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Amiga computer related discussion => General chat about Amiga topics => Topic started by: Digiman on April 18, 2012, 01:56:27 AM
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So how comes IBM's AI machine called Watson which outsmarted the two best champions on Jeopardy TV show uses Power7 not x86 architecture?
youtube video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFR3lOm_xhE)
If only an IBM engineer was a nostalgic Amigan with a dream to out do Wintel at least technically.....
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Get yourself a $15,000 entry-level system and let us know how it goes. ;-)
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Get yourself a $15,000 entry-level system and let us know how it goes. ;-)
Sar-CHASM!!! I like it.
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They're 2800 used :-P
My point was wouldn't it be awesome if a group of IBM engineers looked at getting AROS PPC/OS4 to run on that CPU in their spare time.
(yeah never going to happen)
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So how comes IBM's AI machine called Watson which outsmarted the two best champions on Jeopardy TV show uses Power7 not x86 architecture?
A very good question. It's because x86 is a bit crap and PPC is better. :)
That should get the flames fanned! But seriously, memresistor FPGA based AI is on the way and should blow away anything that came before it. Just Google "memristor fpga artificial intelligence" and have a read. You'll find it fascinating if you have any geek in your blood at all.
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Get yourself a $15,000 entry-level system and let us know how it goes. ;-)
Cheaper than a fictional high end CUSAmiga we heard about a while back.
Sorry, I couldn't resist getting that one in.
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The main problem is that IBM hasn't been interested in consumer-level development...well, pretty much since the PS/2/MCA debacle. They even sold off their ThinkPad line, and they gave Apple a hell of a time about supporting Altivec on the G5. I'm sure they're not going to be abandoning POWER as long as there's money in it, but I very much doubt they're going to be looking at going back into the consumer market any time soon.
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A very good question. It's because x86 is a bit crap and PPC is better. :)
That should get the flames fanned! But seriously, memresistor FPGA based AI is on the way and should blow away anything that came before it. Just Google "memristor fpga artificial intelligence" and have a read. You'll find it fascinating if you have any geek in your blood at all.
PROVE IT, PROVE IT, PROVE IT,
BET YOU CAN'T.
smerf
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the closest thing you might get is the chip for the new wii replacement but even that is suppose to be slower than what will be in the ps4, which is an old amd chip.
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@smerf
Back in the real world: http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2011/12/13/maxeler-makes-waves-with-dataflow-design/
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So how comes IBM's AI machine called Watson which outsmarted the two best champions on Jeopardy TV show uses Power7 not x86 architecture?
The answer is a bit mundane... But IBM own the rights to the Power Architecture and use it for all their custom CPU work. They don't need or want to be slaves to AMD and Intel. :)
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So PowerPC is dead you say?
Yes.
My point was wouldn't it be awesome if a group of IBM engineers looked at getting AROS PPC/OS4 to run on that CPU in their spare time.
:whack:
.
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The answer is a bit mundane... But IBM own the rights to the Power Architecture and use it for all their custom CPU work. They don't need or want to be slaves to AMD and Intel. :)
It's the software that is impressive anyway. It wouldn't matter what hardware they run it on.
There is enough cores in that machine to satisfy all the current demand from the amiga community. If PowerPC were alive then they'd have spent less money and shipped motherboards to us all for free.
PowerPC is even dead in the console market. The next generation is abandoning it, except for Nintendo who are just taking the Wii and doubling the cpu cores.
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So how comes IBM's AI machine called Watson which outsmarted the two best champions on Jeopardy TV show uses Power7 not x86 architecture?
youtube video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFR3lOm_xhE)
If only an IBM engineer was a nostalgic Amigan with a dream to out do Wintel at least technically.....
It's just a little bit too big for my living room, I'll pass on this new PPC technology and happily continue use my Intel Core2Duo
http://www.characterblog.com/assets/58914-ibm-watson.jpg
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It's just a little bit too big for my living room, I'll pass on this new PPC technology and happily continue use my Intel Core2Duo
http://www.characterblog.com/assets/58914-ibm-watson.jpg
I think that one transforms into a mech.
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So how comes IBM's AI machine called Watson which outsmarted the two best champions on Jeopardy TV show uses Power7 not x86 architecture?
youtube video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFR3lOm_xhE)
If only an IBM engineer was a nostalgic Amigan with a dream to out do Wintel at least technically.....
*sigh*
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It's the software that is impressive anyway. It wouldn't matter what hardware they run it on.
There is enough cores in that machine to satisfy all the current demand from the amiga community. If PowerPC were alive then they'd have spent less money and shipped motherboards to us all for free.
PowerPC is even dead in the console market. The next generation is abandoning it, except for Nintendo who are just taking the Wii and doubling the cpu cores.
This goes along the order of:
1) True,
2) True and hilarious,
3) False: There's a rumour that PS4 is an AMD CPU but it's not confirmed - the XboxNext/720/wtfever is probably (almost certinaly) PPC - Wii-U is a multicore PPC but it's not based on the older GameCube/Wii cpu.
PPC these days is disappointing in it's lack of publicly consumer facing usage. There's low-end upto 400MHz integrated PPC chips that get embedded in car GPS displays, then there's an enormous gap until you get to the Power7 stuff.
Actually back to games consoles, the real loser this coming generation appears to be nVidia! They pissed off MS back on the original Xbox with licensing costs and were the primary reason it was put to bed early. They're apparently out of the PS4. They were rumoured to be in the Nintendo 3DS but they aren't, and they lost out to AMD/Ati for the Wii-U.
In the coming console generation, they make PPC seem positively bouncing with life :D
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PowerPC in classic Amiga looks dead.
I think our Classic future (now there's a confused concept!) lies in FPGA based recreations like fpgaarcade and 68k cores like the tg68 etc.
Andy
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Hey, at least it's power-efficient! :)
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Just for information: the PowerPC is not at all dead, it's not even close to dead, it's still being actively pushed forward by some big companies, and is evolving all the time.
Just because PowerPC isn't used in desktops any more (apart from ours) doesn't mean it's dead - nor does that fact that it's slower than x86 mean it's dead. PowerPC isn't competing with x86 any more, it's competing with ARM. That's why our Sams and things are so power efficient, they're embedded CPUs, not designed to compete with x86 desktops (what would be the point? It'd be corporate suicide).
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Just because PowerPC isn't used in desktops any more
Equals to **DEAD** for all purposes interesting to us, which is what people mean when they say that PPC is dead. Nobody is denying that PPC is being used plenty in servers, routers, printers, automotive, etc. But who cares?
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Just for information: the PowerPC is not at all dead, it's not even close to dead, it's still being actively pushed forward by some big companies, and is evolving all the time.
Just because PowerPC isn't used in desktops any more (apart from ours) doesn't mean it's dead - nor does that fact that it's slower than x86 mean it's dead. PowerPC isn't competing with x86 any more, it's competing with ARM. That's why our Sams and things are so power efficient, they're embedded CPUs, not designed to compete with x86 desktops (what would be the point? It'd be corporate suicide).
