Pictures from OS4.0 on Tour 2003 in Gothenburg

These are my pictures from the OS4 on Tour 2003 event in Gothenburg, Sweden.

Being a translator and betatester of OS4, and therefore having the privilege of following its progress on close hand, I couldn't miss this chance to meet other Amigans involved with OS4 and/or the AmigaOne, and to hear outsiders' reactions to the current stage of the project and its directions. Added to this, it would be yet another chance to get together with the nice and active Gothenburgian Amigans, which we had met on some of the previous arrangements in the city: the AmiGBG2002 show, the AOne2002 Fall Event, and most recently the AmiGBG2003 show.

And since not much is more boring than a long drive alone, I decided to ask some fellow Danish Amigans along for the ride. These were Justin Veggerby Kristensen, who, along with Ole-Egil Hvitmyren from Norway, has been a betatester for Eyetech of the new AmigaOne platform from its early days, Thomas Graff Thøger, who is developing the USB software for OS4, and Peter "Pede" Jensen, who is also a beta-tester (and happens to be my colleague).

The four of us had a really great day in the company of many interesting people, among which Ben Hermans who had flown in from Belgium for the event. It was nice to meet him and chat a bit. It was also great to see how various people are working with their often quite preliminary systems, AmigaOnes as well as classic machines, to get them as close a possible as soon as possible to our common goal of the next-generation Amiga platform, and how their efforts manage to convey to the general public that things are really shaping up quite well after all this time.

But apart from everything else, it was nice to be at an event where everything happened at a leisurely pace. Even though some things didn't quite work out as they were intended at first, the arrangers just took it easy, moved the schedule around a bit and made things happen anyway. There was plenty of time for everybody to see or try out the various systems in their own speed, and also for lots of questions to and answers from Ben Hermans, as well as the occasional exchange of opinions, but the relaxed atmosphere contributed to keeping it a flame-free, constructive and informative debate all the time.

A big thank you to the arrangers from the two local Amiga organizations AmiGBG and ACG Göteborg), and greetings to everybody else we met. Now enjoy the pictures!


