To Vampire or not

[kolla]

Do you guys really believe it takes your input to make a professional CPU developer and long-time Amiga user understand the value of a compatible FPU or compatibility with as much of the Amiga software catalogue as possible?

It has worked before, so why not - the trick is to somehow make him think that it is his idea.

And the FPU is STILL not done, what is Gunnar THINKING!!!

It is clearly done, he has said so many times now, and besides, 3 years ago, it was even available...

http://web.archive.org/web/20140516224526/http://apollo-core.com/

Optionally, a fully pipelined, double precision FPU is available to be included in the Core.

So the questions is - is this professional CPU developer and long-time Amiga user able to do it, or is he not?

What happens with the already finished FPU implementation? Will it be available for sale? If so, how much?

[Niding]

Comment on youtube by Simo;

Goal is have a standalone and to work it needs AGA+PAULA. That is why AGA+PAULA (via HDMI) are at high priority after CPU (integer) development. Once they have been implemented, this SAGA part becomes open-source and we can use upcoming standalone to bring-up FPU.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P63RiFz4brQ&t=0s

Wether or not the FPU is in working condition, but doesnt fit the FPGA is a moot point for me.
I think the developers knows best (better than most of us anyhow) what fits the roadmap AND the FPGA itself as it is. What Is needed first etc.

Sounds like the FPU is pushed back to the standalone, which sounds reasonable enough for me.

Others might think differently, and thats fine too.

Iggy;

With regards to modeling programs, there is always Cinema4d;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SoJ-RsWLd2g

This is a very old Vampire Core demostration, but it atleast shows the potential, even without FPU. The question is obviously; could a updated version taking advantage of all the features of Vampire/Apollo have a even higher performance, or would most of it hinge on FPU. I dont even know, as Im not a coder.
Cinema4d is owned by AEON if memory serves me right, so that is something for Trevor/Matthew to consider...

[wawrzon]

the fpu was not finished according to what gunnar said. it worked to certain extent, but there were incompatibilities left and features missing, which caused for instance mac os to crash under shape shifter. therefore it has been disabled. because it was not compatible enough to guarantee regular operation, without people constantly complaining, that the fpu is there but doesnt work as they expected.

you can search german forums for appropriate posts on subject or refer to apollo site fpu subject thread. discussing gunnars character and personal attitudes has nothing much to do with the problem technically and makes it look like you have some personal issues.

[kolla]

I doubt there will ever be an FPU, since it depends on asm coders being willing to put in work hours on new software, rather than ensuring compatibility with existing software.

[kolla]

the fpu was not finished according to what gunnar said.

Though the marketing said something else, and he had no shame in gloating about how amazingly fast it was back then.

it worked to certain extent, but there were incompatibilities left and features missing, which caused for instance mac os to crash under shape shifter. therefore it has been disabled. because it was not compatible enough to guarantee regular operation, without people constantly complaining, that the fpu is there but doesnt work as they expected.

Yes, there are incompatibilities, and it is not just the FPU. As time goes on, and there are more and more users, more and more incompatibility issues will appear. I do wonder how "the team" will deal with this, as Gunnar is all about moving forward and leaving whatever compatibility issues behind, for the sake of performance.

It is funny and ironic how the OS3.x community now may get its own equivalent to the A1222 Tabor. :laughing:

you can search german forums for appropriate posts on subject or refer to apollo site fpu subject thread. discussing gunnars character and personal attitudes has nothing much to do with the problem technically and makes it look like you have some personal issues.

The Apollo Core is all about Gunnar - it's frustratingly enough his character and personal attitudes that shape the development of the CPU core that is touted to be "the future" of the Amiga. What would be your estimation regarding the "bus factor" of the Apollo Core project?

[wawrzon]

@kolla:

another load of emotional personal considerations about the person "gunnar". what should i say to all these assumptions and estimates? simply stand back and see how this will roll off.

on the contrary to tabor board or aone1222, as they like to call it, a fpga core is not set in stone. the more users the more chances to iron out the bugs. will these chances be taken seriously? we will see.

btw, have you now confirmed aros68k booting on mist or not? this would be something constructive to test rather than ranting against gunnar, especially if you want to stupport alternatives to apollo and vampire projects.

[Niding]

Though the marketing said something else, and he had no shame in gloating about how amazingly fast it was back then.



Yes, there are incompatibilities, and it is not just the FPU. As time goes on, and there are more and more users, more and more incompatibility issues will appear. I do wonder how "the team" will deal with this, as Gunnar is all about moving forward and leaving whatever compatibility issues behind, for the sake of performance.

