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Amiga computer related discussion => General chat about Amiga topics => Topic started by: ElPolloDiabl on October 08, 2014, 09:48:16 AM
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I read that getting the specifications for PCI cost at least $1000 it may have cost more when there was only PCI.
At the same time there was AGP by intel, not sure if it cost anything back then to get the specs.
Is PCI fast enough to justify the extra cost?
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If we didn't use PCI, what should we have used, though? Zorro? That would have cost a load more than $1000 and limited us to our own hardware only.
Anyway, $1000 is nothing compared to the development cost of the rest of the board.
AGP will have cost more probably, and of course is utterly useless for anything other than graphics cards anyway, and we needed a generic bus.
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I read that getting the specifications for PCI cost at least $1000 it may have cost more when there was only PCI.
At the same time there was AGP by intel, not sure if it cost anything back then to get the specs.
Is PCI fast enough to justify the extra cost?
PCI is fantastic with the amiga, I have the mediator lt4 it has given my amiga a new lease of life :)
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i still have my trex card ..useless without a working ppc card ..but was good when i used it all those years ago ..before i knew how lucky i was ..and then my ppc card died ...:<
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It was absolutely the right choice. The original Mediator 1200 went on sale at £130 (later £140) and you could go to the high street and get a Voodoo 3 for about £80 and a NIC and sound card for about £10-15 each. At least double that total for a similar Zorro based set-up.
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AGP is just PCI with a different connector and some extra treats to speed up GFX.
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I read that getting the specifications for PCI cost at least $1000 it may have cost more when there was only PCI.
At the same time there was AGP by intel, not sure if it cost anything back then to get the specs.
Is PCI fast enough to justify the extra cost?
$1000 is peanuts.
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I read that getting the specifications for PCI cost at least $1000 it may have cost more when there was only PCI.
At the same time there was AGP by intel, not sure if it cost anything back then to get the specs.
Is PCI fast enough to justify the extra cost?
It was the only practical choice really,since so many cards exist in pci. The $1000 is a trivial expense compared to dev costs.
I would love more native zorro3 cards,but that is not going to happen.
With a mediator and radeon it makes a nice workbench at 1920x1440 or even wide screen modes. its very fast even in 32bit screens.
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Anyone tried a 3000Di? How is the stock power supply for powering PCI video, audio, and a nic? I would imagine since no issues with zorro cards performing the same function, that there wouldn't be an issue?
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Anyone tried a 3000Di? How is the stock power supply for powering PCI video, audio, and a nic? I would imagine since no issues with zorro cards performing the same function, that there wouldn't be an issue?
I have a friend who ran the 3000Di and he used all the cards(radeon,sb128,rtl ethernet) with the stock psu, as long as its in good shape it should do fine.
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It would be better if there were drivers for more PCI cards. For example, if I could use my Matrox VGA card with my Voodoo 1 card in my Amiga, it'd be pretty sweet. Then again, with only 4 slots in my 4000Di, it's hard to pick and choose which cards to use, right now I have Spider 2.0, Radeon 9250 and a 10/100 ethernet card.
I have an adaptec scsi card as well, and there is a driver for that, but unfortunately there isn't really a way to boot off of such a device.
slaapliedje
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Using a PCI setup is the same as using a CSPPC card, they were not in Amiga's plans and are not "original hardware," but much of the appeal of the Amiga (and many other systems) is the ability to adapt to the user's needs; I call this, "Wouldn't it be cool to..." This is the same statement that gets us in trouble as well -- usually with a significant other.
With a PCI configuration, one is only limited by the software drivers for the card, not the hardware development.
Again, only in my opinion.
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Using a PCI setup is the same as using a CSPPC card, they were not in Amiga's plans and are not "original hardware," but much of the appeal of the Amiga (and many other systems) is the ability to adapt to the user's needs; I call this, "Wouldn't it be cool to..." This is the same statement that gets us in trouble as well -- usually with a significant other.
November 7, 1993:
There is a very good chance Commodore will endorse the PCI bus sometime in the future. No official announcement has been made yet, of course. However, PCI is very much a solution to a problem I started working on over two years ago. It's very close, in fact, to my solution to this problem. And standard, as well. Draw your own conclusions :-)
October 01, 2003:
Well, it’s hard to say everything for sure. But I can tell you this. In the fall of 1991, with Sydnes basically cancelling every project, I decided to sit down and design the next system architecture, the thing that would hopefully replace the A3000 design (used in all A3000/A4000 machines). This was called “Acutiator”, and fully modularized the architecture, so that graphics, for example, could be separate from sound and basic I/O. This originally used a custom bus I designed, called the AMI Bus (Amiga Modular Interconnect).
But then a funny thing happened: PCI came out. PCI was designed to solve the very same problem, and by the time Intel kicked it out to the PCI SIG and they improved it, it was way better than the AMI bus at a bunch of things. And also, it was likely to be this huge standard. That’s a good thing....
See, there’s this misconception about C=/Amiga engineering and standards. We LOVED to use standards – any standard – as long as they did not suck. So you see all these proprietary buses and such around the Amiga, and figure, these guys hate standards. Not at all. We liked the good ones. PCI was a very good one, even then.
So, with all of that said, the next generation Amiga would have had a PCI bus. Also, probably, a PCI to Zorro III bridge. Graphics would have been on PCI. I had speced out PCI interface chips for AA and AAA subsystems, so the graphics could go on a card. Not at all cloning The PC; but the functionality is correct, to make these pieces modular if possible. I’ll let you say I’m copying the Apple ][ here is you like – after all, that’s what IBM did anyway.
There was a feature in Acutiator most systems simply don’t have: the TPU, or Transfer Processing Unit. Any time you had a bus to bus interface, you would (ideally) have a TPU there, in the chip that did that bus to bus interface. This was a very simple 32-bit microprocessor (I designed the architecture) which would transfer data, efficiently, from bus to bus. It would so largely because it understood, perfectly, both of the buses at issue. So, no imposed wait states if there were synchronization issues, speed mismatch, etc. You could write directly to memory/IO on the far side of that bus, but better still, just drop a transfer instruction into the queue for a particular TPU, and it would run the transfer for you, then signal when done. The goal: every bus in the system could be busy, all at once.
Anyway, that’s the kind of things I had in mind for the system. For graphics, Hombre, as mentioned, and that was also PCI – Dr. Hepler also saw the wisdom in PCI, even as I did independently. Beyond that, it’s questionable if Commodore would have remained in the graphics business. Most of the PC markers used to make their own graphics chips, too. Today, it’s nVidia, ATi, Matrox, and few others. Like Intel, Motorola, and National Semiconductor, you only need so many different CPUs around.
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Dave is a great guy and I missed that talk, but then don't I feel foolish having misunderstood what I said.
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It was the only practical choice really,since so many cards exist in pci. The $1000 is a trivial expense compared to dev costs.
I would love more native zorro3 cards,but that is not going to happen.
With a mediator and radeon it makes a nice workbench at 1920x1440 or even wide screen modes. its very fast even in 32bit screens.
+1
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Using a PCI setup is the same as using a CSPPC card, they were not in Amiga's plans and are not "original hardware," but much of the appeal of the Amiga (and many other systems) is the ability to adapt to the user's needs; I call this, "Wouldn't it be cool to..." This is the same statement that gets us in trouble as well -- usually with a significant other.
