It's best to invest on porting the Amiga-/like o.ses to another architecture (x64 or ARMv8 can be good candidates) rather than spending precious resources for a PowerPC emulator.

Many applications can be recompiled to take advantage of the new ISA without resorting to a slower emulation.

For the missing applications, it has to be seen how much useful they are to thinking about adding a PowerPC layer on top of the new ISA.

Remember that a PowerPC layer is a very different thing compared a PowerPC emulator: the latter has to emulate a whole platform, while the former has a very lightweight emulation (so basically it's much faster).

So, the best solution will be: o.s. ported to a new ISA + PowerPC layer IF needed.

@cdimauro

Ideally, yes. But it is obvious that Hyperion etc. don't have any intention of porting their OSes to x86, so an emulator is therefore necessary.

I don't see the problem here: YOU're the customer and YOU decide how to spend YOUR money. If you are tired to spend money on an expansive hardware platform STOP BUYING IT! Until they change their mind and understand that a new direction must be taken.

Companies need money to survive. They cannot ignore customer forever. But it's up to customer to force them to do what they really want. Customers have the only, but most powerful, weapon to do it: their wallet.

@cdimauro

I haven't bought OS4 nor anything to run it on. As it is way beyond what is affordable. So at least I am doing my part

Yes. It's up to OS4 customers.

Why not ask Chineese industries to clone the sam boards and sell them to us for 100$?

But don't count on chineese to bring new sam mother boards....

So based on this reflection, I had bought my sam (who is a terrible slow computer regarding the price it sells).

@cdimauro

Quote:

YOU're the customer and YOU decide how to spend YOUR money

Sniggering remarks about poor sales aside, I think you mean:
YOU're A customer and YOU decide how to spend YOUR money.

If enough money were presented, it would happen. Where "enough" is defined as "sufficient to change Hyperions mind and get the manpower to do it"

But no matter what CPU platform one targets these days, the crux of the matter is that 64 bit and multiprocessing is used by all possible targets, so focussing on that now is not actually taking any work time away from an ARM64 or x64 port at a later stage. So I for one am willing to let Hyperion work on it at their own pace.

_________________
This weeks pet peeve:
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.

@DC_Edge

Quote:

DC_Edge wrote: Why not ask Chineese industries to clone the sam boards and sell them to us for 100$?

Last time I was looking for the prices, the CPU for Sam460 cost more than 80$


Sure the price of the board without CPU and RAM could be somewhere between 150 and 250 Euroe when made in the EU with an optimised production managmenet. But you would need more customers.

Well there are enough alternatives to AOS4 that are available on other hardware to other platform.

Last edited by Arko on 04-Feb-2014 at 01:04 PM.

_________________
AmigaONE. Haha. Just because you can put label on it does not make it Amiga.

I borrowed this comments from here (#27 & #28):
http://amigaworld.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=38873&forum=2&start=20&order=0

Comment about pricing.
-Servergy had USD199 PPC board "in the works" (dualcore ~1Ghz with DVI/HDMI) but it's canceled for now
-Freescale has P1025 development board that costs about USD180

(I keep on polling for T10xx dev board availability nad prices every now and then. Those chips would be nice for lowend /midrange.)

_________________
- KimmoK
// For freedom, for honor, for AMIGA
//
// Thing that I should find more time for: CC64 - 64bit Community Computer?

Quote:

olegil wrote: @cdimauro Quote: YOU're the customer and YOU decide how to spend YOUR money Sniggering remarks about poor sales aside, I think you mean: YOU're A customer and YOU decide how to spend YOUR money.

A single customer can do nothing. May be it's better to add just a letter to the sentence:

YOU're the customers and YOU decide how to spend YOUR money
Quote:

If enough money were presented, it would happen. Where "enough" is defined as "sufficient to change Hyperions mind and get the manpower to do it"

There's a much easier and strong way: it can happen even if you completely stop buying their product. A private company cannot survive without money...
Quote:

But no matter what CPU platform one targets these days, the crux of the matter is that 64 bit and multiprocessing is used by all possible targets, so focussing on that now is not actually taking any work time away from an ARM64 or x64 port at a later stage. So I for one am willing to let Hyperion work on it at their own pace.

