Amiga.org
Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion => Topic started by: trekiej on December 30, 2017, 03:09:54 AM
-
Hello and I wish all a happy new year.
I wanted to know, how many FPGA Amigas are there in existence?
-
Hello and I wish all a happy new year.
I wanted to know, how many FPGA Amigas are there in existence?
Minimig
MIST
FPGA Arcade
Vampire 4
And probably some more that I forgot or in development (NatAmi?).
-
Minimig
MIST
FPGA Arcade
Vampire 4
And probably some more that I forgot or in development (NatAmi?).
NatAmi was a precursor to the Vampire series.
-
There is also the Chameleon64
-
NatAmi was a precursor to the Vampire series.
Who are we to say that Thomas Hirsch isn't still developing his dreamclone?
-
There's also MISTer
https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Main_MiSTer/wiki
-
There is also the MCC-216 and MCC-TV.
Minimig has been ported to a bunch of other boards too, like the Flea FPGA Ohm.
There's a mini version of the MiST.
I don't know how far Acube got with the Minimig Plus, but that looks to have been quietly forgotten probably because of MiST as well as the poorly received decision to use a dragonball CPU.
-
Thanks.
I am hoping that FPGA computers would be more pervasive by now.
Maybe next year will be the year.
-
The biggest limitation with FPGA seems to be that there are too few FPGA (VHDL) developers, and they have too little spare time to work on the projects. So a lot of FPGA projects look promising for a while, then they get abandoned and the stream of updates dries up. This means they never reach the same level of maturity/compatibility as e.g. UAE, which has been updated regularly for two decades.
-
In my opinion, the biggest problem is that different FPGA developers are working towards different goals.
Some people want new FPGA-based Amigas to have new features that make those devices stand out. They want a new generation of software that can't run on older systems. They, it seems, haven't learned much from the PowerUp versus WarpOS, MorphOS, AROS, et cetera, compatibility issues.
Others want new accelerators and/or new computers based on FPGAs which can run existing software (the reason most of us have Amigas) with modern components and with much greater speed. Extra features are nice, but I don't think there are that many of us who are clamoring for features in new software which make that software not backwards compatible.
Personally, I'd like an FPGA m68k core that looks like an m68040 with an m68040 MMU that has a superset of all m68k instructions, particularly 64 bit instructions that are on the '040 but not '060, and all the FPU instructions that are on the m68881 and '882 but not on the '040 FPU. I'd like everything to Just Work™ without wondering. Something like this could work on Macs, Ataris, and NeXTs, too, if it was made to fit in an '040 socket.
I'm not a fan of extra features when the basic features aren't there yet.
-
Surely though one of the key benefits of FPGA-based hardware design is the flexibility to alter the design - so technically it should be possible to meet all needs with one project, provided some careful planning comes beforehand.
-
The "one product" approach is what apollo team is working for, and you see how that goes, lol
-
In my opinion, the biggest problem is that different FPGA developers are working towards different goals.
Actually, I think that's a strength. If you had 4 projects all with the same goal they'd be competing for the same space - which is not good in such a small market.
Some people want new FPGA-based Amigas to have new features that make those devices stand out. They want a new generation of software that can't run on older systems. They, it seems, haven't learned much from the PowerUp versus WarpOS, MorphOS, AROS, et cetera, compatibility issues.
I disagree. Although I see advantages to both sides, I definitely see the attraction of a product like the Vampire. High performance speeds up legacy apps (not so with PowerPC), while the new features tease developers to create enhanced 68K software that can take advantage - which is already happening.
Compatibility issues are overstated. Is there some software that does not run? Sure. But is it any worse than when the Amiga 1200/3000/4000s were released with new chipsets, processors and kickstarts? No, and I'd say compatibility is actually better and getting better all the time.
Now, I understand concern for those that hate the Vampire for some reason and are afraid of being left in the dust. But Vampire users enjoy very good compatibility and I suspect it will only get better.
Really, did people complain when 030/040 accelerators or new Amigas were introduced into the market? The same arguments can be made - "we are fracturing our userbase!"
Others want new accelerators and/or new computers based on FPGAs which can run existing software (the reason most of us have Amigas) with modern components and with much greater speed. Extra features are nice, but I don't think there are that many of us who are clamoring for features in new software which make that software not backwards compatible.
I think there are many people looking for extra features. Look at how many Vampires have been sold and there is still a backlog! The Vampire community seems bigger and more active than the NG community, and it has only been a couple years. Wait until the 1200 and standalone versions are released!
But I understand your point that some users want hardcore compatibility and no new/little new features. For those people there are already standard accelerators, though not 060s for a reasonable price. Perhaps the FPGA Arcade will be the product to fit that niche (for those wanting a standalone device). If a market really exists for a basic FPGA accelerator with max compatibility and no/few added features then someone will create one. Perhaps Jens?
Personally, I'd like an FPGA m68k core that looks like an m68040 with an m68040 MMU that has a superset of all m68k instructions, particularly 64 bit instructions that are on the '040 but not '060, and all the FPU instructions that are on the m68881 and '882 but not on the '040 FPU. I'd like everything to Just Work%&$#?@!%&$#?@!%&$#?@!8482; without wondering. Something like this could work on Macs, Ataris, and NeXTs, too, if it was made to fit in an '040 socket.
Interesting idea, but is it possible with so much software out there that bangs the hardware? If C= and Motorola could not do it with relatively humongous pockets, can someone today? And then you add in other platforms and want 99.99% compatibility with all software? Seems like a lofty goal, but if a hardware developer shares the same want as you it would be an interesting project!
I think what a lot of people fail to understand is that this market is driven by developer wants, not money. No one is getting rich off of these products, so a developer needs to have a strong desire to create something or there is no reason to. And when it's no longer fun or interesting development stops.
I hope that does not happen to the Apollo/Vampire team because they are truly creating what I think is an interesting evolution of the 68K Amigas, which is what attracts me and I think most Amiga users to their product. PowerPC is pretty boring to most Amiga users I'd say.
-
@Kremlar,
+1, very well stated!
-
Personally, I'd like an FPGA m68k core that looks like an m68040 with an m68040 MMU that has a superset of all m68k instructions, particularly 64 bit instructions that are on the '040 but not '060, and all the FPU instructions that are on the m68881 and '882 but not on the '040 FPU. I'd like everything to Just Work™ without wondering. Something like this could work on Macs, Ataris, and NeXTs, too, if it was made to fit in an '040 socket.
What if software is expecting things that were removed from an 040 to also be removed on the FPGA 040? That violates your "everything to Just Work™".
If you don't think there is any software out there (and there may not be) then I can create some for you.
-
The "one product" approach is what apollo team is working for, and you see how that goes, lol
Yes, it's going quite well. They've sold several thousand units with several thousand more orders waiting to be filled. The last time any vendor was selling Amigas in those numbers was in the 1990's.
-
The last time any vendor was selling Amigas in those numbers was in the 1990's.
That is an incredibly low bar.
Like: I can sing better than Elvis (because Elvis is dead).
Hopefully Ultimate 64 is going to be on sale soon, the first batch is going to be 500 units. The c64 might start outselling the amiga.
-
That is an incredibly low bar.
Like: I can sing better than Elvis (because Elvis is dead).
Um, it's more like "nobody sang better than me since Elvis was still alive, no?
-
Um, it's more like "nobody sang better than me since Elvis was still alive, no?
No, its still "I sing better than Elvis", but its also "...ever".
And that's a risky statement.
Certainly, Vampire has some advantages over other FPGA platforms.
My biggest problem with most of the competition is that it offers me little over the Altera DE1 I already own (which can run a Minimig core).
But there are a few areas where I'd rather have a legacy '040 or '060 system.
-
Um, it's more like "nobody sang better than me since Elvis was still alive, no?
No, because other people make computers. Nobody has been selling Amiga's since the 1990's because they were dead, like Elvis. Unless you include AmigaNG, who are an Amiga impersonator. It's an incorrect comparison though as Vampire isn't an Amiga, it's an accelerator. I'm not sure that vampire has sold more accelerators than anyone else since the 1990's though.
No, its still "I sing better than Elvis", but its also "...ever".
And that's a risky statement.
Well vampire isn't performing better than everyone else ...ever
My biggest problem with most of the competition is that it offers me little over the Altera DE1 I already own (which can run a Minimig core).
I personally like the ultimate 64, mega 65 & spectrum next more. Those dev boards are ok, but there is something about having a computer in a case with a keyboard.
But there are a few areas where I'd rather have a legacy '040 or '060 system.
Unfortunately that is a software issue caused by the person controlling the software. Unless you mean a real 040/060 silicon, which would probably end up more expensive.
Obviously the vampire hardware has benefits & the v4 is going to be even better. Time to take another mortgage out....
-
Well vampire isn't performing better than everyone else ...ever
Exactly. But that can change/evolve.
I personally like the ultimate 64, mega 65 & spectrum next more. Those dev boards are ok, but there is something about having a computer in a case with a keyboard.
Not an issue for me.
In fact, everything I've ever had with a case has rarely been closed up for long (I'm always tinkering).
I rather like the exposed hardware.
Unfortunately that is a software issue caused by the person controlling the software. Unless you mean a real 040/060 silicon, which would probably end up more expensive.
Obviously the vampire hardware has benefits & the v4 is going to be even better. Time to take another mortgage out....
Yep, unfortunate, BUT Gunnar's not completely impossible to deal with.
He's no more eccentric than any other Amigan (slim praise I know).
But right now, with good X64 emulation, I'm not sure I need a mid-point between my current FPGA hardware and something more powerful I already own.
Anyway, no way to predict the future, but I sure things will sort themselves out.
-
I personally like the ultimate 64, mega 65 & spectrum next more. Those dev boards are ok, but there is something about having a computer in a case with a keyboard.
Right! I have expressed interest for the Ultimate-64 and hopefully I'll be in the 1st batch. Can't wait for the Mega65 either!
-
Right! I have expressed interest for the Ultimate-64 and hopefully I'll be in the 1st batch.
Pre-orders are closed for ultimate 64 now, ultimate64.com
-
Pre-orders are closed for ultimate 64 now, ultimate64.com
Right. I requested to be on the pre-order list early on. We'll see.
-
No, because other people make computers. Nobody has been selling Amiga's since the 1990's because they were dead, like Elvis.
Well, he wrote "units", not " Amigas". But yes, I noticed other computers have been produced since 1994. So I guess it's more like "nobody has sung 'Love Me Tender' better since Elvis's death"?
-
Well, he wrote "units", not " Amigas". But yes, I noticed other computers have been produced since 1994. So I guess it's more like "nobody has sung 'Love Me Tender' better since Elvis's death"?
That analogy fails on multiple grounds.
1. You're suggesting it's the same product, so rather than "Love Me Tender" it's any song.
2. The vampire analogy is about units sold, not whether they are better. I know I mentioned better, but you're correcting my analogy.
3. Referring to love me tender suggests you're talking about one product, it would be more correct to include all songs.
4. In the vampire analogy it's specifically including the time after commodore died.
Elvis supposedly still sells 10 million records a year. It would be like saying that if you sell more then you are automatically a better singer, even if it's one of those terrible charity records.
Right. I requested to be on the pre-order list early on. We'll see.
Gideon hasn't always paid much attention to that, I managed to get a 1541u2 when they first came out and I was on the bottom of the list and others higher up the list missed out. I noticed the web site was down for maintenance and by the next day then not only had it moved but there was news that a small batch of boards were being shipped next month and the pre-order list was full.
