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What MorphOS Is All About
Gentu writes "Genesi released today an extensive feature list of MorphOS, the pre-emptively multi-tasking operating system for PPC. MorphOS/Pegasos is a brand new platform (the last full OS+HW platform released was 7 years ago with Be's BeBox) so it is very modern and it has support for 3D cards, USB, SMP while it also features partial Amiga application binary compatibility! Additionally, OSNews today features an interview with the Eclipsis Project Manager, Nicholas Blachford, about MorphOS, and they include three exclusive screenshots of the OS."
...if the guy announcing a PPC product isn't wearing a turtle-neck and saying "oh and...one last thing," I don't care.
I'll form my OWN solar system! With blackjack! And hookers!
Will this one offer HPFS file systems?
We as voters have given up essential liberty. We hoped to purchase a little temporary safety. We in fact deserve neither
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These exculsive screens even show that it can handle mp3 playback and timezone changing at the same time. What next, reading email while doing graphic design?
Where Dilbert creates a device to convert pocket lint into a parsley substitute:
"That's absolutely brilliant, and completely unmarketable."
- MorphOS Feature List
- MorphOS Info
- OSNews Interview
- More on Amiga
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I have been using the MorphOS System with a Pegasos board for a while, in a corporate environment. I feel it would be appropriate for me to share for the benefit of the greater good.
Our MorphOS Systems, one of which I currently am using to post, are very nice. They're for the most part homebuilt with COTS components. The Pegasos Mainboard basically is a MicroATX board with a PowerPPC 133FSB slot, ATA100 3 PCI, 1 AGP, onboard LAN and FireWire. It's amazing how empty the board looks (find the photos on their web site) compared to a normal x86 board. So what you do is you get that board, a PowerPC CPU, some RAM, a case, a hard drive, etc, and you have a fully working PowerPC system devoid of an OS. It isn't cheap, but you don't pay the Apple Markup
To that hardware platform I added MorphOS, and started developing applications, alongside a team of six programmers. We have been learning the ins and out of MorphOS, and we are producing some very nice graph visualisation software for our product. The amazing power of the PowerPC coupled with the surprising APIs of MorphOS, as well as its unique scheduler, enables us to develop much faster on that platform.
I think MorphOS has a bright future ahead, if only people will give it a chance, and realise how good it is.
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will it make the Internet faster.
Damn, too bad it doesn't run Photoshop. We all know running Photoshop is the way to unleash the real power of the PowerPC chip.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
If this can get support from game companies it has a lot more chance of being successful.
It takes more than Solitaire to make an OS. They already have 3d card support, so if I can play counter-strike on one of these it would be worth giving it a shot.
Thank you Mario! But our princess is in another castle!
I just dont understand why you would use something like this. I mean, what possible profit generating nitch can this thing fill?
We as voters have given up essential liberty. We hoped to purchase a little temporary safety. We in fact deserve neither
So, pardon my ignorance, but what real world applications actually run on this OS? Please don't bombard me with GNU/development/programming stuff or 10 year old Amiga apps. Is there any compelling reason to use this other than the geek factor?
People want a nice smooth migration path. It's even OK to have a major inovation once in a while, as long as it still works with their older stuff (and without a huge performance penalty, which is why IA64 is going nowhere fast).
IBM tried to do away with the ISA bus in 1987, by pushing their proprietary MCA bus as an all-or-nothing proposition. Despite its technical merit, it failed to take over any of the PC market. EISA, VESA local bus, and PCI were more successful because they were provided as a gradual shift. "Look, you can have some ISA slots AND some PCI slots." Of course, now ISA slots have almost vanished, but the transition period was eight years.
EISA and VESA LB died because although they also offered a gradual transition, PCI had more technical merit. So technical merit does count for something, but it's not sufficient to justify an overwhelming degree of incompatibility.
Yes, so modern that it does the same stuff as all the other OSes out there. Oh, except actually having any application software. And it won't support all the 3D cards and USB devices, just a few that they've written drivers for. Great, if I want to run a few old Amiga games, it can do that. Woo hoo, I'm so excited.Pardon me if I don't rush right out to buy one. I think I'll stick to my dual Athlon box running Linux. It has support for 3D cards, USB, and SMP, and actually runs the applications I need.
