Nicholas Blachford from Genesi (also ex-Amiga, ex-BeOS developer) sent us in an announcement regarding the new Pegasos machines, the BeOS connection and the availability of NewOS for Pegasos.
As announced at BeGeistert 010:
Be goes home!
A long time ago Be inc. shipped a Box with PowerPC processors. Later
they abandoned the PowerPC in favour of the x86 CPUs.
Ex-Be inc. Kernel developer Travis Geiselbrecht is to port NewOS to the
Pegasos motherboard.
Axel Dörfler is then to work with those changes and port OpenBeOS to Pegasos.
Whats the big deal about this? Pegasos is a PowerPC motherboard, Be is going home!
More details of Pegasos along with resellers can be found here.
A G4 upgrade is planned for July.
Later in the Year Pegasos 2 shall be launched with support for DDR RAM, 3 Gigabit Ethernet ports and support for G3 and G4 CPUs.
A dual G4 card is also under consideration.
Is “Pegasos” the motherboard or the name of the company?
What is MorphOS? Is it anything like the old Amiga OS?
What is this Pegasos company actually selling? A mobo + OS?
Not sure why they like to be so cryptic… They could use a faq. [shrug]
How about clicking the butterfly above and read a bit more about it and then figure out what is what?
Pegasos is the name of the machine, Genesi is the name of the company, MorphOS is the name of the main OS running on these machines (other OSes run there as well).
Thanks for the info about clicking on the butterfly. (However, your first sentence comes across as a bit rude.) Perhaps I am thick-headed, but I certainly did not know those images were linked to anything, and I’m sure I missed that in the “How to Navigate This Site” section.
It also seems that some the questions posed by johnG are ones that should be addressed by the Pegasos web site without having to dig through old OSNews articles and posts. (No doubt I’m wrong about this, however.)
Well, sorry, but this is how most sites work regarding the topic icon. Slashdot, all *Nuke sites etc which attribute to 90% of these kinds of news sites like ours, you click on the topic icon and then you can read older stories for that topic. You don’t need a “How to Navigate This Site” section on OSNews. It is easy to natigate. Chances are that you won’t be reading OSNews if you don’t have some experience with all these sites. Also, the little icons have an alternative ALT/TITLE tag saying “Read Similar Articles”. It is self explainable.
Actually, I do read these sites from time to time and did not know this, because it never occurred to me to put my mouse cursor over the icons (so I would not have seen the ALT/TITLE tag).
Be that as it may, this still does not address the second part of my original post, that is, that the Pegasos site should have addressed some of the questions raised by johnG, unless of course they don’t care.
Sorry to be an arse, but I didn’t know you could click on those icons either.
you learn something new everyday! I was hoping to see screenshots of NewOS. Am I just blind or screenshots just aren’t released yet? Does NewOS have a graphical desktop or just console for now?
@ Walt_H
“Be that as it may, this still does not address the second part of my original post, that is, that the Pegasos site should have addressed some of the questions raised by johnG, unless of course they don’t care.”
Actually, we are currently working on a completely new PEGASOS website which will address all of the questions raised by johnG. So, while your critiscm is justified the problem is already being worked on.
>Does NewOS have a graphical desktop or just console for now?
console for now. NewOS is primarily just a kernel.
it’s probably yes but i can’t have this confirmed, does that board can boot without anything in it, like no video card keyboard or mouse?
And how much heat does it produce? Will a rack version be made?
Is it any good machine? I don’t really know that much, but how does it compares to Apple’s machines?
I am posting this from a Pegasos machine running MorphOS 1.3+. It arrived here JUST THIS MORNING. Expect a review soon.
I am posting this from a Pegasos machine running MorphOS 1.3+. It arrived here JUST THIS MORNING. Expect a review soon.
