Quote:

970MP is more than 4 times faster than Cortex-A8!

The difference is that the Cortex will fit in your pocket (ex: iphone)... There's no way you could run a 970MP within your pocket ;)

Btw, I find something "only" 4 times slower than a 970 running inside your pocket is quite fast ;)

The real question is: would you want to run an Amiga that runs as fast as a phone ?

Last edited by Leo on 17-Jul-2009 at 08:08 PM.

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@Al4

Do you rally think spending 5 years porting AmigaOS4 to ARM is time well spent?
When you can port AmigaOS4 to new PowerPC hardware whit in 2 months?

And ARM will not be able to support current PowerPC programs.
So what you thinking about will divide the tiny market up in two.

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@NutsAboutAmiga

Quote:

We remain convinced however that the PPC architecture is the most scaleable and least power hungry on the market and that an OS which specifically targets PowerPC instead of x86 with after thought ports to other architectures represents true value. Proof of the pudding will be in eating later this year.

Hardware. Either ARM or PPC.

A Inc are probably trying to work out what this project is, as well.

@Interesting

Quote:

The idea of separating the AmigaOS from "custom" hardware, and using off the shelf Components has been a total mistake by Amiga Inc.

It was this community who were whining why Amiga turbo cards and zorro cards were so expensive and why can't we have PCI ports instead to use cheap x86 PC hardware which you can find from any local stores. And that was 15 years ago. (Do anybody remember that Walker had one PCI slot.)

Btw. There was one Finnish group 10 years ago, was they called Bitboys or something like that (they're doing consulting nowadays), who said their gfx chip was many times faster than any other chip (inc. ATI & nvidia) of that time. But they couldn't sell their chip to anybody because other manufacturers had spent a lot of money into their own solutions already. So if there was any Amiga company with millions of money back then they could buy that chip maker and that way Amiga would have unique custom chip again which was ahead of x86 PC technology (of that time).

Those times are long gone and won't come back again.

But then again are we the only ones who's using PPC for desktop nowadays. So we do have custom hardware, don't we ?!

@thread
Quote:

the secret project of Hyperion

I guess it's only improving the OS (and put all different kind of things together which have been in the roadmap since the beginning).

Quote:

Proof of the pudding will be in eating later this year.

So in 6 months we will all know.

Last edited by Tomppeli on 17-Jul-2009 at 10:25 PM.

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"Anyone can build a fast CPU. The trick is to build a fast system." -Seymour Cray

@Tomppeli

Ambitious to me would be something with which they intended to gather more users...by a significant amount, i.e. from a couple of thousands to a couple of tens of thousands. Could a software project do that? Java, Flash, open office? Would new, faster PPC hardware for the OS?

ARM is going to get a bit of attention and be in shops later this year. Jumping on this bandwagon could gather a new bunch of users. PPC hardware isn't advertised anywhere generally visible.

If they are planning to port to a another architecture, then the sooner they do it, the less OS4 applications they will lose in doing so. A port this year to ARM would be more sensible that a port next year.

Last edited by Al4 on 17-Jul-2009 at 10:57 PM.
Last edited by Al4 on 17-Jul-2009 at 10:54 PM.

@Al4

Quote:

ARM? Why ARM? Even 6 (!) years old G4/G5 CPUs are more than 2 times faster...

The highest clocked G4s *might* be 2x faster but they only appeared in some Macs.

Quote:

970MP is more than 4 times faster than Cortex-A8!

Quite possibly, but try buying one.


Quote:

ARM will be cheaper to the consumer.

Considerably so.

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ARM should be fast enough for watching video with Amiga or Linux

720p hardware decode is getting common. Tegra does 1080p

Quote:

ARM will continue being worked on and get faster

Dual core Cortex A9s are due later this year / early next year. They'll be rather more potent than the A8s. If someone produces a version specifically for netbooks they might be closing on the 970MP.

Quote:

ARM might succeed, on the basis of price.

That's how Intel beat the RISC vendors.

Now, a port to ARM is no small effort and you end up with no software and an OS which is still obsolete compared to the competition. What you need is a new modern kernel, if you do that right it should be cross platform from the beginning making ports to any CPU a lot easier. For backwards compatibility you use a PPC JIT and run OS4 in a sandbox.

I suspect this is what Hyperion are doing.

Quite whether it'll end up on x86 or ARM I've no idea but ARM would be easier because you can target a specific chip and say we only run on devices based on it.

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@minator

I tend to agree with other posts in this thread. Adding another CPU family at this time would be fatal to the productivity of the Hyperion team.

They have a number of higher-priority OS issues to address before any plans to adopt another CPU make sense.


Cheers!

I am thinking we may see a fully functioning Fixstar PowerStation. Running OS4.x of course.

