It’s been about 18 months, but we’ve got a new release for MorphOS, the Amiga-like operating system for PowerPC Macs and some other PowerPC-based machines. Going through the list of changes, it seems MorphOS 3.19 focuses heavily on fixing bugs and addressing issues, rather than major new features or earth-shattering changes. Of note are several small but important updates, like updated versions of OpenSSL and OpenSSH, as well as a ton of new filetype definitions – and so much more.
Having a release focused on fixing bugs and addressing smaller issues isn’t exactly a bad thing though – I’ve used MorphOS on my 17″ 1.25Ghz PowerBook G4 often enough to know MorphOS is quite complete, stable, and a ton of fun to use, and much more capable than it has any right to be considering what must be its relatively small developer team and user base. That being said, I do wish MorphOS was available on hardware newer than 20 year old PowerPC Macs, because as much as I like me some classic hardware, the world’s moving on and even basic web browsing requires much more performant hardware now.
Maybe I should try and buy one of the supported Apple PowerPC G5 machines to see just how much better MorphOS runs on that than on my G4.
AmigaOS and MorphOS are tied to the PowerPC architecture in the same way MS-DOS is tied to x86-16: Too much assembly language of that architecture and too many assumptions tied to that architecture to port to anything else without massive effort.
That said, if you want new hardware for AmigaOS and MorphOS, the Sam460 boards from A-cube systems are a thing:
https://www.morphos-team.net/hardware
https://www.amigaos.net/content/72/supported-hardware
https://shop.acube-systems.biz/5-sam-motherboards
But very few people want to pay close to 900 euros (plus memory modules and case) to run AmigaOS or MorphOS.
Can you even buy the hardware ? The last time I wanted to buy something I can run MorphOS on and checked, almost everything was either out of stock or very few items available. It is not a good sign when hardware dies and it’s time to replace. OS developers are also not getting younger, and if they want to keep Amiga alive, sticking to dead-end hardware is not going to help in long term.
A-Cube’s shop shows the Sam460LE as in-stock:
https://shop.acube-systems.biz/5-sam-motherboards
The Sam460LE has the same specs as the Sam460cr, but in Micro-ATX form factor instead of Flex-ATX (even the shop page points to the Sam460cr for specs), and the Sam460cr is compatible with both AmigaOS and MorphOS.
Also, I just noticed the Sam460cr and Sam460LE don’t have a sound chip, you must bring your own sound card (on top of graphics card and memory modules and case). At least the Sam460ex had a sound chip, and the Sam460ep had a sound chip and graphics chip.
So yes, you can buy new MorphOS hardware, but expect to pay a lot for it. Low volume, high price.
They really need to port it to x86 and 64-bit if they want any future. Currently it’s limited to ancient Apple hardware and 2 GB RAM maximum. If porting some of the code is too difficult, maybe it would still be possible to just emulate it to get started, which shouldn’t be a problem with modern hardware? Or what about a port to modern POWER CPUs (like Raptor Computing) just to see what the OS could be like on modern hardware?
I can’t afford to donate it, but I would be happy to ship my dual-CPU PowerMac G5 from Czechia to Sweden. I did have someone interested a year ago for €200 or so, but I am not in Prague very often these days, and we couldn’t liaise for the buyer to collect it.
I don’t have the original packaging, sadly, or even an original Wifi antenna — but a bent paper clip in the socket on the back gave good reception!
I could find a way to package it safely for shipping. It hasn’t run since I moved to Prague but was in full working order about 2017. I would of course test before money changed hands!
May I recommend an eBay listing? Nobody is going to send you €200 without an order receipt (nobody you don’t know at a personal level at least, and since you haven’t found a friend or relative to take it off your hands, it’s a good idea to have a listing somewhere).