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Author Topic: Open source PPC laptop bounty  (Read 8371 times)

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Offline bloodline

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Re: Open source PPC laptop bounty
« on: June 25, 2017, 02:03:14 PM »
Good luck! I of course have little interest in such a device (since ARM have competently filled that gap), but I am curious as to which PPC variant you plan to use?

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Re: Open source PPC laptop bounty
« Reply #1 on: June 28, 2017, 10:50:45 AM »
Quote from: utri007;827617
Only Linux PPC is promised, but it is produced By aCube. So if it materializes there is a good change it will have OS4 or any other amigsh OS.

Just so we are clear, this is a bounty for an as yet unbuilt low power Linux box... I already have of of those (several in fact), it's called a Raspberry Pi. What does this bring to the table?

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Re: Open source PPC laptop bounty
« Reply #2 on: June 28, 2017, 06:10:02 PM »
Quote from: billt;827703
I have 2 or 3 pi's ad well. They are not laptops, and they do not run OS4.


There are plenty of laptop/mobile computing projects for the Raspberry Pi, and as for running AOS4, this project doesn't do that either. It may never do that.

If you want to run AOS4, then you would be better served by getting a cheap pc laptop and running the latest WinUAE. That is perfect for emulting a PPC Amiga, and excitingly/upsetingly (depending upon your position), it runs faster than my actual BlizzPPC.

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And there woukd be a lot more to do to fix either of those two weaknesses than with this poc laptop project. Sorry, but I dont even understand the comparison on context of potential laptip for Amigaos...


This project is for a low power Linux Box, the Raspberry Pi already does that for £30.
« Last Edit: June 28, 2017, 06:17:21 PM by bloodline »
 

Offline bloodline

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Re: Open source PPC laptop bounty
« Reply #3 on: June 28, 2017, 07:10:12 PM »
Quote from: Iggy;827711
Yes, but not as well as a recent AmigaOne, and with the limitations inherent with emulating older hardware.


I'm sorry, I am unaware of any "limitations inherent with emulating older hardware"?

WinUAE, is far more compatible with my Amiga software than any single real Amiga, and I have great difficulty finding a TV which will even accept a 15Khz RGB signal anymore... not to mention the nightmare that is 27 year old floppy disks.

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Re: Open source PPC laptop bounty
« Reply #4 on: June 29, 2017, 10:04:26 AM »
Quote from: psxphill;827732
display and input latency.

An issue maybe 13 years ago, but not today. I use UAE for music software, so I'm very aware of latency issues.

Even the cheapest PC hardware (or Mac) can run Amiga emulation without latency issues.

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and you can run uae on a PPC laptop as well, to give you the same classic experience while hopefully running PPC software at least one order of magnitude faster.
Given the performance of the specified PPC CPU, I would would doubt the "order or magnitude faster" claim. I would grant you that using a PPC would certainly be an order of magnitude more expensive.

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Europe is full of them. Outside europe then get an RGB to component converter. http://www.amiga.org/forums/showthread.php?t=67929 or http://gglabs.us/node/983

Living in Europe (at least until the fascists push through their Brexit agenda), I am away of hardwarei could buy. But again I'm not prepared to waste valuable Apartment space on a TV for one purpose.
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Get a gotek.

But neither of those two last points is relevant to a PPC laptop.

No, I was replying to Iggy who was trying (rather pathetically), to suggest that this Linux PPC laptop would be in any way better and more useful than an inexpensive PC (or a pretty MacBook) for use by an Amiga user.

This Linux PPC laptop is little more than a vanity project, which offers us as Amiga users very little.

Offline bloodline

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Re: Open source PPC laptop bounty
« Reply #5 on: July 02, 2017, 01:50:13 PM »
Quote from: wawrzon;827738
a lot of stuff is based on vanity, especially around here. but so far i dont see anything i need to respect the ppc notebook initiative for so much. people have been considered this idea for a few years and came now to the conclusion that they need to delagate this to some professional electrical engineer, who of course needs to be paid for his service so they need to gather funds. thats fine, but not respectable.

i respect people like igor or gunnar who pull on complex project, others have deemed impossible.


This is exactly my point.

The Vampire and the associated FPGA CPU projects are of immediate and direct benefit to the Amiga community. Work was undertaken at the expense of the individuals involved. Two key things this project doesn't have.

If this was an FPGA laptop, where it had no CPU or GPU, but simply a couple of FPGAs (to be set up with any cores the user so desired) then it would be far more interesting and exciting to the Amiga community.

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Re: Open source PPC laptop bounty
« Reply #6 on: July 02, 2017, 04:26:06 PM »
Quote from: Iggy;827835
That would actually be interesting even outside the Amiga community.
Great idea, how it would interface with the display panel could prove tricky, and most chassis' these days rely on USB ports for connectivity.
But that is a really good, and original idea.
My apologies for the off base comments, that IS sharp.

The Vampire 500 V2 really isn't very far away from this idea already.

Simply add a LVDS for direct LCD display output, a USB hub, and some power management chips, then engineer it into a laptop chassis compatible form factor.

A cheaper and more interesting project, by a long way.

-Edit- I'm not trying to be negative, I just can't see any positives with respect to a PPC Linux laptop.
« Last Edit: July 02, 2017, 04:32:30 PM by bloodline »
 

Offline bloodline

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Re: Open source PPC laptop bounty
« Reply #7 on: July 02, 2017, 08:01:38 PM »
Quote from: utri007;827838
Some reality check. Do you understand that Vampire is not power full enough to general desktop use? This laptop has about 500x more horsepower than Vampire.


I have a PPC laptop already. It can run Linux and an old version of MacOS (10.5).

The laptop being proposed in this thread is based on an embedded CPU, it isn't even in the same class as my multicore 64bit Arm devices which run Debian Linux, Android and even Windows 10.

Put simply, this PPC Linux laptop doesn't bring anything to the party. It doesn't even run AOS4.

It you want to dream, don't dream so small.