With a PCI configuration, one is only limited by the software drivers for the card, not the hardware development.
Again, only in my opinion.
The CSPPC is no different than using a cyberstorm MKIII,other than the fact it has a ppc coprocessor. it acts like any accelerator. the ppc side is great for playing mp3,some mild video and other stuff that leaves the 060 unloaded for doing normal stuff. Big box amigas were intended to be expanded and even though a mediator adds pci slots, the zorro3 slots still work the same. its more than a cool factor, it makes the machine downright useable.
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Using a PCI setup is the same as using a CSPPC card, they were not in Amiga's plans and are not "original hardware,"
Not entirely. You can use a PCI sound, video or scsi card with the same software that runs on an a2000 back in the day.
The plan for backward compatibility was to have a new version of AGA render into graphics memory on a PCI graphics card, it would make sense to do that too. That plus a 68k core could fit in an FPGA. If you use one that supported PCI express then it would make a really nice cheap motherboard, it would sell more than an X1000.
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I dont think PCI was a good choice on the A1200, I had the LT4 version and sure you could run a 1600x1200 WB, but running fast scrolling graphics on the Workbench was slower than regular AGA in 4 colors. For example, scrolling in Ibrowse felt laggy and this was with a 060 board. If you wonder what I am talking about, play a module in Hippoplayer and enable any hipposcope. Watch hipposcope run in slo-mo.
As I was told this is because of how memory is shuffled to the GFX-board on the A1200. I was told that on on a Z3 system this issue is gone.
Another nice detail about a loaded PCI system is that the Amiga will use around 100w if it is pumped to the max (PPC/060/Mediator loaded system).
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I dont think PCI was a good choice on the A1200, I had the LT4 version and sure you could run a 1600x1200 WB, but running fast scrolling graphics on the Workbench was slower than regular AGA in 4 colors. For example, scrolling in Ibrowse felt laggy and this was with a 060 board. If you wonder what I am talking about, play a module in Hippoplayer and enable any hipposcope. Watch hipposcope run in slo-mo.
As I was told this is because of how memory is shuffled to the GFX-board on the A1200. I was told that on on a Z3 system this issue is gone.
Another nice detail about a loaded PCI system is that the Amiga will use around 100w if it is pumped to the max (PPC/060/Mediator loaded system).
None of those issues on my A4000. power is not a issue on the 4000 either,hence the 150w psu. It never made much sense to me to expand 1200's with all the bottle necks,and you still won't have zorro3. by the time you fix the psu,add a bunch of dongles, you have a semi reliable machine half the speed of a 4000. I can see why people are disappointed. You saved no money and its still mediocre at best.
Mediator is still a good choice for the 1200 i suspect if you want better gfx on the 1200 for browsing or such. there were virtually no other options, unless you use a zorro2 expansion and video card like picassoII,iv,etc. which would still be slow. Mediator also gives reasonably fast usb on the 1200 instead of those slow,silly clock port expansions.
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I dont think PCI was a good choice on the A1200, I had the LT4 version and sure you could run a 1600x1200 WB, but running fast scrolling graphics on the Workbench was slower than regular AGA in 4 colors. For example, scrolling in Ibrowse felt laggy and this was with a 060 board. If you wonder what I am talking about, play a module in Hippoplayer and enable any hipposcope. Watch hipposcope run in slo-mo.
As I was told this is because of how memory is shuffled to the GFX-board on the A1200. I was told that on on a Z3 system this issue is gone.
Another nice detail about a loaded PCI system is that the Amiga will use around 100w if it is pumped to the max (PPC/060/Mediator loaded system).
Hmm.. I bet you had some config issue rather. IBrowse scrolls just fine on my A1200/060/MediatorZIV/Voodoo3 with 1600x1200 at least.
I think PCI is the best thing happened for expanding the A1200. It's really fast compared to other options. Zorro2 was horribly slow for any gfx operations, Zorro3 busboards were hacky, unstable and expensive for accelerators.
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You saved no money and its still mediocre at best.
I'd love to know where there is a huge number of cheap A4000's.
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I have the innards for an 040 1200 tower but no tower or Mediator. PCI seems the better option rather than an extremely expensive PPC card and BVision. Anyone selling a Mediator and tower near Nottingham? Amigakit have no Mediators currently and PowerTowers (my preferred option) are rare too.
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I'd love to know where there is a huge number of cheap A4000's.
Well, you can have one or the other; there are cheap, non-working A4000's but they require money to repair them, then they are no longer cheap.
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A few questions concerning PCI:
Is video refresh and speed noticeable fast than a CV 64 for normal tasks, like using final writer or playing a game like nightlong?
Can you use DVI out?
How stable is a rig using all PCI cards on the Mediator?
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A few questions concerning PCI:
Is video refresh and speed noticeable fast than a CV 64 for normal tasks, like using final writer or playing a game like nightlong?
Can you use DVI out?
How stable is a rig using all PCI cards on the Mediator?
I can at least answer some of this.
Not sure about the comparison between CV 64 and Mediator PCI card, but yes you can use DVI Out (that's how I have mine set up, VGA through the Indivision AGA MK1 and DVI Out through my Radeon 9250)
And yes it's quite stable (I have the aforementioned Radeon, Fast 10/100 NIC, Spider 2.0 all plugged into the Mediator, and the Indivision under neath.)
slaapliedje
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It was the only practical choice really,since so many cards exist in pci. The $1000 is a trivial expense compared to dev costs.
I would love more native zorro3 cards,but that is not going to happen.
With a mediator and radeon it makes a nice workbench at 1920x1440 or even wide screen modes. its very fast even in 32bit screens.
I'd love more native Zorro 3 cards with an improved Buster that let the Z3 bus run at full speed.
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A few questions concerning PCI:
Is video refresh and speed noticeable fast than a CV 64 for normal tasks, like using final writer or playing a game like nightlong?
Can you use DVI out?
How stable is a rig using all PCI cards on the Mediator?
I can speak for the A4000 version of mediator. Its fast and stable. the cv64 starts to slow at 800x600, the radeon 92xx never seems slower,even at 1900x1080x32 ever(using 060/ppc). The radeon is so fast its always doing the waiting. You can also map some gfx ram to amiga fast ram with it.
dvi out works
Not sure about the game,but anything rtg should do well.
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I'd love more native Zorro 3 cards with an improved Buster that let the Z3 bus run at full speed.
I agree, i love native hardware also, and always wished buster would be fixed. It would of been cool to see it run near pci33 speeds.
The piv was the finest native amiga video card i had ever owned,it served me well from 1995 on.
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Is video refresh and speed noticeable fast than a CV 64 for normal tasks, like using final writer or playing a game like nightlong?
