Submitted by “Hyperion Entertainment VOF and ACube Systems SRL are pleased to announce that they have entered into an OEM license agreement which will allow ACube to offer its customers an OEM version of Hyperion’s AmigaOS 4.1 operating system for their SAM440 range of motherboards. Prospective customers wishing to beta-test the near final OEM version of AmigaOS 4.1 for the SAM 440ep will be afforded the opportunity to do so and will subsequently receive the full version. Orders can be placed as of now with ACube. A first public demonstration of AmigaOS 4.1 for SAM440ep is scheduled for the upcoming exhibition Pianeta Amiga in Empoli, Italy on September 27-28, 2008.” Update by TH: Due to all the massive cheering and excitement going on in the OSAlert Boardroom and our company yacht, we actually forgot to link to the official announcements here and here.
OMGPWNIES!
Seriously.
OMGPWNIES!
Sweet! Like I so want one…. but then again I wanted one about 5 years ago when they were talking about AmigaOS4 a bit more.
Sadly, if I bought one (which I very well might) I’d probably end up installing Linux on it…
I love the Amiga OS. But will there really be application support for this? I had an Atari TT030 at one point, and while it had a lot more beef than the regular ST(e), not much software out there for the ST worked right on it, or made you notice much of a difference (though it rocked for Pagestream / Calamus)
How good will the compatibility be with old Amiga software, and how much new will come out for it, is the question. I really would LOVE to see another platform war, instead of this boring PC / MAC crap, especially since now they all use the same hardware, just different OSs.
@ Leech:
Except for Showgirls (that is a great viewer at the same level of ACDSee and IrfanView on PC World) and some games like BirdieShot that I find rather unuseless, and except for Blender and Sputnik Browser that are still available only to OS4 and its developers, AmigaOS can run almost the best part of the software listed here for MorphOS system:
http://bbrv.blogspot.com/2007/07/efika-morphos.html
Get a look at it and enjoy…
Edited 2008-09-17 18:34 UTC
Yeas, quite surprising. Now I am quite eager to see if ppl will run out requesting massivly those freaking expensive Amiga boards. And I guess the AmigaOS 4 fanbois will have to learn the next lesson now: The wolrd out there doesn’t care too much about this.
But anyway, within the quite special Amigaish computer micro-cosmos it improves the pace of things: First the release of MorphOS 2.x, now hardware for AmigaOS 4.1.
Maybe it brings a bit more momentum to the entire situation.
Sorry to all Duke Nukem Forever supporters who in the past dare to joke with the l33t Amiga…
Now AmigaOS has got new hardware and it is for real!
And you are the only Vaporware remaining on the scene…
You got all the sympathy from Amigans worldwide…
Bye bye forever!
Except people are actually *looking forward* to a new Duke release…
I’ve waited god knows how long for this… Woot!
Hope all the naysayers can eat there words now…
…
So, who’s buying one?
If only I had money.
Man! Back to the old days where I could run Amiga + Fortran for my research….ahhhhhhh! I want one!
-2501
While I do tend to prefer the the system design of MorphOS, AmigaOS 4 is quite well done as well. Still, even the best OS in the world has an uphill battle going when it has to convince people to spend $400+ dollars on a barebones motherboard+cpu combo based on a PowerPC G3 clone chip that’s FAR outclassed by various COMPLETE low end PC systems that are way more powerful…
Yes, it is overpriced and underpowered. And the cost is not $400+. It’s now actually over $700 just for the motherboard if you buy it from AmigaKit. And that doesn’t include the copy of OS4.1, a case, power supply, monitor, mouse, keyboard hard drive or CD/DVD drive.
The legal issues between Amiga Inc and Hyperion also haven’t been address so it may be very premature for people to expect bundled boards with copies of OS4.1
Edited 2008-09-17 22:53 UTC
The system runs very well. The overall performance are more than good. The UIis shining, and don’t need 4 GB of ram and 2 Ghz video card.
It’s a niche market for people who really want to use/play with the Amiga. People who need more than software emulation like Amiga Forever/AmigaKit/AIAB.
I may be wrong, but it’s impossible with emulation to run AmigaOS 4.1 or MorphOS 2.x – So those could be good reason to want the real thing.
To each their own. If you got the money and you want to play with it, it’s fine. Lucky you in fact.
For me, the Amiga is a fond memory of the good time, when everything was not only about PC/Mac. I own Amiga Forever 2008 and play with Amigakit. It’s good enough for my retro-gaming.
Why is that? Surely anything can be emulated if you have the right VM?
QEMU supports emulating other chipset architectures – if that’s the reason for your reasoning in said OSs not supporting emulation.
No VMs currently run AmigaOS 4.x nor MorphOS. Maybe someday that will change but for now get over it and buy the hardware.
