Not Much News
Ronald Schwartz
AmiTech-Dayton Gazette -- October 2004
I have to admit that, in recent months, I rarely go to any of the Amiga related web sites looking for news. It seems that real news items are few and far between. However, as I started writing this article, I suddenly realized I didn't have anything to write about. I decided I'd better do some research. I took a look at some of the Amiga sites to see if there was any startling news that would be worth headlines. The answer was no.
Actually, the first site I went to was Amiga.com. I forgot that was the company site, I had intended to go to Amiga.org. Anyway, on Amiga.com, when I looked at the news, the last entry was in August, -- 2003. Then I checked Amiga.org and ANN.lu. There was a lot of stuff on the site, but after sifting through it, at least for me, there was not much of interest, mostly a couple new games.
When Bryant Pedigo, from Indianapolis, brought his Amiga One over to display in our booth at Computerfest, everyone became aware that there were a lot of functions that were not operational yet in OS-4. The word had been circulated that the production version would be released by the end of August. It was obvious at Computerfest that it hadn't happened. As near as I could find, no new release date has been announced. There is, however, an update for the development beta versions of OS-4 that appear to address a number of the shortcomings. Some of the improvements include improved computation and speed of the 68k emulation and USB support for inputs. They have also attempted to improve a number of the drivers including those involved with internet access, Ethernet support, printing support and support of some hardware systems. They have also done a number of bug fixes, mentioned improvement in the PPC function and added a Picasso 96 graphics system, although I don't fully understand that last item. The main thing is that Hyperion does appear to be actively addressing many of the items that we had perceived as shortcomings in what we had seen at Computerfest.
I did also see a notice of an Amiga Show in Ottawa, Canada on November 20. Those of you who like to travel, here's a good excuse.