In short: let to continue to put patches to the 30 years old Amiga o.s. sources, adding some limited features to attract the amigans, while still using an obsolete and expensive PowerPC ecosystem.

But if customers are tired of such situation, they have the power to make it change, as I said, and force the company to fulfill their requests.

Amiga OS does not cost more than windows, so the price of the OS can't be the problem here. Any way the Sam440 is still rather cheap and is powerfull enough

_________________

In fact the problem is the very high price of the hardware.

@Yssing

Sam440 is powerfull enough? We don't live in ~2002. We have HD videos, webpages with tons of gfx and games better than Quake2. Sorry but Sam440 is outdated and compared to used PowerMac with similar speed, 8-12 times overpriced. It's slower than everything made after 2001 except 10 times cheaper Efika :).

Last edited by rzookol on 04-Feb-2014 at 11:10 PM.

"A 68000 ought to be enough for anybody"

And it's even cheap.

@someone with the info

Looking for some examples:
-CPU 1Ghz...2.5Ghz (single or multicore, L2 cache is a must, FPU is a must, SIMD is optional)
-PCIe x4 or better (v2.0 or v3.0) x16 physical slot
-PCIe x1 (one or more beside the GPU port, NOT MANDATORY, but very nice)
-SATA2 (1port minimum)
-2GB RAM (minimum)
-4 or more USB2 (or USB3)
-price of the board (with RAM and CPU/Soc)

Looking for ARM, x64 and PPC variants, to seek proof of high prices etc...

I believe x86 start from EUR200 or so... (UPDATE: from EUR100 http://www.asrock.com/mb/overview.asp?Model=E350M1&cat=Specifications ) (E350D APU delivers some 9500MIPS @1.6Ghz)
Others...?

(I recently went through 40 ARM based boards, but those did not have PCIe)

Last edited by KimmoK on 05-Feb-2014 at 09:43 AM.
Last edited by KimmoK on 05-Feb-2014 at 09:38 AM.
Last edited by KimmoK on 05-Feb-2014 at 08:56 AM.

_________________
- KimmoK
// For freedom, for honor, for AMIGA
//
// Thing that I should find more time for: CC64 - 64bit Community Computer?

I wrote a new draft for the bounty text. It includes some suggestions of this thread.
Would this version of the bounty be more attractive for potential backers?

"Bounty: Power PC emulator

Description:
* Write an emulator of a PPC computer.
Ideally the Pegasos II., but this is not a must.

* The host OS should be running on a X86-PC.

* You might code the whole program from scratch. Adapting or using
existing source code (e.g. Dolphin, Qemu) would be allowed as well.

* The final code has to be published under an open source license.

* The bounty is fullfilled when the emulator succesfully manages the following points:
a) The demo version of Morph OS boots up to its desktop screen
b) User interaction via keyboard and mouse is working
c) Basic 2D Graphics are working
d) Small native desktop programs of Morph OS are able to be used

* Backers of this bounty should be aware of the following: Future full versions of Morph OS or OS4 might detect if they are running within the emulator. If their publishers don't like this they could take actions to block the emulator.
The emulator must not be programmed in a way which makes it impossible for operating systems to detect if they are running within an emulation (e.g. no emulation "down to the last bit"). This project is not meant to displease any company in the whole Amiga world.
On the other hand, nobody knows if Team Morph OS or Hyperion will really have a problem with a non hostile emulator in the long term. But backers of the bounty should be aware of the risk that the emulator could end up being able to run Morph OS' demo version only."

@A500Fan
Money is limited so:
Add the possibility to write a morphos and amigaos 4 wrapper (based on os4emu for mos) for aros ppc branch.

Than ensure that aros ppc works on pearpc, dolphin or qemu.

Whatever comes first.
If this happens you use can use aros hosted on any ppc machine including wii or used macs.

Last edited by phoenixkonsole on 06-Feb-2014 at 05:41 PM.
Last edited by phoenixkonsole on 06-Feb-2014 at 05:40 PM.

_________________
AROS Broadway - AEROS - Aminux - AmiCloud - indieGO! Appstore - AmiWallet - VAN lossless video codec - AMC Amiga media Center -KrypUnite - LibertyNet - MinX - amigaNX

Quote:

A500Fan wrote: I wrote a new draft for the bounty text. It includes some suggestions of this thread. Would this version of the bounty be more attractive for potential backers?

