Amiga.org
Amiga News and Community Announcements => Amiga News and Community Announcements => Amiga Software News => Topic started by: Kees on October 13, 2003, 11:30:29 AM
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You can find a new screenshot of AmigaOS4 running AmIRC here (http://www3.telus.net/NeRP/OS4_on_A1.png) ...
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Great.......looks very pro!!
Still I just don't like those drawers behind every icon.....remove that and you could have some nice icons.....and it's also a bit too greyish for me.
But great work Hype!! :-o
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Mmmm. Pretty.
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Looking good...and nice to see the AOne online allready. It seems that they are making good progress.
Does anyone officially know if there are going to be new icons for OS4 (drawers,...). Or are they going to wait until the icon system is reworked (which seems logical to me) in another OS release (4.1...).
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When you say 'icon system', do you just mean how the icons look? Why not just have that as part of a themes system, then Hyperion could release a couple of extras, then let the community do the rest.
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When you say 'icon system', do you just mean how the icons look? Why not just have that as part of a themes system, then Hyperion could release a couple of extras, then let the community do the rest.
No, i think they are going to rewrite the system how the icons work (to allow for more colors and stuff like that) in a later release. So maybe it's not worth drawing a complete icon set now but instead wait until the new icon system is done?
It think that OS4 would look really cool with a new set of icons though.
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a what? ..
do you mean "256 pens" problem in workbench ? , this is for a later update and will be still limited to 256 in os4.0!!
so icons will be indentical to what we have now in 3.0/1/5/9.
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You gotta walk before you can run, and it looks like Hyperion is walking in full stride now, good show!
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Look very neat! I'm completely falling in love with the old-school-looking (which I guess will be the default look) GUI of AMiGA OS 4.0.
Concerning the icons... the only thing I really dislike with the deafult GlowIcons-look is the, to me, extremely annoying "fading into a gray background"-aura surrounding the icons. They look really bad on any other background than gray... one really simple sollution to this would be to make a small black outline surrounding all of the icons... it's pretty common use everywhere else.
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The graphix system, which is currently p96, in OS4, is being given an overhaul. That is, the AG2 system that fleesy has talked about will be put into it. The things like a new workbench, or updated one and a new icon system can take advantage of the new graphix system. :) I believe this is correct. This may be planned for 4.1, but we'll prolly see all that in 4.2 and more.
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Looking good...
However, its been a while since I've played with an Amiga (my 266mhz PC is too slow for UAE really and all of my "classic" hardware is dead or an A500Plus).
Anyway, last time I looked, MUI only added two icons to the top right of windows - iconise and the little drop-down menu. But AmIRC appears to have seven icons in the top right of its windows! Yes, thats right, SEVEN!
Now that strikes me as being just a little bit OTT, silly and perhaps more than a little confusing. In fact it stinks of bad design (IMO). Surely it only needs a few of those at most? Please tell me some of those are optional and can be hidden in the drop-down menu?
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As far as I know, it's all configurable. I just have the drop-down menu in addition to the basic 2.
Stimpy
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Forgive me for peeing on everyone's parade, but is running AmIRC such a big thing? I'd expect it as a given, and be extremely unimpressed if it didn't work on OS4, being a standard (if heavily customised) MUI app. I suppose it could be shown as a progress marker of OS4, but it's still not so impressive considering it's competitor was running AmIRC almost four years ago...
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@ KennyR
No, it's not such a big thing, hence no-one making a big thing out of it. It's another OS4 screenshot.
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Regarding the icons:
I seem to remember Ben saying he would like to move to.. I think he said vector icons, or something on those lines because bitmaps will appear too small on big resolutions. I don't think the number of colours will change for a little while but at least we're not still on the original 4 colour icons :-P So yes, I believe the icon system is going to move on, just not in the first OS4 release.
Each icon atm can have upto 256 colours &, correct me if I'm wrong anybody, these can be independant for each icon can't they? That should be enough for any self respecting icon.
On to the image... What a beauty! Everything just looks sharp, the 'default' GUI look is comin on very nicely. Not many complaints about that lately.
As ever, I'm just really looking forward to OS4.
