Well it is that time of year again, when my thoughts begin regarding participation at the next AmiWest show. I have heard from several people who are planning on attending, which is a great sign. I'm not sure what new information will come out during the show, if any, but it is always a good time for sharing ideas (and for some attendees, sharing a few beers), and everyone seems to have a really good time.

Maybe we will get lucky and the X5000 will be released for sale before, or announced at the show, so we can finally see how well MorphOS3.10 performs on that platform and give the few MorphOS users who are waiting to buy that system (or motherboard, if it is offered that way), the opportunity to buy it.

For myself, I sincerely hope that we will get some news regarding progress on the completion of AmigaOS4.2, but I have no faith in Hyperion, or their ability to ever finish all the goals of the 4.2 release, so I am not counting on it to ever arrive. Please prove me wrong Hyperion! (rhetorical statement, as I am sure Hyperion does not frequent this forum site)

If any of you are planning on attending the 2016 AmiWest Show, please let us know here in this thread. If you want to share a hotel room to cut the cost in half with another MorphOS user that is attending, state that in this thread, so other MorphOS users who are planning on attending can contact you and make arrangements to make that happen.

If any members here want to make suggestions for what should be shown/demonstrated at the MorphOS display table, do that in this thread as well.

Looking forward to seeing more MorphOS users at this year's AmiWest Show than the last 5 years combined.

I'm coming with my family as usual. I look forward to seeing you there again this year.

I'm not planning to bring a computer with me this year, since I've spent a lot more time my A3000 this year, but I'll be happy to assist in any other manner.

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You probably introduced yourself last time, but please let me know what your nick name is here on MZ.org, when I see you again at this year's AmiWest Show. It usually takes me several meetings with new people, before I can remember who they are, or what their name is. I like to put faces and real names together with their nick names here.

I'm planning to go this year. The last time I went to a show was St. Louis 2001 and figured it was about time I went to another one :)

I've spoken to Acill about shipping my computer to him disassembled and packed well since I don't think it would do well on a plane. It's a Silent Paws 1200 I've upgraded so it's running 3.9, 4.1 and MorphOS 1.4.5 - still wish there was a newer version for classic Amigas :) The thing is fun to use but it's too big to carry-on and I'd be afraid to check it. If I ship it to him well packed it should be ok and reassembly is easy.

Unfortunately, right now, the "planning to go" has had to be changed to "hoping to go". With my wife in the hospital for the last 3 months and me just finding out I've got cancer, I don't know what shape I'll be in in October :( If there's no treatment like it's starting to look like, I might just "what the hell" it with one last hurrah and go anyway :)

[ Edited by Pgovotsos 07.07.2016 - 03:16 ]

@ Pgovotsos wrote:

That is tough. I sincerely hope that your wife will get out of the hospital soon and that you will be able to get properly treated afterall.

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I am truly sorry to hear about you and your wife's health problems, cancer is a scary word in any diagnosis, but I hope that your doctor is incorrect about your cancer being unable to treat, or cure. If there is no chance of a cure, perhaps there is a treatment plan that slow, or temporarily stop the cancer growth.

AmiWest Shows are fun to attend, but I don't think I could recommend the trip when you have more important matters to take care of, regarding you and your family's health and well being. I have heard about so many people that I know who are experiencing health challenges right now, but I guess that goes with growing older.

If you do decide to attend AmiWest 2016, please introduce yourself to me at the MorphOS display table.

Take care, and I hope you have some better news soon.

I plan to be there as usual.

It will be great to see you again David.

Pgovotsos wrote:

Very sorry to hear that about You and your Wife. I really hope everything works out to the best for you both.

Thanks all. Sorry, after posting I realized that it was probably a weird post and a little too much information :) I've been talking about it with family and friends and support people that I don't really think about it as an unusual topic.

The short version, and the core of what I was trying to say was that I was planning on going, now hoping to and God willing and the river don't rise (actually a problem where we live :) ) I'll be there.

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You are among friends, and you didn't share too much.
I hope you can make it.