Hyperion is in the midst of a lawsuit with Amiga, Inc. over the ownership of the Amiga operating system. They are in litigation as I type. Silliness and idiocy such as this is NOT going to impress the judge.
While I agree entering new sales while in a lawsuit is not the best legal behavior. However for Amiga users its about the only good news in ages, maybe. As for those who may wish to see Amiga Inc. get paid I say don’t worry they will one way or another.
Any time Hyperion sells AOS there is a royalty at the very least to the owner of the OS. While the damn os (vacant of just about any useful apps) is a bit over 100USD someone is getting paid.
Both companies in my view have and are making mistakes. But so long as everyone insists on PPC as the platform having flipping PPC hardware and an OS together is crucial.
Personally there are opensource fringe OS’s out there with more promise and ability than AOS at the moment. My 2 cents is this..
Open the main OS
Port the main OS to popular cheap hardware
Drag in all the opensourcers and fans that can code / port to do just that. .
Develop specialized editions of the updated OS.
Sell modern drivers and support
Sell Custom solutions based on the above.
Give me one for free for putting up with all this crud
I care about both bills, you know who Im talking about.. I belive Hyperion should and, as I read the in court case, did get paid.
The court case is nuts..
Do people think that microsoft would have paid a company for vista in full if not additional money for fouling it up and missing all the vista deadlines?
Nope.. Not a chance in hell and people in microsoft did/are get(ing) fired over Vista..
Infact the company would probably be found floating in a river in that case..
All that being said first signs of someone actually getting their order fulfilled.. I’ll be on that like flies on poo..
Sam is reasonable, available and remotely modern (cough cough)
The only other thing that would drag me in is gimi the board, cpu and ram with os 400USD.
Try and get me to spend 1KUSD on a sub 2GHZ tortoise of a system board and I don’t care if it cures AIDS I ain’t buying it..
Get real people,
Here is the reality check,,
MAINBOARD ONLY
PRICE
533 Mhz cpu, 512 MB DDR Ram, ATI Radeon M9 64Mb and Audio 5.1 onboard
459,00 euro
332 euro *
667 Mhz cpu, 512 MB DDR Ram, ATI Radeon M9 64Mb and Audio 5.1 onboard
489,00 euro
* this promotion will end on september, 30th!
Sam440ep board with 512 MB DDR Ram, ATI Radeon M9 64MB and Audio 5.1 onboard, SATA DVD-RW, SATA 80 Gb Hard Disk, Logitech Optical Mouse
PRICE
533 Mhz CPU, Psile case (Black or White)
765,00 euro
667 Mhz CPU, Psile case (Black or White)
795,00 euro
533 Mhz CPU, NEXUS AVANCE P002 case
590,00 euro
667 Mhz CPU, NEXUS AVANCE P002 case
620,00 euro
533 Mhz CPU, GA630iBK case
650,00 euro
667 Mhz CPU, GA630iBK case
680,00 euro
Not happening.. Thats like * 1.6 converting for vat and usd exchange rate..
People.. who would pay 800 bucks for a 667 Mhz PC? If so I cot a few PII’s and PIII’s to put on ebay..
@ auzieman
It is sure you are unaware that retro Amigas A4000 with 68040 at 25 MHz expanded with double CPU 68060 at 60 MHz + PPC at 200 MHz are sold at 1000, 1500 and even 3000 euro (three thousands euro) on ebay, and 200 MHz is really UNDERPOWERED SYSTEM for any OS except AmigaOS.
See these comments in a thread of Amiga users in which was commented the fact that an elder classic Amiga was priced on ebay STARTING at 750 euro and for another classic Amiga bid ended at 1020 Euro except delivery…
http://amiga.ikirsector.it/forum/viewtopic.php?t=11280&highlight=pa…
(Italian language readers only.
Google-translate if you do not understand that language)
People will spend lots of money for their HOBBY, and really these are the prices of pimped classic Amigas.
These are the prices of the first batch of motherboards produced in limited quantities and aimed mainly at developers and core users…
And sure he who loves Amiga and has still an old underpowered A1200 with standard CPU Motorola 68EC020 (no MMU) at 14 MHz, then he will agree to pay even lots of money for upgrade system or buy a new Amiga…
Passion for hobbies costs, but hobbists are ready to pay lots of money…
And sure buying a computer that REALLY OBEYS in no time the commands of the users making no any dirty tricks as Windows, and that does not requires a degree in computer science as Linux then it has NO ANY PRICE LIMIT…
Edited 2008-09-18 07:52 UTC
Like I said once they ship I’ll still be on them like flies on poo
However mine will be that 533mhz model..
