potential PPC Amiga REAL CHEAP

[Waccoon]

if that were the case, the GBA player would cost as much as a GBA.

No screen, no batteries... there's half your cost right there.

CPUs and the like are "Jelly Bean" parts.  They're worthless compared to the cost that goes into the form factor.  Check the latest prices on those Sega Genesis Direct-to-TV units.  Wal-Mart recently had a sale on the 1st gen Atari Flashback for $7.50.

The GBA player application draws a selectable border around the GBA display and allows you to swap carts without shutting off the GC and rebooting.

I'd be willing to think the GC draws the border while the Player provides the underlay video.  Maybe it's all done in the Player, but I doubt it.

Seeing how the borders are not part of the "emulation", I don't see what you're getting so excited about.

Cart hot-swaps are hardly magic, especially when you don't have to rely on batteries.  I have a Gamecube, but not a Player, so I don't know the procedure for hot swapping the carts.

If the parrallel port can do 30 frames per second of video as well as audio while receiving controller input, then hard drive access is trivial through that port.

*cough* low resolution *cough*

What are the specs of that parallel port, again?  As usual, almost anything is possible, but not always practical.

How do you explain getting back to the cartridge swap screen?

The same way the PS2 returns you to the browser when you eject a game disc, or the Amiga brings you to Guru when the CPU stops responding.  This is hardly extrodinary.  It's all in the firmware.

PCs could do the same if it wasn't for the bloddy real-mode BIOSes.  If there weren't still millions of people running Win98 and flakey old versions of Linux, we could all just flash our computers with new BIOSes and rid ourselves of 20+ years of garbage.

If anybody knows how to emulate Nintendo hardware - it's Ninetendo.

The PC emulators I use are pretty damn good.  :-)

I should hope the official Nintendo emulators are good!  Remember when Nintendo was charging $20 for NES re-releases?  That's a lot of cash for such old games.

Next you'll be saying that "Revolution" is going to have GC, N64, SNES and NES hardware in it because it will emulate all those machines.

GC hardware... very likely.  The techniques game programmers use to write software is quite different from PC developers.  True forwards compatibilty requires a bit more going on in the hardware than what happens in Windows-Land.

Anything older is trivial to emulate in software.  However, the emulators will not be built into the machine, and will come with the games when you buy them.  They will just be programs.  The emulation quality is what makes it shine.  If Nintendo's SNES emulator for Revolution is anything like Atari's official 2600 emulator for the PS2, I'll puke.

What does that tell you? It's not 100% GBA hardware.

From that article:

"Sashmoto: (laughs) It's just a Game Boy Advance system that you can play on your television. That's pretty much it. So, no secrets."

Of course, the GBA needs a BIOS.  Patches for the BIOS can be read from the Gamecube disc, so that's what can be used to "improve" the player if such ROM patches aren't already available on the GBA carts.

[Louis Dias]

@Waccoon

Can you solder?

[_ThEcRoW]

Why don't you realize that os4 on the gc will never appear?. It's higly unlikely that nintendo would beg for a license to Ainc., and if it were the case, theres NO MARKET actually for os4 on a product destinated to child audiences. And not to mention the memory limitations of the console itself. It would be more realistic to get a full linux distro on the gc that OS4. OS4 is dead already if nothing changes, they have blocked  the OS to this state, sadly. :madashell:
Only with a release for x86 systems could refloat the os, maybe...

[Louis Dias]

_ThEcRoW wrote:
Why don't you realize that os4 on the gc will never appear?.

While on GC was originally the point, I'd just like to see the ability to put it on any platform as an option.

It's higly unlikely that nintendo would beg for a license to Ainc.

It would/should be the other way around.

And not to mention the memory limitations of the console itself.

Limitations?  24MB of main ram is 12x more than any Amiga shipped with.  16MB of secondary ram as a 'ram disk' is nice too.

It would be more realistic to get a full linux distro on the gc

that's almost done now

OS4 is dead already if nothing changes, they have blocked  the OS to this state, sadly. :madashell:
Only with a release for x86 systems could refloat the os, maybe...

Yeah, and they thought Linux would quickly dominate the x86 platform. :lol:

Honestly, a console port is probably the best way to introduce the public to 'another PC' option.  Apple shot itself in the foot by choosing to be overpriced.  I'm not going to pay more money for a platform with less to offer...same goes for A1.  You need to run it on a game machine because most people aren't gong to dual-boot there Dell's, Gateway's, Compaq's, etc... because if they knew anything, they wouldn't have bought those and had built their own.

