Slashdot Mirror
Retro Activity: MorphOS 1.0
An anonymous reader submites: "You can read it from their development page if you like to get the word from the horses mouth. 'The current version is 1.0. Feedback welcome.' Hey, if you can't revive a dead horse, whip it some more, yeah?" All the better to run programs on their "old Commodore(TM) A1000, A500, A2000, A1200, A3000(T) and A4000(T) systems as efficiently as possible." Everyone has different uses for time.
Can I run Dragonzord??
The correct expression is to "beat a dead horse" not to "whip a dead horse."
Just FYI.
It's a great day...neither BeOS nor Amiga is dead! :-)
I am without speech! The Comodore is back baby! ;-)
Don't be so open-minded your brains will fall out.
~~~Please pass the salt, I hate unsalted MD5s
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.
From the website:
"Under the Quark kernel a PowerPC(TM) native reimplementation of the OS we know from the Commodore(TM) A1000, A500, A2000, A1200, A3000(T) and A4000(T) systems runs as a mixture of a virtual emulation and a driver. We call this OS driver from now on the A-Box."
Uninnovate - Only the finest in engineering.
All I see on that page is version 1.0 of the "MorphOS Development Reference Manual," but nowhere on the site do I see anything about a 1.0 release of the OS itself.
Furthermore, the site says that the purpose of MorphOS is to run Amiga programs FREE OF the old Amiga hardware.
http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=1897
So all these ancient Commodore systems are growing in popularity but *BSD is dying, eh?
Trolling is a art,
It's basically a OS that runs on a new system, but also supports Amiga 3000's, 1200's, and 4000's with PPC Accelerator boards in it.
It also is competing with Amiga OS 4.0 which will run on the same accelerated Amiga's AND the new Amiga One.
so what are the chances on using MorphOS on consumer Apple PPC's? Seems like a great alternative for old hardware and would certainly be a positive move for the MorphOS.
transmission_err
hal.rom, kernel.rom, now all we need is cluster.com so we can set up a beowulf clu....er....nevermind.
In college, really poor, need a flatscreen.
This motherboard also comes with a version of linux for PPC. Besides that MorphOS will also run on Amigas equiped with a PPC cpu and rumour goes a PowerMac version could be released one day.
MorphOS is intended for the POP-compliant Pegasos PowerPC board from bPlan. Note that while a Realtek PHYceiver is listed, that's just the PHY; the ethernet controller itself is a Via Rhine derivative embedded in the southbridge. Pictures here. It can also run on classic Amigas with appropriate PowerPC accellerators; NetBSD is also being readied for the bPlan hardware.
AmigaOS 4 is the 'name-brand' product, being produced under contract by Germany's Hyperion Software. It's intended for Eyetech's AmigaOne G3SE and XE products, and Elbox's SharkPPC accellerator in classic hardware with suitable PCI busboards. Hardware dongling of the AmigaOne (with respect to AmigaOS; Linux and *BSD will run unhindered), and continuing intellectual-property disputes may or may not effect the chances of OS4 support for the Pegasos.
All three new PowerPC boards use MAI's PowerPC chipsets, also seen on the Linux-friendly Barbie.
Nor should we forget 'AmigaDE' or 'Amiga-Anywhere,' a crossplatform system based on Tao's Intent runtime + media libs, which is really quite cool even if they've just redesigned their site opaquely. the CEO of Gentoo provides a good writeup here.
no one can be told what MorphOS is. You have to see it for yourself.
--
If you moderate this, then your children will be next.
Everyone has different uses for time.
Well, some like to play with old innovative OS:es, some like to play with old rebuild monolithic Unix:es, trying to use slow X servers as desktop enviroments.
I leave it as an exercise for the reader, trying figuring out which one of those two options I find more attractive.
"Therefore we are doing an API compatible PPC reimplementation of the OS using our own and AROS' technology, which we call A-Box. The goal is to extend the A-Box with new functionalities which it painfully needs and also work on a new OS layer using Quark functionality called Q-Box."
In other news Microsoft is suing MorphOS in 47 states and in federal court for copyright infringement. A company spokeman said, "This is an obvious attempt to capitalize on Microsoft's patents and copyrights. We are committed to protecting consumers worldwide from themselves. MorphOS's blatant attacks on innovation in the industry will not be tolerated."
sig
Oh wait... No it's not. Damn those Amigas are cool... They can survive a slashdotting!