Easy way to check if a CPU architecture is dead; Just ask yourself if you would choose it when starting a new project :)
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It's the software that is impressive anyway. It wouldn't matter what hardware they run it on.
There is enough cores in that machine to satisfy all the current demand from the amiga community. If PowerPC were alive then they'd have spent less money and shipped motherboards to us all for free.
PowerPC is even dead in the console market. The next generation is abandoning it, except for Nintendo who are just taking the Wii and doubling the cpu cores.
That last part is completely unprovable.
No one really know what the next XBOX will be based on (other then the GPU).
The PS4? Also relatively unknown, but it is quite likely to continue as an evolution of the current hardware.
And the Wii U's processor isn't really related to the Wii's processor and is several times more powerful (I'd love to have that processor in a PC).
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Easy way to check if a CPU architecture is dead; Just ask yourself if you would choose it when starting a new project :)
Or easier still, just put a heart monitor on one and see what you get. 100% nothing.
"I kicked it, it was dead"
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Equals to **DEAD** for all purposes interesting to us, which is what people mean when they say that PPC is dead. Nobody is denying that PPC is being used plenty in servers, routers, printers, automotive, etc. But who cares?
Not at all - all the PowerPC processors used by machines since the PowerMac are actually using embedded processors.
So PowerPC is very much alive for all purposes interesting to people who don't just want to use old PowerMacs.
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Not at all - all the PowerPC processors used by machines since the PowerMac are actually using embedded processors.
So PowerPC is very much alive for all purposes interesting to people who don't just want to use old PowerMacs.
:crazy:
Again, *nobody* has been building viable PPC based desktop motherboards since Apple left the scene. They were the last, and those Apple machines represents how far PPC ever went on the desktop. Nobody will follow, since there simply is no point. PPC can't do anything for the desktop that X86 (and soon ARM) can't do better (and by "better", I actually mean *every single point of comparison*)...
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PowerPC is even dead in the console market. The next generation is abandoning it, except for Nintendo who are just taking the Wii and doubling the cpu cores.
How do you figure? The Wii U is still using PowerPC, and if it sells like the Wii did you can hardly call it dead, the only rumor I've seen for the XBox 720/"Durango" posits a 16-core PowerPC system, and evidently even the Playstation 4 isn't abandoning it entirely (though why they need an entirely different CPU architecture in an x86 box with an explicit lack of backwards compatibility is beyond me.) That's a pretty curious definition of "dead."
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even the Playstation 4 isn't abandoning it entirely (though why they need an entirely different CPU architecture in an x86 box with an explicit lack of backwards compatibility is beyond me.)
If they are abandoning the PPC/Cell combo, and I'd bet they are, it's because their partners pulled out of Cell development. So they're faced with either:
1) paying for a new CPU to be developed,
2) paying for further development of the Cell and marrying it to either a newer PPC core or another ISA,
3) or they can take an off the shelf CPU/Mobo/GPU and come within a few percentage either side of their competitors whilst saving a HUGE (billions dollars) amount of money.
I think they've chosen route #3 because finally someone slightly less insane is at the helm at Sony.
Nothing to do with ease/difficulty of Cell software development or anything either, I think it's purely a logical choice based on monetary needs.
Andy
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Its Sony, they have enough money to continue with cell development.
I very much doubt they would try a completely new route, when what they have has proven to work pretty well.
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3) or they can take an off the shelf CPU/Mobo/GPU and come within a few percentage either side of their competitors whilst saving a HUGE (billions dollars) amount of money.
I think they've chosen route #3 because finally someone slightly less insane is at the helm at Sony.
Yeah, I get that, but as I've read the tentative PS4 design also includes a PowerPC CPU for some reason (not sure if it's Cell or not.) That's what I don't get, since they've explicitly stated there won't be any backwards compatibility...
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Just as many rumours that PS4 will be CELL based than the ones that it will not. So hardly a basis for factual discussion.
As for Wii U, the only official release of CPU spec from Nintendo is as follows:
IBM Power Architecture-based multi-core 45 nm microprocessor based on the POWER7 architecture found in the Watson supercomputer.
The rest is pure speculation.
Regarding "the desktop" as a yardstick, it's worth noting that more "computing" is now being performed on mobile devices than anything else. The classic PC model is dying, smartphones, pads and consoles are becoming the norm. Even a lot of PC owners use mobile devices and consoles more hours per day than their PC's. I for one count more Wii hours than any other computational device I own, and I own a lot of them (as do many others on this forum).
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Equals to **DEAD** for all purposes interesting to us
You assume too much. My interests are not necessarily the same as yours.
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CPU architecture in consoles couldn't be more uninteresting, to a user it doesn't matter one bit what's "under the hood" in a console, as long as it's powerful enough, cool/silent enough, and helps making the system cheap enough. Games and services are what matters. Who knows, maybe the upcoming "x86 killers" ARM chips from nVidia will be the answer to all three of those criteria? Wouldn't surprise me one bit if Microsoft's cooperation with nVidia in the ARM venture would include console as well, Microsoft has been completely absent on the very lucrative mobile devices market, especially mobile gaming devices, and I think they want in on everything mobile (that's why they are going ARM with Windows). Maybe there is a point in having a common "architectural eco-system" for a "Xbox 720" and "Xbox Mobile", who knows? I guess we'll know when we are closing in on Christmas 2013. ;)
But it doesn't matter one bit to anything "Amiga", so I wonder why we are discussing it here...?
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You assume too much. My interests are not necessarily the same as yours.
You obviously failed completely to comprehend my point. I wasn't talking about individual interests, and for the record, I couldn't care less in what you are interested in...
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So how comes IBM's AI machine called Watson which outsmarted the two best champions on Jeopardy TV show uses Power7 not x86 architecture?
youtube video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFR3lOm_xhE)
If only an IBM engineer was a nostalgic Amigan with a dream to out do Wintel at least technically.....
The datacenter where I work every day is plenty of powerPC-based servers. This does not change, however, the fact that this architecture has completely missed even the last train to desktop computing. Sorry.
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CPU architecture in consoles couldn't be more uninteresting, to a user it doesn't matter one bit what's "under the hood" in a console, as long as it's powerful enough, cool/silent enough, and helps making the system cheap enough. Games and services are what matters.
I disagree with your claim of uninteresting. While most console users do not feel the need to care what's inside their gizmos, we have reason to find it an interesting detail. Why? Well, some people say that PowerPC is not developed with desktop computing in mind, and therefore these network router chips are relatively poor as desktop processors compared to Intel and AMD things. As the old term "convergence" gradually comes true, these consoles are going to start doing more desktop like things, and they already have. They now surf the web, play movies, show pictures, do video conferencing.
So long as these console makers continue to choose PowerPC, for whatever reasons they have to do that, PowerPC processors will be pulled toward features and instructions beneficial to these and new tasks that historically may be considered desktop things rather than router or car engine things. As these desktop-alike things filter into PowerPC, our situation, so long as we are unwillingly chained to the PowerPC flagpole, can improve. Doesn't mean it will, as that depends on someone taking such a new PowerPC chip and makign a desktop with it, but at least it's possible.
