Hello one and all of the G-Group. I currently have too many G3, G4 and G5 Mac computers, but I am trying to sell some of them. My interest in them is in using both MacOS (versions 9 and 10) and MorphOS on these fine old systems. For those that don't know what MorphOS is, it is a re-write of AmigaOS3.1 for PPC hardware and it started out 11 years ago on Phase5 PPC accelerator boards for the Amiga A1200, A3000 & A4000 computers.
It is a very lightweight operating system, dubbed the "Lightning OS". Although I like MacOS9 and MacOSX and use 10.5.8 for most of my computing needs, I support the growth and expansion of MorphOS and hope to be able to use it as my primary operating system very soon. MorphOS3.0 is about to be released and will include support for the last few G4 PowerBooks produced by Apple (models 1106, 1107, 1138, and 1139). MorphOS2.7 is the currently released version and it supports all G4 Mac Mini's, the 1.25GHz & 1.42GHz G4 eMac's, almost all G4 PowerMacs, as long as you install an ATI Radeon video card in them. For Mac owners that no longer enjoy using MacOS9, or MacOSX on their slower G4 Mac hardware, you might want to give MorphOS a try, as it is a free download for the 30 minute time limited demo version. After the 30 minutes expire the system slows to a crawl until you restart your computer and then you have another 30 minutes of unrestricted speed for free. If you like it you can purchase a license keyfile that will remove the time limitation and all updates are free for registered users. Proof of concept demonstrations of MorphOS have also been shown on a dual 2.7GHz G5 PowerMac and a 2.1GHz G5 iMac, though the developers have stated that they are concentrating on work to perfect MorphOS for the currently supported G4 Mac hardware before they spend any time working on porting MorphOS to the G5 models. Release of MorphOS3.0 with support for the 1.67GHz G4 PowerBooks will be a huge step forward for all Amiga "Like" operating systems. MorphOS is capable of running most AmigaOS3.1 friendly software natively by using a 680x0 to PPC "Just-in-Time" compiler/interpreter. There are also many new MorphOS native applications and games, or ports of applications and games from other platforms. I am bound to have many questions for the Mac users on this list, as my experience with MacOSX is limited to only the last 5 years or so. For example, I need to clone the hard drive in my dual 1.25GHz G4 PowerMac which has an Avid Meridian video editing system installed in it. I bought 7 of these systems from a studio that was upgrading their studio, with the break-out boxes for audio and video input/ output and USB dongles, but one of the systems had a damaged hard drive and I am trying to restore use of the Avid Meridian editing hardware and software by cloning the hard drive from one computer to another. Since I have the USB dongles for all of the systems and both the PCI cards inside the computer and the break-out boxes for input/ output, plus the USB dongles are required to use the software, I don't see why the software on the hard drive would be protected from copying, but it apparently is, as I have been unsuccessful in my attempts to copy the Avid software from one hard drive to another. Any help would be appreciated. I can also use Ubuntu PPC 10.10 to clone the drive, if there are any tools for Linux that would be easier to use than trying to do it with MacOSX. The Avid Meridian software only runs on MacOS9.2.2, if that makes any difference to any of you trying to help me. Thanks and I hope to get to know more of you on this list in the future. Regards, AmigaDave -- You received this message because you are a member of G-Group, a group for those using G3, G4, and G5 desktop Macs - with a particular focus on Power Macs. The list FAQ is at http://lowendmac.com/lists/g-list.shtml and our netiquette guide is at http://www.lowendmac.com/lists/netiquette.shtml To post to this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/g3-5-list
