10th Anniversary of AmigaOne X1000

 It is amazing to think it has been 10 years since I first got my AmigaOne X1000 system, back in early 2012. I didn't want the anniversary to pass without mentioning it - even though it is not the triumph I was hoping for back in 2012!

The X1000 was the reason I started this blog originally, covering the new (at that time) AmigaOS 4.1 operating system and the new applications and games released over the following years.

I was excited by the prospect of a continuation of the classic AmigaOS into a new, much more modern next generation Amiga system, with new Amiga functionality and modern games and applications. I really enjoy using AmigaOS 4 during this early period.

For a number of years I toiled away on this blog, buying and trying out the new software, doing upgrades, and trying my best to keep interest in this system alive, to encourage developers and Amiga fans to take up this amazing new system. 

New higher end ATI PCI-e graphics card support from A-Eon also opened up new OpenGL ES functionality, 1080p video playback, iPhone and other devices photo synchronisation functionality and more. A-Eon's Enhancer software package attempted to fill the void of official OS updates in more recent years.

Having AmiStore developed by A-Eon as an application on AmigaOS 4 to buy games, applications and utilities online on the AmigaOne X1000 is fantastic. I wish there were new titles in 2022 to buy on it.

As the X1000 was prematurely ended due to CPU supply problems, and necessarily replaced by the (slightly cheaper) X5000 system, there was still hope for the platform, especially with a cheaper A1222 system also planned to make the next generation systems more affordable. The A1222 reminding me of the Amiga 500 and what it did for the Amiga's popularity.

I even bought the X5000 in 2018, lured by the possibility to run AmigaOS 4 and MorphOS on the same system! I also bought the cheaper Sam 460CR system from Acube Systems, all running AmigaOS 4.1.

Sadly however, not a lot has happened for AmigaOS 4.1 in the past few years (apart from two service packs for bug fixes, the last released in 2020). 

The lack of new software releases meant my interest in it has reduced as a result. Indeed, today is the first day in 2022 I have turned on and used the X1000. Most of my Amiga attention these days (like for many others) is on the Classic Amiga systems, where there is a lot still happening.

There are a lot of reasons for this of course, especially the ongoing legal action between Hyperion Entertainment (developers of AmigaOS 4), and Cloanto over the rights to develop new versions of the AmigaOS. Also the lack of developers able to push the next gen platform forward. This has reduced progress on AmigaOS 4.1 to a trickle, and A1222 support is moving along very slowly, which after 6 years is hardly a secret!

I remember seeing a prototype of the A1222 back in 2014 at AmiWest, and have had my own A1222 as part of the beta testing program since 2016.

The X5000, released to the public back in 2016 is still running a "pre-release" version of AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition in 2022! 

X1000 owners like myself never did see the paid in advance upgrade to AmigaOS 4.2, promised as part of the system purchase back in 2012...X1000 owners did however have to pay for AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition, named that way presumably to avoid having to provide it to X1000 owners for free...this leaves a sour taste in the mouth for many owners.

As does the Wings Remastered software for AmigaOS 4 I pre-ordered for and never received. At least for Tower 57 I did get the game I supported via Kickstarter for a AmigaOS 4.1 version (not the boxed version I paid for though), and it was a great game by the way - a game that could simply never be run on a Classic Amiga system.

New release games using Warp3D Nova enhancements for AmigaOS 4.1 in 2018, for example Spencer for AmigaOS 4.1 on the X1000 are amazing, and I could never have believed such titles to be released for Amiga! I was so glad to buy and support the developers, looking forward to more!

The resurgence of Retro computing interest in recent years should have been a real catalyst to push forward this next generation AmigaOS 4.1 platform to nostalgic Amiga fans.

Instead though, FPGA, emulation, and old upgraded Classic Amiga systems dominate the Amiga landscape in 2022, and development of AmigaOS into a modern operating system has seemingly been pushed to one side in a wave of nostalgia. New games are mainly being released on Classic Amiga only.

