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Author Topic: NatAmi 68070 design draft  (Read 36515 times)

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Offline LoadWB

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Re: NatAmi 68070 design draft
« Reply #74 on: June 25, 2008, 02:04:32 PM »
A lot of negativity here.  Some people miss that many technological advances and some commercial successes started out as an idea, a crazy notion, or a fanatical hobby.  While NatAmi may not be a way to compete in today's market, we should not and cannot discount that it may spawn other ideas or advanced methods which develop into better products.

A long time ago at a C64 swap party I mentioned that I wanted to hack together a real 6551 and support software and give the C64 the ability to communicate faster than 2400 baud.  I was dissuaded by all in the group because "the disk drive won't even run that fast."  A few years later CMD introduced the SwiftLink-232.

I should have done it, anyway.  And though it looks as if they do not really need it, I give that advice and encouragement to the NatAmi team.

And to the guy who mentioned self-modifying code, that is a good idea and all for old-timer programming (like 6502 hacking, demo stuff, etc.,) but in the modern world it is a massive security risk.  Apparently modern programmers and hardware architects have a pretty good grasp on that, now they just need to find a reliable way to prevent stack and heap corruption from pwning b0xen.
 

Offline Plaz

Re: NatAmi 68070 design draft
« Reply #75 on: June 25, 2008, 02:23:18 PM »
Quote
it will be a nightmare to develop and write software for unless you abstract the entire system... and if you are going to do that... why use Coldfire?



Yes, I mentioned earlier that the bios (firmware) and glue logic would be the biggest tax on such a design. Coldfire would have seemed like the logical successor to 68K for backward code compatibility with classics, but it's proving to be untrue. Too limited, too slow. A card with an embedded JIT and a 4ghz x86 chip wouldn't be easy either, but starts to make more sense.

Plaz

 

Offline Plaz

Re: NatAmi 68070 design draft
« Reply #76 on: June 25, 2008, 02:34:07 PM »
@alexh

Quote
In order for them to be ridiculed, first they must write something ridiculous surely?


Surely you jest. One only need post the observed weather in some places to become a target for fodder. :-)

Plaz
 

Offline Hans_

Re: NatAmi 68070 design draft
« Reply #77 on: June 25, 2008, 02:35:40 PM »
@all

Could I suggest that people be a bit more careful with unit prefixes? For example, 200-400 mHz would be 200-400 milli-Hertz, i.e., one cycle every 2.5 - 5 seconds. I am absolutely sure that the Natami team can beat that clock speed. I am also certain that you would not be happy with such performance.  :lol:

200-400 MHz (or mega-Hertz) on the other hand, would be orders of magnitude better.

Hans
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Offline jlariv8957

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Re: NatAmi 68070 design draft
« Reply #78 on: June 25, 2008, 04:28:42 PM »
Hi,

I just want to know what is the 68070/68080. I always tought the 68070 was a microcontroller chip used on CDi what did not share anything with the 68k familly.

Thanks
 

Offline AJCopland

Re: NatAmi 68070 design draft
« Reply #79 on: June 25, 2008, 04:28:44 PM »
@wolfchild && LoadWB

Don't get me wrong I'm glad that they want to do it, I'm just worried that it becomes a matter of overreach. ASIC, or even a structured-ASIC, looks like it could be out of their reach which also precludes ColdFire even if Gunnar is right that it can be compatible enough to 68k code.

I want to see the Natami do well and initially that seems to mean the Natami60. The N68070 is a cool idea but is also an enormous undertaking.

How much do FPGAs with a couple of million gate equivalent cost? About $522 according to DigiKey (122-1350-ND). Which bearing in mind that the 68060 used 2.4million gates is a reasonable assumption to have about target size which doesn't compare all that well to the remaining 35 68060s also at DigiKey (its easy to get these prices from there which is why i'm using it).

All of this is why I suggested they not speculate but actually try to implement some of the things that they want in an existing verifiable core like the tg68k such as Instruction Pipelining and Superscalar Execution that the 68060 had.

Just my 2 pence.

Andy
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Offline AJCopland

Re: NatAmi 68070 design draft
« Reply #80 on: June 25, 2008, 04:31:33 PM »
Quote

jlariv8957 wrote:
Hi,

I just want to know what is the 68070/68080. I always tought the 68070 was a microcontroller chip used on CDi what did not share anything with the 68k familly.

Thanks


The N68070 in this case is a design for a chip that the Natami team members would like to implement after they've done the Natami060. See Natami 68070.

