AROS68K and the Freescale Coldfire CPU

[Iggy]

In a word, yes.

Usage? Hobby.

Why make it? To provide a hardware solution for AROS 68K. Running AROS68K natively on a V4e Coldfire would provide a noticeable improvement over even the fastest 680x0. Only apps affected by 68K/CF incompatibility would be affected and would run at 030 or 040. But, with a max of 4 GB DDR RAM, a PCI graphics card(Matrox still makes new PCI cards and they'd be willing to provide documentation, but alternatively older Radeon or GeForce cards could be possibly used, especially if supported under Gallium) and fast disk would it matter much? I think there is no 68K application that would not run EASILY on such a configuration.

Elbox Dragon was supposed to be priced at 350 euros, according to their website.

I would really like to know more about what Elbox was planning. I just downloaded some technical data from Freescale and I'm having trouble seeing how a MCF5474 could be implemented in an accelerator. The Coldfire CPU has some common instructions it shares with the 68K but the interfaces are radically different. The MCF5474 is a much more integrated product. Not quite an Soc but close.

[johnklos]

To clarify one part of this discussion, the ColdFire cannot be made to run all m68k code by trapping unimplemented instructions because it has some instructions which overlap m68k instructions. In order to have decent performance, something like CyberPatcher would have to be run on all loaded m68k code before execution.

Here's a good overview of the differences between m68k and ColdFire:
http://www.microapl.co.uk/Porting/ColdFire/cf_68k_diffs.html

[WolfToTheMoon]

I would really like to know more about what Elbox was planning. I just downloaded some technical data from Freescale and I'm having trouble seeing how a MCF5474 could be implemented in an accelerator. The Coldfire CPU has some common instructions it shares with the 68K but the interfaces are radically different. The MCF5474 is a much more integrated product. Not quite an Soc but close.

There are some pictures of Dragon here from 2006...

http://tdolphin.org/amikrak/amizaduszki2006.php

I wonder if they'd be willing to sell the design  if it still exists?

[Iggy]

There are some pictures of Dragon here from 2006...

http://tdolphin.org/amikrak/amizaduszki2006.php

I wonder if they'd be willing to sell the design  if it still exists?

Interesting! Looks like it relies on RTG. What, if any, Amiga legacy components are supported?

[WolfToTheMoon]

Interesting! Looks like it relies on RTG. What, if any, Amiga legacy components are supported?

I'm trying to find some more info about it...

[Iggy]

I'm trying to find some more info about it...

I re-examined the photos you referenced and looked at Elbox's website to gather further information.
The base for the 1200 Dragon system is a replacement bus board similar to their Mediator but with a processor slot and an AGP video slot. An Lattice FPGA is visible on the bus board.
I assume that connection to a 1200 motherboard is similar to a Mediator 1200.
There is little visble on the CPU card except for the two DDR memory slots visble on the back of the CPU card.
The Coldfire processor  mentioned is the MCF5475. This is slightly different than the MCF5474 I've seen mentioned in relation to the Atari Coldfire Project.
One thing that becomes apparent is that the Coldfire's main interface with other components is via the PCI bus.
This approach (which suits the Coldfire's inferface) is not similar to other 68K based accelerators.
In order to use this processor a heavily customized OS would be needed.
I'm not sure why some of the photos show AmigaOS 4.0 splash screens. To the best of my knowledge AOS4 makes no use of an Amiga's 68K processor (running all code on the PPC processor).

If I can dig up any further details I'll post them.

Jim

Edit - Looking at the design of this processor, I don't see how it could be incorporated into an Amiga as code that directly accesses legacy hardware locations would not function correctly.

[nicholas]

I re-examined the photos you referenced and looked at Elbox's website to gather further information.
The base for the 1200 Dragon system is a replacement bus board similar to their Mediator but with a processor slot and an AGP video slot. An Lattice FPGA is visible on the bus board.
I assume that connection to a 1200 motherboard is similar to a Mediator 1200.
There is little visble on the CPU card except for the two DDR memory slots visble on the back of the CPU card.
The Coldfire processor  mentioned is the MCF5475. This is slightly different than the MCF5474 I've seen mentioned in relation to the Atari Coldfire Project.
One thing that becomes apparent is that the Coldfire's main interface with other components is via the PCI bus.
This approach (which suits the Coldfire's inferface) is not similar to other 68K based accelerators.
In order to use this processor a heavily customized OS would be needed.
I'm not sure why some of the photos show AmigaOS 4.0 splash screens. To the best of my knowledge AOS4 makes no use of an Amiga's 68K processor (running all code on the PPC processor).

If I can dig up any further details I'll post them.

