Info for morphos outsiders
  • Just looking around
    Posts: 4 from 2004/1/19
    Hi All!

    I started this topic because I have loads of questions as an morphos but also amiga outsider and am considering getting a pegasos. I'm sure this thread can be of much use to other people not familiar with morphos too.

    Without much blabla I'm giving a short intro of myself. When I first used computers I was into MS-DOS. It was simple, lowlevel and easy. Now there's windows, and it's stable as hell but it doesn't have that ultimate feeling that you're in controll of your computer (at least, this occurs to me). I know the mess that makes up Windows, and they (Microsoft) top it off with a fisher price GUI. Another OS I use is Linux (Slackware and Gentoo being my favourites). Linux is nice but has it's quirks too.

    It must be clear. I am looking for an alternative platform, that is fun, non-bloated (Windows XP alone uses over a GB of diskspace!), functional, low-level, and has huge possibilities to develop for and therefore grow userwise and platformwise. It seems the pegasos/morphos combo is perfect :)

    Now, here are my questions I'm wondering about.

    I've tried winUaE [emulator] with Amiga in a Box and found it great! I've tried a couple of apps and games from aminet.
    Is there any deluxepaint (which I know from ms-dos ;-) or similar program that works on morphos? I've run personal paint on winuae and found it quiet nice. I like 8-bit oldskool pixeling and know the keyboard shortcuts of dp so that's why I'm asking :)

    I see there are alot of apps that could be usefull in the superbundle. Is this superbundle already included with current Pegasos sales?

    Developing. I suspect the gcc family of compilers comes with the SDK? If not, is a c/c++ compiler included? What about an assembler?

    How usefull is morphos a platform for coding (and learning ppc-)asm?

    I saw a cool fractal program (I think it was called zone or fractal explorer), do I have to buy AmigaOS 3 to use it?

    Does there exist a sample editor that runs on morphos? I saw digibooster soon comes with a morphos version, so I'm allready happy there's a tracker :)

    What videocard is best supported on morphos? Can I use generic memory dimms on the pegasos 2? (being puzzled by the whole memory/chip/blabla issue with the pegasos 1)

    Should I, as an non-ex-amiga user buy a G3 board (which is more friendly priced) or go straight with the G4 board? (I think reading somewhere the OS "feels" fast anyway)

    Well, that's about it (phew! :)
    If I've more questions I'll ask if you don't mind, you seem like a friendly bunch of fellows ;)
    I hope though you can answer some of my questions.

    Byebye!
  • »19.01.04 - 21:16
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  • Acolyte of the Butterfly
    Acolyte of the Butterfly
    downix
    Posts: 105 from 2003/2/10
    From: Lightning capi...
    Quote:


    LoTeK wrote:
    Hi All!

    I started this topic because I have loads of questions as an morphos but also amiga outsider and am considering getting a pegasos. I'm sure this thread can be of much use to other people not familiar with morphos too.
    ok, lat it on meQuote:



    Without much blabla I'm giving a short intro of myself. When I first used computers I was into MS-DOS. It was simple, lowlevel and easy. Now there's windows, and it's stable as hell but it doesn't have that ultimate feeling that you're in controll of your computer (at least, this occurs to me). I know the mess that makes up Windows, and they (Microsoft) top it off with a fisher price GUI. Another OS I use is Linux (Slackware and Gentoo being my favourites). Linux is nice but has it's quirks too.
    *nods*Quote:



    It must be clear. I am looking for an alternative platform, that is fun, non-bloated (Windows XP alone uses over a GB of diskspace!), functional, low-level, and has huge possibilities to develop for and therefore grow userwise and platformwise. It seems the pegasos/morphos combo is perfect :)

    thank you for the flatteryQuote:


    Now, here are my questions I'm wondering about.

    I've tried winUaE [emulator] with Amiga in a Box and found it great! I've tried a couple of apps and games from aminet.
    Is there any deluxepaint (which I know from ms-dos ;-) or similar program that works on morphos? I've run personal paint on winuae and found it quiet nice. I like 8-bit oldskool pixeling and know the keyboard shortcuts of dp so that's why I'm asking :)
    fxPaint and Personal Paint is on its wayQuote:



    I see there are alot of apps that could be usefull in the superbundle. Is this superbundle already included with current Pegasos sales?

    Yes, it is includedQuote:


    Developing. I suspect the gcc family of compilers comes with the SDK? If not, is a c/c++ compiler included? What about an assembler?
    Yes, GCCQuote:



    How usefull is morphos a platform for coding (and learning ppc-)asm?

