Good News Is Here (OS 4.1&SAM440 amigakit.com)

[Hans_]

Finally. A lot of people have been waiting for this. The sooner they get this out, the better. We need more users.

Hans

[Hans_]

amije wrote:

kreciu wrote:
I'm so happy I didn't by Blizzard PPC for $800 . Patience is virtue...

but this won't mean that you will save the money.

Maybe not, but the specifications of the machine will be better, and the hardware will be newer.

Hans

[Hans_]

So we have two different groups of people complaining: those that think that it's too expensive, and those that wish that the specifications were higher, meaning even more expensive.

BTW, do you really think that this is the only target hardware under development? I strongly doubt it. My expectation would be that Moana is being developed further as we discuss this. Having said that, I would recommend that people who want Amiga OS 4.1 don't wait around for ports to other hardware; we have no idea when those will happen. Also, it's not helpful for development if no-one buys because they're all waiting for the next thing.

Hans

[Hans_]

persia wrote:
Quite simply it's economics, a 1.25 GHz G4 MacMini with 512 MB RAM (expandable to 2 GB), video and hard drive will run less than £165/€210/300 dollars.  far less than just the motherboard we are talking about.  And, and, and we are talking about a motherboard that doesn't even have a G3 and runs at half the speed.

Do I want to support people who make Amiga things?  Yes, but coouldn't they get in the same scale of magnitude of a used G4 MacMini?

If you can organize enough buyers so that they can get the components/manufacturing at a low enough cost to make this happen, sure. You only need to find one million buyers.

Hans

[Hans_]

theformula wrote:
Anybody body know if u can dual boot so you have a choice of ubuntu and os 4.1?

Yes you can. Amiga OS 4.x's second level booter allows you to multi-boot. I do this on my Amigaone (my Linux install is kind of messed up though). UBoot also allows direct booting of Linux without the SLB.

Hans

[Hans_]

humppa wrote:

BTW, do you really think that this is the only target hardware under development?

Yes.

Suit yourself.

My expectation would be that Moana is being developed further as we discuss this.

Link

Rogue (Quote): "There never was an "official" MacMini project. It is very unlikely there ever will be one."

What I read from this is that Hyperion never worked on a MacMini project, and probably won't. Just because ACube was working on their Moana project doesn't make it the "official" MacMini project.

Hans

[Hans_]

It's a difficult decision, if you open up OS4 to run on standard equipment you drive the specialised hardware manufacturers out of business, if you don't open up OS4 it's cost remains high.  In other words the cost of a MacMini OS4 is driving Acube out of business...

But it's ACube that was working on the MacMini port in the first place.

Hans

[Hans_]

@Gebrochen

Would 1 of these gfx card be working for the SAM440ep with os4.1?
nVIDIA GeForce FX5500 256MB PCI FX 5500 VIDEO CARD NEW
OR
POWERCOLOR RADEON 9250 128 MB PCI VGA / DVI / TV OUT
OR
RADEON X1550 256MB PCI STD & LOW PROFILE VGA & DUAL DVI

which one is best suited for my upcoming system??

Cheers.  8-)

Forget anything nVidia; they won't give the OS4 devs the specifications, and they won't write Amiga OS drivers themselves. Currently, there is no driver for the Radeon x1550. I'm working on a driver, but it's going to take a while, so don't bother waiting for it (particularly as 3D support will take even longer).

The Powercolor Radeon 9250 should work, as should any other Radeon 9xxx series card.

Hans

[Hans_]

@Trev

The OS4 dev team does not have the resources to make an x86 port at this point in time. Such a port would be a huge task.

Hans

[Hans_]

Gebrochen wrote:
@ All

Just in case some of you didnt know,

the ATI RADEON Mobility M9 with 64mb RAM graphic chip

is running at 66Mhz.

Cheers.

 8-)  8-)  :evilgrin:  :inquisitive:

Correction: It is connected to the system via a 66 MHz PCI bus. The clock-speed of the graphics chip is probably higher.

Hans

[Hans_]

One question:

   I hadn't read and didn't have time to Google. Does OS 4.1 somehow emulate 68K or are you only able to run native PPC code? Which would mean even old system friendly 68K applications wouldn't run on it.

Amiga OS 4.1 has the Petunia 68K JIT emulator which was also part of Amiga OS 4.0. So yes, it can run system friendly apps.

Hans

[Hans_]

@amigadave
Information about cross-compilers can be found here. There's also a guide somewhere about writing code that will run on all Amiga OS variants. I can't remember where I got that one from though.

amigadave wrote:

I don't think the Hyperion developers of AmigaOS4.1 have anything to do with ACube, nor any obligation to NOT port the AmigaOS4.x to any other computer.  It obviously would be terrible for ACube's sales of SAM boards if Moana was finished, but it would be great for us and for Hyperion.

So many people seem to forget that it's ACube, not Hyperion, that were working on the Moana port. Rogue said elsewhere (someone else linked to it) that there never has been, and probably never will be, an official Mac Port. So, the best chance for OS 4.x on a Mac will be if ACube decide to continue the port, and convince Hyperion to let them sell it.

Hans

[Hans_]

@Gebrochen

@ Anyne, when I have the system here, I will need advice on codeing for the platform, so feel free to pm me an email address if you are currently a developer for Amiga related stuff.

Sign up to utilitybase. I have a few MiniGL templates and other things on my website that could be of use (see here). I'd be happy to write more tutorials/templates, etc., if it helps get people started with coding on OS 4.x.

Hans

[Hans_]

On OS 4.x it's called MiniGL, but yes, it is a subset of OpenGL. A full MESA port is planned that will support the latest OpenGL specification. However, that's going to take time. Nevertheless, MiniGL is more than good enough for a whole series of OpenGL apps/games.

Hans

[Hans_]

Gebrochen wrote:
@ Hans:
What type of games we talking about here for example? PC?
 :-D

Quake III. You can find most MiniGL apps on os4depot by doing an advanced search with MiniGL in the requirements field. A few screenshots are available here. There is also more coming...

Hans