Masjsta's A500 Vampire

[psxphill]

If people want to pay a lot of money to be the first few to have the Vampire II before the production is spun up, then let them.  It helps the team fund the Apollo projects so they don't fade away!

I don't care about the price people are paying on ebay for them, but the price of the production units appears to be on an upward trajectory. So by the time they start shipping in greater numbers, that ebay price might be a real steal.

[psxphill]

hahaha! I don't price creep is in the future of the Apollo team offerings. They were simply operating at a loss.

I understand that they were operating at a loss & are now increasing their price to cover the cost, that is fine. But the official price has already increased.

I think it's hilarious how 68k is panned as dead platform and here comes Apollo Team out of no where and accomplish so much in a short space of time.

Such a short time? Vampire has been going for years and Apollo years before that. When people say 68k is dead they mean it in the same way that the Ford Model T is dead. Sure you'll get people keeping them running, but it's a labour of love rather than taking on the industry. They can probably make money out of 68k like Jens Schoenfield does, but not like Intel/ARM/Motorola does.

[psxphill]

Ok and I don't think it will increase unless future versions benefit from more features.

And as there are a lot of missing features and they are talking about charging for new features then sure.

I never in my wildest dreams though I would see such developments.

Why not? They are the only people doing amiga fpga accelerators right now, but it's certainly not unthinkable that the fpgaarcade/mist etc would lead to accelerators.

It's cool sure, but don't get sucked in thinking they were the only ones that could do this & 150 mips? Great for an Amiga, but a raspberry pi still blows it away at a fraction of the price. It's a product with a very small audience, so they'll never get good price breaks. Which is unfortunate.

An A1200 accelerator coupled with a "not an A1200" motherboard from Jens would go on my wish list, but it appears we're even further away from that happening.

[psxphill]

And what is the point implementing a FPU that does not support current software ?!?

You're right, I don't see the point. However at various times through development they've said they aren't really bothered about being compatible. The same with the MMU.
Apollo isn't really aimed at being compatible with Amiga applications, we're just a soft launch for Gunnars bid to take on the embedded fpga cpu market. It just needs to be good enough to look good when people are selecting a cpu.

They may have seen the light and changed their minds, I can only go on what I've seen them post publicly.

[psxphill]

it even has 68040 instructions that Motorola left out in the 68060.

Yeah, so it's neither compatible with the 68040 or the 68060. Gunnar has a different idea of compatibility than I do. He appears to only be interested in running golden software, I want to be able to run anything that you can run on a 68060. If I want to write software that relies on 68040 instructions trapping then I should be able to. If he allowed it to be configured, or even open source it then we'd have a choice. I don't think he has the right personality for that though.

On the FPU & MMU things get worse. He thinks that we can just write new MMU software and ignore anything like existing debug tools, virtual memory and BSD distros. At one point I think he was talking about using a different precision model for the FPU. With some vague hope that just because it's floating point, that nothing will rely on getting the same results as an 060 FPU would give. Which may be true for golden software that he's deemed worthy, but if you don't meet his requirement for worthiness then good luck.

He may have changed his mind on all of this, in which case a vampire would be a worthwhile purchase. But for me I'd rather not buy something where the source isn't available and he's not committed to 100% compatibility with real chips rather than only being interested in the ego trip of inventing a new one.

[psxphill]

This is one addition that I really don't understand. What is the point of having Intel MMX instructions available on an Amiga? It's not like there is any software to take advantage of them is there?

The why is because Amiga isn't his target audience.

You may not have to recompile FPU software, but that doesn't mean it produces the same results. I'd like to see that said first.

[psxphill]

Does Majsta and the Apollo team have different goals?

Definitely, but I don't think Majsta has that much say over how Apollo works. So he only gets what they want, the same as we do :/

They are essentially one and the same, until someone makes a competing core for the vampire.

[psxphill]

then do something different if you are not satisfied with the results delivered for you.

I am doing something different, I'm making sure people know the truth.
Maybe then enough people will refuse to buy it until it's the way it should be done. If not then I'll buy something else.

That is how people put pressure on companies to provide them the services they want. Or are you saying I'm not allowed to do that?

last i remember they (gunnar) have said the fpu (wip, not currently included) is compatible what concerns instruction set and precission.

this doesnt currently apply to mmu. even though it even seems to be on a todo list.

If that is official then I don't see why they haven't made a big fuss over the turn around. I would still like the ability to only emulate 68060 instructions in the fpga though.

[psxphill]

is this your agenda? to make the people not buy something because you want to buy something else? why dont you do this right away, and tell us if there is a better alternative?

It's not about whether there is something better, it's about whether there could be something better if someone realised there were disaffected potential owners of vampire. I don't care which way the dice fall.

it is not a company. it is an initiative composed of volontary members so far. at least thats what i know. do you think you are free to "put pressure" on everyone just in order to deliver you with "services" you expect?

