FPGA Amiga

[kolla]

I doubt it, since it is not related to one system or one power supply.

[TrashyMG]

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.

[guest11527]

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.

[psxphill]

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

[moogaloonie]

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.

[moogaloonie]

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.

[kolla]

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!

[kolla]

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.

[kolla]

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

[psxphill]

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.

[Wolfe]

If only they'd made the chips 100% binary compatible with existing 68k software.

Agree!!!!!!!

[TrashyMG]

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.

[guest11527]

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.

[psxphill]

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.

[kolla]

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.

[grond]

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.