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Operating System Specific Discussions => AROS Research Operating System => Topic started by: zylesea on October 17, 2015, 09:40:11 PM

Title: Alternatives to Tabor (from New ppc board by Acube/A-Eon: A1222 "Tabor")
Post by: zylesea on October 17, 2015, 09:40:11 PM
Quote from: Everblue;797564
Well X5000 is way too funky pricewise for me. So that basically means either a Sam460CR (assuming these are still in production) or wait for a Tabor board hoping that considering the price "it won't be THAT bad".

Alternatively, MorphOS on an x86 board, but thats probably years away.


Why not AROS or MorphOS on some cheap hardware?
Title: Re: New ppc board by Acube/A-Eon: A1222 "Tabor"
Post by: Everblue on October 17, 2015, 10:10:08 PM
Quote from: zylesea;797567
Why not AROS or MorphOS on some cheap hardware?


1. I don't like AROS
2. Not comfortable buying big old MACs that weigh a ton and have them shipped from halfway Europe (these are impossible to find in my country) and I want something better than a Mac mini...
Title: Re: New ppc board by Acube/A-Eon: A1222 "Tabor"
Post by: Yasu on October 17, 2015, 10:30:55 PM
Quote from: Everblue;797569
1. I don't like AROS
2. Not comfortable buying big old MACs that weigh a ton and have them shipped from halfway Europe (these are impossible to find in my country) and I want something better than a Mac mini...


A Mac Mini is really not bad. Thanks to Altivec it's pretty much as fast or faster than the X5000 (at least the 1.5 GHz model). A G5 is of course much faster, but it got so much wasted potential (no 64 bit, no SMP) and the hardware is not as reliable.

My Mac Mini is my favourite PPC mac to date :)
Title: Re: New ppc board by Acube/A-Eon: A1222 "Tabor"
Post by: Iggy on October 17, 2015, 11:03:49 PM
Quote from: Everblue;797569
1. I don't like AROS
2. Not comfortable buying big old MACs that weigh a ton and have them shipped from halfway Europe (these are impossible to find in my country) and I want something better than a Mac mini...


Well, obviously a Mac Mini is not going to be as fast as an X5000.
And the systems that would be, like the PowerMac G5 do weigh a LOT.

A Mac Mini's processor would be more powerful than the one in Tabor, but the graphics are not upgradable and they have only 32 or 64mb of video ram.

A toss up except for price in which the Mini would probably win.

However, the Mini can only run MorphOS, not OS4.

If OS4 is coming to PowerBooks, I CAN recommend those as they run MorphOS extremely well.

But running MorphOS on Tabor?
Why? My iBook would beat the processor benchmarks for that and it cost me less than $100.

If you want to run MorphOS, the 1.42 iBook is a dirt cheap way to start.
Title: Alternatives to Tabor (from New ppc board by Acube/A-Eon: A1222 "Tabor")
Post by: Everblue on October 17, 2015, 11:15:00 PM
Quote from: Yasu;797571
A Mac Mini is really not bad. Thanks to Altivec it's pretty much as fast or faster than the X5000 (at least the 1.5 GHz model). A G5 is of course much faster, but it got so much wasted potential (no 64 bit, no SMP) and the hardware is not as reliable.

My Mac Mini is my favourite PPC mac to date :)


My biggest issue with Mac Mini is VRAM. If you are lucky and find a silent upgrade version you get only 64megs. I have pondered getting a G5.... but as I said, shipping is expensive, and I doubt it will arrive in one piece.
Title: Re: New ppc board by Acube/A-Eon: A1222 "Tabor"
Post by: Everblue on October 17, 2015, 11:17:51 PM
Quote from: Iggy;797572
Well, obviously a Mac Mini is not going to be as fast as an X5000.
And the systems that would be, like the PowerMac G5 do weigh a LOT.


Indeed.

Quote

A Mac Mini's processor would be more powerful than the one in Tabor, but the graphics are not upgradable and they have only 32 or 64mb of video ram.


