Future Amiga Development

Here's a look at what various companies have planned for the Amiga in 1998 and beyond.

Amiga International AmigaOS 3.5 is planned for Spring '98, with OS4.0 planned for the end of the year. New Amigas from them are planned by XMas '98 also. They'll also continue to hand out licences, meaning we'll see new Amigas before then. Maybe we'll see them start to spend some of those 'millions' on marketing...
Phase 5 The PowerUP program continues. After the Blizzard and Cyberstorm PPC cards, and the BlizzardVision and CyberVision PPC graphics cards, we may see multiprocessor cards, featuring multiple 604e processors for the A4000. After that, they move towards the A\BOX system, for which they are apparantely developing their own OS. Whether it will be compatible in any way to the AmigaOS (like pOS) is unknown. The A\BOX is due for the end of '98, but this date will probably slip...
PIOS / ProDAD The PIOS ONE machine is yet to be released, presumably because of the delay of pOS. ProDAD should release a full version of pOS for the Amiga sometime in '98, and by then we will hopefully see the PIOS ONE released.
Nova Following on from their range of PPC A4000T clones, they are planning the NitroSupreme (a machine more powerful than the current top-of-the-range Nova machine, which is in itself incredibly powerful). With multiprocessor cards from Phase 5, we can expect Nova to take advantage of these, to produce even more breathtaking machines. Also planned for early '98 is a Notebook Amiga, with AmigaOS 3.5 and PPC, with 680x0 emulation.
Index Information Following on from their Access machine, Index will continue to push the Amiga into the corporate multimedia market with the release of the Connect (a more powerful version of the Access, with '040/'060 and Zorro slots). Later will come the InsideOut, which was initially described as having 'RISC performance' and 24bit graphics with optional 3D hardware. HiQ have talked of it being a PCI based Amiga which can use the processor, other PCI cards, drives, etc of the host machine. Index also produced the BoXeR motherboard with Blittersoft, although it is not known if they will produce machines with it, or licence it to other companies - or, indeed, if other motherboards are planned.
DCE Working with Power Computing, they have produced a new motherboard for the A5000 and A6000, which will be released soon. We may see an A7000 later on featuring PowerPC as standard.
Micronik They have now produced a version of the 1500 with working PCI slots for the Amiga, which will be released soon. Hopefully, they will do this for the cheaper 1400, and maybe produce a new model which has PCI slots, but no Zorro slots.
NewTek As explained in another article, future development is sadly uncertain. They have been in constant talks with Amiga International and Gateway 2000 since the buyout. Hopefully 1998 will see the release of Lightwave for PPC Amiga, along with continued development of the Toaster and Flyer.
ClickBOOM As promised, Myst is finally here, including support for PPC. They're next project is Quake, but at the time of writing, they are still seeking a licence from ID. They had previously stated that after a few ports of games for Amiga and PowerAmiga, they would work on a game for PowerAmiga only. After that, all their releases would be PowerAmiga only. Needless to say, this sort of progress is dependant on how well games, in particular Myst, at the moment are selling. So if you fancy any Amiga games at the moment, don't hesitate, just buy, buy, buy!

Mark

Amiga International	AmigaOS 3.5 is planned for Spring '98, with OS4.0 planned for the end of the year. New Amigas from them are planned by XMas '98 also. They'll also continue to hand out licences, meaning we'll see new Amigas before then. Maybe we'll see them start to spend some of those 'millions' on marketing...
Phase 5	The PowerUP program continues. After the Blizzard and Cyberstorm PPC cards, and the BlizzardVision and CyberVision PPC graphics cards, we may see multiprocessor cards, featuring multiple 604e processors for the A4000. After that, they move towards the A\BOX system, for which they are apparantely developing their own OS. Whether it will be compatible in any way to the AmigaOS (like pOS) is unknown. The A\BOX is due for the end of '98, but this date will probably slip...
PIOS / ProDAD	The PIOS ONE machine is yet to be released, presumably because of the delay of pOS. ProDAD should release a full version of pOS for the Amiga sometime in '98, and by then we will hopefully see the PIOS ONE released.
Nova	Following on from their range of PPC A4000T clones, they are planning the NitroSupreme (a machine more powerful than the current top-of-the-range Nova machine, which is in itself incredibly powerful). With multiprocessor cards from Phase 5, we can expect Nova to take advantage of these, to produce even more breathtaking machines. Also planned for early '98 is a Notebook Amiga, with AmigaOS 3.5 and PPC, with 680x0 emulation.
Index Information	Following on from their Access machine, Index will continue to push the Amiga into the corporate multimedia market with the release of the Connect (a more powerful version of the Access, with '040/'060 and Zorro slots). Later will come the InsideOut, which was initially described as having 'RISC performance' and 24bit graphics with optional 3D hardware. HiQ have talked of it being a PCI based Amiga which can use the processor, other PCI cards, drives, etc of the host machine. Index also produced the BoXeR motherboard with Blittersoft, although it is not known if they will produce machines with it, or licence it to other companies - or, indeed, if other motherboards are planned.
DCE	Working with Power Computing, they have produced a new motherboard for the A5000 and A6000, which will be released soon. We may see an A7000 later on featuring PowerPC as standard.
Micronik	They have now produced a version of the 1500 with working PCI slots for the Amiga, which will be released soon. Hopefully, they will do this for the cheaper 1400, and maybe produce a new model which has PCI slots, but no Zorro slots.
NewTek	As explained in another article, future development is sadly uncertain. They have been in constant talks with Amiga International and Gateway 2000 since the buyout. Hopefully 1998 will see the release of Lightwave for PPC Amiga, along with continued development of the Toaster and Flyer.
ClickBOOM	As promised, Myst is finally here, including support for PPC. They're next project is Quake, but at the time of writing, they are still seeking a licence from ID. They had previously stated that after a few ports of games for Amiga and PowerAmiga, they would work on a game for PowerAmiga only. After that, all their releases would be PowerAmiga only. Needless to say, this sort of progress is dependant on how well games, in particular Myst, at the moment are selling. So if you fancy any Amiga games at the moment, don't hesitate, just buy, buy, buy!