potential PPC Amiga REAL CHEAP

[MskoDestny]

I can't believe this thread is still alive.

if the bios code can be patched (which it can) and the code to access the usb port is in the bios, then any app can be written to do the same thing.

The qoob is a USB slave and cannot be connected to another USB slave (like a keyboard or hard drive) no matter what kind of software is behind it.  You need a USB host, which the qoob lacks.

I also don't see what the point is, unless you've managed to convince Amiga, Inc. to license OS 4 for the Gamecube.  If you're going to just hack it to run unlicensed I can't imagine why you just wouldn't shoot for the Mac mini.  It's relatively inexpensive and already has all the necessary stuff to be a proper computer.

[MskoDestny]

lou_dias wrote:

OK, bear with me on the problems with it being a slave.

are you saying the the 2MB flashable memory shows up like a Removable drive on windows like plugging in a camera?

I'm sure it shows up as a device of some sort, probably just in Device Manager though.  I doubt it would show up as a flash drive since that would imply a filesystem which firmware isn't likely to have.

Also, I've seen usb keyboard that act as a usb hub.  They offer usb ports right on the keyboard so I still don't see the limitation there.

A USB keyboard with a hub is essentially just a hub with a keyboard attached to one of the ports.

 A serial bus supports I/O.  In AND Out.  Otherwise, plugging it in would never register with Windows that a device was plugged in.

Yes there's bidirectional communication, but the USB protocol is host-centric.  The USB host requests data from it's slaves and they send it, the opposite isn't possible.

Yes, the base Mac Mini is cheap ($499)...why would a windows user buy a Mac to be an Amiga?

Why would a Windows user buy a GC and all the requisite debris to run Amiga OS on it?  Heck, even if they have a Gamecube why are they going to buy the rest of the stuff to turn it into a computer running some OS they've never even heard of?

Also, porting issues aren't much different there.  Since I already own a GC my costs for the BBA, ps/2 adapters, SD card reader and Qoob chip add up to $120.

You forgot to add in the price of an SD card.  A 2GB card costs ~$140 at newegg. I suppose you could go lower, but the lack of substantial local storage would be a nuisance.  Sure there's networked volumes, but if someone has got a computer to share the volume why don't they just use that computer.  Obviously things are different for your personal desires, but you seem to be suggesting that this kind of solution would have broad appeal. $120 + $140 + $99 (cost of gamecube) is $359.  For $140 someone could buy a Mac Mini that would utterly destroy a GC computer performance-wise.

GC is a niche machine...blah blah blah...with a 20 million unit installed base...

But how many of those people have all the necessary other junk, a small percentage I'd wager.  Most people aren't going to go and spend money on hardware for their game console so they can try some OS they've never heard of.  You'd get more traction by making PearPC run OS 4.

[MskoDestny]

Well 10Mb/s may be fast for internet access, but it's incredibly slow for pulling files of any consequence over the network.  Even 100Mb/s feels slow compared to a local disk.

That said, it would be neat to see AROS running on a Gamecube, but someone has to port it and I don't think it's even running under Linux PPC or OS X hosted yet.

Dreamcast would be a fun port too.  It has proper keyboard and mouse peripherals, boots homebrew without a modchip, and even has a fairly high speed ethernet card (though it will cost you more than a new Gamecube).  It also uses a little endian processor which might make porting a little easier.  Of course, no one's even attempted any kind of SuperH port let alone one for the Dreamcast.

[MskoDestny]

The primary advantage of the Dreamcast is that you don't need a modchip opening up the audience somewhat.  While there are certainly a lot of people with Gamecubes, only a relatively small percentage of them have modchips.  I think it very likely that there are more Dreamcast owners than there are owners of modded Gamecubes.  It also has the advantage of being a very well understood platform whereas some of the Nintendo hardware isn't completely figured out yet (at least so I remember seeing somewhere in this thread).