Probably. Higher resolutions and greater screen depths would definitely be noticeably faster as well as allowing higher resolutions and greater screen depths than the CV64 is capable of. The CV64 has a faster gfx bus (can transfer from the Amiga to gfx card faster) but most of the time the more modern gfx card performance and extra gfx memory more than make up for it. Using P96Speed in 640x480x8, I calculated that my 3000T+CSMKIII 68060@75MHz+Mediator 3000(T)/4000(T)+Voodoo 4 is on average 3.00 times faster for P96Speed gfx operations than the 4000T 68060@70MHz+PIV in the P96Speed database. The PIV was overall a little faster than the CV64 (although the CV64 has a little faster gfx bus and some specialized hardware which would make it faster in a few cases). Just for fun, by the same calculation of averaging the "Diff" for all operations in P96Speed, my Amiga is 118.42 times faster than the 4000 68060@50MHz using AGA in the database. I have a faster system with a few tweaks so the gfx performance is not completely isolated by these tests. Once the gfx are fast enough then what is noticeable becomes diminished also. The CV64 is a nice board especially for a 3000 because of the passthrough and hardware planar support. The Mediator offers better performance, more gfx memory, potentially newer gfx outputs like DVI and potentially 3D.
How stable is a rig using all PCI cards on the Mediator?
My "rig" is very stable although the driver installation is not for beginners and the drivers have some annoying but minor bugs that can mostly be worked around.
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PCI is fantastic with the amiga, I have the mediator lt4 it has given my amiga a new lease of life :)
Yes, Mediator is very good for us...
Sadly the 3dfx driver is a bit buggy for me : watch the little demo W3DStarShip with only 170 triangles running at only 300 fps...
170 triangles are nothing for a 3dfx GPU clocked at 166 Mhz... We can reach about 2000 fps with a bugfree driver I guess...
Or maybe the bugs are somewhere in Warp3D, I don't know exactly...
I feel bugs in the Voodoo.card, hope Elbox will have a look...
:)
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I don't like it one bit, because it turns awesome Amigas into nothing but glue logic. I don't have an Amiga for that.
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I don't like it one bit, because it turns awesome Amigas into nothing but glue logic. I don't have an Amiga for that.
ECS is definitely *not* awesome. AGA is *not* awesome either when my glue, some patches and a 20 year old PC gfx card are 118 times the graphics performance of AGA. This is even with a bottle necked slow gfx bus at a fraction of the performance potential of old legacy PCI. It should be possible to create new classic hardware with integrated graphics, avoiding the glue and bottle necks, which is 300-500 times the gfx performance of the old Amigas. Compatibility with ECS/AGA could be much better than an RTG system while providing up to 32 bit depth chunky through a single DVI/HDMI output and possibly 3D support. My high end system and the Natami prototype boards are fast enough to show that the extra graphics (and CPU) performance do not cause major problems for the Amiga. I want a modern Amiga without the "glue"!
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PCI is fantastic with the amiga, I have the mediator lt4 it has given my amiga a new lease of life :)
+1 :)
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My high end system and the Natami prototype boards are fast enough to show that the extra graphics (and CPU) performance do not cause major problems for the Amiga. I want a modern Amiga without the "glue"!
It is a god****** shame that the rest of us cannot also own a Natami. I would buy that over the "Reloaded" or any other "modern classic" hardware. Put it in a Kickstarter and I would contribute $1000+ today. I'm sure I'm not the only one. *sigh*
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The Mediator and other such expansions were/are a bit kludgy, but it's a safe assertion to make that if Commodore/Amiga persisted into the late '90s they would have adopted industry standard busses and edge connector profiles such as PCI.
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It is a god****** shame that the rest of us cannot also own a Natami. I would buy that over the "Reloaded" or any other "modern classic" hardware. Put it in a Kickstarter and I would contribute $1000+ today. I'm sure I'm not the only one. *sigh*
I'd most certainly buy one. I was drooling after the Natami for quite some time, and wish it'd still surface in a purchasable form.
Seriously, why hasn't there been a kick starter for it?
slaapliedje
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ECS is definitely *not* awesome. AGA is *not* awesome either
No, Amigas are awesome :p Best retro hardware ever :p If I was stinkin' filthy rich I'd buy Amiga and produce new A1200s without improving the chipset :p
which is 300-500 times the gfx performance of the old Amigas.
I have a peecee for that :p
I want a modern Amiga without the "glue"!
Amiga won't become contemporary again, especially not through an FPGA computer like Natami :p
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The Mediator and other such expansions were/are a bit kludgy, but it's a safe assertion to make that if Commodore/Amiga persisted into the late '90s they would have adopted industry standard busses and edge connector profiles such as PCI.
It's possible that next gen Alice would have been able to output video over the PCI bus into graphics memory. What they would do in the low end machines and quite how TV out would work is another matter.
I personally would prefer a new AGA that was faster and had texture mapping etc built in though. It's a pity that RTG ever became necessary.
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I believe PCI was good because it gave the Amiga a lot of expansion cards. I do believe PCI-E could be better.
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Amiga won't become contemporary again, especially not through an FPGA computer like Natami :p
I don't think anyone outside of fantasy-land thinks Amiga could be "contemporary" again. But it would be nice to have an evolutionary step to the "high end classic 3.9 machine" that doesn't involve cobbled together parts of dubious age and vintage, haha. ;)
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I don't like it one bit, because it turns awesome Amigas into nothing but glue logic. I don't have an Amiga for that.
Damn, Amiga purists can be such flat earthers.
I doubt if Jay had lived longer that he would have agreed with such sentiment.
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... but it's a safe assertion to make that if Commodore/Amiga persisted into the late '90s they would have adopted industry standard busses and edge connector profiles such as PCI.
Per Dave Haynie:
http://www.landley.net/history/mirror/commodore/haynie.html
But then a funny thing happened: PCI came out. PCI was designed to solve the very same problem, and by the time Intel kicked it out to the PCI SIG and they improved it, it was way better than the AMI bus at a bunch of things. And also, it was likely to be this huge standard. That’s a good thing....
See, there’s this misconception about C=/Amiga engineering and standards. We LOVED to use standards – any standard – as long as they did not suck. So you see all these proprietary buses and such around the Amiga, and figure, these guys hate standards. Not at all. We liked the good ones. PCI was a very good one, even then.
So, with all of that said, the next generation Amiga would have had a PCI bus. Also, probably, a PCI to Zorro III bridge. Graphics would have been on PCI. I had speced out PCI interface chips for AA and AAA subsystems, so the graphics could go on a card. Not at all cloning The PC; but the functionality is correct, to make these pieces modular if possible. I’ll let you say I’m copying the Apple ][ here is you like – after all, that’s what IBM did anyway.
http://www.cucug.org/amiga/aminews/1996/960925-haynie.html
AB - Can you tell us some hardware specifications of your new machine?
We're using PowerPC, naturally. The first systems, OEMed, are based on the PPC604 and PPC604e. We expect to have some PPC603ev systems later on, also OEMed. The PIOS ONE will also use the PPC603 family, at least that's the plan -- as with Amigas, we expect a fairly reasonable way to change the CPU. We're also endorsing the PCI bus as the primary expansion bus in these systems.
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Damn, Amiga purists can be such flat earthers.
I doubt if Jay had lived longer that he would have agreed with such sentiment.
Ranger already did it but commodore wouldn't release it.
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Who was it, DCE that had a PPC card for the A3000 that was directly connected via cable to the PCI backplane? Rather than go through the system bus, that's the better way - let the card draw power from the system, do the data transfer directly with the CPU, and use the host system for native chipset, etc. (if we're talking about upgrading old gear).
