Running OS 4.1FE on Hardware?

[steveis2]

Hi,
I run OS 4.1FE classic and 3.1 in emulation with winuae or amigaforever but wonder if hardware is a viable alternative. The objective is to be able to run the OS without too many glitches along with things like abiword or other applications and inevitably games. Old equipment might have a short life expectancy but new hardware might be expensive (an X5000 certainly is).
With the pandemic my finances are stretched and I'm wondering if there is reasonably priced hardware that could run OS 4.1 FE at a presentable speed? I might have to delay buying for a while but if it's technically viable I'll look into it as soon as I can.
I've heard about the MIST 1.4 MIDI FPGA computer on sale at amigastore.eu. However although it's not too expensive I have no idea at the moment if it's capable of using or even running OS 4.1 FE at a reasonable speed.
If anyone has an idea about hardware that could cope with OS 4.1 and not be very expensive I'd be grateful for any suggestions.


Regards Steve

[Vypr]

I think you're going to be out of luck on the hardware side, there haven't been any new builds of OS4.1 capable boards for a while now and even new they were fairly expensive. Prices would start at around the £500 range from new but you'll probably find, like most Amiga hardware, if you try to buy 2nd hand the prices will be much higher

[steveis2]

Originally Posted by Vypr

I think you're going to be out of luck on the hardware side, there haven't been any new builds of OS4.1 capable boards for a while now and even new they were fairly expensive. Prices would start at around the £500 range from new but you'll probably find, like most Amiga hardware, if you try to buy 2nd hand the prices will be much higher

Hi
You are probably right but what do you think would be buyable second hand or new(?) for about the £500 mark? I haven't seen anything but perhaps I'm looking in the wrong places.


Steve

[fitzsteve]

There was supposed to be a low cost option, the A1222 coming in 2020 but delayed due to the pandemic.

I joined the early adopter, yet to see anything come of that but the latest update was production in Q2 2021 so never know we might see something this year...

http://www.a1222plus.com/index.php

[steveis2]

Originally Posted by fitzsteve

There was supposed to be a low cost option, the A1222 coming in 2020 but delayed due to the pandemic.

I joined the early adopter, yet to see anything come of that but the latest update was production in Q2 2021 so never know we might see something this year...

http://www.a1222plus.com/index.php

Hi,
Thanks I'll try to keep track of that in case it's a possibility in the future.


Steve

[Daedalus]

The SAM460 is an older motherboard at the same sort of entry-level position as the new A1222 is supposed to occupy. They come up occasionally second hand, sometimes as complete systems branded as AmigaOne 500. There was also a small batch made quite recently that sold out almost immediately, so that will hopefully indicate demand and prompt a second manufacturing run. They're a slower machine than the X5000 of course, but still plenty for the Amiga OS4 experience and can probably be had for around the £500 mark.

Other than that, you can run OS 4.1FE in WinUAE under classic PPC emulation, but it's going to be a bit slow and limited. Still, it might be enough to see if it's something you want to invest further into.

[kamelito]

You could also run AmigaOS 4.1 for the SAM under qemu, not sure if it is faster than WinUAE but the best thing to do using MorphOS on a cheap Mac.

[steveis2]

Hi,
I'll have to keep an eye on ebay. And having looked, one sold in February in the US for $409 but it wasn't working. Apparantly some of the systems parts were missing.

Steve

[steveis2]

Originally Posted by steveis2

Hi,
I'll have to keep an eye on ebay. And having looked, one sold in February in the US for $409 but it wasn't working. Apparantly some of the systems parts were missing.

Steve

Hi

As a follow up just saw an AmigaOne MicroA1 PowerPC for sale on ebay for $1500. I don't think I've heard of that model before. Either way at that price it's too much. Still at least something is for sale.


Steve

[kamelito]

IIRC these are really old AmigaOne not really stable and at that price this is a no go.

[kamelito]

Your best option http://www.acube-systems.biz/index.php?page=news&id=145

[Daedalus]

Yeah, the Micro A1 is a pretty limited machine because of the severely limited expansion options. They can be flakey, but many of them are pretty stable. That's a crazy price for one of those really.

The A1-XE G4 (bigger brother to the Micro) can also be troublesome, but I have mine 15+ years, and other than feeding it CR2032s on a regular basis, it's been pretty solid and is a lovely fast machine for OS4.1FE. It's an option too if you can find one. They have a couple of design flaws to work around and are insanely picky about RAM, but there are enough PCI slots available to allow that. Mine has sound, graphics, IDE and USB 2.0 PCI cards in it and it all works great together.

[DarrenHD]

A used Pegasos 2 may be a good option. It can run OS 4.1.x and MorphOS.

[grelbfarlk]

Originally Posted by kamelito

Your best option http://www.acube-systems.biz/index.php?page=news&id=145

https://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=106844


But to give information to all newcomers to AmigaOS4, and even to those ones who considering buying sam460cr while owning something else for aos4 already (like me having also x5000 and pegasos2), I made probably one of my biggest and heavy video-work for, called "Sam460: from the Begining to the End". It is a long 45-minute video, with all the stuff like unpacking, checking, testing, installing of os4, real-life tests, subtitles, and co. The video is of 7 parts:

[drHirudo]

I am using AmigaOne X1000 and microAmigaOne for AmigaOS 4.
The X1000 is much better for AmigaOS. I have installed 8 GB of RAM on it, of which only 2 GB are used by AmigaOS, but there is hope it will take use of the additional RAM in the next versions. I also have XFX Radeon Black Double D R9 280X 3GB DDR5 graphics card, but I don't use it since it is noisier and not much used by AmigaOS.
The X1000 has HDMI output, while the micro uses VGA and is slower with 256 MB.
Of course if you want basic AmigaOS 4 usage, a SAM460 or older AmigaOne will be enough.

[cinar]

When I had my G5 Quad, I remember passing the Radeon card to QEMU and using KVM equivalent for PPC64. It did well, at least to get some early thoughts on 4.1 FE.

[utri007]

It also depends what you want? If you put up "wanted" note to amigaworld.net, or amiga.org or amibay, you might get AmigaOne and Sam 440ep models for very nice price. Problem is that those doesn't support PCIe graphic cards and that way lattest 3D software.

[steveis2]

Originally Posted by grelbfarlk

https://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=106844


But to give information to all newcomers to AmigaOS4, and even to those ones who considering buying sam460cr while owning something else for aos4 already (like me having also x5000 and pegasos2), I made probably one of my biggest and heavy video-work for, called "Sam460: from the Begining to the End". It is a long 45-minute video, with all the stuff like unpacking, checking, testing, installing of os4, real-life tests, subtitles, and co. The video is of 7 parts:

Hi,
Thanks. That's a very informative video. Would almost any AMD radeon or Nvidia graphics card work in the Pcie slot or is there a narrow range that would work?



Regards Steve

[grelbfarlk]

Originally Posted by steveis2

Hi,
Thanks. That's a very informative video. Would almost any AMD radeon or Nvidia graphics card work in the Pcie slot or is there a narrow range that would work?



Regards Steve

Nvidia is not supported at all as I understand it. You have to use a Radeon for the most part. There are many cheap options for this.

http://hdrlab.org.nz/projects/amiga-...compatibility/

[steveis2]

Originally Posted by grelbfarlk

Nvidia is not supported at all as I understand it. You have to use a Radeon for the most part. There are many cheap options for this.

http://hdrlab.org.nz/projects/amiga-...compatibility/

Hi,
Thanks for the link. I think I'll start to collect links to hardware descriptions etc and do some reading on what can do what and any issues particular hardware has. By the end I should have an idea of what I want and can afford.


Regards Steve