@Raf_MegaByte

If the team doesn't have any interest in porting it to SAM, why would they do it for free (no, a couple additional sales doesn't matter)? Besides, what you call a ridiculous price is probably comparable to what Genesi was asked for the efika port. It didn't seem so ridiculous to Genesi it seems. So I wonder if Acube were really serious about their request. Greed from Acube, probably.

And I still wonder why ACube should get a part of the OS price too. Don't they already have their slice of cake when selling the board? As I see it, and considering MorphOS team targets cheaper and better specced hardware, it would already be a favor from MorphOS team to port MorphOS to SAM, and they should still give more money to Acube? Looks Acube are greedy, once again.

There, some feedback for your rant. :)

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So a Mac Mini and Powerbook instead of Sam is stupid...



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The Mac Mini does have pretty much everything a normal user will need, and it comes at *a fraction* of the cost of a Sam. And the Sam may have a spare PCI slot, but AFAIK all controllers, *including graphics*(!) (and also including that single PCI slot) sits on the same PCI bus/bandwidth.

The Sam can't compare to Mac Mini by far, not in any way of measure if you look at the whole picture, they are not even in the same league.

Even a Pegasos G3 @ 600MHz is probably faster than a Sam, and has better expansion options and can be purchased second hand really cheap in comparison. The Pegasos2 G4 runs circles around the Sam, and the Mac Mini is said to be close to 2x as fast as the Pegasos in certain areas. Do the math! For heavens sake, the Sam is an *Efika class* CPU, sold at a workstation price tag!

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AFAIK, apple still gives support to G4's, and I'm sure local service shops can repair the stuff even after Apple quits. The Mac Mini is a mass produced, well known hardware. Unlike the obscure Sam. Which is now *to be replaced* by the "Sam Flex" AFAIK (meaning its life cycle in practice is already over), so I think your point is moot. Everything stops at some point, and I'd dare to call the support from a tiny newcomer a lot more uncertain than Apple.

Heck, buy a Mac Mini, and if it crash and burns - throw it in the trasch bin and buy a second one, and you would still have got away cheaper than buying a Sam.

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You may think what you want about MorphOS team's licensing conditions and business sense, and I'm not going to argue to you about that. But AFAIK they asked for about the same deal and condition as the Efika port, or did I misunderstand that?

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Not really.

I'm sure the Sam rocked the world over in OS4 land, but that's simply because all they have had previously was crappy Articia hardware or ancient vintage Amigas. *Whatever* hardware would shine in comparison to that! But to everyone else but OS4 nerds, the Sam has absolutely nothing to offer, especially not at that price. MorphOS users has/will have so much better options.

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The only ones buying the Sam (how many? 100 people? 200?) are the ones prepared to pay just about anything in order to get a copy of *OS4* running, and they aren't exactly MorphOS customers. Mac Mini offers so much more for so much less money. Doing a MorphOS port for for the Sam wouldn't be worthwhile, and focusing on that instead of Mac Mini would be insane.

@takemehomegrandma
I 100% agrre with you.
MorphOS team made the right choice.
Not to mention that we could use also OSX in dual boot with MorphOS and that's really not so bad for a sistem n* times faster than a Sam at a price of about 350Euros!

Ciao

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Mac Mini has everything a normal user will need so does the Sam.

The magic spell is USB 2.0 and both platforms support it...

With USB 2.0 you can connect any modern device and with a reasonable transfer data amount.

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Nice try...


If you were honest you had pointed the fact that the lifecycle of MacMini, Pegasos and Pegasos II, and Efika I are already over...

There were plenty of official pages stated that sellings of Efika 1 are over...

Not to mention that Apple could decided to cease the support for MacMinis G4 in any moment, and support just the Dual Core model in order to force its users to jump to new Intel processors...

While batches of obscure Samanthas are already shipping...

And its repairing service it is made by loyal serious Amiga firm who already demonstrated they supported its users (Amiga users)...

Again the Sam Flex is yet to come... Sam440 EP is still shipping (they announced another batch of mainboards just one week ago [see news on the main page of Amigaworld.net])...

In the meantime, where are Efika II and Pegasos III based on PPC 8610 that were promised 2 years ago?