Time for my entry into the os.community thing me thinks.
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KennyR:
Forgive me for peeing on everyone's parade,
you got this thing about peeing, don't cha?
:lol:
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Looks good.We need a decent web browser now. :-)
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Yeah, tell me about it. :-(
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Does anyone know where the Mouse Pointer is in the screen shot?
Or is this running on a cyberstorm, and the Mouse Pointer an Amiga Sprite so not part of the screen image?
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Still I just don't like those drawers behind every icon
Eh? The drawers are there to indicate that these are icons for drawers (or directories). Would you rather not know whether you are clicking on a program or a directory? The Amiga icon system is quite nice in that you can do anything you want , give different directories different icons, give pictures thumbnail icons... but this can also be bad as you can give programs drawer-style icons and vice-versa which just serves to confuse things. If you don't like the icons, change them.
@FuZion
Vector icons sound like a logical step up. Shame my structured drawing skills are even worse than my bitmap art skills :-(
Chris
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Each icon atm can have upto 256 colours &, correct me if I'm wrong anybody, these can be independant for each icon can't they? That should be enough for any self respecting icon.
While this is partly true you are missing one fact. While each icon can have its own palette of 256 colors, an icon with a total of 256 colors in the palette will take up all of the available pens of the workbench. If you have two icons each with 256 colors in them both with different colors on the same workbench you will get a generalized dithered color for each of the icons. That means you cannot have a unique palette for each icon unless you want to take away the available pens from the workbench.
I reworked all of the icons that came with OS3.5 and OS3.9 to remove the god aweful shadows and corrected the palette while replacing some of the uglier default icons with ones that fit better into the OS. I usually have 218 pens available regardless of how many drawers I have open and the icons still look fairly decent. I started with 234 icons in my pack of icons and have expanded it to over 500 something at last count. The pack of icons uses the same color constraints as those found in the glowicons set. If you want them, you can find them online at my web site in the Amiga section. I need to update the archives though to add in the new collection I have.
:pint:
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Regarding the icon system. Last I heard they were looking to allow a way to attach icons to executable files. They were also looking to set up the default icons as an archive so you could change the entire set of defaults out with one file or setting. At least that is the last I heard.
:pint:
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Dude, That's what the Port-a-Johns are for.
Looks like Roadshow is there, integrated I guess or is this old news. Yup, noone complains when things look to be going good.
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@Kenny
This shot was more to show that the onboard ethernet was working with roadshow than anything else, I think.
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86.7MB OS install? Seems excessive.
The RAM readout is confusing too.
Having said that, it's looking better all the time.
Can I have a copy for Christmas please? :-D
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@Bloodline:
Or is this running on a cyberstorm
It says PPC750, so I doubt it.
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@bloodline: The filename "OS4_on_A1.png" gives it away a bit :o)
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"Forgive me for peeing on everyone's parade, but is running AmIRC such a big thing?"
I think that it is showing OS 4 running on a A1 on internet, I think that is the intent of the screen shot and not so much as running AmIRC?
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Xeron wrote:
This shot was more to show that the onboard ethernet was working with roadshow than anything else, I think.
Ok, I didn't realise that. Maybe Kees could have put that in the original news item?
/deflectblame
;-)
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I think it's pretty good looking (nice blue colors and all :-P). Except perhaps from the Icons that doesn't fit in with the new, fresh look.
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It says PPC750, so I doubt it.
Plus the ID for the Agnus and Denise chips are NULL.
At any rate, it's good to see it online, and I must admit this new GUI looks rather slick. I love the gradients and I find the grey look gives it a more professional look.
I agree with the above post about the icons though, they do seem a bit out of place, but it's forgivable (for now).
- Mike
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86.7MB OS install? Seems excessive.
I'm sure there are other things installed as well, and maybe a few things in that "downloads" folder. I read recently that the first OS4 showing on the A1 were using only around 40-45MB installs.
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I don't think that's all OS. AmiIRC is running so it has to be on that partiition somewhere. Not to mentiong the Internet drawer probably has more than just AmiIRC. Then there is the Download drawer and what ever is hidden by the top window.