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Damn, Amiga purists can be such flat earthers.
Really? Then tell me, what's the point of an Amiga with a graphics card, sound card and PPC cpu? Where's the Amiga in that?
Want a practical machine? Use a peece, it's the only thing that makes sense. Amigas need to retain their retro value, and they don't retain that if you start using them as glue logic.
So, yes, I like to use the old chipset in the old computer I like. When I need something more powerful, I'll use my peecee.
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Anyone remember why the PIOS never got released ?
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Who was it, DCE that had a PPC card for the A3000 that was directly connected via cable to the PCI backplane? Rather than go through the system bus, that's the better way - let the card draw power from the system, do the data transfer directly with the CPU, and use the host system for native chipset, etc. (if we're talking about upgrading old gear).
You're talking about the GREX. AFAIK there was never a 3000 version released, just the A4000 version and A1200 version. We added support for it in AmigaOS 4.1 Classic Final Edition. At least for Voodoo 3 gfx. You get faster speeds through that direct connection vs. Zorro 3.
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@billt
Thanks. My Haynie quotes became garbled since this old thread started and I was too lazy to fix them. The links are nice too.
Who was it, DCE that had a PPC card for the A3000 that was directly connected via cable to the PCI backplane? Rather than go through the system bus, that's the better way - let the card draw power from the system, do the data transfer directly with the CPU, and use the host system for native chipset, etc. (if we're talking about upgrading old gear).
I believe Phase5 first made the CSPPC/CSMKIII and then DCE bought the rights. There was still some hardware needed to turn the PCI signals into PCI slots or the G-Rex(s) would be simpler. This or a whole new motherboard is the way to go so the Zorro III to PCI bottleneck can be avoided. The later Boxer motherboard and Natami would have had active faster PCI slots as well.
Really? Then tell me, what's the point of an Amiga with a graphics card, sound card and PPC cpu? Where's the Amiga in that?
Want a practical machine? Use a peece, it's the only thing that makes sense. Amigas need to retain their retro value, and they don't retain that if you start using them as glue logic.
So, yes, I like to use the old chipset in the old computer I like. When I need something more powerful, I'll use my peecee.
So you prefer OCS over ECS or AGA and a 68000 over a 68030? Some enhancements are upgrades without losing much if any compatibility. Enhancements like more depth and chunky for the gfx and more bits/channels for the audio could be added to the custom chips with no significant compatibility problems. Likewise, the 68k CPU could be enhanced to provide more speed, more ease of use and better code density with better compatibility than the 68060. Going from 68k to PPC is a major change which has major disadvantages including incompatibility, 50% larger code and difficulty of low level programming and debugging compared to an enhanced 68k. I understand that the old classic Amigas are cool in the same way a vintage car is but they aren't as useful or convenient as a modern daily driver. Try using an unexpanded Amiga 1000 for awhile and let us know how enjoyable your experience is.
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You're talking about the GREX. AFAIK there was never a 3000 version released, just the A4000 version and A1200 version. We added support for it in AmigaOS 4.1 Classic Final Edition. At least for Voodoo 3 gfx. You get faster speeds through that direct connection vs. Zorro 3.
Yah! That's the one, I thought it was for the 3000, as well. Wish more of those had made it into the wild; that was a pretty slick solution. One of those and a rebuilt/overclocked PPC card and you'd have a wicked fast Amiga...
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Imho, I think that approach should be used for any new fast FPGA accelerators! Best of both worlds, Zorro & PCI.
Chris
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Imho, I think that approach should be used for any new fast FPGA accelerators! Best of both worlds, Zorro & PCI.
... or PCIe. FPGAs with SerDes for PCIe and SATA are more expensive but still relatively affordable. PCI is still the best for providing the cheapest commodity hardware and there are existing drivers for the Amiga but PCIe and SATA would be great for a little more cost and work ;).
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So you prefer OCS over ECS or AGA and a 68000 over a 68030?
AGA+50 mhz 68030 is my preferred system. 68040s and 68060 are too fast, while 68000s are too slow. The 68030 is just right.
I understand that the old classic Amigas are cool in the same way a vintage car is but they aren't as useful or convenient as a modern daily driver.
Which is why I use a peecee. Very powerful, and lots of up to date, and often free, software. Lots of nice games, too.
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... or PCIe. FPGAs with SerDes for PCIe and SATA are more expensive but still relatively affordable. PCI is still the best for providing the cheapest commodity hardware and there are existing drivers for the Amiga but PCIe and SATA would be great for a little more cost and work ;).
Maybe one of each, put the SATA onboard where it can play nice with DMA and Fast ram!
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AGA+50 mhz 68030 is my preferred system. 68040s and 68060 are too fast, while 68000s are too slow. The 68030 is just right.
I prefer a slower clocked CPU which is easy to program and has consistent real world performance than a high clocked CPU with high theoretical performance but lots of pipeline bubbles and performance bottlenecks. IMO, the 68060 maintains good real world performance and is easy to program. Its weaknesses are primarily due to lack of resources (logic gates) as was common at the time, incomplete internal optimization, and an unchanged ISA and ABI. The lack of resources is not a problem today and a more compatible writethrough cache could provide better compatibility. Instruction scheduling takes a little effort to learn (the 68060 is relatively easy to schedule) but ignoring it would slow your code down if it is too fast. Besides, if the CPU is too fast then use a compiler ;).
Which is why I use a peecee. Very powerful, and lots of up to date, and often free, software. Lots of nice games, too.
Sure, but do you program your PC or power use your PC? Windows is the lazy man's brain dead OS and Linux is a pain in the butt geek's OS. AmigaOS is freedom in comparison.
Maybe one of each, put the SATA onboard where it can play nice with DMA and Fast ram!
It makes sense to provide PCIe and SATA on the accelerator if the FPGA supports SerDes and PCI (mini SD and PCI cards for drives) otherwise. Supporting both PCIe and PCI would make the boards unnecessarily more expensive.
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I prefer a slower clocked CPU which is easy to program and has consistent real world performance than a high clocked CPU with high theoretical performance but lots of pipeline bubbles and performance bottlenecks.
That may be so, but apparently the current complex CPUs are the only way forward performance wise, and performance is the only thing anyone cares about these days.
IMO, the 68060 maintains good real world performance
Not compared to current machines.
Sure, but do you program your PC
Not as much as I should.
or power use your PC?
What do you see as power use?
Windows is the lazy man's brain dead OS and Linux is a pain in the butt geek's OS. AmigaOS is freedom in comparison.
Compared to AOS, Windows and Linux are awesome powerhouses of might and magic :D AOS is thoroughly stuck in the past and it will always remain in the past. If only I could replace it with a better, faster OS on my A1200.
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Sure AOS is stuck in the past, especially if you use classic amiga with 3.1/3.9, which was released many many years ago. You could equally claim the same for windows, if you use 95/98/2000.
But AOS4.x is not stuck in the past, it is true, that you can't install it on any 68k based classic, but that does not change the fact that AOS4.x is not stuck in the past.
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That may be so, but apparently the current complex CPUs are the only way forward performance wise, and performance is the only thing anyone cares about these days.
