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Author Topic: Hyperion completes the AmigaOne firmware based on the GPL’ed PPCBoot project.  (Read 6179 times)

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Offline bhoggettTopic starter

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"Leuven, Belgium - September 27, 2002.
Hyperion is pleased to report that it has completed the AmigaOne firmware based on the GPL'ed PPCBoot project.

Below you will find a description of the implemented hardware support and functionality.

We want to thank everyone who has contributed to this project.
Hardware support for the following devices:
- serial port
- USB UHCI
- USB keyboard
- USB storage devices
- PS/2 compatible keyboard
- i8259 interrupt controller
- 3com 3c920 ethernet with full busmastering
- VIA IDE controller (A and B revision)
- Real time clock (RTC)

Features of PPCBoot (as implemented by Hyperion):

- x86 BIOS emulator capable of initialising and using nearly all PCI and AGP graphic cards based on the chipsets of ATI, nVidia, 3DFX, S3, 3Dlabs (Permedia), Trident etc.
- Auto detection of SDRAM modules
- Auto detection of bus and CPU speed
- Support for PCI and AGP
- General ArtiticaS support
- General VIA686 southbridge support (686A and 686B)
- IDE support (harddisk and CD-ROM booting)
- Floppy support
- Booting over network"
Ben Hermans, Hyperion

Source: amigart.com
Bill Hoggett
 

Offline CD32Freak

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Re: Hyperion completes the AmigaOne firmware based on the GP
« Reply #1 on: September 29, 2002, 08:30:12 AM »
Yay! Good job, Hyperion team..let's Rock 'n' Roll! :-D
 

Offline JamesR

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Re: Hyperion completes the AmigaOne firmware based on the GP
« Reply #2 on: September 29, 2002, 08:50:41 AM »
Rock on! Woohoo! Now when can I buy one of the damned things?

-JR
James Russell
Editor - Amiga.org...
 

Offline Troels_E

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Re: Hyperion completes the AmigaOne firmware based on the GP
« Reply #3 on: September 29, 2002, 09:03:32 AM »
Seems like the people who ordered the Developer machine will get it pretty soon.

Guess Eyetech only needs to change the firmware before they will ship them.
I think Mr. Redhouse said that there where 30-40 developer boards out now and 200-300 waiting for the new firmware.

The interesting question is just when it will be available to end-users...
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Offline Argo

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Re: Hyperion completes the AmigaOne firmware based on the GP
« Reply #4 on: September 29, 2002, 09:23:58 AM »
When it's ready, silly :)
 

Offline yssing

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Re: Hyperion completes the AmigaOne firmware based on the GP
« Reply #5 on: September 29, 2002, 10:27:30 AM »
Wuuhuu

It can't be long now... I am happy... clapping my hands in joy.. :-D  :-D  :-D
 

Offline System

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Re: Hyperion completes the AmigaOne firmware based on the GP
« Reply #6 on: September 29, 2002, 10:32:45 AM »
Without wanting to sound depressing, remember this is only the BIOS for the AmigaONE they have finished, not OS4.

On the bright side, the people who were doing the BIOS can now go back to helping with OS4 which should speed things up a little.

That is one they can strike off this list:
Quote
Current work centers around Intuition and Reaction, 2D/3D drivers, A1 Bios, additional kernel functionality (virtual addressing and page-based memory handling) and the integration of the 68K emulation into the system.
 

Offline xisp

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Re: Hyperion completes the AmigaOne firmware based on the GP
« Reply #7 on: September 29, 2002, 10:47:13 AM »
Well, in Ann.lu, Ben Hermans suggested only integration of 68k JIT emulation into the kernel remains as the last step to complete OS4:

"With ExecSG finished, the only work required to get a full system is integrating the 68K emulator for those system modules which will not be PPC native."

Now, we only have to pray and hope that the different pieces of OS4 are deeply tested and glued between them correctly.
 

Offline Elektro

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Re: Hyperion completes the AmigaOne firmware based on the GP
« Reply #8 on: September 29, 2002, 11:56:29 AM »
Hopefully this won't take long now. Hyperion guys seem confident. Fingers crossed yeah... :-)
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Offline System

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Re: Hyperion completes the AmigaOne firmware based on the GP
« Reply #9 on: September 29, 2002, 12:14:59 PM »
This sounds quite promissing...those guys are breaking the silence and it seems we are quite near.

I just hope they'll get JIT working/integrated asap.

I hope they'll add some extra bonus to OS...that will show to the others that AmigaOS is very fast and elegant OS  :-)

It would be surprise to see AmigaDE implemented already. (At least early version of it) ;-)

I can hardly wait (This time friendly) Guru Meditation appear when I'm running those old hardwarebanging demos!  :-D  

Of course getting the tested product to the market is the main thing to do!
 