Sweet, look forward for it! 😀 Looks like the owner of OSNews.com should pay you as the full-time job. OSNews.com only rocks when you are busy with it. 😉
B.E.OS will already run on Pegasos boards, as it runs various linux flavours already, just recompile the source to B.E.OS on PPC and your rockin’
btw AROS is being ported to Pegasos now also. This is a great thing to happen IMHO.
http://aros.sourceforge.net/
Matthew Parsons contacted Genesi and asked if they would be interested in sponsoring a Pegasos board to get AROS ported to it, and they thought it was a great idea! After some discussion on the ML and hard thinking on Johan Grip’s part, he decided to accept the offer and try his utmost to port AROS to the Pegasos. All agree that he’s the best suited for this task. The Pegasos board is at the time of writing on it’s way to Johan. Hopefully this will result in AROS running on it in the near future!
B.E.OS will already run on Pegasos boards, as it runs various linux flavours already, just recompile the source to B.E.OS on PPC and your rockin’
Yeah right, it’s a closed source project…
B.E.OS is open source (and uses a Linux kernel), BeOS is not.
What mdma is talking about is Blue.Eyed.OS that uses linux for its kernel.
Manik writes…
B.E.OS is open source (and uses a Linux kernel), BeOS is not.
Damn you bit me to it
Since the source to Blue eyed OS is closed, and and only accessible to the development team, not under a BSD or GPL license, it’s difficult to see why anyone would call it open source. Source is not available – and their current plans do not include source code release
Wow, Eugenia, your box took less than a day to come it seems
Or maybe they sent it on saturday 
I was at BeGeistert, and I can assure you this Pegasos box looks really nice…
As it’s a PPC, no need for a fan it’s plain silent.
You can even put your fingers on the heater without being afraid of making bacon
About AROS, well shouldn’t be difficult, actually MorphOS contains lots of parts from AROS AFAIK (long ago, the team asked AROS the rights to use it, as it seemed the project was staled).
>Wow, Eugenia, your box took less than a day to come it seems
It was shipped on Friday from France AFAIK. It was here Monday morning.
needs some work – now it looks like crap in mozilla (and i’m not talking about design – which i also don’t like ;]).
how much it would cost for pegasosbox (that silver one – looking a bit like dvd player? or am i wrong here) with 2 IBM processors? and 512 MB RAM (BTW they should make mobo use DDR).
I just found it in gallery from events. It’s not what i was thinking of (that was genesi right?), far from that but well… it can be put under desk and no one will see it (and if it’s so quiet it’s even better
— As it’s a PPC, no need for a fan it’s plain silent.
We have a dual G4 at work and it has a fan that sounds like a vacuum cleaner. It is amazingly loud when it gets going. It does sound like a quality fan I must admit. Not tinny like some PC fans, but it definitely gets your attention.
Don’t know if it’s compatible for G4 but try Thermaltake Volcano 9 (i have that one in my pc) it can be very silent (can be set to rpm you like) and still usable
>As it’s a PPC, no need for a fan it’s plain silent.
>We have a dual G4 at work and it has a fan that sounds like a >vacuum cleaner. It is amazingly loud when it gets going. It >does sound like a quality fan I must admit. Not tinny like >some PC fans, but it definitely gets your attention.
If you want something silent I think it’s better to look at this: http://www.mini-itx.com and http://www.viavpsd.com (mini-itx product family)
Less expensive …
More chance the company isn’t broke in a year or so :o)
>it’s probably yes but i can’t have this confirmed, does
>that board can boot without anything in it, like no
>video card keyboard or mouse?
Yes.
>And how much heat does it produce?
The complete system (Pegasos Board + CPU) is aroud 20 Watts.
The CPU only needs 6 Watts so there is no need for a fan.
>Will a rack version be made?
A 1U version shall be made at some point, Yes.
It’s only sold as a board with CPU at the moment so you can mount it in anything you want. It’s a very small board (Micro ATX) but the CPU is in a slot which is too tall for a 1U box at the moment.
>how much it would cost for pegasosbox (that silver
>one – looking a bit like dvd player? or am i wrong here)
Check with the resellers on the website:
http://www.pegasosppc.com
We don’t sell complete systems at the moment.
>with 2 IBM processors? and 512 MB RAM
At the moment it’s only a single CPU with the G4 coming in July.
>BTW they should make mobo use DDR.
Then you’ll want a Pegasos 2 🙂
Website:
This is being rearranged.
Can OS X/Darwin be hacked to run on it ?
Yes , it can ,however nobody wants to admit due to lawsuit.