Complexity adds cost and heat. Performance per clock is more important than maximum clock speed ever since the Pentium 4 days (perhaps Motorola's 68060 successors would have been able to overtake Intel at this point if they hadn't bet the farm on PPC). Die shrinks are responsible for higher clock speeds now but they are reaching practical limits because of cost. The 68060 has good performance per clock and similar technology could be clocked up substantially without causing problems. OoO and expensive die processes would be needed to compete in performance with modern desktop processors though.
What do you see as power use?
I suppose it is not well define. It is basically the OS getting out of the way to do more work. Using many programs at once while maintaining responsiveness, communicating between programs at my request (ARexx), advanced scripting without a book sized manual, etc.
Compared to AOS, Windows and Linux are awesome powerhouses of might and magic :D AOS is thoroughly stuck in the past and it will always remain in the past. If only I could replace it with a better, faster OS on my A1200.
Windows and Linux are powerful but Windows thinks for and limits the user and Linux requires reading bookshelf's equivalent of manuals to use the power. They are both adequate for running programs and PCs have enough processing power to make them fairly responsive even with modern bloated software. I can still do more in less time on my Amiga when I have the software and processing power to do it. Of course the 68k AmigaOS is 20 years out of date because it hasn't been updated. So the slow old Amiga hardware is still good but the fast old AmigaOS is bad today? You are strange indeed :).
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Complexity adds cost and heat. Performance per clock is more important than maximum clock speed ever since the Pentium 4 days
Yes, but isn't that where increased complexity comes from?
Using many programs at once while maintaining responsiveness
All you need for that is RAM on contemporary systems.
communicating between programs at my request (ARexx), advanced scripting without a book sized manual, etc.
Right, no, I don't do a lot of that on the peecee.
So the slow old Amiga hardware is still good but the fast old AmigaOS is bad today? You are strange indeed :).
You misunderstand. Amiga hardware is cool because it has a high retro coolness factor. AmigaOS isn't bad, it's just not as good and fast as it could be for 68k.
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Sure AOS is stuck in the past, ...
But AOS4.x is not stuck in the past, it is true, that you can't install it on any 68k based classic, but that does not change the fact that AOS4.x is not stuck in the past.
I didn't know that the criteria for being 'stuck in the past' is the ability to be installed on 68k hardware.
How about you provide us examples of where AmigaOS 4.x is future focused? Then maybe your statement may carry some water.
The simple fact is that all of the mainstream userland operating systems are stuck in the past because the bulk of the users (early, and late majority) are stuck in the past. Every new release is a delicate balance between introducing forward thinking concepts whilst maintaining enough of the old stuff to try and keep the user base.
It is my assessment that:
- Mac OS X Yosemite is about 60% SITP (Stuck in the Past)
- Windows 10 is about 65% SITP (down from Windows 8.x which started at about 60% SITP)
- Mainstream Linux Distro like Ubuntu, OpenSuSE, Fedora, etc are about 70% SITP
- Most other linux distros are 70-80% SITP
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- AmigaOS 4.x is about 95% SITP
Compared to other actively developed commercial operating systems, AmigaOS 4.x is soooo stuck in the past.
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I didn't know that the criteria for being 'stuck in the past' is the ability to be installed on 68k hardware.
That was not what I wrote, and I expect that you know that.
But let me comment on it anyway, the classic 68k is stuck in the past, my critery for saying that, is that it was developed last century, the 68k cpu has not been developed in, what close to 20 years, the same for the rest of the classic amiga. I know there are FPGA implementations and what not, of the classic, but they still have to conform to the very dated chipset, so does software running on 68k.
Compared to other actively developed commercial operating systems, AmigaOS 4.x is soooo stuck in the past.
That is your oppinium, I would not list that as a criteria, besides albeit slow progress, it is still developed.
but why don't you give me examples why AOS 4.x is stuck in the past, besides backwards compatability, which all OS's has, as you pointed out.
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some people represent point of view that the genuine further development of amiga (itself being stuck in the past) is hacking together some embedded reference boards along with some off shelf pci hardware, patching the system sources one could got hold of to more-less run on it and then port some aged open source linux sdl software in order to be executed on such systems. ;)
well, jest aside what up to date features does os4 offer in comparison to alternatives or the original today? 3d support, means gallium? fail. multicore support? fail. memory protection plus ressources tracking? fail. variety of up to date hardware drivers? fail. genuine software? fail. main titles ported from other systems? fail...
even last year greatly annonced feature of hacking beyond 2gb ram limit doesnt seem to get a single application.
well, if thats not, what one could call being stuck somwhere, then i dont know..
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Yah! That's the one, I thought it was for the 3000, as well. Wish more of those had made it into the wild; that was a pretty slick solution. One of those and a rebuilt/overclocked PPC card and you'd have a wicked fast Amiga...
I have a GREX 1200 for sale if anyone is interested...
http://www.amibay.com/showthread.php?64283-G-REX-1200-with-Voodoo-3-Realtek-8029-and-Ess-Solo-1&highlight=GREX
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3D support in the form of Warp3D, multicore, is well under way. There are plenty of hardware drivers, sure you can't pick any type of expansion, install it and expect it to run.
Amount of software has nothing to do with the operating system. There is a lot of software titles on os4depot, and yes a lot of them are ports, and so?
No one is stopping you developing your own software or drivers.
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3D support in the form of Warp3D, multicore, is well under way.
warp3d ia an old crippled and outdated system that originates and represents the functionality of 68k era, which is, how you yourself worded that "stuck in the past". it took ages to have it ported and available for the cards, the systems you consider "modern" come equipped with. and this outdated form of 3d support is a result, that they apparently couldnt get gallium done.
There are plenty of hardware drivers, sure you can't pick any type of expansion, install it and expect it to run.
will be good to be notified, as soon as the hardware you are being delivered as an ng "amiga" becomes fully supported.
Amount of software has nothing to do with the operating system.
okay, i know operating system is fun as it is, even without software. for the time being, except of said sdl ports you must be using the old "stuck in the past" amiga software, originating mostly from the last millenium. to the point that the hardware vendors are buying up the sources of the said "stuck in the past" software in order to market it again, possibly with minor improvements.
No one is stopping you developing your own software or drivers.
so a customer is supposed to develop drivers fot the system he would have to buy all by himself? thats how you define "modern" approach? if so, i wonder if documentation to do this is really freely available, without ndas and such, because it really might stop people.
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Yes, but isn't that where increased complexity comes from?
Some processors have better performance per clock, have less complexity and/or use less logic because of their design. CISC processors have a higher complexity and logic cost for a base CPU implementation but then they generally have good performance per clock and take less resources to improve this. RISC processors are cheaper to implement but require lots of resources to make powerful per clock and avoid bottlenecks (big caches, strong OoO, adding some CISC like features, etc.). RISC was originally designed to outperform CISC by out clocking it and by moving complexity from the CPU to the compiler but it lost both of these battles. Most modern powerful RISC processors have added some CISC features and are now RISC/CISC hybrids. Most modern CISC processors have adopted some RISC features and are now CISC/RISC hybrids.
You misunderstand. Amiga hardware is cool because it has a high retro coolness factor. AmigaOS isn't bad, it's just not as good and fast as it could be for 68k.