I think people should put more interest in OpenBeOS than some new Amiga-ish thing
Sure there is the Amiga name, but there is so much more that solidarity behind (Open)BeOS can offer, increased driver support, ports to other platforms, and more robust and numerous applications can be a boon to the OSS community. Yes, Linux and *BSD are nice, but as a desktop machine, I have yet to see anything (on x86) rival the grace of BeOS.
"I would say that 99 per cent of what my father has written about his own life is false." - L. Ron Hubbard Jr.
I'd like to run something non-x86 based.
What are the price differences though? If PPC for example is more, why bother if I'd be running the same operating system & GNU software base as I would with x86?
- temperature
- durability
- price now
- devaluation
A blog I run for the wealth
Of course, now ISA slots have almost vanished, but the transition period was eight years.
Can anyone recommend any decent boards that still have ISA slots? Just one or two would be fine. 1.3Ghz or better (or thereabouts, soft limit), more than 2 IDE channels, and a few ISA slots. Find me a dual-capable board (Intel or AMD) and I'd be very happy. Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?
no, its quake and quake 2, both of which you can get the source for.
"I would say that 99 per cent of what my father has written about his own life is false." - L. Ron Hubbard Jr.
The source code for Quake 2 was relesed months ago. There has already been several ports of Q2 to AmigaOS, so there's no reason to think it hasn't been ported to MorphOS too.
Quake 3, on the other hand... Hmmmmm...
Slagborr
I think that perhaps the Q2 and Q3 icons are merely sample icons. They don't present any screenshots of Quake 3 running, afterall.
"You spoony bard!" -Tellah
..and that's not the Quake 3 icon. That's an icon for plain old ordinary Quake, and then Quake 2 right beside it.
Slagborr
>MorphOS boots in under 3 second
Now this is an OS I'll be keeping my eye on. I wish it ran on old Mac hardware though...
---
Open Source Shirts
random thought... pertaining less to MorphOS and more to an insomniac's late night niggle post. hehe niggle... funny word. I think it is real. anyways... the gui is old, it is dieing... we need something less tiresome then double clicks and appearing windows. interaction needs to be efficient... not hollywoods "virtual reality", minority report style. no aqua interface. maybe instead of a mouse, our hands can be tracked... and really not have to leave the keyboard. hmmm.... imagine typing, and then lifting the right hand a couple inches above the keyboard and slightly outstretching the fingers, similar to the shape of a pistol and pushing objects in a mock three dimensional environment. picture a word processing cube- one side of the cube could be the document itself. another side could be temp clipboard space. type away at the keyboard, lift the left hand... spin the cube and punch the printer that is rendered on the "tools" side of the cube. to save, just punch the white typed document through the wall into the cube and push the entire cube to the side of the virtual space. The document was saved within the cube... would you like to play a game? lift the hands from the keyboard, with the palms to the air, grab the sphere that is dropping from the top of the monitor and punch a side of it to start up virtua girl... I dunno, what the hell I'm talking about. ahhh sleep...I'll try that !
Decaffeinated coffee? Kinda like kissing your sister. - Bob Irwin
I'm sorry, but the desktop looks dated and unprofessional. The icons, while detailed, lack a unifying theme other than photorealistic. OS9, OSX and BeOS have (about 99%) of their icons under their respective unified look. Dare is say it, it looks like a bunch of Linux icons I saw about 5 years ago.
"I would say that 99 per cent of what my father has written about his own life is false." - L. Ron Hubbard Jr.
There is also "cooperative multitasking" where the app must explicitly call yield() to hand over control. Effectively single tasking with hidden, rapid task switching. The disadvantages are pretty obvious - no suitability for SMP, and it can wedge solid or hog the CPU, but it also has advantages eg: in cases where you're running a semi-realtime app that absolutely must not be interrupted while it's doing some important stuff.
Do note that everything you currently see within those screenshots is the ABOX environment. This ABOX uses a reimplemented Exec kernel (AmigaOS) on top of an "alien" (read non AmigaOS-like) kernel called Quark(/MorphOS), with this kernel(/OS) being completely hidden from the user. So currently this OS uses a two kernel approach, unlike AmigaOS4 which will use a new fully native ExecSG kernel with alot more added features (compared to the classic Exec or MorphOS' reimplemented AmigaOS3.1 Exec).
This approach could be largely compared to Wine, but is in use and approach more similar to the Amithlon AmigaOS emulator, as its hides the underlying technology completely from the user. In the case of Amithlon this is Linux.
