A question about XENA/XMOS

[warpdesign]

The point is Amigas should not need emulators to run Amiga games ideally.

I don't see why. PS4 doesn't run PS3 games, nor PS2 games and of course no PS1 games.

Wii U doesn't run SNES games.

SNES didn't run NES games.

an Intel Mac won't run MacOS 6 apps, and even not PPC apps.

You can boot SF2 [or any other] DOS game on an i7 3770k PC and run it without DOSBox to compare.

When thoerically, you could install DOS on a modern PC, provided that:

 - your PC has a BIOS
 - you have a copy of DOS
 - you have a way to install/run it (most modern PCs doesn't come with a floppy drive)
 - you have a partition readable by DOS (there's no way to out of the box read NTFS partitions with DOS, and I'm not talking about writing, cause most games will want to write your save states, settings,... right ?)
 - you have a supported soundboard by DOS (you wouldn't want to run your game without soundblaster sound, right ?)

Oh... and I'm not talking about games that will run too fast and crash.

No, actually I don't think you may easily run your DOS games on a modern PC without having to use DOSBox... And there's nothing wrong with that.

DOSBox solves every problem you may encounter above... plus you won't need to patch your game if it runs to fast, won't need to reboot on DOS each and every time you want to play your favorite game.

Really, I see no reason why developers should spend so much time playing with Xena or any FPGA to have an Amiga core running when it's so simple fast, and you get so many benefits when going the emulator way. This goes for any modern computer/console (PC/Mac, PS4/XboxOne). And I see no reason why it should be different with the Amiga.

[takemehomegrandma]

There are things going on - but nothing definite released yet as far as I know.

Really? Something that doesn't already have an existing and better and cheaper solution through PCIe/PCI/USB?

What may that be, if I may ask?

:confused:

[takemehomegrandma]

Paul had published an XMOS based sound card design.

Why? With their extreme price tags, doesn't the X1000/Cyrus have sound capabilities? And if not, doesn't it exist truckloads of sound cards for all kinds of market segments with PCIe/PCI/USB interfaces that's well tried, proven, better and cheaper?

:confused:

[takemehomegrandma]

The point is Amigas should not need emulators to run Amiga games ideally. Someone should put an FPGA loaded with Agnus/Denise/Paula inside it and an FDC too and map them into first 2mb

The whole point of the entire "Amiga NG" movement (AROS, MorphOS, OS4, A1, Pegasos, X1000, etc, etc) was to break free from that old HW that became way too limited in the early nineties already, to move on, to take Amiga into modern ages.

If you want OCS/ECS/AGA HW, then you are more into Retro stuff than NG. Look for old Amiga HW on E-bay etc, or get yourself a Minimig or similar. And there is nothing wrong with UAE on a modern computer, it adds a whole new dimension of flexibility and ease of use.

But whatever the "Xena" is meant to do (a question nobody can answer, not even Trevor), it's *not* about Amiga chipset (it can't do it, even if you wanted it). So it's off topic in this thread!

[cgutjahr]

There are things going on - but nothing definite released yet as far as I know.

I love the "yet" in there.

The real reason the XMOS chip is going to be on the new boards aswell is this: The "red guys" really suck at admitting defeat. Putting those chips on the boards doesn't cost much, and Trevor pays for the manufacturing anyway - so we're going to get completely useless XMOS chips on anything they offer from now on - BECAUSE IT WASN'T A STUPID IDEA, YOU TROLL!

OS4 is in the process of migrating from single-core.

There was a vague hint that the Friedens might be working on it, that's not the same as "in the process of migrating".

Actually, didn't Solie claim at AmiWest that only Gallium 3D was missing so they could release 4.2? That would mean multicore support is still 5-6 years off, at the very least.

[spirantho]

Really? Something that doesn't already have an existing and better and cheaper solution through PCIe/PCI/USB?

What may that be, if I may ask?

:confused:

The obvious one I'm tempted by is as a floppy controller, like the Catweasel which is constantly unavailable. You can already get an X1000 with a Catweasel MkII as an option, but I'd like it to be more standard than that (as I think Trevor would).
That's just an example of the sort of thing which isn't available via current cards - there are areas which the modern market just doesn't care about, but which do matter to Amiga users. The XMOS to me is a configurable interface which allows us to make our own peripherals cheaply which could never normally be done.
I do know that people have been looking at using it more, but I don't know how far they've got or anything more concrete than that, sorry.