An observation of this happening is the return of Altivec to Frescale's product line. They'd lost interest and dumped it. But enough customers had enough reason to want it back that Freescale had to give in. We potentially benefit from that, as a desktop AmigaOS machine with Altivec is better than one without. As long as consoles and other things want certain features they will much more likely remain core requirements of the PowerPC spec, rather than drift away to optional features or even removed in future spec releases.
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Who knows, maybe the upcoming "x86 killers" ARM chips from nVidia will be the answer to all three of those criteria?
I know very well Nvidia's PR strategies and I really doubt there will ever be any x86-killers from them. According to their statements, Tegra3 should have been the fastest, most powerful ARM based chip on the market, however Snapdragon S4 outperforms it in many areas, while the iPad3 competes fairly well with Tegra3-based tablets. And while Nvidia improves its Tegra line of ARM-based SoCs trying to follow its roadmap, Intel makes thinner and thinner transistors, placing billions of them into 22nm-based Ivy-bridge CPUs. Intel has both the knowledge and the economic power to enhance their Atom line as they wish so, if ARM really gets too dangerous for them, they just need to answer once for all.
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The datacenter where I work every day is plenty of powerPC-based servers. This does not change, however, the fact that this architecture has completely missed even the last train to desktop computing. Sorry.
What details do you think need to be changed in PowerPC in order to get on one of these trains?
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You obviously failed completely to comprehend my point. I wasn't talking about individual interests, and for the record, I couldn't care less in what you are interested in...
Fair enough, that's the trouble with text communication, it lacks emphasis so is easily misinterpreted. I am forced to regard your comment of "Equals to **DEAD** for all purposes interesting to us" as meaning "Equals to **DEAD** for all purposes of interest to Amiga users". That of course is simply just not true anyway, we have OS4 and MOS both running on PPC. How does that equate to dead?
As for " I couldn't care less in what you are interested in...", well, that was a bit unfriendly. Have I offended you somehow? I've always thought we've had quite interesting and adult discussions in the past even if we don't always agree.
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The whole "desktop machine is dying" thing is pretty darn premature. We've been hearing it for years, and while additional devices are becoming mainstream, it hasnt been to the detriment of desktop sales.
There's quite a few tasks that simply arent practical elsewhere.
Desktop cpu sales continue to increase year in year out. Hardly demonstrative of it becoming a dying market.
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I know very well Nvidia's PR strategies and I really doubt there will ever be any x86-killers from them. According to their statements, Tegra3 should have been the fastest, most powerful ARM based chip on the market, however Snapdragon S4 outperforms it in many areas, while the iPad3 competes fairly well with Tegra3-based tablets. And while Nvidia improves its Tegra line of ARM-based SoCs trying to follow its roadmap, Intel makes thinner and thinner transistors, placing billions of them into 22nm-based Ivy-bridge CPUs. Intel has both the knowledge and the economic power to enhance their Atom line as they wish so, if ARM really gets too dangerous for them, they just need to answer once for all.
Depends on what you consider dangerous. ARM already has the lion share of CPUs being produced, even if you combined Intel's and AMD's x86 CPU production:
(http://regmedia.co.uk/2011/01/05/nvidia-arm-x86-shipments.gif)
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I disagree with your claim of uninteresting. While most console users do not feel the need to care what's inside their gizmos, we have reason to find it an interesting detail. Why? Well, some people say that PowerPC is not developed with desktop computing in mind, and therefore these network router chips are relatively poor as desktop processors compared to Intel and AMD things. As the old term "convergence" gradually comes true, these consoles are going to start doing more desktop like things, and they already have. They now surf the web, play movies, show pictures, do video conferencing.
So long as these console makers continue to choose PowerPC, for whatever reasons they have to do that, PowerPC processors will be pulled toward features and instructions beneficial to these and new tasks that historically may be considered desktop things rather than router or car engine things. As these desktop-alike things filter into PowerPC, our situation, so long as we are unwillingly chained to the PowerPC flagpole, can improve. Doesn't mean it will, as that depends on someone taking such a new PowerPC chip and makign a desktop with it, but at least it's possible.
An observation of this happening is the return of Altivec to Frescale's product line. They'd lost interest and dumped it. But enough customers had enough reason to want it back that Freescale had to give in. We potentially benefit from that, as a desktop AmigaOS machine with Altivec is better than one without. As long as consoles and other things want certain features they will much more likely remain core requirements of the PowerPC spec, rather than drift away to optional features or even removed in future spec releases.
I couldn't agree more. Once consoles played games, now we can surf the net, stream videos and play our music collections on them. Even a certain level of music and video editing is slipping in, the Wii U demo video even shows the new controller being used as a rather nifty digital sketch pad. Combined with pads and smartphones, how much more will it take before we abandon our desktops completely and leave them to be the tools of coders only? Only time will tell.
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The whole "desktop machine is dying" thing is pretty darn premature. We've been hearing it for years, and while additional devices are becoming mainstream, it hasnt been to the detriment of desktop sales.
There's quite a few tasks that simply arent practical elsewhere.
Desktop cpu sales continue to increase year in year out. Hardly demonstrative of it becoming a dying market.
Statistics are so much fun don't you think? Yes, I agree that PC sales still increase year on year BUT, relative to smartphones, consoles and tablets the overall share of the computational marketplace that PC once had just doesn't look as strong as it once did. I still think the desktop PC has life left in it but it's not the force it once was.
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The whole "desktop machine is dying" thing is pretty darn premature. We've been hearing it for years, and while additional devices are becoming mainstream, it hasnt been to the detriment of desktop sales.
There's quite a few tasks that simply arent practical elsewhere.
Desktop cpu sales continue to increase year in year out. Hardly demonstrative of it becoming a dying market.
Desktops account for about 20% of computer sales and has remained relatively flat line at 20% over the past several years. It's not on it's death bed, but it's certainly nothing what it use to be like either as industry continues to project desktops around 20% while portables (laptop/notebooks/tablets/smartphones) eat up the rest of the 80% of the computer market.
If ARM ever gets a stable environment that x86 has enjoyed, desktops will take another drop in sales.
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You obviously failed completely to comprehend my point. I wasn't talking about individual interests, and for the record, I couldn't care less in what you are interested in...
Aren't you just a bundle of sunshine
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If anything ever finally "kills" the desktop PC, it'll be something akin to this:
http://www.ubuntu.com/devices/android
Not necessarily Linux/Ubuntu/etc, I just mean that as phones get powerful enough (and my phone isn't far behind my laptop already!!!) the need for a separate desktop PC is reduced for a lot of people.
It is a bit odd that we've got Atom(x86), MIPS and ARM in mobiles but not PPC though.
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Well that's the thing isnt it... the desktop pc *isnt* in decline, its simply that other devices are now available and becoming mainstream. It may account for a smaller percentage of the market than it once did, but it's no less popular than it's ever been. A hypothetical 20% is still a nice chunk of the market. If the remaining devices (phones/laptops/netbooks/nettops/laptops/other consumer devices/etc.) take up 80% then the desktop computer is more than holding its own.