Why not port to a PPC HW that is shipping & sold today.
(http://groups.yahoo.com/group/amigaone/message/26418)
Pegasos is “shipping & sold today.” as you put it.
If I had the choice i would buy a Pegasos and run AOS4 on it, I can’t for various reasons, so I won’t buy an A1 until AOS4 is released. I WILL buy a Pegasos in a couple of weeks when I have the money.
These are the OSes currently running on the Pegasos.
MorphOS
SuSE
Debian
YDL
Mandrake
Gentoo
OpenBSD
AROS*
FreeBSD*
OpenBeOS*
NewOS*
*port underway
Also:
AmigaOS 3.1-3.9 through emulation
MacOS9+ and X through Mac-on-Linux
Currently there are no Pegasos1’s left for sale. The northbridge Genesi were using (MAI’s) wasn’t good enough (no DDR ram; it was mainly used so they could get some developer boards out), and they now are using a better chip (Marvell), but it will take a bit of time to engineer- another couple of months or so.
The reason no more Pegasos1’s are available, is that the northbridge chip they were using had bugs, (which they developed a fix for), but there were only a few of those chips left (as MAI brought out a new chip, to fix those bugs). So Genesi were faced with testing a chip that would only be used for a couple of months, or go straight into testing the new chip- which is what they have done.
-Ants
“The reason no more Pegasos1’s are available, is that the northbridge chip they were using had bugs, (which they developed a fix for),”
Thats bull spread by Genesi’s tw*t of a CEO, the Amiga One boards are running fine with simple fixes even with G4’s countering all what that CEO has said about the chipset.
If you do your research you’ll find the people that designed the board designed a bunch of defunct CPU cards for the Amiga’s and then went defunct themselves, a company called DCE(their buddies which produced all/some pegasos boards) bought the rights for the fore mentioned cards and still refuses to this day to return alot of cards sent to them for under warranty repairs.
“but there were only a few of those chips left (as MAI brought out a new chip, to fix those bugs).”
The new revision removes the need for minor board work arounds. Alas the Amiga One boards are proving the April fix developed by Genesi to be worthless as a few board work arounds fix the problems.
“So Genesi were faced with testing a chip that would only be used for a couple of months, or go straight into testing the new chip- which is what they have done.”
The new board was brought up to cover over the fact that they *weren’t* going to release a G4 upgrade as promised but now the G4 amiga one boards are shipping in quanity they’ve changed their minds.
The Pegasos I used the Articia S #A660BNGP. This part has been discontinued by Mai. We purchased the last 408 units. We also purchased a number of Articia S #A660BNGE for testing. This is the “new” Articia S.
We created two patches for the BNGP – April1 and April2. We worked with Mai at their offices in Fremont in the Fall of 2002 to develop the first patch, April1. We released the first Pegasos with April1 in December. Prior to that using the same Articia without the patch we released “Betatester” machines beginning in June 2002 to our internal developers and later to a few brave souls who actually bought the “Betatester” (Pegasos) machines. This move aided us greatly in bringing the platform and MorphOS a step further in their evolution. Unfortunately, after we released the Pegasos with April1 we discovered another problem which was then fixed with the April2. The Pegasos with April2 was just sold online ( http://www.pegasos-usa.com ) and through Resellers. Further quantities were also distributed to developers and we exchanged all “Betatester” boards. There are roughly 600 Pegasos Users worldwide now — on every continent excluding the two poles (we even have a Pegasos owner on the Faro Islands!).
We will be offering a G4 card upgrade in July and the Pegasos II in September. The G3 and G4 cards can be used interchangeably on either the Pegasos I or the Pegasos II. The Pegasos II will use a Marvell northbridge. We have had samples for nearly two months and are experiencing a tremendous level of support and interest from Marvell. We believe the Pegasos II can be a very successful product. We have offered all Pegasos owners either of two upgrade options for 200 Euros: either the G4 card or for the same price a complete system upgrade with trade-in (mainboard and CPU card).
To date all mainboards, cards and patches have been produced at DCE (scroll down on http://www.dcecom.de/galerie.html ). We have a solid relationship with DCE. They are a healthy, well-managed company.
