MorphOS on Power Mac G5

[minator]

Yes. Well, the point with the PA6T was to be in Apple laptops AFAIK, so the goal was probably to not consume much more than a G4, while still offering performance above the G4's they were using at the time. It would never compete on Apples power desktop market though; it wouldn't replace the G5.

They were specifically designed to produce G5 performance levels.  If they upped they clock (which they said was quite possible) they probably would have replaced the G5.
As for comparisons with the G4? PA-Semi's power numbers were below the Core2Duo.

Since then, what once was "PA Semi" as well as its IP was assimilated into Apple along with its developers. Apple obviously "scrapped" the technology, used the engineering competence and patents to create their own ARM "A4" processor or whatever,

I doubt they had anything to do with the A4.  It takes years to design chips, It'll be another year or so before we see what PA-Semi have done inside Apple.
And then there's what Intrinisity will do...

and AFAIK, most of those old PA Semi developers even left Apple since then...

Erm, a small number (6) of the senior people left.

[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.

[Iggy]

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).

[Crom00]

Morphos is quite robust. The only offerings that can run Amiga os4 are expensive hobbyist specialty machines. Love the idea of taking readily available mass market machines repurposed as Amiga compatibles.

At this point Hyperion should consider porting AmigaOS to mac PowerPC and start on an intel version.

[haywirepc]

http://cgi.ebay.com/Apple-G5-4x2-5GHz-Power-PC-clean-/120599619279?cmd=ViewItem&pt=Apple_Desktops&hash=item1c144c26cf
 
Current bid? 269$ As I write this...
 
This blows the doors off any X1000, and its one tenth of the price I expect x1000 to be. Of course, yes I know that morph or amiga os can only support one cpu currently, but they better start thinking about smp.
I see machines like this go on ebay for 300 bucks alot. People just don't want non-intel macs right now because all the new software no longer supports non intel mac.
 
On the subject of smp...
There will very soon be desktops for power users with 8 and 16 cores.
Its really time for every amigoid os to make smp a reality. Its the future,
and why would I want to use a computer with one core when I can use one with 16, and soon... 32 cores?
 
People saying there is no software that requires that much power are just sour graping multi-cpu's or hella power computers. I can do things on my quad core pc I could never do on my aros box.
 
The more power, the better I say. Cpu power IS creative power.
In the right hands of course.
 
Steven

[redrumloa]

http://cgi.ebay.com/Apple-G5-4x2-5GHz-Power-PC-clean-/120599619279?cmd=ViewItem&pt=Apple_Desktops&hash=item1c144c26cf
 
Current bid? 269$ As I write this...

Right, if I went bottom fishing I could probably get one for $300-$400 maxed out.
 
Speaking of MorphOS and Mac, I really gotta get off my butt repair and chop the head off this eMac....

[haywirepc]

what are you doing taking it apart and recasing it?

I was thinking about doing that myself, but I think I'll just leave it as it.

Put a boingball or better yet MorphOS butterfly sticker over the apple logo and your all set...

Steven

[takemehomegrandma]

I know I'm OT here so please forgive me but, I have several G4 Macs, all running Mac OS X Snow leopard and not one of them can play 720p - not even close, it's like watching a slideshow.

On the Mac forums I frequent I was told that the G4, even at 1.5Ghz or 1.67Ghz just isn't fast enough to decode a 720p x264 stream in real-time.  If that is the case, how can MorphOS play back the same stream on the same hardware?

Well it can! Under MorphOS!

I guess it's the power of a low overhead OS and smart use of available resources...

[takemehomegrandma]

My point is very simple. I asked "what amiga stuff does anybody do that requires G5 levels of performance that they can't already do perfectly well on a G4?"

You answered "play back HD content"...

It was just the first thing I could think of. Having power is *not* a bad thing. An Efika can be used for lots of things, but a 1.42GHz Mac is a lot more fun. BTW, ask Fab what computer he compiles OWB on, and why...

[takemehomegrandma]

Its really time for every amigoid os to make smp a reality. Its the future

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.

[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:

[jj]

Well it can! Under MorphOS!
 
I guess it's the power of a low overhead OS and smart use of available resources...

 
Can it.  Cool will have to give that a whirl on MorphOS.  through Mplayer ?

[takemehomegrandma]

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!

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

[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.

[jj]

gussing he meant leopard