which 3.1.4 to buy?

[Ral-Clan]

I'm having a bit of a dilemma over which OS3.1.4 version to buy. I don't think I'm going to use 3.1.4 anytime soon, but I want to support development. My dilemna is that my real hardware amigas are simple 68000 ECS systems A500/A2000.  These are put away right now as I don't have space to set them up. They have OS3.1 installed on them and have hard drives and expanded RAM, but not much else. The "Amiga" I really use is a WinUAE emulated AGA Amiga 4000. This is where I mostly run my Amiga productivity software, because of the speed.  It's running an nice OS3.9 installation.

As you know, Hyperion sells the AGA and ECS versions separately, both for the same price (which for me is about $50 Canadian). I don't want to buy both versions, but I wish they had offered cheaper AGA/ECS bundle.

I don't really see any gains that 3.1.4 would give to my AGA emulated emulated A4000 system that 3.9 doesn't already give it. However maybe if one day I did a fresh OS installation on this "Amiga", I'd want to install 3.1.4 instead, as it seems it will get the most support in terms of future upgrades (while OS3.9 seems a dead end due to the many IP ownership problems).

On the other hand, 3.1.4 could possibly benefit the ECS "real hardware" 68000CPU systems, due to support for larger hard drives, etc. OS3.9 insn't installable on these pure 68000 systems (requires 68020 for installation).

With what I have, which would you buy to support Hyperion?  Why do you think they separated the two versions (OS3.9 supported both ECS and AGA Amigas in a single package)? Maybe the best choice is just to wait until I actually need it, then buy what I need. But I wouldn't be supporting development this way.

[guest11527]

I'm having a bit of a dilemma over which OS3.1.4 version to buy. I don't think I'm going to use 3.1.4 anytime soon, but I want to support development. My dilemna is that my real hardware amigas are simple 68000 ECS systems A500/A2000.

For these systems, go for the A2000/A500/A600 version.

As you know, Hyperion sells the AGA and ECS versions separately, both for the same price (which for me is about $50 Canadian). I don't want to buy both versions, but I wish they had offered cheaper AGA/ECS bundle.

There is no such thing as an AGA or ECS version. In fact, one of the changes in graphics is that every version speaks ECS *and* AGA. There are versions for the A1200, the A4000, the A4000T and A3000 as well, but the difference is not due to AGA or ECS, but due to the scsi (or IDE) hardware and the motherboard RAM. You cannot mix versions, though. On your system,only the A2000/A500/A600 version will work.

I don't really see any gains that 3.1.4 would give to my AGA emulated emulated A4000 system that 3.9 doesn't already give it.

This is not at all true. Care for a working printer device or fixed datatypes? Or large harddrives? Or long file names?

[Ral-Clan]

I don't really see any gains that 3.1.4 would give to my AGA emulated emulated A4000 system that 3.9 doesn't already give it.

This is not at all true. Care for a working printer device or fixed datatypes? Or large harddrives? Or long file names?

I thought OS3.9 gave support for large >4GB volumes?

[utri007]

I thought OS3.9 gave support for large >4GB volumes?

It did, but there was still problems with >128gb hard drives. Thomas said "large hard drives", not partitions.

[guest11527]

In a sense, 3.9 supported large hard drives, though in an inconvenient way. You first had to have a boot partition below the 4GB boundary, and then boot from that, and after setpatch was run, you could access all other partitions. This is no longer the case. You can now put the FFS into the RDB and boot from large partitions right away. Depending on the host adapter, this is either automatic or you need to enable direct SCSI support in the HDToolbox.

[kolla]

With UAE you probably aren't using scsi.device or FFS anyways, are you? And with by buying OS 3.1.4 now, you are agreeing to terms that leave it very unclear whether installing the OS on non-amiga hardware is endorsed or not. Hopefully Hyperion will have to clarify.