I think OS4 CAN be run on MAC MINI (USABLE)

[kolla]

They could have released OS4 for Mac Mini G4, Latest powerbooks/ibooks g4 and G5 machines but instead it seems Ben Hermans and company are more interested in making cash flow to their pockets than in increasing the userbase.

And most likely the plan about cash flow will fail too, and they will end up with less than what they had at the start of this nutty project.

[ferrellsl]

Piru will argue against this point until death.  He believes that because there are tons of cheap,  unused MacMinis laying around, that people will be drawn to use them with MorphOS.  I guess he hasn't driven by any auto junkyards lately.  Tons of unused, obsolete cars just waiting to be adopted and put back on the road.......yeah, right.....

MorphOS will go extinct with that kind of business model.  Not even 3rd world countries can be coaxed into using MorphOS even if the hardware and OS was given to them for free.  It doesn't offer them a future......or us one for that matter.

[B00tDisk]

Piru will argue against this point until death.  He believes that because there are tons of cheap,  unused MacMinis laying around, that people will be drawn to use them with MorphOS.  I guess he hasn't driven by any auto junkyards lately.  Tons of unused, obsolete cars just waiting to be adopted and put back on the road.......yeah, right.....

MorphOS will go extinct with that kind of business model.  Not even 3rd world countries can be coaxed into using MorphOS even if the hardware and OS was given to them for free.  It doesn't offer them a future......or us one for that matter.

I don't have a dog in this fight either way, but the "junked cars" analogy is faulty.  What Morph-OS guys seem to be saying isn't "There are tons of junked cars in junkyards", they're saying "There are tons of obsolete cars in used car lots that can be converted to run on this experimental fuel we're making".

If your analogy were correct, people seeking to run Morph-OS would have to find partially destroyed or damaged Mac Minis to try and get running again, then use Morph-OS

Further, the second part?  I have seen at least one documentary about some African nations (surely third world) that have a burgeoning PC "Junkyard" industry - not for "recycling" as they do in China, but recycling them to bodge together working computers for schools and businesses.  Your throw-away P3/1ghz finds it's way to a market in Africa - maybe you tossed it because a couple of slots on the motherboard died, or because the sound went out...well, its components will be put together with another machine and bang: working XP (or Win2000) box.  I'm sure if you rolled in to one of those countries with a shipping container full of working - or nonworking! - Mac Minis, there'd be people eager to take them off your hands.

Whether that would lead them to Morph-OS is another question, but the point still stands.  Yes, old tech is still in use, particularly in 3rd world countries, and no, the Morph-OS guys aren't telling people to go get "wrecked cars" out of a "junkyard" to try and get working, they're saying "Go buy a ca. 2002 Miata and convert it from petrol to propane."

[ferrellsl]

Double post deleted......

[ferrellsl]

@B00tDisk

Yeah, I see tons of Africans foaming at the mouth to get their MacMinis and a copy of MorphOS.......

Nobody wants to start out already being obsolete, not even folks from 3rd and 5th world countries.  And to say that MorphOS is some sort of experimental fuel that will make a MacMini something special or supercharge it is just a bad joke.  A MacMini is at least 5 years out of date and MorphOS won't change that.

So to rephrase my analogy, there are tons of unused and obsolete MacMinis sitting in our closets collecting dust that we're all too lazy to take to the scrap yard and recycle or send off to the unwashed masses.  And even if these MacMinis did get into the hands of some 3rd or 5th world waif, they're not going to look for a copy of MorphOS to put on it.  They're going to look for OSX.....something that can run some robust applications.  And they'll actually be pissed because most 3rd world nations want something that will run one of the Microsoft OSs, not a PPC boat anchor.

[Golem!dk]

@ferrellsl

Gee... as if anything amiga related wasn't outdated for years already, yes that includes any new hardware being made available. Some people like having something they can use to get their amiga fix now, promises of some far-fetched future targets may not mean so much for people who have experienced most of the post-C= amiga drama.

[B00tDisk]

@B00tDisk

Yeah, I see tons of Africans foaming at the mouth to get their MacMinis and a copy of MorphOS.......

Uh, did you read the part where I said "I've got no dog in this fight" and "Whether that would lead them to Morph-OS is another question"?

I could give a fig about OS4 or Morph-OS, I only care about Amiga OS in general in the same way I care about GEOS or Windows 3.1 or OS7.5 for Macintosh - as a nostalgia trip.  

What I am saying (once again...) is that the large portion of the "third world" that needs computers doesn't really give a damn about whether or not it fits your image of the go go go high-tech lifestyle.

[Piru]

Piru will argue against this point until death. He believes that because there are tons of cheap, unused MacMinis laying around, that people will be drawn to use them with MorphOS.

No need to argue. MorphOS for Mac mini has been a huge (*) success. Everything we've seen with it has validated our decision.

I guess he hasn't driven by any auto junkyards lately.

I use the public transportation. Sure, it's something like 1000 € / year, but still much much cheaper than owning a car.

Wait, we were talking about computers?

MorphOS will go extinct with that kind of business model.

If you think someone is trying to make a profit here you're grossly misguided.

It still makes much more sense to use existing and easily available, good mac hardware than try to cook up your own. Eventually we will need to look into something else, but for now there's no better alternative.

(*) Huge in terms of the amigoid scale of things.

