Amiga.org
Amiga computer related discussion => General chat about Amiga topics => Topic started by: kickstart on August 16, 2014, 10:53:38 PM
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I dont find the thread of the new hardware from the natami fantasy authors... these fpga with ethernet, usb, hdmi...
how is the status of the new project? No news means more vaporware (for me).
Thanks.
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I dont find the thread of the new hardware from the natami fantasy authors... these fpga with ethernet, usb, hdmi...
how is the status of the new project? No news means more vaporware (for me).
Thanks.
The apollo board is appaerently faring well and scheduled for release by the end of the year. Fingers crossed and toes.
There has been bits of info scattered around eab. amigaworld.net and amiga.org.
Its not certain that it will fit in a cdtv yet. I want one of these for my a500; if it happens. The Natami was a bad joke.
Still I think gunnar and co will succeed. Its planned to be released as a standalone unit at a later date...
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As usual a lot of talk, but without effect.
If You want to have a better amiga than those made by Commodore,
buy AmigaOne.
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I dont find the thread of the new hardware from the natami fantasy authors... these fpga with ethernet, usb, hdmi...
how is the status of the new project? No news means more vaporware (for me).
Thanks.
And you have a "fantasy" posting because you are asking for something that is not promised. They are working on apollo accellerators to get it out. No news means no news (at least no officially) but you can think what you want and even be polemic.
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As usual a lot of talk, but without effect.
If You want to have a better amiga than those made by Commodore,
buy AmigaOne.
I know something better... install FS-UAE or WinUAE on your PC
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http://www.apollo-core.com/bringup/
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And you have a "fantasy" posting because you are asking for something that is not promised. They are working on apollo accellerators to get it out. No news means no news (at least no officially) but you can think what you want and even be polemic.
On the real amiga (not sams or amigaones) world we need fantasy but no more vaporware... no news means no news, thanks for the info.
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http://www.apollo-core.com/bringup/
Any hopes for a a1200 version?
Released dates, prices...
Thanks.
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Released dates, prices...
Two more weeks! ;)
j/k, am sure the devs will post something when they have news to post. Best not to bug 'em in the meantime, or worse off to approach things negatively. We've already soured enough developers in the Amiga-world that it really takes someone who loves the systems to get anything done. Good luck!
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http://www.apollo-core.com/bringup/
is this related to Jens 'upcoming' ACA1000 accelerator for our mighty A1000's that will give us 2MB chip ram ?
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is this related to Jens 'upcoming' ACA1000 accelerator for our mighty A1000's that will give us 2MB chip ram ?
I don't think so, but I believe Jens is a member of the apollo team and so presumably contributed to the board design and such.
Imo time will tell; if the apollo board happens then great.
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Any hopes for a a1200 version?
Released dates, prices...
Thanks.
an a1200/a4000 version is planned at a later date. (If it happens, fingers crossed)
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http://www.apollo-core.com/bringup/
Looks great :)
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but I believe Jens is a member of the apollo team and so presumably contributed to the board design and such.
Two different Jenses :)
Apparently, Jens is a very common name in Germany.
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Jens S for Individual is certainly NOT on apollo team! lmao. These guys are working daily on this code from what I hear.
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None of these guys seem to have heard of blogging (micro or otherwise).
No matter if you a re working on something 5 days a week or 1 day a month, in today's day and age you can do a quick post at the end of each working day.
And this goes for the big boys too; Take out the hush clauses out of your regurgitated and antiquated contracts. You're dealing with a community, not a marketplace. You should know this BTW because only a community would support a pricing model that no marketplace would.
Yes I snuck in another jab at the pricing, sue me.
I hope there is a veritable deluge of news and info out of Amiwest this year, otherwise what the f@$& is it all for.
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I hope there is a veritable deluge of news and info out of Amiwest this year, otherwise what the f@$& is it all for.
Amiwest is about like minded people getting together and having fun. The only place in usa where amigans can get together. News from the show is not important to me especially concerning amiga os as its usually propaganda and nonsense. (such as gallium talk, multi core support, and my ALL TIME FAVORITE the Amiga Laptop "Already running OS4" which was a complete fabrication to dissuade amigans from having an awesome NG amiga laptop with Morphos and powermac)
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Jens S for Individual is certainly NOT on apollo team! lmao. These guys are working daily on this code from what I hear.
Jens Künzer - Apollo Team
Jens Schönfeld - Individual computers
There has been some friendly constructive communication between Jens Schönfeld and Gunnar of the Apollo Team on the German forum http://www.a1k.org/. I am not aware of any agreements but future cooperation is not out of the question. JensS could use more powerful 68k fpga processors for Amiga accelerators, his Chameleon experiment and Clone-A prototypes use Altera fpgas which the Apollo Team prefers and I believe they live fairly close to each other in Germany. I believe JensS was planning on ARM or MIPS for the main CPU in Clone-A before the latest communication with Gunnar. JensS seemed to be surprised at how much more powerful of a 68k fpga CPU is possible than the TG68. Any reluctance he has may disappear with a successful Phoenix core though. A few users of the fpga Arcade and Chameleon are already asking if they will be able to use the Phoenix core. That's only going to increase if the Phoenix core lives up to it's hype.
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Jens Künzer - Apollo Team
Jens Schönfeld - Individual computers
There has been some friendly constructive communication between Jens Schönfeld and Gunnar of the Apollo Team on the German forum http://www.a1k.org/. I am not aware of any agreements but future cooperation is not out of the question. JensS could use more powerful 68k fpga processors for Amiga accelerators, his Chameleon experiment and Clone-A prototypes use Altera fpgas which the Apollo Team prefers and I believe they live fairly close to each other in Germany. I believe JensS was planning on ARM or MIPS for the main CPU in Clone-A before the latest communication with Gunnar. JensS seemed to be surprised at how much more powerful of a 68k fpga CPU is possible than the TG68. Any reluctance he has may disappear with a successful Phoenix core though. A few users of the fpga Arcade and Chameleon are already asking if they will be able to use the Phoenix core. That's only going to increase if the Phoenix core lives up to it's hype.
I thought Clone-A was a dead project, but I never heard of any reason save a vague reference to some legal issues, as to why it was cancelled. Are you implying that Clone -A is still in development?
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I thought Clone-A was a dead project, but I never heard of any reason save a vague reference to some legal issues, as to why it was cancelled. Are you implying that Clone -A is still in development?
I believe the Clone-A concept is still alive. The Indivision and Chameleon projects are offshoots of the developed technology. Clone-A is not necessarily another fpga board. JensS has kept much of his ideas secret so they are not stolen but we have seen hints. He seemed to be leaning toward ARM or MIPS for the CPU (probably with software emulation of other processors) and it likely would be Amiga compatible (as well as other systems), probably with an fpga (for chipset emulations?). He has talked about targeting the masses and not just the narrow Amiga niche. It could have specific uses targeted at particular modern users and could come in many forms (board, tablet, laptop, portable gaming system). I can't help but think that it would be somewhat similar to the fpgaArcade but with differentiating advantages of some kind. There is no guarantee that it will ever see the light of day but much like the Natami, it's premature to call it dead.
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It is very much alive. As a matter of fact, you can see parts of it today. For some time already, actually...
Z.B. Indy ECS is a "clone" of Denise, with extra features of course. Maybe people don't know this, but when you stick it in an A500 you don't need the original chip anymore (unless you want to use RGB).
