MorphOS on Power Mac G5

[amigadave]

Here's one for you, FLASH

But seriously, I don't "need" the speed for anything useful, just like I don't need to do any retro computing at all. Everything truly useful I can do on my PC already. The speed would be nice though, applications like MAME, blender, video conversion etc will benefit. Speed is nice and there will not be a huge price difference between a G4 box and a G5 box.

I have been looking on eBay and it actually seems that the price for the best G4 PowerMacs is VERY close to the price you can find for many of the G5 models being sold, including some of the dual core Dual 2.7GHz G5s and quad core Dual 2.5GHz G5s.

I wonder if a single core of the quad core Dual 2.0 to 2.5GHz last models of the G5 PowerMac will be supported by MorphOS someday?

OFF TOPIC:

Another valid question is; what will be a better option for the MorphOS Dev Team, 1) concentrate their work on MorphOS to better optimize performance on the G5 CPU and G5 PowerMacs until a more interesting architecture is introduced some time in the next 1 to 3 years or more, or 2) instead of spending a lot of time optimizing performance on old used Mac hardware beyond their initial release which supports them, should the team instead start working on switching to supporting i3/i5/i7 based hardware designs?

I could see the team easily spending years of their part time efforts toward taking full advantage of G4 & G5 Mac models, perhaps even some day trying to take advantage (in some limited way, shape, or form) of multiple cpu's or cores, which would make MorphOS many times more powerful than it is today.  I can just as easily see the team deciding that once they have a basic, but very usable release on most G4 & G5 Mac models, switching to another architecture and away from PPC, be that x86, or ARM, or something else.

I guess my personal preference would be for them to complete a very good implementation of MorphOS on the G4 PowerBook and G5 PowerMac before they begin work on any other platform and become distracted.  That will keep me a loyal MorphOS user for at least the next couple of years or more I would imagine.  The way the current state of SLOW progress appears to be happening all around the computer industry, I don't think there will be anything Earth shattering that is going to happen in the next two years that will tear me away from wanting to use MorphOS.  So, if it takes the MorphOS Dev Team another 6 to 12 months to finish working on all the G4 & G5 Mac models they decide are worth their efforts, my 2 year estimate would give the team another 12 to 18 months to work on another architecture before I think I would give them any complaints about which direction they are going to go in the future.

[amigadave]

"Last time I looked, there wasn't really any Amiga specific software in existence that really needs the horsepower that even these old processors can deliver."

There are some Amiga programs that will benefit from as much "horsepower" as you can provide.  More important is future software that will most likely be written to take advantage of more powerful cpu's.  There are many Amiga users that would rather do more, or ALL of their work/play on a modern Amiga(like) system, if they only could do so if the software were written or ported from the other OSes and if we had sufficiently powerful systems.  So for me, there is no such thing as "too much power" for an Amiga system, but I also can appreciate energy efficient systems like the SAM440ep/flex (if it were only priced right, say about $100 to $150 for the mobo) and the Efika, which can still be bought brand new from a couple of places for $99 for the mobo.

[amigadave]

I'll agree with all the pro G5 points I've seen except for Dave's one on price. Older G4 AGP Powermacs are routinely given or thrown away (rather like some Commodore hardware).
There are later G4 Powermacs (933Mhz and above) starting at $.99 on Ebay. I have a Quicksilver Powermac that built from components that cost me well under $100.
Unless your talking bout 1.6 or 1.8 Mhz G5s, the prices are almost always significantly higher.
For truly fast G5 of 2.5 to 2.7 Mhz, while they are at good prices, generally they command about $500 or more.
While I agree with you that there's nothing wrong with more power, I can't agree with you that G4s and G5 have similar pricing.
We're just lucky that Apples switch to Intel processors has so devalued the G5s (since their still remarkably powerful computers).

You are right, most of the time you can find a bigger price difference between the two, but I was making a comparison to the average selling price of the dual G4 @ 1.42GHz models compared to the lowest cost selling G5 dual 2.7GHz w/2 cores and dual 2.5GHz quad core deals.  When you look at those numbers I have been seeing the G4's at around $275 to $300 and the lowest prices for the Quad Core 2.5GHz G5 systems have been very close to those numbers.  Not the average price, or the crazy $2,000 and up prices you see from some idiots trying to sell G5 systems, I am talking about the rock bottom price that you might be able to get a dual 2.7GHz, or dual 2.5GHz quad core G5 system at.  If we include the 2.0GHz G5 systems it is even easier to make this comparison.

