About MorphOS Media Center, you better ask Geit... He told it's not quite finished yet, so you'll still need to wait.

About the short report and magnetic's question... Let's see:
- on Saturday at 11:30 PM there was a MorphOS presentation (also known as "The Saturday Night Show") on the big screen where we were shown a few bits. First of all bigfoot demoed Return to Castle Wolfenstein on his Mac mini. The game is done and so is the installer (even though "Frank finds it confusing. But he doesn't like to have to press less than 10 buttons to get things done, so it's not going to change") and it will be released real soon now - as soon as Mark solves some problems with his server. Those attending the Amiga Meeting Nord, including yours truly, have received a PreRelease archive directly from bigfoot's hands, as you can notice in one of the pics I posted from the number of monitors displaying RtCW during Saturday night. Then we were shown the updated 3D drivers, reaching 140fps in Quake III running at 800x600 on an humble Mac mini. That's roughly 50% better than last year, that in turn was already 100% faster than what we have in the public version of MorphOS... Then we were shown MorphOS 3.0 (the development branch) on a PowerMac G5 2.7GHz. The port is still in the early phase, MorphOS doesn't control the software controlled fan, so it will stand still for the first 3 minutes (with the risk of a "thermal crash"), then it will realize it is not being software controlled at all and will start spinning at the maximum speed for the time being.
- After the presentation there was time for some questions. Here is what I gathered, feel free to correct me if I am wrong. MorphOS 2.7 is due really soon, hopefully by the end of the month. It is mainly a bugfix release for the PowerMac G4 issues. Good news is that finally the new graphics drivers are going to be released, and tentatively this is going to happen for MorphOS 2.8. In the meantime work is ongoing on drivers for R300 and R400 based Radeon cards (this includes 9600/9700/9800 and x800). Inside the PowerMac G5 a Radeon 9600 and an X800 were swapped during the 2 days. bigfoot and kiero would need to be motivated to work on an updated TinyGL (R300 and R400 could introduce Shaders and T&L, and thus OpenGL 2.1 compatibility). I guess that some third party coder abusing a bit more TinyGL might help here: I still find it kinda sad that most of the advanced 3D software was written/ported by the 2 themselves. And Fab of course (who is another team member, though). With notable exceptions of Blender and VGP2.
- About the releases for other Apple hardware: Frank basically told to enjoy what we have and kind of stressed that registrations on hardware currently supported is a good way to motivate the team to improve and extend the OS further while waiting forever for some still unreleased port is not going to help a lot. That said, he told the PowerBook G4 version basically ony lacks graphics acceleration support for R300 chipset and wireless support. The first one (both 2D for enhanced displays and 3D) is a must have, while the second is really a nice to have for a portable, but nobody is working on it right now and so a first PowerBook release might eventually happen even without the wireless supported. Frank used his PowerBook G4 as his only machine during the 2 days and it seemed stable and nice.
- Support for PCI SATA and SCSI boards is currently disabled on PowerMac G4s due to some problems, but will reappear some time in the future.
- People registering MorphOS 2.x at the show were given a personal CD with MorphOS+key in it in a special box. Those already registered could buy the limited edition box (a box with the QBox character and... "a box") and printed CD for 5 Euro. I got mine with signatures from the team members Frank and Mark...

In other news:
- There were various presentations. Carsten Siegner showed his Magical Ink vector graphics program that is shaping up very nicely. He also showed FireWire stack Helios developments and the usage of Bluethooth keyboard and mouse in MorphOS. Stefan 'Kronos' Kleinheinrich showed the new Ambient panels with true transparency support and with the possibility to create MUI classes similar to the .sbar modules (ScreenBar modules) to populate them.
- there were overall about 60 visitors and some 45 brought computers with them. There were mainly "NG" systems, about a dozen AmigaOS 4 machines and between 20 and 30 MorphOS machines. The event was very nice and I wich to thank the organizers. I had quite some nice time chatting with a few guys and in particular with Mark and Frank who had to bear me for a few hours and during dinner as well... But we had a few beers as well.

