@pavlor

Everything depends on the market you are reffering to. In some countries, X5000 is the price of two months of average salary. In others, it's the price of 6 months of average salary.

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PowerMac G5 2,7Ghz - 2GB - Radeon 9650 - MorphOS 3.14
AmigaONE X1000, 2GB, Sapphire Radeon HD 7700
FPGA Replay + DB 68060 at 85Mhz

@K-L

Even two months of average salary for a computer (which will not even serve as a main computer in the household) is too much. Every computing platform needs to expand its user base beyond few hundreds die-hard users. Talos certainly is not the right answer to this problem.

@pavlor

This is your Point Of View of course. Maybe other's would be different

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PowerMac G5 2,7Ghz - 2GB - Radeon 9650 - MorphOS 3.14
AmigaONE X1000, 2GB, Sapphire Radeon HD 7700
FPGA Replay + DB 68060 at 85Mhz

@arthoropod
Of course I don't have access to POWER9 and there are to few in the field right now to get enough info on what can be done with them. But, as you pointed out, the code base is very similar. There is a Debian project for Big Endian on POWER9 so ........ who knows?

Certainly a beast like this or even the ATX single POWER9 would not be for everyone, neither would the RPi be for everyone. However, a port to POWER9 may be not that difficult(?).

Oh well, computing is my hobby. I rather do it with AmigaOS/MorphOS but if Linux is my only option that is fine with me.

There is also a Big Endian Linux project called Adelie for Talos II.

Last edited by Signal on 05-May-2018 at 02:36 PM.

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Tinkering with computers.

@Signal

I'm not sure of the logic in using the Power 9 cpu in big endian mode for Linux, but for NG OS...well, big endian mode is available and compatible with our current code base.

So, I'm with you in that, obviously this platform would not be for everyone, but I'd go for it if it was an option.

Outside of Power 9, what are our options?
The slightly more capable e6500 cored cpus, or a low cost, low performance cpu choice (that doesn't personally interest me).

Again, it really looks like Power or X64 are the only alternatives for a real jump in performance.

@arthoropod

'current code base'

That alone should help make a decision. If it were to happen... Great. If not,
oh well.

After these things are out in the wild for a while I, you, or someone will start a thread about them I'm sure.

I imagine more than a few ppc Mac fans are looking at these things.

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Tinkering with computers.

@Signal

Actually, I know someone who has one.
What I'm curious about is how well the system supports big endian code.

And, can it support running both big endian and little endian code simultaneously (possibly on different cores)?

Remember, no matter if some want to split hair as to what qualifies as a PowerPC, all Power cpus represent the same ISA.

We wouldn't have to change ISAs, and might even be able to run some code in little endian mode (which would solve the issues with WebKit).

So, some of you are waiting for Tabor, I'm waiting for the X5000/40, but the future...

More power or X64 (sorry to state that again).

@arthoropod

Take a look at the 'Note' near the top of IBMs page for some info.

Just going to take a little time for the distros to crank up big-endian.

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Tinkering with computers.

@pavlor @kl

Quote:

@pavlor Everything depends on the market you are referring to. In some countries, X5000 is the price of two months of average salary. In others, it's the price of 6 months of average salary.

Yes i would agree, that perception of "expensive" very much depends on your market.

In some countries like the UK for example the X5000 retail price is less than the price of the average monthly take home salary tax, in the US, the price of the machine compared to the average national monthly salary is even less so yes a lot depends on the market you are referring to. It is no coincidence that a large bulk of the X5000 sales thus far appear to be in the US.

For the vast majority of Northern Europeans and US the X5000 is a chunk of money, but its not something that is completely out of the range of most people certainly compared to the salaries. For me and i suspect a few other X5000 owners, a few extra overtime shifts here and there helped to cushion the blow.

The price of the X5000 is what it is because a) the motherboard is custom made and b) its produced in low production numbers. If i were sitting on the fence thinking about getting one right now, i'd probably do it before they all disappear, who knows if they are going to make some more.

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Amigaone X5000/20 4GB Radeon RX 550 Polaris 12 AmigaOS4.1 Final Edition Update 1
Amiga 1200 Workbench 3.1.4
Amiga CD32

@arthoropod

Quote:

I'm not sure of the logic in using the Power 9 cpu in big endian mode for Linux

There's quite a bit of legacy software in the fields of scientific software and HPC (typically ported from AIX). that runs more "optimal" with big-endian. And by "optimal" I mean that the porter will not have to mess around with endianness in the legacy code, when porting to Linux.

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B5D6A1D019D5D45BCC56F4782AC220D8B3E2A6CC

@arthoropod

Quote:

We wouldn't have to change ISAs, and might even be able to run some code in little endian mode (which would solve the issues with WebKit).

At the end of the day the only difference is how words in memory are read and written. The standard reverse read/write instructions would be fine here. If a whole block of code such as a source file could be compiled with a specific endian this would be a whole lot easier. Isolating it to a group of code. Parameters passed in registers could be used to pass interoperable data between big and littel endian routines since registers are endian agnostic.

@outrun1978

Quote:

Yes i would agree, that perception of "expensive" very much depends on your market.

One could argue that value is relative is well.

But it no parallel universe is this suggestion remotely viable.

