ARM for the future?

[nicholas]

Most of that is still mostly consistent with what you were replying to: A small number of "almost but not quite" general purpose registers for integer ops and logic.



... but only for 64 bit code. And you still carry along the whole messy old legacy. x86_64 is *much* better, it's almost tolerable. But it's still far uglier than m68k from an assembly programming point of view. Not that that matters for most people these days, though, since there aren't many of us left that actually write any reasonable amount of asm (I mainly do for my compiler backends).

Everything is ugly compared to 68k assembly.

[vidarh]

Everything is ugly compared to 68k assembly.

I still have a soft spot for 6502 assembly... It's beautiful for its simplicity. Then again, of course it can't compete in actual usability.

[nicholas]

I still have a soft spot for 6502 assembly... It's beautiful for its simplicity. Then again, of course it can't compete in actual usability.

It definitely has it's own charm, but then again I have a weird pseudo-masochistic fondness for 8086 real mode assembly. :lol:

[vidarh]

It definitely has it's own charm, but then again I have a weird pseudo-masochistic fondness for 8086 real mode assembly. :lol:

Ewwww.... That sounds about as much fun as self-flagellation to me.

[TheBilgeRat]

http://www.menuetos.net/

Just goes to show how much bloat is in ANY modern hardware system, and that you can still touch the switches (if you're really demented that is )

a 64 bit OS that fits on a floppy.  This project sums up the laziness of the last 20 years to me nicely.

[WolfToTheMoon]

http://www.menuetos.net/

Just goes to show how much bloat is in ANY modern hardware system, and that you can still touch the switches (if you're really demented that is )

a 64 bit OS that fits on a floppy.  This project sums up the laziness of the last 20 years to me nicely.

I believe it's the Kolibri OS(a fork of Menuetos) that fits on the floppy.

A nice project. But with today's resources at hand, completely irrelevant.

http://www.kolibrios.org/

[Iggy]

It definitely has it's own charm, but then again I have a weird pseudo-masochistic fondness for 8086 real mode assembly. :lol:

Wow! You really ARE into pain!. Personally (as I've said before) I like 6809 assembly, and then there is 68HC11 assembly (for micro controllers), and (of course) you're right 68K assembly code is probably the last that was understandable.

[commodorejohn]

A nice project. But with today's resources at hand, completely irrelevant.

Elimination of waste is never irrelevant.

Also, real mode 8086 isn't that bad - if you think of it as an 8-bit processor kludged up to 16-bit. The biggest problem is the 8-bit-style "not actually general-purpose" register file - they're all interchangeable for basic math and logic, but the minute you start on any of the special-purpose instructions (by which I mean "basically everything else") you have to start keeping track of which registers can do what and juggling accordingly. People complain about segmented memory, but that's far less annoying.

[takemehomegrandma]

Guys, this ARM thing isn't just about nVidias Denver project, not at all!

Did you even look at the Windows @ ARM video?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKc_XGuvNIk

That's on *current* technology, not the ones 3 year away (but it's of course a good thing that a long term evolution plan exists, that's what I mean by ARM having a great support and momentum!

The current stuff is actually great! And even on short term (within this year!) we will see new generations of ARM CPU's rolling out! This is the road map from Freescale:

Freescale i.MX Road Map

Of course the other ARM CPU manufacturers have similar Road Maps (but maybe different philosophies on the included support controllers, etc)!

Genesi is already working with a new, multi-purpose i.MX53 based motherboard (a single motherboard that can be used in various applications, like pads, laptops, desktops, etc). And while this still is based on Cortex-A8, it will probably be clocked faster than the current Genesi products (although that is a guess from my side), and have upgraded support controllers to do full HD (among other things)! It will also make things a lot cheaper than it already is! Even more power, for even less money!

Sure, nVidia has announced "that it plans to build high-performance ARM® based CPU cores, designed to support future products ranging from personal computers and servers to workstations and supercomputers". And that surely bodes well for the future, since others will follow as well! This promise real, heavy performance, never before seen in ARM territory! However, ARM is *already* being used in low power servers in data centers, and while the market is young, the future is bright and big companies like Dell and IBM are very positive. And did you see Windows run, play media and run Office on the current ARM based machines in the MS demonstration above? Looks very good! Heck, current cheap, low power ARM CPU's could even be used to build super computers, like IBM did with their BlueGene by building a new system architecture around an array of simplified PowerPC 440 cores.

