Pegasus II port was done because A-Cube did not supply high-end systems. MacMini, PowerMac product simulator to what we have, porting AmigaOS to this kind of hardware will just damage Acube and A-EON sales and future hardware production, and as many have already pointed out the old mac have old technology no SATA2, no USB3, no PCI Express, etc, look forward not backwards.
If Hyperion wont’s to support Bluetooth they can support USB/Bluetooth adapter or add-on cards, it makes a lot more sens then supporting outdated.
(NutsAboutAmiga)
Basilisk II for AmigaOS4 AmigaInputAnywhere Excalibur and other tools and apps.
But not everyone in the MorphOS team works on drivers, fortunately. Several other core developers contribute on higher level components such as dos, filesystems, datatypes, reggae, intuition, mui, applications and whatnot.
I agree driver work can be quite tedious, but it would seem it's also a burden for OS4 as well... Let's think about yet to be written audio drivers, 3d, overlay and several other things for well documented hardware.
Regarding Macs, they may be old, but they still deliver a performance close to the X1000 in several areas, are 10x times cheaper and can still be repaired and found in large quantities.
...Regarding Macs, they may be old, but they still deliver a performance close to the X1000 in several areas, are 10x times cheaper and can still be repaired and found in large quantities.
Fab, the above comment is true (for now) but, with all due respect, I don't see the drastic jump in users for MOS since it has been ported to old Apple products.
With the amount of registered MOS users figures that have been recently posted on other sites I strongly doubt it would be worth the time & effort to port to old macs when Hyperion can solely concentrate on supporting their own hardware and suppliers.
Ah, but it's a bit utopic to hope thousands and thousands new users will come (back) to our platforms, anyway (be it OS4, MorphOS or AROS). But since MorphOS is available for macs, the progress has been steady, and we regularly see new users.
Regarding OS4 and its current HW situation, i agree supporting macs would hurt Acube and AEon, because let's face it, people may like new shiny machines, but when you can find cheaper and more (or as) powerful, the choice might be slightly different.
Several people make very good points, which I'm going to quote to save me repeating them: Quote:
releasing os4 for old macs would in one stroke destroy the entire market for new os4 machines which by their nature have to be expensive.
We would have no Sam, no netbook and definitely no x1000. No thankyou. We need to encourage people like Trevor and Acube, not stab them in the back.
Quote:
Why kill the future for the sake of a dead end path of old, used hardware?
Quote:
if we had absolutely zero hardware today then I would admit to defeat and port to old Mac's
MOS & OS4 are in different situations, and I think it is foolish trying to suggest that a solution suitable for MOS would automatically be appropriate to OS4.
It's also worth remembering that the money made by AmigaKit/etc selling new machines helps fund them advertising AmigaOS4 machines, which in turn sells more OS4 machines.
BTW, if someone wants to buy cheap(er) second-hand hardware for AmigaOS4, then they can buy an AmigaOne or Sam440 or whatever off eBay. (Yes, used Macs would still give better bang per buck, but that would seem rather foolish at the cost of killing our market for new machines.)
P.S. I'm wondering how long until this thread gets locked :-O
Well, I must admit I was tempted to lock and delete this after the initial post. However I decided to let it run, so we'll see how it turns out.
Simon
Comments made in any post are personal opinion, and are in no-way representative of any commercial entity unless specifically stated as such. ---- http://codebench.co.uk
But not everyone in the MorphOS team works on drivers, fortunately. Several other core developers contribute on higher level components such as dos, filesystems, datatypes, reggae, intuition, mui, applications and whatnot.
True - and believe me when I say I mean no disrespect to the MOS team at all - but every hour spent on someone's demand for support for whatever Mac they have, is another hour that could have been spent on improving what is already there.
The ARM route is more interesting I think, as a opportunity to not take on major OS head on, we are seeing relatively slow ARM cpu's in many mobile devices in combination whit video and 3d hardware acceleration, many small video playback devices and mobile devices so called consumer electronics.
AmigaOS has currently a few problems the GUI its not hardware accelerated, and we currently do not have support for modern 3d, but I estimate in between 3 month (best case) and two year (worst case) this will be fixed, then there is lack of Asian language support that has to be sorted out.
As demonstrated before AmigaOS runs better then Debian Linux on the same hardware, I think android is more scaled to hardware it run on but AmigaOS should do relatively well performance vice on low end cpus.
1 euro per a million devices is a lot more then 100 euro per 2000 devices, if you can make the deal.
(NutsAboutAmiga)
Basilisk II for AmigaOS4 AmigaInputAnywhere Excalibur and other tools and apps.
At this point, a good solution would integrate with AmigaOS and MorphOS order to have a strong PPC, and we have three ways, PPC AmigaOS4+MorphOS, x86 AROS, and Classic OS 3.1-3.9, mot as currently, AmigaOS4, MorphOS, AROS, AROS PPC, Amiga OS3.1, Amiga OS3.5-3.9, when in other systems there aren't so ways, well except with Linux and all its distributions and the result is that every day there are more x86 machines with Windos instead of Linux.
Yes ARM is other way but with a strong OS not two or three OS and current result, people programming under AROS, under Amiga OS4, under MorphOS and for Amiga Classic, much people, time and ideas distributed without a single goal. Julio Cesar said: Divide and conquer, and these words also said Bill Gates and Steve Jobs for Amiga.
