Coldfire - Binary Compatible

[AeroMan]

Intel AAAAaaarrrgghhh......    :-D

Why use a Intel in the Amiga ? Buy a PC and use AROS, UAE or both. Cheap and easy.
Conecting an Intel compatible to the Amiga will be way more expensive than a small PC.

If something should be used to do that, I believe it should be a PPC or a 68K compatible. (this is where the fun is at...)

[AeroMan]

bloodline wrote:

Well, a 68K is fine... that's what the Amiga was designed around... Using a PPC is just as hard as using an x86...

I've included PPC mainly because of OS4 and Morphos. I wasn't thinking about a full blown G5 or similar, but a embbedded chip like MPC5200 or AMCC's ones. They don't need heatsinks and have a local bus for memory mapped stuff that could be easier connected to an Amiga than the big chips would.

@nyteschayde:

Yes, I fully agree, they are cheap and easy to find, but this is nice for big companies. Home brewing an Intel board would be more expensive than buying a PC mobo.
In the other hand, microcontrollers like the ones above are really cheap also (maybe cheaper than x86s), and powerful enough to make us happy.
I have to admit Intel is faster, but a 700 mips PPC is good enough for me. Take a bigger one and you can get even more with all the advantages like built in Ethernet, USB, SPI (for SD cards..) and so on
(sorry... I'me already drooling  :-D )

[AeroMan]

I'm a big fan of ARM processors. I believe Acorn users should be really happy  :-D

Who is making Cortex M8 chips ? Texas announced that some time ago, but I would like to know who is making these babies today.

I still think an embbedded PPC is the best solution for an Amiga accelerator. I see the PPC as a long term solution also, for processing-power hungry devices, and we have plenty of than, as the consoles mentioned before, and we need to include network stuff, EFI, set top boxes, etc...

ARM seems to be pointing to portable and embbeded stuff. To the low end market.

My guess (this is just my feelings about it) is that ARM will grow up to be the best power efficient solution, and to replace most of 8 bit microcontrolers, as the prices are already diving fast. PPC will be the high end target for everything that needs raw processing power. Sooner or later, G5s and Cells will go embbeded also, as technology advances, and we will have faster PPCs due to the supercomputer guys (check IBM, for example...)

x86s will stay on the desktop, simply because if you wish to use an embbedded PC, it is cheaper to buy a common mobo and use it, like ATMs and arcades do. There are also few companies pushing for embbeded x86s, and most still require northbridges and all the assorted stuff. They can't compete with powerfull ARMs and PPCs, and there are still other powerful chips like the BlackFin, SH, v850, MIPS and others

For the Coldfire, it doesn't match neither ARM, PPC or x86, and it is still incompatible with 68K. It's bus is a problem also, the best way to use it is to "translate" Amiga's bus to PCI.

To resume: PPC embbeded is nice, because it is cheap (US$17,86 for a 760MIPS MPC5200B, for example), we can get it without a heatsink, it will be easier to run OS4/Morphos, and to connect it's bus to the Amiga than any other uP.
x86 for sure is faster, but if that is the future, it will run AROS, rather than be conneccted to a real Amiga

It's just my opinion.. :-)

[AeroMan]

Hammer wrote:

X86 (Lintel(e.g. LAMP*), Wintel(e.g. WAMP**)) also dominates the 1-way/2-way/4-way server market.

Agree. But as I've said, those machine are PCs anyway, not fully custom hardware with a x86 at its core

The reason why BlueGene is *fast* is due to the number of cores involved.

Maybe you misunderstood my point of view. I was not stating that all supercomputers use PPC. What I mean is that althrough Apple does not have PPC Macs anymore, the architecture will not die, because those supercomputer companies have interest in pushing its development further.
IBM is going to Power 6.
Blues Gene may be faster because it has more cores, but speed needs will grow, and using even more cores won't be feasible at some point. The cores will have to go faster, and they know that (this is the reason why nobody is using a box with zillions of Z80s :-D )
Home PCs market will keep pushing x86s faster also, but a quick solution would be use more cores. One could think in the reverse way and say x86 development could stop because we would have faster machines with more CPUs. (of course, this is nonsense...)

Cells will go embbeded also,

Again, I think you misunderstood me. What I mean is that CELLs will be in available microcontrollers soon, as PPCs are today. I bet your car has at least one PPC. Some years ago, PPCs were heavy weight processors.  When I've started working with EFI modules, companies used 68HC11s or 8051s derivatives. Engines didn't changed that much in that amount of time, but ECUs now have those beasts calculating when to fire the spark and how much fuel to burn.
I don't believe the industry will stay comfortable with with today's processing capabilities, so I believe it is a matter of time before your microwave oven have a CELL, and this chip will cost then 5 bucks maybe.
If it makes you feel better, probably you may have a 5 bucks Pentium 4 some time in future also.

Shouldn't we be talking about Coldfires instead ??

[AeroMan]

Hammer wrote:
CELLs based products such as Toshiba's SpurEngine (10W to 20W part) doesn't have PPE

This still doesn't mean that nobody will ever have interest in producing a chip with the PPE

I'll bet it doesn't have a PPC in its critical computing systems.

Delphi, Marelli and Bosch uses PPCs in engine control modules. This is quite critical to me.
The V850 is a great chip, and it was well chosen to power Toyota's cars. Some people are driving Renesas, some ST, and I even had a experience with TI some years ago (not a really good one. We went back to Motorola, but the chip was nice).
Nobody, as far as I know, is using x86, for a couple of reasons. Unless Toshiba decides to install wheels in their HD-DVDs

Now I just swear I won't go off topic again...