Author Topic: Amiga Card PPC developing (Read 11538 times)

Senex · « **Reply #29 on:** March 15, 2008, 11:14:00 AM »

Quote

If AGA compatibility is mandatory it is better continue 68k support in way or another than switch CPU.

Well, the planned approach of "just" a new turboboard for existing Amigas is without doubt the quickest and most compatible solution.

Just for me personally I considered that much money better invested in a chimera of PPC-SOC, Minimig, AGA+ from Natami and the 68k-reimplementation by Tobiflex, because it would probably be more long-living than the ancient Amiga mainboards and would in addition offer nice possibilities to play around, expand and update due to the FPGA.

But, obviously, interconnecting these two worlds would require a hell of development work on the software side as well, so simply book this idea as "just arsing around". :-)

AeroMan · « **Reply #30 on:** March 15, 2008, 03:44:11 PM »

Quote

Senex wrote:
Just for me personally I considered that much money better invested in a chimera of PPC-SOC, Minimig, AGA+ from Natami and the 68k-reimplementation by Tobiflex,

I just think the same way :-) But instead of using 68k in FPGA (which by the way is a GREAT job) I would do software emulation on the PPC. It proved to be efficient in old Macs

freqmax · « **Reply #31 on:** March 15, 2008, 04:27:49 PM »

It won't give you the deterministic latency of a HDL-coded soft cpu.

Plaz · « **Reply #32 on:** March 15, 2008, 04:38:34 PM »

@Piru

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I'd say the reason is that it'd require pretty much full redesign, as many of the components haven't been available for years, and/or are not available as RoHS. Also, you'd need to write the software for the card, this is quite tedious and time consuming work, too.

I've done some reading of that thread and if I'm correct, this person was not part of Phase5 as I first thought. He seems to have resources that would be interested in doing the work if they are paid. So without phase5 documentation, it would be a total redesign. If however one had the hardware/software documentation of phase5 it would be a good head start. Even though some parts are discontinued, I've always been able to find suitable substitutes for IC's far older than this. I agree completely though that software source rewrites would be as much work or more than the hardware.

I've started translating the german thread to english. If anyone's really interested, I can post the translation so far. Proper english phrasing is included, but is it 100% accurate? :-)

Plaz

Jeff · « **Reply #33 on:** March 15, 2008, 05:56:42 PM »

@plaz

I would like to read it.

Trev · « **Reply #34 on:** March 17, 2008, 08:50:51 PM »

There's an article in Dr. Dobb's this month about optimizing string searches on Cell processors (particularly for network threat assessment systems, in terms of Gbps). With production of the PS3 driving down the cost of the Cell and the PS3 itself being a mainstream, mass market system, it seems ridiculous not to have OS4 running on it.

EDIT: Sorry, that was slightly off-topic. How about a classic emulation with a PowerUP/WarpOS layer running natively on Cell? There you go.

EDIT2: Interesting slides: http://cag.csail.mit.edu/ps3

Plaz · « **Reply #35 on:** March 26, 2008, 11:06:23 PM »

@Jeff

Sorry Jeff, got busy and forgot about the thread. I was going to try to translate more, but the postings by amiga4000t turned out to be very tough to translate and I couldn't get though fast enough with the spare time I have. Here's what I have so far and please forgive me for the errors all of you native German speakers :-)

Quote

amiga4000t
I want a ppc card for the Amiga developed and want to know who esle has interest in a ppc card?? This is not a joke, the development will be expensive and it will take time contacting available companies to decide what is possible and what is not.

teufel66
I say it comes down to how much one would cost and for which amiga models

tommysammy
I would be interested if this card had more than 256mb memory and 1GHZ or better because I already have a Blizzard 603e/240mhz.

@teufel66
Exactly.
In addition, the thing must be 100% compatible with OS4. Where can you get get documents that exactly describes how something like that functions? A PPC card is, as everybody knows, more than just a CPU and RAM.