It is funny and ironic how the OS3.x community now may get its own equivalent to the A1222 Tabor. :laughing:



The Apollo Core is all about Gunnar - it's frustratingly enough his character and personal attitudes that shape the development of the CPU core that is touted to be "the future" of the Amiga. What would be your estimation regarding the "bus factor" of the Apollo Core project?

At the end of the day, Gunnar is the lead developer, so its hardly suprising his philosophy is the one that sets the direction of the project. I dont see a problem with that. If its not your cup of tea at the moment, then dont buy into it. If it later on satisfies the requirements you have for usage, then great.

If not, you have your legacy hardware OR other projects like Jens/Individual Computers, Terrible Fire, and others.

[wawrzon]

I doubt there will ever be an FPU, since it depends on asm coders being willing to put in work hours on new software, rather than ensuring compatibility with existing software.

if people cannot be bothered to put even few hours writing software to test, hey have no say about someone elses project he has likely put thosuands of hours into. simple as that.

[grond]

Yes, there are incompatibilities, and it is not just the FPU. As time goes on, and there are more and more users, more and more incompatibility issues will appear. I do wonder how "the Team" will deal with this, as Gunnar is all about moving forward and leaving whatever compatibility issues behind, for the sake of performance.

So you see incompatibilities, yet fail to put the work into making clear-cut bug reports with small snippets of example code that invariably lead to crashes? Why do you then expect somebody else to hunt ghosts? 99% of the alleged incompatibilities are just bad demo or game coding or long standing bugs and software mismatches that now get attributed to the Vampire. There surely are bugs in the core. Hardly anything man made is perfect. Go read the Silicon errata for the various 68k processors out there.

Even a reproducible crash in a specific place of a program like a branch into no-man's land isn't enough to find a CPU bug because the real problem could have happened millions of instructions before. The Team you like to put into derisive quotation marks has been working in their spare time and provided hundreds of test cases and has found dozens of bugs in the CPU. And we paid for our Vampires just as you did. But you rather take a comfortable position as a big-talking paying customer demanding bug fixes and features. You are what we called a leech back in the Amiga coding days.

[kolla]

if people cannot be bothered to put even few hours writing software to test, hey have no say about someone elses project he has likely put thosuands of hours into. simple as that.

Maybe advertising the FPU before it is ready is a bad idea then?

Btw - who were contacted 12+ months ago?

[grond]

Maybe advertising the FPU before it is ready is a bad idea then?

You are constantly confusing the Apollo Core with the 080 in the Vampire despite the fact that you have been told several times that there is a difference. And yes, you have managed to find a couple of quotes where the two were confused by Gunnar himself. Congratulations.  Again: the Apollo Core does have an FPU. If you are looking for a softcore to license and for some reason don't want to use an ARM, PPC or whatever-softcore, you can ask Gunnar for a quote. And you can have it with ColdFire-compatibility or without. The 080 in the Vampire is derived from the Apollo Core which doesn't mean it is identical to it.

[wawrzon]

Maybe advertising the FPU before it is ready is a bad idea then?

Btw - who were contacted 12+ months ago?

we have heard that now for hundred times. okay. now what?

you dont like your vampire, sell it. youll probably get a premium price and cash up on your investment. so what about that mist test i asked you about?

[kolla]

So you see incompatibilities, yet fail to put the work into making clear-cut bug reports with small snippets of example code that invariably lead to crashes?

Yes, I do not work for "the team", correctly observed. It is my understanding, as your answer also suggests, that only clear-cut bug reports containing code snippets is what matters. Meaning that if the program failing is proprietary, one would go through disassembling the binaries to find snippets, or what?

Why do you then expect somebody else to hunt ghosts?

Nope, I don't expect much at all - that is rather the point.

99% of the alleged incompatibilities are just bad demo or game coding or long standing bugs and software mismatches that now get attributed to the Vampire. There surely are bugs in the core. Hardly anything man made is perfect. Go read the Silicon errata for the various 68k processors out there.

Exactly, but we are pretty much stuck with long standing bugs and software mismatches, as well as legal problems and what else.

Even a reproducible crash in a specific place of a program like a branch into no-man's land isn't enough to find a CPU bug because the real problem could have happened millions of instructions before. The Team you like to put into derisive quotation marks has been working in their spare time and provided hundreds of test cases and has found dozens of bugs in the CPU. And we paid for our Vampires just as you did. But you rather take a comfortable position as a big-talking paying customer demanding bug fixes and features. You are what we called a leech back in the Amiga coding days.

