@polka.

Quote:

polka. wrote: @Crumb Quote: YES: Getting a fast OS4 machine for almost nothing would bring back thousands of users. Just like the PPC Mac versions of MorphOS brought back "thousands" of users? But generally I agree. Hardware such as the SAM 440/460 did not really lower the entry bar for new users. Particularly not when looking at the weak price/perfomance ratio. PPC Mac versions of OS4 would certainly accomplish that.

I would buy it if it ran on my ibook g4.
It is not exactly easy to find the supported models here even second hand and importing it would mean i would have to pay a bunch of taxes and customs handling fees.

@rolpho

Quote:

I wouldn't like to harm anyhow OS4 developers & their partners

I'm not sure how it'd harm the developers of OS4.

As for hardware partners, that could be a possibility. But, if you limit supporting Mac models to things that don't exist from OS4 hardware companies, it becomes irrelevant. (Other than if the added work delays releases for those boards)

Port to the laptops and ignore the desktops. No conflict IMHO. Unless you consider that people who want a laptop but have no choice to buy a desktop, these buyers may only buy an iBook or PowerBook if that would satisfy them, and then they'd ignore the not really wanted desktops from the partners. I'm not even one of those, as I really don't want yet another desktop, and I'd rather continue not using the desktops that I already have, than spend a lot of money on another one I don't have a place to set up or use.

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@billt

Quote:

Linux is not a datasheet. Hyperion didn't consider it appropriate documentation the several years ago that I talked to them about this, it doesn't come from the chip designers, it comes from some 3rd party that got things working "good enough" for him/her. It also comes with licensing terms they may not have wanted. Not sure. How do you reverse engineer Linux drivers and avoid GPL if you want to avoid that? What did MorphOS do for Mac support? Did they reverse from observations of OSX running, or from Linux sources?

I don't think there's anything that "secret" inside Apple computers. Sure, chips can vary within what many would call "same model", but I'd assume most to not be "apple-specific".

Few versions back a Radeon 9000 didn't work on certain PowerMac models (while 7000 does), which got fixed later, and currently, I think there are some networking-related issues on certain Mac Mini models.

In general, Apple users don't (need to) know what's inside their systems, the OS "just works". But that doesn't mean that even if there is some variance, lots of components are used elsewhere aswell.

@BigD

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Even though MorphOS is more advanced than OS4.x in some areas namely 3d acceleration and old PPC game compatibility, I'm afraid the fact it doesn't have 'Amiga' in the brand name IS a big deal to old Amigans and those waiting to take the NextGen leap. Sorry but true. AmigaOS on Mac PPC machines would lead to more of a boost to the community than happened with MorphOS.

On the other hand, I didn't see that many users make "the leap of faith" when it was made clear that current (classic) AmigaOS is dead, and there would be no further updates. And from then on, AmigaDE would be the real AmigaOS.

Sure, plans were eventually reverted when it turned out that AmigaDE didn't receive much attention. The point is, back then most people didn't follow the name. So name alone clearly isn't enough.

@BigD

Quote:

Sorry but true. AmigaOS on Mac PPC machines would lead to more of a boost to the community than happened with MorphOS.

I know, but my point was just that estimating genuinely new users in the "thousands of" ballpark is a bit too far fetched. People are overestimating the relevance that the "Amiga" name still has today. For most, it basically has to do with memories of games they used to play on the Amiga 500 of some friends.
Most of them are not interested in running an Amiga-like operating system. Even if they were so interested in the old games, devices such as the Minimig and MCC-216 would probably sell a lot better.

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@polka.

Quote:

People are overestimating the relevance that the "Amiga" name still has today. For most, it basically has to do with memories of games they used to play on the Amiga 500 of some friends. Most of them are not interested in running an Amiga-like operating system.

Not only that, I believe many of them actually never even ran AmigaOS (as in "using workbench"), except maybe occassional game (Microprose did that at least, I think) that required user to click the program icon when booting the game from a floppy disk.

"Amiga" (as in "computer that booted all those floppy games") name has more relevance than "AmigaOS".

Last edited by Jupp3 on 26-Jul-2011 at 04:19 PM.

@Jupp3

Quote:

Sure, plans were eventually reverted when it turned out that AmigaDE didn't receive much attention.

I don't think anyone ever accepted Amiga Inc's leadership on the future of the platform hence the apathy towards AmigaDE. Hyperion and Phase 5 (later Genesi/MorphOS) offered that leadership and therefore began the modern day Red vs Blue camps! There is no Amiga Inc camp because they garnered no community support!

Last edited by BigD on 26-Jul-2011 at 04:18 PM.

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I would buy a copy for my Powermac in a minute if it was available and make it dualboot with my already registered MorphOS partition.

Powermac's are by far the most affordable machines for a PPC-OS and altough I do wish them all the best with the X1000... I am on a tight budget and so are many others I suppose. Also the SAM range of motherboards doesn't really interest me... they are either slow or overpriced compared to a powermac with a fast cpu.

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@Darth_X

I have a collection of PPC Macs that lay abandoned by APple, it would be nice to see them doing something again. Yes to porting OS4 to PPC Macs.

@Jupp3

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I don't think there's anything that "secret" inside Apple computers.