Offline KennyR

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Re: Hyperion completes the AmigaOne firmware based on the GP
« Reply #10 on: September 29, 2002, 12:45:30 PM »
I deeply hope Hyperion can succeed, and produce an OS that is fast, usuable, and as wholly PPC-native as is possible. Silencing the many naysayers who have bombarded us with "can't be done" and slights on the coding abilities of Hyperion would be so sweet - so very sweet.
 

Offline Rodney

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Re: Hyperion completes the AmigaOne firmware based on the GP
« Reply #11 on: September 29, 2002, 01:04:29 PM »
Quote

 x86 BIOS emulator capable of initialising and using nearly all PCI and AGP graphic cards based on the chipsets of ATI, nVidia, 3DFX, S3, 3Dlabs (Permedia), Trident etc.


Great, but remember, Drivers still need to be developed for OS4 for the cards to be used. At, a lot of these are not complete.

But anyway, this is good, and as mentioned before provides Hyperion with some revenue.

This is good for the community. With this, it means that the Amiga Community has some good hardware partners to help power future products and so forth..

Something Be didnt have, and what many say killed them!
We are not Humans having a spirital experiance
We are Spirits having a Human experiance.
 

Offline System

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Re: Hyperion completes the AmigaOne firmware based on the GP
« Reply #12 on: September 29, 2002, 04:10:28 PM »
Does anyone know if it boots Graphicaly or does it have that PC bios boot look?  Please let it be graphical!!!
 

Offline theTAO

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Re: Hyperion completes the AmigaOne firmware based on the GP
« Reply #13 on: September 29, 2002, 05:01:10 PM »
> Hardware support for the following devices:
> - serial port
> - USB UHCI
> - USB keyboard
> - USB storage devices
> - PS/2 compatible keyboard
> - i8259 interrupt controller
> - 3com 3c920 ethernet with full busmastering
> - VIA IDE controller (A and B revision)
> - Real time clock (RTC)

Umm, would somebody "translate" this for me?  At the risk of being a wet blanket, one thing I was concerned about (beyond the early boot screens looking even cruder than under OS3.x) is a movement away from a Kickstart-style architecture.  That is, the "BIOS" uses its own built-in driver for early access to keyboards, mice, etc., and then when the OS loads, it supplants this with Amiga drivers.  Yes, this is how the PeeCees work, and yes, it's certainly easier for Hyperion at ths point, and yes, there is currently no flash rom support, but I do hope the architecture is flexible enough so it can be expanded as the OS and the hardware evolves.  I'd much prefer a classic-style setup where instead of loading a generic keyboard/mouse driver, it just loads "AmigaInput" (the new OS4.x I/O system) and is done with it.  (This also reduces the amount of programming necessary.)  Of course, the HAL would need to be in the flash rom, too.

Nonetheless, I am still happy see one more item ticked as finished, on the OS4.0 checklist. :-)

Todd
 

Offline LordArthur

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Re: Hyperion completes the AmigaOne firmware based on the GP
« Reply #14 on: September 29, 2002, 05:40:00 PM »
@Todd

I wouldn't worry too much about the drivers only in the OS problem per se.  From what I understand, the kernal/ROM/kickstart will be on HD/disk and not in the BIOS rom.  But don't dispair over this fact.  To a certain extent, that is true even now.  Let me explain.

Unless you have a bootable floppy or a bootable HD on a current amiga, you can't get to a CLI prompt or really do anything.  This is because there is Boot code on the floppy which enables the different sections of the kickstart ROM itself.  This can also be custom boot code like one might see on a demo floppy or a game floppy.  This also true with RDB boot blocks.  The actual filing system code is effectively embedded in the RDB.  That is why a PFS drive can be pulled from one amiga to another without the second amiga having ever heard of PFS.

So what does this mean?  Well, more than likely, they will embed the entire kickstart rom on a boot sector/RDB level.  Or at least to get it up and running enough to go to something more complex.  You are doing this right now, so I wouldn't worry about it.  It just will be more code.  About the only thing you will have extra is a PCish text boot screen until it hits the HDs and loads the ROM.  And technically, in later revisions, there shouldn't be a problem (not that I have anything to do with hyperion) to have a splash screen covering up the text boot process.  I say that because I have seen that done commonly on Dell, Gateway, and many other name brand machine's BIOS.  If that is done, you wouldn't even know the difference between the new A1 bios boot up and the older "classic" amigas at that point booting up.

Does that help any?