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No article about fractals could be complete without mentioning Elenas excellent ZonXplorer fractal package for AmigaOS 3.5+ and MorphOS (running on the Pegasos PPC). Check out her stuning pictures in her gallery.
I hope her webpage can handle the load, it's sure enough worth a visit.

MorphOS is the OS that comes bundled with the Pegasus PowerPC machines.

It uses parts of AROS and looks really sweet.

Well thats a good reason to purchase an AmigaOne at a dealer closest to you, beofore AmigaOS4 is released and get the OS for free.

Or you could purchase the Pegasos and get MorphOS (an Amiga like operating system) for free.

Unfortunately, whoever has owned the Amiga rights in the years since Commodore (Escom, Gateway, and now Amiga) have failed to produce anything other than a couple of OS updates (better than nothing, certainly, but not a huge step forward). Some new hardware, the "AmigaOne" (from Eyetech), has been produced and on sale for about a year, but so far only runs Linux.

But some of the "Amiga-like OS's" mentioned by the AmiZilla Guidelines can be considered "new", even if they aren't official Amigas. There's Amithlon (based on a modified Linux kernel and uses emulation to run AmigaOS on any standard PC - unfortunately development stopped due to disagreements between the developers and the publisher), and MorphOS (runs on the Pegasos).

New PPC machines have been released. You can buy them now from a dealer new your or from the manufactorer...

The boards are as follows.
Pegasos From Genisi

AmigaOne From Eyetech Based on MAI Teron design.

Soon Pegasos II From Genisi

The pegasos board runs various operating systems including the flagship os MorphOS

AmigaOnes run the new AmigaOS4 developed by Hyperion Entertainment.

Heh. Maybe the recently Slashdotted MorphOS will fulfill your dream when they start their marketing effort.

I'm still counting on Amiga to make a comeback, so we can see some supermodels in Boing! bras. ;)

> A500, A1000, A2000, A3000(T), A4000(T)
> A600

Timothy has fucked up this article, which was misleading to begin with, by misreading and misquoting the MorphOS Overview page. The complete, real sentence is:

"The target of the Quark microkernel is to provide modern functionality for a new OS layer and to run as many RTG friendly applications we loved from our old Commodore(TM) A1000, A500, A2000, A1200, A3000(T) and A4000(T) systems as efficiently as possible."

It does not say that MorphOS will run on these machines.

The only Amigas that will run MorphOS are A1200s and A4000s, as they're the only Amigas with PowerPC accelerators.

Unlike the post says, this isn't an OS for the old Commodore computers. This is a reimplementation of that old OS for PowerPC machines. They are trying to maintain API compatibility so you can run the old programs right on a PowerPC box.

To begin with, the name Amiga was bought by Amino in the begining of year 2000, so no, Gateway don't own Amiga longer. I think Gateway owns the patents thought.

The new AmigaOS4 is a port of the old ones for PPC, and porting is if I have got everything right mostly made by Hyperion(http://www.hyperion-entertainment.com/).

The first AmigaOnes will have a G3@600MHz, but will probably ship with G4s later.

Bplan (http://www.b-plan.gmbh.de/) makes their own Pegasos PPC motherboard which might at some stage run AmigaOS but to begin with with run Linux or MorphOS (http://www.morphos.de/). The Pegasos is a dual PPC motherboard and can use both G3 and G4.

I always liked Amiga, I still do, and I will probably always do. But I really think it's to late and to slow progress, but who knows. One day...

// Hagge, IRCnet

No. You're new here aren't you? Well, if you realize that slashdot posters talk out of their ass, then you can't be that new.

I dearly wish there was a "strip all comments labeled "Funny" button.

Considering what passes for funny on slashdot, I'd have to agree with you.

(hell, slashdot doesn't even have color barcharts on the front page!)

Oh, so this is supposed to be a funny post, right?

Several years ago, comments included information from computer scientists, sysadmins, and knowledgable hobbyists.

I'm a computer scientist. See, it says so right there on my degree. Do you feel better now?

The moderation system that once worked well is failing miserably because almost all moderators are as stupid as the posters.

Hey! I resent you calling me as stupid as the moderators! And for implying I voted for any of the idiots in Washington, DC! I only turned 18 in 1996, and by that time the elections were already over. That and I didn't vote for Dubya.

Beyond technical comments, why does everyone feel a need to deride RMS and the GNU project all the time?