And yes, we are very lucky that these systems have devalued so quickly.  Their loss is our gain.

[amigadave]

By design, no *miga OS can have true SMP, at least not what people outside this community would recognize and acknowledge as being true SMP.

True, that has been stated several times by many of the MorphOS Team members.  But........... if (big IF) the AmigaOS4.x developers can figure out a way to utilize multiple core usage in ANY way, I am confident that the MorphOS Team members can find a way to do it even better!  Sorry for the dig Hyperion and team, but I just have great confidence in the MorphOS Team.  So if it can be done, in any way, shape or form, the MorphOS Team will eventually do it too.

I mean really, do any of you think that Hyperion and team AmigaOS4.x have a magic trick up their sleeve that the MorphOS Team has not already thought of and considered?:roflmao:

[amigadave]

I don't think it will that difficult to "utilize" extra cores, but that still won't make it SMP...

Yes, that is what I meant when I wrote that it has been mentioned several times by MorphOS Team members, but I could have spelled it out more clearly.  No SMP for MorphOS, AmigaOS4 and I think that applies to AROS and WinUAE running any version of AmigaOS1.0>3.9 as well.  I actually don't think it was a good idea for Hyperion and the AmigaOS4.x Developers to announce plans for some kind of multi-core or multiple CPU support until they were on the verge of releasing such support.  It looks like it will be well over a year, or two years from the date they first mentioned such support being part of their plans, to the date they are ready to release a version of AmigaOS4.x that has such support, but maybe they will prove me wrong and release a version with some kind of support shortly after they release a version of AmigaOS4.x which supports the X1000?

Any implementation of AmigaOS4.x, or MorphOS2.x which can use both Cores in the X1000, or CPUs in the dual G4 PowerMac models & dual G5 Macs with 2 or 4 Cores, will hopefully be faster/more powerful and allow new software to be written which will enable these "Next Gen" Amiga(Like) systems to do things that no other Amiga systems could ever dream of doing and tide us all over until AmigaOS4.x and MorphOS2.x can be ported away from the dead-end PPC architecture to something better.

............... I have several G4 Macs, all running Mac OS X Snow leopard ............

That is an interesting statement, please tell us how you have gotten Snow Leopard to run on all of your several G4 Mac's? Snow Leopard is for x86 only!

:laughing:

I have resisted upgrading my 2.0GHz Core2Duo black MacBook to Snow Leopard, MacOSX 10.6, from 10.5.8 which I am currently running, but after looking at the features in 10.6 again and seeing that the upgrade only costs $29.00, I think I will go ahead and order it.  The fact that it will give me back about 7gb of hdd space is a nice plus, and the speed improvements in many areas will help as well.

[amigadave]

@Karlos,

As you well know, there are fanboys in the extreme for just about everything on the face of the planet, both Amiga Next Gen systems have more than their share of them that make stupid comments all the time.

As for why the G5 now, I would counter that support for the G5 is not coming now, nor is it going to be any time soon that it is released, as the MorphOS Dev Team does have higher priorities to work on.  I think part of the confusion is that many MorphOS users spread their wishful thinking as rumor like they are facts and the Dev Team is fairly silent about what they are working on at any given moment.  Also, from what I have observed and guessed, I believe that the MorphOS Dev Team is a much more loosely organized group of enthusiast developers that are basically free to work on which ever parts of the OS to see if it will work, explore new possible targets to port MorphOS to in the future, etc.  There is obviously some coordination and discussion about priorities and desired completion dates for certain items or targeted models that the Team as a whole wish to support and which models or platforms would be good candidates to support next, but only a member of the Team could know exactly how they are organized and how the workload is assigned, or otherwise divided between them.  With very little information officially released by the Team regarding what they are working on, or even which models of the PPC Macs they intend to support, there is a ton of speculation and rumor everywhere.

