Amiga.org
Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion => Topic started by: Monkey on June 11, 2003, 02:20:18 AM
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OK, this is my first post here (anywhere) so forgive me if I screw this up somhow.
I just wated to say I think getting a working coldfire cpu in to a "classic" Amiga is a great idea. I buy one for sure, that coupled with a 10/100 network card would mean my A4000 could stop collecting dust as it sadly is at the moment. Keep up the good work.
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A coldfire would be the greatest way to soup up a classic Amiga, although you couldn't use PPC software (which is mostly the stuff you need the power for). It would still be great for everything else, though.
The argument that rages though is that lots of people would consider a coldfire an alternative to a new AmigaONE/Pegasos system and not buy one, dragging back and holding the Amiga community firmly in the 90s. Coders would still have to support legacy such horribly slow Amiga IDE, AGA, and all the Amiga bottlenecks. People on the new systems would get less support as people stuck to the old ones - at least that's what some seem to think. I'm not so sure.
I take both views. I'm happy to see people buy coldfires if they want them, it is their choice after all. But those who do buy them should *not* then harry coders who don't release 68k apps they can use 100% of the time, or whine that apps don't support AGA or Paula any more.
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There are somethings that people do that fail all logic tests. The fact that I would buy a ColdFire card for my A1200 _today_ (if it were available) is evidence of that. I can't explain it; I don't understand it myself, but I would buy a coldfire accelerator.
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Maybe we should have a new poll? The old one is... well... old :-D
"What do you think of the Coldfire project?
1. Great! Its my primary upgrade path (hopefully ;-) )
2. Great! I'm getting a PPC system, but i'll still stick a Coldfire in my old miggy.
3. Bad! Its a distraction from PPC projects
4. I don't want one myself, but its cool
5. Huh? Coldfire what?
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2! :-D
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I think the point here is, buy a Cold Fire if you have apps on your Amiga now, which need more power... ray tracing, music processing and image processing springs to mind.
I love the idea of the cold fire, it's about a community taking the bull by the horns and seeing just how far they can go... do you see Atari or MAc users trying to get that little bit extra out of hardware that is over 10 years old... no, Why, becuase their hardwear was nothing special, it was "standard for the time", not excpetional it did not make people think "I'll bet this thing will go faster if I..."
Just my $10,000,000 worth :-D
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I would go for Number 2.
The Coldfire is a great project, and it could really be used in classic amigas.
Hmm. I know tha Oli_HD stated that making a new MoBo would be very difficult. But it would be cool.
Just using the already included extras, such as AC97, IDE, USB etc.
"Just" add PCI support, and stick a VGA thingy on one of those ports, some cheap GPU with P96 support.
Add Seriel and parallel ports, maybe some sort of floppy, but this can be achieved via the catweasel.
But anyway, coldfire is a great way to go with the classic stuff.
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bloodline wrote:
they can go... do you see Atari or MAc users trying to get that little bit extra out of hardware that is over 10 years old... no,
How do you explain the prototype Atari PPC cards? or the (seemingly stalled) Atari Coldfire Motherboard project? Or the 060 based Atari clones? :-D
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Tickly wrote:
bloodline wrote:
they can go... do you see Atari or MAc users trying to get that little bit extra out of hardware that is over 10 years old... no,
How do you explain the prototype Atari PPC cards? or the (seemingly stalled) Atari Coldfire Motherboard project? Or the 060 based Atari clones? :-D
This is the week of proving me wrong... I'm gonna give up :-D
I'm gonna put a disclaimer in my posts "All information in this post is totally inaccurate, and will be proved as such by better informed members of the human race..." :-)
Where can I find out about the 'Tari accelerators...
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Well, heres a forum topic over on Atari.org about "The Atari Coldfire project": http://forums.atari.org/read.php3?num=3&id=11991&thread=11979 (http://forums.atari.org/read.php3?num=3&id=11991&thread=11979). spooky mirroring of amiga.org or what? ;-)
There were some prototype Atari specific PowerPC cards made, but I can't find info about them now (damn it!). here (http://www.it.lth.se/~sven/falcon030ppc.html) is some info about a project to fit Phase 5 PowerUP cards into an Atari Falcon, but I don't think that got anywhere...
Here (http://assemsoft.atari.org/clonedir/) is some info about the "Hades", "Medusa" and "Milan" Atari clones.