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Amiga 4000 3.9 / Pegasos II 4.1 F.E.

@TheKorn

You mean "operational". In a raspy voice. And follow up with "fire at will, commander".

_________________
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Using "voltage" instead of "potential", which leads to inventing new words like "amperage" instead of "current" (I, measured in A) or possible "charge" (amperehours, Ah or Coulomb, C). Sometimes I don't even know what people mean.

@TheKorn

Interesting.

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@OldFart

PPC is dead for Amiga's purposes. I can't really understand, how anyone can't see it? You should have read for e.g. bbrv's blog, or some other indications, reading between the lines, to understand the situation. Even Freescale (Motorola) are using ARM.

I am not sure what is Hyperion doing, but I tell you one thing - ARM is the only sane option to go with. The port to x86 was not refused in the past because of the architecture, AOS could be ported to it, no matter of what the effort would have to be, but because of competition you get on x86, and it was clearly stated in the past.

With ARM, you get platform with no OS-X, no Windows7. You also have to understand, where the world is going. PPL are NOT interested in desktops that much nowadays. We've got smart phones, netbook sales take 30% of notebook sales? PPL want mobility, internet. With ARM, you can get rather small and cool devices which run for more than 10 hours on battery? For a reasonable price? So what is the purpose of the lacking and overpriced HW platform, as PPC is?

Isn't it responsibility of the business entity to create a profit? If Hyperion is really serious about AOS from business POV, I can't believe they do have any more plans for PPC. ARM netbooks - that is their next logical market!

I think that anyone proposing PPC nowadays should have undergo lobotomy, to not hurt his public image more than necessary

@-pekr-

Check out Freescale's QorIQ processors. SoC. Scale from single-core to 8-core. Low power. Pricing seems reasonable. Up to 1.5GHz per core. Freescale may actually "get it" with this product line if they don't watch out.

@gregthecanuck

Those processors are pretty much irrelevant, why can't you see that? Do you really want to comparny upcoming ARM devices offerings, and anything real maybe-one-day-coming based upon new Freescale processing? For what I heard, Freescale does not even bother to talk to you, unless you are pretty big company. Those processors are more for network devices and automotive ...

As for Hyperion, their goal should be to get the OS out to ppl. And that means - to available devices, and not to maybe-one-day coming ones ...

@Interesting

Quote:

Then we had the "Amiga" turned into a "classic", sorry I don't buy the term and never have. Thats a real Amiga not a classic anything!

I must say I agree with you there!

I may use an AmigaOne, but I know darn well that the only Amiga thing about it is in name only. And a CPU with similar features. Rip out the harddisk and what do I have? Infact I have a UBoot computer.

Now the Sam machines...? Well, looks like it was named after a girl, cashing in the Amiga is a girlfriend selling point perhaps?

Quote:

The idea of separating the AmigaOS from "custom" hardware, and using off the shelf Components has been a total mistake by Amiga Inc.

Yes, I was saddened that any Amiga custom hardware was let go, to be replaced by VGA chips and SoundBlasters. Now we don't have a copper, screen dragging has to be emulated in hardware or software by drawing the screen on, and most AHI drivers don't use hardware/DSP multitrack mixing. Going againt using the hardware for an elegant method of the above example goes the against the Amiga philosophy!

But that is not the fault of using PC hardware, where it can do a cool Amiga function. That is the AmigaOS not having proper hardware drivers to drive the hardware. And when these worked together that wasn't a problem. Integration may be a closed system, but in the example of the Amiga, it was an elegant system that worked the best!

@-pekr- Quote:

The port to x86 was ... refused in the past because ... of competition you get on x86

While that argument might have been raised a *very* long time ago, if it ever was relevant, it is not relevant now: x86 machines can be found everywhere, due to them being so cheap, usually with at least one per household. So running on an non-x86 cpu does not save you from x86 competition!

I've said it in the past, and I say it again now that I own a Sam440: If AmigaOS4 has any benefits over Windows/Linux/etc, then it should not be afraid of competition. More so since the competition is unavoidable.

And ARM is hardly any better than x86 from comptetition POV, because Linux already runs very well on ARM (see the Beagle board & Pandora), as does SymbianOS, as does etc...

_________________
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@-pekr-

Quote:

With ARM, you get platform with no OS-X, no Windows7. You also have to understand, where the world is going. PPL are NOT interested in desktops that much nowadays.

Yes, but it misses a vital point. Do those people know what's in the hardware? Do they care? That only matters if people are buying it for the CPU. Or a brand like a Ford over a GMH built car. Brand can mean a lot. Amiga used to be a brand in this sense.

