A new version of AmigaOS

Introduction

From its very inception, the Amiga has been about defying conventional wisdom. In the early 1980s, everyone knew that personal computers weren't powerful enough to multitask, but the Amiga proved the naysayers wrong. In the 1990s it was accepted that PCs couldn't possibly edit production-ready video, but the Amiga's Video Toaster add-on changed that and revolutionized the industry.

Sadly, these days the Amiga is no longer breaking new ground technologically. However, the platform continues to defy conventional wisdom by its stubborn refusal to fade into the digital night. Long after most people had given it up for dead, companies such as Hyperion Entertainment Inc. are hard at work improving and enhancing the operating system. I had a chance to look at a preview copy of the latest release, AmigaOS 4.1, and it is an impressive piece of work.

Hardware requirements

At the time of writing, AmigaOS 4.1 is only supported on existing AmigaOne SE, XE, and AmigaOne Micro computers. As such, it is primarily an upgrade for existing AmigaOne owners. However, a recent announcement by ACube Systems SRL has confirmed an OEM agreement that will allow owners of the SAM440 to install and run OS 4.1. Minimum requirements are a PowerPC processor running at 400MHz or higher, 256 megabytes of RAM, 100 megabytes of hard drive space, and a Radeon 7000 video card. A Radeon 9250 is recommended, however, as AmigaOS 4.1 contains a new graphics subsystem that—like Windows Vista and Macintosh OSX—uses the card's 3D features for a graphics compositing layer.

The elephant in the room

At the time of writing, Hyperion is still in the middle of a lawsuit brought by the company that contracted the development of the OS, Amiga Incorporated. The lawsuit hinges on the original OS4 development contract, signed in the wake of the dotcom crash of 2001, when Amiga Inc. had lost its funding and did not appear to be financially viable going forward. The deal specified that if Amiga Inc. were to declare bankruptcy, Hyperion Entertainment (which prior to the development of OS4 specialized primarily in porting games from Windows to the Mac, Amiga, and Linux) would gain full control of the rights to the OS.

Amiga Incorporated survived, but only through some sleight of hand that involved being purchased by a shell entity known as KMOS, which acquired Amiga's assets piecemeal and then changed its name to Amiga Incorporated (Washington) once the original Amiga Incorporated (Delaware) dissolved. Now that we're in the middle of the second dotcom boom, the new Amiga Inc. has additional funding sources and wants control of the OS back. Hyperion, on the other hand, maintains that the "escape clause" should be in effect.

Making matters worse, the original hardware manufacturer, Eyetech, that produced the AmigaOne and AmigaOne Micro motherboards ran into trouble when a crucial chip manufacturer (Taiwan-based MAI Logic) went bankrupt. No new AmigaOne boards are being produced, and while Amiga Inc. has announced that new, licensed, hardware for OS4 is underway, such announcements have been mere vapor so far.

Not giving up

Such a dismal situation would mean the end of most computer platforms, but Hyperion is not throwing in the towel. Not all is doom and gloom: the OS is solid and evolving, and there are many places it could go. The announcement of support for the SAM440 motherboards is just a start: there is a large existing base of PowerPC-based Macintoshes that could easily be made to run OS 4.1, and the low RAM requirements of the OS would make it perfect for running on Sony's PlayStation 3 or on any number of mobile platforms. After all, hardware is typically the easier side of the platform equation: it's the software side that takes the time. OS 4.0 was already a quantum leap forward for the Amiga operating system, but 4.1 takes it to the next level.

A new partnership

OS 4.1, while written by Hyperion Entertainment, is being marketed and distributed by the Italian company ACube, the makers of the Sam440 PowerPC motherboards. As mentioned, ACube has entered into an OEM agreement with Hyperion to bundle OS 4.1 with these machines. ACube also wrote the manual and created the box art for OS 4.1.