Project Kiwi - an 68k Homebrew Computer

[TheBilgeRat]

from Wiki:

To support lower-cost systems and control applications with smaller memory sizes, Motorola introduced the 8-bit compatible MC68008, also in 1982. This was a 68000 with an 8-bit data bus and a smaller (20 bit) address bus. After 1982, Motorola devoted more attention to the 68020 and 88000 projects.

So...an MC68008 is actually an even crappier version of the 68000.  Sign me up :rolleyes:

[TheBilgeRat]

After checking the cool youtube vids out, it looks like it was just a one-off by a very talented guy just for fun.  The telnet client vid was neat - especially the refresh rate for top

[TheBilgeRat]

So I think you should all stop whining about a few extra cycles spent on memory reads and realize that in terms of performance, the 68000 and the 68008 are two drops in the bathtub you get whenif buy a decent cell phone.

I know it may make you feel very clever to compare one-off hobby projects or any non-cellphone platform that contains an ARM chip to a cell phone, but it just comes across as ignorant.  A smartphone is not a general purpose computer, even if its quad core and running at 1.6Ghz+.

When I read the OP, it made it seem as if this guy was going to do a production run of underpowered 8bit-ish "hobby" computers.  I suppose if assembling one for the express purpose of saying you did is your thing, then all the power to you.  What I find hilarious is that a one-off 8 bit hobby computer is able to have even basic network connectivity, where here in amigaland is only possible in an easy sense if you have an amiga with PCMCIA.  While some may find projects like this inspiring, I just find them sad that we have no hardware guys able to shoehorn some easily available componentry into our miggys for a reasonable price (besides Jens, and I don't really consider his prices all that reasonable, even if his hardware is nice).

More and more it seems Amiga, if compared to comic books, is not the series you enjoy to read and dog ear your favorite pages, but more the series you buy off the shelf, stick in an acid free sleeve and bring out to sell later on when you need a new bathroom.

[TheBilgeRat]

How so? If you're bent on computational performance, you have no business looking at 80s CPUs. The comparison is completely valid from a performance perspective.

Its a spurious and silly comparison.  "OMG it can't outperform teh Droid phonez!" is not what the critique was about.  A standard 68000 or 68010 has 64 pins - that's hardly an unmanageable amount of pins.  If 8 bit is all that is wanted, fine - the 68008 is perfectly fine.  

Not calling a smartphone a general purpose computer shows your complete ignorance of the meaning of the term. I might have agreed if you said that they're not "modular computers" or "open computers" but they are very much general purpose.

This forum and amigans in general are fans of making retarded cellphone comparisons whenever performance or architecture things are brought up (rpi, odroid, ouya, etc etc), as if I can take my cellphone and easily install any operating system I want, utilize the bus to drive additional hardware, install keyboards and mice and larger screens easily, install whatever software I want easily, compile on it, etc.  They are not general purpose, they are radio receivers that also allow you some compute functionality.

[TheBilgeRat]

General purpose computers existed long before computer keyboards, mice, large screens and compilers. Those things are totally irrelevant to the concept of general purpose computers, but sure, I get what you are trying to say. You just aren't familiar with the terminology.

Sure, they are called brains.  Hell, throw in the abacus, the slide rule and  Babbage's Difference engine.  You are just being pedantic and argumentative.  So, try not throwing out cellphone analogies (they don't fit), blindly jumping from single core CISC chips lacking mmu/fpu/pipelining/superscalar architectures (at least in the 68000 area) to quad core RISC architectures to prove some lame point about "power", and making non-relevant asides about fictitious "concepts" of "general purpose" computers... unless you have a link to an academic paper backing your snobbery up, that is - in which case I would be more than happy to read it.

EDIT:  I wonder if it can run OS4:

[youtube]KlRoZ0zTXvw[/youtube]

[TheBilgeRat]

Haha, do you doubt the fact that general purpose computing is a concept? Maybe you could link to an academic paper supporting your idea that cellphone analogies don't fit. Maybe that idea just based on a totally arbitrary threshold that only exists in your head.

But hey let's talk single core CISC. Pentium III?

I Will!  Just as soon as I get it published in "Cantankerous Gits Monthly" along with a paper I have in mind about low slung jeans and that crappy Hippity Hop music.  Git Offah Mah Lawn!

Here I am responding to Nicholas' link to the Ubuntu Phone Edition link:



Kids these days - BAH!