News Amiga set for re-launch

Although I've never owned an amiga, I really like AROS, which is an open source amiga-like OS that runs natively in PCs. It have progressed tremendously over the past couple of years, there's even an OS distro called IcAROS, which you can install on the PC or run on a virtual machine.

What I find interesting about the amiga community is their reluctance to use x86 computers, at a great expense. The Sam440ep motherboard, which is the only platform that runs AmigaOS 4.1 that is actually produced nowadays costs around 450€. Since this price is for a Flex-ATX motherboard with a 667Mhz CPU, I don't want to think how much the Amiga X1000 is going to cost.
I can understand the reluctance towards the x86 architecture, but I honestly think that AROS is going to be the one to survive over the years, because it simply runs on the wide majority of PCs and you don't have to sell a kidney to experience an amiga environment...

 

I have fond memories of my Amiga! Great games, fun times with friends. Of course this X1000 isn't made by Commodore, just some company trying to cash in on the Amiga name. Pretty sad.

 

Cost is key. It must be competitive or many of us old Amiga users just won't buy... Remember that price and performance are what sold us our first machines and kept poor folks like me from buying into Apple... and it remains true. What did I like about the Amiga? It was the ease of creativity, the community of users, the plain old fun to be had and it wasn't all games either... Though I used many computers including mainframes I can honestly say that I never learned more with any computer than I did with my old 3000.

 

Current user

I have used Amigas since 1987 or so.
A500, A2000, A3000, A4000 (AOS3.9), SAM440ep (AOS4.1).
I also have AmigaOS clone MOS on a MacMini and AROS on a laptop.

Here are some reviews:

http://arstechnica.com/software/news/2008/09/amigaos41-ars.ars
http://jpv.wmhost.com/morphos2_review/
Video of AOS4 etc: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fx3q2wFIn6k

Another interesting article for people that are not familiar of Amigas recent history:
http://www.connectedinternet.co.uk/2009/08/26/amiga-state-of-the-union-august-2009/

 

What is this computer aimed at? It isn't powerful enough for gaming, I can't see office users jumping away from all the software they already have... etc.

The only noteworthy thing is this Xorro slot, which I will now go and look up.

p.s. why isn't this in the news feed?

 

I would certainly dig a commercial alternative to the Borgs (WinMacs),if they manage to get me the following I'm in:

1)a good Image processor
2)a nice 3D authoring software.
3)a nice video sequencer.
4)a powerful spread-sheet app (I use it for MANY things).
5) a modern browser.

 

Ahhhhh! It's a zombie, shoot it, shoot it!

 

Yeah right, they've worked on porting and upgrading amigaos for what? seven years, and they launch a computer which isn't for free and you think that they are trying to get rich?!

Of course they want it to be a success and sell enough but really, do you think that the amiga marked is the place to be if you try to make big money quickly?

Your comment is pretty sad and you don't have any idea what you're talking about. You know, when you don't know, don't comment. It's as easy as that. Because people that do know just see you as a joke and gets sick about comments like the one that you made.

 

@Alterlife2010
>1)a good Image processor

AmigaOS4.1 is capable of running old/existing 68k apps that were/are famous in Image processing.
And IIRC, GIMP can nowdays be run on AOS4.1.
But Amiga SW offerings need to improve on this area, after the long silence.

>2)a nice 3D authoring software.

Blender is ported to AOS4.
And old famous 68k 3D apps run as well.

>3)a nice video sequencer.

Blender cand handle video editing.
But Amiga SW offerings need to improve on this area...

>4)a powerful spread-sheet app (I use it for MANY things).

Gnumetric can be used on AOS4.
And old famous 68k spreadsheet apps run as well.
I believe we see OpenOffice also on AOS4 within one year.
But improvements needed...

>5) a modern browser.[/QUOTE]

Amiga has hand full of web browsers.
The best so far is OWB that can handle almost any web site.
I think the release of Firefox for AOS4 is planned for summer 2010.
Another big needs are a full JAVA engine, OpenGL, OpenCL, etc…

Generally there exist AmigaSW for "almost" anything but most are more or less behind the x86 mainstream.
(some positive exceptions exist, like Hollywood and ShowGirls)

AOS (and MOS and AROS) is currently mainly for brave people who like to play with weird stuff.

 

@Cupboard
"What is this computer aimed at?"

