As you know I don't normally comment on internal buisness matters but to correct some "misunderstandings".....

I personally funded the "First Contact" build. I also funded the A1-X1000 development and most of the betatest program.

However, the assistance of AmigaKit's technical, distribution and support network was vital to the successful launch of AmigaONE X1000 "First Contact" system. This is not new information. Please refer to the news releases form AmiWest last year.

BTW, I am continuing to personally fund new development.

TrevorD

@tmhgm,

You enjoy making stupid statements about things that you know nothing about?

Wow, harsh statements from some corners and a clarication (of one point anyway) from Trevor.

And yes Andreas, I know the development systewm has Linux support. But, obviously, no NG OS.

@ Trevor, I love the design you and Varisys came up with. Wish it supported the OS I'm using, but then its about the only thing that would make me consider OS4.

To all those pushing for an ISA move, staying with PPC would be the easiest route to follow.

Pity we don't have a patron like Trevor to help develop a new system for us. I, for one, would be willing to buy a new PPC system (even at a price premium).

Jim,
Quote:
From the software POV it indeed is. But looking to the whole package you will also agree that there is a "little" (cough!) shortage in easily availalble new, powerful and sanely priced end user Power based hardware. And what's software good for if there is virtually no hardware to run on? Don't get me wrong, I am still a fan of the Power architecture and don't think the least word about it is spoken already, but fact is that currently the end user hardware situation in Power land isn't really a good one. One must evaluate what eventually yields the bigger benefit. Not an easy evaluation, really not. Both approaches have their appeal and their downsides.

Quote:

Perhaps you misunderstood me. If you need x86 right now, the solution is AROS, we'll have to wait many years for a x86/ARM port. I guess that since both you and Soundsquare no longer use MorphOS (read: are no longer MorphOS users) you "constructively" prefer to leave real users without hardware no matter how much time it is.

Quote: I prefer waiting 12 years using 64bit 2.7Ghz G5 instead of a 1.5Ghz G4. Power consumption control APIs introduced for powerbook will also be neccessary for x86 and gfx/audio drivers would also have to be written for x86 (and can be ported from PPC version)

Quote: Newer qbox versions with new features like SMP/64bit could be more easily implemented on already supported hardware. There's no reason newer qbox versions with new features couldn't run on G5 (and you could take more advantage of the "boxes" approach having a more or less isolated A-Box and another one with latest goodies).

Thank you Crumb.
We seem to be seperated into two groups.
Those that would like a move to another ISA immediately and those that would prefer to make that switch after more PPC support is introduced.

We know Pega-1's position. I'd like to hear from other developers (and I wouldn't mind a statement from Andreas Wolf as to his preference).

[ Edited by Jim 12.03.2012 - 01:19 ]

@TrevorDick

OK, thanks for the clarifications. The pre-payments a long time ahead brought a slightly different impression.

So when is the "second contact" coming? Will we have to wait until summer?

Quote:

Also the (two finger) mouse pad driver, and WiFi, WPA/WPA2.

:-)

Quote:
AmigaKit will control the timing of the actual release but the boards themselves are already in the works.

TrevorD

Jim,
Quote:

There have been considerations to produce new desktop Power Architecture hardware but it still does not make any economic sense given the price to performance ratio offered by used or unused / "new" PowerPC Macs.

You appear to have some insight into hardware development so I trust that you can gauge what level of financial investment would be required to successfully complete even a smaller project such as a new EfikaPPC. Now imagine how much could be accomplished by taking the same amount of money and using it to advance MorphOS itself, which is the primary and in many cases only reason why people are on this website.

One of the nice side-effects of supporting low-cost devices such as the EfikaPPC and, of course, Apple hardware is that a much larger percentage of the available resources in this community are spent to improve what actually counts, namely software. Before MorphOS 2.0 appeared, by far most of the money users paid to use MorphOS essentially covered expenses that had nothing to do with the on-going development of MorphOS. This has been drastically changed - for the better.

If there was any patron offering to lose money to support MorphOS, the best thing this patron could do would be to invest into the development team for improving the software (which could mean porting it to a different processor architecture if hardware support was a serious concern) rather than pay unrelated component suppliers in Asia, hardware engineers, etc. who have no real stake or interest in the project that brought all of us here together.

TrevorDick,
Quote:

Wow! That is the first I have heard about more boards being on their way already. That will make many anxious buyers very happy, that did not get their orders in fast enough to get one of the "First Contact" X1000 computer systems. I hope that your next production run sells out almost as fast as the "First Contact" computer systems did.


@ASiegel,

pega-1 and other MorphOS Dev. Team members have already said that bounty money would not make any difference regarding the speed or direction future development of MorphOS will take. Why would a benefactor be any different than bounty money?

[ Edited by amigadave 11.03.2012 - 23:29 ]

Quote:

Had the X1000 customers put in at least part of all that money into the (since long derailed) "8610 open source motherboard" series of bounties instead, we would have had a nice little desktop motherboard that *anyone* (Acube, DCE, whoever with money wanting to go to a manufacturer) could produce, quality design by bplan, with a good support/price on the Freescale CPU, and AFAIK there would have been a sponsored program providing motherboards to developers, etc. It would have had what probably is the fastest "G4"/e600 CPU ever made (thanks to its 533MHz/1066DDR memory, also making Altivec shine brighter than ever), a 32-bit single core system for our 32-bit single core OS, all the peripheral connectors there, 4x SATA 2 connectors, 4x USB2 ports, 2x Gigabit Ethernet ports, Sound ports (Audio Out, In). That would have been cool, two years ago at least. But now I think PPC had its time, its days are over, it can only prevent progress and platform development, IMHO...