It might be that these aren't what you'd consider the first batch. Gideon however is referring to the rest of the first 500 boards as being the second batch & I think it's more likely that you'll be getting one of those.
-
Gideon hasn't always paid much attention to that, I managed to get a 1541u2 when they first came out and I was on the bottom of the list and others higher up the list missed out. I noticed the web site was down for maintenance and by the next day then not only had it moved but there was news that a small batch of boards were being shipped next month and the pre-order list was full.
It might be that these aren't what you'd consider the first batch. Gideon however is referring to the rest of the first 500 boards as being the second batch & I think it's more likely that you'll be getting one of those.
lol, ok
-
But is it any worse than when the Amiga 1200/3000/4000s were released with new chipsets, processors and kickstarts? No, and I'd say compatibility is actually better and getting better all the time.
No surprise, but I would say it is a heck lot worse now - simply because back there were actually _DEVELOPERS_ around, commercial, professional developers. M68K was still a commercially viable architecture, used not by just Amiga, but many parties. And the compatibility issues were documented and known.
With Apollo Core, they are a moving target and largely undocumented. The entire Apollo Core architecture is largely undocumented.
-
Yes, it's going quite well. They've sold several thousand units with several thousand more orders waiting to be filled. The last time any vendor was selling Amigas in those numbers was in the 1990's.
I am not talking about sales, I am talking about how it _works_.
What you are describing is a potential support problem in the future, with thousands of unhappy users. Well, their problem.
-
I am not talking about sales, I am talking about how it _works_.
What you are describing is a potential support problem in the future, with thousands of unhappy users. Well, their problem.
Hahaha, you seem to be multiplying yourself a thousand times, you and the other other bitter Vampire user seem to be only haters around. If the product is crap the sale numbers would show that. 99% of the users seem to be very happy about the power they can give to their a500 and a600 with a relatively cheap Vampire card. It simply doesnt have competition, its the best thing around for a500 and a600... since the introduction of the mentioned machines. The fastest you could get was 030 and those cards are very rare and old now. Comparing 20 years old 030 card with a brand new and developing 080 is just silly. Apollo team has proven they can deliver, we all would like to see a faster pace, but its developing at a acceptable speed for a small team. You seem to be hating the whole team coz they laugh at you on their forum and dont be willing to listen at any of your silly suggestions... Keep on hating, they still laugh at you...
-
If the product is crap the sale numbers would show that.
Please explain how your theory applies to VHS and Windows?
-
Yeah, it's clearly a high priority to ridicule me :)
Did this guy get any help yet?
http://www.apollo-core.com/knowledge.php?b=5¬e=12046
-
Yeah, it's clearly a high priority to ridicule me :)
Did this guy get any help yet?
http://www.apollo-core.com/knowledge.php?b=5¬e=12046
They are taken by surprise maybe, someone developing with a vampire? :)
ok! will be quiet. just had to..
-
Pre-orders are closed for ultimate 64 now, ultimate64.com
How did I miss this?! I've got a few dead C64s on a shelf. I'll have to try and get one of the next batch made.
-
What I see here are three groups of users.
One is advanced 68k users who get that they will get better results by using 68060 with faster RAM.
Second are ppc haters who never ever admit that vampire is failure, because vampire is their last hope to kick ass ppc.
And last casual 68k users who buy vampire because it was cheaper than 68060.
-
http://www.apollo-core.com/knowledge.php?b=5¬e=12046
OMG!!!
I dont expect it is so bad. MMU not works, FPU is supr sloooow.
But this???
My advice: forget about vampire, use ppc, it is many times faster, it has working MMU, FPU, and You can execute program step by step under gdb.
-
OMG!!!
I dont expect it is so bad. MMU not works, FPU is supr sloooow.
But this???
My advice: forget about vampire, use ppc, it is many times faster, it has working MMU, FPU, and You can execute program step by step under gdb.
That was maybe the most ediotic advice I have have read in a amiga forum, period.
-
How did I miss this?! I've got a few dead C64s on a shelf. I'll have to try and get one of the next batch made.
If you want to resurrect a dead c64, you can try replacing the motherboard.
https://icomp.de/shop-icomp/en/produkt-details/product/c64-reloaded-mk2.html
You won't have DRAM/PLA/Power supply issues anymore (plus less common issues with discreet components). Of course you could have blown a CIA, but hopefully you have enough of the chips to make one good working c64.
-
If you want to resurrect a dead c64, you can try replacing the motherboard.
https://icomp.de/shop-icomp/en/produkt-details/product/c64-reloaded-mk2.html
You won't have DRAM/PLA/Power supply issues anymore (plus less common issues with discreet components). Of course you could have blown a CIA, but hopefully you have enough of the chips to make one good working c64.
Oh, that looks nice. Unfortunately the dead C64s I have were bought that way and I think the SID chips were harvested by the seller. I "might" have one that has SID chips installed. I have to say that I prefer the Ultimate 64 design with the built in floppyy/tape emulation and better video out option (I don't think I have many monitors/TVs with s-video).
After typing this I noticed Jens has some SID chips available and I have an old floppy emulator/freezer cartridge that came out before the Chameleon64 (MMC64?).
Talking of the Chameleon, is it still being developed? I haven't updated mine for 2 or 3 years since I stopped receiving news from the Yahoo group.
-
I am not talking about sales, I am talking about how it _works_.
What you are describing is a potential support problem in the future, with thousands of unhappy users. Well, their problem.
I do not understand what you mean? It works obviously for most if not all users otherwise all sites would be flooded with angry comments. You are always desperate searching for unhappy buyers who are not there. Kolla, if you really own cards sell them, you will get the money, new happy users and you have no longer reasons to moan. Or you do not own cards and only moan.
-
OMG!!!
I dont expect it is so bad. MMU not works, FPU is supr sloooow.
But this???
My advice: forget about vampire, use ppc, it is many times faster, it has working MMU, FPU, and You can execute program step by step under gdb.
So you advice someone to use PPC to test and develop for Vampire?
I have a better advice... if you really want that drop ppc and use something that is many times faster and better like X64. How about that? People...
-
It works obviously for most if not all users otherwise all sites would be flooded with angry comments.
The flood gate (V1200) hasn't opened yet.
But, anyways, that is beside the point - my comment was "the one product" - the Apollo Team (well, Gunnar) has as goal that the Apollo Core shall be de-facto standard CPU architecture, "the one product", the new "base standard" for 68k Amiga.
And that is something that will not happen, too many burnt bridges, too many pissed off developers... whatever Apollo Team is trying to do, others are much more likely to come around and accomplish in better ways soon.
-
The flood gate (V1200) hasn't opened yet.
But, anyways, that is beside the point - my comment was "the one product" - the Apollo Team (well, Gunnar) has as goal that the Apollo Core shall be de-facto standard CPU architecture, "the one product", the new "base standard" for 68k Amiga.
And that is something that will not happen, too many burnt bridges, too many pissed off developers... whatever Apollo Team is trying to do, others are much more likely to come around and accomplish in better ways soon.
Regarding A1200... Hueh? What are you talking about?
I only know a couple of "pissed off developers" including you (3 including you). Of course there are not thousands of developers left but you seem to overestimate the numbers. Or you write which tons of 68k developers are pissed off now... and what others are you talking about? Where were those in say last 20 years? Reality is it is the only active project improving existing hardware base.
-
I have no idea if democoders can be tagged as "developers" but I have been talking to many of them. (you know people that also does the demos that wins compos etc) and still have to find ONE single person saying that he want to do something for it.
so if those can be tagged as a developer, there is quite a "few" of them
edit: but true. demos is maybe a different thing.. so...
-
I have no idea if democoders can be tagged as "developers" but I have been talking to many of them. (you know people that also does the demos that wins compos etc) and still have to find ONE single person saying that he want to do something for it.
so if those can be tagged as a developer, there is quite a "few" of them
edit: but true. demos is maybe a different thing.. so...
what is true that in the old days sometimes demo groups used their knowledge to write games but that happened not often. For demo coders Vampire is not interesting because they want to use a underpowered defined hardware base to create something that makes people wonder how they did it. So demo coders were not pissed off by whatever, Vampire simply is not for them. Still it would be nice if some would code on it just to show the potential. Kolla talked about normal developers but i still wonder where those hide.
-
At A32 I talked to some people, it is very known that I am not a too happy person about the vampire (well I am a demoscener so.)
and there was quite a few persons telling me "Why should I even bother about it when I cannot use the tools I have been using for ages" (meaning mungwall etc) so there are people out, that are "pissed" but just simply doesn't say anything. they just ignore it instead.
(as IF you say anything, you WILL get the angry vampiremob on you)
-
At A32 I talked to some people, it is very known that I am not a too happy person about the vampire (well I am a demoscener so.)
and there was quite a few persons telling me "Why should I even bother about it when I cannot use the tools I have been using for ages" (meaning mungwall etc) so there are people out, that are "pissed" but just simply doesn't say anything. they just ignore it instead.
(as IF you say anything, you WILL get the angry vampiremob on you)
The old devs are mostly in retirement age, if Vampire or similar shall have any future fresh blood is needed. And regarding MMU, Vampire is not created as a small toy for developers but for users so priority is what users need not what some developers want. It is a consumer product and there is only a very small team behind it. I can only judge what happened when two developers were pissed off how kolla names it. They were requesting this or that, they expect this or that. Gunnar can be very harsh too so both sides increased the tone until both were thrown out of the forum. One of that of course were very loud after that talking down the project everywhere. I am there very careful now what people say. You say one developer were pissed off because of the tool missing, so he would have developed some fancy new software for Vampire if it were available? Then he should go in IRC and propose what he offers if he gets this or that. If proposal is good the team might change priorities. If he has nothing to offer the team will continue and keep the priorities.
-
not only one person. some. not many but there was people talking about it.
AND actually. like when the team offered a "free" core for people doing their own acceleratorcards. people asked about the MMU! Gunnar was more than clear that he was not interested. and this starts a catch22. they develope new stuff and functions for the vamp. but at the same time doesn't fill the request of the few persons coding on the machine, making it hard for those interested in using the new stuff do. well do it. so the new stuff will not be that used.
somewhat like the PPC back in the days. Compilers was so expensive so very few supported it.
IF supplying the coders with the tools they need (debuggingtools, compilers etc etc) then the software comes and then the users can get more out of it. No instead IF you ask for a feature you only get a harsh comment that "noone is interested" or maybe a trumpish answer like "my solution is the best anyway. even if there is no software supporting it, but mine is best" it gets annoying. and only very few people comments it, the rest just shuts up and ignores it.
so YES! developers are getting pissed, but instead of saying it, they are quiet and by that doesn't have to talk to all fanboys bashing them of being "haters"
-
I understand there are a lot of personal feelings going around here. That seems common in the Amiga community, and especially when hot heads collide where everyone has their own idea of how Amiga should move forward.
This is a typical chicken and egg syndrome. However, in this case I think they are clearly making the right choice. If they focused on developer-centric features first, users would be less interested in purchasing and developers would say "why should I develop for this when there are no users?"
In this case there are clear benefits to buying a Vampire WITHOUT many developers getting involved. Yes, if you have an 060 setup and are happy with it this may not be the product for you - but you are in the clear minority. Vampire offers a clear benefit for anyone without an 060 looking for a CPU upgrade, along with RTG and many other features. Just with existing software. Would new software be nice? Yes, and software is trickling in.
