Introduction and way forward

[valeru]

Hi,

I am now 38yrs old and have been an Amiga fan practically all my adult life. My first Amiga was an Amiga 500 way back in 1988 (or thereabouts). It was the begining of what I nowaday refer to it as my love affair I then bought an Amiga 4000/030 in 1993 - a year before Commodore went bust Some years later I moved onto (uff) Windows, but I have never had a Windows box without having WinUAE on it :-)

Lately I have been scourging the net for some info and found this forum, but what got me excited is MorphOS on Mac Mini G4. I am considering buying the hardware via ebay of course. But the Amiga OS has too many flavours and versions - that I am now truly confused. I was brought up with AmigaOS reigning, but now there is AROS, MorphOS, AmigaOS 4.0 and probably some others. Does it make sense to go Mac hardware + MorphOS ? or is WinUAE still the only sensible thing to do. It is shocking that new hardware for the Amiga is really old hardware. I am tryying this on my M17x Alienware Laptop running Win7 64bit - an incredible piece of hardware - pity about the bloated OS. I miss my Amiga hardware with Paula, Denise and Agnes, but I also know that they will never come back and the only way is forward.


Sorry if this sounds more like a rant than an intro/query.

Thanks for your time

[koaftder]

Welcome to the board. All the flavors are fun and I mess with all of them except for AOS 4 because of the cost barrier. I bought a MorphOS license within 10 minutes of trying the time limited version of the OS. Probably the cheapest amiga purchase I ever made and I use it the most.

[Khephren]

High valeru, and welcome on board.
I'm afraid that when Commodore/escom etc went down, there was no one company to pick up the baton and give direction. It's a real shame, The acorn risk crowd have a smaller community than us, so do atari, but they have not suffered the fragmentation that we have.

We would probably have more software/cheaper hardware if everyone could have compremised on a single direction. This is all ancient history now though, but caused a lot of controvesy on here in the past!

[Fairdinkem]

@Valeru

Welcome back to the Amiga Community, Win-uae is the best way to experience Classic Amiga computing short of owning a classic system:) Aros offers a free entry into a new experience of Amiga-like computing with very good 68k compatibility. After this you have the Next-Generation Amiga computing experiences that involve the continued evolution of the Amiga harking back to the Amiga glory days. The next cheapest option is MorphOS thanks to being newly available on old PPC Apple Macs you can buy very cheaply and you can run a time limited demo at no risk to see if you like it! Then you can do a dual boot and have yourself a mac and MorphOS experience. After this you can consider the most expensive to enter Amiga experience the official (controversial) successor to the AmigaOS (commodore) demise AmigaOS4.1.

I personally own a Pegasos2 and I have both MorphOS 2.6 registered and AmigaOS 4.1 update 2. I enjoy them both immensely and they both have there merits, I have also used AROS which cost me nothing to experience but I did not like it much but can see its potential but the fact it cost me nothing to try is awesome.

My thoughts on you buying a mac to run MorphOS are as follows. If you have enough disposable cash that such a purchase despite the outcome of the experience would not be regrettable then I say go for it. If you don't like MorphOS you will have a mac running MacOS. Be aware that MorphOS in my opinion and shared by others is the most polished of all three operating systems in the Amiga world still by modern standards is behind the times and is less automated and intuitive than modern systems like MacOSX and Windows. Ie to get stuff to work or install requires more often than not "Manual Intervention" you don't just install it and it works! Often you have to go to Aminet or some other site to download an MUI library or some other file to get the program to work because it doesn't come with the program or isn't installed by the install script "it drives me up the wall"

If you can look past these annoyances and the lack of modern applications and see any of the Amiga-like operating systems as a enthusiast market and not a true alternative to the big 2 (Mac & Windows) then you will find enjoyment otherwise nothing but frustration.

Cheers

[vidarh]

Try them and see which you like best. You can test AROS easily enough on your current virtual machine. Depending on your hardware you might be able to dual boot into the native version.                  

Which flavor to pick really comes down to a combination of taste and what you want to do, and how much money you're prepared (or not) to invest.

[Iggy]

Try them and see which you like best. You can test AROS easily enough on your current virtual machine. Depending on your hardware you might be able to dual boot into the native version.                  

Which flavor to pick really comes down to a combination of taste and what you want to do, and how much money you're prepared (or not) to invest.

Absolutely, give what you can a try. All are more similar then these previous posts would tend to indicate.

Personally, I'm using MorphOS because it is the most polished of the three NG OS' (and it's cost of entry is lower than AOS4.1).

You can get a Mac that willing run MOS for under $100 and everyone I've talked to who has tried it has come away with a positive impression.

[Templario]

Welcome to Comminuty. And about Amiga you think in your budget, but I recommend you the Amiga OS4.1

[Rob]

I miss my Amiga hardware with Paula, Denise and Agnes, but I also know that they will never come back and the only way is forward.

It's probably still some time away, but there are people working on it.

Natami

[Franko]

I miss my Amiga hardware with Paula, Denise and Agnes, but I also know that they will never come back and the only way is forward.

Hi and welcome to Fight Club... I mean Amiga.org... :lol:

There are lots of different options open to you and I'm sure you'll find no shortage of folk here willing to help point you in the right direction for you...

If you really miss your Amiga Hardware then why not buy some their is still plenty to be found on the likes of ebay. You can have it all if your willing to spend the money on it...

Whichever way you choose to go, only you can decide and I wish you all the best in your future with the Amiga (in whichever form you choose)...

[valeru]

thanks for all your friendly welcome and suggestions :-)