Sonnet crescendo 7200 and OS4.1

[Iggy]

Are you talking to me or the OP?   HA!

20 Million WiiU's running a triple-core PPC @ 1.24 Ghz for about $150 or you can spend hundreds of dollars on a card that's not much more powerful than a Gamecube...  Makes sense.

By the way, there isn't much in the way of porting needing to be done.  Mostly just UBOOT.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Das_U-Boot
...much like MONA very little work would be required.  "Drivers" amount to calling the libraries that already exist within the machine's ROM.

I know Amigans aren't used to getting alot of feature for little money and when you do, you make sure that you complain heavily (ie.. Vampire2)...

You know what I'm wrong.  I don't want:
2GB of RAM
Out-of-order execution PowerPC based cores
45 nanometer process technology
IBM silicon on insulator (SOI) technology
Three cores at 1.243125 GHz
Symmetric multiprocessing with MESI/MERSI support
Each core can output up to 4 instructions per clock using superscalar parallelism.
32-bit integer unit
64-bit floating-point (or 2× 32-bit SIMD, often found under the denomination "paired singles")
A total of 3 MB of Level 2 cache in an unusual configuration.[16]
Core 0: 512 KB, core 1: 2 MB, core 2: 512 KB
4 stage pipeline
7 stage pipeline - FP
6 Execution Units per core (18 EUs total)
Die size: 4.74 mm × 5.85 mm = 27.73 mm^2
4 USB ports, 802.11N wifi, bluetooth... dual-layer BluRay drive...
...and I surely don't want a 550Mhz core Radeon Latte GPU...

I don't want any of that for less than $5000!!!!
How dare that be available for <$200!!!  What a travesty!

Still looks dated.
Only a 1.24 GHz cpu that does not appear to be significantly more powerful than NXP's e600 and e500 cored processors (although the L2 cache is interesting), and no NG OS supports SMP, so the core count is irrelevant.
I have been unable to research the fpu, to see if it similar to other PPC floating point units, or if it has AltiVec instructions.
The gpu, while heavily customized, resembles an AMD R700 and from my initial examination appears to only have 32GB of vram.
New video drivers would have to be created for this, as there are significant differences from a standard Radeon gpu.
Customized drivers for sound, networking, and possibly USB would be necessary.
The Blu Ray drive is pointless, as there are no NG drivers for Blu Ray, only DVD.
Oh, and you forgot to mention, its got no hard drive.

It has no expansion slots.
Basically, right now I have a dual cpu G4 PowerMac running at 1.33 GHz, with a VIA Envy24HT sound card, SATA SSD drives, SATA DVD-R drive, a wireless networking card and an R500 video card.
The basic system with a MorphOS license cost me less than $100. And it all works with existing drivers.

If I want to spend something closer to the $200 you're mentioning, I can buy a 2.3 to 2.7 GHz G5 PowerMac, that can take up to 8 GB of memory, comes with interfaces for PATA and SATA, can handle the same R500 based video card, and may soon be able to use an AGP R600 video card.

So no, I don't want to buy a Nintendo game machine. Unless its to play video games on. I already have computers.

And I don't want to see the OS developers I rely on wasting their time porting to said under-powered game machine when there is so much other work that could be done.

So yes...no.

[Iggy]

no idea how much work went into moana, but it was still 100s of hour away from being a release candidate.



rotflmao!!!!!

Yes Kronos, I wanted our developers to eat up time supporting something about as powerful as the backup system I bought from redrumloa last year (not)!

[Iggy]

That's ironic when the WiiU is 50% more powerful than the PS3 with 4X(or 8X if you exclude video ram) the RAM...

What is ironic is that you would make that claim.
The WiiU does have the advantage of being an out of order processor, but I've thoroughly examined the Cell BE and Xenon (the latter having six threads to you WiiU's three) and the additional clock speed easily makes up for any disadvantages of an in order execution unit.

It took Nintendo an extra generation, and they still fell short, primarily due to all that concern over backward compatibility.

Next thing you know you're going to be repeating that tripe they tried to claim about the WiiU's cpu being somehow related to Watson and other modern IBM endeavors.

Its simple, its pretty much an ordinary 32 bit PPC.
Oh, and about the lack of a storage drive...

Finally, if you haven't got the note, most of the new systems we've adopted are 64bit.

[Iggy]

That's ironic when the WiiU is 50% more powerful than the PS3 with 4X(or 8X if you exclude video ram) the RAM...

What is ironic is that you would make that claim.
The WiiU does have the advantage of being an out of order processor, but I've thoroughly examined the Cell BE and Xenon (the latter having six threads to your WiiU's three) and the additional clock speed easily makes up for any disadvantages of an in order execution unit.

