Amiga One X 1000 and Xena/Xorro

[Dandy]

From the first day the Amiga One X 1000 equipped with XENA and Xorro had been announced, I was wondering what XENA and Xorro could be used for.

Some months ago I read someone offered a "XENA test board" with some flashing LEDs.

Was that all?
Or do new ideas exist how XENA/XORRO could be utilised?
Perhaps there even are new projects on the way concerning XENA/XORRO?

Initially there was talk about suppport of XENA/XORRO in AmigaOS 4.x - any news from that?

Don't get me wrong - I'm deeply interested in the A1X1k and XENA/XORRO - and I would now certainly have one - hadn't there arosen the need to spend the money to cure some of my health problems and to support my children.

But nevertheless I eagerly would like to learn more about XENA/XORRO that were hyped so much initially.

Given the former XENA-hype, it became suspiciously quite regarding this gimmick since the A1X1k hit the streets.

Perhaps Trevor reads this thread and can give us some inspiring insights and news on this...

[Dandy]

@Dandy

I made two suggestions a while back.

1. The first was to use it for CNC machine control for manufacturing stuff (whether that's in a factory, or someone's garage).
...

Oh yeah!!!

I'm dreaming of an Amiga controlled manufacturing cell since my education as a CAD analyst in the late 80s/early 90s.

Back then (early 90s) I had DynaCAD running on my A500 (slowly, but it worked - at school we used Medusa and Cadds4x on Sun Unix workstations). I also had a tool to convert the 3D data from DynaCAD into executable CNC programs, which I stored on a disk and run them on the CNC machines at school.

I also tried to find a tool for the Amiga back then that allowed for robotics programming (so I could exercise this stuff at home as well) - but sadly in vain.

At school we learned to use 3D CAD systems, how to make executable CNC programs from the 3D drawing data and how to send them to the "manufacturing cell". When the data arrived at the manufacturing cell, robots 'woke up' and selected a suitable roughly forged object from the storage, clamped this workpiece into the machine (milling, lathing, drilling or grinding), then the machine selected the required tool and started to manufacture the part we initially designed at the workstation. Two minutes later the completed workpiece fell off the back of the manufacturing cell...

I was fascinated by this and dreamt of having such a manufacturing environment in a smaller scale and Amiga operated for my modelling hobby at home in the garage or in the cellar.

When I read the specs of the XENA add-on of the A1X1k, I was immediately reminded of my CAD-CNC-CAM experiences and of my old desire to realise such a manufacturing cell with an Amiga. The XENA specs ("The uses are endless: control hardware, DSP functions, robotics,  display, ...") seemed to support my 'suspect', that this machine could be suited to make my old dream true.

Currently I'm dreaming of building a steam operated model steam locomotive (H0 gauge) after my retirement (in latest 9 yrs.). For manufacturing the chassis parts I thought something like these CNC machines might be suitable.

For the loco's bodywork I'd like to have 3D printer support.

But still there is the dream to do all this on an Amiga - and not on a Lintel or Wintel box.

My vision is:
- designing the model loco
- manufacturing the model loco
- and later steering the loco (involving a cam on the loco)
using the abilities of the XENA addon.

But this would - besides others - require an updated, native OS4.x version of DynaCAD and of the CNC-tool (maybe the latter can be integrated into DynaCAD).

Also it would be good to have a way on the Amiga to control robot arms like these.

Although the AmigaOne X1000 hardware with XENA seems to be suited for such tasks, a lot of things still seem to be missing. I'm not only thinking of an updated, native OS4.x version of DynaCAD and the of the CNC-tool and of robot control software, but also of the implementation and integration of XENA into the OS. Currently it just seems to be addressable via cli commands.

Here I would wish to know more details about how the OS team plans to integrate XENA in the OS and how this all is meant to work. Unfortunately there is very little information available - so it all remains an airy idea at the moment...

2. The other suggestion that I had was to use it as a "super debug port."
...

This could also be a good use of XENA - for coders...

Why haven't I done either of these? I simply don't have the time right now.

Yeah - here at my end it is similar. Either I have time, but no money, or I have the money, but no time, or I'm lacking both - time and money...
   