So part by part, we have reverse ingeneering, and improving. And not only by Individual Computers. A few teams work on new Amiga hardware, new parts, spare parts. Things are looking quite well :)
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None of these guys seem to have heard of blogging (micro or otherwise).
No matter if you a re working on something 5 days a week or 1 day a month, in today's day and age you can do a quick post at the end of each working day.
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Well, we have a life too. Designing software and hardware is not done in a weekend. Why should we publish all our ideas and weird mistakes to the public that just longs to see new stuff created with two decades old hardware? Most of us do this for fun and not for profit, and yet, people complain.
Shesh, most of the time spent is working out flaws not documented from C= and make it future-proof.
And no, I'm not going to promise you bells'n'whistles nor functionality of the "free beer" Haynie jumper :-P
:furious:
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I thought Clone-A was a dead project, but I never heard of any reason save a vague reference to some legal issues, as to why it was cancelled. Are you implying that Clone -A is still in development?
Jens has not officially killed Clone-A. Though I am not certain what stage of development it is at. He's a really nice person and willing to answer polite questions. My impression was that he's still considering it after he's done with some projects that he feels have a better chance of helping people with existing hardware and selling.
-Nyle
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Jens has not officially killed Clone-A. Though I am not certain what stage of development it is at.
From what I have read he seemed to be more or less done, but he had some bright idea he wanted to incorporate to make it sell better/wider that was so "obvious" that he wouldn't want to reveal it so that others could do the same. Plus he is probably not sure if it is an economically viable project - I would guess it it expensive to produce.
(As for "obvious" - think Tetris: Once people had seen it they could make a version in a day or in 512 bytes and it was still great stuff. That is the kind of idea you don't want to escape.)
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@all. Thanks for the answers guys. I recall reading a few threads about clone-A' previously and they mostly implied the project was stone dead.
Glad to hear it may yet see the light of day. Interesting that boits of the tech are in the indivision etc.
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Maybe some people is still waiting for a release of walker.
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Maybe some people is still waiting for a release of walker.
What? What do you mean? Its not coming? I have a place in my studio ready for it.
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Well, we have a life too. Designing software and hardware is not done in a weekend. Why should we publish all our ideas and weird mistakes to the public that just longs to see new stuff created with two decades old hardware? Most of us do this for fun and not for profit, and yet, people complain.
Shesh, most of the time spent is working out flaws not documented from C= and make it future-proof.
And no, I'm not going to promise you bells'n'whistles nor functionality of the "free beer" Haynie jumper :-P
:furious:
140 characters at the end of a day of work does not take away from your life. I never suggested that development is done in a single weekend. You should publish your ideas and weird mistakes to the public because it is the 21st century and that's how things are done now. As a person who still maintains decades old hardware I'd like to know that someone out there is working on things, bit by bit, working on problems, dealing with lack of documentation. It's called the demystification of development. Especially if you do it for fun, it makes for a richer development ecosystem. And it's not that hard to ignore all the complaints.
Who said you need to make any promises. It's just progress reports, they don't have to be "official" media releases; I'm doing this. This didn't work. I'll try this next. etc. The most recent progress reports from Toni Wilen on WinUAE are an excellent example.
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You should publish your ideas and weird mistakes to the public because it is the 21st century and that's how things are done now.
Your assessment and requirement are both subjective, at best.
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@agami
It's not really practical to do that level of detail, and I don't think it should be done.
For one thing, the blog would be the most boring ever. Imagine it being like this:
"Today I made no progress. Tracking a bug."
"Still tracking a bug."
"another day. where is it?"
"Found a missing equals sign. Hurrah!"
"Still doesn't work. D'oh!"
"Ripped out huge chunk of code. Too much like spaghetti."
"Bug gone. Now had to write data structures for input handler."
"Wrote input handler"
"Found bug and squashed it"
It'd be a proper yawn-fest, so nobody would read it anyway.
Also:
You should publish your ideas and weird mistakes to the
public because it is the 21st century and that's how things are done
now.
I don't know of anybody who blogs to this level, and even if someone does, it doesn't mean the rest of us have to.
Nearly all Amiga work is done part time now. You don't want to see lots of blogs saying "Nothing got done today", but that is exactly what you would see.
Also, I don't see why a developer "should" do anything. The developer is not employed by a user, nor is he behooven to him on any way. If Toni Willen does it then great, that's nice, but that's just his personal choice.
Put simply, a developer can do whatever he wants in the manner he wants, it is not for the user to decide what he must and must not do. Trying to force rules and regimes on people who are basically just doing it for a hobby and love of the platform more than anything else is just going to push what developers we have left away.
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@agami
It's not really practical to do that level of detail, and I don't think it should be done.
For one thing, the blog would be the most boring ever. Imagine it being like this:
"Today I made no progress. Tracking a bug."
"Still tracking a bug."
"another day. where is it?"
"Found a missing equals sign. Hurrah!"
"Still doesn't work. D'oh!"
"Ripped out huge chunk of code. Too much like spaghetti."
"Bug gone. Now had to write data structures for input handler."
"Wrote input handler"
"Found bug and squashed it"
It'd be a proper yawn-fest, so nobody would read it anyway.
Also:
I don't know of anybody who blogs to this level, and even if someone does, it doesn't mean the rest of us have to.
Nearly all Amiga work is done part time now. You don't want to see lots of blogs saying "Nothing got done today", but that is exactly what you would see.
Also, I don't see why a developer "should" do anything. The developer is not employed by a user, nor is he behooven to him on any way. If Toni Willen does it then great, that's nice, but that's just his personal choice.
Put simply, a developer can do whatever he wants in the manner he wants, it is not for the user to decide what he must and must not do. Trying to force rules and regimes on people who are basically just doing it for a hobby and love of the platform more than anything else is just going to push what developers we have left away.
Very good write!
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how about that manner of comments:
http://repo.or.cz/w/AROS.git
i think its pretty informative, when its comes to the progress and what is being worked on. the code itself must not necessarily be public.
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@agami
It's not really practical to do that level of detail, and I don't think it should be done.
For one thing, the blog would be the most boring ever. Imagine it being like this:
"Today I made no progress. Tracking a bug."
"Still tracking a bug."
"another day. where is it?"
"Found a missing equals sign. Hurrah!"
"Still doesn't work. D'oh!"
"Ripped out huge chunk of code. Too much like spaghetti."
"Bug gone. Now had to write data structures for input handler."
"Wrote input handler"
"Found bug and squashed it"
It'd be a proper yawn-fest, so nobody would read it anyway.
Also:
I don't know of anybody who blogs to this level, and even if someone does, it doesn't mean the rest of us have to.
Nearly all Amiga work is done part time now. You don't want to see lots of blogs saying "Nothing got done today", but that is exactly what you would see.
Also, I don't see why a developer "should" do anything. The developer is not employed by a user, nor is he behooven to him on any way. If Toni Willen does it then great, that's nice, but that's just his personal choice.
Put simply, a developer can do whatever he wants in the manner he wants, it is not for the user to decide what he must and must not do. Trying to force rules and regimes on people who are basically just doing it for a hobby and love of the platform more than anything else is just going to push what developers we have left away.
a daily blog would be too much indeed (expecially when dealing with hobby projects where you not work regularly) so the update interval could depend on project progress, perhaps once a week or once a month. People have seen so many projects where people promised something, then stayed calm but still claiming project is still living and after years realizing that it propably is dead for a long time with them still hoping. Communication in "amiga country" is not the strongest part and the same doing in a more competitive environment would have meant "game over" for even some of the more known names.
