Amiga.org
Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion => Topic started by: takemehomegrandma on October 29, 2012, 04:20:20 PM
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Up until fall 2009, MorphOS supported only the following hardware: Pegasos 1, Pegasos 2, Efika 5200.
While being good quality hardware, they never offered the performance of similar PPC based machines at the time. Sure, the Pegasos 2 is faster than the AmigaOne's from Eyetech, and slightly faster than a Sam 460 clocked at the same frequency (in some areas more than others), but a Mac Mini G4 @ 1.42GHz has been measured to be almost 2x as fast in some areas than a Pegasos 2. The older Pegasos 1, and the kind of limited Efika 5200 fell even further behind in comparisons of course.
These machines were also being manufactured in relatively small numbers before their production ended forever, thus putting an upper limit on potential growth for MorphOS. The limited availability (and increased demand from OS4 users) was also making them expensive even at the second hand market, thus failing to give a "Bang for the Buck" ratio comparable to second hand Mac HW.
The MorphOS 2.x branch evolved, and when it reached v2.4, the MorphOS Team introduced support for their first Mac PPC machine, the Mac Mini. Two things happened with this:
- There was an instant (but temporary) jump in the number of licenses sold. Many of those probably came from already existing MorphOS users sitting on the fence to upgrade from Pegasos/Efika to faster Mac HW.
- There was also a permanent increase in the pace of new registrations sold, the tilt of the growth graph went steeper, and this was not temporary.
During the 2.5 years that followed, MorphOS evolved, new features and improvements were being added, and support for eMac and PowerMac was introduced.
Early this summer, MorphOS 3.0 was released with many new improvements and features. One of the most anticipated features was that MorphOS for the first time added support for a real Laptop computer in the shape of the PowerBook (the 5 latest models produced by Apple). Again, two things happened with this:
- There was an instant (but temporary) jump in the number of licenses sold. Many of those probably came from already existing MorphOS users sitting on the fence to get a PowerBook laptop.
- There was also (as it seems today) a permanent increase in the pace of new registrations sold, the tilt of the growth graph went even steeper than before.
Here is a picture (based on "koszer's" excellent trackings of MorphOS licenses sold (http://www.morphzone.org/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?forum=14&topic_id=5875&viewmode=flat&sortorder=0&start=438), click to make it larger):
(http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8050/8134883891_7091499464.jpg) (http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8050/8134883891_7091499464_b.jpg)
We can easily see how some events both gave a temporary jump in amount of registrations sold, but also an increase in the unit sales pace in a more permanent manner.
From when MorphOS was only available on those "custom", low volume motherboards, made by a small company, untill today when MorphOS is available for various second hand mainstream HW (including laptops), the growth rate in MorphOS license sales has gone from ~11 per month, to more than 1 per day, in what appears to be a lasting, permanent way.
If the graph will indeed be continuing as it has done since the latest "temporary jump", it will mean that MorphOS will have crossed the "2000 licenses sold" mark during August next year.
On the other hand, had it remained on the limited availability, small company HW with poor bang/buck ratio, then August 2013 would probably have meant a maximum of 1100 licenses sold, provided that the sales graph would have remained the same during all these years, which is unlikely, given the limited numbers of machines produced, machines breaking down, the Pegasos/Efika market for MorphOS probably being kind of saturated back in 2009 already, and the fact that the performance of those boards were kind of low even back by 2004 standards, so closer to 600 licenses sold (or somewhere slightly above) seems more likely.
This "August 2013" difference will largely be thanks to the MorphOS Team's smart decision of going for the second hand Mac PPC market, aiming for mainstream rather than small company custom HW, making the most out of what PPC had to offer when it comes to performance (only G5 machines are faster) and flavors of the HW; we have big-box expandable PowerMac (up to 2GHz with 3rd party accellerator cards), tiny but quite powerful Mac Mini, and of course, the Laptops in the shape of PowerBook. Ibook is coming in the next release. On MorphZone.org we have seen several new faces, not only Amigans cross-migrating from "other camps", but actually a few coming from "outside".
