Amount of MorphOS copies sold

[XDelusion]

Two things that will help sales...
1
Improved support for classic apps that run on OS4, but crash on MorphOS. I.E. OctaMED SS.

And or JIT for UAE.
2
Powerbook & wireless support.

[dreadwin]

Another way to look at the graph is that the number of Morphos registrations has almost doubled during the last 2 years.

Myself, I've acquired a G4 MDD 1.25Ghz, and just need to spend the time to install and troubleshoot before I can join the party.  Adding Powermac support has allowed the userbase to grow.

[Darrin]

Another way to look at the graph is that the number of Morphos registrations has almost doubled during the last 2 years.

Or you could say that more people will by an OS if they can actually have some hardware to run it on.  

[Iggy]

Or you could say that more people will by an OS if they can actually have some hardware to run it on.  

Ha! That's hitting the nail on its head. before Mac support, you had a choice between the Pegasos and the Efika (the later underpowered and with limited memory, the former out of production for the last five years).
And Macs are cheap or free so its easy to try the Os and then buy it if you like it (a pretty good marketing method).

[Darrin]

Ha! That's hitting the nail on its head. before Mac support, you had a choice between the Pegasos and the Efika (the later underpowered and with limited memory, the former out of production for the last five years).
And Macs are cheap or free so its easy to try the Os and then buy it if you like it (a pretty good marketing method).

Yep, I have an Efika and the reason I haven't purchased a copy of MorphOS is because it is too underpowered to use it properly.  Shame really because it is such a tiny board.

[Iggy]

Yep, I have an Efika and the reason I haven't purchased a copy of MorphOS is because it is too underpowered to use it properly.  Shame really because it is such a tiny board.

I do not understand why Genesi didn't give that board more memory or make the memory upgradable.

[Darrin]

I do not understand why Genesi didn't give that board more memory or make the memory upgradable.

That was my only gripe about the board.  I can understand the lack of CPU power because it was a low-end board based on what was available on the market at the time and meant to be cheap to encourage sales.  However, the surface mounted memory with no expansion option was a real design blunder.

I think that at the end of the day it was a board designed for simple automated business use (cash registers, monitoring devices, etc) and not really for a home user running applications on a modern OS.

[amigadave]

The only thing that is going to significantly increase the sales (or use) of MorphOS2.x, AmigaOS4.x, or AROS, is the availability of quality software that everyone wants to run on those OSes.  If we can't get more developers and good software to run, all of these systems are just a curiosity to most other people and aren't much more than that even to hard core Amiga users that want to move on to something more advanced, but still Amiga related.

I know that there is already some good software for all of the above OSes, but we need so much more and better software to be considered by most computer users.

[mike-]

Very interesting, id like to point out though people posting in forums and people having registered a copy does not necessarily go hand in hand of course, id expect the number not the be dividable at all, you cant assume that every morphos user will have a morphzone account any more then every windows user having a hotmail account. The fact is this reflects the number of registered users posting and registered and bothering to post so on morphzone. Meaning you could easily probably double the number. However as some point out there are probably way more 68k users out there then ppc, simply given availability. It would be interesting to know the number of downloads for the ISO, and total active regardless of A(ISH)OSy

[amigadave]

That was my only gripe about the board.  I can understand the lack of CPU power because it was a low-end board based on what was available on the market at the time and meant to be cheap to encourage sales.  However, the surface mounted memory with no expansion option was a real design blunder.

I think that at the end of the day it was a board designed for simple automated business use (cash registers, monitoring devices, etc) and not really for a home user running applications on a modern OS.

I got into a big argument with one of Genesi's employees while trying to find the answers of why the memory on the Efika could not be added to (as there are solder pads on the bottom of the board just for that purpose).  It took almost a week of heated forum postings back and forth to come up with the correct answer (in fact it took a phone call from Bill Buck directly to me at my home to get a straight answer), and the answer was that the firmware of the Efika would have to be modified to have any added RAM recognized and Genesi would not do it without being paid.  Nor would they produce any new Efika boards with more RAM installed at the factory unless at least 300 boards were ordered and the price of these 300 upgraded Efika boards would naturally be higher due to the increased amount of RAM installed and the work required to re-write the firmware to recognize the added RAM.  The correct RAM that could work with the Efika was said to be difficult to find, which I find to be an odd statement, but suppose it could be true.  The Efika board was designed to be able to accept up to 512mb of RAM (in theory), but I don't know if any samples of the board were ever produced with that amount of RAM.