We have leveraged the once huge Amiga Community to find developers and applications to support MorphOS and the Pegasos. We are building an impressive team and will have a very interesting suite of applications ready to go soon (many working now). We have/will license or develop these applications ourselves for the benefit of our 600 Pegasos users. It is our way of saying thanks for all their support and interest. Of course, it is also our way of making sure we have plenty of things working properly for a broader, more commercially oriented release.
The Amiga Community is a small, active, talented and motivated. If we have success one day it will be because we were able to capture the interest and support of this Community. Our next step is to the broader world of technically suave computer users. We are doing that by hiring or offering incentives to developers from the the different OS communities. This is of course the whole point of our participation in BeGeistert (which incedently has worked very well to spread our news: see http://www.begroovy.com , http://www.beforever.com , and http://www.lebuzz.com ). A further example is our Debian Pegasos development team which has grown to ten members. Also, Samuel Rydh of Mac-on-Linux can be gratefully counted as a friend. Samuel even attended CES with us in Las Vegas ( http://en.genesi-support.com/tiki-index.php?page=CES2003 ). It will be interesting to see where the EULA issues end up on this one day.
We have also formed a relationship with the Phoenix Developer Consortium ( http://www.phinixi.com ). The relationship is not fully defined, but the spirit is there and we predict through Phoenix we will establish a viable and supportive link to broad independent developer community. We recently offered the G3 Pegasos to Phoenix members for $299. We had more orders than we could fill. We will be offering the Pegasos II at a reduced price to Phoenix members later this year.
As Eugenia has noted, she has a Pegasos now too. We are holding our breath a bit waiting for her verdict….:-) If she gives us a thumbs up, be sure we seek direct contact with anyone interested in working with us toward a successful future. Our email address is [email protected]. Genesi is the name of the holding company in which the Pegasos and MorphOS is all being brought together with a few other technologies and resources. PriceWaterhouseCoopers devised our corporate structure taking into account all the corporate climates in Europe and that is why we are based corporately in Luxemburg with offices in Paris and Frankfurt.
Best regards,
Raquel Velasco and Bill Buck
Genesi
@Shard:
The silver box is a Coolermaster ATC case, availible from several
distributors worldwide. I’d talk to your local reseller to get a
final price. And note, the Dual CPU cards are not yet available.
Note, for DDR RAM, that is going to be on the Pegasos II.
“These are the OSes currently running on the Pegasos.”
Do these all take over the machine, or do they run in “boxes” like the A-box for the Amiga emulation?
Can you run more than one OS at a time and pass data between them? (Like running Mac OS 8 on the old Amigas.)
Hi Don, happy to see you here…;-) These OSes run/will run natively on the Pegasos with the obvious exception of the ones that are specifically mention to be running under emulation (the old AmigaOSes and MacOS).
You can only run one OS at a time. Having said that, when the NewOS kernel is running on the Pegasos there could be some very interesting possiblities.
Best regards,
Raquel and Bill
“”The reason no more Pegasos1’s are available, is that the northbridge chip they were using had bugs, (which they developed a fix for),””
“Thats bull spread by Genesi’s tw*t of a CEO, the Amiga One boards are running fine with simple fixes even with G4’s countering all what that CEO has said about the chipset.”
Um, when did I mention Amiga One boards?
And if it’s bull that there where bugs in the Articia, then why did Amiga Ones need simple fixes? :-s
-Ants
“Is “Pegasos” the motherboard or the name of the company?”
The Pegasos is the name of the motherboard- Genesi is the name of the company.
“What is MorphOS? Is it anything like the old Amiga OS?”
Yes, MorphOS a PPC implementation of the old Amiga OS- so it’s written from scratch, but uses the Amiga 3.1 APIs (mostly). It’s runs Amiga 68k programs under emulation (at 50-75% native PPC speed, with a JIT as well, ready now or soon), and MorphOS and Amiga PPC programs as well.
“What is this Pegasos company actually selling? A mobo + OS?”
The motherboard- the OSes come free. And it’s selling embedded etc solutions, like the digital TV decoder solution for Plexuscom ( http://www.plexuscom.com ), that’s using a modified Pegasos.