What I "demand" is:
* a lot more accurate marketing - just look at this...
http://www.apollo-core.com/index.htm?page=features
So we know the FPU is, at best, dysfunctional - what about the rest? Is this page at all trustworthy if one wants to know what is current state? Or does it require wading through forums such as eab and a1k, filtering propaganda and rumours from reality?

* a lot more accurate marketing - "buy it for what it is" we are told, but it can be damn hard to know what it actually is at any given time, since all information and marketing coming from "you guys" (what to call it - it is not a company, and we are told Vampire and Apollo Core are two very different things) is about what it potentially can be (typically in next core releases).

* a lot more accurate marketing - all the people surrounding the project, who do not have the hardware, who have not used it, yet are mighty opinionated about how truly breathtakingly awesome it is, and are allowed to spread this .. truthiness pretty much undisturbed.

* a lot more accurate marketing - are buyers who buy from AmigaKit and other retailers made aware that they are participating in some sort of beta program? How long can one expect the current V500v2+ and V600v2 cards to be supported by Apollo Core?

* modesty and politeness in general. Guess I can now add "leech" to the rather long list of terms used by "you guys" on me.

I was told that only if I could see and use the Vampire myself, I would be convinced.
I was told that I should shut up since I did not even have a Vampire myself.
It was only logical that I should buy Vampire, right? So I did, both of them.
Am I convinced? Not really. Should I still shut up? Apparently. :laughing:

[kolla]

You are constantly confusing the Apollo Core with the 080 in the Vampire despite the fact that you have been told several times that there is a difference. And yes, you have managed to find a couple of quotes where the two were confused by Gunnar himself. Congratulations.  Again: the Apollo Core does have an FPU. If you are looking for a softcore to license and for some reason don't want to use an ARM, PPC or whatever-softcore, you can ask Gunnar for a quote. And you can have it with ColdFire-compatibility or without. The 080 in the Vampire is derived from the Apollo Core which doesn't mean it is identical to it.

Brilliant - I am looking for a softcore to license, for two FPGA cards I have.


http://wiki.apollo-accelerators.com/doku.php/faq

Q: Do Vampires have a FPU ?
A: The implemented FPU will be a 68060 compatible FPU. FPU is currently disabled and is a WIP.

Is this trustworthy information?

[wawrzon]

I was told that only if I could see and use the Vampire myself, I would be convinced.
I was told that I should shut up since I did not even have a Vampire myself.
It was only logical that I should buy Vampire, right? So I did, both of them.
Am I convinced? Not really. Should I still shut up? Apparently. :laughing:

im not sure who told you all this. certainly not me. and you have had your say again and again. you are free to repeat it to the death, but isnt there something more interesting to do?

[SpaceMonkey]

Yes, I do not work for "the team", correctly observed. It is my understanding, as your answer also suggests, that only clear-cut bug reports containing code snippets is what matters. Meaning that if the program failing is proprietary, one would go through disassembling the binaries to find snippets, or what?



Nope, I don't expect much at all - that is rather the point.



Exactly, but we are pretty much stuck with long standing bugs and software mismatches, as well as legal problems and what else.



What I "demand" is:
* a lot more accurate marketing - just look at this...
http://www.apollo-core.com/index.htm?page=features
So we know the FPU is, at best, dysfunctional - what about the rest? Is this page at all trustworthy if one wants to know what is current state? Or does it require wading through forums such as eab and a1k, filtering propaganda and rumours from reality?

* a lot more accurate marketing - "buy it for what it is" we are told, but it can be damn hard to know what it actually is at any given time, since all information and marketing coming from "you guys" (what to call it - it is not a company, and we are told Vampire and Apollo Core are two very different things) is about what it potentially can be (typically in next core releases).

* a lot more accurate marketing - all the people surrounding the project, who do not have the hardware, who have not used it, yet are mighty opinionated about how truly breathtakingly awesome it is, and are allowed to spread this .. truthiness pretty much undisturbed.

* a lot more accurate marketing - are buyers who buy from AmigaKit and other retailers made aware that they are participating in some sort of beta program? How long can one expect the current V500v2+ and V600v2 cards to be supported by Apollo Core?

* modesty and politeness in general. Guess I can now add "leech" to the rather long list of terms used by "you guys" on me.

I was told that only if I could see and use the Vampire myself, I would be convinced.
I was told that I should shut up since I did not even have a Vampire myself.
It was only logical that I should buy Vampire, right? So I did, both of them.
Am I convinced? Not really. Should I still shut up? Apparently. :laughing:

And your point is?