Hi guys,

I'm now considering purchasing a Pegasos/MorphOS system and slowly trying to absorb all the information about the platform and what it is about, what main uses it has, what it can do, its future, etc, etc. At the end of my investigation into Peg/MOS I hope I find a system that is not commercial like PC/Win and Macs and not overhyped and full of "l33t" kiddies and hackers as on Linux community! And linux is also trying to emulate too much Windows today I think so it just _feels_ like a standard Windows setup.

I want a system which I can have _fun_ on and really fall in love with in the same way I fell in love with my Amiga. There was a different spirit and feel with Amiga which I have not found on any PC setup since. (not even with Linux installed) I still own my Amiga1200/060 with AmigaOS3.9 and when I turn this on I get a smile on my face and just love to use it But that system is very dated and limited. Of course it's a retro computer from over 15 years ago, so I do not expect much from it and I love it for what it is! But I'm tired of PCs, I work on one 8 hours a day as a "game artists" and when I return home I really do _not_ want to switch on another PC. It just feels like "work" to use PCs at home to me. I want a system that has spirit like my Amiga but also the power like a PC/mac.

Of course the _perfect_ answer for me would be a new AmigaONE setup with the "soon to be release" AmigaOS4 operating system!! God, what a dream! But where is the hardware to use this OS, who is making it?! What good is a OS with no hardware?? It just seems like a stupid situation. So I thought to get an old BPPC (Blizzard PPC 240mhz) as it is supposed to run AOS4 when released. But then I see the CRAZY prices on eBay for these 15 year old hardwares that could break at any day because of pure age, just look: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ih=008&item=180016913370&rd=1&sspagename=STRK%3AMEWA%3AIT&rd=1 , so that is not an option for the sane. So I email Elbox who have announce _years_ ago that they will release a thing called SharkPPC which is compatible with AOS4. But I have not heard anything about this for a long time, so it is probably vapourware. I even emailed Elbox twice to say are there still plans to make this card. I got no reply! So vapour for sure! I would _love_ to use AOS4 if it ever comes. But how!? Only people who will be able to use it are those who bought AmigaONE's and BPPC cards when they were available. No new users will be using it BECAUSE THERE IS NO HARDWARE FOR IT!

So am I right to move to Pegasos/MOS?? Will I get that same Amiga feeling with Peg/MOS? And are there good apps available like apps for surfing and communicating like IRC Clients/Webbrowser/Email, etc that can replace those on PC for "everyday" uses so that I NEVER have to turn my PC on again at home?? I hate my PC and I donot want to turn it on at home again, but I have to say XP at least is VERY stable, my Amiga is not!! Is MOS a stable system, or is the system weak with lots of crashes every second and bugs?

Also can anyone say generally what the situation with MOS/Peg is. Is the platform attracting morepeople? are there more activity in development or are things slowly dying off with Peg/MOS??

And last but most important to (at the moment). If I do decide to order a Pegasos from here: https://www.pegasosppc.com/special_odw.php?partner=morphos will I get it in good time? Or is there a shortage of hardware and a long wait like with the AmigaONE? It says something in small print about "first come first served", that does not sound very reassuring to me. Are Pegasos still being made and has anyone bought one recently???

So am I right to move to Pegasos/MOS??

As MorphZone is a site for MOS fans you may guess what answer you'll get. In my opinion MOS gives you the Amiga feeling, and much more, because MOS is much more than just AmigaOS clone. The best example is Ambient (MorphOS desktop), which is much more functional than Workbench. In general MorphOS may be considered as greatly extended and enchanced AmigaOS clone running on better and faster hardware like Pegasos is.

Will I get that same Amiga feeling with Peg/MOS?