Andy
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Offline downix

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Re: NatAmi 68070 design draft
« Reply #81 on: June 25, 2008, 05:11:13 PM »
You know, this reminds me of work I've been doing to make a unit that can act as a 14Mhz 68000 in one mode, or a high-speed RISC in another.  Basically, adds a decode step to the pipeline for when in the legacy mode.  The m68k instruction set just does not scale up for higher speed very well, hence why the new RISC'ier setup.  But for legacy apps, the decode would give backwards compat.

Nothing beyond a draft tho as I'm still getting the RISC core to work right.
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Offline Zac67

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Re: NatAmi 68070 design draft
« Reply #82 on: June 25, 2008, 06:20:42 PM »
Quote
bloodline wrote:
perhaps with something like AAA filling the gap until something like NYX could be brought to market by 1992..


Err ;-)

The Nyx was the AAA prototype... link
 

Offline bloodline

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Re: NatAmi 68070 design draft
« Reply #83 on: June 25, 2008, 06:29:09 PM »
Quote

Zac67 wrote:
Quote
bloodline wrote:
perhaps with something like AAA filling the gap until something like NYX could be brought to market by 1992..


Err ;-)

The Nyx was the AAA prototype... link


You are correct! I am thinking of Hombre, all these stupid code names so long ago :-)

Offline Zac67

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Re: NatAmi 68070 design draft
« Reply #84 on: June 25, 2008, 06:48:42 PM »
Phew, just made it through this long thread...

Actually, I have the impression that many posters do offer very constructive criticism to point out where the effort could be more effective. I can't imagine anyone reading here who wouldn't be totally enthusiastic when all this could eventually be realised.

However, some of the possible design goals are not at all realistic (chipset for mobile phones, ASIC design, ...) and should seriously be rethought before much time gets wasted on them...
 

Offline HenryCase

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Re: NatAmi 68070 design draft
« Reply #85 on: June 25, 2008, 07:44:05 PM »
Quote
Zac67 wrote:
However, some of the possible design goals are not at all realistic (chipset for mobile phones, ASIC design, ...) and should seriously be rethought before much time gets wasted on them...


Those were not design goals, those were my own ideas. I am not a member of the Natami team. Perhaps it would be better if you visited the Natami forums to see what the real plans for the Natami are.
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Offline bloodline

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Re: NatAmi 68070 design draft
« Reply #86 on: June 25, 2008, 09:16:30 PM »
Quote

Plaz wrote:
Quote
it will be a nightmare to develop and write software for unless you abstract the entire system... and if you are going to do that... why use Coldfire?



Yes, I mentioned earlier that the bios (firmware) and glue logic would be the biggest tax on such a design. Coldfire would have seemed like the logical successor to 68K for backward code compatibility with classics, but it's proving to be untrue. Too limited, too slow. A card with an embedded JIT and a 4ghz x86 chip wouldn't be easy either, but starts to make more sense.


For me that would make the most sense for an Amiga accelerator... if anyone still wanted to make one... But I think seriously, an ARM core with a JIT is the most sensible long term solution... The ARM is low power, well supported, it's not going anywhere and with a nice JIT should reach standard 680x0 performance with the current generation...

Offline Kin-Hell

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Re: NatAmi 68070 design draft
« Reply #87 on: June 25, 2008, 09:23:31 PM »
Quote

Zac67 wrote:
Quote
The Motorola 68060 CPU was designed that way. Its a CISC decoder in front of a RISC execution pipeline.

Err...

The '060 has no RISC core - this is garbage. RISC starts with Coldfire.

And I'd like a to see an available 5 GHz RISC CPU...



....Bullshit....

CSPPC came before ColdFire. That Power PC CPU is RISC dude!

Too Risque!

Coldfire Origins....

;-)
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Offline bloodline

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Re: NatAmi 68070 design draft
« Reply #88 on: June 25, 2008, 09:31:23 PM »
Quote

Kin-Hell wrote:
Quote

Zac67 wrote:
Quote
The Motorola 68060 CPU was designed that way. Its a CISC decoder in front of a RISC execution pipeline.

Err...

The '060 has no RISC core - this is garbage. RISC starts with Coldfire.

And I'd like a to see an available 5 GHz RISC CPU...



....Bullshit....

CSPPC came before ColdFire. That Power PC CPU is RISC dude!

Too Risque!

Coldfire Origins....

;-)


But Zac67 is right, the 68060 is not RISC...

You can read all about the 060 architecture here:

http://security-protocols.com/library/phreaking/68060Info.txt

It explains it all rather simply (If English is your first language).

Offline Zac67

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Re: NatAmi 68070 design draft
« Reply #89 from previous page: June 25, 2008, 09:34:30 PM »
@Kin-Hell
Oh boy - I was talking about 68k-ish RISC. :roll: (or rather RISC-ish 68k)

Of course RISC predates Coldfire - but e.g. ARM predates PowerPC by nearly a decade, not to mention MIPS.