Jim

Edit - Looking at the design of this processor, I don't see how it could be incorporated into an Amiga as code that directly accesses legacy hardware locations would not function correctly.

The CPU slot is designed to take a PPC / 68K processor.

[WolfToTheMoon]

I was juts looking at some of the V5 Coldfires that can be found in certain printers...

They go as high as 540 MHz!!! Even emulated, any 68K apps would FLY! Man, this would be a killer CPU to test AROS on. I wonder is there any way to get these chips but not having to deal with Freescale directly?

[Iggy]

I was juts looking at some of the V5 Coldfires that can be found in certain printers...

They go as high as 540 MHz!!! Even emulated, any 68K apps would FLY! Man, this would be a killer CPU to test AROS on. I wonder is there any way to get these chips but not having to deal with Freescale directly?

What printers are they found in and are the processors socketed or soldered directly to the boards>

[WolfToTheMoon]

What printers are they found in and are the processors socketed or soldered directly to the boards>

HP LaserJet series is one example...

Here's one... V5 @ 540 MHz - go to specs page.

I was thinking of possibly "raiding" broken HP printers for these V5s :roflmao:

[WolfToTheMoon]

Some more info on V5e...

supports DDR2 RAM(V4e only DDR)
has onboard Wi-Fi on some models(correction - can come with W-Fi interface, needs ZigBee Wi-Fi board).

I'll try to get an example through HP channels(or some other vendors).

[Iggy]

Some more info on V5e...

supports DDR2 RAM(V4e only DDR)
has onboard Wi-Fi on some models(correction - can come with W-Fi interface, needs ZigBee Wi-Fi board).

I'll try to get an example through HP channels(or some other vendors).

 Yes, but is it a BGA that is soldered directly to the board? We would have a lot of trouble salvaging those.

[WolfToTheMoon]

Yes, but is it a BGA that is soldered directly to the board? We would have a lot of trouble salvaging those.

I don't know, but I know a person who works with printers and I have asked him to find out if I could buy V5e through him(since he services printers and has contacts at various companies), along with any documentation/developer's tools. I also asked about motherboards... I should have answers in a day or two.

I think a 540 MHz V5e would be great to have.
That's probably more then enough for DVD playback and encoding.

[Iggy]

I don't know, but I know a person who works with printers and I have asked him to find out if I could buy V5e through him(since he services printers and has contacts at various companies), along with any documentation/developer's tools. I also asked about motherboards... I should have answers in a day or two.

I think a 540 MHz V5e would be great to have.
That's probably more then enough for DVD playback and encoding.

From a technical aspect, its interesting, but if it requires to much work to get 68K code running I'm wondering if there's an advantage over MorphOS' JIT interpreter.

[WolfToTheMoon]

From a technical aspect, its interesting, but if it requires to much work to get 68K code running I'm wondering if there's an advantage over MorphOS' JIT interpreter.

Well, this would be a fun project aimed entirely at classic hardware and aimed for AROS68K only.

But... if it's 540 MHz passive cooling, then greater speeds might be possible with fan cooling. Also, it supports DDR2 RAM(more then 4 GB RAM is possivble with V5e)... this would be a pretty decent computer in any way. Add AGP graphics and it'd be great for upgrading 68K systems(though I suspect it would have to be a towered system for it to fit). Don't know, maybe a standalone board which would fit inside any Amiga + FPGA makes more sense?

V5e is an enhanced V5e core. Unfortunately, there's very, very little info about these even on Freescale's webpage. That's why I asked about documentation. Even so, a V5e is fully superscalar and could be fully pipelined. At 540 MHz, it should run above 060 speeds even in 68K emulation mode.

[Iggy]

Well, this would be a fun project aimed entirely at classic hardware and aimed for AROS68K only.

But... if it's 540 MHz passive cooling, then greater speeds might be possible with fan cooling. Also, it supports DDR2 RAM(more then 4 GB RAM is possivble with V5e)... this would be a pretty decent computer in any way. Add AGP graphics and it'd be great for upgrading 68K systems(though I suspect it would have to be a towered system for it to fit). Don't know, maybe a standalone board which would fit inside any Amiga + FPGA makes more sense?

V5e is an enhanced V5e core. Unfortunately, there's very, very little info about these even on Freescale's webpage. That's why I asked about documentation. Even so, a V5e is fully superscalar and could be fully pipelined. At 540 MHz, it should run above 060 speeds even in 68K emulation mode.

I appreciate your enthusiasm, and I'd urge you to explore this idea fully.
My only reservation, as I've sort of stated before, is that if emulation is required then solutions we already have may work just as well (or better).