The mother of all motherboards

[gizz72]

Greetings,

Why not build a better motherboard that can make you switch between CPU's or a special slot that can manage to carry a wide variety of standard CPU's.
For example, I bought this 'motherboard x' and bought an AMD cpu and a G4 processor. The special 'adaptor' that bundles with it is compatible or chageable to accept different variety of CPU's sizes and shapes.
In terms of Firmware, easy, you have a CD/DVD disk full of *offcial firmware ready for programming onto PROM.
Now here's what I like about this idea. This mother board has a firmware that can accept Amiga One or classic firmwares, C-one firmwares, Mac firmwares and other PC firmwares your heart desires!

* If I want an IMac G5 clone, yes it's possible. All you need is the MacOS installers from version 1 to X if you like. :-D
* If I want a real Amiga, user can write on chip a firm ware that can have ROM version 35.xx to 38.xx and can boot like the real thing! no need for Emulation!
* same with a C64 and so on and so forth... Feasible, right? Also, if it's cheap to produce. The price of that motherboard would be cheap too. I'd buy that motherboard!
Now tell me if this idea is feasible, would this be a next step in computing? Would it be fast enough? Who knows how many heads will turn? Would we,users, still struggle which CPU to use on different machine, which is better the-32bit-64bit-128bit, when it can fit allfor testing purposes too)? Who knows? Maybe such a motherboard already exists? I just can't find it in google yet. :-P

Just my ideas. Thanks for your thoughts. :-D

Regards,

GiZz72

[adolescent]

I don't think it's feasable.  Are you honestly saying that you'd open your computer, install a CPU, flash the BIOS, swap hard disks, etc. every time you want to use a different OS?  It'd be more realistic to desing a single CPU so powerful that it could emulate the other CPUs at full speed.

[gizz72]

Greetings,

adolescent wrote:
I don't think it's feasable.  Are you honestly saying that you'd open your computer, install a CPU, flash the BIOS, swap hard disks, etc. every time you want to use a different OS?  It'd be more realistic to desing a single CPU so powerful that it could emulate the other CPUs at full speed.

Yes and no. I know it's a hassel to some, doing all those things from time to time, I find that quite fun sometimes, but if I want an AMD64bit cpu later over my G5 now, I'd probably just swap hard drives(if I already have an OS installed), change CPUs and flash update it. Unless the there's already a software that can emulate a G4\5 faster or better, maybe not. Thanks.

regards,

GiZz72

[MskoDestny]

The biggest problem with this idea is that none of these processors use the same bus interface so you'd need interface logic dedicated to each processor the board supports.  This wouldn't be too much of a problem if you were planning on supporting only old processors (like the 68000) as they tend to have relatively simple busses.  With modern processors it's much messier (especially now that some chips have onboard memory controllers).

This is not to say that it's impossible, just a real pain in the butt.

[bloodline]

It would be simpler and cheaper just to stick two motherboards in one case.

[Dan]

Was I the only one that thought of passive PCI-backplanes when I read the first post? Each cpu on it´s own pci-card, but pci is slow.
The question is why anyone would want to swap between diffrent cpus?

[gizz72]

Greetings,

Dan wrote:
The question is why anyone would want to swap between diffrent cpus?

I was only pointing out, if I can swap between CPU's it's a lot compatible to switch between OS's too. Not unless some developers would improve on their Virtual Machines, methinks it's a lot safer to be compatible 100%.

& =  


Regards,

GiZz72

[bloodline]

gizz72 wrote:
Greetings,

Dan wrote:
The question is why anyone would want to swap between diffrent cpus?

I was only pointing out, if I can swap between CPU's it's a lot compatible to switch between OS's too. Not unless some developers would improve on their Virtual Machines, methinks it's a lot safer to be compatible 100%.

& =  


Regards,

GiZz72

No point really, just select a good CPU and then run emualtors.

[asian1]

Hi
There is an old  multicomputer standard by Ziatech / Intel

There is a Panda Computer design 10 years ago and Deskstation company.

http://www.byte.com/art/9510/sec6/art7.htm

11 years ago, I use YARC PowerPC 601 SMP cards inside ordinary Dell Pentium I PC with TAOS, a pre-cursor of Intent. Amiga DE is based on Intent.

[Speelgoedmannetje]

why not built a computer WITHOUT mobo?

[gizz72]

Greetings,

@Speel
They'll prolly call that the AIR Mobo! The first PC without a Mobo. I recall long ago students of my High School batch assembled for the school fair a bunch of resistors and IC to create their very own video game. Didn't see it work though. Just wonder what happened to them.

@Asian1

That's the article! I think that's what I'm talking about! Thanks, Asian1!

Regards

GiZz72

[asian1]

>Replacing CPU opening case.

Hi
I also remember a strange old Tandon PC with CPU + memory module that can be replaced without opening the case. AFAIK the only available CPU is Intel 286, 386, (or 486?).

On several old PC, the vendor put 486 CPU socket at the bottom side of PCB. The user can open a small trap door at the bottom of the case and replace the CPU.

Stratus, and Compaq Fault Tolerant Systems (Himalaya) enable user to replace CPU modules without turning off the entire system.

>Different bus.

Perhaps you can use CompactPCI (HP, Ziatech), VME or Infiniband (12 Gbps) bus.

>Without motherboard
Perhaps you can use a complete System On Chip.

As someone else already pointed out, single-board-computers and passive backplanes. Perhaps we'll see such things in PCI-Express forms soon.

Or an update to the old Amiga bridgeboard idea, perhaps just a modern x86 single-board-computer PCI card in an AmigaOne.

For things like C=64, software emulation is quite suitable these days. If you want to nag the C=1 guys into a PCI form-factor go ahead, but I don't know if that would fit with whatever their plans are. Maybe a Catweasle MK5 with more than just the SID chips?

There's other things out there that look cool to me at least, though to change CPU platforms in them you'd have to swap CPU cards, which may nto be what you're looking for.

[asian1]

>PCI card

Hi
Perhaps you can use Slotserver or similar cards:

http://www.14south.com/products/products.shtml

[boglo]

The new CELL cpu maybe your answer. It will run multiple os's at the same time. I know it will run linux but haven't heard if it wiil do windows/mac. This is a chip jointly develpoed by  Ibm, Sony, and toshiba. First product out of the box with it will be PS3. If it can do windows then everything will change. Like ps3 games ported to desktops. Linux then has a strong software base to be real competition to windows. Ought to be fun to watch anyway.
BTW it's not the motherboard that is important it's the cpu. The motherboard is just the supporting stuff you need for the cpu. So you should ask what is the mother of all CPU's? :-?  :-?