The sooner all the consumer driven drivel migrates to the fad devices the better in my opinion.
As I already said there's some tasks that are simply impractical on anything but a fully fledged desktop and there's still plenty of room for needing more computational power, even if some people seem to want to believe otherwise.
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It is a bit odd that we've got Atom(x86), MIPS and ARM in mobiles but not PPC though.
What's most amusing about this is that a lot of the satellites that power the phone networks do use powerpc. It's a funny ol' world.
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CPU architecture in consoles couldn't be more uninteresting...
But it doesn't matter one bit to anything "Amiga", so I wonder why we are discussing it here...?
I find console architecture VERY interesting as nothing else resembles a Amiga as much in the computing world as a game console.
If you were to build a modern Amiga like system, the parts used in current game consoles would be very useful.
And the Wii U with its Power 7 based multi-core processor, THAT would definitely be on my list for desired components.
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What's most amusing about this is that a lot of the satellites that power the phone networks do use powerpc. It's a funny ol' world.
It's not that surprising since it's only significant sales for the PPC are for embedded networking.
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If anything ever finally "kills" the desktop PC, it'll be something akin to this:
http://www.ubuntu.com/devices/android
The next "gadget" I buy will be an android tablet - an Asus Transformer, actually. Dual core 1.1ghz Tegra based. This isn't that far behind my desktop and is leaps and bounds more powerful than the desktop prior.
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Desktops account for about 20% of computer sales and has remained relatively flat line at 20% over the past several years. It's not on it's death bed, but it's certainly nothing what it use to be like either as industry continues to project desktops around 20% while portables (laptop/notebooks/tablets/smartphones) eat up the rest of the 80% of the computer market.
It's problematic to count laptops in with tablets and smartphones, though - with the exception of a few sub-notebooks like the Efika MX and those chintzy $75 things that failed to make waves a year or two ago, the vast majority of laptops are simply PCs in a mobile form factor, whereas tablets and smartphones are (largely, though also not without exception) entirely different animals. It's hard to argue that the PC is dying because more people are buying their PCs in portable form-factors. And as fishy_fiz points out, even if you don't count laptops with PCs, it's not so much that the PC is dying as that the market overall is expanding.
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Equals to **DEAD** for all purposes interesting to us, which is what people mean when they say that PPC is dead. Nobody is denying that PPC is being used plenty in servers, routers, printers, automotive, etc. But who cares?
Not fully. Playstation 3 had several incarnations of Linux working and can be quite easily expanded to very nice workstation that is quite powerful and even cheap. Having legally MorphOS and AmigaOS 4 in last PPC incarnations would make a great hobby and gaming platform :-)
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I disagree with your claim of uninteresting. While most console users do not feel the need to care what's inside their gizmos, we have reason to find it an interesting detail. Why? Well, some people say that PowerPC is not developed with desktop computing in mind, and therefore these network router chips are relatively poor as desktop processors compared to Intel and AMD things. As the old term "convergence" gradually comes true, these consoles are going to start doing more desktop like things, and they already have. They now surf the web, play movies, show pictures, do video conferencing.
So long as these console makers continue to choose PowerPC, for whatever reasons they have to do that, PowerPC processors will be pulled toward features and instructions beneficial to these and new tasks that historically may be considered desktop things rather than router or car engine things. As these desktop-alike things filter into PowerPC
"Desktop-alike things filter into PPC"; You are obviously mixing up application with architecture. Of course you can play music and browse the web on PPC based CPU's, that's not the point! And no matter what CPU architecture Microsoft/Sony/Nintendo is going to use in their next generation consoles, there will *never ever again* be a viable desktop market around the PPC architecture! There is absolutely *NO* connection between future *game consoles* and future viable PPC motherboards for Amiga!
our situation, so long as we are unwillingly chained to the PowerPC flagpole, can improve. Doesn't mean it will, as that depends on someone taking such a new PowerPC chip and makign a desktop with it, but at least it's possible.
No it won't happen. I'm *not* saying it's technically impossible to develop a motherboard using obscure PPC CPU's (Aeon and Acube are examples of that), but the key word here is *VIABLE*, and this is where it *fails*, as again both Aeon and Acube are both examples of. Failure is the only possible outcome; there simply isn't any room for the word "viable" in a sentence describing a $3,000+ system of 2007 standards that can't even play 1080p video properly. That's not a way forward to a future, it's an express lane to a casket six feet under ground.
An observation of this happening is the return of Altivec to Frescale's product line. They'd lost interest and dumped it. But enough customers had enough reason to want it back that Freescale had to give in. We potentially benefit from that, as a desktop AmigaOS machine with Altivec is better than one without. As long as consoles and other things want certain features they will much more likely remain core requirements of the PowerPC spec, rather than drift away to optional features or even removed in future spec releases.
Sure, having Altivec is better than not having Altivec, but what has that to do with anything? It surely doesn't change the fact that nobody is building viable PPC desktop motherboards, and nobody will do that ever again! Apple took that market with them when they left!
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The key here is that as the x86 get more power efficient and the ARM gets more powerful, there is going o be increasingly less reason to choose any other architecture... That is why I think of the PPC as "dead", other than IBM (who have no desire or need to use ARM, Intel or AMD intellectual property) the PPC architecture doesn't have much of a long term future.
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Fair enough, that's the trouble with text communication, it lacks emphasis so is easily misinterpreted. I am forced to regard your comment of "Equals to **DEAD** for all purposes interesting to us" as meaning "Equals to **DEAD** for all purposes of interest to Amiga users".
That's exactly what I meant.
That of course is simply just not true anyway, we have OS4 and MOS both running on PPC. How does that equate to dead?
New PPC CPU's doesn't equal to new viable desktop motherboards, not at all actually. The Apple PPC HW was the last of its kind, nothing has followed and nothing ever will. You can spend the whole day discussing consoles, super computers like "Watson", or Freescale re-introducing Altivec in some router CPU; it won't change the fact that nobody will ever be building a viable desktop motherboard usable by OS4 ever again! This is why it's **DEAD** for all purposes of interest to Amiga users!
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And no matter what CPU architecture Microsoft/Sony/Nintendo is going to use in their next generation consoles, there will *never ever again* be a viable desktop market around the PPC architecture! [...] It surely doesn't change the fact that nobody is building viable PPC desktop motherboards, and nobody will do that ever again!
The Apple PPC HW was the last of its kind, nothing has followed and nothing ever will. [...] it won't change the fact that nobody will ever be building a viable desktop motherboard usable by OS4 ever again!
Hey, Nostradamus, while you're declaring the course of the future with absolute certainty, would you mind handing out some stock tips?
There is absolutely *NO* connection between future *game consoles* and future viable PPC motherboards for Amiga!
Isn't there? Hackers have been running homebrew OSes on game consoles since the Dreamcast; why is it that, say, MorphOS Team couldn't use the Wii U as a target platform, if they were so inclined?
