Quote:

I would like to point out that 2.6 will also support the early MPC7400/10 configurations of PowerMac3,1 to 3,4 as of now. We successfully tested a PowerMac 3,3 with a default G4 400MHz setup this weekend which worked fine with a current 2.6 test release.
So even if you find one of those (probably cheap to buy) early G4 PMacs you should be able to run MorphOS out of the box on it .....
You still can get a accelerator card for it later on if you really need it .....

And to avoid the natural question now ... MorphOS 2.6 will be released when we consider it ready to be released ......

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Nice.

[ Edited by HammerD on 2010/9/27 17:50 ]

> We successfully tested a PowerMac 3,3 with a default G4 400MHz setup this
> weekend which worked fine with a current 2.6 test release.

That's nice to hear. One question though. http://www.geit.de/eng_geitmeeting24092010.html states:

"Even the old PowerMac with 400 Mhz and Rage128 graphics card makes a good impression of the usability."

Does MorphOS 2.6 really run on a Rage128? If yes: is it a new driver or rather some kind of backwards compatibility of the Radeon driver?

Rage128 compatibility via Radeon drivers isn't very likely. When introduced the Radeons were significantly different then the Rage128. As I had one of the few fairly high clocked Rage128 cards (with an ATI Theater chip on it), I was always fond of that series (nice video quality).
I've never gotten confirmation, but I've always suspected that the Radeon's design was influenced by the people and technology that was brought into ATI by the buy out of ArtX.

> I've always suspected that the Radeon's design was influenced by the people
> and technology that was brought into ATI by the buy out of ArtX.

The R100 was released in spring 2000 [1], i.e. between late March and late June. ArtX was purchased by ATI in February 2000 [2]. Very brief time frame.

Furthermore:

"ArtX paved the way for the development of ATI's R300 graphics processor (Radeon 9700) released in 2002 which formed the basis of ATI's consumer and professional products for three years afterward." [2]

"The Flipper team went on to have a major hand in development of the Radeon 9700." [3]

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radeon_R100#R100
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ArtX
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATI#Console_graphics_products

So it seems R100 and R200 were developed without ArtX technology's influence.

Yes, it runs on a Rage 128, and it's a new driver. Although without 3D support and without Enhanced Display, it's quite fast and usable, only with the little amount of vmem as a small drawback.

> Yes, it runs on a Rage 128, and it's a new driver.

Thanks.

Quote:

I've read those Wikipedia listings as well. And we all know that Wiki listing are not 100% accurate.
Considering the similarities between R200 and R300 architectures, I find the one statement questionable.

One thing is really clear, when ATI shifted from Rage to Radeon their designs changed radically. I was impressed by how much faster the R100 was then the fastest Rage128, but some features were missing and few other functions did not produce effects of the same quality.

If ArtX's only contribution was to the R300, then they still influenced ATI's most successful product design. DX9 and that particular family are still relevant today as the baseline for Vista and Win7 (for Aero functionality) only calls for a DX9 compatible card and this family can still produce relatively good frame rates.

Strangely enough, I still think I got better picture quality with the Rage 128. And their must be some ArtX people still at work at AMD since Ati's now getting the video console contracts ArtX used to get.

Sorry to shift course, but I have a question related to Powermac supported devices.

First, to forewarn any of you unfamiliar with my posts, I have a tendency to repeat/re-word questions till I get a complete answer (and this is one of those questions).

As many of you know I've got a Symbios Sym8952U SCSI controller installed in my Powermac running under Ubuntu. I already know that the Pegasos' Open Firmware allows booting from this controller.

I know it would not be possible to boot a Powermac from an 895. Further, I'm aware that not all the drivers that work on a Pegasos work flawlessly on the Powermac (although I do hope the Soundblaster driver problem will be solved before 2.6 is released). But what prevents the driver for SCSI cards from functioning once a Powermac is booted from an ATA drive?

This works under Ubuntu (quite possibly because the Pegasos is also supported under PPC Ubuntu). Why not under MorphOS?

Apart from a functioning driver, a special firmware is apparently also required to allow Power Macintosh computers to boot from a hard disk drive connected with a SCSI controller in one of the PCI slots. To allow a computer to boot an operating system from a device connected to a PCI card, this means, of course, that the card?s firmware must be loaded even before the operating system is being started. I think that among other companies Adaptec specialized in the production of bootable and non-bootable SCSI cards for Power Macs. Not all of Adaptec?s PCI SCSI cards let Macs boot from attached hard disk drives, for some of them were preferably used to connect scanners or similar devices!

AFAIK Adaptec sold SCSI cards for PCI slots in versions for Power Macintosh computers, whilst other revisions of the same cards could only be used in x86 systems, for there were differences in firmware revisions. Needless to say that those SCSI cards suitable for Macs were more expensive;)

I guess this is similar to the issues with different firmwares for graphics cards, with PC and Macintosh versions available.


Here you can find information concerning Adaptec SCSI cards in PowerMacs:

http://www.macintouch.com/bg3adaptec.html


Well, e.g. the Adaptec 2930 would now be an option to you regarding its "bootability". Yet, it seems that MorphOS does not offer a driver for it(?), for here is a comprehensive list of SCSI adapters supported by this operating system:

http://www.morphos-team.net/hardware.html



> But what prevents the driver for SCSI cards from functioning once a Powermac is booted from an ATA drive?

I could imagine that a PCI card?s firmware revision which is missing or not corresponding with a particular mainboard might prevent the driver for SCSI cards from functioning.


Please, let us know if you are successful with a particular SCSI card, booting MorphOS from it on a PowerMac.

That wasn't really my intention. I'm already using the Sym8952U in my Powermac under Ubuntu once its booted from a standard ATA133 drive connected to the on board controller.

Once the system is booted, the cards firmware is irrelevant. The SCSI LVD drive connected to the controller can be partitioned, formatted, and mounted for use under Ubuntu. It just can't be booted from (since the firmware is not Powermac compatible).

Again, the question is, why can't I do the same (as I can under Ubuntu) under MorphOS (once released) - boot from an ATA drive and use the SCSI drives as secondary storage?

[ Edited by Jim on 2010/9/29 1:35 ]

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Who said said you can't do that?

Thanks Golem,
I thought it might be a possibility, but everyone kept talking about the on board firmware (which really only seemed important to booting).
Since the controller is already installed, I'll know once 2.6 is released.

@Jim
probably these SCSI controllers (SYMBIOS) are not supported by default in the Open Firmware of Apple PowerMac, so no bootstrap of the KERNEL from the units connected, but when run the kernel (es. in a partition of the PATA HD), then you could use a SCSI unit as boot partition of MorphOS.
Is It correct MorphOS team ?

I just got my PowerMac Quiksilver 800 (dualcpu). I would be very interested in the fact what cpu upgrades will work and/or are tested. Sonnet 1Ghz, 1.4ghz, 1.6Ghz, 1.8Ghz , powerlogix 2ghz ...

@Oepabakkes

At Geit's party there was a Sonnet G4 (probably @1600 or @1800 single G4 CPU) working
http://www.geit.de/eng_geitmeeting24092010.html
http://www.geit.de/images/hm24092010/images/img_0950.jpg

I have one of this card (@1600), when relased MorphOS 2.6, sure I' ll tell you.

(Only G4 7448 models CPU G4 not supported at the moment ?)