Yep, 32 or 64mb of vram is not great.

Quote

If OS4 is coming to PowerBooks, I CAN recommend those as they run MorphOS extremely well.

But running MorphOS on Tabor?
Why? My iBook would beat the processor benchmarks for that and it cost me less than $100.

If you want to run MorphOS, the 1.42 iBook is a dirt cheap way to start.


I already own an iBook and I played around a bit on it to test Morphos (even though I am not a fan of laptops). Also, this machine is not in a great condition so I didn't bother to register it.
Title: Re: New ppc board by Acube/A-Eon: A1222 "Tabor"
Post by: Iggy on October 17, 2015, 11:28:01 PM
Quote from: Everblue;797573
... I have pondered getting a G5.... but as I said, shipping is expensive, and I doubt it will arrive in one piece.


I have had very bad luck getting G5s shipped without damage to the handles/legs that are at the top and bottom.
But other than that, they handle shipment pretty well.

I currently have two, one an AGP model and the other a PCI-e model (in case support  is introduced for the later).

The AGP model can use one of the fastest video cards that has 2D and 3D acceleration under MorphOS, the Radeon X1950.
While not tested, the PCI-e model (if supported) should be able to go one better by supporting the Radeon X1950XTX with 512MB of GDDR4.

No one but the developers knows if later upgraded revisions the Radeon HD drivers (with 3D acceleration) will function without relying on firmware like the R500 driver, but should they the G5s could potentially support all graphic cards used in PCI-e OS4 systems.
Title: Re: New ppc board by Acube/A-Eon: A1222 "Tabor"
Post by: zylesea on October 17, 2015, 11:28:54 PM
Quote from: Everblue;797569
1. I don't like AROS
2. Not comfortable buying big old MACs that weigh a ton and have them shipped from halfway Europe (these are impossible to find in my country) and I want something better than a Mac mini...


Powerbook 5.8 or 5.6. Fast (1.67 GHz) , silent, portable and cheap, enough VRAM. Shipping from rest of EU to Malta is no issue (e.g. DHL charges 15.99 EUR for 5kg from Germany to Malta). Disadvantage iof a Powerbook: Replacing the hdd is a bit of work. At least I am very happy with my Powerbook 5.6 (as I am with my Mac mini 1.5GHz).
Title: Re: New ppc board by Acube/A-Eon: A1222 "Tabor"
Post by: Iggy on October 17, 2015, 11:30:39 PM
Quote from: Everblue;797574
...I already own an iBook and I played around a bit on it to test Morphos (even though I am not a fan of laptops). Also, this machine is not in a great condition so I didn't bother to register it.

I must admit that the iBook is not the most durable Apple product I've used, and some are pretty rrrrough.

But as hardware goes, I'd rather have an iBook than one of those Lime laptops.

Oh, and Zylesea has mentioned, the PowerBooks are also a great option.

So far I have shipped two of those to fellow MorphOS users in Europe.

There is a 1.67 GHz 128MB vram version that offer higher resolution that can be had in the US for about $200.
Definitely worth having.
Title: Re: New ppc board by Acube/A-Eon: A1222 "Tabor"
Post by: OlafS3 on October 17, 2015, 11:40:59 PM
Quote from: Everblue;797561
Yeah, cos what would Hyperion know about that :D

I say I have developed a super-amiga. Proof me the opposite :lol:

you will say show it to me. That is what I wrote... I have neither claimed anything is lie nor anything is truth. People have doubts because of processor so lets wait. Or do you know more than the rest of us?
Title: Re: New ppc board by Acube/A-Eon: A1222 "Tabor"
Post by: OlafS3 on October 17, 2015, 11:43:36 PM
Quote from: Everblue;797569
1. I don't like AROS
2. Not comfortable buying big old MACs that weigh a ton and have them shipped from halfway Europe (these are impossible to find in my country) and I want something better than a Mac mini...

you do not like Aros?

too bad
Title: Re: New ppc board by Acube/A-Eon: A1222 "Tabor"
Post by: Iggy on October 18, 2015, 12:14:26 AM
Quote from: OlafS3;797579
you do not like Aros?

too bad


Frankly, I'm thinking AROS 68K just might be the future for advanced legacy re-implementations.
Useless everyone WANTS to pay Cloanto for an OS that hasn't been updated in decades.

