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Well, as we continue to advance in the coming releases, I think I may be tempted to stay for awhile after this transition/fork.
Each coming release promises to address issues we are currently facing, and who know when we we will see an X64 fork, or what that will bring.

So, I'm just enjoying what we're getting now with PPC MorphOS.

I have a case for an X5000, some DDR 3 memory, an OWC SSD, and a VIA ENVY24 based sound card stashed away (I can't decide whether to fork over the cash for an X5000/20 or wait for the X5000/40, but if we see the latter before the next AmiWest, I'll go with that).

Unfortunately, the 'Radeon HD 8490' I recently ordered turned out to be an R5 240 when it showed up (apparently the seller couldn't tell the difference). We can't use those yet, as 3.10 will only support up to the R5 235X (which is basically what an HD 8490 is).

Which reminds me, I already have an R4 240 from a previous purchase that I need to ship to Mark (as he needs an 'Oland' based card). As he already has HD 7770 and 7850 cards (as well as an R7 260X), this will give him a few options when he has time to work on GCN drivers.

I think where ever this ends up, our terminus in this long running PPC OS will provide some nice improvements in functionality.
When I first started using MorphOS, the highest level cards supported were R200 cards like the Radeon 8500, 9000 and 9200. Soon after the R300s were supported, later even before G5 support was introduced work on R400 support began. We have R500 support now. And despite the grousing about the lack of GCN drivers, this next update covering everything from the R600s up to the Terascale families is pretty impressive (its a LOT of gpus).

So, once you guys are ready to rocket off to X64, I'll hopefully have a quad core PPC system, with a nice VIA Envy24 sound card and an advanced AMD video card to use.
New equipment...and not a bad upgrade from the last hardware available new, the Peg2.

And if in the future zero updates to MorphOS PPC means an eventual switch to the 'dark side' (at least for this system), no big deal.

As to X64, I'm exploring Minix 3 right now, and if development of that picks up, I may move to that eventually.
Its another microkernel OS, like MorphOS, but with support for BSD applications.
It definitely needs an improved user interface though.

[ Edited by Jim 02.11.2017 - 08:29 ]

> the last hardware available new, the Peg2.

The Efika 5200B came way after that ;-) And the Sam460cr was available in homeopathic doses after MorphOS added support for it.

> As to X64, I'm exploring Minix 3 right now

It only uses IA-32, though :-)

> with support for BSD applications.

Interesting. Any details on that?

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The Efika was a bad joke. And by the time MorphOS support was introduced for the SAM460 it was essentially no longer available.

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32 bit now, hopefully 64 bit in the future.
And we only have 31 bit support right now, we may not have more than 32 bit in the initial AMD64 fork, and 64 bit?
I can wait.

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I'll drop some here tomorrow, and its only 'some' BSD applications.



[ Edited by Jim 02.11.2017 - 17:00 ]

> we may not have more than 32 bit in the initial AMD64 fork

I doubt the ISA switch will be lukewarm :-)

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Indeed, and it’s almost a six-year anniversary since 64-bit was announced:

http://www.amiga.org/forums/showthread.php?t=59765

Besides, it wouldn’t really make sense to sacrificing Amiga compatibility by moving away from 31-bit, only to stop at 32-bit.

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Wanna bet? Either of you?
With the current code base, 32 bits initially, with an eventual move to 64 bit would be an easier migration path.
And MorphOS has always been about gradual evolution, not drastic jumps.

> With the current code base, 32 bits initially, with an eventual move to 64 bit
> would be an easier migration path.

The lowest-level OS parts will have to be re-written from scratch anyway, so those will be 64-bit for sure. And for most things running on top of that, 64-bit should be just a compiler switch away. After all, it’s not like the integer size, datapath width and memory address width are defined in source codes written in high-level languages.

> MorphOS has always been about gradual evolution, not drastic jumps.

MorphOS never underwent an ISA switch before. And an ISA switch is something most would call a drastic jump in itself.

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Your ability to forecast future events has been fairly accurate so far...
And I'd actually prefer this direction, so we'll see.

Does anyone need more power?

processor : 191
cpu : POWER8E (raw), altivec supported
clock : 3325.000000MHz
revision : 2.1 (pvr 004b 0201)
(Yes a big machine with 192 cores!)
https://groups.google.com/d/msg/julia-dev/BYVCyUlNR8c/_9XGgjolNNIJ

> 192 cores

I think it's 24 cores with 192 (24×8) hardware threads.