The History of AmigaOS 3.5
After a turbulent few months Amiga International are back on
track to releasing the final upgrade for Classic Amigas. The
troubles began at the World of Amiga Show 1998 in Hammersmith
London. Amiga Inc announced that the OS3.5 project had been
abandoned and the time would be spent upon the development of the
OS4 Developers System. Over the weekend at the World of Amiga Mick
Tinker created a plan that would ensure its survival and allow the
development of PPC-based Amigas. However, this faded into the
background and was abandoned as more pressing events came to the
fore. During July, Team AMIGA, Olaf Barthel, and Mick Tinker begun
the project anew attempting to develop a program of upgrading and
find financing for the OS3.5 project as a grass roots effort. This
eventually led to the project being handed over to Fleecy Moss at
Amiga Inc. This led to a number of
developers being contacted to work on the project, including Matt
Chaput, author of GlowIcons. Other improvements were an
AHI-extension currently known as ARTAS,
WarpOS PPC extensions, and HTML-based
documentation. However, contact between these developers and
Amiga Inc ended with the sacking of Fleecy just a few days before
the Cologne '98 show in November. After a few days it was quietly
announced that the development of AmigaOS 3.5 had been contracted
to Haage & Partner, who in turn announced that there were
around 20 developers currently responsible for updating the
operating system. These developers span the Amiga community,
however very few have come to light. Olaf Barthel is the most
vocal of these and has helped to mediate problems and questions
between Amiga users and developers.
OS3.5 Beta
To ensure that OS3.5 ran on the maximum number of machines
possible, an extensive beta stage was always planned to iron out
any bugs that may arise. Whilst Amiga were still in charge of
development, a sample of the Amiga community would be made up from
ICOA beta test Working Group. When Haage & Partner took over
the project they opened the doors, allowing anyone to apply for
beta testing, 2000 names would be chosen after the closure date
(12th May 1999). This is likely to have been based upon hardware
owned to provide maximum compatibility. Successful candidates were
required to sign NDA (Non Disclosure Agreements) to prevent
information from being leaked. The official release of AmigaOS 3.5
was scheduled for the August 21st in Australia at the Amiga
Downunder 99 show. However, as with most major product releases it
has been delayed and a beta version was upveiled at the show. The
OS upgrade was finally be released during November 1999, followed
by the first upgrade "BoingBag" a month later.
Olaf Barthel on Compatibility
Visit the official AmigaOS 3.5 site at:
http://www.amiga.com/amigaos35/index.html
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