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Absolutely. I'm all in favour of updates as and when they're useful. But there's no point in updating just for the sake of updating.
Many of my projects are years old - I'll work on them a bit, then I'll work on something else. Then I may come back to my other project again. If I make a big advance, then I tell people, but there's no point in updating people to say "I'm still not working on this project right now, but I may do in the future". My projects never die, they just rest. Sometimes permanently. :)
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Absolutely. I'm all in favour of updates as and when they're useful. But there's no point in updating just for the sake of updating.
Many of my projects are years old - I'll work on them a bit, then I'll work on something else. Then I may come back to my other project again. If I make a big advance, then I tell people, but there's no point in updating people to say "I'm still not working on this project right now, but I may do in the future". My projects never die, they just rest. Sometimes permanently. :)
perhaps you should optimize your "working process" a little :)
I must admit if you are working on different projects now and then communication and blog might become complicated
like "I wanted to continue on xxx and did a little debugging found wrong typo but then I lost interest" :)
perhaps I am a little different there, I do not like to way to get somewhere, I like to reach the goals. Because of that I will not work on "many" different projects but only few (at the moment I am only working on one and still have new ideas even after years). But everybody is different.
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My working model is usually "Get a bit more done to do what I want it to do then, whatever" :)
For instance, in the Catweasel driver, I'll suddenly find I need a new codec for a different disk format. Or, I need to support a new file format like IPF, that sort of thing.
The unfortunate truth is that most coding updates really would be incredibly dull. Better to just to update when you have something to say.
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@agami
It's not really practical to do that level of detail, and I don't think it should be done.
For one thing, the blog would be the most boring ever. Imagine it being like this:
"Today I made no progress. Tracking a bug."
"Still tracking a bug."
"another day. where is it?"
"Found a missing equals sign. Hurrah!"
"Still doesn't work. D'oh!"
"Ripped out huge chunk of code. Too much like spaghetti."
"Bug gone. Now had to write data structures for input handler."
"Wrote input handler"
"Found bug and squashed it"
It'd be a proper yawn-fest, so nobody would read it anyway.
Also:
I don't know of anybody who blogs to this level, and even if someone does, it doesn't mean the rest of us have to.
Nearly all Amiga work is done part time now. You don't want to see lots of blogs saying "Nothing got done today", but that is exactly what you would see.
Also, I don't see why a developer "should" do anything. The developer is not employed by a user, nor is he behooven to him on any way. If Toni Willen does it then great, that's nice, but that's just his personal choice.
Put simply, a developer can do whatever he wants in the manner he wants, it is not for the user to decide what he must and must not do. Trying to force rules and regimes on people who are basically just doing it for a hobby and love of the platform more than anything else is just going to push what developers we have left away.
Actually, even though it was a mock journal you wrote, that was interesting to read. Beats silence.
And also, I'll repeat it for the cheap seats, I said "at the end of a day of work", which means you don't post anything if you didn't work on it. If 6 months go by and you haven't posted then we know it hasn't been worked on in 6 months. And if you chase a bug for 5 days straight then we know more about how challenging this type of engineering is. In this game you don't score extra points for keeping your cards close to your chest.
Yes, some of it may be very "inside baseball", but another software or hardware engineer will appreciate it. It may give them some clues for their own project and it may open up your own project to comments from other engineers.
I am saying this of course for projects aimed at products planned for consumption by the Amiga hobby community. If you are working on something purely for yourself then do whatever. Post or don't. But if you a looking for others to eventually buy your product then transparency is your friend.
This is just friendly marketing advice. As an Amiga hobbyist I'd like to know that there are people working on things that I could potentially use. But if enough months of silence go by then I'll pack up my A1200 and put in storage. Then when you decide your product is ready do you think I'm rushing to pull my Amiga out of storage?
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http://www.apollo-core.com/bringup/
Newsflash:
No real news.
We are still testing.
To make sure that all the games really work fine we have to play them to the end of course.
Therefore our testrate per day is limited.
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I'd like to hear the occasional:
"Made some progress"... "Didn't make any progress"
If there is no news at all, I start to worry that people might be leaving.
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@agami
It's not really practical to do that level of detail, and I don't think it should be done.
For one thing, the blog would be the most boring ever. Imagine it being like this:
"Today I made no progress. Tracking a bug."
"Still tracking a bug."
"another day. where is it?"
"Found a missing equals sign. Hurrah!"
"Still doesn't work. D'oh!"
"Ripped out huge chunk of code. Too much like spaghetti."
"Bug gone. Now had to write data structures for input handler."
"Wrote input handler"
"Found bug and squashed it"
It'd be a proper yawn-fest, so nobody would read it anyway.
Also:
I don't know of anybody who blogs to this level, and even if someone does, it doesn't mean the rest of us have to.
Nearly all Amiga work is done part time now. You don't want to see lots of blogs saying "Nothing got done today", but that is exactly what you would see.
Also, I don't see why a developer "should" do anything. The developer is not employed by a user, nor is he behooven to him on any way. If Toni Willen does it then great, that's nice, but that's just his personal choice.
Put simply, a developer can do whatever he wants in the manner he wants, it is not for the user to decide what he must and must not do. Trying to force rules and regimes on people who are basically just doing it for a hobby and love of the platform more than anything else is just going to push what developers we have left away.
Thats not the problem, no one force to developers to code... the problem is the announced projects, years of "news" and a bunch of pics on a outdated web... if someone ask for news about the projectthe anwser is ambiguous... but isnt better to be a victim.
A good example are the morphos team, they advertise a real work which can be used.
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Amiwest is about like minded people getting together and having fun. The only place in usa where amigans can get together. News from the show is not important to me especially concerning amiga os as its usually propaganda and nonsense. (such as gallium talk, multi core support, and my ALL TIME FAVORITE the Amiga Laptop "Already running OS4" which was a complete fabrication to dissuade amigans from having an awesome NG amiga laptop with Morphos and powermac)
I picked up a used G4 powerbook for $80 and it runs MorphOS just fine!
My main issue with these *Amigans* is that they seem to want to just suck a lot of money out of the last remaining Amiga fans instead of wanting to build up a new niche market for the Amiga computer platform. There's 7 billion people on this planet, so a happy niche/hobby/etc Amiga platform with 10 million or so people would be totally possible and viable..
They're making computers for the classes, not the masses! Which is completely opposite from the original Commodore & Amiga philosophy.
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I picked up a used G4 powerbook for $80 and it runs MorphOS just fine!
My main issue with these *Amigans* is that they seem to want to just suck a lot of money out of the last remaining Amiga fans instead of wanting to build up a new niche market for the Amiga computer platform. There's 7 billion people on this planet, so a happy niche/hobby/etc Amiga platform with 10 million or so people would be totally possible and viable..
They're making computers for the classes, not the masses! Which is completely opposite from the original Commodore & Amiga philosophy.
Is this necessarily the reasoning though? Perhaps they simply do not believe. It is imo idealistic to try and bring back the Amiga; but not impossible, I guess, as a niche anyways. It would be done 'for the love of it' though -and not for any grand notions of making lot's of money.
I guess also, that they are not exactly forcing people to buy their hardware, either.
Personally I think we need all hands on deck and so I would not think it sensible to alienate any people active in the amiga hardware scene by implying such things.
I'm hoping the apollo board bears fruit though; I want one.:)
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Is this necessarily the reasoning though? Perhaps they simply do not believe. It is imo idealistic to try and bring back the Amiga; but not impossible, I guess, as a niche anyways. It would be done 'for the love of it' though -and not for any grand notions of making lot's of money.
