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© 1997-2006
Gareth Knight
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- AmigaOS 4.0: The Impossible Dream

The magical 4.0 has become an unreachable number for the AmigaOS. Three of the previous four Amiga owners have announced that they would release an upgrade to AmigaOS 3.1, but none have succeeded in this aim. The current Amiga Inc. surprised many Amiga users in their April 2001 announcement, that they would also be developing an AmigaOS 4.0. This page briefly describes the previous attempts:

Commodore: 1992 - 1994

The first AmigaOS 4.0 announcement came nine years ago, at the World of Commodore show in 1992. The Commodore AmigaOS4 feature list promised:
  • Retargetable graphics
  • Full Postscript support
This would not have been a major upgrade, remaining as a 68k native operating system, but would have represented the acceptance of industry standards and the recognition that 3rd party developers could produce better hardware.
Both of these OS enhancements were promised for the 1993-94 period but would have inevitably fell behind if they were to be the major improvements they promised to be. If Commodore had not had their financial situation the present AmigaOS may have followed the development of the MacOS, moving onto the HP RISC processor and incorporating industry standards that were being developed at the time.

The Development of the AmigaOS under Commodore

Escom: 1995 - 1996

At the 2nd annual Video Toaster User expo on November 2nd, 1995, Petro Tyschtschenko announced the development of the next generation Amiga - the PowerAmiga. This was the first time that the PowerPC had been mentioned in the same sentence as Amiga. Like the current Amiga Inc. operating system, the Escom AmigaOS4 would have been PPC-native, and would feature memory protection and virtual memory as standard. However, the liquidation of their parent company quickly ended Amiga Technologies' plans.

Power Amiga
Announced Escom machines
Amiga goes PowerPC


Gateway: 1998 - 1999

At the World of Amiga show in 1998, Amiga Inc. made the announcement that a next generation Amiga Convergence machine would be developed, using a magical mystery chip. To pave the way for its eventual release in 1999, the company would release an x86-based 'AmigaOS4 Developer' system. The AmigaOS 4.x version number would refer to the beta version of AmigaOS5.0, allowing developers to get their first glimpse of the new machine.

As time progressed the operating system for the proposed next generation system went through a number of changes. By the beginning of 1999, the AmigaOS 4.0 developer release had been changed to Amiga OS5dev, and Amiga OS 5.0 became Amiga OS5Prod. A few months later, Amiga Inc. abandoned the AmigaOS tag altogether, announcing that it would be known as AmigaSoft OE (Operating Environment). The name was immediately attacked by Amiga enthusiasts - abusive names, ranging from 'Microsoft wannabes' to AmigaSofties' and a number of unprintable ones were sent to Amiga Inc. After a few months, the company finally got the message and the 'Soft' extension was dropped. The new operating system was simply referred to as 'Amiga OE'.

AmigaOS 4.0 appeared again for a brief time, soon after Gateway/Amiga Inc. canceled the MCC project. Gateway gave Haage & Partner permission to port AmigaOS3.5 to PPC. However, the decision was reversed when Amino bought the Amiga.

The Evolution of AmigaNG
Amiga OE
AmigaSoft Developer System (previously known as AmigaOS4 Developer box)

Amiga Inc: 2001 - Present

The announcement in April 2001 that Amiga Inc. would be developing an AmigaOS PPC-native port came as a shock to the Amiga market. After years of announcements that the 'Classic' OS was dead and contrary to statements that 50,000 copies of OS3.9 must be sold to make it viable (Fleecy Moss, December 2000, IRC Conference), Amiga Inc. reversed this decision, blurring the distinction between the Classic and Next generation Amiga.

The current AmigaOS 4.0 will combine many elements of its previous incarnations; like the Escom AmigaOS 4.0, it will be a PowerPC-native operating system, and in a similar fashion to the Gateway version, the 4.x version number will be designated as a beta version that will be lacking in many capabilities.

Amiga Inc. AmigaOS4.0
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Latest updates to the Amiga History Guide. (more)


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· Amiga Hardware
· Amiga History.de
· Amiga Magazine Rack
· Amiga-news(en)(de)
· Amiga.org
· Amiga World
· AmigaOS 4.0
· Amiga University
· Commodore Retrobits
· Dave Haynie archive
· Lemon Amiga
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· morphos-news.de

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