MorphOS 3.0 released - PowerBook G4 support and new pricing

[takemehomegrandma]

First impression: Very nice!

[takemehomegrandma]

Is the issue of video drivers the only real hurdle?

No, another "hurdle" is that it must use USB for keyboard and trackpad AFAIK.

[takemehomegrandma]

Do tell? What connection do the aluminum Powerbooks use for those, then?

Older models were using ADB, only the latest models had USB keyboards/pads AFAIK.

Edit:

"No machines being built today use ADB for device interconnection, but up to February 2005, PowerBooks and iBooks still used the ADB protocol in the internal interface with the built-in keyboard and touchpad. Subsequent models used a USB-based trackpad."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Desktop_Bus#History

List of all PowerBook G4 models (you'll notice that the Ti is *very* old):
http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/powerbook_g4/index-powerbook-g4.html

Only these are the ones living up to the requirements of MorphOS, according to the MorphOS Team:

http://www.everymac.com/ultimate-mac-lookup/?search_keywords=PowerBook5,6 (model A1106)
http://www.everymac.com/ultimate-mac-lookup/?search_keywords=PowerBook5,7 (model A1107)
http://www.everymac.com/ultimate-mac-lookup/?search_keywords=PowerBook5,8 (model A1138)
http://www.everymac.com/ultimate-mac-lookup/?search_keywords=PowerBook5,9 (model A1139)

There are literary *hordes* of them at e-bay, with very attractive price tags...

[takemehomegrandma]

The old powerbook I have lying around was one of the last powerPC ones sold. Is there any easy way to tell what model it is?

In addition to bbond007 above -

http://www.everymac.com/mac-identification/index-how-to-identify-my-mac.html

Also: Screen resolutions/sizes are unique identifiers for all of these four models, see this short post about what differs between the MorphOS supported PowerBook models (maybe can be interesting for potential buyers of PowerBooks as well?)

A CPU running at 1.67GHz should also mean it's one of the supported kinds (unless OC'd, but I don't know how common that is in PowerBooks, if at all)

The funniest way of course, is definitely to download MorphOS 3.0 and simply try it out yourself! Boot from the CD (hold down the c key when starting the computer until it's booting), it doesn't touch your HDD if you don't choose to install it, and it's completely free of charge!

==> http://morphos-team.net/downloads

[takemehomegrandma]

Nope, only the very last revisions (5.8/5.9( had highres screen, the screens used in the older supported models (5.6/5.7) are identical to screen use in even much older revision (maybe even back to the orginal 400MHz Ti). One of the PBs I sold last year actually is an 5.7 in the case and with the display of an 5.5 and I have confirmation thats it's running just fine.

Ah, of course, OK thanks for the clarification! To be honest I had only looked at the four latest models myself (since the others aren't relevant), and at least in my head I kind of said "screen resolution + 1.67GHz" (which would "triangulate" which of "one of the very latest models ever sold" he has), but I realize it didn't come out that way, hehe.

Anyway, plenty of ideas given to get him going in his detective work. I hope he follow the last advice, by simply trying to boot MorphOS! Nice surprise if it does!

[takemehomegrandma]

@commodorejohn

Older models were using ADB, only the latest models had USB keyboards/pads AFAIK.

"The missing ADB keyboard/pad driver is not a real issue anymore, it's basically ready. We actually might consider Ibook support in a future update. It pretty much depends on the success/acceptance of the PowerBook option. The forthcoming update will definitely focus on fixing bugs that went unnoticed while doing our internal testing, though. So expanding hardware support is something that is considered after that ..."
http://www.morphzone.org/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?topic_id=8042&forum=11&start=98

Don't know what (if indeed anything) this could mean for your old Ti PowerBook though (guess they are a bit down on the priority list due to age and performance?), not even Ibook support was really promised above (although there must be some thought behind developing drivers for ADB), and in any case, no new HW support until MorphOS 3.2 at the earliest. But who knows?

[takemehomegrandma]

??

that's sort of underwhelming.

Am I missing something? My A1200 has wireless internet.

Heh, I've seen a C64 with "wireless" (yep, there was/is a Ethernet card for the C64, in which someone had put one of these "ethernet to wifi" adapters), but that kind of gadgets (as the A1200 wireless) is not really what people mean when talking about WiFi stacks/support in an OS...

