Aos 3 -> aos 4

[commodorejohn]

Basically this: if I want something that will run on my A3000/040, OS4 isn't it. If I want an Amiga-like operating system that will run on PPC hardware that can be had cheaper than an Amiga PPC accelerator, OS4 isn't that, either. To run it, I'd need either a PPC accelerator (one of the most ridiculously expensive things you can buy for your Amiga,) or an OS4-supported custom PPC board (one of the other most ridiculously expensive things you can buy for your Amiga.)

And even if I already had those, there are a nice variety of OS options that don't involve shelling out a couple hundred bucks to one of the assorted shysters currently exploiting the Amiga name.

[commodorejohn]

The people who said they are okay with AmigaOS 3 and have no interest in AmigaOS 4 are using their machines for gaming and retro tinkering, not for modern tasks. AmigaOS 3 is just fine for their needs, since they have a laptop PC or Mac Desktop machine nearby to check their g-mail accounts, Facebook and YouTube.

But if use your Amiga for some professional task or want to use it for what is considered modern computing - e-mail, YouTube, Videos, MP3, emulation, c++ coding etc, AmigaOS 4 is a need, not luxury.

Hardly. More powerful hardware might be considered a need (though really, you can do a lot more with classic hardware than next-gen evangelists seem to think,) but OS4 is just one possible approach to utilizing it. Even if you're not the type to work a WB3.1 install into something more capable, PPC hardware opens up a much broader range of software options than just OS4 - there's also MorphOS, AROS, and Linux to consider, the latter two of which have the advantage of being free.

Edit 2: Gulliver - Of course I have no idea where you come from as your Avatar says nothing. But I would imagine other countries (if they haven't already) will be joining the UK and ditching all TV analogue broadcasts. "And they call it progress!"

Unfortunately, the US already has :/ You can still get a converter box, though.

[commodorejohn]

But if I want to use Amiga for better up to date tasks, the AmigaOS 4 offers me much more options than AmigaOS 3. And easier. That's it.

Eh, I still maintain that classic hardware is undervalued, but even so, OS4 is hardly the only option for more powerful hardware.

[commodorejohn]

One thing that I really wonder about when I read that PPC hardware are so expensive is, what did your Amiga cost when you bought it?

Basically spihunter got it right: that's pretty much irrelevant, as you're comparing the cost of prime computer hardware from the '80s-early '90s to middling computer hardware today. The relevant comparison for an attempt at a semi-modern system is other semi-modern systems, where custom "Amiga" PPC boards clearly don't compare, price-for-performance.

(That said, if you still want to draw that comparison: my A3000 cost me a couple hundred bucks with an 040 accelerator and NIC, plus another hundred for the RTG card. If I wanted to upgrade to a PPC-accelerated system, I'd have to shell out likely twice the total cost of the system for a Cyberstorm - or I could pay even more for a SAM board. Yes, my A3000 is far less powerful - but it's also far cheaper.)

That said, while I myself am not interested in OS4/MorphOS, I'm not in the "PPC is a dead platform and impossibly expensive" camp - there's perfectly workable PPC hardware that can be had affordably, it's just that it's PPC Macs, not Amiga accelerators or any of the existing custom boards. You can pay $100-200 and get a Power Mac G5 setup or a Mac Mini that will fly with Amiga PPC software, and will be significantly more cheap to expand if you want more capability. Problem for OS4 users is, OS4 doesn't run on Macs.

What I don't buy regarding the "it is two expensive" is when the same people upgrades their PC every 6 month, buy an iPhone, flatscreen TV etc etc etc.

I don't. I've been using my current laptop since early 2009 and will probably continue to use it for another year or so. My desktop is a Pentium 4 system I rescued from the recycle center. And I don't shell out for expensive TVs or smartphones. And I still say $1,000 for a 1GHz SAM with one freaking PCI slot is ridiculous.

[commodorejohn]

even the slowest one will be NEW and not old and because of it more stable. Also you get a new amiga experience that the old amigas can't give you in the same way.

So, the "trophy wife" approach, then?

[commodorejohn]

Umm, let me get this straight: People should expect to pay excessive amounts of money for inferior HW? Is that what "amiga experience" is about?

Let's see...AmigaOne, SAM, X1000, CUSA...yep, pretty much. (Well, I hear tell of some Amigas in the distant past that were groundbreaking, powerful, and affordably priced, but clearly that's just crazy talk.)

[commodorejohn]

If you think that MOS are doing any better because you can buy second hand hardware to run it on (and G4 macs aren't exactly top modern either) then you better think again.

What? That's absolutely the case. You can quite cheaply acquire Mac hardware that competes with basically any PPC Amigoid board except maybe the X1000, and stomps all of them into oblivion where price/performance is concerned. It's not even like there's a shortage - there's still tons of the things popping up on eBay and second-hand retail sites. G4/G5 Macs might not be all that great compared to new PC hardware, but if you want PPC hardware, you can hardly do any better (at least now that the PS3's OtherOS option is gone.)

What's the plan from the MOS developers? To port it over to x86 hardware and meanwhile port it to macs? Otherwise I don't know what you're doing.