AmigaOS has a lot of good features and ideas which were not fully developed or implemented. There have been add-ons to the OS which should have been more carefully integrated. The AmigaOS is still fast and responsive by design even if compiler optimization has always been lacking. Most 68k processors are forgiving of poorly optimized code. I believe the 68k AmigaOS could be 20%-40% smaller with better optimization but this would probably only give 10%-20% better performance. Good algorithms are more important to performance.
@wawa
Don't make the AmigaOS 4 guys cry with your flawless logic. Modern in the Amiga world implies at least 10 year old technology. They knew that before they spent a lot of money for "modern" PPC Amiga hardware when a PC with the same performance would have cost a fraction of the price and provided modern OS features. Then again, some of them still hope to convince us 68k Amiga users to take the expensive leap of faith to a more modern out dated Amiga ;).
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...
but why don't you give me examples why AOS 4.x is stuck in the past, besides backwards compatability, which all OS's has, as you pointed out.
https://web.njit.edu/~mili/pdf/oss.pdf (https://web.njit.edu/~mili/pdf/oss.pdf)
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@wawa
Don't make the AmigaOS 4 guys cry with your flawless logic.
...
Then again, some of them still hope to convince us 68k Amiga users to take the expensive leap of faith to a more modern out dated Amiga ;).
it would be excusable if it was simply naivety on their part. but like its customary with snowball marketing, people are on a mission to convince others to mistakes they have done, not to admit these for themselves.
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people are on a mission to convince others to mistakes they have done, not to admit these for themselves.
A bit of a harsh perspective that, even if not entirely invalid, another valid perspective would be simply that some people want the Amiga to progress and again become a viable alternative system (I daresay most here, including yourself, wouldn't mind seeing it happen), so it's a case of making the best of it, supporting those who are trying to make it happen in the hope of gaining traction to bring costs down and build a real userbase.
The hardware/software approach of the Amiga is what complicates it though, AmigaOS on G4/G5 Mac hardware would have been great three to five years ago and with Apple's move to Intel making a lot of great source hardware available for very reasonable prices, it may have even been possible to convince some ex-Amiga Mac converts to not sell their system after upgrading and instead load Amiga OS 4 onto it, which very well could have gone a long way to achieving some real momentum via OS4 sales, which could have been ploughed back into development of drivers/software to fuel a cycle that may have peaked enough to be able to engineer a proper hardware project at a much more attractive price range, although what hardware is beyond a top of the range G5 Mac Pro system, I don't know - unless you start getting back into serious custom chips?
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warp3d ia an old crippled and outdated system that originates and represents the functionality of 68k era, which is, how you yourself worded that "stuck in the past". it took ages to have it ported and available for the cards, the systems you consider "modern" come equipped with. and this outdated form of 3d support is a result, that they apparently couldnt get gallium done.
will be good to be notified, as soon as the hardware you are being delivered as an ng "amiga" becomes fully supported.
okay, i know operating system is fun as it is, even without software. for the time being, except of said sdl ports you must be using the old "stuck in the past" amiga software, originating mostly from the last millenium. to the point that the hardware vendors are buying up the sources of the said "stuck in the past" software in order to market it again, possibly with minor improvements.
so a customer is supposed to develop drivers fot the system he would have to buy all by himself? thats how you define "modern" approach? if so, i wonder if documentation to do this is really freely available, without ndas and such, because it really might stop people.
You have a champagne with a beer income. You expect Microsoft resources on a limited budget.
Your a naysayer and a person who could not do it with all the money in the world.
Get a grip..
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warp3d ia an old crippled and outdated system that originates and represents the functionality of 68k era, which is, how you yourself worded that "stuck in the past". it took ages to have it ported and available for the cards, the systems you consider "modern" come equipped with. and this outdated form of 3d support is a result, that they apparently couldnt get gallium done.
Wawrzon : you are an old crippled and outdated human, I'm afraid...
I have a GREX 1200 for sale if anyone is interested...
http://www.amibay.com/showthread.php?64283-G-REX-1200-with-Voodoo-3-Realtek-8029-and-Ess-Solo-1&highlight=GREX
Yes, GRex 1200 need BlizzardPPC rev2 : I'm still looking for any informations about this rev2 (which IC is updated, how Thomas Dellert updated the Blizzard without any soldering (by the miniPCI connector ?), rev2 jed files...)
Some said that there is a bug in the second batch of blizzppc rev0 which cause some weird crash. There are some bogus memory adresses too, never try to write them with the ppc or you will have some problems...
Any informations about this issue ? Wrong ceramic capacitors ? Wrong resistors ? CPLD problems ?
Ouch, I found this post :
"I tested MorphOS on some mobos with my blizzppc rev2.1 noscsi and the same setup. It worked on my old 2B motherboard (now fried) and on an 1D.4 and it doesn't work on my new 1D.1"
And this one :
"> then the "multitask-bug" a lot of persons have been experiencing, which also only happens on the BPPC
Not so. I can reporoduce the "multitask-bug" whenever I want on any system with a PPC regardless of it being CS or B. I'm not sure if it has to do with hardware or software, but I can guarantee that I can get Warp or PowerUP to crash taking the whole system with it in a matter of 30 seconds after a full and clean boot. Knowing how to avoid that is another situation all together. Keeping on topic though, it would be in thier best interest to release a product that's known to work on the csppc and continue testing for the bppc. Doing this will bring extra income that they did not previously have and can continue testing. Also, knowing that the base is being done so that they can have a full emulator on other platforms other than Amiga, it will help iron out any problems that they might not have seen or overlooked. Granted the extra cost for licensing of the roms, os disks, or bios images would not be all that cost effective at first however just a little funding would help a long way for the team at microcode. I'll say release it for the CSPPC and continue to test and develop for the BPPC"
And this :
"Well apparently it's not a bug in WarpOS afterall, but a error in the BlizzardPPC. MorphOS is said to have the same problems on Blizzards connected to anything but revision 1D mainboards. Maybe H&P and Ralph Schmidt could work together to track down this timing bug and make a workaround"
Any informations welcome !
:)
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Some processors have better performance per clock, have less complexity and/or use less logic because of their design. CISC processors have a higher complexity and logic cost for a base CPU implementation but then they generally have good performance per clock and take less resources to improve this. RISC processors are cheaper to implement but require lots of resources to make powerful per clock and avoid bottlenecks (big caches, strong OoO, adding some CISC like features, etc.). RISC was originally designed to outperform CISC by out clocking it and by moving complexity from the CPU to the compiler but it lost both of these battles. Most modern powerful RISC processors have added some CISC features and are now RISC/CISC hybrids. Most modern CISC processors have adopted some RISC features and are now CISC/RISC hybrids.
Thanks for explaining.
AmigaOS has a lot of good features and ideas which were not fully developed or implemented.
Which ones?
The AmigaOS is still fast and responsive by design even if compiler optimization has always been lacking. Most 68k processors are forgiving of poorly optimized code. I believe the 68k AmigaOS could be 20%-40% smaller with better optimization but this would probably only give 10%-20% better performance.
I'm talking about a hypothetical new OS that's not compatible with AOS, so that you could do everything exactly right. You can certainly do better then.
Good algorithms are more important to performance.
Indeed. They're the most important. Proper use of CPU features comes in second.