I guess also, that they are not exactly forcing people to buy their hardware, either.
Personally I think we need all hands on deck and so I would not think it sensible to alienate any people active in the amiga hardware scene by implying such things.
I'm hoping the apollo board bears fruit though; I want one.:)
Exacty! Well said. ;-)
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@ above
Would both be true? The high prices keep the hobby going. It encourages developers and help fund future hardware.
Some people did hang around to take advantage of users. I think because of bitterness that Amiga did not make them rich.
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Update:
new progress video uploaded
http://www.apollo-core.com/bringup/
Is this way of updating the progress what people want?
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Update:
new progress video uploaded
http://www.apollo-core.com/bringup/
Is this way of updating the progress what people want?
wery well, but couldnt you finally post screenshots of the current amiga benchmarks?
as it looks like the core runs amiga games just fine, im assuming this is 68000 software. what is the area to work on now, are there still missing instructions?
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wery well, but couldnt you finally post screenshots of the current amiga benchmarks?
as it looks like the core runs amiga games just fine, im assuming this is 68000 software. what is the area to work on now, are there still missing instructions?
To answer your questions:
are there still missing instructions?
* All 68000 instructions are included
* Many good 68020 instructions are also included
* Some 68020 EA modes are included.
* Some usefull new instructions are included.
what is the area to work on now?
We test, test, and test again.
We want to make sure that all is working fine.
For this a lot of testing is needed to debug and verify that everything works perfectly.
Also we measure and benchmark.
Today we measured intesively the bus cycles on the chip memory bus.
We saw some occational bubbles there and work now on removing them.
Many AMIGA accelerators suck on their chip bus connection.
We aim to be better than the others.
We will publish benchmarks as soon as we have finished testing.
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i think it could be good at some point to outsource/distribute the testing to save time of the core developers.
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Maybe some people is still waiting for a release of walker.
I want one! Who doesn't want an Amiga in Darth Vader's helmet? ;-)
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@thread
What we classic users really need is brand new drop in motherboards because of the rotting batteries and caps. We really need a real amiga repair shop in all the major cities.
AmigaKit has part of the issue fixed with their power adaptors. We need more solutions
like that.
Any one to wants to play and produce the latest greatest, Great! Go ahead.
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Is there any hardware that will be available -- as in ready and shipping -- in October or November?
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I have given up on most projects. At the rate some are moving I am afraid I will be dead when they are actually available to purchase.
DLH
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There is Minimig, MiST, and FPGA Arcade...
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Is there any hardware that will be available -- as in ready and shipping -- in October or November?
Majsta has 2 cards:
* Vampire 600:
useable in A600
+ 64 MB fastmem
* Vampire 500:
useable in A500 (maybe also in A1000/A2000)
+ 64 MB fastmem
Vampire 600 is currently produced and sold by Kipper
I assume if people show interest then Vampire 500 could be produced and sold asap.
We have currently 1 card:
APPOLLO/PHOENIX 500
useable in A500 /A1000/A2000
+ 128 MB
+ new 28nm FPGA
+ SDCard
many more features ...
Of the Apollo/Phoenix card a bunch of beta test card was produced.
We test it right now.
As soon as testing it fully complete, card will be sold.
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Update : Added Chip memory bus test benchmark results:
http://www.apollo-core.com/bringup/
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Majsta has 2 cards:
* Vampire 600:
useable in A600
+ 64 MB fastmem
* Vampire 500:
useable in A500 (maybe also in A1000/A2000)
+ 64 MB fastmem
Vampire 600 is currently produced and sold by Kipper
I assume if people show interest then Vampire 500 could be produced and sold asap.
We have currently 1 card:
APPOLLO/PHOENIX 500
useable in A500 /A1000/A2000
+ 128 MB
+ new 28nm FPGA
+ SDCard
many more features ...
Of the Apollo/Phoenix card a bunch of beta test card was produced.
We test it right now.
As soon as testing it fully complete, card will be sold.
I hope so. I want one for sure. Will you sell it directly or through amigakit or vesalia etc?
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Is more difficult to make the a1200 versions than the a500/600? There are more a1200 users than a600.
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There is Minimig, MiST, and FPGA Arcade...
Thanks Kollla.
The FPGAArcade website needs a big update, but the forum is very active.
Just booted a copy protected Shadow of the Beast from a disk flux image ;)
Tidying up and bug fixing the last few graphics issues, then we are good to go.
Boards are shipping mainly to developers, I have over 100 in stock waiting testing and a production run about to start.
/Mike
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Thanks Kollla.
The FPGAArcade website needs a big update, but the forum is very active.
Just booted a copy protected Shadow of the Beast from a disk flux image ;)
Tidying up and bug fixing the last few graphics issues, then we are good to go.
Boards are shipping mainly to developers, I have over 100 in stock waiting testing and a production run about to start.
/Mike
Awesome, I want one badly, but right now I will be on the road for a year :laughing:
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I know we have seen a small run of the FPGA Arcade. I contacted OneCircuit
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFi_Sh9cQdk
Who had been one of the guys who did an unboxing. I asked him about the Amiga side and last time. He says he wasn't able to get the Amiga part working. This maybe user error I don't know.
But like most of you I sit in anticipation waiting. Like some of you maybe I'll be dead by then also. The video of the FPGA Arcade with Daughter board looks amazing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ug4_yh3Q288
I WANT ONE !!!! NOW !!!!
We'll that's my two cents. I'll just keep dreaming for the moment :-)
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Update : Added Chip memory bus test benchmark results:
http://www.apollo-core.com/bringup/
We have some good and true progress here :)
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I know we have seen a small run of the FPGA Arcade. I contacted OneCircuit
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFi_Sh9cQdk
Who had been one of the guys who did an unboxing. I asked him about the Amiga side and last time. He says he wasn't able to get the Amiga part working. This maybe user error I don't know.
But like most of you I sit in anticipation waiting. Like some of you maybe I'll be dead by then also. The video of the FPGA Arcade with Daughter board looks amazing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ug4_yh3Q288
I WANT ONE !!!! NOW !!!!
We'll that's my two cents. I'll just keep dreaming for the moment :-)
It's very real. It has taken a long time to get the Amiga code into shape and integrated with the Replay framework. As much code as possible is generic and shared between all the cores (DRAM, OSD, IO etc).
Few glitches to sort out still, but focus will move back to the daughterboard and upgrading the soft 68K core as well. I've started to run regression tests of my soft CPU against the real one. This will be open sourced as well - although to be fair the T68 is pretty compatible and runs fast with prefetch/caching.
/MikeJ
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Update:
Uploaded several Videos showing games running on CPU.
http://www.apollo-core.com/bringup/
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chip ram access seems normal as expected, the frame rate on indy though looks pretty low?
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chip ram access seems normal as expected
The result of 3.5 MB/sec is actually the best possible result on a 16bit AMIGA.
I'm not sure if this is normal to reach.
What do other cards reach on 16bit AMIGAs?
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Hi Gunnar,
* All 68000 instructions are included
* Many good 68020 instructions are also included
* Some 68020 EA modes are included.
* Some usefull new instructions are included.
yes, thanks for the update. I guess we talked about this already a bit. The problem with that is that there is no API to signal an "almost but not quite" 68020, i.e. I - as a software author - cannot compile against a 68020 API with instructions missing since I can never be sure whether the result will work correctly. I - as a user - cannot install a 68020-only version of a software because I cannot be sure if the result works. I can only take 68K versions then, which is a shame - or software that explicitly mentiones that it has compiled for this specific CPU, even though exec has no means of signalling it.
