Quote:

That doesn't mean anything, especially due to the fact that we won't support iBook G4 with the forthcoming release according to our current plans. I thought it has been made clear in the past that we are going to support PowerBooks first if there is going to be a release supporting portable machines. The missing ADB driver is unrelated to that but of course it would be required for convenient use of various iBook models if they ever would be supported by MorphOS.
As it is now, we won't add more than the already known flavours of discontinued Apple PPC machines to the next MorphOS update release.

There was a little confusion about the final iBooks, as they are, apparently, very similar to the final powerbooks.

But it's nice to get conformation, anyway. :(

> There was a little confusion about the final iBooks [...].
> But it's nice to get conformation

So does the last iBook generation use USB also for the keyboard as jacadcaps said or is that attached via ADB? While it would seem odd to use different connections for keyboard and trackpad you never know what weird ideas those cranky Apple hardware engineers have had ;-) I tried hard to extract that information from the rant you replied to but I failed miserably.

If it will help the MorphOS Dev. Team decide if they wish to support the last G4 iBook (the one with a 1.42GHz G4 and, I believe, USB keyboard and trackpad), I have access to one of those iBooks and could do testing on it for the Dev. Team. I believe that it should be very similar to the 1.42GHz G4 MacMini and the last couple G4 PowerBooks that were produced, and it might be easy to include in the list of supported hardware, if little, or no additional coding is required to make it boot and run the next version of MorphOS.

The 1.42GHz G4 iBook belongs to my 83 year-old Mother and she does not use it much since she purchased her iPad, so I should be able to borrow it from her for some extended testing.

(I know that this is not the correct place to be discussing this, so I will take all further offers to help with testing to more appropriate channels.)

As I say I've got a 12" iBook 1.33Ghz, I always thought that was the same as the (IMHO too big) 14" 1.42 ibook.

Anyhow, here's a couple of pics of the usb buses

powerbook

PowerbookUSB.png

my 1.33mhz 12" ibook with 512 MB (soldered to logic board), and Radeon 9550 ie last model

iBook.png

So what does it say on the 14" model Dave?

[ Edited by stephen_robinson 21.08.2011 - 09:33 ]

I don't have access to it at the moment, as I am away from home and the 1.42GHz iBook is another family member's computer that is not seeing much use at the moment because that particular family member has purchased an iPad, and uses it more often than the iBook.

I will try to get a hold of the iBook to check it in a week or two, as the opportunity presents itself.

@stephen_robinson

Damn, it looks like this might not be fully USB indeed. Oh well... one model less to bother with.

stephen_robinson,


http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/ibook/faq/differences-between-mid-2005-ibook-g4-1.33-1.42-models.html

The differences between this two ibook versions are shown there.

Quote:
Considering the fact, that there are WAY more PPC macs around than there EVER will be potential MorphOS users to buy them - let's accept the fact they're not going to "run out", especially if you aren't too picky on "getting the best supported model", but are ready to settle on few dozen percent slower model.

This combined with the fact, that any potential new PPC hardware would be WORSE than supported Apple hardware, I can see absolutely no sense. Sure, some new CPU might be marginally faster than fastest supported G4 models (or G5 models, which are much likely support candidate than totally new hardware platform, that doesn't even exist), but costs will be, well, "astronomical" compared to the price of PPC macs (even when considering specs), and availability will also be much worse (keeping production running for years, making sure there are always units for sale)

Well, these two facts already should explain why it makes absolutely no sense
Quote:
Considering MorphOS is a desktop operating system, how many affordable & available arm desktop systems can you name? Are they really that much better / faster / cheaper than similar PPC macs? Didn't think so. With netbooks it might make a really little bit of sense, but getting every Apple PPC mobile device supported (including ones with ADB) would be a WAY smaller task, than porting an OS to entirely new platform.

And of course even after this minor "port to new platform, and sort out cross compatibility" task, people would still complain "it doesn't run on <the architecture of my current system>.

Quote:
I don't think that would need much "working together" - all of those platforms could be supported, it's just that it wouldn't make any sense. It's much better to concentrate on cheaper, faster and better hardware that's already easily available.

I'd say lots of development time to waste, nothing (way less users than from support for new PPC Mac model) to gain.

Seriously, buying a "Sam-grade" PPC mac is rather small investment.

jacadcaps,
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If you want to lob me a copy of MorphOS 2.8 with the system checks turned off, I may be able to spare half an hour to test it.

Quote:
I strongly believe there's more to supporting new hardware, than "disabling checks for currently supported hardware"

Well, actually MorphOS booted on my iBook back in 2006 or so already, when the initial Mac mini code was conceived. It was seriously crippled back then though.

Quote:

The answer to this depends on how you define desktop. Dedicated ARM desktops are very rare to say the least but there are several cheap boards and even the odd laptop.
OTOH if you look at a desktop as something you can use on a desk (with screen, keyboard and mouse) then it's a bit different because that includes many tablets and phones (many now have HDMI out and you can use bluetooth for keyboard/mouse) Looked at it that way the answer is tens of millions.