Only nods to modern computing on Amiga these days are in the form of floppy drive emulators, higher end RTG graphics cards (zz9000), Vampire accelerators, Pistorm, AmigaOS 3.2 supporting larger disks and general bug fixes, and RGB2HDMI devices, all for Classic Amiga systems. 

Don't get me wrong, these developments are great, and make the classic Amiga environments more comfortable to use in 2022, and it is nice to see new software on Classic Amiga, but this does little to push the Amiga operating system platform functionality forward, the way the X1000 and AmigaOS 4.1 tried to do.

Before the MorphOS fans out there point out the obvious, I am aware that MorphOS has moved along nicely over the past few years, with a number of operating system upgrades, and indeed I run the latest MorphOS on my AmigaOne X5000 in place of AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition. The development in recent times for MorphOS applications like Iris (Email client) and a new modern Wayfarer web browser are great, but the operating system itself has not changed a great deal in terms of modern hardware support. AROS is in a similar situation, although I admit I have not followed it so closely recently.

The AmigaOne X1000 is great, I love the machine, and what it can do on AmigaOS 4.1 is amazing for the time is was released back in 2012. I got the most out of it during the last 10 years, and I am glad to have it still, as it is still the best machine to run the AmigaOS 4.1 platform on (in my opinion).

I would love to see more love and new stuff for AmigaOS 4.1 and my AmigaOne X1000 in 2022! 

Wayfarer 1.1 Web browser using MorphOS 3.14 on X5000

It is good to be back talking about NextGen Amiga updates again in 2020. Today I am taking a look at  a very exciting new web browser for MorphOS called Wayfarer version 1.1, promising modern web browser functionality using the latest Webkit version. It needs the recently released MorphOS 3.14 installed on my AmigaOne X5000 first, so let's dive in!

To start with, I downloaded the latest MorphOS 3.14 ISO from the morphos-team.net website and burned to CD-R. You can also use a USB stick based image install method, but old habits die hard and I already started burning it when I realised that. Heh.

Now that my AmigaOne X5000 is a dedicated MorphOS computer after a number of attempts in the past, it is great to see regular OS updates for MorphOS, with this latest one released just this week. It is great to see development of NextGen Amiga operating systems continuing in 2020.

I booted off the CDROM by hitting escape on the boot screen above, then selecting to boot MorphOS, which then detects the CDROM is a MorphOS bootCD and boots off it:

MorphOS 3.14 then boots off the live CD:

With the selection of US keyboard, I then get the Ambient desktop, with the First Flight window open and ready for me to start the installation process:

I checked the About MorphOS in the titlebar menu of Ambient desktop to confirm I am indeed running MorphOS 3.14 booted from the live CD.

I then reviewed the Readme for the installation instructions. The process is basically unchanged from previous versions of MorphOS I have installed.

I then started the installation process:

Since I already have MorphOS 3.13 installed on my X5000, I am doing the Upgrade Installation option here.

It checks and confirms 3.13 is installed and ready to upgrade it:

I then grab a coffee as it installs the files on the system hard disk. Eventually the installation process completes, and ready for rebooting:

I then successfully boot into MorphOS 3.14 on my X5000. As this release is a bug fix release rather than having new features, I don't plan to spend any time on the changes as they are in the background rather than any new features to explore. 

I covered MorphOS in more detail in previous blog entries here and here if you want to see more details about the system itself.

I next set about downloading and installing Wayfarer v1.1 web browser, which as mentioned requires MorphOS 3.14 to work. You can get Wayfarer from https://wayfarer.icu/

This is genuinely big news for the Amiga community as it has been a while since we have seen any genuine improvements in the website compatibility of our web browsers. This release is definitely a big step forward, although there is more work to be done. 