And X86 AROS looks like a very slick package.

We do own you on the PPC platform though. :lol:
Title: Re: New ppc board by Acube/A-Eon: A1222 "Tabor"
Post by: OlafS3 on October 18, 2015, 12:28:45 AM
Quote from: Iggy;797581
Frankly, I'm thinking AROS 68K just might be the future for advanced legacy re-implementations.
Useless everyone WANTS to pay Cloanto for an OS that hasn't been updated in decades.

And X86 AROS looks like a very slick package.

We do own you on the PPC platform though. :lol:

that is debatable :)
Title: Re: New ppc board by Acube/A-Eon: A1222 "Tabor"
Post by: nicholas on October 18, 2015, 02:06:00 AM
Quote from: OlafS3;797583
that is debatable :)

 Other than the old SAM440 port that hasn't had a successful nightly build for download since January*, what PPC harware does AROS run on?  http://netcologne.dl.sourceforge.net/project/aros/nightly2/20150126/Binaries/AROS-20150126-sam440-ppc-boot-iso.zip
Title: Re: New ppc board by Acube/A-Eon: A1222 "Tabor"
Post by: Yasu on October 18, 2015, 07:28:06 AM
True, VRAM is a problem on Mac Mini. Thankfully 64 MB is enough. And yes, the Powerbook isn't bad at all. It can even substitute for a desktop (it got DVI connectors).
Title: Re: New ppc board by Acube/A-Eon: A1222 "Tabor"
Post by: OlafS3 on October 18, 2015, 09:31:34 AM
Quote from: nicholas;797586
Other than the old SAM440 port that hasn't had a successful nightly build for download since January*, what PPC harware does AROS run on?  http://netcologne.dl.sourceforge.net/project/aros/nightly2/20150126/Binaries/AROS-20150126-sam440-ppc-boot-iso.zip

I understood Iggy wrong yesterday night... yes PPC is "alien" territory for Aros, AmigaOS and expecially MorphOS are highly optimized for it so no real chance for Aros. But when MorphOS leaves the known area (AmigaOS is not very propable to make a ISA change) then they enter "unknown" territory and will have the same challenges and problems as Aros had and has. Then we will see how they solve the problems.
Title: Re: New ppc board by Acube/A-Eon: A1222 "Tabor"
Post by: Yasu on October 18, 2015, 11:46:08 AM
The Team are already working on it, but there will probably not be any big announcement until it's finished or almost finished. From the end user perspective it will be like it suddenly appears.
Title: Re: New ppc board by Acube/A-Eon: A1222 "Tabor"
Post by: OlafS3 on October 18, 2015, 11:49:51 AM
Quote from: Yasu;797596
The Team are already working on it, but there will probably not be any big announcement until it's finished or almost finished. From the end user perspective it will be like it suddenly appears.

not "the team" but one developer (as I understand it) and it is still years away (geit)
Title: Re: New ppc board by Acube/A-Eon: A1222 "Tabor"
Post by: wawrzon on October 18, 2015, 12:06:02 PM
there is almost no interest for aros on ppc, except from the ppc boards vendors, who as far as i remember donated the boards in order to have them supported, and that for obvious reasons. i cant say there is a big interest in amiga-68k either, but ther is some and the platform is being maintained. quite telling. isnt it?
Title: Re: New ppc board by Acube/A-Eon: A1222 "Tabor"
Post by: nicholas on October 18, 2015, 12:13:53 PM
Quote from: wawrzon;797600
there is almost no interest for aros on ppc, except from the ppc boards vendors, who as far as i remember donated the boards in order to have them supported, and that for obvious reasons. i cant say there is a big interest in amiga-68k either, but ther is some and the platform is being maintained. quite telling. isnt it?


