New ppc board by Acube/A-Eon: A1222 "Tabor"

[Iggy]

Been expecting this one.
As for being "crippled", its got better specs than a SAM460.

[Iggy]

Try to emulate the FPU in software, and you might end up with interesting results

I am not that worried. If it has the processor I suspect it has, it will vastly outperform the AMCC cpu used in the SAM460.

[Iggy]

@iggy

If it has to emulate a lot of FPU it will end up being slower than an Efika.....

If this IS powered by a P1022, then they have made a serious error as software would have to be recompiled for that processor.

[Iggy]

@apsturk

Yes, I'd like it to be noted that I think using the P1022 with its non standard fpu is a damned stupid idea.
So, we now have to modify the OS' AND recompile software just for this one model?
That is preposterous, and any of you that don't get that have missed a serious point.
Using an e500v2 cored cpu was a mistake.
Its a dead end.
The obvious evolution would be the e5500 and then the e6500.

So the T10XX would have been the logical choice.

[Iggy]

prepare for another bounty porting chrome to os4 in the coming years then.

Chrome is not open source.

[Iggy]

Any Amiga program should be using the OS provided Maths libraries anyway Jim so as long as Hyperion provide libs with the same public interfaces but internally using code specific for this weird FPU then most stuff should be OK. Theoretically anyway.

No few apps are going to bother with math libraries when the instructions can be executed directly.
While I appreciate your intent to reserve judgement, this board holds no interest for me.

[Iggy]

You could always ask what programs works and what do not under the regular ppc32 Linux with the FPU instructions emulated to get an idea .

Working include
Webrowsers Qupzilla and Midori .
Libreoffice

IF you were posting on a Linux forum, this would be valid.
So, the question then becomes, what programs will run under Amiga OS and its derivatives without re-compilation?

[Iggy]

Just booted AROS powerpc hosted under Debian 8 PPCSPE on Tabor.

You really want to push the Linux argument, but AROS is the only NG OS that can run under a Linux kernel and FPU trapping/emulation under OS4 will still incur a performance penalty (on an already relatively slow cpu).

[Iggy]

Linux is the only OS that I can speak about .
You need to forgive yourself for being so sure that the CPU would from the T series. If you need to bang your head against something find a wall not another person .

If you have a problem with me disagreeing with you, you're not going to get far with that kind of argument.
The board has a poorly chosen processor.
No one said a T10XX was essential, just better (for about the same price).

I'm not banging my head against anything except your obdurate nature.
And while I might consider the rather high priced X5000, I'm not buying this piece of crap.

[Iggy]

Let's assume that Acube/A-Eon knew about the FPU problem. If so, then what would be the reason to choose it anyway? Are there no price worthy alternatives they could have used instead? Or did they reason that the FPU isn't that important?

Reading everyones comments in various sites I'm not really sure how important FPU is. Some says it's used for a lot of OS and software related stuff, others that it's only used in some games. Which is it?

Since the deficiencies of the e500v2 core have been repeatedly discussed, I'd say everyone knew.
Apparently, they thought they could sell everyone on it anyway.

I guess they weren't counting on a knowledgeable customer base.

[Iggy]

I thought that you had already decided to get an X5000.
If that was the case then the Tabor should not bother you.
It being good,bad or indifferent should not affect your original plans.

Actually, it does in that Tabor looks like a design intentionally hobbled to prevent it from competing with the higher end products.
It presents compromises not born of economic or engineering rational, but of pure marketing BS.
So, I question whether its wise to continue to support higher end A-eon products, if marketing plays such a large role in the company's design decisions.

This isn't meant to be personal, and I wasn't the first to go there.
I'm not trying to sell anything, I'm just warn my friends about a product I believe would be best avoided.

And, btw, I'm not to keen on getting blown off by you OR Andre Siegel when I have been in this trade as long or longer than either of you.
On my worst days, tin foil hat and all, I've got more brain cells firing than most Amigans.

