AmigaOS 4.1 for A1200/3000/4000 + PowerPC, Ready!

As told by Hyperion

Hyperion News

That's good!

This is good news indeed.

Great news for Classic users.

At last ! More users the better , even if it old-classic machines.

Great news. Hope more people will get the chance to run this great OS.

Great news. Shouldn't this be posted as a news item? As far as news goes, this is a big one.

Hans

Great Stuff!

Thanks to all concerned!

@Hans

Ah just read your dev blog, nice to see the Radeon HD series nearing completion. I've posted a little question as well over there.

Hyperion really should give "recommended specs" for OS4.1 Classic, because I did once see OS4.*0* Classic on someone's machine, and it was dog slow (basically unusable).

@Chris

The recommended specs are listed in the Install Guide (included) and also a comprehensive hardware FAQ is on the CD.

But basically it's Blizzard PPC or Cyberstorm PPC with at least 128MB memory, although it will run with less.

Also a graphics card is highly recommended.

The optimal configuration is with a Mediator, Prometheus, or Firestorm and either a Radeon, CyberVision/BlizzardVision, or Voodoo. But also other graphic cards are supported like Picasso IV, Merlin, Spectrum, etc...

A4000 users would benefit from a ZorRAM or DKB 3128 or swap partition.

There is also PCI SATA controller support which we forgot to put on the Press Release :)

A1200 with Mediator Support for SATA Silicon Image 3512, 3112 and 3114. Remember some Mediators eg LT4 / A4000 are only +5V so make sure to source a +5V Card if you have a +5V only mediator.

A4000 Mediator / Firestorm supports the above also PATA 0680.

New features to the classic as well as those in OS4.1 Update 2 baseline.

Its possible to control your PCI based SATA / PATA devices using IDETool as per the A1 etc. Note only PIO transfer modes are supported and the device drivers will automatically default to MAX PIO.

There is the addition of a new nonvolatile.library.kmod which allows classic users to control PCI / SATA devices in the same way you would under UBoot on the A1.

UBoot envs can be entered into a kickstart file called nvram.config and be used for controlling SATA / PATA devices at boot time, EG: timeouts etc. as per A1 etc.

UBoot envs can be read via nvgetvar and also viewed in ranger as per A1 etc.

Radeon cards are initialised in the same way as the A1 by the use of an X86Emulator. An x86emu kmod executes the X86 ROM on Radeons and setups up the card correctly.

Paging support for PCI based SATA, PATA devices, Cyberstorm SCSI, ZORRAM & DKB3128
Onboard IDE paging may be added for update3.

Native USB support for Highway controller.
More devices may be added for Update3.

SUBWAY and DENEB owners can continue to use Posiedon 4.4

Compositing support for compatible Radeon cards. So Warp3D / GL programs can be used as per A1 / SAM etc.

Installer has an AGA fallback mode. This is useful incase a users graphics card breaks,comes loose in a PCI soloution or if a user breaks their installation by accident EG: by deleting files. The CD can be used as a "LiveCD" to boot into Workbench under AGA to help the user fix problems and copy back missing files.

Classic owners who have replaced their floppy drive with a HXC2000 floppy emulator needn't worry about the floopy boot disc. An lha'd ADF of the boot floopy is included on both the CD and the floppy disk for use with these types of systems.

Installation processes uses the same Pre and Post Install Menus as per the A1 / SAM / PEG2 CD's so all the features of the A1 CD like LiveCD, Media Toolbox, Locale Change, configure Screenmodes are all there in the Classic CD.

A Solo One PCI Audio device driver and new Mixer are included.

Elbox FastATA Mk3 on the A1200 is supported out of the box by a new driver an prefs program.

Lots of little things like:-
Updated context menus config.
New Classic backdrops.
New Classic bootlogos as per A1 / SAM bootlogo.
New Classic Specific Icons.
New Bootloader.
Fixed Media Toolbox Engine.
Fixed Screenmode prefs.

Those who wish to move to a pure PCI SATA based system will still need to boot the kernel modules from the onboard IDE / CyberstormPPC SCSI. It is possible to add, for example, an IDE to CF addapter to the onboard IDE interface and boot the kernel modules from there and have your Workbench Partition on a SATA device. This requires some setting up post install but its easily done.
You can even then remove scsi.device from the default kicklayout.

I'm sure a how-to will appear on it.

This is great news indeed. Keeps our classic alive and for those who lacks PPC card not it is high time to finally get one.

PowerUp emulator for WinUAE, hmm that would be nice ;)

@Jurassic
After reading that your post, and latest posts from Darren, and seeing how much energy, time and resources was spend on making latest os4 working on classic, with all those new drivers, support, beta-tests, i think i should say that: port to macintoshes now (or even to just any of mac's laptops), will make A LOT, really A LOT sense in compare with that. Only imagine if all the users / developers who in interest about os4, can just buy 200$ laptop, and goint to develop OS or make apps/games/stuff for os4 , just being not at home.

Its of course nice to see support of more HW, even if some of us can see no sense in support of classic HW anymore, but really , if all that enrgy/time and motivation spend to making macintosh port (just to 1 laptom model), it will make really big sense.

@kas1e Quote:
Interesting point. But I think there is a crucial difference between Classic PPC h/w and Mac PPC h/w:

Classic PPC h/w is not cheap, is not available in relatively large quantities, and does not come close (or even exceed) the performance of our Next Gen PPC h/w. While (second-hand) Mac PPC h/w is.

Why is such a good thing a problem? Because it would kill any chance of Next Gen PPC h/w being economically viable. Sure, in the short term Mac PPC h/w would be a good thing, but it would *guarantee* that we'd never get any Next Gen PPC h/w, and *that* would permanently limit OS4 to a few hobbyists, because (1) Amiga Kit etc won't want to sell second-hand h/w, which would make it much riskier & less professional for people to buy OS4-compatible h/w, (2) it doesn't look very good to the wider world if OS4 can only run on second-hand h/w, and (3) there must be a limit to the number of PPC Macs available (both at any one time & in total).

There is no perfect solution. But I think that Hyperion has chosen the better (albiet imperfect) route.

P.S. As Amiga Kit etc is able to make a little money from relatively expensive Next Gen PPC h/w, they then have money to help push OS4 further (for example fund the development of OS4.1 for Classic, for example develop Boing Ball keyboards & mice which some people love, for example to advertise in various places, for example to go to various Amiga shows which also helps make those shows a success, etc etc). Money does a lot of good things.

@CrhisH
We all know all that stuff about why cheap is bad for company and why good to have money in the pockets :)

But something make me think, that with cheap avail HW like MACs, there will be solded much more copies of aos4 , and while the same kind of money can be in the hands, there will more users and more developers.

Maybe, as some gold-in-the-middle, Hyperion can release some kind of cutted version of aos4 , for mac-laptops, with only SDK, and some necessary stuff for programming, to give developers a more freedom (to avoid those "i am not home for the last half-of-year, sorry can't do that and that").

In end of all, better to make money by quality OS, and go by route of count of solded copies, but not on expensive HW (imho of course).