So PowerPC is dead you say?

[takemehomegrandma]

So PowerPC is dead you say?

Yes.

My point was wouldn't it be awesome if a group of IBM engineers looked at getting AROS PPC/OS4 to run on that CPU in their spare time.

:whack:
.

[takemehomegrandma]

Just because PowerPC isn't used in desktops any more

Equals to **DEAD** for all purposes interesting to us, which is what people mean when they say that PPC is dead. Nobody is denying that PPC is being used plenty in servers, routers, printers, automotive, etc. But who cares?

[takemehomegrandma]

Not at all - all the PowerPC processors used by machines since the PowerMac are actually using embedded processors.

So PowerPC is very much alive for all purposes interesting to people who don't just want to use old PowerMacs.

:crazy:

Again, *nobody* has been building viable PPC based desktop motherboards since Apple left the scene. They were the last, and those Apple machines represents how far PPC ever went on the desktop. Nobody will follow, since there simply is no point. PPC can't do anything for the desktop that X86 (and soon ARM) can't do better (and by "better", I actually mean *every single point of comparison*)...

[takemehomegrandma]

CPU architecture in consoles couldn't be more uninteresting, to a user it doesn't matter one bit what's "under the hood" in a console, as long as it's powerful enough, cool/silent enough, and helps making the system cheap enough. Games and services are what matters. Who knows, maybe the upcoming "x86 killers" ARM chips from nVidia will be the answer to all three of those criteria? Wouldn't surprise me one bit if Microsoft's cooperation with nVidia in the ARM venture would include console as well, Microsoft has been completely absent on the very lucrative mobile devices market, especially mobile gaming devices, and I think they want in on everything mobile (that's why they are going ARM with Windows). Maybe there is a point in having a common "architectural eco-system" for a "Xbox 720" and "Xbox Mobile", who knows? I guess we'll know when we are closing in on Christmas 2013.

But it doesn't matter one bit to anything "Amiga", so I wonder why we are discussing it here...?

[takemehomegrandma]

You assume too much. My interests are not necessarily the same as yours.

You obviously failed completely to comprehend my point. I wasn't talking about individual interests, and for the record, I couldn't care less in what you are interested in...

[takemehomegrandma]

I disagree with your claim of uninteresting. While most console users do not feel the need to care what's inside their gizmos, we have reason to find it an interesting detail. Why? Well, some people say that PowerPC is not developed with desktop computing in mind, and therefore these network router chips are relatively poor as desktop processors compared to Intel and AMD things. As the old term "convergence" gradually comes true, these consoles are going to start doing more desktop like things, and they already have. They now surf the web, play movies, show pictures, do video conferencing.

So long as these console makers continue to choose PowerPC, for whatever reasons they have to do that, PowerPC processors will be pulled toward features and instructions beneficial to these and new tasks that historically may be considered desktop things rather than router or car engine things. As these desktop-alike things filter into PowerPC

"Desktop-alike things filter into PPC"; You are obviously mixing up application with architecture. Of course you can play music and browse the web on PPC based CPU's, that's not the point! And no matter what CPU architecture Microsoft/Sony/Nintendo is going to use in their next generation consoles, there will *never ever again* be a viable desktop market around the PPC architecture! There is absolutely *NO* connection between future *game consoles* and future viable PPC motherboards for Amiga!

our situation, so long as we are unwillingly chained to the PowerPC flagpole, can improve. Doesn't mean it will, as that depends on someone taking such a new PowerPC chip and makign a desktop with it, but at least it's possible.

No it won't happen. I'm *not* saying it's technically impossible to develop a motherboard using obscure PPC CPU's (Aeon and Acube are examples of that), but the key word here is *VIABLE*, and this is where it *fails*, as again both Aeon and Acube are both examples of. Failure is the only possible outcome; there simply isn't any room for the word "viable" in a sentence describing a $3,000+ system of 2007 standards that can't even play 1080p video properly. That's not a way forward to a future, it's an express lane to a casket six feet under ground.

An observation of this happening is the return of Altivec to Frescale's product line. They'd lost interest and dumped it. But enough customers had enough reason to want it back that Freescale had to give in. We potentially benefit from that, as a desktop AmigaOS machine with Altivec is better than one without. As long as consoles and other things want certain features they will much more likely remain core requirements of the PowerPC spec, rather than drift away to optional features or even removed in future spec releases.

Sure, having Altivec is better than not having Altivec, but what has that to do with anything? It surely doesn't change the fact that nobody is building viable PPC desktop motherboards, and nobody will do that ever again! Apple took that market with them when they left!