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They're in G4 performance range today and rapidly getting faster. I'll be very surprised if they don't have every G5 Mac beaten within 2 years.

Price wise they're £100 and up.

Quote:

You seriously expect them to go downwards?

The problem is not PPC Vs ARM or PPC Vs anything. The problem is what happens when they've done the top end G5s. Going downwards is not an option, doing dedicated machines is too expensive, so what else is there?

There's x86, ARM, or both.

>> how many [...] systems can you name?

> [...] the answer is tens of millions.

;-)

Quote:
Being happy there's enough supply of "cheap enough" quality hardware that can run your OS, and that the top end models are faster than any software / game available for your OS will ever require (without major OS upgrades)? (*)


(*)
Sure, f.ex. video encoding can take as much CPU as you can spare, but that's how it always will be. I'd say it should be "fast enough". And other platforms can do that MUCH better with hardware acceleration. Something we don't have.
As for video playback, faster G4 models can already play 720p nicely, and G5 should do much better. And considering that I don't think there's much multichannel audio support, we are not going to attract too many "hifi freaks" anyway.

Also, more demanding games will definitely require better OpenGL support than we have today.

In short, MorphOS isn't ready for what would make currently supported systems (+G5, if you will) too slow.

And regarding "going backwards", do you mean supporting lower end models?

In my opinion, that definitely makes sense if either:
-System is relatively easy to support (just change initialization or something)
-Even if slower, system has some other advantages (f.ex. I'd prefer laptop to G5)

Quote:
So in other words, "if we count devices normally excluded from desktops, the answer is tens of millions."

But seriously, who would rather run MorphOS on a mobile phone with keyboard and mouse?

And no, "making it usable as a phone" would not be easy. Of course "making it run on any ARM hardware" wouldn't either.

Quote:

You asked how many desktops, I replied with how many could act as desktops.
My point is more that the difference between desktops and mobile devices is becoming increasingly blurred.

What would you class this as?

The phone I had 3 years ago could plug into a TV but the picture wasn't very good and all it did was scaled the phone screen to fit. It could play movies as well but the quality was rubbish.

My current phone is completely different, it can generate a 1080 signal over HDMI and play HD movies. There are some phones which even change UI if you plug them into a TV giving you what is basically a desktop.

Quote:

If the choice is between a phone or a slower machine, I know what I'd pick.
Of course that's not true today, but it's not far away.

That said, I think targeting one of the small boards or possibly one of the tablets makes more sense.

Quote:

I didn't suggest they even try that.

Quote:

The future path is complicated whatever the direction.

Hi there,

It was always fun to have newer or even faster hardware. But as it was for me, I have sold my PPC Amiga long time ago
because there was no software to run on it. And i think that this would also be the greatest Problem for MorphOS.
Another problem is the Morphos presents on Aminet ... we need more Software. I had tried to register Fryin Pan for
MorphOS. But i got no answer from the developer side. And my Printer .. the one i have bought from ebay (HP Laserjet 6MP)
is so damn old, because the drivers are back from the 90s. Well .... with that said I love MorphOS!
My only problem is : I am no developer - thats why i can`t help on that side.

greets

defender,
Quote:
Your Lasertjet 6MP seems to be an old Postscript printer so it should work fine with MorphOS.
But any modern Postscript printers will work too.

@ Defender:

Frying Pan author has released the program source and a guy Sixk compiled it for MorphOS.
Frying Pan is now free and working. You can download the program here:
http://www.meta-morphos.org/download.php?op=geninfo&did=30
or here:
http://morphos.lukysoft.cz/vypis.php?kat=11

Let's see what we will receive with MorphOS 2.8. Surprises are behind the corner....

@ Jambalah

thank you. I have got one copy running on my MDD MOS2.7. The thing is I wanted to register Fryin Pan (or even just pay for it).
I would have done so before, but there was no reasen for me, because I was not able to burn a cd before that free release.
I just don`t want the author to leave MOS alone.

@Henes

I was searching for a useable printer, we have 2 HP printers here working quit fine on Linux an F380 all in one and an 1110 all in one.
Both do not print with MOS. So that was the reason why i took the old HP Laserjet (because of Turboprint)
How do i find out that if the the printer i buy is capable of postscript ?

> How do i find out that if the the printer i buy is capable of postscript ?

Usually the manufacturers of printers have the datasheets and even the complete manuals publicly available on their website.

In this case, here.

The two other all in ones devices seem to be very low end printers... not even supporting HP's own PCL language or able to print ascii. Hence their cheap price.

Postscript is the key to easy and high quality print on MorphOS.
Then no need to bother about drivers...


[ Edited by Henes 31.08.2011 - 02:11 ]

Henes,
Quote:

Unfortunately this is not completly true, it is easy to connect and print that's right but for the high quality one need's a printer driver in order to be able to do color correction, using icc profiles, to get reliable photographic quality printout's. Because finally the result we all want is to have the printed document look as close as possible as the original picture we took with the camera or the document we created, on screen

But I must also say that the netprinter solution which comes with MorphOS is already a VERY GOOD solution!

Regards

Christoph