So having a disc they can buy for $50 and can just pop in ther 'game' machine and have it work right away is the only way to make this long-dead market grow.

Better off selling it as a new toy than the 8-track tape it's viewed as now.  Hey, my mom might still have an 8-track collection.  Interested?  I thought not.

[adolescent]

lou_dias wrote:

adolescent wrote:

Sashmoto: The boot disc has the image processing software as well as the security software. It's possible to update the disc to improve certain aspects of the Game Boy Player, if needed.

What does that tell you?  It's not 100% GBA hardware.

I never said it was 100% GBA hardware.  Obviously the Gameboy Player doesn't have a LCD, speaker, controls, battery holder, etc.  Of course, you just do not want to admit, yet again, that you are wrong.  But, we all know you are, yet again.

[Louis Dias]

seeing as how image processing is 80% of a video game and that's sent to the GC, I don't feel any need to retract any statements.  As bloodline pointed out, an old 8/16-bit cpu costs pennies to throw in there to get the game code to run on time and properly, the bulk of the work is done on the GC...hence applying some of those Super Sai video modes that the PC emulators have could have always bumped up the image quality to 640x480...hence the patch comment to improve the player.  If it's already 100% GBA CPU+GPU+SPU, what could a software patch improve upon? - fancier borders around the 256x224 image?

BTW,

For all the non-trolls:

I've found an alternate 5v power source for my qoob chip.  Turns out the controllers have a 5v signal to power the rumble motor.  So I just tapped controller 4's source and my qoob screen came up right away.  I'll be doing a linux run this weekend when I have the time.  And this is much easier than the source mentioned in the docs.  They should change the docs to use this source as the one they use requires a steadier hand and a magnifying glass.  

Oh and the latest Linux build supports hot swapping memory cards and 1GB SD cards using the SD Gecko or a home made adapter.  Enough memory for you yet?  www.gc-linux.org for anyone who is interested.

[adolescent]

lou_dias wrote:
seeing as how image processing is 80% of a video game and that's sent to the GC, I don't feel any need to retract any statements.

Your statements were wrong.  Wether you choose to retract them is up to you.  

As bloodline pointed out, an old 8/16-bit cpu costs pennies to throw in there to get the game code to run on time and properly, the bulk of the work is done on the GC...

You of all people should know that the GBA has a 32bit CPU.  And, once again, you miss the point.  The "bulk" of the work isn't being done on the GC, it's being done on the ARM (GBA) or Z80/8080 (CGB) CPUs.

hence applying some of those Super Sai video modes that the PC emulators have could have always bumped up the image quality to 640x480...  hence the patch comment to improve the player.  If it's already 100% GBA CPU+GPU+SPU, what could a software patch improve upon? - fancier borders around the 256x224 image?

Sure.  Also improved/fixed scaling, Gameboy Player exclusive content, etc.  But, note that an update disc has never been released so it's really moot.  The disc isn't an emulator, period.  

[adolescent]

lou_dias wrote:
Oh and the latest Linux build supports hot swapping memory cards and 1GB SD cards using the SD Gecko or a home made adapter.  Enough memory for you yet?  www.gc-linux.org for anyone who is interested.

SD/MMC cards are block devices, not RAM (which is of course still limited to 24MB + 16MB).  Also, the memory card slots are also on the EXI bus so they have the same speed limitations.

[Louis Dias]

As I recall, Z80's are 8/16 bit cpu's and while ARM7 is a "32-bit" cpu, it doesn't outperform the 16-bit era cpu that was in the SNES because it's designed to be a low power mobile cpu.

Who cares?  You still admit video processing is done on the GC.  Give it a rest it's a stupid point just as your comment about GBA Player exclusive content - like that would make sense.  It's a novelty item and didn't sell enough units to warrant an upgrade that, for instance, would use the BBA as a "link" cable for multiplayer GBA games...but that would mean that it was emulated again now wouldn't it.

About the SD cards:
Yes, I know it's EXI.  The 4 controllers, RTC, and 2 memory cards are all on that interface, again - so what?  Tell me OS4 wouldn't fit on a 1GB SD card for booting?  And the core bios could reside on my 2MB qoob chip's flashram that could boot using the SD card as a ram drive - just like my linux build will.