Umm, I think you answered your own question with this choice quote: "As anyone can tell, I'm pretty pissed that a bunch of whiney losers in diapers, who couldn't spell "algorithm" if they had a copy of CLR on their desk, or explain why CISC was a natural choice for microprocessors in the 1960s, have drowned out any hope of interesting discussion on a technical topic.". That, and my general theory is that people will a) generally attack what they don't understand and b) will use ad hominem attacks against things they disagree with.

1) Think for yourself

Hey! Who are you to tell me what to do? Besides, I'm already doing that.

2) Listen careefully to what people say, in comments and otherwise

Umm, didn't you just argue that most of what is in the comments here is not worth listening to?

If we follow those rules, then maybe we'll be able to learn stuff from slashdot comments again.

Agreed. I for one am still curious as to why we never see posts that are truly informative, like ones that list other operating systems that are making faster progress than HURD, and are very different.

The G3/G4, Power4 etc. belong to the PowerPC (PPC) family of CPUs. Of course, we all know this.

However, few participating in the discussion seem to acknowledge, that there is more systems running PPC than Apple's Macs.

PPC is important in the embedded market. It has a high performance, stays relatively cool There are 'computers on a card' (a PCI card with a G3/G4 on it plus memory). They communicate over TCP/IP (or proprietary protocols) over the PCI bus with the host system. Nice if you want to have a mini cluster, a physical firewall, or whatever...

• CPCI-680 Sentinel PCI G4 card
• The CPCI 6750
• CompactPCI SBC: CPCI 3750
• Then there is the Micro Server-S from Mai Logic Mai Logic also offers evaluation boards for PowerPC but at prices, that make them interesting only for developers/companies.
• This one has been announced (German text)a year ago or so but not yet been sold. It is based on the Pegasos below.
• A search on Google for embedded PPCresults in approx. 27.000 hits one being this

Then we have several (Micro)ATX mobos, some even for dual G4 (SMP). They get used mostly in the industry, however, this year will see two new home/office-desktop G3/G4 systems that have nothing in common with Apple. See here:

• AmigaONE
• and
• Pegasos G3/G4 MicroATX mobo (SMP option)
• Another project, that at least is in planning is here (RioRed, SMP option)
• Then there is (was?) the OpenPPC project.

So it is obvious that RedHat, being focussed more on industry/server markets than on hte Desktop (that is their current goal as far as I am informed) has some interest in supporting PPC development. Altivec is a very good instruction set and having optimizations for it will be a great benefit. Altivec is not only for MultiMedia, btw. !

Theoretically, all these systems could run LinuxPPC !

Personally I am happy to see some major resource supporting the PowerPC since I would prefer a PPC machine far more than the archaical, outlived, patched & hacked i86 platform (can you use all your PCI slots without clashes...? I can't and my MoBo is from April last year...) Also the PPCs keep quite cool, meaning one could live without an active fan, unlike the Athlon hair-driers...;-)

For the enhusiasts: There are at least two other desktop (!) OS in the works, which are PPC native and come with SMP support: MorphOS (in the works since three years or more) and AmigaOS4.x

...might actually materialize from the years of vapor.

bplan just a couple of weeks ago released images of their prototype PPC ATX motherboards. Part of the reason for this board is to appeal to us Amiga nuts so we can run AmigaOS clones like MorphOS on it, but Ralph has said that the board will be fairly generic and that Linux will also run on it. (Which is a good idea if bplan actually wants some serious sales volume.)

So maybe some day, a sensibly-priced PPC box will be available (well, actually iMacs aren't such a bad deal).

"It needs to happen." Does anyone know the details for why the POP boards never materialized? What ever happened to Silicon Fruit, Eternal Computing, Total Impact, etc? Is the lack of production a result of perceived lack of market, or a missing part from Motorola, or what?

FWIW, some of the ex Phase 5 (a former Amiga addon manufacturer) guys, in the hope of having a good platform to run their MorphOS Amiga-like OS on, have started a company to produce some PPC motherboards. Ralph Schmidt has stated that the hardware will be "mostly generic" and running LinuxPPC on it should be possible. Whether that means it will be compliant with the PREP/CHRP/POP/whatever standards is still not clear to me. And of course any time products even tangentially related to the Amiga are mentioned, peoples' Vapor Warning lights go off. Nevertheless, it's at least a ray of hope for people who are interested in such things, so I thought I would mention it here.

a 'good' microkernel based OS:

-QNX
-VSTa
-xMach
-Darwin
-MorphOS
-L4

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"People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them"