Not as vehement a fan as I used to be: my shelf-full of old Amigas goes largely unused, but not entirely unused. So though AmigaOS was still way ahead of its time in 1985, it can't be updated to even 1995 standards without losing compatibility. But unfortunately, that's impossible with virtual memory. Original AmigaOS uses pointer-based messaging, and that's why the OS is so efficient. It is also impossible to make an AmigaOS-compatible operating system with real memory protection without using virtual machines or emulators for older software. There were rumors that Commodore had *lost* the original chipset (OCS) designs, and they had to reverse-engineer the chips to be able to make next generation AGA chips compatible.
AMIGA OS 3.9 VIRTUALBOX PC
It took almost *ten* years to get new graphics chipset and more processor power to the lower-end models, and when AGA finally arrived it was too little too late, PC had already got first sound cards and VGA, and more processor power. Yes, I know it is still pretty popular hobbyist machine, but so are for example C64 or MSX.Īnother fatal thing was slow progress. That finally killed the machine for the masses. Commodore's marketing was awful to say the least, and bankruptcy followed in 1994 leaving Amiga in void for a couple of years. If it was so superior, what killed it? Marketing?Īmong other things, yes. BeOS was arguably as good or better than the new Amiga, and it never caught on. They have to prove that they are worth the price. No one else is even a contendor on the desktop.
AMIGA OS 3.9 VIRTUALBOX MAC OS X
If they don't succeed this time, then it is all over for the platform.Īnd even then I think that Amiga has a lot to prove in a market that is crowed with Windows, Linux/X and Mac OS X in the top 3 places. I have a feeling that this is the last chance for Amiga, it is sink or swim.
AMIGA OS 3.9 VIRTUALBOX FULL
The full set of GNU tools will also probably be quickly ported to the new environment. I bet we can look forward to ports of open office and mozilla rather quickly as soon as a few developers get their hands on a copy. Worse case, how hard would it be to make *BSD or Linux be API compatible with QNX?Īll that being said, I would love to see a demo of it, and to see just how fast it is and how well it runs all the programs. Then you would have had the supporters of that OS adding the the core supporters of Amiga. It would have been better to emulate Apple in picking a free kernel. (unlike either *BSD or Linux, both of which have lots of fanatical supporters.) It is at least a UNIX like kernel, and very high performance. Unfortunately they chose QNX as their kernel, which is not only proprietary, but also has few fanatical supporters. It is interesting that it will run on both x86 and PPC platforms. I am wondering if the Amiga can ever rise from the ashes like the Phoenix?