Part of my interest is due to the fact that the SH-4 is the fastest chip (apart from x86) I've come across available in a non-BGA package.  BGA is a very hobbyist unfriendly package as you need X-Ray equipment to verify that it's been soldered correctly and there aren't as many nifty tricks to solder it on a budget in the first place.  PowerPC is all BGA, ColdFire is BGA, ARM/XScale chips with comparable performance are all BGA. As an aspiring hobby computer designer that makes the SH-4 a rather sexy chip. I think it would be kind of cool to try and put together some kind of custom SFF AROS box, or maybe a STB or handheld device.  A Dreamcast port would make porting AROS to such a device that much easier.

I suppose part of it is just the Sega fanboy in me shining through.  The Dreamcast is a neat little system that died more from mismanagement than on the merits of the hardware, much like the Amiga.

Frankly, if we're talking about actual usefulness as a computer, the XBox makes the most sense.  It has a hard drive, built-in ethernet (and it's not crippled like on the GC) and hacking USB mice and keyboards to work with it is trivial.  Until someone comes up with a WOS, AOS4, or MOS wrapper for AROS there's not really any advantage to running it on PowerPC

[MskoDestny]

lou_dias wrote:
My argument against the Xbox is thatt for $150 these days, I can already buy a full PC that outperforms the XBOX.

The cheapest I've been able to buy a motherboard and processor for is $100.  Add in a hard drive, case, power supply and optical drive and I'm easily over $150.  Besides, add in all the stuff you've added to your GC and I'm sure the Gamecube's price advantage goes away.

Also, I already own an Athlon 3200+ PC with a Gig of RAM, why would I want an XBOX?

Why would you want a Gamecube for a computer?  It's no more powerful than the XBox, probably less for certain tasks. Apart from having a cute little box that fits under your TV, there's not much point in using either as a computer if you've already got a faster one.

The Amiga community decided they wanted a PPC-based Amiga.  The GC gives them that at a low cost of entry.

I think the Amiga community is rather divided on what they want. Some want PowerPC machines, some want x86 machines (as seen by the development of AROS), some want ColdFire machines. There are at least a handful that have moved on and think that trying to bring the Amiga back is a waste of time. From a practical point of view, PowerPC makes sense if you want to run some of the PowerPC native Amiga software; however, at the moment AROS has no ability to run any of this, even if you get it running on a PPC machine. Someone needs to write an appropriate compatibility layer.

You don't need a modchip to run homebrew code on a GC.  Phantasy Star Online attempts to download a new executable from the broadband adapter, this is where you can trick it to run your own code and what started the homebrew revolution on the GC.

On the Dreamcast I just stick the disc in and it boots.  Can't get much easier than that. No funky exploits, no wires, no modchips, it just works.

[MskoDestny]

I'd like to see how you plan to convince Amiga Inc. to port AOS4 to the Gamecube when they have thus far expressed little interest in porting to PowerPC Macs.  They're no more proprietary than a Gamecube and make a lot more sense as a computer.

lou_dias wrote:
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1447090&CatId=118

That's a refurb (i.e. used computer) and it's only below $200 after a mail-in rebate which are horribly unreliable (and at the very least slow) even from TigerDirect with their little gurantee.

by the time you spend money on a bigger hard drive for the Xbox, how much have you spent?

Why would I need a bigger hard drive?  8GB is enough for AROS and I could always use your network drive strategy.  Besides, current XBoxes actually ship with a 20GB drive.  It's just partitioned to 8GB.

I don't want a Gamecube for a computer, I want AOS4 on cheap hardware and that's the cheapest.  Only buy being affordable can the community grow.  It's also easy to program for.  The whole 'unknown' and 'propriety' issue is dead.  The homebrew people have documented this hardware very well.   How else would Linux, emulators, media players and even a gcc compiler be able to run on this system ALREADY.

