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Operating System Specific Discussions => MorphOS => MorphOS -- Hardware requirements and availability discussion => Topic started by: RMK305 on June 30, 2010, 07:08:12 PM

Title: Thinking of buying a Mac Mini for Morph OS - Questions
Post by: RMK305 on June 30, 2010, 07:08:12 PM

For some odd reason I started actually looking indepth at the morph os site and others. I was amazed to read that I can run 68k software on it without UAE so long as it doesn't bang the Amiga hardware, am I taking this in right?

....So I started looking around and thinking and am toying with the idea of buying a Mac Mini G4 to try it out on and so have a few questions.

1. Is there much of a difference in actual performace between the 1.25GHz andf 1.5GHz models when actually using Morph OS?

2. What amount of RAM is recommended for it?

3. What Keyboard and mouse do I use? Is this just a standard USB 2 button mouse and standard keyboard or do I need to use the Mac items?

4. Is there Joystick support for classic games? Again, what kinds are supported?

5. How good are the web browsers? Do they have Flash support for things like youtube?

6. What screen modes does it support and what are recommended resolutions?

I think that's all for now.

Thanks,

Robert

Title: Re: Thinking of buying a Mac Mini for Morph OS - Questions
Post by: Piru on June 30, 2010, 07:16:16 PM

Quote from: RMK305;568232

For some odd reason I started actually looking indepth at the morph os site and others. I was amazed to read that I can run 68k software on it without UAE so long as it doesn't bang the Amiga hardware, am I taking this in right?

Yes.

Quote

1. Is there much of a difference in actual performace between the 1.25GHz andf 1.5GHz models when actually using Morph OS?

CPU performance difference is 20%. Any CPU bound task is 20% faster on the 1.5GHz model.

What however is also significant is that the real "silent upgrade" 1.5GHz model has 64MB video memory (rather than the 32MB available in the other models). The 64MB video memory allows some more eye candy for instance.

Quote

2. What amount of RAM is recommended for it?

I'd say 512MB keeps you covered for anything I can think of, but 256MB will do for most tasks as well.

Quote

3. What Keyboard and mouse do I use? Is this just a standard USB 2 button mouse and standard keyboard or do I need to use the Mac items?

You can use normal USB 2 mice and keyboards, as well as Apple items. Normal two button mouse is recommended though as MorphOS is much easier to handle with it.

Quote

4. Is there Joystick support for classic games? Again, what kinds are supported?

Hmm I'm no expert in this area, I guess someone else can reply this one. :)
My understanding is however, that you should be able to use USB joystick with E-UAE.

Quote

5. How good are the web browsers?

OWB is really good.

Quote

Do they have Flash support for things like youtube?

Yes there's a flash plugin for OWB (http://fabportnawak.free.fr/owb/plugins/). Youtube's flash is a bit heavy, so as fast system as possible is recommended for it. Luckily OWB also supports html5 which you can enable for youtube (see: http://www.youtube.com/html5/ )

Here's a nice video showing OWB 1.8 & html5 youtube in action (running on Mac Mini G4 1.25GHz):
[youtube]IfARQsDQjWI[/youtube]

Quote

6. What screen modes does it support and what are recommended resolutions?

Anything you can monitor can support, up to 1920 x 1200. Note that with 32MB video memory systems you won't be able to use all the eye candy in this resolution.

Title: Re: Thinking of buying a Mac Mini for Morph OS - Questions
Post by: RMK305 on June 30, 2010, 07:22:33 PM

Thanks for the detailed reply. A few more questions that just came to mind.

1. Can I use an old CRT monitor on the mini to save having to but a flat screen at first?

2. Is there any point in getting one of the later models with wireless built in? Does Morph os support wireless and if not, will it?

Thanks all for now.

Cheers.

Title: Re: Thinking of buying a Mac Mini for Morph OS - Questions
Post by: Piru on June 30, 2010, 07:36:49 PM

Quote

1. Can I use an old CRT monitor on the mini to save having to but a flat screen at first?

CRTs work just fine, but very old ones (pre EDID (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_display_identification_data)) require manual configuration by using the System Settings / Monitors (much like old ModeEdit in CGX).

Quote

2. Is there any point in getting one of the later models with wireless built in? Does Morph os support wireless and if not, will it?

Wireless or bluetooth aren't supported by MorphOS and there are currently no plans to support them. Obviously if you set up a dual or triple booting (Mac OS X, Linux?) then the wireless and bluetooth might come handy.

Title: Re: Thinking of buying a Mac Mini for Morph OS - Questions
Post by: Crumb on June 30, 2010, 07:50:17 PM

Quote from: RMK305;568232

For some odd reason I started actually looking indepth at the morph os site and others. I was amazed to read that I can run 68k software on it without UAE so long as it doesn't bang the Amiga hardware, am I taking this in right?

yes, system friendly software will usually run without problems.

Quote

1. Is there much of a difference in actual performace between the 1.25GHz andf 1.5GHz models when actually using Morph OS?

Probably not although like Piru said having 64MB of gfx ram may be handy.

Quote

2. What amount of RAM is recommended for it?

RAM is cheap. Fit 1GB if you can.

Quote

3. What Keyboard and mouse do I use? Is this just a standard USB 2 button mouse and standard keyboard or do I need to use the Mac items?

