Open source PPC laptop bounty

[wawrzon]

The biggest difference is made by 2D compositing, 3D OpenGL ES, and Warp3D Nova (and old Warp3D is coming too), all hardware accelerated by out-of-the-shelf modern Radeon GPUs, a quantum leap forward in the right direction.

but precisely, except 2d compositing, all these are features delivered by rather recent third party extensions to the os, provided by third party. so strictly speaking os4 under winuae must be delivering exatly the essential experience of the os as such.

[nicholas]

Really looking forward to it!

However, I must admit I don't see it coming anytime soon, at least what, 5 to 10 years? Will it have the same performance as a native solution, I very much doubt it.

Personally, I am sick of waiting, and by supporting this PPC notebook project is the only thing I can do to (finger crossed) obtain a notebook that can give me the same user experience I have when I use my AOS4.1 machine, with all the doubts that comes with it (e.g. will it be AOS4.1 be ported to it, well, most probably yes).

This notebook is cool because it's different and I might get one myself because I like new toys but I wonder how much itb would cost to pay someone to write a pass through driver for UAE?

I'd wager it'd be much less than what's needed to fund a whole computer to be designed and manufactured. On the latest generation nvidia or radeon hardware it'd be faster than a native driver for an old RadeonHD too I reckon.

[Rob]

but precisely, except 2d compositing, all these are features delivered by rather recent third party extensions to the os, provided by third party. so strictly speaking os4 under winuae must be delivering exatly the essential experience of the os as such.

This third party software is pretty much standard on most systems that support it and compositing support isn't even available in the RadeonHD Lite driver included with FE.  Most dealers seem to have been shipping the Enhancer package with X5000 systems and boards and most X1000 and Sam460 owners that want to get the most out of their hardware probably have it installed already.

[Iggy]

I'm sorry, I am unaware of any "limitations inherent with emulating older hardware"?

WinUAE, is far more compatible with my Amiga software than any single real Amiga, and I have great difficulty finding a TV which will even accept a 15Khz RGB signal anymore... not to mention the nightmare that is 27 year old floppy disks.

Uh, did you read the post above yours?
You're emulating old hardware (albeit faster), while better hardware is in use now.
All the points mentioned about modern video are the crux of the biscuit.

And while you could certainly enable better functionality (eventually) in UAE, its still just a downgrade from running native X64 software.

[billt]

It's only a matter of time before UAE pass through drivers are made for those things.?

I would really love to see Qemu's PCI-passthrough, VirtIO and SoC-Passthrough capabilities come to UAE. That would help with new hardware drivers before we could plug said hardware into an AmigaOS-native platform... Including stuff inside t2080, outside of t2080 in this laptop, or in Rpi, etc...

[Raffaele]

There are plenty of laptop/mobile computing projects for the Raspberry Pi, and as for running AOS4, this project doesn't do that either. It may never do that.

Unfortunately actually is just AmigaOS that is not running on Raspberry Toy neither on any ARM architecture and we don't know if it will be ever available for...

If you prefer using AROS instead of AOS then prego... You are welcome.

If you want to run AOS4, then you would be better served by getting a cheap pc laptop and running the latest WinUAE. That is perfect for emulting a PPC Amiga, and excitingly/upsetingly (depending upon your position), it runs faster than my actual BlizzPPC.

Any solutions that run any Amiga-Like OSes sitting on top of the virus called Windows are not solutions. NEXT!

And sincerely simply running faster than BlizzardPPC at 120MHz, not even yet emulating PPC FPU even on i7 beasts is sure a little satisfaction... You are flying low pal...

For example my satisfaction will be seeing AmigaOS running NATIVE on multiple GHz cores at fastest speed with multimedia streaming Altivec coporocessor. X1000 and X5000 are too expensive and still AmigaOS is single core. This still not fulfill my dreams. What a pity.

This project is for a low power Linux Box, the Raspberry Pi already does that for £30.

My consideration in your post ended when you compared CPU: NXP T208x, e6500 64-bit Power Architecture with Altivec technology, 4 x e6500 dual-threaded cores, low-latency backside 2MB L2 cache, 16GFLOPS x core, with Raspberry toy...

If only you used RasPi clones like PandaLatte (that is even Windows10 compatible) or OrangPi (that sports Mini SATA connector and has twice horsepower than Raspberry at 49 euro) as examples for anyday computing like Amiga with Amiga feel of use experience, I could had understood... But Raspberry is a little underpowered card computer... No surprise its price is so cheap.

[psxphill]

I'm sorry, I am unaware of any "limitations inherent with emulating older hardware"?

display and input latency.

WinUAE, is far more compatible with my Amiga software than any single real Amiga

and you can run uae on a PPC laptop as well, to give you the same classic experience while hopefully running PPC software at least one order of magnitude faster.

, and I have great difficulty finding a TV which will even accept a 15Khz RGB signal anymore...

Europe is full of them. Outside europe then get an RGB to component converter. http://www.amiga.org/forums/showthread.php?t=67929 or http://gglabs.us/node/983

not to mention the nightmare that is 27 year old floppy disks.

Get a gotek.

But neither of those two last points is relevant to a PPC laptop.

[bloodline]

display and input latency.

An issue maybe 13 years ago, but not today. I use UAE for music software, so I'm very aware of latency issues.

Even the cheapest PC hardware (or Mac) can run Amiga emulation without latency issues.

and you can run uae on a PPC laptop as well, to give you the same classic experience while hopefully running PPC software at least one order of magnitude faster.

