Anyone happy with OS 4.1? Is it much to write home about?

[drHirudo]

@persia
No! And don't count on it.

[Amithony]

I reckon it might be a keeper. Im cutting out a coffee a day until i save up enough for one

[Crom00]

The Sam440 has lots of modern amenities... did'nt the price increase after the release of os4 for samm?

If I remember correctly rhe price was somethig like $550 at one point.

The current pricing is too high, even for specialty market like this. It should be 1.2 ghtz or MAYBE 800 mgzt the lowest for this price. Considering that a "specialty mac market" dual 2.0 ghtz g4 upgrade cards costs $389, this should have a faster CPU for the current price.

Os4 price is fair adjusted for infaltion and In line with what Commodore would charge for os3.1, os2.1 with roms and such. You did get a nice set of pro-designed printed manuals with Commodore though...

If had money to burn I'd get one just to support the dudes that worked on this. But emualtion on XBOX, PC, and Mac, serve me quite well...

That makes me think, classic support is very important. I just want to run my old games and apps on modern hardware. Not pay beyonf top dollar for new hardware, and software that is incompatible with everything I have...

Also due to the (10 year?) wait for PPC software and hardware availability who will even want to code for os4, even from a retro hobbyist tinkerer standpoint?

Certainly not at these prices. The target market is the uber hardcore Amiga geek and how many of us are there? Maybee 3000 or so, and fading fast...

Oh well now the high price makes perfect sense... :crazy:

http://www.geeks.com/pix/2008/HP5K.html

The above link with UAE or installed makes perfect sense...

[Amithony]

I'm still getting mighty tempted to buy one.

[sandpiper]

@Amithony

I am very happy with OS4.1 in my micro. It seems more polished than 4.0, and more stable. I find that my micro with OS4.x is very quick and is more responsive than several of my WinXP Pro machines. As a long time Amiga user (20+ years now), I think it is the best Amiga OS yet.

For those who complain about the high price of SAM + OS4, the amount of money I have in my micro is far less than what I have sunk into my A2500/Blizzard 060/PicassoIV system over the years - or what others have in their Cyberstorm equipped machines. Amigas never have been cheap and probably never will be. The SAM system costs less than my micro and is lowest price Amiga system that I have ever seen.

[Amithony]

I know that the cost of the hardware relative to the price back in the day is far cheaper. Bang per buck is clearly going to be better. I remember that the requirements to run software were far lower than its PC counterparts where a Mb of RAM really went far. Is it still the case now with 4.1?

[pVC]

spirantho wrote:

Why? Because it's very very fast and responsive, isn't full of bells and whistles that lower reliability and speed, it's intuitive to program (pardon the pun) and it's just NICE. It does all I need an OS to do, and doesn't pretend to be something it isn't (c.f. Windows pretending to be some kind of  media hub or something). Backward compatilibity is also pretty good and runs most things I've thrown at it.

For me it certainly doesn't do all I need from an OS. The biggest problem is lack of file management options. Amiga's Workbench hasn't ever been good for handling the files and still isn't in 4.1. I've been using Magellan2 as Workbench replacement over 10 years on my classic Amigas and using plain WB is just impossible for real work. OS4's problem is also with external filemanagers, Magellan doesn't work and even old time clumsy two view managers don't seem to work good enough (for example dopus4 and amidisk crash too much with 4.1). Also when you try to fall back to shell, it doesn't help much in file management... no backbuffer/scrollbar, no tabs, no anything.

Well, that's the main reason why OS4 still can't be my main OS. But luckily there still is options in Amiga world and I can live without mainstream platforms

[sandpiper]

@pVC

For me it certainly doesn't do all I need from an OS. The biggest problem is lack of file management options. Amiga's Workbench hasn't ever been good for handling the files and still isn't in 4.1. I've been using Magellan2 as Workbench replacement over 10 years on my classic Amigas and using plain WB is just impossible for real work. OS4's problem is also with external filemanagers, Magellan doesn't work and even old time clumsy two view managers don't seem to work good enough (for example dopus4 and amidisk crash too much with 4.1). Also when you try to fall back to shell, it doesn't help much in file management... no backbuffer/scrollbar, no tabs, no anything.

