As always, this topic copletely blew up once it was started. But, reading it this time got me thinking. Now hear me out on this...what if there was a way to make a sort of IDE and /or SATA "dongle" for AOS4 that you could buy with it to allow OS4 (if ported to say the Mac hardware) to have:
1. The ability to boot off an AmigaOS bootable CD/DVD
2. An "Early Startup" menu
3. The ability to boot OS4 from a harddrive in the system.
4. The ability to detect other partitions/drives for easy dual booting of MacOS X, or Linux for PPC.
Say it was something like a 3.5in drive form factor, with some small amount of hardware and the Amiga protected "rom" onboard that would only allow you to launch AmigaOS from any device IF this dongle was installed. This would / could allow Amiga and H&P the "security" against piracy that they want without having to have a custom A1 motherboard to buy. Certainly it would be cheaper to build and buy this small device with OS4 than to go out and get a full A1 when I already have a solid and speedy G5 Mac. The device could be completely sealed (as in a solid block) so that tampering would be difficult, and the ability to flash it could be locked out unless you have a specific program to upload a protected rom update to it. (Heck, it could even have like 512 meg - 1gig of "unprotected space" for a speedy flash drive to boot off of as a system drive - but I would like the ability to use OS4 first and foremost.)
I dunno...thinking about it, it sounds nice to me to think that then I could actually buy and support Amiga / H&P with my current setup, not to mention in a 2.5in form it could be used (possibly depending on size) in something like a Mac Mini. This would keep H&P from having to support so many different x86 motherboards and hardware, but still allow a cheaper jump into the Amiga again with hardware that out classes the AmigaONE already. Its just an idea. :-D (and I have nothing against the x86 or the AmigaONE - My PC sits next to my Mac, and I only wish I could afford an A1)
