Apollo Team announces the Vampire V4

[Iggy]

My experience with regular hard drives is the same.  One day everything is going swimmingly and the next day it fails to start.

I've been pretty lucky in being able to recover data from failing mechanical drives, and the SSDs I've had that have had fail have simply stopped working, totally, at once, with zero warning.

But we should all back up our data.

On my PCs these days, I back up to USB connected hard drives that I remove after backup. USB3.0 is a bit slower than SATA connected directly, but its still light years faster than some of the legacy hardware I have.

And I can't argue against the speed of SSDs. I even have an OWC unit in my PowerMac G4. After all, the size limitations for MorphOS drives rather suits SSD capacities.

Right.  SSDs fail too, but unless you need huge capacities solid state is the way to go nowadays.

I use large drives as secondary data storage now, with SSDs for my boot/primary drive.

Combining the two gives me fast operation AND cheap mass storage.

Then again, I still use optical drives, so maybe you don't want to follow my lead...;-).

I even have a PCI SATA controller stashed for use in an future X5000, so I can support two optical drives along with an SSD boot drive and a large mechanical hard drive for storage.

[Iggy]

I for one, will not be drinking the Vampire blood! I will instead, be eating the Jens A1200 reloaded gunpowder!

I've already bought the ACA 1233n @40MHz along with XC68882RC40A 40Mhz 68030 FPU. :laugh1:

It would be interesting to see how well these products (Vampire4 and A1200 Reloaded) work together.

[Iggy]

Why is it that this happens to so many who have been in contact with Gunnar, do you think?

Because if Gunnar's psyche (or aura) had a smell, it would probably be a mixture of fried electrical wiring and burnt cat hair. :hammer:

Honestly, I'm amazed they've come this far, considering that oh so Amiga combination of hyperbole and fixation.

[Iggy]

So far I only see you and psxphill acting that way.  You guys are an army of two.

Hmm, I don't always agree with kolla, but he and psxphill aren't the only two that Gunnar has rubbed the wrong way.
And as far as anger management goes, neither I myself nor you have been model examples of rational interaction.

But this could lead us back to my point about the eccentricities that seem inherent in our community.

A good friend of mine a few years back pointed out to me just what a high percentage a 'slightly off' personalities our community seems to attract. It made me, to say the least, a bit uncomfortable.

[Iggy]

could you explain how are you getting rubbed the right way, so that people dont make uneccessary mistakes in the near future?

My first inclination, on being asked to describe being "rubbed the right way"...well, I thought to reference you to my ex-wife, but it seemed a bit crude. :hammer:

I think the first step might be some consideration of the other party's divergent point of view.

[Iggy]

...this AMMX game hasn't been a 5 year effort and it looks and plays significantly better than the non-Deluxe version you must be confusing it with.  This is the Deluxe version:  https://youtu.be/M0PJHxVN5Ok

Cool, I haven't seen that before, thanks.
It shows how these non-standard instructions can be implemented in existing software for a clear benefit.

Great way to illustrate the point.

And, by way of explanation, this is the kind of stuff that keep me in Gunnar's corner no matter how he rubs it.
You have to respect good work.

[Iggy]

...Anyway it is your life, you seem to be a grown up man, and your entitled to believe in the second coming as you wish to.

Actually...he's an IT professional, and Amiga (as it would be for any sane person) is just a hobby.

No one is expecting anything like a 'second coming' for the Amiga.
Really, these personal preferences are solely about what we want for ourselves, not about practicality or market potential.

[Iggy]

Hey, since when does being IT professional mean anything here?

I don't discount someone's work and educational experience that lightly.

And while we don't always see eye to eye, I understand SF's point about the primary attraction of Amiga being its retro/legacy components.
Honestly, any arguments for the practicality of using this platform in the new millennium are a bit 'out there'.
Its only likely to appeal to the hobbyists with past Amiga experience.

So the V4 has a lot of appeal for a large number of Amiga enthusiasts.

I, for one, was entirely impressed with the recent demos of AmiKit running in 16 bit color via a Vampire board.

