The following text has been written by Martin Heine:

More than eight years after computer pioneer Commodore's bankruptcy, Genesi S.a.r.l., Luxembourg, markets again an own computer with tailor-made operating-system, which continues the still loved "look & feel" of the Commodore-Amiga on modern hardware and extends it corresponding to today's requirements. Sales of the "Pegasos"-called mainboard together with an early version of their own operating system "MorphOS" as well as a PowerPC-Linux-distribution started this weekend, mindful of their roots, at the "Amiga & Retro Computing" show in Aachen, Germany, this year's biggest Amiga-fair world-wide.

Although being newly founded, Genesi consists of several well-known personalities of the Amiga-market - that legendary computer which already brought "Multimedia" to the homes and video studios in the 80's and early 90's even before this term had been coined at all. Thus the Frankfurt, Germany, based bplan GmbH, which merges with Thendic-France, Paris, (distributor of the Pegasos) to become Genesi as of January 1st, 2003, was founded by developers of the former company "phase 5" which had been the leading third party developer for Amiga hardware. Apart from graphics boards and other extensions for the Amiga and processor boards for Apple Macintosh computers, phase 5 especially has been the first and only company which enabled the Amiga to migrate from its original Motorola 680x0 CPU to the more powerful RISC-CPU "PowerPC" (Motorola, IBM). Also further personalities of the further, international developer team of bplan's own operating system MorphOS made a name for themselves in the Amiga-market - for example for the first Retargetable-Graphics-system for the Amiga.

The computer: Pegasos

The Pegasos is currently the cheapest computer mainboard with a PowerPC CPU on the market. The CPU is here on a separate module so that it can be replaced by faster CPU's without the need to exchange the whole mainboard. Furthermore there are dual-CPU-modules. As by Apple's computers, G3 and G4 processors are supported. Also regarding add-on cards Genesi took in account the changed situation on the market compared to the 80's: instead of a proprietary, dependent on the number of pieces more expensive own bus-system and instead of the hopeless attempt to compete with all those big companies specialized in graphics or audio chips, the Pegasos is able to make use of standard PCI and AGP hardware for PC's. And also many other interfaces known from standard PCs does the Pegasos already have on-board - despite being a small micro-ATX-board: IEEE 1394 ("Firewire") with a 100/200/400 MBit transfer rate and three connectors, 10/100 MBit network connector, USB I/O-system with four connectors, AC97 sound-subsystem with microphone input, line-in/out and headset-connector, optical S/PDIF-output, infrared-interface, ATA100-interface with two channels for upto four ATA-devices, connectors for PS/2-compatible mice and keyboards, a serial (RS232) and a parallel port (Centronics, for standard printers), floppy-connector and a gameport for PC-typical joysticks as well as an (optional) 56k-onboard-modem. Opposite to Genesi's competitiors, who do not just also use the northbridge-chip "Articia" by Mai Logic, but distribute their whole mainboards, the self-designed Pegasos-board therefore offers the following advantages: sound, firewire, gameport, infrared-interface and optical audio-output are on-board (optionally a modem as well), processor modules with two CPU's are supported and the mainboard is saving space due to it's micro-ATX dimensions. To be honest, on the other hand the other PPC mainboards, which are based on Mai's ATX reference design "Teron", offer instead of three PCI-slots an additional fourth slot which however is shared with the AGP-slot. But the probably most important trump of the Pegasos however is that it does not only have a reliable southbridge (VT8231 instead of the VIA686B which has a DMA-related bug) but also an additional chip developed by Genesi which is called "April" and fixes all known bugs of Mai Logic's Articia northbridge (especially its DMA-problems). By April the transfer of higher amounts of data, for example via USB or Firewire, or basic things like the audio-output with soundcards is possible without errors. Therefore the Pegasos is currently the only bug-free Articia-based PowerPC-mainboard. Among other features, April enables the Pegasos to make complete use of fast G4-CPU's as well.

