ColdFire Project?

[little]

but once you've mastered all problems, it's probably not much faster than an '060 - if at all.

If you relegate it to the role oe emulating a 68k then it is not a good solution, but if (and only if) amigaOS and a bunch of key applications were compiled for the coldfire procesor it could achive quite nice speed improvements, specialy if the 400mhz v5 coldfire was used.

[little]

I'd expect to see 400+MHz parts within a few years.

400 Mhz is here! There are already 400mhz v5 coldfire CPUs inside HP printers, oddly enough there is no information about it in the freescale site so I suppose motorola is working closely with HP and have not updated the site since they are selling their entire production to HP (remember new chips are always produced in smaller quantities while they "debug" the production line).

[little]

But you'd have to recompile, which isn't an option for the vast amount of legacy software.

But if the (AR)OS is coldfire native then you could emulate legacy software, look how apple emulated 68k System 9 inside PPC OS X, this will be even better because coldfire is a progression of the 68k architecture, not a complete rewrite like the PPC. So maybe the older games or games that used a lot of tricks might not run or run slowly, bugs in the emulation can be removed with time and you would have a modern OS with modern (at least open source) applications and maybe even some games. Of course we need someone to build such a machine, with a PowerVR chipset for graphics if posible to deliver modern graphics. At least I think that it would be cheaper to build a complete machine anyone can buy than to make an upgrade card aimed to a shrinking market.

[little]

Possibly. However, accoding to jdiffend it should be at least twice as fast as 060@75

I am no expert, but this probably has to do with the coldfire having to use the s-l-o-w chip ram inside the a1200, that is another reason to put the coldfire inside a completely new aros machine.

[little]

1. Most instructions are run natively

I think this is the best method for any application

2. 100% emulation of the program with native OS calls

I do not undestand what advantage this method has over #1 or #3 :-?

3. 100% emulation with JIT

IMO this would be the best method for running games, creave a virtual amiga in the workbench, like winuae but integrated into the OS.

[little]

100% emulation avoids those problems but it's slow.

I suppose this would be a good option for bad (OS-wise) behaving applications or good behaving games :-D