HI...

Could anyone tell me current strategy of the further
development of AOS4? Will it support dual CPUs,
altivec instructions and G5 processors?

what is the future of it?

all the best...


Dusko
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@eXec

altivec instructions is supported ,
and G5 is the future

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@eXec

Going on what I've read on various fora, thus far:

- It supports Altivec
- Some work to support multi-processors has been done but its not yet finished/switched on?
- As yet there is no support for the G5.

Feel free to shoot me down in flames if I'm wrong :)

_________________

No G5 64bit support yet, don't know about dual cpu.
Altivec is already supported. Some programs like dnet and Mplayer are using it.

Last edited by ikir on 03-Mar-2005 at 05:58 PM.

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ikir

@eXec
Altivec already supported as noted.

Have seen nothing on SMP support, but I'd expect it to be on the roadmap, as it seems possible/likely to be cheaper to do a dual 1.X GHz CPU module than a single G5 in reasonably near future.

G5 I expect should be fairly easily supported in 32 bit mode from what the Freidens have said RE: portability.

From dealing with the '64 bit filesystem changeover' at a code level a while back (Solaris 2.6/2.7, Linux etc), I can say it's a fair amount of work to go to 64 bit 'clean'...memory addressing, filesystems would need to be updated, parts of newlib/clib/libc need to be rewritten or exptended, data types in a good number of places in the core OS would need to be 'upgraded' to the equivalent of 'long long' ints...and a good amount of testing to find whatever was missed.

Not impossible by any means, but as a total guess, I'd think perhaps G5 support in 4.1, SMP 4.2, 'pure 64 bit' in a subsequent release. Bear in mind that OS X is still 32 bit as well running on G5s, so that's not too far off, while MS still doesn't have a 64 bit Windows that's released AFAIK.

The main reason for 64 bit is to handle larger addressing space for more RAM and in fie sizes and filesystems....honestly, I'm just not sure that AOS needs this from a realistic perspective, although it might in the future...

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@wegster

Quote:

Have seen nothing on SMP support, but I'd expect it to be on the roadmap, as it seems possible/likely to be cheaper to do a dual 1.X GHz CPU module than a single G5 in reasonably near future.

The last I heard SMP wasn't implemented in OS4, but was planned for a 4.x release. This is a whild guess, but 4.1 doesn't seem to unreasonable of a timeline for it to be implemented. IIRC that's when proper threading is supposed to be fully implemented too.

Last edited by Eric_S on 03-Mar-2005 at 06:30 PM.

@Eric_S

Thanks. I was guessing based on not seeing an 'official' timeline versus estimated work etc. Plus the fact I'm sure Hyperion will know IF there's anything coming up requiring G5 support etc before us..good news on threads tho.

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Altivec is not a feature of OS4 but of G4/G5 ppc. I don't know if the OS4 has some altivec optimization. Keep in mind that altivec is useful when a great size of data need to be "crunched". it other case it is not really useful. Altivec is an extension like MMX.

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@wegster

In 64bit architecture you can also execute more commands/execution cycle, since commands are 8,16 or 32 bit long. So you can pack more commands to one execution cycle if you compare processor it's 32bit counterparts. In optimal conditions, of course. Add for this at least as effective as before pipeline and caching. Feel free to shoot me down, if I'm not correct

@eXec

Quote:

Will it support dual CPUs, altivec instructions and G5 processors

Altivec, already does.

Dual CPU is a boost when you talk multi-threaded applications. Intel and AMD said they were going to be able to seperate the cores so you could run one OS per core. Now that would be cool for the Amiga if the G5 was Dual Core and you could do this we could run Linux on one and Amiga on the other OR resource share the computer with another person and each have your own processor core.

G5 - no 64bit extensions in there. However, G4 32bit stuff should be able to run on the G5 in 32bit. Of course, we'd need a new motherboard design for the G5 and the associated programming changes to make use of it's components.

So now if someone makes a Dual processing G5 Amiga that could be upgraded to Dual dual-cores..

@afxgroup

Some work had to be done so that OS4 supports Altivec. It didn't support it in the original pre release.

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@BobW

altivec has been around for a while now , my dnetc stats is a proof of that.

but yes afaik non betatesters got it in pre release upd1.

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@eXec

this was taken from official amiga site, an is pretty old but that's the only schedule that I've found and is official.
You must consider that Hyperion already put some features of OS4.2 into 4.0, so in global future of AOS will look like this:

********************

AmigaOS4.2 will build upon the foundation of AmigaOS4. It is designed to :
Integrate the Amiga Digital Environment (AmigaDE) into the AmigaOS
make OS4 fully device retargetable, allowing all applications to be able to operate without the need for physically attached older Amiga hardware
Open up access to the new hardware features offered by the zico hardware specification
Convert, re-implement and enhance more of the AmigaOS4.0 68k code to PPC

--------------------

The feature set for AmigaOS4.2 includes;
AmigaDE integration
AmigaDE hosted directly in the AmigaOS
Full access to all content experience and development
Personal Java
SHEEP scripting language
Audio System - PPC native
Retargetable Audio system (RTA)
AHI/CAMD drivers for EMU10K1 PCI cards
Multiple Audio Contexts
Advanced MIDI support
USB - PPC native
USB2.0 OHCP stack
System device drivers - mouse, keyboard, hub
Amiga Device retargeting - PPC native
Amiga.devices re-implemented as retargetable, removing the requirement for old Amiga hardware to be present
Further conversion of 68k code to native PPC - this will be done by order of contribution to execution performance, to give developers and users the most improvement.

