Apollo Team announces the Vampire V4

[Niding]

Personally Im leaning towards keeping my A1200 as it is now, and rather go for the standalone.

Whenever the A1200 dies for good, the standalone will keep going since its made out of new components.

I got the V600 cause the standalone wasnt available for purchase last year, and Im sure alot of us did the same calculation. If standalone was available back then, I would probably never had gotten the V600 at all.

[Niding]

Hmm..I've never considered a standalone system until now.   There would be almost no point of keeping my A1200.   Now I'm on the fence of even considering an A1200 Vampire.  Sounds like the standalone is for me.   I wonder what the price will be for that one.  

Very exciting news!!!

EDIT: just for the heck of it, sent them an email to put me down for the standalone, deposit available when the time comes.  :-)

If you read the attached PDF, they will be selling the Vampires thru established vendors, which is listed in said PDF.

Yeah, I know NovaCoder said he wasnt intrested in Vampire for legacy hardware. A standalone would bring him back to the fold. Hope that still holds true!

[Niding]

Before people jump off a bridge due to the FPU/MMU issue, there is always the chance there will be library support for missing compability.

But in true Amiga tradition, we go nuts instead.

[Niding]

IanP, based on what Ive read from nyteschayde, she is always polite and not trolling ever, but most likely havent followed Apollo forum (or other forums) as close as some of us

The developer of the FEMU posted this a week ago;

http://www.apollo-core.com/knowledge.php?b=1¬e=7442&z=ipmwt8

Additionally the youtube is now seeing more and more demostrations of Vampire users testing the FEMU on their machines, in addition to others that is using FEMU via WINUAE, disabling the FPU emulation, and running FEMU instead.

Anyhow; youtubes from Simo, with Vampire+FEMU;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqFwz8Uqa74

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2QUyAk6wZw

And Manuel Jesus running Lightwave 5.0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0AyAfi_P58U

Pedro Cotter has gotten Amikit X to run on it;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POi7VbJogJc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSHYfgXSUw0

[Niding]

Regardless, nyteschayde's question was wether or not there is such a software emulator in existance, and the answer is yes.
Mind you, development started relativly recently, and is work in progress, so Im sure there are unreleased potential ahead as Jari continues his work.

Considering your *fangirl* reaction to the V4 news, it tells me you are lining up to get one or more of these babies. Why not just dive in and register to the Apollo forum?
There you can ask Jari directly questions or give comments regarding the FEMU.
With your background as Amigan AND software engineer, Im sure you are able formulate suggestions and questions much better than the majority of us.

http://www.apollo-core.com/knowledge.php?b=0

[Niding]

Hairsplitting, Amigans favourite hobby since the 90s

[Niding]

psxphill makes some good comments regarding FPU.

At the moment there is a FEMU program, that software emulates FPU, which can be tested both in WinUAE and on real hardware missing the FPU.

It allows you to run software that requires FPU, but during FPU intensive operation, expect rather punishing performance issues when running it on Vampire hardware.
But the program/demos/games runs atleast (more and more I should say).

BUT, FEMU is work in progress, and Jari is improving the emulation. Its still just that tho, emulation.
What comes of a possible hardware FPU with the introduction of V4 is a open question.
Its been said that the Apollo Core contains FPU, but its more advanced/added features.
Some might say its compatible, but my comment/question then becomes;

Cant the Apollo FPU be used in the future to fix the performance issues we get from FEMU, and then take care of the compability issues FPU wise thru library/FEMU adaption?

Im just throwing my comment out there for more knowledgable people to elaborate on the possibilities

[Niding]

An MMU was never a must have feature for AmigaOS because there were very few Amigas that commodore shipped with an MMU.

However it's very much a nice to have feature. In my opinion you may as well make it 68040 or 68060 compatible because then you have software. But they have a religious disagreement with that.

Don't forget that OS3.X is not the only OS that runs on the Amiga. There are two unix versions that would be nice to run.

I would also love to see a sega mega drive emulator for amigaos that runs the game code natively and using an mmu to trap the hardware accesses. I don't know if real AGA would be quick enough, but SAGA should be.

Its not a religious disagreement from what Ive seen Gunnar say on the matter.

There seems to be several considerations;

a) Time and manpower to do all the "to do items".

b) Gunnar/the team wants hardware that runs alot/most of the software available, BUT at the same time opens up for future developments on the software side. Making sure the FPU for example has functionalities beyond what was the norm in the 90s.

Ofcourse, some might say " well, thats not what defined Amiga back then, so stick to the legacy, dont create all this fluff that didnt exsist".
Jens will give you that option whenever he releases the A1200 Reloaded.

So Apollo gives you his option, and Jens his. Its up to you to decide which works best for your requirements/needs.

And is it unrealistic that the Apollo Core FPU will be able to deliver the legacy functionality? Be it thru its internals or thru library support?

There is the issue that in the future there might be programs released that works exclusivly on the Vampire, and I guess thats one of the main sources of annoyance/worry from some people.

[Niding]

@Thomas

For those that deem the Amiga future completely dead, then having a future oriented FPGA shouldnt matter..or? They consider it competely dead right?
And for the record; I dont think Amiga will rise again either. I dont have illusions of conquest etc. But it can reach functionality level where you CAN actually use it for many/most day to day tasks.
Ofcourse, Ill gladly admit Ive grown more or less dependent on dual monitor for work. Then again, if you got a big/wide enough monitor, then that problem can be somewhat negated by adjusting the windows.

With regards to be able to run legacy programs; based on what ive seen, there seems to be decent compability as it stands already. Yes, you will always be able to find some program that crashes, but the same was the case when I upgraded from A500 to A1200.
And thats something that can be tweaked directly in the core if need be. OR library..? But its obvious that if a program is written badly enough, there is no reason to jump thru 20 hoops just to make it run. Gotta cut off at some point.

