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MorphOS for PowerMAC G4 support coming

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MorphOS for PowerMAC G4 support coming

Just looking around

Joined: 2004/7/23
Posts: 10
From:

MorphOS also runs on PowerMAC G4 systems now and support for other new world PowerMACs will probably only depend on some validation.

At the moment my test system is a PowerMAC 1.42Ghz Dual CPU MDD(Mirror Drive) F800 with a Radeon9000 which is the last generation of these G4 PowerMACs.
A PowerMAC(probably Quicksilver) with 1.8 Ghz should arrive here this week, though with an useless Mach32 gfxcard installed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_Mac_G4

gives a good overview over the different PowerMAC modells.
The problem is that you can only really expect an equipped ATI 9000 gfxcard with these MDD modells, otherwise you need to get an Apple Radeon 9000 or maybe a 9800 in the future.

These Apple specific gfxcards are more expensive for rarity reasons I suppose but there is a website to flash specific PC Radeons into Apple versions but I haven't tried that yet.
But I definitely look into that for a Radeon 9800.

http://themacelite.wikidot.com/ati-radeon

At the moment the prices for these systems are extremely attractive. I got the last generation MDD modell for 270Euro last month, probably a bit overpriced but it is rarer than any other last generation G4.
But these MDDs don't seem to be easy to upgrade the cpu, so if somebody is really interested in a faster G4 cpucard you should better go for Quicksilver modells.
The older MDD(non F800) also seem to have a reputation for being noisy but there are specific fan replacement kits for them.

The 1.8Ghz(Sonnet cpucard) one I got for around 140Euro and similar versions sold between 100 and 200Euro so these kind of systems don't seem to be that rare. I've definitely seen several of them the last weeks.

So, if you're interested into these systems for MorphOS in the near future you should pay attention on ebay and look for the right modell as official MorphOS support for them can be expected sooner than later. Definitely a lot easier than catching a 1.5Ghz Mac Mini.

»2009/11/30 2:54

amigadave

Re: MorphOS for PowerMAC G4 support coming

Priest of the Order of the Butterfly

Joined: 2006/3/21
Posts: 506
From: Big Bear Lake, CA, USA

This is a very good surprise! I was expecting an announcement regarding the support for the eMac models and maybe the G4 PowerBook and/or G4 iBook laptop models, but did not know any work was being done on the G4 PowerMac models.

There is no excuse for any former or current Classic Amiga user to not pick up one of the supported Mac models and give MorphOS a try. With the hardware being so cheap and easy to find, and the demo version of the OS so easy to install and try out, everyone should try it for themselves.

Great work Team!!! Keep it going.

--
Attend AmiWest 2010 in Sacramento, California, USA. It is going to be an amazing amount of fun (again)!

»2009/11/30 4:29

Jambalah

Re: MorphOS for PowerMAC G4 support coming

Order of the Butterfly

Joined: 2008/3/30
Posts: 430
From: Roma, Italy

Wow! That's a really good! My second license key is getting closer :-)

I like the PowerMAC G4 and I'm going to search one, now!
Thanks Team! Good work!!

»2009/11/30 8:35

dIGIMAN

Re: MorphOS for PowerMAC G4 support coming

Order of the Butterfly

Joined: 2005/11/7
Posts: 244
From:

Thats really great! A Machine with PCI, thats what i wanted.

Thanks :)

»2009/11/30 10:52

sadddam

Re: MorphOS for PowerMAC G4 support coming

Order of the Butterfly

Joined: 2005/4/9
Posts: 376
From: magyarorszag/hungary/

really nice news!
morphos will take over the whole ppc mac world sooner or later:)
i've got an old 400mhz g4 model. i wonder if morphos will support that as well (with radeon ofcoz)? it would be nice.

--
DEAD pegII/G4@1000.1gb ram.radeon 9200pro
240 gigz hd.nec dvdrw.MorphOS 2.4 DEAD
-=-=-=-
amiga1200T.blizzardppc@180/040@25.96megz ram
-=-=-=-=-
zx.spectrum@3.5

»2009/11/30 12:05

metalmac

Re: MorphOS for PowerMAC G4 support coming

Cocoon

Joined: 2007/5/26
Posts: 50
From:

Great news!

