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

[eliyahu]

@gizmo350

i'm hoping for more information at amiwest that can be released to the public. whatever i'm allowed to talk about, i'll be sure to post back here. of course i'd rather they do an official announce....

-- eliyahu

[eliyahu]

@Iggy

exactly. my hope is that i can use this as a replacement for my pegasos2. since my X5K will eventually be able to dual-boot AOS4 and MOS, i'll be able to get rid of my peg2 and also have this board as something nice, small, and portable. maybe stuff it into a A500 case (and use A1200 keyboard+keyrah), even.

-- eliyahu

[eliyahu]

It couldbe like in amiga classic, there was a time when you have 00, 020, 060, nofpu, fpu optimized versions of the same executable

With this board could be used the same aproach,  you use generic Amigaos powerpc executables but slower or P1022 optimiced executables that are faster

what do you think?

oy. while i suppose that would work, it'd be a shame if that ended up being the solution.

-- eliyahu

[eliyahu]

@apsturk

well said. i just think some of us are a little concerned about the FPU compatibility, that's all. i'll still end up buying one. i'm addicted to this stuff. :lol:

-- eliyahu

[eliyahu]

It would be intresting to hear the decisionprocess when they decided on the CPU, if for no other reason, to get an idea about their future plans.

indeed. there may have been other, non-amiga-related reasons. i guess we just need to wait for the 'official' announcement for the details and why. since this topic has peaked everyone's interest around here, it's one of the questions i'll try and get answered at amiwest.

Either way, with Cloanto talking/working with Toni with regards to proper PPC emulation, I can see AOS software sales (what there is available) go up a little bit.
Regarding proper PPC emulation; will that tap into MorphOS availability?
Would be intresting if we could install up to date versions of MorphOS/AROS/AOS via Amiga Forever, even if the installer require you to have a registered version inputting your details etc.

i certainly hope so. 'faking' things a little to allow more RAM for the CSPPC than was possible in HW would go a long way. and maybe get support for the UAE RTG driver, or at least artificially increasing the available VRAM on a P-IV card. that'd be terrific.

we already have the ability to run AOS4 and AROS in UAE, which is nice. it would be even nicer to add MOS to that list, especially since one of the devs apparently maintains an internal PUP build.

-- eliyahu

[eliyahu]

@thread

since folks seem rather, er, excited by the new board previewed at nuess, let's try another approach. instead of pontificating on something without the full facts, let's get some. i'll be at amiwest in a few days (i'm on the train now, actually) and will try and get your questions answered from trevor and matthew.

so, feel free to post your questions in this thread or send them to me via PM. even if the answer is "we can't say at this time," i'll report back. to get the ball rolling, here are my questions:

• can you give us the background as to why the P1022 was chosen for this board rather than, say, one of the T1 series?
  
• is the board primarily aimed at amigans, or also for embedded clients, as with acube boards in the past?
  
• how will hyperion be dealing with the e500v2 FPU? what are the estimated performance impacts?
  

anyone have any others?

-- eliyahu

[eliyahu]

@thread

ok, guys. this is starting to get out-of-hand. please keep conversation focused on the new tabor boards (despite not knowing terribly much about them) and no personal attacks, please. if you want sling mud and score points, do it elsewhere.

-- eliyahu

[eliyahu]

@thread

there's tons of great discussion on MOS and AROS PPC alternatives, but it's getting off-topic. so i've moved that discussion to a new thread. please continue the MOS/AROS discussion there and keep this thread focused on tabor itself. thanks!


-- eliyahu

[eliyahu]

@psxphill

The high price of the Trebor is not because it costs a lot to make each  board. Reference boards are normally expensive and just used for  prototyping your own devices. The P102x is designed for being used in  printers etc. Quite how they can justify the Trebor price when  freescales own board is cheaper is quite astonishing. They must hope  that their customers really are desperate.

really?! could you point me to where the tabor price has been released? perhaps you should actually find out the price before making accusations about how 'astonishing' it is how they can 'justify' it. it might save you some embarassment later.

-- eliyahu

[eliyahu]

@psxphill

the price quoted there is incorrect. it will be lower. and given that you seem to think that tabor will be more expensive than the reference board you linked to -- which is priced at GBP482.60 -- i think you'll need to apologize if it's lower than that, not EUR400.

by the way, i'm not trying to pick on you. i'm just pointing out that there's tons of conjecture out there, much of it based on incorrect information.

-- eliyahu

[eliyahu]

Don't you think that it's pretty stupid that they haven't made an official announcement about it then? Not that this choice of CPU is particularly suitable for AmigaOS even if it is cheaper. A board with a P204x that has double the clock speed and double the number of cores wouldn't be four times the price, it shouldn't even double the price.

no, i don't. it's not for sale yet. i would expect an announcement  when they're ready to make one. i do, however, think it's rather  shortsighted to draw conclusions from conjecture and rumor. even trevor has had to come out to clarify the numbers being passed around were incorrect.

as for it being unsuitable, apparently A-EON disagree, and i suspect they know their market pretty well. if they're going for higher volume than in the past -- and they are, producing at least 1000 boards -- and lower cost than in the past -- and they are -- then it might well have made sense. again, perhaps you should wait a little and see what the finished product is before passing judgement?

-- eliyahu

[eliyahu]

I'll take it for what it is then, a vague vapourware announcement.

As hyperion have admitted that AmigaOS isn't actually working on it yet, then no I don't think A-EON have any idea whether it's suitable. Trevor is an evangelist, not an engineer.

i see. you know better. i guess that clears that up, then. :lol:

-- eliyahu

[eliyahu]

@JJ

nope. i've used it as well as andy's port for AOS4.

-- eliyahu

[eliyahu]

Wow, and I built X64 hardware just to run that.

Then again, a single core PPC system, compared to the recommended hardware specs?

i didn't say either of them were terribly fast.

:laughing:

seriously though -- the whole point of running blender for me was to do some video editing, actually. i had a bunch of clips on my peg2 and i wanted to throw something together. this way i could do it on an amiga. not the smartest way certainly, but very geeky. sort of one of those 'because i can' things.

-- eliyahu

[eliyahu]

BTW - Where can I find the MorphOS port of Blender?
It makes sense to install it, after all I already have it on a couple (but not all) of my X64 computers.

you can grab it here. you'll also want to grab the latest release of python for MOS while you're at it.

-- eliyahu