[persia]

The XMOS community is quite active, it's a great standalone platform.  http://www.xcore.com/projects

[psxphill]

- you have a supported soundboard by DOS (you wouldn't want to run your game without soundblaster sound, right ?)

I don't believe that modern graphics cards are backward compatible with all the old vga modes either.

[Amiga_Nut]

The whole point of the entire "Amiga NG" movement (AROS, MorphOS, OS4, A1, Pegasos, X1000, etc, etc) was to break free from that old HW that became way too limited in the early nineties already, to move on, to take Amiga into modern ages.

If you want OCS/ECS/AGA HW, then you are more into Retro stuff than NG. Look for old Amiga HW on E-bay etc, or get yourself a Minimig or similar. And there is nothing wrong with UAE on a modern computer, it adds a whole new dimension of flexibility and ease of use.

But whatever the "Xena" is meant to do (a question nobody can answer, not even Trevor), it's *not* about Amiga chipset (it can't do it, even if you wanted it). So it's off topic in this thread!

It's not an Amiga then. Who said there has to be a 'Classic' and 'NG' Amiga division anyway? So why oh why is nobody going to make a 'real Amiga' and once and for all marry up the arbitrary terms 'classic Amiga' and 'NG Amiga' because quite frankly the term 'classic Amiga' stinks as much as the renaming of Star Wars to Episode IV:A New Hope If I can't boot my mint condition King of Chicago disks on a machine it is not any more 'Amiga' than my DeII PeeCee running WinUAE in the startup folder is it? It's the killer app waiting in the wings for the company with the foresight to think of a way to once and for all make a single Amiga to cover ALL our needs given the technology is there to replace the costly method MOS Technology had to use in the 80s and 90s to make 'Amigas'

Reason? It's called frame accurate emulation ALL OF THE TIME, something my 2ghz dual core can not manage on WindowsUAE (so I fail to see how I will get any better even on an x1000 frankly), the most well catered for OS as far as Amiga software emulation goes, and to have a ready to go back catalogue too actually, there are 100,000s of Amiga games for sale right now on ebay worldwide, and Super Stardust AGA pisses all over ALL Asteroids remakes from Atari 2600 to Playstation 3 so why re-invent the wheel or suffer a tiny catalogue of entertainment software for your chosen 'NG Amiga' when we can easily have the best version of many iconic games running natively in the same way as PCs can still run iconic games like DOOM for DOS natively with a simple bootdisk to get to the C:\ drive.

A PC user can dual boot a copy of Ultima IV on their PC...I have to find a way to transfer my saves from a real floppy onto an ADF and then run a 3rd level of software above the OS Kernal to jerkily approximate the execution of an Amiga game inside emulation.

UAE+ MOS/OS4/AROS != Amiga. This is how Macs and PCs with opposite endian CPUs play Amiga games, if it wants to have the honourable name 'Amiga' on the case (or boot screen) it should have no less difficulty loading REAL Amiga games as an i7 PC has loading an EGA copy of Rocket Ranger from original 3.5" disks to be fair no?

It's not possible to make the chips again as discrete IC's on the boards I understand BUT why is there no talk of FPGA based core being included on the motherboards to make them 'Amiga'. The cores for various FPGA chips seem to be out there and working just fine on OCS/ECS IIRC

Hell Jeri's C-One computer had FPGA plug-in modules last century to support machine compatibility properly.

Welcome to the less than satisfactory world where 'Amiga' machines and 'Amiga OS' are made by two completely isolated companies with peanuts budgets, at least if ONE company was doing both we might get the sort of machine that users are crying out for (users who don't want to p!ss away 1000s on a 200mhz A4000 kludge to play Wipeout 2097 and render Lightwave scenes faster than a snail that is) rather than something just 'nice to have in addition to my real Amiga' situation.

[takemehomegrandma]

I don't believe that modern graphics cards are backward compatible with all the old vga modes either.

