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Pianeta Amiga 2003 Show - A look behind the
scenes
by Max Tretene
Pianeta Amiga (or Planet Amiga to those of you
outside of Italy) has been the most important Amiga related
show in Italy for some years. The show first occurred in 1997
and since then it has always seen a strong presence of Italian
and foreign dealers, developers and users.
We were proud to represent and support the Amiga
community in 2002 and for 2003 we wanted to continue that
trend whilst providing the community with something
special.
Writing this the day after the show, I am able to
inform you that we achieved that with overwhelming success.
The 2003 show will stand head and shoulders above its
predecessors as having been the most electric and vibrant.
Why?
Because those lucky enough to attend the show got
to witness a milestone in the history of our platform. The
first public appearance of AmigaOS4.0 booting to Workbench and
running applications on an AmigaOne!!!
AmigaOS4 Boots on AmigaOne!
Obviously it was an alpha release, so much so that
the debug level of 10 was set for most of the show without me
even realising it (although I did think I saw steam coming out
of the serial port at one time). There is still a lot of hard
work to be done before the OS will be available to beta
testers and then the end users but with the event, the lies
that have been told that AmigaOS4.0 would never run on an
AmigaOne can be revealed finally for what they are, and the
happy, eager faces of the showgoers demonstrated how keenly
people are waiting for the rebirth of the Amiga.
Before I tell you about the show, I should
introduce myself and explain a bit about my involvement with
Amiga and AmigaOS4.0.
My name is Max Tretene, an Italian living and
working in Bologna. I started Soft3 at the begining of 2001
with our biggest activity being software development. We
specialise in creating Java applications aimed at the
automatic vending machine market. Our best selling product,
Michelangelo can be found all over the world, and especially
in Europe, installed in automatic machine and embedded systems
that you may use everyday.
My great passion though has always been for the
Amiga platform. When I'm not trying to make sure you get Fizzy
Orange when you ask for it, I have been busy bringing games
into our world. I've released a few ports for AmigaOS, GLQuake
and Duke Nukem 3D, both WOS versions. In addition, there are
two original games that we started working on a few years ago,
but then we put them on hold until AmigaOS4 was in a state
that we could restart development. That time is very close
:-)
When Amiga, Eyetech and Hyperion made their
announcement about the AmigaOne and AmigaOS4, I contacted
Eyetech and asked to be included in the little group formed to
test and debug the new board; this group then became the basis
of the actual a1g3dev mailing-list, to which all AmigaOnes are
subscribed for support and to get to know each other.
It wasn't long after that first mail that I had
the privilege to personally test the product and I was so
impressed with both the board and with Eyetech that I decided
to became an AmigaOne dealer. My coding skills were soon
seized upon and in typical Amiga style, I quickly found myself
joining in with the new community. I spent many hours debuging
Linux and Uboot, testing hardware compatibility and developing
Ross Vumbaca's AmigaOne-Linux kernel web site.
This brought me into contact with a lot of
talented people, the Frieden brothers, Ross Vumbaca, Ole-Egil
Hvitmyren, Adam and Bill Muller to name just a few and I have
really enjoyed being just a small part of both this group and
the AmigaOS4.0 development group. It really has been like an
expectant family waiting outside a delivery room for the baby
to come, with each new milestone bringing smiles and good
cheer.
When Ben Hermans, the AmigaOS4.0 project manager
asked for volunteers to start writing devices for the new
hardware, I decided to work on the keyboard.device which was
the first one to become available. I have learnt a lot in
doing this project and have learnt more about the secrets of
the original Amiga than I ever wanted.
The new keyboard.device will offer far more
services than the original, including support for multimedia
keyboards, multiple keyboards and Catweasel support. Just
remember that when you use your AmigaOS4.0 on your new
AmigaOnes (bought from me of course), then you'll be pressing
my buttons.
Ok enough of me now - back to the show.
At Empoli (where the show is held) we had the
opportunity of showing for the first time AmigaOS 4.0 booting
on the AmigaOne in public, a total alien piece of hardware to
the AmigaOS, which was always bound so tightly to its chips.
It was final proof, if ever needed that the AmigaOS4 concept
was valid.
To prepare the demo, I worked with Hans Joerg and
Thomas until only a few hours before the show, and I slept
only 3 hours to be sure to have it up and running when the
doors opened. Our stand was set up with three complete
AmigaOne system with Linux and MacOnLinux (MOL) installed,
plus one A4000 Amiga and one A1, both AmigaOS 4.0 on them.
The initial setup was to use another computer as a
dumb serial terminal, to see what the AmigaOne showed during
booting, and to start it through a series of commands to be
launched from the UBoot prompt.
Then, when we were more confident in the whole
procedure, we finally setup up the AOne to boot alone. This
happens via a 45 Mb image stored on a hard drive partition,
and because of this temporary situation, the start is a slow
one, but when you know that at the end of the boot you'll have
a working and shining Workbench, to us, it really didn't
matter how much time we had to wait.
When I and Stefano Guidetti, an Italian betatester
finally finished setting up all the computers, we had to
waiting for the official announcement from Amiga Inc and
Hyperion letting everyone in the show know the amazing
surprise, the first public appearance of AmigaOS4.0 on an
AmigaOne.
This came after the show had started but when the
announcement came and the news reached all the other visitors
and stands, a big group of people immediatly crowded around
our stand, much to the annoyance of other stands that we could
see, which had emptied.
A lot of people was really pleased to be able to
finally see the current state of the OS, and I smiled when I
saw a few "white faces" in the crowd, those from another stand
who really had no idea that AmigaOS 4.0 was at that stage of
development. They rushed off to phone their masters and were
in quite a panic. This was a big recompensation for mine and
Stefano's hard work :-)
At 15.30 we had a conference with Jurgen Schoeber
of Point Design, one of the key people behind the AmigaOS4.0
on tour events that crossed Europe in the summer. Stefano and
me looked out on a room of full chairs and standing people and
after a little demostration of the new OS , there was a
Q&A session.
Of course there were a few little problems which
effected the show, as always. First we didn't realise that the
debuglevel was set to 10, which slowed down the performance a
lot. We also had a problem with the wireless keyboard and
mouse, which we discovered to be sensitive to the high number
of mobile phone present around the demo place. (it caused a
few wireless device stops, which at first seemed to be
software problems)
So how did people at the show react to seeing
AmigaOS4.0 on the AmigaOne?
Closeup of AmigaOne Running Native
AmigaOS4
People who still use their Amigas were excited and
smiling, and very important, many old Amigans showed a lot of
interest, with many tales and experiences of the past being
said. The most frequently asked question was when would there
be an SDK for the public so that they could start developing
again.
Even Michael Battilana from Cloanto showed his
interest, asking for a personal demonstration and we couldn't
say no. In exchange we asked for Personal Paint 8 for
AmigaOS4.0. We liked the smile he gave 8-)
Amiga users, and users of other systems have seen
what many said would never happen, a path in the future. They
showed a strong interest in the new hardware and os combo.
From the comments we had, I'm sure that when AmigaOS4.0 is
publicly released, there will many sales and many old Amigans
will come back to the platform. Hopefully they will do so by
buying from Soft3 8-)
It was a very tiring but good show and I am
looking forwards to Pianeta Amiga 2004, and selling AmigaOnes
with AmigaOS4.0 and lots of new applications to the many
people who will come to see the rebirth of our computer.
Max Tretene
Soft3
info@soft3.net
http://www.soft3.net/
http://www.soft3dev.net/ | 
