Sonnet crescendo 7200 and OS4.1

[Iggy]

AmigaForever (aka UAE) does PPC support by utilizing QEMU......

Cool. If UAE is using QEMU, we have a way of integrating the work on more modern hardware with Amiga emulation.
Cloanto with its AmigaForever, a commercial product derived from UAE, might be hesitant to go that far.

We'll have to see.
Either way, it's X86/X64, not a WiiU. ;-)

Edit - Then again, it could also be PPC on an 11,2 PowerMac or a Power9 system.
You wouldn't run X5000 emulation on an X5000 (and SAM emulation on an X5000 would be silly).
It could open up some possibilities for X1000 owners, but it would be pointless on lower end AmigaOne systems as they wouldn't have the cpu power (come to think of it, neither would a WiiU). ;-)

2nd edit - One step further, if a PCIe G5 could run this type of emulation, what prevents an AGP G5 from doing the same?
The AGP G5 wouldn't have PCIe slots, but we are talking about emulating the hardware, not acting as some kind of translation or wrapper for the platform.

3rd edit - Actually, if you were running Linux and utilizing the extra cores of an X5000/30 or X5000/40, then emulation of multiple PPC sessions might make sense.
Could be a way to use the extra core on an X1000 as well.

[Louis Dias]

What is ironic is that you would make that claim.
The WiiU does have the advantage of being an out of order processor, but I've thoroughly examined the Cell BE and Xenon (the latter having six threads to you WiiU's three) and the additional clock speed easily makes up for any disadvantages of an in order execution unit.

It took Nintendo an extra generation, and they still fell short, primarily due to all that concern over backward compatibility.

Next thing you know you're going to be repeating that tripe they tried to claim about the WiiU's cpu being somehow related to Watson and other modern IBM endeavors.

Its simple, its pretty much an ordinary 32 bit PPC.
Oh, and about the lack of a storage drive...

Finally, if you haven't got the note, most of the new systems we've adopted are 64bit.

You should get your facts straight.  Each core had 6 execution units.
https://fail0verflow.com/media/files/ppc_750cl.pdf
What the 360 cpu had was 3.2Ghz clockspeed.  For the same clockspeed, it was an inferior cpu to the WiiU's Expresso cpu.

Regardless, my post was about comparing a WiiU to this Cressendo card which is just the cpu of a Gamecube (single core and about 500Mhz).

[Iggy]

You should get your facts straight.  Each core had 6 execution units.
https://fail0verflow.com/media/files/ppc_750cl.pdf
What the 360 cpu had was 3.2Ghz clockspeed.  For the same clockspeed, it was an inferior cpu to the WiiU's Expresso cpu.

Regardless, my post was about comparing a WiiU to this Cressendo card which is just the cpu of a Gamecube (single core and about 500Mhz).

Oh, my bad,thanks for the documentation (if you're even pointing to the correct product), that processor would only be capable of handling two simultaneous threads, not three.
So now the count would be WiiU two, XBOX360 six. And still 1.26 GHz vs. 3.2.

So again, outside of an out of order execution unit and a fair amount of RAM (but limited VRAM), and no hard drive for storage, the WiiU still loses.

And comparing a legacy Amiga equipped with a third party PCI expansion bus and a PPC accelerator card intended for a 68K Mac with a later PPC game machine is an apples and oranges comparison.
So my comparison of the WiiU to an XBOX360 is certainly more valid.

Then there is the consideration that any re-engineered G4 PCI accelerator card would be likely to use an 800 or 1000 MHz cpu (the fastest compatible version from Sonnet ran at 800 MHz). Almost as fast as the WiiU's cpu, but tied to an expansion bus you can add cards  to.

Look, it's 2018, not 2005. The WiiU is only available used (unless you know of a NOS inventory somewhere), and oddly enough the G4 cpus are still available, if not recommended for new projects.

Also, if I were to support porting to used hardware, I'd be rooting for the 11,2 G5 PowerMac which is quite a bit faster than a WiiU, expandable, and appears the be able to handle video cards up to at least those based on AMD's GCN Gen1 gpus.

Aiming lower with targets like the WiiU for the used market or Tabor for the new market doesn't make sense to me.
In the long run I'd be unhappy with the compromises presented by those platforms.