Don’t get me wrong an old 2000-4000 has special a special place in peoples hearts and though I think it to be madness your right they do go for huge amounts of money these days.
Sam however is related only by the faint relation of its OS.. No toaster boards, no classic ami games etc. etc..
However those new screenshots hint at a wee more evolved AOS.. Though yea that theme is very old school..
actually, quite a few OSes out there run fine @ 200mhz
NEXTSTEP, BeOS R5, Various Windows releases, several Linux distros, BSDs, VMS… ;D I’ll admit, the Amiga OS is rather impressive on low specced hardware.
And yeah, if I had money, I’d pay a fortune for a massively upgraded A4kT, but *not* for a new machine, that isnt a collectors item, that is pathetically low end for the current day and age.
First screenshots of AmigaOS 4.1 running on Sam 440 EP:
http://www.acube-systems.biz/common/screenshots/sam-os41-4.png
http://www.acube-systems.biz/common/screenshots/sam-os41.png
Ugh. That looks awful.
Are you nuts? That’s a thing of beauty. Oddly enough on my system at home right now, I have the metacity Amiga theme. It just looks nice and smooth and doesn’t have the crappy windows-like buttons for max / min / close. Though I will say the dock looks a lot like WindowMaker’s. Hardly anyone ever mentions window maker anymore. I always did like that window manager.
I’d rather agree with PJBonoVox…
That desktop is very basic and ugly… Colors are awful.
The user could had had choosen a different GUI look and combination of colors…
it doesnt look ugly OR bad
it looks dated…
what is a screenshot on other os that doesn’t looks dated please?
just for my knowledge
I agree: Dated icons. Brown striped background. The transparent windows that allow everything from below to ‘bleed’ through.
I bet most of that stuff is user-controlled though.
I would rather spend money on a _real_ Amiga from eBay.
@ Biffuz
Please define what you believe it is for a “real” Amiga nowadays…
Classic Amigas are real Amigas…
AmigaOnes are real Amigas too…
Amithlon is an emulated Amiga on a PC, but it predates the entire machine no wINDOWS ALLOWED, so it is a PSEUDO-Amiga running on Intel X86…
Only WinUAE emulated amigas are NOT REAL Amigas… but SURE they work, even if these are limited to OS 3.9…
The only real Amigas are the classical ones. The A1 is not much more than a PPC processor with some PC components attached, like later PPC Macs, but at least the Macs come with a custom – and sometimes sexy – cabinet.
Real Amigas are “Classic” Amigas, the ones with 68k hearts. Anything else is NOT an Amiga. The AOne is a joke.
They should port it to PC hardware and be done with it. They could even buy something OEM like a custom cased eeebox and sell these with the system preinstalled, far more cost and time effective…
Big portions of Amiga OS are low level code, porting it to x86 would be pretty difficult… I don’t think it worth the effort.
A complete alternative platform (hardware && software) is so sexy….
AmigaOS4 is full 100% C CODE
So…following hot on the heels of the stunning success of OS4 on the AmigaOne comes OS4.1 on SAM440? And this enables me to do what that I can’t do on any other computer, drag screens is it? Thanks, I think I’ll pass especially at that price.
It seems that everyone here moaning about how a non-classic Amiga is not a real Amiga may be in for a surprise. The Sam440ep has a Field-Programmable Gate Array chip on-board for implementing the absent chipset functions of a classic. Furthermore that accounts for some of the cost of the motherboard also.
And if that’s not enough for you, there is a new Amiga-compatible chipset in the works called the SuperAGA chipset. For information about it and the yet-to-be-designed 68070 processor, see http://www.natami.net/ .
If all you want to do is run old Amiga software on Amiga-compatible hardware, then look into the MiniMig at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimig .
It’s a nice niche machine. The Amiga scene today is retro, not modern and definitely not stae of the art. The OS has a clean ’90s look, you can do modern things on it and it’ll run the old stuff.
It’s not for everyone, it’s not a Mac/PC competitor, it’s a machine you have at home foryour own personal enjoyment, it’s a Wii/PS2/XBox for the clascic Amiga lovers. And for that crowd it works well
You can out out of the box sata drives and usb keyboards, you aren’t tied to hard to get hradware. Underpowered? Not for what you can do with Amiga OS4. Overpriced? Yes for the basic technology that makes it up, but the Amiga is a HOBBY, people pay outrageous prices for bits of plastic for their hobby. SAM is just another one fo those things.
The only people who are disappointed with the SAM are the extremes, those who think only in classic and those who think that somehow Amiga could compete with Mac/PC.
Nobody is going to replace a modern computer with this, I’ll buy one for sure, it’ll be fun to play with, but you’ll have pro pry my MacPro out of my cold dead hands to get it. The SAM goes in my “play” room, the MacPro stays in my “work” room!