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A bit of a harsh perspective that, even if not entirely invalid, another valid perspective would be simply that some people want the Amiga to progress and again become a viable alternative system (I daresay most here, including yourself, wouldn't mind seeing it happen), so it's a case of making the best of it, supporting those who are trying to make it happen in the hope of gaining traction to bring costs down and build a real userbase.
sometimes i get the impression that the policy is exactly that: purposedly not to let the userbase grow beyond what it is, only just drain all the cash it is able to offer. souns weird? yeah, it does. but on the plus side you can keep your secure place locked away from the outside world and keep dreaming what could be if it would be forever.
is it my duty to support that? i woulnt like to think so. i prefer to support, what gains my interest, not what others may demand of me for the sake of their interests. especially if this must involve bashing the genuine system, we all should be actually fans of.
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You have a champagne with a beer income. You expect Microsoft resources on a limited budget.
Your a naysayer and a person who could not do it with all the money in the world.
Get a grip..
i woulnt get on with something i cant achieve and try to call others on duty to support me, thats true.
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Wawrzon : you are an old crippled and outdated human, I'm afraid...
well, might be to certain extent, most of us here arent exactly teenagers anymore;)
but i think you have missed the irony of my post. what concerns warp3d, you took offence on, i have tried to help few developers few years back to improve it for 68k in order to get more software working with it, rather than it remaining moreless a tech demo. kind of work you are following up now, i guess. so i realized, that it isnt exactly a masterpiece as it is. it could have been improved, but it wasnt in interest of whoever keeps the sources, sorry to say. the official position was exactly the same as propagated here: amiga is obsolete, outdated system, broken by design not worth support, not even in form of simple fixes provided ready by third party volunteers. instead you are demanded to buy, what is supposed to be"amiga" today.
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Really? Then tell me, what's the point of an Amiga with a graphics card, sound card and PPC cpu? Where's the Amiga in that?
Want a practical machine? Use a peece, it's the only thing that makes sense. Amigas need to retain their retro value, and they don't retain that if you start using them as glue logic.
So, yes, I like to use the old chipset in the old computer I like. When I need something more powerful, I'll use my peecee.
No I don't want a really practical machine, BUT I DO want better performance.
And PCs with UAE don't cut it.
I have PCs, yes they have their place, that is not the point.
YES I want PPC accelerators, video cards, etc.
WE ALREADY KNOW WHAT YOU WANT.
Do what you will.
I keep an old A2000 to play around with.
AGA, while colorful, is not that great an upgrade.
I even looked into a PPC accelerator for the A2000, there is one configuration that can be made, but no.
I've got PPC hardware that greatly outperforms it.
So I'm happy.
And we will never agree.
So be it.
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I have a GREX 1200 for sale if anyone is interested...
http://www.amibay.com/showthread.php?64283-G-REX-1200-with-Voodoo-3-Realtek-8029-and-Ess-Solo-1&highlight=GREX
I bought one of those new one year at the St. Louis show... I think from Compuquick.
Anyway, getting bussboard, the PPC software and all that working back then was interesting to say the least....
much prefer the clean 060 desktop A1200 I have now.
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Really? Then tell me, what's the point of an Amiga with a graphics card, sound card and PPC cpu? Where's the Amiga in that?
I added all of those things to my A1200 over the years and it never felt any less an Amiga for it, if anything, it felt more of an Amiga for being able to add them into the systesm fairly seamlesslly.
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I added all of those things to my A1200 over the years and it never felt any less an Amiga for it, if anything, it felt more of an Amiga for being able to add them into the systesm fairly seamlesslly.
Lol, isn't that the point of an expansion bus? My pair of classics are loaded for bear!
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sometimes i get the impression that the policy is exactly that: purposedly not to let the userbase grow beyond what it is, only just drain all the cash it is able to offer. souns weird? yeah, it does. but on the plus side you can keep your secure place locked away from the outside world and keep dreaming what could be if it would be forever.
is it my duty to support that? i woulnt like to think so. i prefer to support, what gains my interest, not what others may demand of me for the sake of their interests. especially if this must involve bashing the genuine system, we all should be actually fans of.
That depends, a more retro-centric viewpoint could be more inclined to try to get the most from the hobby sized userbase that can support it, with not much view of expansion beyond retro-enthusiasm, which is fine and is working well for the C64 scene etc.
But I would say that those trying to expand beyond retro would have to be more interested in growing the userbase beyond retro enthusiasts by default, I think to suggest all the work (with seemingly little visible reward) has been and is being done just to fleece remaining prospective (as opposed to retro.. protro?) users does not hold up in a logical sense.
Call me Captain Obvious if need be, but retro vs. protro is also the likely source of the dichotomy within the Amiga community. Appealing to both views maybe the ticket or the curse, or maybe there just needs to be an acceptance that the twain shall never (or rarely) meet and each leave the other to their own devices?
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But I would say that those trying to expand beyond retro would have to be more interested in growing the userbase beyond retro enthusiasts by default
beyond retro entusiasts? who would that be? regular mainstream users who want contemporary computing just dont come well along with windows, mac and linux? people who dont like multiprocessing, 3d acceleration, security, all that sort of things everybody takes for granted today, and who can resign on almost any of otherwise available software titles, just want their machine to be ppc?
all the work (with seemingly little visible reward)
now you are telling it yourself, right? little reward.
as opposed to retro..
there is nothing opposed to retro to be found here. no neologisms and new speech is going to help explain that.
Call me Captain Obvious if need be, but retro vs. protro is also the likely source of the dichotomy within the Amiga community. Appealing to both views maybe the ticket or the curse, or maybe there just needs to be an acceptance that the twain shall never (or rarely) meet and each leave the other to their own devices?
apparently it isnt as obvious as it should be. there is no complementarity here. amiga nor any of the follow up alternatíves is not going to become mainstream let alone catch up. the gap is growing every week. it is illusionary.
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So this is the way I basically look at it;
While slapping all the extra PCI bus things into an Amiga doesn't really make it more Amiga or less Amiga, the fact remains that there is quite a decent amount of software that will take advantage of RTG cards, workbench itself runs a heck of a lot faster than it does in AGA, looks a lot nicer as well.
So I have the best of both worlds in my system, 060 with RTG when I need/want it. Most everything plays extremely well in AGA (if they're 'native' games), and ports like the ones Novacoder have been doing work great either way. I'll be honest, for the most part, the RTG video modes have been used by me mostly to log onto aminet or wherever to download utilities. It's far easier and better to use Workbench at 1920x1080 with all the separate windows that it opens, than it is at 640x512, not to mention occasionally running into the fun times of running out of chip memory.
So while I'll readily play AGA/ECS/OCS games, I prefer the utilities to be in a bit higher resolution.
Granted I could have hunted for a Zorro based graphics card, but then are those any more 'Amiga'?
slaapliedje
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beyond retro entusiasts? who would that be? regular mainstream users who want contemporary computing just dont come well along with windows, mac and linux? people who dont like multiprocessing, 3d acceleration, security, all that sort of things everybody takes for granted today, and who can resign on almost any of otherwise available software titles, just want their machine to be ppc?
People who want to live in houses would also not like to live in one that is only just been framed, so do you look at the frame only and say it's not worth bothering trying to finish the house because of that?
now you are telling it yourself, right? little reward.
