That's awesome news! More supported machines might give our community more users, especially that PowerMacs are very cheap.

MorphOS Team: I think it's time to update help section in your site :)

Besides AGP port there is no AGP interface in Pegasos. Latest PowerMac should be noticable faster than Pegasos (and cheaper! :) )

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Sure, inbuild would be nicer, but get an usb 2.0 card then. They are cheap and work nicely. Just as with the Pegasos.

Regarding AGP video, it would appear that AGPx4 cards in Radeon 9250 would be best bet according to Morph hardware compatibility list. While 9250 not specifically on that list, I use this card on my Efika without issues (although I believe Efika runs at slower speed). So I have to believe that this card running at true 4X in the new Mac would run faster. This would really increase the video performance gap between Morph and that other PPC OS alternative.

1.5GB Ram a great deal. So here is my next question, I am assuming that the new Mac machine needs to be populated with the full 2GB in order to get 1.5GB available to Morph. No big deal....

The more I think about Morph supporting this new Mac, the more I like it. It is probably the best solution since the Pegasus and a better one at that. I was never a lucky Peg owner. Got into the game too late.

I read through Krashons former posts regarding multiple cores. A very interesting read. So from what I gather, the 2nd core would essentially be unused unless someone writes an application that somehow does it. I understand that utilizing multi-core within Morph OS itself would be a large undertaking. This is all OK with me and not a limitation. I have a 400mhz Efika with limited hardware-terrible expandability and am looking to upgrade into a 1.42Ghz Mac with lots of features and good expandability. I could care less about multi-core support at this time.

I see mention of various 3rd party accelerators for these new Macs. All I can say is be careful that Morph sees them properly. In addition, say you had a 2*1.42Ghz machine and wanted to go to 2*1.8Ghz.... awefully pricey for a small gain and only in one usable CPU.

I surely look forward to a MorphOS release in this new hardware. This would almost seal the deal as far as my transformation from 68K.

I wasn't aware any USB cards were supported in Morph. If they are, then this is very encouraging indeed. I do happen to have a Mac PCI card sitting in a 7600 machine that has 4 usb2 high speed ports.

please advise on PCI USB card support in Morph.

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And being an Efika use myself can asure you one thing: You will be literally blown away by that overwhelming and unbelieveable speed. There is this kind of funny-nasty smile in my face since early October and it refuses to get less...

[/quote]
And being an Efika use myself can asure you one thing: You will be literally blown away by that overwhelming and unbelieveable speed. There is this kind of funny-nasty smile in my face since early October and it refuses to get less...
[/quote]

This is just about the best customer review I have heard in a very long time! especially the funny-nasty smile bit.

> it would appear that AGPx4 cards in Radeon 9250 would be best bet
> according to Morph hardware compatibility list.

Best performing and fully supported card at the moment is still Radeon 8500. Radeon 9100 (= 8500 LE) comes second.

> I am assuming that the new Mac machine needs to be populated with the full
> 2GB in order to get 1.5GB available to Morph.

Populating with 1.5 GiB would be sufficient if hardware supports such RAM configuration.

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Sure, I agree. However, being a Mac Mini 1.5GHz user myself, OWB can still sometimes be sluggish and of course flash support could also still need a speed boost.

Windows browsers (like IE9 and even FireFox) are moving to hardware accelerated rendering of web content. It would be nice if this was possible for OWB/Flash on MorphOS 2.4.

That being said, I don't think it's the fault of the MorphOS programmers, but rather the bloated and/or crap software that they have to work with or port.

MorphOS Team

MorphOS Team

Very exciting news! This should be a bigger boost to the community. My question is when will the Powerbook G4 support come in? I have 3 PPC laptops, a 500mhz Pismo, a 667mhz Titanium Powerbook g4 and my baby a 1.25 ghz powerbook g4 aluminum 15'. I'd love to run Morph on that. I've seen some posts with the OS running on this platform how far away is support for this? I really feel that this would really increase the sales of Morphos. There has always been a need in the Amiga community for an Amiga like laptop.

From a tech standpoint, what is the difference with getting support for the mobile ppc computers as opposed to power mac towers?

@magnetic

I already stated in many various threads what the laptop support needs extra compared to non-portables. To name a few: touchpad, power management, wireless. Anyway, there are currently no plans to support generations older than Aluminium PowerBooks starting from Rev-B. Older ones won't work due to unsupported / crap graphic cards. It might be a bit better for iBooks since all G4 models come with supported graphic cards.

jada
thanks for the response, i havent been following the forums that closely this year. Even Linux has trouble with full trackpad support on powerbook iirc

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I was unaware that these cards performed better and are better supported than 9200 series....

