amiga. Software situation on it has thus been a lot worse, and that has affected gaining the user base too.

[Thorham]

Originally Posted by jPV

and just let you enjoy your Amiga hobby even further for years to come.

Depends on what your Amiga related hobby is about. If it's about the software then sure, but if it's about the hardware then NG systems can't deliver what you want.

[B14ck W01f]

Originally Posted by jPV

Amiga was very lively after the Commodore too, and I'd say that best years ever were around 1997-2000 when you got lots of high end software, great expansions, even new OS updates. Internet really united Amiga users for a while. Only gaming was in bad shape, although you started to get some games which take advantage of the new expansions.

Yes, those were the Escom days, and after they folded, the Commodore and Amiga properties were sold to Gateway, and as if to prove it, they sent a cease-and-desist letter to the owner of Lazarus, a web site that hosted all the applications/ROMs/games for Amiga you could think of, in ADF form.

[methodman]

What is Aros is that capable of using the emulated Amiga or is it capable of using the more advanced chipsets recently introduced into Winuae. I haven't tried them. I have no software that runs on any of them.

Demobase seems to want Aros but is it the same process as making a Winuae hard drive?

[AMIGASYSTEM]

No, AROS is not a Amiga Emulator is a system native that is installed on X86 machines, AROS can also be started by a Flash Drive or external Hardisk. It is also possible to start from AROS Live CD-DVD or virtualized by VMPlayer and VirtualBox. Systems AROS can also start applications and games through 68K Janus-UAE, an emulation direct integration like as "Wine" on Linux, I enclose some of my videos exhaustive. (Italino-English translation with Google translator)

[ Show youtube player ] (simulated error volume)

[ Show youtube player ]

[ Show youtube player ]

[Tomislav]

AMIGASYSTEM is partially right.
There are AROS builds for m68k, arm, PPC, i386 and x86_64. M68k build has its own kickstart which is now included with WinUAE as alternative KS. You can find them here: http://aros.sourceforge.net/download.php.
Under nightly builds and snapshots you can see arm and ppc builds, too. Notice that they are marked as ABIv1 and ABIv0 - that makes 4 directories of builds which are all with mostly different content.

[AMIGASYSTEM]

Yes, Tomislav, I did not want to dwell, AROS offers multiple solutions, HERE there my old review on AROS distro.

This is my AspireOS installed on Acer Aspire One ZG5, where everything is compatible, Network LAN, Wireless, Video Card and Sound Card!

[spannernick]

I like the older Amigas and don't think ppc hardware as anything to do with them,they are more close to Apple than Amiga.

Amiga OS4.1 I would never buy,happy with my A1200 in a A500 case.. only way I use it if I found a copy on the net for free.

Like Aros and Amikit the closes you get to a real Amiga,Amiga stopped being Amiga when Commodore died.all the rest are copies like the PC.

Don't take it to heart what I said just how I feel..

[jPV]

Originally Posted by spannernick

I like the older Amigas and don't think ppc hardware as anything to do with them,they are more close to Apple than Amiga.

Like said, it's if you consider hw or the sw. Hardwarewise next gen machines are close to Apple, PC, or any other industry standard machine, but what counts on them is the operating system, and with Amiga compatible operating systems it's not Apple or Microsoft at all. It's Amiga all the way. You have the familiar shell commands, same directory structure with libraries etc, lovely ARexx, DOpus and other beloved software, icons, pulldown menus, screens and everything you loved in Intuition, but also more.

If you went all the way with classic Amigas, you noticed how the importance of the operating system became the major factor, and that continues with the next gen systems. Many people didn't use the custom chips etc that much after they upgraded their Amigas with 030 or better accelerators and started to use CPU drawing instead of the blitter etc. And even less when they went to RTG boards and AHI. It's actually the very low end Amigas where the HW was the major thing.

It's very rude to say that it doesn't have "anything to do with them", even when you specify that you're talking purely about the hardware, but that gives a wrong impression to many people, because Amiga was and is much more than just the hardware. :/

[Amiga1992]

Originally Posted by jPV

It's very rude to say that it doesn't have "anything to do with them", even when you specify that you're talking purely about the hardware, but that gives a wrong impression to many people, because Amiga was and is much more than just the hardware. :/

It's very rude to imply the modern version of the OS has anything to do with the old hardware and its achievements, which is what people remember.

[gulliver]

Originally Posted by akira

it's very rude to imply the modern version of the os has anything to do with the old hardware and its achievements, which is what people remember.

+1

[Bastich]

+1 for Akira

[Thorham]

Originally Posted by akira

it's very rude to imply the modern version of the os has anything to do with the old hardware and its achievements, which is what people remember.

+1