Windows along ate up my 4 gig drive on my last computer. Yes, just Windows XP nothing else. Scary.
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While this is partly true you are missing one fact. While each icon can have its own palette of 256 colors, an icon with a total of 256 colors in the palette will take up all of the available pens of the workbench. If you have two icons each with 256 colors in them both with different colors on the same workbench you will get a generalized dithered color for each of the icons. That means you cannot have a unique palette for each icon unless you want to take away the available pens from the workbench.
Does this mean that the, I take it, icon.library doesn't find colours that are being used but 'steels pens'? So, even on a 24bit screen, which in my calculation has the potential to display 16.7 million colours, the icons would take colours away from the rest of the gfx system?
Is it me, or is that an odd way of doing it. Maybe that's one of the reasons they want the icon system replaced...
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The AmigaOS pen sharing scheme works like this...
Screens have an associated colourmap, which applications can make use of. When they want to display an image, they go through all the colours needed to display the image, and request a pen for each one. They can do this two ways.
One way (which hopefully nothing that expects to open on the workbench screen uses) is to call ObtainPen(). This grants exclusive access to a pen to an application, and that app can modify the colour of the pen to whatever it wants.
The other way (which the icon system uses) is called pen sharing. The app calls ObtainBestPen() with the colour that you need. The graphics library goes through all the currently used shared pens to see if any of them are close enough to the desired colour (the app can specify how close the pen has to be to count as a match. This is what the "Best/Good/Bad" cycle gadget in WB prefs changes). If no pens are close enough, it will use a new pen, change it to the desired colour and tell the app it can use the pen. If another app wants a similar colour, it can share that pen.
So, if you have two 16 colour icons that have totally different palettes, they could in theory steal 32 pens. However, if all your icons share the same palette, they all use the same pens.
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Is it me, or is that an odd way of doing it. Maybe that's one of the reasons they want the icon system replaced...
Oh how easily we forget the days of 8 bit graphics and color look up tables! :-)
Back in those days the Amiga system was never designed to work in a 24bit graphics system. Back then we had 256 colors tops - and damn it, we liked it! :-D
If I'm not mistaken, anything could "steel" (also known as locking) pens or colors on the WB screen. The backdrop image for example could also use up some of those colours, and the system would always lock the colors needed for window outlines and text. Considering the limitations, this was indeed a pretty clever way to display images on screen where the colors available (or even the number of colors to choose from) are undefined and completely arbitrary.
Unfortunately it doesn't make much sense once you get into the TrueColor, non-mapped GFX world. Of course it's no secret that all TrueColor GFX solutions for the Amiga are nothing more then really well thought out hacks, and for the most part work seamlessly, but there are times when the Amiga's 8 bit GFX past comes back to haunt us! :-)
Anyway, I would expect all this to be ironed out with time.
- Mike
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>86.7MB OS install? Seems excessive.
Quake is installed, and the Quake pak files are rather big...
Pak0 = 18689235 bytes
Pak1 = 34257856 bytes
That's not including the quake executable or any of the other demos I have installed, so that explains almost 53 megs of HD space gone :-)
Then there is the downloads drawer.... :-)
For everyone else, I want to make it clear that the screenshot was not to demo AmIRC, but to show that the AmigaOne is online and working well via ethernet.
The machine itself is an AmigaOneXE G4, and can be found here:
http://www3.telus.net/NeRP/amigaone.html (http://www3.telus.net/NeRP/amigaone.html)
Edit by Kees - Link added
Someone else mentioned the excessive amount of MUI icons on the Amirc windows. Yes, I don't like them either, but this is a demo machine, so I leave the system as I got it, no changing anything :-)
You can change these icons now on your Amiga install by going to the MUI prefs, then on the Windows tab. On the right you will see a heading called "gadgets", that is where you can turn them all on or off. I prefer to have the one downward pointing triangle gadget only, as it is a pulldown menu that gives you the all the options of all the other gadgets :-)
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Or is this running on a cyberstorm, and the Mouse Pointer an Amiga Sprite so not part of the screen image?