Big deal - my Atari 800 with pop-out memory and game cartidges is better technology. Atari Atari Atari!!!
(Hell, as long as we're reliving the past, let's *really* relive the past - you're either pro-Atari or pro-Commode-dore)
"What we have here, is a failure to communicate." - Cool Hand Luke
The Amiga A1000 was perhaps the most advanced piece of personal computing hardware of it's time. It ushered in the age of computer generated effects for television in the '80s as well as provided extraordinary graphical capabilities unmatched by any personal computer until the early 1990s. It was a horrible failure of the marketplace that this hardware platform did not find a sufficiently large customer base and it's wonderful to see that some groups seek to prolong the usefulness of this platform, regardless of the financial benefit. Consider it a service to the memory of evolutionary hallmarks of the computer industry.
--CTH
--Got Lists? | Top 95 Star Wars Line
Oh, and if you want *truly* retro, you'll have to look here.
;)
The CommodoreOne actually integrates some features similar to the original Amiga, showing what a single hobbyist can accomplish in this day and age. Then again, perhaps times haven't changed much, since we all know who was the real brains behind the Lorraine...
Rest in peace, Mitchy... and you too, Jay.
commercial In its early stages it was notheing more than intuition ported to PPC native and intended to be used with Phase5 PPC accelerator cards. Its much more now, its its own OS pretty much, now pairing up with the b-plan boards which will be distrubuted by thendic under the pegasos name plate. Looks to be a nice lil single user workstation OS
-Polyhead-
I know what it's like when a loved one passes away. How it feels to find that you most loved piece of hardware has passed away. For 7 years my only computer was my trusty old Amiga 500. Even when CBM went up in flames I still went out and imported a A3000 from Canida. So I feel your pain.
It's time to let go man. Just drop it and walk away, don't look back. I said, don't look back.
If you still believe you must have all the benfits of the Amiga, get your self a nice linux box. Shoot, a nice Mac will help go through the loss.
Trust me, it's for the best
Supporting World Peace Through Nuclear Pacification
OS/2 isn't dead...it just smells that way. :)
Oh, sure, this is great, but when do I get Duke Nukem Forever?
no, but you can get shogo and quake :)
-Polyhead-
That's just one piece of the unsubstantiated FUD currently being used by competing companies and some of the more blinkered fanatics in the Amiga community.
Help savingAmigaOS and a free PowerPC market
Sorry!
Unless this is an Amiga Inc. story, It shouldnt run with the Amiga Boing Ball Logo (i.e. The Origional 1985, 8 x 8 checker pattern).
MorphOS has a great logo: so thier stories should use the propper butterfly. Its a really nice logo too... . . . .
Even though I'm typing this from a TiBook, stories like this remind me how much I miss using the Amiga. My A3000 sits on a shelf just above my BSD machine, and I still have my A500 downstairs (or A0.5K as some people liked to call it :) My 3000 (one of the few softboots) was having some hardware problems, and I just haven't had the time to really work at it. At the same time, I just can't seem to find a good use for it - Linux, BSD and MacOS X now take care of my needs.
IMHO, the Amiga made using computers fun. It wasn't *what* you were doing, but *how* you were doing it (except for those ^#@! guru's) Now that Windows has taken over virtually everything, computers have become just a tool for getting work done, and it's become too routine. Linux and to an extent, MacOS X, have captured a lot of the spirit of the Amiga, and features that I had on my Amiga years ago are starting to make their return (I missed my CLI on my desktop machine!). Yet, it just isn't the same.
Off topic, SASG still appears to be active. Looking at some of the MUI screenshots, it's interesting to see how similar parts of MacOS X are - back in 1995!
I use Macs to up my productivity, so up yours Microsoft!
Nothing like being a devout AC. In any case, the 800's graphics were indeed sired by Jay Miner.
;)
Atari's direct competition to the Amiga was the ST, which evolved into something comparable to the Mac, but was a pretty large ripoff in its first incarnations, featuring none of the coprocessing and wait-state outsmarting that made the Amiga grand.* It made a niche for itself as a musician's machine, given the built-in MIDI interface, but it featured no grand synthesis hardware itself- just the good ol' serial port that MIDI is, which could be added to any machine of the day for about $50.