It would boot in seconds.  And it's looking better all the time.

BTW,
Progressive scan mode games such as Metroid Prime (and most of the others I have) look incredible on my widescreen DLP HDTV television using the GC - the detail in the texturing is amazing.  It would certainly made a worthy display for an Amiga OS.  Leaps and bounds better than any 1084-like monitor I've ever seen - and 50" to boot.
Soon I'll be running GC-homebrew native as well as linux SNES and Genesis/Masterdrive emulators on my GC off of an SD card using the 'Cube's controllers.

[Waccoon]

Can you solder?

I've built a number of circuit boards over the years and modified my mice and joysticks.  I also make my own headphone amps for all my computers, since I can't stand speakers.  I've never tried changing traces on a surface-mount PCB, though.

Lou:  Limitations? 24MB of main ram is 12x more than any Amiga shipped with.

Still living in the early 90's, eh?

I'm still confused as to what you want your AmigaCube to be.  An update for existing Amigas or a next-gen platform?  Given that you keep comparing it to the AmigaOne, I assume the latter, and Gamecube is pretty pathetic in that respect.  Revolution may not be so bad, but with enough mods to make it usable as a PC, it'll probably cost as much as a cheap PC, too.  And, there's still the question of binary compatibility and all that stuff.

Lou:  Yeah, and they thought Linux would quickly dominate the x86 platform

Only people who don't understand why Windows remains so popular would think this.  Given that almost every alternative desktop OS vendor has bit the dust, that includes a lot of people.

Linux has no central design management.  Standards only apply to protocols, not interfaces.  It'll never dominate the market until someone does to Linux what Apple did to UNIX.

Of course, Linux fans are perfectly happy with its underdog status as it is.  I see Linux permanently riding on the coat tails of Windows, but never getting ahead.  Linux and Windows have entirely different design principles, and ordinary people don't care about technical supiriority.

Nobody wants a revolutionary OS.  Developers want good tools and end users want products.  This is why Java has managed to survive even though its performance and reliability is questionable.  It has a huge number of tools and it's easy to write software for it.

Lou:  Apple shot itself in the foot by choosing to be overpriced.

Really?  Since Jobs came back to Apple, it looks like they're doing pretty damn well.  Apple fans have always sucked up the high prices without too much huff, and that includes their embedded devices, too, like iPod.  $300 is pretty expensive for a music player, but people bought it anyway.

Lou:  So having a disc they can buy for $50 and can just pop in ther 'game' machine and have it work right away is the only way to make this long-dead market grow.

Fully-integrated form factors, only.  An OS is a completely different beast.  I'm sure PC vendors would love to make cheap boxes like Gamecube.  There must be a reason why they don't.  You can hardly blame the generic PC architecture for this failing, given what Apple did with the Mac mini.

Lou:  hence applying some of those Super Sai video modes that the PC emulators have could have always bumped up the image quality to 640x480

You know, it makes me wonder why Nintendo doesn't do this.  It seems pretty cheap to just stream a low-res video feed and mono audio through the Gamecube when you could use all that CPU power to enhance the video or add some audio enhancement.  The option they took (and Sony took with their PSX backwards compatibility) seems like a cheap cop-out.

But, hey, so long as people buy it...

Lou:  I've found an alternate 5v power source for my qoob chip.

Nintendo emulation... Game Boy Advance... alternate power sources...

Would you please get back on topic?  This thread is supposed to be about alternate PPC machines.

adolscent:  But, note that an update disc has never been released so it's really moot.

Good point.  Capability is nothing if its not exploited.

Lou:  Enough memory for you yet?

Call it what it is: storage, not memory.

[Waccoon]

Give it a rest it's a stupid point just as your comment about GBA Player exclusive content - like that would make sense.

Your point is that the Gamecube is doing emulation rather than the Player containing GBA hardware.  This is not the case, so stop calling other people stupid.

It would boot in seconds. And it's looking better all the time.

AmigaOS is not a very robust OS.  It boots in seconds because it doesn't do all the stuff a modern OS should.

Oh, look, MS-DOS boots in seconds, too.

[Louis Dias]

@Waccoon,

I was going to ask you to come look at my soldering since you don't live to far away.  That's why I asked.  But I've got my qoob chip working now.  My qoob chip is on-topic as that is what is allowing me to boot to linux in less than a second.  You are still welcome to come over this weekend and instal linux on my GC and linux apps like the mfe etc...