My idea would be that you provide some "unimplemented integer instruction" exception and an "unimplemented addressing mode" exception (whoops, there are already!) and trigger that instead in case you hit an instruction you do not support, but that is part of the program interface of the 68020+ CPUs. This way, one could install a "appollo.library" via SetPatch (or otherwise) that includes the missing instructions as software emulation, and an updated "MuRedox" that includes an "on-demand" patching of software to lower the emulation overhead.
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I was thinking the same thing.
With the AmigaOne they could just make a simple MacMINI clone. There is no reason for 10 USB ports like they have on their MB now. We would all use a built on board Video card and get a cheap machine out there running OS4. Also open up the OS4 project to OPENSOURCE and take Donations. I bet they would make a hell of a lot more money then they are now with their expensive machines that most people can't and don't want to afford.
I really think that is the only way to break back into the market but for some reason they want to shut a lot of people out of the fun.
But for now they need to get a cheap hobby machine out there and forget their get rich schemes and control over everything.
I picked up a used G4 powerbook for $80 and it runs MorphOS just fine!
My main issue with these *Amigans* is that they seem to want to just suck a lot of money out of the last remaining Amiga fans instead of wanting to build up a new niche market for the Amiga computer platform. There's 7 billion people on this planet, so a happy niche/hobby/etc Amiga platform with 10 million or so people would be totally possible and viable..
They're making computers for the classes, not the masses! Which is completely opposite from the original Commodore & Amiga philosophy.
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Hi Gunnar,
yes, thanks for the update. I guess we talked about this already a bit. The problem with that is that there is no API to signal an "almost but not quite" 68020,
We use the GNU tools ourselves to write software.
We have added a new target "APOLLO" to them to be able to code for our Core.
This target matches our CPU and allows not onle to use the new instructions
but also to enables to new address mode options we have.
Phoenix support PC-relative also for updates.
Coding like this now works fine.
ADDQ.L #2,label(pc)
I - as a user - cannot install a 68020-only version of a software because I cannot be sure if the result works.
This is true.
For the first release of Phoenix we only promise 100% 68000 compatility.
But as most 68020 instructions work fine - many 68020 programs might run fine too.
At a later point we will add more here to reach full compatibility.
My idea would be that you provide some "unimplemented integer instruction" exception and an "unimplemented addressing mode" exception (whoops, there are already!)
This is of course another option and would work even today.
Good idea.
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The result of 3.5 MB/sec is actually the best possible result on a 16bit AMIGA.
I'm not sure if this is normal to reach.
What do other cards reach on 16bit AMIGAs?
ive never measured that myself, but yes, i think its as much as you can expect to get.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Thomas Richter View Post
My idea would be that you provide some "unimplemented integer instruction" exception and an "unimplemented addressing mode" exception (whoops, there are already!)
This is of course another option and would work even today.
Good idea.
i think its self explanatory that it should be done as thomas proposes, the system should be usable at all times, even if non existent instructions lead to exceptions that are handled by a cpu lib instead crash. it will also be convenient for user bug reports.
what concerns apollo target it remains to be seen how popular it will get, but it will either fragment the scene or the new instructions will have to bi added to the appropriate existent cpu libs to achieve forward compatibility of all systems. either way most existent software is compiled against existent targets, and this will overweight any alternative very likely forever.
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i think its self explanatory that it should be done as thomas proposes, the system should be usable at all times, even if non existent instructions lead to exceptions that are handled by a cpu lib instead crash.
That a CPU trows an excpetion for unimplemented instructions is normal.
Phoenix does this already.
And old 68000 cores did this also.
Nevertheless on AMIGA really no one cared about this.
In theory you could catch all FPU instructions anfd run programs using the FPU this way on any AMIGA.
Did anyone do this?
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The result of 3.5 MB/sec ...What do other cards reach on 16bit AMIGAs?
ive never measured that myself, but yes, i think its as much as you can expect to get.
On my A500T + RTG + 060 I barely could get 2.1 MB/s on Chip at best.
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That a CPU trows an excpetion for unimplemented instructions is normal.
Phoenix does this already.
And old 68000 cores did this also.
Nevertheless on AMIGA really no one cared about this.
In theory you could catch all FPU instructions anfd run programs using the FPU this way on any AMIGA.
Did anyone do this?
im not sure anymore but i always sort of expected math libs to provide soft fpu emulation, at least that is how this should have been done i guess. of course this doesnt actually offer anything, the fpu version of software remain to be recommended for systems with fpu but the system remains stable and running, and this is important. okay maybe its enough to throw exception and exit the task, except it is an important one and takes down the system.
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On my A500T + RTG + 060 I barely could get 2.1 MB/s on Chip at best.
060 cards are one known inconvenient example.
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Yes, a 030 would probably have done better.
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im not sure anymore but i always sort of expected math libs to provide soft fpu emulation.
True, but that works in a different way. It's not by emulating the FPU instructions - and if you had to emulate the FPU instructions, much more had to be done in the math libs than is done currently. The FPU instructions not only deliver the direct result in a register, they also set condition codes, probably "inexact bits", the quotient bit... Many tiny bits and pieces that make a full emulation more complex than a simple library.
The difference between an "illegal instruction" and an "unimplemented opcode" is that the former is often used as a "trap" representation for debugging (or other uses), and the later "often" provides additional information for the emulation of the instruction. Ok, Motorola removed all of that for the 060 and left it to the programmer to fiddle out the addressing mode, but it's really a different story whether an instruction "should be there but isn't", or is really not part of the ABI.
One way or another, Mot had a point in allocating a separate interrupt vector for that so you could distinguish whether your program actually went bezerk, or some library had to clean up behind the CPU.
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The result of 3.5 MB/sec is actually the best possible result on a 16bit AMIGA.
I'm not sure if this is normal to reach.
What do other cards reach on 16bit AMIGAs?
Can't speak for 16-bit (I don't remember what my borrowed 040 did), but my CS060 MK1 was consistent 3.5/7 in my 4000. It was considered a good implementation AFAIR.
I think some of the 1200 accelerators were struggling...
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Can't speak for 16-bit (I don't remember what my borrowed 040 did), but my CS060 MK1 was consistent 3.5/7 in my 4000. It was considered a good implementation AFAIR.
I think some of the 1200 accelerators were struggling...
Yes, according to this database no AMIGA card was able to saturate the bus.
http://amiga.resource.cx/perf/sysspeed.html
A4000/CyberStorm Chipread=4.4 of 7.0 possible
A1200/CyberStorm III Chipread=3.3 of 7.0 possible
A2000/G-Force 030 (030/50) Chipread=2.0 of 3.5 possible
A600/Apollo 630 (030/40 Chipread=1.9 of 3.5 possible
Looks like the Vampire from Majsta is the first card for the AMIGA which reaches 100% buspeed.
Does someone has some results for other cards that you can still buy today?
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some more updates as promissed
http://www.apollo-core.com/bringup/
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On the Sysinfo benchmark would it ever show up at a faster speed? Can it be optimised further?
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On the Sysinfo benchmark would it ever show up at a faster speed? Can it be optimised further?
Yes this is a debug/development build only.
I think in the end about 10% better is reasonable to assume.
This result is the same for the Vampire 600 and the Vampire 500.
The Apollo/Phoenix card is a lot faster though....