[takemehomegrandma]

Is the wireless in the MacMini supported?

No wireless whatsoever in the OS, no matter type of computer. As said before, there are some ways around this, but AFAIK currently the OS doesn't incorporate neigher the device drivers for the WiFi cards/chips, nor the technology/applications to make use of them in the way people would expect to use them.

[takemehomegrandma]

Just when you thought it couldn't get any better, couldn't get any faster, then MorphOS 3.0 is released! And there are so many improvements!

Everything feels a little bit faster. Some people has measured faster memory speed in general, some people has measured a great improvement in 3D graphics speed, network feels faster, and the Odyssey browser is up to 40% faster in version 1.17! Speaking of which, the changelog for Odyssey 1.17 isn't available on the net, so for those interested, here it is:

- 14.05.2012: Odyssey Web Browser 1.17
  - Updated to WebKit r114842 (April 2012).
  - Updated to Cairo 1.12 and Pixman 0.24.4: gives about 40% speedup in rendering.
  - Updated to ICU 4.9.1: the data files are now stored externally in
    PROGDIR:resource/icudt49b/ to save some memory. Make sure to copy them if you
    update (a requester will warn you if you don't).
  - Updated to OpenSSL 1.0.0j.
  - Updated to Curl 7.25.0.
  - Updated to FFMPEG GIT from 13.05.2012.
  - Updated to SQLite 3.7.11.
  - Updated to libXML2 2.7.8 and libXSLT 1.1.26.
  - History completion popup is now multithreaded, which fixes a latency issue when
    typing the URL.
  - Implemented form filling completion feature. It can be enabled in prefs->privacy settings.
    Note that you calltips.mcc is required, which is included with MorphOS 3+ or 2.x SDK
    with Scribble.
  - The "add bookmark" button now has two states, to indicate whether the current
    URL is already bookmarked or not.
  - Adding a bookmark from the browser window now always adds it to the end of
    the bookmarks, and no longer at the end of the currently selected group.
  - Added Back/Forward/Reload/Stop in view menu.
  - The password from the URL is now removed if present, when setting the comment
    of a downloaded file.    
  - Fixed the "Open in new window" function that didn't work anymore in 1.16 due
    to the new popup policy option.
  - Fixed attachments not working anymore in GMail.
  - Fixed again AltGr key handling for GoogleDocs.
  - Fixed pasting from clipboard when multiple text chunks are used (YAM does it).
  - Escape unwanted characters in bookmarks URLs, aliases and titles.  
  - Prune favicons database at startup, since it can really grow a lot over time.
  - Tweaked cross origin access control to make youtube video upload work.
  - Fixed some issue with 401 handling. Should fix some cPanel administration pages,
    for instance (hello Christoph and Pampers .
  - Fixed pagination in PDF export.
  - Fixed HTML5 local storage.
  - Fixed some WebSocket potential crash issue at disconnection.
  - Attempt to fix some deadlock issue in mediaplayer at disposal under heavy stress.
  - Avoid spawning an useless video decoder thread for audio-only files, and vice-versa.

There is a simple and easy to use disk burning/copying tool for CD's and DVD's that really should be enough for most peoples needs in this area! There is also this tool - Flacapella - that rips CDDA (music CD's) to Flac/Waw format!

The OS features its own FTP/SFTP client now, works great. Now MorphOS has not only a great Web browser built in, but also a FTP client. A built-in mail client would make it kind of complete.

The new PDF viewer is great! It's very fast and handles more complex PDF files.

Scribble is a very nice text editor built on Scintilla, in fact, scintilla is now part of the OS as a custom MUI class (Classes/MUI/Scintilla.mcc)! :cool: Scribble was previously part of the updated MorphOS SDK, but now it's available to everyone. You can see it in action here: http://www.morphos-team.net/files/scribble.mp4 (it's one of the nicest ones ever seen on Amiga IMHO)!

The integrated crypto File System "Kryptos" (based on TrueCrypt) was updated to TrueCrypt v7.0a.