We still are waiting for it...

And remember:

The problem of Amiga and Amiga Like platforms is THE LACK OF MONEY...

Without money you cannot develop further platforms...

And I doubt that ACube neither Genesi have enough money to be competitive on nowadays markets...

If there will be no investor in Amiga or in MorphOS, then I seriously doubt our platforms will survive this 2008/2009 global crisis...

Remember people do not spit on Samantha...

It is being sold mainly to AmigaOS core users and I saw on on pages of Amigaworld a good number of developers to purchase it...

(almost 6 or 7 developers active in AmigaOS camp)

Do you spot the fact that until the end of 2006 and middle of 2007 there were released more programs for MorphOS than on AmigaOS while in the last year the releases are more in AmigaOS 4.0 camp?

With MorphOS running on Samantha, these developers could had purchased also MorphOS together with AOS 4.1 and we had had extended the userbase to more Amiga developers...

The more, the merrier...

This fact will had increased notheworthy the number of software available for MorphOS and when MorphOS for MacMini will had been released, then the new users had had found more programs, and more appealing software available for MorphOS, and then more more reasons to purchase it...

MorphOS need any good developer to be competitive... even just a single good programmer/coder who will start portings of new software...

And you will not find good Amiga programmers from former MacMini users, but just people who already knows what was Amiga, and some very very curious people who want to check what MorphOS could offer to them.

To renew the Amiga we need young motivated people who will became capable to learn what is the spirit of Amiga and learn how to program Amiga and MorphOS software.

And regarding userbase, you said that you doubt that Samantha sold more than 100 or 200 machines...

Well remember that if only if 100 or 150 people had choosen Samantha with MorphOS instead than AOS 4.1 we had had increased userbase of just 100 or 150 people, and yes... they were a few, but sure we had had increased the userbase, and it had been increased with people that know the Amiga and apprecciate it and its features.

No MorphOS available for Samantha? No any new user... Bye bye money, and bye bye ready cash to develop further MorphOS releases (for MacMinis or any other platform)...

And even the EXPENSIVE price of MorphOS could had dropped of 3 or 5 euro, or it could had dropped even more if the userbase had increased more than 150 new users...

Now the choice of MOSTeam is to sell MorphOS available for MacMinis, and it is sure a choice of selling for el-cheapo USED HARDWARE, no matter for the price...

Hope the best lucky chance for them.

It could be a right choice but it is always AGAIN aimed at Amiga users and former Amiga users...

People using MacMinis with MacOS could choose MorphOS only if MorphOS will offer the same things that MacOS offers nowadays or even more features.

And I strongly doubt that it could offer more...

Finally remember that G4 MacMinis are all USED hardware and you have no warranty in what conditions you purchased any item...

I purchased my Pegasos II G3 usd item, and in these days I discovered that it seems the former owner jammed internally the serial port in some ways...

Gonna make some tests to be sure about it...

I hope that those who will purchase second hand Mac Minis will have better lucky...

[ Edited by Raf_MegaByte on 2008/12/18 6:38 ]

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I remember the times when the same was said about EyeTech and A1 boards...

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You know, that's a really good point.

That's exactly the reason, why we should concentrate on compatible mass produced hardware, that was "developed for free" (from our point of view), namely Mac Mini and even more importantly, Apple laptops.

I really wonder how much the end product would cost, if ACube developed a custom laptop...

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I don't think that porting an OS to obscure platform to get max. 6-7 new developers would be worth it... Probably would be cheaper to buy all of them Mac Minis


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And how many of the new users would rather pick Sam440 instead of Mac Mini, if they had a choice?

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Porting MorphOS to Sam440? Bye bye money. I doubt that purchases of MorphOS for Sam440 would EVER be close to the porting cost.

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If I have a choice of buying an expensive slow hardware, or way faster second hand hardware (2 units just in case, for the price of one Sam440), I'd sure pick the second choice, and so would many others.

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Well obviously those aren't the target audience...

On the other hand, an owner of Mac Mini PPC (who is using MacOS X) would be even less likely to buy a Sam440 just to try MorphOS, so what exactly was your point anyway?

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And what guarantees that Sam440 won't have same kind of "warranty" as A1's have now?

