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

[alphadec]

I have been following this thread since it was started!. But now it looks more like a war zone, so why cant we agree on a way forward.

And from there how do we get a working product, something that a user can buy. ?

And right now I really need new amiga hardware most of the time I spend on restoration on commodore/amiga to get them to work so would be extremely good if we as a community can please agree on a way forward to develop new modern amiga hardware.

[OlafS3]

I am not on any crusade against Gunnar, all I did was asking a simple question - will MacOS run under emulation on the Phoenix? That is really a question that can be answered with either "yes" or "no". A whole lot of indicators suggest "no", but Gunnar call those "lies". Promises are worthless in Amigaland, and Natami was a project flooded with promises. And fact is Gunnar has not promised _anything_, but people like you and certain others, keep posting on forums how this and that is promised. I really wish you could stop posting on behalf of people you do not represent. Gunnar has not promised _anything_, and in any case, promises are worthless - only running software has any true value here.

Curious - have you seen AROS running on Phoenix yet?

What are you up now? What is your problem?

[OlafS3]

Here's an idea.  Be a beta tester and see for yourself if MacOS will run on it or not!

no I have a better idea for him... stay away from the project and be happy with whatever he uses right now

[ferrellsl]

I have been following this thread since it was started!. But now it looks more like a war zone, so why cant we agree on a way forward.

And from there how do we get a working product, something that a user can buy. ?

And right now I really need new amiga hardware most of the time I spend on restoration on commodore/amiga to get them to work so would be extremely good if we as a community can please agree on a way forward to develop new modern amiga hardware.

There's no such thing as the Amiga "community".  Amigas are a hobby, not some sort of socialist commune driven by 5-year plans.  Gunnar is developing an improved FPGA-based 68K Amiga.  Use it or don't use it.  If you've been following this thread as closely as you say then you'd know exactly how to obtain a board for testing.

[ferrellsl]

no I have a better idea for him... stay away from the project and be happy with whatever he uses right now

+5

I needed to good laugh today.  Thanks for providing!

[psxphill]

As i said it is only for a minority of software. This project is the only realistic option to get 68k development again. Good luck with finding a FPGA development team. Are you able to do it? Then do it. If not stop moaning.

That is exactly the reason to moan. Because unless you speak up then he'll go ahead with his plan rather than creating a fractured development for a minority of software.

It's similar to the land grab that Russia did on Ukraine.
 
 He knows that nobody can compete and so he can force whatever he wants, like Putin.

[ferrellsl]

That is exactly the reason to moan. Because unless you speak up then he'll go ahead with his plan rather than creating a fractured development for a minority of software.

It's similar to the land grab that Russia did on Ukraine.
 
 He knows that nobody can compete and so he can force whatever he wants, like Putin.

Ahhhh.....nevermind!

[guest11527]

Of course Thomas would not use ANY of the new instructions.  He's too worried about segmenting the market and the platform.

You again got it wrong. Please read precisely what I have written, and not what you would like to read. I would use new instructions whenever there is a clear advantage, and I would write a dispatcher around it to distinguish between old and new CPU. That happened already multiple times - or how do you think can the mmu.lib support MMUs from the 68851 up to the 68060? All special instructions, but isolated in the code behind an interface. But these are not the instructions we talk about, i.e. special instructions to support special functionality. We are here talking about "bread and butter" instructions that can be easily replaced by instruction sequences of the 68K core, thus there is no advantage.  

And Thomas' call for a requirements analysis is ridiculous.  There were no requirements analyses conducted for the original Amiga.  

How do you know? Do think that products are developed by a couple of engineers sitting in the corner, "hey, this looks cool?". Even if it would, back then you could sell a home computer by good hardware. This does not work this time. Times changed, the platform is much smaller.  

The original Amiga wasn't driven by any requirements whatsoever.  It was driven by engineers who wanted something better than what was already on the market.

How do you know? And how come you know "what is better"? I am not so sure about this...  

  And there's no software demand or market today for Amigas to even conduct an analysis in the first place!  

So why exactly do we need new instructions then if there is no demand for new software? Exactly... The problem at this point is not "we are missing instructions in the core".  

If everything in the world was driven by requirement analyses we'd all be driving Volkswagen Beetles for cars and using an abacus instead of computers!

Hardly ever. You probably have never worked in a company?

[kolla]

Here's an idea.  Be a beta tester and see for yourself if MacOS will run on it or not!

If someone could provide information about the time frame, I may very well do that. However, it seems like the developer boards are already have FPGAs too limited to hold the just now recently decides minimum requirements, so I don't know if it is worth it, looks like waiting for the next batch is better option for me. Currently I'm not home anyways, and wont be for another 5 months.

[ferrellsl]

How do you know? Do think that products are developed by a couple of engineers sitting in the corner, "hey, this looks cool?". Even if it would, back then you could sell a home computer by good hardware. This does not work this time. Times changed, the platform is much smaller.    How do you know? And how come you know "what is better"? I am not so sure about this...    So why exactly do we need new instructions then if there is no demand for new software? Exactly... The problem at this point is not "we are missing instructions in the core".  

Hardly ever. You probably have never worked in a company?