Another question, MAC hardware related. I see PCI slots in proposed Morph supported G4 machine. Cool. I get conflicting reports on what these slots really are though. I'm no hardware expert..... I guess I was wondering if my old Soundblaster Live! card would run inside a Mac. Would be nice because this is a very nice card w/ auxillary board, has correct EMU chip that Morph supports, etc... I believe my card is 32bit and 5V.

rodo
You cannot use pc cards in a mac its not a pegasos!

@magnetic

So what makes an SBLive a pc card?

> I was unaware that these cards performed better and are better
> supported than 9200 series....

I didn't claim they were better supported. In fact, they are equally well supported. It's just that they perform better.

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Got it!

In looking at various system board pictures of these G4 MDD Mac's, it looks like there is a dedicated AGP slot and then PCI slots. PCI slots sure look like 5V 64bit to me.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/46/PowerMac_G4_MDD_open.jpg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:PCI_Keying.png

Here is picture of SB Live! card that I have.... I already know this to be 32bit 5V card.

http://www.karbosguide.com/images/_976.jpg

So this card would definitely physically plug into a Mac G4 MDD PCI slot. It would also have correct 5V. It sure looks like it would work to me.
I know Soudblaster made a Live! version for Mac. I am unaware if there is an electronic difference between Mac and PC versions of this card. I'll keep researching this. It sure would be cool if it worked because this would seal the deal for me in regards to getting one of these machines to use MorphOS on. Any comments welcome here.









[ Edited by Rodomoc on 2009/12/2 8:22 ]

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Chances are it will work fine, only issue I could think of would be drivers for OSX, but who cares about that?

Deleted, due to other thread started with same question.

I read that only 1.5gb of an max. installed 2gb of RAM can be addressed by MorphOS, is this true? It yes, that surprises me as that has been one of the AmigaOS's strong points since the day it was first introduced, that it could address more RAM than was physically possible to install in any of the Amiga models.

Given the low memory usage of MorphOS, I don't see that the 1.5gb limitation to be a problem, but just found it surprising that MorphOS was not designed to take advantage of more from it's beginning, or is this only a problem with the implementation of MorphOS on Apple's PowerMac models?

[ Edited by amigadave on 2009/12/2 7:19 ]

@amigadave

I believe the RAM limitation is a result of MorphOS' duplication of the original Amiga OS api - warts and all as it were

[ Edited by Ruud on 2009/12/2 15:43 ]

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Exactly, so long as it works in Morph! I used this card a lot in PC running programs such as Cakewalk Sonar and even Kompleat. While not the greatest audio chip (EMU10K), it did run quite well for me and under extreme loading. Regarding the MorphOS drivers for this card, what portion of this soundcard's hardware is supported?

On another note, I need to come to grips with AHI. I obviously utilize it in MorhpOS2 and also in PC emulated 68K. What is it really doing in Morph? Is this just an API for non-Amiga hardware deal? Also looks like it has driver integration. In reading its documentation it seems decent enough if used natively inside programs using audio.

[ Edited by Rodomoc on 2009/12/2 10:30 ]

> that surprises me as that has been one of the AmigaOS's
> strong points since the day it was first introduced, that it
> could address more RAM than was physically possible to
> install in any of the Amiga models.

Yes, and "now" technology has advanced so far that the physically installable RAM exceeds the amount that is addressable by AmigaOS (and API clones) since the day it was first introduced. Not really surprising ;-)

> found it surprising that MorphOS was not designed
> to take advantage of more from it's beginning

Ruud is on spot here: More RAM addressability would have broken the AmigaOS API compatibility of the ABox.

> or is this only a problem with the implementation of MorphOS
> on Apple's PowerMac models?

No, that would lack any technical reason.

> What is it really doing in Morph? Is this just an
> API for non-Amiga hardware deal?

I don't quite understand. AHI is the audio API of MorphOS. Audio hardware needs an AHI driver for MorphOS to utilize that hardware. MorphOS itself comes with AHI drivers for Pegasos onboard sound, Efika onboard sound and Mac mini onboard sound.

Yep, I read through all AHI docs and understand this a lot better now.

thanks for the answers Andreas & Ruud. My memory of just how much RAM the original AmigaOS could address is a bit fuzzy, though I was pretty sure it was over 1gb and thought it might be 2gb.

I did not know for sure that increasing that original limit in MorphOS would break all compatibility with legacy Amiga software, so that is also an interesting bit of info.

I wonder if MorphOS will survive long enough to evolve past the original Amiga limitations, like the MacOS has, but still be able to run some of the older software, perhaps only via a version of UAE in the distant future.