Imho, the "problem" is that if you run your software (AOS4/MOS or whatever you want to run) on old hardware you never make your software go forward but backward.. So no SATA, no PCI-E, no DDR-II and so on.. imho..
This is a good question and I think that yes, it will be to an alternative to get more Amiga users, and currently this hardware has good price, is good although is the second hand ...
You'd better try amigaworld.net, it's perfect for long-winding, pointless and utterly boring discussions over dumb ideas.
It could have been an alternative route to what Hyperion/Acube/A-eon have choosen but I don't see it as an option right now, unless acube stops production of the SAM series.
Different G4 (and G5) macs are readily available at a fraction of the price of a new SAM440. I must admit that IF it was viable for Hyperion to sell OS4 for some specified Macs it would be a nice option for us people with a small economy. As for availability I think the Amiga market could never make the second hand mac market run dry.
Macs are better desktop HW than SAM systems (though modern gfx might be a problem?), so if it was available I'd pick one up right away as I'm without a working AmigaOS4 system right now and can't afford a SAM460 system.
Julio Cesar said: Divide and conquer, and these words also said Bill Gates and Steve Jobs for Amiga.
That is why I think (app) developers need to be able to easily target as many Amiga-like platforms as possible (*). "PortablE" is my own effort in that direction.
(* = ideally I'd like to see Amiga developers easily able to target non-Amiga platforms too, such as Windows. Hence why PortablE already partly supports Windows.)
Why not see what's good and what's bad about this idea.
The good:
- People who already got a PowerMac that just collects dust can make use of it. It's easier to pay 200 euro for AOS 4.1 than any price for the currently available hardware. Price does scare some people away.
- More developers hopefully.
- More people will see AOS meaning PR.
- New life in the community.
- New potencial buyers for new hardware.
The bad:
- Will compete with the X1000 and SAM line of computers. How much of a problem is this? First of all, are there that many PowerMacs available? Also like already mentioned they are getting old and both the SAM 460 and the X1000 got PCI-E and faster RAM and also they are new.
- More time put on porting AOS 4 to new hardware = slows down development.
To me the good outweighs the bad but then it's not my money so who am I to decide if it's a good idea or not. I would be very happy offcourse since I got a PowerMac and new users is a good thing for the reasons listed. Yes IMHO.
The bad: - Seriously angering the few hardware developers left who've piled thousands into r+d and making new hardware - Basically confining us always to use Powermacs forever as nobody will get enough return on a new design to survive.
For me the bad outweighs the good so far the scales hit the floor on one side.
I know we need more users, but advancement in niche computing will never be cheap. Only staying in the past is cheap.
As said above, if we didn't have any newly developed h/w, then Used PPC Macs would be a reasonable alternative. But I don't see that both options can exist simultaneously, in our already small market.
@hotrod Quote:
First of all, are there that many PowerMacs available?
If there are NOT many PowerMacs, then the huge development cost (and time) would be wasted (it could not recoup it's cost, etc). And if there WERE many PowerMacs, then they would compete with the newly developed h/w.
Fab wrote: Regarding Macs, they may be old, but they still deliver a performance close to the X1000 in several areas, are 10x times cheaper and can still be repaired and found in large quantities.
Repairing H/W is just wrong when you consider the OS progress... It`s not a classic (collector`s value, memories etc), it`s an overpriced MoBo (I have a SamFlex myself) and you don`t want to spend the same amount of money again for a similar specs machine in case it brakes!.
Take another instance : I also have a 2005 Acer laptop, bought 4 years earlyer my Sam. The specs: x700 ATi vs 9250 ATi (that`s 2.0b vs 1.4 shaders! ), 1,67GHz Turion 64bit vs 800mhz PPC, 2GB Ram vs 1GB Ram. The conclusion : The PC is falling apart, but I won`t repair it! For the same money I could get in many aspects and way better PC (a new one maybe). If (knock on wood) something goes wrong with Sam, I could only spend more money than I did back in 2009 to get a new one.. Regarding the OS progress (take AROS for example), I could buy a new PC, with full H/W support (aspire one e.g.), and it would be way better than the hosted version I got on my current PC. What I mean is I prefer to look forward than backwards, and it would be nice to run OS4 on newer & more H/W. It`s too early to make such a discussions at the present time, but I wish this could be possible in the future (I don`t like the idea to have Sam or X1000 for the next 20 years as the only solution tinkering and repairing old H/W, like the classics.)
Funnily there is the same discussion on Morphzone.org, of course regarding MorphOS . The topic is whether supporting G5 or immediately leave PPC and use X86 or ARM. Both platforms have similar problems (hardware that is too slow now) so the question is will PPC fast enough to compete or more and more lag behind (besides from prices of course).
+I think the ppc has more years to come in regarding speed. The main problem is supporting all of the hw aspects. Like the new gfx cards,gpu, dual core etc.
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. The topic is whether supporting G5 or immediately leave PPC and use X86 or ARM. Both platforms have similar problems (hardware that is too slow now) so the question is will PPC fast enough to compete or more and more lag behind (besides from prices of course).
