Natural Selection

The Ginkgo Biloba is the oldest living tree species. In the Plant Kingdom (scientific classification of all living things), the Ginkgo is classified in its own division, the Ginkgophyta, consisting of the single class Ginkgoopsida, order Ginkgoales, family Ginkgoaceae, genus Ginkgo and is the only surviving species within this group. A single tree can live as long as 1,000 years and grow to a height of 120 feet. We brought a seedling from France and planted it on the banks of the Allegheny River in northwestern Pennsylvania in 1996.

As of July 2008, our Ginkgo is doing well.

This past week we were able to open the Bounty System on power2people. We started with AROS bounties and are now adding a few GNU Linux projects. The first bounty to be assigned is for the AROS EFIKA Open Client port. Michal Schulz, who just finished the port for the SAM440, will do the work. We hope to distribute the AROS ISO for both the Open Client and the SAM440 on the same CD as the boot method is different.

Amiga-like operating systems are almost as uncommon as the Ginkgo. Around since the dawn of the computer era the 'Family Amiga' has bordered on extinction, but a few surviving species remain. In 1996, we did our best to secure the Amiga IP after Escom AG failed. Years later, natural selection seems to be favoring those that can adapt and are likely to produce descendants. Diversity is a good thing. So, stick around and let's all do our best to see what happens next. Best wishes to you Michal!

The Community is the Computer - a Super Computer. Go Zig!

R&B

Olympic Effort

Can you recognize the track?

It was a fun moment to run around the track at Panathinaiko Stadium. We did it together. Since ancient times olympic events have been hosted on the site. The modern Olympics began there in 1896. More recently, the marathon ended there in the 2004 Games. The Stadium was featured on all of the 2004 Summer Olympic medals, and will be continued to be featured on the medals soon to be awarded in Beijing.

The Race is On!

We will have some news on all the MPC5121e based platforms coming to market soon and hopefully just in time...

The Community is the Computer - a Super Computer. Go Zig!

R&B

AROS Bounty Support

AROS Support added at power2people

With the launch of the AROS bounty support on power2people we have raised the EFIKA port bounty to over $3000.

The Community is the Computer - a Super Computer. Go Zig!

R&B

Smaller PCs Cause Worry for Industry

That is the title of the article in the New York Times. Just in case you missed it here is a link to the article:

Smaller PCs Cause Worry for Industry

The personal computer industry is poised to sell tens of millions of small, energy-efficient Internet-centric devices. Curiously, some of the biggest companies in the business consider this bad news...

We have been at this a long time. It is good to see all this coming together. Why not stick around? It is about to get fun.

The eclipsis, compoogle, efika and efiketa...

The Community is the Computer - a Super Computer. Go Zig!

R&B

PowerDev Meeting #4

PowerDev Meeting #4 is now scheduled for 23-24 August in Prague. The Event has been included on the Freescale Training Event Schedule.

Lukáš Stehlík and the Czech Pegasos User Group are organizing the Event

The concept behind the logo is that each gear symbolizes an individual visitor or developer. If you put the gears together, that is people meeting people, a certain dynamic is achieved. There is energy and productivity - in short, you create Power.

Details about this PowerDev Meeting can be found on the Czech Pegasos User Group site. In addition to demonstrating MorphOS 2.0 on multiple Pegasos and EFIKA based systems, Luky will have MPC5121e and MPC8610 systems running the latest version of SUSE to present. Luky will also have the opportunity to present the first details about the new 8610 system we are developing. This new system will provide a high level of software compatibility with the former Pegasos/ODW.

Please make your plans now to attend the Event. It should be fun!

The Community is the Computer - a Super Computer. Go Zig!

R&B

Looking Back

The average distance between the Earth and Moon
is about 248,000 miles or 400,000 km.
We took that picture through a telescope.

We wrote this blog just before the EFIKA launch (it is still valid!):

And Hello to YOU!
28 November 2006

HelloWorld\com\genesi\portlets\blog
HelloWorld\bbrv
HelloWorld\bbrv\lib

OK, then...

//portlet APIs
import org.apache.jetspeed.portlet.*;
import org.apache.jetspeed.portlets.*;

//Java stuff
import java.io.*;

public class HelloWorld extends AbstractPortlet...

Did you ever wonder what is on the other side of the computer? You know, on the other side of the Internet. Out there:

Hello World gets an answer!

Rupert Hausberger, also known as naTmeg to his online friends, has been busy with his latest MorphOS releases found here on Rupert's Homepage.

Rupert and his PegasosPPC

For an encore, Rupert is focused on more plugins. Today, if you wanted to encrypt your partitions, you can use poly.dilp. If you wanted to analyze the access to your filesystem, you could use blockmon.dilp to graphically see in realtime how the filesystem accesses the disk and spreads the blocks. That is just a start -- dil.device can be used in many ways as the plugins become available. virtualdisk.dilp. (coming soon) will allow users to share a disk over the network accessing it like a normal local drive. Some would say this work is a labor of love. We would agree. Rupert cares about what he does. He is proud of his work and we are proud of him. Thank you, Rupert.

Keep up the good work!

Rupert, please meet Alex. Here is Alex with his new EFIKA!

Yesterday, we delivered the EFIKA to an end user. Alex bought his EFIKA because he wants to run MorphOS on the small, quiet, energy efficient EFIKA. MorphOS is perfectly suited to do that. Rupert, Alex says Hello! and so the chat begins on MorphZone or on PowerDeveloper...

