A-EON Technology: Introducing Tabor and the A1222

[eliyahu]

Introducing Tabor and the A1222
A powerful, low cost, entry level PowerPC motherboard
San Francisco 19th October 2015

A-EON Technology Ltd is pleased to announce that Tabor, a new powerful, low cost, entry level PowerPC motherboard, which forms part of our A1200 series, is about to undergo beta testing.

As part of our drive to create more powerful lower cost, entry level hardware and expand the Next-Generation user base we commissioned Ultra Varisys to create a new PowerPC motherboard. The result is Tabor, a 170 mm x 170 mm mother-board based on a Freescale QorIQ P1022 32-bit e500v2 dual-core PowerPC processor running at 1.2 GHz. Prototypes have already been shipped to key developers and members of A-EON Technology’s Core Linux support team and, as a result, several Linux distributions are already up and running on the Tabor board. Working in cooperation with ACube srl, a beta test programme is about to commence, which is already over-subscribed.

The full system is designated the AmigaOne A1222.

Tabor specifications*

• PowerPC CPU: Freescale QorIQ P1022, 1.2GHz, 32-bit, e500V2, dual-core
• 1x CPU fan + heatsink
• 2x fan ports


• DDR3 SODIMM
• 64 bit interface
• 400Mhz
• Support up to 8GB RAM


• RS232 Serial
• 1x RS232 including flow control
• Level shifting from TTL UART serial levels to RS232 levels
• Maximum baud rate of 230,400


• SATA
• 2x SATA 2.6 compliant controllers


• USB
• 2x External & 2x Internal USB port


• Ethernet
• 1x RGMII ethernet PHYs each providing Gbit ethernet


• PCIe
• x4 PCIe gen 1 link allows data rates of 2.5Gb/s per lane
• x16 PCIe connector to support RadeonHD graphics cards


• Audio
• Audio CODEC generating stereo audio out from I2S digital audio


• HDMI LCD Interface
• 24 bit colour depth
• Support for resolution up to 1280x1024
• HDMI 1.3 support


• GPIO
• Support for user GPIOs
• GPIO JTAG


• Micro SD
• Micro SD card for ROM - later possibility of running the whole system from the microSD card


• WCU Prog
• LED ports for Power, CPU, HDD

* (Subject to change without notice)

[dschallock]

Awesome!

[ddniUK]

@eliyahu, hopefully it will be well priced and accepted. I have wondered about the omission of the xmos chip.
@dschallock It just needs a paralell port and Rombo Vidi 24 drivers

[Matt_H]

A1200 "series"? There will be others? I'd be curious to know what those will be...

At any rate, it'll be nice to have a tiny OS4 companion to my MorphOS Mini Mac...

[dschallock]

It just needs a paralell port and Rombo Vidi 24 drivers

hahahaha.  YES!

[rednova]

Will this system be able to run :

-moviesetter
-disney animation studio
-aladdin 4d
-deluxe paint 4
-brilliance
-amos professional

please let me know !!!

[Matt_H]

Will this system be able to run :

-moviesetter
-disney animation studio
-aladdin 4d
-deluxe paint 4
-brilliance
-amos professional

please let me know !!!

It will run them as well as any other OS4 system. In other words, they won't work very well, if at all - those programs rely too much on the old hardware or quirks of the old operating system.

[Rob]

Will this system be able to run :

-moviesetter
-disney animation studio
-aladdin 4d
-deluxe paint 4
-brilliance
-amos professional

please let me know !!!

Aladdin 4D works fine as it is in OS4 but the other, not sure about Movie Setter, will need to be run via UAE.

There will of course be a native port of Aladdin 4D at some point.  You could substitute Dpaint and Brilliance with Ppaint and SketchBlock and there should be free tools that that can replicate what Movie Setter does but may require a little more effort, I can't say for sure since I'm not familiar with that program.

There's nothing similar to AMOS for OS4 and it's unlikely to change.  Also I don't think there are any animation programs with onion skinning, which I assume is one of the reason you like Disney animation studio, maybe something A-EON should consider for future updates to Ppaint.

[amoskodare]

There's nothing similar to AMOS for OS4 and it's unlikely to change.

There is Hollywood, it's not Amos but good enough or even better in some areas

[matthey]

Aladdin 4D works fine as it is in OS4 but the other, not sure about Movie Setter, will need to be run via UAE.

Petunia, the 68k emulator for AmigaOS 4, is written in PPC assembler likely using the PPC standard FPU to emulate the 68k FPU. Petunia would need a major update to support the Tabor's non-standard FPU and a simple compile is not possible. Not updating Petunia and going through the FPU traps may work but could be slow.

[SACC-guy]

Possible other thought...

UlimatePPC /040 project...everyone complained about this ppc chip issue at the time too. (no support and "wrong" ppc chip) so it didn't happen.

But after OS4.1 is ported over to the A1222, won't that mean the UlimatePPC project
would have the support it didn't have before and we with 4000/3000 could have "NEW"
ppc /040 cards???

[OlafS3]

Possible other thought...

UlimatePPC /040 project...everyone complained about this ppc chip issue at the time too. (no support and "wrong" ppc chip) so it didn't happen.

But after OS4.1 is ported over to the A1222, won't that mean the UlimatePPC project
would have the support it didn't have before and we with 4000/3000 could have "NEW"
ppc /040 cards???

I am not a hardware expert and only guessing but I do not think that. The adaptions needed for Tabor would need also done for Ultimate if it uses different commands or also has FPU problems. And that means someone has to pay for it (and for the needed drivers).

[matthey]

UlimatePPC /040 project...everyone complained about this ppc chip issue at the time too. (no support and "wrong" ppc chip) so it didn't happen.

But after OS4.1 is ported over to the A1222, won't that mean the UlimatePPC project
would have the support it didn't have before and we with 4000/3000 could have "NEW"
ppc /040 cards???

Yes, in theory, most of the huge amount of work to support the dual core P1022 would also support the single core P1013. I believe the non-standard FPU is the same for both.

[OlafS3]

Yes, in theory, most of the huge amount of work to support the dual core P1022 would also support the single core P1013. I believe the non-standard FPU is the same for both.

if a-eon pays for it why should they give it for free? it would make the ultimate card more expensive

[Iggy]

Yes, in theory, most of the huge amount of work to support the dual core P1022 would also support the single core P1013. I believe the non-standard FPU is the same for both.

Which would explain why Trevor reached out to that development team.