Most USB keyboards and mice will work.

Quote

4. Is there Joystick support for classic games? Again, what kinds are supported?

you can run classic games using EUAE. USB configuration allows you to emulate keyboard presses using USB joypad.

Quote

5. How good are the web browsers? Do they have Flash support for things like youtube?

OWB is quite good, I use it as main browser and very rarely need to go to the PC. Youtube and other web sites use html5 so you don't really need flash for it. On the other hand there's a flash plugin that integrates perfectly with the browser.

Title: Re: Thinking of buying a Mac Mini for Morph OS - Questions
Post by: pVC on June 30, 2010, 07:51:00 PM

Quote from: RMK305;568232

1. Is there much of a difference in actual performace between the 1.25GHz andf 1.5GHz models when actually using Morph OS?

I don't think you can notice difference in MorphOS itself, but in very cpu intensive tasks it might help. Like watching some HD video which is on the limit. And the most important thing is the vmem amount as told.

Quote

4. Is there Joystick support for classic games? Again, what kinds are supported?

At least standard (I guess HID compatible?) joysticks work fine. I have Competition Pro USB joystick and it works in MorphOS native games, old Amiga games run directly under MorphOS (like Payback) and in UAE.

Title: Re: Thinking of buying a Mac Mini for Morph OS - Questions
Post by: Iggy on June 30, 2010, 10:51:03 PM

Off topic, but you'd probably find a 1.25 Ghz Emac cheaper and it would have similar functionality.

Title: Re: Thinking of buying a Mac Mini for Morph OS - Questions
Post by: bbond007 on July 01, 2010, 01:05:40 AM

Quote from: RMK305;568232

1. Is there much of a difference in actual performace between the 1.25GHz andf 1.5GHz models when actually using Morph OS?

The MorphOS license is not real straightforward to transfer, so get the best mac you can from the get-go. Don't skimp :)

Title: Re: Thinking of buying a Mac Mini for Morph OS - Questions
Post by: pVC on July 01, 2010, 09:11:18 AM

Quote from: Iggy;568279

Off topic, but you'd probably find a 1.25 Ghz Emac cheaper and it would have similar functionality.

But Mac mini is small and cute, it won't take much desk space and it's easy to take with. I was happy to pay little more of that ;)

Title: Re: Thinking of buying a Mac Mini for Morph OS - Questions
Post by: XDelusion on July 01, 2010, 09:50:41 AM

I got an eMac and have loved the experience thus far, all with only 512Mb or RAM, though I want to max that out so I can store more on my RAM drive, which I use A LOT!

My only resentment thus far is that my high quality videos and Youtube ALL play in slow motion, also I've noticed that some videos loose sync, where they do not on my, 1.6Ghz Netobook, 2.8 Ghz AMD system, or even my classic XBOX using XBOX Media Center.

As for Joystick support, eUAE is one of those few programs that seem to support it directly, and yes as stated above, you can remap your joystick buttons to Keyboard buttons via Poseidon, but thus far I'm having trouble finding documentation that tells me exactly how to go about this.

@Piru Where is this eye candy you speak about that I can't use on my eMac?

Also since the eMac uses shared RAM for it's video RAM, why can't the RAM just be allocated to the Fast RAM under MorphOS instead, leaving more GFX RAM free?

Title: Re: Thinking of buying a Mac Mini for Morph OS - Questions
Post by: jacadcaps on July 01, 2010, 10:15:11 AM

Quote from: XDelusion;568359

@Piru Where is this eye candy you speak about that I can't use on my eMac?

Also since the eMac uses shared RAM for it's video RAM, why can't the RAM just be allocated to the Fast RAM under MorphOS instead, leaving more GFX RAM free?

eMacs have dedicated RAM for the Radeon, you're mixing things up. What 32MB is not enough for is Enhanced Display at higher resolutions (then again, the CRT limits the max usable resolution anyway).

Title: Re: Thinking of buying a Mac Mini for Morph OS - Questions
Post by: Piru on July 01, 2010, 10:18:43 AM

Quote from: XDelusion;568359

My only resentment thus far is that my high quality videos and Youtube ALL play in slow motion

Are you using youtube html5 mode (http://www.youtube.com/html5/) to play them? html5 video playback is a lot faster than flash.

Title: Re: Thinking of buying a Mac Mini for Morph OS - Questions
Post by: pVC on July 01, 2010, 10:33:38 AM

Quote from: XDelusion;568359

My only resentment thus far is that my high quality videos and Youtube ALL play in slow motion, also I've noticed that some videos loose sync, where they do not on my, 1.6Ghz Netobook, 2.8 Ghz AMD system, or even my classic XBOX using XBOX Media Center.

HTML5 is much faster than Flash, as Piru said, but I'd recommend you to install GetVideo (http://aminet.net/package/comm/www/getvideo) to get the best performance in video streaming. Videos are played with mplayer instead embedded in the browser, it uses much less cpu and you can even continue browsing on other pages instead of having to wait video on the same page! :)

Title: Re: Thinking of buying a Mac Mini for Morph OS - Questions
Post by: XDelusion on July 01, 2010, 10:34:16 AM

Youtube issues resolved.