(The Community is the Computer) ...in marketing we must put the entity to which or whom we are communicating first. So, if we were marketing oil for home heating, we would talk about warmth not oil since warmth is what the consumer wants. If we are talking about what developers and users can do with a computing platform what better reflective use aspect of the product than Community. The Community is found at the top of the image and participation in that Community breeds all good things - and not just software (and likerabbits).

You may want to tell us that as we are marketing to experts in technology or longtime users that they don't want or need this sort of trigger message. If so, please refer to the social law mentioned. It makes it more fun when you can always put people first. Marketing is emotional and then informational or it is dead, not alive like us! So, next time you say Hello World, you can an expect an answer in this Community. There will be many more Amigos like Rupert and Alex meeting on the EFIKA. Hello World. We are all here!

With the release of MorphOS 2.0 we finally shipped Rupert the Open Client Plus we promised him. And, just an hour ago we approved a MDC registration for Alex (MorphOS Developer Connection). Good things take time! But, Looking Back we hope we will all be able to say it was worth it. We certainly feel that way already. We like what we do!

The Community is the Computer - a Super Computer. Go Zig!

R&B

Oh Me, Oh My!

Yes, it sounds like SceneCon was a big success. There was plenty of interest in MorphOS 2.0 and we demonstrated a beta of a Power Architecture native Flash plugin on MPC5200B, MPC5121e and MPC8610 based systems running SUSE 11.0 (SUSE/Genesi).

In the meanwhile, me.com and the iPhone 2 were launched
Photo by Engadget

Oh me, oh my, no one seems to mind the lack of Flash support on the iPhone. Do you think Flash 10 will be out before Adobe realizes the iPhone is creating a new Internet? That is, one in which Flash is not needed, because more and more sites are being developed for the iPhone?! Perhaps, Adobe will move faster. Perhaps, others will finally begin to realize It's the End User Device! that make it 'work' for all the me out there...

BTW, we are developing a bunch of cool new devices.

The Community is the Computer - a Super Computer. Go Zig!

R&B

SceneCon 2008

...and PowerDev Meeting #3

First, thanks for all of the positive responses to yesterday's post (Operation Crossroads Africa). It has been overwhelming. Thank you. The international Community of Developers and Users that are interested makes us feel very much part of a community.

With that in mind, please don't hesitate to stop by SceneCon if you are in Budapest this weekend.

Join us at SceneCon

..and, please don't miss PowerDev Meeting #3!

Not only will Karoly Balogh be demonstrating MorphOS 2.0 on the EFIKA/Open Client, but Peter Czanik will be there with MPC8610 and MPC5121e development systems running openSUSE 11.0. Peter will have a native beta Flash plugin to demo on the EFIKA/Open Client and the 8610 based system. It should be a great Event!

The Community is the Computer - a Super Computer. Go Zig!

R&B

Operation Crossroads Africa

It has been nearly thirty years since we worked on building this school near Kitale, Kenya. The Project was organized by Operation Crossroads Africa.

Clearing the floor of the new school building

Behind the students, you can see the wall going up

We had to make the building blocks too

Last month, Operation Crossroads Africa celebrated its 50th Anniversary. It is a great organization. You learn as much about yourself as you do about the people you meet. It can be a very memorable, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

In 1980, personal computers were just getting started. The Internet phenomenon was yet to come. Next summer, we hope to be in Africa with a Freescale MPC5121e based low cost computer. Our support of Freescale, THTF and now Cherrypal will produce exceptionally robust, flexible and useful computing platforms based on this system-on-a-chip. Please let us know if you would like to help us in Africa next summer. The objective is to share your computing knowledge with others and help us deliver a few MPC5121e based systems. We intend to organize this in a manner similar to the Crossroads program. You will be gone a few weeks.

For the second consecutive year, Freescale was awarded the prestigious "Best Telematics Component Solution Award" at the eighth annual Telematics Detroit conference for the MPC5121e processor (Freescale PR). We are working on bringing the MPC5121e to a new field of success -- the personal computing space. We admit, progress seems slow, but we continue to advance one building block at a time. Please stay tuned!

The Community is the Computer - a Super Computer. Go Zig!

R&B

View from the ToP

Menkaure, also known as Mycerinus, ruled from 2490 - 2472 B.C. Menkaure built the third and smallest of the three great Pyramids at Giza. The top of this Pyramid is just over 200 feet from the ground. Climbing to that height takes some effort.

The Queens' Pyramids (G 3a only partially shown)

Looking back toward Cairo
Did you know that almost all sand contains silica?

The contrast between the thriving metropolis of Cairo and the apparent emptiness of the desert is impossible to miss. Facing toward the desert and hearing only the sound of the wind you can almost imagine being in another time.

Have you read the sonnet Ozymandias written by Shelley in 1817?

OZYMANDIAS
By Percy Bysshe Shelley

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

The statue of Ozymandias symbolizes the hubris often found in humanity. Ozymandias came to mind when reading Intel's Gelsinger Predicts Intel Inside Everything.

Just as there are three great Pyramids at Giza, there are three great proven processing core designs: x86, ARM and Power Architecture. They will very likely continue to co-exist in the semiconductor industry until something better comes along. Turning sand into silicon to manufacture integrated circuits is big business. It is likely to get bigger as those at the base of the pyramid begin to move toward the top. In the meanwhile, the future will continue to be unpredictable as it was a long time ago and still is today.

The Community is the Computer - a Super Computer. Go Zig!

R&B