33-year-old AmigaOS for Commodore computers gets an unexpected update News | Hacker News Reader

33-year-old AmigaOS for Commodore computers gets an unexpected update News

tomshardware.com

86 pointserickhill13 comments

> Hyperion began its quest to modernize and improve this classic version of AmigaOS for Motorola 680x0 platforms in 2018 when it released version 3.1.4. The AmigaOS 3.2 lineage began in 2021.

I didn't really get why. Reading Wikipedia articles about AmigaOS and Hyperion wasn't helpful either.

Anyone has insights why this project was started and how is it financed? Not that I object it in any way, lovely to see retro software being maintained. Just being curious.

>Reading Wikipedia articles about AmigaOS and Hyperion wasn't helpful either.

Interested parties take great care to obfuscate.

>Anyone has insights why this project was started and how is it financed

There is The Amiga Documents[0].

0. https://sites.google.com/site/amigadocuments/

Hyperion Entertainment is a company that has access to the AmigaOS source code because they were contracted over 25 years ago to port AmigaOS to PowerPC (called AmigaOS 4) as part of a failed attempt to keep the platform going. After that didn't go anywhere, they decided to start selling AmigaOS 3 updates meant to run on old Commodore Amiga hardware to retrocomputing enthusiasts. The project has very little overhead because despite being a commercial product, all development is done by unpaid volunteers.

Note that there's been ongoing lawsuits over whether Hyperion is legally allowed to sell AmigaOS 3 updates due to their contract being to develop AmigaOS 4. Here's a pretty good summary of that situation and how it's been holding up the release of an Amiga replica product: https://x.com/MuseumCommodore/status/1902705399234756786

The versions and branches and spin-offs almost sound sane until you realise they didn't mention Haage & Partner 'Amiga Forever' lineage, which is what I imagine most users are using today - via the included WinUAE, Amiberry, or various FPGA Minimig (e.g. MiSTer) based devices.

This one claims to be AmigaOS 3.9 which is a best of breed cobbled together AmigaOS and roms.

I have no idea if/when this might venefit from the fixes to 3.2.3, but I'm imaging never.

There's an ongoing legal squabble about which is the “real” AmigaOS, for the dozens of people deeply affected by such important decisions.

FWIW, from what I've read, the 3.2 series seems like the “real” branch to me, not 3.9.

I don’t think the 3.9 branch is less real than the 3.2 branch.

Both branched off from the original Commodore source code, didn’t they?

Can’t remember if either use the sources at all.

I was living Amiga daily during the OS 3.9 days, and have no reason to think it didn't come from the Commodore source. Back then I got the feeling it was called "3.9" because the various powers assumed it would be the last release of 3.x. I've never used Hyperion's 3.x, but that is official, too, if largely a backport of 4.x, which of course also came from official source. I would say Hyperion jumped into 3.x (against their contract?) in search of cash, as nostalgia for these old systems increased and ARM emulator boards (etc.) made it possible.

OS4 is still the future, but the cost of PPC motherboards greatly limits the market size.

>OS4 is still the future

AROS is.

OS4 being a hard break while also being privative, closed source means it will never see significant adoption.

>the cost of PPC motherboards greatly limits the market size.

PPC has no future. RISC-V is where it's at.

Of course, back in the 90s, there was no way of knowing this.

Just my own take here:

3.5 and 3.9 felt like “3.1 plus some bundled, licensed shareware”. Which is fine! It’s nice to have a baseline where you know everyone running that version has a particular TCP stack or dock app or whatever. But 3.1.x and 3.2 to me “feel” like newer versions of 3.1 with actual OS updates (and also plenty of bundled shareware).

I wouldn't argue against someone who sees it the the opposite way.

> Haage & Partner 'Amiga Forever' lineage

You are confusing one with the other.

Haage & Partner did "3.5" and "3.9". Those are no longer distributed, as the contracts with both Amiga and the developers/suppliers expired.

Cloanto (Amiga Forever) did "3.X", which is currently at v. 45.066, or 45.66. It is based on 40.068 by the Amiga companies, not work by Haage & Partner: https://www.amigaforever.com/kb/16-125

Amiga is the future!

This update wasn't really "unexpected", as there have been patches and updates for AmigaOS 3.x from various sources (not just Hyperion Entertainment) every few years.

Hyperion is operating while insolvent and has failed to file nine years' worth of accounts (2009-2014 and 2022-2024). Yet - perhaps because of that - they still found the resources to sue Amiga in 2018 in an attempt to seize its assets (https://x.com/amigadocuments/status/1897157746019196951).

The developers behind AmigaOS 3.2.3 are working for free, while Hyperion simply slaps its name on the box and the proceeds are being funneled into the lawsuit against Amiga.

For anyone who actually cares about the platform, it's as disheartening as it is infuriating.

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