Title: Re: Thinking of buying a Mac Mini for Morph OS - Questions
Post by: koaftder on July 01, 2010, 12:45:20 PM

My eMac came with 256MiB of ram, last night I upgraded it to 1.5GiB of ram and I can't tell the difference.

Title: Re: Thinking of buying a Mac Mini for Morph OS - Questions
Post by: Piru on July 01, 2010, 12:49:58 PM

Quote from: koaftder;568380

My eMac came with 256MiB of ram, last night I upgraded it to 1.5GiB of ram and I can't tell the difference.

Yeah, the difference would only appear if you'd run out of memory. That's not totally unheard of, at least if you like to use Ram Disk a lot. It clearly depends on the stuff you do.

Title: Re: Thinking of buying a Mac Mini for Morph OS - Questions
Post by: RMK305 on July 01, 2010, 01:37:46 PM

Thanks for all the info.

The CRT monitor would only be a stop gap until funds were available to buy a flatscreen. I notice a lot of the ones for sale don't include keyboards or mice, I presume this is due to them being sold seperatley due to Apple charging a high price for these?

Anyone know the going price for the Mini's?

Cheers

Title: Re: Thinking of buying a Mac Mini for Morph OS - Questions
Post by: Crumb on July 01, 2010, 01:41:53 PM

Quote from: XDelusion;568363

Youtube issues resolved.

Glad to read that. I tried youtube enabling html5 and Fab youtube scripts and it worked correctly fullscreen even on a peg1 April2 with 600Mhz G3.

Title: Re: Thinking of buying a Mac Mini for Morph OS - Questions
Post by: redrumloa on July 01, 2010, 01:46:43 PM

Quote from: RMK305;568384

Thanks for all the info.
 
The CRT monitor would only be a stop gap until funds were available to buy a flatscreen. I notice a lot of the ones for sale don't include keyboards or mice, I presume this is due to them being sold seperatley due to Apple charging a high price for these?
 
Anyone know the going price for the Mini's?
 
Cheers

 
Apple branded mice and keyboards aren't usually included, but you can use most standard USB mice and keyboards. G4 Mac Minis seem to go for between ~$180 and ~$300 depending on CPU speed, RAM and if KB/mouse are included.

Title: Re: Thinking of buying a Mac Mini for Morph OS - Questions
Post by: Fab on July 01, 2010, 02:53:28 PM

Quote from: pVC;568362

HTML5 is much faster than Flash, as Piru said, but I'd recommend you to install GetVideo (http://aminet.net/package/comm/www/getvideo) to get the best performance in video streaming. Videos are played with mplayer instead embedded in the browser, it uses much less cpu and you can even continue browsing on other pages instead of having to wait video on the same page! :)

Playing separately with MPlayer is fine, of course, but MPlayer isn't really more performant than OWB (except OWB has altivec disabled in 1.7/1.8, but that will change with 1.9). OWB performance using HTML5 in fullscreen mode (youtube_fullscreen.js script needed, since youtube broke it) is just about the same as MPlayer, and for a good reason: same decoding library (ffmpeg), same video output code (i reused MPlayer overlay blitter there).

Title: Re: Thinking of buying a Mac Mini for Morph OS - Questions
Post by: Matt_H on July 01, 2010, 02:55:39 PM

I got a 1.5GHz model for a steal at well under $200. Keep your eyes on craiglist for a few weeks - I think you're more likely to find a seller there who just wants to get rid of the thing rather than get top dollar.

Title: Re: Thinking of buying a Mac Mini for Morph OS - Questions
Post by: koaftder on July 01, 2010, 02:56:42 PM

Quote from: Piru;568381

Yeah, the difference would only appear if you'd run out of memory. That's not totally unheard of, at least if you like to use Ram Disk a lot. It clearly depends on the stuff you do.

Not knowing anything about the underlying architecture of MorphOS, I wasn't sure if adding the extra ram would increase the performance any. On OS X trying to use the system with 256 is a waste of time, even though it's not swapping. I'd never even consider using OS X without at least 1 GiB of ram. Don't some of these operating system kernels use the extra ram available for caches and/or use different algorithms for things where the extra memory available is more optimal? And I'm not complaining either, the performance of MorphOS is excellent. It boots in seconds, OWB loads in like a second and plays youtube videos on the machine without a hitch. Got the SDK issue ironed out so all the familiar tools are available. I'm a happy guy, I've been using the machine a lot.

One thing I've noticed though, if the screen resolution is high enough, when a window get stretched out after a certain length, it starts to lag on the stretch operation. What's the cause of that?

Title: Re: Thinking of buying a Mac Mini for Morph OS - Questions
Post by: Fab on July 01, 2010, 02:58:42 PM

Quote from: XDelusion;568359

As for Joystick support, eUAE is one of those few programs that seem to support it directly, and yes as stated above, you can remap your joystick buttons to Keyboard buttons via Poseidon, but thus far I'm having trouble finding documentation that tells me exactly how to go about this.

Many games (including the SDL ones) and emulators (snes9x, mame, mess, genesisplus, amigenerator, ...)  support joystick directly too. Which ones didn't?

Title: Re: Thinking of buying a Mac Mini for Morph OS - Questions
Post by: jacadcaps on July 01, 2010, 03:26:34 PM

Quote from: koaftder;568403

One thing I've noticed though, if the screen resolution is high enough, when a window get stretched out after a certain length, it starts to lag on the stretch operation. What's the cause of that?

