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Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion => Topic started by: Dandy on July 04, 2014, 09:08:40 AM
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From the first day the Amiga One X 1000 equipped with XENA and Xorro had been announced, I was wondering what XENA and Xorro could be used for.
Some months ago I read someone offered a "XENA test board" with some flashing LEDs.
Was that all?
Or do new ideas exist how XENA/XORRO could be utilised?
Perhaps there even are new projects on the way concerning XENA/XORRO?
Initially there was talk about suppport of XENA/XORRO in AmigaOS 4.x - any news from that?
Don't get me wrong - I'm deeply interested in the A1X1k and XENA/XORRO - and I would now certainly have one - hadn't there arosen the need to spend the money to cure some of my health problems and to support my children.
But nevertheless I eagerly would like to learn more about XENA/XORRO that were hyped so much initially.
Given the former XENA-hype, it became suspiciously quite regarding this gimmick since the A1X1k hit the streets.
Perhaps Trevor reads this thread and can give us some inspiring insights and news on this...
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To my understanding no-one has yet done anything productive with xena/xorro.
Two things released:
http://www.os4depot.net/index.php?function=showfile&file=utility/hardware/nemo_led_p31.lha
http://blog.hyperion-entertainment.biz/?p=654
Development board to buy:
http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=1135
(looks expensive, but if it is possible to bridge xcore to pcie with it, then it might have no alternative at the moment (on any platform), then again, what to use it for.)
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You can buy an XMOS board and play with it on a PC or Mac. There are lot's of projects out there: http://www.xcore.com/projects (http://www.xcore.com/projects)
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@Dandy
I made two suggestions a while back.
1. The first was to use it for CNC machine control for manufacturing stuff (whether that's in a factory, or someone's garage). CNC machine control requires very precise timing and simutaneous control of multiple stepper motors. I've heard of trouble when using PCs for this task, where the OS mucks up the timing and causes manufacturing defects. This is with the CNC machine's stepper motors being controlled by bitbanging an old fashioned parallel port. Xena/Xorro would have a few advantages. Firstly, it should be able to drive multiple stepper motors simultaneously than a parallel port. Secondly, the CPU has very very low latency when sending data/commands (no drivers, USB controllers/buses or other things in the way). Finally, AmigaOS' multitasking should be able to meet the hard realtime requirements, even though it isn't a "realtime multitasking" OS.
2. The other suggestion that I had was to use it as a "super debug port." One problem that I have with debugging drivers, is that I have to output debug data to the serial port (if the graphics driver crashes, then you won't be able to see/save it to disk). The serial port is painfully slow when there's a lot of debug info. My idea would be to stream the debug data via Xena at high speed, and have it write that data to log files on a SD-card (a high-speed one, like you would use in a camera). After a crash, the debug data could be retrieved and read directly from the SD-card via Xena. This would both speed up the debugging, and eliminate the need for a serial cable and second PC.
Why not stream it to disk via the OS? Well, an OS crash could prevent the (often critical) last few bytes from making it onto the disk. With Xena handling the writes, every last byte will safely end up on the SD-card.
Why haven't I done either of these? I simply don't have the time right now.
Hans
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Finally, AmigaOS' multitasking should be able to meet the hard realtime requirements
Don't count on it.
even though it isn't a "realtime multitasking" OS.
It's indeed not, and therefore unreliable for certain real time applications.
Want to do real time 'stuff'? Use a real time OS and don't mess around (right tool for the job).
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@Thorham
Don't count on it.
As far as non-realtime desktop OSes go, AmigaOS has a nice and simple scheduler, low switching times, and it's not going to suddenly go off and do maintenance tasks in the background... unless I tell it to. That does make meeting the timing requirements easier. Simply setting the task priority for my CNC task higher than most other tasks should do it.**
It's indeed not, and therefore unreliable for certain real time applications.
Want to do real time 'stuff'? Use a real time OS and don't mess around (right tool for the job).
Thanks for stating the obvious. Now go and tell everyone who uses PCs for control purposes.*** Be sure to also remind them that for some real-time tasks they should ditch the OS altogether, and use a hard-coded loop...
Hans
** I guess that I should add disclaimers and qualifiers here to avoid another snarky reply. Whether or not it will reliably handle a real-time task does, of course, depend on the processing power required, what the timing tolerances are, etc.
*** In some cases, I think that the decision to use PCs instead of PLCs for control may have been influenced by the fact that the PC comes with Solitaire installed. :D
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Don't count on it.
It's indeed not, and therefore unreliable for certain real time applications.
Want to do real time 'stuff'? Use a real time OS and don't mess around (right tool for the job).
I don't say much around here, but this IS NOT constructive criticism. Hans gives a LOT of time to what little is left of the Amiga community. Without his work we likely would have NO RadeonHD driver at all. Is a reply like this really going to help Hans, me, or anyone? Can and have you done better? Lets see some of your work!
How would you like to take a shot someone else's work?, Perhaps Trevor, Matt, Jens, -you get the idea. Please take it to the VxWorks forum and bash those guys for a while.
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@Thorham
** I guess that I should add disclaimers and qualifiers here to avoid another snarky reply. Whether or not it will reliably handle a real-time task does, of course, depend on the processing power required, what the timing tolerances are, etc.
*** In some cases, I think that the decision to use PCs instead of PLCs for control may have been influenced by the fact that the PC comes with Solitaire installed. :D
This really sort of ticks me a little. Hans really SHOULDN'T need any disclaimers for "A" holes on this forum. He IS ON OUR TEAM PEOPLE. Perhaps a little genuflection instead.
Back under my rock now before the stones start arriving in spades...
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@Jeff
Relax. Thorham found one item that he could nit-pick on. While he's busy lecturing me on the right way to do real-time computing, I know that there are many CNC machines out there that run on various versions of Windows (the desktop version, not some special real-time one). Mach 3 (http://www.machsupport.com/software/mach3/) is software that you can use for this purpose. So, I have no doubt that a Xorro based CNC controller could work, and work well. I'd even dare to try run a full feedback control loop with sensors and everything.
Of course, he is right that this wouldn't be good enough for "certain real-time applications," but I already knew that.
Hans
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Controlling a CNC machine suggest a commercial application, which pretty much rules out the use of an obscure piece of overpriced HW with no support in this field running an OS ill-fitted for the task at hand. Pointing out something that obvious is a much "constructive" as critism can get when the orginal idea is weak as this one.
Those CMOS chips are sure nice, but putting them onto a big mobo has very very limited reallife applications, all require much more in support/service than anything Amiga can offer.
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@Dandy
I just tracked down the developer wiki page for Xena/Xorro; it's here (http://wiki.amigaos.net/wiki/Writing_apps_for_Xena). I thought that I had seen more "getting started" info elsewhere, but I can't remember where. Maybe it was in the dev-tools archive. Anyway, on that wiki page Lyle posts the beginnings of a Xena/Xorro serial logger that connects to the serial port.
To see more done with Xena/Xorro, we need more people/developers to ask "what could I make this do?"
Of course, it would also help if we had more docs, tutorials, and a full dev-kit including compiler that ran on AmigaOS.
Hans
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Controlling a CNC machine suggest a commercial application, which pretty much rules out the use of an obscure piece of overpriced HW with no support in this field running an OS ill-fitted for the task at hand. Pointing out something that obvious is a much "constructive" as critism can get when the orginal idea is weak as this one.
You seem to have missed the post directly above yours...
If I were running a commercial manufacturing plant, then I'd buy ready made machines that were designed for the task. However, hobbyists also use CNC machines, and even build them themselves. I have a set of stepper motors and (untested) motor controller boards (soldered by me) in a drawer that are intended for such a machine. That project's on hold right now (no time), but whether some other hardware/OS would be "better" in your eyes is irrelevant.
I could apply your reasoning to pretty much everything: Why would I use AmigaOS/MorphOS/AROS/C64 for X when Windows/Linux/Some-Industrial-PC already does it so well? X could be anything from web-browsing to gaming and beyond.
Why? Because I feel like it; I enjoy it; it's fun.
Hans
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I could apply your reasoning to pretty much everything: Why would I use AmigaOS/MorphOS/AROS/C64 for X when Windows/Linux/Some-Industrial-PC already does it so well? X could be anything from web-browsing to gaming and beyond.
Why? Because I feel like it; I enjoy it; it's fun.
Hans
Exactly!
Why do so many people posting to Amiga related forums miss this point. We use these systems because we like how they work. To us, they are fun to use, and we want to expand what we can do on them and with them to new applications.
Even though Xena/Xorro has been highly criticized by many people who don't own an X1000, I am still confident that someone will come up with an interesting project that uses this one-of-a-kind interface for AmigaOS4.x.
Will it be something revolutionary and amazing that has never been done on any other platform? Probably not, but it will be different in the way it is implemented, due to the unique interface that it is connected to on the X1000. As long as it is useful to a few people, it will be interesting to me.
As a person who wants to improve my programming skills, and someone who is interested in computer controlled devices to make life easier and better, I am very interested in trying to invent ways to make my X1000 useful around my home. I could find commercial products to do any number of those same tasks, but where is the fun in that?:)
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Even though Xena/Xorro has been highly criticized by many people who don't own an X1000, I am still confident that someone will come up with an interesting project that uses this one-of-a-kind interface for AmigaOS4.x.
...... it will be different in the way it is implemented, due to the unique interface that it is connected to on the X1000.
Sofar all proposed Xena projects fell in (atleast) on of these categories:
- brainfart (AGA emulation and so on)
- better be done by the CPU or GPU (anything involving number crunching)
- could be done as well with just the XMOS chip
- could be done just as well or better with a XMOS-chip on an USB-module (I'll put the CNC idea here)
And thats pretty much what all the critism has ever been about, noone has been able to really justify putting that chip there.
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As far as non-realtime desktop OSes go, AmigaOS has a nice and simple scheduler, low switching times, and it's not going to suddenly go off and do maintenance tasks in the background... unless I tell it to. That does make meeting the timing requirements easier. Simply setting the task priority for my CNC task higher than most other tasks should do it.
If you're running your own software, you could adapt it to turn the OS off. Don't know how easy that is with AOS4+ (same for turning it back on), but it's what I'd do with AOS1/2/3.
Anyway, my first post wasn't intended to be negative. Perhaps the tone was wrong?
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If you're running your own software, you could adapt it to turn the OS off. Don't know how easy that is with AOS4+ (same for turning it back on), but it's what I'd do with AOS1/2/3.
Anyway, my first post wasn't intended to be negative. Perhaps the tone was wrong?
@Thorham
My post wasn't meant that way either. Apologies all around.
Onward!
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If you're running your own software, you could adapt it to turn the OS off. Don't know how easy that is with AOS4+ (same for turning it back on), but it's what I'd do with AOS1/2/3.
Anyway, my first post wasn't intended to be negative. Perhaps the tone was wrong?
No worries.
Using a "classic" Amiga as a CNC controller would be pretty neat too. If anyone does this, I expect photos and videos to be posted!
Hans
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Initially there was talk about suppport of XENA/XORRO in AmigaOS 4.x - any news from that?
The whole Xena/Xorro thing was marketing BS and almost useless (as history has shown) unfortunately.
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Just curious why would a home hobbyist use a CNC rather than a 3D printer?
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Just curious why would a home hobbyist use a CNC rather than a 3D printer?
To produce anything that is more durable than a toy found in a Happy Meal ?
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To produce anything that is more durable than a toy found in a Happy Meal ?
It's probably more interesting, too.
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Exactly!
Why do so many people posting to Amiga related forums miss this point. We use these systems because we like how they work. To us, they are fun to use, and we want to expand what we can do on them and with them to new applications.
But you can already buy xcore dev boards and in fact people are making good use of them.
"Because we can" is not plausible because they other can, too. They dont have to rely on Windows or Linux but they could use Haiku or one of less known BSD variations.
Will it be something revolutionary and amazing that has never been done on any other platform? Probably not, but it will be different in the way it is implemented, due to the unique interface that it is connected to on the X1000. As long as it is useful to a few people, it will be interesting to me.
Dont hold your breath. You are hoping to find a problem where X1000 could be a solution. I cant say such problem cant exist but after three or four years odds are looking very small...
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To produce anything that is more durable than a toy found in a Happy Meal ?
Lol. Glad to see someone else is as sceptical about 3D printers usefulness as I am.
@Hans
RE CNC - I can see your point as a hobbyist idea (it _could_ be done) but what kind of CNC are you considering that needs such low latency feedback from the sensors to control stepping motor functions?
Designs are generally done on paper/screen, then transferred as-is to any kind of CNC manufacturing tool (considering lathes, milling machines, drills, etc) for pumping out the work.
AFAICS (although I've not been involved in design of machinery) Sensors are generally used to (re) calibrate position and displacement of the tool, not for reactive decisions during manufacturing. Stepping motors by their very nature have a known displacement per 'step' and therefore don't require real-time monitoring except during recalibration.
By nature, stepping motors and CNC machinery just don't need that kind of processing power or real-time control. Hence most are controlled by a small low power microcontroller with a USB/floppy interface to allow G-code to be transferred to the machine to control manufacture.
I genuinely don't see what advantage Xena/Xorro bring here, and do see disadvantages of complication. This doesn't seem to utilise Xena/Xorro much beyond (as you have observed) a parallell port.
Perhpas something like robotics control maybe - considering a 'walking robot' that requires constant feedback for eg balance.
However like any specialist application, it's better to choose the most appropriate solution to the problem, not start with a given solution and try to fit the problem around it.
I remain confused as to what function Xena/Xorro provides that is advantageous.
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@Hans
RE CNC - I can see your point as a hobbyist idea (it _could_ be done) but what kind of CNC are you considering that needs such low latency feedback from the sensors to control stepping motor functions?
My comment about feedback control loops wasn't really about CNC. That was in response to the "you can't do real-time" comments from Thorham. Like you said, you usually don't really need such control with stepper motors. There are a few cases where it might be needed. For example, you might be machining something that need your tool to apply constant pressure.
Now, I don't have a specific application in mind beyond a desktop milling machine. I bought the motors before the A1-X1000 came out, and my plan back then was to get the computer to turn the g-code into a set of stepper motor bit-streams, and upload that via wifi to a small ARM controller board. That board would store it on an SD-card, and spit it out to the motors once done. However, using Xorro would be faster and more convenient.
I genuinely don't see what advantage Xena/Xorro bring here, and do see disadvantages of complication. This doesn't seem to utilise Xena/Xorro much beyond (as you have observed) a parallell port.
I could drive more outputs via Xorro and read more inputs than a parallel port could. This is one of those situations where you need all motors to be perfectly synchronised, so using multiple parallel ports would not work. This is irrelevant for a 3-axis machine, but...
Another consideration is speed. With stepper motors there's a trade-off between precision and speed. If you want both high precision and reasonable speed, then you'll need to be able to generate a very high-speed pulse stream (and have motors that can keep up). I don't know what the switching limits are when you bit-bang the parallel port, nor have I checked what the speed limits of my motors are. However, I'm pretty sure that I could get Xena/Xorro to deliver a faster and more precisely timed set of pulse-streams than a parallel port could, without bringing multitasking to a halt.
Finally, let me ask you this:
Perhpas something like robotics control maybe - considering a 'walking robot' that requires constant feedback for eg balance.
However like any specialist application, it's better to choose the most appropriate solution to the problem, not start with a given solution and try to fit the problem around it.
I remain confused as to what function Xena/Xorro provides that is advantageous.
I've made a few suggestions above, although I fully expect a "yes but..." reply. However, does it really matter if my CNC controller uses Xena/Xorro and the PA6T to their maximum potential? I don't think so. So much hardware and software doesn't (e.g., just think about how many games you play actually uses your computer to its full potential).
Similarly, there are myriads of microcontroller boards available out there, and you're always going to find a different board that is "at least as good" as the one that you chose. Is that any reason to cancel your project? No, it isn't.
You are too fixated on "where's the killer advantage" to even begin thinking about what you could do with it.
In the end, we have a CPU with high processing power coupled (via a low-latency interface) to a device that excels in things such as custom application-specific I/O, motor control, etc. I find that idea interesting. Plus, I like seeing what I can make things do, irrespective of what other people say it's predefined purpose is (e.g., 3D graphics with 2D compositing).
I really hope that people will think a bit more creatively about what they could use it for, and be less quick to look for reasons why those ideas are "stupid." You might just find a few good/interesting ideas amongst the "silly" ones.
Hans
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Just curious why would a home hobbyist use a CNC rather than a 3D printer?
Kronos already gave a good answer, to illustrate this further: Try to make a set of gears out of metal that work properly with your desktop 3D printer. :p
There are very expensive industrial 3D printers that could do it but, AFAIK, the cogs wouldn't be as strong or as smooth as when manufactured using more traditional methods.
3D printers are great, but I can think of a long list of things that they aren't suitable for.
Hans
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Greetings everyone. It seems I am late to the party.
I have not made this site part of my usual watchlist, perhaps I'll change that in the future.
I'll start on topic, and may wander from there.
I'd like top start by saying that I am impressed with the accuracy of the discussion so far. Certainly some people are a bit more pessimistic than I am, but at least MOST of the "facts" are true.
One slight correction I'd liketo make:
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http://www.os4depot.net/index.phpfunction=showfile&file=utility/hardware/nemo_led_p31.lha
Nemo_led_p31 allows user control of an "extra" LED header on the Nemo board.
It also allows access by low level code, such as interrupt handlers. As such I have found it very handy when troubleshooting code, but it has nothing to do with the Xena chip. no connection, no relation..
I take no offense to it being described as "Nothing productive", though I would personally disagree with that assessment.
The Xena chip has some very unique capabilities. It also has a few obstacles to be overcome. I will gladly discuss those here as long as I feel the time is well spent. If it becomes more of an argument than a discussion you can expect my continued participation to end. Frankly I have too much to do to spend time arguing with anyone.
