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Amiga OS 4.0
01/23/07
Amiga OS 4.0
It's being reviewed on Ars Technica, and it's out in a final release version.
I find that spectacularly odd. I owned an Amiga; it took me through university, got me onto the Internet before most folks did, including the world wide web, and let me work with graphics, doing cataract surgery animation for Gimbel Eye Center back in the day, putting together park path guides, and making drilling and gas animation. It took years upon years for an almost-equally-passable paint program to show up on PCs.
It's no big surprise that MUI is now incorporated; it was one of the biggest "updates" to the Amiga system that I recall, and allowed surprisingly object-oriented API calls when putting together interfaces. It ran passably on an Amiga 3000; we've come a long way since then.
I just received the latest Amiga Forever (the 2006 Video Edition) - I haven't taken much of a look at it yet (partway through the Deathbed Vigil video). Navigating the GUI takes a while to get used to again - there have been just so many advances since then.
I never did have an AGA machine. My friend Armando, being in the graphics biz, certainly upgraded his machine over the years to keep up with versions of Lightwave. The Video Toaster was an amazing piece of work - the amount of "at home" work you could do that rivalled that of long-time professional shops was astounding.
It's plain weird to see Amiga stuff on sale again, including such oddities as built-to-order Amiga 1200s for $185.41 basic, but with extra-cost add-ons like hard drives and almost-as-pricy-as-the-machine USB (still doesn't get quite up to modern-day clone prices - probably good for the nostalgia-maniac)
I can't see myself rushing out to get an AmigaOne with OS 4.0 on it, but I'd certainly get a kick out of seeing it. It's purportedly really fast (the Amiga was always pretty good with memory), now with a jitter (just-in-time compiler) to run old Motorola code.
Still, it was the community as much as anything else forging ahead together that made the Amiga a joy to play with, and that's mostly diffused into a background thread of nostalgia that tied and still ties people together (it really did attract some of the niftier nerds ;) )
I wonder who wants one of these, anyhow?
2 comments
Thanks for the tip on “Deathbed Vigil.” I didn’t realize that Hazy was still selling it, nor that he had made it available on DVD. I don’t know that I really need a DVD copy, tho’; I transcoded my VHS to a VCD which serves well for archival purposes and the occasional view.
A word of caution to anyone who is considering ordering, but has never seen this video: Stock up on Dramamine before you put it in your player. This is all hand-held, and Dave didn’t have a Steadicam JR.
Hey there, Bryan! :)
It’s the Amiga Forever 2006 Video Edition that has the video on it. It’s not as bad as the ferry from Zanzibar in rough ocean, but I’ll give you that it could use a bit of Gravol in the stomach :)
