Amiga OS4 for Classic - Ships - Nov 30th 2007

[Retro-Nerd]

The compatibiltiy mode in XP sucks, works only for a few games. For old DOS games you have to use DOSBox and for problematic Windows games you can use VMWare or VPC. I assume the Just-in-Time Emulator is not really better.

btw: What WAS the "whole" Amiga thing?

[Zetr0]

@RN

i must of missed it too... i am sure i remember something about DS DD swapping on the playground.... hmmmm been a while...

[Retro-Nerd]

This helpful EAB community keeps the "real" Amiga alive, not this modern and outpriced PPC stuff. There is no Amiga evolution imho, they rip-off people with too much money, that's all.

[Zetr0]

(PPC) = Pointless Propriety Crap

wanna get locked into an overly expensive upgrade path?

wanna run PC Feature-full programs at half the speed but twice the cost?

wanna say that you are supporting a comunity of 1 ?

then you need OS4.0 PCC "classic" eddition, in fact its that classic you can only use a £600 amiga or £700 amiga 1.

howmany PPC amigas are there.... oh not many... maybe a couple of thousand ? even less Amiga Ones

so if you want to be counted into a very VERY small computing minority then join the FFLC or Fools For Life Club...

okay okay... thats all a bit harsh, I like reviewing OS, I have a varied collection my self... and in truth i would support OS4 IF they brought out an x86 version.. but that kinda breaks the ethos of PPC...

[Retro-Nerd]

Originally Posted by Zetr0

and in truth i would support OS4 IF they brought out an x86 version.. but that kinda breaks the ethos of PPC...

That's the point, Zetr0. I would try this too, even without having a serious use of it. A PPC only release is laughable.

[Mikey_C]

Originally Posted by killergorilla

Maybe you are right I'm too young.

I'm old enough to know not to respond to that flame bait you patronising git!

@KG

Forgive me if you think I was baiting, It certainly was not my intention, However it is difficult to convey what it was like having an Amiga back in the late 80's early 90's when all that was available was at best dos prompt or Window 3.10. Even the early macs at the time weren't all that. Add that to the fact that most people either had a sega mega drive or a C64 and you can understand just how amazing and truly eye popping the Amiga was back then.

True, it has long been surpassed, but trust me, you had to be there at the time. So yeah, maybe its nostalgia or something about keeping in touch with my youth, but this is why I am still using an Amiga. It is also why I said about you being too young to understand. Its also, something quite European.

No offence intended.

[Zetr0]

@RN

indeed! even the MAC have "evolved" to use X86, why on earth go backwards?! makes absolutely no sense.

infact I would love to have the source code for both OS3.5 AND 4.0... and then I would compile the damn things for x86, prolly bundle a £60 PCIE rom and chips set card for £100

clearly a winner... i would make a ship-load of money, i would then put back into developing classic systems for regular PC upgrades as well OS updates etc.

this way i don't have to worry about the hardware as the industry takes care of that, and all i do is essentially cash in on the retr0 community at LARGE, but in return i give them something THEY want.

but hey, clearly business is about pigeon - holing people into exploitable resource... that an legal cases it seems....

[adonay]

Originally Posted by Zetr0

@RN

indeed! even the MAC have "evolved" to use X86, why on earth go backwards?! makes absolutely no sense.

infact I would love to have the source code for both OS3.5 AND 4.0... and then I would compile the damn things for x86, prolly bundle a £60 PCIE rom and chips set card for £100

clearly a winner... i would make a ship-load of money, i would then put back into developing classic systems for regular PC upgrades as well OS updates etc.

this way i don't have to worry about the hardware as the industry takes care of that, and all i do is essentially cash in on the retr0 community at LARGE, but in return i give them something THEY want.

but hey, clearly business is about pigeon - holing people into exploitable resource... that an legal cases it seems....

Why bother we have both aros and Amithlon "or had" we also have winuae so there is really no use in using xxxx£ porting the damn system over as far as i can see. But that would make a solid argument why to use os4 on any system at all . Does os4 realy bring us something we do not have in the other alternatives ?

Cheers

[Retro-Nerd]

@Zetr0

Hyperion knows that they couldn't sell more than a few thousand copies of AOS4. Why to produce a x68 version? It's better to sell some outpriced PPC hardware.

App. 99% of the world didn't know about the current Amiga sitution or that it still exists. They buy XP, MAC OS X or uses Linux systems.

[killergorilla]

Originally Posted by Mikey_C

@KG

Forgive me if you think I was baiting, It certainly was not my intention, However it is difficult to convey what it was like having an Amiga back in the late 80's early 90's when all that was available was at best dos prompt or Window 3.10. Even the early macs at the time weren't all that. Add that to the fact that most people either had a sega mega drive or a C64 and you can understand just how amazing and truly eye popping the Amiga was back then.

True, it has long been surpassed, but trust me, you had to be there at the time. So yeah, maybe its nostalgia or something about keeping in touch with my youth, but this is why I am still using an Amiga. It is also why I said about you being too young to understand. Its also, something quite European.

No offence intended.

No offence taken.

I do know what it was like, I grew up around the Amiga, my uncle had an A500 from around the time it was released, paid around £1000 for it if I recall, came with a 1084.

If I didn't get 'Amiga' I wouldn't have been on this forum for the last 4 years, I wouldn't still have that very same A500 that my uncle bought those many, many years ago and I wouldn't be spending hours installing whdload games so that others can also enjoy the Amiga scene without the hassle of setting them all up themselves.

I know plenty of people my age who think that Cars like the MGBT, bands like Led Zeppelin and computers like the Amiga which are simply the best thing on the planet. Age doesn't have anything to do with recognising quality.

Don't tar every person under the age of 30 with the same brush.