But they are selling tons so why switch priorities now?
Once they finish adding all the consumer-centric features they'd like I assume they'll switch to developer-centric features. By then developers will have a nice target audience to develop for.
And I'm sure this product is not of interest to the demo scene. They are most interested in retro hardware, and this makes the Amiga less retro.
They are a small team and can't do everything at once!
-
I understand there are a lot of personal feelings going around here. That seems common in the Amiga community, and especially when hot heads collide where everyone has their own idea of how Amiga should move forward.
This is a typical chicken and egg syndrome. However, in this case I think they are clearly making the right choice. If they focused on developer-centric features first, users would be less interested in purchasing and developers would say "why should I develop for this when there are no users?"
In this case there are clear benefits to buying a Vampire WITHOUT many developers getting involved. Yes, if you have an 060 setup and are happy with it this may not be the product for you - but you are in the clear minority. Vampire offers a clear benefit for anyone without an 060 looking for a CPU upgrade, along with RTG and many other features. Just with existing software. Would new software be nice? Yes, and software is trickling in.
But they are selling tons so why switch priorities now?
Once they finish adding all the consumer-centric features they'd like I assume they'll switch to developer-centric features. By then developers will have a nice target audience to develop for.
And I'm sure this product is not of interest to the demo scene. They are most interested in retro hardware, and this makes the Amiga less retro.
They are a small team and can't do everything at once!
Hear here! I was an active member of the Vampire team for a while and got to try a Vampire 500 prototype for a while. I hope to get one of my own. I never owned a graphics card for a Classic Amiga nor a fast accelerator. Having those avenues open to me was a new experience for me.
As for PowerPC, by the time the quirks were worked out of OS4, my MicroA1 was not worth upgrading. As new features spring up such as SPE units new quirks are inevitable and the OS market for AmigaOne models becomes less sustainable.
I don't have time or the budget to maintain both NG Amiga models and classic models and as a hobby coder, most of the programming languages I use work exclusively on the classic models.
If it were just about the money I would have stuck with a MorphOS Mac. If it were just about the nostalgia, I would have stuck with the Blizzard 1230. The Vampire gives the best bang for the buck overall so I'll hold out for it.
-
For demo coders Vampire is not interesting because they want to use a underpowered defined hardware base to create something that makes people wonder how they did it
It's 2018, Vampire is under powered.
-
It's 2018, Vampire is under powered.
It is a great toy for those that have an emotional attachment to their old original Amiga hardware and want a cool expansion for it. But it doesnt have any chance to compete anywhere else. Even an arm sbc can outperform it, and be much cheaper and versatile (eg:rasperry pi3).
Still a nice hack for Amigas, but unfortunately, nothing more than that.
-
It is a great toy for those that have an emotional attachment to their old original Amiga hardware and want a cool expansion for it. But it doesnt have any chance to compete anywhere else. Even an arm sbc can outperform it, and be much cheaper and versatile (eg:rasperry pi3).
Still a nice hack for Amigas, but unfortunately, nothing more than that.
As to cost, I'd still love to see my Quad G5 supported by a PPC NG OS.
The G5's PowerMacs are cheap right now.
And, compared to all other PPC systems I've used, this has enough power (particularly when its using an OS that supports SMP) that I don't feel disadvantaged when I switch between it and my i7 laptop.
As to legacy, I'm still not sure I'm comfortable with using parts that aren't original or retro.
After all, even with a fast FPGA installed, a legacy Amiga is still a boat anchor compared to modern hardware.
I CAN see the 'its fun' argument, but I'm not sure I want to throw too much money at this.
-
Bring on the Vampire for A1200. I don't care if it's underpowered, since this definition is relative. It may he slower than emulation, NG but the fact remains it will be a sight faster than existing 68K boards.
I do agree with the earlier post about better 68K compatibility. My ideal would also be on par with 68040, at least for user mode ISA.
If you just want insane performance on current hardware, just run MenuetOS on x64.
-
It's 2018, Vampire is under powered.
Sorry to destroy your illusions but your PPC based embedded toys are underpowered in todays terms too
-
As to cost, I'd still love to see my Quad G5 supported by a PPC NG OS.
The G5's PowerMacs are cheap right now.
And, compared to all other PPC systems I've used, this has enough power (particularly when its using an OS that supports SMP) that I don't feel disadvantaged when I switch between it and my i7 laptop.
As to legacy, I'm still not sure I'm comfortable with using parts that aren't original or retro.
After all, even with a fast FPGA installed, a legacy Amiga is still a boat anchor compared to modern hardware.
I CAN see the 'its fun' argument, but I'm not sure I want to throw too much money at this.
Neither AmigaOS nor MorphOS support SMP (at least up to now)
Regarding Vampire, it is a toy, a hobby platform for amiga enthusiasts, retro how you would call it but there are obvious many people interested to get it and those who have it are all happy about it (at least most except some active members on different forums of course). The "fun" argument is why people buy it, it is a hobby and you do a hobby to have fun. It would be different if something is for work or at least your main platform at home but that is hardly the case for most of us.
-
Well all Amiga platforms are toys and hobby platforms for enthusiasts. Doesn't make them less viable as products - the majority of the stuff we buy except for the bare necessities like food etc. are "toys".
If people enjoy using Vampire, AmigaOne or whatever then great for them. I think most sane individuals realize that for getting actual work done (the kind you get paid for), you're much better off with a modern operating system and CPU architecture (unless you are one of the 3 people in the world that still makes money from Amiga development).
-
Sorry to destroy your illusions but your PPC based embedded toys are underpowered in todays terms too
I don't have an illusions, or PPC based embedded toys.
Your argument doesn't hold water about the demo scene, I was merely pointing that out. No need to get touchy.
Regarding Vampire, it is a toy, a hobby platform for amiga enthusiasts,
That doesn't appear to be how gunnar sees it.
-
I don't have an illusions, or PPC based embedded toys.
Your argument doesn't hold water about the demo scene, I was merely pointing that out. No need to get touchy.
That doesn't appear to be how gunnar sees it.
You were first one explaining me if Vampire is underpowered in todays terms as if I (or most of us) would not know that. And regarding Gunnar, he has his dreams like getting a amiga with his processor as ASIC or beating modern hardware in certain limited aspects. I do not think that he believes Vampire or future standalone hardware will beat modern hardware, it is just part of his personal fun. If you do not like it simply not visit apollo forum. Outside he only writes from time to time to answer some questions so you can easily avoid him if that is the problem.
-
You were first one explaining me if Vampire is underpowered in todays terms as if I (or most of us) would not know that.
You said it wasn't under powered.
For demo coders Vampire is not interesting because they want to use a underpowered defined hardware base to create something that makes people wonder how they did it.
Which is it?
IMO they would avoid it because it's too expensive and a bit like joining a cult.
-
You said it wasn't under powered.
Which is it?
IMO they would avoid it because it's too expensive and a bit like joining a cult.
Where did I write that? If you read carefully what I write and not interpret something in it, I have never written anywhere that Vampire can be compared to up-to-date standard hardware.
Demo coders code for plain A500 or A1200, not for expanded big boxes or new highend 68k hardware. It would be not fun to them
-
IMO they would avoid it because it's too expensive and a bit like joining a cult.
When has ANYTHING Amiga NOT been like joining a cult??? Lol :roflmao:
-
When has ANYTHING Amiga NOT been like joining a cult??? Lol :roflmao:
I suggest you join the cult, and see it from the inside for a while.
-
You said it wasn't under powered.
Which is it?
IMO they would avoid it because it's too expensive and a bit like joining a cult.
Vampire too expensive. still they code for the 060..?
no. they avoid the vampire as there is no reason whatsoever to support it from a demosceners point of view.
new stuff. why? then they can just go to shadertoy and do something there.
no, they want to show off what they can do with the Amiga. you know. AGA, 060. (50MHz usual goal aswell)
not even RTG.. higher bandwidth etc to chipmem. well back in the 90s it would be loved. but now it is just the old boundarys that counts and must be kept.
-
Vampire too expensive. still they code for the 060..?
no. they avoid the vampire as there is no reason whatsoever to support it from a demosceners point of view.
new stuff. why? then they can just go to shadertoy and do something there.
no, they want to show off what they can do with the Amiga. you know. AGA, 060. (50MHz usual goal aswell)
not even RTG.. higher bandwidth etc to chipmem. well back in the 90s it would be loved. but now it is just the old boundarys that counts and must be kept.
Demosceners was the future, now they are the cryin past! If they dont want to move along its up to them.
repetitive forum parrots are getting annoying!
-
new stuff. why? then they can just go to shadertoy and do something there.
Yes, for them it would be like training for a 500 metre run: it's no olympic discpline, so why bother?
-
repetitive forum parrots are getting annoying!
Like a broken record! But hey, I have nothing against new tech trends so I encoded my broken record into a machine-readable format and stream it on my Facebook page and YouTube channel for the entire world to enjoy non-stop! :laugh1:
-
Demo coding is a sport, they stick with the rules and regulations of their game.
But at least they are productive. What productivity is there for Apollo Core? Where are the AMMX optimised datatypes etc? Where are the debugging tools that have been worked on (for how long now)? What "developer-centric features" will be slapped on? The team is just a handful (if even that) of people, why is that? Shouldn't the existing developers flock around the Apollo Core to support it? Why aren't they?
-
Demo coding is a sport, they stick with the rules and regulations of their game.
But at least they are productive. What productivity is there for Apollo Core? Where are the AMMX optimised datatypes etc? Where are the debugging tools that have been worked on (for how long now)? What "developer-centric features" will be slapped on? The team is just a handful (if even that) of people, why is that? Shouldn't the existing developers flock around the Apollo Core to support it? Why aren't they?
Where are the existing 68k amiga developer hiding up to now? Behind which rock? They are no longer existing, simple as that. They are in retirement age, some are even already dead, they have moved on and develop f.e. mobile games today. They are no longer interested in doing 68k development, simple as that
-
exactly! there is more or less only the democoders left doing programming on the amiga. (and C64) with a FEW exceptions.
so why even bother using valuiable LE space with stuff never getting used. so you can have a salepoint?
and deocoders move to newer? well. they moved to the PC. those left want to do as a sport nice stuff wit the rules that exists. simple. as there is a sport in doing that.
so remove those rules. why even bother about 080 etc when you can go to a fast GPU instead doing shader%&$#?@!%&$#?@!%&$#?@!%&$#?@!.
repetive. maybe. but it seems that people magically thinks putting in new stuff will be cool when it is never used. just pointelss waste of hours doing it.
-
exactly! there is more or less only the democoders left doing programming on the amiga. (and C64) with a FEW exceptions.
so why even bother using valuiable LE space with stuff never getting used. so you can have a salepoint?
and deocoders move to newer? well. they moved to the PC. those left want to do as a sport nice stuff wit the rules that exists. simple. as there is a sport in doing that.
so remove those rules. why even bother about 080 etc when you can go to a fast GPU instead doing shader%&$#?@!%&$#?@!%&$#?@!%&$#?@!.
repetive. maybe. but it seems that people magically thinks putting in new stuff will be cool when it is never used. just pointelss waste of hours doing it.
we had this already... demo coders (if doing amiga programming at all) want a fixed target and make people wonder what they can do with such a limited hardware. Having a power 68k amiga with constantly changing hardware makes no sense and no fun to them. Then they could also use a modern PC with modern graphic cards. In old days some demo coders started to develop games but at that time there were a much bigger amiga scene so I do not think that this would happen today. I do not think that new features automatically mean new users or developers but at least it makes something interesting. So there is at least a hope that some developers and users even without prior amiga history might join. But that is just hope, I do not know it.