    Pretty useful so I've foundQuote:


    I saw a cool fractal program (I think it was called zone or fractal explorer), do I have to buy AmigaOS 3 to use it?

    NoQuote:


    Does there exist a sample editor that runs on morphos? I saw digibooster soon comes with a morphos version, so I'm allready happy there's a tracker :)

    ProStationAudioQuote:


    What videocard is best supported on morphos? Can I use generic memory dimms on the pegasos 2? (being puzzled by the whole memory/chip/blabla issue with the pegasos 1)

    3Dfx or ATI Radeon. 3Dfx has 3D support while the Radeon's 3D support is still under developmentQuote:


    Should I, as an non-ex-amiga user buy a G3 board (which is more friendly priced) or go straight with the G4 board? (I think reading somewhere the OS "feels" fast anyway)
    I like my G3Quote:



    Well, that's about it (phew! :)
    If I've more questions I'll ask if you don't mind, you seem like a friendly bunch of fellows ;)
    I hope though you can answer some of my questions.

    Byebye!

    Hang around, we don't bite.
    Nate Downes
    Genesi SARL
  • »19.01.04 - 21:32
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  • Cocoon
    Cocoon
    porneL
    Posts: 49 from 2003/7/16
    hmm.. my answers are similar so I just say: he's telling truth :)
    this text is here to confuse you
  • »19.01.04 - 21:55
    Profile
  • Just looking around
    Posts: 4 from 2004/1/19
    Quote:

    fxPaint and Personal Paint is on its way


    Is pp native or emulated? Not that I care too much, if it runs it runs :)

    Quote:

    Pretty useful so I've found

    lol :) that was a bit strange question from me :)
    I meant, is the MUI gui toolkit also programmable with assembler?

    Quote:

    3Dfx or ATI Radeon. 3Dfx has 3D support while the Radeon's 3D support is still under development

    I'll think I go for the 3dfx then

    Hmm.. some things come to mind... does AHI support multiple audio (or midi?) devices at once, or devices with multiple in or outputs? (like 2x line-out)

    I suppose USB support is complete?

    Does morphos support fat32? otherwise I'll transfer my win c: data through other means (ftp, or something)

    Quote:

    Hang around, we don't bite.

    I know :) Sometimes there are asses running around forums scaring newbies ;-)

    By the way I hope this quoting things works for me, I'm not really familiar with posting to webbased boards

    Cheers!
  • »19.01.04 - 22:07
    Profile
  • MorphOS Developer
    itix
    Posts: 1520 from 2003/2/24
    From: Finland
    Quote:


    I meant, is the MUI gui toolkit also programmable with assembler?



    It is. I used to develop MUI GUIs in 68k assembler but today I prefer
    C for that matter. Using PPC asm is possible but maybe not comfortable
    (due to RISC nature of PPC asm source code tends to go more complex).

    But if you are brave enough PPC asm should not be problem I guess ;-)
    1 + 1 = 3 with very large values of 1
  • »19.01.04 - 22:38
    Profile
  • MorphOS Developer
    itix
    Posts: 1520 from 2003/2/24
    From: Finland
    Btw

    Quote:


    Should I, as an non-ex-amiga user buy a G3 board (which is more friendly priced) or go straight with the G4 board? (I think reading somewhere the OS "feels" fast anyway)



    G3 is fanless. I've Peg1 with G3, HD and PSU are almost silent. My gfx
    card doesnt have fan either. It is real advantage. G4 provides more
    raw power but that is with fan then.

    G3 @ 600MHz is more than enough but Altivec in G4 is interesting
    too... I would buy G3 version because it is silent.
    1 + 1 = 3 with very large values of 1
  • »19.01.04 - 22:53
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  • Order of the Butterfly
    Order of the Butterfly
    ChatDEau
    Posts: 248 from 2003/4/4
    From: MONTREAL, Quebec
    Quote:

    Is pp native or emulated? Not that I care too much, if it runs it runs :)


    I may be wrong, but it seems it's "on its way" to be native, in the meantime it may be running (personnally I tried just once and it crashed, but I didn't try much as I didn't really need it).

    Quote:

    I suppose USB support is complete?


    As of my experience with it yes! Poseidon (which is the MorphOS USB Stack) handles pretty much everything. The only issue is if you have a device that needs a specific driver, you may encounter some problems and you're better ask around before buying anything that is USB and verify what protocol it uses (like Digital Cameras, some are PTP and other simply uses standard FAT32 ... and PTP is not completely supported yet).

