Yes, that is correct, but it is the intention of the OS4 Dev team to implement these features in the future.
Like the 3D system overhaul that has been dragging for years now? Or the inability to get even 8500/9100 3D working with the current system? The ATI card intended to be used with X1000 currently has only basic 2D support. It doesn't look too bright IMHO.
The migration to 64-bit and also multiple cores are very significant milestones so I think it's fair that a relatively small dev team with limited resources are going to take quite some time to pull it off. In the meantime, at least we'll have the necessary hardware to benefit from these features as and when they become available.
That somewhat reminds me of people getting earlybird setups to run Linux. I would never do that, get extremely expensive hardware to limp by with fraction of the HW capabilities.
It would be no good Hyperion releasing an update supporting dual core if nobody in the Amiga community had a dual core machine to use. This way they can target their development to a specific platform that they know will be in use by people interested in AmigaOS. I think this is the only realistic way they could move things forwards.
Well obviously they think that they can. I don't. The 64bit target will just splinter their platform even more. It already is split into small sections, for instance ones with Altivec and ones without. With such hideously expensive platform they'll be driving themselves into corner they can't back out of.
Well, if MorphOS is your main interest then you're already in a position to use good, cheap, second hand Mac hardware and as such you shouldn't be too disappointed that OS4 isn't going to run on it?
Correct, I am not disappointed. I know a lot of OS4 users are. It's evident enough looking at the reception the Mac mini leak got. It seems the conditioning has now worked though. The new mantra "2nd hand is evil, must have new hw" seems to have been conditioned into the minds of the remaining faithfuls.
It's clear to me that >£1500 for a system that runs OS4 isn't going to make much sense to you if your main interest is MorphOS and you've already bought some MAC hardware to run it on. That's fine. Good luck to MorphOS, I hope it runs very well on those machines and I hope people get a lot of fun out of it.
It runs great and I'm doing my best to make it run even better.
But, it seems to me that some people who promote MorphOS are a little disgruntled about the X1000 announcement because they don't want a situation where OS4 can be considered to be running on better hardware than MorphOS.
It would seem like that for some, yes.
Of course, nobody on the MorphOS side is going to admit to that, but it's certainly the impression I get from some people. I don't understand why, because as long as you're getting cheap MAC hardware to run your OS on (which, as you pointed out, the performance is not to be sneezed at - it's pretty damned good), then you should just be happy and content with that.
They're probably worried OS4 users are going for yet another "trap", whatever that means. Like they were warned of the problems of the Articia. Those warnings were blatantly ignored, while now it's an accepted fact that Articia was a major disaster. The whole quality issues of the original AmigaOne series were major contributing factor to failure of the project (yes, I consider it a failure: For instance manufacturer warranties weren't respected and the dealers were left to carry the burden. This isn't something that is recalled fondly among the dealers I can reassure you).
If other people are willing to pay >£1500 for the X1000 system to run OS4 on, and you don't want it anyway, then why should you feel the need to pour scorn on it?
I presume these people want to warn OS4 users about yet another such incident, quite possibly unwarranted.
I'm sure if it were the other way around (MorphOS guys getting a nice £1500 system to run their OS on) it would be some individuals on the AmigaOS side of the fence trying to down play it and ridicule it instead.
Quite possibly.