BUT, since I have some G5 support under MorphOS, and I am willing to pay the price for an X5000 (which supports both NG PPC OS'), I'll leave the arguments about the low end hardware to you and the A1222 supporters.

The A1222 supporters that WILL be getting support for that platform.
And you, one of the remaining WiiU supporters that WON'T be getting support for your platform of choice.

Either way, I'm happy, and you're still pounding sand.

[Iggy]

OK, I decided to investigate further.
The processor is a tri-core, and some of the design elements (like embedded dram) are rather advanced, while others hearken back to pre-Power4 cpus (so its a weird mix of technologies).
With dual integer execution units, that does provide for six threads. Yay, parity! When you consider the clock speed differences, that is about as good as it gets. Not superiority.

The cpu compromises are really due to the nature of the platform, low clock speeds because the WiiU only needs a slight bump up from Wii specs. With the coprocessing power added by the ARM cpu and the gpu its a more than adequate upgrade to the Wii.

The optical drive is specific to the WiiU, and according to Wikipedia former Nintendo president Satoru Iwata stated, "Wii U does not have DVD or Blu-ray playback capabilities".

So, Blu-ray...no.

Hard drives must be interfaced via USB.

But, WiiUs can be had refurbished from Walmart for $99.95, although the reliability and quality of the refurbished units is variable according to reviews (better buy that extended 2 year warranty for $16).

All in all, still a very unusual proprietary piece of hardware that would require a lot of work to support while provide no real improvement over our existing G4 systems (under a non-SMP enabled OS) let alone a G5 level machine.

And comparable to even Tabor? If two drivers are holding up its release, just imagine the work needed to support all these relatively undocumented components.
To please how many? A handful of people?

[Louis Dias]

Oh, my bad,thanks for the documentation (if you're even pointing to the correct product), that processor would only be capable of handling two simultaneous threads, not three.
So now the count would be WiiU two, XBOX360 six. And still 1.26 GHz vs. 3.2.

So again, outside of an out of order execution unit and a fair amount of RAM (but limited VRAM), and no hard drive for storage, the WiiU still loses.

And comparing a legacy Amiga equipped with a third party PCI expansion bus and a PPC accelerator card intended for a 68K Mac with a later PPC game machine is an apples and oranges comparison.
So my comparison of the WiiU to an XBOX360 is certainly more valid.

Then there is the consideration that any re-engineered G4 PCI accelerator card would be likely to use an 800 or 1000 MHz cpu (the fastest compatible version from Sonnet ran at 800 MHz). Almost as fast as the WiiU's cpu, but tied to an expansion bus you can add cards  to.

Look, it's 2018, not 2005. The WiiU is only available used (unless you know of a NOS inventory somewhere), and oddly enough the G4 cpus are still available, if not recommended for new projects.

Also, if I were to support porting to used hardware, I'd be rooting for the 11,2 G5 PowerMac which is quite a bit faster than a WiiU, expandable, and appears the be able to handle video cards up to at least those based on AMD's GCN Gen1 gpus.

Aiming lower with targets like the WiiU for the used market or Tabor for the new market doesn't make sense to me.
In the long run I'd be unhappy with the compromises presented by those platforms.

BUT, since I have some G5 support under MorphOS, and I am willing to pay the price for an X5000 (which supports both NG PPC OS'), I'll leave the arguments about the low end hardware to you and the A1222 supporters.

The A1222 supporters that WILL be getting support for that platform.
And you, one of the remaining WiiU supporters that WON'T be getting support for your platform of choice.

Either way, I'm happy, and you're still pounding sand.

Here's the bottom line.  If I can't install a PPC OS into hardware I already own, I'm not installing it.  There is NO PPC Amiga market worth speaking of.  An A1222-based system will still cost $1000.  That's a pretty expensive office decoration.  If it was smaller, it would be a paperweight.  People spend less on their phones ... but their phones are more powerful and get used everyday.

[Iggy]

Here's the bottom line.  If I can't install a PPC OS into hardware I already own, I'm not installing it.  There is NO PPC Amiga market worth speaking of.  An A1222-based system will still cost $1000.  That's a pretty expensive office decoration.  If it was smaller, it would be a paperweight.  People spend less on their phones ... but their phones are more powerful and get used everyday.