Doesn't the emulators use overlay to scale up those old modes?

:confused:

[takemehomegrandma]

It's not an Amiga then. Who said there has to be a 'Classic' and 'NG' Amiga division anyway? So why oh why is nobody going to make a 'real Amiga' and once and for all marry up the arbitrary terms 'classic Amiga' and 'NG Amiga' because quite frankly the term 'classic Amiga' stinks as much as the renaming of Star Wars to Episode IV:A New Hope

I probably care a lot less than you about "being an Amiga", "real Amiga", "classic", "NG" and whatever. Names and definitions is not important. But you don't have to look particularly careful to see that there is still a solid Amiga Retro fan group around, entirely focused on *real* Amigas, Minimig, and UAE perhaps, and then there is also a group of people who left all that behind, and instead focus on MorphOS/AROS/OS4 running on newer HW using more modern technology standards. The first group is mostly interested in OCS/ECS/AGA, since this is what the games/apps of the time used. The second group is naturally more interested in having as efficient 2D acceleration, 3D acceleration, Overlay, etc in the driver support for the Radeon graphics cards they are using. There is nothing wrong with this, there is room for both.

BUT why is there no talk of FPGA based core being included on the motherboards to make them 'Amiga'. The cores for various FPGA chips seem to be out there and working just fine on OCS/ECS IIRC

Hell Jeri's C-One computer had FPGA plug-in modules last century to support machine compatibility properly.

But that's purely about Retro, not about 2013.

There is a ball (retro) and there is a cube (NG). What you are saying is that you want the cube, but it should be ball-shaped. That doesn't compute. If you like round things, go for the ball directly! If you somehow remodel the cube into a ball, it will no longer be a cube, and that's what the cube community is interested in. And the ball community already have plenty of options anyway, so...

[spirantho]

@TMHG

+1 here.

The Amiga as we know it from those days isn't going to return - there'd be no point in spending thousands and thousands to replicate a 1980's computer when the 1980's computer can still do it perfectly well.
I'm in favour of compatibility with the old Amigas (i.e. reading floppies, running UAE) but compromising our much faster, newer hardware by making it run software from over 20 years ago just doesn't make much sense to me. There's no way if Commodore were still going they'd be making "Amiga"s with Paula etc. in - they'd have dropped the custom architecture years ago when it became an expensive and slower solution than using off-the-shelf parts (which wasn't the case when the Amiga was invented). The important thing isn't the hardware in the box any more - custom hardware is just too expensive these days and will always be slower - it's the OS. That's what differentiates an "Amiga" (be it AOS 4 or MOS or whatever) from a Linux/Windows/whateverOS machine.

Embrace the future by buying a NG Amiga or MOS or whatever, and enjoy the past by keeping your A1200 fighting fit. Have your cake and eat it, in other words!

[psxphill]

Doesn't the emulators use overlay to scale up those old modes?

This was in relation to running old software on a modern pc without using an emulator.
 
It's not just a case of scaling the graphics, older modes were planar and had much different layouts in memory.
 
I believe there are some old PC demos with effects that can't currently be duplicated on emulators.

[Thorham]

The important thing isn't the hardware in the box any more - custom hardware is just too expensive these days and will always be slower

Wrong, because it is to me and other people. For me, and many others, the whole point is the hardware. This is completely subjective.

Embrace the future by buying a NG Amiga or MOS or whatever

Again, completely subjective. The future for me isn't AOS4 or MorphOS, and I'm not even remotely interested in those software platforms. I'm not saying these platforms suck, just that I'm not interested

[Tripitaka]

If only the cash was available to make a memristor based FPGA Amiga. It doesn't matter what the chips are when you can write them on the fly. Current FPGA is the next best thing and to my mind Xorro and Xena would have been better replaced by a large slice of FPGA cake. Natami was a great idea too but alas...
..

As far as backwards compatibility is concerned with the "real Amiga or not" argument, I have but one word for you.... Mac.

[Tripitaka]

The XMOS community is quite active, it's a great standalone platform.  http://www.xcore.com/projects

I will take a look through that lot later. I've not looked at the current state of XMOS projects for a while now.