Onward.. In addition to coding for OS4 I also have some embedded experience, using small chips that can run code directly without any "OS" to speak of.. I have designed, built, and programmed some unique audio hardware, some stuff used for home automation, and some devices that I used at previous employers to enhance the performance of their equipment. So I have at least _some_ experience with small processors like the XMOS devices.
The XMOS chips like Xena are quite unique.. Unlike most devices it actually has completely separate processing units that run with a fixed speed, completely independent of each other. These threads and cores are linked by a switching fabric that is quite flexible in how things are connected. All of this is an offshoot of an older project called "transputers" that were designed from the ground up to do things differently than classic Von-Neumann architectures.
As with most anything, these chips have certain strengths, and some weaknesses. Each X-Series motherboard has a chip with two cores, each core carrying eight independent threads. (note: The advertising geniuses at XMOS have renamed "cores" as "tiles" and have renamed "threads" as "Cores", so any reference is now muddled by their marketing ingenuity.) Anyway.. the eight threads on each core share a common block of RAM, but under normal circumstances RAM is NEVER shared between cores. (Yes, there are ways around it, but that would betray the language design).. These threads are designed for processing streams of data, and they do so with exceptional speed.. But without sharing RAM, there has to be a very fast way of moving data around.. So "Links" were implemented. Links come in 2 wire and 5 wire varieties, and they are NOT clocked at a fixed rate.. they can basically accellerate to whatever speed that both the sender and receiver can support.. (within reason) The "fabric" that joins these threads and cores can also be brought out to external links, so that multiple XMOS chips can be joined into larger arrays.. so the end-user can build paralell processing arrays of as many cores/tiles as they choose. In fact the dual core Xena chip appears to the programmer as two separate single core devices.. interesting.
Note: The Xorro board has all the necessary connections to support this.. so the ability to expand this array is available to us.
Now, trying to get back on track.. What these chips do well is serialized data processing, and they can do it with guaranteed maximum response times. This is unique among all the chips and devices that I am familiar with so far. Another neat property is that the "code", the program they run, is loaded dynamically. Nothing is burned to ROM, so the chip, and all the links that configure it, can be stopped, re-programmed with new code, and re-started on demand.. completely "software configurable".
Note" All this programming is done by JTAG, and the other 98% of XMOS users require either a JTAG interface or a USB to JTAG device to play with their chips. The X1000 and Cyrus have these interfaces built right in to the motherboard, so we can safely assume that ALL machines of those two types are "ready to go" with no other stuff required. And yes, the JTAG loop is also brought out on the Xorro card, so additional XMOS chips can be added easily.
I can see that Hans has studied these chips.. the idea of direct control of stepper motors is a good example of what these chips might be very good at. The task is broken down into individual threads, with some consideration for the timing and speed requirements that the task needs. At least the hardware support for CNC control would be a walk in the park for a Xena chip.. the logical needs would still be up to the programmer.
Another project that was mentioned, and one I am much more familiar with, is the idea of adding a SDCard and using Xena to catch and store the debug stream. One thread captures the incoming serial data, one handles writing to the memory card.. but the data comes in one char at a time, and the SD card manager writes in blocks, so a "buffer" thread is placed in between..
Now on a "normal" processor, the problem comes when the chip goes off to write a block of data to the card.. the whole time that takes, the incoming serial is being ignored.. unless you have a chip with a built in hardware buffer, or a separate processor.. but with the XMOS chips you just give each thread it's own part of the larger job, and join them all together with links however you'd like. Also of note is the LARGE community of XMOS enthusiasts, and the public repository of free code.. combining bits of other peoples code is MUCH easier when each bit is running in a separate thread.. so this is really good for hobbyist programmers! A complete SD card read/write package, WITH DOS INCLUDED! serial port code in a few varieties, code for simple audio effects, IR Remote control recording/playback, some serialized data processing stuff.. there is a LOT of code ready to be re-combined into new projects.
I did a short demo of the above serial data logger project, not quite completed in time for the 2012 AmiWest show. If you're really into geeky stuff you can find it on YouTube.
But let me leave the tech stuff aside for a moment to talk about why so little has happened. There have been a few things that have slowed it all down. Mostly my own schedule. Put quite simply, I have been busy working on other stuff. Just before AmiWest 2012 I was able to complete the JTAG programmer that lets us program the Xena chip from the command line. This is not "sexy" stuff, but it's necessary before much else happens.
The initial "flashing LEDs" demo video from the board manufactrurer clearly shows that they plugged in an external JTAG programmer.. that's how everyone else does it. With the JTAG tools (and the supporting code written by Segher) we can do it from the command line.
My next big task was the compiler suite. The "XC" language preferred for these chips is NOT available freely. It is developed and maintained by XMOS, and the code is not public. They have an Eclipse based tool suite that runs on Windows or _SOME_ types of Linux. Sadly enough, only x86 platforms are supported. Recognizing that this would be a hindrance to many Amiga owners, I have tried a variety of ways to get around this. I have asked for support from XMOS, I have discussed this in their forums (which are suprisingly well managed by the company). I have tried a couple emulators under AmigaOS, but I was never able to properly emulate a 32 bit x86 system (16 bit systems will not work).
I tried more advanced emulators, but frankly emulators are not my cup of tea, and my experience on the "other side" is not so strong anyway. I even considered running a bigger emulator under Debian, but jumping back and forth between AmigaOS and Debian for every loop of development would be insane.
I managed to strip the actual command-line tools needed from their "XDE" toolchain, and could write basic makefiles that run well on my netbook. I added FTP scripts on both the netbook and my X1000. I worked out a system where simply typing "make" from the project directory on my Amiga would pack up all project related files, FTP them over to the netbook, which would then compile the project, recording all messages from the compiler and linker, then it zips up the result and sends it all back to the Amiga by FTP, complete with a return code. Slow? Sure. But faster than any other option I could find.
I then set out to make this available to everyone. I tried to set up an EMail account that would process the comile jobs just like my FTP scripts do.. so that Amiga users anywhere could type "make" and actually export the job to an old windows machine standing by for that purpose. I worked on that a long time. I almost got it working. I could gather up the project, LHArc it, email it over, and then process it properly. but I could never quite figure out how to receive mail on an Amiga. I tried Python, I tried a few other things.. but after all that work I simply gave up. My networking skills are not up to the task.
So, end result? Developing for Xena REQUIRES a windows or Linux box. I am sure that there MAY be ways around it, but I am done trying.
Ideally, I know that MANY others in our community are much smarter than I am.. hopefully one will step up to the job. I'll donate an old windows box and the network connection, as long as it won't impede the security of my home network.
Note: Post too long.. continued in next reply.
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Reply too long, continued here from previous reply.
Onward..
We have the JTAG tools, we have working code for communicating over the "fast localbus" of the X1000, although it's not as fast as I would like. (another story for another time). The same interface on Cyrus has been improved to correct the things I was not happy with, so that's improving as well.
I have code that is 90% complete for a built-in debug logger that requires no extra computer like debug does now.. and the possibility to improve how logging is managed.. Hopefully I'll have time to get back to that project sometime soon. it may be 90% complete but the last 10% is usually the most painful part.
And we, collectively, have a very generous bank of existing XMOS code that can be used as we wish to make all kinds of cool things..
What we don't have are:
A way to compile under AmigaOS, either natively or by network.
Any "finished" projects to show as examples. Yet.
Any people (with one exception) who are willing to get in there and play with these chips.
Another thing we're going to want some day is a real-time manager that allocates threads and links dynamically, so that we can re-task parts of Xena while others remain at task.. VERY cool stuff, but also well outside my abilities.
And why haven't I bothered to finish my Logger? Friends, I have been busy with other coding projects. "Fun" stuff like Xena, and like my own pet project "Score", have gone completely untouched for well over a year now. Only two weeks ago I decided to stop all my other projects and work only on Score... for my own sanity if nothing else. I am happy to announce that Score is now scrolling.. see my video from 2013 AmiWest if you're curious about that.
Finally, if you've been reading along this far.. I'd like to vent about one particularly annoying rant.. Some people keep going on about what A-EON _SHOULD_ be doing with Xena. Xena is there as a USER_DEFINABLE expansion. It's not their unfinished project, it's YOURS.
If you want to do something with Xena. GO FOR IT!
You have the JTAG tools, you have example code, You can develop in their slick Eclipse based dev environment, (Eww, I hate it) or you can run command line tools. Hell, I'll even give you my (really ugly nasty) scripts for FTP automation if you want them. So far ONE person has taken the initiative, and he has discoverd a few things that I didn't know, and fed that information back to me.
I'm sure more projects will be completed. I assume some people will even buy those projects "pre-built", so they get the utility without writing a line of code. But foremost, this is a really unique chip that is quite literally a blank slate. It was put there because the Amiga community used to have a reputation for being innovative.. it's nice that we still have means to do it again, if anyone cares to.
Finally, the opinions expressed here are my own.
I do not speak for Hyperion, A-EON, or Amiga.org.
I am open for discussion, as long as it appears to be productive.
I have no time for arguing, I have too many other things I could be doing.
Gee, I wonder if Amiga.org has a post length limit? I'll find out when I press "Submit Reply"...
Peace,
LyleHaze
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Just a thought:
Xena/xorro enables true hard realtime control on a desktop computer, without messing up the desktop OS kernell for the task.
And for real practical usage, we must wait the first person to do it.
(as cyrus+ does not have audio onboard.... perhaps a xorro audiocard could be used. It might have power&resopnsiveness enough to adjust the 3D sound as needed according to users head movements.)
Old list of (silly/halfsane/whatever) ideas: http://amigaworld.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=27379&forum=33
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@Dandy
I made two suggestions a while back.
1. The first was to use it for CNC machine control for manufacturing stuff (whether that's in a factory, or someone's garage).
...
Oh yeah!!!
I'm dreaming of an Amiga controlled manufacturing cell since my education as a CAD analyst in the late 80s/early 90s.
Back then (early 90s) I had DynaCAD running on my A500 (slowly, but it worked - at school we used Medusa and Cadds4x on Sun Unix workstations). I also had a tool to convert the 3D data from DynaCAD into executable CNC programs, which I stored on a disk and run them on the CNC machines at school.
I also tried to find a tool for the Amiga back then that allowed for robotics programming (so I could exercise this stuff at home as well) - but sadly in vain.
At school we learned to use 3D CAD systems, how to make executable CNC programs from the 3D drawing data and how to send them to the "manufacturing cell". When the data arrived at the manufacturing cell, robots 'woke up' and selected a suitable roughly forged object from the storage, clamped this workpiece into the machine (milling, lathing, drilling or grinding), then the machine selected the required tool and started to manufacture the part we initially designed at the workstation. Two minutes later the completed workpiece fell off the back of the manufacturing cell...
I was fascinated by this and dreamt of having such a manufacturing environment in a smaller scale and Amiga operated for my modelling hobby at home in the garage or in the cellar.
When I read the specs of the XENA add-on of the A1X1k, I was immediately reminded of my CAD-CNC-CAM experiences and of my old desire to realise such a manufacturing cell with an Amiga. The XENA specs ("The uses are endless: control hardware, DSP functions, robotics, display, ...") seemed to support my 'suspect', that this machine could be suited to make my old dream true.
Currently I'm dreaming of building a steam operated model steam locomotive (H0 gauge) after my retirement (in latest 9 yrs.). For manufacturing the chassis parts I thought something like these CNC machines (http://www.thecooltool.com/produktgruppe.php?language=e&status=20&sh_id=75&ptitel=UNIMAT+CNC) might be suitable.
For the loco's bodywork I'd like to have 3D printer support.
But still there is the dream to do all this on an Amiga - and not on a Lintel or Wintel box.
My vision is:
- designing the model loco
- manufacturing the model loco
- and later steering the loco (involving a cam on the loco)
using the abilities of the XENA addon.
But this would - besides others - require an updated, native OS4.x version of DynaCAD and of the CNC-tool (maybe the latter can be integrated into DynaCAD).
Also it would be good to have a way on the Amiga to control robot arms like these (http://www.cpr-roboter.de/en/products/mover6.html).
Although the AmigaOne X1000 hardware with XENA seems to be suited for such tasks, a lot of things still seem to be missing. I'm not only thinking of an updated, native OS4.x version of DynaCAD and the of the CNC-tool and of robot control software, but also of the implementation and integration of XENA into the OS. Currently it just seems to be addressable via cli commands.
Here I would wish to know more details about how the OS team plans to integrate XENA in the OS and how this all is meant to work. Unfortunately there is very little information available - so it all remains an airy idea at the moment...
2. The other suggestion that I had was to use it as a "super debug port."
...
This could also be a good use of XENA - for coders...
Why haven't I done either of these? I simply don't have the time right now.
Yeah - here at my end it is similar. Either I have time, but no money, or I have the money, but no time, or I'm lacking both - time and money...
;) :D
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@Dandy
...
To see more done with Xena/Xorro, we need more people/developers to ask "what could I make this do?"
Exacly my point of view.
Of course, it would also help if we had more docs, tutorials, and a full dev-kit including compiler that ran on AmigaOS.
Hans
Yeah! (drool, slobber) ;) :D
We urgently need more of these things to be able to get inspired!
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The whole Xena/Xorro thing was marketing BS and almost useless (as history has shown) unfortunately.
Hmmm - to me the "uselessness" rather seems to be a consequence of the lack of vision and inspiration among the community, which in turn partly is a consequence of the poor support for XENA/XORRO (documentation, tutorials, devkits, ...).
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(as cyrus+ does not have audio onboard.... perhaps a xorro audiocard could be used.
Or just buy a 10$ soundcard supported by allready existing drivers...
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Or just buy a 10$ soundcard supported by allready existing drivers...
Sure. But 10$ sound card might not be able the tune the 3D sound environment according to head movements.
(btw. the cheapest sound card I found locally cost 30€, C-Media CMI8786 based, legacy PCI)
(also if xorro sound card would be made, it should have atari ports etc etc. as well for more easy access to xena I/O)
@thread
The lack of good xcore development environment on AOS4 is huge handicap.
But also, if "xena" would exist in some more affordable motherboard (with low latency CPU localbus&JTAG), it might get some users from http://www.xcore.com/ .
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Just curious why would a home hobbyist use a CNC rather than a 3D printer?
Maybe I missed something - but as far as I know there currently is no way of 3D-printing steel parts or other metal parts.
CNC machines are to my knowledge mainly used for metal processing.
Don't confuse 3D-printers with the Star Trek replicators (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replicator_(Star_Trek))...
;)
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@Lyle
Thanks for the insights from your perspective on this, it's good to hear from the horse's mouth where development stands. :-)
Reply too long, continued here from previous reply.
And why haven't I bothered to finish my Logger? Friends, I have been busy with other coding projects. "Fun" stuff like Xena, and like my own pet project "Score", have gone completely untouched for well over a year now. Only two weeks ago I decided to stop all my other projects and work only on Score... for my own sanity if nothing else.
I sympathise immensely.
As someone who is renovating my kitchen, living room, garden and 'spare room' whilst simulataneously trying to run a business and set up a second one in parallel... I can seriously sympathise.
Last week I realised that in order to drive forward the improvements I want to make in some areas, I really need to get my home life back in order - so am taking the rest of July off to concentrate on finishing the WIP at home.
Disrupted kitchen = no cooking, no cooking = poor diet, poor diet = poor physical/mental condition, which undermines the work I'm trying to accomplish in other areas.
@Hans
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this and I'm really not trying to be negative (I think Dandy and I had pretty much the same discussion on AW.net a while back).
The design and manufacture of a homebrew milling machine is well within my sphere of interest (although the control side of things make me think of Laplace transforms which makes me want to run screaming from the building) and I would certainly be interested in the work you do.
As you said, I think whenever I read ideas about Xena I'm applying the filter of "what are X-core's strengths?" and not seeing them being particularly harnessed.
Considering Xena as a hobbyist port is probably a more constructive way to approach it than trying to find _that problem_ for which Xena is the solution.
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Maybe I missed something - but as far as I know there currently is no way of 3D-printing steel parts or other metal parts. ...
There exist 3D printers that can print out metallic parts. (very expensive devices, used by some prototype labs)
(I have held some printouts on my hand.)
(IIRC, there's also some experimental printers that print out concrete houses and someone made solar powered device that goes on sand at sahara and outputs some pots welded from sand and ....)
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There exist 3D printers that can print out metallic parts. (very expensive devices, used by some prototype labs)
(I have held some printouts on my hand.)
Shapes made of metal perhaps, but probably not useful metallic parts:
http://moobunny.dreamhosters.com/cgi/mbmessage.pl/general/35153.shtml
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Lyle, Thanks for your comprehensive reply. I was going to make a comment but summary was more than enough.
TrevorD
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Hmmm - to me the "uselessness" rather seems to be a consequence of the lack of vision and inspiration among the community, which in turn partly is a consequence of the poor support for XENA/XORRO (documentation, tutorials, devkits, ...).
community is how it is, and how it became over time in course of events it had no influence on. We know that currently there is only very little technically educated, skilled people left with us, especially those with spare free time and motivation. so i consider it unfair that the consumer repeatedly gets blamed for every failure, in particular the lack of unconditional support or "vision", in the end. the x1k, as example, was designed and developed behind the closed doors without the community being involved or consulted and what concerns the inclusion of the xmos chip apparently both, without properly analysing the consumers expectations and without securing the software support in advance, that should usually be included with in the system. the current situation is nothing unpredictible, but a straightforward consequence of approach taken.
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@Lyle,
On the page below, they said that XMOS were(are?) working on an LLVM port of the XC toolchain and then it'll be open sourced.
Not sure if they manage to finish this port.
http://www.openbusiness.cc/2010/01/15/xmos-limited/
Regards
Kamelito
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I just read my post from last night.. it does sound more like a rant than I would have liked. Maybe I should avoid posting after midnight. ;)
When the topic was first brought up, even some of the XMOS regulars believed the toochain was open. parts of it are, but the "XC" specific extensions are not.