-
then why even bother to join when you have so few debuggingtools.
People programming on modern platforms today are used to very good debuggingtools, so go to vampire and du stuff is go back in time very much. so it is not that interesting for them.
Havingh that said: new stuff like AMMX will just be many hours of time for nothing using valueable LE space that could be used for other things insttead (like fpu or MMU maybe?)
and. well "Demosceners was the future, now they are the cryin past! If they dont want to move along its up to them." ANYONE except me finding that PRETTY ironic. when it comes to using an Amiga? :)
-
then why even bother to join when you have so few debuggingtools.
People programming on modern platforms today are used to very good debuggingtools, so go to vampire and du stuff is go back in time very much. so it is not that interesting for them.
Havingh that said: new stuff like AMMX will just be many hours of time for nothing using valueable LE space that could be used for other things insttead (like fpu or MMU maybe?)
and. well "Demosceners was the future, now they are the cryin past! If they dont want to move along its up to them." ANYONE except me finding that PRETTY ironic. when it comes to using an Amiga? :)
As I understand it AMMX not needed much space but offered some benefit in the view of the people behind the project and propably also was some fun to them to integrate. You as a demo coder might like that or not but the project was not designed for demo coders but for average users. Demo coders would never use it as their main platform, I do not understand why you repeat it all the time. I do not know if and how successful Vampire might become, we will see. I have not lost money because it exists and you propably not too and all the pissed off demo coders not either. For programmers in real world the user base is much more important than anything else. As long people use APIs and libraries you can develop on any platform if you want to support Vampire, only if you directly bang the hardware the tools you mentioned become relevant. You want to program a game? The others who asked wanted to write something? If yes how I already wrote they should go in IRC and talk to Gunnar and the others. If not nothing changes and the team does everything in order they have planned.
-
so why even bother using valuiable LE space with stuff never getting used.
Because Gunnar likes doing it. This is a pasttime. If it weren't fun, it wouldn't happen.
-
yeah I know that we will never use it as a main platofrm. maybe 2-3 test-things.
BUT! who WILL use AMMX if noone actuallty does software USING it?
and later with the AGA thing. WHO will use the new stuff introduced? it is not like there is any API using it anyway. so it feels like doing stuff just to be able to say "HEY WE GOT COOL STUFF" but.. noone can/will use it. instead of implementing the stuff we had. FIRST and then put in the new stuff? it is so strange and SAD! as we do NEED a new good FPGA replacement for our beloved machines.. it is getting harder for me to get hold of 060 cpus etc. so this would be needed.
sadly the wrong path. well luckly there are other FPGA solutions.
Talk to gunnar etc. well I haven't done it. as I feel that there is absolutley not idea of doing that, being reading how he answers others with suggestions. he answers them as trump on a day in a bad mood.
Sad. as the hardware is awesome.
-
The order in which things are done does not depend on the date the reimplemented feature was first publically available (like doing MMU and FPU before AMMX because the 68k MMU and FPU predate MMX) but in which it makes sense from a technical point of view. E.g. if you create a new vector-FPU first, you can then use it to implement a 68k-compatible scalar FPU on top of it. So in this example you get the "who will ever use it"-FPU first and then the 68k-compatible. If you first did a scalar FPU, you would have to scrap it when you start working on the vector-FPU. The same goes for AMMX and the 64bit mode: a part of these is the basic infrastructure on which the FPU and some bitfield instructions (which need an ALU wider than 32 bits!) are based. This has been pointed out many times before but the same arguments repeat like the aforementioned broken record...
-
the same and it is pointed out like a broken record that. WHO will do the programming? just think of it: most sources of software is lost anyway. this means software needs to be written from scratch. will this happen? most likly not..
so why even bother adding new stuff instead of perserving what we got?
-
so why even bother adding new stuff instead of perserving what we got?
Um, see above: because it is fun. Recreate what was already there: boring. Do an entirely new 68k CPU that implements what likely would have happened if Motorola had continued to develop the 68k CPU family: fun.
And even if nobody else uses new features, the Apollo Team members are using it.
-
To say that the Apollo Core mimics what would have happened if Motorola had continued is just nonsense. Motorola's largest customer base for 68k was telecommunications, aerospace and embedded.
-
the same and it is pointed out like a broken record that. WHO will do the programming? just think of it: most sources of software is lost anyway. this means software needs to be written from scratch. will this happen? most likly not..
so why even bother adding new stuff instead of perserving what we got?
There are plenty of options for pure legacy hardware, like Whicher 500, ACA, TerribleFire, Ebay/AmiBay hardware etc. If thats your cup of tea, look in that direction.
Why should Apollo Core do the same? Given the relative decent backward compability (and gradually improving), you can even use Apollo and ignore the new features.
If they lack features, then you have the other alternatives.
Britelite has repeatedly given his reservations with the direction of the Apollo Core, but he isnt rejecting it in a pissed manner. His main concern is the possibility that a coder (demoscene or otherwise) develop keeping the legacy timings as the foundation, but the new features MIGHT have unforseen consequences.
Thats a fair critique/concern with regards to the Apollo Core. Wether or not its a valid concern as the compability increases, thats for the developers to decide. People release more and more tests of old demos that work just fine on the 2.7 and 3 Beta cores, showing quite decent improvements compared to 6-8 months back when Kioa was a slideshow with graphical bugs. Now it runs smoothly.
Work in progress and all that.
-
Where did I write that?
You wrote it here:
http://www.amiga.org/forums/showthread.php?p=834828#post834828
If you read carefully what I write and not interpret something in it, I have never written anywhere that Vampire can be compared to up-to-date standard hardware.
I did read what you said carefully. If you think A doesn't like B because it's not C then you're implying you think B is C. I think you're completely wrong though, there are plenty of 4k demos on much more powerful systems released.
Demo coders code for plain A500 or A1200, not for expanded big boxes or new highend 68k hardware. It would be not fun to them
Actually demo coders are consistently inconsistent about what hardware they code for, for a long time there were demos released that would only run full frame rate on WinUAE on a fast PC. But you're right about Apollo not being fun. I'm hoping to get an Ultimate 64 soon, it's less powerful as FPGA systems go but Gideon is a great guy.
When has ANYTHING Amiga NOT been like joining a cult??? Lol :roflmao:
If commodore were trying to run a cult then they failed miserably, but then they would.
-
Why should Apollo Core do the same?
Because they want Apollo Core to be the de-facto "base line" for Amiga hardware.
-
Britelite has repeatedly given his reservations with the direction of the Apollo Core, but he isnt rejecting it in a pissed manner.
And the other way around? What does Gunnar have to say about the concerns and reservations of developers, demo coders etc. because that's what really matters.
-
Why was Natami a failure?
-
And the other way around? What does Gunnar have to say about the concerns and reservations of developers, demo coders etc. because that's what really matters.
Can you list these developers that are so concerned?
-
Why was Natami a failure?
bearing in mind that all of this is my personal recollection of things and I was only a little involved with some software and ideas etc...
Because of a number of reasons. Thomas Hirsch felt it was time to announce NatAmi and take on some help after MiniMig appeared. However it was a lot of pressure upon what had been a fun hobby project for him and I think that he lost interest.
Also he kept it all very close to his chest so people involved in NatAmi never got to help out with the hardware except for investigating an FPGA based CPU that they called the N68070/N68050 at the time. That was the only group part of the project. NatAmi itself was 100% Thomas.
As NatAmi got closer to working it conversely also put more pressure on Thomas and he decided to go quiet for a time. It looks like that's now become permanent sadly. I liked what he'd done and hoped that he'd eventually release it with a real 68060.
The people who had worked on the N68070 CPU didn't want it to disappear, they liked what they'd done. So it became the Apollo Core.
Majasta had released his V1 accelerator for A600 using the tg68k.c core but it had various issues.
The both teamed up and between them built the newer Vampire A600 accelerators with the Apollo Core replacing the tg68k which is where we are today.
TLDR; I think the pressure from the community and it's usual "supportive" behaviour drove away Thomas's interest in finishing the Natami.
Andy
-
Really, did people complain when 030/040 accelerators or new Amigas were introduced into the market? The same arguments can be made - "we are fracturing our userbase!"
Uhhh yeah, there actually was some of that. The accelerators were much more common in the US for 3D rendering than in the other markets where the Amiga was a dominant games platform, with said games usually being hard coded for the base 68k. I even remember a game that would have required I remove my internal memory expansion just to run. And when AGA was released a lot of development continued to focus on OCS/ECS because of the larger installed base. Western users' requests to C= for MMUs and FPUs as standard were met with groans from European users who merely wanted the cost of the base machine to come down even further. Encouraging OS compliant software and RTG was always an attempt to keep the platform from fracturing along the various spec boundaries. Fear of fracturing the platform could be partially blamed for the long delay between AGA's completion and its eventual release or might have even factored in the reluctance and eventual failure to make the AT&T DSP board a commercial product. But I certainly do not remember there ever being a time when a potentially significant improvement to the Amiga's capabilities was met with an universally warm reception, whether it was an OS revision, a CPU evolution or even a display enhancement.
-
Sorry to hear about Natami.
-
But I certainly do not remember there ever being a time when a potentially significant improvement to the Amiga's capabilities was met with an universally warm reception, whether it was an OS revision, a CPU evolution or even a display enhancement.
commodore's marketing as woeful as it was, is better than gunnar.
-
groans from European users
I believe you here mean British users. Just consider where most CPU boards and other high end hardware for Amiga were made, where Amiga clones were made, where most productivity software was made etc.
-
I believe you here mean British users.
Well we did buy more amiga's than any other country
http://www.amigahistory.plus.com/sales.html
and the big box amiga sales worldwide were woeful.
-
I believe you here mean British users. Just consider where most CPU boards and other high end hardware for Amiga were made, where Amiga clones were made, where most productivity software was made etc.
I tend to think of the CPU boards (Phase5) that originated in Germany before those that came from the UK (though I had a VXL-30 in my 2k, not sure where that was from). I recall the BoXer was from the UK, but Escom was German and wasn't Quikpak based in the US?
I tend to associate the UK with the bulk of the games and for having great printed magazines, but I don't associate the UK with any one major application... Germany, especially Haage and Partner and proDad seemed the most eager to see the Amiga become a serious business machine.
Honestly, Commodore were blind to just how big of an issue the NTSC/PAL differences would be. US users would love to have enjoyed the games played in the UK, but many of them either didn't run at all or put important stuff at the bottom of the screen where it could not be seen. That doomed the Amiga as games machine in the US, where it would be competing with Sega who had the advantage of their Japanese catalog being developed for the NTSC standard (of course that also gave C= an advantage over Sega in the UK).
It seemed to me that it was mostly the people working on 3D and video software that wanted the Amiga to incorporate MMUs and FPUs, presumably so they could justify their developing for those co-processors. The US and European branches should have worked on tech jointly and marketing separately. To an extent, they did just this. But IMHO, the CD32 was simply not an appropriate design for NTSC markets.
-
I tend to think of the CPU boards (Phase5) that originated in Germany before those that came from the UK (though I had a VXL-30 in my 2k, not sure where that was from). I recall the BoXer was from the UK, but Escom was German and wasn't Quikpak based in the US?