Unless AROS for PPC has binary compatibility with MorphOS and/or OS4 software and seamless 68k binary compatibility too then there isn't much point in it really.

If it did have those things I'd definitely use it on PPC though. Maybe ARIX for PPC will have all those things? Here's hoping! :)
Title: Re: New ppc board by Acube/A-Eon: A1222 "Tabor"
Post by: Yasu on October 18, 2015, 12:20:08 PM
Quote from: OlafS3;797599
not "the team" but one developer (as I understand it) and it is still years away (geit)


Bigfoot is the main developer there, and while it's possible it's just him working on it he is not working in a vacuum. He still needs or will need the other Team members with him on this.
Title: Re: New ppc board by Acube/A-Eon: A1222 "Tabor"
Post by: OlafS3 on October 18, 2015, 12:26:33 PM
Quote from: Yasu;797604
Bigfoot is the main developer there, and while it's possible it's just him working on it he is not working in a vacuum. He still needs or will need the other Team members with him on this.

Yes of course but as I see the MOS team (and have respect for what they do) they will complete support on PPC (including bug fixes and drivers) on PPC before turning attention to ISA change. And that will need some time still. And then they have announced lots of changes like 64bit, SMP, MP and much more for it. So I do not think that there will be something in foreseeable future.
Title: Re: New ppc board by Acube/A-Eon: A1222 "Tabor"
Post by: OlafS3 on October 18, 2015, 12:33:33 PM
Quote from: nicholas;797602
Unless AROS for PPC has binary compatibility with MorphOS and/or OS4 software and seamless 68k binary compatibility too then there isn't much point in it really.

If it did have those things I'd definitely use it on PPC though. Maybe ARIX for PPC will have all those things? Here's hoping! :)

Something like Petunia is not very propable because of lack of developer resources. The same reason why MorphOS team will drop that for the new ISA too. Arix solves some problems, expecially missing drivers and implements some sort of SMP (as I understand it) but it will not offer something like "Petunia". That is the price for getting affordable good hardware, you cannot have all, at least if the numbers of developers is so limited. With enough money everything is possible of course but we do not need to discuss about that :). So in short: do not expect that.

Binary compatibility with MorphOS and/or OS4 software? How should that work at all? All are different on API level
Title: Re: New ppc board by Acube/A-Eon: A1222 "Tabor"
Post by: nicholas on October 18, 2015, 12:53:59 PM
Quote from: OlafS3;797606
Something like Petunia is not very propable because of lack of developer reasons. The same reason why MorphOS team will drop that for the new ISA too. Arix solves some problems, expecially missing drivers and implements some sort of SMP (as I understand it) but it will not offer something like "Petunia". That is the price for getting affordable good hardware, you cannot have all, at least if the numbers of developers is so limited. With enough money everything is possible of course but we do not need to discuss about that :). So in short: do not expect that.

Binary compatibility with MorphOS and/or OS4 software? How should that work at all? All are different on API level


Perfectly illustrated.  Without those things what would be the point in AROS for PPC?
Title: Alternatives to Tabor (from New ppc board by Acube/A-Eon: A1222 "Tabor")
Post by: OlafS3 on October 18, 2015, 01:24:05 PM
Quote from: nicholas;797610
Perfectly illustrated.  Without those things what would be the point in AROS for PPC?

Yes because of that it is unsupported. If you want to use PPC MorphOS and AmigaOS are better choices.
Title: Re: New ppc board by Acube/A-Eon: A1222 "Tabor"
Post by: itix on October 18, 2015, 03:04:00 PM
Quote from: OlafS3;797606

Binary compatibility with MorphOS and/or OS4 software? How should that work at all? All are different on API level


It is possible but it makes no sense for AROS developers to target PPC platform.
Title: Re: New ppc board by Acube/A-Eon: A1222 "Tabor"
Post by: OlafS3 on October 18, 2015, 03:11:44 PM
Quote from: itix;797614
It is possible but it makes no sense for AROS developers to target PPC platform.

