The more I listen about all of this "projects" (and complete lack of direction) there more I'm convinced I'm going to keep my Amiga Classic and EMULATE AmigaOS4.1. Maybe I will set up separate machine for it based on some cheap i5 itx mobo and run it under linux/uea thingy... basically "ALICE" as a desktop.
Who selected PPC without fpu, that now it becomes limitation? Why Sam is not produced anymore? Do we really need multiple motherboards so dev. need to make "Ethernet/sound drivers" again and again?
I listened to one talk yesterday night about AmigaOS4.1 and emulation. Conclusion was that it is NOT about hardware it is about AmigaOS4.1 (3.x). Great, but why to even bother with emulation? Make it PC (or old mac) compatible so I don't have to emulate it anymore.
My excitement (at the moment) about A1222 = zero.
I'm not sure I get it either.
I've sent an inquiry to Acube and gotten zero response.
If they'd made another batch of SAM460 boards I would have bought one.
And I 'sort of' understand the need to recoup your development dollars and the money you've invested in cpus (since Tabor
was started before the T10XX cpus were available).
But the lag time developing drivers would have been minimized by a T10XX based design, as those cpus share the same core as the X5000.
And they aren't much more expensive than the P1022 (as well as producing better performance per clock cycle, and having a higher maximum frequency).
Then there's the fpu issue...
I don't know for sure (since the developers haven't said), but I suspect this issue was a large part of the reason for the decision not to support this board under MorphOS.
FPU trapping and emulation? Let's face it, what we are more likely to see are specific recompiles intended just for Tabor.
Which means if you've got more than one OS4 system, you're going to need multiple binaries.
Buy an A.L.I.C.E. laptop, run emulation or own an X1000 or an X5000 AND Tabor and you may need two different binaries (or one larger one with code for both types of FPUs).
I do understand how much more the other e500 cored cpus cost (quite a bit more than the V2), but all this hassle just so that Aeon/Varisys can incorporate a dirt cheap embedded cpu in a board intended to sell for almost $500?
While Tabor will perform better than emulation (because emulation is intentionally limited to legacy PPC hardware), you have to wonder if an emulator designed to simulate a G4 or G5 level processor on an X86/X64 system wouldn't be just as cheap, perform better, and provide a future bridge to an ISA still actively developed.
And you may question why I'd justify paying four times what Tabor will cost for an X5000/40. But the price actually scales out, since the system provides about four times the potential computing power and is probably at least as powerful as what we'd get from a more modern emulation platform.
One thing I'd like to try, under a future X64 fork of MorphOS is a Qemu based emulation of a G4 processor based system.
I feel fairly confident that today X64 hardware could run our legacy PPC OS/software as a process under a modernized SMP enabled Amiga-like OS.
And we have to consider migration eventually, if not to X64, then to an alternative (and as much as I like Power, as its the only compatible ISA, its too expensive and ARM offers no real advantages over X64, unless you're completely focused on compact portable devices).
So we'll have to see how this all plays out. I'm not sure that the sale of a few hundred e500V2 based boards is really going to help us long term. They aren't really powerful enough, when compared to other alternatives to really justify the price.
Honestly, if you're going to offer Raspberry Pi performance levels, at several times a Raspberry Pi's price, is that really the 'bargain' you think it is?
I'd rather spend the extra money, on an X5000 or even something as exotic as a TalosII board, and get something I know will be reasonably adequate for my use over a few years.
BUT, that's just me. You all do as you will, and we'll have to see how this goes. After all, I can't predict the future. If I could have in the past, we'd all been using Motorola descended cpus and UNIX-like micro kernel OS right now. :hammer: