@ RobertDupuy

The bounties are for third party projects by third party developers. We have had bounties for a TCP/IP stack (there hasn't been one included in MorphOS this far), a CSS capable web browser and a some other things. I like the idea, and I think it's good that none-programmers is able to support developments of their choice. In a way this also strengthens the MorphOS platform.

You can of course donate to MorphOS developers as well. I think this is OK too. While MorphOS is a proprietary OS with commercial ambitions, it can hardly be called "commercial" today, since there is no commerce. All the developers have day time jobs and does MorphOS development in their spare time. It has been said that the next MorphOS version, v2.0, will cost money, but there is no way that OS sales could cover even the development costs. So when you talk about "private enterprises" etc you should understand that there is a difference between Microsoft's situation and the MorphOS team's situation, and you can't dra analogies between them.

You don't donate to Microsoft, but if anyone wants to contribute to anything MorphOS related, in any way, then I think it should be encouraged!

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Magic has gone lost many years ago, ...

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You want to earn money?
Take MOS 2.0, sell it for Peg1, Peg2, Efika,
even bundle it with efika (not only the board itself).

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Donate to Mos development?
Sorry, it's commercial product (at leats mos devs and genesi
call it like that). Put the source to sourforge.net under GPL and
i will donate, or even develop for it on my own.

The BIG question is: Why was'nt mos already released years
ago?

Showing mos to the users and saying "yes it will there
one day"is'nt satisfy me and many other users, sorry

regards

eliot

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It was, and many people here have been using it for quite a while already. I'm not sure what it is you're waiting for and what you really expect MOS 2.0 to provide, I doubt it'll ever be enough.

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Not quite.

Let's explain a little bit. This is not the Efika 5121E, but the 5121Efika :) It's actually the Freescale development board which we will seed to developers in a kind of "private projects program" in order to accelerate development and get the right software available.

Rather than wait until full commercial release of the 5121E and the Efika design around it, then wait for MorphOS, and good Linux support in distributions, we can have this ready right from the presence of the Buy button for users. We identified this as a huge problem with the old design and the support framework, obviously :)

The Efika 5121E Final Final Production Design should be the same size if not smaller than the current Efika. It wil not be Mini-ITX, but engineering it so that it fits better into standard cases is one design point we're looking at.

We're also looking at what ports we can expose for hobbyists, wireless support, we've obviously taken on views on how many USB ports there should be, and other peripheral connectivity.

The Efika 5121E will be the Efika, but better, it should have a ready-built case on launch (Efika Client from Day One) so you won't all NEED to hack up a USB drive chassis to get it to work (although you are still free to).

Basically think of the Efika 5200B as a test, and you're all our guinea pigs. We won't stop supporting you and we will be looking to make the new board just as cheap (maybe not $99.. but close enough considering the featureset).

With regards to MorphOS, we fully supported the port to the Efika 5200B but the release just isn't ready yet. It's taken a while for it to get done. It's a hope that we could see an Efika 5121E MorphOS release pretty soon after the board release, maybe if that is soon enough it will be the same release as the 5200B..

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Well, 4 usb ports would be great (two internal / two external). Each pair consisting of one high speed and one full speed would sound reasonable.
Maybe the full speed internal one is not that important.

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thanks Neko, you just ruined my xmas hopes

anyway thanks for the clarification for all of us.

I don't know the final specs but please add a slot for ram upgrade....also min. two SATA ports...also on-board graphics (upto 1920x1200 like the mini mac does), sound, USB 2.0 (high speed)...

And yes, let me put it in a standard PC case please.

@HammerD

USB2 is there AFAIK, and of course also sound (why on earth wouldn't it have sound BTW?).

I have no idea about RAM slot, but two SATA and on board graphics up to 1920x1200 and standard PC case is most certainly *not* going to happen.

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SATA is there, as well as usb2.0. The features of the E2 are set by te 5121.
Ram will be more than 128MB, an additional slot will make the design just more expensive.
Integreted gfx are bound to the capabilities of the 5121 - and that is limited to 1024x768. If you want mare add a gfx card.
With your suggestions (add features over features) you leave the initial philosophy of that device.
It has to be small, cheap and energy efficient.
And that is to achieve by using the 5121 and add not much more to the board.

@ Zylesea and takemehomegrandma

I guess what I am saying is that what I am looking for is more of a Pegasos III vs. an Efika II.

Energy consumption doesn't concern me nor does "cheap". I want fast performance, modern features, and high resolution capability.

I was very disappointed when I read that the Pegasos III was put on ice.

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From the 5121E specs, there is one SATA PHY on the controller. You get one port. Maybe in future revisions this could go up to two. We don't know if it supports port multipliers, but considering the realities of the chip design and target markets, probably does not.

Adding a RAM slot does not make the design more expensive but it does mean the design has to be larger - after all a RAM slot needs space on the PCB for the physical slot.

What it does with cost is makes the price an economic fallacy - you may get a "$99" board but you will need to spend anywhere between $15 and $50 on a RAM module to even get it to boot. It is therefore not a $99 board anymore.

Genesi and it's OEMs can buffer consumers (that's you) from RAM module prices (which are crazy at certain times of year) and also get far better pricing on the chips than you will ever get on the modules.

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I don't see any reason why we should be looking at external graphics cards. The actual capabilities of the chip are 1280x720 - which is high enough resolution for the products at hand. You are not going to be playing Quake Wars at 1600x1200 on this system, after all.

It also contributes to the economic fallacy - for a board with integrated graphics, why would we want to recommend a $25 graphics adapter as essential for operation? Why would we want to subject users yet again with the markedly less than available 3.3V PCI and AGP graphics adapters on the market today?

The design I have on paper, here, solves all the problems of the original Efika - we did pay attention - and a little more, but in the end some decisions you may not like at all and some are based on chip features being more important than giving you "desktop expandability".

Just be advised.. this is a small board using an embedded chip, just as the original Efika.. if it is not in the 5121E then it is not worth the BOM cost adding it since most of the features you would ask for will cost more than the SoC itself, and I would not start justifying "well, the chip does not do it but you can always install an add-on board" just yet.

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That would be good news if true. But if that would be the case, why do Freescale themselves market the chip as capable of "only" 1024x768 24bpp?

Hmm, I would like to edit the above post away since I in my sleepy condition didn't consider things like aspect ratios etc (like reducing the vertical but increasing horizontal).

Has the "edit post" function been turned off? I can't find the button!

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Were efika5121 boards sent to MorphOS developers already? If there is no hardware, there will definately be no port...

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They market it as both, it's sort of confusing isn't it?

Which resolution is kind of vague but it's basically a limitation of the bus bandwidth off the DAC/encoder and the chosen display output.

I wouldn't say that 1024x768 is an "only" thing though. That's a fairly high resolution. It's not 1280x1024 or 1900x1280i, you might be a bit put out if all you own is 19" CRTs or 22" widescreen TFTs.. but that's not the target, is it?