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OlafS25 
Re: Applied Micro moving away from PowerPC
Posted on 9-Oct-2014 22:50:38
#41 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 12-May-2010
Posts: 6321
From: Unknown

@cdimauro

You do the same error as many NG fans. Aros is nearest to that, the 64bit version supports up to 128 GB, with Arix (if it becomes reality) it might even get SMP. But I will bet with you that for new 68k based hardware there will be much more new software developed because there are a lot of compilers available and it is known and documented. I love Aros and I think the 68k version will play a important role in future but I think "NG" goes in the wrong direction.

We need affordable and powerful (real) hardware for 68k and I hope I can persuade many people to support it then. I myself will be involved with my distribution + Free Pascal.

In short: I do not think that the features you mentioned would change anything, we need software, software, software. Some standards are not up to date and have to be modernized. SMP, MP and 64bit are not that important to me.

Last edited by OlafS25 on 09-Oct-2014 at 10:56 PM.

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Raffaele 
Re: Applied Micro moving away from PowerPC
Posted on 10-Oct-2014 4:14:35
#42 ]
Super Member
Joined: 7-Dec-2005
Posts: 1906
From: Naples, Italy

@WolfToTheMoon

Quote:

WolfToTheMoon wrote:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/8588/armv8-goes-embedded-with-applied-micros-helix-socs

Quote:
As part of this deal,
all product lines based on the PowerPC architecture
are being migrated to ARMv8 under the HeliX family



Which means no new CPUs for Acube's line, they'll have to switch to Freescale.

On another note, these new 64 bit ARM CPUs from Applied Mixro are now entirely suited to some desktop computing(17 X PCIe 3.0 lanes)


Well, being honest, when I read these news I said by my side: "I couldn't care less!"...

As from Amiga side I thought: "Good! This is a great kick in the back for Amiga firms, in order to make them consider starting coding AmigaOS and MorphOS versions for ARM too, forking the code, and beginning creating a first minimal batch of Amiga and MOS kernel functions, libraries and drawers for ARM in their spare time, so in a year or two we could see an Alpha Stage Port of our Operating Systems running on ARM architecture too!"

And I feel confident enough to tell ACube friends to start projects for an ARM based mainboards as a sort of "plan B" "B plan"!

Last edited by Raffaele on 10-Oct-2014 at 04:27 AM.
Last edited by Raffaele on 10-Oct-2014 at 04:25 AM.

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cdimauro 
Re: Applied Micro moving away from PowerPC
Posted on 10-Oct-2014 5:16:34
#43 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 29-Oct-2012
Posts: 3621
From: Germany

@OlafS25: regarding 68K and software we are well aligned.

Regarding a modern o.s., we are not, or there was a misunderstanding. I mean that a modern o.s. must have ALL the 4 features which I mentioned; so not only one or some.

You know that I appreciate AROS, and it has good support to 64 bits (no Commodore VIC20 et similia bank switching method), but it lacks the other 3 things.

I think that resource tracking can be added, but it can create issues with the current applications. An application can share (actually: it "shares" everything) some resources with the o.s. or other applications, so they mustn't be freed when it exits.

Memory protection has similar issues if it's implemented.

Last but not least, SMP can be implemented in a transparent way, at least on x86 and x64. I had a long discussion with some more expert colleagues, and in the end my idea of using only the debug registers to keep track of the two counters used by the o.s. (for tasks and interrupts) cannot work, because the change of the memory location is triggered only by the core/thread which made it, and there's no "guaranteed way" to have the correct value which was changed, in order to decide what to do. But I found another solution which can solve all problems. So, there's no need to hope for ARIX to finally have a working SMP: it can implemented even on AROS. Some guy(s) has to think about it, and do it.

@Raffaele: there are three big problems for AmigaOS4 being ported to something different. The first is the will to do it by the developers/company. The second is the need to rewrite some parts because of licensing issues (but they can take parts of AROS, IMO). The third is the of loss of backward-compatibility, as I stated before, because DOESN'T make sense to port it to another 32-bit architecture: (A REAL) 64-bit (platform) should be the next thing to do.