But that would only work if either MorphOS or AmigaOS API would 100% implemented. That would be difficult and Aros devs are certainly not interested to do that.
Title: Re: New ppc board by Acube/A-Eon: A1222 "Tabor"
Post by: Iggy on October 18, 2015, 03:28:47 PM
Quote from: OlafS3;797599
not "the team" but one developer (as I understand it) and it is still years away (geit)

More than one for sure, since Mark "Bigfoot" Olsen has mentioned working on it.
And the defacto team leader Frank Mariak is undoubtedly imvolded.

Jacek, Piru, Andre...I don't know but I'd be willing to bet have some involvement.

The actual 'team' involved?
Really a complete unknown, except that it is definitely more than one individual.
Title: Re: New ppc board by Acube/A-Eon: A1222 "Tabor"
Post by: itix on October 18, 2015, 04:27:31 PM
Quote from: OlafS3;797615
But that would only work if either MorphOS or AmigaOS API would 100% implemented. That would be difficult and Aros devs are certainly not interested to do that.


Some day i should make statistical analysis but i would say 90% apps use 10% of API calls. Not difficult but gotta agree AROS devs are not interested and resources can be spent better elsewhere. Like for 68k AROS.
Title: Alternatives to Tabor (from New ppc board by Acube/A-Eon: A1222 "Tabor")
Post by: eliyahu on October 18, 2015, 06:22:59 PM
@thread  

there is tons of good material in the tabor thread at the moment that is somewhat off-topic and deserves a thread of its own. so i'm moving the posts in question here to continue the discussion.

 -- eliyahu
Title: Re: New ppc board by Acube/A-Eon: A1222 "Tabor"
Post by: Fats on October 18, 2015, 10:06:48 PM
Quote from: nicholas;797602
Unless AROS for PPC has binary compatibility with MorphOS and/or OS4 software and seamless 68k binary compatibility too then there isn't much point in it really.

If it did have those things I'd definitely use it on PPC though. Maybe ARIX for PPC will have all those things? Here's hoping! :)


I did consider making PPC ABIs for AROS compatible with MOS and OS4 (e.g. ppcmos and ppcos4) but I don't think this competition of an open source and free OS competing with the paying ones will be welcomed by all in the Amiga community.

I do still plan one day to support all Amiga OSes from the AROS shared library support tools and code and that will bring PPC AROS compatible with OS4 and MOS much closer.
Title: Re: New ppc board by Acube/A-Eon: A1222 "Tabor"
Post by: nicholas on October 18, 2015, 10:19:28 PM
Quote from: Fats;797632
I did consider making PPC ABIs for AROS compatible with MOS and OS4 (e.g. ppcmos and ppcos4) but I don't think this competition of an open source and free OS competing with the paying ones will be welcomed by all in the Amiga community.

I do still plan one day to support all Amiga OSes from the AROS shared library support tools and code and that will bring PPC AROS compatible with OS4 and MOS much closer.


That's what I want to hear right there Staf! Anything we can do to help make it worth your time? :)
Title: Re: New ppc board by Acube/A-Eon: A1222 "Tabor"
Post by: Iggy on October 19, 2015, 12:39:36 PM
Quote from: Fats;797632
I did consider making PPC ABIs for AROS compatible with MOS and OS4 (e.g. ppcmos and ppcos4) but I don't think this competition of an open source and free OS competing with the paying ones will be welcomed by all in the Amiga community.

I do still plan one day to support all Amiga OSes from the AROS shared library support tools and code and that will bring PPC AROS compatible with OS4 and MOS much closer.


That would be very cool Staf.

BTW - Since you know me (this is Jim Igou), could you offer YOUR opinion?
Do you really think I'm that hostile to other OS' in the community?