[Iggy]

The AmigaOS does *not* use floating point much. Amigas without an FPU do the few floating point operations in software. However, many modern applications and games use floating point heavily because floating point on modern powerful processors has become cheap with a fast FPU and/or SIMD unit (using direct FPU and SIMD instructions in the code). These applications and games will be anywhere between slow and unusable on a low end processor without any hardware floating point support.

Even the Apollo 68k FPGA core recognizes the need for hardware FPU support and compatibility. Gunnar at first only wanted to create FPGA floating point code for the most important single precision (only) IEEE math library functions as this takes the least amount of FPGA space. The C language uses double precision floating point the most and by default and programs using the 68k FPU directly would need to be trapped or patched on the fly (the same as this cheap embedded PPC CPU). I strongly recommended against this and suggested that it was better to wait until there was space for a better solution. Next, Gunnar wanted to add a SIMD unit instead of the 68k FPU (the x86_64 uses the SIMD unit for floating point). There was no room even for single precision floating point support in the SIMD unit so floating point code (and algorithms) would have to be converted to integer code (which is no small task). Single precision floating point would be added to the SIMD unit when there was room but this was no floating point support at all for now. Once again I strongly recommended against adding an SIMD unit without single precision floating point (the most important IMO). A 68060 compatible FPU with direct FPU support and at least double precision is exactly what compilers and floating point using programs need so I highly recommended this. Gunnar doesn't like FPUs and was worried this would be too slow in FPGA. I figured out how to encode twice as many FPU registers allowing for faster instruction interleaving at his request. I also had a few simple suggestions for enhancements I had learned from working with the vbcc vclib floating point math libraries. It looks like the FPU was finally chosen for compatibility on an old 68k CPU which didn't even start with an FPU. PPC is *more* likely to need and expect an FPU, especially without Altivec. I wouldn't be surprised if the Apollo core with FPU support (in an FPGA) outperforms this hard PPC processor without floating point hardware support for floating point intensive programs. This is with the Apollo core being a fraction of the speed of a hard processor and having a fraction of the floating point performance of a SIMD unit for parallel operations. What developers are going to bother with such weak and incompatible floating point performance as this PPC embedded processor?

Thanks.
If it wasn't an important issue, I would have been using the reduced cost '060 EC and LC chips that were available at the end of production.
They easily clock from 75 to 100MHz, but with out the fpu, relying on replacement math libraries, their performance is INFERIOR to slower clocked full '60s.

[Iggy]

Do you mean that they actually made a bad product (which may not even become commercially available) just to make the X5000 look better? Has anyone actually contacted A-EON so we hear their side of the story on this?

If you haven't noticed, we have been getting a hard sell on this project from people directly involved with it.

This has put me at odds with at least one MorphOS developer even though its unlikely that that OS will get ported to this board.

And the whole mess has been complicated by some personal crap that I let myself get draw into.

Frankly, I'm disgusted, disappointed with all involved (including myself), and ready to take a break.

Edit: But I DO owe Trevor this, NO compromises don't necessarily mean that the flaws are as much intentional as they are accepted. They must have thought this would be "good enough" for you all.

[Iggy]

Well to be honest I don't really know who is who, or the politics involved, I want just to be sure that if I invest my money in a Tabor (or anything else), I am not ripped off my money by a lack of important feature.

No, I wouldn't go THAT far.
It is only MY opinion that it doesn't represent a good investment of your funds.

And I've been willing to recommend the X5000, so my views can be skewed.

You are spending a boat load of money either way, but at least one choice offers you something you can take pride in owing.

[Iggy]

No official price for Tabor has been announced.
Figure quoted is not correct.


http://amigaworld.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?mode=viewtopic&topic_id=40622&forum=2&start=300&viewmode=flat&order=0#770615

'

AND, with that in mind, I've buried my hatchet (and, no, not in this guy's skull).
IF priced in line with its value...it could start a trend that leads to future affordable hardware.
So...I'm not buying one, BUT I could see a market for it.