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Raffaele 
Re: Applied Micro moving away from PowerPC
Posted on 10-Oct-2014 8:27:37
#44 ]
Super Member
Joined: 7-Dec-2005
Posts: 1906
From: Naples, Italy

@cdimauro

It is no matter of will...

Sooner or later it will be a necessity, as demise of Applied Micro proofs.

So or Amiga firms will start migrating to other architectures now and be prepared for the inevitable PPC architecture switch off...

...Else they will be out of business... plain and simple...

_________________
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OlafS25 
Re: Applied Micro moving away from PowerPC
Posted on 10-Oct-2014 8:29:52
#45 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 12-May-2010
Posts: 6321
From: Unknown

@cdimauro

there are some libraries who implement some sort of resource tracking on 68k (I have integrated them in Aros Vision) and you could even implement some sort of MP when you would have MMU (what mostly is not available on 68k). So from 68k view I would say only resource tracking would be nice (as long as it does not break old software) and it certainly could be added.

We propably disagree about priorities, I say software should be priority including development tools (where we are far behind todays standards) you are more focused on OS features. People say if AmigaOS (or any other of our platforms) gets the features you mentioned THEN it will be a modern platform and compete with the other platforms. I say no, there will be not any new application or game because of that. We must make it easier to port applications or games (f.e. have tools like Antiryad Gx and others where you can support by just crosscompiling), we need modern class libraries and RAD tools that make it easier to start programming, we need to support standards developers already know that all brings new software. That all has not much to do with OS features or "modern" features you mentioned (except adapting to standards).

Regarding SMP and new concept, sounds interesting. We will see

but for 68k I think it is not relevant, at least not at the moment

Last edited by OlafS25 on 10-Oct-2014 at 08:32 AM.

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WolfToTheMoon 
Re: Applied Micro moving away from PowerPC
Posted on 10-Oct-2014 8:52:59
#46 ]
Super Member
Joined: 2-Sep-2010
Posts: 1351
From: CRO

@OlafS25

Quote:
I say software
should be priority including development tools (where we
are far behind todays standards) you are more focused on
OS features


One doesn't go without the other. You need MP to facilitate faster and easier development, you want SMP(and 64 bit) to enable more complex apps - especially if your CPU is as slow as P50xx and doesn't have SIMD. You would also want some POSIX to enable easier porting - let's face it, most SW today comes from ports.

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Raffaele 
Re: Applied Micro moving away from PowerPC
Posted on 10-Oct-2014 9:05:45
#47 ]
Super Member
Joined: 7-Dec-2005
Posts: 1906
From: Naples, Italy

@WolfToTheMoon

I wonder why Amiga developers are still stuck with 68K issues...

Deprecate it all...

IMHO the easy way to handle with legacy software could be this:

The new Memory Protected AmigaOS runs as usual with its own utilities.
When it encounters any user calls to 68K software, the system recognizes what kind of software is by its header, and start an emulator session (with or without JIT depending on blacklist) and makes it running in a sandboxed memory area.
If 68000 software crash, it crash just in the sandbox that will be reused as normal RAM by MMU.

Last edited by Raffaele on 10-Oct-2014 at 09:06 AM.

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OlafS25 
Re: Applied Micro moving away from PowerPC
Posted on 10-Oct-2014 9:08:32
#48 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 12-May-2010
Posts: 6321
From: Unknown

@WolfToTheMoon

if we talk about professional applications, big databases and similar yes. But I contacted former amiga software-developers some time before (informing them at the time about Natami what was a little early obviously :) ). My impression was that a FPGA based new 68k amiga created a lot of interest. Next question was when available and how much does it cost. The third question how many users (potential buyers) are there. Not if it is "modern" and able to compete with Windows or Mac/Linux. If system features really would decide MSDOS would have never won. I think one of the most important reasons why amiga went under (and that started even before Commodore was bankrupt) was that it was complicated and that means time consuming to support amiga, and time is money for a company. The lecture from that is if we want software we must make it as easy as possible to support the platform. I do not believe that this really depends that much on SMP. I have also a different view where "amiga" should go to. As a "serious platform" competing with Linux or Windows? I do not think that there is a big chance to get there and motivate software companies to port their big software packages, at best we get realistic opensource software and motivate small companies or single developers to support it. But for that we need modern development environments and need to have the "dependencies" like toolkits ported. But that all has nothing to do with the discussed OS features.