None of those require a very complete understanding of the hardware. You just need to know where the memory is, how the processor works (largely a known entity since it's mostly a standard PPC chip) and where to access the framebuffer. As I understand it there aren't any decent 3D drivers fo GC Linux.

supposedly there is an ongoing AROS ppc port...

There is, but it doesn't work yet and when it does it still won't run programs written for AOS4, MOS, or WarpOS/PowerUp. A compatability layer still needs to be written.

Well I imagine the average homebrew developer isn't above doing the trivial things needed to get their code to run on whatever system they choose.

The problem isn't the developers, it's the end users. How many people are going to go through the trouble of getting homebrew booted on a GC to try out some hacked version of AOS4 or a GC port of AROS?

[MskoDestny]

lou_dias wrote:
Well, let me ask you this?  What person who is used to Wintel is going to abandon the PC for an A1?  This is a niche hobbyist's market.  Until a hobbyist can use AOS hardware and software daily without the need for Windows or OS X, the Amiga market will never grow.

The Amiga market won't grow until there is a compelling reason for people to switch. The only thing I see pushing people off of Wintel is fear of viruses and spyware, but I haven't seen that push anyone to the Amiga. Mac or Linux maybe, but not Amiga. AOS4 or AROS on the Gamecube won't change that. Even a more mature version of AROS for the PC won't have much of an effect without other forces coming into play.

[MskoDestny]

AROS PPC is working in some form now to at least some extent.  I think it's a linux hosted version.  Not sure how much is actually working as I was too lazy to read the whole discussion on the mailing list.

[MskoDestny]

Don't most operating systems use an exception/software interrupt for OS calls? How does Amiga OS do it? Short of everything running in supervisor mode I don't see any way around it.

[MskoDestny]

lou_dias wrote:
Amazing news from www.maxconsole.net

BREAKING NEWS: Viper-GC Extreme Details Emerge!

We've received a few pictures of Viper GC Extreme from the Viper Team. It will come in two parts. The chip itself will have 16Mbit flash, two connectors (programming & GC wires) and extended features compatible with Viper GC. The other part is the Viper USB Adapter. It can be used to flash the Viper GC Extreme and regular Viper GC. But here comes the kick-ass part: it can be plugged in the Modem/BBA slot of the GC to provide USB full-speed bidirectionnal communication. We're told it is extremely easy & powerful for coders and that a few lines of code are enough to send or received data.

That's everything!

Except it probably makes the Gamecube a USB slave and not a USB host. Unlike firewire, USB is a host centric protocol and two slave devices cannot talk to each other. So assuming I'm correct this would not allow you to attach say a USB hard drive.

I'd say 24 + 16 MB of ram will let you run 3 or 4 "modern" apps at the same time before memory starts becoming an issue...

If you scroll down, you'll notice the machine in question has 256MB of RAM. Looking at the top screen where no programs are running you'll notice that only 205,307,280 bytes are free which comes out to about 196MB. That's 60MB of RAM being consumed before he even starts a single foreground application. I really don't see how that's going to fit into the GC's memory.

AROS would fit quite well and there's even a small chance it might see a Gamecube port someday (You could alway start a bounty after all).

[MskoDestny]

lou_dias wrote:
how does that work?  Do I have to put up the money up front in some AROS-dev team controlled account or do I just pay up when it's completed.

I think the money is given up front to prevent people from backing out at the last minute. I would start a thread over at aros-exec.org to refine the wording of your bounty before submission and get the exact procedure.

Storage is not an issue with me anyway as a network file server can be purchased stand-alone or running off my PC.  I already know it's  more than fast enough despite what some people on this site will tell you.  If it's fast enough for the business environment, it's fast enough for you and me.

Keep in mind that network support in AROS is somewhat immature. You can use FTP, but I'm not sure whether there is a SMB or NFS client yet. Hard to say what kind of networking it will have by the time the port is done.

Author says there will be a host and slave mode:
http://www.gcdev.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=1511

Too bad it doesn't use the Hi Speed port the Gameboy Player uses. As it stands it would seem that the only way to have USB and Ethernet would be to use a USB ethernet adapter which has the disadvantage of additional overhead and not working with current software compatible with the BBA.

