This report is a summary of what was conveyed to the public at the AmiWest 2010 show. This information is direct from Hyperion Entertainment and its partners.
AmigaOS 4.1 for classic Amiga systems with PPC accelerators has been announced. This includes AmigaOS 4.1 Update 2 plus support for Radeon graphics cards via an x86 emulator to initialize them.
That's great news, BUT hold on a second, to be able to use a Radeon card with a Classic Amiga requires a Mediator card - which I have - and a PPC card - which I also have.
So, the stumbling block for me might be that Hyperion, and by that I mean the programmers, might not be prepared to spend the time to work out how to adapt some hardware, and support the A1200 Mediator or even the A4000 Mediator properly - which they failed to do before, with the OS4.0 release for the Classic machines. Let's not forget that expensive shambles.
Hyperion/Acube seemed on the initial OS4.0 release to have spent a good while working on the SAM, and well, a bit of time on the A4000 PPC systems, but when it had come to the A1200 Mediator users, which I believe there are more of, they had just about supported the Voodoo cards, and eventually the RTL8029 chipset LAN cards, but just about everything else that was plugged into the PCI slots of the Mediator was useless, and that has not changed, even as of this date. Those who have a compatible Mediator and an 040 or 060/PPC card to use a Radeon card, can't even have a PCI Soundblaster soundcard or PCI USB or PCI SCSI card, or more up to date NIC, working in it under OS4.0, not even running the drivers under 68k emulation on OS4.0. Well I've had no success.
It was a disgrace, it is still a disgrace, to have released an Amiga OS with so many incompatibilities, and limitations. In fact, it is the only Amiga OS I can remember that has gone so very badly, and not been fixed properly, and then to rub salt in the wounds, just abandoned. I parted with my cash for the Classic OS4.0, hoping for some support only to get a half-baked "fix" a few months later, and then ditched.
But wait a second, did I hear that correctly, .... the biggest seller of all Amiga OS4.x sales has been the Classic Amiga OS4.0 which has outsold all the other OS4.1 sales, if I understood Ben Hermans correctly, from what he said at AmiWest. So now they are re-thinking OS4.1 for the Classic machines. Well about time, but a bit late to be realising a loss of sales, and having dropped the Classic Amigas from their OS dining table. So why, after they dumped the Classic users should the Classic users be prepared to trust Hyperion to deliver a mature OS for their now intended Classic hardware, which they so abyssmally did last time around?
When I spoke to Hans Joerg Frieden, soon after OS4.0 Classic was released, I asked him why there was such a lack of support for A1200 Classic OS4, and he replied that he strongly opposed the notion that A1200 support was poor. I also got told by him that he would not support Elbox's method/solution of DMA for OS4 for the A1200. He said that the Mediator is as obscure as a piece of hardware you can get.!! He was most emphatic about that. He also said to me that they would not support the "tricks" and "hacks" that made the Mediator work under OS3.9. He actually said he knew how the Mediator worked, BUT he just refused to allow such monstrosities (A1200 MEDIATOR DMA) on OS4.0. After I asked him if he felt that he/Hyperion had let the A1200 users down with the lacklustre/incomplete/incompatible/flawed OS4 for Classic A1200 users, considering there had been such a long wait for its release, he said he thought it was not a flawed release, and that I should ask ACube for a refund if I thought it necessary, and not to trouble him with pointing out hardware that did not work with the Mediator, but to ask them to update the compatibility list as they were supposed to be providing support for the OS4.0 Classic release. He has never replied to any other question I asked of him after that.
So considering all that, why would we be any better of with this latest offer of OS4.1 for Classic PPC/Mediator users?
For the considerable number of A1200 users out there with a PPC accelerator, and a compatible Mediator board, don't Hyperion, and by that I mean the Friedens, think they ought to support as fully as they can all the cards that can be plugged into a Mediator system, never mind what they call hacks. The A4000 supports DMA as standard, but the A1200 has to be "hacked" via the Mediator system to get it to do something like DMA. Anyway, Hyperion haven't even implemented memory protection for OS4.x anyway and they are now on OS4.1 update 2, as far as I am aware. As long as the "hacky" DMA could be supported, which is all it would take, as far as I am aware, then it could be made to work. It was/is just that he/they (Friedens/Hyperion) don't like the way it works.
I personally don't care if the method of DMA is elegant, or if it's a monster, if Elbox can get it to work OK under OS3.9, then why can't it be supported under OS4.0 and OS4.1? After all it's the Amiga operating system, and no-one outside the Amiga Operating System/Workbench users cares what we do in Amiga-land, so let's just support what we can, and get as many people to use OS4.1 as possible, by supporting what hardware we can. Is that too much to ask for?
I feel that if DMA cannot be allowed/achieved in the A1200 Mediator boards then I think that OS4.1 for Classic A1200 users is realistically a non-starter, doomed, with no hope of success. There are a lot less A4000 users with PPC boards so OS4.1 for Classics would be basically halved if that happens.
I'd like to be able to offer my support to OS4.1 for the Classic systems, but that would have to include A1200 systems, and not just the A4000 users with real DMA and PPC and Radeon graphics cards, but ALL the cards that can be supported in any PPC driven Mediator, and I'd like to think that a few more cards can be added to the list of supported PCI cards than at present. I know there's a ßeta SCSI card device for the Mediator, which needs proper encouragement and support, but other cards such as Digital TV PCI cards, and newer or the existing Spider PCI USB cards that can directly utilise the Sirion USB stack under OS4.x.
If OS4.1 Classic ever sees the light of day, I'd like to know if there will be a discount for Classic OS4.0 users who want to upgrade to OS4.1, seeing as it's been a virtually unused/unusable OS?
Can I trust Hyperion to deliver a useable OS for Classic PPC/PCI hardware? Can you trust Hyperion? Will we ever see the Shark PPC card, or another replacement PPC/RAM card for the Mediator?
There is also direct support for ZorRAM and you will be able to use multiple ZorRAM boards up to the theoretical limit.
So where does that leave A1200 users? No Zorro slot for additional RAM in a Mediator, no Zorro slot on the mainboard either, seems all the talk is about the A4000 guys/girls again.
This is not some stripped down version of AmigaOS. You can expect all the advanced features like virtual memory, memory swapping and hardware accelerated graphics to be there. The target for product availability is before the end of 2010. AmigaOS 4.1 for classic systems will be distributed exclusively by AmigaKit. Pricing details are not yet available.
But will it all be another money pit?