For instance the directory structure, startup-scripts, components structure and features are currently the same or similar to the way the classic AmigaOS was designed. Instead of to the PPC native Ambient environment, MorphOS users are even able to use the classic AmigaOS3.1 Workbench environment on top of this MorphOS/ABOX environment. Regarding to what the QBOX environment will be like in usage (i.e. AmigaOS-like) in the future, very little is actually still known.
That this all is possible can mainly be attributed to the fact that the classic AmigaOS is extremely modular, for most OS components there are several 3rd party alternatives available. For example Workbench/Magellan/Scalos, Reaction/MUI or Picasso/Cybergraphix etc.
I went to see the comments and already knew what to expect..
.. There are word processors, image manipulators, etc, all released in the last few years.
:-)
1) It's going to die just like Be / whatever
2) Ok, so it'll run 10 year old software / a few old amiga games, so what?
So:
- If you say it'll die because of the same causes Be died, you're wrong. Be was totally new, but the new Amiga compatible systems build on an existing user base (albeit small) and existing application base. It's enough to get started and if the better CPUs allow developers to do more cool stuff, perhaps someone's head will turn.
- It won't run any old Amiga games without an Amiga emulator, because it doesn't have Amiga's custom chips! These STILL aren't anything that resemble your old A500s.
- Amiga software development has been going on all the time in the last 10 years we've been without Commodore. We even got a new OS for the 68k machines in 2000. Y2k wasn't 10 years ago! The latest update was in March this year.
- The web browser I use at home has the copyright date set at 2002, the IRC client I use at home has the copyright date set at 2002
Some of you are asking because you don't know, but some are just bashing without even wanting to find out. The latter is what gets to me.. What is wrong with you people? Go get laid or something..
-Jope
Incorrect both Quake and Quake2 are also available for the classic Amiga.
Of Quake both 68k and PPC versions are available. Quake2 can only be used bwith PPC equiped Amigas.
When can we expect ChasOS? Or even TonyHartOS?
- This and all my posts are public domain. I am a Physicist. I am not your Physicist. This is not Physically advice
well, you say that bebox failed, and it was very much ahead of the game.
then you say morphOS is on par with the rest of the guys. wouldn't that mean morphos has good chance?-D
cutting edge hw costs, unless it's pc, in which case it's cutting edge because it reads so on the fancy box with cyberman riding a cyber surfboard.
niche product, for niche people, cool anyways.
one of these products would make a worthy addition to anyones nerdy room, and you don't buy a mac because you want a ppc, you buy a mac because you want a mac.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
I don't really get. Some of us here are either too pessimistic or too ultimative. And don't see the real mean of this news. And the news is: for years we haven't seen any major OS development. However, there are a few people who still break the ice. That's bad news with some light for hope.
For these last years we hanged over a few systems, majorly divided on three architectures: Windows/OS/2, *NIX, Apple/Mac. We had or have also such things like Amiga or Netware. However, we are trending into a world where we may get some weird mix Windows/*NIX. Frankly, in the bottom line, that's not bad. It's horrible. If you take into account the ideas, ideologies and theories about operating systems, which blossomed during the 70's and 80's, the Windows and *NIX architectures are pure crap. They were systems that look much like a temporary agreement between old and new theories. However, due to the fact that they became very popular, they seem to look tip-top for everyone. Unfortunately this popularity went so far that deeply froze the development of new systems.
Well, to some of us, it may look that we don't need any other systems and we should keep happy using and developing the present ones.Wrong. That's the same kind of behaviour one gets in a totalitarian regime: you're happy because you haven't seen through the Iron Courtain. This blindness can be dangerous as we may get very deep inside the crap. And when we realize that we need something else, it will be very difficult to do it, as we no longer have the experts, the theoretics, the engineers and developers capable of working from the zero line. BTW, this thing is already seen on many fields. If we do not support a stable path of development for such things, even if, presently, they would not be so bright and shiny like Windows or Linux, we surely will loose the capacity to have real choices in the future.
However, this MorphOS thing worries me on some details. The most is that, at their site, they not quite generous on giving information.
As far as I can remember, democracy requires an active citizenry who understand the issues before them, who engage in public dialogue, and who excercise their political power by engaging in the decision-making process (normally through voting, which is still a pretty weak system, IMHO).
Business requires a passive market of consumers who believe everything they are told, surrender their rights to whatever licences are associated with the product/service, and are willing to complain ineffectively to phone support drones from a third company. And the only effect they have on decision-making is by holding voting shares in the business.