My interests in the qoob chip are not about piracy, but about running homebrew code and linux.  I've also bought and installed the case mod that lets me fit 12cm discs in the cube.

I'll be ordering a batch of SD Gecko's and selling them to the GC mod community and on eBay as that wonderful (and promised) product never made it to the states.  It is compatible with many GC games as it is so it's not just for homebrew software.

In the end, I'm doing my part one step at a time instead of just sitting here and complaining.  Soon I'll be compiling some code.  I have the source to an Atari 5200 emulator that uses SDL and since these tools (and gcc) exist on the GC, I'll make my contribution.

What most users want is an OS that just does what a user wants.  Win98 runs fast on an 800MHz cpu with 256MB of ram, Win2000 and XP don't.  Why?  Don't answer.  OS's are getting too complicated and are doing things to protect average users from themselves.  OS3.X is a good enough OS for a single user with some updates.  Hence I am looking at hopefully someday installing AROS native on my GC.

A while ago I painted a picture of what I wanted.  A GC running AROS and a web browser and email client and games.  I can check my mail from home, then hop in my car and plug my GC into a 7" LCD screen mounted in the car and hit the road.  Stop at Dunkin Donuts and check my email there via a BBA->wireless adapter I have.  Then play some games or surf the web to pass the time on long road trips.  All this running off of a couple of SD cards that I use for "storage".  The device is truly portable and there aren't any hard drives that would get banged around and ruined.  Get where I'm going?

Did I mention that the qoob chip comes with built in mp3 player that reads from the DVD drive?  That's alot of versatility in a small package.  That's the sweet.

[Waccoon]

Win98 runs fast on an 800MHz cpu with 256MB of ram, Win2000 and XP don't. Why? Don't answer.

I think I will.

I replaced Win98 with Win2K on my brother-in-law's laptop, and it runs much, much faster than Win98 ever did.  It's a 1Gz system with 256MB of RAM.

It just depends how you set it up.

OS's are getting too complicated and are doing things to protect average users from themselves.

It's unfair to say OSes in general are getting to complicated.  It really depends on the customer and how much capability you want to stuff into the system.

When you're talking about ordinary people, hiding as much of the underlying OS as possible is supposed to be a "good thing."  Most developers just take the idea overboard and try to tweak a design until it's perfect, which, of course, never happens.  Windows has always been this way, and desktop managers for Linux are becoming like this.  Raw Linux is very fast and efficient.  A typical Linux distro these days comes on several CDs, requires a Gig of hard drive space, and takes two minutes to boot up.  I know -- I've tried 8 distros and don't like any of them.

When talking about power users, they tend to be fiercely traditional and shun high-level interfaces.  They don't tweak or redesign anything.  You end up with a very quick, simple OS that requires users to spoon-feed everything to the system manually.  AmigaOS is very much like this if you think about it, though not anywhere near as bad as UNIX.

Of course, the majority of the complexity is due to eye candy.  There's so much junk running in the background that people just don't need.  If you strip the inactive junk out of an XP system, it really is a lot less complicated than Win95 is.  Windows is and always will be a resource hog, but I can get it running comfortably in 80 Megs of memory.  I could probably get it running in less than that, but it's been a while since I've used a machine with less than 128Meg of memory.  :-)

OS3.X is a good enough OS for a single user with some updates.

Good enough?  To do what?

Given how few tools are available, and the fact that OS3 doesn't have proper resource tracking or memory protection, it's fair to say OS3 is more of an application launcher rather than an OS... at least by modern standards.  The apps do everything and the OS does hardly anything, much like old Macs.  If that's your expectation of a modern OS, well, you can really use anything.

A GC running AROS and a web browser and email client and games.

Well, the reason why your setup is so simple is because of your expectations.  E-mail is just text transfer.  Games don't need an OS -- they just hit the hardware.  The browser is complicated because of heavy multitasking, and I'd imagine AROS is going to give you some trouble in that regard.  Is there even a CSS web browser available for AROS?

You can do this stuff with a Windows machine, too, if you know how to select your parts.  I'd expect it to be just as cheap, if not cheaper, than your system.  How much did you pay for this qoob thing, again?  Didn't you have some trouble soldering it?  Why go through all the trouble of hacking when there's ready-built solutions available?  Amigans don't seem to get this at all.

