Writing this with OWB is really great. But it would be even better
if I could write this on a Pegasos III. I hope to see a new Pegasos
sometime. It's such nice marketing name that can be used in many
different ways.

My wish is to see a 2GHz G4 Dual Core Pegasos III motherboard with
PCI-E, PCI, 4x USB 3, Firewire, Sound on board and Ethernet. I would
buy this motherboard even if it costed 10000,- NOK. Supporting PPC
is something I hope to be able to do all my life. ARM is a nice extra
platform. But the more processors you have, then the more
competition there is.

Protect competition at all cost is my final words to this post. Competition
is not just about food prices and TV's. Its about CPU's as well as RAM
brick manufactures aswell.

Hopes for Pegasos III. Question .. Can you at Genesi manage to do it?


Hugs :)

I don't think a peg-3 will happen.

Your best hope is a 1.5GHz Mac Mini. Much faster than Peg-2.

@MorphDelf

PPC is dead. Get over it.

Here are some scattered MorphOS Team comments on the subject:

About choosing PPC as target architecture in the first place: "if we would have known back then what we know today, we would have chosen differently"

In a response to the comment "I only regret that again we have an annoucement about old hardware", a developer said: "Fair enough, but don't whine if it ain't a PowerPC based box ;)"

In a response to the comment "Due to lack of another new PPC-based hardware, I can make the only conclusion: this is the end of MorphOS :(", a developer said: "IMHO Apple hardware is the only target that makes sense for PowerPC MorphOS at the moment."

For the moment, MorphOS is tied to PPC, and by utilizing Mac hardware, they are making the most out of it. And it's not bad at all; it sure beats the crap out of all the alternatives, both in price and performance. But of course there is no *future* in PPC, which members of the MorphOS team has pointed out occasionally. And for all we know, someone could very well have been working on a non-PPC version of MorphOS for a long time already. MorphOS 3.0 will probably introduce support for x86...



[ Edited by takemehomegrandma on 2010/4/22 11:46 ]

well, is it really so difficult to build a new pegasos machine? a friend of mine told me, that it's not so difficult, if someone understand how it's working (not me)...

i'd love to get a board like we have, usb2 would satisfy me, pci-x is important, sata also... what i'd love to see is to have just a simple board with everything optional on some special ports, like 2xusb2 for 10 eur, 2xusb1 for 5 eur, 4xusb2 for 20 eur, ps2 keyb/mouse ports for 10 eur, serial ports, ethernet ports, sata ports, ide ports, infra ports, bluetooth ports, etc etc etc... just a base with everything optional... mainly a cpu... create a bridge for g4/g5 apple cpu cards... just imagine...

bye, MarK.

Old PPC mac's - only candidate for PegasosIII, IMO :)
Genesi too busy with his ARM bzzz...

Quote:

True. But it's also very true that the videogames industry, the biggest entertainment entity nowadays (over music and cinema), is currently completely driven by PowerPC processors.

It's so bitter it drives you mad. This world is crazy.

But, even if "we" were able to build a new PowerPC based computer (rip off freescale's MPC8610 develpment board, for example), next you would have to tackle the task of developing the drivers for it. Given the extremely limited amount of programmers able to do it, and the fact that chipset manufacturers tend to ignore small players, it would take very, very long, if ever made. Not to mention the opssibility that the very CPU you are basing your design on would surely get to end-of-life status.
It would take so long that, when this new Pegasos+MorphOS 3 gets finished, the whole world of computers would be a full generation ahead.
Kind of the sittuation when amigans kept struggling against gigahertz x86 PCs, with insanely hacked 68k computers from a decade ago.

Hey, wait! Didn't we just love that?!

> PPC is dead.

Hyperionmp 2 days ago: "we have taken a look at the PowerPC roadmap and there is plenty of life in it including 8 core designs under 30 W."

;-)

> I hope to see a new Pegasos sometime. It's such nice marketing name
> that can be used in many different ways. [...] Can you at Genesi
> manage to do it?

Genesi declared the 'Pegasos' name dead years ago. 'Efika' was supposed to be the name for new PPC products (i.e. Efika 8610) succeeding both the Pegasos line and the old Efika. I guess no begging would ever change that and bring the 'Pegasos' name back.
Btw, I remember you were already told this several times.

> My wish is to see a 2GHz G4 Dual Core Pegasos III motherboard

Are you going to provide the "2GHz G4 Dual Core" CPU? Highest clocked G4 is MPC7448 at 1.7 GHz, but only available as single core. Highest clocked dual core G4 is MPC8641D at 1.5 GHz.

