OS4 moves to x86. What happens next?

[Buzzfuzz]

1: Time and money required to port the operating system. I have absolutely zero idea how long this would take, but I am assuming it'd be a pretty significant endeavour.

It all depends on who is doing it and with how many people, money will be quite some, but most will be licenses and patents surrounding x86.
 

2: Time and money required to port applications. Without app's, an OS is worthless.

Like said, most apps are ready for x86 and the ones that aren't shouldn't be that hard to convert.
 

3: Oh hey there AROS! What functionality does os4 give that AROS doesn't ?

Ability to run on new hardware, but that is just a driver issue, can be done for AROS also.
 

4: Most overlooked:
Hardware support.
AROS has been around for years and still supports a fairly limited range of hardware.
When it comes to hardware there's two options: The linux way (support it all in the kernel, which requires massive amounts of work from a large number of people) or the windows way (have the hardware manufacturer write drivers for you).
OS4 would have neither.
 
The assumption in these threads tends to be "we could run amiga OS on any PC and it'd be rad". And that would rad, but it won't be reality.

Again like above, you need to write better drivers, but once the port is done that shouldn't take that long.
 

5: User base.
Is there any actual user base in a world saturated with mature OS choices ? What do I get out of amiga os in the present day and age, that isn't already served by one of the big four (windows, linux, bsd or mac) in some flavour or form ?
I'd love to see data on this, but I heavily suspect that the amount of non-amiga folks using morph or aros is a distinct minority.
I have a hard time seeing how x86 amiga os would attract new people rather than just shuffle existing users around.

If people are willing to buy an X1000, then why wouldn't you try this ?
If OS4 x86 cost about 1/10 of an X1000 then I think more people would try that rather than an X1000.
At least you could still use an x86 machine if you don't like it.
With the X1000 your stuck and have to sell it again, and that will always be used, so less than you paid for anyway.
 

I agree, and if someone produced a modern PPC card today for the classic machines, I would be really interested and so would many other people I feel dabbling with classic Amiga, to the point whereby you might get renewed interesting in OS4 with the associated renewed development projects

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Well if it is possible, let's just say we have a new like Cyberstorm PPC II.
It's a 060 with PowerPC A2 or PowerPC e5500 (Freescale Semiconductor).
Then what ?
 
Within 3 or 4 years it will be outdated again and has be designed again with a new PPC.
Besides that, you also need to find enough 060's for the boards.
And you can't push much more out of a 060, eventually it will cause all kinds of problems and die if it is overclocked.