The operating system: MorphOS

MorphOS is a new operating system started from scratch and tailor-made for Motorola's and IBM's PowerPC-CPU's, which however does not only take up the user-friendly and efficient slim, modular architecture of the original AmigaOS, but furthermore is even able to execute most of the latest Amiga software due to an integrated and fast JIT-emulator (just-in-time compiler, avoids the usual overhead of standard emulations by caching already translated instructions) for the original Amiga-computer's 680x0-CPU. Thus, opposite to other newcomers, MorphOS starts with an existing software-foundation, which includes for example the big internet-collection of free- and shareware "Aminet". But while the well-tried and by the Amiga-users on other platforms badly missed "look & feel" of the familiar user-interface "Workbench" has been kept and extended at MorphOS (truecolor icons, skins, transparency, etc.), the operating system itself is a modern approach under the hood. Speed and responsiveness due to preemptive multitasking and ressources-saving efficiency and pleasant operation, as used from the Amiga, combines with a modern, self-designed microkernal called "Quark". This kernel is quite small, naturally, and contains the hardware abstraction layer (HAL), drivers, memory management and message passing. The most real work however is done by server processes on top of it (for example networking, graphical user-interface, filesystem, media, security, 2D/3D graphics, etc.), while the actual applications are running in the so-called "Q-Box" put on Quark. The message passing, by which the applications call the API, is extremely fast on MorphOS, because, instead of transferring the data itself in the message, just the location of the message in the memory is remapped to the application. (Short messages, however, are copied directly, since this is faster in this case.) But especially the messaging system enables a high scalability. The single components which are sending and receiving those messages may be distributed over different processors or even computers. Apart from therefore originally enabling clustering, for example also higher speeds as with the known X-window-system are possible - for which, by the way, a so-called wrapper is planned to make it easier to port applications based on it. Quark and the Q-Box are originally planned as a 64-bit operating system, so it is not just a bolt-on to an existing 32-bit OS. And last but not least MorphOS does also profit from being tailor-made to the PowerPC-processor instead to Intel's and AMD's x86-CPU's: Context-switches between the micro-kernal and user-processes are about ten times faster on the PowerPC, so that the advantages of a slim microkernal can be used without the cost of the slow context-switches on x86-CPU's. Therefore, opposite to macro-kernal operating systems, this approach for example results in a higher stability and security, since here a kernel-task can't overwrite another's memory. The Q-Box part of MorphOS, however, is still in development, since until now the main effort has been spent on the - as well on top of Quark running - A-Box, the independently from the original AmigaOS re-implemented and extended AmigaOS-API. Limitations necessary for the compatibility with Amiga software (e.g. lack of memory protection) do therefore also - but only - apply to the A-Box, though, not to Quark and the Q-Box, to which this operating system will, step by step, well, just "morph".

Alternative operating systems for the Pegasos

Of course the user of a Pegasos isn't restricted to Genesi's own operating system MorphOS. Several versions of PPC-Linux, like SUSE or YDL, do also run on the Pegasos. At Aachen for example a CD-bootable Debian Linux-distribution was presented by Genesi. And for the CeBIT fair in March 2003 an OpenNetBSD port is expected to be completed. With regard to the PowerPC's low power consumption and emission of heat as well as the small dimensions of the mainboard, running Linux on the Pegasos predestines this machine for example for the clustered usage as a server. Furthermore it is even possible to run software of the Apple Macintosh. Although for legal reasons it isn't possible for Genesi to sell the Pegasos with MacOS running natively (while technically it wouldn't be difficult, since MacOS is running on top of Darwin, which source code is publicly available), the Linux-distribution delivered together with the computer contains "Mac-on-Linux" (MOL), which, running on top of Linux, allows the legal usage of Mac-software - without the need to buy more expensive Apple-computers. - Conversely Genesi is working on a MorphOS version for the Mac as well.

Plans for the future

At the CeBIT 2003 a prototype of the Eclipsis will be shown - an even further miniaturized variant of the Pegasos, which, being a handheld-device, closes the gap between PDA's and mobile phones on the one side and desktop computers and notebooks on the other side. I.e. it is a full computer for the pocket. Again made possible by the, compared to x86-processors, lower heat emission and power consumption. Furthermore planned is a Eclipsis base station, so that the Eclipsis-board and the basis station together for example could be used for a conventional notebook. Concretely the "Mini-Pegasos" is planned to offer the following features: mobile phone (including advanced SMS, video and camera features, transfer of multimedia content simultaneously to speech and videophone. A powerful graphics chip turns the Eclipsis into a portable game console. Also, just as such a game console or an Amiga, it can be connected to TV. By connecting a monitor and a keyboard, the handheld turns into a full desktop computer. And together with its basis station the Eclipsis can make use of the additional memory and processing power as well as its peripheral devices, making it as powerful as any other "big" computer. Since the Eclipsis is a full, "just" miniaturized computer, also internet access is just as one is used to from the desktop PC - so the user is just limited by the respective service provider's bandwith, but not by the device. If that provider also offers Smartcard/SIM-based security and payment services, these as well can be used with Genesi's handheld computer. Built-in GPS-features also allow navigation and location-specific services. Genesi wants their customers to just do what they're already doing today - just in a more compelling, easier and pleasant way. To do so, Genesi combines already existing products - apart from the Pegasos for example also the ComCam, distributed by Genesi, including their self-developed software for it, and the Cashboy, by which Genesi do already possess a product with a smartcard module, a barcode reader and own software for these purposes.

