ARM or x86 with FPGA emulator

[TeamBlackFox]

Sure biggun, but it takes longer to have those instructions processed. The small amount of registers, combined with the amount of wasted silicon to useless backwards compatibility, and the overly complicated instruction set is just terrible. It makes a definitely orthogonal architecture like m68k seem RISC by comparison.

It takes about 40 cycles for the average x86/x64 CPU to access memory due to the size of the pipeline, a MIPS R16000 can do it in 11. In addition a benchmark compared a contemporary AMD Phenom to a R16000A, and it found they take about the same amount of time using a single thread to do a task. The AMD edges out as the number of threads increase till you hit the limit of CPUs a single computer can hold, then the R16000A takes the lead again with its ultra fast craylink clustering ability. Craylinked x86 computers are very uncommon whereas the R16000 is deployed with it almost exclusively. The reason why the R16000 can hold out so well has to do with its massive L2 cache in the 1GHz version it is 8MB, and it has a very streamlined instruction set.

Mikhail Kalashnikov, the late designer of the AK47 once said " All that is too complex is unnecessary and it is simple that is needed. " there is much to be said about this in the computing field.

[TeamBlackFox]

I've never heard of them.  There's ONE vendor on Amazon named "Revolutionary Books" with a 33% rating (3 reviews in the past 12 months) selling a Lemote netbook for $1500, and also for $2500?  This is the architecture you think they should port to??  I seriously doubt you'd ever get one if you ordered from that Amazon vendor.

BeOS failed to right it's ship even after porting to x86 because their sales were atrocious and Apple did not save them.  AmigaOS sales are atrocious now, so what's the difference?  Hyperion somehow seems to survive by selling a handful of licenses (if that) per month, which Be could not do.  

I'm not saying AmigaOS will survive long term by porting to x86, but it certainly won't survive on the path it's on now, and certainly would not survive if ported to ANOTHER obscure platform like you are suggesting.

I'm not a fan of the NG systems in general - I don't see the point, unless something unique can be brought to the table.  But, if you're going to do SOMETHING, don't spend incredible resources to just move sideways like you are suggesting.

Amiga was different because it was better.  There's nothing better about current NG systems, hardware or software - they are worse.  Porting to an obscure platform does not change that.  Porting to x86 could at least put them in the ballpark hardware wise, and resources could then be devoted to software instead.

Look what the move to x86 did for the Mac?  Saved the platform.  Of course the Amiga market doesn't have Apple-like resources, but with WinUAE a sandbox already exists to run classic apps on x86 - and that's half the battle.

AROS isn't successful because:
 - It's not "blessed" with the Amiga name
 - It tries to support generic x86 hardware and does not have "official" hardware behind it.
 - There are not enough resources devoted to it.

Just an FYI, Amiga and BeOS objectively are two approaches to the same question " How simple can an OS be and still be useful? " neither is objectively better than the other. If you yourself aren't interested in NG Amiga hardware then you're doing nothing more than trolling this topic. Don't put out ideas that will potentially ruin what's left of the community if you have no intention of taking responsibility for your ideas, which your lack of interest clearly indicates.

Furthermore, you don't understand that putting a proprietary OS that lacks most features new users are familiar with on the same ballgame as Windows, OS X and GNU/Linux will result in them being trampled.

The reason the BSD communities are still around are that they mutually assist each other, are ported to several architectures which diversify the risk, and they aren't money driven.

Going after an idea with a gamble such as the entire OS and company at stake is an unacceptable risk, even if the supposed pay off is big. You wouldn't gamble your house in Las Vegas or Cancun Mexico if you had a wife and kids living there was the no second dwelling. As such, the Amiga community is spread too thin for diversifying to work. Instead there needs to be an affordable, high performance niche piece of kit which both NG solutions can agree to support.

There is just too much risk.

[TeamBlackFox]

??
Where did you get these numbers from?
These are not memory access times.

Sorry, I phrased that poorly:

To read/write 64 bits of data from or to the main memory:

AMD Phenom: 33-40 cycles on average
MIPS R16000A: 11-15 cycles on average.

I apologise for the confusion.

[TeamBlackFox]

No actually not.

Thats the point.

The same is true of 68k/Phoenix.