I have a PowerMac G4 "Quicksilver" in my closet colecting dust!
Just have to swich the greafix card I think. .-)

»2009/11/30 12:12

jacadcaps

Re: MorphOS for PowerMAC G4 support coming

MorphOS Developer

Joined: 2003/3/5
Posts: 528
From: Poland

@sadddam

Forget it. Old-world models (unable to run OS X) aren't going to be supported. These are totally different from New-world machines and would mean double work.

»2009/11/30 12:34

Andreas_Wolf

Re: MorphOS for PowerMAC G4 support coming

Paladin of the Pegasos

Joined: 2003/5/22
Posts: 1415
From: Chemnitz, Germany

> my test system is a PowerMAC 1.42Ghz Dual CPU MDD(Mirror Drive) F800

Are you sure about MDD? According to Apple the MDD model was only available at 1.25 GHz (single):

http://support.apple.com/kb/SP106

The dual 1.42 GHz FW800 model seems to be non-MDD:

http://support.apple.com/kb/SP54

Or is Apple's spec listing flawed once more?

> The problem is that you can only really expect an equipped
> ATI 9000 gfxcard with these MDD modells

According to the second link above the PowerMac G4 FW800 was also available with Radeon 9700 as BTO option (That's assuming you don't really mean only the MDD models ;-)

> The 1.8Ghz(Sonnet cpucard) one I got for around 140Euro and similar
> versions sold between 100 and 200Euro so these kind of systems don't
> seem to be that rare.

Just FYI, PowerMac G4 CPU upgrades seem to exist up to 2.0 GHz, made by PowerLogix and Newer Technology:

http://www.powerlogix.com/products/ (MPC7447A/B)
http://www.newertech.com/products/maxpower48.php (MPC7448, they also had MPC7447A/B ones previously)

I don't know about them being rare or not, though.

»2009/11/30 12:37

Zylesea

Re: MorphOS for PowerMAC G4 support coming

Paladin of the Pegasos

Joined: 2003/6/4
Posts: 1026
From: everywhere

Great news! While I am happy with the Mini, I think te Power Macs are a very good addition. Will consider to add a Power Mac G4 to my collection (but not in a hurry now, the Mini does it well).
But this is realy good news, that's indeed the way forward.

»2009/11/30 12:46

Andreas_Wolf

Re: MorphOS for PowerMAC G4 support coming

Paladin of the Pegasos

Joined: 2003/5/22
Posts: 1415
From: Chemnitz, Germany

> Forget it. Old-world models (unable to run OS X) aren't going to be supported.

AFAIK all PowerMac G4 models are NewWorld. So the reason that sadddam's 400 MHz model isn't going to be supported must be different.

»2009/11/30 12:50

jacadcaps

Re: MorphOS for PowerMAC G4 support coming

MorphOS Developer

Joined: 2003/3/5
Posts: 528
From: Poland

@Andreas_Wolf

Well.... I might as well be wrong, but anyway the older models are unlikely to be supported. That most likely means all pre-G4 1GHz models.

»2009/11/30 12:57

Andreas_Wolf

Re: MorphOS for PowerMAC G4 support coming

Paladin of the Pegasos

Joined: 2003/5/22
Posts: 1415
From: Chemnitz, Germany

> morphos will take over the whole ppc mac world sooner or later:)

Apart from that OldWorld obstacle jacadcaps mentions, there is at least one more problem: PPC Macs with onboard non-Radeon GPU (all iMac G4 models for instance). Also, support for G5 PPC Macs is far away according to what bigfoot told in his interview. Thus, that "whole ppc mac world" is a pipe dream, unfortunately.

»2009/11/30 13:00

sadddam

Re: MorphOS for PowerMAC G4 support coming

Order of the Butterfly

Joined: 2005/4/9
Posts: 376
From: magyarorszag/hungary/

yes its a new world mac (in graffite tower). it runs os x (but for what? its unusable on this hw, how the heck ppl used it for work?:). but i understand that it probably wont be supported by morphos. in fact its barely better than an efika, only you can add more ram (it has 512mb now). it would be nice but in the end it wont be more than a noisy toy.
i guess i'll go for a mini then, coz its small and silent except i find some really cheap but powerful g4 powermac.

