Amigaos 4.1 - Intel i5 Mac

[redfox]

@LordSpunky

As others have said, AmigaOS 4.1 requires AmigaOne, SAM 440 or Pegasos 2.  The upcoming AmigaOne X1000 will also run AmigaOS 4.x.

AmigaOS 4.0 (Classic Version) is available for Amiga 1200 equipped with BlizzardPPC expansion board.  You would have to purchase a BlizzardPPC expansion board.

Current price for AmigaOS 4.0 (Classic Version): £71.51 from amigakit.co.uk

I do not have an A1200 so I don't have any experience with this version of AmigaOS.

AmigaOS 4.0 July 2007 Update ran very nicely on my MicroA1 which has an IBM 750 GX PPC processor.

I am currently running AmigaOS 4.1 Update 2.

My recommendations ...

1)  A1200 ... I agree with Cammy.  "I would leave the A1200s in their original cases and just get a 8MB RAM card or 030 accelerator and run a nice 3.1 system packed full of games and clasic applications"

2) AmigaOS 4.1 ... If you are interested in AmigaOS 4.1, you will have to purchase hardware.
SAM 440 Flex is available now.  Advert says "Amiga X1000.  Coming Summer 2010."

IMHO ... Stay away from used AmigaOne or used MicroA1 hardware unless you know the person selling it.  These boards are no longer manufactured and are very expensive to repair.

BTW ... I am not against any of the other alternative "Amiga-like" systems.  There are many choices, including emulation.

---
redfox
MicroA1 + AmigaOS 4.1 Update 2

[Trev]

Hi I have what maybe a stupid question, what can I run Amigaos 4.1 on? I have a Intel i5 27" iMac, can I use Bootcamp and install on that? Or I have an AMD Athlon in the loft somewhere........

I've got a standard A1200 with internal hard drive with Workbench 3.1, which I did think about putting in a tower and upgrading - is it worth it?

Cheers

If you decide to upgrade your A1200, even slightly, be prepared. Your trip down the rabbit hole will require patience, coping skills, and an inordinate amount of disposable income.

AROS, on the other hand, is free, easy to test in a virtual machine, and will give you some idea of what a "real" modern Amiga will be like. AROS and AmigaOS 4.x are different, of course, but their Amiga-like annoyances are generally the same. If you still like the idea of using an Amiga-like operating system regularly after using AROS, and you want an "official" product, then AmigaOS 4.x and its pricey hardware may be right for you.

I'm not saying of this to be sarcastic. The nostalgia you probably feel for classic Amiga systems most likely won't hold up when using a modern Amiga-like system alongside current Mac and Windows offerings. Again, be prepared.

[LordSpunky]

Thanks for all your advice, I do long for my many years and late nights working on my Amiga's. I like the ideal of helping and supporting Amiga and keeping that dream alive, I think I'll have to go for a Amiga-like OS that I can run on my Mac/PC, and upgrade my A1200 a bit. Is there a limit on the 2.5" HDD I can use? And is it still PCMICA CD-Rom drives? I would like to be able to look at and print my old documents and programs, is networking possible also? Thanks again

[RussellB]

Your only real option for network support is a pcmica card which there is support for certain wired and wireless cards which will mean you will have to use an ide adaptor to use a cd-rom and hard drive off your internal ide port.  

If you are using OS3.0 or 3.1 the normal harddrive limit is 4 GB but it is possible use a patch to support larger harddrives.  If you use OS3.5 or 3.9 this patch is built in to support larger harddrives.

[Trev]

Thanks for all your advice, I do long for my many years and late nights working on my Amiga's. I like the ideal of helping and supporting Amiga and keeping that dream alive, I think I'll have to go for a Amiga-like OS that I can run on my Mac/PC, and upgrade my A1200 a bit. Is there a limit on the 2.5" HDD I can use? And is it still PCMICA CD-Rom drives? I would like to be able to look at and print my old documents and programs, is networking possible also? Thanks again

Under a vanilla OS 3.1 configuration, the limitations on storage are similar to MS-DOS: 2 GB partitions. The most popular storage solution for A600/A1200 systems today is a 44-pin IDE-CF adapter, allowing you use to use PIO mode CompactFlash cards instead of a 2.5" HDD. Unless you plan to store video or install every Amiga game ever produced, a 2 GB CF card will serve you well.

I'd suggest a combination of Phase5/DCE Blizzard 1230 Mk-IV accelerator and SCSI-IV adapter. The SCSI-IV adapter will allow you to connect a simple IDC26 to DB25 cable that's compatible with the 25-pin SCSI de facto standard introduced by Apple. You can then attach an external SCSI CD-ROM drive. Everyone wants a 1230 Mk-IV w/ SCSI-IV, however, so this is where that disposable income will come in handy. With these in hand, you can install AmigaOS 3.9, and the combination of accelerator and SCSI adapter will allow you to install up to 256 MB RAM. Like disk storage, however, you probably won't need that much.

Getting your A1200 physically connected to a network is simple. Most NE2000 compatible 16-bit PCMCIA Ethernet cards will work with cnet.device, a popular SANA-II device driver. Getting an IP stack running is not so simple. You'll need more than 2 MB RAM to be effective. See above.

Printing to most parallel port PostScript compatible printers should be pretty straightforward. Anything else could require extra software or hardware support.

Cammy and others have written much about building reasonably powerful and stable classic systems. Search the board for lots of good info.

[LordSpunky]

Cool thanks for advice, got out the a1200 for a play.....not alot of installed software or discs seem to work, then again this is the Escom A1200........I may have to change all the hardware over to my Commodore A1200 - or swap FDDs

[the_leander]

Cool thanks for advice, got out the a1200 for a play.....not alot of installed software or discs seem to work, then again this is the Escom A1200........I may have to change all the hardware over to my Commodore A1200 - or swap FDDs

Try running a cleaning disk a couple of times. However it might well be that the disks themselves are corrupted due to old age.

[Crumb]

keep your A1200 and add some fastram to it. If you are interested in nextgen Amigoid OSes try out MorphOS on a Mac Mini G4 or "icaros" on an x86 machine.

[hardlink]

Probably not, but "NEVER" is an absolute that should not be used, specially by someone who is not in control of what boards or CPU's AmigaOS4.x will be ported to in the future.

The current UAE emulates M68K to run AmigaOS <= 3.9; is anyone working on a PPC-UAE to run AmigaOS >= 4.0?

Edit: see PearPC:

 http://pearpc.sourceforge.net/

[jorkany]

Ah so my hopes are dashed ;(.....I assume then my old a1200 with some mods still wont run os4? Sorry for stupid questions need out of the Amiga loop for quite some time

OS4 is not a true AmigaOS, the company that makes it just has license to use the name "Amiga". So it won't run on a real Amiga system.