Why no new hardware for MorphOS??

[zylesea]

Last night i was wondering why there is no new hardware for morph os, os4 has the sam440, the new460ex and when available the new x-1000 (plus the old amiga one and micro).. yes i know there are the mac but all this hardware is old and used without any sort of warranty..

Folks in butterfly country usually are able to do some basic economic calculation. If there was sustainable demand there would be a product. Seems like currently there is no sustainable demand.

[zylesea]

@ DrHirudo

While some PowerMac G5s peak at serious uptakes the situation is quite different for teh later G5s. The iMac G5 2.0 GHz *with* 20" display just takes (according o measures by MacLife, a German Mac magazine):

iMac G5 2 GHz 20": stand by: 10 W - idle: 13 W - average: 70 W - full steam: 90 W

Well, if I substract 30W for a 20" diplay there are 40W remaining for teh computer itself. Say a Pa6T based system takes 25W on average it saves you 15W/h- 120W per working day. About 3.5 kW per month or the equal of about 0.7 EUR acording to my 100% renewable energy supplier. Makes a good tener a year. Impressive!!

[zylesea]

Why is it stinky?

Some people prefer brand new machines, than used, smelly, scratched and looking bad machines.
One of the reasons I prefer new hardware over old hardware is because of that odd smell. Especially if the previous owner was a smoker, the smell is disgusting.

Well, don't buy from doubtious sources. The seller of my Mac mini told me to be no smoker and that she cared well for teh device. 1st hand, Apple care, original boxes. It is neither smelly nor cratchy, but it was cheap, is very reliable, shiny, silent energy efficient (seemy mearures at http://via.i-networx.de/bench_en.html#uptake ) pretty fast and I needed not to wait until summer 2010 (and longer) but enjoy that device since more than 2 years now).
btw.
Btw. any comment on your attempt to diss the MorphOS G5 effort with the arguemnet of high energy uptake now that I provided you numbers? Where are your numbers for the X1000 then?

[zylesea]

The faster models come with a 600 watt power supply. Thats almost twice the output of a G4 power supply.
I'm not sure about PA Semi's product, but I'm fairly sure it uses less power.

Some PowerMac G4 are really sucking a lot of juice. But don't just trust the PSU ratings - do actual measurements. The 2x2GHz G5 Powermac drains about 150 on average use. That's quite a lot. But I was speaking about the iMac G5 - and these don't take that much enrgy up. Just read my numbers from above.
So it is true, there are PowerMac G5s that peak at max load with really high values (in the several hunderet watts range), but not *all* G5s. Select your G5 with care and then these issues become void.
I use 100% renewable energy, a kW costs me about 0.215 EUR and I am quite employed on energy efficience and stuff like that. I am pretty much aware of what I am talking about.
Have to check the numbers of the iMac 20" myself though (don't have one yet). Same is true for the X1000. IIRC in some posing it was said it sucks 25W - sounds plausible to me.
Given the numbers I gave above are right, an iMac G5 2 GHz consumes energy for 10EUR more on a year than an X1000... Speedwise these devices should be pretty on par.

[zylesea]

Providing a few more number for the iMac G5: The 2.1 GHz version takes about 90W on average use with a medium bright display. Lets assume 30W for the display (my 22" Dell 2209WA sucks more). Makes 60W for the G5 system, say the PA6T system goes as low as 25W this makes a difference of 35W/h. Assume 8hrs usage a day this sums up to a bit above  8kw/month. Multiply this with 12 and you end up with about 200kw more enrgy uptake than the Pa6T system. Costs me with 0.215 EUR/kw 43 EUR/year - for 365*8hrs.
My aasumptions for the PA6T system are optimistic here. The 2.0 GHz version draws a little less.

[zylesea]

Hmm... finding this thread a wee bit confusing...

It's posted under "Amiga Hardware Issues & Discusions" but it mainly seems to be about MorphOS running on Macs, I admit I know very little about MorphOS but I'm kinda confused about where the Amiga fits into all of this or has A.org been taken over by a Mac forum...

MorphOS basically *is* (an) AmigaOS. It started a bit more than 10 years ago to write an OS that is fully OS3.x compatible, shares the same API and logic to use.
There is exec, intuition, dos, mui and all that stuff under the hood. The disklayout is the same as under OS3.x (c, s, devs, libs, prefs, utilities, tools, classes, locale), the RAM disk works the same, DOS shares the same commands and syntax. It is directly comaptible to non custom chip banging 68k software, as well as PowerUp software and WarpOS software.
It is written by many of those folks who actively kept Amiga alive when noone else was there in the late 90ies. The MorphOS-Team was in negotiation with Amiga Inc to make MorphOS the official AmigaOS4 but the conditions were unacceptable, so Hyperion later took this. MorphOS suported initially the P5 CyberstormPPC and BlizzardPPC (support for these cards ceased with the 2.0 release), then the various Pegasos computers and the Efika5200B.
Recently MorphOS happen to support some Apple PowerPC gear. Maybe in future MorphOS will shift the supported ISA, but not too soon.
Is that Amiga enough?

