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Updated AmigaOS4 SDK Available
Mike Bouma writes "Closely following the update for the AmigaOS4 Pre-release, the updated Software Development Kit (SDK) is now also available. Meanwhile some first people have been able to buy Mini-ITX MicroA1-C boards and last weekend at a British Amiga Party one was even raffled amongst its visitors. Also some first photographs of the Micro AmigaOne Industrial motherboard (aka u-A1-I) have been revealed at the party. For an impression with regard to AmigaOS4's current state of development, within this recent show report there are links to some earlier demonstration videos."
Since the release of the developer Pre-release earlier this year there's already a steady growing list of native AmigaOS4 software.
The central AmigaOS4 download portal can be found at:
http://www.os4depot.net/
A majority of freely distributable OS4 files can be found at OS4Depot.
I'm rather looking forward to the new Amiga [...]
There is no "new Amiga". That's one of the points with AmigaOS4 and beyond. The "Micro Amigaone" mentioned in the article is another name for the Teron Mini from MAI.
It's just that we're forced to pretend that there will be "Amiga hardware". Of course this will kill AmigaOS and makes the whole project a waste of time, but at least the proud tradition of utter incompetence and mismanagement throughout Amiga history has survived.
You should be able to buy these boards just with Linux in the future as well, which would then save you the cost having to buy AmigaOS4, but obviously those boards would be branded Amiga.
The reason for the relatively high cost is that the companies are initially dealing with a low volume market. That's why Alan Redhouse has been demonstrating the AmigaOne and AmigaOS4 to Chinese officials and important business representatives.
For the long run higher volume hardware sales would be very important for the survival of the AmigaOne platform. More sales also means that development / testing costs could be better spread amongst a larger pool of customers and would also allow larger volume component deals to be made (thus being cheaper for the developer)! Also I believe that success of the Linux platform with for instance the MicroA1 / Mini Teron may pave the way or just allow for interesting oppertunities with regard to AmigaOS4 as well.
Such parties should IMO not be compared to Amiga fairs. These are just some nice gettogethers events where Amiga supporters can talk about their favourite platform. Have a friendly chat at the bar or having a barbecue are somethings some Amiga users like to do.
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Have a look at this video of a Swedish Amiga party earlier this year, to get the idea:
http://www.mhd.mh.se/shoe/os4-party/
As you see it's just people getting together, eating barbecue food, eating AmigaOS4 cakes and truly enjoying themselves. However there are also bigger Amiga parties too like the Alchimie in France or News fYaNICA parties in Hungary. The Alchimie parties have almost as many visitors as real fairs with hundreds of visitors, however the main focuss of these parties is mainly on food and fun and less on selling computer equipment like fairs.
For instance that Swedish party isn't anything like the Swedish AmiGBG fair which was held earlier this year, which also includes after-parties and gettogethers next to the main event:
http://amigaworld.net/modules/features/in