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Tickly wrote:
Well, heres a forum topic over on Atari.org about "The Atari Coldfire project": http://forums.atari.org/read.php3?num=3&id=11991&thread=11979 (http://forums.atari.org/read.php3?num=3&id=11991&thread=11979). spooky mirroring of amiga.org or what? ;-)
There were some prototype Atari specific PowerPC cards made, but I can't find info about them now (damn it!). here (http://www.it.lth.se/~sven/falcon030ppc.html) is some info about a project to fit Phase 5 PowerUP cards into an Atari Falcon, but I don't think that got anywhere...
Here (http://assemsoft.atari.org/clonedir/) is some info about the "Hades", "Medusa" and "Milan" Atari clones.
Facinating, but the Atari was built of standard computer components, and had a freely avaible, portable OS (I refer to GEM as TOS was was well toss :-D ).
I really don't get the point... GEM is available for PC's and no Atari software ever needed anything moe powerful than an 8Mhz 68000...
Sure the Flacon has some nice features, but it was too little too late. I rather liked the 16bit GFX and 16bit Audio... the A1200 should have had those...
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bloodline wrote:
Tickly wrote:
Well, heres a forum topic over on Atari.org about "The Atari Coldfire project": http://forums.atari.org/read.php3?num=3&id=11991&thread=11979 (http://forums.atari.org/read.php3?num=3&id=11991&thread=11979). spooky mirroring of amiga.org or what? ;-)
There were some prototype Atari specific PowerPC cards made, but I can't find info about them now (damn it!). here (http://www.it.lth.se/~sven/falcon030ppc.html) is some info about a project to fit Phase 5 PowerUP cards into an Atari Falcon, but I don't think that got anywhere...
Here (http://assemsoft.atari.org/clonedir/) is some info about the "Hades", "Medusa" and "Milan" Atari clones.
Facinating, but the Atari was built of standard computer components, and had a freely avaible, portable OS (I refer to GEM as TOS was was well toss :-D ).
I really don't get the point... GEM is available for PC's and no Atari software ever needed anything moe powerful than an 8Mhz 68000...
Sure the Flacon has some nice features, but it was too little too late. I rather liked the 16bit GFX and 16bit Audio... the A1200 should have had those...
Milan '060 (http://www.milan-computer.de/gb/products/milanII01.html)
These would be nice for running AROS!
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Aha! I found some info! A company called "Titan-BSS" were making a PowerPC card called "Tempest" for the Atari Falcon.
Their website has long since disappeared, but I found it in the web archive...
Read about it here (http://web.archive.org/web/20000610184026/www.titan-bss.co.uk/tempest.htm).
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mdma wrote:
bloodline wrote:
Tickly wrote:
Well, heres a forum topic over on Atari.org about "The Atari Coldfire project": http://forums.atari.org/read.php3?num=3&id=11991&thread=11979 (http://forums.atari.org/read.php3?num=3&id=11991&thread=11979). spooky mirroring of amiga.org or what? ;-)
There were some prototype Atari specific PowerPC cards made, but I can't find info about them now (damn it!). here (http://www.it.lth.se/~sven/falcon030ppc.html) is some info about a project to fit Phase 5 PowerUP cards into an Atari Falcon, but I don't think that got anywhere...
Here (http://assemsoft.atari.org/clonedir/) is some info about the "Hades", "Medusa" and "Milan" Atari clones.
Facinating, but the Atari was built of standard computer components, and had a freely avaible, portable OS (I refer to GEM as TOS was was well toss :-D ).
I really don't get the point... GEM is available for PC's and no Atari software ever needed anything moe powerful than an 8Mhz 68000...
Sure the Flacon has some nice features, but it was too little too late. I rather liked the 16bit GFX and 16bit Audio... the A1200 should have had those...
Milan '060 (http://www.milan-computer.de/gb/products/milanII01.html)
These would be nice for running AROS!
Certainly doable, but I'm sure you are well aware of that... :-D
Any yes, I wish I hadn't trashed the Old ST I had, AROS on that would have been soooooo funny :-) :-)
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bloodline wrote:
and no Atari software ever needed anything moe powerful than an 8Mhz 68000...
Bzzzt! Lots of Atari software has been released that use 020, 030, 040 and even 060 processors. Most people don't use just the basic GEM desktop and TOS, they use MiNT, MagiC, etc.
Sure the Flacon has some nice features, but it was too little too late.