It took Nintendo an extra generation, and they still fell short, primarily due to all that concern over backward compatibility.

Next thing you know you're going to be repeating that tripe they tried to claim about the WiiU's cpu being somehow related to Watson and other modern IBM endeavors.

Its simple, its pretty much a simple 32 bit PPC.

And if you haven't got that note, most of the new systems we've adopted are 64bit.

http://wiibrew.org/wiki/IOS
This isn't much different than an Amiga in the sense that some work is off-loaded to "custom chips".  An ARM chip handles all external I/O and launches PPC code.  The PPC code can then request I/O from the ARM-based microkernel, this way PPC cpu cycles aren't being consumed with low level I/O drivers per se and there is no need to reinvent the wheel.  They already exist in the microkernel (IOS).

Yeah, an ARM processor to offload work from a weak PPC processor, sounds more like the Minimig than the Amiga.

[Iggy]

Ookay, enough with the glue sniffing now.

Love it, LOVE IT!

I remember the insanity.
I even exchanged messages with the director at IBM that was in charge of Cell development back then.

Gamecube, huh? Gamecube, Wii, WiiU,,,great googly moogly.

I still remember IBM's response "We prefer to work with qualified partners".
As in, no you can't buy Cell BE processors. :laughing:

That freakin' does it. I'm ready to move to commodity X64 hardware now.

Check please!

[Iggy]

@Iggy
Is your Qemu better then Amigaforever, does it support Composition/RadeonHD ??

I wasn't really thinking about OS4, Benny. And I haven't used AmigaForever in awhile, but I'm sure it runs OS4 better at this point then anything that has been done thus far with QEMU.
That being said, I'd rather emulate an X5000 or a SAM460 than a 603 or 604 PPC equipped legacy Amiga.

[Iggy]

AmigaForever (aka UAE) does PPC support by utilizing QEMU......

Cool. If UAE is using QEMU, we have a way of integrating the work on more modern hardware with Amiga emulation.
Cloanto with its AmigaForever, a commercial product derived from UAE, might be hesitant to go that far.

We'll have to see.
Either way, it's X86/X64, not a WiiU. ;-)

Edit - Then again, it could also be PPC on an 11,2 PowerMac or a Power9 system.
You wouldn't run X5000 emulation on an X5000 (and SAM emulation on an X5000 would be silly).
It could open up some possibilities for X1000 owners, but it would be pointless on lower end AmigaOne systems as they wouldn't have the cpu power (come to think of it, neither would a WiiU). ;-)

2nd edit - One step further, if a PCIe G5 could run this type of emulation, what prevents an AGP G5 from doing the same?
The AGP G5 wouldn't have PCIe slots, but we are talking about emulating the hardware, not acting as some kind of translation or wrapper for the platform.

3rd edit - Actually, if you were running Linux and utilizing the extra cores of an X5000/30 or X5000/40, then emulation of multiple PPC sessions might make sense.
Could be a way to use the extra core on an X1000 as well.

[Iggy]

You should get your facts straight.  Each core had 6 execution units.
https://fail0verflow.com/media/files/ppc_750cl.pdf
What the 360 cpu had was 3.2Ghz clockspeed.  For the same clockspeed, it was an inferior cpu to the WiiU's Expresso cpu.

Regardless, my post was about comparing a WiiU to this Cressendo card which is just the cpu of a Gamecube (single core and about 500Mhz).

Oh, my bad,thanks for the documentation (if you're even pointing to the correct product), that processor would only be capable of handling two simultaneous threads, not three.
So now the count would be WiiU two, XBOX360 six. And still 1.26 GHz vs. 3.2.

So again, outside of an out of order execution unit and a fair amount of RAM (but limited VRAM), and no hard drive for storage, the WiiU still loses.

And comparing a legacy Amiga equipped with a third party PCI expansion bus and a PPC accelerator card intended for a 68K Mac with a later PPC game machine is an apples and oranges comparison.
So my comparison of the WiiU to an XBOX360 is certainly more valid.

Then there is the consideration that any re-engineered G4 PCI accelerator card would be likely to use an 800 or 1000 MHz cpu (the fastest compatible version from Sonnet ran at 800 MHz). Almost as fast as the WiiU's cpu, but tied to an expansion bus you can add cards  to.

Look, it's 2018, not 2005. The WiiU is only available used (unless you know of a NOS inventory somewhere), and oddly enough the G4 cpus are still available, if not recommended for new projects.