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If You want to have a better amiga than those made by Commodore,
buy AmigaOne.
Sorry but amigaone has nothing todo with amiga, hope I dont banned for say this. I have been a commodore user since 1983 (vic20), c-128, amiga, etc.
But what we want is a update amiga.
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But what we want is a update amiga.
Not me. I want newly made A1200 computers without updated chip sets and with nice 68030s or 68060s and modern connectivity. If only I was filthy rich :(
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Yes this is a debug/development build only.
I think in the end about 10% better is reasonable to assume.
This result is the same for the Vampire 600 and the Vampire 500.
The Apollo/Phoenix card is a lot faster though....
gunnar as i see it you achieve 060+ class speed on a vampire card!¿:O
this really aint bad.
as far i see the caches dont get recognized, or arent there any? if so i guess it could still have some serious impact, but i wonder if there is any space left.
anyway im most curious how your accelerator will get off..
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Not me. I want newly made A1200 computers without updated chip sets and with nice 68030s or 68060s and modern connectivity. If only I was filthy rich :(
Yes... or a expansion "all in one" ethernet, usb, scandoubler... in working state not betas or fw fails.
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Why some developers choose the amiga 600? Is not popular like 500 or 1200.
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Why some developers choose the amiga 600? Is not popular like 500 or 1200.
Why not?
We have three card supporting Phoenix.
1) Vampire 600 (for Amiga 600)
64MB fast
2) Vampire 500 (for Amiga 500/ and others)
64MB fast
+ IDE Controller
3) Apollo/Phoenix (for Amiga 500/ and others)
128MB Fast
+ SDCard
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If You want to have a better amiga than those made by Commodore,
buy AmigaOne.
Amigaone is not an amiga, maybe you are joking.
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Amigaone is not an amiga, maybe you are joking.
AmigaOne is Amiga and AmigaOne is better Amiga than crap which Commodore made after 1990.
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@biggun
Vampire 500 is a project and dont know what is phoenix, phoenix reminds me to natami.
@ppcamiga1
This is the most stupid post ever.
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@ppcamiga1
It really really depends on what you mean by "Amiga".
1. If Amiga is a computer running AmigaOS or something very similar then yes, AmigaOnes are Amiga, as well as PPC Macs running MorphOS or AROS running on PC.
2. If Amiga is a computer with a series of special chips, then nothing after Commodore/Escom and some of the clones can be called an Amiga. It's doubtful even if the Draco could be called one in that case.
3. If Amiga is a computer running AmigaOS or an OS based on it's source code then AmigaOne is an Amiga and not MorphOS nor AROS.
4. If Amiga is a culture rather than a specific technical solution, then everything trying to be Amiga-like is Amiga.
Strictly speaking, I think (2) is right, but I live by the rule that (4) is right because it's much more fun that way :)
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@biggun
Vampire 500 is a project and phoenix dont know what is at the moment.
I don't understand you post.
Maybe you can rephrase this?
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Did he mean the Commodore One is not an Amiga?
P.S. The PowerPC chip costs $500 alone. That is not going to help bring more people in and develop a market.
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@biggun
Edited, sorry.
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@biggun
Edited, sorry.
Hmm.
I still don't understand ....
Vampire600 is a CPU upgrade card for classic AMIGA
Of these some were sold to AMIGA users
Vampire500 is a CPU upgrade card for classic AMIGA
Of the V500 prodotypes were produced and are used by some.
APOLLO/PHOENIX is a CPU upgrade card for classic AMIGA
Of these prodotypes were produced and are used by some.
NATAMI is a complete system
Of the NATAMI several generations were produced.
And some low number of those are used by people.
The Phoenix-CPU is an 68K CPU core which can be instantiated and used by all of the above.
Pictures of the Vampire 600 and Apollo/Phoenix Card
as well as AMIGA Software running those you see on the bring up thread here.
http://www.apollo-core.com/bringup/
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@biggun
OK... then, where can i purchase apollo/phoenix or natami?
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@biggun
OK... then, where can i purchase apollo/phoenix or natami?
Do you not know what bring-up means?
It means testing and debugging of new hardware after it was developed and _before_ you sell it.
You understand this right?
1) First you design something
2) Then you test it and verify that it runs 100%
3) Then you sell it to people
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@ppcamiga1
It really really depends on what you mean by "Amiga".
1. If Amiga is a computer running AmigaOS or something very similar then yes, AmigaOnes are Amiga, as well as PPC Macs running MorphOS or AROS running on PC.
2. If Amiga is a computer with a series of special chips, then nothing after Commodore/Escom and some of the clones can be called an Amiga. It's doubtful even if the Draco could be called one in that case.
3. If Amiga is a computer running AmigaOS or an OS based on it's source code then AmigaOne is an Amiga and not MorphOS nor AROS.
4. If Amiga is a culture rather than a specific technical solution, then everything trying to be Amiga-like is Amiga.
Strictly speaking, I think (2) is right, but I live by the rule that (4) is right because it's much more fun that way :)
macro system, the company behind draco has never tried to disguise it as amiga. it was a compatible computer in its own right meant for particular application. i dont even now how did they licensed and adopted the kickstart but it must have been done properly.
at least i don know anyone referring to his draco as amiga. in comparison amigaone owners constantly insist that they computers are true and official amigas, even though they are actually not allowed to be called that.
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Amigaone is not an amiga, maybe you are joking.
Truer words have never been spoken :)
AmigaOne is Amiga and AmigaOne is better Amiga than crap which Commodore made after 1990.
What a load of bovine excrement.
It really really depends on what you mean by "Amiga".
No, it doesn't. Amiga is a line of computers produced by Commodore, and later Escom. How anyone can think anything else is completely beyond me, and I find it absolutely ridiculous. A computer IS NOT an Amiga just because it runs AmigaOS. The thought that the OS defines what a computer is, is astoundingly obtuse, and batty as hell.
I know I should shut up about this, I really do, but this kind of utter stupidity is ONLY found in the Amiga community, and sometimes I find it very hard to not complain about this.
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No, it doesn't. Amiga is a line of computers produced by Commodore, and later Escom. How anyone can think anything else is completely beyond me, and I find it absolutely ridiculous. A computer IS NOT an Amiga just because it runs AmigaOS. The thought that the OS defines what a computer is, is astoundingly obtuse, and batty as hell.
So you are a fan of interpretation (2) I see :)
Like I said, I rather go for the version that included everything Amiga-like since it's much more fun to be inclusive. But yes, strictly speaking (2) is correct IMO.
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AmigaOne is Amiga and AmigaOne is better Amiga than crap which Commodore made after 1990.
in what way its better than our "crap"?
because there is no technical invention in those "amigaones" that would make them unique, just only the standard pc components, only either broken by design or totally outdated at release?
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@biggun
Yes bring up... i know the process, but you dont understand, you still talking about natami like was in progress, apollo/phoenix can follow the same way.
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@thread
ok. this bitch-fest about amigaone being better than classic amiga or amigaone not being amiga ends now. it is off-topic and inflammatory.
this will be the only warning on the subject.
-- eliyahu
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Moderation... on a serius amiga forum users like ppcamiga1 will be banned =)
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Amiga is computer which run Amiga Os.
-- message edited by moderator --
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@ppcamiga1
You talk about underpower and youre just a fanboy of amigaone, this is the real stupid thing.
@moderators
This is one of the best reasons for ban a user, talking crap about the amiga on a "amiga" forum.
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Amiga is computer which run Amiga Os.
No, it's not.