    Quote:

    Does morphos support fat32? otherwise I'll transfer my win c: data through other means (ftp, or something)


    Yes it does, not completely natively (correct me if I'm wrong), but you won't find an user-friendly way of mounting a HD, but it's not a problem to do it. In short, you need an handler (which is called fat95) and some knowledge about how to make a DOSDriver (many of us know how to do it, so when you're at that step, just ask!).

    Quote:

    By the way I hope this quoting things works for me, I'm not really familiar with posting to webbased boards


    Even newbies should be able to do that ;)

    Oh, and BTW, I only have a Pegasos I with a G3 @ 600 MHz, but if I were you, I'd get a Pegasos II with a G4 @ 1 GHz.

    Hope this helps!

    Sincerely,
    Fred
  • »19.01.04 - 22:59
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  • Yokemate of Keyboards
    Yokemate of Keyboards
    magnetic
    Posts: 2129 from 2003/3/1
    From: Los Angeles
    Hi!

    Welcome to the community. You will find it a fun and productive environment. You can find out alot of info reading the forums here and logging into the irc channel #morphos. Here is some answers:

    1. Zone Explorer is great on MOS and there are other fractacl programs

    2. For video card if you want 3d for games and euro demos get a Voodoo card. If you want fast 2d gfx and better picture quality get a Radeon 7500 or 9000 agp.

    3. with your purchase of a pegasos you get the Superbundle of software apps. Games, paint tools, Image Fx and Pro Station audio a pro audio package.

    4. For just getting into it the G3 version will be plenty fast for you. You wont believe it could go faster! Thats how fast the g3 is. But if you want to go all out go for the power...

    5. All USB peripherals i have tried work. Keyboards,mice, digi cams, etc..

    6. With the supported DVD Rom drives you can get Full Screen DVD playback in MOS!


    Have fun

    magnetic
    Pegasos 2 Rev 2B3 w/ Freescale 7447 "G4" @ 1ghz / 1gb Nanya Ram
    Quad Boot: MorphOS 2.7 | Amiga OS4.1 U4 | Ubuntu PPC GNU/Linux | OS X 10.4
  • »20.01.04 - 03:46
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  • Order of the Butterfly
    Order of the Butterfly
    marcik
    Posts: 268 from 2003/4/12
    From: Kielce/Krakow,...
    You can make using fat95 user firendly - after installing fat95, download MountDos, change tooltypes (device, unit, and select fat95), and it ready. It will mount all fat partitions on selected device.
  • »20.01.04 - 08:34
    Profile
  • Just looking around
    Posts: 4 from 2004/1/19
    Quote:

    I may be wrong, but it seems it's "on its way" to be native, in the meantime it may be running (personnally I tried just once and it crashed, but I didn't try much as I didn't really need it).


    Well I'm willing to wait for a while and use the gfx program in the superbundle in the meantime.

    Quote:

    As of my experience with it yes! Poseidon (which is the MorphOS USB Stack) handles pretty much everything. The only issue is if you have a device that needs a specific driver, you may encounter some problems and you're better ask around before buying anything that is USB and verify what protocol it uses (like Digital Cameras, some are PTP and other simply uses standard FAT32 ... and PTP is not completely supported yet).

    So, if I have for example my Midisport2x2 which probably isn't supported, is there documentation for the USB stack in the SDK to write my own driver? The other usb device I have is a Sandisk SDDR-09 smartmedia reader.

    Quote:

    Oh, and BTW, I only have a Pegasos I with a G3 @ 600 MHz, but if I were you, I'd get a Pegasos II with a G4 @ 1 GHz.

    Hmm fanless G3 looks nice too. I saw there's an upgrade possibility from Peg1 to Peg2G4; can I upgrade from a peg2 G3 to a G4 by buying an upgrade cpu card?
  • »20.01.04 - 11:13
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  • Order of the Butterfly
    Order of the Butterfly
    Posts: 278 from 2003/3/4
    For GFX:

    Native: FXPaint and ImageFX (light versions included in the superbundle).
    Emulated: TVPaint (Free)
  • »20.01.04 - 13:20
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  • Moderator
    Kronos
    Posts: 2323 from 2003/2/24
    @LoTeK
    The "smartmedia-reader" may be supported as mass-media, assuming
    the producer had some common sense that is.

    Don't know what a Midisport is, but Poseidon-SDK is included within the (free)
    MorphOS-SDK, but don't ask me how goog or bad that special part is (the
    autodoc is HUGE, so thats a good sign ;-) ).

    Further details on Poseidon Click Me

    Note, that the Pegasos is been delieverd with fully registered and PPC-native
    Poseidon, just to avoid confusion.
  • »20.01.04 - 13:44
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