So what is XMOS good for?

[Hans_]

Drives up price.

Makes it look like they are making unique hardware that would be worth the cost.

Makes them look busy.

Uh, those XCore chips cost less than $10 US. I know that it's fun to be negative and piss on someone else's work, but do try to keep the criticism sane.

XMOS call their chips "software defined silicon." What I think that they mean with this** is that there are no built in peripherals. Instead, its low latency event-driven multi-threaded architecture means that you can create any peripheral I/O that you like using software. This is something that "normal" micro-controllers can't do (or would struggle to do reliably).

What would it be used for on the X1000? No idea exactly. It's greatest use is likely to be with the Xena slot. Forget about using it for graphics or emulation, because it's no processing powerhouse, unless you string a whole set of these cores together (via the Xena slot) and figure out how to use them as stream processors. Given its strength with low latency event driven processing, this would be useful for hardware hackers, people doing robotics stuff, etc.

"But that's not desktop," I hear some people say. Who cares? People call the Amiga a "hobby" computer, so why not put stuff in it that caters to computer/electronics hobbyists?

Why not just put it on a PCI card or on a USB dongle? Well, what's the point of having a low latency device if you then put it at the end of a high latency bus? Sure, you could still develop XCore stuff via a USB connected Xcore chip, but you would immediately take anything that would work better being tightly integrated off the table.

Why put the XCore chip on all machines instead of just the hobbyists who want to use it? Well, let us say that one of these hobbyists makes some cool gizmo that you like, and want to have. With standardized hardware you could ask the hobbyist to make you one, and plug it straight in.

All of this is completely hypothetical. We're not going to know what can be done with it until the machine is available, and in the hands of those who can develop stuff. If you don't see the point in the XCore chip, then maybe you should focus on the rest of the machine; multi-core >1.6 GHz, PCI-Express, etc. Surely that's interesting enough in its own right?

Hans

** I'm not familiar with their architecture, so I could be completely wrong

[Gulliver]

I believe that the XMOS chip is in the X1K either for:

1-Marketing BS: Trying to convince you it is a custom chip and so the X1K board itself follows an Amiga concept, when it doesnt and that it can be a powerfull coprocessor when it is another thing.
2-Leftover: The X1K is just another embedded PPC motherboard, some company has as leftover because they couldnt market them, and as embedded mobo, it came with a microcontroller, the XMOS.

[dammy]

Instead of being so extremely negative and shooting down every positive thing there is to say. BTW its very hard to have a debate with that attitude..

In other words, you have nothing to bring to the discussion on the value of XMOS brings to desktop OS4 users over a USB controller?  

But please tell me what kind of mobo you, thats all you nay sayers, would have come up with?

Anything cheap.  If you haven't noticed, it's very rough economic environment out there and there is so little excessive cash that users

I dont know what CPU it will use, I dont know the  price, so I would not say its under powered and way to expensive.

We do know it's PPC so that alone for the best you can hope for is what we already find mid level desktops.  I have yet to see a cheap PPC for desktop.

[Hans_]

8 XMOS chips isn't even going to scratch the surface of what a modern GPU can do in terms of parallel processing, even using basic GLSlang (let alone CUDA, Stream or OpenCL).

Agreed. However, GPUs can't read back from the destination buffer, so they're not good for Infinite Impulse Response (IIR) filters. It's possible to do with a GPU via tricks (with sizable extra overhead), but this is something that a set of stream processors might have an edge. Of course, you're still contending with a brute of a processor, so 8 XMOS chips still won't do.

IIR filters are used in audio processing, and Gaussian blurs of any size can be done efficiently using IIR filters, whereas a Finite Impulse Response (FIR) based Gaussian blur slows down exponentially with blur size.

Hans

[Karlos]

Agreed. However, GPUs can't read back from the destination buffer, so they're not good for Infinite Impulse Response (IIR) filters. It's possible to do with a GPU via tricks (with sizable extra overhead), but this is something that a set of stream processors might have an edge. Of course, you're still contending with a brute of a processor, so 8 XMOS chips still won't do.

IIR filters are used in audio processing, and Gaussian blurs of any size can be done efficiently using IIR filters, whereas a Finite Impulse Response (FIR) based Gaussian blur slows down exponentially with blur size.

Hans

Actually, the CUDA n-body solver that got me into GPU coding initially uses a double buffer where the destination data becomes the source data for the next iteration. It's pretty effective.

[cv643d]

Why cant a company make money on Workbench, and work with the community, not towards them, stirring up more problems.