Why do I say this? Isn't all of this obvious?
I'm afraid not. There are still people (yes, in 2012) advocating in favor of expensive, poor bang/buck, low volume, custom built by small cellar-based companies, Hardware. This is the route the OS4 team took, and while the MorphOS sales figures probably wouldn't impress anyone outside the "Amiga Market", I highly doubt that OS4 can present a sales graph and sales growth rate pace that even slightly resembles the picture above.
Imagine if MorphOS had been on even more mainstream and powerful HW, like x86. Now it isn't, and since it's currently locked to PPC, it has been a great decision of making the most out of it by supporting the old mainstream HW that is available from everywhere at peanut money.
The MorphOS Team did it right!
:)
(Note: The graphs I drew on top of Koszer's are not based on calculations, they are hand drawn, and all numbers I have put in there are interpretations from the graphics, not number data. This should be good enough for trend spotting though. The original picture is of course based on pure statistics! :))
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Apple were not the last company to produce mainstream PowerPC based hardware but most since have been "locked" i.e. Xbox360, Wii, Wii-U, Playstation3 etc. and unlikely to get ports of MorphOS.
So what is instore for the future for Mainstream HW for MorphOS? Support for emulators such as QEMU and PearPC?
Should it attempt to "unlock" itself from the PowerPC architecture?
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Apple were not the last company to produce mainstream PowerPC based hardware but most since have been "locked" i.e. Xbox360, Wii, Wii-U, Playstation3 etc. and unlikely to get ports of MorphOS.
So what is instore for the future for Mainstream HW for MorphOS? Support for emulators such as QEMU and PearPC?
Should it attempt to "unlock" itself from the PowerPC architecture?
Well, the PPC is unarguably dead as a desktop/laptop architecture.
The Mac HW will of course have much to offer MorphOS for quite some time still, but we will inevitable reach a point in the future where MorphOS basically have two options:
1) Roll over and die
2) Migrate to an architecture with a pulse (http://www.amiga.org/forums/showthread.php?t=59765) (<- Link! ;))
Who knows what will happen in the future, if a migration will really take place? But at least for now, I'm quite happy to run MorphOS 3.1 on my Mac Mini!
:)
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if morphos have gone the x86 route instead of the mac route. even i would been using morphos today instead of windows, and many more would have done the same. so i cant agree 100% on the 'MorphOS Team did it right' thing yet.... morphos better get it's arse on x86 soon or it will be no better of than os4.
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Only a simple question to you. It is a nice graph with a "booming" MorphOS community but where are the users that are registrating their systems? On Morphzone are not many new users visible. How do you explain that?
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Only a simple question to you. It is a nice graph with a "booming" MorphOS community but where are the users that are registrating their systems? On Morphzone are not many new users visible. How do you explain that?
:confused:
I wasn't talking about numbers of users, neither people's choice of forums, or the difference in activity on various web forums spread out in the community. Amiga.org and AmigaWorld.net has more activity than MorphZone.org, much thanks to more registered users and more "IRC-style" posting.
Edit:
To answer your question: I suppose we are on *all* those forums (and many others as well, there are many local forums in the world as well, and there is no law saying you are required to do a lot of postings online just because you run a certain OS)! Who cares?
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Nice little read, thanks. Im sitting on the 1.42GHz Mac mini so only 32MB vram but im quite happy with it and MorphOS, im thinking of using a decent PATA SSD in it also, I am trying to get my hands on a PowerMac but all ive found are Geforce ones so far (within driving distance).
But I would also like to see a migration but since the x86 market is BIG and full of hardware that needs drivers I would think focusing on ARM would be a great way to go, for me TI's OMAP boards would be a good pick of the bunch, cheep and easy to get your hands on and a nice userbase and since they use PowerVR for graphics the route would be fast and nice.
So my vote would go for ARM and OMAP boards IF AT ALL MOVING TO A NEW architecture, but that's just my pieces of eight.
