Great at last to have a compatibility list, but what a big disappointment.
Great, there is support for an A1200 Mediator, and for PCI cards in it, but wait a bit, there is no support for any PCI card that requires DMA.
My words to Hyperion are, get the DMA access for PCI cards sorted out, this is ridiculous.
So which PCI cards are being supported.
Voodoo, ah yes, marvellous, 24bit graphics, but wait, no sound unless you buy or maybe already own a Terratec 128i PCI card, but wait, no there are problems with that, so nice graphics, but no sound.
OOooh that sounds like . . . oh no it doesn't sound like anything, as there will be NO SOUNDS, other than the built-in sound of the basic A1200, IF that works, which is not mentioned in the list.
What a giant step forward for AMIGA mankind, this OS4 is!
NO on-board BLIZZARD SCSI, NO Mediator PCI Soundblaster, NO PCI SCSI card support, also there's no USB support for the Spider card for the Mediator, besides that, basically the most popular Ethernet chip the RTL8139 PCI Ethernet is NOT supported in an A1200 Mediator board.
So you would have an up-to-date OS4 with access to maybe 4 IDE devices, and 24 bit graphics on an A1200 with a Mediator, THAT'S IT.
If it was not for the VooDoo card support I might as well just throw the Mediator card away for the support it gets from OS4.
The Soundblaster was the first soundcard to be supported for the Mediator, but wait a minute . . . NOT ANY LONGER.
Not even a mention of the Squirrel device.
So switch the machine on, look at the pretty pictures , and see how fast the machine boots . . . then re-boot it and have another look at that OS4, WOW . . that really was worth all the wait.
So I can sit at home look at a great OS, but not be able to use my USB digital camera, or SCSI scanner, or SCSI hard drives, or listen to any music, or even go online, unless I buy a network card that plugs into the PCMCIA card slot, and of course buy a 90 degree PCMCIA adapter so I can put it in my tower. Is this an improvement over using my PCI Ethernet card . . . I don't think so.
So the machine I have, with all the cards, Mediator based, and Blizzard/Phase 5 PPC, clockport and Squirrel that work on OS3.9 will no longer be functional, so I won't have SCSI, USB, Soundcard, TV/Radio, or Ethernet. Maybe none of the clockport cards will work either, but there is no mention of any devices that connect to the clockport.
This really is a great INCOMPATIBILITY list
How is anyone using OS4 going to use it with only 4 IDE devices connected to the machine? That's IF you are lucky to have an IDE add-on card supported, without work-arounds.
How long has this OS4 been worked on ? Absolute ages, and now 2 weeks before it is due to be available we are told that hardware that has been around for all this time is not supported, well not at the time of availability.
Frankly it's pathetic.
To me it feels as though Hyperion have got to a point where they are running out of cash after all their hard work, which I ought to say, CHEERS FOR THAT.
However, the Classic machine seems to have been turned to, as a last ditch attempt, to get this cash back, and in my opinion it seems as though it had never been thought of as going to be used seriously for OS4, had the new hardware been approved.
The work that has gone on apace with the Classic Amiga, seems to have happened over only a short space of time, the last few weeks. When in reality, their availability, and AMIGA owners have been there to test them for a few years. I have even offered my own machine for such Betatesting, but had no replies about the offer.
Had the software been made available, or the work been put in for the Classic machines to be supported, and then adapted to run the boards/devices available for the Classic machines, then maybe most or all of the available hardware for these machines would have been supported by OS4.
I have not seen or used OS4 as yet, and I have really been looking forward to getting my hands on it, but there is no point in doing so if there is basically no support for the hardware I have. I would like to give a much better appraisal of OS4's compatibility, but at this moment, to use the well known expression, . . IT SUCKS.
I am an Amiga fan, make no mistake. I have stuck through these hard times, like many, hoping for OS4 to appear. I dislike Microsoft and don't like the closed-shop of the Mac.
I expected to see a fully formed OS4 capable of running the hardware my machine has had installed for a few years, which with OS3.9 runs very well I might add, but to get to this mediocre point of support for the Classic machine is pitiful.
No, no, wait, don't be so hard on OS4 I keep telling myself, after all this is a NEW OS for the AMIGA.
NO it's not . . . it's been 4 years or more, in the waiting.
What kind of development has been made for the Classic machine if the only headway, in that time, has been the disappointing lack of support for much of the well established boards for the Classic machine.
I really don't think much, if any, time has been spent over the last 4 years, developing to support the Classic Amiga A1200, maybe not even the A4000.
All the while ACube, as now is, has developed a brand new board, with no problems it would seem, other than a licence to use it, for running OS4. Their board has USB 2, modern graphics, and high quality sound built-in, and yet, has only recently become available.
So a brand new board for OS4, with many modern devices built-in, cannot be used as it has no licence. Wheras the Classic Amiga that has been around for ages, with some modern hardware designed to work with the Classic architecture, will not properly be supported by the release of OS4.
In my opinion, it would be far better for OS4 to be delayed a little longer, if it meant that the hardware support would be improved greatly, as the current compatibility is almost useless for anyone having a similar system to mine, which must be a lot of users with Classic machines with PPC boards.
For me, so far it is almost as much use as OS5.