Oh and I am European.

[Zetr0]

A good point there adonay, although in the case of Amithalon it was never offically supported which would of been awesome, and what i really want in life

AROS, yeah it will get there eventually, it would be nice to see it "FULLY" functional, and yes we now have a distro of X-Amiga,

alas all of these are built around a *NIX kernel, it would of been nice to see it developed explicitly for x86 but hey, as you say there are ways to achieve an x86 Amiga box.

[Charlie]

adonay does make an important point: Why bother to port to x86, there are already ways to run AOS on x86..?

My personal experience may provide a good enough reason:
I'm sad enough that playing with 'alternate OS's' and old hardware is something of a hobby. That's my reason for being here, it's a bonus that my Amithlon setup is actually quite useful.
It's for this reason I'd buy OS4-x86 even though I've already got access to the 'alternates'. Hell, at last count my main PC already multiboots 7 OS's! Then there's the OS's the other computers run... I'd add another, maybe like Amithlon it will prove to be useful. (I'm physically running out of room for hardware & can't justify spending a lot more, but I can always buy another HDD)

To me you can sell a few copies of OS4 to the majority A1 & classicPPC owners...
or
...you can sell a hell-of-a-lot of copies to a tiny proportion of the vast sea of x86 owners who like me share a slightly sad interest in such things.

As Zetr0 has touched on, the maths is simple enough. Not doing so possibly shows evidence of 'other agendas'.

Another point that has already been well put: At what point will we have had enough of being pooed-upon and stop supporting the great overloaded arses who keep opening their sphincters on us..? (hmm, that's an unpleasant image)

[killergorilla]

Originally Posted by Charlie

...you can sell a hell-of-a-lot of copies to a tiny proportion of the vast sea of x86 owners who like me share a slightly sad interest in such things.

I don't consider it sad that you take an interest in such things. It's clearly a hobby and hobbies are meant to be personal and fulfilling.

Another point that has already been well put: At what point will we have had enough of being pooed-upon and stop supporting the great overloaded arses who keep opening their sphincters on us..? (hmm, that's an unpleasant image)

Now that is the 20 million horse question. And the answer my friend is blowing in the wind, the answer is blowing in the wind

[P-J]

Originally Posted by Mikey_C

BTW, How can it be an oxymoron? Apple changed from 68k to PPC in order to deliver better performance for their users.

Because a PPC Amiga is not classic Amiga. Do you want me to draw you a diagram?

[Mikey_C]

Er, If a classic amiga, has a ppc card in it, then it isn't a classic amiga?

So, if you put an 060 card in it, it is? even though no 060 were available in original Amigas?

[Retro1234]

Sorry but Hombre was going to include a PA-RISC processor so I quess Commodore realized that 68k wasnt going anywhere and that PPC was a much better choice as did Mac?>

[Retro-Nerd]

Originally Posted by Mikey_C

So, if you put an 060 card in it, it is? even though no 060 were available in original Amigas?

Of course!! A 060 CPU is a 68k processor, a PPC CPU not.

[Mikey_C]

You may be interested to note that Motorola designed the PPC as the natural successor to the 68k family. As far as Moto were concerned, the 68k series came to an end when the 68050 chip melted. It was only after the release of the PPC that they went back to the 68k and had one last push with the 68060 chip.
However, it had reached an end because apple (their biggest desktop customer) had gone PPC and with commodore dead, the 68k series was no longer a viable option.

So, to me, the PPC is the natural successor to the 68k family.

[Charlie]

A (rather long) thought:
Are we all from our different perspectives having the same problem..?

The offically sanctioned product will always be regarded as the future.
-Near as d*mn-it that's OS4
We've been consistently let down by our 'leaders' for years so we have no confidence in that future.

Those 'pro' OS4 want to have the 'offical release'. "PPC is good."
Those 'anti' OS4 are sufficiently p*ssed-off to be wondering what the point is. "The Amiga ended with the 68k line."

There are plenty of Amiga-like enviroments: MOS, Amithlon, AROS, X-Amiga, etc... some of which may have greater merrit than AOS4. We don't argue about them because thay aren't 'offical' regardless of how you may feel that may have been 'degraded' by the years of messing about.

To illustrate:
Apple have 'progressed' from 68k->PPC->x86. Their 'users' have swallowed that for two reasons: It's the offical line & there hasn't been too much messing about in the process.
PPC-OS8.1 was just the 68k version with an emulator. How is Amithlon for example different..? It's not the offically sanctioned way forward.

What am I getting at?
The nay-sayers (me) now regard Amiga as a dead platform & therefore say anything post 68k is so much do-do. (that's not to say I wouldn't like to run an Amiga-like enviroment on my x86 box)
The pro-sayers see PPC-OS4 as the offical way forward regardless of any difficulties & therefore understandably want it.

We're arguing about our personal perceptions, not necessarily the merrit(s) of OS4.
There is therefore no rational conclusion to that discussion.

Having gotten all Vulcan over this, I now feel I can Troll on this thread to my heart's content if it continues much longer.

[Doc Mindie]

Personally... if AmigaOS4 includes a 68k emulation engine for backwards compatability, I don't see the problem.

Looking at MacOS8, and also 7.5+ they included an 68k emulation engine, so the software not yet ported to PPC would retain functionality. And again, with OSX86, they included a PPC-emulation engine (rosetta stone) so that PPC-compiled software, where still functional.

Now, IF AOS4 have that 68k Emulation engine ("classic engine" might be a suitable name?) there's no point in arguing about whether or not the PPC is an "amiga CPU" or not. C= themselves was developing (or trying to develope) a PPC Amiga just before they went bust.

So for ME, a PPC Amiga, IS an Amiga, as it's been "official" since before C= went under