Also remember that you could also get a "backup unit" for the price of Sam440.

@Raf_MegaByte:

You crack me up little buddy! (Sam & Max rules)

..what a load of nonsense just to try to rationalize to yourself that we are the bad guys simply for seeing what you obviously are unable to; that there is no viable market for hardware like the Efika or Sam (the Mac Mini however exists in vast quantities and quite cheaply), thus we need an additional incentive to support the hardware (since to be fair, MorphOS could be a major selling-point for such specifically marketed hardware). Genesi obviously agreed and that's why the Efika is supported (it would never have been otherwise as we simply can't afford to waste development- and support-time on something that might not return the investment), if ACube doesn't that really isn't our problem...


- CISC

Wow, what a lot of deluded crap!

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But I did, I never claimed otherwise, I said that *everything* stops at some point, even the Sam that supposedly is going to be replaced by the Sam Flex now. But that the production ended doesn't render the hardware useless, not at all. A Pegasos or Mac Mini is so much more useful than a Sam. And nobody can complain on Genesi's/bPlan's ability and willingness to help a Pegasos owner in need. It's still there. And Mac Mini is also still supported AFAIK, and when the support stops, you will probably still be able to have it repaired at your local service depot; it's mass produced and standard hardware. Even if you can't have it repaired after several years from now, you could simply buy another one and you would still have paid less money for this powerful hardware than the cost of an Efika class Sam.

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Yes it has been said that the Efika will not be produced anymore. However, it's still supported and it's still available to anyone interested. You can still buy it. And if there should be a sudden demand for Efika's there is nothing that prevents Genesi from going over to the plant and make a new batch. But why should they, the Efika is still in stock, and new and better things are coming.

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"Still shipping"? Well I don't know about that, there seems to be some problems there...

LINK

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"Efika II" is the LimePC. It didn't play out the way they hoped. The 8610 is a new processor and AFAIK they are working on a design using this right now.

MorphOS will support Mac Mini in the mean time.

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The key is partnerships. And MorphOS will support Mac Mini in the mean time.

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My god, are you blending the financial crisis into the discussion now as well? That won't affect MorphOS in any way, as things are now...

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It doesn't matter if people are spitting on the Sam or not; it's pointless hardware, it can't compete with anything, especially not a Mac Mini G4.

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Wow, 6 or 7 developers! Let's drop everything then, let's drop all efforts on porting MorphOS to Mac Mini, since *surely* not as many as 6 or 7 developers would prefer an Altivec enabled 1.5GHz G4 when you could compile your large projects on an Efika class CPU that makes you take out a second mortage on your house in order to afford it? Wow!

Those buying the Sam now are doing so because it is the only way for them to run OS4, and they want to run OS4 no matter the cost.

Amiga developers interested in MorphOS could easily buy a Pegasos2 today, like "SpotUP" recently did (LINK), or they could wait for the Mac Mini version that will run circles around everything we have previously seen on the Amiga market.

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I'm not going to get into a discussion about facts, sources for that kind of information, or the quality of the software released (merely unix ports, or *real, developed* software), because that has nothing to do with this issue at hand.

Developers prefer powerful machines.
Everyone prefers low price tags.

Enough said.

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Nothing is preventing anyone from getting involved with MorphOS. The reason to why these 6 or 7 developers hasn't, is because they aren't interested. They prefer a workstation priced Efika class hardware before a Pegasos 2 at a fraction of the cost. The reason is that it is OS4 they are interested in, not MorphOS, and the Sam is *the only option* for them (they aren't buying it because it's "good bang for the buck" - it has *crappy* bang/buck ratio).

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When resources are limited you have to make priorities. You can't focus on everything, that goes against the very definition of "focus"; you select one, and you put 100% of the efforts there.

Shifting focus from Mac Mini (which is what very many users and developers wants) to the Sam (which nobody wants) would be nothing but insane.

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The Mac Mini will possibly have that effect. The laptops will possibly have that effect. But nobody would buy Sam for MorphOS.

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Of course not, the good Amiga programmers will buy the Mac Mini second hand and install MorphOS on it.