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WolfToTheMoon 
Re: Applied Micro moving away from PowerPC
Posted on 10-Oct-2014 9:13:09
#49 ]
Super Member
Joined: 2-Sep-2010
Posts: 1351
From: CRO

@OlafS25

I completely agree on most points, but, most strongly disagree on OS features. I can do without SMP and 64 bit, but memory protection is a must.

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OlafS25 
Re: Applied Micro moving away from PowerPC
Posted on 10-Oct-2014 9:15:09
#50 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 12-May-2010
Posts: 6321
From: Unknown

@Raffaele

because propably it is not so easy to change everything. AmigaOS was not designed with multicore and memory protection in mind. It would break compatibility, if you add 64bit propably no 68k software would run. You can solve that by using UAE but that would be a different concept (compared to what is used now)

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OlafS25 
Re: Applied Micro moving away from PowerPC
Posted on 10-Oct-2014 9:17:08
#51 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 12-May-2010
Posts: 6321
From: Unknown

@WolfToTheMoon

Memory protection is the most complicated task, as far as I understood it even on Arix memory protection was not planned for near future.

Memory protection is important to have a more stable system that cannot be crashed by one application and it is needed to protect the system against virus or trojans. The second is not so important (at least for now) and perhaps they have a idea how to make the same or similar effect without implementing full memory protection.

Last edited by OlafS25 on 10-Oct-2014 at 09:19 AM.

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Samurai_Crow 
Re: Applied Micro moving away from PowerPC
Posted on 10-Oct-2014 11:21:50
#52 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 18-Jan-2003
Posts: 2320
From: Minnesota, USA

@WolfToTheMoon

Quote:

WolfToTheMoon wrote:
@OlafS25

I completely agree on most points, but, most strongly disagree on OS features. I can do without SMP and 64 bit, but memory protection is a must.


I disagree completely about memory protection. Managed code has less overhead than memory protection and doesn't require a fancy MMU in hardware like memory protection does. What we need most is safer programming environments based on managed code. Oberon 2 we have for the 68k. If we could incorporate its features in other environments we would not need memory protection.

One question I posed to someone hammering away about memory protection in the past was this: Does the human brain have memory protection? After a little thought and conjecture about it the conclusion came out: NO! The brain doesn't have or need memory protection.

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WolfToTheMoon 
Re: Applied Micro moving away from PowerPC
Posted on 10-Oct-2014 11:41:40
#53 ]
Super Member
Joined: 2-Sep-2010
Posts: 1351
From: CRO

@Samurai_Crow

Brain doesn't need memory protection because the operator is rarely able to persue more than 1 different thoughts at the same time. :)

Overhead, yes, I want that overhead and MMU has been a standard on desktop CPUs for the last 20+ years. The only area where memory protection is not required and CPUs are still without MMU is the embedded market.

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Samurai_Crow 
Re: Applied Micro moving away from PowerPC
Posted on 10-Oct-2014 11:50:14
#54 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 18-Jan-2003
Posts: 2320
From: Minnesota, USA

@WolfToTheMoon

Managed code is a more recent invention than hardware-based memory protection. MMUs hog lots of RAM with their page tables and slow everything down since the CPU then has to attempt to cache those page tables.

Managed code, on the other hand, can be constant-folded away by a compiler optimization when it is obviously not needed, thus reducing the small amount of overhead that managed code brings.