If you're curious, you can read more http://www.xcore.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=2137 (http://www.xcore.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=2137)
There are a few in the XMOS clan who prefer PowerPC processors, but the grand majority are there to play with the chips, and would prefer to just use the tools provided.
When I was bringing up the command line tools for AmigaOS, one of the snags I hit turned out to be missing clock configuration information in our compiled projects. The XMOS community (who are generally very capable with these things) had no idea what might be wrong. It turns out that all of the XMOS dev stuff is very thorough about autodetection and autoconfiguration without user intervention of any sort. Tools like this are convenient, but they do contribute to the end user knowing less about how things work. I finally worked it out with Seghers help, and the AmigaOS command line tools were modified to properly set the clock divider correctly. On the other end, I wrote up a config script specifically for Xena, and added it to the XDK, so when we go to start a project, "Amiga X1000_Xena" comes up as an option when selecting the target chip.
Of course, it's not shipped from XMOS that way, but it's (now) easy to add in.
More thoughts about Xena projects:
The ability to do VERY accurate time measurements would make it ideal for ultrasonic measurements.
It would also be VERY simple to make a IR Remote control recorder/playback programs, even better if you choose to support the Pronto format. This would allow loading/saving remotes from a large existing community..
Granted, neither of these is "the killer application", but both could be a lot of fun to play with. Honestly the Pronto project would be made SO simple with the programmable clocks in the Xena chip.
And about the compiler.. I have wondered a few times about "cloud processing" to help us out. I wonder how hard, or how expensive, it would be to set up a virtual machine hosted at some internet company.. and use it just for compiling Xena code for Amiga-folk. I have discussed similar ideas in the XMOS forums, and no objections were raised by the company. If it helps them expand the user base (or just shut me up) then it's good for everyone.
_somebody_ would need to pay some monthly fee for processor time used.. but I suspect the total CPU hours per month would be quite low.. it would certainly be worth looking in to, anyway.
This networking stuff is way over my skill set. I was proud to get ethernet working on my classic 4000, and have never looked deeper since then. I wonder if anyone in our community has the knowledge to discuss these options?
Back to work...
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Shapes made of metal perhaps, but probably not useful metallic parts:...
Hey there, even paperweights are usefull at windy places! ;)
(but sure, printed metal parts are not yet as tough has normal steel as an example. But in some cases, like using it as heat spreader, it can be ok.)
@Lyle
" If it helps them expand the user base (or just shut me up) then it's good for everyone."
Nice!
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The question is not really whether XMOS is useful, clearly with the number of projects out there it is. But all these applications are pretty much stand alone applications. I can go out and buy a US$ 100 USB 2.0 program board and do that from a PC or Mac.
The real question is what advantage does connecting XMOS directly to the motherboard of the AmigaOne bring?
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The real question is what advantage does connecting XMOS directly to the motherboard of the AmigaOne bring?
I believe it was just a marketing thing. Remember it was set to be perceived as an Amiga like "custom chip". So that it appeared more mind pleasing for those who had a real Amiga and big pockets, and were looking for a next generation amiga-ish computer.
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I believe it was just a marketing thing. Remember it was set to be perceived as an Amiga like "custom chip". So that it appeared more mind pleasing for those who had a real Amiga and big pockets, and were looking for a next generation amiga-ish computer.
I don't disagree with what you wrote above, but like Lyle, I get annoyed by some other statements that try to tell people what the Xena/Xorro is, or was supposed to be. Lyle summed up everything in his long 2 part post earlier in this thread, so I will just quote part of what he wrote again for emphasis.
Finally, if you've been reading along this far.. I'd like to vent about one particularly annoying rant.. Some people keep going on about what A-EON _SHOULD_ be doing with Xena. Xena is there as a USER_DEFINABLE expansion. It's not their unfinished project, it's YOURS.
If you want to do something with Xena. GO FOR IT!
I think that Lyle put it into perspective best with that statement. Xena/Xorro can be what ever the user wants to make of it. It was included to encourage users to experiment and be creative, which Amiga users have always been famous for in the past. Call it a marketing gimmick if you want. Call it useless and a waste to have it on the motherboard, instead of just including the USB version with every X1000 motherboard, if you want. Trevor acted on the advice given to him at the time of the design for the X1000 motherboard by people who have much more technical knowledge than himself. The additional cost for adding it to the motherboard was said to be negligible, so Trevor gave them the "Green Light" to proceed. I don't see many actual X1000 owners complaining about the Xena/Xorro interface and processor being included, and I for one, think it is interesting. I am glad that this interesting "user-definable" chip and interface is on my X1000 motherboard. I also plan to "tinker" with it in the near future. The one thing that should have been done before the release of the X1000, would be to have completed the porting of the XMOS toolchain to AmigaOS4.x, so owners could have begun playing around with the Xena/Xorro combination much sooner. From what Lyle wrote, it appears that still more work needs to be done, before a complete set of tools is available to develop for Xena/Xorro, while using AmigaOS4.x, but the tools Lyle has made available to us are enough to begin many projects with.
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The real question is what advantage does connecting XMOS directly to the motherboard of the AmigaOne bring?
That is a very valid question, and hindsight is always more clear than trying to predict the future when designing something.
Given the low production numbers, and therefore low number of X1000 owners/users/developers, I think that it may take much more time before we can know if there will be any advantage, or disadvantage, or no difference in having an XMOS chip on the motherboard, compared to a stand-alone XMOS board. Since it is a User-Definable interface & processor, who knows if/when one or more of the users comes up with an idea to use Xena/Xorro in a way that is unique to having it on the motherboard, instead of a stand-alone XMOS board.
The Amiga community is small now and AmigaOS4.x users are a smaller subset of that niche community. X1000 owners/users/developers are a fraction of AmigaOS4.x users, and our small community, so it may take a very long time before many projects that use Xena/Xorro are started, or completed. As one of the members here pointed out, not all Amiga users are programmers or technical people with hardware design experience, so maybe we won't ever see any great innovative use of Xena/Xorro, but I would not bet against something showing up. Amiga users are amazing people who don't give up easily and they usually do more with what ever is available to them, than what is expected or normal.:)
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Thanks for that AmigaDave.
We have produced Xorro development boards (which are available) and are working on a couple of Xorro specific projects. We are also including an improved Xena/Xorro combination in the AMIGAone X5000, thanks to the specification and hard work of Lyle.
As for complaints, most of the comments appear to come from none AMIGAone X1000 owners?
Trevor
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Thanks for that AmigaDave.
We have produced Xorro development boards (which are available) and are working on a couple of Xorro specific projects. We are also including an improved Xena/Xorro combination in the AMIGAone X5000, thanks to the specification and hard work of Lyle.
As for complaints, most of the comments appear to come from none AMIGAone X1000 owners?
Trevor
You must admit that up to now there are no many real applications available or known for it. It was marketed as "custom chipset" (if I remember right) and led to wild speculations. It is in any case making the hardware more expensive. It is a industrial component, X1000 (and X5000) are bought by consumers, do you really have possible applications that make it worth to integrate it again?
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I believe it was just a marketing thing. ...
IMO: That's childish thing to say.
We know the xcore idea came from Varisys. Not from any Amiga custom chip lover or marketing man.
I would love to hear what was the idea by Varisys people when they suggested that core should have direct connection to CPU. Lower latency (than over PCI or USB) between CPU & xcore? Being able to have 100% control of xcore without extra tools? Being able to reprogram xcore on the fly per desktop application request? All of those? More?
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IMO: That's childish thing to say.
We know the xcore idea came from Varisys. Not from any Amiga custom chip lover or marketing man.
I would love to hear what was the idea by Varisys people when they suggested that core should have direct connection to CPU. Lower latency (than over PCI or USB) between CPU & xcore? Being able to have 100% control of xcore without extra tools? Being able to reprogram xcore on the fly per desktop application request? All of those? More?
If the idea is from Varisys and they should have known that you need certain software and drivers for it that are closed source they should have had a plan how to support it in future. If not why integrating it? And why integrating it in X5000 yet again?
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If the idea is from Varisys and they should have known that you need certain software and drivers for it that are closed source they should have had a plan how to support it in future. If not why integrating it? And why integrating it in X5000 yet again?
taking the comment here into account:
Having the ability to run Linux makes the Nemo board a very good general purpose development platform. We have certainly played with it extensively here although the appetite for AmigaOS amongst the younger engineers seems to be a bit of an acquired taste.
http://obligement.free.fr/articles_traduction/itwgentle_en.php
it seems that varisys considered comission for x1k an opportunity to design experimental linux based ppc development platform without taking financial risk themselves. they probably have not been technically concerned with os4 side of things, since it likely did not qualify for a valid part of agreement, due to their lack of expertise in the field and also since it couldnt offer a stable reference when finalizing the project.
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As for complaints, most of the comments appear to come from none AMIGAone X1000 owners?
Trevor
Nice to see that you're human :)
Kamelito
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If the idea is from Varisys and they should have known that you need certain software and drivers for it that are closed source they should have had a plan how to support it in future. If not why integrating it? And why integrating it in X5000 yet again?
The idea obviously came from Varisys, no "If" about it. Yes, they should have thought more about the difficulties in porting the control software, or development tools, and maybe they mentioned it, or maybe they did not think of that problem at that time. I don't think Varisys guys had any experience or knowledge about AmigaOS4.x or the capabilities of the Hyperion developers working on the port. It appears that the XMOS chips had peaked the interest of at least one or more people high up at Varisys, which is why they made the suggestion to integrate one of the chips onto the Nemo motherboard, without regard on how the tools would be ported to AmigaOS4.x.
Varisys was only concerned with the hardware side, and it was A-Eon's and Hyperion's responsibility to port AmigaOS4.x to the new hardware and write all needed drivers. Varisys only made sure the hardware would run Linux, so they could test all hardware on the motherboard and get A-Eon to "sign off" on it being finished and working. They had no responsibility or concern on how any of the hardware would be supported in the future by A-Eon, or Hyperion.
As for your question on why it was integrated onto the X1000 motherboard, I think that answer has already been explained a few times. It was an inexpensive way to make the X1000 motherboard different or unique, and provided a "user-definable" chip and interface to Amiga users. Something to make it special, even though some people choose to criticize the decision and usefulness of Xena/Xorro, it does not change the reason(s) for initially adding it to the X1000 motherboard.
Only Trevor and Matthew can answer why it is still being added to their next AmigaOne X5000 motherboards, but I would guess that they still believe that the Xena/Xorro combination will be utilized in some interesting and productive way in the future, either by some 3rd party developer, or perhaps A-Eon has an idea of their own for some use or product that will use the Xena/Xorro interface. I perceive the availability of Xena/Xorro on the X1000 and X5000 motherboards as an opportunity for owners of such systems to be creative and develop any kind of software and hardware projects that they can imagine. If removing it from the X5000 only changes the price by $20 or $50, or even $100, then it makes more sense to me to keep it.
It does not matter how much a few people protest, or campaign against the usefulness of Xena/Xorro, specially when those few people are not X1000 customers. Those opinions are not going to change the decisions of Trevor, or Matthew, though I am sure that both of them are well aware of the valid arguments for and against continuing to include Xena/Xorro on their future motherboards. The development cost on how to add Xena/Xorro to a motherboard has already been paid out on the X1000 design and development costs, so adding it again to the X5000 does not include the development cost, only the cost of components. Perhaps Trevor has a good deal with XMOS on the price of the Xena chip, who knows? I would guess that compared to the over all cost of the X5000 motherboard, the addition of the XMOS chip to it is very small and removing it would not change the price of selling the X5000 motherboards or complete systems very much, so any small cost savings are probably not enough incentive to Trevor and Matthew to give up on Xena/Xorro yet.
There are always going to be a few people who have different opinions and suggestions on how to do things differently, specially in this community, where there are so many different choices to continue the spirit of the Amiga. There is no way to please everyone, all of the time. It will be interesting to me when someone finally does utilize Xena/Xorro in an interesting and productive way. What will all the people who say Xena/Xorro is completely useless say then? It reminds me of the few who were so sure that the Minimig was a hoax and could never be accomplished. But I am also open minded and realize that it may take years for anything interesting to be developed for Xena/Xorro, or that maybe it will never happen. And if nothing ever becomes available for the Xena/Xorro combination, I won't blame Trevor and the Varisys designers for trying to make something unique available to the end users. Some attempts at innovation work and some don't. Maybe it will turn out to be a bad idea, but I don't believe that we have given it enough time to make that determination yet.
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The idea obviously came from Varisys, no "If" about it.
Perhaps the specific suggestion of using X-Core might have come from Varisys, and developed into the Xorro/Xena thing, but it's unlikely that a professional design company would have suggested an additional component/design feature be added to the motherboard which doesn't fulfill any critical or even desirable (more like 'wishlist') aspect of the design specification without being prompted to do so.
I think it's more likely it was suggested as a possibility to Hyperion/A-Eon's brainstorming of "how can we customise it in some way to make it a bit different/special/appeal to Amiga users?"
From that perspective, it would have been more about marketing than practicality.
Now it's a 'why not?' for future designs, since presumably good design practice will have made the whole Xena/Xorro subsystem modular enough to copy/paste (more or less) onto the newer designs.
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Given the complete lack of ideas as to what to do with the two systems joined at the hip it appears that someone just thought it would be neat. Everything I can come up with is better done on a PC with a US$99 USB programming board. It's sort of like chocolate milk and chicken soup, great things separately but combining them doesn't make them better.
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taking the comment here into account:
http://obligement.free.fr/articles_traduction/itwgentle_en.php
it seems that varisys considered comission for x1k an opportunity to design experimental linux based ppc development platform without taking financial risk themselves. they probably have not been technically concerned with os4 side of things, since it likely did not qualify for a valid part of agreement, due to their lack of expertise in the field and also since it couldnt offer a stable reference when finalizing the project.
There's also this:
"The Xena chip is interesting because it offers users the ability to add functionality to their X1000 machines. We have designed a Xorro interface board that will enable user to add their own circuitry. It follows the ethos of the original Amiga, where users are encouraged to get hands on and be as inventive as possible."
AOS4 integrated xena devkit "just" needs "inventing" first. :-|
The world outside Amiga anyway thinks that there is some use for CPU+xcore integrated product, and because of that, there now exist xcore chips that has also ARM CPU built in. (that also is some kind of alternative to PA6T+xcore combo)
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I'm sick of everyone dissing the X1000 for having it's supposed useless xcore/zena chip. Especially by people who don't even own one. At least Trevor has tried to do something interesting. Do you people have any better ideas on how next gen Amiga's can be innovative? If you don't like something and where it is going then do something about it. If you are not part of the solution you are part of the problem.
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People do have the point.. I don't believe Commodore sold the Amiga 1200 with a 'Clock port' as one of it's main features. It was a bonus and it turned out to be useful for many hardware developers. Yes Xena (blah blah blah) could be useful in future but why advertise it as a main feature when it is useless (at the moment and possibly into the future!)
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People do have the point.. I don't believe Commodore sold the Amiga 1200 with a 'Clock port' as one of it's main features. It was a bonus and it turned out to be useful for many hardware developers. Yes Xena (blah blah blah) is a useful but why advertise it as a main feature when it is pretty much nothing worthwhile (at the moment!)
If don't like it, do something about it.
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I'm sick of everyone dissing the X1000 for having it's supposed useless xcore/zena chip... At least Trevor has tried to do something interesting...
I can add glitter to my Amiga if I want to make it interesting. The fact is that every bit of nonsense wastes R&D time that could be better spent in refining other aspects of the X1000 system.
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If don't like it, do something about it.
I would starting by removing all references to the feature until it actually serves a purpose. Don't get me wrong I am sure there are many X1000 users but how many of them are actually using Xena/Xorro?
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Do you people have any better ideas on how next gen Amiga's can be innovative? If you don't like something and where it is going then do something about it. If you are not part of the solution you are part of the problem.
Or in other words:
"Since you can't come up with any good ideas, let us continue with some crap ones"
I see fault in that logik ;)
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@Megamig
I have several ideas myself of what to do with my X1000's Xena.
The only reason I'm not using is because I don't have time - but I still find it interesting.
My ideas are these:
1) A Sinclair Microdrive controller. I know of no hardware Microdrive interfaces apart from those in Spectrums and QLs. Archival and restoration of microdrives could be so much easier with an AmigaOS-based interface. As the microdrive is really just a serially connected stereo tape player, and all the decoding is done in software, the XMOS would be perfect for this sort of thing - the bits coming back off the microdrive could be decoded by the XMOS on the fly, returning the data in a sensible format.
2) A floppy disk controller. The Catweasel has proven that there's a demand for using old floppies on new machines. The I/O ports on the Xorro should easily do for connecting a floppy drive, meaning all new Amiga machines can have floppy drives built-in, allowing you to install your Classic Amiga software via WHDLoad
3) A SID chip interface. There's nothing quite like the true analogue sound of a SID chip. Emulations are good, but never the same, any more than an MP3 is the same as a good LP. Digital sound will always be an approximation of true analogue sound.
Every now and again I come up with other daft ideas. :) Of course, many of you will say these are silly ideas, but for ME they'd be fun to implement and would have some kind of use. Could they be done in other ways with other connections? Maybe - but having a fast controller like this does lend itself quite well to things like these.
The only reason I've not done so is simply because I don't have time, but that doesn't stop me appreciating the potential of what's there, and I still intend to play with it more, one day.
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Of course, many of you will say these are silly ideas
Well, the first one is silly, because you could just sample the micro drive tapes (they're tapes, right?), and use some software to convert the samples to binaries.
For the second one, why bother with floppies, if you can just download KG's WHDLoad packs? Then again, floppies are something I personally don't miss (my A1200 doesn't even have a disk drive). Could have nostalgic value (not for me, though, I'm not into Amiga for the nostalgia).