[Iggy]

hey hey hey.. it means stuff and things!  LOL

Well, unless you assume his employers are idiots, what it means is that his work is valuable enough to earn him a living.

$$$ Slightly more than 'stuff and things'.

I'm a big fan of economics, and companies don't spend money without a sound economic reason.

So...you're all entitled to your opinion, but Steve gets paid for his, and his work in the field.

[Iggy]

Yes, they are indeed crippled in a whole lot of ways. Who would not agree to this?

I don't, for one. I have an A2000 because it is basically bullet proof. I upgraded it to ECS, and will upgrade it further with a Vampire.
I can't afford a decked out A4000, but I DO wish I'd bought an A1200 a few years ago since that strikes me as soon as a really nice, compact system.
And if you want to get weird, you can expand an A1200 pretty far.

And, unmentioned, I have my CD32, which will run just about anything that has reasonable specs.

Look, the Amiga chipset wasn't designed with '040 and '060 CPUs in mind.

By the time we got there, we were in sore need of a replacement system, which we never got.

High end Amiga are a kludged nightmare. Vampire helps simplify this situation by rendering the average Amiga a powerhouse.

Amiga snobs don't like it? Tough, because personally I think your investment in that maxed out A4000 makes you look like a fool.

[Iggy]

Just plain A2000 just chipram and 68000, no A2620 or A2630?

It used to have an A2620 (so it had a math co-processor).

I don't really see what the chipset has to do with anything here, but the chipset is much more tolerable with 040 and upwards.

The chipset didn't evolve nearly as much as the processors (Paula didn't change at all). And the design didn't really work as well as it could have with processors after the '030 because of that.

Some would argue that we did get a replacement system in retargetable graphics and audio, and the result of this which today is MorphOS.

Yes, but the developers have focused on Abox and Amiga compatibility and haven't really added any new features since 2.0 was introduced.

Vampirised Amiga is not less kludgy, in terms of software it is very often a lot more kludgy.

Valid argument.

Ah yes, I must be a snob. Of course, that's it. After all, I make more than twice as much per month now than what I paid to "max out" my A3000 back in 1997 with CSPPC/CVPPC. What a foolish investment that was. Never mind that the snobbish Amiga hardware I have owned also was the learning platform for at least 10-15 years, thanks to the ability to not just run AmigaOS, but also capable and modern operating systems, Linux and NetBSD. One day I should sit down and write down all the stuff I have done with and on Amiga over the years. :laughing:

The couldn't get past the price of entry when the Amiga was current (I make more now too).
I was selling 68K based systems that started at $1000 back then.
So Amiga hardware seemed pretty overpriced.

And its current resale value is ridiculous.

[Iggy]

You don't need to make this excuse everytime Vampire fails.
Floating point routines have been a part of our software base for decades.

[Iggy]

Well done video, and actually something that looks like it'd be fun to have to play with.  Still have no idea what I'd actually DO with it, but it looks like fun..

Wayne

What? You don't do what I do, struggle to get it set up and working and then immediately move on to another project?
You actually DO things with your hardware? :roflmao:

[Iggy]

But who would buy a Vampire if it came with a core that is slower, but fully replicates existing 040 or 060?

Umm...I would. :rtfm:

But what if it had SATA ports?

Oh shut up, Butters.

[Iggy]

Yeah, same here. Then I would want Vampire for all my systems instead of just goofing around with it on a couple.

That has been kind of the point we've been making, and I don't know about you, but I feel like I've been butting my head against a wall.
'Sounds like a good idea, if compatibility with standard fpu and mmu operations is incorporated into the design'.

I still don't see why that is an unreasonable request.

[Iggy]

NXP actually allows Coldfire V1 to be incorporated into designs free of charge.
And I've never heard of anyone facing legal challenges for recreating 68K functionality in FPGAS.
In fact, many companies selling proprietary cores for the 6809 and the 68000, so I don't see this as being a serious problem.

The use and promotion of operating system software based on pirated code (ApolloOS)? That is a problem.