We all want to run Workbench on modern hardware that is not expensive. Yes, I know A1000 cost 1500 dollars back in 1985, but lets face it. Its not 1985 anymore.

It is 2010.

I have not met ANYONE in modern times that explicitly wants a PPC system for their workstation. This new X-factor motherboard is just weird IMHO (sorry).

Why not think outside the box and work towards uniting the community towards a common goal so that we become stronger, once we are united we could spread the word about new-school Amiga in a positive way and rewards would come back both to Amiga and to the company who are the new "Amiga".

My vision of Amiga is a system that can compete with the Windows and Apple world. By creating a system designed for a niche market such as a market that uses the x-chip, what kind of signals does that action send out?

That Amiga is not as good as PC/Mac and will never be so there is no point trying, "lets find a niche market instead"?

[Piru]

We're not going to know what can be done with it until the machine is available

We know what can't be done with it, however.

If you don't see the point in the XCore chip, then maybe you should focus on the rest of the machine; multi-core >1.6 GHz, PCI-Express, etc.

Somehow the whole marketing drive of this "X1000" seems to be built around this chip. If it's not so important, then why make such a big deal about it? I find this odd.

[koaftder]

We know what can't be done with it, however.


Somehow the whole marketing drive of this "X1000" seems to be built around this chip. If it's not so important, then why make such a big deal about it? I find this odd.

My guess is that they are hoping to sell "expansion" modules that utilize the x-link switching feature of these devices. SO basically you can pay 100 bucks or something for each "device" that will do something lame. They're hoping to get developer support for it, which ain't gonna happen because it's lame and uninteresting and unprofitable in this context.

[persia]

So now we know it's slower than USB, has only 64K ram and has no no direct access to system ram...  Curiouser, and curiouser.  Unless these boards have some sort of other use and they were able to piggy back the Amiga One production onto a much larger production order...

[polardark]

So... Let's try to summarize things a little bit. People make claims about what the XCore is or is not suitable for on a modern computer. With that in mind the following points seem to stick out:

Not suitable for:
* Graphics
* SATA
* Network
* USB 2.0
* Classic Amiga Emulation

Suitable for:
* Audio I/O
* USB 1.1

The above assumes that there is a sensible interconnection between the XCore chip(s) and the resources of the system (DMA, Interrupts, address and data lines).

Did I leave anything out?

[koaftder]

Blink LEDs at 50MHz

[Gulliver]

For embedded solution motherboards (a.k.a. AmigaOne X-1000), as a microcontroller in some industrial enviroment ?

[the_leander]

Blink LEDs at 50MHz

Does this mean then, that the X1000 will finally be able to beat the original Amigas' joystick port response time? :shocked:

[KimmoK]

>* Graphics

Xcore could be used for simple GFX output.
(it can be done also with a 20Mhz micro controller + 1k of RAM, xena has 64k and 500Mhz)

It can also be used for custom graphics/video HW that plugs on xorro or bridges both xorro and PCIx1.

>* SATA

Most likely it could also do SATA and PATA, but it's better to use those onboard SATA and PATA connectors for that.

>* Network

Xcore could handle a lot of networking tasks. But things like ethernet is better to be handled by the onboard ethernet chip and by the telecom monster, the PPC.

>* USB 2.0

x1000 has 10 ports for USB2.

>* Classic Amiga Emulation

XCore could be used to build a bridge to classic expansions, lagacy ports and motherboards.

Page 32 defines relevant use cases1 and 2 for xena:
https://electronics.wesrch.com/User_images/Pdf/SE1_1261077219.pdf

>Suitable for:
>* Audio I/O

Yes, but SB600 already provides 7+1 Audio.
Xena could be used to connect to old MIDI adapters and to old midi devices.

>The above assumes that there is a sensible interconnection between the XCore chip(s) and the resources of the system (DMA, Interrupts, address and data lines).

According to latest information, xena uses 16 I/O lines to communcate with the PPC (perhaps the connection is to the serdes/Envoi lines of PA6T). And xena JTAG lines are connected to the PPC GPIO lines.

So, to me it seems that the interface is very powerfull for I/O toys.

(for calculation cluster we would need 64 core xcore chips on a xorro+PCIeX1, xena would only enable a good (low latency) control interface to that)


And about interrupt driven mouse pointer etc. stuff...
For memory refresh. The nonsmooth mouse movement in the mainstream is caused by what? Serial interface to the system? Polling I/O of the system? Wrong priorisation of GUI tasks?