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The Light At The End Of The Tunnel

© John Chandler

One thing that anyone still using an Amiga has gained over the years is a sense of patience. No matter how tough things get, no matter how much the situation ups and downs, most Amiga users will remain fairly patient in the face of frustrations that would have owners of other platforms cursing and wailing. Yes we do get moments of despair, yes sometimes it does look bleak and you can be forgiven for losing the optimism and thick-skins built up in the post-Commodore years... but then things come along and suddenly everything looks bright again.

At the end of my last article, which you will probably have spotted was more than a month ago, I mentioned I'd be taking a look at the new Eyetech AmigaOne hardware, the first genuine new Amiga to roll off the production lines in more years than anyone would care to mention. Well, it got put on hold and thus the article died a death.

The reason for the delay is not the dramatic event various prophets of doom and gloom would have people believe. The mundane fact is that the hardware is pretty much ready, but an OS (AmigaOS 4.0 to be precise) just isn't available. I'm not going to speculate on why AmigaOS 4.0 isn't available, it does no real good and the simple fact of the matter is that projects like this take time and can easily overrun. Remember what I said about patience? If a shoddy AmigaOS 4.0 was released, it would be a disaster - one the Amiga community really shouldn't have to face. Better to wait for things to be right.

Following Amiga's wise decisions to delegate a lot of work to other organisations, AmigaOS is under development by Hyperion and a task force of about 25 developers, including many of those responsible for the AmigaOS 3.5 and 3.9 updates which have helped breathe new life into the Amiga's OS line. If that's not good enough for you, Dave Haynie has been employed as a technical consultant. Dave's knowledge of the Amiga is formidable and he brings a great deal of technical expertise, not to mention a wealth of ideas. I think it's safe to say that AmigaOS 4 is in very capable hands.

AmigaOS 4 isn't just an updated OS to appease the existing community. Nor is it just AmigaOS finally migrated to PowerPC. It's a complementary part of everything Amiga is trying to do with the AmigaDE.

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