A few videos if you still haven't seen them:
http://amition.de/bb.html
http://www.amiga-news.de/de/news/AN-2010-11-00025-DE.html

Well, enough for now, as usual it turns out that I write more than I would expect...

Kind regards,
Andrea

Edit: typo

[ Edited by guruman on 2010/11/17 1:24 ]

> R300 and R400 could introduce Shaders and T&L

T&L has already been supported in Radeons since R100, and R200 added support for pixel shader up to version 1.4.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transform%2C_clipping%2C_and_lighting#Usefulness
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pixel_shader#Hardware

> and thus OpenGL 2.1 compatibility

Yes, OpenGL 2.1 needs pixel shader version 2.0+, which is not supported by Radeons prior to R300.

> Support for PCI SATA and SCSI boards is currently disabled on PowerMac G4s
> due to some problems, but will reappear some time in the future.

Yes, supposedly in MorphOS 2.8.

https://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?topic_id=7464&forum=11&post_id=78798#78798

Quote:
But have pixel shaders 1.4 ever been implemented on anything that is not Windows? Basically, they are part of DirectX8.1 and not of OpenGL 1.3, and R200 were OGL 1.3 compliant. On Windows there were OpenGL extensions using the shaders, but they were for sure using the underlining Windows drivers... Did such features ever land on other OSes like Linux and MacOSX?
But anyway, I am quite proud that this not so short report caused only a few clarifications after your scrutiny... (just jokin', you know!)
On the other hand I would have hoped that almost one hour of lost sleep would have resulted in a bit more feedback, considering there is actually quite some material in it!

Kind regards,
Andrea

> have pixel shaders 1.4 ever been implemented on anything that is not Windows?
> [...] Did such features ever land on other OSes like Linux and MacOSX?

It's probably been Windows-only.

> R200 were OGL 1.3 compliant.

...and OpenGL 1.4 :-)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radeon#Processor_generations

> I would have hoped that almost one hour of lost sleep would have resulted in
> a bit more feedback, considering there is actually quite some material in it!

Most of it had been covered before in other threads I think.

Wow! Thank you all (especially Guruman)for the great news. It's like an early Christmas present knowing that all that hardware developments I'd ask for (if I had to ask) and all the recently announced software is right on track.

Frank recently hinted that R400 support was eventually going to be introduced, but confirmation of this is great news. If an R200 can produce 140fps at 800x600, I can't wait to see what more powerful graphics cards can do.

The thing I can't get across to other OS users is how reassuring it is to know that the developers of your OS of choice have such a good track record of making good on their announcements.

I had my Powermac set up with a host of accessories long before 2.6 was released (and everything that I was told would be supported was - and more).

Post Genesi MorphOS has been great stuff. Thanks for the solid work guys.

Quote:

Granted, Andrea, your report was great, and one of the most detailed I've red in ages. It's a pity we focus on the information given, and forget that someone actually put it all together!

Meh, I didn't want to sound like a spoiled brat! I was just suprised that there wasn't much discussion as there would have been in the good ol' times. I guess we are more satisfied with what we already have nowadays, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. And as Andreas correctly pointed out, much of the information was more or less already in the known.

Kind regards,
Andrea

No Andrea,
That was a great post. Comfirmation of some things just hinted at, great pictures, good job.
Thanks again.

Quote:

ummm Genesi did ALOT to help morphos development. so dont make uneducated statements please.

Quote:

That's harsh. Uneducated? Did Genesi write the OS?
Genesi paid out some cash, gave away some hardware, but when they were involved the only hardware later versions of MorphOS ran on was from Genesi/bPlan.
Genesi was motivated by profit, the MorphOS team can't be doing this soley for money (there isn't enough in this for them to quit their day jobs).
Further, when Genesi was involved there was a lot more friction between MorphOS user/supporters and other Amiga camps.

And I'll stand by that original statement. Once Genesi moved away from PPCs everyone assumed that (without a hardware manufacturer) MorphOS would have to move to ARM (following Genesi).
Not only hasn't that been the case, but the development team has continued enhancing their product and selected a really good path for new hardware support.
I admire the development team and trust their judgement.