I think that it's not useful, but I give you my feedback.
Quote:

"Bounty: Power PC emulator Description: * Write an emulator of a PPC computer. Ideally the Pegasos II., but this is not a must. * The host OS should be running on a X86-PC.

How many 32-bit processors are now sold? It's best to bet on x64, which can greatly speed-up the emulation.

Eventually, an x86 port can be made AFTER that the bounty is closed.
Quote:

* You might code the whole program from scratch. Adapting or using existing source code (e.g. Dolphin, Qemu) would be allowed as well.

Remove it: it's not needed.
Quote:

* The final code has to be published under an open source license.

The final code has to be published under a BSD-like license (BSD, Apache 2, MIT, etc.), in order to get the maximum audience.

The code must be released immediately after the bounty has been paid.
Quote:

* The bounty is fullfilled when the emulator succesfully manages the following points: a) The demo version of Morph OS boots up to its desktop screen

Change a) with:

The demo of the latest MorphOS version should boots up to its desktop screen
Quote:

b) User interaction via keyboard and mouse is working c) Basic 2D Graphics are working d) Small native desktop programs of Morph OS are able to be used

Change d) with:

All applications shipped with the MorphOS CD / DVD which don't depend on 3D should work normally.
Quote:

* Backers of this bounty should be aware of the following: Future full versions of Morph OS or OS4 might detect if they are running within the emulator. If their publishers don't like this they could take actions to block the emulator. The emulator must not be programmed in a way which makes it impossible for operating systems to detect if they are running within an emulation (e.g. no emulation "down to the last bit"). This project is not meant to displease any company in the whole Amiga world. On the other hand, nobody knows if Team Morph OS or Hyperion will really have a problem with a non hostile emulator in the long term. But backers of the bounty should be aware of the risk that the emulator could end up being able to run Morph OS' demo version only."

Remove it completely, for the following reasons:
- MorphOS company and Hyperion are software houses, and don't sell hardware. This emulator do NOT hurt their business
- Every people should already fulfill the o.s. license (EULA). The software is protected by current copyright laws, so there's no need to repeating it again
- Since the emulator source will be released, there'll be always the possibility to change it to circumvent any software protection.

@cdimauro

What is the point of this thead? Either the Cyrus, X1000 and Sam platforms are a success or the AmigaOS platform dies. An emulator would kill the platform, plus porting from PowerPC would suck all resources away from 3D drivers etc. We're not Apple and we simply don't have the developers to do the job an there is no financial incentive anyway. Unless we can make a success of the current designs utilising PowerPC CPUs there is no future.

How many investors like Trevor Dickinson do you know? As far as I know the number of X1000s sold is still under 1000 and this number does not fund a change of CPU architecture. The only reason people want an emulator is so that they can save their pennies and dabble with AmigaOS on their current x86 hardware. I'm afraid dabbling in the platform will not support or maintain it in the long run. Either support the current software/hardware solutions or leave it to die! There is no emulation future for the platform. As far as I know the 68k Amigas are already emulated on PCs so if that's your bag stick with Cloanto's Amiga Forever.

Quote:

In short: let to continue to put patches to the 30 years old Amiga o.s. sources, adding some limited features to attract the amigans, while still using an obsolete and expensive PowerPC ecosystem.

The alternative is killing the Amiga scene all together. The move to PowerPC from 68k has taken years. RunUAE is actually usable and included in the OS but it took years to get it to this point. Petunia runs 68k apps but that would break if emulated under x86. Why bother? Just use a Mac or a PC instead. If you want to use an Amiga buy an Amiga!!

Last edited by BigD on 06-Feb-2014 at 11:02 PM.
Last edited by BigD on 06-Feb-2014 at 10:58 PM.

_________________
"Art challenges technology. Technology inspires the art."
John Lasseter, Co-Founder of Pixar Animation Studios

@BigD

"If you want to use an Amiga buy an Amiga!!"

that is difficult because it is out of production since 1994 or 1995

there are successors based on PPC or X86/ARM but no "Amiga".

Last edited by OlafS25 on 06-Feb-2014 at 11:34 PM.
Last edited by OlafS25 on 06-Feb-2014 at 11:32 PM.