So are you saying Atari fans should just give up with their machines and operating system, and forget it? Why is it any different to the Amiga?
Atari is a hobby computer, much like the Amiga. Its users grew up with Atari, they enjoy using them, tinkering with them, and upgrading them.
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Tickly wrote:
bloodline wrote:
and no Atari software ever needed anything moe powerful than an 8Mhz 68000...
Bzzzt! Lots of Atari software has been released that use 020, 030, 040 and even 060 processors. Most people don't use just the basic GEM desktop and TOS, they use MiNT, MagiC, etc.
Sure the Flacon has some nice features, but it was too little too late.
So are you saying Atari fans should just give up with their machines and operating system, and forget it? Why is it any different to the Amiga?
Sorry, no!!! I was just saying that the Falcon had some nice features, that would have been better served on an A1200... :-)
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bloodline wrote:
mdma wrote:
bloodline wrote:
Tickly wrote:
Well, heres a forum topic over on Atari.org about "The Atari Coldfire project": http://forums.atari.org/read.php3?num=3&id=11991&thread=11979 (http://forums.atari.org/read.php3?num=3&id=11991&thread=11979). spooky mirroring of amiga.org or what? ;-)
There were some prototype Atari specific PowerPC cards made, but I can't find info about them now (damn it!). here (http://www.it.lth.se/~sven/falcon030ppc.html) is some info about a project to fit Phase 5 PowerUP cards into an Atari Falcon, but I don't think that got anywhere...
Here (http://assemsoft.atari.org/clonedir/) is some info about the "Hades", "Medusa" and "Milan" Atari clones.
Facinating, but the Atari was built of standard computer components, and had a freely avaible, portable OS (I refer to GEM as TOS was was well toss :-D ).
I really don't get the point... GEM is available for PC's and no Atari software ever needed anything moe powerful than an 8Mhz 68000...
Sure the Flacon has some nice features, but it was too little too late. I rather liked the 16bit GFX and 16bit Audio... the A1200 should have had those...
Milan '060 (http://www.milan-computer.de/gb/products/milanII01.html)
These would be nice for running AROS!
Certainly doable, but I'm sure you are well aware of that... :-D
Any yes, I wish I hadn't trashed the Old ST I had, AROS on that would have been soooooo funny :-) :-)
If I ever get my hands on that TT i mentioned a while ago, I'll port AROS to it straight away.
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Hi,
I know tha Oli_HD stated that making a new MoBo would be very difficult
It wouldnt be difficult, its just something that I cant see a market for yet, If you wanted a new motherboard would you pick a 800Mhz or a 220Mhz Coldfire? Now if lots of Amiga's upgraded to the Coldfire then a full motherboard may be a good product.
Your right about just adding a PCI slot and having a full motherboard, heck Motorola's dev board would just about do (1 PCI slot, ethernet, 2X serial, SDram and flash chip)
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Your right about just adding a PCI slot and having a full motherboard, heck Motorola's dev board would just about do (1 PCI slot, ethernet, 2X serial, SDram and flash chip)
Allright :-) Yeah, just port AROS to the DEV board then :-)
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I'd pick 4. I already have a PPC card in my Miggy, and very fast it is too (even though in it's present state it's used more like a FPU than a CPU).
Anyone want to design a dual G3/Coldfire accelerator card? :-D
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bloodline wrote:
I think the point here is, buy a Cold Fire if you have apps on your Amiga now, which need more power... ray tracing, music processing and image processing springs to mind.
I spent quite a bit of time looking into this a couple years ago and well.... the problem with the Coldfire is compatibility. Even with the emulation libs there is stuff that just won't run without a recompile, rewrite or patch.
The supervisor stack is NOT compatible with the 68K. You really need to rewrite *at least* the exec.
Software must use the math libs if floating point is used.
There needs to be Coldfire math libs.
You need to patch any software with unemulatable instructions like mpy/div with illegal instructions that can be trapped and add emulation for them to the emulation libs.
The list goes on and on.
Just having the hardware isn't going to cut it. As it is I'm not sure Oli's emulation approach will work.
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jdiffend wrote:
bloodline wrote:
I think the point here is, buy a Cold Fire if you have apps on your Amiga now, which need more power... ray tracing, music processing and image processing springs to mind.
I spent quite a bit of time looking into this a couple years ago and well.... the problem with the Coldfire is compatibility. Even with the emulation libs there is stuff that just won't run without a recompile, rewrite or patch.