--
DEAD pegII/G4@1000.1gb ram.radeon 9200pro
240 gigz hd.nec dvdrw.MorphOS 2.4 DEAD
-=-=-=-
amiga1200T.blizzardppc@180/040@25.96megz ram
-=-=-=-=-
zx.spectrum@3.5

»2009/11/30 13:05

Debaser

Re: MorphOS for PowerMAC G4 support coming

Butterfly

Joined: 2005/7/12
Posts: 71
From: NY & PA, USA

This is fantastic news! I know in the states, Quicksilver models are going extremely cheap on the likes of craigslist and ebay. Thank you MorphOS Team!

»2009/11/30 13:17

CountRaven

Re: MorphOS for PowerMAC G4 support coming

Order of the Butterfly

Joined: 2007/12/11
Posts: 249
From:

Great! Already got a G4 PPC here waiting for MorphOS!

--
PegasosII, PegasosI, Efika, Amiga 4000PPC, Amiga 1200PPC, MacMini

»2009/11/30 13:56

Andreas_Wolf

Re: MorphOS for PowerMAC G4 support coming

Paladin of the Pegasos

Joined: 2003/5/22
Posts: 1415
From: Chemnitz, Germany

> the older models are unlikely to be supported. That most likely means
> all pre-G4 1GHz models.

Well, Laire mentioned Quicksilver models. Look for yourself what clock frequencies they have:

http://support.apple.com/kb/SP108 (2001)
http://support.apple.com/kb/SP78 (2002)

»2009/11/30 13:57

jacadcaps

Re: MorphOS for PowerMAC G4 support coming

MorphOS Developer

Joined: 2003/3/5
Posts: 528
From: Poland

@Andreas_Wolf

It all comes down to the chipsets used in the given models. Sadly neither Apple nor sites like everymac.com provide such details :)

»2009/11/30 14:13

CountRaven

Re: MorphOS for PowerMAC G4 support coming

Order of the Butterfly

Joined: 2007/12/11
Posts: 249
From:

Those are the specs of my G4 hope it can make it:

Dual 867MHz PowerPC G4 processors
* 256K on-chip level 2 cache and 1MB DDR SRAM level 3 cache per processor
* 133MHz system bus
* 2GB of PC2100 DDR SDRAM
* ATi Radeon 9800 VRAM : 256MB 256-bit DDR
* 200GB WD 7200rpm Ultra ATA/100 hard drive (primary)
* 250GB WD 7200rpm Ultra ATA/100 hard drive (secondary)
* Combo drive (DVD-ROM/CD-RW)
* Superdrive (Pioneer DVD-RW DVR-105)
* Three 800 Mbps FireWire port card
* Four USB 2.0 port card
* Two 400 Mbps FireWire ports
* Four USB 1.0 ports (includes two on keyboard)
* Apple speaker minijack, front headphone jack, audioline out minijact and audioline in minijack
* Build-in 10/100/1000 BASE-T Ethernet networking (Gigabit)
* Ready for Airport wireless networking
* Apple Pro Keyboard and Apple Pro Mouse
* Meets ENERGY STAR requirements
* Mac OS 10.4 Tiger Operating System (Freshly installed)

--
PegasosII, PegasosI, Efika, Amiga 4000PPC, Amiga 1200PPC, MacMini

»2009/11/30 14:19

_ThEcRoW

Re: MorphOS for PowerMAC G4 support coming

Butterfly

Joined: 2008/10/27
Posts: 98
From:

Cool!!! Seems that a searching for a powermac and a second license would fall for christmas. 8-)

»2009/11/30 14:45

Andreas_Wolf

Re: MorphOS for PowerMAC G4 support coming

Paladin of the Pegasos

Joined: 2003/5/22
Posts: 1415
From: Chemnitz, Germany

> It all comes down to the chipsets used in the given models.

Yes, of course, but non-support of "all pre-G4 1GHz models" would mean that none of the three 2001 Quicksilver models and only one of the three 2002 Quicksilver models get support. As I read Laire, all six Quicksilver models will be supported, with the slowest one at 733 MHz (single).

»2009/11/30 14:47

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