Actually yes, that's exactly how the first Apple computers were developed.  There was no team of developers and engineers doing any requirements analyses.  Same goes for the Amiga.  And yes, I've worked for several major companies as well as the government so I'm quite familiar with conducting requirements analyses.  Requirements analyses are great for government contracts and the bidding process...horrible for private enterprise and hobbies.  And Gunnar isn't developing a product for the masses.  Those days are long gone. He's developing a hobby board for Amiga hobbyists.  You seem to live in a delusional world where you think there's still an Amiga mass market or one that can be resurrected.

And I can ask you the same question!  How do you know what's best for us or for this project?  You keep whining about the instruction set.  If you don't like the new instructions, stick to the old ones or better yet, just stay away from this project completely and stop confirming your disdain for Gunnar and his work.

I'd much prefer a computer, car, motorcycle, etc.....be developed by engineers who say, wow, this looks cool, let's add this to our project than ANY product developed by bureaucrats who let their designs be driven by a requirements analysis.

[ferrellsl]

If someone could provide information about the time frame, I may very well do that. However, it seems like the developer boards are already have FPGAs too limited to hold the just now recently decides minimum requirements, so I don't know if it is worth it, looks like waiting for the next batch is better option for me. Currently I'm not home anyways, and wont be for another 5 months.

There are two links in the very first post of this thread that explain how to obtain a board for testing.  One board is for the A600.  The other is for an A500/1000/2000.  But yes, you are correct.  The dev/test boards have a smaller FPGA than the consumer boards that will follow, so it may be better to wait.

[wawrzon]

@ferellsl

so you want to scare one of the main contributors like thor away from the project? are you going to take his place and develop support libraries? and if not, why dont you just hold your mouth or go using os4 or something like that, instead of alienating people here?

[xboxOwn]

Actually yes, that's exactly how the first Apple computers were developed.  There was no team of developers and engineers doing any requirements analyses.  Same goes for the Amiga.  And yes, I've worked for several major companies as well as the government so I'm quite familiar with conducting requirements analyses.  Requirements analyses are great for government contracts and the bidding process...horrible for private enterprise and hobbies.

And I can ask you the same question!  How do you know what's best for us or for this project?  You keep whining about the instruction set.  If you don't like the new instructions, stick to the old ones or better yet, just stay away from this project completely and stop confirming your disdain for Gunnar and his work.

I have the feeling thanks to Thomas and Matt I will not see this project comes to reality. * sigh * I knew it was to good to be true. Always when something finally new shines up...someone in the community MUST DESTROY it and we will be forever stuck at specs of 68000 @ 7 Mhz 512 KB CHIP RAM.

* sigh * Anything new, anything that takes it a little far away from the 1980's must be destroyed or use the logic then use x86 instead. Sometimes I wonder why not?

[psxphill]

We are here talking about "bread and butter" instructions that can be easily replaced by instruction sequences of the 68K core, thus there is no advantage.

Yes, I'd have thought the fpga space would have been better used analysing existing instruction sequences at run time and folding them down to faster operations than forcing the apps to be rewritten to make them faster. Essentially what Intel do.

Sure if that has been done and we have an absolutely optimal and 100% compatible FPU and MMU then experiments could be done on moving forward with a new optional next generation ISA. But my guess is that not all options have been exhausted yet. The thrill of being able to say he's added more instructions seems to be too great, but it's actually a failure.
 
 

* sigh * Anything new, anything that takes it a little far away from the 1980's must be destroyed or use the logic then use x86 instead. Sometimes I wonder why not?

A x86 or Arm on an accelerator with an open source boot rom that can emulate any type of 68000 and PPC would avoid the problem. Essentially a hardware version of Amithlon, but using real Amiga hardware instead of VGA etc
 
 I won't be buying any hardware that isn't 100% open source. Reverse engineering an fpga in 20 years time won't be fun.

[mikej]

I wish the team well, even though Gunnar has for some unknown reason got irritated with the Fpgaarcade team.

I've been pushing back a few fixes for the T68 soft core we currently use. There are potentially a few issues remaining with the 68020 mode,which are problematic to find.
I've developed a daughterboard with a real 68020 (and the rest of the AGA chip set) so I can run the soft cores against the originals and hopefully nail any functional / timing differences.

I am making some progress getting a public SVN mirror up, I expect this to be done in the next couple of weeks which will hopefully pacify some of the more zealous open source people in the community.

Anyhow, for me, 100% functional compatibility is the number one priority, followed by cycle accurate timing in 68000 mode. Then, maximum performance in 68020 mode.

I now have a functional model and microcode dump of a real 68K which is helping design a very lightweight new (open source) core.

One comment I will make (and please don't take offence Phoenix team) is I find it very unlikely you will be able to produce an ASIC. For my day job I design 28nm devices, and the mask costs are high. The cost of respins is high. I'm very open to helping out if you think it is doable.

Anyhow its a small community, lets all work and play together peacefully.
Cheers,

Mike
http://www.fpgaarcade.com

[kolla]

What are you up now? What is your problem?

My problem is obviously getting simple answers to simple questions - you are sn AROS/m68k user and distro maintainer - and you are eagerly involved in Apollo/Phoenix - there are plenty of people with Vampire600 and other boards that run Phoenix, you communicate with Gunnar and the Apollo team on their forum, people who should have no problem whatsoever to try out AROS on their hardware - have you ever seen AROS run on the Phoenix core? The answer is either "yes" or "no".