in case you are interested to test new fpga accelerators for a600/a500

[kolla]

With CBM 68040.library and 68060 CPU it is crash party on bootup, from what I remember.

Oh well, this essencially says that current Phoenix... I mean apollo design plans do not fit well for A3000 and A4000 systems.

[kolla]

So far, any touching of an MMU is higly hypothetical anyways, lol

[kolla]

But AmigaOS has no such abstraction, all tools and utilities that support MMU are third party AFAIK. And frankly I personally don't care much about MMU in context of AmigaOS, I just want it for Linux and *BSD. Only exception is paging to disk, which is very useful and almost a must when doing animation work within the limits of 128MB RAM.

[kolla]

And this is different from 68040? There are people upgrading their 3640 cards with 68060 CPUs, wonder how that works out in that case, maybe with modified kickstart too.

Edit: so I heard with someone doing such upgrades, and except for the usual hoopla to load 68060.library, there are no changes done, the 3640 with adapter and 68060 boots up with unmodified kickstart. But maybe 68040 has same requirements, and bootrom is already present on 3640?

[kolla]

 
That is certainly true, but I wonder why that is a good application for Amiga Hardware, at least nowadays. Honestly, if I want to run Linux (and I am running it right now) there are plenty better alternatives on much faster hardware.

Well, my favourite programs for animating just happens to be Amiga programs, they are your so called "killer apps", I know them, I enjoy using them and I have made money with them both in "entertainment" and scientific work. If you're saying "why that is a good application for Amiga hardware today", we may just as well drop it alltogether, right? As for Linux on m68k, it's a hobby I've had for 20 years now, maintaining Linux distros for old m68k systems, it never made any sense, but I enjoy it and would love to see newer and cheaper hardware, especially with more RAM. It would also broaden the use case for the Apollo core a lot if they make sure Linux and BSD is supported.

As for your MMU libs, by all means, it's a cool project, and I am probably not the only one who is mostly unaware of tools using them. Is there paging functionality available that use them?

[kolla]

Not exactly. I mean, most Linux applications are Open Source anyhow, and nowadays in much more modern versions available than in the Amiga days, so it's really simple and easy to migrate.

That makes no sense considering that latest kernels and toolchain compile and work fine on Amiga today - Linux on old Amiga hardware is way more modern than AmigaOS on same hardware can ever be.

I don't run Linux on 68k because I "must", I have all kinds of hardware and architectures running Linux, 68k is just one of many, and as long as it works fine, I don't see any point in stopping.

The same does not go for native Amiga applications IMHO. Fore example, I'm still missing a "pixel-paint" program for Linux that is worth using (and no, gimp is not the right answer for this type of problem. It's just too complex for many simple tasks, and rather designed with another application in mind - photo editing namely).

I agree, I keep using DPaint for all such work.

As in "paging memory"? Yes, certainly. There is the "memory.library" which gives you all that, including to "mmap" files or create "virtual memory on demand". There is no "automatic virtual memory" basically because that simply cannot work, and I don't like programs that "cannot work", so I did not write one. But all the higher paging functionality is surely available.  For example, all the "VMM" stuff for Amiga is simply "broken by design", no chance to get that working reliably.

Well, question is really, can I set up a 1-2GB partition to use as raw swap to increase the ammount of system "Fast RAM", which Lightwave, DPaint etc can benefit from when I do longer high-res animations? It's really all I want and need, and why I use VMM.

[kolla]

Wow!  That's quite a statement.

I do believe most people buying FPGA hardware are looking to run old games.  Switching off the FPGA is not a solution for people wanting standalone FPGA hardware to replace aging Amigas.

Wow, why?? Have you been paying attention? If all you want is to run old games, then there is already _plenty_ of cheap and compaible hardware around, an FPGA accellerator is total utter overkill for that. On the other hand, if insisting on running ports of 15-20 year old PC games on your Amiga is your interest, them FPGA accelerator is perfect choice. Hopefully it will also make sense to use FPGA accelerator for legacy productivity software.

[kolla]

Stand alone FPGA solutions have existed for years already - there are myrads of boards and systems available, and for which variants of Minimig implementation runs fine already, with and without AGA support. The Apollo project is not about this.

[kolla]

It should not be a problem to tell the Apollo core to "slow down" though, or just use a different core, like TG68, or MikeJ's core, that aim for compatibility and accuracy rather than superfastestest

[kolla]

Only on an a500/a600/a1000/a2000. Anything else and you don't have a 68000, some of them will only have the fpga and to use the original cpu would require you to swap cards.

Kind of silly to expect an FPGA accelerator card to give your A1200, A3000 or A4000 compatibility with A500 - go buy a minimig already.

[kolla]

It's silly to think that an FPGA can't be used to run a 68000 core.
 
 A minimig doesn't give you the real Amiga keyboard, real Amiga floppy drive etc.
 
 Your suggestion is silly.

Well, good luck doing much usefull with a 68000 core on any of A1200, A3000 or A4000 - they were buildt for other CPUs than 68000, I would be surprized if they manage to boot into a useful state with a 68000.

[kolla]

It would boot fine. I ran kickstart 3.0 from an a1200 on an a500 back in the day. Plus it would be trivial to load a different kickstart anyway. If you think the motherboard would get upset because the FPGA is emulating a 68000 rather than an 030/040/060, then how do you think it will know??

So because kickstart 3.0 works on an A500, a 68000 will work in an A1200? Brilliant logic.

[kolla]

http://youtu.be/vLzhBGSyoCo

That video also gave the clear answer to my long lasting question - mac emulation is currently not working.

[kolla]

It's the only problem you'd face, not insurmountable either as with an fpga you can jam in another rom and ignore the one on the motherboard.
 
 Assuming it won't work because of some magic that the a1200 will reject a cpu core that is only running 68000 instructions is insane.
 
 You're obviously trolling.

Well, insane and trolling as I may be, but is it totally unthinkable that there is code in the kickstart and OS that may be confused by finding an AGA system with a 68000 CPU? What about A3000 and A4000 that also have Zorro III? I am curious if it would work.

[kolla]

Yes, I know that everything in kickstart is plain 68000, that much is obvious having assembled my own kickstarts for 68000 systems. Even in OS3.9 there is very little that requires 68020+ (and that workbench.library for no obvious reason does so in a boingbag annoys me, and ditto for a few commands in C: and a few other places). I am more curious about code that may or may not be confused because of the oddball combination of 68000 CPU and AGA chipset. But, in time there will be an FPGA acc card for 1200 and it will be more obvious what works and what doesn't.