FPGA Amiga

[OlafS3]

I am not talking about sales, I am talking about how it _works_.

What you are describing is a potential support problem in the future, with thousands of unhappy users. Well, their problem.

I do not understand what you mean? It works obviously for most if not all users otherwise all sites would be flooded with angry comments. You are always desperate searching for unhappy buyers who are not there. Kolla, if you really own cards sell them, you will get the money, new happy users and you have no longer reasons to moan. Or you do not own cards and only moan.

[OlafS3]

OMG!!!

I dont expect it is so bad. MMU not works, FPU is supr sloooow.
But this???

My advice: forget about vampire, use ppc, it is many times faster, it has working MMU, FPU, and You can execute program step by step under gdb.

So you advice someone to use PPC to test and develop for Vampire?

I have a better advice... if you really want that drop ppc and use something that is many times faster and better like X64. How about that? People...

[OlafS3]

The flood gate (V1200) hasn't opened yet.


But, anyways, that is beside the point - my comment was "the one product" - the Apollo Team (well, Gunnar) has as goal that the Apollo Core shall be de-facto standard CPU architecture, "the one product", the new "base standard" for 68k Amiga.

And that is something that will not happen, too many burnt bridges, too many pissed off developers... whatever Apollo Team is trying to do, others are much more likely to come around and accomplish in better ways soon.

Regarding A1200... Hueh? What are you talking about?

I only know a couple of "pissed off developers" including you (3 including you). Of course there are not thousands of developers left but you seem to overestimate the numbers. Or you write which tons of 68k developers are pissed off now... and what others are you talking about? Where were those in say last 20 years? Reality is it is the only active project improving existing hardware base.

[OlafS3]

I have no idea if democoders can be tagged  as "developers"  but I have been talking to many of them. (you know people that also does the demos that wins compos etc)  and still have to find ONE single person saying that he want to do something for it.

so if those can be tagged as a developer, there is quite a "few" of them


edit: but true. demos is maybe a different thing.. so...

what is true that in the old days sometimes demo groups used their knowledge to write games but that happened not often. For demo coders Vampire is not interesting because they want to use a underpowered defined hardware base to create something that makes people wonder how they did it. So demo coders were not pissed off by whatever, Vampire simply is not for them. Still it would be nice if some would code on it just to show the potential. Kolla talked about normal developers but i still wonder where those hide.

[OlafS3]

At A32 I talked to some people, it is very known that I am not a too happy person about the vampire (well I am a demoscener so.)

and there was quite a few persons telling me "Why should I even bother about it when I cannot use the tools I have been using for ages" (meaning mungwall etc)   so there are people out, that are "pissed" but just simply doesn't say anything. they just ignore it instead.
(as IF you say anything, you WILL get the angry vampiremob on you)

The old devs are mostly in retirement age, if Vampire or similar shall have any future fresh blood is needed. And regarding MMU, Vampire is not created as a small toy for developers but for users so priority is what users need not what some developers want. It is a consumer product and there is only a very small team behind it. I can only judge what happened when two developers were pissed off how kolla names it. They were requesting this or that, they expect this or that. Gunnar can be very harsh too so both sides increased the tone until both were thrown out of the forum. One of that of course were very loud after that talking down the project everywhere. I am there very careful now what people say. You say one developer were pissed off because of the tool missing, so he would have developed some fancy new software for Vampire if it were available? Then he should go in IRC and propose what he offers if he gets this or that. If proposal is good the team might change priorities. If he has nothing to offer the team will continue and keep the priorities.

[OlafS3]

It's 2018, Vampire is under powered.

Sorry to destroy your illusions but your PPC based embedded toys are underpowered in todays terms too

[OlafS3]

As to cost, I'd still love to see my Quad G5 supported by a PPC NG OS.
The G5's PowerMacs are cheap right now.
And, compared to all other PPC systems I've used, this has enough power (particularly when its using an OS that supports SMP) that I don't feel disadvantaged when I switch between it and my i7 laptop.

As to  legacy, I'm still not sure I'm comfortable with using parts that aren't original or retro.
After all, even with a fast FPGA installed, a legacy Amiga is still a boat anchor compared to modern hardware.

I CAN see the 'its fun' argument, but I'm not sure I want to throw too much money at this.

