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The "Not Quite Amiga but still computer related category" => Alternative Operating Systems => Topic started by: Helgis75 on February 13, 2003, 05:22:38 PM

Title: Great to see Motorola's back on track again!!!
Post by: Helgis75 on February 13, 2003, 05:22:38 PM
I really have to say i am very happy and very proud to see Motorola is back on track to further develop and improve the PowerPC RISC-technology by pushing the G4 forward (like IBM is doing with the G3), slowly moving toward the G5! Something that should be great news for the future of the AmigaOne!

I always remembered Motorola working closely with the Amiga from the start, especially when the Amiga was using the 68k CPU-family. Now that we have Mai Logic, they also have very close relationship with both IBM and Motorola, which can only be great news! Can't wait to get my hand on that A1G4XE!!! :-)
Title: Re: Great to see Motorola's back on track again!!!
Post by: Tigger on February 13, 2003, 05:47:40 PM
Quote

Helgis75 wrote:
I really have to say i am very happy and very proud to see Motorola is back on track to further develop and improve the PowerPC RISC-technology by pushing the G4 forward (like IBM is doing with the G3), slowly moving toward the G5! Something that should be great news for the future of the AmigaOne!


?????
   -Tig
Title: Re: Great to see Motorola's back on track again!!!
Post by: Helgis75 on February 13, 2003, 06:00:42 PM
Motorola has been developing the new 7457 G4 CPU at 1.3Ghz with 0.13 micrometer, SOI, 512KB on-die L2 Cache 2MB supported L3 Cache and improved Altivec-features:-)
Title: Re: Great to see Motorola's back on track again!!!
Post by: ikir on February 13, 2003, 06:27:03 PM
I want a PPC G5 from Motorola
Title: Re: Great to see Motorola's back on track again!!!
Post by: Helgis75 on February 13, 2003, 07:17:19 PM
That will happen soon enough
Quote


ikir wrote:
I want a PPC G5 from Motorola
Title: Re: Great to see Motorola's back on track again!!!
Post by: odin on February 13, 2003, 07:20:52 PM
"When it's done"  :flame:

Motorola has a huuuuuuuuge gap to cover to have viable desktop CPUs again....
Title: Re: Great to see Motorola's back on track again!!!
Post by: Helgis75 on February 13, 2003, 07:26:31 PM
I think it's great for Motorola to keep improving the G4 even further in order to keep up the competition :-)

Great works!
Title: Re: Great to see Motorola's back on track again!!!
Post by: BlackMonk on February 13, 2003, 08:03:32 PM
Ok, I don't want to rain on your parade, but do you have anything to back up Motorola's work on a mythical G5?

From all accounts the G5 project for desktop computing was cancelled due to disagreements between Motorola and Apple in regards to what CPU interface to use.  Apparently Motorola wanted to push RapidIO and Apple wanted them to use some "Apple Interface Bus" which is what the PPC970 is apparently using--apparently that part of the PPC970 was co-designed with Apple?  The information is REALLY sketchy about this stuff.

There is a "G5" for embedded applications but it's a low-MHz and low-power DSP/CPU.  I'm not sure if it has a 64-bit ISA, either.

It seems that Apple and desktop CPUs in general are a very small part of Motorola's income and thus are not very important.  The newer G4's I think you're talking about are due to be available in something like 4 to 6 months, from what I've read.

In that time the G4 will be even farther behind and the PPC970 will have been released.  I guess that's good news for AmigaOneXE users as they'll be able to upgrade to some nice CPUs, but overall this does not point to Motorola investing heavily on desktop CPU development nor does it show any commitment to developing and deliving a desktop G5.

Believe me, I'd love to see a G5 released soon.  Or ever.  But at this point all indications seem to say that the project's been cancelled--and cancelled for a while.
Title: Re: Great to see Motorola's back on track again!!!
Post by: Helgis75 on February 13, 2003, 09:13:37 PM
I understand your point, BlackMonk, but i think even the improvement of G4 is also very important. Yes, IBM will be the first with a true 64-bit PowerPC, and this is what we need, but it will have to be when AmigaOS 5 arrives that we will be able to use a 64-bit PowerPC CPU...
Title: Re: Great to see Motorola's back on track again!!!
Post by: mikeymike on February 13, 2003, 10:24:51 PM
What does "back on track" mean?  If you mean with x86 competition then you're way off.  Motorola would need to do some serious catching up, I reckon it would take 2 years for them to catch up to Intel's latest at that point if they did some 'serious catching up'*.

Helgis75, to put it politely, I think you have a tendency to 'jump at butterflies'... every rumour a fact or close to it... don't suppose you could take a couple of reality pills could you? :-)

* - no, I don't take MHz as "the indicator of overall speed", before anyone accuses me of that :-)
Title: Re: Great to see Motorola's back on track again!!!
Post by: MiniBobF on February 13, 2003, 10:37:01 PM
7455 and 7457 are "G4" CPU's

What you associtate with "G5" processors are not a continuation of the PPC range.... they're a new architecture called eBook.... the first of the "G5's" will be the e500, it is NOT code compatible with the current PPC CPU's.

