A question about XENA/XMOS

[Amiga_Nut]

Now this topic isn't talking about value for money or anything like that as far the x1000 goes. I was watching a video recently linked on here that talks about the new CPUs to be used and they mentioned that they will still have the Xmos on the new boards just like the x1000. Now I may not be up on the whole scene for the x1000 and what has happened to it but I don't remember hearing that anything has been done with the XMOS chip on all these machines.

My question is simple, is it not possible to program the Xmos chip to replicate the functions of Agnus/Denise/Paula (and the AGA equivalents) in the FPGA to essentially remove the requirement for UAE? Think of it as on-board minimig style board as what I am trying to explain.

I can understand that floppy drives are no longer being mass produced so there is no point talking about a replacement disk controller. I think if we could get a NG Amiga that essentially has firmware hooks to run old code that requires OCS/ECS/AGA and build it around a budget CPU (single core, given that OS4 is a single core based OS).

I think many people would consider buying such a machine given the OTT prices for some big box Amigas and it would remove a barrier that make many people feel NG Amiga is not really an Amiga at all given they use the same technique to run Rocket Ranger as a Windows PC or OS X Mac (ie UAE emulation).

[Amiga_Nut]

Wow thanks for the detailed info guys.

I was just wondering if you could use the Xmos on the system at a firmware level rather than something on the OS level so as to provide some sort of unique emulation and an OS function that just remaps registers and memory virtually but everything else is executed on the XMOS. Sort of like a built in Minimig type device.

It's like how the PS3 emulates the PS1 with hardware components that using OS can be mapped into a virtual PS1 environment at the firmware level still (hence PS3 still emulates PS1 and not PS2 which was more like UAE).

I don't have a problem with the machine or the prices was just curious. I am planning on getting one of the new A-EON machines with the fastest CPU option now instead of an x1000. I might buy just a board and build me own custom 'Commodore looking' case as it would be my first NG Amiga

[Amiga_Nut]

The point is Amigas should not need emulators to run Amiga games ideally. Someone should put an FPGA loaded with Agnus/Denise/Paula inside it and an FDC too and map them into first 2mb

You can boot SF2 [or any other] DOS game on an i7 3770k PC and run it without DOSBox to compare.

[Amiga_Nut]

The whole point of the entire "Amiga NG" movement (AROS, MorphOS, OS4, A1, Pegasos, X1000, etc, etc) was to break free from that old HW that became way too limited in the early nineties already, to move on, to take Amiga into modern ages.

If you want OCS/ECS/AGA HW, then you are more into Retro stuff than NG. Look for old Amiga HW on E-bay etc, or get yourself a Minimig or similar. And there is nothing wrong with UAE on a modern computer, it adds a whole new dimension of flexibility and ease of use.

But whatever the "Xena" is meant to do (a question nobody can answer, not even Trevor), it's *not* about Amiga chipset (it can't do it, even if you wanted it). So it's off topic in this thread!

It's not an Amiga then. Who said there has to be a 'Classic' and 'NG' Amiga division anyway? So why oh why is nobody going to make a 'real Amiga' and once and for all marry up the arbitrary terms 'classic Amiga' and 'NG Amiga' because quite frankly the term 'classic Amiga' stinks as much as the renaming of Star Wars to Episode IV:A New Hope If I can't boot my mint condition King of Chicago disks on a machine it is not any more 'Amiga' than my DeII PeeCee running WinUAE in the startup folder is it? It's the killer app waiting in the wings for the company with the foresight to think of a way to once and for all make a single Amiga to cover ALL our needs given the technology is there to replace the costly method MOS Technology had to use in the 80s and 90s to make 'Amigas'

Reason? It's called frame accurate emulation ALL OF THE TIME, something my 2ghz dual core can not manage on WindowsUAE (so I fail to see how I will get any better even on an x1000 frankly), the most well catered for OS as far as Amiga software emulation goes, and to have a ready to go back catalogue too actually, there are 100,000s of Amiga games for sale right now on ebay worldwide, and Super Stardust AGA pisses all over ALL Asteroids remakes from Atari 2600 to Playstation 3 so why re-invent the wheel or suffer a tiny catalogue of entertainment software for your chosen 'NG Amiga' when we can easily have the best version of many iconic games running natively in the same way as PCs can still run iconic games like DOOM for DOS natively with a simple bootdisk to get to the C:\ drive.

A PC user can dual boot a copy of Ultima IV on their PC...I have to find a way to transfer my saves from a real floppy onto an ADF and then run a 3rd level of software above the OS Kernal to jerkily approximate the execution of an Amiga game inside emulation.

UAE+ MOS/OS4/AROS != Amiga. This is how Macs and PCs with opposite endian CPUs play Amiga games, if it wants to have the honourable name 'Amiga' on the case (or boot screen) it should have no less difficulty loading REAL Amiga games as an i7 PC has loading an EGA copy of Rocket Ranger from original 3.5" disks to be fair no?

It's not possible to make the chips again as discrete IC's on the boards I understand BUT why is there no talk of FPGA based core being included on the motherboards to make them 'Amiga'. The cores for various FPGA chips seem to be out there and working just fine on OCS/ECS IIRC

Hell Jeri's C-One computer had FPGA plug-in modules last century to support machine compatibility properly.

Welcome to the less than satisfactory world where 'Amiga' machines and 'Amiga OS' are made by two completely isolated companies with peanuts budgets, at least if ONE company was doing both we might get the sort of machine that users are crying out for (users who don't want to p!ss away 1000s on a 200mhz A4000 kludge to play Wipeout 2097 and render Lightwave scenes faster than a snail that is) rather than something just 'nice to have in addition to my real Amiga' situation.