 
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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