AmigaOS 3.5 is the current version of the 'Classic' Amiga operating system. Although it is still a 680X0 native OS, work is steadily progressing towards native support for PowerPC. The early PowerPC Amiga days were a hotbed of rivalry between Haage & Partner's "WarpOS" kernel, and the Phase 5 "ppc.library" solution. H&P's WarpOS has been adopted as the official solution, and is now a part of the OS 3.5 package.
3.5 provides an overhaul of the OS, to try and clean up the wealth of hacks and patches applied to OS 3.0 and 3.1 systems over the years since the last (3.1) OS release. It also added new functionality, improved support for recent technologies, and provided Haage & Partner with the chance to prepare for migration towards a new PowerPC based AmigaOS: presumably AmigaOS 4.0.
Amiga Corporation support the AmigaOS line, though the bulk of the work has been handed over to Haage & Partner while Amiga Corporation concentrate on next generation Amigas and OS.
Fleecy Moss and Bill McEwen, former Amiga employees during the Gateway era, bought out Amiga at the very end of 1999. The act wiped away the uncertainty, apathy, and neglect setting in as Gateway varied between cool enthusiasm, staff-firing reactionism, and silent destruction. Amiga inked a deal with UK-based Tao Group kernel developers, which is set to form the foundation of a new line of Amigas, carrying on the visions of the Collas-era Gateway/Amiga.
Little is known about the plans of Amiga/Tao, let alone what the resulting OS will be like. The Elate system, though, hints at some features we can expect to see:
While Gateway/Amiga was dithering around, switching kernel partners, changing ideas and even discarding employees who happened to be enthusiastic or talkative, a group of Amiga developers got together and set about developing a real next generation Amiga in everything except name. Phoenix was the result.
Phoenix has officially adopted QNX Neutrino as the kernel choice for developments. Neutrino was the choice of one of the better Gateway/Amiga next generation initiatives, before being discarded in favour of Linux. QNX didn't cease work on the Amiga-like Neutrino system, but carried on... now with assistance from Phoenix.
So how is this a new Amiga? Is it a bitter rival of the 'official' Amiga? Not at all... Amiga and Phoenix are friendly rivals, each ploughing similar but differing courses. In short, a complementary set of developments aimed at bringing the unique qualities of the Amiga to a broader audience. It should be noted that Elate can run hosted on QNX... it's not too hard to imagine Elate hosted on Neutrino...
The Amiga-ised Neutrino provides a POSIX compliant environment, with a compact and efficient microGUI system called Photon. It runs on multi-processor hardware, and is network-enabled allowing processes and threads to interact between different machines. When Amiga first announced the partnership with QNX, they demonstrated a game of DOOM being dragged from one machine to another, while it was still running.
Neutrino is fully configurable and customisable, runs on PowerPC, x86 and MIPS processors (and is easily portable to other hardware), was designed for low-memory embedded systems work, and offers an interesting portable driver architecture allowing drivers to be ported between systems with just a quick recompile. It's also realtime, providing excellent multimedia performance - even beyond the Amiga's quasi-realtime capabilities.
Neutrino is currently being beta-tested by QNX and selected Amiga/Phoenix developers, before a more general developer release.
Also, take a look at the interview Andrej Bunta and I did with Phoenix "facilitator at large" greenboy. greenboy Interview
AROS was started back in the post-Commodore days of gloom. With the future of the Amiga uncertain, discussions took place about the best way to keep the Amiga alive. Many people agreed that if only one thing could be salvaged from the Amiga for future developments, it had to be the OS. Since future Amiga hardware could have been an impossibility, it was decided that making the OS portable was an important step and thus AROS was born: the Amiga Replacement Operating System. Okay, it isn't a next generation operating system at all, I've only mentioned it here because I feel it has something to offer - being the only portable version of the Amiga OS currently available - it may not be complete, but it's out there and in use already.
The current version provides a base system which is compatible with OS 3.1. It is binary compatible when installed on existing Amigas, so current users can continue to use their software collection without problem, while on other systems it provides source-level compatibility - just recompile the program source on another machine and away you go. Presently, AROS works with 680X0 and 80386+ machines using either Amiga OS or Linux/FreeBSD, and I believe they also have a version ported to an Alpha workstation. Future developments include ports to Sparcs, HP-PAs and PowerPCs amongst others.
When AROS is finally complete, the project will make a start on adding new features... but, hopefully, not at the expense of compatibility with existing software and future versions of the official OS. While I have not had the chance to use it, I have been trying to keep up-to-date with its developments on various related web sites, and will update this page to reflect significant new developments as they are announced. Anyone who has used the system or had a part in its development are welcome to contact me with any information they feel would be useful here.
After a long period of silence, AROS announced during March '99 that they were still working hard, particularly on the HIDD (a hardware independant layer) which would allow AROS to sit on top of any hardware - just rewrite the driver software for the new hardware. Currently, the system boots but does nothing else without assistance from native X11 or Linux support. By May, the team hopes to have a system that does more on its own - including opening Workbench, displaying windows and other important features required by AmigaOS. Documentation and webpages will also be upgraded - both in quality and quantity. PowerPC support is being looked into, to line up alongside current 680X0 and x86 operation, and a merging with UAE is also under preparation to allow binary compatibility on non-Amiga systems.
All in all, excellent progress I'm sure you will agree. I strongly recommend you try AROS out and submit a bug report at least. Developer's are encouraged to lend a hand, port or contribute any source code they have, as well as assist with debugging. Retailers can distribute and sell AROS in accordance with the AROS Public Licence.