Given the performance of the specified PPC CPU, I would would doubt the "order or magnitude faster" claim. I would grant you that using a PPC would certainly be an order of magnitude more expensive.

Europe is full of them. Outside europe then get an RGB to component converter. http://www.amiga.org/forums/showthread.php?t=67929 or http://gglabs.us/node/983

Living in Europe (at least until the fascists push through their Brexit agenda), I am away of hardwarei could buy. But again I'm not prepared to waste valuable Apartment space on a TV for one purpose.

Get a gotek.

But neither of those two last points is relevant to a PPC laptop.

No, I was replying to Iggy who was trying (rather pathetically), to suggest that this Linux PPC laptop would be in any way better and more useful than an inexpensive PC (or a pretty MacBook) for use by an Amiga user.

This Linux PPC laptop is little more than a vanity project, which offers us as Amiga users very little.

[Raffaele]

Living in Europe (at least until the fascists push through their Brexit agenda), I am away of hardwarei could buy. But again I'm not prepared to waste valuable Apartment space on a TV for one purpose.

Sorry but why you asked then?

This Linux PPC laptop is little more than a vanity project, which offers us as Amiga users very little.

Actually is a project by people who think PPC architecture has still things to say in the world of information technology.
But instead to struggling and crying (as in our Amiga preferred sport) that there are no firms building PPC computers, they squeezed oil on their elbows, and start working to build one themselves.

These guys (as being Linux ans Open Source supporters and believers), made in two years what entire Amiga Community was not capable to made in the last 10 years (i.e. start the project, made 4 appearances at crowded linux meetings to promote the idea, set up a forum site to discuss how to build computer with the help of the users of various OSes, they reached a consensus on specs and electronic parts after listening various users requests, started a ONLUS -so are called no profit orgs in Italy- and in the end contacted ACube in order to be helped in manufacturing). Now they started the funding campaing.

I think they deserve respect not to be considered fancy vanitY.

[wawrzon]

I think they deserve respect not to be considered fancy vanitY.

a lot of stuff is based on vanity, especially around here. but so far i dont see anything i need to respect the ppc notebook initiative for so much. people have been considered this idea for a few years and came now to the conclusion that they need to delagate this to some professional electrical engineer, who of course needs to be paid for his service so they need to gather funds. thats fine, but not respectable.

i respect people like igor or gunnar who pull on complex project, others have deemed impossible.

[Iggy]

...No, I was replying to Iggy who was trying (rather pathetically), to suggest that this Linux PPC laptop would be in any way better and more useful than an inexpensive PC (or a pretty MacBook) for use by an Amiga user.

This Linux PPC laptop is little more than a vanity project, which offers us as Amiga users very little.

If I an viewed by someone living in an apartment in Europe as 'pathetic' while living in my own home (with more than enough room for whatever I care) so be it.

At least I would never make SUCH a weak statement as to refer to MacBooks as 'pretty'.
I mean, not to be snarky, but what next, advocating a nice Michael Kors watch to accessorize your new Rose Gold MacBook Air?
You could color coordinate everything with your iPhone, pretty AND pathetic (or pretty pathetic).

Frankly, I think that Microsoft's Surface is a better platform, and I'm looking forward to the rugged functionality of the a retro Thinkpad.

Because for follows function, and 'pretty' Macs have proven to lack utility.

You can continue to advocate the Pi, I notice its made no realistic impact on our community.

I'll continue to use 68K software on legacy and FPGA hardware, and NG software on dedicated platforms (which don't have to be that expensive).

And my PCs...they run Windows, Linux, and occasionally MacOS, but not AmigaOS, because as I've said, its silly to downgrade them that way.

[jj]

At least I would never make SUCH a gay statement as to refer to MacBooks as 'pretty'.

please keep such language out of things.   This would suggest that being gay is somehow derogatory

[Iggy]

please keep such language out of things.   This would suggest that being gay is somehow derogatory

JJ...changed the word you objected to.
However, my favorite Uncle was gay and I have a friend who is gay who refers to flamboyant gays as faggots.
Would you prefer that term?

Because that IS the direction I'm going.
People being caricatures of themselves, preferring style over substance, and judging a computing device on how 'pretty' it is, rather than how functional it is.

Of course, there is nothing wrong with personal style, just that when its taken to its extreme, you look more clownish than someone making a statement.

[Iggy]

The lack of response shows my verbiage may have been perceived as overly judgmental or hostile.
Admittedly, I DO tend toward excess, therefore with some apoplectic sense of the need for an apology, can I just plead the fifth and ask that we turn to the subject at hand?

Jim

[jj]

JJ...changed the word you objected to.
However, my favorite Uncle was gay and I have a friend who is gay who refers to flamboyant gays as faggots.
Would you prefer that term?

Because that IS the direction I'm going.
People being caricatures of themselves, preferring style over substance, and judging a computing device on how 'pretty' it is, rather than how functional it is.

Of course, there is nothing wrong with personal style, just that when its taken to its extreme, you look more clownish than someone making a statement.

To be fair this argument is bordering on I can't be racist I have black friends.  But lets move on and back to the conversation at hand
 
 I was being a bit of a tit and have used that word when I shouldn't many times because it was in common usage growing up, so have no right to pick others up on it.

[wawrzon]

but

 People being caricatures of themselves, preferring style over substance, and judging a computing device on how 'pretty' it is, rather than how functional it is.

on an amiga site?