New ppc board by Acube/A-Eon: A1222 "Tabor"

[wawrzon]

Means that it doesn't bog down when multitasking like a single-core Athlon XP trying to play multiple YouTube videos at the same time (ask me how I know this, LOL).  

ill just copy my considerations from aw.net in here:

i would expect linux to decode and play video content on the gpu, the machine merely shoving video data through the bus. also i would expect linux to have working hardware mesa/gallium acceleration, so it shouldnt have problem with playing the simplest gl demo. i dont know what the libre office presentation do, but i expect that, similarly to video, displaying demo of office software isnt demanding what concerns the cpu or fpu. taking into account that so far i know neither full gpu, nor 3d acceleration, nor even libre office is available for os4, i doubt that such a presentation gives a reliable estimation about, how os4 would run on particular hardware.

[psxphill]

My programs was not using floats much. I just used floats for convenience.

What does that mean? Floats have a very specific use, which is to trade accuracy for a greater range (they effectively are lossy compression).

i would expect linux to decode and play video content on the gpu, the machine merely shoving video data through the bus.

I wouldn't expect that on any operating system, especially Linux, even if your gpu supports H264 acceleration. Although you can help the planets align https://github.com/erkserkserks/h264ify (but I still wouldn't expect it).

[Iggy]

No official price for Tabor has been announced.
Figure quoted is not correct.


http://amigaworld.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?mode=viewtopic&topic_id=40622&forum=2&start=300&viewmode=flat&order=0#770615

'

AND, with that in mind, I've buried my hatchet (and, no, not in this guy's skull).
IF priced in line with its value...it could start a trend that leads to future affordable hardware.
So...I'm not buying one, BUT I could see a market for it.

[itix]

What does that mean? Floats have a very specific use, which is to trade accuracy for a greater range (they effectively are lossy compression).

I had audio settings (can't remember what, this was 10 years ago) where accepted range was from 0.0 to 1.0. Obviously, I could have used integers, but when doing arithmetic you must remember scale factor and be careful to not run out of integer range.

With floats it is just easier to code and the precision is good enough.

[jj]

you would have to do well to run out of an integer range on the scale you are suggesting.  Float doesn't seem like the sensible thing to use in that example

[matthey]

What does that mean? Floats have a very specific use, which is to trade accuracy for a greater range (they effectively are lossy compression).

Floating point does trade precision for range but it has other uses. There are standard C support functions to handle floating point including fractions while there are none for fixed point integer fractions. This is very convenient and probably the most common reason to use floating point. There are other less obvious advantages and disadvantages.

AND, with that in mind, I've buried my hatchet (and, no, not in this guy's skull).
IF priced in line with its value...it could start a trend that leads to future affordable hardware.

I see the trend to less standardized and weak handicapped hardware as a negative regardless of price. It is kind of like a 68EC060 in a classic Amiga accelerator which is a bastard. It may be cheaper and it may work with AmigaOS but enough 68060 software will fail that the mistake will become evident. Compatibility and standardization are two of the few advantages the Amiga has left. Throw these away and the value of even relatively low priced hardware is reduced. I believe the Amiga masses will accept reduced performance before reduced compatibility. My priorities for new Amiga hardware are:

1) compatibility (not an Amiga without it)
2) price
3) performance

PPC is acceptable at performance but will never be good at compatibility and price. Insistence of PPC only is likely ignoring the Amiga masses (biggest Amiga market). The Amiga classes are already buying more expensive PPC hardware. I hope there is an embedded customer for these boards.

[psxphill]

Floating point does trade precision for range but it has other uses. There are standard C support functions to handle floating point including fractions while there are none for fixed point integer fractions.

True, C does lack a fixed floating point type. That doesn't mean that using a float is in any way a good idea though. Just that the consequences doesn't trump the laziness of implementing with fixed point maths. You can also stir paint with a screwdriver.

[Iggy]

True, C does lack a fixed floating point type. That doesn't mean that using a float is in any way a good idea though. Just that the consequences doesn't trump the laziness of implementing with fixed point maths. You can also stir paint with a screwdriver.

Weird analogy.
"That doesn't mean that using a float is in any way a good idea though."

Seriously?

[matthey]

True, C does lack a fixed floating point type. That doesn't mean that using a float is in any way a good idea though. Just that the consequences doesn't trump the laziness of implementing with fixed point maths. You can also stir paint with a screwdriver.

It's surprising that neither C99 nor C11 have added 16.16 and 32.32 integer fixed point data types and support. They could be useful as a standard optional feature, especially for embedded processors without an FPU.

The best case overhead of using hardware floating point is not much in a modern processor. A few more pipeline stages are required (compared to a similar length integer) for normalization but this provides saturation saving min/max or saturating integer operations for some algorithms. The longer pipeline adversely affects floating point branches (I advocated new branchless FMIN/FMAX 68k FPU instructions for this reason) and integer<->fp conversions. The worst case overhead for out of range subnormal/denormal handling depends on the hardware implementation but can be very high for mostly software handling. More hardware precision like extended precision floating point can avoid some of the overhead while SIMD units may do a simple rounding of subnormals (giving inaccurate results).

[psxphill]

Weird analogy.
"That doesn't mean that using a float is in any way a good idea though."

Seriously?

Yes. For example a float can't accurately store the number "0.4"

Anything that deals with money should never use floating point, anything where the results have to be the same on different platforms shouldn't use floating point (or use http://www.jhauser.us/arithmetic/SoftFloat.html).

There are some circumstances where floats are ok to use, but most people who try to use floats have no idea when it's ok to use them and when it isn't.

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/16595668/any-risk-of-using-float-variables-as-loop-counters-and-their-fractional-incremen

In multiple projects I've had to remove the use of floats because people thought they should use them because "the C library supports them so they must be a good idea".

However there are situations where software does require the use of an FPU (both 68k & PPC) so new hardware should support them.

[Iggy]

...However there are situations where software does require the use of an FPU (both 68k & PPC) so new hardware should support them.

Your last statement seems to run counter to the "That doesn't mean that using a float is in any way a good idea though" argument.

[Spectre660]

Comment from Hyperion .

http://amigaworld.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?mode=viewtopic&topic_id=40622&forum=2&start=460&viewmode=flat&order=0#770947

[utri007]

Similar comment from Jens Schöenfelt

http://eab.abime.net/showpost.php?p=1045850&postcount=7

[OlafS3]

Comment from Hyperion .

http://amigaworld.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?mode=viewtopic&topic_id=40622&forum=2&start=460&viewmode=flat&order=0#770947

we will see what people report when AmigaOS runs on it

[Everblue]

Yeah, cos what would Hyperion know about that

[Iggy]

Yeah, cos what would Hyperion know about that

Not that much actually, since they subbed the OS out to the Friedens.

And I am willing to give the brothers more credit than many, as they have gotten OS4 this far.

But we now know they are expecting to emulate unsupported fpu instructions.
Calling those illegal ops traps 'transparent' isn't exactly accurate nor is the claim that the impact will not exist.
And the OS will have to implement the emulation code, BUT its not nearly as bad as I may have made out originally.

However...you guys can consider whether or not you want to buy it.
If I buy anything its still going to be an X5000 with its e5500 cored processors.