Vampire 2 PPC & Morphos

[zylesea]

If put you a whole PowerUP card on an FPGA then OS4.x and older versions of MorphOS would run on it.  Still agree that it would be a waste of time and resources.

.. or grab an old G4 Mac from the garbage retail shop aka ebay for less than peanuts and install a current version of MorphOS on it. Maybe not as freaky as on a 80ies computer pimped with an FPGA, but way cheaper, straight forward and more powerful.

I really like Vampire and am considering to equip my A600 with one, but definitely not for MorphOS when there are actually fast machines available (which cost quite less than the very nice and fair priced Vampires).

[Iggy]

Actually, the RISC vs CISC argument is a bit more complicated than has been mentioned.
Each approach has its advantages, for instance, CISC can create denser code with a larger number of available instructions.

But frankly, I don't favor either approach right now, as long as it works, who cares how?
And some cpus are a hybrid of both concepts.
For some time now, AMD cpus have run X86/X64 instructions with a RISC core.

An Amiga with both an FPGA based 68K accelerator and a PPC processor would be ideal as it would allow us to run both legacy and NG code.

[Iggy]

.. or grab an old G4 Mac from the garbage retail shop aka ebay for less than peanuts and install a current version of MorphOS on it. Maybe not as freaky as on a 80ies computer pimped with an FPGA, but way cheaper, straight forward and more powerful.

I really like Vampire and am considering to equip my A600 with one, but definitely not for MorphOS when there are actually fast machines available (which cost quite less than the very nice and fair priced Vampires).

Mmm, well that is a sound point until you get to the X5000. That is going to be costly whether it runs MorphOS or OS4.
But I don't see anything wrong with supporting both NG hardware and legacy hardware with FPGA accelerators.
The performance boost for legacy hardware will help make it relevant again.

[wawrzon]

An Amiga with both an FPGA based 68K accelerator and a PPC processor would be ideal as it would allow us to run both legacy and NG code.

then how about an amiga with 68k to run amiga software, ppc to run your linux ports you call ng software and x64 to run aros or whatever system your productivity demands with today appropriate resources? sigh..

[wawrzon]

But I don't see anything wrong with supporting both NG hardware and legacy hardware with FPGA accelerators.

why always this duty to support something? simply choose what you want to use.

[Iggy]

why always this duty to support something? simply choose what you want to use.

Why choose? I have multiple systems.
And I am already running some 68K software on the PPC platforms.
As to Linux ports, I neither use nor support them.
The entire Libre Office idea seems foolish to me.
I DO support the idea of further development of Final Writer though.

And why move to more advanced hardware?
I've heard this argument before with RTG cards.
Because it works better.

If Amiga development had continued, we wouldn't question the idea.

[psxphill]

RISC CPUs were conceived to simplify the development of new CPUs with higher clock rates compensating for the relative lack of performance compared to similarly clocked CISC processors.

The idea was to simplify the design as much as possible to

1. make room on the chip for larger register and cache storage
2. get rid of microcode
3. introduce pipe-lining

By the 90's moore's law allowed CISC to use some of the RISC techniques & RISC became more complex. It would be great if you could spin up a 200mhz 603e in an FPGA, but 1. it's probably going to need a better FPGA, 2 its going to need someone who cares about PPC enough to dedicate that much of their life to doing it.

[SamuraiCrow]

PPC 440 series CPUs like the one in the SAM 440 were developed in FPGAs originally.  They were glacially slower than the Vampire 2 is when running the 68080.  Consequently, if the 68080 were remade as an ASIC (regular masss-produced fast chip) it would probably be faster than a SAM 440 of the same clock speed.  It might even be fast enough to run a PPC emulator to run the newer PPC stuff in much the same way as the Intels run OS 4 on WinUAE.

[Honkybear]

PPC 440 series CPUs like the one in the SAM 440 were developed in FPGAs originally.  They were glacially slower than the Vampire 2 is when running the 68080.  Consequently, if the 68080 were remade as an ASIC (regular masss-produced fast chip) it would probably be faster than a SAM 440 of the same clock speed.  It might even be fast enough to run a PPC emulator to run the newer PPC stuff in much the same way as the Intels run OS 4 on WinUAE.

Thanks for the information. My main reason for asking the question was that these days. It's near impossible to get hold of a PPC Card at a reasonable price and I thought could it be done with the Vampire 2 Card and therefore allow Amiga users to run OS4 and Morphos on an Amiga. I know there are several schools of thought on both of these Operating Systems. I thought it would be a good question to put to the Amiga community. Thanks Again