I tend to associate the UK with the bulk of the games and for having great printed magazines, but I don't associate the UK with any one major application... Germany, especially Haage and Partner and proDad seemed the most eager to see the Amiga become a serious business machine.
Honestly, Commodore were blind to just how big of an issue the NTSC/PAL differences would be. US users would love to have enjoyed the games played in the UK, but many of them either didn't run at all or put important stuff at the bottom of the screen where it could not be seen. That doomed the Amiga as games machine in the US, where it would be competing with Sega who had the advantage of their Japanese catalog being developed for the NTSC standard (of course that also gave C= an advantage over Sega in the UK).
It seemed to me that it was mostly the people working on 3D and video software that wanted the Amiga to incorporate MMUs and FPUs, presumably so they could justify their developing for those co-processors. The US and European branches should have worked on tech jointly and marketing separately. To an extent, they did just this. But IMHO, the CD32 was simply not an appropriate design for NTSC markets.
The NTSC/PAL thing was a pain in the butt, however, the later A500's and all A1200's could be booted into PAL mode and on the 1084 nothing was cut off the bottom. In my "group of gamers" 5 of us had PAL capable A500's and one didn't until I upgraded it. Also there were quite a few European games that were available in NTSC format in the late 80's, although if you try to download a copy now it will probably be the PAL version. Seems most of the cracked versions were from Europe.
-
Demosceners was the future, now they are the cryin past! If they dont want to move along its up to them.
The demoscene did move along, to the PC ;)
-
Britelite has repeatedly given his reservations with the direction of the Apollo Core, but he isnt rejecting it in a pissed manner. His main concern is the possibility that a coder (demoscene or otherwise) develop keeping the legacy timings as the foundation, but the new features MIGHT have unforseen consequences.
Indeed, if stuff works on the Apollo then everything is fine. But if it doesn't, then it's the Apollo Core that needs to be fixed, not the software.
And regarding the additional features, like AMMX/SuperAGA/whatever, I understand that from the Apollo-people's perspective they might be fun to implement. But trying to hype up the Vampire with these features might be a bit misleading to the consumers, as those are features that most likely will not see much support on the software side (other than in the form of datatypes, libraries and possible cgx/p96/ahi drivers).
But then again, it's the Apollo-teams choice and they're free to do what they please with their own product, I can always vote with my wallet and just not buy said product.
-
@Britelite
Skip has been posting alot of demos on his Vimeo channel. Not sure if you can be bothered to watch any of them, but linking his page all the same if you are intrested in seeing how the Vampire executes the demos;
https://vimeo.com/user1803902
With regards to the AMMX and other stuff; even if thats included, does that matter to YOU as long as it doesnt affect your own productions?
-
With regards to the AMMX and other stuff; even if thats included, does that matter to YOU as long as it doesnt affect your own productions?
Nope, I couldn't care less for these features. I'm maybe more annoyed by people complaining about (demo)coders not wanting to make use of them :)
EDIT: Pretty much the same reason why I'm not really into the PPC-side of things either
-
Nope, I couldn't care less for these features. I'm maybe more annoyed by people complaining about (demo)coders not wanting to make use of them :)
Hehe, that reminds me about your comments on ADA Unterground towards people posting the Revision 201x threads, pushing your coders to make entertaining productions, while doing nothing themselves.
That aside; you shouldnt really attribute to the Apollo/Vampire project what some daydreamers say or think. Its not Gunnars fault that some expect you or others to press ESC and suddenly a full megademo magically appears.
Im not going to pretend Im not enjoying watching demos, even tho Im not part of that scene. And if Im not mistaken, Im not really the intended audience of demos, atleast judging by the comments by some in the documentary "The Art Of The Algorithms".
Digital art is art, and I enjoy it even tho I dont "paint" ;)
-
That aside; you shouldnt really attribute to the Apollo/Vampire project what some daydreamers say or think. Its not Gunnars fault that some expect you or others to press ESC and suddenly a full megademo magically appears.
Well, let's just say that Gunnar is definitely not making attracting developers to the Vampire/Apollo any easier either :D
-
Well, let's just say that Gunnar is definitely not making attracting developers to the Vampire/Apollo any easier either :D
Well, some people speak machinecode better than human, so I cant really comment on that ;)
-
... But when I think about it;
You dont like to be told to code a demo, or what platform you use. And you have said that it takes away some of your intrest/joy of coding.
Maybe a similar reactionpattern can be attributed to a team like Apollo, that has spent xx hours producing this product, only to have xyz people tell them its not good enough etc.
Not saying thats you, just saying that a short temper comes easier if you feel a sense of pride in your work.
I know I can get testy in similar situations. ;)
-
You dont like to be told to code a demo, or what platform you use. And you have said that it takes away some of your intrest/joy of coding.
Indeed, it's something I do as a hobby.
Maybe a similar reactionpattern can be attributed to a team like Apollo, that has spent xx hours producing this product, only to have xyz people tell them its not good enough etc.
Sure, but as far as I can tell the Apollo Core is something they at least at some point want to make money on, in which case they might actually want to listen more closely to the people they want to attract to be able to make profit.
-
I guess I havent paid close enough attention, or the discussions have gone on thru other channels/meets;
But ignore the fact that I probably doesnt know enough about 680x0 hardware and assembly coding to understand your explainations;
What are the limitations or design directions you would want Apollo to embrace?
I get the whole "I want to code for Apollo like I code for my legacy hardware, and get the same/expected output", but beyond that, I have a hard time to pinpoint your "requirements".
Again, you do it as a hobby, so you are not required to "explain yourself", but Im merely curious.
I enjoy the Vampire from a end user point of view. I dont develop on any platform, and computers are merely tools for me. 90% of my time is spent in office products or video rendering, while the remainder is used enjoying digital art OR just using it as a information channel.
So Im not exposed to effects of the design decisions like a developer would be.
-
What are the limitations or design directions you would want Apollo to embrace?
Let's put it this way, I was very interested in the Vampire in the beginning when it was presented just as a speedy accelerator without any additional bells and whistles. When more and more (in my opinion unnecessary) features got added I quickly lost interest. Mainly because it seems like the aim is to achieve a vendor lock-in, hoping that developers would jump on the Apollo-bandwagon and abandon Amiga, making way for their own platform.
But as to your question, if there was a mode available that disables ALL additional stuff and mimics the 060 at 50 or 66MHz as close as possible, I would be very interested. The thing is, if I make something aimed at the 060, it runs on all 040/060 cards, UAE and hopefully Apollo Core. If I use ANY of the Apollo-features my software ONLY works on the Apollo, which for me is not good. And I know quite a few other coders feel the same way.
Maybe a 060-only mode will be available some day, who knows. But until then it's just not for me.
EDIT: And considering the core itself is still a moving platform, I wouldn't dare make any low level code on it yet and risk it not working on some later revision.
-
Thanks for your reply!
Again, as a enduser, I actually enjoy the "bells and whistles", but we obviously have different uses for hardware, and the perspective decides how we view it.
Thanks for all the beautiful demos you have developed over the years :)
-
Again, as a enduser, I actually enjoy the "bells and whistles", but we obviously have different uses for hardware, and the perspective decides how we view it.
I fully understand you, as an enduser I would also of course want as much bang for the buck when it comes to hardware. It's just a shame that most of it will most likely be left unutilized (with the exception of previously mentioned datatypes, libraries and rtg/ahi-drivers).
Thanks for all the beautiful demos you have developed over the years :)
And there's still more to come :)
-
Maybe a similar reactionpattern can be attributed to a team like Apollo, that has spent xx hours producing this product, only to have xyz people tell them its not good enough etc.
People told him way in advance that it was not the right way to go, but he chose to do it anyways.
-
Right way for who?
Again; depends on what you want from the hardware.
-
Brit Elite, while I find most of what you write very reasonable, I don't understand why it disturbs you that the Apollo Core has some features the 060 does not have. You can safely ignore their presence.
-
Right way for who?
For everyone, hardware developers, software developers, coders, hackers, endusers, old software... but no, he had to do it his way, and alienated many initial supporters in the process.
Again; depends on what you want from the hardware.
As an end user, I just want it to run my existing software in a satisfactory manner, as of yet, it does not.
-
Brit Elite, while I find most of what you write very reasonable, I don't understand why it disturbs you that the Apollo Core has some features the 060 does not have. You can safely ignore their presence.
Who is disturbed? That is what he said he does, as do almost all coders and developers, they ignore the Apollo Core features. Nothing disturbing about that, is there? :hammer:
-
Brit Elite, while I find most of what you write very reasonable, I don't understand why it disturbs you that the Apollo Core has some features the 060 does not have. You can safely ignore their presence.
It's not so much disturbing, I just wish he'd implement the important features so that I could justify buying one rather than all this fluffing crap.
Maybe there are people who want to be fluffed into a gigantic orgasm by an FPGA board. It seems ok for whdload and doing it's own thing, but it's kinda expensive for that.
-
Brit Elite, while I find most of what you write very reasonable, I don't understand why it disturbs you that the Apollo Core has some features the 060 does not have. You can safely ignore their presence.
Let's put it this way, if I were to use the Apollo Core for development (as in doing stuff for 68k machines in general), I would constantly have to double check that everything actually runs on a real machine, as there's always the chance that something doesn't behave exactly like on the real chipset (I had to do the same years ago when I used an AGA-machine to develop OCS-stuff). Being able to disable ALL additional features would of course solve this problem for me.
So, it's just easier for me to save the hassle and ignore the Apollo Core altogether, also considering there's really no interesting Apollo-exclusive software available.
-
It's not so much disturbing, I just wish he'd implement the important features so that I could justify buying one rather than all this fluffing crap.
How many times has it been pointed out that the "important features" are just stripped down and limited variants of the "fluffing crap" and that implementing the "fluffing crap" makes it easier to then implement the "important features" deriving them from the "fluffing crap"? I guess this is just too complicated for some to understand...
-
Let's put it this way, if I were to use the Apollo Core for development (as in doing stuff for 68k machines in general), I would constantly have to double check that everything actually runs on a real machine, as there's always the chance that something doesn't behave exactly like on the real chipset (I had to do the same years ago when I used an AGA-machine to develop OCS-stuff). Being able to disable ALL additional features would of course solve this problem for me.
I'm not sure it would solve the problem. It's not that you would accidentally use RTG-chunky instead of bitplanes or use ten bitplanes instead of eight or whatever. You wouldn't accidentally use 080-only processor instructions either.
The problem is that you would have to trust the reimplementation to be true to the original. The same happens with WinUAE and the real hardware. Although tested and enhanced through many years of work, there still is a need to double-check on the actual hardware if you are really squeezing out the last DMA cycle out of your code targetting unexpanded OCS. But WinUAE has earned a reputation and thus a certain level of trust. I'm confident that the Apollo Core will earn a similar level of trust within the next years. Time will tell. BTW, the Apollo Core Team has found and reported several bugs in the CPU emulation of WinUAE so I think we are closer to the real deal than even WinUAE in at least some parts of the entire job to be done...
-
I'm not sure it would solve the problem. It's not that you would accidentally use RTG-chunky instead of bitplanes or use ten bitplanes instead of eight or whatever. You wouldn't accidentally use 080-only processor instructions either.