Then again, the real difference is that in a democracy it is "one person, one vote". Hardly so in business, where it is "one dollar, one vote".
So, in your conception "democracy" allows for rule by the wealthy. Which, I guess, is pretty much the standard definition of democracy these days, so I'll shut up now.
I've got a bad attitude and karma to burn. Go ahead. Mod me down.
I've looked at the screenshots; had some designers look at the screenshots.
;-) )
It looks hideous! If you want to be taken seriously, have a look around at other GUI operating systems. This reminds me of a rework of the original 1985 Amiga interface with mabled widgets. Definitely not good enough.
(on a positive note, the Amiga had a pretty cool OS for the rest, so the OS may be fairly neat once they fix the UI look
No joke: it would be really great to see if someone could get MorphOS running on a TiVo.
Obviously, just to be able to say "well... I got tired of linux on my tivo, so i put morphos on" brings a certain amount of geek kudos.
Or should I go and get a life now?
--- My dad's political betting
They have a hardware abstraction layer, which: "Makes MorphOS hardware independent"
So... Why are they designing their own hardware? Or do I not understand the business relationships involved? Maybe this is a hardware company, and morphos is the only thing that runs on it?
Then why not port something that already runs on PPC - one of the BSD's, Darwin or Linux?
Someone explain this, please. Because it seems pretty risky to gamble on both a new hardware platform and the acceptance of a new OS simultaneously. Isn't that what stunted and ultimately killed a young and promising Be?
"Amiga does work on its own operating system and related technologies (AmigaDE/AA)."
Actually, Mike, as you perfectly well know, AmigaDE is merely TAO's software repackaged. NOTHING more.
Fact of the matter is, AInc do NOT do any of their own OS development. Period.
People should not be afraid of their governments - Governments should be afraid of their people.
Real BSD's doesn't work on PPC well and stable. Iv'e tried them myself. That was a good experience, but that was not I want on my desktop on a daily basis.
MkLinux is obsolete and really used today only for embedded devices as a basis for proprietary OS. It is not a desktop OS to use today.
Linux/PPC is presented by at least six good distros: Gentoo, YDL, Debian, Suse, Mandrake, Slackware. I've tried all of them and I can recommend YDL for home novices, while Gentoo for developers, admins and for IT dept corporate distribution.
BeOS has the same problem as I can percieve with Morphos - lack of real world applications. If you use it then be prepared that you'll have a problem in file sharing with other people (office docs). And be prepared that half of you favorite development tools, compiler, interpreters and libriries will not work as you expect or won't work at all. That was the reason why OS/2 has died.
Less is more !
People, your OS Biodiversity is INCREASING for the first time in years! A small company is making a modern GUIed os that boots in 3 seconds and has already gotten to the maturity plateau where you can read your e-mail and surf. Are you all so beaten down by the beast that you can't even dream of a new OS? Yes, you need to buy new hardware. The hardware platform you are running on (appologies to Mac, BE, and WAP slashdotters) is over 20 years old. You are still using Serial ATA, with Floppy drives and PS/2 ports in the back, aren't you? And your 20 year old DOS system has just been replaced with a 15 year old NT/XP system... Have you even looked at the folder heirarchies? People, we can do MUCH, MUCH better.
And yes, that means giving money to developers. Tightly knit, well-funded companies are capable of outperforming Open Source development in certain respects... It's just that they are so mired in money that many forgot how or why.
Did Be Fail? They wrote a truly modern and elegant OS, spawned new interface paradigms, failed to seize Microsoft's crown, and took over Palm. That sounds like a pretty good ride... we should all be so lucky. Palm OS 6 should bring forth the real fruits of the project.
The sales volume of a song does not determine its quality. If you really believe in code poetry, the same applies to us.
-C
This Sig is a mnemonic device designed to allow you to recognize this author in the future.
The Tao Group is the foundation partner for the AmigaDE, Amiga Inc has a license to adjust their OS to suit Amiga's needs. It often goes like this, for instance AmigaDOS was licensed by big C= from 3rd parties as well.
While the icons of an OS say nothing about the quality of the OS, the icons and the widgets of this OS look like they're a labour of love. Beautiful.
If I had the extra money at the moment, I would buy one just for the OS.
Yes, Mac OS 9 and previous were all cooperative multitasking OS's. It's interesting to note that the Macintosh's predecessor, the Lisa, had a preemptively multitasking operating system. Few are aware of this.
blakespot
-- Heisenberg may have slept here.
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