State of the Amiga

[Yesideez]

Where does it currently stand?

I remember Commodore going bust then Amiga changing hands for a while then eventually completely dead. I held on to my Amiga for as long as possible until I had nowhere to keep it and had to get rid of it.

Browsing around the web I still see AmigaOS seemingly up to 4.1 and running well. I thought it ended at 3.1?

Are there new Amigas? How do they run? What's going on?

If someone can kindly explain in very basic terms what's happening to everything I'd be most grateful. Is there a timeline thing anywhere?

I'm extremely confused!

[Yesideez]

Just found the AmigaOne kit being sold...

Just wondering what's the point of owning one of these machines? I mean, they've got to be less popular than the Apple Mac so I would imagine software would be pretty scarce.

I noticed a full machine running AmigaOS 4.1 costing about £670 - I'd rather upgrade my PC!

As much as I still love the Amiga I think it had its time and if it wasn't for the bad marketing and business strategy things could have been very different. There's nothing I want more (well, not a lot!) than to be able to go back to when I got my first Amiga but it's not happening.

[Paul_s]

Originally Posted by Yesideez

Where does it currently stand?

I remember Commodore going bust then Amiga changing hands for a while then eventually completely dead. I held on to my Amiga for as long as possible until I had nowhere to keep it and had to get rid of it.

Browsing around the web I still see AmigaOS seemingly up to 4.1 and running well. I thought it ended at 3.1?

Are there new Amigas? How do they run? What's going on?

If someone can kindly explain in very basic terms what's happening to everything I'd be most grateful. Is there a timeline thing anywhere?

I'm extremely confused!

Commodore went bust/killed by bad management/marketing.

Bought out by several companies over time - assets/rights etc C=/Amiga split all over the shop.
- Escom ~ didn't do much until they themselves went bust.
- Gateway bought rights ~ who manufactured the AT1200 & 4000T. Prototype 'Walker' made but never released publically. They are still going as far as I know.
- Amiga.Inc bought rights, didn't do a lot either, sold some carp games for $5. Better to buy a pizza. Did some shoddy deals and pulled out of things making false promises. Bill McEwen related to Steve Jobs.

OS 3.5 / 3.9 developed over time which works fine with classic machines.
OS 4/4.1 which does work on classic machines but requires PPC hardware which = money pit and doesn't really do a lot in terms of being a viable platform (seriously let's be honest here, nice if you are a devout Amiga fan but in the real world not much cop sadly). Amiga One/x1000 or whatever will run OS4/4.1 fine with an expensive premium of course.

Commodore are now a seperate 'brand' selling all sorts of carp.
Amiga.Inc - funk knows what has happened to them, website dead and Bill McEwen is a tosser so who cares.

There are websites on this and a book written by Brain Bagnall which documents everything in finer detail

Originally Posted by Yesideez

Just found the AmigaOne kit being sold...

Just wondering what's the point of owning one of these machines? I mean, they've got to be less popular than the Apple Mac so I would imagine software would be pretty scarce.

I noticed a full machine running AmigaOS 4.1 costing about £670 - I'd rather upgrade my PC!

As much as I still love the Amiga I think it had its time and if it wasn't for the bad marketing and business strategy things could have been very different. There's nothing I want more (well, not a lot!) than to be able to go back to when I got my first Amiga but it's not happening.

Not much point owning an AmigaOne unless like I said above you are a 'fan'. You can do much more with a Windows box (I would not say this unless it is true! I do love the Amiga )

The classic machines are legendary I stick to those for the fond memories If you wanna try OS4 then sure, go for it, there are probably folk who love it.

[TCD]

Originally Posted by Yesideez

Is there a timeline thing anywhere?

Kinda : http://www.amigahistory.co.uk/ahistory.html
Amiga OS 4 : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AmigaOS_4
I guess you have to read through a lot of threads on various boards to get the idea what is going on today

[Bamiga2002]

@Yesideez
So you checked that AmigaOne, but there's a couple of other projects going on aswell that are targeted mainly for AmigaOS 3.1 - 3.9.

