ATX PPC Motherboards from Eyetech

YttriumOx writes: "Eyetech Ltd, a UK based company now has the AmigaOneG3SE for prerelease to developers. Anyone who's been craving a PPC motherboard for either Linux or the New AmigaOS can put their orders in now. The developers prerelease board comes with a TurboLinux PPC CD. While this system is targetted at Amiga owners wanting new hardware, there's no reason for anyone needing a good PPC solution for Linux can't get their hands on one. You've got until the 24th of March if you want a prerelease board (note that the only difference between it and the final board is that the ROM chip in the final board will be an AmigaOS4 ROM where as it's an OpenPPC BIOS in the developers board. Exact specifications of the board can be found here." This is also a good solution for people who want to use Linux on a PowerPC but do not want to buy an Apple machine. Price for the "beta" board is $450 and final will be $500.

Comments

MacOS X

[dadragon]

You could probably get MacOS X to boot on it, now that the OS's rom is stored on disk.

That, and Darwin comes with source, so you could likely get it going on the hardware.

This will be kinda cool....

Can it run OS X?

[batobin]

I'd be interested to know whether or not it will run Mac OS X. On one hand, Apple built into their operating system a list of computers that it can run on. They did this so non-G3 users wouldn't try to do an install.

On the other hand, there are several utilities available that override Apple's settings. I've personally used one to get OS X running on my Power Mac 7300. One such utility is XPostFact, http://www.versiontracker.com/moreinfo.fcgi?id=111 68&db=mac. Although it's not the one I used, you can see that as an example.

Does anybody with more knowledge than me have any insight?

Re:amiga huh?

[Alan Partridge]

the Amiga is a mythological computer from before the dawn of the Web. Some say it was 6 feet tall and had a case constructed entirely from diamond encrusted platinum. Others tell tales of it's mighty computing feats, such as it's reputed ability to fold virtual space with a magical application known only as "Imagination...". I once met a traveller who claimed to have once owned such a computer, but he was full of wild tales of a game called "Xenon 2 - Megablast" and talked of a holy ritual required to conjure the Amiga into life - apparently you had to circle it three times before picking it up above you head, holding its platinum case by opposite corners and bending as hard as you could. Mind you, these stories sounded rather fanciful to me, and I told him so. He quickly became very angry, insisting that the Amiga would rise again and we'd all be using "Wordworth" instead of Office before long.

Re:Too expensive for what it is

[Afrosheen]

Before you bust out with a price comparison, consider the source. This is a short-run, small time manufacture, not a produced-by-the-billions-in-taiwan motherboard so many intel freaks are accustomed to. This is not Abit, nor Asus, nor Intel, nor Gigabyte. Of course it will be expensive. Have you priced manufacturing your own motherboard lately? Doubtful.

As the anonymous poster replied, a complete system with this board from these guys runs about a grand in US dollars. That's pretty price-competitive compared to Macs.

Boy do you have a skewed view of history

[maggard]

For a while, apple had the right idea. They tried IBM's strategy of making the platform open, then they chicken shitted out and went back to making their own boxes. I can't recall the manufacturers name, but there was PPC boards made by other manufacturers for a while. Why apple did an about face on this issue I will never know.

IBM never had a "strategy" of making an open platform. Instead they fought clones tooth and nail with every means at their disposal and when they finally lost that battle attempted to redefine the market with proprietary PS/2s running Micro Channel. That their architecture created its own industry was as much a shock to IBM as anyone and was never a part of any big plan.

On the other hand Apple did try using licensees to get into markets they couldn't enter themselves. The idea was 3rd parties could buy Mac licenses and purchase Mac ROMs and MacOS 7 and sell into education, far east markets, gamers ("Pippin"), and super high-end markets that Apple hadn't the capacity or margins to work in. Instead they promptly began cannibalizing Apple's own markets and were eventually shut down before they bled Apple to death. Every box they sold was one Apple didn't and their licensing fees didn't nearly make up the difference.

