in case you are interested to test new fpga accelerators for a600/a500

[kolla]

You must have missed my :-P Smilie, oh sorry emoticon as they are called now. ;-)

I believe "emoji" is the current term, haha

[xboxOwn]

@biggun

Can i pay for it now to preserve a seat. Even if this card just end up 500 mhz accelerator it is good enough for me. Everything else is a bonous

[matthey]

I am sorry but these cards are not 500 Mhz.

why so negative. ?

Since when is stating facts and the truth negative?

Jim Drew should get a board and make sure Macintosh emulation will work. In time maybe he could implement a Macintosh chipset on FPGA too, and have it running all natively.

MacOS emulation on Phoenix would require major patchwork with the last I heard of Gunnar's ISA (no documentation or ISA encoding maps are available so no one knows for sure). Some 68020 ISA instructions which are illegal on the Amiga but necessary in MacOS like CAS and CAS2 are not implemented and even the encoding may be partially gone (reused). I was initially in favor of the change which improves consistency, simplifies decoding and is slightly better at code density but decided it was not worthwhile after doing code analysis and finding another way to gain most of the code density (the code density gain would be <1% for most programs if assemblers followed an ISA which was documented intelligently). Other problems include lack of a 68k compatible MMU (for a half way modern MacOS environment anyway) and dropping of packed BCD decimal fp support in the FPU (the MacOS uses this according to Jim Drew). The latter could probably be worked around and was likely never used by Amiga programs (I've never seen it or heard of it).

[kolla]

Well, as I mentioned, it would be interesting to see Shapeshifter or other Mac emulation on Amiga with a Phoenix core, Shapeshifter does not require MMU I believe. Anyways, what are the odds that other software, such as games and demos that bypass the OS with their coding, use features not found on Phoenix?

[xboxOwn]

Well, as I mentioned, it would be interesting to see Shapeshifter or other Mac emulation on Amiga with a Phoenix core, Shapeshifter does not require MMU I believe. Anyways, what are the odds that other software, such as games and demos that bypass the OS with their coding, use features not found on Phoenix?

You know what it means with such a speed. VICE emulator, DOSBox and other emulation should run very smoothly now in all Amiga models and on top of it, even Exult should run very fast.

[kolla]

Should yes, but it remains to see if they will run at all. Currently even OS3.9 doesn't work well, but that should be fixed quickly one can hope. The thing with Macintosh emulators is that the CPU is not emulated in those.

[xboxOwn]

Should yes, but it remains to see if they will run at all. Currently even OS3.9 doesn't work well, but that should be fixed quickly one can hope. The thing with Macintosh emulators is that the CPU is not emulated in those.

What is wrong with OS 3.9? You said even the actual OS 3.9 does not work well, why?

Side note: In the very very very distance between Jupiter and Earth future, if the SAGA does become reality then all Amiga specs will be 100% the same. It will be who ever choose an Amiga model it will be for the sole reason of the flavor he likes and favorite style more than anything else. AGAIN IF THIS VERY between Earth and Jupiter distance future does become reality then I am content with my favorite flavored A500. Others will be A600, while others be will be A1200 and others will be A4000.

THE VERY CONCEPT excites me!

[Lurch]

Be interesting to know what the issue is with AmigaOS3.9. Even a 030@40MHz has no issues running it, have it setup nicely on my A500 at the moment using the IndiECS as an RTG card.

Which works really well apart from the occasional artifact/pixels but then the IndiECS wasn't really meant to be used as an RTG card ;-)

[JimDrew]

FUSION does not need a MMU, but a MacII and later emulation requires complete 68020 emulation, which means all extended addressing modes, CAS, CAS2, etc.

[xboxOwn]

Be interesting to know what the issue is with AmigaOS3.9. Even a 030@40MHz has no issues running it, have it setup nicely on my A500 at the moment using the IndiECS as an RTG card.

Which works really well apart from the occasional artifact/pixels but then the IndiECS wasn't really meant to be used as an RTG card ;-)

By the way, when I had the indivision ECS scandoubler on my A500 before I lost it...I did not like it. I mean I like the idea that I can hook my A500 in a monitor anytime...I just did not like the quality (ignoring the fact the board was defective and the image came gibberish).....it felt worse than WinUAE. TOOO...pixilated, WinUAEish...I do not know. But ones I hooked my A500 back in TV it felt the good old days again. I rather treat my A500 the same way I treat Commodore 64...composite or rf and TV.