First (and for me most interesting!) project is Natami, work-in-progress that will be the new "classic" amiga when it's released
http://www.natami.net/

and there's Minimig AGA that seems to be progressing nice
http://www.amiga.org/forums/showthread.php?t=39806

For AmigaOS 4.1 there will be AmigaOne X1000 but for that i'll not hold my breath, but people interested in it will likely be excited
http://www.a-eon.com/index.html

[gilgamesh]

There is a very detailed outline of the strange story after C= dropped dead here.
Cloanto sells a (not actually dirt cheap) DVD with the classic kickstarts, workbenches and stuff.

Emulation works great and is constantly getting better thanks to Toni Wilen's efforts.

[NewDeli]

Nice you made this thread, I needed an occasion to post a link to Individual Computer's head J. Schoenfeld's 2007 presentation of the Clone-A project :

http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...1150233337270#

I think the Clone-A remained a prototype unfortunately, but his explanations during this Breakpoint conference made my day.

I like the part where he says the company which claims they have all the intellectual property to the Amiga ultimately couldn't demonstrate they had the right to license the roms to them . He confirms my intuition that a Kickstart replacement is possible (not suitable for booting the Workbench though) by mentioning 2 programmers who worked on this. All this takes place during the last 10 minutes of the show.

[Yesideez]

Thanks for all the info - the video about CloneA was very interesting. I would never have thought anyone would have tried to attempt a project like that so that was a surprise.

I did come across NatAmi a couple days ago and when I saw those photos of heavily modified circuit boards I was in awe!

Paul - that mini timeline pretty much sums it up and confirms what I thought although you've worded it much better with "money pit"

[TCD]

Originally Posted by NewDeli

I think the Clone-A remained a prototype unfortunately...

http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?p=587769#post587769
On the contrary to other projects *cough* Jens produces something useful 'on the way' and releases it to make a few bucks. I guess we'll see a Clone-A 'in stores' one day.

[Anakirob]

While hobbyists and independent dvelopers have been active in developing 'Amiga like' HW, Here is the rather depressing history of the 'official' Amiga brand'. Looks a bit like it was a means of defrauding gullible investors for 12 years.

[blade002]

Originally Posted by NewDeli

Nice you made this thread, I needed an occasion to post a link to Individual Computer's head J. Schoenfeld's 2007 presentation of the Clone-A project :

http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...1150233337270#

I was at that presentation but i was sitting at the back Flying all the way from Australia to see this event was brilliant!

[JonSick]

It strikes me that future developments of Amiga OS would be better off on Intel hardware? Then more people would actually consider the crossgrade, or even trying it out if it can run on the same hardware as their Windows stuff?

[Cammy]

AmigaOS development is going on for Intel hardware, it's called Aros. For Hyperion to port their AmigaOS4 to Intel hardware would take years, and by the time the port is finally finished Aros would have evolved years beyond. It would make very little sense for them to waste their time when it has taken them this long just to get a decent, stable PPC OS and finally some powerful (by Amiga standards) PPC hardware designed exclusively for it that offers an interesting new hardware design compared to previous PPC Amiga boards.

Hyperion just don't have the money or the man-power to make a competitive OS for the Intel market, so sticking with the PPC niche market is the best route for them at the moment. Remember PPC isn't a dead-end, just because there are no major desktop computers using them anymore (Apple). The Power architecture is in use in the Nintendo Wii, Sony Playstation 3 and Microsoft Xbox 360.

If you want an Amiga with the most powerful CPU you can buy and cheap hardware, give Aros a try. If you've got the money to spend on something a little different and more efficient, give the X1000 and AmigaOS4 a go.

Of course if you want to try the most advanced Amiga Operating System of them all, you only need to pick up a G4 MacMini second hand and download the MorphOS 2.4 ISO, burn, boot it up and install it. If you like it, pay the registration fee to unlock unlimited usage.