Gunnar has been touting his core as licensable for embedded applications, whether that meets your definition of a company or not is irrelevant. They most certainly want our business.

maybe you simply overhear any actual information, while making "big fuss" yourself?

It's not really overhearing when it's based on information they post online.

why? if actually all instructions are available? i could understand if you asked for an option that fpga core identifies as 060 instead of 040. but why remove instructions in order to be compatible with a cpu that needs libraries to emulate these instructions for compatibility?

You're assuming I want the traps to call code that just runs the equivalent of the original instruction.

however if you insist, why simply not keep the 060. and swap it every time you need physically with another sort of cpu. because next time you will complain that fpga is too fast anyway.

one way or the other i doubt you will stop anyone from buying vampire, its just wasted effort..

060 is too slow, although it would be nice if you could limit the speed of the vampire as well as configure it for different 680x0 compatibility, like exception frames etc. It's just a pity that Gunnar thinks (or thought) that just creating software patches will get him round any hardware incompatibility.

It's my effort, you don't need to worry whether it's wasted.

[psxphill]

id like to remind tg68k even if it has some 020 instructions hasnt have a mmu as well and none was much annoyed.

Open source cores without a dictator running the show are obviously treated differently. The annoyance isn't that vampire doesn't support an mmu yet, it's the response that we don't need an mmu as gunnar knows best & why are we still going on about it.

The mmu being on the roadmap is good news, however roadmaps are not guarantees and roadmaps are often used just to get people on the hook and then "unavoidable" reasons means it's taken off again. What isn't good news is the comment about possibly charging people for fpu/mmu upgrades.

[psxphill]

Please get over yourself and quit trolling this thread.  If you don't like the Vampire, then don't buy it.  You act like someone is forcing you to get one!

Please get over yourself, I have as much right to say what they don't like about a product as you have to say what you like about it. You're not the boss of me.

I want to buy a good product, but if vampire is not good but a lot of people buy one then I won't get to buy a good product as it won't be worth anyone making one. Just because you lack empathy doesn't mean I will disappear.

[psxphill]

Yes, but you don't have a right to go around spreading false info and bullying people who disagree with you.

I never implied that I was your boss and I doubt you've ever held a job let alone had a boss based on your childish behavior here.

You're judgemental and insulting & you're trying to bully me for not sharing your opinion. Mobbing and then blaming the victim, all non-childish behaviour. If you're allowed to disagree with me and it's ok, but I'm not allowed to disagree with you and it's not then you have serious issues.

I am not spreading false info, I may be saying things that are out of date & I've tried to put everything I've said in that context. However if the out of date info was widely spread and the new info is not, then it is not my fault.

It certainly isn't something that should make you angry, rather than just pointing me to accurate information.

You do not solely define "good product". All Vampire owners I have ever read of are very happy with it and recommend it to others. You can say you would use it for this or that and because of that you need a certain missing feature but that does not make it bad. You are not master of universe I assume

No of course I am not the master of the universe, but I appear to be in the minority who are not be blinkered to the problems it will cause further down the line. Which is why I am trying to make sure that people are aware before getting suckered into recommending it to everyone so that it closes the market. If they then decide to do that it is up to them. The same for people who voted for brexit in the UK and people who voted for Donald Trump in the US. It's often that the majority will screw things over for the minority, when actually the cost to the majority either way is quite small.

I actually find your attitude quite childish as it only considers your own view point and you appear insulted that I have an opposing view point.

[psxphill]

i have an impression that you are expecting the "unfriendly overlord" to immediately inform you personally about all his doings and intentions.

I don't expect that, but after saying he wasn't going to do a compatible fpu and mmu so publicly nobody can expect everyone to know if he's changed his mind unless he publicises it so much.

The bickering is over the Apollo team's software. They may work together, but aren't the same thing.

I apologise if I missed the announcement that you could buy one without the other, which would be the only explanation for your comment.

[psxphill]

It's not software! :laughing:

It is software, by every definition. It's not a sequentially executed language like you feed CPU's & DSP's.

Apollo is software and more importantly it's an emulator, it happens to be a not very accurate one but that is by design.

your mileage may vary, there will be "software that takes care of it",

That is the standard line, it Apollo can't run exec.library then someone can just patch it or write a new one.

[psxphill]

That's right, my vampire system is far more stable that my A4000 with cyberstorm 060.

Sure it's better running some software, it unfortunately doesn't run the software I want to run so I won't buy one until it does. It would run 0 hours with Amiga BSD, Amix or Shapeshifter with TurboEVD video driver.

Then a sheet of paper coming out of a printer is software too.

No, paper is neither software nor hardware. But thanks for the straw man.

and if not, being "inacurate" its a field for improvment, that apparently is both possible and considered.

the actual problem would arise if there was no argumentation on thes subject allowed, or the issue was denied, but ist isnt the case, at least in my book.

Actually no discussion is allowed by people here and the issues are denied, the fanboi's won't let anything be said that isn't 100% positive. It's not just me who shares the same issues with Apollo.