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No it won't happen. I'm *not* saying it's technically impossible to develop a motherboard using obscure PPC CPU's (Aeon and Acube are examples of that), but the key word here is *VIABLE*, and this is where it *fails*, as again both Aeon and Acube are both examples of. /QUOTE]
OK, so it's not dead because it's incapable, it's dead because they don't sell more than some number in your head. I don't know how many either company has sold, or if they've broken even. Since Acube has more than one model, I feel it safe to assume that they felt successful enough to do more than the first model. If a business feels it is successful in doing something and choose to continue doing similar things, then my opinion is that they do have a viable business model outside if your opinion.
It's too bad that none of our Amiga-alike platforms can be a viable thing to you. It's sad that MorphOS is such a failure to be on such old Mac laptops instead of shiny new ones, or on shiny new anything that I know of. And sad that AROS is not viable because it runs on shiny new PCs. And sad that OS4 is not viable because they seem to have a successful business selling brand new but weird boards.
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I find console architecture VERY interesting as nothing else resembles a Amiga as much in the computing world as a game console.
If you were to build a modern Amiga like system, the parts used in current game consoles would be very useful.
Not fully. Playstation 3 had several incarnations of Linux working and can be quite easily expanded to very nice workstation that is quite powerful and even cheap.
The Cell CPU really sucks as a desktop CPU, it always did, even when it was new (and since then Sony even killed the option of installing Linux). It's a completely different design philosophy, not suitable for general desktop use. None of the other console CPU's makes sense either, there are much, much better options.
And the Wii U with its Power 7 based multi-core processor, THAT would definitely be on my list for desired components.
Don't make it sound like it will be using a Power 7 CPU, not even the Nintendo marketing hype try to suggest that (they say things more in line with "share some characteristics", which can mean just about anything, and very likely something quite far away from "Power 7 based").
But yes, by all means, please go ahead and approach IBM with a request to buy that CPU that will be custom built exclusively for Nintendo, for use in a new desktop Amiga motherboard. Or the custom made PPC chip they did for the Microsoft's Xbox 360. Then please report back here what their response was. I think I know what the answer will be (most likely a two letter word beginning with N and ending with O, followed by several other two-letter words in a row, each beginning with H and ending with A).
Then build your custom design desktop motherboard using it. If you start now, and put in half a million in cash, you might have a product ready in three years or so (read: yet another computer generation has passed). After that, maybe Amigakit can collect pre-orders here on amiga.org, so you can start producing it in batches of 50 units. Heck, chances are that even the A1X1K will be competitive in price.
Is this really your view of a viable, sustainable future for the platform? If "no", then why are we discussing console CPU's as if they had any relevance for Amiga's future?
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If they are abandoning the PPC/Cell combo, and I'd bet they are, it's because their partners pulled out of Cell development. So they're faced with either:
1) paying for a new CPU to be developed,
2) paying for further development of the Cell and marrying it to either a newer PPC core or another ISA,
3) or they can take an off the shelf CPU/Mobo/GPU and come within a few percentage either side of their competitors whilst saving a HUGE (billions dollars) amount of money.
I think they've chosen route #3 because finally someone slightly less insane is at the helm at Sony.
Nothing to do with ease/difficulty of Cell software development or anything either, I think it's purely a logical choice based on monetary needs.
Andy
Trouble is if Xenon and CELL CPUsaren't used in their future replacements then backwards compatibility will costly via 100% software emulation of PS3 and Xbox360.
For the record Power7 is massively capable but priced as a high end server CPU. As others have said IBM sold the consumer computer division to Lenovo.
It was all tongue in cheek. If you really do want a fast 3.2ghz PPC CPU get IBM to sell you a batch of Xenon CPUs :crazy:
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Hey, Nostradamus, while you're declaring the course of the future with absolute certainty, would you mind handing out some stock tips?
:D
... why is it that, say, MorphOS Team couldn't use the Wii U as a target platform, if they were so inclined?
Because they won't port to a hacked console. Legal reasons.
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If you really do want a fast 3.2ghz PPC CPU get IBM to sell you a batch of Xenon CPUs :crazy:
Microsoft, as they own the rights.
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But yes, by all means, please go ahead and approach IBM with a request to buy that CPU that will be custom built exclusively for Nintendo, for use in a new desktop Amiga motherboard. Or the custom made PPC chip they did for the Microsoft's Xbox 360. Then please report back here what their response was. I think I know what the answer will be (most likely a two letter word beginning with N and ending with O, followed by several other two-letter words in a row, each beginning with H and ending with A).
Then build your custom design desktop motherboard using it. If you start now, and put in half a million in cash, you might have a product ready in three years or so (read: yet another computer generation has passed). After that, maybe Amigakit can collect pre-orders here on amiga.org, so you can start producing it in batches of 50 units. Heck, chances are that even the A1X1K will be competitive in price.
Is this really your view of a viable, sustainable future for the platform? If "no", then why are we discussing console CPU's as if they had any relevance for Amiga's future?
1. IBM are 100% at liberty to sell Xenon. Why? Because Sony were furious and had IBM not made it available and 100% independent of Microsoft's Xbox they would have ended up either paying billions in court to Sony or Microsoft paying Sony commission on Xbox360s sold. If you have the cash IBM can use it within a project of your choosing.
2. Your average Computer Science PHd student could design a motherboard for off the shelf DRAM/Xenon/GPU as a single year project. A woman invented the ARM cpu and students designed the Amstrad and BBC Micros you do know that yes? Difficult for us but not impossible for a talented post graduate. We are talking replicating known published Xbox360 motherboard schematics.
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Trouble is if Xenon and CELL CPUsaren't used in their future replacements then backwards compatibility will costly via 100% software emulation of PS3 and Xbox360.
Hahahahahhaahahahah! :roflmao: PS3 and Xbox360 are stone age compared to even mid range computers now... Software emulation won't be an issue :)
-edit- Hell, we can even do full 30fps H.264 decoding in JavaScript on a web browser now... Something unthinkable 6 years ago!! :)
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Microsoft, as they own the rights.
This is an urban legend, because Xenon is basically a modified main core from Cell (which was co-funded by Toshiba and Sony) IBM designed a suitable CPU using research funded by Sony/Toshiba which following legal threats IBM have to sell per unit to Microsoft as a customer and Xenon made an inventory item.
This is confirmed years ago by both a 360 games company and a PS3 development studio.
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Because they won't port to a hacked console. Legal reasons.
Fair point. Still, it's not like AROS couldn't.
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Hahahahahhaahahahah! :roflmao: PS3 and Xbox360 are stone age compared to even mid range computers now... Software emulation won't be an issue :)
-edit- Hell, we can even do full 30fps H.264 decoding in JavaScript on a web browser now... Something unthinkable 6 years ago!! :)
1. every shared memory graphics type laptop (ie under £1000) can't play a single Directx 9c game like Battlefield 2 half a decade ago and just crashes out, and your average PC World £400 tower barely does Crysis in XGA @ 15fps.