[zylesea]

Well it's the best explanation of MorphOS I've heard thanks, but I still don't get why this thread is mainly about it running on Macs unless it's giving you an Amiga emulation on a Mac, in that case MorphOS would be very interesting to me...

MorphOS doesn't need an Amiga emulation - it just executes Amiga programs exactly as if they were MorphOS native programs. With the one difference: the 68k code is translated to ppc code on the fly by the 68k JIT (Maxxon cinema raytracer runs more than 50 times as fast as on an 68040/25 with the MorphOS JIT on a G4/1500 and about 30 times as fast on a G3/600 more benchmark results: http://via.i-networx.de/bench_en.html )
Look, for example I use Turbocalc, GoldEd and TV paint quite a lot (all 68k Amiga programs) - on my Pegasos, Efika and Mac mini directly with MorphOS. Even an old program from an old appetizder disk (the program write) works on MorphOS - and hence on Apple hardware.
The software that directly bangs the Amiga custom hardware (many older games or DPaint IV) usually doesn't work on MorphOS, but runs on E-UAE which is well integrated into Ambient (the workbench replacement): adf files can get launched with UAE straightly. But you need UAE *only* for hardware banging stuff, non banging stuff is executed directly (even old 1.x programs).

[zylesea]

Wow finally I understand what MorphOS can actually do and now it's very interesting indeed to me...

Looks like I'll need to head to eBay and buy another Mac to give this a try...

(Wish someone had explained it clearly before like you just have...

Cheers

Franko

The biggest difference in everday usage is probably between Ambient and Workbench. Ambinet is MUI based and offers really a lot, but looks a bit different to Workbench (but can easily be skinned to any taste) and offers a bit different usability. This may need a little time to get familiar with, but today (after using Ambient for a longer while) I always get the impression Workbench is really outdated and I feel way more comfortable on Ambient than on Workbench...
While not recomended it should still be possible to replace Ambient with 68k Workbench (a few ppl did that during the early days of Ambient).
If you like to read a bit more about MorphOS I suggest "MorphOS the lighning OS by Fulvio Peruggi, find it on http://library.morphzone.org/Main_Page - though not maximally up to date, it is worth a read anyway Or the even older article "A close glimpse to MorphOS" but that one is referringto MorphOS 1.x and from 2005. Anyway, I think there's still something in, find teh pdf here: http://via.i-networx.de/docs/glimpse_2_MorphOS_p1_V1.0SE.pdf (958kb).

[zylesea]

But you compare hardware scrap with hardware produced in the recent years that have some additional taxes attached to it like RoHS tax,(...) .

There is no RoHS tax. RoHS only defines which materials are no rlonger allowed to use for electronic goods. There is, however the WEEE directive. The cost varies from country to country. For example the "Stiftung EAR" (Germany) expects the manufacturer to take back as many goods as produced (well, the actual method is a bit more complicated). For god's sake let's also put the cost of the registration fees into that which (thank god!!!) were drastically lowered in recent years coming down to a few hundered EUR (since 2008 one registration is enough for the entire EU). If A-eon will sell 250 boards they will probably don't have to to take back any waste at all, but in worst case (one container, which will generate costs of a few hundered EUR), the total cost (registration and recycling) will be in the range of 1000 EUR- which makes 4 EUR/item - in worst case (German prices)! That makes a huge difference on the 2000 EUR for the X1000!

[zylesea]

@ zylesea

Cheers once again, just downloaded the PDF and going to give it a read. You should write a basic introduction to MorphOS for numpties like me, I've learned more about it in your past few posts than I have in my whole time on the net since June of last year...

I just did: http://via.i-networx.de/wim.htm
A very brief introduction to MorphOS for ppl knowing the Commodore Amiga 68k. It's very briefrather simple put and probably oversimplified. It comes with a a few screenshots, too.

[zylesea]

Dual 1.8Ghz G4 processor
1.5GB RAM
80GB Hard Drive
DVDRW
ATI Radeon 9800

Cost - $100



For $100 I do not worry about warranty.

Why don't you use sys:utilities/grabber instead of your camera?

[zylesea]

People might claim I faked it:hammer:

I see, genuineness of a photo. Guess my 2003 discovered *evil bug* gains some credibility then again (dunno if it was fixed with some 2.x release now...):
http://via.i-networx.de/pic/morphos/evil_bug.jpg
;-)