Is Amiga NG underpowered?

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

I'd have to run into it pretty hard :p
Just kidding. I've found that despite their opinions on certain matters most people are good drinking company. That said, any of you see me in Mountain View for Amiga 30, I'll buy you a drink.

Wow, did I totally type that wrong or what?  :lol:

Cheers!  :pint:  :pint:

[itix]

PPC is dead from a consumer perspective. While there's nothing stopping it from being a hobbyist platform, it's expensive as hell and there's not a lot of hardware to choose from.

PPC Macs are cheap and powerful

X86 is well-supported and cheap, though there's a zillion different hardware configs. Getting it to run on everyone's PC's can be tricky because of this.

ARM is cheap as hell, and there's plenty of real cheap hardware available (the omnipresent Pi and boards like it). The hardware is a bit more uniform, but performance is lower than X86. Still, it's cheap as hell.

From those two x86 (x64) is more powerful. So if performance is your goal you choose x86 platform. If you want to go mobile then ARM. Or both. Dump idea of having native code and compile everything to 68k target and have 68k emulator built-in.

I'd prefer a Pi port, but that's subjective.

Actually RPi is one of the worst ARM offerings. There are cheaper and faster ARM based boards available but they are less famous and people always think there is only RPi...

[AAACHIPSET]

PPC is dead from a consumer perspective. While there's nothing stopping it from being a hobbyist platform, it's expensive as hell and there's not a lot of hardware to choose from.

X86 is well-supported and cheap, though there's a zillion different hardware configs. Getting it to run on everyone's PC's can be tricky because of this.

ARM is cheap as hell, and there's plenty of real cheap hardware available (the omnipresent Pi and boards like it). The hardware is a bit more uniform, but performance is lower than X86. Still, it's cheap as hell.

I'd prefer a Pi port, but that's subjective.

curious  ..are  020/030/040  or  060   chips  used  for anything  these days ?? apart  from our aging amiga

[Yasu]

curious  ..are  020/030/040  or  060   chips  used  for anything  these days ?? apart  from our aging amiga

I know the 040 was used in the JAS 39 Gripen Swedish fighter jet. I don't know if they have upgraded it to something else recently though, but it wouldn't surprice me if they didn't. Military usually buys a LOT of spare parts.

[Iggy]

Actually RPi is one of the worst ARM offerings. There are cheaper and faster ARM based boards available but they are less famous and people always think there is only RPi...

Glad I didn't have to point that out myself.
I frequently get faulted (fairly enough) for my negativity.

Personally, I'm not interested in downgrading my hardware that far.
However, MorphOS is a better target for that platform than Linux.

So it is really a matter of where your prorities lay, with the hardware or the software.

[Iggy]

curious  ..are  020/030/040  or  060   chips  used  for anything  these days ?? apart  from our aging amiga

Not really, '030s can still be obtained, but finding good '040s or '060s can be difficult.
When it comes to 68K family processors, its eaisier to implement an fpga.

[whabang]

PPC Macs are cheap and powerful



From those two x86 (x64) is more powerful. So if performance is your goal you choose x86 platform. If you want to go mobile then ARM. Or both. Dump idea of having native code and compile everything to 68k target and have 68k emulator built-in.



Actually RPi is one of the worst ARM offerings. There are cheaper and faster ARM based boards available but they are less famous and people always think there is only RPi...

PPC Macs are definitely available, but they're not being produced anymore. If we'd base everything on them then we'd actually be planning to use a dying platform (which is irellevant, because we're discussing Amiga, but anyway).

I'd prefer the Pi because of it's popularity and not because it's performance. AmigaOS is designed with even weaker hardware in mind so I doubt it would pose a problem.

Mind you, I wouldn't have anything against support for multiple ARM platforms. It would still be easier than trying to support x86.

As for using emulation to achieve everything, well, we can allways make an OS using an emulator running on Linux, or use some kind of universal binary that will run under any OS that has a VM for it...

[Duce]

Underpowered is a pretty broad term.  I've never had a single gripe about the performance of my SAM 440, but then again, I never bought the thing with any intentions of trying to encode video or do rendering or something on it.

It does everything I ask of it, which admittedly are "Amiga only" type things.  I don't expect it to stream video in 4k like the dual 980 GTX, 6 core, 64 GB RAM PC I'm typing this on, so I've never had much to complain about with it.

It's a niche/hobby system, one that was fairly pricey, I'll admit, but it's been a good experience for me, just like my MOS machines have been.

[redfox]

Is Amiga NG underpowered?

It really depends on what you want to do.

My Amiga NG system is not a racehorse, but it works well and runs my favourite programs.  I have a choice of six web browsers, some 68K programs and some PPC programs. I use Final Writer 97, TVPaint, and PPaint. I use E-UAE to provide a compatible base for AmigaOS 3.1 for some very old games and programs that like to see the Amiga Classic hardware.

However, I find that I am using my Samsung tablet more often for web browsing, only because it is convenient.  I don't have to get up off the sofa to go to my workstation.

---
redfox

[Kronos]

Personally, I'm not interested in downgrading my hardware that far.
However, MorphOS is a better target for that platform than Linux.

By the time anything ARM based is as polished as MorphOS is now on PPC, you'll be able to by a 6th generation rPI several rimes faster than a QuadG5 or even one of the (current) Power8 systems.

[biggun]

By the time anything ARM based is as polished as MorphOS is now on PPC, you'll be able to by a 6th generation rPI several rimes faster than a QuadG5 or even one of the (current) Power8 systems.

you mean by the time OS is ported to ARM, most AMIGA fans will spend their last days in a nursery home?

[Iggy]

you mean by the time OS is ported to ARM, most AMIGA fans will spend their last days in a nursery home?

That is a pretty accurate statement Gunnar.
AND fpga accelerators will have advanced far enough to actual place legacy hardware in real contention.

[agami]

you mean by the time OS is ported to ARM, most AMIGA fans will spend their last days in a nursery home?

Sure you meant nursing home.
I tell you though, if I had the choice I'd rather go out in a nursery. Nursing homes are too depressing.

[Kronos]

you mean by the time OS is ported to ARM, most AMIGA fans will spend their last days in a nursery home?

Not sure how old you are, but I expect ARM (or more precise cheap ARM like used in rPI) to reach that level of power in a few years.

As to porting/polishing the OS..... *shrug* AROS sure has the resources to do it in <5 years, but those resources are spread thin into 2486 directions, MorphOS hasn't really started, real development on AmigaOS68k is hampered in red tape and don't even get me started on OS4.

[guest11527]

Not sure how old you are, but I expect ARM (or more precise cheap ARM like used in rPI) to reach that level of power in a few years.

As to porting/polishing the OS..... *shrug* AROS sure has the resources to do it in <5 years, but those resources are spread thin into 2486 directions, MorphOS hasn't really started, real development on AmigaOS68k is hampered in red tape and don't even get me started on OS4.

What would be the end result? Another "wanna-be" AmigaOs, which is in fact years behind any Linux system on the same hardware? You still don't get all the 68K applications to run on it natively, so you need an emulator for them. So if that's acceptable, what is exactly wrong with x86?

[Kronos]

Did I ever say anything was wrong with x86 ??

I was just pointing out that "ARM is to slow" wasn't a valid argument.