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I, for one, am completely tired of hearing this same phrase "Migrate to an architecture with a pulse".
Currently, PPCs are available that completely outstrip all currently available ARM designs (or any that are likely to be introduced in the near future).
That leaves only X86 as a possible direction for ISA change and I DO NOT want to go that route.
We have survived this long without adopting the archetecture of our primary competitor.
The poster rightly points out that adopting low cost Mac hardware may have influenced increased adoption of MorphOS.
Fine, then there are plenty of G5 machines available at a very low cost that would be far faster then anything offered in the OS4 market or under the ARM archectecture.
And, as low cost proprietary design go, I LIKE what A-eon has accomplished with the X1000. Is it overpriced? Yes.
Could a sucessor be built at lower cost?
Read this VERY carefully, I am absolutely sure it (or they) will be.
If you want X86, please by all means adopt and support AROS.
But have you noticed that AROS is now moving to 68K, ARM, and PPC?
Please stop trying to increase the difficulty in supporting and developing my favorite operating system.
An ISA change is no trivial matter AND it eliminates backward compatibility with all PPC software without another emulation layer.
A move like this would set MorphOS development back at least a couple years. And it would make targeting specific hardware extremely difficult.
And you should keep that in mind, because unlike Windows or OSX, MorphOS developers can NOT afford to develop drivers for all the hardware available within a specific ISA and must select specific platforms.
You complain that our current hardware is dated? Personally, I think its damned good and I am willing to benchmark my MorphOS system against any OS4 system including the X1000.
I know that will invite the inevitable complaint that I'm not drawing comparisons to AROS.
That is because I have no problem co-existing with AROS and even using and supporting it.
You lunk heads do realize that one of the MorphOS developers works on AROS? Don't you? And the competition and cross development with AOS4 doesn't hurt either.
So, think about what you're calling into question VERY carefully.
The more I use MorphOS, and the better I get to know its developers, the greater is my faith and conviction that they have made the correct choices for our community.
I don't think continuing to move in this direction would be a mistake.
But a change of course could be.
Jim
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@Iggy
OMG, where on earth did all that come from? Having a bad day? Then please don't take it out on me, and please don't try to change the topic already!
:whack:
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I think I can remember Geit estimating it would need 5 years to port MOS to another platform (X86 or ARM) and that would be 5 years without any updates because all would be busy with the migration. So obviously MOS was never designed to be (easy) portable like f.e. Aros. My final conclusion is MOS will (propably) never be ported to a different architecture because of lack of resources. For people that can live with PPC it is a good choice, when you want something to run on modern new standard hardware you only have the option to use Aros.
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@Iggy
OMG, where on earth did all that come from? Having a bad day? Then please don't take it out on me, and please don't try to change the topic already!
:whack:
I am in no way trying to change the topic.
You brought it up and you keep repeating it while not even giving credit to your own points.
Mac hardware was sucessful?
GREAT lets keep using it.
And, btw, I've been following this really close so if you think I'm taking this too seriously its because if the developer take outside advice too seriously they may make a mistake that costs us the future of the OS.
I'm not having a bad day (except for the hurricane outside - which is now about at its peak). I'm just aware of a few things you aren't that are going on behind the scenes right now.
You really need to leave this topic alone and let the MorphOS developers decide how to continue forward.
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I think I can remember Geit estimating it would need 5 years to port MOS to another platform (X86 or ARM) and that would be 5 years without any updates because all would be busy with the migration. So obviously MOS was never designed to be (easy) portable like f.e. Aros. My final conclusion is MOS will (propably) never be ported to a different architecture because of lack of resources. For people that can live with PPC it is a good choice, when you want something to run on modern new standard hardware you only have the option to use Aros.
Thank you Olaf,
I was being kind.
In the interum our OS would languish.
Like you said, want something different? Its already there.
Don't F'up my OS.
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@OlafS3
Indeed MorphOS is PPC based, and AROS is not MorphOS. The MorphOS team has made the very best out of the situation by supporting the Mac HW. Why the flames? What's your point?
:confused:
Running MorphOS on PPC Mac HW is *great*, it's way ahead of any "competition" no matter CPU architecture, it's by far the best, most feature rich and competent Amiga NG option available. And the HW price usually ranges from Free - $250, which is a very cheap price to pay and totally worth it considering what you get.
:)
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I vote for this as next HW:
http://www.facebook.com/indiegoretro?fref=ts
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vz_1TN4JqTA
I would like to add MOS and AmigaOS4 to the list of installable OS.. CPU architecture doesn't matter. Wie will HAndLe it : )
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No I do not want to say anything bad about it. It is a very good OS for the hardware it is designed for. Propably much better optimized than Aros and with a very good 68k integration. Nothing bad to say about it. But a complete architecture change is not very propable (because of needed resources)
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see my post.. no transition needed
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How do you mean "no transition"? X86 and PPC in one system?
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(http://img62.imageshack.us/img62/4277/surprises.png) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/62/surprises.png/)
:-D
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LE8WgYQ5_0A&feature=related
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Sorry takemehomegrandma,
Maybe I am wrapped a little too tight today.
I am worried that the MorphOS develoers will take this call for an ISA change to seriously when we've still got more we can do.
If an ISA change does occur I'd rather see it be to ARM as it is a more broadly licensed archetecture (and its not X86).
BUT ARM just isn't powerful enough (yet).
And an ISA change is going to take a long time and hopefully the development will occur concurrent with support for our current systems.
Currently, three courses are possible. Stay where we are, move to G5, or adopt a new low volume platform.
I'm satisfied with the first, I could see the arguments supporting the second as being the most affordable, and would really like to see the last occur.
Why would I want something like the X1000 when it was Powermac support that drew me to MorphOS?
Because I'd like something new, powerful, and compatible.
We can still support what we have, and have a high end option for both bragging rights and the enevitable desire of a few to own the best.
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How do you mean "no transition"? X86 and PPC in one system?
Not impossible. A PPC add on card for a PCIe slot running with VM.
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Why should i buy an add on if i can emulate it?
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Why should i buy an add on if i can emulate it?
You can't emulate a 2.5 GHz quad core PPC with an X86.
That's why.
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OK... until your OS works on such a system I can.
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And, btw, I've been following this really close so if you think I'm taking this too seriously its because if the developer take outside advice too seriously they may make a mistake that costs us the future of the OS.
I'm just aware of a few things you aren't that are going on behind the scenes right now.
You really need to leave this topic alone and let the MorphOS developers decide how to continue forward.
OK, you are in the loop, you know the secret handshake and all that. Good for you.
It's great if the MorphOS developers are thinking about the future. Otherwise there won't be any, rest assured about that. I won't "just happen".
Because whether you like it or not, nobody has been making viable PPC desktop or laptop systems since apple quit doing it more than *half a decade ago*. That changed the entire focus of the PPC architecture. Forever. There is no need for you to "hush" me about this, it's perfectly obvious to everyone with half a brain, and talking about it, or not talking about it, isn't going to change a thing.
Nobody is going to make viable desktops or laptops based on PPC ever again. A-eon spent $400,000 in making a $3,000 system using a dead-end CPU performing like a $150 second hand Mac from 2005. I have a list of the about the 50-70 known owners of that system. 99% of them already had an OS4 system. Acube is making HW in batches of 30 units; they have one product performing like cell phone *two generations ago*, and one product performing like *last generations*. Without all the fancy accelerator controllers for multimedia that cellphone CPU's has, of course. A "cheap" system is still $1,000 including tax etc, and you can't even play a common HD video clip on it. Some OS4 dreamers are looking at various recent PPC chips, with 4-12 cores or whatever, made for routers etc (designed with a totally different scope than desktops) which will make really good (NOT!) sense for a single-core only OS, especially when put on custom motherboards produced in batches of 30 units, costing you your right kidney and your first born. This is all the "future" you can hope for when *not* going "mainstream", hardware wise.