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Speaking of people trying to make it to AmiWest 2016 Jim, what is it going to take to finally get you to make the trip. I have been trying to twist your arm and get you to attend an AmiWest show for many years now, with no success yet. I am sure you would have a great time, and this year would be a good one, as it appears we have a few more MorphOS users who have indicated that they plan on attending.

Hope to see you there.

@AmigaKit,

Looking forward to seeing you again, at the show, hopefully with some interesting news about ongoing software and hardware projects. I also hope that AmigaKit and A-Eon will increase and improve their support of MorphOS, both with the AmiStore, and the long awaited release of the X5000 computer system (and possibly stand alone motherboard sales).

Since Trevor and Matthew prefer using AmigaOS4.x, perhaps they can convince one of the MorphOS 3rd party developers (MorphOS Dev. Team members are too busy with the ISA switch to x64) into updating and improving the OS4 emulation for MorphOS, which I don't think has been worked on in a long time, and/or an up to date AmigaOS4.x theme for MorphOS could be done, to satisfy users like Trevor & Matthew, who prefer the look and feel of AmigaOS4.x over MorphOS Ambient.

Either way, once the X5000 is released, A-Eon might find that they get much better (faster) support from the MorphOS Dev. Team, with bug fixes, and/or new versions, or features, than they have ever dreamed of getting from Hyperion. I am not too sure how much development time will be spent improving MorphOS for the X5000 after the initial release of MorphOS3.10, as that work would take time away from the x64 port, but it couldn't be any worse, or slower than the development of AmigaOS4.x has been.

I hope we will continue to receive MorphOS Dev. Team support for the PPC version of MorphOS for several years into the future. Eventually, PPC development will no doubt be stopped, just as support for Classic Amigas with Phase5 & DCE PPC accelerators was stopped, but by that time the x64 port of MorphOS should be very mature, and running MorphOS on PPC hardware will only be for nostalgic reasons.

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The fact that Classic releases have become infrequent does not mean that the support was dropped.

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> an up to date AmigaOS4.x theme

That would be 4.1 FE, right? ;-)

> who prefer the look and feel of AmigaOS4.x over MorphOS Ambient.

No matter the theme, it will always be Ambient and behave like Ambient.

> The fact that Classic releases have become infrequent does not mean that
> the support was dropped.

Really? Last release was a decade ago. And even that version has been unable to register (i.e. remove 2 hour time limit) for some years.

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I meant my comment for far into the future, when very few PPC desktop computer systems are still functional. But who knows, maybe PPC for the desktop computer will make a comeback? (no, I don't think so)

Probably not, David.
But Raptor Engineering has posted a neat video of Power8 running X86 applications via Qemu.
I am not sure why X86 couldn't emulate PPC.

@amigadave

I have learned that relying on third parties for software development is not the ideal solution.

As a a consequence, within the last year we have taken a lot of software development in house. By using this approach, we find we can control the quality, release schedule and feature set of software development. Every software developer is paid for their work upon meeting milestones and completion so that there are no disputes about rights or contracts. The project has been encouraging so far with 21 developers signed up and active work being contributed to the AmigaDeveloper.com software repository every day.

With respect specifically to MorphOS, of course we would provide support to any user base that grows around our hardware. I have some outline ideas for the future about this already.

> With respect specifically to MorphOS, of course we would provide support to
> any user base that grows around our hardware. I have some outline ideas
> for the future about this already.

http://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?forum=3&topic_id=9932&start=29

Like this? :-)

> With respect specifically to MorphOS, of course we would provide support to
> any user base that grows around our hardware. I have some outline ideas
> for the future about this already.

Well...anything that will run on the X5000 under MorphOS should run on all supported hardware.
And...we are still waiting for the opportunity to buy your hardware.

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The fact that when I returned to using Amiga systems, and couldn't get a keyfile for MorphOS1.4 tends to indicate that support for "Classic" systems was no longer really available. Not that I am complaining, selling my 2 Phase5 Cyberstorm boards and buying NG hardware, was probably one of the best things I have done for my AmigaOS/MorphOS hobby. Although, at times I have wondered if maybe I would have been better off just sticking with the retro crowd using the original, or FPGA and software emulated systems. I don't have any serious regrets about any money, or time spent on any of this.