I haven't checked the official website lately, but the last time I was there, no mention of official support being planned for even the G4 PowerBooks was listed, not to mention the G5 PowerMacs, even though videos and at least two public demonstrations of the G4 PowerBook running a beta version of MorphOS have been presented, by Piru I think.  I am very sure that support for the G4 PowerBooks will eventually be released, but unless the support for the G5 PowerMacs is much easier than myself and most other people assume, it will likely be a long way off before such support is released, or even announced officially.

As to your other question about what do we need the G5 power for, and there are no Amiga apps that need that kind of power, you are obviously right for 99% of the apps, but with the old 68k apps needing to be run through a JIT engine and not natively, any demanding Classic Amiga app, such as 3D rendering, will benefit from the extra power.  But more important in my minds eye is that the extra computing power will open a few programming opportunities that everyone thought could not be accomplished on any Amiga computer in the past.  With G5, or PA6T power and if/when better graphics cards are supported, it will be possible to create better Amiga applications in the future than might be possible with only the current power of a 1.5GHz G4 MacMini, or in AmigaOS4.x's case, a 1GHz G4 Pegasos2, or AmigaOne.

Concerning your argument that we all have other computers that can run anything that can be run on a G5 or PA6T Amiga system faster and cheaper, not everyone wants to have to switch back and forth between different systems and many of us hope that with a sufficiently powerful Amiga system, more Amiga programmers will return to coding new programs for us to use and we might be able to do 100% of what we now do on multiple computers on just one powerful Amiga computer.  Not everyone here HAS to have all the latest software, or web plug-ins to satisfy our computing needs and I would say that many of us here at A.org are the die-hard few remaining Amiga enthusiasts that would prefer to ONLY use an Amiga computer and OS and not have to boot into any other OS ever again.  Maybe that is not realistic, and some will say it is not possible, but everyone has different computing styles and needs, so I say to those nay sayers, don't tell me what I have to own, or have to run to be happy with my computing experience.

[amigadave]

Thanks Iggy.

I am sure I am not the typical user in that I would gladly sell this 3.0GHz Quad Core Intel CPU powered PC with two video cards and SLI, w/4gb RAM and Vista Ultimate/XP Pro and a couple TB of hdd space and never boot into any Windows OS again if I could get a decent price for it and replace it with a Quad Core, 2.5GHz G5 PowerMac running MacOSX 10.5.8 and hopefully MorphOS some day.  I don't need any more power than the Quad Core G5 can provide and could probably run the one or two Windows programs I need through Virtual PC (yuck) until I could find replacement software on MacOSX or MorphOS.  I also just purchased a pristine 17" 1.67GHz G4 PowerBook w/2 year warranty (listen up new hardware buyers) and a bunch of software for less than 1/5 what it will cost to get an X1000 (when it is released???) and AmigaOS4.x.  The PowerBook should have MorphOS support in the relatively near future, maybe even before the production of consumer (not beta-tester boards) X1000 are released.  I might now sell my 2.0GHz Core2Duo MacBook.  It would be great to be back to running just one nice laptop and one nice desktop tower and then maybe my Classic Amiga collection would get some more attention than it does now.

I am sure this idea is not for many other people, but it will suit me just fine.  I might even install Linux PPC on a G5 PowerMac if I go through with this idea and try to go "Window-Less" in the near future (and yes I KNOW that Linux will be much better, faster and have more software and features on my current Intel powered PC, but I don't care about all that power, I just care about having the most "Amiga" power I can have).

[amigadave]

A multicore PC with multiple instances of UAE beats a G5 running MorphOS easily.

Really?  You will just have to show me how a PC running UAE can run MorphOS.  (before you get all riled up, I know you were responding to the ImageFX running on MorphOS being faster on the G5 posting)