The third one is certainly interesting :)
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I would starting by removing all references to the feature until it actually serves a purpose. Don't get me wrong I am sure there are many X1000 users but how many of them are actually using Xena/Xorro?
Removing all refrences to a feature makes absolutely no sense. If people bitch about Xena/Xorro being undersupported, how would hiding the fact that the hardware "feature" is available? How would that help support for it?
As for the whole discussion about why Trevor and CO designed the X1000 as they did, it really sounds like the discussion Ive read 1000 times on this and other forums. "X1000 is too expensive and horrible perfromance!!" and then the same posters go ahead and discuss Classic hardware without skipping a beat. Investing anything into Classic hardware makes absolutly NO sense from a price vs performance point of view.
Still people do it (including me).
Why? Cause it is fun? Cause someone actually find productivity usage for it WHILE having fun?
I personally just decided to upgrade the A1200 the way I wanted back in the days, but couldnt afford. The c64/a500 generation is pushing 30++ years and generally in a financial position to spend money on "entertainment" without breaking the bank.
The way I see it, Trevor and Co gave anyone intrested another hardware option to invest in. Find it too expensive? There is 440/460. Not into PPC? There is Classic hardware (which Amigakit and Trevor has supported).
I doubt Trevor had any illusions about a massive market that suddenly would spark a flood of drivers. He followed his vision, provided those intrested with ONE MORE hardware option.
But tearing down is easier than building up, so carry on.
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That's interesting that XC hasn't been opened up. Their stated plan was that they were going to open it up soon after they finalized the lang spec and that was right around the corner. That was a few years ago. I think the situation here is that nobody really cares so they haven't put any time into doing that.
I think that trying to kludge together some crap to half-ass get a dev environment for this on OS 4 is a complete waste of time. The audience who would find such a thing interesting is exceedingly small and they'll drop it at the tip of a hat the moment they try the official tool chain and development suite on a real computer. The XMOS tools for working with this family of micro controllers is first class, free and one of the highlights of utilizing these chips. The A1X1K motherboard has an XTAG port, right? If so, why on earth would anyone not use the excellent tools on a PC or Mac?
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If so, why on earth would anyone not use the excellent tools on a PC or Mac?
Would the dev environment run under emulation (eg Bochs) on an X1000?
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Would the dev environment run under emulation (eg Bochs) on an X1000?
I don't have any experience with AOS 4. (don't own any of the kit that would run it). I've use the XCore micro controllers in several projects and a few years ago I setup XP in QEMU and had the tool chain running in the VM. Where I worked at we archived projects along with appropriately setup VMs so that if some time down the road something needs to be addressed, we don't have to worry about wasting time rebuilding ancient dev environs. Worked fine, wasn't hard to setup. I never ran any of the debugging tools, i.e. didn't try to use it with an XTAG over USB.
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Removing all refrences to a feature makes absolutely no sense. If people bitch about Xena/Xorro being undersupported, how would hiding the fact that the hardware "feature" is available? How would that help support for it?...
Well I'm confused! Is the CBM marketing department back in business?
Marketing a feature that has no real value on a high end machine (well is that what the X1000 was/is supposed to be) does not make sense. No amount of promotion or rubbishing of the Xena/Xorro interface is going to change the lack of support.
The best Trevor and co can do is to quietly remove the feature from their advertising and move forward in selling the X1000 on it's strengths not weaknesses.
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Well I'm confused! Is the CBM marketing department back in business?
Marketing a feature that has no real value on a high end machine (well is that what the X1000 was/is supposed to be) does not make sense. No amount of promotion or rubbishing of the Xena/Xorro interface is going to change the lack of support.
The best Trevor and co can do is to quietly remove the feature from their advertising and move forward in selling the X1000 on it's strengths not weaknesses.
I think Lyles post was quite clear; the hardware feature (or whatever YOU want to call it); feel free to use it to whatever you want/can.
Hardly hiding the fact that development for that chip is slow and would greatly benefit from users turning developers.
But reading these posts I do kinda understand why he doesnt bother getting involved much with forums in general.
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Well, the first one is silly, because you could just sample the micro drive tapes (they're tapes, right?), and use some software to convert the samples to binaries.
How do you sample the contents of a Microdrive cartridge?
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Has anyone suggested that they it might be useful for a business environment?
The classic kiosk system. I assume the Sam Amiga was used as a kiosk system somewhere.
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@Thorham
You've obviously never seen a microdrive cartridge. :P
@Megamig
To many of us, the Xena IS an attraction, even if it's not been used much yet. But putting it on the board, giving users something new to play with, and then not telling anyone is a bit daft. How will people ever make use of it if the fact that it's there is hidden?
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Is there a decent touch interface for OS4?
Has anyone suggested that they it might be useful for a business environment?
The classic kiosk system. I assume the Sam Amiga was used as a kiosk system somewhere.
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Thanks for that AmigaDave.
We have produced Xorro development boards (which are available) and are working on a couple of Xorro specific projects. We are also including an improved Xena/Xorro combination in the AMIGAone X5000, thanks to the specification and hard work of Lyle.
As for complaints, most of the comments appear to come from none AMIGAone X1000 owners?
Of course because 99% of Amiga community members are not X1K owners.
They say Amiga users are very smart.
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Well, while Im not a X1000 user I do appriciate the drive those that develop the hardware and software around it got.
They have a vision, and have the drive to see it thru.
The most of us are just tag alongs that like to nitpick on other peoples accomplishment.
Tear people down to feel equal?
Constructive critizism is very important in a development process. But sometimes I feel like when people ssolie, Trevor, Lyle etc gets involved with comments, its either ignored or taken out of context/twisted.
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Well, while Im not a X1000 user I do appriciate the drive those that develop the hardware and software around it got.
They have a vision, and have the drive to see it thru.
The most of us are just tag alongs that like to nitpick on other peoples accomplishment.
Tear people down to feel equal?
Constructive critizism is very important in a development process. But sometimes I feel like when people ssolie, Trevor, Lyle etc gets involved with comments, its either ignored or taken out of context/twisted.
thank you, well said. i couldn't agree more. :hammer:
-- eliyahu
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God help us all!
An atheist.
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The main market niche for XMOS chips seems to be AVB digital audio.
And I see Audio Evolution is still on sale for OS4.
Why not just implement an AVB port? (and a driver for it)
Sure, nothing to be worried about for major PC DAW platforms, but still.
Since the chip is already on the board.
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The main complaint from most non-X1000 owners seems to be that the X1000 is too expensive for them to afford, and the addition of Xena/Xorro has added to this already too high price tag, even if the additional cost is minimal (according to A-Eon statements). Custom hardware in low quantities will always be expensive, compared to similar performance high volume mainstream products, that is just the way it will always be.
Then there is the complaint that nothing has been done so far by any of the X1000 owners, so the Xena/Xorro must be useless. This argument does not hold water with me, as there are quite a few people using XMOS chips for hobby projects all over the world, so we know that the chip is useful in some applications.
Lastly, many people complain that having the XMOS chip on the motherboard offers no improvement than using a stand alone XMOS development board via USB connection could provide, so why include it on the motherboard? That statement may remain to be true for an unknown amount of time into the future, as we cannot predict what will be done with Xena/Xorro in the future, or if having it on the motherboard will be any different than using a stand alone development XMOS board via USB connection. So, only time will tell if that argument is valid, or not.
One argument I don't agree with is the argument that it serves no purpose, as that is highly subjective. Several X1000 owners are thinking of different ways in which to use the Xena/Xorro interface and processor, but have just not had the time to work on such projects yet, myself included. People who don't own and have no desire to purchase an X1000 can easily say how uninteresting and useless a thing is, and for them, it is true, but for us owners of X1000 systems, that statement is not true. Use and promote what you like to use, but why do a few of you who have no interest in the X1000, or X5000 feel so compelled to try to drag it down with your own opinions? Do you see other users trying to do the same to your favorite platform or hardware? I don't, or at least I don't see it very often.
I guess the main reason for this is that most people here want their own vision of a NG Amiga system, but they don't have the resources or will to make it happen, but feel entitled to criticize any other attempts for not fulfilling their standards, or dreams for the future. If you are not interested in the direction that A-Eon has taken, look elsewhere and enjoy a different path, but why spend so much time and effort trying to discredit, defame, or tear down other peoples work, when those people are not so different than yourselves, and they try to do the best they can, even though their choices may not be the same as the ones you would make in their shoes?
Criticism is not a bad thing when it is constructive and helpful, but I see little of that type of criticism going on here in this thread.
Edit: One last thing that I must comment on is the message previously in this thread that compares using Xena/Xorro on AmigaOS4.x with a slower tool set, when the same development work could be done better and faster on a PC using the free and excellent tools provided by XMOS. That argument could be applied to anything we do on any of our Amiga or Amiga inspired systems. I don't think there is one thing that can't be done better or faster on a PC, but here we all are still after all these years, using our Amiga and Amiga inspired systems. We do it because we enjoy it!
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I have no axe to grind on this subject, but I must say that the prototyping board is far too expensive to encourage experimenters.
Maybe A-EON could put an XMOS chip on a ZORRO card to increase the number of potential experimenters.
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I have no axe to grind on this subject, but I must say that the prototyping board is far too expensive to encourage experimenters.
Maybe A-EON could put an XMOS chip on a ZORRO card to increase the number of potential experimenters.
Constructive criticism. Thank you. Not everyone will agree with your opinion that it is "far too expensive", but that does not change the fact that your criticism is constructive in nature and suggests a possible helpful alternative to increase interest in Amiga + XMOS projects, as not all Classic Amiga owners have added USB to their Amigas, so the option of using a standard XMOS USB development board is not available to them. But remember, it is a waste of time to use XMOS chips with your Amiga, as you can do it faster and better connected to your PC. ;)
Edit: Just to remind some of you who don't know me, I am the guy who promotes MorphOS at 5 out of the last 6 AmiWest shows, not an AmigaOS4.x "fanboy", or someone who defends everything that Hyperion does. I just happen to also own an X1000, but my current favorite Amiga inspired platform is still MorphOS3.6 on my 17" 1.67GHz G4 PowerBook, over-clocked 1.5GHz G4 PowerMac, and Dual 2.7GHz G5 PowerMac (400MHz Efika too, but it has not been turned on in a couple of years). I choose to support all flavors of the Amiga experience, and think it is a waste of time to tear any of them down.
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Curently, people seem to be having a hard time finding uses for the XENA that require the chip to be inside the Amiga(one) case, putting XENA plus a prototyping area on a ZORRO card is intended to encourage "inside the box" thinking.:)
It may be that classic Amigas need XENA more than the Amigaone does.:)
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Curently, people seem to be having a hard time finding uses for the XENA that require the chip to be inside the Amiga(one) case, putting XENA plus a prototyping area on a ZORRO card is intended to encourage "inside the box" thinking.:)
It may be that classic Amigas need XENA more than the Amigaone does.:)
classic Amigas need XENA? :confused:
XENA without official support by XMOS including the development tools is useless, on whatever form
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Constructive criticism. Thank you. Not everyone will agree with your opinion that it is "far too expensive", but that does not change the fact that your criticism is constructive in nature and suggests a possible helpful alternative to increase interest in Amiga + XMOS projects, as not all Classic Amiga owners have added USB to their Amigas, so the option of using a standard XMOS USB development board is not available to them. But remember, it is a waste of time to use XMOS chips with your Amiga, as you can do it faster and better connected to your PC. ;)
Edit: Just to remind some of you who don't know me, I am the guy who promotes MorphOS at 5 out of the last 6 AmiWest shows, not an AmigaOS4.x "fanboy", or someone who defends everything that Hyperion does. I just happen to also own an X1000, but my current favorite Amiga inspired platform is still MorphOS3.6 on my 17" 1.67GHz G4 PowerBook, over-clocked 1.5GHz G4 PowerMac, and Dual 2.7GHz G5 PowerMac (400MHz Efika too, but it has not been turned on in a couple of years). I choose to support all flavors of the Amiga experience, and think it is a waste of time to tear any of them down.
Nobody doubts that there are use cases for the chips, otherwise they would neither be developed nor sold but I am wondering for what consumers can use them (and both X1000 and X5000 are consumer boards). If it would be sold to people using it professional then it might make more sense (if it would be full supported) but companies will certainly not buy it because it is too expensive, missing drivers and development environment for it, and no support nearby and thus problems if f.e. the system must be repaired. The last point alone would be a no-go for a company. So X series is for amigans only. Trevor integrates Xena again in the new X5000 despite the experiences with X1000 so he has either ideas people here not have or it is just a small gimmick to make the board special without any real use. But every gimmick makes it more expensive so I personal would have left it away if I realize that something is without real use but it is Trevors decision and the money of the people that buy the boards...
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classic Amigas need XENA?
XENA without official support by XMOS including the development tools is useless, on whatever form
It's possible, it would be interesting to see what uses people could find for it in a classic Amiga.
Audio applications have already been suggested, XENA could give us a 16/24 bit sound card, speech recognition perhaps, can XENA implement an Ethernet port?, how about an SD card interface, USB port, it could drive a pair of ultrasonic transducers to give us similar functionality to that MS device whose name escapes me at the moment. EDIT: Kinnect.
XENA could give us a multifunction card that could evolve as people developed the software to implement new interfaces and ideas.
Software support would evolve faster if more people were trying to use XENA.
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It's possible, it would be interesting to see what uses people could find for it in a classic Amiga.....
One core use case for xcore is to use it as a bridge chip. In that way it could enable limited classics to get interfaces to modern technology.
Another way would/could be a FPGA card for zorro & clockport.
(neither make sense businesswise, but that's no news on our niche)
For cheaper access to xena... it would be cool if every NG HW had two or more (shielded/protected) D9 ports that have xena I/O.
Then we could use legacy joysticks etc very easily + use those pins for instrumentation & home automation etc. without too much extra HW.
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It's possible, it would be interesting to see what uses people could find for it in a classic Amiga.
Audio applications have already been suggested, XENA could give us a 16/24 bit sound card, speech recognition perhaps, can XENA implement an Ethernet port?, how about an SD card interface, USB port, it could drive a pair of ultrasonic transducers to give us similar functionality to that MS device whose name escapes me at the moment. EDIT: Kinnect.
XENA could give us a multifunction card that could evolve as people developed the software to implement new interfaces and ideas.
Software support would evolve faster if more people were trying to use XENA.
a soundcard? As I understand it XENA is a special chip to manipulate streams independent of the processor so you basically develop a program and upload it in the chip where it is executed independently and reacts on events but no interaction with the host system (if I am wrong then someone can explain it). So how do you want to program that soundcard then? In a FPGA it is different because everything is included and interacts with each other but XENA works different. You can automatically manipulate sound streams (perhaps convert them?) but it would be not a real soundcard.
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One core use case for xcore is to use it as a bridge chip. In that way it could enable limited classics to get interfaces to modern technology.
Another way would/could be a FPGA card for zorro & clockport.
(neither make sense businesswise, but that's no news on our niche)
For cheaper access to xena... it would be cool if every NG HW had two or more (shielded/protected) D9 ports that have xena I/O.
Then we could use legacy joysticks etc very easily + use those pins for instrumentation & home automation etc. without too much extra HW.
I think the new accellerators by apollo team with LAN and modern output are already available in near future, I also read from a new extension for classics that make it possible to use USB mouse and joysticks at classics (the card converts signals automatically). Additionally the Apollo team is also planning for a standalone system in future and there is also FPGA Arcade. So I think the 68k community will be quiet well supported :-), even without XORRO
videos about the adapter(s):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSdt4vLx9CI&feature=youtu.be
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_yfLJftOGM&feature=youtu.be
looks cool :-)
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It's possible, it would be interesting to see what uses people could find for it in a classic Amiga.
Audio applications have already been suggested, XENA could give us a 16/24 bit sound card, speech recognition perhaps, can XENA implement an Ethernet port?, how about an SD card interface, USB port, it could drive a pair of ultrasonic transducers to give us similar functionality to that MS device whose name escapes me at the moment. EDIT: Kinnect.
XENA could give us a multifunction card that could evolve as people developed the software to implement new interfaces and ideas.
Software support would evolve faster if more people were trying to use XENA.
But XENA is not that. It is just renamed XMOS chip. XMOS chip itself is capable to do many tasks and projects you suggested are more or less possible. But it would be just piece of electronics.
Instead of XMOS chip (XENA) also FPGA could be used or off the shelf network interface chips. They are relatively cheap, was it XMOS, FPGA or some other chip. But designing Amiga expansion card with any chip is expensive. You need good knowledge of Amiga hardware (which kind of knowledge is fading) and you need someone to write drivers so your favorite TCP/IP stack can use your new ethernet card.
It is also reason why there are no Xena applications for X1000. It is easier to buy supported sound card from ebay than design one yourself from the scratch including drivers and electronics work. It could be fun but those who find it fun are rare.
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a soundcard? As I understand it XENA is a special chip to manipulate streams independent of the processor so you basically develop a program and upload it in the chip where it is executed independently and reacts on events but no interaction with the host system (if I am wrong then someone can explain it). So how do you want to program that soundcard then? In a FPGA it is different because everything is included and interacts with each other but XENA works different. You can automatically manipulate sound streams (perhaps convert them?) but it would be not a real soundcard.
Digital audio is just a stream of 1's and 0's, XENA has one third of its pins dedicated to a local bus for communicating with the system, downloading the XENA program and then transferring data and instructions as required, it could be paula's big sister.:), with a Retargetable audio driver, data compression/decompression optional.
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Digital audio is just a stream of 1's and 0's, XENA has one third of its pins dedicated to a local bus for communicating with the system, downloading the XENA program and then transferring data and instructions as required, it could be paula's big sister.:), with a Retargetable audio driver, data compression/decompression optional.