So OK, you were right, you were perfectly "on topic", which is "Mainstream HW vs. Custom Niche HW": No matter how you twist and turn it, you will (at some point, maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but inevitably at some point) have to face the two options I mentioned above:
- Diminish (and eventually die) on current aging/dying Mac HW, or on some kind of custom niche PPC HW made by Acube or A-eon, with less and less users and developers (as long as they even bother making new HW, where is the OS4 netbook BTW?)
- Take whatever measures needed to move to some mainstream platform that is still advancing. That would probably indeed mean a drastic change to the OS "under the hood", especially regarding the current Amiga compatibility we are enjoying today (it would probably mean a "new" OS, even if it will look and feel the same), but it could also mean a lot of positive things that simply aren't possible today
There aren't any other options! Sure, the current Mac platform is great! I like it a lot, I can't stress that enough! It's cheap, fairly powerful, and good quality. Any Amigan should get one, MorphOS truly is Amiga done right, and it shines on those Mac's. I am looking forward to MorphOS 3.2, and then 3.3, etc, for it. But like it or not, this HW platform can only go in one direction, and that's not forward. A G5 port would perhaps be cool, but it would only delay the inevitable. And neither Acube nor A-eon (or any similar) can provide the answer to the problem.
And hey, that is not *my* fault, it's just the way it is, so don't hit me for merely stating out the obvious, which most people sees clearly anyway!
Now hold on to your hat in that storm, Iggy!
:)
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No I do not want to say anything bad about it. It is a very good OS for the hardware it is designed for. Propably much better optimized than Aros and with a very good 68k integration. Nothing bad to say about it. But a complete architecture change is not very propable (because of needed resources)
AFAIK an architecture change could be done fairly quickly if you "lower your standards" (or rather: altering them). This could also open up for "raising your standards" in other areas, by incorporating features not really possible on Amiga otherwise, like true SMP, true MP, true 64-bit, etc. A whole set of new challanges for the OS developers. Those things would probably take time, but I doubt an actual "migration" would be very difficult if you are prepared to start with a clean slate in terms of Amiga backwards compatibility. And you could always do like AROS, and incorporate some transparent UAE.
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OK, you are in the loop, you know the secret handshake and all that. Good for you.
It's great if the MorphOS developers are thinking about the future. Otherwise there won't be any, rest assured about that.
:)
No, I'm not in the loop, I know I few people who have been told more then they should have, and few few others who failed to deny some pretty accurate guesses by Andreas Wolf and myself.
Let's just say that, yes, its pretty certain developments are ongoing.
AND that no certain commitments have been made.
However, I should refrain from attacking you as I know you support this stuff as much as I do.
It is cool that we have a future. All three ng OS' appear to have a future (although the pace of OS4 development is glacial).
One thing is certain, until a commitment is made you are not going to hear a peep out of the MorphOS development team.
After all, how much warning did we get on eMac support?
Uh, none. I just looked on the web and it was there (before the anticipated Powermac support).
So, whatever they do, we're never "in on it".
Sorry again about what may have appeared to be flaming.
Jim
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AFAIK an architecture change could be done fairly quickly if you "lower your standards" (or rather: altering them). This could also open up for "raising your standards" in other areas, by incorporating features not really possible on Amiga otherwise, like true SMP, true MP, true 64-bit, etc. A whole set of new challanges for the OS developers. Those things would probably take time, but I doubt an actual "migration" would be very difficult if you are prepared to start with a clean slate in terms of Amiga backwards compatibility. And you could always do like AROS, and incorporate some transparent UAE.
I actually wouldn't mind this as a parallel path.
But without the 3.1 API its not MorphOS.
Still, with the Quark kernel, a really tight compact OS is possible.
I've used micro-kernel OS' since the mid '80s and that could be pretty cool.
On this idea, I wholly support you.
I wonder if Ralph would allow Quark to be used in a Open OS?
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If an ISA change does occur I'd rather see it be to ARM as it is a more broadly licensed archetecture (and its not X86).
BUT ARM just isn't powerful enough (yet).
