Some questions from a new member, hope some1 can help.

Hey guys, i thought i'd register because i saw that the site looked like it has recent posts and i might get some answers from some of the AMIGA users on here. I have a few questions that i hope can be answered. If they're all answered on another page somewhere then a link will suffice and i'll go have a read but i've been through a few different pages and either dont understand some of the info or cant find what im after.

1. Is the AMIGA really back?
2. Is AMIGAos4.0 a software package that you can install onto your desktop PC using the current hardware (such as my Pentium processor etc) and use instead of windows or linux?
3. Is there actually a new AMIGA computer called the Amigaone i have read some info about it but nowhere can i find someone trying to sell me one.
4. If question 3 is a yes then where can i buy one and can i run World of Warcraft and adobe and other similar programs on it?


Quickly about me: I am from the AMIGA generation, i grew up with commodore64 and AMIGA500 and AMIGA2000 at home. My dad was basically a Fanatic. I have repurchased an AMIGA500 about a year ago and have bought a lot of the old games i used to love like Monkey Island 1 and 2 and Dynablaster and Lemmings. I love it but what i really want to do is to(and here i want to use an expletive to emphasize how much i want) "get rid" of Windows all together and use something else. I am at the stage where im about to get linux and use it as long as i can get World of Warcraft and some other programs working on it like a word processor and pdf creator. I would much prefer to go to AMIGA. I am into scamming free shit when it comes to microsoft and that but i seriously want to support any attempt at an AMIGA comeback as long as i can get the info i need.

I'm hoping someone can help me out and im hoping that some of the things i am reading are infact meaning what i think they're meaing: that the AMIGA is back and more powerful then ever.

cheers,

Matt (Australia)

@Spud

Sit down for some disappointing news...

Quote:
The Amiga is not back, its just hanging on to life by its transistors. Its pretty much in Limbo. Amiga inc are suing Hyperion and its all locked in the American Courts.
- It seems pretty clear that Amiga inc just want OS4 back to kill it off in favour of AmigaOS5 which is nothing more than a hosted java environment for PDA's etc.

Quote:

Nope. Nope and Nope. AmigaOS4 requires a Classic Amiga A1200, A3000 or an A4000 Amiga with a PPC Card installed to run OS4 on it.
However they are as rare as hen's teeth and when they come up on ebay they are very very expensive. Alternatively you can get an Amiga One computer which if you think the Classic Machines with PPC cards are rare, are even rarer. To boot they are expensive as well (Supply and Demand)

Quote:

See above. Try ebay or Classifieds elsewhere to see if there is one available to sell. Typically a PPC Amiga will cost you about ?500 to ?800 ukp Complete.

Quote:

No chance of running World of Warcraft on an Amiga. About as likely as running GTA4 on a mac.

To be honest, unless you are really keen to own an Amiga with OS4, you are probably better off waiting to see who wins the court case. If Hyperion wins there will be new hardware in the form of the SAM 440EP. If they don't - its game over for any chance of a future.

If I were you, i'd forget about the whole Amiga thing and come back in 6 months to a year.

@Spud

Hi Matt,

Just to add a *lot* to Mikey_c's reply.

1. Yes Amiga inc, who sort of fell out of the ashes of Commadore, though they say they did not (it's very complicated!), are in court in the USA with Hyperion, who wrote OS4, and no-one really knows how it will pan out. Amiga Inc are not the flavour of the month due to a lot of history which you can read about on the net if you like.

2. OS 4 does require a powerPC processor (often abbreviated to PPC) and either an amigaOne (rare) or PPC board that plugs into a 'Classic Amiga (very rare). Oh classic amiga's are those made by Commadore and a few others, they are A500's (like yours) A1200's A1500's A4000's etc. It will not work on a PC or Mac. OS4 will not work on your A500 either.

However it is not all bad news, especially of you want to bin windows. Two projects spring to mind. The first is UAE. This is a piece of software that emulates the classic Amiga on a PC, Mac and a few others (?). It forms the basis of Amiga Forever and you can buy a copy of this from cloanto at http://www.amigaforever.com/ . It comes with everything you need to run a vast array of classic programmes on a pc, I am not sure of a Mac version. You do need Windows - but see below - or their mini install of Linux to use it and it is not perfect... Then again its not at all bad. If you want to support development buy a copy.

Once you have you can tweak it like mad by downloading (and donating to) amikit - http://amikit.amiga.sk/ (10,000 downloads and counting) or amigasys - http://amigasys.extra.hu/winuaefeature.html. Both of which accept the amiga forever cd and add patches to the software to make it a very usable environment on a windows pc (and now Linux)

The second project is Aros. This is an attempt to produce a pc (and other) native version of OS3.1. Its now got an installer and will also run as a hosted OS on Linux. Work is under way to produce a version of UAE for it. Check out the latest here. http://aros.sourceforge.net/ Once this is complete you will be able to run classic programmes in uae on Aros without a sign of windows. You can do this now on linux using uae, or E-uae (which is a port of the windows version - info here - http://www.rcdrummond.net/uae/ )

Aros is under test on A cube's Sam 440Ep (news here - http://www.acube-systems.biz/eng/index.php ) as is Ubuntu - a version of Linux. So if all goes well you will not need a pc at all.

There are 2 hardware projects out there that you might like to look at as well. The minimig is an attempt to get all the special hardware of an A500 into a single chip. A cube were selling these, and the last time I looked they had sold out. The other is a slightly mad(?) project to produce a new A1200 look/work-alike called the Natami - check it out here - http://www.natami.de/ . Opinions vary as to how successful it will be.

Finally there are still companies who cater for people with amigas - not sure what is available for the A500 but one such is Amigakit, their website pops up in place of Eyetec's - who were the people who developed the AmigaOne... http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/amiga-shop.php


Cheers
J.

WOW!! Thanks heaps for replying you guys that was awesome info.... very dissapointing but awesome anyway. Ok... so now i know a lot that i had no idea about and let me tell you i had a lot of trouble trying to get the GIST of what the hells going on. Theres basically nowhere that says what you guys just said.

So to clarify about AmigaOS5.... you guys are saying its gonna be junk? I cant just ditch windows for it? Should i get rid of windows and run one of the linux programs instead? I am just sick to death of microsoft and all their little things like locking down mp3's and other stuff that it does that annoys me. Problem is i still want to be able to play world of warcraft. Basically any other program i use there is an alternative on linux and seems like amigaos too but not for world of warcraft.

anyway... thanks heaps for the info, it was VERY appreciated. Today i managed to get in contact with a guy who sells amiga stuff near my place in australia and apparently he runs an amiga club in melbourne so im going to try to see if anyone there has the amigaone or that minimig that you were talking about.

anyway... till then im happy playing games on my A500 :) its a great little machine and my favourite adventure games all install on the HDD.

Once again, Thanks and i hope that Amiga pull through, they've had a tough life but maybe they need to hire some business and marketing professionals........

Cheers,

Matt

@Spud

Nobody really knows anything about OS5 yet, I'm not even sure Amiga Inc know what it is. It's a bit early to say that it will be rubbish, but if it isn't compatible with OS4 then it will have to be pretty special to get many supporters.

Ok cool


well, i guess i'll have to tread water for a while and hope everything works itself out.