ARM for the future?

[Iggy]

Personally, I like the PandaBoard. It doesn't cost any more (about $174) and is more powerful.

http://pandaboard.org/

And Nvidia has announced a new processor that they claim will compete in the desktop/severs market. While no details have been announced for this processor (other than Microsoft supporting it under Windows it seems likely that this will be one of the most powerful ARM processors ever created (if not the most powerful).

While new PPC processors continue to be developed, ARM seems to have more momentum and prices for ARM based evaluation boards are usually much lower.

ARM definately looks better suited to run Amiga related OS' than the X86 family.

[Iggy]

Personally I dont really care too much for any of the ppc amiga systems, but ARM seems a reasonable successor if there's ever a decision made to change architectures.
What I do find interesting is ARM power consumption growing as x86 power consumption declines. AMD bobcat is already as low as 9w including an intergrated hd6xxx (dx11) class cpu.
Between ARM and x86 there's actually a bit of interesting stuff happening in the computer world at the moment.

As a PPC user, I'm obviously biased, but I do see the PPC as the natural successor to the 68K. Both share the same endian design (as does the ARM, and NOT the X86). I can understand everyone desire for low cost, modern hardware. But X86 was once the enemies product of choice.
Therefore, if we're going to change ISAs again, ARM has my vote.
It RISC, it will run Amiga code more efficiently then X86, and most importantly its not Intel.

[Iggy]

As far as I know ARM is bi endian. Same goes for PPC, at least in some models.

Actually, you're right Alan. ARM is bi-endian and most PPCs (except the G5) are also. That why its easier to port 68K software to these processor (since X86 only operates in the opposite endian mode as a 68K).

[Iggy]

ARM is the common sense non-x86 future choice of processor for the Amiga line.

The performance is there, the cost is low, the availability is massive, the choice is high. They're integrated, they're multi-core (for when that is available in AmigaOS).

Sure, we would need another 68k emulator in AmigaOS, and we would need all the PowerPC apps recompiled (or a PowerPC emulator... ugh).

"or a PowerPC emulator... ugh", yeah that definitely does not sound ideal. We've been bantering this around in the MorphOS community and I think many of us have reached the same conclusion, PPC apps are going to have to be recompiled. Many ARM processors would perform fairly poorly when running a PPC JIT compiler anyway.

I don't think ARM is a possibility anymore, I think its inevitable. We'll probably see an AROS port first, but I expect to see other NG OS' move to this as well.

[Iggy]

Nah, it wont. ARM doesnt come close to high end x86 gear. Also x86 of today shares very little in common with x86 of yesteryear, so saying youre sick of x86 since you bought your first pc is like saying youre sick of a different cpu compared to what what is your 1st pc.

I probably shouldnt be surprised to see this kind of garbage on an Amiga site though.

ARM is better suited as a destination for ports of 68K based OS' and software than X86. Yes, there are no ARM processor that match X86 in computing power, but ARM is considerably more powerful than 68K and has closed the gap in performance it had with PPCs.
ARM can be configured to run with the same endian  structure as the 68K (as can most PPCs). X86 can not and suffers at least a 20% performance penalty because of that. The only reason this is not significant, is that X86 processors are already more powerful than needed to run this software.
Which brings up another point. How much CPU power do we need to run our software?
Both AOS4 and MorphOS can run on CPUs that operate below 400Mhz. Right now cheap ARM boards exist (at under $200) that run at 1Ghz. Clearly there is enough CPU power.

"I probably shouldnt be surprised to see this kind of garbage on an Amiga site though."

Why are you here if you don't think much of our opinions? This discussion was prompted by announcements made by Nvidia that they intended to compete with X86s in the desktop and server market with a new ARM design. I don't think Nvidia's ideas are foolish AND if they think they can create an ARM CPU that is powerful enough to compete in this market, well then we are going to see ARM processors that are
MORE powerful than we need (for our purposes).

[Iggy]

Don't you realize that you're confusing the hell out of C=USA with this thread.  Are you trying to get them to change their plans and announce yet another new direction for the Amiga?  :-)

I don't think our opinions carry much weight with CUSA. They've got their plans and I rather expect they'll stick to them.
They're not interested in the hobbyist market and we already upset them with some of our negative posts.
I don't think they see us a a major part of their potential market.