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But nobody will buy the Sam for MorphOS, not when there are so much better alternatives, like a Pegasos 2 or a Mac Mini. OS4 fans buys the Sam, not because it's good bang for the buck, but because it's the only alternative for them.

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Nobody will buy a MorphOS/Sam combo, when you could have a 1.5GHz Altivec enabled G4 at the fraction of the cost.

Mac Mini - Hello new users, hello money.
Sam - Means no Mac Mini, no new users, bye bye money.

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The Mac Mini is cheap, yes (and and the point is that this is a *good* thing, *not* a bad thing), but it's *not* "el cheapo" as in low quality. Apple makes good hardware! The quality of Mac Mini is certainly better established than the Sam!

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The point isn't to try to convert Mac users into MorphOS users, the point is to provide the fastest yet cheapest option for *Amiga* users to get MorphOS running in a way that has *never* been seen in the Amiga world.

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There simply isn't any readily available hardware that is faster than the 1.5GHz 7447A. This is as fast as it gets. Certainly the Sam can't offer more...

Only good thing about SAM port would be that stubborn OS4 users could have the opportunity to see that the grass is greener on the other side of the fence ;)

Hi,

if my Pegasos II died and MorphOS is available on Mac mini, i will buy a second hand mac mini.
If MorphOS is only available on SAM, i will NOT buy a SAM to replace my Pegasos II (too slow, too high price, no expansion possibility...).


I just want to add if there is a morphos promotion for christmas, i will buy a 2nd license for my Pegasos I. If not, i just keep my Pegasos I with MorphOS 1.4.5 in my cave in case of my Pegasos II died.

[ Edited by Get27 on 2008/12/18 15:24 ]

Ok, ok...

You got me convinced...

Mac Minis are better and cheaper, the others are bad guys, you are the good guys, the other hardware has no horsepower and it is not sold in interesting quantities...

But do not count me in...

If my Pegasos is broken I could buy a replacement one, but not an Efika, not a Sam and not a Mac Mini.

If there is Apple logo on it I will not purchase anything from that jackals, neither second hand hadware.

Give me good hardware, either PPC 8610 or other valuable G4 class (maybe dual core) either Samantha II or Pegasos III and I will collect money to buy it...

Call me fanboy, I do not care....

Macintoshoes just stink...

...But just as anything from Apple stinks.

[ Edited by Raf_MegaByte on 2008/12/18 19:24 ]

So finally the truth shows up: who cares if the technology rules or sucks because, in the end, it is only a matter of logo and sticker.

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No matter... Apple hardware it is really reliable and they assemble good peripherals to a full working machine...

A few hardware pieces from few manufacturers and all assembled well...

But I do not like the fact that Apple always jackalize technologies created by third party...

They started their first Apple by collecting dead motherboards in dust bin from all Silicon Valley...

They were "inspired" about mouse and icons by Xerox...

Also I saw documents saying that they are in the PPC consortium just because they were those who make Motorola and IBM enter in contact to develop the PPC...

They make nothing to develop it by themselves... they just seated and saw IBM and Motorola develop PPC for them...

They tried to stole Amiga userbase when Commodore closed...

They used more free BSD technology they could to develop MacOS X, or else they seemed they were uncapable to develop REAL multitasking modern OS.

They even loaded spyware on IPhone... How bad guys...

And I can continue with more and more misfits by Apple...

So I does not feel to support them, even second hand hardware....

[ Edited by Raf_MegaByte on 2008/12/18 20:33 ]

[ Edited by Raf_MegaByte on 2008/12/18 20:35 ]

@ Raffaele

You may save some poor captured by Apple soul and adopt his evil hardware and lead it to its best destination and a glory fate:
Hosting the blue butterfly.

With the little ammount of money you may give for the Mini the poor lost soul cannot affort a new peach computer but must replace it by some el cheapo Quad Core bla bla with a cAckord glory MS Vista sh?t.

Mission fulfilled: The ?bereveil hardware got a proper OS and the lost poor Souls got into the caring arms of MS.

I just spotted this memtest figures over at amigaworld.net (LINK). From top to bottom it shows the figures of Mac Mini 1.5GHz, Mac Mini 1.42GHz and Pegasos2 G4 1.0GHz.

