Sonnet PPC PCI Card

[da9000]

The first resource I as a programmer would need is the technical docs (registers, memory map layout, any other info on PCI transactions, etc.) of the Sonnet card. That will be absolutely necessary to get it up and running.

I personally doubt AlexH is right on this one (although he usually is on technical matters), because if the card is a PCI compliant card and the Amiga PCI boards are PCI compliant (how can they not be, they are PCI bus boards afterall), I can't see a physical/electronic reason it wouldn't work. It [the reason] must all in the software and documentation.

A possibility is also that Sonnet supplied a binary-only library that Mac programmers had to use to access the card. If that library doesn't abide by any ABI [Application Binary Interface](other than Mac), then you're in a world of hell.

Want to start something? Talk to Sonnet, ask them for developer documentation. See if they have any NDA or libraries that you have to use. NEVER mention Amiga, but say it's needed for custom embedded systems that are themselves under NDA and you can't talk to them about it :-)

[da9000]

@AlexH:

You raise some good points about DMA mastering and I didn't know (as I've not owned a PCI bus board) that none could do DMA mastering. And I didn't see any "bad technology speak" on your part. I'd agree that it'd be nice to hear from Michael Boehmer on this matter.

Also the economics speculations make sense (needing a new Mediator, etc.)

I can also believe the possibility that they just wanted to ship without being fully compliant, due to the limited set of hardware that was supported (and apparently, would be supported), thus not being 100% PCI compliant.

As for dangling money infront of Sonnet, I believe that they probably didn't have enough to get Sonnet moved by it. Rememeber that in the big old organizations (well, I guess Sonnet ain't that big, but bigger than Elbox or Matay) it's more of a chore to do something than not to(*), unless they make a certain large percentage of money. So my guess is that yeah, Sonnet would give away source etc., if they had huge stock and they'd think it'd be worth it. Of course, anyone outside A.org and the Amiga scene knows the Amiga is "dead tech", therefore their immediate answer would be "no, it's dead tech".

As for licencing and stuff, not sure what the relationship is between Hyperion and Elbox. It seems that they're not good because if I was in their shoes (few and dying companies in a dying land), I'd consolidate or cooperate immediately.


* To add to this, it's like having a choice between 1 engineer going through old backups to find the Sonnet PPC source code, vs. fixing bugs in their newer products. Assuming this engineer is being paid a measly $80k, then they'd have to wager how many hours it would take him (more like days) to get this stuff together and update any docs needed, etc., etc., and any support, vs. who much value they'd be getting by making their latest accelerators better and faster for the hundreds of thousands of installed Mac G4s and G5s. If I was a decisionmaker at Sonnet, I'd say: work on new code. It's the only logical way, unfortunately.

[da9000]

@arnljot:

The unfortunate truth is that it's going to be very hard to get anybody to work on it. It's not easy work and requires a lot of hours. Most good developers/programmers/coders are already "taken" and you'd need a lot of money to convince them to spend the time. My belief is that it has to be a self-started project, and a project of love, much like Dennis' MiniMig.

What I *do* know for a fact is that to start a project you need to have access to certain things. For doing any kind of "driver work", that means docs to the hardware. For example, back in the Linux days I had found the register docs for the SiS6326 (or something like that - yes, very crappy) card, and because it was one of the few that I had the docs for, I decided to write my own driver for it (destined for DRI, but that's another LONG tale). If you or someone else can get the dev docs (and possibly tools, or source) from Sonnet, then you just made the possibility of that one person who'll make it their self-started project all of a sudden almost 100% reality (I personally think it'll be a matter of time - someone will start working on it).

Now if that self-starter doesn't have access to the docs and has to mess with "company politics" and such and such, guess what: they aren't likely to do it. They want to code, not deal with red tape.

PS. The FSF and FOSS communities (read: Linux) are very good at extracting documentation because they're very big, and I'm sure they'd have interest in supporting as much Mac hardware as possible, so it might be worth it to look in there for possible efforts to contact Sonnet and possible availability of the docs.

Lastly, some companies will sell you the documentation/tools, so it might be interesting to see if Sonnet is willing to sell and how much. Then the first "bounty" can go into getting those docs.

Sorry for the "negativity", but it's the reality and the way things are, unfortunately :-(

The only way to move forward is to realize these and try to find sensible solutions around them.

PS. Just read your last post: you're doing well with cynical optimism! :-)  And I think your bounty is a great offer for which there's need. I've been personally trying to get any PPC hardware for my Amiga to do some PPC coding, but haven't had any success, so I'm sure there are plenty of other coders in similar situations.

[da9000]

@mschulz:

I will ignore the apparent attitude in your reply because it seems you know more about this stuff, and it's smarter for me to learn.

So to briefly address your points:

mschulz wrote:
Ask them. Last time I spoke with the main engineer of Sonnet card he was very happy to answer my questions.

Since I'm not the one looking at starting this project, I've had no desire to contact them. However I'm glad to hear that they were friendly and reachable (how did you get access to said engineer, if I may ask?)

mschulz wrote:
The Sonnet card is an awfully simple design. The MPC106 serves as the CPU to PCI and Memory to PCI bridge. All information you need is in Freescale/Tundra docs. Including the doorbell register which is used to trigger interrupt on the Sonnet card.

I've never been involved in those failed projects so I didn't know. Glad to know though. Could you provide pointers to the Freescale/Tundra docs?

Furthermore, if said information is all that's needed, what are you speculations as to why nobody has jumped the gun already? I'm very curious to know, since you seem to have followed these projects and know of the simple design of the Sonnet card.

mschulz wrote:
That was only your speculation, wasn't it? Mac programmers did not need any library to use the sonnet card. The card took almost whole hardware over and the onboard CPU was not seen by software anymore. It was only used to bypass the interrupts up to the sonnet card (using the doorbell register)

Yes, I don't believe I stated that it wasn't speculation. As I've not worked with this particular hardware (or related ones) and thus I wouldn't know and wouldn't insinuate otherwise.


PS. I'm pretty sure I've read your blog post before, but it's been a while. I'll re-read it again - I'm sure you cover some of those points. Please shed as much knowledge on this subject as you can, and I'd be curious to hear your responses to AlexH's speculations. Because if there's something to learn, it's to see what went wrong with Elbox's project and try to avoid it next time (for whoever may wish to pursue such a project)

[da9000]

@arnljot:

I thank you for your suggestion and might take you up on it if I feel I have time to do anything. That's unfortunately one thing that can't be easily bought or had :-(

[da9000]

@jimmyboy:

I think a point that you and many others are missing (and you're not to be blamed for it, you're just different), is that certain people (like me) like the old form factor. We want to keep the Amiga looking like an Amiga. A PC box with a Ghz fast G4 running even AmigaOS4 doesn't "feel" like an Amiga to some of us. Perhaps that's a problem with us. I don't know. Perhaps it's our inner most psyche saying to us: look, it's OVER man. GAME OVER. The Amiga will never become a mainstream platform again, in which case we settle with what we've got (our old skool form factor) and try to squeeze the juice out of it. I don't know what's right or wrong, but I know that's how it is sometimes.

However, what I also know is that BOTH worlds can co-exist: you can have a PC-boxed new age Amiga, but if someone as clever as Phase5/DCE/Sonnet comes along and makes a nice pluggable expansion card for desktop Amigas, then maybe they too can enjoy some of that sheer Ghz power.

Of course the problem is always numbers... and unfortunately for the Amiga case, it's numbers of both classic Amigans and "modern" Amigans. We've got neither :-(

DAMN YOU COMMODORE! Maybe you burn in hell!