On the CPU-side I don't think it would be much of a problem, but if SuperAGA has any overlapping bits/registers compared to real AGA (for example, using unused bits in the current registers), then there most certainly could be problems. Adding a RTG chunkybuffer is not a problem, but reimplementing AGA with added bells and whistles is, at least for me.
The problem is that you would have to trust the reimplementation to be true to the original. The same happens with WinUAE and the real hardware.
To be honest, I have way more trust in WinUAE than in any reimplementation. Mainly because the goals are different, WinUAE tries to be as close to the original hardware as possible where as Apollo Core wants to be compatible but also add a lot of features.
But I feel this conversation isn't moving anywhere, the Apollo Core in it's current form just isn't for me.
-
but if SuperAGA has any overlapping bits/registers compared to real AGA (for example, using unused bits in the current registers), then there most certainly could be problems. Adding a RTG chunkybuffer is not a problem, but reimplementing AGA with added bells and whistles is, at least for me.
OK, I understand. AFAIK new features are using new register addresses in the hardware register address range. I am not aware of any reuse of bits within existing registers but I am not 100% sure. But I'm confident that, with the intention of reaching as big a compatibility as possible with a much faster new processor, care will be taken to avoid such possible conflicts. But yes, that doesn't mean there cannot possibly be any at all.
Anyway, thank you for explaining your point of view which I consider a very well reasoned one. It is a nice break from all this "it must crash the same way as an 060 otherwise it isn't compatible" stuff I have been reading for a long time from others.
-
How many times has it been pointed out that the "important features" are just stripped down and limited variants of the "fluffing crap" and that implementing the "fluffing crap" makes it easier to then implement the "important features" deriving them from the "fluffing crap"?
I don't know, how many times are you going to trot out the lies?
Because gunnar is pretty clear that he isn't going to deliver the features I want.
Anyway, thank you for explaining your point of view which I consider a very well reasoned one. It is a nice break from all this "it must crash the same way as an 060 otherwise it isn't compatible" stuff I have been reading for a long time from others.
Well, it's not compatible. In very important ways, apollo is not compatible. That is just an easy one for the weak minded to understand.
-
Thanks for proving my point...
-
Being fully compatible BRINGS the bad things aswell.. like the crashes you are talking about.. as you might know. Amiga software is pretty often actually to be honest much badcode.. extremly much. so you never know what it expects etc etc. so if it behaves different. some code might also execute wrong.
say they test "ok do we have a 040 or 060?" and they test an instruction that exists on the 040 but not on the 060.. and "OK" this instruction exists. then we are a slow 040.. lets do this routine instead of the nicer 060 code..
and voila. result is not as expected..
(even if there ARE better ways of detecting the 060. this was however one example how it could be)
so for me. .FPGA must be EXACT.. or not at all :-/
-
so for me. .FPGA must be EXACT.. or not at all :-/
You surely don't what that either... I mean, as slow as the 68000 (which would be, of course, exact).
Look, it is at the very end a matter of the definition of the goals of this development, a matter of the desired use cases, and the requirements we can derive from the use cases.
You may have other requirements than Gunnar, and I certainly also have others than Gunnar. I would need a fast development machine - that does not mean "cycle exact", but "toolchain compatible". It currently isn't. Tough luck. It does not mean "it's bad". It just means "probably not the right thing for me right now".
If your requirements are "must do exactly as the Amiga does", then, I afraid, the only thing that can satisfy that is an Amiga. Then, however, you have also no rights to complain about "it being a bit slow". That's part of the "exactly as the Amiga" deal. You cannot have perfect speed without actually also loosing something.
Again, I'm not saying that this is a bad decision you have made. It is a valid decision. Problaby not the one I would have taken, but well, people are different.
IMHO: The project is great. Probably not quite for me at this point, but I don't bother too much.
-
well if it should be a 68000 replacement. but this is abotu the fastest.. so exact 060. :)
-
Thanks for proving my point...
If you go round insulting and bullying people, then expect it back. That is not a point.
-
I wonder what people would say if a company had launched the 68080 SoC as an ASIC without any prior public discussion (with all the same features as planned for the core of the Vampire 4 standalone except the Amiga AGA backwards compatibility, ~80MHz, AMMX, FPU, 24 bit graphics, 16 bit audio, new registers etc for around $100). Would everybody be clamouring for somebody to start building Amiga compatibles using the chip or would there be people complaining that it's not identical to an existing 680x0 processor?
-
I wonder what people would say if a company had launched the 68080 SoC as an ASIC without any prior public discussion (with all the same features as planned for the core of the Vampire 4 standalone except the Amiga AGA backwards compatibility, ~80MHz, AMMX, FPU, 24 bit graphics, 16 bit audio, new registers etc for around $100). Would everybody be clamouring for somebody to start building Amiga compatibles using the chip or would there be people complaining that it's not identical to an existing 680x0 processor?
A company is a serious entity looking for profit, not a hobby project that is done for love, enjoyment, etc.
A company that releases any chip will document it completely, so it can be used to its full potential.
A company that releases any chip will supply all the help its developers might need.
A company will not change its chip features a lot. If an important change is required it will create another chip for this purpose because keeping the compatibility is of supreme importance.
A company will surely posts benchmarks, but will avoid wild claims of world domination.
A company will not leave its PR to its main HW developer who is a guy that lacks the communication skills required for that job.
So a serious company would change the scenario in a huge manner. And this is just a quick list of changes, much more could be gained this way.
-
None of which has any baring on the question I asked.
-
It has.
Everybody wants something different in a next generation Amiga or Amiga-ish platform. So there would not be a consensus on what people would say: some will like that idea of yours and ask for someone to build something out of it. Others would argue against it for lots of reasons (they prefer their PC running WinUAE, might say that a Raspberry Pi is a faster and cheaper choice, for others MorphOS and its hardware suits best, etc.).
A serious company will probably get much more hardware developers interested and more software developers interested too. That in the end means more users and more people interested in what it offers, unlike the current state of the Apollo core.
-
A serious company will probably get much more hardware developers interested and more software developers interested too. That in the end means more users and more people interested in what it offers, unlike the current state of the Apollo core.
Not to mention, a roadmap one can relate to, proper documentation and support in toolchains.
People have paid good money for 68k support in glibc and gcc before (not even so long ago, I think it was 7 years ago that CodeSourcery, now Mentor Graphics, owned by Siemens, updated the kernel and the GNU toolchain for Linux/m68k with threaded library support).
-
say they test "ok do we have a 040 or 060?" and they test an instruction that exists on the 040 but not on the 060.. and "OK" this instruction exists. then we are a slow 040.. lets do this routine instead of the nicer 060 code..
and voila. result is not as expected
And what damage is there? The 080 will execute both 040 and 060 optimised code faster than any 040 or 060.
-
Oh, and yes, it is not a company doing this so expecting the project to be run like Motorola would have done it is a bit silly.
Obviously you have no idea how much work has went into it but all you can do is demand it should have been more like documentation, compiler support, MMU blabla. Must be really nice to sit in your comfy chair by the fireplace and explain to the world how things should be done...
-
I wonder what people would say if a company had launched the 68080 SoC as an ASIC ...
Correct answser on this question is:
if natami/apollo/vampire will be as it was announced in 2008 - 2D/3D ps2 graphics performance, cpu at least as fast as slowest NG hardware and fully compatible, for 100 E only, people will be happy with it.
In 2018 vampire has 68060 50 MHz integer performance, 12 times worse floating point performance than 68060 50 MHz, has no MMU, has no 3D support.
Advantages over old 68060 cards for amiga are: faster RAM and faster 2D graphics.
At current price, performance, compatibility vampire is not attractive to amiga ng users, and advanced classic users.
It is simple, nobody want to change hardware to worse and pay for it.
-
It is simple, nobody want to change hardware to worse and pay for it.
yeah. and now kneel down in a dark corner facing the wall. cover your ears, start rocking your head forth and back and repeat your mantra to yourself for the rest of your life.
-
Oh, and yes, it is not a company doing this so expecting the project to be run like Motorola would have done it is a bit silly.
Obviously you have no idea how much work has went into it but all you can do is demand it should have been more like documentation, compiler support, MMU blabla. Must be really nice to sit in your comfy chair by the fireplace and explain to the world how things should be done...
I agree a 100%
I have never been in any online community that has more idiots\trolls than the Amiga community.
Question is why would anyone develop anything for such a useless group of nagging 5 year olds ? I have never seen any new product that has not been slaughtered verbally by someone for lacking this or that here.
Funny thing is that it is always like this . End-user demand allot and never contributes with anything.
There are allot of "smart" people here and if they don't like something i think its about high time they start producing something better them self. Rather than constantly talking %&$#?@!%&$#?@!%&$#?@!%&$#?@! about things they are not part of developing .
Attacking the vampire core is idiotic as it is not a done deal yet , same goes for lack of SDK or whatever, it may eventually be done . I find the vampire core interesting and its constant development means nothing but good news for the end user. If it does not have what you need now why buy it ?
-
I agree a 100%
I have never been in any online community that has more idiots\trolls than the Amiga community.
Question is why would anyone develop anything for such a useless group of nagging 5 year olds ? I have never seen any new product that has not been slaughtered verbally by someone for lacking this or that here.
Funny thing is that it is always like this . End-user demand allot and never contributes with anything.
There are allot of "smart" people here and if they don't like something i think its about high time they start producing something better them self. Rather than constantly talking %&$#?@!%&$#?@!%&$#?@!%&$#?@! about things they are not part of developing .
Attacking the vampire core is idiotic as it is not a done deal yet , same goes for lack of SDK or whatever, it may eventually be done . I find the vampire core interesting and its constant development means nothing but good news for the end user. If it does not have what you need now why buy it ?
Exactly!
-
There are no attacks on the vampire.
Just some unsatisfied customers express their opinion about this crap.
Instead of announced second coming of Jay Miner, there is cheaper 68060, with faster RAM, but slower FPU, no MMU and 3D.
-
In 2018 vampire has 68060 50 MHz integer performance, 12 times worse floating point performance than 68060 50 MHz, has no MMU, has no 3D support.
Advantages over old 68060 cards for amiga are: faster RAM and faster 2D graphics.
At current price, performance, compatibility vampire is not attractive to amiga ng users, and advanced classic users.
It is simple, nobody want to change hardware to worse and pay for it.
Even if those blatant performance lies were true, it won't be with the gold 2.7 release as Gunnar and team have managed a full HW FPU solution on the current vampires in the latest beta builds of their core, which is fully compatible, plus considerable faster than any 68060 even overclocked to it's limits.
Cost $320 dollars for a V2 Vampire is not that much really, vs what a thousand or two dollars for an old 68060 card that may be in good enough shape to run properly? NG systems are way out of my price range.
-
Oh, and yes, it is not a company doing this so expecting the project to be run like Motorola would have done it is a bit silly.
Exactly, so maybe it is also incorrect to speculate that the 68080 is what Motorola would have done if they had continued with 68k? It just happens that we *know* what Motorola would have done, had they continued with 68k - ColdFire.
Anyways, this "what if" was not directed at you, but at IanP, so no reason for you to feel all wounded and heart broken.
-
Gunnar and team have managed a full HW FPU solution on the current vampires in the latest beta builds of their core
So now it is full HW FPU on gold 2.7 too? No software emulation taking place? You know this for a fact? Or is it just the usual spin? Because the hearsay was exactly same thing a year ago.
