I'm new

[TheJackal]

Hi,
   Well the title says it all! :-D

I have an A1200 shoved into a tower with a PPC card, (blizzard?? I cant quite remember) with a 68040@33/44Mhz??? and 46MB of ram + 4GB HD.

Anyhow the sad fact was just after I shoved it into a tower, I stopped using it. This was due to my job as a programmer (games) been more PC centric. After all I think we can all admit the Amiga went a "bit south" in the mid-late 90's  :-(

Now I I keep "touching base" every so often and it *seems* something might be happening to pull Amiga out of the pits, namely OS4 running on hardware other than classical Amigas.

So in the future when OS4 get released and some easy to use hardware, (i.e. out-of-the-box install OS and away you go), I'd consider wasting some of my money on such a system. (waste as in hobby etc).

However I'd like to know what specs I can expect? I don't expect a HalfLife2 @60fps type machine, but something that can do nice resolutions (1024x768x32bit @60hz or better). Since when I turn on my A1200T once in a blue moon the low res(640x512) make my eyes bleed  :-D

Also been a programmer I was wonder will there be available good c/c++ compilers/ide's along with OS4 /gfx sdk? I find nothing more annoying than command line tools that are "cryptic" to use. (I have had to use many in my line of work on consoles). A simple nice IDE and compiler that isnt to expensive coupled with clear sdk documentation would encorage many people to at least "dabble" in the Amiga. (assuming the hardware isnt exorbiantly expensive!)

Oh and why are the OS4 screenshots so but ugly? If I could make scheme up who could I send it to? (I dont have any web space of my own).

Thanks for listening (well reading :-D) to my mad ramblings. The Amiga has special memories for me, lets hope the OS4+ can regain what has been lost.

Thanks
Mark.

PS: How/where do you upload avitars to.

[TheJackal]

Since OS4 supports the ATI Radeon, I'd expect that kind of resolution and up.

Good to hear, and since you can get those cards quite cheap, double yay!

Click on View your account at the upper left corner of the screen. You have the option of uploading your avatar in there!

Lhlhmldml (me making spadick sound) silly me, should use my eyes more often!  :-D I used one of my own drawings that I did years ago in Dpaint5 :-P

Huh? I think the recent ones look great. In fact, I stole some of the design for my A4000s OS3.9 workbench.

Actually that one looks fine, it was some others I saw that where, "OMG, my eyes, save my eyes dear lord"  :-D

There are rumours of the StormC IDE being ported to OS4. Actually confirmed are native ports of GCC and VBCC. The OS4 GCC port is supposed to be much easier to set up, use and maintain than the geek gadgets environment.

Well an easy way in the mean time would be to do what happens for developing for PS2/Xbox/etc. You use the PC (ducks for sharp objects been thrown!) and MSDev, all that you need is to supply a compiler that will integrate with it. Then compile the program, and download the resulting binaries to the Amiga.

Oh and when is directx going to be supported  :-D  (thats a joke btw!)

[TheJackal]

Hi, thanks for the replies guys.

I don't wish to put AROS down, as I think its a great project, but why would it be suited to a games dev? Does it have 3D acceleration yet? USB joypad/racing wheel/joystick support?

Well I doubt I'd be writting games if anything it would be tools, apps. Dunno really, probably just mess around. Since to develop any reasonable game you need *alot* of resources. (artists, asset tools, time :-) )

I just want to point that there is an alternative to the OS4. As you
are "back" you may don't know it.

There is MorphOS and the Pegasos.
But what's that ??!!!
...

I gather there are different factions that have gone their own way, and of course the ensuing "Mines better than yours" stuff happens. I can't comment on which is best/value for money etc.  However OS4 if it turns out all right might reunite, I dunno. I'm still waiting and seeing at the moment!

I hope to have been clear.
About 3D gaming: Well, would be nice to play to HL2! Give me the
sources and I spent all my time night and day to port it !!!

Steady! you dont want to end up coding it from a prison cell! :-D


What I wonder about is all the support apps users expect of a modern computer system. PDF/AVI/.. viewers, printer support, usb 2, calculator, internet  and so on. I hope

Oh I've knocked up a picture of what I think would be a nice colour scheme for WB.  Would it be ok to stick it in "Image-o-Matic"? Or would that be considered rude?

Final though: What we need is not OS4, but OS-9000, and the cool sound effects to go with it:-D.

[TheJackal]

I see you're in the UK. Well, we're organising an OS4 on tour date in a month or so, where you can come along and try it for yourself. That is, if you can get down to the south west...

I might if work commitments don't clash. (assuming when you say south west its not lands end!)  Besides people in the south are weird! :crazy: (i.e. Get of my land, in a farmers accent)

Is the AmigaOne and such like, off the shelf components, and thus the OS(s) are platform independant? If so this is a good move, of course I feel sad the custom chips have had their day, but IMHO it was the OS that made the Amiga.