[Dandy]

@Dandy

...
To see more done with Xena/Xorro, we need more people/developers to ask "what could I make this do?"

Exacly my point of view.

Of course, it would also help if we had more docs, tutorials, and a full dev-kit including compiler that ran on AmigaOS.

Hans

Yeah! (drool, slobber)
We urgently need more of these things to be able to get inspired!

[Dandy]

The whole Xena/Xorro thing was marketing BS and almost useless (as history has shown) unfortunately.

Hmmm - to me the "uselessness" rather seems to be a consequence of the lack of vision and inspiration among the community, which in turn partly is a consequence of the poor support for XENA/XORRO (documentation, tutorials, devkits, ...).

[Dandy]

Just curious why would a home hobbyist use a CNC rather than a 3D printer?

Maybe I missed something - but as far as I know there currently is no way of 3D-printing steel parts or other metal parts.
CNC machines are to my knowledge mainly used for metal processing.
Don't confuse 3D-printers with the Star Trek replicators...
 

[Dandy]

...
Marketing a feature that has no real value on a high end machine (well is that what the X1000 was/is supposed to be) does not make sense.

No amount of promotion or rubbishing of the Xena/Xorro interface is going to change the lack of support.

I started this thread to get more insight in the capabilities of the XENA/XORRO thingie and possibly to develop some neat ideas on how to take advantage of it.

This requires some sort of inspiration and vision, aside from knowledge.

Those lacking the required inspiration and vision are expressively NOT invited to take part in this discussion, not to mention those that combine their lack of vision and inspiration with the need to polish their ill egos by trying to bring things others are interested in into discredit.

I would really appreciate if such charcters would refrain from participating in this discussion.
No-one forces them to buy an A1-X1k and to use XENA/XORRO.
If they don't like it - fine. They just have to stay away...

In this case this thread isn't for them - they're better off with classic Amiga stuff or WIntel stuff.

The best Trevor and co can do is to quietly remove the feature from  their advertising and move forward in selling the X1000 on it's strengths not weaknesses.

And the best you and similarily unimaginative minds can do is to stay away from this thread instead of spamming it with repeated trolling attempts.

[Dandy]

Is there a decent touch interface for OS4?

What for?
I have no use for it...I hate fingerprint smears all over my display...I definitely prefer a desk with monitor, keyboard and mouse on it over such un-ergonomic smearing devices...

Furthermore there is no AmigaOS version that runs on such smearing devices - so what would such a touch interface be good for? To connect it to the A1-X1k's XORRO interface to be able to smear around on the monitor, although keyboard and mouse are already there?

[Dandy]

Curently, people seem to be having a hard time finding uses for the XENA that require the chip to be inside the Amiga(one) case,

I see it more as exploring the possibilities...

...
It may be that classic Amigas need XENA more than the Amigaone does.

Hmmm - I can see your point - but wouldn't this require to implement this set of OS4.x-XENA-instructions/commands ('JTAG programmer' or how it is called) in OS 3.x as well?
And would the classic hardware be powerful enough to operate the JTAG programmer?

[Dandy]

classic Amigas need XENA? :confused:

XENA without official support by XMOS including the development tools is useless, on whatever form

My hope is to gather as much XENA-information as possible with this thread.
Who knows - perhaps it will evolve into some sort of "XENA/XORRO support"-thread one day.

If there is no central point where we get get information from, then let's create one here!
Let's collect any info we can get about XENA/XORRO here!

As AEon recently acquired AOrg, I thought this might be the right place to get answers from those who have the most experience with it/knowledge about it.

A better support for Amiga-XMOS (XENA) - including the dev tools - is definitely desirable.

Perhaps this thread can help to increase the support or at least to serve as a central knowledge reference regarding XENA.

From my point of view it can only help sparking the interest, if more and more information about XENA, XORRO and the JTAG programmer becomes available.

[Dandy]

Peace please, now you are starting to bash others... expecially with using phrases like "characters" this could be seen as insulting

I'm just trying to get rid of those in this discussion who are permanently bashing the implementation of XENA/XORRO and the people behind this idea.