It would be great (although it would be against the terms of use, or what ever the legal term is for the rules that the board was sold with, to alter the firmware, or reverse engineer it) if some person or group would figure out how to alter the Efika's firmware to recognize 128mb, or 256mb of added RAM and find the correct RAM chips to solder to the provided solder pads on the bottom of the board, but it probably will never happen.

The CPU is not too slow for running MorphOS2.x, it is the limit of only 128mb RAM and the slow USB1.1 that are the worst features of the board.  The IDE controller is also not the greatest either, but for many uses the Efika running MorphOS2.x is fine, for a low end system.  It is comparable to other MorphOS2.x systems, like the difference between an stock A500 and a souped up A4000 w/68060 & 128mb RAM.

[amigadave]

Very interesting, id like to point out though people posting in forums and people having registered a copy does not necessarily go hand in hand of course, id expect the number not the be dividable at all, you cant assume that every morphos user will have a morphzone account any more then every windows user having a hotmail account. The fact is this reflects the number of registered users posting and registered and bothering to post so on morphzone. Meaning you could easily probably double the number. However as some point out there are probably way more 68k users out there then ppc, simply given availability. It would be interesting to know the number of downloads for the ISO, and total active regardless of A(ISH)OSy

Actually Mike, the number of licenses is known because each email sent to confirm the purchase of the MorphOS2.x license has a number in it that identifies how many licenses have been sold, so it has nothing to do with the number of registered users that also post on MorphZone.org.  There could be a few that have registered that are not members of MorphZone.org that have a higher number on their license confirmation email, but then as soon as another member of MorphZone.org registers another license, we all would know the new higher number in the email that indicates the total number of purchased licenses.

I hope that makes sense, it is easier to understand than it is to explain in words.

[smerf]

Hi,

You all made some pretty good points, that is why I use Cloanto's Amiga Forever, the OS may be old, but at least my hardware is great, and it runs like a screaming banshee. I love playing all the old Amiga games on it and it plays doom (some peoples benchmark) at a real nice speed.

So the number of Morphos users doubled, it went from 2 to 4.  Just honky doory.

If someone can tell me, will morphos run on an Amiga 1200 with a ppc card. Maybe I will go to the site and do some reading who knows you might get another double if I buy into morphos.

smerf

If it uses a MAC I don't want it in my house, or on my bench.

[Iggy]

I got into a big argument with one of Genesi's employees while trying to find the answers of why the memory on the Efika could not be added to (as there are solder pads on the bottom of the board just for that purpose).  It took almost a week of heated forum postings back and forth to come up with the correct answer (in fact it took a phone call from Bill Buck directly to me at my home to get a straight answer), and the answer was that the firmware of the Efika would have to be modified to have any added RAM recognized and Genesi would not do it without being paid.  Nor would they produce any new Efika boards with more RAM installed at the factory unless at least 300 boards were ordered and the price of these 300 upgraded Efika boards would naturally be higher due to the increased amount of RAM installed and the work required to re-write the firmware to recognize the added RAM.  The correct RAM that could work with the Efika was said to be difficult to find, which I find to be an odd statement, but suppose it could be true.  The Efika board was designed to be able to accept up to 512mb of RAM (in theory), but I don't know if any samples of the board were ever produced with that amount of RAM.

It would be great (although it would be against the terms of use, or what ever the legal term is for the rules that the board was sold with, to alter the firmware, or reverse engineer it) if some person or group would figure out how to alter the Efika's firmware to recognize 128mb, or 256mb of added RAM and find the correct RAM chips to solder to the provided solder pads on the bottom of the board, but it probably will never happen.

The CPU is not too slow for running MorphOS2.x, it is the limit of only 128mb RAM and the slow USB1.1 that are the worst features of the board.  The IDE controller is also not the greatest either, but for many uses the Efika running MorphOS2.x is fine, for a low end system.  It is comparable to other MorphOS2.x systems, like the difference between an stock A500 and a souped up A4000 w/68060 & 128mb RAM.