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gunnar as i see it you achieve 060+ class speed on a vampire card!¿:O
this really aint bad.
as far i see the caches dont get recognized, or arent there any? if so i guess it could still have some serious impact, but i wonder if there is any space left.
The MIPS result in SysInfo is rubbish and can't be compared to a 68060. The Phoenix fpga CPU is doing some work though :). There was a fast memory bug fixed recently by Majsta that may help the results. I don't know why the system libraries still appear in "SLOW RAM". The caches may not show up in SysInfo as they are transparently handled in Phoenix because they are Writethrough with bus snooping instead of Copyback caches. Writethrough caches with bus snooping don't require the caches to be flushed by the OS so it may not be necessary to inform the OS that they exist. SysInfo detects a 68000 which had no caches or instructions to add them also. Gunnar could clarify the question about caches (and fast memory). It was a good question which I can't answer except to tell you not to trust SysInfo.
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I see that a lot of work progressed since the start of the project. I can't wait to see the final results.
I want to see Doom running in 64 colors on A500/A600.
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gunnar as i see it you achieve 060+ class speed on a vampire card!¿:O
this really aint bad.
Thanks.
Yes, I agree so far we are quite happy with the performance in comparison to the price of the Vampire.
as far i see the caches dont get recognized, or arent there any?
Apollo/Phoenix has 2 caches.
One for Data and one for Instruction.
Having 2 caches is good for performance.
Apollo/Phoenix is the first 68K CPU which uses transparent caches.
We have designed the CPU on purpose to have transparent caches..
The new trick that Phoenix does is it snoops updates to the DCache and automatically cleans up the ICache. Because of this Phoenix can support Selfmodifying code and the "cache-clean" functions of the later AMIGA OS versions are not needed to be used.
This means old software should run fine - even with caches enabled.
On the Vampire cards Phoenix runs with
Icache= 4KB
DCache = 4 KB
On the Apollo/Phoenix Card we want to run with
ICache = 32 KB
DCache = 32 KB
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The MIPS result in SysInfo is rubbish and can't be compared to a 68060.
The Sysinfo results are real and you can compare Phoenix with any other 68K with them.
As probably all people know Sysinfos benchmark is difficult for Super Scalar CPUs.
This means the benchmark is written in such a way that a Super Scalar CPU can not make full usage of a possible 2nd instruction execution per cycle.
But this drawback does affect Phoenix and 68060 the same way.
The Phoenix Core can execute several instrutions per cycle.
While this features is NOT enabled in the current Vampire loads, Phoenix can do this.
Execution of 2 instrutions per cycle can be enabled in bigger FPGA systems
Like for example in the ApolloPhoenix card or in the NATAMI.
I don't know why the system libraries still appear in "SLOW RAM".
This just depends on the mapping options used.
Phoenix has some sort of tarnsparent MMU feature.
Phoenix supports automatic MAPROM - loading of Kickstart to fastmem and "MMU" mapping it to Kickstart memory region.
Phoenix also supports re-mapping of memory slices.
I've configured it to map 1 MB of fastmem to "slow-ram" area.
This is good for game compatibilty as some games expect to find memory at $c00000.
Memory could also be mapped to Zorro 2 and or Zorro 3 range.
This way up to 64 MB are then visible and usesable in the Vampire cards
and 128 MB are useable on the Phoenix card.
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On the Apollo/Phoenix Card we want to run with
ICache = 32 KB
DCache = 32 KB
I just saw this thread and I have read it all. First of all it is great to see there is new hardware coming out for the A500 and possibly in the future also the A1200.
However I have some questions; Will this expansion require the Vampire board? Or will it come on it's own? Will it be just 68000 replacement or will include extra FastRAM and IDE?
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I just saw this thread and I have read it all. First of all it is great to see there is new hardware coming out for the A500 and possibly in the future also the A1200.
However I have some questions; Will this expansion require the Vampire board? Or will it come on it's own? Will it be just 68000 replacement or will include extra FastRAM and IDE?
There are currently 3 products:
Vampire 500 (for AMIGA 500)
CPU ~ 60-70 Mips
64 MB fast
IDE
Vampire 600 (for AMIGA 600)
CPU ~ 60-70 Mips
64 MB fast
ApolloPhoenix(for AMIGA 500)
CPU ~ 180-200 Mips (planned/unverified)
128 MB fast
SDCard as IDE
.. and more more features
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ApolloPhoenix(for AMIGA 500)
CPU ~ 180-200 Mips (planned/unverified)
128 MB fast
SDCard as IDE
.. and more more features
Thank you for the quick reply. That is indeed good news.
I'll follow http://www.apollo-core.com/ for any latest updates :)
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Thank you for the quick reply. That is indeed good news.
I'll follow http://www.apollo-core.com/ for any latest updates :)
The two Vampire Cards : Vampire 500 and Vampire 600
are developed by Igor Majstorovik (http://www.majsta.com)
The Vampire 600 is available already.
The Vampire 500 is in testing right now.
Igor will anounce the card I suppose.
The Phoenix CPU Core is designed by me.
So all information about it is first hand.
The Phoenix CPU card was produced in 10 units for developers so far.
We are currently testing it.
As soon as we donw with testing we want to sell it.
We plan to be ready for this in the next month.
Official announcements will then be made on our website.
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In the future I would like to see A3000/A4000 version of this accelerator using the fastport adaptor. I believe that this speed is more suitable for big box Amigas.
And this reminds me, I wonder how Shapeshifter would perform on this accelerator?
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small update, small tuning with 5 Mips more
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small update, small tuning with 5 Mips more
Chip memory access is up significantly too. Nice!
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small update, small tuning with 5 Mips more
wow, looks awesome :)
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The two Vampire Cards : Vampire 500 and Vampire 600
are developed by Igor Majstorovik (www.majsta.com (http://www.majsta.com))
The Vampire 600 is available already.
The Vampire 500 is in testing right now.
Igor will anounce the card I suppose.
The Phoenix CPU Core is designed by me.
So all information about it is first hand.
The Phoenix CPU card was produced in 10 units for developers so far.
We are currently testing it.
As soon as we donw with testing we want to sell it.
We plan to be ready for this in the next month.
Official announcements will then be made on our website.
Your selling a separate phoenix cpu card? Is this indepenedent of the vampire 500 and 600 boards?
Is this just a stopgap before the apollo board or something different?
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To biggun:
Wouldn't SysSpeed give more accurate results than SysInfo? Would be nice to be able to make more meaningful comparisons ;)
http://aminet.net/package/util/moni/sspeed26
Of-topic:
Is that you in your avatar? If so, who of the two are you? Just had to ask :D
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Should you stop him pestering for information? He probably has a lot of work to do till it is ready.
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Wouldn't SysSpeed give more accurate results than SysInfo? Would be nice to be able to make more meaningful comparisons ;)
SysSpeed has already been suggested as well as Doom ;).
Is that you in your avatar? If so, who of the two are you? Just had to ask :D
That's him. He's the one with the big gun(s) but maybe his girl has some too :P.
The bringup web page has been updated now.
http://www.apollo-core.com/bringup/
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the page is so trashy. i kinda like it.
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Only 68000 instructions? No 68020+? I know, I know, nag nag, one thing at a time! ;)
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I see that a lot of work progressed since the start of the project. I can't wait to see the final results.
I want to see Doom running in 64 colors on A500/A600.
