Vampire, Gotek, 68000, misteries, doubts, questions...

[grond]

@Thomas Richter
I have head this before, but we (where I worked) had both a amiga 2500 (ie an A2000 with an A2630 board) and an A2000 with a GVP board with 50 Mhz 68030 board, (was using lightwave and the toaster).  I never really had much issue with 030.

The 030 is almost identical to the 020. I don't see how 020 software would break on an 030. Even the 256 bytes of data cache that got added from the 020 to the 030 shouldn't cause any problems as they are write-through and the 256 bytes of instruction cache were already present in the 020 which is why the OS should clear the instruction cache when loading and dispatching code (a process which essentially is self-modifying code).

[grond]

I read that the Vampire is a pumped (in speed) 68000 and not a 68020/030/040/060 emulation.

That's not correct. The Vampire is basically an enhanced 060 with full 020 (the most complex of them all) compatibility. The only relevant piece missing for now is the MMU (which is there but not accessible by user software).

[grond]

But "complexity" is not a matter of the number of instructions.

I obviously was referring to the ISA, not the complexity of the circuit. Obviously more recent processors tend to be more complex than their predecessors. This already because the number of transistors is growing exponentially. Did I use the word "obvious" already?