As do I, tho checking crossplatform benchmarks of CPU/Memory performance a OMAP 4430 @ 1000MHz (2 cores) preforms as a Mac mini 1,42GHz and the Exynos 4412 1600 MHz (4 cores) preforms as the PowerPC G5 (970FX) 2300 MHz (2 cores) and the ARM boards consumes ****loads less power and are small and the G5 power horses wight like 50lb (22KGs).
So they are getting there and fast, a generation or two I can see ARM boards out preforming the PowerPC G5 (970MP) 2500 MHz (4 cores).
Now there are more factors to consider then these tests but overall ARM are not as far behind the top PPC's as one might think in some parts.
Tho im not saying that MorphOS should go ARM, but if they should migrate I would think ARM would be the best bet, and they are not as weak as people might think they are starting to get horse power under the hood and they are still growing and will for a long time and it feels more viable in the long run, besides old Mac hardware there is not much to see in the future of PPC hardware at acceptable price ranges while SoC's will be cheep and easy to get.
Don't get me wrong, I love my Mac mini and MorphOS and I would support them if they stay at PPC, tho I think it's interesting to think about MorphOS and ARM.
Edit: Do not kill me, im just speaking my mind.
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I've seen benchmark of the Cortex A15 @ 1.7GHz that give it parity with the G4 (not the G5), so I'm not sure about the benchmarks you're quoting.
But don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of the ARM ISA.
And once it moves to 64 bits things are really going to take off.
BTW - I haven't killed anybody lately (that I'll admit to). :lol:
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I've seen benchmark of the Cortex A15 @ 1.7GHz that give it parity with the G4 (not the G5), so I'm not sure about the benchmarks you're quoting.
But don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of the ARM ISA.
And once it moves to 64 bits things are really going to take off.
BTW - I haven't killed anybody lately (that I'll admit to). :lol:
I do not know how liable and conclusive the benchmark I found was but reading what is tested it seems fair enough for a rough est.
Tho im happy to get pointed in the right direction :)
The program I looked at was Geekbench 2 and the tests used is the following:
Integer Performace
Integer benchmarks measure integer performance by performing a variety of processor-intensive tasks that make heavy use of integer operations. None of the integer benchmarks perform any file I/O in order to isolate the work done to just the processor and the memory subsystem.
Blowfish encrypts and decrypts memory using the Blowfish algorithm.
bzip2 Compress and bzip2 Decompress compress and decompress a text file in memory using libbzip2.
Image Compress and Image Decompress compress and decompress an image in memory using libjpeg.
Lua executes a script written in the Lua Programming Language. The Lua script is a prime number sieve that finds all prime numbers below 200,000.
Floating Point Performance
Floating point benchmarks measure floating point performance by performing a variety of processor-intensive tasks that make heavy use of floating-point operations. None of the floating point benchmarks perform any file I/O in order to isolate the work done to just the processor and the memory subsystem.
Mandelbrot renders the Mandelbrot set.
Dot Product computes the dot product of two vectors.
LU Decomposition computes the LU decomposition of a 128x128 matrix.
Primality Test performs the first few iterations of the Lucas-Lehmer test on a particular Mersenne number to determine whether or not it is prime.
Sharpen Image and Blur Image apply a convolution filter to an image in memory. These filters are similar to the filters found in graphics editors like Adobe Photoshop.
Memory Performance
Memory benchmarks measure not only the performance of the underlying memory hardware, but also the performance of the functions provided by the operating system used to manipulate memory.
Read Sequential loads values from memory into registers.
Write Sequential stores values from registers into memory.
Stdlib Allocate allocates and deallocates blocks of memory of varying sizes using functions from the C Standard Library.
Stdlib Write writes a constant value to a block of memory using functions from the C Standard Library.
Stdlib Copy copies values from one block of memory to another using functions from the C Standard Library.
Stream Performance
Stream benchmarks measure both floating point performance and sustained memory bandwidth. Geekbench 2 uses benchmarks based on the STREAM benchmarks developed John D. McCalpin. None of the stream benchmarks perform any file I/O in order to isolate the work done to just the processor and the memory subsystem.
