Welcome to the Lennart Fridén column!

Anything you might dislike about this column I blame on Peter - he gave me this space...:-)

Feel free to flame me about it though at lennart.friden@swipnet.se

Hello and welcome to this column that was given to me by the Godess Agima...oh...sorry Peter, god Agima. Anyway, I'm Lennart Fridén, Amiga and Screens developer, author of the L programming language and now columnist (i.e. professional ranter) in this most sacred universe. If you're not bored to death yet you'll find more information about me at the bottom of this page, but for now I think it's high time for me to get to the point...

Forthcoming Operating Systems for the Amiga

In the last two months of 1998 things started to get a bit confusing. Amiga Inc. married QNX and fired Fleecy Moss who started the KOSH project. At the same time the OS 3.5 developers seemed to have lost contact with Amiga Inc. and to make things even more complicated Screens, an OS for high-end Amigas was announced. Phew!

Suddenly there are now four different paths to follow and this will surely tear the Amiga community to pieces...or perhaps it won't? You'd better read on to see what I see in the crystal ball...

OS 3.5 - 3.1 with the right to patch

With few details and loads of questionable information the first offical update of the AmigaOS since the days of Commodore seems to be little more than a bugfixed OS 3.1 with a few inbuildt "must-have" patches. Sure, there will be better support for CD-ROMs and a new software package making OS 3.5 ready for Internet, but very little, if anything, will be something that we haven't already got.

Still, it's going to set some standards that might be useful for developers. For example, Haage and Partners WarpOS (despite it's name it's about as much an OS as RexxMast) has been chosen over the PowerUP kernel from Phase5 which finally makes it clear that the former is the way to go. On the other hand, earlier promises of including RTG (ReTargetable Graphics) and RTA (ReTargetable Audio) now seems to be forgotten.

Now, what I'm saying is that although we're all going to buy it if and when it's released, I've yet to see something that makes OS 3.5 anything but a new version of SetPatch.

Amiga QNX 5.0

So this is the OS of the next-generation Amigas? Well, as I haven't got much experience of QNX I'll be brief. Aparently, Amiga Inc. will make their own API and GUI system while using the QNX kernel that's been developed since the early 80s. Isn't it nice to know that we won't have to bother with using old, "classic" things? As for Amiga Inc. they intended to make the OS scalable in order to suit everything from micro waves through home computers to space shuttles, or at least that's what they say.

This is, in my opinion, the biggest joker in the game. We can do nothing but sit and wait for it to be released as Amiga Inc. listens to none (Hi you ICOA-guys), cares about none (us) and supports none (us again, now wasn't that a surprise?). As for the OS I can tell you that you won't see it this millenia. Ah well, at least you know what to wish for X-mas 2001...

KOSH? Isn't that something the Jews eat?

KOSH stands for Kommunity Operating System & Hardware and it's probably one of the most ambitious projects ever undertaken by a group of independent people. Initiated by Fleecy Moss, it shares much with his old OASYS project. Despite Fleecy having watched far too much Babylon 5 the name denotes that it's an OS made by users for users. This is further clearified by the fact that anyone who feels that they can contribute in any way may offer their services and in turn will be rewarded if and when KOSH is profitable.

As KOSH is such a large subject I won't even try to go into any details, but I do want to make one thing clear. Supporting projects like KOSH and Screens DOES NOT fragment the Amiga market. Personally I see KOSH as a backup plan if Amiga Inc. were to end up in kingdom come (as you may know, history repeats itself). In fact, you should be able to run KOSH on the next Amiga unless Amiga Inc. pulls some stupid stunt á la Phase 5 (The infamous firmware, need I say more?).

At this point you might ask yourselves "If KOSH is so great how come this fella ain't working on it?". A valid question that will be answered a few HTML tags down.

Screens - The OS for Amigians with power!

I believe that not all of you are familiar with Screens, the new operating system aimed at the Amiga owners that have had the good sense of upgrading their computers with PowerPC technology. To those who haven't heard about it I suggest that you take a look at the Screens homepage (the link's just below). As you can see Screens is quite a demanding OS and that's because it sets new standards. There is no place for 020/AGA machines today and since a graphics card is a must you now get yet another reason to save for that BlizzardVisionPPC or that Picasso IV that you've always wanted. Then again, if you haven't upgraded already you're probably not interested in using a high performance OS anyway.

I bet some of you are thinking "Wait a minute, now I know why he talks so favourably about Screens - he's one of the Screens guys!". Very good, as a matter of fact I do am "one of them" but I can assure you that I would advocate an OS twice as much if it had half the ingenuity Screens does. Believe it or not, I'm actually subduing my enthusiasm here. As for my part in the development of Screens I can say that among other things I'm to replace the now obsolete ARexx with my L programming language, but that's another story.

To sum it all up, I'd say that Screens is about getting the OS of tomorrow today, not yesterdays OS in three years time. Now, that's where I see what we all are looking for: the Amiga spirit.

So what should I do?

Now, the way I see it the bottom line is that we can sit on our arses and do nothing or we can try to make a difference whether it's through Screens, KOSH or both. And even if things were to fail in the end or not turn out as we planned we can always say "At least we tried, at least WE TRIED!".

It's your computer, it's your choise.