If ImageFX and other Classic Amiga programs were the only apps us MorphOS users were running on our MorphOS computers, I would agree that there is almost no reason except the OS experience itself, which is good in my opinion, to use MorphOS at all.  But that is not the case, there are MorphOS native apps that can only be run on a MorphOS capable computer.  Granted, as Karlos likes to point out, most of those apps that we can run on MorphOS (AmigaOS4 is in the same boat) exist on other platforms that run orders of magnitude faster than any MorphOS2.x or AmigaOS4.x machine at a fraction of the price, but I fail to see the logic of why any MorphOS or AmigaOS4 user would want to keep using underpowered hardware that limits the kinds of things we can do on the OS we prefer to use, not are forced to use because the software we want to run is only available on other OSes that we do not enjoy using as much as an Amiga-Like OS.  Does Karlos use either MorphOS2.x or AmigaOS4.x?  I know he uses AmigaOS3.x as he uses his A1200 for music.  Maybe we should look backward to the days when there were many more Amiga programmers and remember how after the PC and Mac moved to Pentium and PPC CPU's they were forced to make a choice between limiting what there software could do, or look like compared to what they could accomplish on PC's or Mac's, or they could walk away from programming for the Amiga and follow the money to the mainstream computing world.  What I mean is that without the added power provided by the Pentium, or PPC and later more powerful CPU's much software that is available today would not have been written.  MorphOS2.x and AmigaOS4.x need the power to enable the few remaining programmers we have to write more power hungry applications and games.  It is kind of a chicken or egg situation.  Does the software that requires more power and graphics capability come first and run crappy on what we have today, or do we port our OSes to more powerful machines so that more power hungry software can be written?  I think it is the latter.

Why not just use the more capable OSes and hardware in the first place?  Because we are MorphOS2.x and AmigaOS4.x users that wish to use those OSes and computers, that is why we are here discussing this.  I don't see many PC and Mac users here that are not at least in some way interested in MorphOS2.x and/or AmigaOS4.x.

Doesn't that make sense to everyone?

[amigadave]

Big surprise that it doesn't make sense to someone that "rarely use them since they lacking so much behind that I dont really see the point".  Other MorphOS2.x and AmigaOS4.x users have a different opinion and attitude than you do, or there would be no MorphOS2.x or AmigaOS4.x at all. They would have ceased to exist years ago.  Also, your statement that my joke makes no sense, doesn't make any sense!  It's a JOKE with a smiley face after it and it is even followed with the text to explain that I knew what you were referring to.  Jeesh! Grow a sense of humor.

As for the rest, I have no problem with the reality that both OSes are unfinished, even though they are no longer labeled as beta releases.  As long as work continues on them, not just work to port them to different machines, I will continue to use them because I want to do so.  Is it rational, not really.  But I am sure my computing needs are much lower than yours, as well as my expectations of both NG PPC systems, so my enjoyment of using them is not dependent on me being rational during the time I am using a NG Amiga system.

I understand your disappointment and/or displeasure with MorphOS2.x and AmigaOS4.x and why you don't use them except rarely.  I have no problem with you having your view and opinions regarding MorphOS2.x and AmigaOS4.x, I do have a problem when some people (maybe not you) label people like me who like to use MorphOS2.x, or AmigaOS4.x as;  stupid, wasting their time, wasting their money, unrealistic dreamers (even if some of the fanboys are), or any other remarks that imply that we are somehow less intelligent, or less of a person because of our choices and preferences.

I don't agree with most of your comments, but I am not going to waste my time trying to rebut any of them, because you have every right to think what ever you want and it is not my job to try to convince you otherwise.  I also don't need anyone's approval to use the computer and OS of my choice, or their blessing of my reasons for those choices.

Enjoy your Amiga experience any way you want and let me enjoy mine, while also working toward improving it, hoping and wishing for others to join me in the same pursuit of a better NG Amiga system and new software, and allow me and others to praise and support what we see as efforts of the developers to provide what we are hoping for.

[amigadave]

Damn, I hate being sucked into defending myself on forums and it is always a "No Win" situation, but I just can't seem to stop myself this time.

Yes, I was responding to the issue of ImageFx - your comment above makes no sense.

That's because it's an obvious joke.

Like what exactly? I have yet to see any native MorphOS app that justifies the hassle over running equivalent m68k software under UAE or native app under host OS.