A CyberStorm with a 750FX ;-)
No, it's a Voodoo screen, with a hardware cursor, hence you don't see it on the shot.
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86.7MB OS install? Seems excessive.
What makes you think that this is only OS? Maybe NeRP likes to play Quake ;-)
The RAM readout is confusing too.
That's workbench for you. We really need to update that.
Having said that, it's looking better all the time.
Thanks :-D
Can I have a copy for Christmas please?
I'll see what we can do...
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Someone else mentioned the excessive amount of MUI icons on the Amirc windows. Yes, I don't like them either, but this is a demo machine, so I leave the system as I got it, no changing anything
Well well, if it isn't my good old buddy NeRP! So, that was YOUR machine the shots were taken from?!? The News article doesn't say much about the origins of this screenshot... could ya fill us in on it, and how you got your little hooves on a copy of OS4?!? ;-)
- Mike
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Still I just don't like those drawers behind every icon.....remove that and you could have some nice icons....
Ahem... They have drawers behind them because they are drawers. You do know that non-Drawer file system elements don't hve drawers behind them, and the "icon" in front of them is a visual to tell you what is in it, right?
What? You want generic "folders" like every other OS uses?
"Workbench"
"Drawers"
"Tools"
"Projects"
;-)
Sounds to me like you've stuff to work on that you want to do..
"Desktop"
"Folders"
"Files"
"Data"
Bah! Work... No thanks. My home computer is for my enjoyment.
I personaly rather like the Glow Icons (and "alikes") sets. You don't HAVE to use them, if you don't like them. Hell use 1.3 icons if you want. :-D
Sorry, but it seemed a silly complaint on a "news" bit that was nothing but positive... And I don't see how anyone can dislike Glow Icons. :-) They certainly look a far cry better than what comes w/ a typical Windows app, IMO. In fact I've spent alot of time making my Wintel desktop look as OS4 as possible... Using this (http://www.themexp.org/view_info.php?id=21801) and replacing alot of my Windows icons w/ Glow Icons converted from my A4000. :-)
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87 MB isn't that bad when you consider the download folder is full of pr0n :-D
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87 MB isn't that bad when you consider the download folder is full of pr0n
It's all Amiga pr0n, honest!
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Well well, if it isn't my good old buddy NeRP! So, that was YOUR machine the shots were taken from?!? The News article doesn't say much about the origins of this screenshot... could ya fill us in on it, and how you got your little hooves on a copy of OS4?!?
Yes, that screenshot was taken from one of the two AmigaOne XE machines that are here at the moment.
As for the origins of the screenshot, I'm running an alpha release of OS4 for the AmigaOne, and got an alpha ethernet driver from Adam Kowalczyk, and finally got permission from Ben Hermans to post the screenshot :)
How did I get my hooves on it? Well first lets establish that it's probably a fact that I have not just a horseshoe up my ass, but a full barn of horses with horseshoes intact :-)
Second, it's important to note that I did not ask for it. It was offered to me, and after a week of thought I finally decided that maybe I might want to try if I've got enough time and there wasn't anything good to watch on TV :-) (YEAH RIGHT!)
Right place at the right time, I suppose.
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What defines a modern OS today is its support for Unicode, FreeType and font antialiasing. Glad to see AOS4 following the path of MorphOS in those domains.
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Not that your comment is worth answering, but lets just remember that MorphOS is a clone of AmigaOS, not the other way around.
AmigaOS is not following MorphOS anymore than it is following WindowsXP.
This thread is about AmigaOS, not MorphOS, leave comments like this at the door.
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Great! Now when can we have it running on our desktop? :-D
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Nice screenshot, especially the IRC channel in the front window ;-)
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@kidice
regarding the drawer icons....sorry I didn't explain myself properly....I'll do another try:
I think that the icons themselves looks confusing, and I honestly don't care if the "prefs" drawer is a "drawer".....it should rather use an prefslike symbol instead of a drawer symbol to reflect the stuff inside.
As it looks now, we have a lot of ugly looking purple/blueish drawers taking all the attention, and that's not very intuitive for the unexperienced user. The only thing telling what's inside is a small symbol put on each drawer.......it should be the other way round......a small drawer with a big symbol integrated.