Understandable lou,
On this I'm with you, it's the primary reason I started using MorphOS, so that I could use a cheap PowerMac G4.
After I'd used it for awhile, I came to appreciated the OS for some of the features it has that legacy Amiga OS doesn't and some things that OS4 does differently.

In fact, now that I'm firmly camped out on this side of the divide, I am willing to plunk down fairly big money on an X5000 that I can triple boot.
And yeah, by the time you flesh out Tabor, the price gap closes.

One thing I will say for the WiiU is it ought to make a nice Linux system. The only problem being that it's a big endian cpu (like all AmigaOne cpus) and support for that is waining.

Karlos was right though, the first place to start with that platform would be a hosted version of AROS.
And at $99.95 I might have to get one anyway. I had a Wii, but it was stolen. And the evolution from GameCube to WiiU is kind of facinating.
Also, this hardware started out with an ArtX gpu, and I always liked that company, once they became part of ATI they helped design the R300 Radeon family.

Pity they didn't keep evolving this platform, Power is now bi-endian and a faster 64 bit Wii derivative would have been interesting.

The frustrating parts about the optical drives of both the Wii and the WiiU comes from Nintendo's unwillingness to pay licensing fees for DVD and Blu-ray technology.

Obviously the Wii can play DVD's, it just requires codecs to do it and the software keys.

Like Tabor, the WiiU would require some additional hardware, but let's discount the mouse, keyboard and display as both systems would need that. The WiiU does not require a case, DVD drive or PSU  (it has those), or a video card.
A hard drive would require a USB adapter, but those are cheap (under $10), and I have 2.5" sata hard drives all over my work bench from dead laptops.
Might want to upgrade the solid state storage from 8GB, but that's optional.

SO, in my case, about $110. Hmm...I can do that out of curiousity.
And I'd be able to play the Wii titles that didn't get stolen with the system.

OK, I think I'll follow your lead that far this Summer.
So, currently, what is the best Linux distro?

And Karlos, or anybody for that matter, what is the current state of AROS hosted if you want to run it on a PPC Linux system ?

Edit - Hmm, I looked at the last revision available from the main site and it looked pretty dated. Modified version of GCC 3.4.3 required? Could an OS that runs on the WiiU handle something that old?

Edit 2 - Actually, it does look doable. First things first. Gotta buy the WiiU and get it running a recent Linux distro to check it out.
Lou, benny, thanks.

[Louis Dias]

https://gitlab.com/linux-wiiu/linux-wiiu

Not sure if you'll find this useful:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usD0EPAmicA

I owned a Raspberry 3b for a while.  Amazing device for $35.  I looking into installing AROS on it but I was told I'd have to make a donation to get access to a build of it for ARM...  This is not how you grow a market.  :/

If MOS or Hyperion had any brains, they'd port to that, 3D-print a nice case, etc... and call it the future...

Meanwhile the 3b+ was recently released (still $35):
https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/raspberry-pi-3-model-bplus-sale-now-35/

[Iggy]

https://gitlab.com/linux-wiiu/linux-wiiu

Not sure if you'll find this useful:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usD0EPAmicA

I owned a Raspberry 3b for a while.  Amazing device for $35.  I looking into installing AROS on it but I was told I'd have to make a donation to get access to a build of it for ARM...  This is not how you grow a market.  :/

If MOS or Hyperion had any brains, they'd port to that, 3D-print a nice case, etc... and call it the future...

Meanwhile the 3b+ was recently released (still $35):
https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/raspberry-pi-3-model-bplus-sale-now-35/

When an ISA shift was first proposed, I was one of the people promoting ARM for MorphOS.
But the development team went with X64.

Not quite as cheap, but still commodity hardware.

The Pi 3B+ is pretty impressive for a low cost device.

[Louis Dias]

When an ISA shift was first proposed, I was one of the people promoting ARM for MorphOS.
But the development team went with X64.

Not quite as cheap, but still commodity hardware.

The Pi 3B+ is pretty impressive for a low cost device.

The 3B was my web server and I had a hard time installing a mail server on it so I went with a Win10 machine running hMailserver.  That's when I looked into AROS on the Pi.  Apparently the Efika [ARM] "port" is closely guarded.

...in fact - if I didn't know any better, I'd say the Efika is running an older version of the Pi...

[Iggy]

...Apparently the Efika [ARM] "port" is closely guarded...