That most likely means that you are running out of video ram.

Title: Re: Thinking of buying a Mac Mini for Morph OS - Questions
Post by: halvliter'n on July 01, 2010, 03:39:24 PM

-MODERATED- First warning

Title: Re: Thinking of buying a Mac Mini for Morph OS - Questions
Post by: kickstart on July 01, 2010, 04:09:40 PM

@halvlitern

Do you need to annoy about this everytime? I dont like macs too but with morphos they fly.

Title: Re: Thinking of buying a Mac Mini for Morph OS - Questions
Post by: halvliter'n on July 01, 2010, 04:18:53 PM

Quote from: kickstart;568418

@halvlitern

Do you need to annoy about this everytime? I dont like macs too but with morphos they fly.

Yes, I need. As I see it, has not Apple and Mac something to do on an amiga forum, whatever morphOS mean.

Title: Re: Thinking of buying a Mac Mini for Morph OS - Questions
Post by: redrumloa on July 01, 2010, 04:31:08 PM

Quote from: halvliter'n;568423

Yes, I need. As I see it, has not Apple and Mac something to do on an amiga forum, whatever morphOS mean.

You have been asked politely not to troll, so you have now been given your first official warning.

Title: Re: Thinking of buying a Mac Mini for Morph OS - Questions
Post by: halvliter'n on July 01, 2010, 04:33:34 PM

Quote from: redrumloa;568426

You have been asked politely not to troll, so you have now been given your first official warning.

I do not see it as trolling, but anyway..

Title: Re: Thinking of buying a Mac Mini for Morph OS - Questions
Post by: som99 on July 01, 2010, 04:52:06 PM

Quote from: halvliter'n;568423

Yes, I need. As I see it, has not Apple and Mac something to do on an amiga forum, whatever morphOS mean.

You bring this up constantly, we have heard you, but I for one do not agree with you.
 
Now to the OP I got a Mac Mini 1,42GHz and I think it's great with 1GB of ram in MorphOS:)
I saw a quite big diffrence between 512MB RAM and 1GB but then I use RAMDisk alot :)

Title: Re: Thinking of buying a Mac Mini for Morph OS - Questions
Post by: koaftder on July 01, 2010, 04:58:11 PM

What are y'all using the ram disk for? I see it there but never thought to use it for anything.

Title: Re: Thinking of buying a Mac Mini for Morph OS - Questions
Post by: pVC on July 01, 2010, 05:09:50 PM

Quote from: koaftder;568432

What are y'all using the ram disk for? I see it there but never thought to use it for anything.

I download files there before copying them to HD (SFS framgents too badly if you have simultaneus downloads or if I don't want to keep downloaded file anyway (like some crap videos etc you are mistaken to dl)).

I unpack program archives there for installing (useless to have them on HD if it has separate installer).

I give test run for unpacked games etc from ram: if they are worth to keep or not (useless copies to HD again if I only want to run it once and get rid off it after that).

I throw all kinds of temp/test files there (image/video/audio processing stages)... etc.. :)

Title: Re: Thinking of buying a Mac Mini for Morph OS - Questions
Post by: som99 on July 01, 2010, 05:12:08 PM

Quote from: pVC;568436

I download files there before copying them to HD (SFS framgents too badly if you have simultaneus downloads).

I unpack program archives there for installing (useless to have them on HD if it has separate installer).

I give test run for unpacked games etc from ram: if they are worth to keep or not (useless copies to HD again if I only want to run it once and get rid off it after that).

I throw all kinds of temp/test files there (image/video/audio processing stages)... etc.. :)

I use it for exactly the same :)
also temp storage for when I edit files.

Title: Re: Thinking of buying a Mac Mini for Morph OS - Questions
Post by: Piru on July 01, 2010, 05:18:44 PM

Quote from: halvliter'n;568428

I do not see it as trolling, but anyway..

Even that could be considered as breach of AUP ("Members will not publicly question a moderator's decision.").

Title: Re: Thinking of buying a Mac Mini for Morph OS - Questions
Post by: halvliter'n on July 01, 2010, 05:38:46 PM

Quote from: som99;568430

You bring this up constantly, we have heard you, but I for one do not agree with you.
 
Now to the OP I got a Mac Mini 1,42GHz and I think it's great with 1GB of ram in MorphOS:)
I saw a quite big diffrence between 512MB RAM and 1GB but then I use RAMDisk alot :)

Good  for you. I use Windows until it's a better  solution.
As I said in the deleted  post, I would not have had an Apple Mac, even if they threw it after me.

Title: Re: Thinking of buying a Mac Mini for Morph OS - Questions
Post by: jj on July 01, 2010, 05:47:12 PM

But who gives a fook.  Please go to another rabid amiga forum.  This one is open minded and the people also on the whole.

Title: Re: Thinking of buying a Mac Mini for Morph OS - Questions
Post by: halvliter'n on July 01, 2010, 05:55:25 PM

Quote from: JJ;568449

But who gives a fook.  Please go to another rabid amiga forum.  This one is open minded and the people also on the whole.

Well, just to provoke more, you give at least not fook.:laughing:
And do not feed the trolls.