Phoenix for example can do this instruction in a single cycle:
ADD.L #$123456,($40,A0,D0*

How many instrutions does your typical RiSK need for this?
Exactly what the 68K does in a single Cycle the RISC needs generally  5-6 instructions to do the same.

So? The fact is that while you can feed those into the processor all at once, it takes multiple cycles to do those instructions. The other thing is with larger amounts of registers RISC CPUs can push more data at once. Sure you're correct these instructions have to be done one at a time, but RISC can do those instructions with minimal overhead.

Also let me remind you: memory is cheap now. We don't need a CPU that works direct from memory - working load/store is fine now especially with the norm of NUMA technology and decentralised DMA.

[TeamBlackFox]

LOL, responsibility for my ideas?  If I wanted responsibility for my ideas I'd put my money where my mouth is and fund a project.

I'm not interested in current NG products, but of course if NG becomes more accessible and practical then I may be interested.

Then you just supported my point that you're here to troll and nothing more.

They are being trampled now.  The only difference would be the cost of entry would be far lower and future development costs would be less - after, of course, the cost to port to x86.

All that needs to be done is increase the cost/performance ratio of the hardware, I have lost faith in POWER considering the cost of an IBM POWER server, and the lack of top of the line designs from POWER6+ and up.

Be tried to be another x86 operating system.  I'm not suggesting that - don't bring your OS to x86.  I'm saying pick an inexpensive x86 board and bring it to your OS - more like what Apple did than what Be did.

Yeah, because everyone should be like Apple. Bunch of garbage they produce since Leopard. No, just no. That will fail just as hard.

OK, so why are you suggesting a port to an obscure, obsolete platform?

MIPS and SPARC aren't obsolete.

[TeamBlackFox]

BeOS failed on the x86 for the same reason it failed on the PPC, because it had no software legacy... Apple have been able to migrate through two CPU architecture changes and an entire Operating system change, simply because the have a software legacy that people wanted to run and they made sure would run.

Microsoft only survived as a near monopoly for so long only because they had a software legacy, and they stayed compatible with it through their OS architecture changes.

Yeah but both drop compatibility relatively quick. Stuff from the 2000/XP era won't always run due to ABI changes, and since its closed, recompiling against the new ABI isn't possible. Likewise with Apple Rosetta is dead. Apple is a status symbol, it is a symbol of eliteness and that's why stupid people buy it. People with brains like me use Android and cheaper alternatives that work just as well.

[TeamBlackFox]

Matthey, I'll check it out. Thanks. I've been meaning to get a faster CPU, but that will take a while with my money.

And in regards to that tidbit on 32 vs 64-bit overhead, I  find 32-bit unacceptable for a modern computer. While many Amigans may be happy with that: I will not be, because I primarily use BSD. I have no use for AmigaOS as my daily driver. It is a distraction  and game machine, nothing more.

I agree though that ARM may be a decent target, but I'd have to wait one more ISA generation because I'm not interested in portable computers much, I want workstations and servers. I own a Nexus 7 and a LG Optimus F6 but I'd never want that to be running AmigaOS or AROS as they're already buggy enough. Much of the time they just function as portable media players and remote terminals

[TeamBlackFox]

Kremlar, you've worn my patience thin. This is my last response to your post on this thread. You're trolling and I don't appreciate the smart attitude and the high horse approach.

Apple produces expensive rubbish both in hardware and software. Its just an overpriced paperweight running a Mach kernel with proprietary bits and dressed up to look like UNIX. Lemote systems are decent machines, especially from an open hardware perspective. Quality with the first few were lacking but that has somewhat subsided since. I don't care for the main OS that runs on them, but their open nature makes them easily accessible and malleable to various applications.

On the desktop market, SPARC and MIPS are irrelevant, yes, but obsolete? No. There are plenty of chips that would make fine desktop computers. The pieces are out there, it is just up to someone to put them together.

Anyways conversation over. Troll somewhere else, shoo!

[TeamBlackFox]

Both drop compatibility when developers have caught up with the new architecture. That's simply good business sense.

Apple Rossetta is dead because it doesn't make any sense to keep it going... I don't even have any 32bit x86 Apple apps anymore, let alone any PPC apps.