[SACC-guy]

What fun.
Me. I will try Morph2.5 this next week. Because it's easy, legal and works NOW!
If Hyperion ever sells a moana product, I'll try that. Otherwise this approach is just too much work.

[itix]

@ferrellsl

I wouldnt mind if there was new, inexpensive and powerful hardware available for MorphOS. If you have ideas I am all ears.

[Crumb]

Piru will argue against this point until death.  He believes that because there are tons of cheap,  unused MacMinis laying around, that people will be drawn to use them with MorphOS.  I guess he hasn't driven by any auto junkyards lately.  Tons of unused, obsolete cars just waiting to be adopted and put back on the road.......yeah, right.....

MorphOS will go extinct with that kind of business model.  Not even 3rd world countries can be coaxed into using MorphOS even if the hardware and OS was given to them for free.  It doesn't offer them a future......or us one for that matter.

Following you car analogy: The problem is that OS4 crew is trying to enforce customers to buy "new" Flintmobiles with prehistoric 603 cores instead of using available fast, reliable and comfortable 2nd hand Mercedes. And the problem is that Ben Hermans and company are trying to force us to buy Flintmobiles like they were modern gasoline cars (but just because you like the cool 80s radio included on it)

MorphOS won't go extint because MorphOS coders don't make MorphOS to become rich, they do it because they love it (probably just like Friedens love os4).

In contrast Ben Hermans is only interested in the money and not in the OS or users.

I know several people buying cheap eMacs/MacMinis to run MorphOS but I don't know many people who plans to invest 1800Euros in 5year old technology at prices from 5 years ago.

[AltRN8]

Here's why I think the old mac hardware route is a cool way to go. I have countless macs which I all got for free. All sorts of G3, G4 and G5 hardware. Why did I get them free? Because the market value for them dropped and people couldn't be bothered selling them.

I purchased a Morphos license a few days ago. My entry cost was just the license. With out a doubt people will be able to get cheap or free mac hardware. This makes Morphos an interesting options for someone interested in what it does.

To run OS4 I would need to drop an enormous amount of money. Do I still want to? Sure! Will I be able to justify that purchase any time soon? Probably not.

I'm happy playing with Morphos now. This strategy creates an affordable path for folks who want to use Morphos. What could possibly be wrong with that?

[EDanaII]

The Mac Mini decision is a good _short term_ strategy. Long term, it's a dead end. Using it MorphOS can grow a user base -- whereas the X1000 will probably go nowhere -- and if MorphOS is wise, they'll use the larger user base to move into newer hardware when they're ready.

Of course, as a strategy, I doubt it will beat AROS, since AROS gets users more powerful, less expensive hardware that will grow with the future. MorphOS' strategy will last only as long as the Mac Minis last.

My two cents.

[Piru]

MorphOS' strategy will last only as long as the Mac Minis last.

Well not quite as we're not limiting ourselves to Mac mini. We already support eMac aswell, and we're looking at bringing support to some PowerMac G4s and PowerBook G4 next.

All these machines combined will cover any possible needs for HW for a very long time. As I've stated before we're well aware that it will not last forever, though, but until then we have very nice HW to play with.

[ferrellsl]

@itix

I agree.  I bought MorphOS to run on my PegII out of curiosity and because I believed the crap that "others" were spouting on here about how MorphOS would turn your system into a high performance machine.  Well, that was a load of crap and I expected more from an OS that cost me more than $200 USD.  And until Piru publishes some real sales numbers I'll continue to disbelieve him when he says the move to MacMini was a huge success.  He also tried to get me to believe that MorphOS wasn't a "business" venture.  That's the typical dodge when someone doesn't want to admit that their "business" isn't being successful.  I told him that I'd believe that MorphOS wasn't a business when they decided to stop charging for it.  I'd wager that fewer than 300 copies of MorphOS for the MacMini have been sold.

And this crazy belief that MorphOS will supercharge your 5 year old hardware is ridiculous.  Why do seemingly intelligent people continue to bring it up.  That's like believing that putting high test gasoline into a Model A Ford will turn it into something comparable to modern cars on the road today.

[Fab]

@itix

I bought MorphOS to run on my PegII out of curiosity and because I believed the crap that "others" were spouting on here about how MorphOS would turn your system into a high performance machine.  Well, that was a load of crap and I expected more from an OS that cost me more than $200 USD.  

So, what did you expect, and why were you so disappointed, exactly? Also, did you use amigaos before?

And until Piru publishes some real sales numbers I'll continue to disbelieve him when he says the move to MacMini was a huge success.  He also tried to get me to believe that MorphOS wasn't a "business" venture.  That's the typical dodge when someone doesn't want to admit that their "business" isn't being successful.  

If we compare the proportion of Mac sales to Peg1/Peg2/Efika sales, it's definitely not a failure. And this is indeed not a business for us, we all have a real job for that. But whether you believe it or not, we don't really care.

And this crazy belief that MorphOS will supercharge your 5 year old hardware is ridiculous.  Why do seemingly intelligent people continue to bring it up.  That's like believing that putting high test gasoline into a Model A Ford will turn it into something comparable to modern cars on the road today.

Well, try playing a 720p file on OSX or Linux on Mac mini, and you'll see the difference. Same for some emulators like UAE or MAME. MorphOS has much less overhead than OSX and Linux when it comes to graphics, and that shows well with the examples above.