That just makes no sense. If you want to code anything for worldwide usage, you need a license from nintendo to do it, if not, all the efforts would be illegal(remember accolade case vs. sega?).

Accolade largely won that case. The only thing that got them into trouble is they didn't follow proper clean room procedures when they did their reverse engineering and copied some of Sega's code verbatim. There's nothing illegal about making homebrew for game consoles as long as you don't violate copyright in the process.

[MskoDestny]

That SD card cannot be used as a USB host. It's just an SD card that can double as a USB flash drive.

[MskoDestny]

lou_dias wrote:
At work this week, I witnessed a 64MB Windows Mobile PDA running internet explorer.  The system has no hard drive or extra memory in it other than the built-in 192k ROM.  Cache was only invented to load pages you visit often faster back then.  With today's internet access speeds, a web cache is not required.

I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure most Windows Mobile PDAs have more than 192K of Flash and/or ROM to boot off of.

That said, unless you plan on running Windows Mobile on your Gamecube, I don't see how this is particularly relevant to whether or not the Gamecube can do anything useful running Amiga OS 4 (or even linux for that matter) internetwise. The Nokia 770 Internet tablet (which runs linux) supposedly struggles with some pages with 64MB of RAM.

AROS will run in a tiny memory frootprint, but it doesn't currently have anything that remotely resembles a modern web browser.

[MskoDestny]

The extra 16MB of RAM is not directly accessible by the CPU. You can only access it through DMA. This makes it okay for swap space or disk cache, but useless for general purpose memory. You're pretty much stuck with just the main 24MB.

On my windows machine, Firefox uses about 26MB of RAM to view the front page of Ars Technica. Sites that use more flash or more images will likely consume more RAM. I believe even Minimo (the Firefox for portables project) is targeted at devices with at least 32MB of RAM.

[MskoDestny]

lou_dias wrote:
Well, not every web page contains Flash, Javascript, VBscript, streaming media, etc...  There's nothing wrong with plain HTML.  Multiview can display plain HTML with the html.datatype.  For a semi-portable system like I envision, it's enough.

Well if all you want is to run an antiquated browser under AROS or UAE I don't think anyone will argue with it being possible.

You guys are trying to acheive a monumental step forward.  Even OS 4 is not on par with XP or OS X.  So there is no need for that comparison.  The most appealing feature of OS 4 is that it uses a much faster cpu than classic Amigas but isn't bloated like "current" OSes.  So it retains that Amiga "response".

Why bring OS4 into the argument. It won't run on the Gamecube. It uses more than 24MB of RAM, Hyperion isn't going to port it, and you probably can't legally run the current version on the GC even if you could get it to work.

Amiga OS is a fast single-user OS.  I don't need all the features of os 'xxx'.  I just need to run what I tell it to and do it quickly.  The beauty of the GC is it's very portable.  With an SD card, you can take your OS and apps on the road without worrying about heads hitting platters on a hard drive.

Or you could just get an old laptop and stick a flash drive in place of the hard drive.

Right, but it is directly accessible by the DSP because that's what it was designed for.  So you can store sound data there and play it without taking away from the 24MB or cpu power.

That's great for games, but it's useless for running normal software like web-browsers and the like. They're all programmed to load sound data into main memory because that's the way it works on most computers (Amiga software might load it into chip memory, but since there's not a 1:1 correlation between chipmem and the GC's DSP RAM, you can't take advantage of it).

So to say it's unusable isn't accurate.

I didn't say it was unusable. I said it was useless as general purpose RAM.

Again, developers have used it as a ramdisk...

Which gives you a really fast fixed disk, but not more RAM for the CPU to use.

Data from the highspeed parrallel port can go directly there.

Which is great for improving I/O performance, but still does nothing to solve the limitations of having only 24MB of main memory.