> Supporting PPC is something I hope to be able to do all my life.

Genesi think that PPC on desktop is dead. You'll have to live with that. But you could buy a PowerStation from Fixstars to satisfy your PPC addiction, as long as these machines are available ;-)

@MarK

Quote:

Difficult? Of course not, not for Genesi/bplan. At least not from a technical perspective. The difficulty would come from making a living out of it, from making it worthwhile. There is *no point* in doing it, that's the problem. And there is no future path for PPC anyway, at least not for processors that would make sense in a Pegasos/desktop kind of computer. I doubt a new e600 processor will follow the 8610, and the e700 platform seems to be scrapped altogether...


@Andreas_Wolf

Quote:

Oh man, that post was hilarious in so many levels (like the suggestion that someone would actually *have paid* 2 million Euros for developing OS4 for instance ).

Well, the QorIQ as well as the multi core e500 PowerQUICC processors that are already here are probably very nice processors, and the P4080 does seem to have a lot of communication abilities. However, since a true Amiga environment is single core only (and can't be anything else), a 8640 (single core) or 8610 would make much more sense *if* you for some strange reason would try to build a *desktop* motherboard (which would still not be competitive on the desktop market, and neither would the P4080 be BTW).

On the other hand, judging from "ssolies" recent trolling here about how much MorphOS users really miss "boxes", coupled with that comment by HyperionMP you linked to above, I'd dare to guess that Hyperion has undertaken a "most ambitious" project of finally developing the announced box system for OS4. But this won't change the fact that a true Amiga environment (i.e. the *contents* of an "A-box") can only be single core. Under no circumstances could you make an Amiga OS that has the *true* multi processor capabilities and functionality you would see/expect in modern desktop (or server) OS's, not without breaking the "Amiga" part. And if that is your ambitions, I'd say that you should invest your efforts into making *Anubis* come true instead. Starting with a *clean slate* would make much more sense then, free of compromises and strange legacy stuff that cripples the design and the execution of it. And then - if your ambition is to compete on the desktop market, I'd say you should simply compile your Anubis OS for the x86 instead, so that you at least will be on the same arena as your competitors. So. There.

> pci-x is important

What for?

> create a bridge for g4/g5 apple cpu cards

Apart from there not being G5 Apple CPU cards in existence, the G4 and the G5 are incompatible with each other bus wise and (apart from the SoC G4s) need a dedicated northbridge. So it's impossible to have one mainboard design with both G4 and G5 compatibility.

@takemehomegrandma
Quote:
So when did Genesi/bplan start making money (as in a profitable business) anyway? That is a rather lame excuse unless Genesi/bplan actually did make money from these ventures in the first place which I seriously doubt. Chances for 50,000 units came and went. And there is probably a warehouse full of old Efika boards they can't unload.

So with the profitability excuse out of the equation, why wouldn't Genesi/bplan just build one anyway? The ARM business isn't less competitive...

Quote:
The whole reason MorphOS exists is because of "boxes" but it seemed like some want us to forget about the history of MorphOS and why the box concept was so powerful. There isn't even a mention of Quark on the official MorphOS web site. I brought it up here just like I brought it up many times before on AW.net but for some reason it becomes "trolling" when it is on home turf.

And no, I don't have any super-secret Hyperion insider information and no I am not timing anything so you can forget your wild conspiracy theories you come up with on here and your fav green text site. I just got interested in MorphOS again when there was some chance it may come out for the PPC Mini. Alas, the dev team decided to stick with the Amiga-clone route which is fine but not at all interesting to me since we have AROS for that kind of stuff anyway.

@ssolie

Quote:

There are no markets for PPC desktop.

Quote:

I corrected your typo.


[ Edited by itix on 2009/6/10 8:16 ]

> there is probably a warehouse full of old Efika boards they can't unload.

From the horse's mouth:

"The EFIKA Open Client was quietly retired last month (discontinued products). The last three units were shipped to buyers in Italy, Japan and the Netherlands. The very last Open Client we shipped is now here."


> There isn't even a mention of Quark on the official MorphOS web site.