The OS needs to be replaced.

@Signal (& Outrun, Kolla, Hypex)

Thanks for the information and input guys.

After examining Power 8 and 9, I must admit I like these processor.

But then I really liked the Power 4 based IBM 970fx (although they shouldn't have deleted the hypervisor). That processor still hold up well in comparison (actually it dusts) any PPC currently available from NXP.

And an ATX form factor single cpu Power9 board might only cost a few hundred more than an X5000 (think very close to the price of an X1000 motherboard).

Its a question of what you want, and personally I don't want a board that has a fraction of the power of my dirt cheap cell phone.

So no, I don't think Tabor will be the salvation of the OS4 market.
Except for a few hardcore users, most potential customers are going to n examine the specs, find them massively underwhelming and devote their available disposable income on something else.

@thread


power horse

https://www.fudzilla.com/news/ai/46244-ibm-ac922-power-9-server-has-6-nvidia-v100

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retired

@arthoropod

Quote:

Its a question of what you want, and personally I don't want a board that has a fraction of the power of my dirt cheap cell phone.

That's why the X5000 won't be discontinued when Tabor launches. The idea is to have different products catering to different needs.
Personally, I have no need for another 8-core monster machine, especially when the OS can only use 1 core. My AMD Ryzen 1800X system fits that role perfectly and will continue to be my main system for gaming, producing music and anything else that requires a 64-bit, SMP capable system.

Quote:

So no, I don't think Tabor will be the salvation of the OS4 market. Except for a few hardcore users, most potential customers are going to n examine the specs, find them massively underwhelming and devote their available disposable income on something else.

Have you done the market research to come to this conclusion that the majority looking to buy OS4 systems are looking to spend $2000+? I think a lot of people are curious about OS4 but feel like $2000+ is too much to buy on a whim just to satisfy their curiosity.
Sure the Tabor is under-powered at $500, but then again, the X5000 is severely under-powered for a $2000+ board. You can get a decent 6 - 8 core, 4 GHz Intel or AMD system for a quarter of the cost of the dual-core, 2 GHz X5000. You can't bash the poor price/performance ratio of Tabor without also dragging down the X5000, because it suffers from the same problem. That's just the reality of OS4 machine.

Last edited by AdvancedFollower on 09-May-2018 at 12:53 PM.
Last edited by AdvancedFollower on 09-May-2018 at 12:52 PM.

@AdvancedFollower

Quote:

I think a lot of people are curious about OS4 but feel like $2000+ is too much to buy on a whim just to satisfy their curiosity

They can always run AmigaForever and save themselves a few hundred dollars.
Spending $500 to satisfy a curiosity is...well, curious.

And should I wind up with a copy of OS4 with the purchase of an X5000/20 or X5000/40, I won't consider the cost of the system in my opportunity to try OS4, because I'd be buying the system for other purposes. My purchase isn't "to satisfy [my] curiosity".

Further IF "woefully underpowered", the X5000 is significantly more powerful than an A1222. And it has expansion slots that allow more flexible configuration.
You're all waiting on your "salvation" because the drivers for some onboard components aren't ready.
If Tabor had more than one expansion slot (which is needed for the graphics card), then you'd have these systems already.

As to "market research", this concept has never been applied to vanity project, or NONE of them would have been built.
And, if market research had been done before announcing Tabor, the design being completed before the announcement, the majority of people using PPCs (who had repeatedly shot down the idea of using an e500v1 or v2 cored cpu) would have asked for something else.

Look, I've known Paul Gentle since before the announcement that Varisys was responsible for the design of the X1000. He was recommending Qorlq cpus for new designs back then, but Paul's primary markets (many of which use Linux) don't consider the SPE FPU to be a big hindrance because they can either recompile code or use SPE specific math libraries.
It isn't that simple under Amigoid OS'.

So much of what we are bantering back and forth about is related to various "fan boy" allegiances. Not realistic considerations of the proposed hardware's limitations. And as fond as I am of Trevor Dickinson and Paul Gentle, they really pooched the shoot on this one.

Last edited by arthoropod on 09-May-2018 at 04:05 PM.
Last edited by arthoropod on 09-May-2018 at 04:04 PM.

@arthoropod

Quote:

They can always run AmigaForever and save themselves a few hundred dollars.

Tabor looks FAAAAAAAST in comparison to speed of PowerPC emulation in WinUAE. My 350 EUR notebook reaches less than 300 MHz G3 performance (and there is no compositing, no 3D and slow 2D GFX and disk access). The day the Tabor is released, I will buy one.

@arthoropod

What you may not have been able to observe is that some of the top AmigaOS developers are obviously enjoying their work on their Tabor's .
Regardless of the specs or perceived specs people are having fun with them.
This is what running AmigaOS is all about .

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Sam460ex : Radeon Rx550 Single slot Video Card : SIL3112 SATA card

will also go for the tabor board and later on x5040 because i dont think that the 020 brings anything new to the table its an x1000 replacement because it's no longer produced

@retro

what ever happen with the photon based cpu projekt ???
i think that could be kewl if it was made like a transputer massive parallelism and with deep learning & machine learning and AI maybe the whole quantum thing is also exciting

Last edited by retro on 09-May-2018 at 10:30 PM.