Well... After seeing the video, what can I say as someone with no intention of getting an A1 or Pegasos.
The FTP-website bit was... how to put this without hurting anyone's feelings... well, I'm sure it's quite a step forwards for the platform, but I cannot help but say that it all appeared very archaic to me.
I'm happy to see that the jerkiness of OS4 window handling has disappeared: I recall seeing a video about a year ago which was pretty much the equivalent of msochism ;-). I liked the warping demo of both the lion and the fonts, but I have to add that this is really nothing special. You're seeing the result of (lots of) ordinary math, and some CPU power to make it fly. (What would be special is if this vector rendering takes the place of bitmap rendering throughout, but that idea is more than a little silly because of performance reasons.) And keep in mind, it does not use hardware rendering yet---which you really need for serious graphics work. You can add it to the library, we are told, but that takes more than just a bit of effort unless I'm terribly mistaken.
I found the start-up and reset time short, but not remarkable. Someone can be clearly heard saying Windows eat your heart out, but you can't really compare the two. Windows loads so much more into memory, and offers so much more functionality...
It would appear from the demo (in particular, the ease of the reset) that OS4 is still a standalone, single-user OS, which is fine with me, although it might make it less suitable for a computer in a household. Some might argue that this is just a load of bovine scatology, but I would very much prefer to make sure that other people using my computer cannot accidentally delete my stuff. I'm also not very happy with the idea of resetting a computer supporting virtual memory (even in the rudimentary form of OS4) as was shown in the video, but that is just my humble opinion.
OS4 really needs a proper directory lister as found in Windows' Explorer (well, not this particular program, but more the idea behind it :-)) or DOpus. I think I saw a few threads on this subject a while ago, so perhaps the problem's already been solved. In any case, all the windows opening across the screen lead to a lot of visual clutter, and you definitely need something in order to manage this.
It's good to see the ole' platform moving along, but I cannot help but wonder what the use is when everything shown can already be done on at least a dozen other major platforms with a much larger user base. Oh well, logic can only take you so far.
Now the real thing which is bugging me is how I can be on that video, as I was here in Amsterdam all the time :-D. There's someone there who has a profile just like me, same haircolour, same set of eyebrows, same set of glasses, same general build. Only the neck is different. I never knew I had a twin brother! I think it's time I confronted Mom & Dad ;-).