Lichking
I would be interested, in any case, in a new PPC

AndreasFFM
Wasn't this the reason why phase5 went in to bankruptcy after 10 years of very successful Amiga hardware production?!?

aPEX
Yes and no, they simply wasted too much money on products like the CV64/3D, enormous sums in money... They simply wanted too much...

amiga4000t
For the 1200 and 4000

AMike
@amiga4000t
How much money do you have on hand? Without advance financing no company will lift a finger. We need to separatate fantasy from reality. Good Luck.

aPEX
This is not a bad idea and others agree here in the forum. Also the community would be pleased to have a new fast PPC card. But there are many hurdles. Begining on the financial side, then the time to develope (1-2 years), there are missing documents covering the Amiga. There must also be someone onboard that understands the Amiga, etc. etc... Some Amiga companies with money tried and unfortunately still failed. AmiJoe(Metabox), Escena, Phase5 and there were more companies that promised but never delivered. The best example is probably Adam with his PowerVixxen(A1200 PPC + GFX card) where only the user manual was printed more than 2 years ago. Such a project is not one which is simply shaken from the sleeve if you are not a millionaire that also has the finances. Please do not misunderstand, WE would definitely support something like that, but it must be more than than just a pure idea.

amiga4000t
@ apex
I have spoken with many people about it and I think I agree, therfore I will on some time Monday make a few telephone calls and then I can say whether it's possible or not, however it depends on the demand. Perhaps it's a silly idea, but it should be possible.

aPEX
Keep us up-to-date! There are no silly ideas, from a silly idea came the phoenix, then www.a1k.org etc. One must stick firmly to such an idea and it will grow

Plaz

kreciu · « **Reply #36 on:** March 26, 2008, 11:32:20 PM »

I think that there is no "need" for a G4 PPC for A1200/AGA, but we have the worst owner of Amiga ever called Amiga Inc. which is not allowing to sell Sam440 (even Efika...) WITH OS4.0.

My point is that development of PPC card FOR A1200 (plus GFX card) allows us to "leave" little bit longer and have fun with OS4.0, which is "nice" and maybe Amiga Inc. will finally understand :hahahaha: :crazy:

Personally for classics BlizardPPC is totally enough (either with OS3.9 plus PPC programs/libraries or OS4.0) Basically you can do very similar thinks (yes, I see difference between OS3.9 and OS4.0, but to enjoy OS4.0 you really need "power"

)

Jose · « **Reply #37 on:** March 27, 2008, 12:09:59 AM »

This reminds me of the CyberstormG4 prototypes from Phase5, how far did they go with the development of those ? There were some old threads on this but I really can't remember if that was known. Could be a good place to start.

Plaz · « **Reply #38 on:** March 27, 2008, 12:18:21 AM »

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Personally for classics BlizardPPC is totally enough

Maybe, but there doesn't seem to be enough to go around and I can't afford a used one at the latest prices.

Plaz

Plaz · « **Reply #39 on:** March 27, 2008, 12:32:20 AM »

BTW, what I translated was only most of the first page of that thread. There are several more pages continuing up to the present. Takes to long to translate, but maybe I can read more and give a quick update later.

Plaz

mike- · « **Reply #40 on:** March 27, 2008, 12:42:47 AM »

Well put me down for one. The cppc has been declared 75% dead by jjb. The 060 still works, but it refuses to see memory, the scsi chip is toast, and the ppc refuses to boot, probably because of the memory.

Plaz · « **Reply #41 on:** March 27, 2008, 01:13:44 AM »

OK, here's my "ultra short report" on the a1k.org thread.

50,000 Euro for bplan to develope and build 500 PPC cards from scratch. Minimum specs discussed... 600mhz with AGP slot for video and tentative name of StormFire. Lots of discussion, no action that I can detect yet.

Of course my German tranlation is crude, so I may have missed plenty.

Plaz

Trev · « **Reply #42 on:** March 27, 2008, 02:59:11 AM »

And what's the return for someone willing to make such an investment? At 100 Euro each, 200% profit would be a breeze--probably more based on what people are willing to pay for used PPC cards. Cut that a bit after finding someone to insure the deal, and you've still made a nice little profit for such a small investment.

Or was bplan just looking for donations?

Jose · « **Reply #43 on:** May 02, 2008, 07:07:05 PM »

Any news on this one ? PPC card prices on eBay have gone real F* crazy 8-)

Nlandas · « **Reply #44 from previous page:** May 02, 2008, 09:12:13 PM »

So how do we get motion? 100 for each card to be manufactured is not a bad price point, if it's real. Can anyone get 50,000 pre-orders though? I know, depending on the markup, I want one. If they keep it real close to the manufacturer cost, I'll take two.

-Nyle