As it looks right now I just see a lot of drawers.....not very pretty ones! - I would love to see the system icons being a reflection of the very practical and speedy OS AmigaOS is. I just don't think these icons give me that impression!
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Quote:
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Or is this running on a cyberstorm, and the Mouse Pointer an Amiga Sprite so not part of the screen image?
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A CyberStorm with a 750FX
No, it's a Voodoo screen, with a hardware cursor, hence you don't see it on the shot.
Does that mean it's a nasty two colour, gem clone mouse pointer?
I hope you allow the use of the good old AmigaOS 2.0 mouse pointer, all my boxes use that pointer, except my Linux box, because I can't figure out how to change the mouse pointer in that...
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@Rogue:
What makes you think that this is only OS?
Sorry, my mistake - I'm used to seeing the OS pretty much in it's own partition.
Quote:
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Can I have a copy for Christmas please?
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I'll see what we can do...
Sweet.
Dang - just realised I'll have to get a new case and gfx card. :-D
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Heh. I just took your avatar for my X pointer in Linux :-)
jpegtopnm 795.jpg | ppmtopgm | pgmtopbm | pbmtoxbm >matt.pointer
cp matt.pointer matt.mask
bitmap matt.mask (hit "set" and "file->save", "file->quit")
xsetroot -cursor matt.pointer matt.mask
voila.
Too bad applications and window managers override it, so it's only when the pointer is on the background :-)
But she's still a gorgeous babe even in black/white..
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Does that mean it's a nasty two colour, gem clone mouse pointer?
Of course, and it glows in the dark! Especially when Orcs are near ;-)
I hope you allow the use of the good old AmigaOS 2.0 mouse pointer, all my boxes use that pointer, except my Linux box, because I can't figure out how to change the mouse pointer in that...
The default is still the OS 3.x pointer, but I think we'll include a set of new pointers at well. I personally use the BeOS hand pointer, but I guess tastes are different (speaking of which, I think that a Retro-OS 1.2 theme for OS 4 would be killer ;-) )
You actually *can* change the pointer under X with XF86 4.3 (guess what I am using the BeOS hand pointer there, too ;-))
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Hi, Rogue...
What makes you think that this is only OS? Maybe NeRP likes to play Quake
What is the space needed for OS4 at moment ?
That's workbench for you. We really need to update that.
When is scheduled this update ?
Having said that, it's looking better all the time.
I agree... :-o
I'll see what we can do...
It's a promise ? ;-)
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(speaking of which, I think that a Retro-OS 1.2 theme for OS 4 would be killer )
:-D Have you been reading the #AROS irc logs?
Note: To those who don't know, I want an AOS1.3 theme for AROS :-)
You actually *can* change the pointer under X with XF86 4.3 (guess what I am using the BeOS hand pointer there, too )
Really? Hmmm, maybe I should read the Fcuking manual... Will KDE over ride my pointer? Actually, I might have to update my X... mine is several months old...
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Of course, and it glows in the dark! Especially when Orcs are near ;-)
That would be so cool - an operating system that notifies you by changing the pointer colour that your boss is near :-)
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Of course, and it glows in the dark! Especially when Orcs are near
Hmm, I would have though it handier if it activated on Trolls. :-D
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Oh dear.....I forgot myself and tried clicking on the screenshot! :-D
NIce work to all involved.
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Oh dear.....I forgot myself and tried clicking on the screenshot!
I've done that before :-)
A piece of advice, don't make a screenshot into wallpaper.
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What is the space needed for OS4 at moment ?
I managed to fit a more or less usable system onto an 8 meg ramdisk. That included the complete workbench setup plus prefs editors, a backdrop picture, Tools and Utilities drawers, a set of Truetype fonts, but no "real" app.
A typical installation with all the stuff on it should be about 15 megabytes. That would include everything from a standard OS 4 workbench but still no apps.
When is scheduled this update ?
Things like the memory display should be updated for the final OS 4.0 release, this should also include bugfixes and the like. We've scheduled a complete rewrite of Workbench for 4.1.
