Newcastle OS4: Out by the end of Feb?!

[dandelion]

Just got back from the Newcastle OS 4 demonstration. Was quite impressed overall! Alan Redhouse said the only thing holding up OS 4 is a problem with the Radeon driver which needs to be fixed before release. He said he spoke to the main developer just LAST NIGHT and the estimated time is now just a couple of weeks - even as EARLY AS THE END OF FEB! This will be a pre-release version which they will send out to early-bird people etc. prior to the boxed release versions coming onto the market. These versions will be soon to follow.

As for OS 4 - well, to those who doubted its very existance, it's here, it's Amiga, and it works. 68K emulation was incredibly impressive, loading up various older applications with ease.  They had an AmigaOne hooked up to a projector, which showed off the pure speed of the machine. A MAME(?) emulator running Outrun and Sonic showed things running hilariously quickly. Even playing back MP3s in the background still left Outrun's Ferrari careering round the track at stupid speeds.The machine guru'd a couple of times (no Software Failures here! Guru Meditation is back!) but this was in part down to this particular AmigaOne receiving some modifications (i.e. over clocking).

Can't write much more. Too hung over, am sure official reports and photos will be out by this evening, It's here folks, OS 4 is here.

[mikeymike]

Sounds impressive, but, from the last CAM:

We now have a fully featured IDE.device for the AmigaOne hardware (PIO mode only; the code for UDMA transfers is already in place but requires further testing) and an replacement for parallel.device.

If only PIO has been seriously tested yet, U/DMA needs some serious testing.  The most demanding applications for it in my experience tend to be CD burning, DVD playback and disk to disk transfers.  CD burning particularly though, because the transfer has to be synchronised/timed properly.  Though from what you said with the demonstration, I guess the UDMA code was in use then.

I wish I had been there, but my business has been picking up this month, and it's still in its early stages so I can't go turning down work.  :-(

Still, everything else about OS4 sounds cool.  I'd guess June for its release from what you've said and from what I've heard (and no, I have no 'exclusive' sources).

[smithy]

I don't remember Alan mentioning an estimated release date, but there were some other interesting bits of info, the most interesting being when someone asked how many AmigaOne's had been sold - Alan said in the region of 1000, but wouldn't give an exact figure.