I think it is more propable that this will be done in a FPGA where everything is included. I see the problem how to change it on the fly like it is done in amiga with its registers. It could be a kind of extension but you would need someone to do the card. And then you have still the problem that our platforms are not supported by XMOS
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But XENA is not that. It is just renamed XMOS chip. XMOS chip itself is capable to do many tasks and projects you suggested are more or less possible. But it would be just piece of electronics.
Instead of XMOS chip (XENA) also FPGA could be used or off the shelf network interface chips. They are relatively cheap, was it XMOS, FPGA or some other chip. But designing Amiga expansion card with any chip is expensive. You need good knowledge of Amiga hardware (which kind of knowledge is fading) and you need someone to write drivers so your favorite TCP/IP stack can use your new ethernet card.
It is also reason why there are no Xena applications for X1000. It is easier to buy supported sound card from ebay than design one yourself from the scratch including drivers and electronics work. It could be fun but those who find it fun are rare.
I agree that there are better, easier and cheaper ways to do things, but my posts are about getting XENA to do them.
Developing expansion cards is expensive, I agree, so it makes more sense to develop a programmable, multifunction card that can change when requirements or standards change.
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I agree that there are better, easier and cheaper ways to do things, but my posts are about getting XENA to do them.
Developing expansion cards is expensive, I agree, so it makes more sense to develop a programmable, multifunction card that can change when requirements or standards change.
People are doing this kind of stuff using fpga and other dedicated chips. I have never heard any amiga hardware developer to even mention xmos. Clearly if needed they woul likely build dedicated boards themselves. But why look for more complicated way with limited time and resources. Those calling for it may do some project themselves instead complaining of no time. Besides There is plenty to actually help with even if only a little instead talking of pipedreams.
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OK This is my last word on the subject.
We are in the process of producing a couple of Xorro specific boards which will be compatible with both the AmigaONE x1000 and future X-based models including the A1-X5000/20 & A1-X5000/40.
More news will be released when they are available for sale.
TrevorD
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Nice one Trevor! :hammer:
:banana: A1-X5000/40 :drink:
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@slayer,
If you don't mind my asking, what do you use three X1000's for?
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I have 2 hooked up together permanently via serial cables which also allows me to run different revisions of the AmigaOS and have different types of graphics cards installed, for example one currently has the 7970 and the other a R9 280X; all for beta testing.
The 3rd is a spare, it's a long way to the UK if something goes wrong
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OK,Thanks.
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I have 2 hooked up together permanently via serial cables which also allows me to run different revisions of the AmigaOS and have different types of graphics cards installed, for example one currently has the 7970 and the other a R9 280X; all for beta testing.
The 3rd is a spare, it's a long way to the UK if something goes wrong
three X1000? Wow
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Curently, people seem to be having a hard time finding uses for the XENA that require the chip to be inside the Amiga(one) case, putting XENA plus a prototyping area on a ZORRO card is intended to encourage "inside the box" thinking.:)
X-Core already exist on PCI, and Amiga can be expanded with a PCI bus.
What would be the advantage in developing a Zorro based version?
It may be that classic Amigas need XENA more than the Amigaone does.:)
That is really confusing as I've not heard a single Amiga user crying out for the lack of a Xena slot, or even wondering if there are X-Core PCI drivers for Mediator/G-Rex.
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OK This is my last word on the subject.
We are in the process of producing a couple of Xorro specific boards which will be compatible with both the AmigaONE x1000 and future X-based models including the A1-X5000/20 & A1-X5000/40.
More news will be released when they are available for sale.
TrevorD
Interesting, I'd heard mention of a board (or riser?) which allows user access to the i/o pins for interfacing homebrew electronics etc. That should make it a little easier to use for hobbyist work.
I look forward to hearing more details.
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Interesting, I'd heard mention of a board (or riser?) which allows user access to the i/o pins for interfacing homebrew electronics etc. That should make it a little easier to use for hobbyist work.
I look forward to hearing more details.
It is available now from Amigakit here http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?manufacturers_id=43&products_id=1135
For a blank board, I think it is overpriced, but you may think differently.
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X-Core already exist on PCI, and Amiga can be expanded with a PCI bus.
What would be the advantage in developing a Zorro based version?
That is really confusing as I've not heard a single Amiga user crying out for the lack of a Xena slot, or even wondering if there are X-Core PCI drivers for Mediator/G-Rex.
More users have Zorro slots than have PCI slots,
If the Xena chip is as useful as A-EON say it is, then why would classic users not want one in their machines also?
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3) A SID chip interface. There's nothing quite like the true analogue sound of a SID chip. Emulations are good, but never the same, any more than an MP3 is the same as a good LP.
Eh wait :eek: Like a "real" SID chip so you can play music with it like chiptunes??
Uber cool music like on the C64, but only using Xena? Or do you also need Xorro and the actuall SID chip for this?
If yes on both first questions, how hard would it be to implement this?
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It is available now from Amigakit here http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?manufacturers_id=43&products_id=1135
For a blank board, I think it is overpriced, but you may think differently.
The boards are completely blank and require components fitted our end before shipping.
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Eh wait :eek: Like a "real" SID chip
Yes, and you wouldn't have to stop at one SID.
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Nobody doubts that there are use cases for the chips, otherwise they would neither be developed nor sold but I am wondering for what consumers can use them (and both X1000 and X5000 are consumer boards). If it would be sold to people using it professional then it might make more sense (if it would be full supported) but companies will certainly not buy it because it is too expensive, missing drivers and development environment for it, and no support nearby and thus problems if f.e. the system must be repaired. The last point alone would be a no-go for a company. So X series is for amigans only. Trevor integrates Xena again in the new X5000 despite the experiences with X1000 so he has either ideas people here not have or it is just a small gimmick to make the board special without any real use. But every gimmick makes it more expensive so I personal would have left it away if I realize that something is without real use but it is Trevors decision and the money of the people that buy the boards...
I think you are selling short (underestimating) the ingenuity of Amiga (and now AmigaOne, MorphOS, AROS, & FPGA clone) users. As itix wrote, the pool of users who have a lot of the technical expertise and knowledge of how AmigaOS and any newer Amiga inspired OSes work, is shrinking and rare. This makes new ideas and products, or add-on boards more rare as well, but we still see something new being worked on every year, so there is still hope that new ideas will make there way into our tiny community. Even ideas that use the Xena/Xorro combination. We have seen just here in this thread that there are a few developers who have some interest in working on projects that use the Xena/Xorro combination, but only when they have finished other projects and have the time to work on any Xena/Xorro project. There are other owners of X1000's that may not have much programming or electrical engineering knowledge, but still want to explore the possibility of creating something that uses the Xena/Xorro combination (like me). I am getting tired of repeating the same kinds of things over and over again to people who just refuse to listen, or admit that there are two valid sides to this argument. Would an FPGA have been a better choice instead of an XMOS chip? Probably, but I'll bet it would have been much more expensive and maybe even more difficult to add to the motherboard than the simpler XMOS chip. That argument is water under the bridge and we have Xena/Xorro now. It is there for anyone who wishes to make use of it and does not get in the way for those who choose to ignore it. Again I say, why so much time and effort to argue against A-Eon's choice to provide this extra feature (and believe me, to most X1000 owners, having Xena/Xorro is an added value feature, that they may be able to use some time in the future)? Why do a few members here feel compelled to spend so much time and effort telling us what has not yet been done, or what can't or shouldn't be done, with a user defined chip and interface that is there just for people who want to be creative and use it in any way their minds come up with? It is Trevor's choice to continue including Xena/Xorro on future systems and it is the buyers of these A-Eon systems choice to buy them, or not.
I get that some people are angry that they can't afford them, or that they want A-Eon to make something different. I feel sorry for those people, but please move on to something you really enjoy and want to promote with positive energy. If your interest is in FPGA accelerators and clones, put your energy and time there, raising excitement about that platform. If you prefer MorphOS on PPC Mac hardware, go promote it to new users and raise awareness of how great that platform is. The same goes for AROS, AEROS, ARIX, or any of the other AROS distributions. Why spend time telling a sculptor that his lump of clay, or block of stone, can't be this, or can't be that. Xena/Xorro will be used in the future by a few people, then you can come back and use all of your negative energy to criticize what someone has spent weeks, months or years creating, and tell them how they could have done it easier and faster, and better, by using their PC. Is that the kind of thing you want to spend your time doing? Because that is what is looks like many of you are doing here in this thread. (this is not aimed directly only at you Olaf, though in might apply to some of your statements in this thread)
so you basically develop a program and upload it in the chip where it is executed independently and reacts on events but no interaction with the host system (if I am wrong then someone can explain it)
I don't believe that is correct, but people like Lyle or Trevor, or Spirantho, would have to give you a technical explanation of exactly how the XMOS chip is connected directly to the PA6T CPU and/or memory chips, or bus on the Nemo motherboard. It is my understanding that there is direct access to and from the XMOS chip from AmigaOS4.x, but I could be wrong. How else would Lyle have created, or ported some of the tools to program Xena from AmigaOS4.x, if there is no direct lines from the Xena chip to the rest of the system?
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More users have Zorro slots than have PCI slots,
If the Xena chip is as useful as A-EON say it is, then why would classic users not want one in their machines also?
when talking about amigas, personally id prefer an interface to fit a capable fpga board to amiga bus, as gunnar proposes. there is already a number of fpga projects that improve on amiga capabilities and are run by amiga enthusiasts, so this is definitely something which when fabricated would find some use. you dont even need to think in therms of an accelerator alone but such boards may include i/o and expansions opportunities people are looking for. luckily it seems to be already underway. what concerns xmos, it is completely different technology with nothing in common with amiga concepts or desktop computers application at large as it seems. there might be some people in the widest amiga scene that are interested or have some experience with xmos as well, though they are likely too few to bother. the experience with the xmos chip included in x1k seems to indicate that at least in os4 scene there is almost none. therefore i wish os4 fans luck with finding some use for the xmos, but i think building a zorro expansion board with it would be a mistake.
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Eh wait :eek: Like a "real" SID chip so you can play music with it like chiptunes??
Uber cool music like on the C64, but only using Xena? Or do you also need Xorro and the actuall SID chip for this?
If yes on both first questions, how hard would it be to implement this?
Either, actually.
There already is a SID emulation for the XMOS chip which I'm quite tempted to put into Vice.
But I was thinking of attaching real SID chips like the Catweasel does.
I don't think it'd be terribly hard to do, but as usual it's a matter of finding the time....
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I think its cool they included something like this on the board...
I suppose if I was designing a computer I would try and include something similar. Its disappointing however that no one found any real use for it yet.
Lighting some leds not so exciting. I can do that on any computer with a parallel port...
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Some of the better idea's I've heard of:
Telescope control with CCD input.
Model Train set controller. Presets and on the fly.
Laser Control. Not talking Lasarium here.
Home Automation. need voice control and feedback.
Not easy but useful.
Chris
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...
Marketing a feature that has no real value on a high end machine (well is that what the X1000 was/is supposed to be) does not make sense.
No amount of promotion or rubbishing of the Xena/Xorro interface is going to change the lack of support.
I started this thread to get more insight in the capabilities of the XENA/XORRO thingie and possibly to develop some neat ideas on how to take advantage of it.
This requires some sort of inspiration and vision, aside from knowledge.
Those lacking the required inspiration and vision are expressively NOT invited to take part in this discussion, not to mention those that combine their lack of vision and inspiration with the need to polish their ill egos by trying to bring things others are interested in into discredit.
I would really appreciate if such charcters would refrain from participating in this discussion.
No-one forces them to buy an A1-X1k and to use XENA/XORRO.
If they don't like it - fine. They just have to stay away...
In this case this thread isn't for them - they're better off with classic Amiga stuff or WIntel stuff.
The best Trevor and co can do is to quietly remove the feature from their advertising and move forward in selling the X1000 on it's strengths not weaknesses.
And the best you and similarily unimaginative minds can do is to stay away from this thread instead of spamming it with repeated trolling attempts.
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I started this thread to get more insight in the capabilities of the XENA/XORRO thingie and possibly to develop some neat ideas on how to take advantage of it.
This requires some sort of inspiration and vision, aside from knowledge.
Those lacking the required inspiration and vision are expressively NOT invited to take part in this discussion, not to mention those that combine their lack of vision and inspiration with the need to polish their ill egos by trying to bring things others are interested in into discredit.
I would really appreciate if such charcters would refrain from participating in this discussion.
No-one forces them to buy an A1-X1k and to use XENA/XORRO.
If they don't like it - fine. They just have to stay away...
In this case this thread isn't for them - they're better off with classic Amiga stuff or WIntel stuff.
And the best you and similarily unimaginative minds can do is to stay away from this thread instead of spamming it with repeated trolling attempts.
Peace please, now you are starting to bash others... expecially with using phrases like "characters" this could be seen as insulting
and commenting "they're better off with classic Amiga stuff". New FPGAs are used all over the industry so this "we are the best, the modern, the NG owners" and there are the "retros 68k old fashioned gaming people" is not true (and if anyone wants to win more customers it is stupid)
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Is there a decent touch interface for OS4?
What for?
I have no use for it...I hate fingerprint smears all over my display...I definitely prefer a desk with monitor, keyboard and mouse on it over such un-ergonomic smearing devices...
Furthermore there is no AmigaOS version that runs on such smearing devices - so what would such a touch interface be good for? To connect it to the A1-X1k's XORRO interface to be able to smear around on the monitor, although keyboard and mouse are already there?
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Curently, people seem to be having a hard time finding uses for the XENA that require the chip to be inside the Amiga(one) case,
I see it more as exploring the possibilities...
...
It may be that classic Amigas need XENA more than the Amigaone does.:)
Hmmm - I can see your point - but wouldn't this require to implement this set of OS4.x-XENA-instructions/commands ('JTAG programmer' or how it is called) in OS 3.x as well?
And would the classic hardware be powerful enough to operate the JTAG programmer?
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classic Amigas need XENA? :confused:
XENA without official support by XMOS including the development tools is useless, on whatever form
My hope is to gather as much XENA-information as possible with this thread.
Who knows - perhaps it will evolve into some sort of "XENA/XORRO support"-thread one day.
If there is no central point where we get get information from, then let's create one here!
Let's collect any info we can get about XENA/XORRO here!
As AEon recently acquired AOrg, I thought this might be the right place to get answers from those who have the most experience with it/knowledge about it.
A better support for Amiga-XMOS (XENA) - including the dev tools - is definitely desirable.
Perhaps this thread can help to increase the support or at least to serve as a central knowledge reference regarding XENA.
From my point of view it can only help sparking the interest, if more and more information about XENA, XORRO and the JTAG programmer becomes available.
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My hope is to gather as much XENA-information as possible with this thread.
Who knows - perhaps it will evolve into some sort of "XENA/XORRO support"-thread one day.
If there is no central point where we get get information from, then let's create one here!
Let's collect any info we can get about XENA/XORRO here!
As AEon recently acquired AOrg, I thought this might be the right place to get answers from those who have the most experience with it/knowledge about it.
A better support for Amiga-XMOS (XENA) - including the dev tools - is definitely desirable.
Perhaps this thread can help to increase the support or at least to serve as a central knowledge reference regarding XENA.
From my point of view it can only help sparking the interest, if more and more information about XENA, XORRO and the JTAG programmer becomes available.
Perhaps someone can put informations here. The only problem it is very specific so someone has to know both Amiga (AmigaOS and its hardware) and the XMOS chips well. Developers that normally use XMOS chips are certainly using one of the officially supported platforms. I have programmed a simple controler some time ago and it is not fun without appropriate documentation. For XMOS the AmigaOS community is too small to support propably and everything (including the software) is closed. There I see the problems.
I have read first time about JTAG. If I understand it right it is only to test everything.
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_Test_Action_Group (German)
here is a interesting discussion with one known person involved :-)
http://www.xcore.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=2477
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It is available now from Amigakit here http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?manufacturers_id=43&products_id=1135
For a blank board, I think it is overpriced, but you may think differently.
Price-wise, the one you linked to seems to be pretty good value. Given the number of vias, I'd be surprised if Amigakit is making more than a nominal handling fee on them.
That's not the one I was thinking of though, it looks more like a breadboard.
The board I (thought I had) heard mentioned offered the Xorro slot's i/o pins (and possibly power, etc) to a connector (eg a D-Sub) on the backplane.
@Amigakit - not sure if you have already, and I'm sure you'd have it well planned out, but if designing such a board it may be worth adding a 6-pin PCIe power header on the expansion board to be powered directly from PSU, and putting some current-limiting circuitry to the Xorro connector to prevent the possibility of shorting the PCIe power lines on the PCIex16 slot to ground (assuming that Xorro has the 12V 75W power supply lines connected as per PCIe spec).
PSUs are easier to replace than Nemos after all. :)
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Peace please, now you are starting to bash others... expecially with using phrases like "characters" this could be seen as insulting
I'm just trying to get rid of those in this discussion who are permanently bashing the implementation of XENA/XORRO and the people behind this idea.
Not sure what should be insulting with the use of the word 'characters'...
and commenting "they're better off with classic Amiga stuff".
If someone isn't interested in the NG stuff, but is permanently around in NG threads and gets on the bad side of NG interested people by bashing them for their interest, then he really would be better off if he cared more for the classic stuff, wouldn't you agree?
New FPGAs are used all over the industry
I don't mind...
so this "we are the best, the modern, the NG owners" and there are the "retros 68k old fashioned gaming people" is not true
...
I never claimed that - after all I'm a classic user myself (Amiga4000 PPC w. OS 3.9 & WarpOS 16.1 /experimental OS 4.0 classic installation).
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I have read first time about JTAG. If I understand it right it is only to test everything.
According to Lyle Haze it is a command line interface to program the XENA chips:
...
Just before AmiWest 2012 I was able to complete the JTAG programmer that lets us program the Xena chip from the command line. This is not "sexy" stuff, but it's necessary before much else happens.