Then you got the issue of new programs requiring Vampire; if you are part of the Legacy only crowd, then new programs shouldnt matter to you anyhow. I realise you dont seem to worried about the direction the Apollo is heading. Quite neutral by the looks of it.

My take on it to sum it up; the situation for 68k has been stagnate, and many of us has been completely inactive hardware wise. Be it cause of failing accelerators, no working monitors, which can be negated by Indivision, but it got its issues.
With the Vampire; you have easy access to high performance (relativly speaking) RTG hardware, which makes the userexpirience very pleasant from a enduser perspective.
I have gotten the distinct sense that some developers are not so happy about the debugging enviroment for example.
But you have atleast gotten access to a certain portion of the community that enjoyed the Amiga thru youtube. We are all in our late 30s to 40++, many with disposable income.
As dead as the Amiga might be on a mainstream scale, there seems to be enough Vampires around to atleast accomodate SOME income for those intrested in crossdeveloping like Cherry Darling does for a wide range of platforms (Not Vampire at the moment tho).

I think you catch my drift on the topic :-)

[Niding]

Eeeeh, you psxphill is the one assigning strong feelings in this disscussion.
So if I enjoy using generic monitors with no hassle, with high color and resolution with no system lag, Im a mindless fanboy?

I doubt very much Gunnar hates fpu or mmu in the old form, he just got other plans going forward.
One can have objections about the choice, like Thomas has, without assigning  crusaderlike motives behind it.

I prefer Android over IOS, but I accept IOS got its merits, and is prefered by the majority of people I know.
Im not feeling the urge to call them fanboys or enablers.

Its a cheap argument tool to stereotype and categorize people that way.

[Niding]

I'm just pointing it out. Whether you choose to ignore the signs is up to you. It killed natami.

Gunnar is on a crusade to get apollo in embedded designs. The Amiga is a test bed and advertising, so fpu/mmu compatibility isn't that important for him. I know I'm not the only one who understands that.

I have no idea what your point is about monitors, it doesn't seem to relate to anything I said.

The comment about monitors was just a generic comment about userfriendliness using the Vampire hardware. Virtually plug and play after installing a few programs.
As much as I enjoyed Indivision on my A1200, it doesnt compare for me personally.
I realise a pimped up A4000 with 060, graphicscard etc will perform amazingly, but thats scarse hardware at premium price. The Vampire provide that in one small card at relativly low price. Without configuration hassle.

Could you expand on what you mean about Gunnars plans regarding Apollo in embedded designs?

[Niding]

@Thomas

Thats a fair attitude to have.

Computers are ultimatly just a tool, and if it cant do what you want/need it to do, then its reasonable to opt out. Thats a objective evaluation noone can fault you for.

Im not going lie, I obviously would want as many as possible to utilize this relativly high performance hardware which brings 100s or 1000+ people up to the specs that only very few had back in the days.
Ofcourse, me only using computers for officework, music and some simple graphics to go with the presentations I make for work; I dont face the same headache as developers like yourself might face. Im not blind to that disparity in userfriendliness based on your workflow and goals.

[Niding]

If you have followed the evolution of the apollo-core website, that should have been rather obvious. Benchmarks against other soft-cores used in embedded, barely mention of Amiga at all. Over time, this has changed a little, probably as he realised that embedded market may not really be that interested after all, commercial 68k soft-cores exists already there. So, why not instead try to become the creator, owner and licenser of the de-facto CPU for good old Amiga?

So Gunnar is guilty of wanting the product he design/produces to be a sucess in Amiga terms. Outragous!

[Niding]

I think there are many people who agree with this, but don't really bother posting about it, because it will get drowned out by all the hype.
When it comes to the Vampire you are only allowed to praise it, even if you don't own it, or what you say is "inaccurate to say the least". On the other hand if you have any criticism, you better keep it to yourself even if you own multiple cards :roflmao:

Maybe a few think that way, but I dont have a problem with people critizising Vampire.

Just like when people have comments about AOS4 and PPC, they say what doesnt work, which is fine, but they quite often include to the effect "its %&$#?@!%&$#?@!%&$#?@!%&$#?@!ing useless, omg, and anyone using it is deluded fanbois!".
I might agree with the issues they list, but why on earth they need to add less than helpful descriptions of the users and hardware/software that will only make the reciver hostile?
And then you have the predictable exchange that just makes the fronts agressive.

Same goes for Vampire. There are plenty of issues with AOS3, and things that doesnt run as everyone wants it to. The team knows, but as we all know, its WORK IN PROGRESS.
But as usual the comments is often followed by "omg omg omg, lol, useless, crap, fanboi" etc. You get my drift.
It kinda suprises me considering we are supposed to be adults, but just cant help outselves. If we had written at work a critique like we do on these forums, I think we would find ourselves in a human resource meeting pretty quickly. I realise this is a hobby forum, so drawing that paralell is a bit off, but Im sure you are catching my drift.

For some reason whoever prefer AOS3 enjoys bashing AOS4, and vice versa. Those that enjoy AOS4, bashes MorphOS or AROS, and vice versa.

Ive found the lack of communication from hardware/software developers somewhat annoying in the past, but Ive grown to understand it seeing it basically amounts to pissing into the wind for the most part.

[Niding]

I understand it's work in progress, but it's not progressing towards a product that would be good for the amiga community as a whole.



I only started calling them fan boys after years of dreadful behaviour by the pro apollo supporters acting childishly towards any suggestion that gunnar disagreed with. The behaviour comes from the top down, so get gunnar to fix his attitude and the problems will all disappear. Good luck with that.

Maybe we should raise above the kid like behaviour instead of reeinforcing it? Just a thought