I've only recently started using MorphOS. I'm really enjoying how low the price of entry and the performance and excellent compatibility with classic Amiga software. It just struck me about how MUCH I'm getting for so LITTLE cash.

Over the last few weeks I've picked up a bunch of A1138 and A1139 PowerBooks on eBay for $100 or less. Add on the MorphOS license and I'm still under $200 for an Amiga like OS on hardware that basically spanks the X1000 for performance. I'm looking at what I've spent for X1000s and now an X5000 and looking at what I've paid for MorphOS systems and all I can do is shake my head. After what I've spent on the X1000s and X5000 my wife wants to shake more than just my head :)

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Yet, so few enter...

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There are a few reasons for this strange behavior:

1. MorphOS is not the "Official" successor and does not bear the name "Amiga" as part of its OS name. This should not be important, but for some users, it still appears to make some difference.

2. The MorphOS Dev. Team does not promote themselves, or the OS often. A few of the members show up at a few European computer shows or demonstrations, but it seems that even that only happens about 2 to 3 times a year, possibly less. No matter how opposed to their choices and methods most MorphOS users might be, you can't deny that A-Eon/AmigaKit have not made an impact on the AmigaOS4.x community, with their efforts to promote software development, and the creation of new hardware to run AmigaOS4.x on. There is much more talk all over the Internet about AmigaOS4.x and A-Eon, than is heard about MorphOS.

3. So far, attempts to increase 3rd party software development for MorphOS have yeilded very little in the way of new, or newly ported software.

4. MorphOS users (for the most part) tend to be less enthusiastic, and instead just use their systems for computing needs, while AmigaOS4.x users seemingly like to discuss their systems at greater length, and more often, which creates more traffic on AmigaOS4.x forums, which creates more interest, from anyone casually interested in learning more about anything related to the Amiga of old.

I am sure there are more reasons that some might add to my list, but those above seem to me to be the most prominent reasons why many users are more interested in AmigaOS4.x, than MorphOS.

> you can't deny that A-Eon/AmigaKit have not made an impact on
> the AmigaOS4.x community

;-)

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Glad YOU understood that, the double negative in that sentence makes my head hurt.

It should read "You can't deny that Aeon/AmigaKit have made an impact on the amigaOS4.1x community"

Yes,stipends and bounties apparently work.
Who'd have guessed that getting paid for your time would be an incentive?

We need more individual like Fraggle (or we need to act in concert, to promote/fund projects).

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Oops, missed that double negative of mine. That should have read "you can't deny that A-Eon/AmigaKit have made an impact....."

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Sorry David, that comment of mine was a bit inconsiderate.

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I keep wondering why that is. MorphOS is excellent. Is it a holdover of the Blue vs Red wars or just because there are so few of us left? In general the community here seems to be welcoming and less acrimonious.

@Pgovotsos

For answers to that deep perplexing life question ask the Butterfly Oracle.

https://www.amazon.com/Butterfly-Oracle-Cards-Life-Changes/dp/1401950035

[ Edited by discreetfx 21.03.2017 - 12:19 ]

oh I mistakenly thought the double-negative was intentional and I was about to reason it out, until the correction

[ Edited by dethknave 21.03.2017 - 13:21 ]

yes MorphOS is excellent in its own standard, but it still lacks the most important thing: community.

There is absolutely nothing happening in the community, which on the other side wont be appealing to coders to port their stuff to MorphOS. As far as i like MorphOS, the lack of interaction, projects and spirit is really discouraging. I hardly use MorphOS on my PowerBook anymore. OWB is getting slower due to the increasing demands of the web.
Since the last year i am really into classic Amiga again. I have heavily expanded my A1200 to the max and it is still fun, everytime i turn on my machine.

I'd love to use my MorphOS machine more often and productively, but it really lacks essential software like a Windows compatible Word and Spreadsheet processor. Some new software (music streaming client f.e.) or game every now and then wouldn't hurt neither. But there's almost nothing happening. Too bad, because i really love the system. My expactations are down to zero actually. If something happens, thats fine. i will use the system as long as i have a benefit and see it as useful. maybe the transition to ARM/x64 will give us more opportunities and higher chances of porting software. New hardware is essential too. I've already had 2 broken PowerBooks and 1 broken PowerMac G5 in the timespan of 1,5 years and my recent PowerBooks right fan is already making noises... those old apple computers arent reliable anymore after 12-14 years of age.

> a Windows compatible Word and Spreadsheet processor

I'd be content with a MorphOS program that can read/write file formats from MS Office and/or LibreOffice, even if it's not Windows-compatible.

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Well, "absolutely nothing happening" is really an exaggeration. Just look at MorphOS Storage, there are about 100 uploads since January 2017. And here ony MorphZone you can read users giving feedack, so I can't complain about little interaction either. beworld's excellent game ports are a good counterexample.