1) For existing Amiga fans that want a more powerful AOS HW. (and expensive)
2) For people that want to try another kind of computer & computing.

Hopefully the lower end (SAM) will evolve to a cheap alternative to x1000.
http://sam4x0.com/

Most likely Amiga offerings will never again compete with the mainstream in price/performance.
But hopefully the small niche stays alive and grows a little.
0,01% computer market share would be nice.

" It isn't powerful enough for gaming,"

It is capable for xbox360 caliber of games, but there is no multimilliondollar companies developing for Amiga any more, so, the latest Games will not appear on Amigas before those Games become older and cheaper to licence for Amiga niche. People need to have separate box for latest games. Amiga would be mainly for some other fun.

" I can't see office users jumping away from all the software they already have... etc. "

I see a lot of people using OpenOffice and other open source SW. For example I find OpenOffice far nicer than M$Office.
And the move from M$Office to OpenOffice was very smooth in our home.
I hope OO appears on Amiga soon.
(so far I do not need Windows any more @ home, hopefully I one day manage to do every thing I want again on Amiga.)

 

They at least better come out with something that look modern, and IS modern or it will be an epic fail here.

 

I do remember the Amiga's challending the ST's and making the PC's of the time, like the Amstrad PC1512 that I once had seem slow and clunky by comparison.

I don't think this is so much about the revival of the Amiga, more like a way to resurrect and bring RISC back in to the home market. I can't help wonder when the IBM dinosaur will finally give up and die. That said, should a RISC based OS also make an appearance, we could have some interesting times ahead with Windows, *nux, Arm and Risc OSes fighting for user real estate.

 

aye brings me back.. you can't convince a commodore user of anything- they will attack and bodyslam anyone who fondles that nostalgic memory XD ST's kicked the amigas face up around the back of it's ass just like the 8 bit atari's reeped the original snufolufagus

 

you guys are really missing the point here. they have never made Amiga hardware recently for the big masses. A-eon, and acube and other companies involved are just Amiga fans and makes things for other Amiga fans. They will never think this will sell in huge numbers. Hence the price. And the fans are crazy enough to actually pay that price. Because they love Amiga. It is a burning passion.

non-Amiga fans or casual computer users wont ever understand this so it is just useless to debate it.

 

as much as the amiga has meant to me during my lifetime, i've lost count of how many times the brand has been "re-launched" so i'm not going to hold my breath. not that i expect it to do much apart from appeal to enthusiasts.

still, most of my happiest gaming + computing memories involved the amiga/commodore 64 in one way or another.

 

KimmoK:
Thanks
The problem I see is that you already have the big OS player (Microsoft), the flashy one (Apple), the free and powerful one (Linux in all the various forms) and others like BSD and I guess I just don't see space for another one. This may just be me being short sighted and I have nothing against this at all.

After all, it's not like OOo doesn't have plenty of platforms to run on already

 

has it still got the blitter chip though?

 

I'd get one if only for the sound system it uses. And for music editing and other things the Amiga (and even the Atari's from that era) did very well.

 

A pointless system and I'll tell you why;

1.) This is aimed at the 'high end' of the market, they already have a range of 'mid range' board out for some time in the shape of the Sam flex and Amiga one systems, they cost anywhere between £400-900 depending on spec, so this is likely to be in the four figure bracket before you've even started to 'kit it out'.

2.) Lack of compatibility with the 68000 architecture means that any old amiga games and software will have to be run through emulators, making this just about as 'Amiga' as a PC.

Amiga as we knew it is dead, if you want the classic Amiga experience the best thing to do is to get hold of an A1200 and pop in an accelerator.

 

It is not pointless. It is a true AmigaOS 4 system. It is what Amiga would have become (most likely) if the management at Commodore didn't suck balls and were short sighted.
People added PPC processor boards to their original Amigas too and ran WarpOS and software coded for PPC on top of AmigaOS 3.1. And its not true that all old software runs on all original Amigas. There are a lot of software that only runs on A4000 with the better Motorola CPU or some software than only runs on the classic A500. Amiga is a lot of things and software was coded to utilize the hardware to its fullest. Only pure AmigaOS API applications can have a chance at running well on newer platforms or you need to port the application.

And we see this today on the PC too. Software coded for CUDA requires you to have a NVIDIA graphics card which is just like the accelerator boards for Amiga.

If you just want to play the old Amiga games you can still do that. Emulation will be better and there is always the MiniMig.