Also, if I were to support porting to used hardware, I'd be rooting for the 11,2 G5 PowerMac which is quite a bit faster than a WiiU, expandable, and appears the be able to handle video cards up to at least those based on AMD's GCN Gen1 gpus.

Aiming lower with targets like the WiiU for the used market or Tabor for the new market doesn't make sense to me.
In the long run I'd be unhappy with the compromises presented by those platforms.

BUT, since I have some G5 support under MorphOS, and I am willing to pay the price for an X5000 (which supports both NG PPC OS'), I'll leave the arguments about the low end hardware to you and the A1222 supporters.

The A1222 supporters that WILL be getting support for that platform.
And you, one of the remaining WiiU supporters that WON'T be getting support for your platform of choice.

Either way, I'm happy, and you're still pounding sand.

[Iggy]

OK, I decided to investigate further.
The processor is a tri-core, and some of the design elements (like embedded dram) are rather advanced, while others hearken back to pre-Power4 cpus (so its a weird mix of technologies).
With dual integer execution units, that does provide for six threads. Yay, parity! When you consider the clock speed differences, that is about as good as it gets. Not superiority.

The cpu compromises are really due to the nature of the platform, low clock speeds because the WiiU only needs a slight bump up from Wii specs. With the coprocessing power added by the ARM cpu and the gpu its a more than adequate upgrade to the Wii.

The optical drive is specific to the WiiU, and according to Wikipedia former Nintendo president Satoru Iwata stated, "Wii U does not have DVD or Blu-ray playback capabilities".

So, Blu-ray...no.

Hard drives must be interfaced via USB.

But, WiiUs can be had refurbished from Walmart for $99.95, although the reliability and quality of the refurbished units is variable according to reviews (better buy that extended 2 year warranty for $16).

All in all, still a very unusual proprietary piece of hardware that would require a lot of work to support while provide no real improvement over our existing G4 systems (under a non-SMP enabled OS) let alone a G5 level machine.

And comparable to even Tabor? If two drivers are holding up its release, just imagine the work needed to support all these relatively undocumented components.
To please how many? A handful of people?

[Iggy]

Here's the bottom line.  If I can't install a PPC OS into hardware I already own, I'm not installing it.  There is NO PPC Amiga market worth speaking of.  An A1222-based system will still cost $1000.  That's a pretty expensive office decoration.  If it was smaller, it would be a paperweight.  People spend less on their phones ... but their phones are more powerful and get used everyday.

Understandable lou,
On this I'm with you, it's the primary reason I started using MorphOS, so that I could use a cheap PowerMac G4.
After I'd used it for awhile, I came to appreciated the OS for some of the features it has that legacy Amiga OS doesn't and some things that OS4 does differently.

In fact, now that I'm firmly camped out on this side of the divide, I am willing to plunk down fairly big money on an X5000 that I can triple boot.
And yeah, by the time you flesh out Tabor, the price gap closes.

One thing I will say for the WiiU is it ought to make a nice Linux system. The only problem being that it's a big endian cpu (like all AmigaOne cpus) and support for that is waining.

Karlos was right though, the first place to start with that platform would be a hosted version of AROS.
And at $99.95 I might have to get one anyway. I had a Wii, but it was stolen. And the evolution from GameCube to WiiU is kind of facinating.
Also, this hardware started out with an ArtX gpu, and I always liked that company, once they became part of ATI they helped design the R300 Radeon family.

Pity they didn't keep evolving this platform, Power is now bi-endian and a faster 64 bit Wii derivative would have been interesting.

The frustrating parts about the optical drives of both the Wii and the WiiU comes from Nintendo's unwillingness to pay licensing fees for DVD and Blu-ray technology.

Obviously the Wii can play DVD's, it just requires codecs to do it and the software keys.

Like Tabor, the WiiU would require some additional hardware, but let's discount the mouse, keyboard and display as both systems would need that. The WiiU does not require a case, DVD drive or PSU  (it has those), or a video card.
A hard drive would require a USB adapter, but those are cheap (under $10), and I have 2.5" sata hard drives all over my work bench from dead laptops.
Might want to upgrade the solid state storage from 8GB, but that's optional.

SO, in my case, about $110. Hmm...I can do that out of curiousity.
And I'd be able to play the Wii titles that didn't get stolen with the system.

OK, I think I'll follow your lead that far this Summer.
So, currently, what is the best Linux distro?

And Karlos, or anybody for that matter, what is the current state of AROS hosted if you want to run it on a PPC Linux system ?

Edit - Hmm, I looked at the last revision available from the main site and it looked pretty dated. Modified version of GCC 3.4.3 required? Could an OS that runs on the WiiU handle something that old?

