AmigaOS4 for Classic - 30th November

[Buleste]

I think i'm more dissapointed in the lack of PCI support as PCI cards are the only area where classic Amigas are getting even close to new hardware. But almost total lack of SCSI support is a huge oversight. Still i'm sure once it's released then hopfully we'll see more hardware that it's compatable with.

[Stephen Coates]

Is anyone here going to get a copy?

I decided I might wait till (if) I get a PPC. I am still looking forward to seeing it though.

[Harrison]

Similar here. If and when I do eventually get a PPC accelerator for either my A1200 or A4000, or if I manage to get an A1 then I will purchase a copy.

BTW Steve, you mentioned that using a hack it might be possible to run OS4 on a PPC Mac. Do you have any links or more information about this? If it works well then I would just buy a second hand Mac Mini or G4 and run it on that.

[TiredOfLife]

Not a hack as such.
But it has been done but can't be released for legal reasons.
Hyperion can only release OS4.0 for the AmigaOne and for classic Amigas with PPC.

Have preordered it on Sunday so hopefully it won't be too much longer now.

[Stephen Coates]

BTW Steve, you mentioned that using a hack it might be possible to run OS4 on a PPC Mac. Do you have any links or more information about this? If it works well then I would just buy a second hand Mac Mini or G4 and run it on that.

I think there were some topics about it on amiga.org. Someone (ACube?) made a programme which made OS4 work on the Mac Mini.

I don't think it will get released (at least not in the near future) and I don't know if it will work on any macs other than the mini.

I would still be interested to see if it would be possible to run OS4 in QEMU or PearPC. I guess that would be possible but they would probably both need some modification, and maybe some ROMs.

Maybe the developers of UAE should take PearPC's PPC emulation and add it to UAE to emulate a Blizzard.

By the way, it looks like it has actually been released, and that for once, none of the companies were telling porkies. Maybe it was a good thing that Amiga Inc were not the ones making OS4 now as they seem to have been telling enough lies about it's release in the past.

Now we just have to wait for Amiga Inc to sort this legal stuff out so Hyperion can work on the AmigaOne version. Does anyone know the current sitation of their legal problems?

[Harrison]

I've not heard any more news on the legal issues regarding the two companies. So this release of OS4 is purely the classic version and not the one for Amiga One systems? I bet owners of those are very annoyed.

BTW, the Amiga One contains an additional rom on it's motherboard that contains code that allows OS4 to run, much like the Macs have for MacOS. Does anyone know if OS4 will still utilise this rom before allowing the A1 version to work?

[Stephen Coates]

Yes, this version is Classic only.

I don't think A1 owners should be that dissappointed as they have had plenty of notice about this.

I would be very surprised if OS4 didn't look for/need the ROMs in an A1.

[Harrison]

I've talked about this before, but don't you all think they are restricting OS4 a lot by not making the code compatible with all PPC based systems. PPC Linux can be compiled to run on pretty much any PPC based system, so why not develop OS4 to be the same? Seems completely mad to me.

In fact I think making OS4 completely open source would have been a better direction to take the OS than trying to continue it as a commercial venture. There just isn't the third party application development still going for the platform to compete with any other current commercial OS, and being open source would attract a lot of interest and we would see a lot of linux applications ported.

[Stephen Coates]

I've talked about this before, but don't you all think they are restricting OS4 a lot by not making the code compatible with all PPC based systems. PPC Linux can be compiled to run on pretty much any PPC based system, so why not develop OS4 to be the same? Seems completely mad to me.

I think you already answered this:

As you say, it does seem that many things are not compatible, but I suppose they have to draw the line somewhere or else they could be working on the OS for much longer trying to get all hardware to work.

It would have it's advantages, but the current situation is really no different to Apple and their MacOSX, which only works on Macs. It has been hacked to run on non Apple PCs, just as AmigaOS4 has been hacked to run on Macs. And the 68k versions of AmigaOS were never ported to other systems, so Hyperion are probably just continuing this.

[Harrison]

But Apple just did it to force people who wanted the Mac OS and compatible software into buying their hardware, which has always been their only profitable area. Look how short lived the Mac Clones were.