Not beein a developer myself, I try to comment on that paragraph:
Quote:
Also there's much FUD regarding MOS current situation, without starting a flamefest, can someone summarize things for me? I am new here and I'd like to see the big picture...
I do that afair, so some dates might be incorrect.
In 1999/2000 MorphOS Development was introduced to the public. There where earlier Plans to make an Amigalike PPC Native OS, but for various reasons they never happend. Showing MorphOS to the public was imho also a result of Amiga Incs Plans to completly drop plans for a new Amiga OS Version, but going AmigaDE instead. (It was introduced as the "new" Amiga OS, but several People didn`t like the way it should have been done, and also many doubt it can be done with DE which was basicly just a third party product with small extensions)
The Version 0.4 which was available for the public was the first native Amiga PPC OS. Although it lacked of course many things and even required a basic Amiga OS 3.1 Installation, it allready had an 68k Emulator, native GFX through Cybergraphx native Gui Toolkit (MUI) and so on.
Unfortunatelly in Amiga World, we had earlier "Camp Wars" so it was foreseeable that this development, which could have resulted in a great opportunity for all Amigians out there if only had all involved worked together, was torpeded later on. Some people called it the "laire OS" (the nick of the main developer Ralph Schmidt) and assumed it can only be full of bugs and not very amigalike.
At Amiga Inc it become clear at one point, that DE will never be a full Operating System and one has to assume they get somewhat worried about the plans of a native Amiga OS reicarnation. There where some talks behind the scenes on which I won`t comment, however in 2001 or so (remember, I am to lazy to search the exact dates, so forgive me if I mixed them) the Zico specs where introduced and somewhat later a german based company Haage und Partner should have done a native Amiga OS 4.0 Version. Imho (and just imho!) this was done to bring people in a wait mode (better get the real thing instead of a clone), it became clear later on, that actually not a single code was written for a so called native Amiga OS 4.0 In the same year, 2001 the Pegasos runnig a more advanced Version (0.8 iirc) was shown to the public on Cologne Amiga fair. I was there myself and the bplan showcase (the company which created the pegasos) was *very* crowded, people where amazed about the speed of the native running Amiga OS. At the End of 2001 Thendic France, lead by Bill Buck and Rachel Velasco stepped in and started to finance the Pegasos/MorphOS Project.
In 2002 Eyetech introduced the "new" AmigaOne, after their earlier plans for an addon card for the A1200 line failed misserably. This time they licensed a desing from Mai, those company which made the Articia PPC Northbrdge.
However, this Northbridge which also was used in the first generation of Pegasos` had some flaws resulting in data corruption etc. Those flaws where also the reason why the Pegs still wheren`t available, bplan hoped to fix those issues in corporation with Mai. However, Eyetech desided to bring out the AmigaONE SE, just running Linux, no Amiga OS. However, OS 4.0 development was now taken by Hyperion, a company which was formed to bring Ports of famous games using the Amiga PPC accelerator Cards.
Whith Hyperion taking the Development, mud throwing toward MorphOS got a new level, the "stolen sourcecode myth" appeared and much worser things. Some people on "the other side" will tell you that MorphOS devs started that, because they kept telling there will be no OS 4.0 on Amiga one. Well, thats somewhat true, what those people don`t say is that this statements where made on the plans earlier made, namely H&P creating the OS, Escena/Eytech creating the A1200 based Amiga One. We all know today, that this indeed never happend, but Amiga kept people telling it`s "on shedule and rocking"
A "betatester" Program was started for people wanting the first (mainly devs) having a new PPC motherboard (the Pegasos) together with a native Amigaalike OS (MorphOS)
But there where still those Articia Issues...
In around September or so, Allan Redhouse the one who runs Eyetech, made some statements about the Articia on the Pegs. (I guess he knew though, that a fix was allready worked on)
The problems with the Articia where admitted later on, and in December 2002, when Pegasos and MorphOS 1.0 where officially introduced to the Public, also the April Fix for the faulty Articia was introduced. (on the same fair where also few Amiga Ones running still Linux shown, Hyperion and Amiga Inc told they can not attend to this fair, because they have hands full with their plans launching the new Amiga + OS 4 on Cebit in 2003 and where busy for making some Boxdesign for OS 4. Well, you might have noticed, neither Amiga, nor Hyperion went to Cebit though...)However, things still didn`t run as expected with this April Fix, so later on April 2 was build, and as it was with April 1, boards where replaced for free.
That fix brought the Peg into a usable state, However in 2003 it became clear that Mai was not able to deliver working Northbridge chips and so they decided to abandon then Peg 1 design and go to Peg 2 with a marvell chipset instead. Up to now, things where actually very bright for MorphOS and the Pegasos, because of the financial support, we had a short frequence of Updates of MorphOS.
However the Amiga curse hit Thendic and many bad things happend. Developers did not get paid, Thendic itself went bancrupt. However a new company, Genesi, was formed to continue marketing of the Pegasos. MorphOS was still part of that strategy. Unfortunatelly due the non payment, MorphOS development came to an halt, the last official release was in 2003, MorphOS 1.4. In 2004 one of the former core developer made the infamous morphos.net homepage (some people considered that as "hijacking" of the former official MorphOS site)
There where many trouble going behind the scenes, and many people considered that step the final kill for MorphOS itself, also some interested major companies didn`t like that and dropped their interest (In an IRC log Virgin was named for example)
2004 was also the year when the first OS 4.0 release finally made it on the Amiga one, before it "just" run on the PPC equipped Amigas. As a sidenote, those cards where made by Phase5, the same guys who later on formed Bplan and made the Pegasos.
To sume it up, it is now end of 2005, and even if it was stated otherwise on the morphos.net homepage, some updates for MorphOS happend, bringing for example 3D to the radeon gfx cards (Voodoo support was allready available earlier) However, some people consider this still not that great, as those where "just" updates for the 1.4 line of MorphOS. However on 1.5 is still beeing worked on, some screenshots made it to the net, some features where mentioned as well.
Yeah, we had our hard times in MorphOS land ( but so has OS 4.0, they have currently no available hardware, but some plans..)but things seems to be brighter again. Personally I even think Version 1.5 will happend in the near future (but note this is just a personal opinion based on some news made lately).
Unfortunatelly the Core devs keep very silent and most time just present their work "when it`s done" ;)
Some consider that behaviour as good, given the past and all those neverfullfilled anouncements, some are very impatient and think that there will be no new Version. And some people still keep telling everyone who ask, that MorphOS is dead as a dodo. (Which has been proven wrong)
I can`t speak for the nowadays OS 4.0 development, however, both OSes are Amigaalike, imho they main difference is, one has the name, one has not. There are some minor advantages and disadvantages on both Incarnations, MorphOS public has better 3D, USB and Printer support, OS 4.0 has an integrated TCP stack where MOS 1.4 still relies on 3rd Party stuff (which works well, so don`t fear ;) )
Hardwarewise the situation for MorphOS is somewhat better, the Pegasos is available and has itself established as a nice alternative PPC Board. AmigaOnes otoh are currently not available and it is questionable if they will be again. Also, Pegasos is indeed much cheaper and doesn`t have Articia which is still considerd faulty (depends on whom you ask, some will tell you missing cache coherency is a feature)
Ok, thats it, as I allready said it`s mainly based from what I remember, some timeframes might be wrong though.