What do you mean "Like what exactly"?  I made a statement that to run native MorphOS apps you need a MorphOS compatible computer, not a PC running an emulator on a host OS and you counter that you haven't seen any native apps that justify using MorphOS.  The decision to use or not use MorphOS (or AmigaOS4) is not in question. I and many others have already made that choice, so we want as many native applications and games as we can get.  We have made a choice to use MorphOS2.x, and/or AmigaOS4.x either in addition to, or instead of another OS on other hardware.  For myself, I would rather get to a point where I never have to boot any Windows OS ever again for many reasons (but as I have said my needs and requirements are much lower than most people. I don't expect you to understand this as you appear to be caught in the wheels of the machine).

The hardware is not the problem - the OSes themselves are, it's the OSes that are underpowered, and lacking just about any modern features I can think of - providing kick ass hardware is rather pointless when the OS you want to run on it is a relic of 20 years ago with some 3D fluff and nice icons thrown ontop of it. Glorified emulators are what they are, with a handfull of native apps each.

You really missed the mark with this one.  You are trying to tell me that decoding HD video for playback can't be done on my Efika because of a fault in MorphOS?  I can't render 3D animations in real time on my G4 MacMini running MorphOS2.5 because the OS is lacking something and if they just added it to the OS my G4 MacMini would magically then be able to do that?  Speeding up the time it takes to edit photos with generated effects or writing a decent CAD program that can also render 3D drawings quickly and runs on MorphOS needs more features in the OS and no improvement in the hardware speed and new graphics drivers?  

Maybe faster hardware will help "inspire" just one MorphOS2.x or AmigaOS4.x programmer to keep programming for those OSes AND allow one new app/game to be written that cannot be run, or run satisfactorily on the slower existing hardware that those OSes have available to them today.  Using your comment and logic above why did anyone create 68060 cards for the A2000/A3000/A4000's?  Faster hardware has allowed for new, more demanding software to be written on all OSes from the beginning, why shouldn't the users that care about continuing to use MorphOS2.x and AmigaOS4.x want this for our OS of choice?  Maybe modern OSes are also part of the problem and all those features you keep referring to aren't really necessary as part of the OS and should be optional for people with other priorities, needs and desires from their computing experience?

I have both, but I rarely use them since they lacking so much behind that I dont really see the point - I get more done with UAE and old m68k apps than with any of OS4 and MorphOS, since the host systems I run UAE on can transparently give UAE and the m68k apps access to data over modern protocols, something none of the so called NG systems are capable of. And as a bonus I also get much faster amiga systems, that can be live migrated, backed up and have hardware upgrades whenever it fits _me_, without having to jump through burning hoops and whatnot.

Then why even keep them? Why comment in threads that are about improving the hardware for an OS that you don't use and have little or no interest in?  Just sell them to other Amiga users that can appreciate them and stay happy with your other OSes and computers.  I don't know which "modern" protocols you are referring to, but my MorphOS2.x computer is connected to my LAN and has access to all the data I need or want on my other computers or on the Internet (I stress the "I need or want" before you respond with something that "YOU" want or need).  After all, it is you that are making comments which infer that using MorphOS2.x and AmigaOS4.x are a waste of time and money, in effect trying to convince others that your view is the only reasonable one to share and anyone that disagrees with you is an idiot.  Oh, the "burning hoops" is a very nice dramatic touch (sarcasm, in case you can't figure it out for yourself, like the joke)

Nonsense. Programmers flee MorphOS and AmigaOS4.x mostly due to lack of modern features in the OSes, features that core developers see no point in adressing for whatever reasons.

So now you are a spokesman for all the programmers that have left programming for MorphOS2.x and AmigaOS4.x and know their reasons for leaving AND you also know what the "core developers" are working on and what they have planned to address at some time in the future?  The arrogance of that statement by you above amazes me.  My statement wasn't even about programmers who have left.  It is about those that have CHOSEN to remain and continue to use MorphOS2.x and/or AmigaOS4.x. needing more powerful hardware before they can write native apps and games that REQUIRE more powerful hardware.

No it's not, it's a "too many old hens laying rotten eggs" situation.

Why resort to insults to express YOUR opinion? You made your thoughts about the PPC NG Amiga OSes with your "I have both, but I rarely use them since they lacking so much behind that I dont really see the point" comment earlier.

You are wrong. There is no need for more CPU power, there is a desperate need for updating the core functionality of the OSes, providing modern features to them so that it becomes even slightly interesting for developers to provide software for it.