********************

AmigaOS 4.5

AmigaOS4.5 represents the final stage in the creation of a native PPC OS. Its tasks include;

All remaining 68k OS code to be converted to PPC native
All hardware features of the zico specification to be made accessible to developers
New user environment

********************

AmigaOS 5

AmigaOS5 represents a revolution in the development of 'other' operating systems and the evolution of the AmigaOS as it seeks to provide the best way forwards for users and developers. Its feature set includes;
Brand new services model providing

Virtual Memory
Memory Protection
Symmetric and Asymmetric modes
Contract QoS
64 bit
Fully distributed
AmigaOS4 sandbox
PDP sensory processing system - PDP stands for Physical to Digital to Physical and provides a scalable system that provides for capture, conversion, representation, manipulation and presentation of sense delimited observation and interaction
Orthogonal Persistence - all content is persistent, instead of having to be saved to and loaded from storage.
Safe and Unsafe environments - separate memory spaces in which developers can continue to use unsafe languages or develop using the new SafeC language and environment.
Semantic Context - an environment is which the user can layer any number of associations, relationships and meaning to their environment and content, and use that semantic information to organize and query.

++++++++++++++++++++

So G5/64 bit architecture is pretty useless until OS5 arrives which is faaaaar faaar away!
I think Altivec support will be enabled in OS4 final version. (dissabled in pre-release)
Dual CPU-s really near future (OS4 final - I hope so, but until 4.2 defintly)

Bye!

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@Kluz

I tend to think that roadmap a very rough 'guideline' at this point, and likely not valid RE: SMP. Without a dual SMP module in the works, there's not a lot of point.

If no G5 system is forthcoming, likewise- not much point.

I don't know that anyone is 'counting on' AmigaDE integration at this point, or if DE is still alive.

I do think SMP should be available after the the native thread model, and that makes logical sense to do then...but the rest, who knows?

If I'm not mistaken, Hyperion's already working towards virtual memory and memory protection, which on the AInc roadmap, is AOS5...just another example of that roadmap not nescesarily being valid any longer for a 'timeline.'

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@Kluz

your not up to date!

Current AmigaOS4.0 pre update 2

contains:

* Virtual Memory
* Memory Protection
* PPC native AHI
* AHI/CAMD drivers for EMU10K1 PCI cards
* USB - PPC native
* Core OS fully PPC native
* System device drivers - mouse, keyboard, hub, usb mass-storage
* Amiga.devices re-implemented as retargetable, removing the requirement for old Amiga hardware to be present

Last edited by NutsAboutAmiga on 03-Mar-2005 at 11:37 PM.
Last edited by NutsAboutAmiga on 03-Mar-2005 at 11:35 PM.

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@thread

I thought one of the Friedens already had a dual G4 (or G3) cpu module or something like that?

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@gnarly

No, there's no support for multiprocessing yet. There are several unresolved issues regarding the semantics of multiprocessing.

For example: What does Forbid do with more than one CPU ? Forbid is said to forbid task switching, but that would mean two CPUs would continue to run concurrently. However, it's most of the time used to achieve single threading, i.e. the task calling Forbid will assume it's the only entity running.

These are things that will have to be cleared up, and this will happen in 4.1.

Altivec, as you said, is already supported

Regarding the 64 bit support, this is something for the far future. Currently, all system structures are freely accessible, and every pointer is 32 bit. Bringing the system to 64 bit will require either substantial changes, or some sorf of "bolted on" functionality for 64 bit.

Bottom line, this is going to take some time. Multi-CPU support is coming with 4.1 (if things work out, they might come in 4.0.x, if that ever happens).

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@afxgroup

Quote:

Altivec is not a feature of OS4 but of G4/G5 ppc

Altivec has to be supported by the system. If two tasks are running Altivec code, who do you think will arbitrate the registers ? As such, it is necessary for the system to support Altivec.

Quote:

Altivec is an extension like MMX.

Hehe, don't let Freescale hear that

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All opinions expressed are my own and do not necessarily represent those of Hyperion Entertainment

@mlehto

Quote:

In 64bit architecture you can also execute more commands/execution cycle, since commands are 8,16 or 32 bit long

On the PPC, instructions are always 32 bit in size, regardless of the processor (32 or 64 bit).

Edit: Can somebody integrate a spellchecker in amigaworld.net ?

Last edited by EntilZha on 04-Mar-2005 at 12:59 AM.

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All opinions expressed are my own and do not necessarily represent those of Hyperion Entertainment

@Kluz

Forget about that. We've already moved some stuff that was planned for later into 4.0. We're also planning a 4.1 which never was on that roadmap you quote. Plans change, things get overtaken by reality. I would propose to never look far beyond the next release.

Just pick the last of the 4.2 features - there is no only one module left in OS 4 that is not PPC native, and that's console.device. It is being converted to PPC right now, and probably won't be 68k anymore for the final version.

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