After all, Nick and I both are quite blue, but I think we thrive on the competition.
Wouldn't want anything untoward to happen to them.
Title: Re: New ppc board by Acube/A-Eon: A1222 "Tabor"
Post by: Fats on October 19, 2015, 07:08:47 PM
Quote from: nicholas;797633
That's what I want to hear right there Staf! Anything we can do to help make it worth your time? :)


I was burned out on the whole Amiga programming thing and with a burn-out the cure is to wait long enough before restarting.
Also I am now in another project that has to be finished before I think about restarting Amiga dev.
I'm always available for public or private discussion on the topic though or for helping somebody who wants to start the work.
Title: Re: New ppc board by Acube/A-Eon: A1222 "Tabor"
Post by: Fats on October 19, 2015, 07:24:53 PM
Quote from: Iggy;797648
BTW - Since you know me (this is Jim Igou), could you offer YOUR opinion?
Do you really think I'm that hostile to other OS' in the community?

After all, Nick and I both are quite blue, but I think we thrive on the competition.
Wouldn't want anything untoward to happen to them.


I don't find your comments hostile but they surely are opinionated at times. I guess this is enough in this community to be sometimes seen as hostile to one's own belief.

In general people in this community seem to forget everybody is different. Me for example as a user prefer OS4 over MOS, as an engineer I generally prefer the technical decisions the MOS guys have made over the OS4 guys, as a programmer I prefer AROS as it's open source. Unfortunately such mixed opinion seem to be enough to be hated by some in both the red and the blue camp. In the AROS camp I haven't seen much hate yet, open source guys are most of the times also open minded.
Title: Re: New ppc board by Acube/A-Eon: A1222 "Tabor"
Post by: Iggy on October 19, 2015, 07:27:30 PM
Quote from: Fats;797673
I was burned out on the whole Amiga programming thing and with a burn-out the cure is to wait long enough before restarting.Also I am now in another project that has to be finished before I think about restarting Amiga dev.I'm always available for public or private discussion on the topic though or for helping somebody who wants to start the work.

Yes, burn out, I was warned about that be an elderly programmer I knew in from the '60s to early '80s.

He suggested the same thing. Drop it for awhile and come back when it feels fresh again.
Title: Re: New ppc board by Acube/A-Eon: A1222 "Tabor"
Post by: nicholas on October 19, 2015, 08:13:07 PM
Quote from: Fats;797673
I was burned out on the whole Amiga programming thing and with a burn-out the cure is to wait long enough before restarting.
Also I am now in another project that has to be finished before I think about restarting Amiga dev.
I'm always available for public or private discussion on the topic though or for helping somebody who wants to start the work.


Definitely not a good idea to do something that'll make you feel worse when you are already feeling burned out.

Take all the time you need, we are thin on great developers in this community as it is and as my late Gran was fond of saying "A change is as good as a rest". :)
Title: Re: New ppc board by Acube/A-Eon: A1222 "Tabor"
Post by: nicholas on October 19, 2015, 08:22:31 PM
Quote from: Fats;797674
I don't find your comments hostile but they surely are opinionated at times. I guess this is enough in this community to be sometimes seen as hostile to one's own belief.

In general people in this community seem to forget everybody is different. Me for example as a user prefer OS4 over MOS, as an engineer I generally prefer the technical decisions the MOS guys have made over the OS4 guys, as a programmer I prefer AROS as it's open source. Unfortunately such mixed opinion seem to be enough to be hated by some in both the red and the blue camp. In the AROS camp I haven't seen much hate yet, open source guys are most of the times also open minded.


I like OS4 for playing about with, MorphOS for getting stuff done and out of admiration of their technical prowess and AROS for getting my geek on and also just playing about with.

Though OS3.x is still my true love. :)

Having a similar mixed opinion as yours has only ever made me be on the receiving end of hate from one section of the community though. Plus I'm extremely blunt at times which doesn't always go down too well with a lot of folks lol

I'd love something similar to ARIX but with full OS4/MOS/68K seamless compatibility to eventually emerge.