Title: Re: Thinking of buying a Mac Mini for Morph OS - Questions
Post by: som99 on July 01, 2010, 06:00:51 PM

Quote from: halvliter'n;568446

Good  for you. I use Windows until it's a better  solution.
As I said in the deleted  post, I would not have had an Apple Mac, even if they threw it after me.

There is a better solution. Linux, been around a while you know ;)

@OP - If you want it cheep I would buy an eMac 1,25GHz and remove the CRT and put a nice TFT on it instead, if you want something to do you could build a custom case for the eMac and use it as an external computer :) Also you can have 2GB of RAM in the eMac :)

Myself is either planning on removing the top plexi of the Mini and saw a red plexi top for it instead and engrave MorphOS and a logo in it, or ill just scrap the Mini case and start from scratch, ill do this when I got time :)

Title: Re: Thinking of buying a Mac Mini for Morph OS - Questions
Post by: Iggy on July 01, 2010, 06:04:20 PM

Quote from: halvliter'n;568451

Well, just to provoke more, you give at least not fook.:laughing:

Red, Piru, can't you just ban this clown?

The only reason I have an Apple is MorphOS (and I have PCs as well). Eventually I'll put together an AROS PC (once its a little more stable), and I'd re-buy classic Amiga hardware but it costs too much and the hardware I have now outperforms the older systems.

I have no problem with anyone discussing any branch of Amiga computing.
So why do we have to put up with this dyslexic ass?

Title: Re: Thinking of buying a Mac Mini for Morph OS - Questions
Post by: Wolfe on July 01, 2010, 06:04:21 PM

@halvliter'n

"I use Windows until it's a better solution."

Don't get out much . . . Windows disks make excellent coasters . . . :)

Title: Re: Thinking of buying a Mac Mini for Morph OS - Questions
Post by: halvliter'n on July 01, 2010, 06:20:30 PM

Quote from: Wolfe;568455

@halvliter'n

"I use Windows until it's a better solution."

Don't get out much . . . Windows disks make excellent coasters . . . :)

Yes I  know, Apple disks as well, even Apple computers make excellent coasters.

Title: Re: Thinking of buying a Mac Mini for Morph OS - Questions
Post by: Piru on July 01, 2010, 06:20:42 PM

Quote from: Iggy;568454

..., Piru, can't you just ban this clown?

I'm not a moderator, so no.


And before someone asks: No I'm not interested.

Title: Re: Thinking of buying a Mac Mini for Morph OS - Questions
Post by: halvliter'n on July 01, 2010, 06:38:51 PM

MorphOS should been ported to something else. AppleMac is bad in my Amigaworld.

Title: Re: Thinking of buying a Mac Mini for Morph OS - Questions
Post by: Piru on July 01, 2010, 06:40:56 PM

Quote from: halvliter'n;568465

MorphOS should been ported to something else. AppleMac is bad in my Amigaworld.

Thank you for this priceless piece of information. Could you please start your own thread about it? You're not answering any of the questions.

Title: Re: Thinking of buying a Mac Mini for Morph OS - Questions
Post by: persia on July 01, 2010, 06:41:43 PM

And X1000 is using an Apple chip, looks like Amiga is coming up Apple...

Quote from: halvliter'n;568465

MorphOS should been ported to something else. AppleMac is bad in my Amigaworld.

Title: Re: Thinking of buying a Mac Mini for Morph OS - Questions
Post by: halvliter'n on July 01, 2010, 06:47:26 PM

Quote from: Piru;568466

You're not answering any of the questions.

The answer to all questions, 1-6: It's just a bunch of junk.

over and out.

Title: Re: Thinking of buying a Mac Mini for Morph OS - Questions
Post by: Piru on July 01, 2010, 07:21:56 PM

Quote from: halvliter'n;568470

The answer to all questions, 1-6: It's just a bunch of junk.

You didn't answer the questions I'm afraid.

Couple of free advices: Don't post while under influence. Chill. Try to understand that a warning has been given, and further misconduct might lead to a ban. Keep in mind that everyone is allowed to have an opinion and voice it, as long as they keep civil and follow the common forum rules. This thread was posted to "Discussion of the available hardware for MorphOS" section, officially dedicated to all hardware solutions available to run MorphOS. This includes some Apple products. Deal with it. If you can't deal with it, don't read the MorphOS threads, or just leave amiga.org completely.

Title: Re: Thinking of buying a Mac Mini for Morph OS - Questions
Post by: koaftder on July 01, 2010, 07:30:34 PM

Quote from: pVC;568436

I download files there before copying them to HD (SFS framgents too badly if you have simultaneus downloads or if I don't want to keep downloaded file anyway (like some crap videos etc you are mistaken to dl)).

I unpack program archives there for installing (useless to have them on HD if it has separate installer).

I give test run for unpacked games etc from ram: if they are worth to keep or not (useless copies to HD again if I only want to run it once and get rid off it after that).

I throw all kinds of temp/test files there (image/video/audio processing stages)... etc.. :)

Awesome. I never would have thought to do that. The archives seem to unpack a lot faster to the ram disk. Something to use all that extra ram I stuffed in there last night. :)

Title: Re: Thinking of buying a Mac Mini for Morph OS - Questions
Post by: zylesea on July 01, 2010, 10:14:23 PM

Quote from: RMK305;568232

...questions...

If you *like* Amiga, chances are high you will actually *love* MorphOS.