Edit 2 - Actually, it does look doable. First things first. Gotta buy the WiiU and get it running a recent Linux distro to check it out.
Lou, benny, thanks.

[Iggy]

https://gitlab.com/linux-wiiu/linux-wiiu

Not sure if you'll find this useful:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usD0EPAmicA

I owned a Raspberry 3b for a while.  Amazing device for $35.  I looking into installing AROS on it but I was told I'd have to make a donation to get access to a build of it for ARM...  This is not how you grow a market.  :/

If MOS or Hyperion had any brains, they'd port to that, 3D-print a nice case, etc... and call it the future...

Meanwhile the 3b+ was recently released (still $35):
https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/raspberry-pi-3-model-bplus-sale-now-35/

When an ISA shift was first proposed, I was one of the people promoting ARM for MorphOS.
But the development team went with X64.

Not quite as cheap, but still commodity hardware.

The Pi 3B+ is pretty impressive for a low cost device.

[Iggy]

...Apparently the Efika [ARM] "port" is closely guarded...

Oh the joys of a not completely open project, eh?
The PPC port appears to be dated too.

But even with these challenges, it still isn't as insurmountable as beating your head against a wall over OS4 or MorphOS support.

I took a look at the Linux port you pointed to, its actually a good candidate for AROS, maybe better than as a Linux platform alone.
Currently it only supports one core, and it looks like that might be single threaded (although I'm unsure about that).
Its video driver is only a framebuffer at this point (no acceleration), but that could change, and its a start (that's usually the first step with any OS4 or MorphOS video driver).
And the fpu of the WiiU's cpu actually looks pretty good (better than Tabor's anyway).

I'm buying a white WiiU as soon as I finish paying off my tuition charges for this Spring.

Then I'll try to get that to run the Linux distro, and after get is setup and running GCC 3.4.3.

[Iggy]

You are aware that white ones only have 8GB internal storage compared to the 32GB of the black "deluxe" version?

No idea wether that matters for Linux or if it runs 100% from SD card anyways.

Yeah, but that can be expanded, and I haven't been offered a "deluxe" version.

[Iggy]

I was able to find a 512GB SDHC card for $40 on ebay.  It totally came from Taiwan but hey, it's working just fine in my Nintendo Switch...which is also hackable and running Linux...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBCkpEdvqDo

Cool, and on the last response to Kronos, I double checked and I can get a black "deluxe" unit.
But the white 8GB unit is $99.95 refurbished, while the black "deluxe" 32 GB unit is $259.95 refurbished with Mario Cart 8.

I don't need the game (and could obtain it cheaper anyway), and the memory can be expanded via a card or USB.

Besides, I just like the look of the white unit.

[Iggy]

Where did you hear you need to make a donation to get access to ARM builds of AROS?
This idea is absolutely bizarre and completely incorrect.
How did you even come to this baffling conclusion, or who told you and how did they come up with this creative idea?
Want to download AROS for ARM? Simple, go to aros.org and download the latest nightly ARM build. It's as easy as that. No compiling needed, no money needed, just download from the site.

Far from important, but Im somewhat curious where all this garbage misinformation comes from. It's clear as day what the truth is. You just need to check the website.

Gee! No compiling need needed, as long as you use the target platform.
Hallelujah.
In the meanwhile, there are builds on some platforms that require a donation to obtain the latest version.
And other builds that while listed as maintained appear to have not been updated for months (or in  a few cases years).
BUT, a rabid fanboy has to label an inquiry "garbage", rather than civilly offer  assistance.

Way to go fishy.
Your "charm" does wonders toward promoting the adoption of the OS.

[Iggy]

Come on that's a personal attack,  which borders on abuse.

I'm not concerned over childish behavior, kolla and fishy have been rabid fanatics for awhile and when you question their pet project they just get pissy.

I've been using computers since the SWTPC 6800 SS-50 system was introduced, worked with a company that built its own 68000 and 68020 systems up until the '90s, and currently work with friends developing boards that use 6809, 68000, and FPGA components.

Amiga hobbyists hardly concern me, as there's a large percentage of eccentric people in that community.

In the meanwhile, I think lou's discussion has brought up a couple of good ideas.
I'll have to look into the native Pi version of AROS, and a Linux hosted version of AROS for the WiiU ought to be possible.

On the PPC idea, I suppose I could contact Staff Verhagen, if he's still developing. He intermittently get discouraged at the lack of consistent momentum that has always plagued AROS.

But what I won't do is take the negative input from heavy biased hobbyists to heart. Since I'm absolutely sure I have more experience and education than both of them combined.

Lou.... let's see what we can get done.