People buy what they can afford which suits their needs, I'm sure your device suits your needs and fits in your budget, my device does the same. There is no need to be pejorative about anyone's choice.

The only reason I give a damn is because their choices influence my range of choices.

I agree that Apple Rosetta has no point, but MS still has people running XP and below! Rather than abruptly cut off the stragglers after a warning or two, they end up weeding them out by hand. It makes no business sense to me, but I don't care for collectivist business approaches anyways.

The fact I can run DOS on a modern x64 laptop is laughably retarded. I still to this day find the addressing modes of x86 making no sense.

[TeamBlackFox]

I didn't call 68k users trolls.

I do realise NG platforms are a minority use. As far as the people using the legacy AmigaOS gp, they're free to do what they want. I've got a 3000, but I don't do much with it.

Anyways, SPARC does pretty well versus Intel, but I don't know enough about hardware to articulate it. I was an electrical engineer in college but quit due to academic issues so I don't know how to exactly compare them properly. The only reason Intel/AMD CPUs are so powerful is the amount of money poured into them. It is like putting a V12 in a Geo Metro. You can do it, but you'd be better off going for system properly designed. A lot more sustainable than modding the hell out of a Geo Metro.

As far as the future of NG Amiga goes I'm unable to participate until that cost/performance ratio goes down, and if I'm not gonna be able to do that on RISC, then I'm going to stick with platforms that show more promise to me on RISC.

CISC just doesn't make sense anymore and there is support for this in the simplicity of RISC. Look at anything else engineering related and you'll see that generally the simpler solution is better.

CISC vs RISC
AR15 vs AK-M
Systemd vs rc init
PlayStation vs Saturn
Gasoline vs Diesel engine

[TeamBlackFox]

My favourite development language is objective-c and I like the power of a 64bit CPU in my mobile devices... Apple gives me both of these things, oh and their OS is a Unix, it's POSIX certified.

I've been over this: Certified UNIX is different from UNIX in the descendant sense.

Kernel is different ( fork of Mach called XNU - X is not UNIX )
Mach is a microkernel developed at CMU, it isn't UNIX which was developed at Bell Labs then forked by Berkeley and AT&T proper as BSD and System V.

NEXTSTEP, Darwin and OSX are POSIX compliant, but not UNIX in the descendant sense. You can dress up Mach all you want but it isn't UNIX.

By this token, AIX, Tru64 and other UNIXes which use fully custom kernels aren't UNIX either in my sense and that is OK in my book.

Objective C is better than C++ and C# but there are some reservations I have about its design.

[TeamBlackFox]

BSD and IRIX for servers definitely! I'm just saying I like workstations and servers a lot more than portables. I know AmigaOS isn't a server suitable OS. The attitude of the OS 4 devs isn't as bad as some GNU/Linux people. Now you see why I dislike GNU/Linux, in the Arch forums they censor alternative init systems and prevent people from denouncing systemd. That and the Gentoo craze are two reasons I have no trust from GNU and co.

Speaking of ARM though, AMD did announce an Opteron that is ARM based, if it is fast enough I'd support a move to ARM by either NG solution. That would be more my style as AMD already have NUMA clone bus systems and a powerful RISC on that would be badass!

[TeamBlackFox]

Biggun,

You're not correct at all, because the majority of designs that are getting notice besides RISC are VLIW and EDGE. In VLIW's case it is like super-RISC and even adopts some CISCy advantages.  VLIW is register-register/load-store architecture and basically just adds instruction level parallelism.

EDGE is another way to add instruction parallism by adding one advantage CISC genuinely has: variable length instruction words.

Anyways no, RISC is going to always be simpler and more efficient for most forms of computing. Even x86 cores nowadays break instructions down into simpler ones before processing them.

Of course, biggun you can always try proving me wrong by building this super orthogonal CPU and trying to benchmark it against a processor of the same application that is RISC. I'll be waiting.

[TeamBlackFox]

In addition PSXPhill,

The R16000A is not at 200MHz, it starts at 500MHz and goes all the way to 1GHz. This article was comparing the 1GHz version to some AMD Phenom, I don't know AMD nomenclature so I'm not going to try looking the exact model up.