What If It Wasn't PPC

[dammy]

If AI went against the idea of using PPC, but went with a mobile friendly arch, where would they be today?   Could we be busy trying to purchase a new generation aPhone this Xmas?

Dammy

[jorkany]

Isn't that what they were trying to do with AA?

[bloodline]

dammy wrote:
If AI went against the idea of using PPC, but went with a mobile friendly arch, where would they be today?   Could we be busy trying to purchase a new generation aPhone this Xmas?

Dammy

I used to ponder what would have happened if Amiga Technologies had not wasted time with the walker, restarting the A1200/A4000, but instead spent that time and money porting AOS to the ARM, with a built in 68k emu... It would have been dog slow at the time... But we would be in a much better position now...

[BillE]

I wouldn't buy a mobile phone no matter who the manufacturer was. I don't want one and I don't need one.

[taunusand]

BillE wrote:
I wouldn't buy a mobile phone no matter who the manufacturer was. I don't want one and I don't need one.

Who can live without a phone theese days? :-?

[dammy]

Isn't that what they were trying to do with AA?

That was just a over grown graphics layer.  Like anyone needed more bloatware.

Dammy

[dammy]

I used to ponder what would have happened if Amiga Technologies had not wasted time with the walker, restarting the A1200/A4000, but instead spent that time and money porting AOS to the ARM, with a built in 68k emu... It would have been dog slow at the time... But we would be in a much better position now...

Probably would have been best if they went half way with the Dragonball series and then jump to the ARM core Dragonball MX series.  If AT would have know of the potential Dragonball's  road map that is.

Bet AT could have made some decent money with a wireless "aTablet."

Dammy

[SamuraiCrow]

As much as I'd like a Pandora, I doubt that having yet another operating system on it would have helped.

Discontinuing the 68000 series was a mistake for the handheld market.  Never mind that it wasn't capable of out-of-order execution and was limited to 32-bit addressing.  Here's to the Natami and the 68070 whenever it gets done.   8-) (Assuming it ever does get done...  :roll: )

[itix]

I used to ponder what would have happened if Amiga Technologies had not wasted time with the walker, restarting the A1200/A4000, but instead spent that time and money porting AOS to the ARM, with a built in 68k emu... It would have been dog slow at the time... But we would be in a much better position now...

Nowhere. Without full OCS or AGA compatibility it would have been yet another fiasco for Amiga Technologies. It was the custom chips which made Commodore-Amiga successful.

On the other hand Amiga Technologies never had resources to enhance Amiga in any way. They had only one employee: Petro Tschytschenko. Amiga Technologies was always "dead" company with few ideas with even fewer resources.

[the_leander]

itix wrote:

Nowhere. Without full OCS or AGA compatibility it would have been yet another fiasco for Amiga Technologies. It was the custom chips which made Commodore-Amiga successful.

Tbh I thought it was the fact that you could get the games in just about any playground in the UK that made it such a hit over here... Might be wrong though...

The idea of a portable running Amiga games on the other hand...

And with that, for the first time in a very long time, I feel a slight pang of regret for having given up my CD32.

That was a sweet little system, when you had a SX32 and extra ram in it at any rate...

itix wrote:
On the other hand Amiga Technologies never had resources to enhance Amiga in any way. They had only one employee: Petro Tschytschenko. Amiga Technologies was always "dead" company with few ideas with even fewer resources.

Shame really.

[dammy]

Nowhere. Without full OCS or AGA compatibility it would have been yet another fiasco for Amiga Technologies. It was the custom chips which made Commodore-Amiga successful.

For a mobile device, it ECS/AGA compatibility wouldn't have been needed, at least not initially.  If they had gotten a base model out and released a decent SDK, we would have many ports as we see to day for OS4/MOS/AROS.  With a jump to the more modern DragonBall MX, EUAE integration would have been option.

On the other hand Amiga Technologies never had resources to enhance Amiga in any way. They had only one employee: Petro Tschytschenko. Amiga Technologies was always "dead" company with few ideas with even fewer resources.

No more so then Hyperion's two people, now just Evert, have done with OS4.  Except Petro would have demanded more code and all of it being on time, or else.

Dammy

[AmiDelf]

PPC must be saved by all costs! x86 must never win this battle. Never ever! Why? Well, competition is great. I dont want x86 to loose or win neither. Its healthy with competition. But sure, the fact that Apple went over to x86 made PPC weaker. But still Wii, XBOX360 and PS3 uses PPC technology.

Amiga community needs to show the world that PPC is alive! Both AmigaOS 4 and MorphOS are today PPC operating systems. Same with AROS for PPC. PPC is a great place to be for developers. Its not the "commercial" pressure on it as on x86. You also have low focus on viruses and other lamer exterminators!

I wish that more people instead of ditching PPC, start to make it more comfortable for everyone. Its here and we should protect it from Byte Bandits


Regards,
Michal

[cantido]

AmiDelf wrote:
PPC must be saved by all costs! x86 must never win this battle.

What makes PPC so great? What advantage does it have over ARM or MIPS? Have freescale magically added all the features that ia32 and amd64 got ages and ages ago? Can they even get their designs running at clocks to be considered competition?

Amiga community needs to show the world that PPC is alive! Both AmigaOS 4 and MorphOS are today PPC operating systems.

There are plenty of operating systems that are actually capable of doing something that run on PPC, some of them still actively support m68k.. netbsd. It's very possible to write code that can be built to run on different hardware platforms and operating systems these days. Writing generic tools in PPC assembly for AmigaOS would be a little be backwards...

"Same with AROS for PPC. PPC is a great place to be for developers. Its not the "commercial" pressure on it as on x86."

/me fails to see how a processor arch. links to commercial interests.... other than if that arch isn't commercially viable there won't be any hardware around that uses it.

You also have low focus on viruses and other lamer exterminators!

I don't think either OS4, morphos or AROS have any serious security functionality. The only reason you wouldn't get a "virus" would be that no one is interested in your tiny platform, they could better spend their time stealing credit card details from millions and millions of people (opposed to like 5 or 6 - people -) running Windows. I doubt any of the available browsers etc are all that resistant to attack, it's just no one has be arsed to check them out.

I wish that more people instead of ditching PPC...

IIRC Freescale still fund linux development for the PPC in some way or fashion. I think they gave the Debian m68k guys some coldfire boards too. But that would be because some embedded partner wants linux and not because freescale has any interest in hobbyists.

Alternative platforms are a hobby not a religion .

[corto]

cantido wrote:

What makes PPC so great? What advantage does it have over ARM or MIPS? Have freescale magically added all the features that ia32 and amd64 got ages and ages ago? Can they even get their designs running at clocks to be considered competition?

Which magic in ia32 and amd64 are you thinking about ? PPC is a modern and clean processor. If it was more popular, processors and compilers will be even better.

[dammy]

Which magic in ia32 and amd64 are you thinking about ?

Does quad core with direct connect architecture for under $200 USD count?

Dammy