[takemehomegrandma]

Fair enough, that's the trouble with text communication, it lacks emphasis so is easily misinterpreted. I am forced to regard your comment of "Equals to **DEAD** for all purposes interesting to us" as meaning "Equals to **DEAD** for all purposes of interest to Amiga users".

That's exactly what I meant.

That of course is simply just not true anyway, we have OS4 and MOS both running on PPC. How does that equate to dead?

New PPC CPU's doesn't equal to new viable desktop motherboards, not at all actually. The Apple PPC HW was the last of its kind, nothing has followed and nothing ever will. You can spend the whole day discussing consoles, super computers like "Watson", or Freescale re-introducing Altivec in some router CPU; it won't change the fact that nobody will ever be building a viable desktop motherboard usable by OS4 ever again! This is why it's **DEAD** for all purposes of interest to Amiga users!

[takemehomegrandma]

I find console architecture VERY interesting as nothing else resembles a Amiga as much in the computing world as a game console.

If you were to build a modern Amiga like system, the parts used in current game consoles would be very useful.

Not fully. Playstation 3 had several incarnations of Linux working and can be quite easily expanded to very nice workstation that is quite powerful and even cheap.

The Cell CPU really sucks as a desktop CPU, it always did, even when it was new (and since then Sony even killed the option of installing Linux). It's a completely different design philosophy, not suitable for general desktop use. None of the other console CPU's makes sense either, there are much, much better options.

And the Wii U with its Power 7 based multi-core processor, THAT would definitely be on my list for desired components.

Don't make it sound like it will be using a Power 7 CPU, not even the Nintendo marketing hype try to suggest that (they say things more in line with "share some characteristics", which can mean just about anything, and very likely something quite far away from "Power 7 based").

But yes, by all means, please go ahead and approach IBM with a request to buy that CPU that will be custom built exclusively for Nintendo, for use in a new desktop Amiga motherboard. Or the custom made PPC chip they did for the Microsoft's Xbox 360. Then please report back here what their response was. I think I know what the answer will be (most likely a two letter word beginning with N and ending with O, followed by several other two-letter words in a row, each beginning with H and ending with A).

Then build your custom design desktop motherboard using it. If you start now, and put in half a million in cash, you might have a product ready in three years or so (read: yet another computer generation has passed). After that, maybe Amigakit can collect pre-orders here on amiga.org, so you can start producing it in batches of 50 units. Heck, chances are that even the A1X1K will be competitive in price.

Is this really your view of a viable, sustainable future for the platform? If "no", then why are we discussing console CPU's as if they had any relevance for Amiga's future?

[takemehomegrandma]

No it won't happen. I'm *not* saying it's technically impossible to develop a motherboard using obscure PPC CPU's (Aeon and Acube are examples of that), but the key word here is *VIABLE*, and this is where it *fails*, as again both Aeon and Acube are both examples of.

OK, so it's not dead because it's incapable

Of course it's *technically possible* to make a desktop motherboard based on obscure PPC CPU's (it can't compete with any *real* desktop motherboard though).

But open your eyes for a moment, and think about this for a few seconds: Why do you think nobody is *doing* this? Why is there no desktop market based on PPC? Why hasn't it been any for the last half decade?

it's dead because they don't sell more than some number in your head.

Oh, please...

I don't know how many either company has sold, or if they've broken even.

I'd say a few hundred units, and I recall from somewhere that the threshold for Acube to make a production batch is about 30 units, so it's an extremely low volume scheme.

Since Acube has more than one model, I feel it safe to assume that they felt successful enough to do more than the first model.

Performance wise, my $129 Efika MX kicks Sam 440's butt. And the Sam 460 doesn't quite reach up to a 2004 Pegasos 2. And it costs over *a thousand* Euros! The obscure hardware components has meant quite a dire driver situation. More than a year has passed, and they still haven't got some of the fundamental, rudimentary things working properly! The A1X1K doesn't offer much on top of a souped-up $100 PowerMac G4, and apparently it can't play 1080p video sufficiently even on a dual core enabled Linux with all drivers working. And it costs over *three thousand dollars*, all handled through pre-order schemes!

How is this good? How is it even *decent*? How is this viable? How is it a way to a sustainable future?

It's too bad that none of our Amiga-alike platforms can be a viable thing to you. It's sad that MorphOS is such a failure to be on such old Mac laptops instead of shiny new ones, or on shiny new anything that I know of. And sad that AROS is not viable because it runs on shiny new PCs. And sad that OS4 is not viable because they seem to have a successful business selling brand new but weird boards.