Niels Bache (nbache2@mail.dk) Niels Bache

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1: Stretching our legs on the way to Gothenburg. We left Copenhagen in nice morning sunshine, look at the sky now. From left: Thomas, Justin, Pede.Slide 1 2: Stupid me. I went to all the trouble of putting the camera on a tripod and setting the autorelease, so we could get a picture with all four of us in it, and then I placed myself to hide Justin completely.Slide 2 3: The Lilla Bommen area seen from the south, from inside the footbridge connecting it to the city centre. The event was held in the ground floor near the middle of the picture. All the mess in the foreground is going to become a new, second road tunnel under the river (Göta Älv) in a few years.Slide 3 4: A landmark of the Lilla Bommen area - and indeed of most of the Gothenburg harbour area - is this impressive highrise building.Slide 4 5: This is it, we're here. The Lilla Bommen Conference Center - see, Swedish isn't that difficult, is it?Slide 5 6: The lobby area outside the actual conference room. Gunne (GGSData) Steen's son, Emanuel, is setting up his OS4 68k/PPC system in the foreground, while Justin uses his new camera cell phone to snap a picture of Ole-Egil Hvitmyren and his AOne, and Pede and Thomas are watching.Slide 6 7: If you want to get the best camera position, you have to be dedicated enough to grab your seat well in advance. This guy, Coopdot (aka Peter Eriksson), is. I'd give you a link to the result, but I don't think it's online yet.Slide 7 8: In the corner of the conference room, Kjell Breding (Sharakmir) from AmiGBG was manning the merchandise table, and selling well too. Yeah, I chipped in as well and bought a tour t-shirt. What you see on the door is front and back of the same model.Slide 8 9: Emanuel Steen with his OS4 beta system. Media Toolbox is open in the foreground. The paintings have nothing to do with the event, they just happened to be there.Slide 9 10: Ole-Egil hacking away at some obscure Linux prompt. A rare picture of his machine with the cover actually on and closed.Slide 10 11: Stefan Nordlander, one of the arrangers, welcoming us. I know, he looks a bit stuck-up here. Well, he wasn't. Blame the photographer.Slide 11 12: And then Ben Hermans, managing partner in Hyperion, entered the podium. Well, podium ...Slide 12 13: Anyway, he had lots of stuff to tell us regarding the progress of OS4, and there was no lack of questions from the audience for him to answer.Slide 13 14: Just a part of the many interested listeners. It was a nice room, equipped with the best in AV technology, e.g. a data projector system, which came in handy later. Comfy chairs, too (no, not <em>that</em> kind of comfy chair!).Slide 14 15: As you can see, Coopdot was not the only one with a video camera there.Slide 15 16: Everyone's too busy listening to Ben to be buying any stuff right now, so Kjell can relax in his peaceful corner.Slide 16 17: Front row, right to left: Emanuel Steen, Ole-Egil, Gunne Steen, and isn't that SlimJim? I didn't even notice you were there on the day, sorry. Pede and Thomas across the aisle behind Coopdot.Slide 17 18: Robert Kihl being introduced by Stefan Nordlander, ready to demonstrate OS4 on the big screen. Well, except for a missing cable. So we were told to mingle for a while.Slide 18 19: Gunne playing around with his son's OS4 system. Yes, he did manage to "break" something. And he was a bit unhappy with the speed, until he was told about how the PPC kernel, ExecSG, currently ran almost everything under a slow interpretive 68k emulation.Slide 19 20: But it sure looks nice. Those antialiased fonts everywhere really make a difference. And the default theme is shaping up to have a nice cool look with lots of stylish, but still colourful details.Slide 20 21: Right, cable sorted out and demo underway. It seemed to be received very well by the audience, but it didn't take long before questions of all kinds brought Ben back on stage to elaborate, so poor Robert hardly got a chance to show off the setup he had spent several days - and nights - getting to run. It was a <em>very</em> recent beta. But it did run, and fairly stable at that. I think this is the AmigaInput configuration.Slide 21 22: And here we have the Internet configuration window for RoadShow, the new TCP/IP stack. Here you can also enjoy the neat gradients in the window title bars and on the buttons etc. All available in the new standard GUI.Slide 22 23: After Robert's demonstration, some people sat down and tried out the system, while others gathered around in groups chatting.Slide 23 24: And then there was a lottery. Well, it wouldn't really be an Amiga event without one, would it? This guy was the first to win a Hyperion game. But he only had an A1200-060 (I think it was), and the game required PPC. So he had to make do with a t-shirt instead.Slide 24 25: So Ben and Stefan had to draw another lot. This guy had an even humbler Amiga (040?), so another t-shirt was given away.Slide 25 26: Finally someone with his heart (and his PPC) in the right place. Relieved smiles all around. Hey, we could have been there for hours, worst case!Slide 26 27: Then there was a chance to see on the big screen Stefan Nordlander's AmigaOne running MacOS X under MacOnLinux, under Debian Linux. Impressive and smooth, except for a few glitches in the graphics here and there (not seen here). They turned out to be quite excusable, since in fact Stefan by mistake was running X and MoL on the same frame buffer (seems to be yet another one of the many wondrous ways Linux will allow you to shoot yourself in the foot).Slide 27 28: Kjell is out wandering about, and the merchandise booth is manned by Vigil, Lars Breding. Gunne stops by, and isn't that Martin Blom (AHI's author) in the doorway?Slide 28 29: A final parade shot with Kjell, Justin, Pede and Thomas. All filled with happy memories of a great day devoted to the future of our chosen one.Slide 29 30: On the way home, we stumbled on this. I reckon it must be a map of the route along which we have travelled for the past ten years towards a new Amiga platform.Slide 30

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