Yes, but you should know that Amiga chipset is not emulated. So if you are oldschool game/scene demos fan, you may be a bit disappointed, as most old games and demos simply don't work because of AGA is not emulated. You have to use UAE in the case. System friendly applications however work like a dream, because MorphOS has very fast, transparent to user emulation of 680x0 processors (by "transparent to user" I mean you just doubleclick on icon and don't care if an application is PPC native or 68k). Most of Amiga applications work excellent, just a few (or teens) times faster...

apps for surfing and communicating like IRC Clients/Webbrowser/Email

Well, for web surfing you are sentenced to use IBrowse/AWeb/Voyager trio. There is KHTML port going, so we may expect the real browser in a half of year or so. Email - The old, good YAM still wipes out most of PC mail clients (well, Thunderbird is not that bad after all ), there is also SimpleMail to try. For IRC you can use AmIRC (especially if you have registered it on Amiga), there is also WookieChat (68k version works on MOS).

Is MOS a stable system, or is the system weak with lots of crashes every second and bugs?

MOS itself is very stable. It is a system with no memory protection however (just like AmigaOS), so badly written application can hang the whole system. Said that, MorphOS stability depends heavily on applications you run on it. I've just deleted all unstable programs (not much, but a few) and can enjoy a stable system. You also may notice that many Amiga crashes are caused by old, dying hardware (+ lot of connections between expansion cards, expansions to expansions etc. ) and power supply problems, which is not the case for Pegasos.

Also can anyone say generally what the situation with MOS/Peg is.

Currently MorphOS is a hobby system developed by a group of people known as MorphOS Team.

Are Pegasos still being made and has anyone bought one recently???

I know at least 4 persons in Poland, which bought a brand new Pegasos last month.

Hi Nigel, Pegasos is a good choice, its sales as a PowerPC Linux machine for dedicated tasks in the embedded market
keep the prices down (because of bigger production volumes) and allow development of new up-to-date boards.
I use it mainly as a Morphos machine (but runs AROS, MacOsX and several Linux distros too) and it's a joy to
use and customize (without having to patch the hell
out of it as it happened on Miggy).

Hello guys!

thanks to you both for some of the info you provided me with. Its helped to makeup my mind and I have now decided what to do!! I have read a little including the online "Intro to MorphOS" which for me made the system more attractive. To me the OS and its APIs is very important to bring the "spirit" to a computer and from what I have read there is a lot of crossover and compatibilty with my much loved Amiga!

A very big bonus for me is that there is also inbuilt and direct support for most of the standard APIs used in classic PowerUP/rtg programs on PPC Amigas. Like there is AHI, and CyberGraphiX in MorphOS. So Iam hoping this means I can view many of the classic PowerUP Amiga demos and games I have wanted to try for a long time! Also the Jit 68k compiler will allow me to use most of my favourite (OSLegal) apps!! What more could I want to keep the Amiga Spirit?! For hardware hitting games and demos I will keep onto my good old classic Amiga060, of course!

but its not all good as i have heard lots of rumours about The End Of MorphOS (re: http://www.morphos.net/) and developers leving the project, etc, blah, etc. I have not all managed to clear that in my own mind so Iam not sure if it has all been settled and things are now picking up again! I dont know. Hopefully there are still rocks at the head of the project who will keep it going and advance MorphOS.

Anyway i have decided to buy a ODW and I have just purchased one from Genesi online store. Iam hoping I get this in good time so I can begin my Peg/MOS adventures!! Only one worrying thing is that I placed the order and I was sent TWO sales invoice with two seperate order numbers. Its like the ordering system has ordered TWO Pegs for me but I only want ONE!! So I have emailed the Genesi sales staff to explain it. So hopefully we will see how good the customer support is! (can be no worse than Elbox or Amiga Inc.)

So no more broken promises from Amiga Inc / Hyperion for me. No more phantom hardware and no more trying to buy insane priced old BPPC cards from eBay!! I think I will be happy with my PegII and I plan to support in how I can MorphOS dev, with small donations whenever I can. Thats if MorphOS is not already dead already!!! But I guess I can just install Linux on the Peg if that is the case.

Thanks again for your help!