...
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I'm just trying to get rid of those in this discussion who are permanently bashing the implementation of XENA/XORRO and the people behind this idea.
Not sure what should be insulting with the use of the word 'characters'...
If someone isn't interested in the NG stuff, but is permanently around in NG threads and gets on the bad side of NG interested people by bashing them for their interest, then he really would be better off if he cared more for the classic stuff, wouldn't you agree?
I don't mind...
I never claimed that - after all I'm a classic user myself (Amiga4000 PPC w. OS 3.9 & WarpOS 16.1 /experimental OS 4.0 classic installation).
hmm ok
the thread I mentioned but hard stuff:
http://www.xcore.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=2477
shows how specific it is
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Price-wise, the one you linked to seems to be pretty good value. Given the number of vias, I'd be surprised if Amigakit is making more than a nominal handling fee on them.
That's not the one I was thinking of though, it looks more like a breadboard.
The board I (thought I had) heard mentioned offered the Xorro slot's i/o pins (and possibly power, etc) to a connector (eg a D-Sub) on the backplane.
@Amigakit - not sure if you have already, and I'm sure you'd have it well planned out, but if designing such a board it may be worth adding a 6-pin PCIe power header on the expansion board to be powered directly from PSU, and putting some current-limiting circuitry to the Xorro connector to prevent the possibility of shorting the PCIe power lines on the PCIex16 slot to ground (assuming that Xorro has the 12V 75W power supply lines connected as per PCIe spec).
PSUs are easier to replace than Nemos after all. :)
Thats a nice idea. However that would require a board redesign and the boards are already made.
Seriously though if your going to be playing with a project board. You should be aware of the risks and dangers of shorting out voltage rails. If your unsure, its a case of check, double check and triple check.
Im sure someone will pick at what I have posted, but lets face facts.
I may be an Electronics Engineer and know about Electrics, doesnt mean I will go play with the mains Electrics in my house. I check, double check and triple check before doing anything. If Im unsure I will leave it until I know.
If we had all this tech around when I was a kid, Im sure I would playing around with the zorro board to do different stuff. Spose its a bit like the electronics lab I go as a kid, made lots of things with that including my first AM Radio.
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@Dandy
This is "classic" Amiga forum so most users here see it from "classic" view of point.
Anyway, JTAG is just an interface to debug boards. It can be part of Amiga expansion boards or to anything you can wish for. But you need JTAG programmer cable and software to use JTAG programmer. You can get USB models for 1500 EUR, PCI debuggers used to be cheaper and I guess there is some free software for Linux you can use for this task. With JTAG you can run software from the host computer on your dev board, examine memory, set breaking points etc. Very handy for software development.
To use JTAG debugger you can have graphical development environment or use command line. Command line is just used to upload software, set breakpoints and other stuff you know. The target enviroment itself is not executing those commands.
OS4 dont have JTAG software but I believe you can use PC or even some Linux distro on X1K if there are free drivers not locked to x86. So called "classic" Amiga is probably too slow to debug your SW in real time (i.e. to get debug prints via JTAG) but you dont really need fast machine to use JTAG. But as usual your problem is lack of software and lack of drivers to use JTAG programmers. I dont think there is going to be any.
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I'm just trying to get rid of those in this discussion who are permanently bashing the implementation of XENA/XORRO and the people behind this idea.
Not sure what should be insulting with the use of the word 'characters'...
If someone isn't interested in the NG stuff, but is permanently around in NG threads and gets on the bad side of NG interested people by bashing them for their interest, then he really would be better off if he cared more for the classic stuff, wouldn't you agree?
i certainly would agree. :)
-- eliyahu
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I have read first time about JTAG. If I understand it right it is only to test everything.
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_Test_Action_Group (German)
here is a interesting discussion with one known person involved :-)
http://www.xcore.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=2477
The original purpose of JTAG was to allow board manufacturers the ability to test assembled boards with a minimal hardware interface. By chainging them serially and setting a common interface spec even dissimilar chips can be polled and verified in a single JTAG loop.
As used with XMOS chips like Xena, which usually keep the executable code in RAM, it allows that ram to be programmed, and also allows setting of various configuration options such as links between cores(tiles), PLL clock divider settings, and other various details required to get a XS1-L16A chip up and running.
Within the realm of hobbyists, the XMOS chips are almost exclusively run this way, since the OTP ROM is, well.. One Time programmable. It'as not flash, and once it has been progframmed, that chip is committed to that code forever.
Obviously Flash would be more hobbyist-friendly, but it would also create security concerns for any commercial products made with XMOS chips.
Getting back towards the topic(s)..
The non-Amiga XMOS hobbyists are largely oblivious to all these JTAG details. The XDK suite provided by XMOS will seek out XMOS compatible JTAG programmers on startup, then access those to get ChipID's, and often board IDs from the JTAG device. Net result, it's all super-automatic, hands-off, and self managed. Just plug your stuff in and everything is configured automatically. All of this is wonderfully convenient, but it leaves those with non-XMOS kit out in the cold, so to speak.
The discussion you referenced is about one of the "new" products from XMOS. They are now building the USBtoJTAG directly into their newer kit, and doing it in a way that can NOT be easily reached from an external JTAG programmer. This means that we will not be able to use these new "StartKits" from an X-Series AmigaOne, because there's no place to connect JTAG to it.
They are meant to be used only on XMOS supported platforms with XMOS authored software.
Eventually a few hackers found a way to (somewhat) get around this, but not without some loss of function.
Veering back towards a topic once more.. JTAG on Xena is required to load any Xena program you wish to run, The JTAG loop is extended to the XORRO board, so that additional XMOS chips can be added at will. The XMOS tools that we have can load code into any number of XMOS chips through this loop, as well as freeze execution and read the current state of all the chips in the JTAG loop. This can be useful for debugging. We can dump RAM, registers, switch states, ROM, lots of stuff I have not yet documented. There is also a XReset command that will drop all connected (or any one connected) chip back into it's inert power-on state. While these are technically command-line tools, they work with tooltypes as well. Any XMOS program that sets XRunXE as it's default tool with load up when double-clicked.
About adding DB connectors to the Xorro board, that is possible, but I would discourage it. Perhaps I am overly cautious, but anything I connect that comes outside of the case will be optically isolated. While this may be overkill, I think it a prudent choice. I have an SD card there now, no need for isolation. I have a MAX3232 chip, which is connected to the serial port inside the case. again, no need for isolation there. But anything that comes outside the case, for joysticks or whatever else, will be isolated on my machine, and I would suggest that others consider it as well.
Intersting thought.. the S/PDIF in and out connections are optical by design, so adding those should be as safe as anyone could hope.. a very easy way to get high bandwidth audio in and out of the Xena chip.
I am being called away..
LyleHaze
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I'm just trying to get rid of those in this discussion who are permanently bashing the implementation of XENA/XORRO and the people behind this idea.
Please calm down everyone. If you have a problem with what any other member writes in a forum message, and you think that it violates the Posting Guidelines for this site,please do not lash out against them, just use the "Report" post button to bring the message to the attention of the moderators. It is certainly not any members right or responsibility to "get rid of" other members who happen to have a differing opinion. The owner(s) of this site want the forums to be a welcoming place for all users and points of view. That being said, all members should reacquaint themselves with the Posting Guidelines and not insult or "bash" other members ideas, choices, or opinions. The moderation staff has been very lenient while the transition from the previous owner & management to the new owner(s) and management has been taking place, but that does not mean that we don't care, or we are not watching and reading what is going on in the forums.
Ideally, all forum site managers and moderators would prefer that all members self moderate their forum messages, so that management and moderators don't have to remind any members how they have agreed to behave when they agreed to the Posting Guidelines at the time they signed up to be a member here. So let's all behave ourselves and enjoy these forums as a place to share our love of all things related to the Amiga, which brought all of us together in the first place.:)
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Projects like the wonderful "Minimig" by Dennis started as a thread if I recall. Several other long time Amiga related sites have many neat projects that start from a single thread or idea, often from one person. The community builds on them by adding yet even more great ideas or suggestions. Sometimes it goes nowhere, other times a new product is born.
I think we need all of our great minds assembled one place to brainstorm new ideas, no matter how unrealistic or impractical they may seem at the time of discussion.
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@Dandy
This is "classic" Amiga forum
No, this is an Amiga forum that is open and welcome to all flavors of the Amiga experience. It is one of, if not THE oldest Amiga forum site, so it began before many of the newer Amiga flavors existed, but that does not mean that it is ONLY for Classic Amiga users.
so most users here see it from "classic" view of point.
The majority of users in the Amiga community are "Classic" Amiga owners/users, so it is no surprise that a "Classic" Amiga point of view is expressed more often here. The new owner(s) want to make this site a welcoming place for all users of any Amiga or Amiga inspired system.
Please keep this in mind when posting to these forums.:)
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About adding DB connectors to the Xorro board, that is possible, but I would discourage it. Perhaps I am overly cautious, but anything I connect that comes outside of the case will be optically isolated. While this may be overkill, I think it a prudent choice. I have an SD card there now, no need for isolation. I have a MAX3232 chip, which is connected to the serial port inside the case. again, no need for isolation there. But anything that comes outside the case, for joysticks or whatever else, will be isolated on my machine, and I would suggest that others consider it as well.
If I did have time for my CNC controller idea, then the first thing that I'd do would be to design a bidirectional opto-isolation board. IIRC, the stepper motor controllers use up to 60V input,** and I definitely don't want that voltage level (or back-emf from the motors) finding its way into my machine.
Hans
** NOTE: The motors themselves are much lower voltage, but the driver chips benefit from having a high voltage at their input.
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Anyway, JTAG is just an interface to debug boards. It can be part of Amiga expansion boards or to anything you can wish for. But you need JTAG programmer cable and software to use JTAG programmer.
True for most computers, but not for A-EON X-Series computers..
we have the JTAG interface built in and pre-wired to the Xena chip.
As to software, we have a basic tool suite for programming and debugging.
... Very handy for software development.
To use JTAG debugger you can have graphical development environment or use command line. Command line is just used to upload software, set breakpoints and other stuff you know. The target enviroment itself is not executing those commands.
True, but the target XMOS chips are halted for most JTAG operations, which can definitely affect execution.
OS4 dont have JTAG software but I believe you can use PC or even some Linux distro on X1K if there are free drivers not locked to x86.
We have basic tools to program or debug XMOS chips, which matches the built in JTAG port connected to those chips. Anything tools coming from XMOS will run on X86 only.
So called "classic" Amiga is probably too slow to debug your SW in real time (i.e. to get debug prints via JTAG) but you dont really need fast machine to use JTAG.
XMOS JTAG does not operate in "Real Time", at least not the tools we have.
There are FAR more advanced tools, like XScope, and other neat features available in the "XDE" package.. which can probably emulate Xena just fine, as long as you don't need to emulate the localbus interface. The XTools are very pretty, very slick, very capable, and they do a great job of isolating you from the actual process.. which some people will admire, and some others may not be happy with.
But if you have a Win or some specific Linux flavors available, by all means download their XDE and give it a spin! I can even offer an "A-EON_Xena.xn" file which will yield correctly configured binaries. I also have a "printf" replacement that streams out a serial port on Xena (if you have added a serial port)
I was also informed yesterday that Segher has completed newlib, though I don't know if it is "c", "xc", or both.
But as usual your problem is lack of software and lack of drivers to use JTAG programmers. I dont think there is going to be any.
We have our basic JTAG tools, and everyone with an X-Series AmigaOne has the Xena, JTAG, and everything else in place already. All they need is a Xorro board to reach the open I/O..
And I have been told that once projects are available, AmigaKit will offer boards that are pre-built to the customers needs. (Great for coders who don't know which end of a soldering iron to hold) *see note*
Despite repeated campaigning on my part, XMOS is not showing any inclination to port their XDE to the Amiga. We would need a mature Java foundation to run Eclipse anyway. But there is always the option of developing under a simulator in XDE and then bringing the result over to AmigaOS for final testing on the real hardware. And there may be other options available in the future.
*Note* the only thing scarier than a programmer with a soldering iron is.. a technician with a flash drive.. Just a bit of humor folks.
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My apologies, I missed an opportunity to pass useful information.
xTIMEcomposer version Community13.1.0 can be downloaded from
https://www.xmos.com/support/xtools
after a free and simple registration.
Once installed, the user may select
XS1-L16A
as target device if you are interested in Xena compatibility.
There are a few of those devices listed, we have the faster
500MHZ version.
Note: the executable will be missing platform-specific settings
for the PLL, which is fixed by re-compiling against A-EON_Xena.xn.
Otherwise that chip _IS_ the chip used for Xena.
Coders and dreamers alike are welcome to browse the public fora at
http://www.xcore.com/
which are well supported by XMOS employees and users alike.
There's also a free git hub at
http://www.xcore.com/github
and a listing of free projects at
http://www.xcore.com/projects
All easily linked from the main forum pages.
I'm just saying, if you'd rather do than talk, the means are available.
And if you happen to see Segher there, please thank him for supporting our community!
:)
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The new owner(s) want to make this site a welcoming place for all users of any Amiga or Amiga inspired system.
Please keep this in mind when posting to these forums.:)
The owners dont care, the users are the important thing, if majority of users are on the classic side is better than oriented to "NG" systems.
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The original purpose of JTAG was to allow board manufacturers the ability to test assembled boards with a minimal hardware interface. By chainging them serially and setting a common interface spec even dissimilar chips can be polled and verified in a single JTAG loop.
As used with XMOS chips like Xena, which usually keep the executable code in RAM, it allows that ram to be programmed, and also allows setting of various configuration options such as links between cores(tiles), PLL clock divider settings, and other various details required to get a XS1-L16A chip up and running.
Within the realm of hobbyists, the XMOS chips are almost exclusively run this way, since the OTP ROM is, well.. One Time programmable. It'as not flash, and once it has been progframmed, that chip is committed to that code forever.
Obviously Flash would be more hobbyist-friendly, but it would also create security concerns for any commercial products made with XMOS chips.
Getting back towards the topic(s)..
The non-Amiga XMOS hobbyists are largely oblivious to all these JTAG details. The XDK suite provided by XMOS will seek out XMOS compatible JTAG programmers on startup, then access those to get ChipID's, and often board IDs from the JTAG device. Net result, it's all super-automatic, hands-off, and self managed. Just plug your stuff in and everything is configured automatically. All of this is wonderfully convenient, but it leaves those with non-XMOS kit out in the cold, so to speak.
The discussion you referenced is about one of the "new" products from XMOS. They are now building the USBtoJTAG directly into their newer kit, and doing it in a way that can NOT be easily reached from an external JTAG programmer. This means that we will not be able to use these new "StartKits" from an X-Series AmigaOne, because there's no place to connect JTAG to it.
They are meant to be used only on XMOS supported platforms with XMOS authored software.
Eventually a few hackers found a way to (somewhat) get around this, but not without some loss of function.
Veering back towards a topic once more.. JTAG on Xena is required to load any Xena program you wish to run, The JTAG loop is extended to the XORRO board, so that additional XMOS chips can be added at will. The XMOS tools that we have can load code into any number of XMOS chips through this loop, as well as freeze execution and read the current state of all the chips in the JTAG loop. This can be useful for debugging. We can dump RAM, registers, switch states, ROM, lots of stuff I have not yet documented. There is also a XReset command that will drop all connected (or any one connected) chip back into it's inert power-on state. While these are technically command-line tools, they work with tooltypes as well. Any XMOS program that sets XRunXE as it's default tool with load up when double-clicked.
About adding DB connectors to the Xorro board, that is possible, but I would discourage it. Perhaps I am overly cautious, but anything I connect that comes outside of the case will be optically isolated. While this may be overkill, I think it a prudent choice. I have an SD card there now, no need for isolation. I have a MAX3232 chip, which is connected to the serial port inside the case. again, no need for isolation there. But anything that comes outside the case, for joysticks or whatever else, will be isolated on my machine, and I would suggest that others consider it as well.
Intersting thought.. the S/PDIF in and out connections are optical by design, so adding those should be as safe as anyone could hope.. a very easy way to get high bandwidth audio in and out of the Xena chip.
I am being called away..
LyleHaze
Interesting stuff and many thanks for your work on it
So you can load code in it? Can you use the official tools (f.e. on windows) to create it? Then you would still need a kind of chain to transfer it from PC to X1000/X5000 to test it there. Or propably more convenient develop and test the code on PC and then transfer it to Amiga and test it there. What XMOS chip is used? Perhaps better to use the same chip and configuration on PC for development and testing and then transfer it and test it on Amiga?
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@Dandy
This is "classic" Amiga forum so most users here see it from "classic" view of point.
Hmmm - here at my end it tells me:
» Amiga.org » Amiga computer related discussion » Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion » Amiga One X 1000 and Xena/Xorro
No mention of "classic" - sorry to disappoint you...
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Hmmm - here at my end it tells me:
» Amiga.org » Amiga computer related discussion » Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion » Amiga One X 1000 and Xena/Xorro
No mention of "classic" - sorry to disappoint you...
Please stop!
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So you can load code in it? Can you use the official tools (f.e. on windows) to create it? ...
From the thread so far: you can load code to xena from AOS4 command line.
But "compiler" runs only on windows.
There's a "study" of putting up a server to handle that compilation for all x1000 etc. users.
(another option might be emulator to run windows tools on AOS4, but so far no luck)
(And to my understanding there's a study if it is possible to implement a system that enables swapping the running program/code per thread, without needing to restart the whole chip or something. That would be pretty cool. Perhaps unique even.)
(& IIRC, the chip is XS1-L2 https://www.xmos.com/download/public/XS1-L02A-QF124-Datasheet%28X1466E%29.pdf http://www.a-eon.com/18-10-2013-5.pdf)
And because I stumbled on that x1000 PDF... why it lists only 8GB RAM supported? I thought PA6T can address 32GB of RAM?