Neither AmigaOS nor MorphOS support SMP (at least up to now)

Regarding Vampire, it is a toy, a hobby platform for amiga enthusiasts, retro how you would call it but there are obvious many people interested to get it and those who have it are all happy about it (at least most except some active members on different forums of course). The "fun" argument is why people buy it, it is a hobby and you do a hobby to have fun. It would be different if something is for work or at least your main platform at home but that is hardly the case for most of us.

[OlafS3]

I don't have an illusions, or PPC based embedded toys.

Your argument doesn't hold water about the demo scene, I was merely pointing that out. No need to get touchy.



That doesn't appear to be how gunnar sees it.

You were first one explaining me if Vampire is underpowered in todays terms as if I (or most of us) would not know that. And regarding Gunnar, he has his dreams like getting a amiga with his processor as ASIC or beating modern hardware in certain limited aspects. I do not think that he believes Vampire or future standalone hardware will beat modern hardware, it is just part of his personal fun. If you do not like it simply not visit apollo forum. Outside he only writes from time to time to answer some questions so you can easily avoid him if that is the problem.

[OlafS3]

You said it wasn't under powered.



Which is it?

IMO they would avoid it because it's too expensive and a bit like joining a cult.

Where did I write that? If you read carefully what I write and not interpret something in it, I have never written anywhere that Vampire can be compared to up-to-date standard hardware.

Demo coders code for plain A500 or A1200, not for expanded big boxes or new highend 68k hardware. It would be not fun to them

[OlafS3]

Demo coding is a sport, they stick with the rules and regulations of their game.

But at least they are productive. What productivity is there for Apollo Core? Where are the AMMX optimised datatypes etc? Where are the debugging tools that have been worked on (for how long now)? What "developer-centric features" will be slapped on? The team is just a handful (if even that) of people, why is that? Shouldn't the existing developers flock around the Apollo Core to support it? Why aren't they?

Where are the existing 68k amiga developer hiding up to now? Behind which rock? They are no longer existing, simple as that. They are in retirement age, some are even already dead, they have moved on and develop f.e. mobile games today. They are no longer interested in doing 68k development, simple as that

[OlafS3]

exactly!  there is more or less only the democoders left doing programming on the amiga. (and C64)  with a FEW exceptions.

so why even bother using valuiable LE space with stuff never getting used.   so you can have a salepoint?

and deocoders move to newer?  well. they moved to the PC.  those left want to do as a sport nice stuff wit the rules that exists. simple. as there is a sport in doing that.

so remove those rules.  why even bother about 080 etc when you can go to a fast GPU instead doing shader%&$#?@!%&$#?@!%&$#?@!%&$#?@!.


repetive. maybe.  but it seems that people magically thinks putting in new stuff will be cool when it is never used.  just pointelss waste of hours doing it.

we had this already... demo coders (if doing amiga programming at all) want a fixed target and make people wonder what they can do with such a limited hardware. Having a power 68k amiga with constantly changing hardware makes no sense and no fun to them. Then they could also use a modern PC with modern graphic cards. In old days some demo coders started to develop games but at that time there were a much bigger amiga scene so I do not think that this would happen today. I do not think that new features automatically mean new users or developers but at least it makes something interesting. So there is at least a hope that some developers and users even without prior amiga history might join. But that is just hope, I do not know it.

[OlafS3]

then why even bother to join when you have so few debuggingtools.
People programming on modern platforms today are used to very good debuggingtools, so go to vampire and du stuff is go back in time very much.  so it is not that interesting for them.

Havingh that said: new stuff like AMMX will just be many hours of time for nothing  using valueable LE space that could be used for other things insttead (like fpu or MMU maybe?)

and.  well "Demosceners was the future, now they are the cryin past! If they dont want to move along its up to them."  ANYONE except me finding that PRETTY ironic. when it comes to using an Amiga?

As I understand it AMMX not needed much space but offered some benefit in the view of the people behind the project and propably also was some fun to them to integrate. You as a demo coder might like that or not but the project was not designed for demo coders but for average users. Demo coders would never use it as their main platform, I do not understand why you repeat it all the time. I do not know if and how successful Vampire might become, we will see. I have not lost money because it exists and you propably not too and all the pissed off demo coders not either. For programmers in real world the user base is much more important than anything else. As long people use APIs and libraries you can develop on any platform if you want to support Vampire, only if you directly bang the hardware the tools you mentioned become relevant. You want to program a game? The others who asked wanted to write something? If yes how I already wrote they should go in IRC and talk to Gunnar and the others. If not nothing changes and the team does everything in order they have planned.