And for most of the people out there, whatever size the hardware is or whatever it does, they proably want to see a Windows logo on the screen. It's a mentality. You can get Windows on a smart phone and PDA. How do you break that mentality? So a new thing comes along (that isn't Linux) and people don't say, "What's this weird thing that tries to act like Windows but isn't Windows? Where's Windows? I just want Windows, not some strange thing trying to rip it off!"

Last edited by Hypex on 18-Jul-2009 at 09:16 AM.

@Hypex @ChrisH

It is really long time ago I proposed port to x86. By stating we should go ARM I am trying to find some compromise - CPU allowing new wave of Amiga HW - netbooks or even smaller mobile devices, while letting Hyperion think that there is less competition for them than on x86 platform

In the past, AInc. was refusing port to x86, because they wanted to control everything, creating business for Amiga HW companies. We all know how it turned out. Even Genesi did not agree to go to x86 - while they spoke of OS competition for x86, the true reason imo was different - they produced PPC hw (bPlan), so the decision went agains their business.

But nowadays - Genesi clearly switched to ARM. So there is less possible hw for AmigaOS to run on. Will there be any new SAM hw? I don't know. I can't tell you what Hyperion is going to do, but I can tell you, that IF they choose to port to another CPU, they will follow above logic - to have kind of niche, a bit of isolated, hence not mainstream, platform. So - ARM fits here

@-pekr-

Quote:

As for Hyperion, their goal should be to get the OS out to ppl. And that means - to available devices, and not to maybe-one-day coming ones ...

Have you had a chat with Hyperion about this matter allready? Correct me if I' wrong, but from what you tell me here, I get the impression that you know exactly what the right steps are in order to achieve the goal you set out.

All sniggering aside, I have the impression that Hyperion is quite, quite capable itself to determine which way to go and I have the impression that at Hyperion they have set themselves a goal which is feasable. And them recently pointing at Freescale's offering makes me think that a decision has long been made and, no, they are not in dire need of what a -pekr-, a gregthecanuck, a thomas or even an old fart, just to name a name a sawmill's hand's hand, has to say about the matter.

Look at it this way (a time line):
Somewhere halfway November it is unveiled what the secret project was all about, either by leaking or a statement from Hyperion and its partner(s). This will then be sufficiently in time for the X-mas season. Which is then less then 4 months to go, so allthough a bit too long for keeping your breath, I think we can wait that much longer easily (easely?).

But as you know exactly what to do, what takes you from doing it yourself? It is so easy and staightforward and the only way to go. What? What was that you were saying? You're not an entrepreneur, you say? Ah! That makes it all clear then.

OldFart

Last edited by OldFart on 18-Jul-2009 at 10:10 AM.

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@-pekr-

Quote:

In the past, AInc. was refusing port to x86, because they wanted to control everything, creating business for Amiga HW companies. We all know how it turned out.

At this point we are missing a bit of clarity, as to whom "AInc" refers too. Amiga, Inc. may have sanctioned AmigaOS4 but they didn't write it nor choose the hardware for it. And in any case, whoever was in charge of managing it, what's wrong with supporting Amiga hardware companies? Why should they be told to shove off when they suppoted the Amuga for all those years?

But, do you remember the first version of AmigaOS4 that Amiga, the "Inc." announced? It was an x86 OS! Yes, that's right, OS4 was a development platform that was on a standard PC, intended to be a middle solution. Until a "real" Amiga platform was created. Amiga wanted to make "AmigaOS4" as an x86 OS.

Yet, along with others, you seem to be blaming Amiga, Inc., for refusing to make an AmigaOS on x86. Look at their profile! They are all about x86! They shoved it in our faces from the very beginning, and why do people forget this?

Okay, I doubt they had any real interest with the "Real" AmigaOS, wanting to instead envision their own idea of an OS with the Amiga name. But they can't be blamed for a real AmigaOS not happening on x86. After all, they don't even have the source code to any OS but OS3.1, so how are they going to do it!?

Who to blame for OS4 being a dying desktop platform? Hyperion? Eyetech? Jay Miner chosing a 68K? No, I wouldn't blame them, I would blame sometihng else: Circumstance. The PowerPC was the most logical at the time, Apple used, and it solved the big endian problem. Rather like real Amiga hardware, it has beocome a legacy. It was also logical to port the whole AmigaOS (well most of it) to the same CPU. Also solving the big endian problem, and the Amiga software base had already started supporting PowerPC so this was another logical step. That powerful PowerPC's can't be bought for cheap prices is not OS4's fault. Blame the PowerPC resellers!

Quote:

But nowadays - Genesi clearly switched to ARM. So there is less possible hw for AmigaOS to run on.

Regarding Genesi, what in particular do we most care about them? It's MorphOS! Genesi may have "Armed up" bu chosing ARM. But that's where it ends, it's only a piece of hardware. MorphOS won't be running on an ARM Genesi board. I don't know if they have any plans too, I haven't read anything yet.