The fourth quarter meeting got started off a bit late as I was running about 20 minutes late getting there (after Christmas parade street closings and traffic). I called ahead to let everyone know I was on my way. There were two attendees, Ken Hodge and Jon Kavenaugh, waiting when I arrived. At least the store was open so they could browse around during their wait. I apologize for being late.

I got the refreshments setup while we chatted for a bit. Jack Perry called from the train station around 11:00 so I left to pick him up. We returned to a slightly fuller house, as Loran and his dad, Jim, had arrived, as well as Ken Nowak, and Scott Woodall. Jack got his Mac Powerbook setup and started up AmigaForever under MaxUAE for everyone to look at while waiting on the OS4 machine to arrive. We connected it to the cable modem for connection to the internet.

Scott brought in his AmigaOne desktop system which has been built into an Antec desktop case. I'm not usually a big fan of desktop cases, but this has to be one of the nicest I've seen (see pics below). The case was black with a high gloss shine and has a silver face. The pictures don't do justice to actually seeing it. Scott has outfitted it with black floppy and DVD Rom drives. The overall look was really impressive. For anyone wanting a nice modern desktop case for their AmigaOne, I suggest that you take a look at this Antec case. Tower cases are no longer the only ones to enjoy modern stylish looks. His system was equipped with a Radeon AGP 9100 series card. Scott currently runs Debian LinuxPPC on his AmigaOne.

Doug McLaughlin and Ray Czosek arrived shortly after 12:00 with the AmigaOne and OS4. He also brought his Amithlon system along as a backup in case there were any problems (good idea since that's where his OS4 files are stored).

The first thing I thought when OS4 booted was wow, that was fast. The responsiveness of the system was what you would expect from an Alpha version of the OS. Actually, I would say it was far superior to what I was expecting. I just kept finding myself thinking "that was quick". Others attending the meeting also commented on the almost non-existant "slow graphics" that others have talked about. This system was by no means slow. There were a few times when dragging a window with contents that you saw a slight "lag" in the contents moving, but it didn't make the system feel slow. It felt like the windows were moving around very fast, but you just missed a couple of frames of the movement. That will all change when the PPC graphic.library is in place and when the new a1ide.device is installed (should be really soon now, we are told).

The applications that were shown running included Photogenics, DoomII, and several others. We attempted to get Quake running at the meeting, but it didn't work due to the version of some of the libraries (or maybe it was the Kernel) that Doug was running. His version was older and was causing a Grim Reaper to appear when AmigaInput was activated. This apparently caused problems when trying to load up Quake, and unfortunately, we just didn't have time left to try and troubleshoot. Maybe we'll get that going at the next meeting.

Doug also had his AREXX script running under OS4 that automatically changes the Workbench backdrop at the set interval. This was very nice, and if you've used Webshots on the PC it is similiar. The AREXX script can be set for a specified time period before it changes to the next backdrop and it does it completely transparent to the user. You never feel or notice a lag or slowdown when it changes to a new image. The speed at which the backdrop appears is also impressive. No drawing of the screen from top to bottom was apparent, just an instant image. I have some video on tape and plan to try and make it available as soon as I can get it transferred to the computer. I'm not a video expert, so don't expect professional editing, but I'll do my best to capture the hightlights.

Overall it was a very nice meeting with some nice information about OS4. When you sit down before this machine, there is no doubt that you are using an Amiga. Things are definitely progressing well. I hope everyone else had as much fun as I did. Thanks to the NCSCAUG members and Guests who attended, a special thanks to Doug for bringing his AmigaOne with OS4 to share with everyone, and most of all thanks to Eyetech, Hyperion and the OS4 developers for doing a great job. Without them, there would be no OS4 and AmigaOne. Oh, and we should thank Fleecy at Amiga as well....he knows why. ;)

Tony

Addendum:

I realized that I have neglected to add a couple of things to my report. Ray brought along a copy of Mandrake Linux 8.1 complete boxed edition with manuals, which he gave away to another member, Jon Kavanaugh. We also had a visitor, Ken Hodge, from West End, NC attending the meeting. He was there to try an find a new home for his Amiga 4000 Toaster/Flyer system, and an Amiga 2500 system. Ken is 81 years young, but due to recent problems with his eyesight, he is having to give up computing. If you are interested in the specs of Ken's Amigas.. You will find them here: Amiga 2500 and here: Amiga 4000