If you're currently rather short on cash I would also recomment to try out MorphOS on an eMac (note though, that only the 1.25 GHZ eMac models are supportet yet). They are changing hands for really little mony (at least for 50 US$ you should be able to find one with a little patience on searching). If you then disover you actually like MorphOS you are either done w/o big costs or you can decide then to resell the eMac again (for a probably similar amount) and grab a mini (and b4 someone asks, I am *definitely* not selling mine ;-) ) for a little more.

The eMacs offer really a lot for the money, but the CRTs are debatable. A CRT does not only have disadvantages, but I wouldn't like to change back from my IPS-panel and PVA-panel to CRT again.

About RAM: Usually you're good off with 256 MB already, 512 MB is very convenient, 1 GB (or more) is really plenty and rather luxury. 128 MB, like with Efika 5200B, is rather a little too few (works, but shouln't squander with RAM consuming apps then).

Title: Re: Thinking of buying a Mac Mini for Morph OS - Questions
Post by: koaftder on July 01, 2010, 10:40:24 PM

Can you use the same keyfile on multiple macs, or is the license per machine?

Title: Re: Thinking of buying a Mac Mini for Morph OS - Questions
Post by: Piru on July 01, 2010, 10:42:02 PM

Quote from: koaftder;568499

Can you use the same keyfile on multiple macs, or is the license per machine?

License is per machine.

Title: Re: Thinking of buying a Mac Mini for Morph OS - Questions
Post by: gdanko on July 01, 2010, 11:47:13 PM

Quote from: halvliter'n;568470

The answer to all questions, 1-6: It's just a bunch of junk.

over and out.

Hmmm.... It suits my needs just fine.
1) Web browser.. Check
2) IRC.. Check
3) SSH.. Check
4) Remote Desktop.. Check
5) Fast and responsive.. Check
6) Stable.. Check

Windows fails 5 and 6

Title: Re: Thinking of buying a Mac Mini for Morph OS - Questions
Post by: redrumloa on July 02, 2010, 12:46:28 AM

Quote from: halvliter'n;568451

Well, just to provoke more, you give at least not fook.:laughing:
And do not feed the trolls.

Warning #2, you are generating many reports.

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Title: Re: Thinking of buying a Mac Mini for Morph OS - Questions
Post by: RMK305 on July 02, 2010, 02:14:50 AM

Thanks for all the information. I'm going to keep my eyes peeled on Mac Mini's and go from there. I figure I can buy one, try out the OS and if I decide I don't like it can sell the Mini and get back what I paid. Nothing to lose really. Can you drag screens like in the Amiga?

Turns out the oficial Mac keyboards are only £29. I was shocked, I expected them to be a lot more.

The was one web site which I found, and then lost, which provided a lot of info on the games and had a picture of superfron playing on UAE, but can't for the life of me find it. I was wanting to show it to a friend who's Ex Amiga and now using MACs. Does it ring any bells with anyone?

Title: Re: Thinking of buying a Mac Mini for Morph OS - Questions
Post by: XDelusion on July 02, 2010, 03:01:06 AM

For the note, and this has been posted elsewhere in the forums, but if you hate your eMac screen, or it starts to go out, the procedure to re-case an eMac and hook it up to a VGA monitor does not look that very hard.

BTW, what's the down side to a CRT monitor again?

Title: Re: Thinking of buying a Mac Mini for Morph OS - Questions
Post by: MaDDuck on July 02, 2010, 04:23:05 AM

I am so tempted to go the MorphOS route myself!! I love OSX, I went there after Amiga 3.5 And it looks like it will do just about everything I want. DROOL!!!

Title: Re: Thinking of buying a Mac Mini for Morph OS - Questions
Post by: zylesea on July 02, 2010, 09:47:40 AM

Quote from: RMK305;568522

Thanks for all the information. I'm going to keep my eyes peeled on Mac Mini's and go from there. I figure I can buy one, try out the OS and if I decide I don't like it can sell the Mini and get back I paid. Nothing to lose really.

Precisely. The free trial version is 100% identical to the reg'd version, but slows down 30 min after each boot up. Reboot then (very quick) or eventually register (111.11 EUR).

Quote

Can you drag screens like in the Amiga?

No. Sceendragging does not work out of the box on MorphOS 2.x. However, there is a 3rd party utility adding a screen dragging option. But it is a bit limited and I (as most others I guess) tried it out, smiled for a moment and then moved on again w/o that utility.
 

Quote

Turns out oficial Mac keyboards are only £29. I was shocked, I expected them to be a lot more.

While I liked my flat aluminium Apple keyboard I eventually gave it to my gf for her iBook and use a bog standard kbd now. On Apple kbds there is no "delete" key. Sure, I could (and had) assigned that functionality to another key, but I think it was a bit annoying. But those apple kbds are fancy, the integrated hub is handy (but I have one integrated in my monitor already) and te typing experience is not bad.

Good news is, if you happen to have any usb kbd, you can just use it and exchange that one for a particular one (be it Apple or #?) at any time.

Title: Re: Thinking of buying a Mac Mini for Morph OS - Questions
Post by: zylesea on July 02, 2010, 09:52:14 AM

Quote from: MaDDuck;568533

I am so tempted to go the MorphOS route myself!! I love OSX, I went there after Amiga 3.5 And it looks like it will do just about everything I want. DROOL!!!