It would be interesting to see how the Sam would compare? Could a kind Sam owner please post some numbers?

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Well...

At least give me some new cool aluminium case for MacMini without any Apple logo on it, and a stick saying:

"This computer is Powered by MorphOS!"

[ Edited by Raf_MegaByte on 2008/12/19 8:01 ]

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How when in Amiga world were we talking about brute force of processors and about dhrystones and how many megaflops or gigaflops thy can compute?

I believed our beloved Amiga-Like OSs were enough lightweight operating systems to even allow a little processors such as 400 MHz from Efika to give us enough horsepower to perform anyday computing...

But if you are talking the fact that 1 GHz processor is better than any 400 MHz processor, or any 600 MHz processors I will agree...

However it is a pity that in Amiga world we started reasoning of pure computing performances just as like in intel world...

It is a sign of the times and sure the bad example of Intel world (numbers, numbers, numbers, more brute force or else the OS will be not capable of running) just corrupted our way of reasoning...



When I see people in Amiga world saying things just as like:

"My brand new Efika III clocked at 850 MHZ it is better than your Pegasos X with G3 clocked at 600 MHz"

"My Samantha with Dualtivec at 950 MHz it is better than your Pegasos 2,5 G4 at 800 MHz with single Altivec"

(I just used fake computer names)

It is like a war between poor people when two bums loathing by saying:

"I have just one eye, one single arm but I got two legs and I can run better than you that are sticked with one single leg..."

Translated in Amigish language that means:

"I have no software, my OS is in beta, but I have a processor that runs twice as your!"

And the bums (both Amiga and Pegasos camps) fight without thinking that normal people (intel) have a body that will outperform any of their poor performances...

Remember that we are stuck on PPC world and there are no processors clocked with more than 1,5 GHz...

At least we could mount dual core G4 at 1.42 GHz but nothing more...

So we can't compete with bigg boss Dual Cores or Quad Cores clocked at 2,6 GHz...

And Intel I7 it is just at a glance...

Maybe if MorphOS or AmigaOS will achieve FULL Simmetrical Multiprocessing and full 64bit, we could mount dual core G5 at 2,5 GHz and so we could start again talking of Videoediting and 3D Modeling/Rendering, and only THEN we could starting talking seriously of performances and compete again with big boss Intel computers...

Until then either Amiga, MacMinis, Pegasos, Efika and Samantha are nothing than just "Mayfair Hobby Computers"

(Do you remember Myfair Lady Movie?)

[ Edited by Raf_MegaByte on 2008/12/19 8:50 ]

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Sure, but a 400MHz, not even the 1GHz Pegasos2 is enough for h264 playback, while a 1.5GHz Mac Mini actually has a chance of keeping up.

It is true that the OS itself and many of the applications runs happily on Efika and Sam and other low power hardware. This is why MorphOS would have fitted so nicely in the LimePC devices. But then there are other applications that can't get enough of CPU power. Heavy multimedia stuff (like advanced flash animations, compression intensive video codecs, etc), rendering stuff, compiling stuff, etc. Try compiling a complete Linux distro from scratch on a Sam. Then do the same on a Pegasos2 G4, and then on a Mac Mini 1.5GHz. The Sam is too limited in power to be a desktop computer. The Efika was never really intended as one (but a development/evaluation platform for future e300 mobileGT CPU's) and gets away with it because of the low price. But if you pay the price of a workstation you could at least demand to get decent muscle power.

This "the Amiga has never been about high power CPU's" is just as stupid as "the Amiga has never been a cheap hobby".