Once extracted to a drawer on the system drive, there is an Import OWB Data icon to allow you to import Bookmarks and Sessions from your OWB (Odyssey) Web browser under MorphOS into Wayfarer, which is quite handy - make sure you launch Wayfarer first and exit to create the initial setting file to then allow the import process to update it:

Here is the new Wayfarer v1.1 web browser on first launch:

Wayfarer Version info, v1.1 released October 9th 2020:

Keen to dive in, I logged into Microsoft Office portal to try out Office online, something that has never worked at all on any Amiga web browser in the past in my testing. Wayfarer supported the dual factor authentication login and (although slow to load up) does display the Office online applications:

Here is Excel Online, working well under Wayfarer 1.1 - I created this sheet in the web browser itself and it automatically saved to OneDrive:

Enjoying some music on MorphOS 3.14 while playing around in Excel on my X5000. Great to be able to do this finally!

I found that Word and Powerpoint online were a little more prone to lock ups when playing with image manipulation in my limited testing - they work, slowly, but not 100% usable yet.

Here is Powerpoint online working under Wayfarer v1.1 - I did a very quick presentation in the browser just to try it out, using a reconfigured theme as I was lazy:

I also looked at Outlook online, which runs in basic mode rather than the full normal web version, but works fine like this:

I sent a test email in Outlook online and attached a file from the X5000 and it works fine:

Lastly I checked accessing Microsoft Azure portal, which doesn't work correctly yet unfortunately, the extension fail to load.

I then switched attention to Google Online web stuff next - Google Drive, Google Docs, which work ok, with plenty of warnings about the browser not being supported any more:

Google Docs documents open ok though:

Viewing images stored in Google Drive also works ok:

It works, but limited. The online presence drops out and Gmail only operates in legacy compatibility mode on this browser.

The big disappointment of my testing was YouTube, which flat out won't play any videos and gives errors about the browser not being able to play the videos. 

 

In Wayfarer, there are settings you can set to spoof the browser version (like in Odyssey), but now you can tailor it to each website specifically, which is a great addition:

Spoofing as Chrome or Safari made no impact though on YouTube - videos would not play at all.

I subsequently found out from the author of Wayfarer on the forums that video/audio support is not added yet. Also FTP is not planned to be implemented, so we will still need OWB or another FTP application on MorphOS for that.

With the video/audio limitation now in mind, I tried a few other modern websites to see how they render using Wayfarer 1.1 under MorphOS 3.14. 

Facebook loads and display in Dark mode theme I selected for my profile, which doesn't render well on the browser with black text on black background and is very slow to load, but looks ok-ish. It did lock the application a few times trying to navigate between pages.

Using the mobile version of Facebook website works much better in Wayfarer and loads quickly, obviously looks a lot less pretty though.

I know I can't watch videos yet using Wayfarer, but I loaded in my Twitch live stream website next, which renders the page quite well, but it ignored the dark mode theme I selected in my profile:

Loading Twitter in the browser results in messages about the browser no longer being supported, but apart from not playing videos, it displays well in Wayfarer:

Instagram also displays well in Wayfarer, as long as you don't play any videos.

I fired up two news websites next in Australia - ABC News and The Advertiser. Both display ok in Wayfarer:

Discord website renders well in Wayfarer too - below I am catching up on news in the official Apollo Team channel (Classic Amiga Vampire accelerators) and reviewing some tips for Animal Crossing New Horizons (I play it with my wife):

I should mention that when downloading files using Wayfarer, it now uses a downloads tab in the browser rather than a separate window that Odyssey uses. I like this, it is much tidier:

As you would expect, Amiga websites render perfectly:

I also downloaded the recently released music streaming software RNORadio for MorphOS and enjoyed some internet streamed Nectarine demoscene music while checking out these websites for this blog entry:

 

eBay displays well, as does F1.com:

My blog works ok as well. I didn't try editing my blog in Wayfarer yet though.

In general, web page rendering speed in Wayfarer is slow, but I expect it will improve. 

Wayfarer web browser is a big step forward for Next Gen Amiga OS systems. I look forward to seeing the updates that improve it even further, the all important video and audio support, and more. I hope to see it on AmigaOS 4.1 in the future too!