Well, if you have few bucks left to spare and a little real estate on yor desktop/lining room/hobby room/#? room (in case of a mini only 256 cm² are required) to waste then you know what is to do next...

Title: Re: Thinking of buying a Mac Mini for Morph OS - Questions
Post by: jj on July 02, 2010, 10:52:54 AM

Quote from: koaftder;568481

Awesome. I never would have thought to do that. The archives seem to unpack a lot faster to the ram disk. Something to use all that extra ram I stuffed in there last night. :)

Really dude.  Thats what I have always used ram disk for on amiga is unpacking archives and installing stuff to test before cluttering my HD up with it.
 
What else would you use it for :)

Title: Re: Thinking of buying a Mac Mini for Morph OS - Questions
Post by: MaDDuck on July 02, 2010, 09:32:06 PM

Quote from: zylesea;568563

Well, if you have few bucks left to spare and a little real estate on yor desktop/lining room/hobby room/#? room (in case of a mini only 256 cm² are required) to waste then you know what is to do next...

Which is funny!!!!

I already have a Mac Mini (C2D), so an intel one would fit right in, I'd just head to decalgirl.com for a cover sticker for the top.

My last Mac before that? An eMac.

Title: Re: Thinking of buying a Mac Mini for Morph OS - Questions
Post by: Golem!dk on July 02, 2010, 10:13:10 PM

Quote from: MaDDuck;568654

I already have a Mac Mini (C2D), so an intel one would fit right in, I'd just head to decalgirl.com for a cover sticker for the top.

Another Intel mini wouldn't be of much use for MorphOS ;)

Title: Re: Thinking of buying a Mac Mini for Morph OS - Questions
Post by: MaDDuck on July 02, 2010, 10:15:25 PM

yup!! That means that I would have to buy an older computer! Luckily those G4 mini's are affordable. I wonder, how much better business has been since there has been mini and eMac support?

Title: Re: Thinking of buying a Mac Mini for Morph OS - Questions
Post by: RMK305 on July 03, 2010, 07:00:25 PM

I bet the sale have been boosted by the new hardware support. To be honest, if the Mac Mini support wasn't there I wouldn't be considering it now. Making the OS support abundent cheap hardware opens it up to so many more people looking to tinker. If OS4.1 would run on something like the Mac Mini I would have had it already as up to now I didn't know too much about Morph.

Title: Re: Thinking of buying a Mac Mini for Morph OS - Questions
Post by: XDelusion on July 04, 2010, 11:05:04 PM

Quote from: Fab;568404

Many games (including the SDL ones) and emulators (snes9x, mame, mess, genesisplus, amigenerator, ...)  support joystick directly too. Which ones didn't?

FPSE
SNES9x works, but the button assignments are in the wrong places
MAME does not interact with the Joypad for me, nor did I see how to activate it in the docs
PrBOOM (DOOM Clone) Needed because their are issues with the mouse moving the character even when you tell it not to.
Virtual Boy Advanced

I forget what else, but there are more I had issues with, some of the ones you mentioned I've not tested yet.

Title: Re: Thinking of buying a Mac Mini for Morph OS - Questions
Post by: Fab on July 05, 2010, 12:17:31 AM

Quote from: XDelusion;568993

FPSE
SNES9x works, but the button assignments are in the wrong places
MAME does not interact with the Joypad for me, nor did I see how to activate it in the docs
PrBOOM (DOOM Clone) Needed because their are issues with the mouse moving the character even when you tell it not to.
Virtual Boy Advanced

I forget what else, but there are more I had issues with, some of the ones you mentioned I've not tested yet.

- "new" FPSE doesn't support joypad, because it was written at a time OS4 didn't support joypads at all, and the author didn't support lowlevel.library for whatever reason in the morphos port. But of course, one can bind buttons/directions to keys in poseidon HID prefs. :)

- What's wrong in Snes9X, exactly? Which buttons are wrong?

- In MAME, go to "default configuration" and click "settings". In input section, check "joypad", and uncheck "mouse". Then when you start a game, press tab, go to "input (general)" -> "player 1 controls", and configure the key bindings.

- In VisualBoyAdvance, it's entirely done by SDL itself, so unless the the program doesn't support joysticks, it should just work (can't test that atm).

Title: Re: Thinking of buying a Mac Mini for Morph OS - Questions
Post by: XDelusion on July 05, 2010, 12:32:36 AM

The Mame I'm using  is command line only. The GUI based one would not even load for me...

FPSE - Let's pray we get an update then because I'm having ZERO luck with Poseidon even now that I have docs and tutorials and all.  And I do consider my self a mark above daft so I dunno what's up. :/

Snes9x - It's like A is where X should be and vice versa. I.E. In a correct set up the button to make Mario run is right next to the button to make him jump, this way you can hold run and press jump without issues. Where as the emulator place the buttons across from one another so holding run while pressing jump becomes a chore.
Naturally my trigger buttons are not assigned as the trigger buttons, etc. Seeing as how the Original incarnation of this emulator allows you to set your key config, I don't see why this port left that feature out.

Atari800 - Add that to the list. In full screen it appears "like so many non-windows OS games) in  a very small window in the upper left hand corner of the screen, and of course has no joystick input that I can find.