"Q: After the installation finished, the boot process stops right after the quark message. Why might this happen?"
http://www.morphos-team.net/faq.html

;-)

Quote:

MorphOS was born to replace and improve AmigaOS. And it succeed surpassing all AmigaOS versions. When first MorphOS betas were released for CyberstormPPC I didn't see anyone interested in "boxes", just in running Amiga-like apps at lighting fast speeds. And it was much better than running any AmigaOS version... even Hyperion games ran much better

I just read that Latest Linux Kernel had AMCC 460Sx support....
I'm not sure, but something tells me that it won't be long before we could hear about a Sam460Sx ...
Note that latest Linux Kernel now also have Amigaone support too ;)

SixK

It's been discussed here before but, none the less, the YDL PowerStation would be a reasonable alternative to a Pegasos 3. It even has OpenFirmware, not that it's a key factor for MorphOS development but it doesn't hurt.

I'd forgotten just how much these systems cost so it's worth repeating - $US1250. I honestly think a pricetag like that qualifies this as a desktop system as opposed to a workstation (which seems to be what people call expensive desktops).

This is precisely the kind of thing interested parties don't want the rest of the world to know but I'd find it very interesting to know what Genesi had to do to get the MorphOS developers to port to the Efika. In terms of the bounties that are used to encourage other development projects, would it be a 5 figure sum or 6 figure (or beyond) to motivate the right people to make it happen? Are there enough interested (potential)users for there to be a hope of establishing such a bounty?

http://us.fixstars.com/products/powerstation/

> something tells me that it won't be long before we could hear about
> a Sam460Sx ...

I very much doubt that we'll ever hear of such a thing for the 460SX lacks an FPU, as well as the 460GTx. While these two CPUs reaching up to 1.4 GHz are based on the PPC460 (or rather PPC464) core, the two FPU featuring CPUs 460GT (lacking USB and SATA) and 460EX reaching up to 1.0 GHz are still based on the PPC440 core. In conclusion, I predict no more than a Sam460ex @ 1.0 GHz to be the next Sam, if AMCC based at all.
The Linux kernel added support for 460EX/460GT with 2.6.26 (July 2008).

@ausPPc

I love when you weigh in on topics, cause you seem to see things from another view.

quote:The YDL PowerStation is four cores of unleashed Power in a solid, affordable package.

This is the issue multiple cores which can't/won't be used. 'Im thinking like you though futuristically.

Posted with OWB1.3

> I'd find it very interesting to know what Genesi had to do to get
> the MorphOS developers to port to the Efika.

"We sent money out for MorphOS development. It is the first time we have sent more than a few thousand Dollars/Euros to anything MorphOS related for more than a couple of years"
http://bbrv.blogspot.com/2007/01/back-for-future.html

Thanks xyphoid (I think!). I know that the current Amiga and MorphOS is a single core affair. Those extra cores could become coprocessors - using one to run another instance of MorphOS in a window (or whatever) could lead to some really useful debugging techniques. Or even run PPC linux in a window - that'd be a really cool way to leapfrog the issue of all the modern application software we'd like to have on MorphOS. That linux-in-a-window could even use the other cores.

@ Andreas - Interesting but I want nitty-gritty! How much? Was it just a matter of money or was there also an expectation of a lot of new users coming to the platform? It'd be really interesting to know but I'm not expecting a real answer.

@ausppc

We truly appreciate your efforts:

While the EFIKA Open Client is no longer in stock at Genesi, it is still for sale at AusPPC and other resellers...

http://www.genesi-usa.com/products/openclient/5200b

Thank you.

Best regards,
R&B

Quote:

I like your thinking ausPPC. It would also be great if the YDL PowerStation could run MacOS10.4, or 10.5. If we can't get MorphOS ported to the PowerStation with YDL and/or MacOS running in a window, maybe we could get it in reverse, with MorphOS running via emulation in a window on top of YDL, and/or MacOS (someday?).

@ Genesi

Hey BBRV, as I already asked on your blog and knowing Genesi's main focus is ARM now (and looking forward to it ), would it be possible to gain something from the 8610 redtail board by NEC? From the little publically avaiable information that one looked quite promising. But AFAIK it's a kind of development board/study (but with this very tiny form factor already and not too IC crowded, but rather tidy), not an end user board - but how much efford would be required to make it an end user board? Do you have some knowledge about that board and its background you may share with us here? I mean it seemed pretty similar to what I have thought the Efika 8610 would have become...

Quote:

Well, if it doesn't have *at least two* FPGA's and a 16 layer PCB I'm not interested. The more of those things, the merrier.

Quote:

Well, it's a "storage processor" after all, not something meant for desktop motherboards. I would hope for a "real" CPU instead, something like the 8640(D) or 8610. Doubt it will happen though...