Finishing OS4 Mac PPC port?

[Golem!dk]

It's really not that hard to replace the optical drive in a mini, have a look here.

Replaced the combo drive in mine with an Optiarc AD-7633A.
Oh... and I only had my mini boot from an external fw drive, not usb.

[bloodline]

Golem!dk wrote:

Oh... and I only had my mini boot from an external fw drive, not usb.

A quick test with my old PowerBook G4, shows that the PPC machines seem to be Firewire boot only... Thank his noodliness for intel macs:-)

[billt]

Well... To be honest... My Mac Mini CD drive got broken finally yet yesterday

cheap Mini combo drive
http://cgi.ebay.com/Apple-iBook-Mac-Mini-G4-CD-RW-DVD-ROM-Combo-8123A-New_W0QQitemZ350081236512QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0

or cheap superdrive
http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-Apple-Mac-Mini-Super-Drive-Apple-part-678-0555A_W0QQitemZ260333485184QQcmdZViewItemQQptZApple_Drives_and_Media

How to change it out
http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Mac/Mac-Mini-PowerPC-/Optical-Drive/82/5/Page-1

All you need is a little money, some time and motivation.

[Tension]

After reading this thread, I think we shud all just give up and get crappy windoze boxes.

btw, Bloodline, are you a pastafarian??

[Lorraine]

/

[tomazkid]

Regarding the legal status, take a look here:
Post number 9.

[Lorraine]

/

[persia]

It would be better to build a proper emulator.  What are we talking about anyway, some firmware called u-boot and what else?  Perhaps a yellow dog or gentoo kernel could be booted to host the emulator?

[takemehomegrandma]

zylesea wrote:
@ DiskDoctor

Why bother when there is an alternative: MorphOS will support the Mac Mini with the next major release.
Maybe even the Powerbook (no official word about the Pb yet).

But there are pictures! :-)

http://www.amiga.org/forums/showthread.php?t=39336

[takemehomegrandma]

Gebrochen wrote:

BTW, various things on MorphOS remind me too much of Windows, I HATE that.

Wow, I wonder what that could be that makes MorphOS too similar to Windows?

Is it the Amiga system files structure, with C, S, L, Libs, etc directories?
Is it the Amiga file systems, device names, etc? The RAM: disk?
Is it the fact that the entire desktop and all MorphOS native programs uses MUI, the UI that quickly became the "standard" on Amiga after its release, used by many, many (if not most) Amiga programs?
Is it maybe the integrated Poseidon USB stack, which has defined Amiga's USB standard since... well, since Amiga got USB!
Is it the AHI audio? Or Cybergraphics? Amiga standards in RTA and RTG that has been part of Amiga since ages?
Or is it the many famous Amiga applications that Amigans have got used to during the years, 68k and PPC, that runs just fine at speeds never seen on any Amiga before, in exactly the way an Amigan would expect them to? (MorphOS has the best Amiga compatibility among all NG Amiga OS's)
Well, I can't think of anything more right now that's part of the behavior, interaction with the user, or anything else that could possibly make a user feel like MorphOS equals to Windows in any way.

That comment of yours really made my day! I mean, wow... :roll:

I'll tell you what reminds me of Windows; the installation process of OS4, and having to open various different configuration applications to make system settings that would really have benefited from being set in a centralized manner.

[takemehomegrandma]

@DiskDoctor

Also, there exists a hardware for OS4 already so actually why bother porting the OS to some discontinued and non-supported platform?

Hmm, maybe because of this:

OS4 with its only existing hardware, using an Efika class CPU, comes at a price that almost equals a  Quad-Core PowerStation with 2x 2.5GHz "G5" CPU's, 4x CPU cores, 4x Altivec, 8x FPU's, 4x 1MB L2 cache, 1 PCIe x16, 2 PCIe x8, 1 PCI-X, etc, etc.

Absurd if you ask me...

Even the slowest Mac Mini would run circles around the OS4 hardware, it's easily available, and at very reasonable costs.

Was that enough reasonsn? ;-)

[takemehomegrandma]

tomazkid wrote:
Regarding the legal status, take a look here:
Post number 9.

Possession can't be illegal. Spreading it might, but not owning it.

[bloodline]

Lorraine wrote:

Tension wrote:
After reading this thread, I think we shud all just give up and get crappy windoze boxes.

btw, Bloodline, are you a pastafarian??

Nah, you guys forget the great fsm if you want to show you're serious. Become true followers of the Jedi code, and may the force be with you too. It's way more believable, more fun and with more followers to boot.

They even made a couple of film trilogies about it and everythin' :lol:

I observe and respect the teachings of FSM... But on the 2000 census I did state my Faith as Jedi... Like everyone else I know :-D

[persia]

By not porting the OS to PPC Mac hardware they are creating a market for SAM.  There would be no market for SAM if a PPC Mac Mini version of OS 4 existed.  At work I've junked equipment faster than SAM.

The low end SAM board is equivalent to Mac hardware produced in '99, the "high end" SAM is equivalent to Mac equipment produced in '01.  SAM is underwhelming to say the least.

My mobile phone has a 620MHz ARM CPU, only slightly slower than the high end SAM!

Once again is the only thing unique about SAM the uboot firmware?

[ferrellsl]

@Persia

Finally, someone on this board who has the courage to tell the truth!  And I might add that the price for a SAM is freakin' outrageous!

I got flamed for days when I made similar comments on AmigaWorld.net.  Made me think that the makers of SAM also have a controlling interest in that web site.

[DiskDoctor]

ferrellsl wrote:
@Persia

Finally, someone on this board who has the courage to tell the truth!  And I might add that the price for a SAM is freakin' outrageous!

Unfortunately it's true, unless some kind of promotion as this happens again, than it is "just" very high.

I think the price is, indeed, stupid from a consumer's perspective.  It reminds me of times when I worked in b2b hardware sales.  Stuff like printservers or serial converters were 3-5 x more expensive than some other brands' consumer-targeted products with similar specs(!).  It is understandable since such items are usually sold in various sorts of tenders worth millions $$ in total, in heavy amounts, being largely discounted, though.

So maybe the case is that ACube maintains industrial/b2b offer (does anybody have a link to some final solution, not necessarily with AOS4 in it?) while simultaneously forgetting/neglecting/scr*wing regular consumers?

Funny, if they dropped the price, say, 30%, they would surely feel the impact.  Also, manufacturing and assembling such stuff usually doesn't exceed 20% of the SRP, in this case I'm sure it's below 10%.  Or if it is more, why are they not outsourcing the whole thing to China or another freaky place to hit the price down?

What's that margin for while your can hardly make profits out of it?