Genesi's Open Server Workstation and "MyPowerPC"

[Andrew J. Brehm]

Long time no post (me, anyway)...

I am sure everybody has heard about Genesi and their PowerPC machines.

PenguinPPC (http://www.penguinppc.org) faithfully reports and it does
look good.

Now, I am still a PowerPC user, but, admittedly, only because I haven't
yet found a need to upgrade to a new Mac. My next laptop will be a Mac
and will be Intel-based.

However, for my desktop machine, I feel like I want to remain a PowerPC
user, somehow.

I am considering buying whatever will be the last PowerPC Mac Apple will
make. And I am considering buying a Genesi Open Workstation (or whatever
they call it), running Linux (and Mac-on-Linux, and whatever else I can
experiment with).

But that got me thinking (something must)...

In the 90s I had an ISA card for my PC which contained a 68000 CPU, some
memory, and Atari ST ROMs. It was a hardware emulator, if you so will,
and it ran like a DOS session under OS/2. (No, there was no particular
reason for why I bought the expensive thing then.)

Such hardware also existed for Power Macs at a time (A Celeron CPU or
something like it, some memory, and whatever is needed for a PC to
work), and Sun make such cards for their Sparcstations (good idea!).

If Genesi would make a PowerPC-on-PCI card that could run Linux, I would
definitely buy it. They would have to develop OS X (Intel) and Windows
(or Linux) drivers and Bob's your uncle.

I don't see why these cards would be more expensive than a complete
PowerPC box, and they might be more suitable for the tasks people might
need a PowerPC box for:

- Run Linux when architecture doesn't matter. Run Linux under Windows or
Mac OS would only add value, wouldn't it? (And it would be faster than
VMware or Virtual PC or Parallels.)

- Run Mac Classic applications (Mac-on-Linux). Afterall, if you use the
card in an Intel Mac, you ARE running Mac OS on an Apple machine (for
those who worry about the EULA.)

- Run MorphOS for Amiga applications. (If there are people who want to
do that... I am sure they would also enjoy running these programs on the
same PC as Windows or Mac OS.)

- Software development (for Linux) and software testing (Mac OS). I am
sure a PowerPC PCI card is more convenient than a second machine.

- Geeky coolness factor: more CPUs, more operating systems, more
multitasking, more complicated hardware, more special hardware.

- Linux factor: has to do with Linux. People not interested in the
PowerPC but with lots of money might buy it.

What do you think?

Who would buy such a thing?

[Gary]

Post by Andrew J. Brehm
I don't see why these cards would be more expensive than a complete
PowerPC box, and they might be more suitable for the tasks people might

Accellerator and custom hardware companies like Sonnet or Marathon
Computer have a hard time because the cost to manufacture custom hardware
is not cheap on a small scale. The fact that the Genesi PPCG40009 thin
client system is only $600 is amazing[1]. In Nov or Dec 2004 just before
the PPC Mac mini rumors started circulating, I was looking around to buy
just a PPC motherboard to do exactly what you're suggesting; run Linux PPC
or some of the other alternative OSes out there.

Post by Andrew J. Brehm
- Linux factor: has to do with Linux. People not interested in the
PowerPC but with lots of money might buy it.
What do you think?
Who would buy such a thing?

Mac mini is pretty cheap these days -- even my PPC mini was less than what
it'd cost for the Genesi system mentioned above but I can also run OS X
whereas it's hard to say if you could get OS X to run on the Genesi
system. I'd be curious to hear otherwise, however.

-Gary

1] http://www.freescale.com/webapp/sps/site/prod_summary.jsp?code=PPCG40009