@AmigaKit,

It will be interesting to see what direction your companies go over the next 5 years, but it is hard for me to imagine today, that I will still be using PPC desktop systems for anything but nostalgia beyond that 5 year time frame, if the only hardware available new at that time is IBM Power9, 10, or 11, plus a few small embedded boards meant for routers, or similar applications. Stranger things have happened though. Who could have guessed that Commodore would have been so totally clueless regarding promoting and selling the Amiga after it was first released, and failing to over take MSDOS, MacOS Classic, and Windows 3.0 in schools, business and the home markets? I'm sure most of us who got our Amiga's in 1985, or 1986 thought that they would become the new standard, which all other platforms would try to catch up to, and eventually conform to the Amiga standards. Of course, that would have only worked, if Commodore also had the budget and foresight to remove (over time) all the short comings that were (and still are) contained within AmigaOS and all of it's derived siblings. I really don't see how Hyperion is going to survive past another year or two, if they continue to fail at delivering AmigaOS4.2, with all of the features promised working, for most of the available AmigaOne hardware. How many more users can they afford to lose, as their user base continues to shrink, because they are fed up with the lack of progress?

Edit: Just had a nasty thought regarding Hyperion's past practices with regard to releasing an OS when it had promised; isn't that the way they grabbed control of AmigaOS4 in the first place, by delaying the release of that code to Amiga Inc. until it was far too late, and after law suits from both parties had drained any potential future programming funds from both of them? Every time I think about the actions of Hyperion, it renews my disgust and dislike toward them (him). McBill was an a$$ and a con man, but how is Ben any better, and after all this time, who still believes that McBill could have done any worse? I think McBill might have been easier to reason with, if he were in control of AmigaOS4.1FE just as it stands today. Who knows, maybe if he had seen the obvious differences in progress, features and speed between the beta versions of AmigaOS4, and MorphOS1.3, or 1.4 (not sure if those versions are matched up on a timeline), and maybe he would have reconsidered the offer to have the MorphOS Dev. Team be the creators of the official AmigaOS4.x and beyond.

[ Edited by amigadave 10.07.2016 - 22:55 ]

> I think McBill might have been easier to reason with, if he were in
> control of AmigaOS4.1FE just as it stands today.

I think if McEwen was in control of OS4, there would be no OS4.1FE as it stands today.

> maybe if he had seen the obvious differences in progress, features and
> speed between [...] AmigaOS4 [...] and MorphOS [...], and maybe he would
> have reconsidered the offer to have the MorphOS Dev. Team be the creators
> of the official AmigaOS4.x and beyond.

He had the opportunity to attempt this before the trial began in early 2007, but he didn't. Imagine MorphOS developed and published as "AmigaOS 5.x" concurrently to Hyperion's AmigaOS 4.x ;-) Not saying the MorphOS team would even have wanted to have their OS published as "AmigaOS" at that point in time.

I agree with David that Ben's maneuvering to secure the right to continue to use the AmigaOS trademark was yet another low point for the Amiga community.
And the feature list expected in 4.2 makes its completion seem unlikely.

However, if AmigaKit is willing to support MorphOS users that have purchased their hardware, I have another reason for doing so.

> Ben's maneuvering to secure the right to continue to use the AmigaOS trademark

...and source code.

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You have another reason for doing what, buying an X5000 from A-Eon/AmigaKit?

I think that even the most fanatic supporters of AmigaOS4.x are now beginning to realize that Hyperion can't be trusted, and that Ben Hermans is not the savior that many of them thought he was, when he stole the AmigaOS IP rights and some trademarks. 99.999% of all lawyers are no better than the guilty clients (criminals) they represent, and most are far worse than any criminal they defend in court.

[ Edited by amigadave 11.07.2016 - 12:37 ]