Now if you are telling me to go A4000T/D using for example AmiKit as an OS...hooking it on a monitor makes all sense..and VGA is a necessity and not a choice.

[matthey]

Well, as I mentioned, it would be interesting to see Shapeshifter or other Mac emulation on Amiga with a Phoenix core, Shapeshifter does not require MMU I believe. Anyways, what are the odds that other software, such as games and demos that bypass the OS with their coding, use features not found on Phoenix?

Programs which do not use the MMU or FPU should not need much supervisor use. A little bit of code can be very problematic though. CPU detection code, interrupt handling, supervisor stack code, etc. can cause problems. I don't know how much work Gunnar has done to support supervisor emulation.

Be interesting to know what the issue is with AmigaOS3.9. Even a 030@40MHz has no issues running it, have it setup nicely on my A500 at the moment using the IndiECS as an RTG card.

I don't think the Phoenix AmigaOS 3.9 problem is with emulation but rather initialization.

[psxphill]

Some 68020 ISA instructions which are illegal on the Amiga but necessary in MacOS like CAS and CAS2 are not implemented and even the encoding may be partially gone (reused).

It's pretty pointless trying to consider any other platforms as it's obvious that the focus is on a solution that relies on AmigaOS with new software that makes use of any potential new mmu.

If you want to be able to run anything interesting like Next Step then you need to change mind set and create something that is compatible with the real chips rather than trying to make small percentage increases by discarding compatibility.

There are platforms that use illegal instructions etc. If the code was open source with multiple build options then it would be workable, but as a closed source solution it's like being taken on a mystery tour that the destination isn't quite where anybody but the driver wants to go. The people on the bus were sold at the beginning of the journey but then make excuses that hindsight is a wonderful thing.

[biggun]

Since when is stating facts and the truth negative?

Truth is good.
Can you start posting the truth instead spreading false rumours?.

 

MacOS emulation on Phoenix would require major patchwork with the last I heard of Gunnar's ISA (no documentation or ISA encoding maps are available so no one knows for sure). Some 68020 ISA instructions which are illegal on the Amiga but necessary in MacOS like CAS and CAS2 are not implemented

What you say is not true.
CAS and CAS2 are supported.

Matt, you lack overview about Phoenix.
I've noticed that you very often post wrong and untrue stuff.
Posting wrong info does help no one.

[kolla]

So Mac emulators are no go, I wonder what else of proprietary software that will end up as "no go" because the Phoenix CPU core is (will be) too incompatible and needs dedicated support. I would love to participate with my A600, but wont be able until fall. What is the time frame for these developer boards anyways?

[guest11527]

Matt, you lack overview about Phoenix.
I've noticed that you very often post wrong and untrue stuff.
Posting wrong info does help no one.

I believe everybody is confused now. The small phoenix core for the Vampire does not include CAS2; instead, it is emulated in software, which is not a loss. However, the emulation cannot run a "locked bus access" since that's simply not supported by Phoenix. Then again, this is not a loss either since it is a single-processor system, and there is no sense in locked accesses in first place. Leave alone that Amiga hardware would even support locked transfers, which it does not.  So, conclusions: CAS/CAS2/TAS are pretty useless instructions for Amiga, and not even supported by the native Amiga hardware. Yet, apparently, some Mac software depends on them. The small Phoenix core does not implement CAS2 and CMP2, though the software library does. It does not use locked transfers, simply because there are no locked transfers on Phoenix, which is - however - not critical since there is no second CPU.

[guest11527]

So Mac emulators are no go, I wonder what else of proprietary software that will end up as "no go" because the Phoenix CPU core is (will be) too incompatible and needs dedicated support. I would love to participate with my A600, but wont be able until fall. What is the time frame for these developer boards anyways?

No, why? For the same reasoning, one could never had run shapeshifter on a 68060 because it has unsupported instructions that require emulation. No difference. Once the software emulation layer is loaded, there is no problem.