2. You may be able to decode 1080p video using Intel I3 2100k for peanuts BUT people buy £150-200 consoles to play 1080p GAMES at 30-60FPS ;)
3. Emulating a 3.2GHZ CELL CPU / Xenon CPU via an i7 or Phenom II @ 3.4GHZ is NEVER going to happen for the same reason the starscream 68k emulator is not 1:1mhz on emulated:host CPU performance :)
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@Digiman
1.Nonsense. My core i7-2600k + gf 570 gtx system cost me well under 400 pounds and I get well over double that at 1080p/high detail. Also something like an AMD e-350/E-450 is more than capable of dealing with a lot of DX9.x games.
2. Very, very few console games run at 1080p. As many as not dont even run in 720p
3. A 3.4ghz Phenom2 is much, much faster than either Cell or Xenon, so 1:1 emulation speed isnt required.
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No it won't happen. I'm *not* saying it's technically impossible to develop a motherboard using obscure PPC CPU's (Aeon and Acube are examples of that), but the key word here is *VIABLE*, and this is where it *fails*, as again both Aeon and Acube are both examples of.
OK, so it's not dead because it's incapable
Of course it's *technically possible* to make a desktop motherboard based on obscure PPC CPU's (it can't compete with any *real* desktop motherboard though).
But open your eyes for a moment, and think about this for a few seconds: Why do you think nobody is *doing* this? Why is there no desktop market based on PPC? Why hasn't it been any for the last half decade?
it's dead because they don't sell more than some number in your head.
Oh, please...
I don't know how many either company has sold, or if they've broken even.
I'd say a few hundred units, and I recall from somewhere that the threshold for Acube to make a production batch is about 30 units, so it's an extremely low volume scheme.
Since Acube has more than one model, I feel it safe to assume that they felt successful enough to do more than the first model.
Performance wise, my $129 Efika MX kicks Sam 440's butt. And the Sam 460 doesn't quite reach up to a 2004 Pegasos 2. And it costs over *a thousand* Euros! The obscure hardware components has meant quite a dire driver situation. More than a year has passed, and they still haven't got some of the fundamental, rudimentary things working (http://moobunny.dreamhosters.com/cgi/mbthread.pl/amiga/expand/215759) properly! The A1X1K doesn't offer much on top of a souped-up $100 PowerMac G4, and apparently it can't play 1080p video sufficiently (http://amigaworld.net/modules/news/article.php?storyid=6338#85587) even on a dual core enabled Linux with all drivers working. And it costs over *three thousand dollars*, all handled through pre-order schemes!
How is this good? How is it even *decent*? How is this viable? How is it a way to a sustainable future?
It's too bad that none of our Amiga-alike platforms can be a viable thing to you. It's sad that MorphOS is such a failure to be on such old Mac laptops instead of shiny new ones, or on shiny new anything that I know of. And sad that AROS is not viable because it runs on shiny new PCs. And sad that OS4 is not viable because they seem to have a successful business selling brand new but weird boards.
Now don't be cranky just because someone opens the window for a minute to let in some fresh reality from outside.
At least AROS isn't tied to a dead-end CPU architecture.
At least MorphOS developers aren't mentally tied to PPC in any way, in fact, I don't think any single one of them looks at PPC as a path to a viable future, rather the opposite actually, and eventually this will show.
The only ones thinking the OS4 model (obscure, custom made, low performance, low volume, ridiculously priced PPC HW) is the way forward, is the OS4 OS/HW developers. Which is fine by me.
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Of course it's *technically possible* to make a desktop motherboard based on obscure PPC CPU's (it can't compete with any *real* desktop motherboard though).
Why is that? Are "real" desktop boards magic? Have Asus, Dell, et al made a pact with the Old Gods?
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1. IBM are 100% at liberty to sell Xenon. Why? Because Sony were furious and had IBM not made it available and 100% independent of Microsoft's Xbox they would have ended up either paying billions in court to Sony or Microsoft paying Sony commission on Xbox360s sold. If you have the cash IBM can use it within a project of your choosing.
2. Your average Computer Science PHd student could design a motherboard for off the shelf DRAM/Xenon/GPU as a single year project. A woman invented the ARM cpu and students designed the Amstrad and BBC Micros you do know that yes? Difficult for us but not impossible for a talented post graduate. We are talking replicating known published Xbox360 motherboard schematics.
OK Digiman, you surely proved me wrong there! Well, now that I know better, I must admit that it turns out that PPC *is* a viable way for a sustainable future of desktop computers. With this in mind, I must say that OS4 needs to remain PPC. Forever.
I apologize for the distraction! Now, let's get back to this interesting discussion: Which one of the eighth generation console CPU's do you think should be used in the AmigaOne X2000? The Power 7 based CPU from Wii U? Or the 16 core Xbox 720? 2012 will be The Year of Amiga, and so will all the coming years as well!
:pint:
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Now don't be cranky just because someone opens the window for a minute to let in some fresh reality from outside.
You mean my $99 Efika is an unviable failure?! Bwaaaaahaaahahahaahaaaaa!
I'd love to see OS4 move away from PPC. That would make it so much easier to get a laptop to run it on. Until then, I continue with my lofty goal to design something for myself.
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it won't change the fact that nobody will ever be building a viable desktop motherboard usable by OS4 ever again! This is why it's **DEAD** for all purposes of interest to Amiga users!
That is a bold statement.
Lets see, from the time of the commodore demise, we have seen the AmigaOne, Pesesos, a bunch of SAMS, and now finally the X1000. (I never bought any of them, because they cost associated with them in my opinion is just too much money for the luxury of running OS4.X... but that's not the point...)
So, you are seriously saying the x1000 is the LAST OS4 compatible PPC motherboard that will ever be produced? I did not think the x1000 was ever going to be produced, but here it is, all 3000 dollars of it :)
On a completely different front, we the complete recreation of the Amiga chipset in the fpgarcade and the 68060 expansion board is in prototype stage from my understanding.
Are you saying that they (the people behind the fpgarcade) will NEVER make an expansion board that has a PPC processor in addition to or in place of the 68060? It would then be a PPC motherboard running OS4 classic, right?
How about this. If a new OS4 compatible motherboard is produced, and assuming you have two working kidneys at that time, why not make a commitment to donate one (to somebody on a waiting list) in honor of Jay Miner?
Sounds like you have nothing to worry about...
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You mean my $99 Efika is an unviable failure?
if its the same Efika i resold for $1, then yeah, i do kind of think it was a failure...
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It's just a little bit too big for my living room, I'll pass on this new PPC technology and happily continue use my Intel Core2Duo
http://www.characterblog.com/assets/58914-ibm-watson.jpg
Admit it, you asked but the wife would not allow it, right?
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While I find it unusual to see myself agreeing with tmhg I can only assume he means commercially viable, which for the moment appears to be true. Price, performance and most other properties make it not an option in anything other than homebrew/hobbyist circles where rational decisions arent important. If anything Id have to say the ppc systems youve mentioned support that idea rather than negate it.
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While I find it unusual to see myself agreeing with tmhg I can only assume he means commercially viable, which for the moment appears to be true. Price, performance and most other properties make it not an option in anything other than homebrew/hobbyist circles where rational decisions arent important. If anything Id have to say the ppc systems youve mentioned support that idea rather than negate it.
ok, lets look at this closely...