That's the dissemination. Mull over it how you will.

Neil Thomas, AKA MiniBobF
Title: Re: Great to see Motorola's back on track again!!!
Post by: KennyR on February 13, 2003, 10:45:30 PM
Quote
Motorola has a huuuuuuuuge gap to cover to have viable desktop CPUs again....


Even if they did, 95% of software wouldn't run on it. Even if they did, it wouldn't be as cheap as x86. Even if they did, they don't have software monopolists Microsoft as an ally. In short, PPC will never be a viable desktop chip again, even if it kicks x86 ass.

I'd actually prefer if Motorolla perfected their production lines to make vast numbers of PPC chips very cheaply, rather than one really fast one that costs a fortune. Oh the fun we could have with multiple CPUs and SMP...that would really show up the weak points in the Wintel "one fast CPU and a cooler the size of a horse" strategy.
Title: Re: Great to see Motorola's back on track again!!!
Post by: machinehead on February 13, 2003, 11:01:24 PM
The speed of processors has outstripped software. This is the bottleneck in the world of games and porn.
To say the average user needs a 3 gig processor to do this mundane stuff is ludicrous!
This is not the argument of days of old when 512k was "enough" memory. This is different.
Gamers are driving the market for faster stuff. It's now the speed of the graphics board that makes the difference.
Tell me something, anything, you can't do with a 2 gig processor. Anything at all, feel free. Go ahead, correct me for being wrong.
Title: Re: Great to see Motorola's back on track again!!!
Post by: clark on February 14, 2003, 02:05:23 AM
Beat the world chess champion. :-D  :-D
Title: Re: Great to see Motorola's back on track again!!!
Post by: odin on February 14, 2003, 03:21:58 AM
BUT......you can't lose either :-P.
Title: Re: Great to see Motorola's back on track again!!!
Post by: jeffimix on March 16, 2003, 04:58:10 AM
Wait, woah, I thought Deep Blue was slower than that, being so old. But hey, my Palm Pilot can beat me at chess.
Title: Re: Great to see Motorola's back on track again!!!
Post by: carls on March 16, 2003, 06:01:28 AM
@machinehead
Uhmm... Real-time video effects generation while playing UT2003? :-)
Title: Re: Great to see Motorola's back on track again!!!
Post by: Quixote on March 16, 2003, 06:30:04 AM
machinehead mentioned:
Quote
Tell me something, anything, you can't do with a 2 gig processor. Anything at all, feel free. Go ahead, correct me for being rong.
;-) Some applications will happily use all of the processing power that you can throw at it.  Ray tracing, for example.  But the point is taken: for MOST applications, such as e-mail and word processing, even the hardware found in the charity thrift stores really is good enough.  I've just today noticed PCs in my local Goodwill that are more powerful than the PC I'm using to post this message.  

:roll: This PC, by the way, was found in a dumpster.  No kidding.
Title: Re: Great to see Motorola's back on track again!!!
Post by: on March 16, 2003, 10:12:42 AM
Quote
think it's great for Motorola to keep improving the G4 even further in order to keep up the competition  


right now  

G4 dosent compete with anything... it's pathetic(for serious work)... PPC970 from IBM is PPC's future on the desktop/workstation or low-end server machines.


The major problem is that G4's have a very slow obselete SDR bus that thto 167mhz... the chip is starved... PPC 970 will apperantly have a 900mhz bus? that I wanna see!.

the current G3's/G4's are fine for AmigaOne/Pegasos but their not fine for doing some more intense work like playing games like UT2003/Doom3, useing apps like Lightwave,Maya,etc ...

PPC970 should bring them up to par... (I hope?) ...
Title: Re: Great to see Motorola's back on track again!!!
Post by: poweramiga2002 on March 16, 2003, 10:24:01 AM
typical morph answer no thought no brains
Title: Re: Great to see Motorola's back on track again!!!
Post by: on March 16, 2003, 10:34:14 AM
why dont you prove what I say is wrong instead of blatently trolling me without backing up any of your comments?... otherwise if you cant... why make them?

Title: Re: Great to see Motorola's back on track again!!!
Post by: strobe on March 16, 2003, 10:11:21 PM
Motorola back on track? Don't make me laugh!

Mac users have been keeping track of the record for a lot longer, and the G5 has been nothing but smoke, mirrors, and hopeless optimism about a hopeless company. Motorola is one of those companies which inspires Dilbert comic strips (quite literally).

Survey forums.appleinsider.com for a record of the damage. Please, don't waste your time rooting for this loser company.
Title: Re: Great to see Motorola's back on track again!!!
Post by: Hammer on March 17, 2003, 12:16:05 AM
Quote
The speed of processors has outstripped software.

Faster CPU would benefit software driven DVD content creation related applications....
Title: Re: Great to see Motorola's back on track again!!!
Post by: poweramiga2002 on March 17, 2003, 12:18:36 AM
STROBE
as your avtar keep the paper bag over your head as you seem to belong there i for one suport motorolla ang they have my money and when the g5 does come out youll eat your words :-)  :-)  :-)  :-)  :-)  :-)  :-)  :-)  :-)  :-)
better still go buy a pc then youll be a total looser
Title: Re: Great to see Motorola's back on track again!!!
Post by: Damion on March 17, 2003, 12:35:39 AM
Well 'poweramiga202" what mips_proc and
strobe are posting is fact...so far you haven't
proven anybody wrong...