*A lot* happened to Reggae (finally ):

Classes/Reggae/id3tag.demuxer - Basic handling of ID3v2 (2.2, 2.3, 2.4) tags.
Classes/Reggae/iffdeep.decoder [NEW] - Decoder for IFF DEEP images.
Classes/Reggae/iffdeep.demuxer [NEW] - Demultiplexer for IFF DEEP images.
Classes/Reggae/iffilbm.decoder [NEW] - Decoder for IFF ILBM images.
Classes/Reggae/iffilbm.demuxer [NEW] - Demultiplexer for IFF ILBM images.
Classes/Reggae/jpeg.decoder [NEW] - Decoder for JPEG images.
Classes/Reggae/jpeg.demuxer [NEW] - Demultiplexer for JPEG images.
Classes/Reggae/degas.demuxer [NEW] - Demultiplexer for Atari Degas/Neochrome images.
Classes/Reggae/degas.decoder [NEW] - Decoder for Atari Degas/Neochrome images.
Classes/Reggae/mpegaudio.demuxer - changes and fixes
Classes/Reggae/multiread.buffer - fixes
Classes/Reggae/pcx.decoder [NEW] - Decoder for PCX images.
Classes/Reggae/pcx.demuxer [NEW] - Demultiplexer for PCX images.
Classes/Reggae/png.decoder [NEW] - Decoder for PNG images.
Classes/Reggae/png.demuxer [NEW] - Demultiplexer for PNG images.
Classes/Reggae/rawaudio.filter - Added support for unsigned 16-bit PCM formats (both endians).
Classes/Reggae/rawvideo.filter [NEW] - Wrapper class for processing raw PCM video streams in different formats.
Classes/Reggae/sunraster.decoder [NEW] - Decoder for SunRaster images.
Classes/Reggae/sunraster.demuxer [NEW] - Demultiplexer for SunRaster images.
Classes/Reggae/targa.decoder [NEW] - Decoder for Targa images.
Classes/Reggae/targa.demuxer [NEW] - Demultiplexer for Targa images.
Classes/Reggae/videopcm.decoder - supports many formats, AltiVec accelerated

I think we see a "Datatypes NG" sailing up here, and this is very cool!

Jukebox is a simple but very nice music player based on Reggae!

The Lua scripting language is now part of the system, with an additional module that allows sending commands to applications in a way compatible with ARexx. This is great!

A netprinter.device was added, spellchecker.library was added, etc (you can use it in Odyssey for example). Lots of minor additions, fixes and improvements, all over the place! And the *Video Thumbnails*! How cool isn't that?!

MUI got more eyecandy, it's faster and more debugged. Ambient is very tight with MUI, and you notice small but important improvements in Ambient on many places! The best Amiga desktop just became better!

Another big thing about MorphOS 3.0 is that a lot of work has gone into supporting laptop technologies. As a result, MorphOS now features Battery sensor, temperature readings, setting backlight, power saving, multi finger touchpad support, etc. This resulted in:

Native PowerBook support!

And I guess that when much of the required laptop technology is in place, it gets much easier to continue this path...

The price drop of the OS is very welcome I think:

MacMini
PowerMac
eMac
Pegasos1
Pegasos2

... they all down to just €79 now! And the Efika down to €49! I registered MorphOS 2.0 back when it was released in 2008, and it has been a free ride ever since, all upgrades for free, even the jump to 3.x! Conclusion: Great value!

I am very impressed with MorphOS 3.0, and I'm very happy about it!

The best just became a hell of a lot better! Go get it! :pint:

[takemehomegrandma]

Now just the wireless driver and it'll all be good

There is no denying in that, but for those who isn't constantly moving around while using their computer (some actually have no problem in accessing a suitable cable), it might actually be good *already* you know!

[takemehomegrandma]

@wifi discussion

Don't you realize you're kicking in open doors here? Is anyone claiming WiFi is a bad idea?

[takemehomegrandma]

Here's a little article with pics and video of MorphOS 3: What's New in MorphOS 3

A very nice little article indeed, with screenshots and a video, well worth having a look at!

[takemehomegrandma]

I am merely stating that, by this development chart here: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f8/AmigaOS_3_and_clones.svg/500px-AmigaOS_3_and_clones.svg.png You can clearly see the relationships of MorphOS and OS4 to OS 3.1.