Wow, that IS interesting. That was a pretty straight forward answer (typical of Bill Buck contrary to what many have said about him).

So there might be answer to this if someone can make sense of the firmware.
The hardware doesn't intimidate me. Can anyone let me know what chips the Efika uses. Can I assume the pads on the bottom of the board are the same as the pads the existing memory is soldered to? Are there any gates, buffers, resistors, capacitors or other components that need to be added along with the memory.
I look into the hardware, then all we need is someone who can enable the extra memory via the firmware.

I assume the board will still work OK (as a 128MB board) with the extra memory installed so maybe we ought to explore this.

[Darrin]

I got into a big argument with one of Genesi's employees while trying to find the answers of why the memory on the Efika could not be added to (as there are solder pads on the bottom of the board just for that purpose).  It took almost a week of heated forum postings back and forth to come up with the correct answer (in fact it took a phone call from Bill Buck directly to me at my home to get a straight answer), and the answer was that the firmware of the Efika would have to be modified to have any added RAM recognized and Genesi would not do it without being paid.  Nor would they produce any new Efika boards with more RAM installed at the factory unless at least 300 boards were ordered and the price of these 300 upgraded Efika boards would naturally be higher due to the increased amount of RAM installed and the work required to re-write the firmware to recognize the added RAM.  The correct RAM that could work with the Efika was said to be difficult to find, which I find to be an odd statement, but suppose it could be true.  The Efika board was designed to be able to accept up to 512mb of RAM (in theory), but I don't know if any samples of the board were ever produced with that amount of RAM.

It would be great (although it would be against the terms of use, or what ever the legal term is for the rules that the board was sold with, to alter the firmware, or reverse engineer it) if some person or group would figure out how to alter the Efika's firmware to recognize 128mb, or 256mb of added RAM and find the correct RAM chips to solder to the provided solder pads on the bottom of the board, but it probably will never happen.

The CPU is not too slow for running MorphOS2.x, it is the limit of only 128mb RAM and the slow USB1.1 that are the worst features of the board.  The IDE controller is also not the greatest either, but for many uses the Efika running MorphOS2.x is fine, for a low end system.  It is comparable to other MorphOS2.x systems, like the difference between an stock A500 and a souped up A4000 w/68060 & 128mb RAM.

Cheers Dave for that interesting information.  

Damn, it is frustrating to know that the board "could" be modiefied into something more useful.  Hell, I had AmigaKit solder extra RAM onto my Minimig v1.1 and some people (braver and more skilled than me) have done it themselves.

[Iggy]

OK smerf

>So the number of Morphos users doubled, it went from 2 to 4.  Just honky doory.

No actually the number of registered users is over 1100, with probably several times that number of unregistered users.

>If someone can tell me, will morphos run on an Amiga 1200 with a ppc card. Maybe I will go to the site and do some reading who knows you might get another double if I buy into morphos.

Simple, with a PPC card and RTG graphics, yes. And the 1.X version for legacy Amigas is free.

>If it uses a MAC I don't want it in my house, or on my bench.

I use a Mac to run MorphOS (and I revile Apple too), but it also runs on Genesi's Pegasos and Efika motherboards.

[Darrin]

Wow, that IS interesting. That was a pretty straight forward answer (typical of Bill Buck contrary to what many have said about him).

So there might be answer to this if someone can make sense of the firmware.
The hardware doesn't intimidate me. Can anyone let me know what chips the Efika uses. Can I assume the pads on the bottom of the board are the same as the pads the existing memory is soldered to? Are there any gates, buffers, resistors, capacitors or other components that need to be added along with the memory.
I look into the hardware, then all we need is someone who can enable the extra memory via the firmware.

I assume the board will still work OK (as a 128MB board) with the extra memory installed so maybe we ought to explore this.

If nobody gives you an answer in 3 weeks then PM me and I'll check my board.  I'm on a business trip at the moment so I don't have access to it and if I called my wife to look for me then I wouldn't trust her answer.