Add to that the future roadmaps of first the Cortex-A9 and then the Cortex-A15 that will over time bring:

• Speeds beyond 2.5GHz+, 14,000+ DMIPS
• 1-4X SMP within a single processor cluster
• Multiple coherent SMP processor clusters through AMBA® 4 technology
• ARM ISA
• Thumb-2
• TrustZone® security technology
• NEON™ Advanced SIMD
• DSP & SIMD extensions
• VFPv4 Floating point
• Jazelle® RCT
• Hardware virtualization support
• Large Physical Address Extensions (LPAE), meaning up to 1TB memory

Add to that all the various controllers that individual CPU manufacturers chooses to add. So I'd say that ARM is definitely breaking out of its old boundaries, with or without nVidia's Denver!

[Einstein]

If you are anti everything that is considered by the community as "Amiga", then why in September of 2010 did you join this Amiga community forum?

You are not "known" to us at all.

I have no care about contemporary "amiga like" OSs at all myself, which doesn't mean I don't like Amiga, in a *UAE box, playing, having fun and almost dropping a few tears from time to time.

[takemehomegrandma]

Add to that all the various controllers that individual CPU manufacturers chooses to add.

For example, Key technical features of Freescale's newly announced i.MX6 CPU's include:

• Industry-leading four-core design
• Up to four ARM Cortex-A9 cores running at up to 1.2 GHz per core
• Up to 1 MB system level 2 cache
• ARMv7, Neon, VFPv3 and Trustzone support
• Multistream-capable HD video engine delivering 1080p60 decode, 1080p30 encode and 3D video playback in HD
• Exceptional 3D graphics performance with quad shaders for up to 200 MTPS
• Separate 2D and vertex acceleration engines for uncompromised user interface experiences
• Stereoscopic image sensor support for 3D imaging
• Interconnect: HDMI v1.4 w/ integrated PHY, SD3.0, multiple USB 2.0 ports w/ integrated PHY, Gb Ethernet w/ integrated PHY, SATA-II w/ integrated PHY, PCI-e w/ integrated PHY, MIPI CSI, MIPI DSI, MIPI HSI, and FlexCAN for automotive applications
• Support for the VP8 codec (See related thread here on MZ!)
• Support for one of the broadest ranges of major operating system platforms in the industry
• Optional integration of an ePaper display controller for eReader and similar applications

http://androidandme.com/2011/01/news/freescale-announces-new-low-power-multicore-processors/
http://www.freescale.com/webapp/sps/site/overview.jsp?code=IMX6X_SERIES
http://www.freescale.com/files/32bit/doc/fact_sheet/IMX6SRSFS.pdf

[takemehomegrandma]

Meanwhile, I continue to follow Genesi's developments with great interest!

They are really supported by Freescale, now probably more than ever. They even have a Freescale vanity page now: www.freescale.com/genesi!

There are two interesting videos in their latest blog, one is showing a Genesi ARM computer with one of the amazing Pixel Qi screens bolted on, that will be optional in future Genesi products:

http://bbrv.blogspot.com/2011/01/new-year-ces-and-lots-more.html

[Iggy]

Yes, I do expect Microsoft to support more than Nvidia ARM hardware too. After all, the initial announcement by Microsoft mentioned three companies (Nvidia was only one of them).
Since one company that was mentioned was TI I expect to see Win 8 support for TI's OMAP processors (like the one included on the PandaBoard I've mentioned before).

[TheBilgeRat]

...with today's resources at hand, completely irrelevant

wow.

[WolfToTheMoon]

wow.

care to explain why should anyone write their OS completely in asm code in a world of multicore GHz CPUs and storage that sizes in TBs.... instead of putting up various pictures?

[WolfToTheMoon]

...

takemehomegrandma, care to explain Genesi's relation to MorphOS... I haven't been following MorphOS that closely so I'd like to know more about that. I noticed there's Genesi's subsection on the MorphZone.

edit: Sorry, I've meant takemehomegrandma, not Iggy... but seeing both of you use MorphOS so I guess both of you could also answer me... I guess