Oh the joys of a not completely open project, eh?
The PPC port appears to be dated too.

But even with these challenges, it still isn't as insurmountable as beating your head against a wall over OS4 or MorphOS support.

I took a look at the Linux port you pointed to, its actually a good candidate for AROS, maybe better than as a Linux platform alone.
Currently it only supports one core, and it looks like that might be single threaded (although I'm unsure about that).
Its video driver is only a framebuffer at this point (no acceleration), but that could change, and its a start (that's usually the first step with any OS4 or MorphOS video driver).
And the fpu of the WiiU's cpu actually looks pretty good (better than Tabor's anyway).

I'm buying a white WiiU as soon as I finish paying off my tuition charges for this Spring.

Then I'll try to get that to run the Linux distro, and after get is setup and running GCC 3.4.3.

[Kronos]

I'm buying a white WiiU as soon as I finish paying off my tuition charges for this Spring.

You are aware that white ones only have 8GB internal storage compared to the 32GB of the black "deluxe" version?

No idea wether that matters for Linux or if it runs 100% from SD card anyways.

[Iggy]

You are aware that white ones only have 8GB internal storage compared to the 32GB of the black "deluxe" version?

No idea wether that matters for Linux or if it runs 100% from SD card anyways.

Yeah, but that can be expanded, and I haven't been offered a "deluxe" version.

[Louis Dias]

You are aware that white ones only have 8GB internal storage compared to the 32GB of the black "deluxe" version?

No idea wether that matters for Linux or if it runs 100% from SD card anyways.

I was able to find a 512GB SDHC card for $40 on ebay.  It totally came from Taiwan but hey, it's working just fine in my Nintendo Switch...which is also hackable and running Linux...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBCkpEdvqDo

[Iggy]

I was able to find a 512GB SDHC card for $40 on ebay.  It totally came from Taiwan but hey, it's working just fine in my Nintendo Switch...which is also hackable and running Linux...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBCkpEdvqDo

Cool, and on the last response to Kronos, I double checked and I can get a black "deluxe" unit.
But the white 8GB unit is $99.95 refurbished, while the black "deluxe" 32 GB unit is $259.95 refurbished with Mario Cart 8.

I don't need the game (and could obtain it cheaper anyway), and the memory can be expanded via a card or USB.

Besides, I just like the look of the white unit.

[Louis Dias]

Oh the joys of a not completely open project, eh?
The PPC port appears to be dated too.

But even with these challenges, it still isn't as insurmountable as beating your head against a wall over OS4 or MorphOS support.

I took a look at the Linux port you pointed to, its actually a good candidate for AROS, maybe better than as a Linux platform alone.
Currently it only supports one core, and it looks like that might be single threaded (although I'm unsure about that).
Its video driver is only a framebuffer at this point (no acceleration), but that could change, and its a start (that's usually the first step with any OS4 or MorphOS video driver).
And the fpu of the WiiU's cpu actually looks pretty good (better than Tabor's anyway).

I'm buying a white WiiU as soon as I finish paying off my tuition charges for this Spring.

Then I'll try to get that to run the Linux distro, and after get is setup and running GCC 3.4.3.

One of the WiiU cores has 2MB of cache, the other two have 512k each (P1022 has 256k per core).  I believe the core with 2MB cache is used to synchronize the cache between all 3 cores...  It'll be one of those learn as you go things...

Since the clock speed is software-selectable, if you wanna take it apart and give it a better cooler, you may be able to get it to run much faster.  It already does this when going to vWii mode (Wii emulation)...though in the other direction...however I believe the bus speed is increased slightly in vWii mode.

An olde article: https://fail0verflow.com/blog/2013/espresso/
https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/df-hardware-wii-u-graphics-power-finally-revealed

https://wiki.gbatemp.net/wiki/List_of_WiiU_homebrew_applications

[fishy_fiz]

Where did you hear you need to make a donation to get access to ARM builds of AROS?
This idea is absolutely bizarre and completely incorrect.
How did you even come to this baffling conclusion, or who told you and how did they come up with this creative idea?
Want to download AROS for ARM? Simple, go to aros.org and download the latest nightly ARM build. It's as easy as that. No compiling needed, no money needed, just download from the site.

Far from important, but Im somewhat curious where all this garbage misinformation comes from. It's clear as day what the truth is. You just need to check the website.