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FYI I contacted the manufacturer Amfeltec and they said

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So that would cover any addition PCIe and SATA expansion I might want to add.


Can I time travel now to 2026?

@balaton

Thanks for the reply!

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Maybe the manufacturer is expecting a driver module in the Linux kernel? Mmm, hadn't considered that.

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I figured the architecture is similar enough that they might eventually stumble on the answer. That is, if they perform Linux DMA tests comparing the Merari with the X5000 and find both are similar, then maybe it's a limitation of the SoC ?

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Oh, I hadn't realized that! Then kudos to them both for undertaking this project!

News articles eventually fall away, so I am starting this thread for Harald 'Geennaam' Kanning's announced Mirari PPC motherboard, as there should be lots to discuss. Some of this may not come from anybody but Geennaam himself, but links to offsite posts still count as answers. A few comments of my own:

1) How much memory does it address? I don't see that in the writeup.

2) My only grumble is a preference for more expansion:

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I wonder how hard it would be to support an NVMe to SATA adapter board like

https://www.amazon.com/Adapter-RIITOP- ... set-ASM1166/dp/B0D8BCWHPT

The description says it's Linux compatible. Many Amiga users still feel nostalgia for floppy drives, and that goes double for me with optical drives, so SATA (even PATA) is not out.

With an NVMe adapter and networking and sound on the motherboard, there may not be much need for extra cards, but do PCIe splitters often/sometimes work without firmware or drivers? Any such remaining cards might be satisfied with one lane each, and a PCIe 4x splitter like this

https://www.amfeltec.com/flexible-x4-pci-express-4way-splitter/

says that it functions right out of the box.

I believe the only OS4 SCSI driver is for PCI cards, so I lament that loss, but will survive.

3)

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The T1042 being based on the same e5500 core as the X5000, if this comment is similar to the topic that Kas1e and Hans recently discussed here

https://www.amigans.net/modules/newbb/ ... id=154050#forumpost154050

then that's not so impressive. As development proceeds I would be curious if anybody (maybe only Geennaam himself?) could venture a guess as to the nature of the X5000's DMA issues. Because A-Eon and Hyperion aren't talking.

4) In the short term, the Mirari board just might spur some X5000 development, like a UBoot update and lower prices. Competition is good. :)

5) I don't think Geennaam would have started this project without some plans to mass produce the boards. That is, I don't think he would have the resources to fund the manufacturing himself. Which (German?) company might partner with him?

6) Anyone want to guess what year it will go on sale?

The avcodec.library on OS4 Depot is from 2008. Is there anything newer? If not, who would port it today? (Perhaps it's very straightforward?) Could it be fodder for Enhancer 2.3?

@pjs

Should probably quit while I'm behind, but... While I'm not up on all things MacOS, you gave me flashbacks to Mac Classic resource forks, type codes, and creator codes. I know Apple doesn't do that anymore, but did you try recreating the OSX system of a .app folder structure for Wormhole, in case it wasn't there by default?

I'm pondering buying a Mac M4 Mini as a stopgap stand-in for an X5000 (QEmu), so may be dealing with this firsthand in a few months.

@pjs

I believe most if not all nix systems (OSX included) don't take the current working directory into account when starting executables from the command line. They live and die based on the path variable. If you haven't already, try something like

.Wormhole_OSX_ppc
or
./Wormhole_OSX_ppc

when starting Wormhole.

Some background on the different families of OS4 datatypes:

https://www.amigans.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=8478

I recall another thread concerning crashes when using the Warp DT's with Multiviewer (known issue) but can't currently find it.

@Maijestro

Does booting in Safe Mode have any effect?

I stumbled onto Rob Smith's floppy project a few years ago. (If anybody has the link to the YouTube video where he first recreates the Amiga floppy "click", I can't find it anymore.) I hadn't realized how much it's taken off since then!

I'm happy it's finally made its way to OS4, but my original wish was for a PCI-E or PCI card that not only incorporates a floppy controller, but original Amiga keyboards (using the original protocol), and Amiga joysticks/mice/paddles, too. With not only drivers for the OS, but also support in UBoot, Kickstart, etc. Maybe somebody will eventually take this on, too?

@davebraco

> Be aware that, if I remember correctly, not all Radeon RX 580s are currently supported.

This is interesting. Would you elaborate? Is it just the PCI device ID issue Hans mentioned, or something else?

@Cageman

TY! Adding to the forum knowledge, not least of which mine!

Pivoting just a little, is there a file/disk recovery utility for NGFS? (Planning for the future. :)

You're talking about the modern A1000 / A500 accelerator from Irix Labs? No first hand experience, but I'd think if it needed cooling, Irix would have added something. The 1200 and Mac II's also used 68020's, albeit a little slower, and (from motherboard photos) I don't believe any of the Mac's used cooling either.

Having said that, if you're looking to protect your investment, there's no harm in gluing a small heat sink on top.

Watching this situation play out, there doesn't seem to be any meaningful beta testing. The users paying money for Enhancer appear to be doing much of the testing, which is not the way to create confidence in the product.

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For AmigaKit to stay in business? Or perhaps somebody could refresh my memory about how these ARM "Amigas" came about and to what degree AEON is involved? Hyperion funded OS4 development through Mac game sales, and if projects like this eventually find their profits benefitting OS 4.2, then I guess it's (yet again) a matter of staying patient.

@Tuvok

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But you feel reasonably comfortable with other languages, even if that's just ARexx? If no, then you might want to start slow with something simpler like that or Python, to get the basics. I believe many high schools today teach Python.

Instead of taking a formal approach, you could ask yourself what you'd eventually like to code, and then look for a similar project on OS4 Depot that includes the source. Pour through that, using the books and online resources as references.

Myself, I'm in a similar boat, so your thread about IDE's is timely. I've coded in a number of scripting languages plus some work in Java, but coding for a specific operating system, especially Amiga, feels a little daunting. I hope to start figuring it out by perhaps the end of the year using an "all of the above" approach.

The original problem was Odyssey refusing to run after a Grim Reaper crash...but you could still boot into that SYS: partition? Correct?

I don't know why you're having trouble after a clean reinstall of everything, but the first problem could have been a corrupt Odyssey cache, cookie file, etc.

New posting here, but not new. :)

Yes, Commodore's mismanagement was the root of all problems, a revolving door of ineffective but highly-paid CEO's while engineering starved. AAA in 1992 instead of AGA would have put them in a better place in 1995, building on 16-bit sound, a built-in HD floppy controller, and the improved graphics. Concerning the OS, I think of it as a lack of "polish" or "fit and finish". Windows didn't get a built-in browser until Windows 98 and MacOS didn't get built-in networking until OS8 (Safari wasn't until OSX), so I don't fault Commodore for that, but...

1) They created the datatype system but IIRC barely included any datatypes. If you're striving for a multimedia OS, I would expect maybe two dozen picture, sound, animation, text, and video datatypes. Maybe they could have sold a separate expansion pack?

2) Ditto for ClassAct/Reaction. The framework was there but only a handful of SOB's existed.

3) There was no simple GUI text editor to compete with Notepad on Windows and SimpleText on the Mac.

4) I don't recall any disk recovery utilities included after DiskDoctor. DiskSalv Lite would have been nice.

5) Workbench was under-powered. The ARexx port in OS 3.9 helped, but that was years later. There was no dedicated right-click menu, no icon cache, no way of hiding unused icons, DefIcons didn't appear until 1996-ish as freeware, and "Trash" seemed like an afterthought.


That's what I remember.