Right, lets have a quick squint at whats happening in the Amiga firmament since the last edition of the mag.
Amiga is continuing its drive back from the wilderness with 3.9 not only launched but installed by some users. Since I haven't bought this latest incarnation of the OS, I can't comment on how well it works although judging by the mails to the list which discusses it , it seems to have its fair share of bugs.
These are being addressed as I type and hopefully more bug fixes will be forthcoming. 3.9 has had the accusation levelled at it that it is more or less shareware hacks etc added into the OS. I don't personally believe this is a bad thing, since most Amiga users have already got most of the hacks running in one way or another on their systems as it is....Amiga users have tended to be very responsive to hacks that improve their environment .
Since these have been added to the OS, you would expect that this would help improve the system since they have to be coded to be system compliant (something that some hacks were notoriously fickle with previously). The OS also benefits with the new media player that came with the upgrade.....sadly the important codecs (P.C. compliant ones in particular) couldn't be included in case it upset the legal guys. Of course, I would expect most readers to already have these as they would have registered with Laszlo Turok for MooVid which gave them the indeo library.
Another big step forward has been the news that Amiga now has support for DivX, possibly one of the biggest advances in movie formats in recent times. Sadly, this didn't come from Amiga but it is a major step forward for users in that it does allow them access to a very large (and growing rapidly) array of files!
By the way...the aforementioned Lazlo Turok has a Divx version available , check his webpage for details!!
There has also been movement on the graphics cards front with drivers being written for more modern chipsets which again give access to Amiga users for faster performing cards.
Eyetech are still moving forward with their AmigaOne plans, still no release dates but they expect beta testers to be issued with them hopefully before the end of February!!
So, the garden is getting rosier with all these things happening....elsewhere the likes of Intel ....now now...spitting is nasty... are hoping to have 2 Ghz chips available by the end of the year and memory will be in the form of Rambus. Checking out the Register's webpage (http://www.theregister.co.uk/ ) will lead you to the latest rumours et al.
So are we going to be part of this revolution in terms of processing speed?? Motorola's new G4 is giving speed results that is leaving nearly twice the clock speed rivals in its dust!! We all know that clock speed isn't everything (but it is nice to be able to boast), however we are dealing with a business where image is everything!! Ask any kid what the best computer is and they immediately jump to the conclusion that it must have an Intel based processor in it. So, we need to convince people that Amiga OS is the accessory that is required to get the best out of your machine. So how do we do it??
Its nice to be able to report good things happening to our favorite OS , however things are not proceeding at a speed I would commend. This could be down to the fact that Amiga has already stated that money is starting to get tight.......I hope this doesn't last as we need a new OS that takes advantage of modern boards sooner rather than later ...every day more people buy new machines and when they do, they are less likely to change their OS!!! Eyetech's AmigaOne sounds wonderful but at what price?? Hopefully the next column will have better news......