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Author Topic: Can FPGA 060 run more than 100 Mhz?  (Read 12502 times)

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Offline A6000

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Re: Can FPGA 060 run more than 100 Mhz?
« on: April 19, 2014, 04:23:01 AM »
Why is 100% compatibility so important?
The A1200 could not run some A500 software, this was seen as a small price to pay for a better Amiga, and people expected the incompatible software would be eclipsed by new software that took advantage of the more powerful hardware.
Whilst there are fewer people to (re)write the software now, it is still beneficial to sacrifice some compatibility for a processor that is better in some way or simply available.
At this stage in the Amigas' life we should start learning to program it, as other retro computer users are learning to program their machines, it is the only way new software is going to be written for these machines.
 

Offline A6000

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Re: Can FPGA 060 run more than 100 Mhz?
« Reply #1 on: April 19, 2014, 05:27:05 PM »
Quote from: psxphill;762898
If you start with that mindset you actually just waste your time debating what compatibility you're willing to sacrifice. With the structure of 100% compatibility you have a non moving target that you will reach quicker and likely come up with more novel ways of solving.
 
You instantly sidestep second system effect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second-system_effect, because you're not adding any new features.
 
You also waste less time at the other end having to patch up existing software. Most software has already been patched up to work on the 68060.
 
It doesn't mean you can't have a novel method for decoding/despatching instructions etc. Just that whatever the end result is performs identically for all software that is out there (not just Amiga but Mac or Atari and anything that might be using illegal instruction traps for their own purposes).
 
Anything else is wasted effort. You're not going to be producing the next big CPU for embedded markets, that ship sailed years ago.

Compatible with what?
68000, 68020, 68030, 68030+68882, 68040, 68060 or PPC, if you want compatibility with macs they are now using intel processors.
Does faster execution speed break compatibility?
 

Offline A6000

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Re: Can FPGA 060 run more than 100 Mhz?
« Reply #2 on: April 20, 2014, 02:15:59 PM »
@psxphil, the thread may have 060 in its title, but none of the softcores are intended to be a copy of the 060, even the 050 of the natami was going to have additional instructions and registers.
The 060 instruction set is incompatible with almost all processors currently used in amigas, so any software written for the 060 may not run on most amigas, that is not being compatible.
Are you saying you want to freeze the evolution of the processor at the 060 level, with that kind of attitude we should still all be using 68000s.
The speed at which an FPGA softcore can run is limited, so to get greater performance, the softcore must use parallelism and simd instructions, this is incompatible with any amiga processor but it is worth the sacrifice if we want faster amigas, I know it is never going to be the fastest but we should try to get better speed or the platform will stagnate and die.