@ Rafaele

Well, I like my 400MHz Efika and I like my G3 Pegasos, and if I had one, I am pretty sure I would like my Sam, too. But I don't like to wait. For example my el cheapo Samsung S85 Digicam has 8 MP, files are about 2.2 MB in size at low compression. The time to load, decrypt and show a 8 MP picture on showgirls an the Efika is not e real pleasure (IIRC it takes something in the range of 5s (dunno, don't have thatlarge pics on the Efika anymore). To do a batch convert of many 8 MP pics on a device like the Efika it takes quite some time. I'd say even my Peg is on the edge of its capabilities with 8 MP pics, the Sam would be on that edge, too.
Therefore some raw power is very handy. Showgirls is a nice app, but it requires cpu power to be really convenient (do realtime fx on 8 MP pics with the Efika - nah, better not). I just accquired a 1.5 GHz Mac Mini some days ago. CPU power is a matter. the OS itself may nice enough on a 400 MHz device like the Efika, but I do more with the computer than just be happy to move windows and have nice fast transpareny fx. The entire system must be fast; a good OS produces low overhead and keeps staying in background, but it can't multiply teh cpu performance: it is good when it doesn't disturb the cpu and keeps it for the apps while offering a convenient usage experience. And that is true for MorphOS and that is one of the reasons why I like it most.

I often compare my Efika with my Eee. The OS (Xandros) on the Eee is much more sluggish than MorphOS on the Efika, but as soon as you do something cpu intensive the Efika is slow and the Eee wins the race (surprisingly not always: playing youtube vids wokrs better on teh Efika and is not always fine on the Eee).
I like both devices, but the Efika is really low end; it demonstrates that cpu power *does matter*. It is fine for simple things (mail, editor simple web browsing, listen to music, serving files, watching low res pics/vids) and stuff like that - but that's it. It is not suited a main maschine (and it is not intended to be such).
The Sam is of course faster than the Efika, but there are not worlds between those both devices, while there are between Efika/Sam and a 1.5GHZ G4. For serious desktop usage you need a strong cpu.

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Well, I think that we do not need so much CPU power to load HUGE images...

We need more and more RAM and plus we need VIRTUAL MEMORY...

I partecipated about a recent discussion on which we talk about loading on Amiga HUUUGE images from NASA as test for check capabilities of modern Amigas (must find again the link)... No AmigaONE, no Samantha and no Pegasos were capable to load it...

And if I remeber well, only ImageFX with its internal virtual memory feature activated (on any Amiga plaform) could do the trick...

Using Showgirls and wih my Pegasos II equipped with only 512MB I was just able to see the preview thumbnail but showgirls could not show it..

Images were 36MB in Jpeg and 128/130 MB in TIFF...

[ Edited by Raf_MegaByte on 2008/12/20 19:01 ]

[ Edited by Raf_MegaByte on 2008/12/20 19:07 ]

Sure, we also needs lots of ram. But while today I rarely load huge gfx from the NASA I load everyday lots of 8 MP gfx - and in neither case I don't like to wait long for the pic to be loaded.
Therefore with my 1.5 GHz 1 GB Mac Mini I have the impression to have a system that lasts for the next 2-5 years. It seems to be a fine incremental update to my 600MHz G3 which is now more than 6 years old.

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As long as Nasa hug images were only loaded for TEST purposes, and my Pegasos + Showgirls could not show it because there is no VIRTUAL MEMORY device on Pegasos + MorphOS and NO PROGRAMS that are built to make use of Virtual Memory, then I think that your problem is due the fact that you load images from standard USB 1.1 port of Peggy that is many times slower than actual USB 2.0.

Try to buy USB 2.0 PCI expansion card supported by Peggy+MOS, and your 8MB images from your digital photocamera will load in nowhile...

@ Raf: He is talking about loading the Images from HD without Altivec even on Peg2 G4 it takes some seconds to load a huge 8Mpix Picture.

[ Edited by ThePlayer on 2008/12/22 11:23 ]

"loading the Images from HD without Altivec even on Peg2 G4 it takes some seconds to load a huge 8Mpix Picture."

It surely shouldn't take 'some seconds'. won't give exact numbers but shouldn't take more than 1-2 seconds. will check at home.

I was talking of my Efika and my Pegasos. I said it takes about 5 seconds on the Efika and about 2 seconds on the Pegasos. The 5 s on the Efika are really uncomfortable, the 2s on the Pegaso are okay but sometimes even those are annoying, that's what I meant why cpu power matters even on rather trivial every day purposes like browsing pics from the digicam and why I wouldn't proceed a medium clocked L2 cache less 440 core processor as desktop maschine.
What a long sentence!

Edit: my Pegasos = Pegasos 1, i.e. no G4 but the G3 600

[ Edited by Zylesea on 2008/12/22 20:15 ]