Quote:
amigadave wrote:
Welcome to the MorphOS community Tyler. As we have probably less than 50 registered MorphOS users within the USA, I am always glad to read that we have another new user join our tiny community, and specially one who is not a previous Amiga user, as this shows that MorphOS is interesting enough to gain some new users from outside the few million former Amiga users.
I am an Amiga user since 1986, which was my first personal computer, and I have been promoting MorphOS use, trying to increase our user base by demonstrating my several MorphOS systems at the yearly AmiWest Show in Sacramento, California (Efika, 1.42GHz eMac & iBook (both donated as a raffle prizes during separate past AmiWest shows), 1.5GHz G4 MacMini, dual 1.42GHz G4 MDD PowerMac converted to single 1.25GHz G4, which has been over-clocked to 1.5GHz, 15" 1.67GHz G4 PowerBook (gifted to a friend in France), 17" 1.67GHz G4 PowerBook, and lastly my dual 2.7GHz G5 PowerMac). I also have a defective dual 2.5GHz G5 PowerMac that has motherboard damage which prevents one of the two G5 CPUs from being used, and a 2nd dual 2.7GHz G5 PowerMac, that have unregistered versions of MorphOS installed, which will likely be gifted to friends, raffled as prizes, or sold, in the near future.
I am interested to know what your reason(s) is/are for wanting to use older PPC Mac computers, which led you to find out about MorphOS? Are you a programmer perhaps, who like coding for the PPC architecture more than the x86/x64 architecture, or are you a Mac user who preferred using MacOS versions previous to MacOSX, and therefore prefer the PPC architecture for that reason? Being part of such a small computer community, we are always in need of more programmers, which is why I ask about your background.
In any event, welcome again and I am glad you have found your way here, and hope that we can answer all of your questions, so you can get the maximum enjoyment from using your MorphOS system. I don't know how long MorphOS for PPC will be supported by the official MorphOS Dev. Team members, but I would guess that support will continue for many years into the future, as porting, or recreating MorphOS to run on x64 will likely take a long time. I think it is official that the developers intend to add memory protection and SMP to the x64 version of MorphOS, which will make it different (and better) than our current PPC version, which is closely tied to supporting legacy Amiga software. The x64 version of MorphOS will likely only be able to run legacy Amiga 68k software by using UAE.
If you are ever able to make it to Sacramento some October, to attend one of the annual AmiWest Shows, please introduce yourself to me at the MorphOS display table.
I'm surprised to learn that there are only around 50 registered MorphOS users here in the states. Though, I guess it makes sense. Articles I've read (will have to cite later) say that the Amiga platform was far more popular in Europe than the U.S. I watched the Amiga launch event from 1985 on YouTube. To me, that machine was way ahead of its time. But, I still don't understand why the Amiga never took off in the U.S. marketplace.
About me: I was born in '86. My parents are babyboomers who had no desire to use computers. So, my computing experience began with playing educational games on our classroom's Apple //e. Number Munchers and Oregon Trail, anyone? From there, all computer use was done at school; my parent's didn't buy a home PC until 1998. As you probably can guess, I grew up pretty much using Windows. I've built a few PCs in my life and have repaired some vintage computers. I'm no electronics guru. However, I am a tinkerer and I like to learn.
I didn't use a Mac for the first time until 2011. I was browsing Craigslist and came across two iMac G5's for an incredibly low price, so I bought them and sold one for the price I paid for both. This is when I first learned about PowerPC vs. Intel. No big, right? In 2011, PowerPC Macs were still somewhat supported by Apple as long as you were running 10.5.
Anyway, in my quest to learn more about Macs, I wandered into a rabbit hole. I read about Apple's history. I read about the architecture changes. I learned that there were many who collected vintage computers. In an age when PowerPC was already dying, I kept on. It's largely because new Macs were out of my price range at that time, but I also like the designs from the PowerPC era.
I sold the second iMac G5, but have long since acquired a C64 (the first of my vintage computer collection), C128, a few Power Mac G4s, a couple of Power Mac G5s, a couple of eMacs, an Apple //e and IIGS, and several 68k machines (NeXTstation is the most notable, I guess). I'm not sure what compelled me to begin collecting vintage computers. A part of me thinks it's because even though I grew up in a time when this technology was new, I missed a large part of the experience of early personal computing because it wasn't available to me then. It wasn't until 1997 that I first accessed the World Wide Web. Fast forward 17 years, I found myself looking for alternative operating systems for PowerPC Macs. That is how found MorphOS, and I guess another rabbit hole.
Am I developer? No I'm not, but I want to learn. My career is in telecommunications. I get to touch some pretty expensive systems, but I know just enough about them to be dangerous. At 30 years old, I'm working to complete my undergrad degree in computer networking and telecommunications with emphasis in web development. It feels like I'm way behind the curve and I'm trying to catch up as quickly as I can. Rural Tennessee (where I grew up) is a far cry from the west coast.
I guess I'm here because I got tired of the mainstream. Everything is upgraded and replaced so quickly. It's nice to see a global community come together to keep vintage hardware relevant by maintaining an operating system that fits into current computing paradigms, but also allows one to slip back to yesteryear. To some degree, I get to see what I missed out on some 20 years ago. But, I also get to learn something new and feed the tinkerer who lives within me.
If I ever get out to Sacramento to attend AmiWest, I'll be sure to introduce myself. Thanks, to all of you, for the warm welcome.
Now... one last question (famous last words):
As I understand, a directory without an accompanying .info file is not visible in icon view. How does a guy create a .info file to assign an icon to a directory, and where is this .info file stored? I feel like this question is a bit elementary, yet might not make sense. I'll do my best to reword it or be more detailed if I need to. Is there a directory where icons are stored?
And so I'm clear - Would it be accurate to call Ambient the file manager as well as the desktop environment? For example, a Linux distro may use Gnome as the desktop environment, but may use Nautilus or Thunar as the file manager. Again, just trying to understand how MorphOS is organized. Thanks again.
[ Edited by relyt 28.11.2016 - 19:55 ]UDP packet bar walks a into.