The device is truly portable and there aren't any hard drives that would get banged around and ruined. Get where I'm going?

Oh, so you don't want a potential PPC Amiga REAL CHEAP.  You want a homebrew PDA.  I think the computer industry already released a slew of those devices a decade ago.  What's the point of insisting on an Amiga if you're going to spend all your time staring at an application that doesn't really care what OS is underneath?  I find it difficult to believe that AmigaOS (or AROS) is just "better" at e-mail and web browsing than any other small OS that fits nicely on a flash card.

[patrik]

This thread is really starting to loose track. Since when did AmigaOS stop being an OS? Sure it doesn't have any resource-tracking or memory-protection, but how does that equate into more work for the processes? It handles scheduling transparently and handles hardware abstraction for the processes. It sure does meet any definition of an OS as long as that definition doesnt require a built-in css capable internet-browser - in other words any serious definition.

If you want a example of a application launcher - take a look at the C64 basic or MS-DOS.


/Patrik

[Karlos]

Given how few tools are available, and the fact that OS3 doesn't have proper resource tracking or memory protection, it's fair to say OS3 is more of an application launcher rather than an OS... at least by modern standards. The apps do everything and the OS does hardly anything, much like old Macs. If that's your expectation of a modern OS, well, you can really use anything.

AmigaOS kernel is *nothing at all* like the old macos. It may not have memory protection, but that does not disqualify it from being an OS.

As for resource tracking, there are some, albeit for very low level stuff. For example memory pools mean I don't have to actually track specific memory allocation. I can release the entire pool in one go.

-edit-

Comparing it to classic 68K mac OS suggests some lack of understanding of both systems.

Since when on amigaos did you ever need to specify the amount of heap for a program? Since when did any amigaos task have to relinquish the CPU to allow another one to run? The 'cooperative multitasking' model employed in macos simply isn't multitasking at all, whereas the amiga always had a preemptive model.

[Louis Dias]

Waccoon wrote:

OS3.X is a good enough OS for a single user with some updates.

Good enough?  To do what?

To do what I mentioned.

A GC running AROS and a web browser and email client and games.

Well, the reason why your setup is so simple is because of your expectations.  E-mail is just text transfer.  Games don't need an OS -- they just hit the hardware.  The browser is complicated because of heavy multitasking, and I'd imagine AROS is going to give you some trouble in that regard.  Is there even a CSS web browser available for AROS?

You can do this stuff with a Windows machine, too, if you know how to select your parts.  I'd expect it to be just as cheap, if not cheaper, than your system.  How much did you pay for this qoob thing, again?  Didn't you have some trouble soldering it?  Why go through all the trouble of hacking when there's ready-built solutions available?  Amigans don't seem to get this at all.

the qoob was $55, it's 6 wires to solder and just screws to takes apart the GC.  It can be done in less than 10 minutes.  I used a 30 watt iron when I should have used 15, left heat on the pad too long.  Simple mistake if I had read the reviews of other people doing it, it wouldn't have happened.  My solution is better AND easier than the other way anyway.

there is no ready-built solution, a PDA is not a game machine and doesn't use DVD's, a laptop is too delicate to be bounced around in a car everyday, plus it's bigger than a GC.  And if the GC breaks (RARE) a second GC is $50 away, not $700 for a descent laptop.

The device is truly portable and there aren't any hard drives that would get banged around and ruined. Get where I'm going?

Oh, so you don't want a potential PPC Amiga REAL CHEAP.  You want a homebrew PDA.  I think the computer industry already released a slew of those devices a decade ago.  What's the point of insisting on an Amiga if you're going to spend all your time staring at an application that doesn't really care what OS is underneath?  I find it difficult to believe that AmigaOS (or AROS) is just "better" at e-mail and web browsing than any other small OS that fits nicely on a flash card.

[/quote]

An OS used to be an app launcher with a filemanager.  What they sell you now is a total user environment.  Things are so integrated that you don't get 100% processing power out of the machine because you have the OS layer there.  An OS should just control basic things like threading and memnory management - everything else is an add-on (read - slow down).  Sure the OS provides some standard api's to make things 'look' & 'feel' like they are part of the OS, but that should be it.  When I want to bang the hardware, I should be able to bang the hardware.  And it's not about being better, it's about being functional and doing what I want - nothing less, nothing more.

PS, the Amiga was only supposed to be a console.