The supervisor stack is NOT compatible with the 68K. You really need to rewrite *at least* the exec.
Software must use the math libs if floating point is used.
There needs to be Coldfire math libs.
You need to patch any software with unemulatable instructions like mpy/div with illegal instructions that can be trapped and add emulation for them to the emulation libs.
The list goes on and on.
Just having the hardware isn't going to cut it. As it is I'm not sure Oli's emulation approach will work.
If it's just the supervisor stuff that's the problem then AROS will cover that!!!! :-o
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Only if you replace the Kickstart ROM!
And no... supervisor mode isn't the only problem... but I assume you were being funny.
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As I understand it, Oli is intending to use a V4 coldfire in the final versions, which are more 680x0 compatible.
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V4 core fixes NONE of the things I mentioned but it does support a few more address modes than the V3 so less instructions need emulated.
The V4e supposedly adds a supervisor stack pointer which will speed up emulation of the exec. It does not fix ANY of the things I mentioned... nor will a V5 core or probably even a V6 core!
The supervisor stack is different on the Coldfire CPUs for speed. It's a much faster way to implement the supervisor stack in a RISC cpu. It's highly unlikely they will try to add more 68K compatibility after the V4e unless it's with additional address modes.
The mpy/div instructions don't set certain status bits and any software that tests those without first executing an instruction that will set them will not function the same on the Coldfire as a 680x0. Patching these instructions with an illegal instruction that can be trapped allows exact emulation where needed... but a program to do that still needs to be written.
The FPU on future chips isn't fully compatible but is similar to the one on the 060.
MMU? I really haven't looked at that.
Certain address modes can't be emulated because of the way a pipelined CPU executes instructions. These should not be a problem for any software that was compiled or written for 68040 and above. 68020 code... could fail. The only solution short of a rewrite or recompile is to patch those instructions just like I suggested for the mpy/div.
The nice thing about the patched software is it could still run on 680x0 processors if you have a program similar to decigel to run on them. The exception could be caught, the instruction decoded and the program patched to the original instruction on the fly.
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jdiffend wrote:
V4 core fixes NONE of the things I mentioned but it does support a few more address modes than the V3 so less instructions need emulated.
The V4e supposedly adds a supervisor stack pointer which will speed up emulation of the exec. It does not fix ANY of the things I mentioned... nor will a V5 core or probably even a V6 core!
The supervisor stack is different on the Coldfire CPUs for speed. It's a much faster way to implement the supervisor stack in a RISC cpu. It's highly unlikely they will try to add more 68K compatibility after the V4e unless it's with additional address modes.
The mpy/div instructions don't set certain status bits and any software that tests those without first executing an instruction that will set them will not function the same on the Coldfire as a 680x0. Patching these instructions with an illegal instruction that can be trapped allows exact emulation where needed... but a program to do that still needs to be written.
The FPU on future chips isn't fully compatible but is similar to the one on the 060.
MMU? I really haven't looked at that.
Certain address modes can't be emulated because of the way a pipelined CPU executes instructions. These should not be a problem for any software that was compiled or written for 68040 and above. 68020 code... could fail. The only solution short of a rewrite or recompile is to patch those instructions just like I suggested for the mpy/div.
The nice thing about the patched software is it could still run on 680x0 processors if you have a program similar to decigel to run on them. The exception could be caught, the instruction decoded and the program patched to the original instruction on the fly.
I guess Oli's going to have to wait until you port AROS to the Coldfire before he can get his board running then :-)
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He seems to think he can get it working with just emulation... I have my doubts. And I don't think an AROS port will solve some of his problems.
The AROS port is for my own project and I hope to start next week. But like I said... it will be aimed at a V2 core. Well see... it sounds like I have another job (finally) and that comes first. I think Oli might have been planning his own port anyway.
I was working on a Coldfire version of the exec... but that bit the dust when my hard drive got wiped a few days back so I'd have to start over.
While I'm on the kickstart subject... the new commented kickstart disassembly I've been working on could be done in a day or two if I'd just stop being lazy. (less than 1000 lines to comment) I've only put in about 5 days work total but I started a year ago. :-D
Since Amiga Inc is legal happy :roll: it would be released as the disassembler, config files, a diff file and a batch file to run everything. I'd still need to compare several ROM versions so it will work on more than just one.
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Um... less than 1000 lines to comment on the exec... not the entire kickstart. I'm not that fast!
:lol: