Why AmigaOS 4.0 is going to be successful…

[that_punk_guy]

Maybe your HD was DOA. Did you check it in other machines?

[vortexau]

[color=660033]HEY-Y-Y-Y![/color]



'Cuz its so-o-o-o-o cool, man!

[iamaboringperson]

and MorphOS depends to much on emulation to be a good operating system.

Depends on emulation? It only "depends on emulation" about as much as AmigaOS4 (if that exists) supposedly does.

And it is a good OS.

[darksun9210]

I think we are waaaaay overcomplicating the issue here.

Q1, why are we on amiga.org?

A1, cos we know more than the average guy in the street about computers nomatter wat our OS preference.

Q2, who buys the majority of computers?

A2, businesses putting PC's on USERS desktops

Q3, what do users want?

A3, point and click ease of use.

Q4, why to the general public buy PC's?

A4a, cos its what they have at work.
A4b, cos there is a shed load of software for them.

i mean, for example. look at WinXP. everything has been tailored so that the user doesn't have to think for themselves, just point and click, burn a CD, point and click, download some music, point and click... etc. etc.

thats why win(whatever) is so big. so it can provide all the services to a user no matter what they want to do, or what hardware is installed.

if OS4 can do that, integrated office tools (with microshaft compatability - Sun Star office anyone?), internet browser, e-mail, networking facilities, media player/encoder, cd burning software all tied INTO the OS. then it might start to get beyond the 10Mb or so here or there that we are used to.

i'm not sticking up for windows. but the win2k/xp platform has to be one of the most stable and robust desktop OS's out there.
sure sure Linux this and MacOS that. but you are relying on people actually being interested in the computers more than what they can do with them as they currently stand.

that and microsoft's licensing saying that every new PC must be supplied with a copy (installed?) of their operating system. kinda has the vendors in a strangle hold unless they are big enuff to write in their own bit of the contract.

the only way to breaking into the mainstream is either big budget advertising with machines on display in places like PCworld or Circuit City, and shop staff that are actually enthusiastic and trained on what these machines are. instead of "yeah the amiga's great for this and that, but you really want a PC"
or
finding a niche market like the Mac

just my 2pence/cents

[ksk]

iamaboringperson wrote:

and MorphOS depends to much on emulation to be a good operating system.

Depends on emulation? It only "depends on emulation" about as much as AmigaOS4 (if that exists) supposedly does.

I would say "MorpgOS depends too much on AmigaOS API to be a good operating system on itäs own merits."

So far the MorphOS is just a AmigaOS clone + some new features.

And it is a good OS.

I think that's true in several ways, just like AmigaOS3.x.

[ksk]

"AmigaOS 4.0 is going to be sussessful becouse Microsft Windows is a terrible operating system and that most people are so sick and tired of Windows and all the problems that comes along with using Windows."

Too many people depend too much on things that exist only for Windows.

And there are LOAD of alternatives beside AmigaOS.
I think OSX, Linux are the main alternatives for someone that is sick of using Windows.
If the "Amiga" name is familiar to the user, and Amiga SW base  has grown enough, then the AmigaOS might become an option...

[StevenJGore]

What would make AMiga os4 successful is if it were free.

What would make Amiga OS4 successful is if it were released!

But it is actually possible to really like using Amigas, and not hate windows (XP) at the same time

I'll second that. Glad someone was mature enough to say it.

[Gopal]

@t3000

If you formated your harddrive with the directory cache setting, you might get errors. Just use plain FFS international. It might be a bad harddrive of course, but a lot of people (including me) have had checksum errors with directory cache and OS 3.5

[DonnyEMU]

Why OS 4.0  will be successful:

1) Amiga Inc. no longer owns the rights to it:

see: http://www.amiga.com/corporate/150304-amigaos_sale.shtml

2) Amiga Inc. No longer makes hardware for it

see: http://www.eyetech.co.uk


The OS might just last into another century now that it's not part of the Amiga Name..


3) AROS is Open Source and it's a nice replacement and it works on computers that you could have windows installed on aka 85-90% of the personal computer world..

4) The user base is still keeping the machine alive after all these years

5) There is still some decent software out there for it

6) You aren't required every few years to make an OS update to stay "compatible"

7) The platform has migrated accross chipsets

Because we still support it's existance..

9) It's not a Mac

10) Bill Gates had very little to do with it (okay Amiga BASIC) which went the way of the dinosaur.

[MarkTime]

If you ask any one that used Microsoft Windows then you would know that they don't like using it and that they would give anything to have a Microsoft Windows replacement.

I guess someone needs to be the 'Simon Cowell' of the group.

The reason most people don't like Windows is very different from why most Amigans don't like Windows.

Most people are not computer experts making commentary about the direction of computers or making astute observations about the future of human-computer interfaces.

Basically all most people are really saying is that computers are complicated and they are not.

Those same people wouldn't like Mac OS X, Linux, or Amiga OS, because they are all too complicated for them, and they make them feel stupid.  Yes, they would like a new windows 'in theory'...but they don't want a new operating system 'in practice.'

Since Windows is the one OS, that they were forced to learn, at least partially understand, those people whose frustration you are counting on to switch platforms, would actually be the last people to ever switch platforms, they are going to clutch to their little bit of knowledge to the last.

its complicated...I know, but life is complicated.  Ironically, the computer experts are the most likely to switch platforms...and those people, unfortunately, are expert and know when an OS has almost no features or advantages.

[pixie]

[BigBenAussie]

How many units of OS4 need to be sold to be successful?

If the majority of current Amiga enthusiasts buy it will it be enough?

I would be interested in knowing what numbers of sales would be required to determine if the Amiga One and Amiga OS4 is a success.

Is it successful merely if it makes Eyetech and Hyperion a profit capable of sustaining them? Is anyone capable of doing the math to calculate how much it actually costs to sustain those companies?

Or does success really mean that the Amiga platform has to break out into the general public and be bought by ordinary people?

One wonders if general market acceptance would merely be icing on the cake.

[SHADES]

You know what?
Everyone here has some good points.
I personally think some sort of topographical user login system to mimic like Linux root login system would be fantastic, along with some built in firewall stuff for the TCP/IP stack (like XP) would keep the platfrom secure.
But hey, perhaps that's OS4 Server or OS4 MultiClient or something lol

Seriously, the only thing that's going to make OS4 a success is sales. If people buy it, for whatever reason, yes even just geeks, then we will get continued development. Why? well because it shows growth and growth to a company means success, but it needs to be continual growth.

Yoy see KMOS knows there are going to be sales. What it wants however is "continual" sales, hense upgrades or version releases to keep cash flowing. I hear things like "but how much is enough" and "What's it take to cover expenses"
Every serious company knows to expect hardship for the first release and should be prepared to take that hardship on. KMOS know they are not going to make millions to start, it will be gradual and may run a loss Vs development for a little while. That said, what they DO want is that gradual uptake of their product. Yes, even if it's going to be a geek OS of choice, just as long as it looks like it will continue to grow and interest more and more geeks. Kinda sounds like Linux.

A very good friend of mine here in AUS also used to be the president of the Linux dev of Aus. I remember him showing me the first steps of Linux and his compiled hacks for drivers he used to write to run it on networks etc....

It was very much so a geek OS. If you couldn't code, it wasn't for you. But time passes and it's slowly making in-roads into the masses and starting to become an accepcted alternative to the WinTel monopoly.

So how many users is growth?? what would be acceptable?

Go and buy it when it's released. That is growth. See if anyone else would be interested in it, ask them to have a look for themselves.

Even selling just one copy increases the userbase. the more single user licenses that sell, eventually that 1 becomes 10, then 100 and then well others look at it cause if it's good for 100, there may just be something worth investigating.

I think people are excited about another alternative. Linux is very hard to use even now without learning the intracasies of scripting, Window?? Well know one bloody knows what that beast is doing ever. You can spend 1000s of $$ taking courses to work out why you need to program certain ways, but the beast is an unknown and not everyone has $M "ways of doing things" in mind.

The OS does have the potential for success, it will require support, esp from the company, but that will only come if building interest can be seen.

Let's just hope that this is the case.

[mdwh2]

T3000 wrote:
Since I built my AMD Athlon 500 and started using W98, I have been a very happy computer user.  Sure, there have been virus problems on occasion but, I have yet to loose any data. Unlike my Amiga, which lost years of artwork several times.

Just to offer my experiences in comparison:

Windows 98 is responsible for my worst ever data loss. One day, Scandisk decided that there were errors on my hard disk and decided it would "fix" them. As a result, my machine wouldn't boot, and everything on the Windows partition was destroyed. With some help from some friends, I booted into my Linux partition and wrote a program to scan the hard disk at a low level, and pick out bits which looked like source code. As a result I was able to save things like my University coursework, and the source code to NewsCoaster (I had backups on floppy, but they were several weeks old).

I then was luckily able to borrow a hard disk to install Windows onto (unlike AmigaOS, you can't boot into the OS without installing onto harddisk, which risks overwriting data), and ran a recovery program (a trial version which meant I had to rescan everytime I'd recovered 3 files - unlike the Amiga, there doesn't appear to be anything for free on Windows) to recover some more stuff. But an awful lot of my data was lost.

The worse I experienced on the Amiga was occasional disk invalidations, which the OS automatically fixed if you left it a few minutes. The only data loss was due to using floppies (which seem to be at least as unreliable on PCs).

The point being, the Amiga isn't necessarily worse than Windows in this respect - and indeed, the Amiga has some definite advantages (eg, being able to run recovery programs without reinstalling the OS to disk).

What would make AMiga os4 successful is if it were free.

Given that the majority of the cost for most ppl is buying a new PPC computer, I doubt that would make much difference IMO.

[Doobrey]

SHADES wrote:
See if anyone else would be interested in it, ask them to have a look for themselves.

 Attracting potential new users isn`t the hard bit, it`s converting them into actual users that`s going to be hard.

 If someone is on the lookout for a computer, they can just wander into PC World and play about with the latest demo models, or go to an Mac shop and drool over a titanium powerbook, and at the end of the day decide what they like and what to buy.

 But how are they gonna test out OS4 and the Amiga One?
Considering an A1 motherboard & CPU is over £600( or a pre built system at £1000 without monitor) it`s gonna take more than a good review and a fancy website to get non-amiga users to risk buying something they haven`t tried.

The new owners of the OS need be professional about it,proper advertising and marketing, but also to cut a deal with a couple of major stores to have demo models running.

It`s no good getting their attention, and then tell them to go a visit an amiga club meeting one evening to try it out cos they`ll just go and buy a PC or Mac instead.

[mdwh2]

ksk wrote:
I would say "MorpgOS depends too much on AmigaOS API to be a good operating system on itäs own merits."

So far the MorphOS is just a AmigaOS clone + some new features.

Well, it's an AmigaOS 3.x clone, with some new features. Is this different from what AmigaOS 4 is intended to be?

When AmigaOS 4 is released, we can judge how these "new features" of each compare, but the basic description fits both, surely.

I could see this point if MorphOS was only ever intending to be a clone of AmigaOS without adding anything new - thus you could say it's depending on AmigaOS too much, and is only going to be following behind it. But as you say yourself, this isn't true.