I couldn't care less about Genesi. The Pegasos was flawed when introduced. It never was that impressive and the Efika was less so. For that matter, I was never a big fan of Commodore.
You have the right to your opinion, but mine isn't the result of an uneducated conclusion. It's just different from yours.

Hey Jim

Let me ask you a simple question. What do you know about Genesi other than what you have read OTHER people write about them online? In other words do you have ANY experience working for or dealing with genesi?

When I say "uneducated" this means you have no real world knowledge about Genesi or its relationship to Morphos REALLY. Other than what RUMOURS and facts you have seen online.


As far as Pegasos being "flawed" well for first gen hardware with a FAULTY CHIP (read MAI Logic ARTICIA S). The only "flaw" as you say was this chip. Peg2 with Marvell is practically same design upgraded. So, now with this other broad statement of the Pegasos being "flawed" you have succeeded to marginalize yourself twice!

[ Edited by magnetic on 2010/11/18 2:04 ]

I'd also say that this post-Genesi era is surprinsing me every day. Until now, amigans have alwasy had this sick "mother company" dependency, and in our case, it's been Genesi, until they first diverted to Linux, and then to ARM.

Logic would say that amigans would follow Genesi as little ducks follow mother duck. But it hasn't happened: The MorphOS Team took a brilliant decision going to Mac hardware (which happens to be good and cheap). I'm very proud of what this little group has achieved, because it's been their honest hard work rewarded directly by we consumers.

Meanwhile, Genesi's PowerDeveloper.org site shows much less activity than MorphZone.org, which is quite a surprise. I agree that Genesi's support is great, but you should also agree that they have promised too many things that didn't happen. Perhaps that was becasue every one was tied to some third party agreement that was never fulfilled. Genesi's business is much harder to do, of course, but MorphOS Team delivers instead of promising, as they don't have this kind of dependencies.

> Once Genesi moved away from PPCs everyone assumed that (without a hardware
> manufacturer) MorphOS would have to move to ARM (following Genesi).

It certainly was not "everyone" :-)

> they have promised too many things that didn't happen. Perhaps that was becasue
> every one was tied to some third party agreement that was never fulfilled.

Anything specific you want to hint at with that?

Quote:

Well, those failed ventures are publicly known. The biggest one was THTF's betrayal, but I don't think pointing out failures is constructive. Well, perhaps for documenting history is, but then, there's a lot of information out there, and history shouldn't be documented by a single guy in a forum (like me).

What's interesting, though, in the THTF soap opera, is that Cherrypal did what Genesi couldn't. We could argue that it's not that Genesi couldn't, but didin't want. But I still think there's a point.

Anyway, who cares about failed projects unrelated to MorphOS (even if they were originally very related), let's move ahead.

Quote:

Oh no! Marginalized twice, but you still felt the need to counter my statements.
You are an angry fellow.

If not agreeing with you somehow diminishes me in your eyes, so be it.
You miss my point. MorphOS existed before Genesi was involved and it continues to excel after Genesi has moved on. I know who I trust and who I feel a sense of allegence to and its not Genesi, its the MorphOS development team.

And, yes, I have had some interaction with Genesi. I've exchanged some PMs with Matt about locating an MPC8640/8641 development board (for less than the $4000 Freescale currently wants for one).
I got the distinct impression that he would prefer that the development team create an ARM port, rather than run MorphOS on someone else's hardware.

I'm glad that someone (thanks jcmarcos) understood that my main point was not to denegrate Genesi.
Rather, my point was that the MorphOS development team has done quite well without Genesi and that I was very pleased with their decisions and the developments they've made to the OS.

@ jcmarcos

Quote:

If you consider the target audience, it is not surprising at all.

Compared to the MorphZone developer forums, the old MorphOS Developer Connection website or Freescale's developer-centric IMXcommunity.org website, PowerDeveloper.org holds up quite well in terms of forum activity.