Finally, there have been any number of third parties making PPC boards over the years as well as Motorola. However there's little economy of scale so Apple PPC boards are generally just as cheap or cheaper. There is also always IBM PPC hardware. If you're just looking for a constant flow of motherboard upgrades yeah, that's not where the market is at. On the other hand Apple hardware holds it's value a lot longer then PC stuff so you can usually sell it and buy a whole new box with a better return on value then you'd get with a generation or two behind x86 box.

Microsoft is the exception, not the rule!

[alexhmit01]

Microsoft is an exceptional monopolist able to extract monopoly rents. I wish that Slashdot posters would stop suggesting that if Apple shipped an x86 OS, they'd become Microsoft.

Microsoft is the ONLY pure OS vendor. Redhat is a service/support company that also sells pretty boxes. Sun ships Iron. IBM ships Iron and does support. HP ships Iron. Until Compaq bought them, Dec shipped Iron.

Microsoft is the ONLY COMPANY, EVER, to establish itself as a large vendor selling the "virtual computer." They managed to make the hardware underneath them a commodity and provided a universal middle level that software rights to.

Forget the IE vs. Netscape web browser/middleware, Windows is middleware.

Most computer companies sell a whole widget. Microsoft functions like a hardware monopoly with outsourced production of hardware (its an economic model), you can't make money selling PCs unless you are the lowest cost provider like Dell, or you sell 'services' or 'addons' like Compaq/Dell/HP's enterprise server lines, etc.

Alex

Facts about Darwin, Mac ROMs & Apple HW

[maggard]

1. Apple's MacOS is not based on the exact same code as is Darwin. Any number of times Apple's developers have confirmed that while the two code-bases are regularly synched they are not one and the same and some portions of the MacOS X core code never makes it to Darwin.
2. Apple hasn't used proprietary ROMS for years. Instead they use their code based "New World ROM" that get loaded as a system component. There is no need to talk about stealing one and burning them, they're right there in any MacOS install.
3. However Apple designs their own Northbridge & Southbridge chips. It is with these that the "New World ROM" interacts which means that non-Apple Northbridge & Southbridge chips wouldn't work. Therefore unless one wants to figure out how to get Darwin to boot on 3rd party Northbridge & Southbridge chips and then to get MacOS X to accept this underpinning you won't get very far.
4. Finally, congrats; you'd have managed to make a non-Apple Mac. This has been done before, indeed it is rumored there was a version of the IBM RS 6000 that would boot MacOS long ago. However you've now also throw away that tight integration of hardware & software that makes Apple's products special and likely not saved much money in the long run anyway.

Piracy

[Jace of Fuse!]

Can I buy a version of the board for running Linux PPC only? We are currently considering making this available. However you should note that it will not be possible to run Amiga OS4 on such a board without purchasing a special copy of OS4 which comes with a firmware update ROM. This is (obviously) to prevent OS4 piracy which is essential if Hyperion/Amiga Inc. are to continue to develop OS4.

What bothers me about that statement is that there will be people who still feel justified in pirating the OS anyway. "Software wants to be free. They owe me the OS. I don't pay for shit. I'm not buying it because it's just AmigaOS and nobody uses it anyway. It's not piracy if I don't sell it. Information wants to be free!"

The sad fact is that this OS is coming from a company that is trying really hard to keep an OS alive that was elegant in it's time, and had some concepts that still haven't been realized by operating systems of today. And even though AmigaOS isn't perfect, I'm very glad to see it develope further because with some modern touches it could easily be one of the best operating systems ever.

Could be, except there's that money issue. Amiga, Inc. isn't Microsoft. They're not even Apple. Hell, they're not even Redhat. They're just a few pennies and a nickle above what BeOS was a couple of years ago (if that much). So I think it goes without saying that pirating from this company is pretty fucking rotten, but that's not going to stop people from doing it anyway.

"But I'm doing them a favor by using the OS and making it popular." That's another argument I can already hear befor esomeone says it. To answer that shit before someone spews it... "Wanna help Amiga? Buy the OS. Punk."