AmigaOS 4 Review

by Marco Chiappetta — Tuesday, January 23, 2007, 10:30 AM EDT

Jeremy from ArsTechnica has an interesting review posted of AmigaOS 4. He covers everything from the installation to productivity and multitasking, and came to some surprising conclusions.

"Because the OS and its applications take up so few resources, it is possible to run an entire suite of programs - my typical usage is ten or so pages up in a browser, an IRC client, an MSN client, a text editor, a command shell, a 2D graphics editor, an e-mail client, a word processor, and a media player - and still have all these elements fit in a mere 256MB of RAM. Because the system never pages out to disk, switching between these applications is instantaneous: I cannot physically hit the Amiga-M switching keys faster than the OS can respond. This is a marvellously enjoyable way to work: you are never waiting on the hard drive or the operating system when you switch from one task to another."

Now, all we need is some hardware to run the thing on. Personally, I'd love to setup an AmigaOS box alongside my Windows PC.

Tags: OS, amiga, review, view, IE, S 4, AmigaOS, AM

Marco Chiappetta

Marco's interest in computing and technology dates all the way back to his early childhood. Even before being exposed to the Commodore P.E.T. and later the Commodore 64 in the early ‘80s, he was interested in electricity and electronics, and he still has the modded AFX cars and shop-worn soldering irons to prove it. Once he got his hands on his own Commodore 64, however, computing became Marco's passion. Throughout his academic and professional lives, Marco has worked with virtually every major platform from the TRS-80 and Amiga, to today's high end, multi-core servers. Over the years, he has worked in many fields related to technology and computing, including system design, assembly and sales, professional quality assurance testing, and technical writing. In addition to being the Managing Editor here at HotHardware for close to 15 years, Marco is also a freelance writer whose work has been published in a number of PC and technology related print publications and he is a regular fixture on HotHardware’s own Two and a Half Geeks webcast. - Contact: marco(at)hothardware(dot)com