@ Jim

Quote:

Not all of it, but former employees and contractors of Genesi & Thendic France did contribute source code that is still being used in MorphOS today. Also, Genesi has licensed third-party components for MorphOS that are still being included in new OS distributions.


Quote:

Actually, the Genesi management had been a proponent of a Mac port. The developers were not "held back" by any third parties to port MorphOS to other platforms.


Quote:

I would like to point out that Genesi has contributed time, money and other resources to keep MorphZone alive and well long after MorphOS became meaningless with regard to the company's commercial ambitions.

Alright, no more negative comments on Genesi.

The fact that anyone is willing to invest in PPc hardware for Amiga derived OS' is amazing.

If I can spare kind words for Treavor and A-eon, then I should acknowledge Genesi's support for MorphOS.

I'm still quite pleasently surprised at how well things are developing without a hardware partner.

Nice videos from this event, you rock guys!

> those failed ventures are publicly known.

Yes, I could write a novel about failed Genesi projects ;-) I was more aiming at the "tied to some third party agreement that was never fulfilled" part.

> The biggest one was THTF's betrayal

Okay, so I take it THTF is that "third party" you mentioned then.

> history shouldn't be documented by a single guy in a forum (like me).

What's wrong with that? Better by a single guy than by no one :-)

> Cherrypal did what Genesi couldn't.

And so did Freescale as well as Levy and Watson from Linkbook.

> Compared to [...] Freescale's developer-centric IMXcommunity.org website,
> PowerDeveloper.org holds up quite well in terms of forum activity.

That comes as a surprise. I'd have guessed it's the other way round.

Jim

Trevor / Aeon can never compare to what genesi has done. Maybe in some future dream time :) It wasnt a personal attack I'm just not going to allow non factual statements be made to a company who has helped much to get morphos to where it is today.

@ Andre

Thanks for posting some truths :)

and now back on topic!

Don't sweat it magnetic, I don't take anything personal. I just felt that during my contacts with Matt that he wasn't too thrilled about hearing how far I'd gotten reworking Freescale's MPC8640/8641 design. And I kept having people tell me that the ATI SB600 Southbridge I was basing part of the design on wouldn't work because it wasn't a standard PCIe X4 component (it is - the X1000 uses one).

But the MorphOS development team's adoption of G4 Macs kind of rendered that project pointless. And that development made a lot of sense. It just seems like the development team's judgement has been pretty good lately and their track record of keeping their promises is reassuring and impressive.

I think too much focus has been placed on the perceived negative coments I made while the main point I was trying to present was how encouraging recent developments have been.

Anyway, great photos, good news, I'm happy to see how things are progressing (again R400 support - yes)..

Well, Matt is probably a bit special. And he was quite strongly promoting an ARM port of MorphOS. And I think generally that wouldn't be a bad thing. *IF* time and resources were huge that is. With given resources it was the best approach to focus on used ppc Macs for now. But once there will be a time when used ppc Macs won't be too sexy anymore. And what will come then is pretty unforseeable yet. Will ppc offer a future? I think it can (Freescale's pushing it again), but I wouldn't bet my last pair of trousers on that. And if ppc fails or nobody makes useable hardware?
ARM is probably an easier target for MorphOS than x86 (because of the endianess, which seems to fit according to some trustworthy ppl¹). Remains to be seen whether ARM gains some shares of the netbook, tablet, notebok or desktop market. So far ARM hasn't been too successful on this (well, the iPad is ARM; RIM's playbook, too ). No matter how much ARM was hyped during the last two years, x86 is still and by far #1 in that domain (exept recent tablets).

Anyway, MorphOS does fine with and without Genesi. Hardware shortage is no issue for the next few years. But I don't think it would be of any disadvanatge if MorphOS and Genesi will cooperate again in some yet uncertain future.

--
¹ still I'd like to see a definitive answer to the question I raised long ago "What would happen if a 68k app running on a hypthetical MorphOS ARM with transparent 68k emulation would try to access, say, 0x00000004? Would it get a pointer to exec base or would it get elsewhere?"

Umm Matt S aka Neko is not the best representation of what Genesi is, was , or does imo