One can assume that if PPC hardware fails completely AOS 4 will get ported over to x86, it's allready been mention by, I think it was H-J Frieden. But really, why not enjoy what's available now?

This is true, but it hardly helps your point - OS4 is just as tied to the PPC architecture as MOS, but is confined to an even narrower range of hardware. If you really think PPC is a dead end, why the hell would you pay that kind of money for a machine you think is going to be useless in the near future?

Macs gives you that but for how long?

Case in point. Yes, PPC Macs are going to be dead and gone eventually - but so are the OS4 specialty boards.

[commodorejohn]

The thing is that my amigaone hasn't been useless and still isn't. I  can't help what you're thinking but maybe your thinking is the whole  issue? Regarding tied to, the one of the Friedens wrote that it would  take them about two weeks to do the inital port to x86 hardware and I  don't remember how many months for it to be usable. Now they don't make  false statements, at least none that I've read during all those years so  I believe it's true. I paid that kind of money because my a4k was  coming to an end and I wanted to continue using AOS. Guess what, I  haven't regreted that for a second. Maybe if you had something to run it  on you would know?

Maybe I would, but as an accelerator for my 3000 will set me back a half-grand easy, and a dedicated board will be quite a bit more than that, I'm not that motivated to find out. Maybe at some point when I've nabbed a cheap PPC Mac I'll give MorphOS a try, instead.

[commodorejohn]

Someone manufactures PPC Mac clones? Probably Dave Haynie still have his Mac clone schematics so he will bring them on the market. Until this happens, the new Amiga hardware is getting developed all the time (including the Natami).

You do realize the Mac is entirely a software system, right? That's the whole reason they've managed two architecture changes and one massive ROM alteration so effortlessly, and the whole reason ShapeShifter works. Basically any PPC hardware could be made to run Mac OS 8-X with some modification, or more likely, another OS with a simple compatibility layer for Mac applications.

Probably at some point China will be forced to abide by copyright :lol:

Hah, not as long as we're so dependent on them for cheap manufactured goods, they won't

[commodorejohn]

If this was true then MorphOS and AmigaOS would have been ported to PPC Macs overnight. The fact that it took so much time to the Morphosians to port their OS to Mac, either conflicts your theory or speaks about the capabilities of the MOS coders.

I'm speaking of the Mac operating system. Mac applications have always been entirely dependent on defined system calls (aside from a few badly-behaved programs that wrote to the hardware in the early days,) therefore all that needs to happen for a computer on the same processor architecture is for that computer to respond to those system calls in the defined way, via an intermediary compatibility layer that translates them into suitable requests for the native OS.

Porting an existing OS to new hardware is an entirely different kettle of fish - you have to figure out how to interface with the hardware and whatever it has in the way of a BIOS (no small task, especially when the hardware in question is as proprietary and undocumented as Apple's - they don't even use standard form factors, for crying out loud.)

[commodorejohn]

I think a couple of things, like the WinUAE titlebar and the fact that you'd be most likely running it on a PC might just be a wee bit of a giveaway...

You could tape an "Amiga" banner to the top of the monitor, but unfortunately CUSA has the patent on that

[commodorejohn]

Then I just have to ask, if you're not interested why do you bother writing so many replys to anything I say? This whole statement is redicioulus. You can't get a "dedicated" board but you can get a mac and... okeeeey... good point

Uh...I'm replying because you asked WB3 users (i.e. me) why we didn't upgrade to OS4, and I was explaining, and yet it seems that you either can't understand or won't accept my explanation: OS4 is too freaking expensive. I'm not paying $600 for an accelerator or $1100 for a dedicated board plus $200 for a copy of the OS because that is way more money than I'm willing to pay for a retro OS - and if I want a modern OS, I can use Windows XP or Linux, both of which are far more capable and run on hardware that is massively cheaper.

And yes, I can get a Mac - because they're nowhere near as expensive. I can get a G5 Power Mac for $50-200 that will stomp any $500+ Amiga PPC accelerator or $1000 custom board flat where performance is concerned and be significantly more expandable. And maybe it won't run OS4, but it will run MorphOS, OSX, AROS, or Linux (hint: the last two there are free, which is about $150-200 less than OS4 costs.)

If I want oldschool Amiga goodness, I can have it affordably with a 68k machine and WB3.1. If I want PPC computing, for whatever reason, I can have it affordably with a Mac and a free OS. If I want cheap, powerful computing and don't care what platform it's on, I can get an x86 PC. OS4 does not offer improvements on any of those fronts significant enough to justify the amount of money it requires.

[commodorejohn]

Because it apparently took this many replies for you to grasp that.

[commodorejohn]

Or rather that it took you ten attempts to write an answer? I didn't ask you ten times now I?

No, but you did give me ten replies each indicating that you either misunderstood or just plain ignored half my points - therefore, I attempted to restate them, and apparently it took ten successive refinements of my argument before you couldn't not understand what I was saying...

[commodorejohn]

I hope some developers make a new m68k microprocessor. I still like single-core CISC. :hammer:

Me too 68k might not be up to modern standards these days, but it's still a lot of fun to code for.