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From the thread so far: you can load code to xena from AOS4 command line.
But "compiler" runs only on windows.
There's a "study" of putting up a server to handle that compilation for all x1000 etc. users.
(another option might be emulator to run windows tools on AOS4, but so far no luck)
For the second you would need either something like VMWare or WINE (and I am not sure if it would work with WINE at all). More realistic (personal guess) is to either create a kind of chain, develop and compile on Windows and then automatically transfer it to amiga or develop it on Windows and just finally test it on Amiga.
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@xena warrior
Is xena able to generate interrupt to PA6T?
Is PA6T able to generate interrupt to xena?
What is the max bandwidth between PA6T and xena?
Is it possible to do DMA transfer to PA6T RAM from xena?
I think I lost the link to PA6T-xena-xorro schematic, is it somewhere as free?
Then, just playing with ideas...
Work for all those cores/threads:
1: Control.
2: Data in. (CPU interface)
3: Data out. (CPU interface)
4: D9-1-io
5: D9-2-io
6: D9-3-io
7: D9-4-io
8: Floppy-control (kryoflux on xcore)
9: Floppy-data
10: i2s-out / SPDIF
11: i2s-in
12: Fan-Control
13: funky-led-control
14: watchdog (PA6T might have wd built in, but I'm not sure if one can use it on AOS4)
15: parallel-port-out or DA/DIO out or RPi I/O emu or arduino I/O emu. ...
16: parallel-port-in or AD/DAQ in ...
I wonder ... once such SW is loaded to xcore, would it be simple to just configure I/O on the fly (by control process) and then set needed threads/cores to work...
guestions galore:
-is it possible to have xena running when PA6T is off/sleep/halted?
out of curiosity, old xena thread @ xmoslinkers: http://archive.xmoslinkers.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=700
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@TrevorDick,
Wouldn't it be better to bring out a couple of boards for an affordable price to bring people back to the platform and to start providing support. The Amiga would of never made it at such a huge price, plus Commodore started support by a mag showing how to program the hardware and all the new commands needed to give programmers support on their product. Next thing you need to do is get a software company to start making software for it (if you can find one that microslick hasn't already over powered by their software usage EULA, giving them the right to program microsick programs) anyhow just sitting on a computer and bringing it out is just part of the program, so now we have a new computer with an OS, and some programs. Not very attractive or interesting at this point of time, especially for the price.
I believe the reason they gave up on the Amiga was the designers and engineers gave little room for expansion especially in the graphics and sound area, and what was made for expansion was later on to expensive or obsoleted the main boards that came out. In other words everything was specialized which later became the death bell and road block for future development.
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No, this is an Amiga forum that is open and welcome to all flavors of the Amiga experience. It is one of, if not THE oldest Amiga forum site, so it began before many of the newer Amiga flavors existed, but that does not mean that it is ONLY for Classic Amiga users.
The majority of users in the Amiga community are "Classic" Amiga owners/users, so it is no surprise that a "Classic" Amiga point of view is expressed more often here. The new owner(s) want to make this site a welcoming place for all users of any Amiga or Amiga inspired system.
Please keep this in mind when posting to these forums.:)
@AmigaDave,
Very True, It isn't just for Classic Amiga users, they have let Mac users slowly take over this board, it has become more Mac orientated with their Amiga Emulation programs (which I don't really blame Mac users, since the Amiga even with how old it is, is a way better platform to use and way more fun)
Just goes to show they will let anyone on this board, (even me, LOL) but then they banned one of the most entertaining, and knowledgeable users named FRANKO, who is a pure Amiga user, who even I admire, since I am mostly a classic Amiga user, who slowly moved over the the PC platform for more modern day games and graphic and sound improvements. I know Bill Gates took the Amiga OS, examined it and slowly moved its ideas and principles to what the PC is today, if you ever saw his office, he had an Amiga 1000 sitting on his back shelf so he wouldn't lose direction of which way to take his OS and the PC, which was new hardware, new graphics, new expansion slots, and the undoing of old exhausted time ridden hardware. While Amiga stayed on its course with old PPC technology, and expansion devices, which threw them out of the main stream high end computers. We saw it coming but didn't believe it could happen, no Commodore was to ahead of all the other platforms, yeah right!!!
smerf
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@TrevorDick,
Wouldn't it be better to bring out a couple of boards for an affordable price to bring people back to the platform and to start providing support. The Amiga would of never made it at such a huge price, plus Commodore started support by a mag showing how to program the hardware and all the new commands needed to give programmers support on their product.
The Amiga in real terms was actually more expensive when it started than the X1000. It was when the A500 came out that Commodore started to become popular, but that's why we have the Sam range (although it does seem like there's not so many for sale at the moment).
The problem is that "affordable price" varies from person to person. Many people want an Amiga-compatible board that's custom designed with drivers made for just a few hundred dollars each, and that's just impossible. The Amiga market has nothing like the economies of scale that the PC market does, nor does it even have those that the Amiga did originally. The Amiga 500 was in a massive market; that market has shrunk tremendously since those days, so while Commodore could invest and build many thousands of units to recoup costs, that's impossible these days because demand is so much lower.
Next thing you need to do is get a software company to start making software for it (if you can find one that microslick hasn't already over powered by their software usage EULA, giving them the right to program microsick programs) anyhow just sitting on a computer and bringing it out is just part of the program, so now we have a new computer with an OS, and some programs. Not very attractive or interesting at this point of time, especially for the price.
AmigaKit and A-Eon are trying to do just this, but the main problem here is that people's expectations have moved. In the 1980's, a good program could be very simple (e.g. Kindwords, Deluxe Paint) Now people expect applications of the level of complexity of Microsoft Word and Photoshop before they're taken seriously. We're never going to have the massive coding teams that PC and console software makers have, there's no point in trying. What company would invest millions of dollars in development costs if they're only going to sell a thousand copies max.?
I believe the reason they gave up on the Amiga was the designers and engineers gave little room for expansion especially in the graphics and sound area, and what was made for expansion was later on to expensive or obsoleted the main boards that came out. In other words everything was specialized which later became the death bell and road block for future development.
I think the real reason they gave up on the Amiga was simply money. It became less commercially viable in about 1993, when the PC clones took over; those who continued to develop for the Amiga were pushed more and more to the sidelines until they too went to the "Dark Side".
This is a topic for another thread, though. Let's not derail this one about Xena etc.
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Interesting stuff and many thanks for your work on it
So you can load code in it? Can you use the official tools (f.e. on windows) to create it? Then you would still need a kind of chain to transfer it from PC to X1000/X5000 to test it there. Or propably more convenient develop and test the code on PC and then transfer it to Amiga and test it there. What XMOS chip is used? Perhaps better to use the same chip and configuration on PC for development and testing and then transfer it and test it on Amiga?
Yes, Yes,Yes,Yes, XS1-L16A.
The X1000 _had_ an XS1-L02, but since then the salesmen have taken liberties with how things are named. The exact same chip is now the XS1-L16A.
The older includes are now deprecated, and they have since renamed threads as cores, cores are now tiles, and a bunch of other changes that seem to be designed just to make conversation awkward. i.e. since "core" had a completely different meaning than it does now, any time it is used the speaker must stop to explain all this renaming mess.
I have _no_ XMOS hardware of any type on my windows machine, I just develop and sim there, and bring the executable over to the X1000 when it's ready for testing on metal.
But every thing you asked is "yes" and has been since October 2012 when I did the public demonstration at AmiWest. I often transfer the executable by FTP, but a flash drive works fine too.
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@xena warrior
Is xena able to generate interrupt to PA6T?
Is PA6T able to generate interrupt to xena?
What is the max bandwidth between PA6T and xena?
Is it possible to do DMA transfer to PA6T RAM from xena?
1>Yes, but I have not yet implemented it.
2>No, there's no such thing as a Xena interrupt pin. However, one thread(core) of core(tile) One is dedicated to localbus communications, and is addressable as ..16k?.. of flat space. not sure about the size, I'd have to look it up. So there's no need to interrupt it, just perform a read or write to any address that is part of Xenas address range. Note: The range all maps to Xena Space, NOT to RAM.. that space is all comms, not storage.
3> I've forgotten what max bandwidth is on the X1000, it moved around a lot while developing the interface. The interface has been enhanced on Cyrus, but I have not yet had a chance to clock it.
4> No, all Xena memory is internal to the chip, and the only way in is through I/O of some sort.. JTAG is for loading code or debugging, localbus is normally for communication between AmigaOS and Xena tasks..but the I/O is so damned fast that the best way to get high bandwidth in and out is by using chip I/O. The Xena chip is practically all I/O, most can be organized into single bits or groups of 4/8/16 bit groups.
For instance, a simple (no handshaking) serial port needs only two single bits. ANY two single bits of I/O, and if you want only TX or RX then onlly a single IO pin is needed. So you can basically have whatever/as many as you'd like.. the code to make a serial port is just a few lines long, and the speed can go into the megabit range easily.
The SDCard interface uses a couple (3?) individual control bits, plus a 4 bit bus if you choose the wide/fast SDCard interface.
I think I lost the link to PA6T-xena-xorro schematic, is it somewhere as free?
It is part of the X1000 technical reference manual. That question is best answered by A-EON.
Then, just playing with ideas...
Work for all those cores/threads:
1: Control.
2: Data in. (CPU interface)
3: Data out. (CPU interface)
4: D9-1-io
5: D9-2-io
6: D9-3-io
7: D9-4-io
8: Floppy-control (kryoflux on xcore)
9: Floppy-data
10: i2s-out / SPDIF
11: i2s-in
12: Fan-Control
13: funky-led-control
14: watchdog (PA6T might have wd built in, but I'm not sure if one can use it on AOS4)
15: parallel-port-out or DA/DIO out or RPi I/O emu or arduino I/O emu. ...
16: parallel-port-in or AD/DAQ in ...
I wonder ... once such SW is loaded to xcore, would it be simple to just configure I/O on the fly (by control process) and then set needed threads/cores to work...
The CPU interface is already implemented. much the rest depends on implementation. while all of it at once might be too much for a single Xena chip, I doubt you'd need all of it at once.. This is where "software defined silicon" comes in.. you just tell it what you want it to be at any given time, and it becomes whatever the code says.
Or you could add more Xena chips, and then extend a link from core1(tile1) so they can all access the localbus interface if needed. But see my previous comments on isolation.
guestions galore:
-is it possible to have xena running when PA6T is off/sleep/halted?
A hard reset of the Amiga also resets Xena. A soft reset of the Amiga has no effect on Xena at all. Of course localbus communication requires both sides to be up.
out of curiosity, old xena thread @ xmoslinkers: http://archive.xmoslinkers.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=700
Interesting read, I had not seen that one earlier.
Nice to read a bit from the other side of the fence.
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Thank you for that info! (again)
...
3> I've forgotten what max bandwidth is on the X1000, it moved around a lot while developing the interface. The interface has been enhanced on Cyrus, but I have not yet had a chance to clock it.
....
At some point PA6T-xena-xorro schematic was shown in a-eon gallery, from that & xcore specs I figured out that PA6T-xena bus bandwidth is 30Mbytes/s or less. That is plenty for control and some data. (for larger needs one can use the PCIe inline with xena I/O connector)
btw. nasty thing how they stirred and mixed the chip&thread&core namings, sometimes as an ordinary engineer that annoys greatly (It's not enough having to all the time learn new things, because of those PR dudes one needs to re-learn also some of the old)
...a thought about xena->CPU interrupt ... very nice that interrupt can be generated, it would be nice to do interrupt driven things rather than the M$ USB polling methology, there's better use for CPUs than polling interfaces.
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about dev board...
Surely the person affording to buy x1000 affords to buy the xorro devboard as well.
But IF xena&xorro wold exist on cheaper motherboard, I wonder if normal empty PCIex4 (/x8)= prototyping board could be used as well to get I/O out of xena...
(after quick check... did not spot cheaper than amikit board ... surely somewhere...)
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Question to A-eon...
While adding (co)proccessors to the Aone systems that are not used by almost anyone, why not develop something useful like a remake of the old x86 bridgeboards Amigas had. Something with an Atom or AMD Beema on a PCIe card, that is plently fast and passively cooled...
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...remake of the old x86 bridgeboards ...
I think there exist suitable x86-on-PCIe -cards. "Only" the SW needs to be made. The SW work needed might be too much vs getting cheap x86 node and connect to it via RDesktop...
+ If a-eon x86-on-PCIe custom HW would be made, getting M$ OS support for it costs millions I believe ... let's not enter there!
UPDATE: silly stuff, MAME & xcore
http://www.xcore.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=2449&p=15308&hilit=joystick&sid=68204a68fee6dc45d080fc053e3d8fed#p15308
UPDATE: if someone does not know what xena/xcore is...
https://www.xmos.com/download/public/xCORE-Architecture%28X9650D%29.pdf
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I think there exist suitable x86-on-PCIe -cards. "Only" the SW needs to be made. The SW work needed might be too much vs getting cheap x86 node and connect to it via RDesktop...
+ If a-eon x86-on-PCIe custom HW would be made, getting M$ OS support for it costs millions I believe ... let's not enter there!
I agree Rdesktop and VNC solve that easily, besides there exists towers, that makes it easy to fit two full size motherboards into one tower.
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Thank you for that info! (again)
...a thought about xena->CPU interrupt ... very nice that interrupt can be generated, it would be nice to do interrupt driven things rather than the M$ USB polling methology, there's better use for CPUs than polling interfaces.
It is there, and surely will get used. So far I have really had no need.
The "unique" properties of links on an XMOS chip create certain problems.. Serialized data can flow extremely fast, but will stall for any read without write or write without read. Ther is no "read until there is no more", as the last read would hang the reader indefinitely.
This _should_ be easy enough to work around, but if your solution is not 100%, then your Xena will hang indefinitely.
As a result, my first projects use a very simple structure where all reads and writes are 16 bits, no matter what, and every transaction between the localbus and the Xena chip is broken down into individual "write then read" loops. This helps keep things simple, but not as fast as they could be at all.
Also a result of this is that I have had no need for interrupts at all yet.
I do have one-directional streaming for higher bandwidth data paths.. but I'm probably gertting into more detail than casual conversation requires.
The line is there, and connected to a GPIO pin on the PA6T. One day when I or someone else needs an interrupt, then progress will be made on this front.
One other user has already inquired about using this line for something else, and I have discoraged that, obviously because once this becomes an interrupt, spurious events for random reasons will not be good for the system.
There is a big list of "stuff to do".. my current project is not a perfect example of properly structured code.. It's more proof of concept than anything else.
There are other users at XCore who are working on a system that will dynamically allocate threads(cores) and also control the switching fabric to allocate their necessary resources, all on the fly. This is obviously better than our current system, which limits us to pre-compiled complete projects.
One possible use that has not yet been mentioned, there is code available for both SHA2 and AES encryption. I'm no crypto guy but having that code available might be useful. I don't know if the X1000 has a guaranteed unique serial number anywhere, but combining that with the crypto stuff could be useful for secure confirmation of machine I.D... and it could be done with no Xorro card or hardware at all.. just what the machine ships with already.
Hell the Xena chip may have a unique ID in itself. that would certainly streamline things. I'll have to look into that.
Nobody loves copy protection, but if it can be done in a way that does not interfere with performance for the registered user, then I don't mind it either.
I need to go.. Nice chatting with you!
LyleHaze
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The whole Xena/Xorro thing was marketing BS and almost useless (as history has shown) unfortunately.
It was just today that I found a link at amiga-news.de to "The Almost forgotten Story of the Amiga 2000" at http://amigalounge.com/b270.html.
This article tells the story of a 3rd party add-on for the Amiga 2000 that helped to make the A2k a big success:
"Changing The World
Ironically, this workstation would go on to change the world, but most people would never know it, for the game changer was not built by Commodore, but a "add on" piece of hardware from a little known (at the time) Topeka, Kansas based company called Newtek.
..."
My hope is that XENA/XORRO might also one day become one of the most important "ambassadors" for the AmigaOne X1000 in conjunction with a 3rd party "killer" add-on for the A1 X1k, like the "VideoToaster" did for the A2k.
Based on the knowledge that is availabe on the web to me so far, I see a lot of potential in XENA/XORRO.
Hopefully there will come up more of these valuable remarks from insiders like those by Hans and Lyle.
A big "thank you" to them for their contributions so far!
I'm sure the more information on the A1 X1k's XENA/XORRO becomes available, the easier people can get inspired to come up with good ideas for a possible usage of XENA/XORRO.
But I am also interested in hearing(reading) more about the integration of XENA/XORRO into the AmigaOS:
- How should a good GUI for the implementation look like?
- What functionality should such an implemention come up with?
- What can/has to be done to get a decent, OS 4 native dev kit for the A1 X1k's XENA/XORRO from XMOS?
Be it a sort of "AmigaNG Boing Ball Demo", where a real red-white chequered table tennis ball is played in a Plexiglas box by an table-robot operated table tennis racket controlled by an Amiga1 X1k via XORRO involving a camera system (like in driving assistance systems), or be it a CNC controller, a controlling system for real steam model railways, a debug logging system or what-do-I-know.
I think with such a "AmigaNG Boing Ball Demo" A-Eon could very well demonstrate the capabilities of this XENA/XORRO thingie and also inspire the visionairs within the community and even attract "outsiders", while at the same time advancing the tradition of the Amiga's famous Boing ball demo.
So lets be patient and see if/when a "third party" comes up with THE "killer" add-on for the A1 X1k - or better lets use our own ingenuity to come up with good ideas for the use of XENA/XORRO ourselves.