IMHO, that is a poor picture, misleading in several ways — The 3.1 API is *the* common denominator for all of them (with their respective "additions"/evolution on top of that), but the pictures makes it look like OS4 would be built on some "3.9 API" (the 3.5 and 3.9 releases were merely OS 3.1 that had most of the common third party apps, patches and add-on's that people used bundled with it, no real OS API evolution to speak of, right?), and the graphical design is erroneous in the way that it makes AROS look "on par" with OS 3.9, MorphOS as being derived from AROS and OS4 as being derived from OS 3.9 (AFAIK there never was any such connection), and OS4 as being "on par" with MorphOS. It also has some strange "Source code" line, which has always been a somewhat artificial as an argument (and not entirely true, technically speaking) with no relevance in practice anyway. Here is an alternative picture, that illustrates the various flavors from an Amiga OS 68k *time line* perspective instead:



The leftmost column is Amiga OS (68k), the three rightmost columns represents the "NG" options in the order in which they were introduced, and the lines symbolizes their respective introduction from a 68k release perspective (note that the month for MorphOS introduction is wrong, first public MorphOS release was 02-Aug-2000). At the bottom (in the "Modern times" row) of the Amiga OS (68k) column there is something that symbolizes the efforts of making new/updated 68k OS releases (connections to AROS there) for use either with UAE, real Amigas, or something like NatAmi (if that ever gets here). There is also a line symbolizing a connection between AROS and MorphOS (not in any way meaning that they are the same at all, of course).

Again — the 3.1 API is a *given*, that's what defines "Amiga" post Commodore, and no "lines" are needed to illustrate this in misleading charts IMHO.

[takemehomegrandma]

in regards of misleading, where, please, can I obtain that "AmigaOS +"?

Depends on what you mean? What *I* meant was some kind of common term describing all the developments post 3.9 for enhancing the 68k Amigas (including UAE, and indeed (if it ever will get here) the NatAmi) during the past 12 years, that either replaces (Open Source) or extends the features (or both) of the original OS, in parts, or as a whole. Some people are still interested in working on the 68k part of the community, Amikit is proof of that, and AROS 68k. An eventual NatAmi would be pointless if it didn't update parts of the OS to utilize the "new chips", and some obviously see a point in having an open source 68k OS, for various reasons. Not everyone considers 68k to be dead and replaced by OS4; it's not like Amiga "moved" to OS4 (or MorphOS), that's more of a parallel thing. The real Amigas are still here, there is *still* some development going on, maybe not very visible, but I really don't think it would be fair to neglect this in a chart aiming to describe the evolution and the situation of the Amiga platform at large.

BTW, What do you mean by "misleading"? If anything, it's that *other* picture that gives the false impression that all Amigans natural evolution path and interest would go from 3.1 to 3.5 to 3.9 to "4.0" in a straight line of descendants (and putting MorphOS and AROS aside BTW(!!)) and leaves no room for a *continuation* of the 68k, which obviously isn't the case! Many Amigans couldn't care less about OS4 (or MorphOS, or PPC, or x86 AROS or whatever), they think Amiga is 68k. Again, OS4 is more of a "parallel" thing, interesting to some, but it *has not* replaced the 68k Amigas if looking at the community as a whole, not by far, and AFAIK (and as I said above) development work is being put into *all four* parts of the community.

[takemehomegrandma]

id say amiga os+ is clearly rather meant for additionally patched 68k system.

Patched and somewhat evolved and developed (unofficially) in an decentralized and ad-hoc manner, by several independent entities, for the past 12 years and still going on today. The first image (who obviously someone put on wikipedia :rolleyes:) tries to make it look like 3.x ended with Hyperions 4.0 release. For many people, 4.0 was never a continuation, but some kind of a *fork* on different hardware they never could connect to, hence always irrelevant to their Amiga interests, and various developments has continued (as mentioned above) on the 68k Amiga platform that indeed never ended, still goes on today, and that wikipedia picture does not show this. There are four directions in the Amiga community (listed in the order they appeared): Amiga (68k), AROS, MorphOS and OS4, and OS4 could very well be the least significant of them all; so in short: that wikipedia image has it completely screwed up!