The first ST also beat the Amiga in resolution, but only on Atari's proprietary displays, which had a different aspect ratio than most CRTs of the time. The decision to leave the Amiga at 640x200NI was a sad one, and made by Commodore management to keep the displays cheap and RAM usage down (remember, the first machines had to hold all of Kickstart, the OS, and program code in the stock 256k; this was quickly remedied in the 500 and 2000, when the 'memory crisis' of those days had eased somewhat, but the damage was done architecturally, and Commodore actually designed another chip just to deinterlace the output- Amber, found in the 3000, and trickled back to the 2000 in the official delacer card.)
So, at best, you could call the machines a tossup. The Atari had its two strong points, but remember, it was no faster than an original Mac, and no more able to multitask. The Amiga, in contrast, was a speed demon, its 68k mostly freed to execute program code, with the copper around to assist. With the first multitasking OS on a consumer machine, you could actually do two things at once, like listen to MODs on the Gary chip's multivoice audio output while you BBSed.
A sidenote: Why the hideous blue, orange and white default everyone remembers from Workbench 1.x? The Amiga crew hauled in the most broken television sets they could find, back when they still thought they'd be using them for display, and determined it was the highest-contrast scheme. Woz made a similar decision in going green on the Apple II- green phosphors were the last to die on your average color TV, and who was going to buy an expensive new set just to tinker with a computer?
Come on moderators, +5 for a personal, non-subjective praising of the old Amiga 1000!?
Also, don't blame Amiga's failure on the marketplace, Commodore screwed things up badly time after time. Shifting of market focus, failure to deliver, low quality components (high return rate for substantial amounts of time), economical extravaganzas, do I need to go on?
And if you think that average corporate offices should have chosen Amigas instead of PCs or Macs, then you obviously don't understand the corporate needs of the 80's. What the hell would an office computer do with advanced graphics, advanced sound, flickery colorscreens (either interlace or way to expensive monitors), an immature platform with a seriously buggy OS and hardly any software support (we're talking about A1000, right?)??? Not to speak about the dependence the company would get on one single, small supplier.
Sure, I also regret how things turned out, but put the blame on those who deserves it. As far as I see it Atari Mega STs would have fit the corporate desktop much better (more user friendly GUI, cheaper hardware and a rock solid B/W screen), but I don't blame them for not choosing that either. Atari also screwed up a lot and was also a too small single supplier.
Commodore's legendary bog-awful marketing. You can find the adverts on the web, they were bad. The failed to push the Amiga platform towards anything much other than gamers.
They made the opposite mistake with the A500 in the UK. They pushed it as a business machine for about two years, allowing the 520ST to consolidate its early foothold. If they'd properly set out to compete directly for the home gaming/productivity market, they could have killed the ST in two years and owned UK home computing for half a decade. But hey, they didn't, so who knows how that might have worked out.
The colour scheme on pre 2.0 machines was based on a user interface study from NASA which found those colours were easiest on the eye (unfortunately they looked crap).
Also, while the Amigas custom chip arrangement meant that the CPU was usually freer to do more processing, the A500 was 7.14 Mhz to the STs 8 Mhz due to the memory addressing scheme (I think).
Of course, the Amiga rocked and still does.
Polyhead, don't believe anything John tells you, ever.
:)
I can't believe I explained the exact nature of MorphOS to both of you and neither of you remembered it
Umm. Sorry, but there's nothing illegal about reimplenting an API, and you don't need any priviledged information to do it. I've got the Addison Wesley coding references right here.
Last i heard it was still a viable and shipping product, though at the moment i cant remember who IBM sold it off too..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Truly the Classic Amiga legacy: user wanted it, user was willing to pay the extra bucks, user still couldn't have it.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
hehe oh hush, or i'll make a public display of affection right on slashdot *huge evil grin* BTW... so i got it wrong. half of it was right, it was designed for the Phase5 PPC cards yea?
-Polyhead-
The BIG errors with the Amiga 1000 where.
1. It could not boot from a Hard Disk
2. You could not put in an internal HardDisk
3. Could not had more memory buy just adding chips.
4. Borland failed to come out with Turbo Pascal for it like they prommised.
5. Printing sucked on the early versions of the OS.
6. The flickering screen.
I loved the Amiga and it should have been a bigger hit than it was. The 2000 fixed a lot of these issues but not all. The 3000 did but by then it was too late.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
And ofcourse the A3000, which has the same cpu slot as the A4000
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
I'm not sure which list to put this on; the good or bad list. I can add:
7. Microsoft succeeded in releasing AmigaBASIC, but never updated it to work on a CPU later than the 68000.
Never hit your grandmother with a shovel, for it leaves a bad impression on her mind...