[ Edited by Nigel101 on 2006/8/12 22:16 ]

Regarding this "end os MOS" issue:

There were issues and they had an impact, BUT we are long over it and
the OS is far from being dead: it was, it is and it will be further
developed. Updates came and continue to come. There were several
minor updates in the past and they will continue. Some future will
provide a big update (V1.5 and beyond), but this future will be not
this year (unknown date). Anyway, MOS 1.4.5 with all those recent
updates (MUI 4, current Ambient, 3D update, new Poseidon, MUICon,..)
is quite a good thing .

Development speed could be faster, but MOS is far, far, far away from
being
dead.

thanks zylesea...thats very encouraging for me!! without MOS the Peg would just be another "grey box" for me! so i'm very happy dev is still strong

as i have said already i want the MOS-box to _totally_ replace my PC but for that one of the main things is that it will be ROCK SOLID stable (within reason). Krashan already said above that there is no Memory Management "yet" and like he says it will be the same thing as with my Amiga when *ONE* single bad app can takeout the whole MOS! I keep my Amiga pretty stable because I know what progs to avoid and what NOT to do to make it crash. but if the amiga had Memory Management it would crash a lot less still. human MM is a poor substitute for the real thing

is there any dev still going to bring proper MM to MOS?? do you think we will see it fully in 1.5??

NewbieQ

Welcome to the community! Congrats on your peg. You will love it like your amiga , maybe more. I used to be a die hard amiga fanatic and had a 4000T ppc tricked out. I got a peg1 and old MOS and it blew it away! You can basically use any system legal software from 68k that doesnt need the custom chips. Anything that runs on CGX on Amiga should run. And, like you said, it has MOS native MUI, AHI, CGFX, and more! Making it very stable.

As far as MOS being dead, this was never the case, it is being devloped and has been being devloped. Ambient has been in heavy development as well. Things are as fast as they were since its all volunteer basis, but many work hard on the mos team. Also, there is a lot of externel developers porting and writing new apps for Morphos, so there is plenty of fun software available.

Memory protetion is not possible on amiga like kernels afaik. Don't worry so much about it, your peg will be stable. I hope you ordered the MOS version of the ODW, so the mos team gets a donation. Also, you are probably going to get charged for 2 units, so clear that up right away, it wont be an issue, they are loyal to the customers.

magnetic

Quote:
And pigs can fly too.

henes
Really......that isnt good.



magnetic

Quote:

Well, it's not quite correct, there is some memory-protection in MorphOS, the qbox is fully protected and abox protects various parts (zero-page, unallocated address-space, rom, etc), if anything tries to write to (or in some cases read from) these areas only the app itself will be terminated, however if it writes anywhere else in the shared memory-space it can cause other apps or parts of the abox to crash, there is nothing you can do with that since this must be allowed in an aos environment for it to work.

Quote:

No, it's not possible to have full memory-protection in an aos environment due to design, anyone telling you otherwise is either ignorant or lying.

Quote:

Whatever "someone" might have told you this is not the case, Genesi has ceased any and all funds to us a long time ago...


- CISC

[ Edited by CISC on 2006/8/13 17:11 ]

@Magnetic & CISC

Quote:

Thank you! the more Iam absobing about MorphOS the more Iam geting a positive feeling! so i think im going to be very happy with it!! too

Quote:

i can live without it i think so i have lerned to keep my amiga stable it will be no problem to do the same with A-Box in MorphOS so for example if A-boxs crash *fully* inside Q-Box can I restart another A-box very quickly, because Q-Box is still stable? or do I have to retart (power off) do you know??

Quote:

oh dear, i donot want to startoff not liking the COMPANY behind a system again That's sad to hear. It's always the money people who seem to ruine everything for us Amiga lovers! (like with Amiga Inc.) I donot no why they are not funding MorphOS as they promise on the Genesi online-shop but I only bought it directly from Gensi because of the promise they will donate $50 to MorphOS. They have to realise I only interested in Pegasos *BECAUSE* it has MorphOS not the other way around.