If you get enough horsepower you'll also be able to run Sam & Max on an A500 in 64 colors ;)
[youtube]qmQhCKQJWjg[/youtube]
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Your selling a separate phoenix cpu card? Is this indepenedent of the vampire 500 and 600 boards?
Is this just a stopgap before the apollo board or something different?
This is the Appolo-Card.
We have three cards atm.
1) Vampire 600
64MB
Status: Sold by Kipper
2) Vampire 500
64 MB
IDE
Status: in Beta-test (mainly used by Igor)
3) Apollo/Phoenix
128 MB
SDCard
(lots of extra features ...)
Status: in Beta-Testing (10 boards atm)
The testing of the Vampire500 and Apollo/Phoenix should be done soon.
Then the cards can/will produced...
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To biggun:
Is that you in your avatar? If so, who of the two are you? Just had to ask :D
Yes this is me and my lovely wife.
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Another small tuning.
Now enabling LINKSTACK
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Another small tuning.
Now enabling LINKSTACK
great. though keep in mind to cgeck if performance on some other end does not suffer, because for example the chip speed is now back to the lower value.
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This is the Appolo-Card.
We have three cards atm.
1) Vampire 600
64MB
Status: Sold by Kipper
2) Vampire 500
64 MB
IDE
Status: in Beta-test (mainly used by Igor)
3) Apollo/Phoenix
128 MB
SDCard
(lots of extra features ...)
Status: in Beta-Testing (10 boards atm)
The testing of the Vampire500 and Apollo/Phoenix should be done soon.
Then the cards can/will produced...
Great! Ill be first in line for an apollo board. I shall have to let the internet know also...I should make some videos when I get a board.
I'm looking forward to playing around with my a500 again.
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If you get enough horsepower you'll also be able to run Sam & Max on an A500 in 64 colors ;)
If it contain 68882 core, we could play AmiQuake!
I also wonder if you could play TFX on it too??
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Another small tuning.
Now enabling LINKSTACK
Those results are quite impressive. I'll be keeping a close eye on this for my A500+. I do not want to go out of subject. However I can't resist asking the question; any chance for an A1200 card?
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if i read gunnar correctly the vampire fpga is too small to include an fpu, but they have it ready for apollo softcore that means for they own card.
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I think the little Vampire can do even better results if the CPU is properly setup.
What do you think about this value?
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I think the little Vampire can do even better results if the CPU is properly setup.
What do you think about this value?
I think that my A600 with Vampire 600 will put up some competition and my A1200 will cry a little with it's 030 :)
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I think the little Vampire can do even better results if the CPU is properly setup.
What do you think about this value?
Phone me now!!!
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You could beat some low end ARM chips. What do you think it means for the hobby overall?
More interest, more upgrades would be nice.
In the least there will be more games that can be ported.
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Phone me now!!!
Ha! I remember contacting Nic with that quote. I was the first person to see the message (legitimately) and he wanted to immediately know what CPU I was using. It was a prototype of the X-Calibur add-on for an overclocked A3640 in an A4000.
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Ha! I remember contacting Nic with that quote. I was the first person to see the message (legitimately) and he wanted to immediately know what CPU I was using. It was a prototype of the X-Calibur add-on for an overclocked A3640 in an A4000.
I wonder what comment is after "Phone me now!!!"
I always envied those with 060s, the fastest I ever got was overclocked 040 to 33MHz.
but now, that speed could be affordable to everyone.
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I always envied those with 060s, the fastest I ever got was overclocked 040 to 33MHz.
but now, that speed could be affordable to everyone.
Still not cheap if trying to do it with original hardware. Emulation, on the other hand, sure, but I'm a bit of a purist. ;)
Makes me happy to run SysInfo on my A2000 and see it's faster than an A4000, haha. ;)
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Still not cheap if trying to do it with original hardware. Emulation, on the other hand, sure, but I'm a bit of a purist. ;)
Makes me happy to run SysInfo on my A2000 and see it's faster than an A4000, haha. ;)
I'm not into Amiga emulation, sure I have WinUAE and Amiga Forever installed on my PC, but it's not the same, there is something missing.
I mostly use emulation for testing purposes, like using CD32 emulation to see if my game works w/o burning bunch of disks.
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What do you think about this value?
I think this is great news, but I do question the validity of the values when it reports 3.17(or even 4.00) times the chipspeed of an A600.
Anything more than 1.xx from an accelerator does not make sense. A cache can eliminate the instruction fetch, and the non-bus using logic can be sped up, but the rest should be pure chipmem cycles of which you can't magically conjure any more than there already are.
(Well, I can see a possible trick in your implementation if you replace one write with a more recent one if the old hasn't yet gone out to the bus, but then we are in bad code territory and should find some other testing tool - which is interesting in itself of course.)
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Sysinfo reports "Chip Speed vs A600" at 7.20 on my A1200 030 50MHz.
Is it because it's AGA?
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Sysinfo reports "Chip Speed vs A600" at 7.20 on my A1200 030 50MHz.
Is it because it's AGA?
Sysinfo was never my choice of testing tool - and for good reason it seems.
There are only two bandwidth speeds in Amigas produced by C=
1) (7,160,000 / 4) * 2 giving you 3.5 megabytes per second - OCS/ECS
2) (7,160,000 / 4) * 4 giving you 7 megabytes per second - AGA
The second one requires longword access, the first one word access. The bandwidth halves for each time you halve your access width (unless the cpu is clever enough to glue two accesses together if they are close enough in time - I don't think any of them are?).
So 7.20 might be a number to compare other machines with as long as they use a consistent scale, but taken as a measure of speed it is totally FUBAR.
If you want to check your speed I suggest bustest: http://aminet.net/util/moni/bustest.lha
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I would love to see 3D rendering times with software like Vista, Cinema 4D, Lightwave, etc. This will show real world speed compared to stock machines.
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I think this is great news, but I do question the validity of the values when it reports 3.17(or even 4.00) times the chipspeed of an A600.
This is just the way Sysinfo calculates this,
And it makes sense if you think about it.
Look atr this code:
LOOP:
MOVE (A0),D0
DBF D7,LOOP
What does it do?
It read 16bit of data in a loop
The code to do this is 6 bytes long.
This means 2 bytes data loaded and 6 bytes instruction loaded.
If you machine only has chipmem then all 8 bytes are loaded from the same bus.,
This means this AMIGA uses 25% of the bandwidth for data and 75% for instructions.
Now if your AMIGA has fastmem the instructions can come from fastmem.
Therefore your can up to 4 times the bandwidth of the chipmem.
This is in a nutshell how the calculation of SYSINFO works.
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This is in a nutshell how the calculation of SYSINFO works.
Thanks.
So in other words it has very little to do with the chipmem speed at all really, it is a compound of cpu, cache, and chipmem speed - bad benchmark, bad!
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You need at least a pentium II 233 to get good rendering speeds? I vaguely remember.
I'm personally impressed by the latest AMD chips, the shared architecture works well.
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You need at least a pentium II 233 to get good rendering speeds? I vaguely remember.
Be carefull what you're comparing here. If you just say "rendering" it is also a function of the memory speed. And the phoenix/stratix/ddr3 has definitely higher bandwidth than the pentiumII/233 back than. And probably, if you twist Gunnars arm, he will probbaly add something into the phoenix core to shed some light on a triangle?
;-)
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Therefore your can up to 4 times the bandwidth of the chipmem
I missed that part - then I expect you are targeting the full 4.00 as you had in one of your builds?
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interim apollo (vampire) bustest results:
http://www.apollo-core.com/bringup/bustest2.jpg