Availability & support

Except for the specialized dealers and distributors mentioned on the Pegasos website, the Pegasos can be ordered on the web at pegasos-uk.com. (National pegasos-xxx.com websites will follow.) The Pegasos is delivered with two years warranty and customer support by Genesi and their authorized distributors. The latter do exist already for several countries, including Germany, Poland, Great Britain, Canada, the USA and Russia, for which a very prominent russian IT-distributor founded a separate company which distributes the Pegasos to all countries of the former Soviet Union. (A Pegasos show in Moscow will be announced shortly.) An online support center on the web for developers will be established by Genesi before January 1st, 2003. Here accredited developers may order mainboards, peripheral devices and supporting tools at significantly reduced prices. Even for other committed users discounts are possible, for example if they demonstrate the Pegasos at user-group meetings or translate documentations in other languages. The standard price for a Pegasos board together with - as the low-end for starters - a 600 MHz G3 CPU-module is less than 500 Euro (excl. VAT). Special bundle offers are possible on inquiry.

Exhibitions

As already this year, Genesi will also in 2003 attend several IT- and computer-fairs, including COMDEX and CeBIT. At the latter also Mai Logic Inc. (Fremont, California) will be at Genesi's stand, the currently only company selling northbridge-chips for PowerPC CPU's. Mai agreed to co-develop together with Genesi the chipset for the Eclipsis.

Background

After Commodore's bankruptcy, the Amiga was acquired by german Escom AG, which established the subsidiary "Amiga Technologies". This company was lead by a former manager of Commodore Germany, Petro Tyschtschenko. When also Escom had to declare bankruptcy due to their core business and took Amiga Technologies with them to decline, another company tried to acquire Amiga: Viscorp - back then lead by Raquel Velasco and Bill Buck (who today own Thendic-France, which merges with bplan to Genesi). June till november 1996 Raquel Velasco and Bill Buck paid the salaries, taxes and social contributions of Amiga's employees out of their own pocket. Also the last Escom-CEO, appointed by the banks, Helmut Jost, was involved (before he had been the main manager of Commodore Germany for some time, since 1997 shareholder of the US-company Pretory, of which Raquel Velasco is the chairman of the board and biggest single shareholder, and today he's a manager at Thendic Germany and takes part in Genesi as senior sales account executive; previously he had been also working for Fujitsu and IBM). But finally Viscorp's board changed their mind, and the deal to acquire Amiga didn't happen; Bill Buck and Raquel Velasco then left the company. The rights to Amiga's trademarks and IP then were acquired by the US-company Gateway (which sold them again later), and the among the Amiga-users for his commitment quite popular Petro Tyschtschenko went to Gateway until he was dismissed by today's owners of Amiga and founded a new company called Power-Trading which is a partner of Genesi. Bill Buck's and Raquel Velasco's current company Thendic-France distributes further products besides the Pegasos, for example the professional photogrammetry software "JMiner" or the PowerPC-based i-Cam and Tri-Cam along with the corresponding software, which are based on the ComCam which is produced at their partner Cobra Electronic GmbH, Germany. Thendic-France for example is the world-wide distributor for the ComCam towards the aircraft industry. CEO of ComCam is Don Gilbreath, former CTO of Viscorp and previously projects manager for the CD32 at Commodore, the Amiga-based first 32-bit game console with CD-drive. Also Carolyn Scheppner of ComCam has her roots, besides some time as programmer at Viscorp, at Commodore. As well in the Genesi-team is Dr. Allan Havemose, who had been the director of the software development department at Commodore. He is working on the Java-VM environment for the Pegasos and Eclipsis.