As a point of discussion, is it ever necessary for a Java VM to require an MMU?

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megol 
Re: Applied Micro moving away from PowerPC
Posted on 10-Oct-2014 15:08:12
#55 ]
Regular Member
Joined: 17-Mar-2008
Posts: 355
From: Unknown

@Samurai_Crow

You are simply wrong. Paging is very efficient nowadays (and have been for a looong time) and most software checks can't be removed easily.
What you call managed code (using safe programming languages) tend to use page protection to speed up bounds checking too. The majority of safe programming languages uses garbage collection which again uses virtual memory for performance.

So for your JVM question: to function? No. To have reasonable performance? YES!

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itix 
Re: Applied Micro moving away from PowerPC
Posted on 10-Oct-2014 15:56:53
#56 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 22-Dec-2004
Posts: 3398
From: Freedom world

@WolfToTheMoon

Users dont really care is there memory protection or not if you can provide software that never crash. It is possible but only in very limited ecosystems.

But usual problem: if you implement memory protection you are breaking compatibility and it could be foolish to ignore 64-bit and SMP.

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Amiga 500, Efika, Mac Mini and PowerBook

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cdimauro 
Re: Applied Micro moving away from PowerPC
Posted on 10-Oct-2014 19:03:57
#57 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 29-Oct-2012
Posts: 3621
From: Germany

Quote:

Raffaele wrote:
@cdimauro

It is no matter of will...

Sooner or later it will be a necessity, as demise of Applied Micro proofs.

So or Amiga firms will start migrating to other architectures now and be prepared for the inevitable PPC architecture switch off...

...Else they will be out of business... plain and simple...

In the meanwhile the post-Amigans will continue to spend a lot of money for their lovely hobby...

Quote:

OlafS25 wrote:
@cdimauro

there are some libraries who implement some sort of resource tracking on 68k (I have integrated them in Aros Vision)

The resource tracking should be implemented by the o.s., with some APIs if needed, and/or additional flags for some existing APIs.
Quote:
and you could even implement some sort of MP when you would have MMU (what mostly is not available on 68k).

That's the problem: the MMU was rare. And even the new FPGA projects don't implement it.
Quote:
So from 68k view I would say only resource tracking would be nice (as long as it does not break old software) and it certainly could be added.

Memory protection is even more important.
Quote:
We propably disagree about priorities, I say software should be priority including development tools (where we are far behind todays standards) you are more focused on OS features. People say if AmigaOS (or any other of our platforms) gets the features you mentioned THEN it will be a modern platform and compete with the other platforms. I say no, there will be not any new application or game because of that. We must make it easier to port applications or games (f.e. have tools like Antiryad Gx and others where you can support by just crosscompiling), we need modern class libraries and RAD tools that make it easier to start programming, we need to support standards developers already know that all brings new software. That all has not much to do with OS features or "modern" features you mentioned (except adapting to standards).

Both as a coder and as a user, I really like to have the all the features that I reported. And virtual memory too.

On top of that we can think about the missing software.
Quote:
Regarding SMP and new concept, sounds interesting. We will see

but for 68k I think it is not relevant, at least not at the moment

For 68K it's even easier for the new FPGA projects.

Quote:

WolfToTheMoon wrote:
@OlafS25

Quote:
I say software
should be priority including development tools (where we
are far behind todays standards) you are more focused on
OS features


One doesn't go without the other. You need MP to facilitate faster and easier development, you want SMP(and 64 bit) to enable more complex apps - especially if your CPU is as slow as P50xx and doesn't have SIMD. You would also want some POSIX to enable easier porting - let's face it, most SW today comes from ports.

Windows doesn't have POSIX (unless for the Enterprise versions), and the software is ported anyway.

Quote:

OlafS25 wrote:
@Raffaele

because propably it is not so easy to change everything. AmigaOS was not designed with multicore and memory protection in mind. It would break compatibility, if you add 64bit propably no 68k software would run.