"nobody will ever be building a viable desktop motherboard usable by OS4 ever again!"
from that statement, we infer the following:
as some point, somebody (ACube, A-Eon , not really clear.) did make a viable desktop usable by OS4, otherwise you would not include "ever again"
whoever made this motherboard clearly learned their lesson and they won't do it again.
nobody else will try (without failing). Ever! EVER!! EVER!!! EVER!!!! AGAIN!!! (evil laugh)
If you mean that they collective they have NEVER produced a viable OS4 motherboard and probably won't do so in the future, I might be inclined to agree with that, but its not what was said :)
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ok, lets look at this closely...
"nobody will ever be building a viable desktop motherboard usable by OS4 ever again!"
from that statement, we infer the following:
as some point, somebody (ACube, A-Eon , not really clear.) did make a viable desktop usable by OS4, otherwise you would not include "ever again"
whoever made this motherboard clearly learned their lesson and they won't do it again.
nobody else will try. Ever! EVER!! EVER!!! EVER!!!! AGAIN!!! (evil laugh)
No, see, the trick is that you just keep redefining "viable" to mean "something other than what's actually been accomplished." As long as you keep moving the goalposts, the other guys can't score...
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No, see, the trick is that you just keep redefining "viable" to mean "something other than what's actually been accomplished." As long as you keep moving the goalposts, the other guys can't score...
1. Capable of living, developing, or germinating under favorable conditions.
2. Capable of living outside the uterus. Used of a fetus or newborn.
3. Capable of success or continuing effectiveness; practicable:
so lets go with #3, definitely not #2 (if you are wanting to discuss something involving an x1000 and a uterus, that is your business, leave me out of that...)
they made x number of boards and sold them all and there is chatter about doing it again. I'm not sure how that does not qualify under #3 which says nothing about making boatloads of money.
if making money is part of the definition, then i guess the Red Cross and Credit unions are not viable...
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Well, it doesn't qualify because takemehomegrandma says it doesn't qualify! Obviously!
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Wasn't ARexx stated as a good implementation example of IBM's Rexx language on their documentation ? Maybe when AOS4/MOS get updated to a reasonable set of features (for them anyway) you'll see it ported to IBM hardware.
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I am curious, regardless of business viability or number that can be sold or whether its some obscure thing, is powerpc technically competent to be a desktop processor? What is suitable, and what details are not?
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Depends on what you mean. If you're looking for something that's equally low-cost and high-power as, say, an i3 or i5 system, you're not going to find anything like that in the modern POWER/PowerPC lineup, since the modern lineup is divided sharply between embedded chips and megalithic IBM server equipment, with only a few items anywhere in between (usually application-specific, like the Wii's Broadway CPU.) There's nothing at all dissatisfactory about the architecture itself, though; I have a 1GHz PowerBook G4 that gives my 1.6GHz Atom N270-based Asus Eee a run for its money on basically everything but video playback (and that mostly because the Eee has 667MHz DDR2 RAM, as compared to the PowerBook's PC133.)
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Well, it doesn't qualify because takemehomegrandma says it doesn't qualify! Obviously!
Well put! TMHG lost my respect today, I just can't be done with his attitude.
...and with that, I'm off to bed. Their really is no point arguing with some people so I'm just not going to bother.
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Well put! TMHG lost my respect today, I just can't be done with his attitude.
...and with that, I'm off to bed. Their really is no point arguing with some people so I'm just not going to bother.
The scary thing is that he regularly posts on MorphZone and all the negativity is damned counterproductive.
Have a good night's rest.
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Well, it doesn't qualify because takemehomegrandma says it doesn't qualify! Obviously!
Obviously :)
but even if it was dead its still not dead.
Look at MIPS. I thought that was dead a long time ago but now they are making a MIPS tablet.
http://www.androidcentral.com/mips-tablet-promises-7-inches-ice-cream-sandwich-99
I had a prototype MIPS machine made by Olivetti, it ran Windows 2000 if i remember right. It was one of those ARC bios things that were a huge flop. I only used it as a SQL server but was faster than a x86 machine with 2x the clock-speed. I ruined the kboard port using a cheap KVM.
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I am curious, regardless of business viability or number that can be sold or whether its some obscure thing, is powerpc technically competent to be a desktop processor? What is suitable, and what details are not?
Every CPU can be used as a desktop processor, even 6502 was used on a desktop. MPC5200B was designed for automotive industry but can run OWB and GCC very well in full HD resolution on my new 27" TFT.
What powerpc is lacking as a desktop processor is lack of inexpensive multicore G4 class processors. POWER7 is way too expensive while AMCC's processors are slow and dated. Freescale is probably the best source for powerpc desktop processors (i.e. e6500 core looks nice), too bad that nobody is building desktop computers from their processors.
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Admit it, you asked but the wife would not allow it, right?
No but I know she would want to expand the house right after and since I would
go broke by getting into this PPC thing and building more rooms I would end up selling the whole lot :-P
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Wii-U is a multicore PPC but it's not based on the older GameCube/Wii cpu.
We'll see. The word from a game developer I know who has a Wii-U is that it is. It would be stupid of him to lie, but it might not be the final product. The first Wii devkits were basically gamecube devkits with extra bits added. Although with the launch not that far off, they'll need to get a move on.
The "based on POWER7 architecture" is probably just marketing talk. Like Nintendo did when they said the N64 was based on a Silicon Graphics workstation. It sort of was, just a heavily cut down version of an older generation. The POWER7 is not actually that fast to start with though, watson is fast because there are >2000 of them.
After the hard to program PS3, I would expect the PS4 to be a linux based x86-64 box with a lot of GPGPU cores used with OpenCL. The 720 is a tougher call, but something similar with windows instead of linux & directcompute instead of opencl would not suprise me.
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As long as its being produced, it really cant be dead can it?
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While I find it unusual to see myself agreeing with tmhg I can only assume he means commercially viable, which for the moment appears to be true. Price, performance and most other properties make it not an option in anything other than homebrew/hobbyist circles where rational decisions arent important. If anything Id have to say the ppc systems youve mentioned support that idea rather than negate it.
I think any platform needs to be of a certain size to survive in the long run, it needs to be able to carry its own weight, but not only does it need to be self-sustaining in a credible way, it also needs growth, a credible future and momentum for anyone to invest any kind of money, time, or even interest in it. It needs developers. It needs users. Users won't come without developers, and developers won't come without users. A growth in user base might result in a growth in developer base, resulting in a growth in user base, resulting in a growth in developer base, and so on. That kind of momentum.
Obscure $3,000 systems of 2007 standards is not what is needed to get momentum. Neither is €1,000 ones that is completely stomped to the ground and run over by a common smart phone. The only ones buying this kind of stuff, are the few hundreds already die-hard fanatics that literary buys *anything* at *any* price, as long as Hyperion tells them it's a good thing and/or it has a boing ball slapped on to its bog standard PC-case. This is hardly "self-sustaining", it's more like living on a life support machine. I think it's a safe guess to claim that 99% of the A1X1K systems went to people *already owning* an OS4 system (the remaining 1% would be "amigadave" and possibly one or a few other blokes). So it's not leading to any kind of advancement for the platform, in fact, I think it might *scare people away* since it signals so darn clearly to everyone with a brain that there is *no credible future* in this, and they will invest their interest somewhere else, and then we are talking about a platform *decline* in the same pace that the old Eyetech A1's die off or simply being put out in the garage due to the obvious lack of progress and lack of a future. *That* is what the A1X1K brings to the table, *that* is what it means for a desktop OS being tied to a HW platform that completely lacks viable desktop systems, *that* is what all this "pro-PPC advocating" results in; pulling the plug on the life support.
