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| AmigaOS 4.1 Final Update 1 Enhanced |
We're now greatly into 2017, and Amiga is still alive and kicking as never before! Great things are happening!
It might be surprising to read me saying this now, despite all the frustration that has been with Hyperion Entertainment earlier...
Speaking of Hyperion Entertainment. There has actually been a huge, important change in management inside the company, owning all rights to AmigaOS. The controversial Ben Hermans is no longer in charge, but stepped down to maintain other things within Hyperion Entertainment. In January 23th of 2017, two persons filled the position as director managers of Hyperion Entertainment. They are:
Timothy De Groote
Costel Mincea
During a recently done interview with Timothy De Groote, he revealed interesting views the company have to different CPU architectures Amiga could use, stating that the company are not "married to any CPU architecture". Read interview here:
http://www.generationamiga.com/2017/05/06/interview-timothy-de-groote-director-of-hyperion-entertainment-cvba/
The interview was very positive and surprising to read, knowing that Ben Hermans used to have a "weird" view of sticking just to PowerPC (shorted PPC), even that PPC still got a lot to show, but the new directors of Hyperion Entertainment seem a lot more open-minded about different CPU architectures Amiga could use...
ARM and x86 could turn up as CPU of choice for the future of Amiga?
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| ARM could be a CPU of choice for the Amiga |
Now that the new directors of Hyperion Entertainment have expressed their open views of other CPU architectures for Amiga, the term ARM and x86 would be brought up again as potensial candidates.
x86 is challengig enough to support fully under AmigaOS. Although, this has been proven possible in AROS, as AROS is both available to x86 and PPC with full SMP and OpenGL support. Should also be possible for the native AmigaOS as well, when that happens. Time will tell...
ARM is these days a very interesting and promising CPU architecture! Personally, I don't know much about ARM, other than that it's very fast, powerful and uses extremely little power. ARM has dominated the embedded mobile market for a couple of years already, and is now heading its' way to the PC desktop market!
A bit off-topic, but Microsoft have actually succeeded in bringing ARM support to Windows 10, and new ARM-based PCs will house the ARM-version of Windows 10 in new PCs for 2018, which itself is quite interesting (just to give you the idea)!
So where does this leave the Amiga? While the directors of Hyperion Entertainment didn't say anything about supporting other CPUs in AmigaOS now, they are in fact very open to support other CPUs when that time comes. Who knows? Possible after AmigaOS 4.2 has been completed, and it gets the features that are needed for a modern OS, to be considered ported to other CPU architectures...
This is where ARM could fit nicely as the best choice for Amiga, being very fast, powerful and using very little power! The best choice for the Amiga? No doubt!
The possibility is undoubtly there, so it would be very interesting to see ;) But for now, we're eagerly waiting for AmigaOS 4.2. Lets hope it will be finished this year!
Bringing great music back on the Amiga!
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| Amiga can still create great music! |
Many of you might already know that I have spent a lot of time, in almost half a year now, to create wonderful, instrumental music on the Amiga again, using OctaMED SoundStudio.
It still works nicely under latest AmigaOS 4.1 Final Update 1 on my AmigaOne 500 aka SAM460ex, using TheMaestrix AHI tool in conjuction.
The collection (or album to call it) "Atmosphere" is the title for my new collection of great Amiga music. I have currently released 6 great songs to SoundCloud for my "Atmosphere" collection. All that have been composed and written with OctaMED SoundStudio! Songs vary from 4, 6 and 8-channel in 16-bit Mix mode, using the high-quality Walkabout Music Instruments Samples! Then the songs are further recorded-directly-to-disk in 16 bit, with SMOOTHING, in AIFF-format. Really a great possibility to do!
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| CodeAudio converting AIFF to FLAC |
Another great program i use to record my final Amiga songs, is the program called CodeAudio. Fully registered, CodeAudio can convert AIFF files to highest quality MP3 formats, like FLAC, which is the case with all my songs!
Then the songs can be played in any MP3 players, like AmigaAMP, which also supports FLAC format.
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| AmigaAMP playing various FLAC songs |
With these different Amiga programs, they just prove what is possible on the Amiga, even in 2017, which is amazing! Amiga is more alive than ever, and that's no lie, but the truth!
Amiga STILL makes it all possible! It's easy, cool and fun all at the same time!
The songs are then further uploaded to my HKvalhe channel at SoundCloud.
The link is the following seen here:
https://www.soundcloud.com/HKvalhe
"Atmosphere" is currently my best and newest collection of great instrumental Amiga music composed by myself. Many of the songs have amazing realistic guitar riffs! Check out the following songs in this collection on my HKvalhe channel at SoundCloud (see link above)!
Songs to look especially for, are the following:
* Different Man
* Alone Again
* Funk It Up
* Children Of The Future
* When White Does Black
* Atmosphere
Other songs are from my earlier collection called "Julia's Diary". They are various so-called mood songs. Not with guitar riffs, but other cool rhythm effects.
This ends the blog for now. In 2018, i hope to buy the new AmigaOne A1222 (also known as "Tabor") from A-EON. This new AmigaOne will be my main computer in 2018, and will also use it to produce music with brand new PPC-AHI native OctaMED SoundStudio. We might get to know more later this year!
Thank you for reading my blog! Amiga truly makes it possible ;)
Written by
Helge Kvalheim, Norway
