@eliyahu


Didn't we know it was the Apple chip six months ago?

@persia

We did not know for sure.

This should also mean that the first 250 production boards should be in the works due to the non disclosure before shipping clause .

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@Phantom

Quote:

PA6T's CPU according to WikiPedia has Little/Big endian operation (bi-endian). That means that porting to our platform will be a more easier task than now?

No, it doesn't mean that. Porting effort does not change at all.

@persia

Quote:

Didn't we know it was the Apple chip six months ago?

The Pwrficient PA6T was designed by PA Semi well before they were bought by Apple, I wouldn't call it an apple chip, especially considering that apple aren't particularly bothered with PPC these days.

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Why keeping it secret until now?. I don't understand.

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Brilliant.

@_ThEcRoW

What would change if you knew it before?

You don't like surprises?

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@Phantom

Not that i don't like surprises, but don't see the point in not wanting to tell that. Even they negated that it was a pa semi, now the say it's a pa semi. Weird.

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Amiga 500 + ACA500plus 8mb + 30gb CF
Raspberry Pi 3b+ and Amibian 1.4
Mac Mini G4 1GB Ram with the butterfly!!

@_ThEcRoW

Quote:

Why keeping it secret until now?. I don't understand.

obviously i can't speak for A-EON, but having dealt with apple professionally in the past, the NDA requirements they have for you to discuss anything received from them prior to an agreed-upon announce date is unreal. of course A-EON may not be dealing with apple, i have no way of knowing. it's just an educated guess.

trevor has said many times, both publicly and privately, that A-EON is constrained from their uproc supplier on announcing details. i would suspect that constraint has now been lifted. only the A-EON principals can clear this one up officially.

that being said the PA6T was the most likely candidate based on what was announced. most folks figured that one out even before the famous 'pciscan' incident.

-- eliyahu

Last edited by eliyahu on 21-Dec-2010 at 04:03 PM.

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@_ThEcRoW

Quote:

_ThEcRoW wrote: Why keeping it secret until now?. I don't understand.

I believe it was said various times that it wasn't their choice to keep the secret but was done by one of their partners' request.

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I hope this question doesn't come across as a criticism, but I am very curious: why would anyone build a new system based around a discontinued processor?

I guess this approach guarantees that the X1000 will be an instant collector's item, but won't it make additional production runs impossible?

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@IslandDreamer

Quote:

I hope this question doesn't come across as a criticism, but I am very curious: why would anyone build a new system based around a discontinued processor? I guess this approach guarantees that the X1000 will be an instant collector's item, but won't it make additional production runs impossible?

probably because of the cachet, and also, when they started thinking about designing a machine like the X1000, the PA6T was the most performant processor in the broader power.org processor family that was attainable and to which amigaOS 4.x was portable.

i'm glad they chose it. i'd be happier still if it had shipped by now, but, hey, 'when it's done.'

as to follow-ons, ben hermans specifically mentioned the freescale QorIQ processor family (such as the P5 family) for future systems, IIRC.

-- eliyahu

Last edited by eliyahu on 22-Dec-2010 at 12:50 AM.

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@thread

from an A-EON press release this afternoon:

Quote:

A-EON Technology is pleased to finally reveal the identity of the mystery CPU powering the AmigaOne X1000. It’s none other than the uber cool PWRficient PA6T processor developed by fabless chip designer PA Semi. The PA6T-1682M is a high performance, low power, cool running dual-core, 64-bit, 2GHZ Power CPU specifically designed for embedded industrial and military applications. PA Semi was acquired by Apple in 2008 and all the indications were that they purchased the company for the technology and planned to shut down the PA Semi product line. However, following demand from military and industrial users, Apple agreed to continue supplying chips to pre-existing PA Semi customers for a limited time period. Fortunately Varisys, our hardware partner, had a long-standing relationship with PA-Semi and we were able to secure a supply of PA6T CPUs for the AmigaOne X1000 project, making it the first and most probably the last desktop computer based on the unique PA-Semi CPU technology as Apple have now closed down the PA-Semi product line.

-- eliyahu

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"Physical reality is consistent with universal laws. When the laws do not operate, there is no reality. All of this is unreal."

@eliyahu

That doesn't sound good. I sure hope they have already selected a replacing CPU for the system.

@IslandDreamer

Exaclty, and having read A-EON press release I really hope that they were able to gather enough processors for at least a second batch!

@Shufflepuck

Yes, and what next?

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@Shufflepuck

I think we can deduce from that statement that they have enough for making a profit and funding a respin to a different family. It doesn't say "X1000 beta program", it says "X1000 project". Not the same thing

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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.

@stychokiller

Quote:

but A-eon has only ten more days till "Late 2010" becomes "early 2011".

Back in the heydays of massive transition to computer oriented administrations, we came across this very phenomenon and it was dealt with, with a solution which was typical for the culture of the time:
-- Mondays were deleted altogether, so you would not end up debugging your Monday's code for the rest of the week. Exceptions were made in case of Public Holidays on Monday.
-- Fridays on the other hand were doubled to provide for some slack towards projects which were planned to be finished by the end of the week.
-- The last day of the month was replicated a number of time to provide sufficient slack for projects which were planned to be finished by the end of the month.
-- The month of December got some 4 weeks extra to provide sufficient slack for projects which were scheduled to be finished by the end of the year.

The X1000 project falls within the last catagory, so by the standards of yore nothing to worry about

Oldfart

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Slightly off-topic, I think the PWRficient logo is great.

Would be cool to add it on a (white) X1000 case, my two cents.

I hope A-EON will also sell just the mobo.

Cheers,
Shufflepuck

@persia

Quote:

persia wrote: @eliyahu Didn't we know it was the Apple chip six months ago?

Indeed

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