MiniMig + PowerPC = OS4 Hardware for all

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@HenryCase

You are mixing specs of different accelerators:
-one accelerator is the Blizzard2060, it's a 680x0 accelerator with *no* ppc
-a developer edition powerUp PPC board exists that you can plug into a 040/060 socket of CyberstormMK2 or Blizzard2060. It includes a 680x0 cpu and a slow 603e

Now once that's clear, remember that:
-OS4 is PPC *only*. It won't run on 680x0
-A developer edition powerUp PPC board may or may not work with OS4, but that's not confirmed.
-OS4 lacks drivers for the Blizzard2060 onboard SCSI, so it won't be able to boot from it. It may work with catweasel or any other *PIO driven* IDE/SCSI card.

[Crumb]

@freqmax

There's documentation about AGA in various places:

http://www.mways.co.uk/amiga/howtocode/text/aga.php

http://aminet.net/package/docs/help/aga_guide

http://aminet.net/package/docs/misc/agamanual

Also E-UAE/WinUAE include a lot of code to support AGA.


As there's people interested on the MiniMig due to the retro factor and may not be so interested in a super PPC amiga, I would advise starting with things you would need also on 680x0 systems:
-More ram. 32MB at least, although I don't think 32MB is enough for OS4. I would try to include 128MB. It doesn't matter if it's not used ATM with a 68000. Anything bigger than a 68000 will be able to take advantage of it.
-Gayle IDE interface (it's well documented on WinUAE)
-68020 (at least). You are going to emulate a Blizzard/Cyberstorm PPC and OS4 official CD requires OS3.x to load the bootmodules. 68LC060/75 are usually cheap, but may be more complex to interface.
-a 5v A500 compatible cpu slot. Or even better, A1200 compatible.
-AGA. Not strictly needed, but very nice.
-CirrusLogic/Virge emulation. I think some emulators like QEmu/Bochs emulate a CirrusLogic. It would have to be compatible enough to be able to use Picasso96 drivers with it. That would require at least a 020 to work as P96 requires 020 at least.

[Crumb]

@freqmax:

The problem is that AFAIK there are no 3.3v versions of other 680x0 chips that aren't 68000, 68040 -there's a special version of 040- and 68060. So unless you include a more advanced cpu, a 5v slot interface would be definitely interesting for the first tests. You could connect a BlizzardPPC and check out if OS4/MOS work with MiniMig, later you could integrate a 020 or 060 +PPC for the minimig.

BTW, AFAIK Dennis splited the code of each chip in different files. I guess that Gayle IDE interface shouldn't be too hard to implement. First versions could use the MMC card with a hardfile and later ones for more advanced MiniMigs could have a real IDE interface

[Crumb]

[AROS...]

It already runs hosted. Getting it native should not be too difficult now that AROS handles 64-bit.

AROS runs hosted on SPARC??? are you sure? The PPC port took some work to leave it at the same level than x86. Now that AROS runs on various CPUs and the 64bit port is improving, a SPARC port would probably be easier. I know some code was written to support SPARC, but AFAIK it doesn't run on SPARC yet.

Anyway feel free to prove me wrong... I wouldn't mind watching a screenshot of AROS running hosted on your SPARC machine  :-)