In response to your suggestion that those who might want to see progression are being fleeced purposely, or words to that effect.
there is nothing opposed to retro to be found here. no neologisms and new speech is going to help explain that.
Whether that is the case at the moment or not is irrelevant and does not prove one way or another that progression isn't possible or viable. However, I applaud your use of the word neologism.
apparently it isnt as obvious as it should be. there is no complementarity here. amiga nor any of the follow up alternatíves is not going to become mainstream let alone catch up. the gap is growing every week. it is illusionary.
I never really said mainstream, that is a very distant dream. However, a viable alternative system can still be relatively popular, it wasn't that long ago that Apple was facing annihilation and MacOS, while relevant in a supportive industry, was still very marginal. But my point is that I'm not trying to convince you that you are wrong, it is your opinion and you have every right to it, but others hold differing opinions based on a different and, some would say in their opinion, more valid perspective, one viewpoint may just be pessimistic and the other optimistic. Of course, it is easier to be proven 'right' with a pessimistic viewpoint in these situations, and that's the general problem with naysaying, or naysayers - people who would rather be happy to be 'right' about something failing than be 'wrong' when something succeeds, which I find even more sad when the naysayers stand to benefit from success.
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I read that getting the specifications for PCI cost at least $1000 it may have cost more when there was only PCI.
At the same time there was AGP by intel, not sure if it cost anything back then to get the specs.
Is PCI fast enough to justify the extra cost?
At the time it was exactly the right choice. PCI was still readily available for many card types including video and cost less. AGP was video only.
Now as we go forward the question is wouldn't PCIe be good to implement for future boards. The question is, does anyone have the money to do it and is there enough market left?
-Nyle
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People who want to live in houses would also not like to live in one that is only just been framed, so do you look at the frame only and say it's not worth bothering trying to finish the house because of that?.
in germany there is a term for projects that have been framed for way too long. its "bauruine" or "investitionsruine". both of these contain the word "ruin":
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Investitionsruine#/media/File:Soda_Merklinde.jpg
thats exactly the state, we are talking about here.
In response to your suggestion that those who might want to see progression are being fleeced purposely, or words to that effect.
well then, to little reward to the project and to the fans, what reward the investors behind investitions being ruined from the start have seen is another matter, and not of popular knowledge usually.
Whether that is the case at the moment or not is irrelevant and does not prove one way or another that progression isn't possible or viable.
its very much of relevance, because there are people betting on this "progress" or whatever strange words you are trying to call it. time has proven for thousand times by now, that this "progression" is but a myth, in contrary to what whatever amiga ever was and remains is a solid fact.
I never really said mainstream, that is a very distant dream.
its not distant. it doesnt exist.
However, a viable alternative system can still be relatively popular, it wasn't that long ago that Apple was facing annihilation and MacOS, while relevant in a supportive industry, was still very marginal.
another nonsensical apple comparison, as usual. commodore may have been compared to apple, whatever result might be, hyperion can not. period.
But my point is that I'm not trying to convince you that you are wrong, it is your opinion and you have every right to it, but others hold differing opinions based on a different and, some would say in their opinion, more valid perspective, one viewpoint may just be pessimistic and the other optimistic.
another attempt at making everything relative. if everything is only a matter of opinion, none will ever be right, and no discussion may take place. conseqently, you may simply stay away from this topic, since your posts do not mean anything in the end.
Of course, it is easier to be proven 'right' with a pessimistic viewpoint in these situations, and that's the general problem with naysaying, or naysayers - people who would rather be happy to be 'right' about something failing than be 'wrong' when something succeeds, which I find even more sad when the naysayers stand to benefit from success.
your comment may apply to people who are "negative" in general, towards everything. unfortunatelly, im not one of them. im quite positive towards amiga and a number of amiga-projects, even not considering whether they fulfill my expectations or not, rather based on attitude and track of record of people behind them. this has nothing with speculating on "being right" one day, even though (thats scary!) i have been proven right almost in any case i remember to have commented on these forums so far.
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sometimes i get the impression that the policy is exactly that: purposedly not to let the userbase grow beyond what it is, only just drain all the cash it is able to offer. souns weird? yeah, it does. but on the plus side you can keep your secure place locked away from the outside world and keep dreaming what could be if it would be forever.
is it my duty to support that? i woulnt like to think so. i prefer to support, what gains my interest, not what others may demand of me for the sake of their interests. especially if this must involve bashing the genuine system, we all should be actually fans of.
Well said.
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I'd love more native Zorro 3 cards with an improved Buster that let the Z3 bus run at full speed.
Hmmm - when I built my A4kPPC I bought a Micronik BigTower with Zorro III busboard. When I bought the A4k mobo I ensured it had Buster 11.
With the Cyberstorm PPC I got the opportunity to use SCSI exclusively (UW & SCSI II), which made the system much more responsive due to generating virtually no CPU load during disk operations (HD, CD, DVD)/scanning/tape streaming.
Initially I had a CybervisionPPC with 8 mB graphics mem connected. But often I had to deal with graphics that required more graphics mem and so I looked for alternatives.
Amiga Zorro graphic boards were much too expensive for my taste (as well as soundcards and NICs) and so I decided to go the MediatorPCI route.
A wise decision!
I got a used Voodoo4 PCI graphics card for just 10 DM (roughly 5 €), a used Terratec 512i digital soundcard with optical output, as well as a new 10/100 mBit NIC, which were in the same price range.
Initially I also had an Elbox SpiderII USB 2.0 PCI fitted, but exchanged that later for a Deneb in a Zorro III slot for speed reasons.
Going the PCI route was the best thing that could happen to my A4k...
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I don't like it one bit, because it turns awesome Amigas into nothing but glue logic. I don't have an Amiga for that.
With all due respect, but this is your own fault - errrm - decision... ;)
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Really? Then tell me, what's the point of an Amiga with a graphics card, sound card and PPC cpu?
A much more eye-friendly picture on the monitor (I've ruined my eyes enough with the old, flickering OCS/AGA graphic modes on CBM monitors), much better sound and a bit more power over the pure 060 cards (talking about the CSPPC here)...
Where's the Amiga in that?
Get one and try it out yourself - I'm sure you'll reconsider your POV (at least if you want to do serious productivity work many hours per day)...
Want a practical machine? Use a peece, it's the only thing that makes sense.
I have several of them for tasks that require more power. Nevertheless, Amigas are more user-friendly for my taste...
Amigas need to retain their retro value, and they don't retain that if you start using them as glue logic.
No.
My Amigas need to work for me in a way I like.
I'm also involved in preserving steam locomotives.
There we also have some that say it would be better just to rework the old machines optically than to destroy their value by fitting non-original spare parts in order to bring them back into working condition.
I will never understand such POVs - non-working units are completely worthless from my POV...
So, yes, I like to use the old chipset in the old computer I like.
O.K. - if you want to spoil your eyes...
That's up to you.
When I need something more powerful, I'll use my peecee.
Here I can agree with you, as long as there is no Amiga system that offers the power I need.
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@Dandy
Good stuff! And in the real hacking spirit.
As for leaving ANYTHING stock, that is not for me either.
It always needs to be taken further.