The future is with IBM's '970...not motorola's
crappy G5...
Title: Re: Great to see Motorola's back on track again!!!
Post by: Waccoon on March 17, 2003, 02:56:52 AM
Quote
The speed of processors has outstripped software. This is the bottleneck in the world of games and porn. To say the average user needs a 3 gig processor to do this mundane stuff is ludicrous! This is not the argument of days of old when 512k was "enough" memory. This is different. Gamers are driving the market for faster stuff. It's now the speed of the graphics board that makes the difference. Tell me something, anything, you can't do with a 2 gig processor. Anything at all, feel free. Go ahead, correct me for being wrong.

Who cares?

All I know is, to use any CPU, you have to design a chipset specificly for that CPU.  Specific chipsets mean specific motherboards.  Special motherboards mean limited production.  Limited production means high prices and low quality.

I don't care if 2Ghz is "enough" to do anything.  All I care about is that a comparable chip from a market-leading manufacturer is going to do the same, or better, for less money.  When Motorolla (or whatever), makes a new chip that can justify the price, then I'll buy it.

I'm not paying $1000 freakin' dollars for a PPC machine that offers "enough", when I can get "enough" from a PC costing $300.

It's not about speed.  It's about value.  Motorolla lost the war on CPUs a long time ago, and now all they do well is embedded computers.  Embedded computers are not "enough" for desktop computers, and if you try to do that, they cost a freakin' fortune.
Title: Re: Great to see Motorola's back on track again!!!
Post by: teo on March 17, 2003, 03:27:51 AM
of interest to some, this was posted on our local ug list this morning, from www.macosrumors.com

Quote
Much speculation has emerged about the IBM PowerPC 9800 processor, a high-end design that the company is developing from the POWER5 family (the PPC 970 "G5" is a POWER4 derivative) which will include four processor cores, Altivec, and many other dramatic improvements. Although it is closer to the high-end server/workstation space than the 970, it too already appears to be targeted in such a way that it could become the high-end G6 Mac processor at a time (late 2004/early 2005) when the G5 will be becoming mainstream and the G4 will be relegated only to portable products.


@poweramiga2002, were you refering to mips_proc's comment? just because his logo is a blue butterfly doesnt mean his trolling, the same way just because mine is red checkered balls doesnt mean im trolling... I havent read thru his past comments, but i dont see any blue flames in his post here?

That reminds me, dont forget to check out the amiga.org images section for the logo wars, coming soon to a screen near you...

The pro aos supporters (eg me) and pro mos supporters (eg mips_proc) that are dedicated and focused but still objective and realistic should be applauded, not abused?

@Waccoon, just for my interest, would you be happy moving to x86, as i would?
Title: Re: Great to see Motorola's back on track again!!!
Post by: strobe on March 17, 2003, 03:53:32 AM
macosrumors.com is the retarded drool-cup boy of the mac rumor sites. For several YEARS now they haven't had a SINGLE scoop that panned out. In other words they have been making crap up for YEARS. The only information they didn't make up was stolen from other sites, INCLUDING THIS ONE!

forums.appleinsider.com for crissakes. We've been monitoring these rumor mills for a long time now. Don't be fooled by click-whores.
Title: Re: Great to see Motorola's back on track again!!!
Post by: Damion on March 17, 2003, 05:32:12 AM
Hmmm...I thought that Motorola's mythical "G5"
was quite a bit different than the '970...
is it even correct to refer to the '970 as
a "G5"? I didn't think it was.


Title: Re: Great to see Motorola's back on track again!!!
Post by: strobe on March 17, 2003, 06:20:47 AM
The whole 'G' business isn't Motorola's or IBM's idea anyway. The G4 is really a G3. The core didn't change like it did from G1 to G2 to G3.

The fabled G5 is even more vaporous than AOS4 (if that's possible). Supposedly Apple was depending on Motorola to not drop the ball again, but really they haven't even picked up the last ball they dropped. I don't believe the G5 ever existed beyond the dry marker phase, if that. You can mark it at AOS5 level on the vapor scale.

See forums.appleinsider.com to cut through the crap.
Title: Re: Great to see Motorola's back on track again!!!
Post by: Damion on March 17, 2003, 07:03:45 AM
Interesting site strobe...it's good to hear some
credible information about the 970.

Title: Re: Great to see Motorola's back on track again!!!
Post by: on March 17, 2003, 12:29:38 PM

The whole 'G' business isn't Motorola's or IBM's idea anyway. The G4 is really a G3. The core didn't change like it did from G1 to G2 to G3.

----

Wrong, the G3 is based on the 603 which was aimed at low power/value market, while the G4 is based on the 604 and 601, but gaining the 603's power management. Apart from the altivec unti, the main difference between a G3 and a G4 is the FP Unit. The G3 has only a single precision FPU, but emulate double precision, while the G4 has the better FPU from the 601/604.