Perhaps NASA can utilise it - their area of operation should be the ultimate environment for a system like the A1 X1k - given that already the classic Amiga line turned out to be ideally suited for processing the telemetry data of space missions:
https://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=39211744315
But just calling the "whole Xena/Xorro thing marketing BS and almost useless" is not really what I'd call "using our own ingenuity to come up with good ideas for the use of XENA/XORRO" - sorry, but I'd rather call that "lack of phantasy and vision"...
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My hope is that XENA/XORRO might also one day become one of the most important "ambassadors" for the AmigaOne X1000 in conjunction with a 3rd party "killer" add-on for the A1 X1k, like the "VideoToaster" did for the A2k.
A1 X1K was launched in 2010. Amiga 2000 was launched in 1987. To relate with this X1K should be living Amiga year 1991 now.
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XMOS simplifies High Speed USB Audio design
0 Comments
March 19th, 2012
The highest performance, integrated solution
XMOS®, developer of the industry’s first event-driven 32-bit embedded processor, announces the release of its third generation family. The XS1-S family delivers up to 700 MIPS of real-time performance per core combined with integrated analog functionality, enabling the highest quality, multi-channel USB audio applications. Combined with XMOS industry standard USB audio IP, the XS1-S family of devices deliver the lowest latency digital audio interfaces.
“The XS1-S Family builds upon the predictable real-time performance of the XS1 architecture, offering increased I/O and processing capabilities together with the convenience of integrated analog peripherals.” said Tom Lee, XMOS vice president of sales and marketing. “Our customers have shipped over half a million USB audio products using XS1 devices. The higher performance, integrated XS1-S Family and its accompanying software and tools deliver the ideal solution to an even broader range of audio applications”.
The XS1-S Family of single and dual core devices include a rich set of analog and digital features:
32bit XCore embedded processor(s) delivering up to 700 MIPS each
Software defined I/O for fully-flexible digital peripherals including I2S, TDM, SPDIF AES/EBU.
High Speed USB 2.0 Phy
12bit 1MSPS Analog to Digital Converter
USB bus power compatible
Standby and deep sleep modes for energy sensitive applications
Power On Reset, Watchdog timer, brownout detect circuits
On-chip crystal oscillator
High Speed USB Audio
The first members of the XS1-S Family include single and dual XCore variants with integrated USB 2.0 High Speed Phy, making them ideal for demanding USB audio interfaces, DJ products, USB speakers and more. Using XMOS unique flexibility, the devices are also perfect for intelligent USB peripherals.
Niall Dunican of Audio Partnership commented “The new XS1-S devices from XMOS provide us with a lot of exciting opportunities. The integrated ADC and high speed USB let us use the devices as both a flexible micro and a high speed audio interface device, at low cost. We’re already planning to deliver 4 products in 2012 based on the new XMOS processors. With 700MIPS of deterministic performance we have a lot of ideas!”
XMOS processors combine flexible interfacing, control and data processing in a single device. The devices, including all digital peripherals, are programmed in software using a C-language development flow, providing both application and I/O flexibility even after deployment.
Pricing and Availability
The single XCore processor XS1-SU1 with integrated High-Speed USB Phy comes in a 96pin dual row BGA and is priced below $5 in 10ku quantities. Sampling now, the XS1-SU1 will be commercially available from Q2. The dual XCore XS1-SU2 device will be sampling from Q3 2012. Further details are available from your XMOS sales representative: http://www.xmos.com/products/distributors.
For more information on XMOS products including development kits and software, visit http://www.xmos.com. The XMOS development tools are available to download free of charge at http://www.xmos.com/tools.
About XMOS
XMOS is transforming the way in which electronic products are designed, reducing development time and cost. Its event-driven deterministic processors enable systems to combine application software, digital signal processing and peripherals implemented in software, not silicon. XMOS customers include leading companies around the world. For more information please visit http://www.xmos.com
http://eecatalog.com/usb/2012/03/19/xmos-simplifies-high-speed-usb-audio-design/ (http://eecatalog.com/usb/2012/03/19/xmos-simplifies-high-speed-usb-audio-design/)
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No, all Xena memory is internal to the chip, and the only way in is through I/O of some sort.. JTAG is for loading code or debugging, localbus is normally for communication between AmigaOS and Xena tasks..but the I/O is so damned fast that the best way to get high bandwidth in and out is by using chip I/O.
If I don't want to have any extra hardware connected to my X1000, how can I make use of Xena?
Assume I create a simple Xena/XC program (using XTools on Mac/PC) that, for instance, flips all bits of some data. Would it be possible for me to, from AmigaOS, send the bits "000111" and then get "111000" back?
I've looked at the examples from wiki.amigaos.net (http://wiki.amigaos.net/wiki/Writing_apps_for_Xena), but they both require some extra hardware. What I basically want is some simple data processor that sits and wait for data to process, and then returns it. I understand that the power of Xena is when using it with custom hardware, but the step to wiring your own hardware is a bit steep for me -- and I really don't know what kind of hardware I want/need.
Oh, and while I'm at it: how do I transfer programs to Xena, and how do I start it? I kind of get that it might be a stupid question , but I really don't know where to start; it should be possible from AmigaOS, right?
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If I don't want to have any extra hardware connected to my X1000, how can I make use of Xena?
Assume I create a simple Xena/XC program (using XTools on Mac/PC) that, for instance, flips all bits of some data. Would it be possible for me to, from AmigaOS, send the bits "000111" and then get "111000" back?
I've looked at the examples from wiki.amigaos.net (http://wiki.amigaos.net/wiki/Writing_apps_for_Xena), but they both require some extra hardware. What I basically want is some simple data processor that sits and wait for data to process, and then returns it. I understand that the power of Xena is when using it with custom hardware, but the step to wiring your own hardware is a bit steep for me -- and I really don't know what kind of hardware I want/need.
Oh, and while I'm at it: how do I transfer programs to Xena, and how do I start it? I kind of get that it might be a stupid question , but I really don't know where to start; it should be possible from AmigaOS, right?
I don't see why what you want can't be created to run on the Xena chip, without needing extra external hardware wired to it, but then I am not knowledgeable enough about Xena/Xorro yet. I think most or all of your answers have already been written in what Lyle has posted in this thread, so you might want to go back and read his posts carefully.
Until some AmigaOS4.x developer thinks up a project that needs the kinds of features that the Xena chip and/or Xorro interface provide, the ideas will more likely come from the XMOS forums where PC or Mac developers are sharing their projects and ideas on how to best use any of the XMOS chips.
The learning curve and lower availability of tools that can be used from within AmigaOS4.x currently, cause a delay in Xena/Xorro projects coming from traditional Amiga developers, or electrical engineers. Specially when only a few Amiga developers and/or electrical engineers have purchased an X1000. So, it may take more time before someone comes up with an interesting idea and project that uses the Xena/Xorro combination. I know I will be watching the XMOS forums to see what people on other platforms are doing with their XMOS chips, as a way of educating myself about what can be done with those chips.
I have confidence that Amiga developers & programmers & electrical engineers are more creative and capable than average Windows, or Mac users, so I won't be surprised when some great project, or product becomes available that depends on the Xena/Xorro combination. But I won't just be waiting for someone else to create something, I will be educating myself and thinking up my own ideas on how to use my X1000 w/Xena/Xorro.
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If I don't want to have any extra hardware connected to my X1000, how can I make use of Xena?
Assume I create a simple Xena/XC program (using XTools on Mac/PC) that, for instance, flips all bits of some data. Would it be possible for me to, from AmigaOS, send the bits "000111" and then get "111000" back?
Yes, but it's not quite getting the best of the Xena chip. ;)
First, "XTools" are the AmigaOS tools, "xTIMEcomposer" is the name of their developers kit.
For output from Xena, there are two LEDs on the Nemo board, and another one or two on the Xorro card. But I've heard it too many times, nobody wants to flash LEDs. *
There is also the localbus connection. This is used to write or read 16 bit Words to and from Xena. Each write or read has a large bank of addresses to choose from, which the Xena chip may use to interpret different meanings.. much like ports in networking.
In real hardware it's all going in and out from the same places on Xena side, but the address used may indicate to Xena the purpose of the communication. There is not an established standard protocol for this yet, just the hardware support.
The localbus interface has been improved in the Cyrus board, and as soon as I get a chance I'll work out localbus routines that take full advantage of the improvements in a backwards compatible manner.
Other than that, there is a single bit from Xena to a GPIO of the PA6T, this is intended as an interrupt, and I discourage using it for anbything else. THere is also one "extra" bit going back to the PLD, but I have no idea how to access that, or what effect it might have on the system
In my own opinion, Xenas greatest strength is the ability to stream data very quickly. The localbus interface is not the place for that to happen. I see the localbus mostly as a port for control and feedback from the various processes.
But there is public code for various encryption standards at the XMOS GIT hub. instead of flipping bits you could do sometrhing a bit more useful there.
Oh, and while I'm at it: how do I transfer programs to Xena, and how do I start it? I kind of get that it might be a stupid question , but I really don't know where to start; it should be possible from AmigaOS, right?
There are a set of XTools for that.
Usually located in Sys:Utilities/Xena/XTools, these command line tools can be used to push code to the Xena chip (xrunxe), or to reset the chip (xreset) or quite a few different views of internal registers. One thing I watch is the program counter of any individual thread.. when this stops moving you can bet that the thread is holding for incoming our outgoing data.. as all channels are blocking by nature.
These tools have been updated a few times, and will be a few more in the near future. Only the very first version released were "wrong".. they did not set the PLL correctly, and as a result the Xena chip ran considerably slower than expected.
The example code you saw does include both the Xena and the AmigaOS sides of the localbus code.. I'm sure you could figure it out after a quick reading.
You should expect the localbus code to be extended to take advantage of the Cyrus improvements at some future time.
*note
Even though flashing LEDs is boring, with the exceptional speed of Xena I/O, it would be a simple modification to dim LEDs instead.. Simple to do and requires no hardware. Could use localbus to deliver change requests..
Yes, still simple, but it starts with what we have available now, and expands on it gently, which is not a bad way to learn a new language.
And later, with a few constant-current drivers, you could begin to animate your case..
** for the case modders, there is a VERY simple mod available right now that could be fun to play with.. this is NOT Xena related, but (assuming the standard case) you can move the power LED from it's usual header to P31..
With that done, it will light up automatically every power up.. but it is then under command of any program or script you want.. So if you can detect inbox activity, you could make your power LED flash.. or whatever..
It's a very simple hardware link that can be reached easily from any program, but using the executables in Nemo_LED_P31.lha, from OS4Depot.
:)
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In my own opinion, Xenas greatest strength is the ability to stream data very quickly.
Ok. Thanks for answers (I realise you have answered many of them before).
This fast streaming, how can that be utilised by AmigaOS? Do you need some custom hardware for that?
I'm thinking something like: AmigaOS reads data from hard drive, puts the data at some place, and then Xena reads this, performs some processing and puts it back where AmigaOS can read it -- perhaps with some localbus communication (but I'm thinking that Xena should be able to do the processing in realtime, with AmigaOS only needing to wait a constant number of ticks.)
Do you need like a simple Xorro-card that connects the Xorro-port to Xena's data ports to accomplish this?
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Data processing projects will get the highest throughput if they stream in and out of the Xena chip directly, and use the localbus for control and monitor purposes.
The scenario you described would be pushing all data from Amiga to Xena through the localbus, and getting the results baxck the same way, so not ideal at all.
A few examples of what might work well:
I am working on a data logger that monitors the Debug output stream, and saves the data to an SD Card ON THE XORRO BOARD. After a crash/reboot, or any time really, you can get a directory listing of the files on the SD Card, and retrieve them into Amiga through the localbus. While not a "stellar" example, it removes the need for a second computer to catch the debug stream, and allows at least basic retrieval of log files.
Another good example would be an audio mixer/effects unit.. The Xena chip has no analog inputs or outputs, so those would have to be added to the Xorro card.. OR you could add a couple S/PDIF inputs, and one or more S/PDIF outputs, and do all mixing and effects completely in the digital domain. Note that the "high bandwidth" stuff in both of these are happening directly with the Xena chip, and the Localbus provides monitor and control features.
Another very simple, but fun and useful project would be to write support for recording and playback of Pronto remote control files.. this would make Xena into a learning remote control. Granted the bandwidth is low, usually 40 Khz, but the timing is easily accomplished, and can be easily driven to one or many IR outputs. The entire graphics half of the Pronto files could be adapted into windows and gadgets, so we could import the look and feel of these remotes as well as the function.
Again, the Xena is used for timing critical stuff, and the localbus provides control and monitoring of the chip.
Someone once mentioned making a floppy controller.. it's way over my head, but It would probably be a good project for the author/designer of Catweasel..
The idea of making motor controllers, either servo or stepping, again makes good use of the very fast timing abilities of the chip.
It also occurred to me that distance reading by Sonar, using the old Polaroid ultrasonic transducers for instance, rely on the ability to time events down to a very tight tolerance. The more accurate your timing is, the more better results you get. This would be a perfect match for the Xena chip.. It could not only do it very well, but it can do multiple channels at the same time.. though eliminating crosstalk might be a problem.
Still, it leverages the high speed and accuracy of the XMOS I/O systems to your advantage.
These are just a few examples.. I'm certainly not the most creative person in this community. I look forward to seeing what projects people come up with.
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Reading this thread makes me want to go back to school, so I can learn more about computer electronics, as well as computer programming. Even though I am too old to put such schooling to good use as a job, I could still use it for my own personal projects, and perhaps think up one or two that other X1000 owners (and future X5000 owners as well) might find interesting or useful.
Maybe I can test the old saying about teaching old dogs new tricks (meaning myself).
@LyleHaze,
I like the idea of using the Xena/Xorro combination for audio projects, as well as your Data Logger, and possibly a floppy controller that would make standard PC floppy drives compatible with both original Amiga floppy formats, and dozens of other floppy formats from other platforms, so almost any floppy disk could be read from our X1000's. Being able to use our old 9pin Amiga joysticks with instant response, would also be desirable, as well as adapters for some of the most popular console controllers, that younger users prefer to use instead of a joystick. For me, using the old Atari/Amiga style joysticks is the most fun way to play computer games, but I suppose they could be improved to include more control buttons, to make them more like a console controller. Seems to me that a joystick port using the Xena/Xorro combination should probably be a very easy project to complete, but not a very efficient use of the capabilities of Xena/Xorro, so would be best if it were only one part of a combined project that used the rest of the available threads of the XMOS chip for other tasks.
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Reading this thread makes me want to go back to school, so I can learn more about computer electronics, as well as computer programming.
+1
Thank goodness we got developers like Lyle and others. :-)
TrevorD
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I though it was interesting that Trevor put Xena/Xorro in Amiga one X 1000. Maybe in future someone will make something very useful.
@amigadave Look up learn code the hard way. The guy that does that is a teacher. If you want to learn c you need to learn python or ruby. Next month I am going to buy his python course. I will try it and let you know if it worth it. If you can hand solder it wont be that bad learning the electronic part.
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I don't know about starting with the C programming language; my first computer course in 1974 started with machine language (assembly) and moved up the chain through high school, college, and grad school. In fact with my first Commodore , "learning" BASIC was a bit of a back step due to the lack of structure, so even there post grad school in 1982 assembly was my main language.
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Hmm. The Xorro project board seem to have PCIe x1 slot, besides the Xorro port. I'm assuming this could then be used to transfer data from AmigaOS to the Xorro board; given one has it correctly wired, and configured, and necessary drivers on AmigaOS.
Don't get me wrong here, but if one only has the localbus to communicate with Xena, it seems we might as well only have had an external Xmos startkit, with the proper drivers and tools on AmigaOS of course. I've browsed through some projects at xcore.com, and some seem rather cool. But what I'd really like to see is something that only AmigaOS and the Xorro/Xena combination could pull off, where AmigaOS has an integral role.
Might actually buy that project board, if only for a few blinking led's. :)
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Hmm. The Xorro project board seem to have PCIe x1 slot, besides the Xorro port. I'm assuming this could then be used to transfer data from AmigaOS to the Xorro board; given one has it correctly wired, and configured, and necessary drivers on AmigaOS.
Sure, if you have the knowledge to design and build a PCIe interface, then write AmigaOS drivers for it.. Should be a walk in the the park!:rofl:
Seriously though, building a PCIe interface might be dead easy, I have no idea.
If you were to go that far, look into the hardware specs for an XMOS 5-wire link. This is a ridiculously fast path in and out of the chip. If you can master that, and tie it to PCIe, while the rest of the XMOS community is limited to JTAG over USB. well, that would really put a tilt on the playing field. But while I know _OF_ 5 wire and 2 wire links from a software side, I have no clue what hardware would be needed to support them.. there are lots of XMOS tech reference manuals available though.
Don't get me wrong here, but if one only has the localbus to communicate with Xena, it seems we might as well only have had an external Xmos startkit, with the proper drivers and tools on AmigaOS of course. I've browsed through some projects at xcore.com, and some seem rather cool. But what I'd really like to see is something that only AmigaOS and the Xorro/Xena combination could pull off, where AmigaOS has an integral role.
Might actually buy that project board, if only for a few blinking led's. :)
The XMOS startkit is only usable from xTIMEcomposer, which has no PPC support and likely never will. If we want cool toys, we'll have to blaze our own trail.
Fun Talk, I'm out for the day.
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The XMOS startkit is only usable from xTIMEcomposer, which has no PPC support and likely never will. If we want cool toys, we'll have to blaze our own trail.
Fun Talk, I'm out for the day.
Or use the fun toys on supported systems.....
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Sure, if you have the knowledge to design and build a PCIe interface, then write AmigaOS drivers for it.. Should be a walk in the the park!:rofl:
Seriously though, building a PCIe interface might be dead easy, I have no idea.
Now I didn't say I would do it, did I? ;)
Quick googling lead me nowhere besides a few pricey experiment boards, and a PCI sig membership.
So, yeah, no, this won't come from me. But the idea is free, if anyone wants to do it! ;)
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@persia
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