Virtual Boy Advanced - Well unless there is an alt version out there, this command line version does not seem to even notice I have a joystick plugged in at all, unless there is a command to enable it that I'm not seeing.

Title: Re: Thinking of buying a Mac Mini for Morph OS - Questions
Post by: Fab on July 05, 2010, 12:45:23 AM

Quote from: XDelusion;568997

The Mame I'm using  is command line only. The GUI based one would not even load for me...

Aeeeh, which MAME version are you using exactly? I hope it's not some outdated warpos or 68k version, at least. Please use the latest one at: http://fabportnawak.free.fr/mame/mame-0.120.lha.

It works in both GUI and Command line mode, but the GUI mode requires an additional gui_gfx.mcc, available at http://aminet.net/dev/mui/MCC_Guigfx.lha.

Quote

FPSE - Let's pray we get an update then because I'm having ZERO luck with Poseidon even now that I have docs and tutorials and all.  And I do consider my self a mark above daft so I dunno what's up. :/

Well, i'm sure you'll get it right at some point. Basically you just need to send a press and release event, AFAIR.

Quote

Snes9x - It's like A is where X should be and vice versa. I.E. In a correct set up the button to make Mario run is right next to the button to make him jump, this way you can hold run and press jump without issues. Where as the emulator place the buttons across from one another so holding run while pressing jump becomes a chore.

The mapping is correct on my joystick, so I guess it depends on moon phase and joypad constructors good will. Anyway, if you really want, i can build a version with swapped X and A. The keys are also configurable in snes9x with input.ini, but i didn't make the joypad one configurable, unfortunately. And the trigger L and R buttons are well mapped, here.

Quote

Atari800 - Add that to the list. In full screen it appears "like so many non-windows OS games) in  a very small window in the upper left hand corner of the screen, and of course has no joystick input that I can find.

I'll try it. But since it's SDL, it should also work. :)

Quote

Virtual Boy Advanced - Well unless there is an alt version out there, this command line version does not seem to even notice I have a joystick plugged in at all, unless there is a command to enable it that I'm not seeing.

I'll tell you when i find my joystick again.

Title: Re: Thinking of buying a Mac Mini for Morph OS - Questions
Post by: XDelusion on July 05, 2010, 01:01:33 AM

What brand of Joypad do you use?

Title: Re: Thinking of buying a Mac Mini for Morph OS - Questions
Post by: Fab on July 05, 2010, 01:03:19 AM

Quote from: XDelusion;568999

What brand of Joypad do you use?

Some crappy logitech dual action joypad, where direction hat is really badly designed. :)

Title: Re: Thinking of buying a Mac Mini for Morph OS - Questions
Post by: XDelusion on July 05, 2010, 01:08:20 AM

I think that's what I have...

Hmmm...

I'm planning on getting a different controller soon, then I'll be able to compare them.

I wonder if the XBOX 360 USB controller would work in MorphOS, of if special drivers would need to be written.

Title: Re: Thinking of buying a Mac Mini for Morph OS - Questions
Post by: Fab on July 05, 2010, 01:15:39 AM

Yes, that's the one I have. Now i just have to find it again, grmbl. :)

[EDIT]

Ok, finally found it.

So I tested default joypad configuration, and poseidon's default lowlevel mapping doesn't match the cd32 joypad layout for the buttons on this joypad, which explains why buttons are a bit messed up with snes9x. So just change the actions to the correct cd32 button colours. See http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_BDCqpuwRnf4/Sc4L6spIOuI/AAAAAAAAFBU/70vNd3o3hZE/s400/CD32.JPG if needed.
I suppose you'll figure out how this works, but anyway:
- Check "track incoming events" and "report current value" (to make it easier)
- For each button you press, it will show the related action ( ). Select the right CD32 button for the pressed button.

Regarding joypad->keyboard mapping, here's how i make it work, here:
- Press the button to bind
- Press "New" button
- Change action type to "Raw key"
- Change trigger to "down"
- Select the keyboard key to bind.
- Press "New" button again.
- Change action type to "Raw key"
- Change trigger to "up"
- Select the keyboard key to bind (same as previous one).
- Check "send keyup event instead of keydown"


Ah, and about VisualBoyAdvance, even though the joypad code is there, it indeed doesn't work. I'll have a look at that.

Title: Re: Thinking of buying a Mac Mini for Morph OS - Questions
Post by: XDelusion on July 07, 2010, 10:02:13 PM

@Fab: Thank you sir, I'll take this information hope and have a try.

Title: Re: Thinking of buying a Mac Mini for Morph OS - Questions
Post by: jacadcaps on July 08, 2010, 09:26:08 AM

Quote from: XDelusion;569001

I wonder if the XBOX 360 USB controller would work in MorphOS, of if special drivers would need to be written.

No, the XBox360 wireless/usb controller will not work because it's not a standard joypad device (hello, it's m$ we're talking about, they always have their own substandards ;). I am however working on a driver, so it might work at some point - depends on my amount of free time / motivation to mess with usb though, so I cannot really promise anything.

Title: Re: Thinking of buying a Mac Mini for Morph OS - Questions
Post by: jj on July 08, 2010, 11:38:25 AM

xbox controller works out of box on ubuntu so drivers must be there in linux :)