PPC is **DEAD** as a desktop platform, even if the suitable CPU's would be here (which they aren't) it's simply not possible to build a viable desktop machine in the ultra-low volumes Acube/Aeon can afford, and those who *could* manage (like ASUS, Abit, MSI, etc) certainly won't do it, and I have asked this question previously in this thread: "Why doesn't anyone build desktop motherboards using PPC today?", and of course nobody has answered it. But by all means people, keep advocating it as the only route forward for OS4... :lol:
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The scary thing is that he regularly posts on MorphZone
(http://i41.tinypic.com/29frtax.jpg)
the negativity is damned counterproductive.
Oh my god, Did you just play the "negativity" card again, like PPC would magically become a viable future desktop platform just because people would say nice things about it? That's almost criminally naive! It's not "negativity" that's killing off OS4, it's a future totally depending on $3,000 PPC systems offering half a decade old bang for those bucks! A waste of money, and a waste of time. In other words, not at all very productive!
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We'll see. The word from a game developer I know who has a Wii-U is that it is. It would be stupid of him to lie, but it might not be the final product. The first Wii devkits were basically gamecube devkits with extra bits added. Although with the launch not that far off, they'll need to get a move on.
The "based on POWER7 architecture" is probably just marketing talk. Like Nintendo did when they said the N64 was based on a Silicon Graphics workstation. It sort of was, just a heavily cut down version of an older generation. The POWER7 is not actually that fast to start with though, watson is fast because there are >2000 of them.
After the hard to program PS3, I would expect the PS4 to be a linux based x86-64 box with a lot of GPGPU cores used with OpenCL. The 720 is a tougher call, but something similar with windows instead of linux & directcompute instead of opencl would not suprise me.
You could say that PS3 was "linux-based" :) it'd be stretching the truth a bit but PS4 will be "linux-based" in the same way. As for OpenCL, not sure, it's a GPU from AMD/Ati that much is almost certain but they have their own GPGPU stuff, like Brooke, so might favour that instead.
I almost took a job on a Wii-U project but after developing for the Wii I have been seriously put off ever working on a Nintendo platform again. Friends tell me that they've gotten better but that's easy when you're the worst platform to develop on! Anyway, interesting that your friend says it's still based on the old CPU. I'd personally have thought it'd make more sense to just include that rust bucket and the entire Wii hardware on a single extra chip whilst using a newer multi-core design for the rest. Oh well.
Xbox720/Next, it'll be more of the same dashboard and DirectX11 & DirectCompute with the same extra access for those willing to use it. Just like the X360 but a lot faster, fix the negatives with the Xenon CPU - out of order would be nice but who knows wtf we'll actually get.
I think I'd like to get back into console dev', been doing mobile development instead for the last 4 months and it's a world of crap in comparison!
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@takemehome
Well the thing is, that mobos based on PPC are being produced, the fact that you don't like them has nothing to do with them being produced or not. Its as simple as that!
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What mobos apart from the acube ones are destined for desktop usage?
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A-eon, but every ppc mobo can bes used for desktops.
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(http://i41.tinypic.com/29frtax.jpg)
...criminally naive!...
That's not negative?
I refuse to be bullied by a Swede.
Your posts as of recent have bordered on trolling.
You're convinced that your opinions are facts.
BTW -Every X1000 produced has been sold within hours of its announced availability.
Not mass marketing, but pretty successful for a small production run item.
You have no real proof that an X86 or ARM based Amiga-like environment would be any more successful then our current platforms.
You like to make long verbose posts with logical justifications for your opinions, but they are just that...opinions NOT FACTS.
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Freescale is probably the best source for powerpc desktop processors (i.e. e6500 core looks nice), too bad that nobody is building desktop computers from their processors.
I consider this e6500 to be my new minimum level of interest in PowerPC. How do we know that no one is going to build something? Documentation is only available to tier-1 customers, us little guys can't even get at it yet. I'm trying, and already have the NDA with them, just waiting...
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It's sort of amusing how the morph os guys seem to hate PPC the most.
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It's sort of amusing how the morph os guys seem to hate PPC the most.
Only a small percentage that has been vocally pushing for an ISA change.
I'm really happy with my 1.42 GHz G4 based system. I'd like a 2.3 to 2.7 GHZ G5 better, but I could live with what I've got for several more years.
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None of this will matter in the long run. The CPU is just a component.
Nobody cries that SCSI isn't the defacto standard these days, regardless of it's technical superiority, but somehow CPU's are sacred. Price, availability and performance be damned.
OS4 and MorphOS dragging their feet in PPC land are just bringing about their own demise. The longer they wait to go x86, the more AROS catches up.
Like it or not, when AROS eventually catches up usability wise, market forces will put x86 as the main CPU. There are just too many cheaply available for it not to happen, it's inevitable.
OS4 is never going to be ported, but with the lead MorphOS has, if they moved to x86 now they could probably hold on to the majority of users based on having a polished, professional product and not lose the market to AROS.
Time will tell.
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PPC is **DEAD** as a desktop platform, even if the suitable CPU's would be here (which they aren't) it's simply not possible to build a viable desktop machine in the ultra-low volumes Acube/Aeon can afford, and those who *could* manage (like ASUS, Abit, MSI, etc) certainly won't do it, and I have asked this question previously in this thread: "Why doesn't anyone build desktop motherboards using PPC today?", and of course nobody has answered it.
You keep saying this, yet you keep failing to provide any reasoning by which it makes sense that you can claim this with such certainty. Certainly PPC is seeing little meaningful action in the consumer-level computing market now (but not none - even putting aside the X1000, which for all its prohibitive pricing is actually getting a second run, there's the LimePC Z9, which according to their specifications is up to 800MHz now, though they don't have a direct-order facility so I don't know if the price has come down, and probably others I've never even heard of.)
But you keep saying that it's "not possible" to build a decent custom board using chips that already exist (though you imply they don't,) yet you keep failing to provide any reason why that would be so. Computer design isn't magic - as others have said, that kind of thing is basically a senior project for an electronics-engineering major, it doesn't require Lost Knowledge of the Ancients and goat sacrifices at midnight on a new moon. Nor is there any reason it can't be financially feasible - production of custom multi-layer PCBs is dirt-cheap these days. I got one for a hobby project on the Vintage Computer Forum (http://www.vintage-computer.com) for $20; the parts cost more than that. Assembly is trickier, but there are people who do hobby surface-mount soldering, that isn't magic either, and I'd bet there are facilities that you can get to do it for you, just like board production. Let me ask again: what makes it so impossible?