Cost $320 dollars for a V2 Vampire is not that much really, vs what a thousand or two dollars for an old 68060 card that may be in good enough shape to run properly?
I have systems with Vampire cards and I have systems with 030 cards and I have systems with 060 cards, and CSPPC, and I have MiST, Minimig, MiSTer and soon FleaFPGA... which of all those do you think gets used _least_?
NG systems are way out of my price range.
For USD 320 you can get a damn nice AROS system, brand new.
-
And what damage is there? The 080 will execute both 040 and 060 optimised code faster than any 040 or 060.
Cherry picked code. Anything interesting runs at 0% the speed of an 040 or 060
-
So now it is full HW FPU on gold 2.7 too? No software emulation taking place? You know this for a fact? Or is it just the usual spin? Because the hearsay was exactly same thing a year ago.
Was confirmed the other day on IRC and the forum
I have systems with Vampire cards and I have systems with 030 cards and I have systems with 060 cards, and CSPPC, and I have MiST, Minimig, MiSTer and soon FleaFPGA... which of all those do you think gets used _least_?
Lets see the one that is made by a team you have a predisposed hatred for?
For USD 320 you can get a damn nice AROS system, brand new.
Okay sure, but it doesn't boost my classic hardware.
-
The NTSC/PAL thing was a pain in the butt, however, the later A500's and all A1200's could be booted into PAL mode and on the 1084 nothing was cut off the bottom. In my "group of gamers" 5 of us had PAL capable A500's and one didn't until I upgraded it. Also there were quite a few European games that were available in NTSC format in the late 80's, although if you try to download a copy now it will probably be the PAL version. Seems most of the cracked versions were from Europe.
Oh, from a computer perspective, there were countless PAL games that were playable and plenty of NTSC titles too... But from a console perspective I think they were on the wrong track. Consoles are normally connected to the TV, and only an Amiga user would have a 1084 handy. People expect those things to "just work". C= seemed to have nothing in place to guarantee the end-user experience, to make sure that CD32 titles were region appropriate and properly ported (saves, control etc.) from the desktop to console. They had produced a legit console, sure, but they were still treating it like a computer in allowing people to sort through software of varying quality and compatibility.
-
Was confirmed the other day on IRC and the forum
Experience tells me that such confirmations are pretty worthless.
Lets see the one that is made by a team you have a predisposed hatred for?
I have zero hate here, what you are seeing is disappointment and eye-rolling over a project that initially was cool, but then turned out to be something else.
And no, i don't use the Vampire systems much. Most of the software I want to use on them does not run on them, and the software that does run, runs just as well and even better elsewhere. My most used system is hands down the MiST, which is a fraction as fast as the Vampire, but can pretty much run the same software, and with AGA it can even run a lot of software that the Vampire systems cannot run currently. Maybe with Gold core 2.7 and 3 they will see more usage, but I kinda doubt it.
Okay sure, but it doesn't boost my classic hardware.
So? You said "NG is too expensive", neither MorphOS nor OS4 boost your classic hardware either.
I suggest you buy Vampire card, now, at once, while you can. Wait for V4? There are no guarantees that there will be a V4.
-
Experience tells me that such confirmations are pretty worthless.
Well that and there are a ton of videos out there from Devs testing that core.
I have zero hate here, what you are seeing is disappointment and eye-rolling over a project that initially was cool, but then turned out to be something else.
Serious?, you're relentless on multiple forums.
And no, i don't use the Vampire systems much. Most of the software I want to use on them does not run on them, and the software that does run, runs just as well and even better elsewhere. My most used system is hands down the MiST, which is a fraction as fast as the Vampire, but can pretty much run the same software, and with AGA it can even run a lot of software that the Vampire systems cannot run currently. Maybe with Gold core 2.7 and 3 they will see more usage, but I kinda doubt it.
MiST is only realy good if you only just want to do WHDLoad or classic things. My MiST has literally been a Paper Weight even before getting my Vampire(s).
So? You said "NG is too expensive", neither MorphOS nor OS4 boost your classic hardware either.
Never said they did, still they're expensive.
I suggest you buy Vampire card, now, at once, while you can. Wait for V4? There are no guarantees that there will be a V4.
Already have two of them, looking forward the V4, but don't really have an interest in the stand-alone version as I'm a fan of using the classic hardware.
-
Well, as has been said many times already;
The Core is *Work in progress*, and what doesnt work now, might work down the road.
Britelites approach to his critizism/comments about the Core is much more useful than most;
It highlights in a calm and objective way what he personally find lacking/problematic, without feeling the need to attibute a malignant effect to it.
Lacking documentation? Sure, but considering its work in progress, AND there are limited number of developers available to check all the boxes in the process.
Develop the core or write long documentations/guides? Finding time to it all at the same time is just not possible.
Ive been a workerdrone in a company for years, and I was somewhat annoyed when managers didnt bother to produce decent documentation for the processes we had internally. Now Im one of the managers myself, and have to execute my work in addition to keep up with the paperwork/documentation, and I understand how hard it is to actually find time do it all. And Ive noticed that I focus on executing work instead of getting all the documentation fully complete.
-
I wonder what people would say if a company had launched the 68080 SoC as an ASIC without any prior public discussion (with all the same features as planned for the core of the Vampire 4 standalone except the Amiga AGA backwards compatibility, ~80MHz, AMMX, FPU, 24 bit graphics, 16 bit audio, new registers etc for around $100). Would everybody be clamouring for somebody to start building Amiga compatibles using the chip or would there be people complaining that it's not identical to an existing 680x0 processor?
Is this again becoming one of these "what-if" stories that makes your head hurt? A serious chip supply company runs a market analysis before launching a product. Motorola did, and the result was PPC and Coldfire. A serious computer hardware vendor makes a market analysis and picks the chip that fits best to their requirements, after having made a market analysis what the customer wants. CBM did not, and went bankrupt.
Any further questions like this?
-
Is this again becoming one of these "what-if" stories that makes your head hurt? A serious chip supply company runs a market analysis before launching a product. Motorola did, and the result was PPC and Coldfire. A serious computer hardware vendor makes a market analysis and picks the chip that fits best to their requirements, after having made a market analysis what the customer wants. CBM did not, and went bankrupt.
Any further questions like this?
Not how I remember that at all. Maybe my tinfoil hat was too tight back then, but I recall PPC being joint design of Apple and Motorola with Apple effectively locking everyone else out of using it on the desktop. With the ColdFire cutting a lot out of the 68k line, and making it a less than ideal replacement, Apple essentially dealt death blows to the Amiga, The ST and Sharp's X68000 simultaneously. Not that Atari or Sharp would necessarily have produced a machine based on a future 680x0 but it was the nail in the coffin for both platforms nonetheless. I'm sure Apple realized that their platform had been driving that architecture forward significantly, so why should the Amiga always benefit equally from its evolution?
-
PPC being joint design of Apple and Motorola with Apple effectively locking everyone else out of using it on the desktop.
It was AIM (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIM_alliance) - Apple, IBM and Motorola. Apple at the time was willing to license out their OS for other PPC systems than their own. There was PREP (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PowerPC_Reference_Platform), there was CHRP (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Hardware_Reference_Platform). There were several operating systems targeting the PowerPC, not just IBM's AIX and Apple's MacOS. IBM also had OS/2. Even Microsoft was developing WindowsNT for PowerPC, and there was plans for a PowerPC 615 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PowerPC_600#PowerPC_615) with integrated x86 execution to help Microsoft on the way. What pulled the feet under PowerPC on the desktop was Apple pulling their license program, while IBM had already given up on OS/2. Microsoft was more than happy to just stay on x86.
With the ColdFire cutting a lot out of the 68k line, and making it a less than ideal replacement, Apple essentially dealt death blows to the Amiga, The ST and Sharp's X68000 simultaneously.
That is such nonsense - what killed the Amiga, besides Commodore screwing up - was the INTERNET. Networking the Amiga was cumbersome at best, all the software was geared towards BBS and dial-up use. Ethernet solutions were rare and expensive, the TCP stacks (AS-225/Inet-225 and AmiTCP) were not exactly top notch, bug ridden and limited. Not to mention incompatible with each other, and incompatible with Envoy - the networking stack for SOHO Amiga LAN networks. There was zero protection. This was before smart firewalls, even NAT was not common. MuFS was created in sort of desperation. AMIX was there, GNU was there, BSD and Linux came along. A whole lot of Amiga developers moved to BSD and Linux and did well developing on those platforms, most even did it on 68k hardware to begin with - and still do! Porting all this new *ix software to Amiga was sometimes trivial, but most often hard. Fred Fish tried hard. IXemul was born, GeekGadgets, ADE. There was AmiNIX, a BSD kernel running on top of AmigaOS.
But it all boiled down to one single thing - AmigaOS was doomed due to its design, due to one single shared memory space, due to lack of _any_ kind of security. It was obvious that if you put your computer online, you _need_ protection, and Amiga just didn't have that, and hence developers did not see any future in it. Security through obscurity is no good business model.
-
Well that and there are a ton of videos out there from Devs testing that core.
Testing seems to be limited to running demos?
Serious?, you're relentless on multiple forums.
So are many others, don't confuse enthusiasm with hate.
MiST is only realy good if you only just want to do WHDLoad or classic things. My MiST has literally been a Paper Weight even before getting my Vampire(s).
Right "or classic things" - I am in it for the "classic things". When I use Vampire systems, it's like using a broken UAE setup, there is speed, but software often crash in obscure ways and behave weirdly. And the speed is not really _that_ great either. On the MiST, with a few exceptions, things work consistently, and as expected.
Never said they did, still they're expensive.
But AROS isn't, and AROS is also "NG".
Already have two of them, looking forward the V4, but don't really have an interest in the stand-alone version as I'm a fan of using the classic hardware.
When you have a V4 inside the Amiga, with Gold Core 3, your "classic hardware" is reduced to a glorified keyboard, mouse and joystick extension of the V4.
-
When I use Vampire systems, it's like using a broken UAE setup, there is speed, but software often crash in obscure ways and behave weirdly. And the speed is not really _that_ great either. On the MiST, with a few exceptions, things work consistently, and as expected.
Sounds like you have contact or power supply problems.
-
I doubt it, since it is not related to one system or one power supply.
-
Testing seems to be limited to running demos?
No there are also games and other things like Lightwave and such.
So are many others, don't confuse enthusiasm with hate.
Yeah but others are not purposely pushing false or skewed information to prove their points.
Right "or classic things" - I am in it for the "classic things". When I use Vampire systems, it's like using a broken UAE setup, there is speed, but software often crash in obscure ways and behave weirdly. And the speed is not really _that_ great either. On the MiST, with a few exceptions, things work consistently, and as expected.
It seems to run fine for me. I have it running for days for IRC.
When you have a V4 inside the Amiga, with Gold Core 3, your "classic hardware" is reduced to a glorified keyboard, mouse and joystick extension of the V4.
Not quite correct, all the normal original chipsets are still there and can be used when needed.
-
When you have a V4 inside the Amiga, with Gold Core 3, your "classic hardware" is reduced to a glorified keyboard, mouse and joystick extension of the V4.
And your point is? Look, I've here an A2000 with a 2060 in it, and Matze's Graphics card. Guess what. The native hardware is not really used anymore, except the keyboard, and Paula for sound (sometimes). I do not really have a problem with that at all, the machine does exactly what I want it to do.
Amiga is for me much more a software defined term.
