Inside Track JOHN C. DVORAK neaking In the Back Door Dept.: to use those pesky legacy apps. A European If you think the battle of plat- If this machine achieves critical mass, consortium forms involves only Linux, it could reignite the dull computer Mac, and Windows, you’re in scene. There is a weird—even freaky— wants to float Sfor a rude awakening. enthusiasm about this project. It’s a a slew of Since 1995, a group of superstars work- community-based movement, which blimps to deliv- ing primarily in Europe has literally means that everything’s free. Tools are er broadband. morphed the architecture of the we-all- free, the OS is free, applications that thought-it-was-dead AmigaOS, probably cost money for other OSs are free for Who says the slickest, tightest code ever put on a MorphOS. The geeks are in high gear. they don’t desktop computer. With seven years of This is much more exciting than the smoke potent clean-room engineering, the new Morph- pedantic Linux world, which can’t seem OS runs on the PowerPC chip, and literal- to consolidate, let alone compete with marijuana in ly thousands of developers worldwide are Microsoft on the desktop. Europe? working with it. The new OS is best It’s not impossible for a new platform showcased in the PowerPC-based Genesi to emerge. Remember how Nintendo works. SkyLinc, from York, England, Pegasos computer, which runs both Mor- and Sega dominated the game scene for wants to position tethered blimps 5,000 phOS and various PPC versions so many years after the collapse of feet in the air over rural areas (with mile- of Linux. Atari? Look at the market today: Sony long ropes?). That should be interesting If you start digging into this, you find owns it. Nintendo fights Sony, Sega is in a storm. remnants of the old stillborn CHRP (Com- gone, and the Microsoft Xbox is the new Even weirder is the plan funded by the mon Hardware Reference Platform), challenger. And recall that the dominant European Union called Project Capa- which came out of the lost Apple/ platforms on the desktop were once nina—the Stratospheric Broadband Ini- IBM/Motorola alliance. IBM and Motoro- CP/M and Apple II. As far as I can tell, tiative. (Check it out at www.capanina la are all over this new project. Buried on Microsoft and Apple are not taking this .org.) Apparently, a huge consortium of each company’s Web site are ominous seriously enough. big spenders and dingbats wants to float details of a MorphOS PowerPC future. That said, I witnessed the original a slew of blimps at 65,000 feet (yes!) over Did anyone following the history of emergence of the Amiga around 1984, all of Europe. I’m laughing out loud over semiconductors think that IBM and Mo- after two years of rumors. It was an in- this one. Oh, the humanity! Who says torola were going to sit on the PowerPC credibly hot box and could have been a they don’t smoke potent marijuana after Apple pulled the plug on third-party world-beater. Instead, Amiga sold itself in Europe? Macintosh licenses? to Commodore, where the company lost Geosynchronous satellites are wig- The new platform will surprise people. its way and eventually died. Much of the gling around in orbit on a daily basis, From what I’m told, it’s fully USB 2.0– intellectual property from the original and most have to be rocketed back into compliant and plug-and-play–capable box went from hand to hand and ended position at least once every couple of with everything out there. up at Gateway, where it’s apparently in a weeks. They are kept up there only as The first MorphOS systems are called locker someplace, lost, I think. This time long as the fuel lasts and are eventually A-Box machines, because they mimic may be different. So far, I like what I see. abandoned to float aimlessly through the Amiga. The next batch are nick- For more information, check out www space or burn up on reentry. named Q-Box, which is what we’ll see .morphos.net. Can you imagine positioning a gas- when MorphOS hits the U.S. The Q-Box And Now for Something Completely filled bag at 65,000 feet? And what hap- uses a somewhat mystical Quark micro- Different Dept.: Have you heard the latest pens when the fuel runs out? Do these kernel for the OS, hence the Q. What you scheme afoot to deploy broadband to things float around or crash into the are reading here is about six months people living on the outskirts of town? countryside, killing cows? The parties ahead of the wave, so make a note. From Zeppelins. Yeah, dirigibles. Blimps. The involved in this folly would do well to the screen shots of the OS I’ve seen, I idea is to position a bunch of blimps remember Dvorak’s Law Number 103: If have to say that it’s as jazzy as you can above rural areas with broadband trans- something seems like a silly idea, it usu- get, and you can run Windows (or Mac ceivers hanging off them. There are actu- ally is. Count von Zeppelin must be OS X) in a separate window if you need ally two harebrained plans already in the rolling over in his grave. www.pcmag.com APRIL 6, 2004 PC MAGAZINE 53.