I honestly hope my $50 does somehow make it to MorhOS devs Does anyone know the reason they have stopped funding?

[ Edited by Nigel101 on 2006/8/13 19:20 ]

Nigel

Before we get out of hand with the thread, I heard a while back there was only 1 or 2 MOS ODWs purchased so maybe why there wasnt a donation to mos devs... lets hope Genesi clears it up.

magnetic

Yep, you are right!! i donot know the story of it so i am not talking of something i know nothing about. so i will not point any fingers here of there!

all i know i pressed the magic MOS link https://www.pegasosppc.com/special_odw.php?partner=morphos . So iam sure they will put $50 in the fund. end of that subject

Quote:

Currently you cannot do that, but it would be possible to implement such a thing, yes .. however you don't have to power off, just reset with keyboard or reset-button, reboot only takes a few seconds anyway...

Quote:

I'm sorry to tell you, but you have to learn to read the "fine" print:

Quote:

IE, this money goes to MorphZone (which is good, don't get me wrong), not MorphOS...


- CISC

@Nigel101
welcome,the pegasos is the good choise : great PPC HW and great O.S. running on top of it (MOS, if u're like us an amiga user, or linux in various flavours)
Quote:

so why do not create a donation button/page for the FULL MOS TEAM, like for example the button on the MOS 3d page ? (maybe i'm a little off topic here)

While we got some MOS team guys attention, has anyone asked if MOS could be ported to the hardware suggested by ACK controls or Troika? That is, if any of it actually shows up and works. Or is MOS going to continue to be Peg hardware exclusive?

Quote:

Since these are even more vapor than the Efika2, OSW, Peg3 and MorphOS 1.5 combined, take a guess... ;)

Anyway, MorphOS was never Peg exclusive in the first place, and there's certainly no reason to stick to only the currently supported hardware indefinitely.


- CISC

Just don't start endless "MOS for X86" threads, as seen on the "other site"

Quote:

You said the forbidden x-word...
Now we are doomed!

Quote:

Just don't censor my sense of humour

Quote:
I've come to think 'Amiga Spirit' was beyond Boing Balls and Blue Butterflies!
More like -- 'transcendental meditation' --

AmigaOne and OS4 here...

Snuffy

Quote:
Well, let's just say that:
a) MorphOS problem isn't exactly hardware
b) We already have AROS and also a joint effort between both, so MoA(MorphOS on AROS) would be better suited for it
c) MorphOS != AmigaOS

meaning by (c) that:
1) is even more of a niche then AmigaOS is, with its users more attached to PPC solution
2) has [even(?)] less brand recognitionthen of AmigaOS

but as MOS actually has a platform to develop on, most of it are moot points, maybe (2) would be cool nonetheless

[ Edited by pixie on 2006/8/16 21:07 ]

Quote:

Saying anything else would be an insult to MorphOS... Just say MorphOS >= AmigaOS ;)


[ Edited by itix on 2006/8/17 1:28 ]

Nigel101

Have you received your Peg2 in the meantime? If yes, what are your feelings about it?

Quote:

Quote:

Quote:

And these are exactly the reasons why I am not running MorphOS right now although I would like to.

No memory protection - Ok, how about later?

Impossible - Sorry this is the wrong answer, nothing in this world is impossible. I am not an OS programmer but I now it can be done even if you have to rewrite the hole thing, even if you have to break every API and make it AmigaOS 3.x incompatible.

reboot only takes a few seconds - reboot is not an option, this is fall 2006.

And the other most serious "thing" is that there is no official entity behind MorphOS AND / OR any sort of a roadmap. From what we know there might never be another version. It could be or it couldn't, one can only hope or guess about it. This is very unprofessional I think and that alone will prohibit me from spending any $$ on a MorphOS compatible system (like the Pegasos or whatever).

[ Edited by Dante on 2006/10/10 7:59 ]

[ Edited by Dante on 2006/10/10 8:01 ]