[Iggy]

Im more the sort of person who will judge something on it's merrits rather than dislike something because I chose something else. Sure, there has been some x86 cpu's that have been weak compared to others, but that doesnt mean x86 as a whole is bad (incidently the original celerons (apart from the 266mhz version) werent so bad vs. p2's.... thier l2 cache ran at full clock rate vs 1/2 clock rate of p2 and early p3's,.. it was only once coppermine was released that the 66mhz bus started to be a problem, but who ran thier celerons at original fsb anyway ?).

All this is neither here nor there anyway. As I said x86 of today is a far cry from x86 of yesteryear.

I'm not anti-X86. I've been using them for years, have several, and have had some great results with them. And your right about Celeron overclocking. It had some great moments. Early Celerons with full speed cache easily dusted P2s. I overclocked every generation successfully right up to the Tualatin core (1.6Ghz - faster than any PIII). The P4 based Celeron were kind of disappointing. You could overclock a 2,4 Ghz Celeron to 3.2 Ghz, but the performance was still significantly below a P4.

And I don't expect X86 OS' like AROS to fade away. Rather I think ARM will just be another branch of the Amiga OS tree.

[Iggy]

Im not arguing that ARM is the wrong choice of targets. As I said already, it makes sense as a migration path for a 68k or ppc based system.
Nor am I sying ARM is bad. As I said already in this thread there's some interesting thing happening in the ARM world. All Im saying is that it gets tiring hearing the same old anti x86 garbage that's based on how x86 used to be.

Yes I absolutely agree with you. X86 has evolved. Personally, I had no use for the original PC processors, but by the time the '386 came along their evolution was progressing nicely. Todays X86-64 processors are a completely different animal when compared to older products. X86 is cheap, powerful, and unarguably the best product currently available for most computer users.

[Iggy]

Bring back the Alpha!

Now that's funny!
RISC was supposed to be big. PPCs,, I64, Alpha, SPARC, all tried to push this forward.
Will ARM succeed where others failed? Who knows. But no one forced X86s on the market. Apple could have continued to solder on without the switch.
This situation has occurred thanks to continued development that has allowed the X86 to have a performance edge while maintaining a low cost.
The phenomenon is purely market economics in action. No great corporate conspiracies are involved here.

[Iggy]

x86 benefited greatly by having AMD and Intel trying to outdo each other on the PC market. On the other side(PPC), there was no market to engage in that kind of competition.
ARM might just be able to outdo PPC there. Windows on ARM might be just what it needs. But it remains to be seen what kind of performance those ARM chips will provide and what kind of animal WinARM will be

Yes, you point out one of the concepts in economics I agree with. Competition benefits the consumer. X86 processor haven't succeeded totally due to market domination, if AMD hadn't kept Intel on its toes we'd still see Netburst based processors on the market.

[Iggy]

Wouldn't it have been great if they would have spent the the time and money that they are sinking into the X1000 on a port to ARM instead?

Ask that again later when MorphOS is available for G5 Macs and the X1000 still isn't available for purchase.
Besides, if NG OS' move to ARM, AOS4 is likely the last one to make the transition.

[Iggy]

For a hobby system it would make a lot, lot more sense. Imagine paying 500, or even 1000 $ instead od 2500 or 3000 $ for your next AOS4 machine.

In fact, I can honestly say even I, a known anti OS4/MOS/AROS/OS 3.1 person:), would consider buying such a machine because I could justify the expense.

Yes, well with G4 Powermacs at give away prices I still have trouble convincing people to try MorphOS. The funny thing is, once people do compare it, they usually rate it better than AROS or AOS4.
Then again, the 111 Euro license fee is a little steep.

[Iggy]

Well, let's just say I'm a amigan but of different breed to the current amiga community over here.

I can get behind that. I have no legacy hardware and use MorphOS exclusively, but I still consider myself an amigan.

[Iggy]

None other than the normal type of corporate behavior that involves destroying the competition by any means necessary and delivering the least amount of innovation at the maximum price point that the market will bear.

Now that's not an unfair statement. Intel and Microsoft have both played at that game. The SEC has investigated plenty of that behavior.

[Iggy]

On Microsoft, has this occurred to anyone?
If Microsoft supports ARM with Windows 8 and Amiga NG OS' are ported to ARM, it may be possible using virtualization software to run Windows and an Amigiod OS simultaneously on the same computer.