Stream Copy computes a(i) = b(i), where a and a b are arrays.
Stream Scale computes a(i) = q * b(i), where a and b are arrays, and q is a constant.
Stream Add computes a(i) = b(i) + c(i), where a, b, and c are arrays.
Stream Triad computes a(i) = b(i) + q * c(i), where a, b, and c are arrays, and q is a constant.
But ill take your word for it and agree until I find better benchmarks :)
The move to 64 bit ARM is not to far away now, im happily waiting for a SoC to play with in the future :)
Also im glad I did not get killed today (as far as I know im not on anyones list yet) ;)
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@som99
Yeah, the jump in performance over the A9 (much greater then I expected) has me pretty jazzed.
I've been considering buying a Chromebook, but only if I can get it to run a Linux distro like Ubuntu.
ChromeOS' requirement of always having an internet connection bugs me. There's always going to be somewhere where that won't work.
A15 quad cores should be real killers.
Glad to see something better then the Krait introduced.
I just wish the development boards didn't cost twice what a quad core A9 board cost.
And, btw, not only wasn't I on anybody's list to be killed today, but it looks like Mother Nature has decided to spare me too (should I tempt fate by posting that this early?)
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:confused:
I wasn't talking about numbers of users, neither people's choice of forums, or the difference in activity on various web forums spread out in the community. Amiga.org and AmigaWorld.net has more activity than MorphZone.org, much thanks to more registered users and more "IRC-style" posting.
Edit:
To answer your question: I suppose we are on *all* those forums (and many others as well, there are many local forums in the world as well, and there is no law saying you are required to do a lot of postings online just because you run a certain OS)! Who cares?
careful, t - you'll attract the rabid dogs!
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woof!
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few others who failed to deny some pretty accurate guesses by Andreas Wolf
Got a link?
;)
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Chromebook with Ubuntu.....
Had a novel one in a couple weeks ago at the shop, the OS on the CB wasn't playing, neither was any of the hardware other than the screen booting and displaying a horrific mish-mash of corrupted GPU output. The reason:
Me: "Did this happen after a particular change in the system?"
Customer: "Yes, but nothing I'd done, nothing major, I just tried to install the latest Ubuntu...."
And that m'lud is when I hit him..... :insane:
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Can someone explain WHY they have not supported G5 yet? I have never understood how morphos works on g3 and g4 but not g5. G5 would allow a huge increase in cpu speeds and performance. Maybe its just because I never programmed for power pc... But I don't get why this has been a big issue... Or why there has been reluctance on the part of the morphos developers to do. Dosn't seem logical to me to ignore the fastest cpu your os was designed for...?
Steven
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Can someone explain WHY they have not supported G5 yet? I have never understood how morphos works on g3 and g4 but not g5. G5 would allow a huge increase in cpu speeds and performance. Maybe its just because I never programmed for power pc... But I don't get why this has been a big issue... Or why there has been reluctance on the part of the morphos developers to do. Dosn't seem logical to me to ignore the fastest cpu your os was designed for...?
Steven
Isn't the G5 little endian only? That would be a show stopper for MOS and AOS4... AROS would be fine though :)
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Isn't the G5 little endian only?
Nope, it's Big Endian only. Where other PPC's are pseudo Bi-Endian.
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I guess the question about G5's is... it'll give some more machines to use but what can you actually do on "amiga" that requires that level of hardware?
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I guess the question about G5's is... it'll give some more machines to use but what can you actually do on "amiga" that requires that level of hardware?
Encode audio/video, render graphics, play games, run emulators, compile big projects...
I would prefer that MorphOS was firstly ported to G5, multicore & 64bits support could be added later and in the switch to 64bits work could start in compiling everything for boring little-endian architectures. MorphOS uses IPTR pointers like AROS in its sourcecode and drivers apart it shouldn't take 5 years to port it to another architecture if you lose Trance, it could start its life internally in x86-64 hosted on another OS just like AROS did to avoid spending too much time on drivers for hardware that won't be available in the final release, and when it's more or less stable then focus on drivers.