No, you are wrong.  It is clear to all MorphOS2.x and AmigaOS4.x users and unbiased observers that we will benefit from an increase in CPU power. We also know that progress continues, albeit at a slow pace due to available resources, toward updating the core functionality of our chosen OSes and accept that fact.  Some software development continues, so these OSes are obviously interesting to at least a few programmers and users.  You just aren't one of them.

Not really - MorphOS and OS4 were originally meant to be quite different beasts than what they are today - both went from being systems with promising roadmaps to glorified emulators with nice icons. Do you remember what OS4 looked like on the paper back in 1996? Or how abox in MorphOS was just meant to be a temporary stopgap? Today they are just short of being cought up by AROS - I find that highly ironic, sad and hilarious at the same time.

My statement is about users of MorphOS2.x and AmigaOS4.x that prefer to do some tasks on their preferred OS instead of doing the same task on another OS because that is their choice and that is why many of us are reading a thread about the possibility of porting MorphOS to the G5 PowerMac. You obviously don't fit that description so why are you commenting in this thread?  What is your agenda, or motive? What has your quote above got to do with my statement that you were replying to?  Nothing!  You are just rambling about your disappointment with the current state of either OS compared to where they were originally supposed to go.  Well guess what, ideas, people and projects change sometimes.  Some of us have gotten over it and moved on to a choice of using MorphOS2.x and/or AmigaOS4.x regardless of what was proposed when they were first thought of and development work started on them. Again, you are not one of them so why do you hold on to your computers that run those disappointing OSes you like to run down so much?

OS4 and MorphOS are not that much more interesting than OS3.x, really.

Thanks for sharing your opinion, but it is not shared by myself and probably a few hundred or more users of MorphOS2.x and AmigaOS4.x and it doesn't add any value to this thread.

 

Nope

It wouldn't make sense to someone who is as biased and jaded toward both PPC NG Amiga OSes as you appear to be.

[amigadave]

Point taken, but both OS4 and MOS as 32-bit non SMP are moving towards hardware SMP capable 64-bit platforms regardless, so really, that boat has already sailed.

Is there a better, more cost efficient PPC choice for the MorphOS developers to use as a target platform than the Mac's they have chosen already and the ones they are considering for future ports?  In other words, given the amount of resources they have to work with, and the determination to continue to go forward with MorphOS and not just call it quits, what hardware would you have chosen?  SMP is not possible for MorphOS2.x, or AmigaOS4.x and I would imagine this applies to AROS too, but might be wrong on that point.  The fastest hardware that they can easily move to is all dual processor, dual core or quad core.  That is all they have to choose from if they want to continue to increase the speed of their OS as far as possible without breaking compatibility, or going to another architecture which would require much more time and work, which they don't have the resources for.

The same way AROS does - or rather doesn't; by appealing to an existing user base instead of taking on the world. In truth, the only competition OS4 and MOS have is each other and that isn't going to change by moving to a more popular hardware platform. Alternative OS for x86 are legion; none of them are curling up and dying just because windows, osx and linux are in town.

Only a very small number of delusional fanatics still think that MorphOS2.x or AmigaOS4.x are going to "take on the world", or become a mainstream OS any time in the future.  I think every hobby has a few people that are out of touch with reality.  I know that the MorphOS developers are not trying to, or claiming that MorphOS will ever be ready to compete directly against Windows, MacOSX, or even Linux and I very much doubt that the AmigaOS4.x developers are either.  That does not stop them from wanting their OS to be better than it is now and also wanting more users to choose it as an entertainment, a hobby, or a part time replacement for their other OSes.

I actually think that an x86 port of MOS (or OS4) would face far more of a threat from AROS than it does any of the "big" ones.

Of course AROS would be the bigger threat as it is closer to appearance, and function and it is free.  Have you ever considered that fact might be a big contributing factor for why MorphOS2.x and AmigaOS4.x have resisted moving to x86 so far?  Why would they want to compete with not just one free OS, but probably dozens, when both teams of developers are just tiny groups of programmers that could never compete with other OS choices that might have ten to a hundred times the man-power to work on an x86 alternate OS?