It's a promise ?
Did it sound like one ? I don't think it does :-) It's just a promise to for the best effort - there's too much that is out of my reach...
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Have you been reading the #AROS irc logs?
Note: To those who don't know, I want an AOS1.3 theme for AROS
Actually, I didn't, but it somewhat comes naturally, doesn't it, when you started out on that :-) I mean, I can still remember when I first saw the Amiga 1000 standing in a local computer store - blue background, white window borders, orange highlite color. It was so breathtaking that it burned itself deeply into my memory.
Sigh. It was a dream machine in all aspects. All those Pentium4-Kiddies today cannot possibly imagine that :-D
Really? Hmmm, maybe I should read the Fcuking manual... Will KDE over ride my pointer? Actually, I might have to update my X... mine is several months old...
Yes, you need the latest XFree86 4.3.0. My KDE installation has a ~/.icons drawer with mouse pointer themes inside, and it will automatically use them. See the KDE Themes site (http://themes.kde.org/).
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hmm :D
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Actually, I didn't, but it somewhat comes naturally, doesn't it, when you started out on that I mean, I can still remember when I first saw the Amiga 1000 standing in a local computer store - blue background, white window borders, orange highlite color. It was so breathtaking that it burned itself deeply into my memory.
Yup, I still think the AmigaOS 1.3 was the best looking OS ever (eat your heart out MacOSX)... we seem to be quite alone on this issue though. All my fellow AROS devs think I'm crazy :-) ...
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Rogue wrote...
I managed to fit a more or less usable system onto an 8 meg ramdisk.
:-o :-o :-o
We've scheduled a complete rewrite of Workbench for 4.1
What will be changed ? The new wb will still have the "Amiga heritage" ?
It's just a promise to for the best effort - there's too much that is out of my reach...
|Me| has crossed fingers... :-D
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Yup, I still think the AmigaOS 1.3 was the best looking OS ever (eat your heart out MacOSX)... we seem to be quite alone on this issue though.
Hmm, now that you mention it... I bet an Aqua-ish (MacOS X candy/glass) GUI with gadget/winborder design and colour scheme copied from AOS 1.3 wouldn't totally suck!
OS1.3, and Just add water! (TM)
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Rogue wrote this dogma...
Sigh. It was a dream machine in all aspects. All those Pentium4-Kiddies today cannot possibly imagine that
:cry: :cry: :cry:
Our minds are on the same frequency... 8-)
That were big times... really.
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@Rogue & Zorro,
There was an "Ask Slashdot" (http://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/10/14/010224&mode=nested&tid=126&tid=137) yesterday, asking the readers what the oldest hardware is that they're still using. People are replying with things like "GeForce2 MX400"...
:P
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@NeRP
That is a fine looking screenshot. (http://amiga.org/images/subject/icon14.gif)
@Rogue
No complaints here. From where I sit AmigaOS4 is looking mighty fine indeed. :-D
---------------
redfox
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Seehund wrote...
There was an "Ask Slashdot" yesterday, asking the readers what the oldest hardware is that they're still using. People are replying with things like "GeForce2 MX400"...
:-( :-o :-?
This is depressing, indeed...
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People are replying with things like "GeForce2 MX400"...
Just goes to show...
I recently dug out my old trusty A2000 which I bought from the last money I got for my millitary service in 1989, and tried to power it up again. Much to my surprise, in spite of tons of dust and an always-shaky ram socket on the 2060, it still worked...
That's what I call quality ;-)
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I recently dug out my old trusty A2000 which I bought from the last money I got for my millitary service in 1989, and tried to power it up again. Much to my surprise, in spite of tons of dust and an always-shaky ram socket on the 2060, it still worked...
That's what I call quality
I don't believe you!!! I'll tell you what, you send it to my place so I can varify your claims*
*Thinly vailed attempt to get an A2000 ;-)
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I don't believe you!!! I'll tell you what, you send it to my place so I can varify your claims*
Nice try ;-)
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Hi Rogue,
it still worked...
It will work forever...
...it's an Amiga !!!
That's what I call quality
Say it LOUD !!! :-D