So what Processors did commodore consider for the next gen Amiga?

[Khephren]

Kind of a follow up to runequesters thread on PPC. Does anyone know which chips they thought about, and what you consider the pro's and cons to be? And would it have been able to emulate the 68k processors as apple did?

[Daedalus]

No matter what processor they might have moved to, emulation would've been necessary, but I'm sure it would've been implemented transparently like Apple, and like AmigaOS 4 and MorphOS. You can run a 68k executable, and usually it's tricky to tell that it's a 68k program at all. The PPC was supposed to be well suited to 68k emulation though, and with Motorola promoting it as such, it's difficult to see what other chip they would've given serious thought to.

[WolfToTheMoon]

There was talk of HP's PA-RISC for the Hombre architecture(gaming console and a PCI gfx card).

Acutiator architecture, which was designed by Dave Haynie as a base for a new high-end Amiga, was designed as a cost effective 040 board, but was adoptable to future RISC processors(not named as to which would have been chosen).

[Gulliver]

Commodore before going bankrupt was looking at Hewlett Packard´s PA-RISC processor to continue its hardware development on the Amiga. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PA-RISC)

PPC was a new processor that was promising a lot and was thought as the new godsent by techies at that time. Commodore eyes werent there though.

[WolfToTheMoon]

Commodore before going bankrupt was looking at Hewlett Packard´s PA-RISC processor to continue its hardware development on the Amiga. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PA-RISC)

PPC was a new processor that was promising a lot and was thought as the new godsent by techies at that time. Commodore eyes werent there though.

Only partially correct. PA-RISC was destined to power the CD32 successor and a PCI gfx card. There was no talk of a PA-RISC based Amiga desktop architecture.
Acutiator was designed as a 68040 board but easily configurable to a new RISC CPU. This was to be the next high-end Amiga after 4000. So, after 68K came... 68K :lol:

[bloodline]

Only partially correct. PA-RISC was destined to power the CD32 successor and a PCI gfx card. There was no talk of a PA-RISC based Amiga desktop architecture.
Acutiator was designed as a 68040 board but easily configurable to a new RISC CPU. This was to be the next high-end Amiga after 4000. So, after 68K came... 68K :lol:

Where is Hazydave when you need him

It's a while back, but the HP PA-RISC 150 was definitely mentioned in the same sentence as the Amiga in 1994... Amiga Format had an interview with engineer Chris Ludwig, who confirmed as much...

[WolfToTheMoon]

Where is Hazydave when you need him

It's a while back, but the HP PA-RISC 150 was definitely mentioned in the same sentence as the Amiga in 1994... Amiga Format had an interview with engineer Chris Ludwig, who confirmed as much...

Read that interview and then read Haynie's comment on it... From what I gather, PA-RISC was destined for the gaming console and a PCI card. Desktop CPU architecture was still not decided upon.

[Karlos]

Where is Hazydave when you need him

Digging out his garage? :hammer:

[B00tDisk]

Digging out his garage? :hammer:

Oh my god the poor man could be buried under an avalanche of A520 modulators!

[bloodline]

Read that interview and then read Haynie's comment on it... From what I gather, PA-RISC was destined for the gaming console and a PCI card. Desktop CPU architecture was still not decided upon.

Hmmm, fair point... But had Commodore lived, then my money would be on PA-RISC since hombre was using it and HP had a 68k->PA-RISC migration path already.

[Khephren]

so was the PA RISC any good? and I take it 150 was the mhz? sounds like it would have been really expensive!

what speeds were the first apple PPC machines that emulated the 68k range, anybody remember?

[WolfToTheMoon]

so was the PA RISC any good? and I take it 150 was the mhz? sounds like it would have been really expensive!

what speeds were the first apple PPC machines that emulated the 68k range, anybody remember?

Apple went PPC with Power Macintosh 6100(60 MHz 601), 7100(66 MHz 601) and 8100(80 MHz 601). They were out during 1994.

[Khephren]

yeah, '94 was about right. we got them in on my graphic design course to replace the old LC3's. I'm surprised they are that slow. apple must have done a good job on the emulation.

[Gulliver]

Apple went PPC with Power Macintosh 6100(60 MHz 601), 7100(66 MHz 601) and 8100(80 MHz 601). They were out during 1994.

But I remember back then, that Apple 68k built-in emulation was so slow (even slower than many 68k Macs), that many mac users kept using their 68k Macs for some time despite PPC Macs were already out there.

Funny, I also remember that in those Apple 68k to PPC transition times, the fastest Mac was actually an Amiga running Shapeshifter!

[Khephren]

They started clearing that up with fat binaries or some such. I dunno, it's all hazy now. All people really cared about was photoshop, quark and illustrater back then anyway.  my shapeshifted Amiga saw me all the way through that course anyway, so I didn't care