-
but I recall PPC being joint design of Apple and Motorola with Apple effectively locking everyone else out of using it on the desktop.
PPC was originally IBM going to Apple and saying they could produce a chip, Apple wanted a second source and they didn't want to mess up their relationship with Motorola so they got IBM to bring Motorola in.
So you can't really blame Motorola for ditching 680x0 on the desktop and switching to PowerPC, they had a gun to their head.
They had produced a legit console, sure, but they were still treating it like a computer in allowing people to sort through software of varying quality and compatibility.
They were in dire need of content, they didn't have the time to enforce quality. Sony had a similar issue with PlayStation games with some of the early titles not meeting their strict development guidelines. Commodore had the additional problem of not having enough money to do anything if they had wanted.
A serious computer hardware vendor makes a market analysis and picks the chip that fits best to their requirements, after having made a market analysis what the customer wants. CBM did not, and went bankrupt.
commodores problems started after the A500 release when they came up with the idea of AAA instead of something a bit more like AGA. They might have then had the time to actually finish it, like adding the chunky pixel modes that they had wanted to add to AGA. If they had put in a blitter that could do simple texture mapping then they could have had a chance.
The new people would then not have been brought in to rescue development, which wasn't working effectively. They caused an even bigger mess. The CSG pollution and the xor patent were big problems too, it's a complex situation
-
That is such nonsense - what killed the Amiga, besides Commodore screwing up - was the INTERNET.
I tried to qualify my statement with "nails in the coffin". Yes, all of those platforms were doomed or struggling by that time. But the Amiga and Atari communities could have still produced accelerators based on future 68k chips and kept limping along for another decade or so. That the end of the 68k line did mean the end of the Classic Amiga I will stand by, as AmigaOS 4.x and MorphOS, were by necessity new platforms. Had the 68k continued we'd not have wasted time and money on PowerUp/WarpUp and C= wouldn't wasted resources evaluating successor chips. I have a PPC board and knew it was a stop-gap solution at the time. That an FPGA based 68k could extend the Classic Amiga well beyond 1995, possibly to 2000 or even 2005 speeds is why there's now new life in the classic platform.
I agree to an extent about the internet, but I was getting online with my 4k until at least 2000. It was things like not having the Intel Indeo codec to watch avi files that made it miserable. Otherwise I was happy with iBrowse and YAM and whatever else I was using then.
In my mind the Amiga was the best 2D computer and 3D is what killed it. CD32 was designed for competition with SegaCD and the TurboDuo, not so much the 3DO, Jaguar or Playstation. It was the debut of the original GeForce that led me to finally get an AMD box in 2000.
-
PPC was originally IBM going to Apple and saying they could produce a chip, Apple wanted a second source and they didn't want to mess up their relationship with Motorola so they got IBM to bring Motorola in.
So you can't really blame Motorola for ditching 680x0 on the desktop and switching to PowerPC, they had a gun to their head.
I'd blame Apple first for possibly wanting to handicap the Amiga and Atari by abandoning the 68k knowing it might effectively kill it. I always look back and wish the 68k platforms had been a united front as far as Motorola was concerned because I still think it would have all been different if the ColdFire line had offered a full replacement for the 68k. Motorola had the StreamMaster reference platform using the ColdFire and VMLabs' NUON chip. If AmigaOS could have just been ported to that...
But then we're just back to the flawed design of AmigaOS... I think the only way it would have moved forward without memory protection would be to run instances of the Amiga atop another OS. Each instance would run in a protected space and all could communicate as virtual Amigas... It wouldn't be emulation as they'd still be running on a real processor, but the lowest level of the OS would need be something entirely new and able to mature into the real UI over time.
-
68k was continued, it was called ColdFire, I'm sure many of us had a ColdFire card at some point. If AmigaOS was a relevant operating system with responsible owners, they could have made a transition to some other architecture. But it wasn't. Commodore engineers knew that both the hardware _and_ the operating system had little to offer for the future, hence they were working with other ideas and plans. PA-RISC, Hombre etc, and from what I have heard... Windows NT, for the next "Amiga".
Anyways... back on the topic - FleaFPGA boards are shipping!
-
I'd blame Apple first for possibly wanting to handicap the Amiga and Atari by abandoning the 68k knowing it might effectively kill it.
Here's another theory - Apple tried to stay relevant on the desktop by moving to an architecture with a more promising future than what 68k could offer.
I always look back and wish the 68k platforms had been a united front as far as Motorola was concerned because I still think it would have all been different if the ColdFire line had offered a full replacement for the 68k.
For Motorola, 68k was most and foremost a product to the telecommunication industry, to aero-space industry, to military industry, to all kinds of embedded usage - and NOT to desktop computers and workstations, which all had moved on, or were in the process of moving on, to much more modern and faster architectures.
Motorola had the StreamMaster reference platform using the ColdFire and VMLabs' NUON chip. If AmigaOS could have just been ported to that...
Hey, what if AmigaOS had been ported to several architectures, like x86, amd64, PowerPC, ARM... omg - it kinda was, wasn't it. AROS did exactly that.
But then we're just back to the flawed design of AmigaOS... I think the only way it would have moved forward without memory protection would be to run instances of the Amiga atop another OS. Each instance would run in a protected space and all could communicate as virtual Amigas... It wouldn't be emulation as they'd still be running on a real processor, but the lowest level of the OS would need be something entirely new and able to mature into the real UI over time.
You are sort of describing MorphOS with its abox.
-
And your point is? Look, I've here an A2000 with a 2060 in it, and Matze's Graphics card. Guess what. The native hardware is not really used anymore, except the keyboard, and Paula for sound (sometimes). I do not really have a problem with that at all, the machine does exactly what I want it to do.
What's not classic about an A2000 CPU card with a 060 on it?
And a graphics card made just like they used to make them, could almost mistake it for a Piccolo SD64. Classic.
Amiga is for me much more a software defined term.
Maybe you should change hardware with TrashyMG then, he is "a fan of using the classic hardware", and I am not sure if a Vampire card with Apollo Core falls under "classic hardware", and the Apollo Team is in dire need of developers like you :)
-
Here's another theory - Apple tried to stay relevant on the desktop by moving to an architecture with a more promising future than what 68k could offer.
They switched because of a wet dream over RISC, there was still life in the 68k series. The decision was made before the 68060 came out.
In my mind the Amiga was the best 2D computer and 3D is what killed it.
The Acorn Archimedes was technically better than the Amiga, but it was more expensive and didn't have the software. I agree about 3D, an off the shelf Amiga couldn't even do something like doom.
I'd blame Apple first for possibly wanting to handicap the Amiga and Atari by abandoning the 68k knowing it might effectively kill it.
I don't think Amiga or Atari were particularly troublesome for Apple. Especially by the time they decided to switch to PowerPC.
It wouldn't be emulation as they'd still be running on a real processor, but the lowest level of the OS would need be something entirely new and able to mature into the real UI over time.
You'd end up with emulation eventually. Once you add memory protection, you'd want to be able to run hardware hitting software in a way that would run but not take over the machine.
68k was continued, it was called ColdFire,
If only they'd made the chips 100% binary compatible with existing 68k software.
-
If only they'd made the chips 100% binary compatible with existing 68k software.
Agree!!!!!!!
-
What's not classic about an A2000 CPU card with a 060 on it?
And a graphics card made just like they used to make them, could almost mistake it for a Piccolo SD64. Classic.
Maybe you should change hardware with TrashyMG then, he is "a fan of using the classic hardware", and I am not sure if a Vampire card with Apollo Core falls under "classic hardware", and the Apollo Team is in dire need of developers like you :)
I still consider it as such. I have a vampired A600 and A2000, I have a pair of stock A500s outside of trapdoor memory expansions if I want authentic back in the day Amiga use. I like working on the real systems, just like playing on souped up ones as well.
-
What's not classic about an A2000 CPU card with a 060 on it?
And a graphics card made just like they used to make them, could almost mistake it for a Piccolo SD64. Classic.
Three is nothing "Amiga like" in it anymore, if you think about it. It is a graphics chip designed for PCs with an ISA to Zorro-Bus adapter, a SCSI chip designed for PC, PC memory, and the Amiga custom chps are just idle. The same software could, with a couple of modifications in the hardware abstraction (such as expansion) also run on a 68K based Mac.
Maybe you should change hardware with TrashyMG then, he is "a fan of using the classic hardware", and I am not sure if a Vampire card with Apollo Core falls under "classic hardware", and the Apollo Team is in dire need of developers like you :)
Except, and you know that, I have currently other things to do I consider more important. It will happen sooner or later, but currently, the system does not support the development tool chain I depend upon, so in that terms, it is as bad as UAE, just more expensive. It is thus right now just not useful to get my job done.
-
It is a graphics chip designed for PCs with an ISA to Zorro-Bus adapter, a SCSI chip designed for PC, PC memory, and the Amiga custom chps are just idle.
SCSI chips and memory weren't really PC specific. An ISA bridge is no different from the glue used on early zorro cards.
The graphics chip will have been designed with the PC in mind, because it was the largest install base.
The same software could, with a couple of modifications in the hardware abstraction (such as expansion) also run on a 68K based Mac.
Hence Draco. However you would cut out a lot of hardware hitting software, which even some productivity software was doing. Which even though you weren't running them, they would still run on your Amiga. So it still is an Amiga.
I can't find an amigaos on atarist hack, which is kind weird as we seemed obsessed with going the other way round.
-
a SCSI chip designed for PC
That I have never seen. PCs were about the last platform to adapt SCSI, while other "Small Computers" had been using this "Standard Interface" for years and years. On the PC, it was all about plugging something on the ISA bus, hence XT and IDE.
-
I doubt it, since it is not related to one system or one power supply.
If it is not the power supply or a loose connection of the Vampire to the Amiga mainboard, then it would seem your Vampire is faulty. On the recent cores like Gold 2 and 2.5 the Vampires are 100% stable unless, you know, the obvious: MMU and FPU software. You might want to contact your seller about the card.
-
If it is not the power supply or a loose connection of the Vampire to the Amiga mainboard, then it would seem your Vampire is faulty. On the recent cores like Gold 2 and 2.5 the Vampires are 100% stable unless, you know, the obvious: MMU and FPU software. You might want to contact your seller about the card.
Oh, and another common error is not configuring the IDE max transfer setting correctly.
-
Well I did not think my vampire was anytthing close to "stable" but then I haven't even bothered to boot it since 1 year.. but I haveheard of others having "strange issues" but going back to 020 or 030 again (their old turbocard) everything was stable again.
so it seems to be what software you actuallty use in your amiga.
(OK yes. over 1 year. much have happend so I guess it would be somewhat more stable if I upradedmine and tested again)
-
Well I did not think my vampire was anytthing close to "stable" but then I haven't even bothered to boot it since 1 year.. but I haveheard of others having "strange issues" but going back to 020 or 030 again (their old turbocard) everything was stable again.
so it seems to be what software you actuallty use in your amiga.
(OK yes. over 1 year. much have happend so I guess it would be somewhat more stable if I upradedmine and tested again)
Not much if any updates have come out over the last year, so you are not missing anything new from what I have seen. Plenty of elite beta testers showing off what everyone else cant have though.
-
Not much if any updates have come out over the last year, so you are not missing anything new from what I have seen. Plenty of elite beta testers showing off what everyone else cant have though.
Well, we went through this before and Chucky's Vampires are at some Silver core while we are at Gold 2 /2.5 now...