As Iggy has pointed out the main problem would be lack of software, a ppc emulation box containing a full PPC-MorphOS could be used for that, there are several opensource ppc emulators like qemu, sheepshaver or pearpc.
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Still a great question and still not answered. Big endian. Small endian. Why not g5? Why not multicore support? And the bigger question to ALL amiga NG os devlelopers is this: Why not SMP? The goal of os 3.x api long now has been duplicated. How to write extenstions to that api to allow multi-core.
They all sleep on this very important question. Its SAD.
Yes hard to implement in current api. Someone must say that now so many machines have 4, 8, or even 16 cores. And all amiga os systems ignore this. Someone needs to write a new api.
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Do not give up hope and wait and see :-)
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Still a great question and still not answered. Big endian. Small endian. Why not g5? Why not multicore support? And the bigger question to ALL amiga NG os devlelopers is this: Why not SMP? The goal of os 3.x api long now has been duplicated. How to write extenstions to that api to allow multi-core.
G5 is not ruled out but there are more important things that need all their attention. On MorphOS hardware is both available & cheap and reasonably powerful, all Amiga systems right now lack new apps, that's the main concern, not hardware support.
I would love a G5 version but my G4 Mac Mini runs very smoothly and so does my powerbook. If you haven't tried MorphOS yet you can do it right now if you want, you don't have to wait for any G5 version, it's very fast right now even on old G4s. If you find a G4 with nVidia graphic card you can reflash a Radeon more or less easily, there are tons of tutorials out there.
The problem for all AmigaOSes right now is lack of new powerful apps, not hardware support.
They all sleep on this very important question. Its SAD.
They are working on other important features like wireless support, R300 support, iBook support, improving the bundled apps, killing bugs... agreed that development goes slowly but I don't think there are many developers capable of doing that kind of job.
Yes hard to implement in current api. Someone must say that now so many machines have 4, 8, or even 16 cores. And all amiga os systems ignore this. Someone needs to write a new api.
Krashan explained that it wouldn't be difficult to add support for a new type of tasks focused on number crunching/memory access that could run on the other cores without causing any loss of compatibility, it would be some kind of AMP.
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Can someone explain WHY they have not supported G5 yet? I have never understood how morphos works on g3 and g4 but not g5. G5 would allow a huge increase in cpu speeds and performance. Maybe its just because I never programmed for power pc... But I don't get why this has been a big issue... Or why there has been reluctance on the part of the morphos developers to do. Dosn't seem logical to me to ignore the fastest cpu your os was designed for...?
Laptops. MorphOS already supports 6 different desktops from 400 MHz Efika to 1.8 GHz PowerMacs but only one laptop.
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I agree with itix, laptop support was what MorphOS needed, not just one more desktop (albeit more powerful).
This has also lead to the development of completely new OS components, like battery/energy management including CPU throttling, temp management, multi-finger track pad support, etc. WiFi stack and SW is being worked on AFAIK. Stuff like this made MorphOS a laptop capable OS, and iBook support is said to come with the next OS release, making MorphOS on laptops even more available. And the work being put into 3D support for PowerBooks will also benefit previous desktop models. I think they focused their efforts in the best way possible.
:)
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Got a link?
;)
Nope. Mostly PM with people who wouldn't appreciate being quoted. So I shouldn't have mentioned it.
Why not g5?
Not ruled out. But some people (like Bigfoot) do not have a G5. And Powerbook was deemed more important.
Something is likely to happen by the time 3.2 is released.
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Nope. Mostly PM with people who wouldn't appreciate being quoted. So I shouldn't have mentioned it.
The joke kind of went over your head there, didn't it? ;)
:lol:
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The future is ARM. Acorn died but ARM won....
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The joke kind of went over your head there, didn't it? ;)
:lol:
Probably, then again I'm not Andreas so I don't constantly quote links (I don't even know how he remembers them all).