Remove the probably: it'll not work.
Quote:
You can solve that by using UAE but that would be a different concept (compared to what is used now)

And it's the good way to follow, IMO.

Quote:

megol wrote:
@Samurai_Crow

You are simply wrong. Paging is very efficient nowadays (and have been for a looong time) and most software checks can't be removed easily.
What you call managed code (using safe programming languages) tend to use page protection to speed up bounds checking too. The majority of safe programming languages uses garbage collection which again uses virtual memory for performance.

So for your JVM question: to function? No. To have reasonable performance? YES!

I absolutely agree. MMUs are cheaper to implement nowadays, and the performance is great. MMUs also enable virtual memory, which another very good thing to have.

Last but not least, not all software can be "managed": some low-level stuff requires unmanaged code, so a problem can happen, and you don't have any barrier without memory protection...

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itix 
Re: Applied Micro moving away from PowerPC
Posted on 10-Oct-2014 20:25:30
#58 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 22-Dec-2004
Posts: 3398
From: Freedom world

@cdimauro

Quote:

The resource tracking should be implemented by the o.s., with some APIs if needed, and/or additional flags for some existing APIs.


Easier said than dont. For example naive tracking of memory allocations don't work because allocation can be part of larger system object. To deal locate properly it must be unlinked and in right order.

And of course if you have made an error, for example flagged wrong pieces as tracked you can cash entire system when program is unloaded.

You need memory protection first.

Quote:
Last but not least, not all software can be "managed": some low-level stuff requires unmanaged code, so a problem can happen, and you don't have any barrier without memory protection...


You can also execute unmanaged or unsafe code from managed code.

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cdimauro 
Re: Applied Micro moving away from PowerPC
Posted on 10-Oct-2014 20:43:54
#59 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 29-Oct-2012
Posts: 3621
From: Germany

Quote:

itix wrote:
@cdimauro

Quote:

The resource tracking should be implemented by the o.s., with some APIs if needed, and/or additional flags for some existing APIs.


Easier said than dont. For example naive tracking of memory allocations don't work because allocation can be part of larger system object. To deal locate properly it must be unlinked and in right order.

And of course if you have made an error, for example flagged wrong pieces as tracked you can cash entire system when program is unloaded.

I haven't said that it's easy. For simple things it is, and the o.s. can transparently provide it. But, as you reported, there are much complex scenarios which require proper handling.
Quote:
You need memory protection first.

I agree.
Quote:
Quote:
Last but not least, not all software can be "managed": some low-level stuff requires unmanaged code, so a problem can happen, and you don't have any barrier without memory protection...


You can also execute unmanaged or unsafe code from managed code.

Yes, but then you don't have the protection mechanisms that the managed code infrastructure provides you.

Again: we need memory protection...

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Raffaele 
Re: Applied Micro moving away from PowerPC
Posted on 10-Oct-2014 21:00:20
#60 ]
Super Member
Joined: 7-Dec-2005
Posts: 1906
From: Naples, Italy

@OlafS25

Quote:

OlafS25 wrote:
@Raffaele

because propably it is not so easy to change everything. AmigaOS was not designed with multicore and memory protection in mind. It would break compatibility, if you add 64bit propably no 68k software would run. You can solve that by using UAE but that would be a different concept (compared to what is used now)


What part of "Deprecate it all!" was not clear?

Break any compatibility is just right what I want!!!

Else we will continue get stuck with videographic limits of 128Megabytes and RAM limits of 2 Gigabyte maximum!

Make new OS 32 or 64 bit with all modern features and let old utilities being automatically loaded into an emulator that will run 68k software into a well protected crash-proof sandbox!

Last edited by Raffaele on 11-Oct-2014 at 06:47 PM.
Last edited by Raffaele on 10-Oct-2014 at 09:07 PM.

_________________
"When the Amiga came out, everyone [at Apple] was scared as hell." (J.L. Gassée, former CEO of Apple France and chief of devs of Mac II-fx, interviewed by Amazing Computing, Nov 1996).

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