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I don't quite understand people calling PPC-hardware dated, but using even more dated classic hardware then... You never needed to fix your classic hardware or never got some hardware modifications done (by another person)? Lucky you! And guess what, no modern browser at all. Netsurf 68K is making progress, but I doubt the browsing experience will be better due to CPU and RAM limitations of the classics (even with a Vampire).

A .docx/.odt compatible Word Processor would really be appreciated, that's right. But I doubt this will run decent on the Classics, so only OS4/MorphOS/AROS then... Having said that, CinnamonWriter is pretty usable! It supports .docx but it's import/export capabilities are rather basic. Sadly CinnamonWriter progresses only slowly. Perhaps this guy would gladly accepty some help?

[ Editiert durch ernsteiswuerfel 22.03.2017 - 00:37 ]

@ernsteiswuerfel

on the classic i dont have the expaction of it to live up to modern day tasks. it is what it is, a retro computing platform which is fun to be played around and modified.

MorphOS on the other hand is a modern OS, where i expect a fundamental functionality and productivity. You can't really compare Classics to NG.

Thanks for the link. I didnt know about MorphOS Storage. Seems pretty interesting. Will have a deeper look at it.

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Yeah. That would be fully sufficient.

As I se it, as long as MorphOS had the best webbrowser, it fealt like MorphOS was on a roll.
But since then, MorphOS has started to go silently into the night.
Really sad, I love MorphOS!
Webbrowser = the most importent software despite of platform.

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I'm not certain.
The most performance intensive thing I do with the browser is watching YouTube videos.
That can still be done using OWB.

Other than that, what is lacking is:
- full IMAP support for emails.
I'm hosting my own Postfix email server including IMAP. I can't really use email fully with all features on MorphOS.
- MS Office/OpenOffice document format support.
That doesn't necessarily need to be LibreOffice. Some spreadsheet or text processing application would do. But neither is available.
And in fact I'm not sure whether that is more of a business feature.
When does someone send me a word document in private. I couldn't remember that.
Something like FinalWriter, TurboCalc, Ignition et. al. would fully do.

In the end, it's just a different platform. I mean, when I want to play Elite Dangerous I just can't do that on MorphOS.
It can't really compete with Windows, macOS or Linux.
But there is still something that makes this platform interesting.


Manfred

> at MorphOS Storage, there are about 100 uploads since January 2017.

To be fair, a large chunk of these uploads are old software from years ago just uploaded to have them there as well, in addition to Aminet or MorphOS Files.

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What worries me a bit is that all the old software is uploaded with new timestamps, so that one could think it's new, but in fact it isn't.


Manfred

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The gap between the mainstream operating systems such as windows, macos or even mobile OSes and MorphOS is widening all the time. There is not much left to MorphOS, using it is pretty sentimental.

> What worries me a bit is that all the old software is uploaded with new
> timestamps, so that one could think it's new, but in fact it isn't.

Indeed, each archive should better have two timestamps, one for the upload date and another for the release date (usually the timestamp of the newest file in the archive).

I guess one thing I really appreciate about MorphOS is that it allows me to have a portable machine. My Silent Paws 1200 with BPPC can run MorphOS - OK an older version - and is fun and everything, is sort of portable, but I don't really see myself traveling with it once the novelty wore off.

I don't really care about new applications, well sort of don't. Pretty much everything I want to do is satisfied by 68K applications if there isn't a MorphOS option available. I wouldn't really classify myself as a power user, no high end games or anything like that. Basic browsing, email, productivity applications and occasional games.

The main reason I prefer Amiga like operating systems is I still think it's a better mouse trap. Easier to do what I want to do, low resource requirements, and I just think the paradigm is better.

For me, that's what's important - it does what I want it to do, the way I want to do it. What more can a guy ask for? Under $200 to get a sweet system doesn't hurt :)

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<3

I still think MorphOS is just great for the purpose it was made for (continuing the Amiga legacy). I hope people would enjoy it more, and encourage others who enjoy it. It feels good to see topics like this started, because we don't seem to be that good in it usually :)

Maybe MorphOS got too good in what it does, because some expectations have raised pretty high, almost unrealistic for this kinds of projects. And I still think that Amiga users haven't been this close to mainstream with this well working browsers (even with some temporary step backs) and other capabilities ever before. Situation is much better now than 10 or 20 years ago, so let's enjoy it more!

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Software wise is much better, the hardware is still from 10 years ago. Unfortunately Power architecture continues only in mainframes and big servers.

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Luckily the hardware already got at the point where it doesn't matter that much anymore. Our 10 years old hw is perfectly fine still for most uses and still closer to mainstream than Amiga was for example 20 years ago. I'm happy with G4 still, and can take a step to G5 too when that time comes :) It's still comparable to what they sell as new, because it doesn't seem to be about teh bestest and teh fastest that much anymore.. there's lot of variety today with all the mobile things, Raspberry Pi alike modest machines etc... so overally we're in better position than one could have imaged we ever get. Of course fresh HW will be needed eventually, but it's not worth all the rants people are easily doing... it isn't a reason for not enjoying or encouraging other people :)