Good points. I miss Opus Magellan on OS4 too. DOpus 4 is good and getting better all the time but its still not the same. You should try the latest betas of DOpus4. It is very stable on my machine.

[sandpiper]

@Amithony

I remember that the requirements to run software were far lower than its PC counterparts where a Mb of RAM really went far. Is it still the case now with 4.1?

Generally speaking yes, although recent ports from other platforms require lots of memory - OWB is a good example. In my experience, in normal use 256MB is fine for my micro. I have been playing around with OWB and I wish I had 512MB.    

[Crom00]

Admittedly Sam is pricey compared to other systems but is is cheap in comparison with other Amiga models of similar spec.
   

 I was expecting a much lower cost board due to it's  use of cost reduction techinques, mainly the power PC with built in peripheral support. $400-550 would be reasonable
Plus the OS4 cost.

Still a great board, but for me but at this cost the purchase status is "probably not...

At the magic 400-500 spot that could become a yes.

A sweet spot of $300 would reslut in a resounding "HELL YES" and become the Amiga 1200 replacement- upgrade I've been waiting for.

[GMeanie]

They really need to get the motherboard/cpu down to around $300.00.
$650 for those specs are a joke.

[Gebrochen]

Look, from what I can gather, you either want one or you just wish you could have one.

In my case, I wanted a system to replace windows crap, and so I tried Linux related OS's, I tried my friends Mac's, I tried Aros, Xamiga, Amithlon, Amikit, and still, not happy.

Then one day I went to the A1200 with 3.9 os, and realised, it may be lacking some things, but its functionality works to my liking.

End result................ I am now awaiting the arrival of my new Amiga system Sam440ep os4.1

I have mates that own Amiga Ones, and they use it more so than their macs, so, if os4.1 is better than 4.0 by far, than, I cant see a problem for me to use it as my everyday system.

If I wanted games, Id get a ps3 or something, IF you want functionality for basics such as web browsing, photogenics, imagine 6 or aladdin4d, etc, then, may as well be an AMiga.

[stefcep2]

I've also tried to all the above OS's looking for the Amiga feel, speed and efficiency and nothing measures up.  All they really need is to get a firefox or equivalent port a decent office suite and ImageFX or like it and that will give me all I'd need.  But the price is a little too high..

[zylesea]

persia wrote:
Anyone know if Moana is going to be available any time soon?  I'd be pissed if I bought uncle SAM and then found out I coud use an old PPC Mac mini with twice the power at half the price...

If you want to use an Amigaish system on a Mac Mini, wait for the according MorphOS release. Currently the audio and network driver are still missing, but apart from that it is reported to be quite advanced (presentation at the user meeting Bad Barmstedt last weekend). Frank Mariak confrimed it should be rolled out topically. The demonstration included a fluent 1080 h.264 video replay.

[jorkany]

Amithony,

Bang per buck is clearly going to be better.

No, it's not. The real Amiga was able to do things that no other home computer could touch, it *had* bang for the buck. OS4 doesn't do anything you can't do on any other commonly available commodity system these days, OS4 just does it a bit more clumsily.

Think back to the 80s or early 90s what the Amiga was like. Didn't you ever try to imagine what Amiga would be like in 20+ years? Now, think about OS4. Does it match your expectations?

[Hans_]

@jorkany

That depends on how you look at it. If you simply compare an old Amiga to a new one, the new one leaves it in the dust by a huge margin, hence bigger bang for buck. Of course, one could also take a PC bought in the 90s and compare it to a new PC and say the same thing.

You, on the other hand, factor in your personal desires/expectations and compare the new Amiga to what you wish that it were (I know you said that you were extrapolating from what it was, but it's the same thing). Obviously your expectations for a product that hasn't been developed continuously by a large corporation is rather unrealistic. Clearly you won't be happy with one of these new machines.

Personally, as someone who actually has Amiga OS 4.1 (not the SAM), it really is a much improved version of the original Amiga OS.

Hans