[amigadave]

@Karlos,

Thanks for the reasonable replies.  It was not too long ago when MorphOS could only be run on hardware that was produced in very limited numbers and it has only been a little more than 10 months since support for the G4 MacMini was released.  The power afforded by supporting the 1.5GHz G4 MacMini is not that much greater than the Pegasos2 and the developer base for third party native apps or games for MorphOS2.x is painfully small, so I think it is going to take more time before we see applications that fully utilize the small increase in power and even years longer before we see native MorphOS apps and games that take advantage of the G5, if it is ever supported by MorphOS.  But if support never comes to MorphOS for the G5 we will just have to find a way to do as much as we can on the G4.

As for porting apps and games from other OSes instead of writing something new and original from scratch, that is more a function of the complexity of newer programs and the lack of man-power to code anything native for MorphOS.  It just makes more sense to take advantage of any source code that can be found, instead of recreating the wheel just to show that we can do it.  Like you, I would be very pleased to see any original ideas coded to run native on MorphOS2.x and AmigaOS4.x, but with the limited number of programmers I think the best we can hope for are projects like OWB on MorphOS that runs better and faster on the same hardware than it does via Linux.  If MorphOS2.x and AmigaOS4.x programmers can take existing source code, port it to either or both Amiga NG PPC OSes and improve it's function, features and speed in the process, I think we have a winning combination.  Having the fastest PPC hardware we can get will make this process more successful for certain power hungry apps and games.

 I totally agree with you that both MorphOS2.x and AmigaOS4.x desperately need more software and developers to write that software, but having more varied hardware choices certainly won't hurt our chances to get more software and developers, it should help at least in some small way.

@kolla,

Now you are just trolling for your personal enjoyment.  I had forgotten how childish you could be.

[amigadave]

Actually they aren't water cooled. The liquid propylene glycol (neon green).

I just took a look at the cooling unit in my dual 2.5GHz PowerMac G5 and it looks just fine. All the rubber pipes are ok, and there are no indications of any potential leakage. At least this particular machine has aged gracefully in this regard.

Obviously YMMV. The liquid cooling systems failed quite a lot, even as much as 20% of certain models within a year. On the other hand many liquid cooled systems are still working just fine. Go figure.

If this system dies I'll just get another.

I saw eBay adds for some G5 PowerMacs that stated they had a Panasonic Liquid Cooling System that was much more reliable and could only be found in about 1 out of every 1000 LCS G5 PowerMacs.  I have not researched this to see if it was sales hype, or if it is true.

I know that there has been no official MorphOS Team announcement regarding porting to the G5 PowerMac, but it is nice to know that at least one member of the Team has the Dual 2.5GHz G5 model.  I hope it is the Quad Core 11.2 model, but I don't think I remember seeing any Dual Core, Dual 2.5GHz G5 PowerMac models, so maybe it is.  That is the model I would like to get and use (there are tons and tons of them available near me that have been retired from movie and music studios recently) as it was the last and fastest G5 PowerMac for running MacOSX 10.5.8, and PPC Linux.  I just saw one sold night before last for $611.00 just loaded with Mac software, like Final Studio2 and tons more.

[amigadave]

Right, write me off as a troll, just like the rest of the blue pill crowd - you still have not answered my questions - for me those are real issues, soon enough they will be yours.

Don't whine because I refuse to play your game any longer.  Your "issues" will never be my issues.:lol:

[amigadave]

OS4 or MorphOS on x86 will likely never happen because of the endian-ness.

That might be true, but I think it just depends on how much fun the MorphOS Team is having and the what degree of difficulty/amount of man-hours they think it will take them to make the switch to x86.  Apple proved that a switch from PPC to x86 could be done, but that is no guarantee that MorphOS will ever make the same leap.

As soon as they are done tweaking the most speed they can get and any other optimizing or adding of features to MorphOS, and/or if the amount of work to port to x86 is more than the Team wants to invest in their fun little adventure, and if a different architecture that makes more sense to port to does not materialize before then, the Team may just decide to quit and call it a day, or move on to something else.  If MorphOS ever ceases to be fun for them to play around with, they might turn it over to other programmers in the Amiga/Morph community to continue, or sell it to anyone that wants to continue work on it and thinks they can still make a buck from doing so.