Now don't be cranky just because someone opens the window for a minute to let in some fresh reality from outside.

At least AROS isn't tied to a dead-end CPU architecture.

At least MorphOS developers aren't mentally tied to PPC in any way, in fact, I don't think any single one of them looks at PPC as a path to a viable future, rather the opposite actually, and eventually this will show.

The only ones thinking the OS4 model (obscure, custom made, low performance, low volume, ridiculously priced PPC HW) is the way forward, is the OS4 OS/HW developers. Which is fine by me.

[takemehomegrandma]

1. IBM are 100% at liberty to sell Xenon. Why? Because Sony were furious and had IBM not made it available and 100% independent of Microsoft's Xbox they would have ended up either paying billions in court to Sony or Microsoft paying Sony commission on Xbox360s sold. If you have the cash IBM can use it within a project of your choosing.

2. Your average Computer Science PHd student could design a motherboard for off the shelf DRAM/Xenon/GPU as a single year project. A woman invented the ARM cpu and students designed the Amstrad and BBC Micros you do know that yes? Difficult for us but not impossible for a talented post graduate. We are talking replicating known published Xbox360 motherboard schematics.

OK Digiman, you surely proved me wrong there! Well, now that I know better, I must admit that it turns out that PPC *is* a viable way for a sustainable future of desktop computers. With this in mind, I must say that OS4 needs to remain PPC. Forever.

I apologize for the distraction! Now, let's get back to this interesting discussion: Which one of the eighth generation console CPU's do you think should be used in the AmigaOne X2000? The Power 7 based CPU from Wii U? Or the 16 core Xbox 720? 2012 will be The Year of Amiga, and so will all the coming years as well!

:pint:

[takemehomegrandma]

While I find it unusual to see myself agreeing with tmhg I can only assume he means commercially viable, which for the moment appears to be true. Price, performance and most other properties make it not an option in anything other than homebrew/hobbyist circles where rational decisions arent important. If anything Id have to say the ppc systems youve mentioned support that idea rather than negate it.

I think any platform needs to be of a certain size to survive in the long run, it needs to be able to carry its own weight, but not only does it need to be self-sustaining in a credible way, it also needs growth, a credible future and momentum for anyone to invest any kind of money, time, or even interest in it. It needs developers. It needs users. Users won't come without developers, and developers won't come without users. A growth in user base might result in a growth in developer base, resulting in a growth in user base, resulting in a growth in developer base, and so on. That kind of momentum.

Obscure $3,000 systems of 2007 standards is not what is needed to get momentum. Neither is €1,000 ones that is completely stomped to the ground and run over by a common smart phone. The only ones buying this kind of stuff, are the few hundreds already die-hard fanatics that literary buys *anything* at *any* price, as long as Hyperion tells them it's a good thing and/or it has a boing ball slapped on to its bog standard PC-case. This is hardly "self-sustaining", it's more like living on a life support machine. I think it's a safe guess to claim that 99% of the A1X1K systems went to people *already owning* an OS4 system (the remaining 1% would be "amigadave" and possibly one or a few other blokes). So it's not leading to any kind of advancement for the platform, in fact, I think it might *scare people away* since it signals so darn clearly to everyone with a brain that there is *no credible future* in this, and they will invest their interest somewhere else, and then we are talking about a platform *decline* in the same pace that the old Eyetech A1's die off or simply being put out in the garage due to the obvious lack of progress and lack of a future. *That* is what the A1X1K brings to the table, *that* is what it means for a desktop OS being tied to a HW platform that completely lacks viable desktop systems, *that* is what all this "pro-PPC advocating" results in; pulling the plug on the life support.

PPC is **DEAD** as a desktop platform, even if the suitable CPU's would be here (which they aren't) it's simply not possible to build a viable desktop machine in the ultra-low volumes Acube/Aeon can afford, and those who *could* manage (like ASUS, Abit, MSI, etc) certainly won't do it, and I have asked this question previously in this thread: "Why doesn't anyone build desktop motherboards using PPC today?", and of course nobody has answered it. But by all means people, keep advocating it as the only route forward for OS4... :lol:

[takemehomegrandma]

The scary thing is that he regularly posts on MorphZone

the negativity is damned counterproductive.

Oh my god, Did you just play the "negativity" card again, like PPC would magically become a viable future desktop platform just because people would say nice things about it? That's almost criminally naive! It's not "negativity" that's killing off OS4, it's a future totally depending on $3,000 PPC systems offering half a decade old bang for those bucks! A waste of money, and a waste of time. In other words, not at all very productive!