[NovaCoder]

Originally Posted by Cammy

AmigaOS development is going on for Intel hardware, it's called Aros. For Hyperion to port their AmigaOS4 to Intel hardware would take years, and by the time the port is finally finished Aros would have evolved years beyond. It would make very little sense for them to waste their time when it has taken them this long just to get a decent, stable PPC OS and finally some powerful (by Amiga standards) PPC hardware designed exclusively for it that offers an interesting new hardware design compared to previous PPC Amiga boards.

Hyperion just don't have the money or the man-power to make a competitive OS for the Intel market, so sticking with the PPC niche market is the best route for them at the moment. Remember PPC isn't a dead-end, just because there are no major desktop computers using them anymore (Apple). The Power architecture is in use in the Nintendo Wii, Sony Playstation 3 and Microsoft Xbox 360.

Yep I agree, Hyperion have no real reason to go to x86 and even if they did, such a move would be out of the question for them at this time. What a lot of people don't seem to realize is that the X1000 is their big OS4 push, if it fails I don't see how Hyperion and OS4 development can continue.

I can see AROS taking off but I can't really see MorphOS going anywhere, it has all the negatives of OS4 (PPC only, closed source) but with none of the positives.

[Cammy]

Yeah, MorphOS does look like it's running into a dead-end if the only future hardware platforms are a few different models of PPC Macs. It would be nice to see them port it to the X1000, which they are welcome to do according to Trevor Dickinson, much like OS4 was ported to the Pegasos.

Aros will always be there because it's open sourced, and is only going to get stronger as more people take an interest in it. I doubt it will ever take off in any competitive or commercial sense, but it could soon be the platform of choice for people wanting to set up an Amiga PC for both classic applications and games, as well as current applications. It's now possible to execute any 68k application or game from inside Wanderer (Aros' version of Workbench) and it will open in a native Aros window and use Aros menus and pointer as if it was running a native application. Games will work with joystick support and sound, and be run in a window or full screen. This jUAE-integration is more streamlined than WinUAE and developed much further than eUAE or UAE4ALL. Because it's fully transparent UAE emulation rather than 68k system emulation, there's no chance of an old Amiga application bringing the whole system down when it crashes, like it would in OS4 or MOS. It can simply be removed and run again.

Aros is still rough around the edges but it's evolved a lot recently, and it's already usable as a regular desktop OS for things like web browsing, IRC and MSN, Email, text editing, watching movies and listening to music. There's even a MMORPG on there called Eternal Lands, and it's free to play unlike World of Warcraft, so there's no obligation to get stuck in there all day long to get your moneys worth.

Best of all, it's completely free, anyone can download the ISO and boot it up on their PC. It can be installed natively or run in a VM.

I think the future looks exciting for all flavours of Amiga, and I'm really looking forward to the Natami, which is getting closer to completion and has already got a bunch of games being worked on for it.


---
Here is AmigaOS for x86 - http://www.icarosdesktop.org! Why not try it on your PC today?

[Vairn]

Originally Posted by Cammy

Aros will always be there because it's open sourced, and is only going to get stronger as more people take an interest in it. I doubt it will ever take off in any competitive or commercial sense, but it could soon be the platform of choice for people wanting to set up an Amiga PC for both classic applications and games, as well as current applications. It's now possible to execute any 68k application or game from inside Wanderer (Aros' version of Workbench) and it will open in a native Aros window and use Aros menus and pointer as if it was running a native application. Games will work with joystick support and sound, and be run in a window or full screen. This jUAE-integration is more streamlined than WinUAE and developed much further than eUAE or UAE4ALL. Because it's fully transparent UAE emulation rather than 68k system emulation, there's no chance of an old Amiga application bringing the whole system down when it crashes, like it would in OS4 or MOS. It can simply be removed and run again.

This is where AROS really shines imho, and that it is on x86 machines.
Just being able to double click and amiga app, or game. and have it run, makes it feel so much more complete, the OS4.x, and morphos.

Adding on the Work being done with the 3D/2D graphics hardware drivers, and all the USB, Network, Sound drivers. It really shines, and that it is able to be run from a USB stick.

That it is free, is an added bonus hehe.