Os4emu developing seems to be stopped some years ago.
Do you know if there will be any new version? Is there a possibility to release the source code so others can continue developing it?

[ Edited by Flash 06.04.2020 - 02:20 ]

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It seems to me that OS4 and MorphOS have grown further apart in how they work, over the last few years. So, it might be much more difficult to make OS4emu work now, than it was when it was first created, but I'm just guessing, and have no technical knowledge to support my guess at what might be preventing further work on OS4emu. Certainly the graphics systems for OS4 and MorphOS have become more different, with Bigfoot (and others) work on video card drivers seeming to me to focus on a more traditional way of writing drivers and trying to provide 3D support, where OS4 seems to be using more compositing (until recently perhaps), to provide some 3D functionality. Hans appears to be doing some amazing work in providing new drivers for OS4, and adding new functions and features, but it just seems to me that our MorphOS team members working on video card drivers and graphics support in general are doing things differently, which might make updating OS4emu more difficult. Again, this is all just a guess on my part, as I don't know if any of what I have just written is true or not.

> OS4 seems to be using more compositing (until recently perhaps),
> to provide some 3D functionality.

That's true with "recently" = "some years ago", if the third-party developments led by A-Eon are considered. Else (only Hyperion-led developments considered) it's true even without modifier.

> it just seems to me that our MorphOS team members working on
> video card drivers and graphics support in general are doing things
> differently, which might make updating OS4emu more difficult.

I think it could be possible to simply not implement Warp3D Nova compatibility so that only OS4 software not depending on it (and neither on things building on top of it) would run. This would be similar to how Warp3D v5 was never supported by OS4Emu.

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Compositing engines are used to accelarate 2D functions in hardware. MorphOS has it's own compositing engine since version 2.0, pipping OS4.1 to the post by a few months.

Hans' created the Composite3D demo to test the functionality of his RadeonHD driver and to demonstrate that the compositing engine was feature rich enough to render 3D scenes, somethibng for which it wasn't intended. The only software I can think of that uses the 3D engine are Wings Battlefield and Wings Remastered.

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It would be nice if A-EON ported Warp 3D Nova to MorphOS. It would save re-inventing the wheel and be benficial if both operating systems have the same 3D API.

Warp3d nova is not free it could not be included in morphos. And it's far from beeing finished.

But if it's the only one solution ...

One of the best choice was to port Gallium3d like in Aros, but it's not in plans as i know.

I dream a talented developper like Kiero can update Tynigl to support shaders...but it's just a dream.

Os4emu is just a private joke at start it's not for real use....

[ Edited by acepeg 05.04.2020 - 23:55 ]

>> It would be nice if A-EON ported Warp 3D Nova to MorphOS.

> Warp3d nova is not free it could not be included in morphos.

It could be offered/sold by A-Eon as a third-party solution just like is done on OS4 :-)

X5000 is an AEON product shared between aos4 and mos.
If the next tabor board will be able to boot even mos maybe AEON could be interested to sell a special version of w3d nova build for mos.

Do you think there’ll be any chance to see a release of Os4emu source code? Or at least further developments?

> If the next tabor board will be able to boot even mos [...]

As far as I understand, there are no plans by the MorphOS team to support the Tabor/A1222 and its awkward FPU.

> maybe AEON could be interested to sell a special version of
> w3d nova build for mos.

Unfortunately, such build for MorphOS wouldn't be a simple recompile as Warp3D Nova relies heavily on A-Eon's RadeonHD/RadeonRX drivers. So either these 2D drivers would have to be ported as well or Warp3D Nova would have to be adapted to the MorphOS 2D drivers (if that's even feasible).

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The MorphOS team ave hinted that Sales of keyfiles to Sam460 owners are very near zero. I can only think of one single MZ user with a Sam460/Mos.

Tabor/MorphOS is definitely never happening.

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Looking at the numbers, Sam460/X5000 owners combined probably represent like 1.5% of the registered MorphOS customer base as of today.
We continue support for both machines but does it help to increase the number of users ?
Do your own math.
Is this going to change once we put focus on moving our available, spare developer resources to get some 2017/18 style graphics card support ready while at least 98.5% of our users are not able use it on their systems, just to please supposedly reluctant Sam460/X5000 owners which claim that this would be the game changer ?
Personally, I doubt that.

This finally gets me back to the actual question of Tabor support..... We already mentioned in the past that we won't dive into Tabor support for various reasons and this hasn't changed, even less likely with a projected arrival end of 2020 according to recent news.

> Is this going to change once we put focus on moving our available, spare
> developer resources to get some 2017/18 style graphics card support ready
> while at least 98.5% of our users are not able use it on their systems [...]?

Wouldn't these 2017/2018 graphics cards also be usable from MorphOS running on PCIe-equipped PowerMac G5? I guess that now that MorphOS can run on these machines, the number and percentage of them registered will increase steadily.

It never really worked, except on the most basic of command line tools (and, in theory) some very lucky apps that used OS3.9 ReAction, but I never saw that work). These tools generally were easily recompiled anyway.

And then compatibility that mostly stopped when OS4 coders mosttly started to link dynamically to an OS4 shared library that couldn't be wrapped. I forget the name - probably newlib.library.

As a pin to deflate some very large egos, it was excellent though. In its day.

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I did use OS4 version of Vice for a while with it back then, and some demoscene demo ran with it too...

> It never really worked, except on the most basic of command line Tools
> (and, in theory) some very lucky apps that used OS3.9 ReAction [...]).

My most notable uses of OS4Emu that I remember were:

- FPSE (until MorphOS-native version emerged in 2008)
- MilkyTracker (until MorphOS-native version emerged in 2008)
- RAGEMEM
- iffanimplay
- cdplayer.library (for running Napalm until MorphOS-native version emerged in 2012, though m68k version reportedly worked as well)

In that thread, some more uses are mentioned by others.

FlashMandelNG_OS4 claims to support os4emu, but it's gone because of Newlib.
However having the source would be pretty useful...

> FlashMandelNG_OS4 claims to support os4emu

Btw, the thread opener is the author :-)

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I see
Maybe he can use clib2 to get back compatibility.

Actually now I remember, newlib wasn't a shared library but a statically compiled link library.

My memory is dim but I seem to remember itix not wanting to add newlib as it crossed the line from being a simple wrapper to an actual reverse engineering of OS4.

@KennyR
newlib.library is dynamic, see its name. clib2 is static, maybe you need no wrapping at all...

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Well either way, you need stuff from OS4.

This is a big no-no.

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Well, clib2 is not pure OS4 stuff.

> newlib wasn't a shared library but a statically compiled link library.

Let me add this link to polluks' correction:

https://wiki.amigaos.net/wiki/The_Hacking_Way:_Part_1_-_First_Steps#The_C_standard_library_.28libc.29

It explains the differences between clib2 and newlib (and vclib) in easy terms so that even the non-programmer that I am can understand it.

> I seem to remember itix not wanting to add newlib

...but he did with version 1.9 of OS4Emu, didn't he?

https://morph.zone/modules/news/article_storyid_1085.html
http://amigazeux.net/os4emu/hist.php
http://amigazeux.net/os4emu/feat.php

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No. No release version ever supported it. Betas may have done.