Then why did Apple never provide datasheets to outsiders, that say register at address X is used for purpose Y, and bits 27:24 are used for setting Z, with value 0110 meaning definition Q? This is the stuff that we need to make reliable drivers for OS4. Linux peeps figured out whatever they figured out. Yes, it can be done. But there's more to it than if it's possible or not. Do you have the time to decode Linux sources into a non-GPL document? Can it be pased into a non_GPL document? Do you have the time to observe what OSX is doing and parse that into a document? If not, how do we convince THEM to do this big effort?

We can get some of that, as Apple did not make all of their own chips. Some can be had easily, some under NDA, whatever. But Apple's own chips are not documented this way for outsiders. (They probably had such docs for their own internal driver coders)

Remember, Apple made their own Northbridge chips. I'm nto sure if they had something directly comparable to Southbridge or not, if that was combined to North, or what. Certainly some features were separate and standard (non-exclusive to Apple) chips from a vendor. But they did have some chips all to themselves.

If it's that easy, I invite you to collect and provide documentation to the website I linked to previously. If we can collect and provide it to Hyperion, their argument goes away... I tracked down a few things related to my iBook. All you out there can help, until we run out of things to collect or point to.

Last edited by billt on 26-Jul-2011 at 05:02 PM.
Last edited by billt on 26-Jul-2011 at 04:57 PM.

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@billt

Quote:

If we can collect and provide it to Hyperion, their argument goes away... I tracked down a few things related to my iBook. All you out there can help, until we run out of things to collect or point to.

It's worked before this way.
I've linked many times to the emails between a user and VIA, who then passed that info (along with info from Ian Stedman) to Hyperion.
DaveAE posted many times how this had assisted him. It was the basis for some of his fixes.

otoh, you have to understand that one of the ideas behind "x" was that this was a way to be sure that they would not have to repeat this "tracking down info", that we saw with the A1s. Having it all under one roof, so to speak, was considered a plus.

Either way...good luck.

#6

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YES !

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@Tomas

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I wonder why they were working on a minimac port a few years ago then?

"They" weren't working on a port. It was just one guy (an OS4 developer) who started it himself, without telling anyone, then released his unfinished version. There were no drivers for the hardware on the Mac and the rest of the OS4 team wasn't going to start the long porting process that BillT has been talking about.

Now I have access to parts of the OS4 source code, just like any other OS4 developer. My daughter has even offered me her old G4 PowerBook. But I'm damned if I'm going to take on man-years of work porting other people's code to a machine that I know nothing about, to end up with something that doesn't quite work well enough to use. Life is too short.

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@billt

Sounds really hard. Guess they lose out then.

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@tonyw

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"They" weren't working on a port. It was just one guy (an OS4 developer) who started it himself, without telling anyone, then released his unfinished version.

Not exactly.
Nicola Moricutti presented the work to Bill McEwen prior to that.

source

The unfinished proof of concept was released later, but not quite the way you put it.
Quote:

For the record, that ISO image was obtained from a stolen laptop and there is a police report about that (in the USA).

source

It's also mentioned in the transcripts from AI vs Hyperion VOF.

#6

Last edited by number6 on 27-Jul-2011 at 01:04 AM.

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@Darth_X

Yes

@Darth_X

The answer would be yes because I got this PowerMac standing here that aren't used at all. MacOS X for PPC isn't much fun these days and I would like to put it to good use. Also I won't be able to afford the X1000, it was hard enough to save up to the A1 XE. So the answer is YES, I would very much like that.

However I do understand what it would do to the X1000 so... I guess it won't happen and I understand why.

For those wanting a laptop... yes it's sweet but doesn't a Mac laptop lack things like WLAN and WLAN at 802.11n? No HDMI... and so on. Better than nothing, sure but I would like a laptop with more features.

@number6

I think we're talking about different projects. I wasn't referring to the Moana project.

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@tonyw

Quote:

I think we're talking about different projects. I wasn't referring to the Moana project.

I wasn't aware there was another OS4 to Mac PPC project besides Moana.

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@tonyw
Quote:

Now I have access to parts of the OS4 source code, just like any other OS4 developer. My daughter has even offered me her old G4 PowerBook. But I'm damned if I'm going to take on man-years of work porting other people's code to a machine that I know nothing about, to end up with something that doesn't quite work well enough to use. Life is too short.

All about users talk, it about having laptops with aos4, so, everyone will won:

1. developers can works on aos4 project outside of their home with no problems.
2. users can buy cheap and fast HW
3. If HW die, there is no problems to replace (while if now my peg2 will die, i not sure that i will motivated enough to replace it, with all that problems with buing and finding a new one).
4. more users always better (even if no milions, but even few more hundreds of users its nice).

Of course its not _you_ alone should works on port to any mac's laptom, but the whole team. And "i not know the machine" its also not big problem. There is linuxes with their sources, there is (as you say already) some initial version present (even not moana, but something else), so, what the problem just write 3-4 new drivers (networks/video/sound for mac's notebook, just one model), and then everyone will won in end.

Sure, it can be done after x1000 sales, but if start to works on it in next year, maybe after 3-4 years there will be aos4 laptop which cost not many, and can run and aos4, and morphos (and what mean, that morphos developers will also from time to time release their stuff for aos4 as well)

As for me, with mac's laptop (any single version) of aos4 , there is only pluses for everyone.

Quote:

to end up with something that doesn't quite work well enough to use.

And morphos are very good example, that it's quite enough to use, and have no radical problems to have port any amiga like os.

Last edited by kas1e on 27-Jul-2011 at 09:00 AM.

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