Quote:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFzRigSk_o0&t=3m02s

Quote:

In the beginning, when MorphOS was being developed for the Pegasos 1 and Pegasos 2, some developers were actually employed (or contracted) to do the development. If a benefactor would yet again enter the scene with a similar offer, it could mean people could take a leave of absence from their day jobs and work full time on MorphOS, to work on ISA migration, 64-bit support, SMP support, Memory protection, resource tracking or whatever deemed necessary. I think you could come quite far in, say, only six months.

I agree that any resources should be spent on moving MorphOS to greener pastures, the current pasture can't support a future...

> I wouldn't mind a statement from Andreas Wolf as to his preference

I'm not decided yet as I'm not sure I'd want a G5 Mac over my current G4 Mac (mini), which is slower and less expandable, but also less bulky, less noisy and less power hungry.

> There have been considerations to produce new desktop
> Power Architecture hardware

Do you refer to Genesi in particular here? Some months ago there was an interesting statement given by BBRV here on MorphZone, but unfortunately my questions regarding that went unanswered.

> it still does not make any economic sense given the price to
> performance ratio offered by used or unused / "new" PowerPC Macs.

Is that your personal stance or also Genesi's? (You might find that I'm trying to get the answers BBRV failed to give me from you now, knowing that you're a representative of the company ;-)

> rather than pay [...] hardware engineers [...] who have no real stake
> or interest in the project that brought all of us here together.

I guess that's why some people said they preferred hardware developed by a company like bplan rather than, say, Varisys, because the former is/was assumed to *have* a "real stake or interest in the project that brought all of us here together" ;-)

amigadave,
Quote:

My name happens to be listed on the MorphOS development team website.


Quote:

I was specifically referencing the amount of money it would take to develop and manufacture new Power Architecture desktop hardware. Any prior statements about bounty money clearly did not refer to sums exceeding 100.000 EUR / USD...

> "8610 open source motherboard" [...]
> It would have had what probably is the fastest "G4"/e600 CPU ever made

The MPC8641 with 1.5 GHz core and 600 MHz bus is even faster than the MPC8610 with 1.33 GHz core and 533 MHz bus.

> I was specifically referencing the amount of money it would take to
> develop and manufacture new Power Architecture desktop hardware. Any
> prior statements about bounty money clearly did not refer to sums
> exceeding 100.000 EUR / USD...

To be fair, the entire MPC8610 open source hardware bounty was "only" 65,500 EUR (86,000 USD currently) ;-)

Andreas_Wolf,
Quote:

Please note the words "develop and manufacture." The bounty effort did not include a full production run, just basic sampling.

> Please note the words "develop and manufacture." The bounty effort
> did not include a full production run, just basic sampling.

Indeed. Thanks for pointing it out.

Quote:

IMHO 2.1Ghz iMac G5 has a good compromise between noise/power consumption/features/bulkyness.

ASiegel,
Quote:


Quote:

My quote did not indicate that "ALL" MorphOS Dev. Team members felt the same way, or had made comments that money was not the issue, only that pega-1 had and IIRC, some others. I did not intend to slight your importance as one of the Team members. I was only commenting on what I had previously read and thought I had read from one or two others on the Team. I apologize is my comments were interpreted to mean everyone on the Team, as that was not my intent. (I see how it could have been interpreted that way)

He did not specify what amount of money would make him change his view on the subject, or that there was a certain threshold, that once surpassed, would make a different outcome possible regarding which direction the next port of MorphOS would go, or that any amount of money could influence the Team's decision on which platform to support next.

I understand that there could be differences of opinions between Team members, where some would agree to work on certain projects, if paid well for their time and efforts. Others might be resistant to working on certain projects, no matter what amount of money was offered for the work.

[ Edited by amigadave 12.03.2012 - 06:39 ]

ASiegel,
Quote:

Yes, I spent a lot of time researching it.
The company I worked for in the '80s and 90's built 68K based systems.
But times have changed and the entire endeavor is an order of magnitude more difficult.
I would love to be able to pursue that course, but after months (actually it might be years by now) of research I came to the conclusion that the developers had made a very wise choice.
Supporting existing Mac hardware eliminates the need to spend a fortune on development of a new system.

And I must agree that your point about where the money would be most useful is also dead right.

While I'd like a G5 port or a new PPC system, I also find ARM boards like the $200 PandaBoard to be very attractive. And not re-inventing the wheel makes sense.

So whatever you guys decide to do, I'll follow and continue to promote it.
You've made good decisions so far and I believe you'll continue to do so.

Jim,
Quote:

I agree with all three of the statements you just made above. They are right on the money.

>> I'm not decided yet as I'm not sure I'd want a G5 Mac over my current G4 Mac (mini), which
>> is slower and less expandable, but also less bulky, less noisy and less power hungry.

> IMHO 2.1Ghz iMac G5 has a good compromise between noise/power
> consumption/features/bulkyness.

True, G5 Mac doesn't necessarily mean G5 PowerMac. But problem with the G5 iMac is that I wouldn't want to downgrade to a 20" screen from my current 22" screen.