Not sure what should be insulting with the use of the word 'characters'...

and commenting "they're better off with classic Amiga stuff".

If someone isn't interested in the NG stuff, but is permanently around in NG threads and gets on the bad side of NG interested people by bashing them for their interest, then he really would be better off if he cared more for the classic stuff, wouldn't you agree?

New FPGAs are used all over the industry

I don't mind...

so this "we are the best, the modern, the NG owners" and there are the "retros 68k old fashioned gaming people" is not true
...

I never claimed that - after all I'm a classic user myself (Amiga4000 PPC w. OS 3.9 & WarpOS 16.1 /experimental OS 4.0 classic installation).

[Dandy]

...
I have read first time about JTAG. If I understand it right it is only to test everything.

According to Lyle Haze it is a command line interface to program the XENA chips:

...
Just before AmiWest 2012 I was able to complete the JTAG programmer that lets us program the Xena chip from the command line. This is not "sexy" stuff, but it's necessary before much else happens.
...

[Dandy]

@Dandy

This is "classic" Amiga forum so most users here see it from "classic" view of point.

Hmmm - here at my end it tells me:
» Amiga.org » Amiga computer related discussion » Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion » Amiga One X 1000 and Xena/Xorro

No mention of "classic" - sorry to disappoint you...

[Dandy]

The whole Xena/Xorro thing was marketing BS and almost useless (as history has shown) unfortunately.

It was just today that I found a link at amiga-news.de to "The Almost forgotten Story of the Amiga 2000" at http://amigalounge.com/b270.html.

This article tells the story of a 3rd party add-on for the Amiga 2000 that helped to make the A2k  a big success:

"Changing The World

Ironically, this workstation would go on to change the world, but most people would never know it, for the game changer was not built by Commodore, but a "add on" piece of hardware from a little known (at the time) Topeka, Kansas based company called Newtek.
 
..."

My hope is that XENA/XORRO might also one day become one of the most important "ambassadors" for the AmigaOne X1000 in conjunction with a 3rd party "killer" add-on for the A1 X1k, like the "VideoToaster" did for the A2k.

Based on the knowledge that is availabe on the web to me so far, I see a lot of potential in XENA/XORRO.

Hopefully there will come up more of these valuable remarks from insiders like those by Hans and Lyle.
A big "thank you" to them for their contributions so far!
I'm sure the more information on the A1 X1k's XENA/XORRO becomes available, the easier people can get inspired to come up with good ideas for a possible usage of XENA/XORRO.

But I am also interested in hearing(reading) more about the integration of XENA/XORRO into the AmigaOS:
- How should a good GUI for the implementation look like?
- What functionality should such an implemention come up with?
- What can/has to be done to get a decent, OS 4 native dev kit for the A1 X1k's XENA/XORRO from XMOS?

Be it a sort of "AmigaNG Boing Ball Demo", where a real red-white chequered table tennis ball is played in a Plexiglas box by an table-robot operated table tennis racket controlled by an Amiga1 X1k via XORRO involving a camera system (like in driving assistance systems), or be it a CNC controller, a controlling system for real steam model railways, a debug logging system or what-do-I-know.

I think with such a "AmigaNG Boing Ball Demo" A-Eon could very well demonstrate the capabilities of this XENA/XORRO thingie and also inspire the visionairs within the community and even attract "outsiders", while at the same time advancing the tradition of the Amiga's famous Boing ball demo.

So lets be patient and see if/when a "third party" comes up with THE "killer" add-on for the A1 X1k - or better lets use our own ingenuity to come up with good ideas for the use of XENA/XORRO ourselves.

Perhaps NASA can utilise it - their area of operation should be the ultimate environment for a system like the A1 X1k - given that already the classic Amiga line turned out to be ideally suited for processing the telemetry data of space missions:
https://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=39211744315

But just calling the "whole Xena/Xorro thing marketing BS and almost useless" is not really what I'd call "using our own ingenuity to come up with good ideas for the use of XENA/XORRO" - sorry, but I'd rather call that "lack of phantasy and vision"...