@Karlos

Quote:

I honestly don't know why he posts this s**t.

As a child he ate the lead weights from his father's fishing tackle box.

@amigakit

Quote:

Claude Schulz

Try again... again?

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@thread

Perhaps the issue is in the marketing.

It's nice that PiStorm + emu68 are passion/open source projects. I think for special individuals such as @ppcamiga1, it should've been a black box proprietary board, with the chips obstructed with glued on heat sinks. Branded it the AmiStorm and combined with the Boost68 software that needed to be installed in Amiga OS to activate the board's powers.

PiStorm won Best Amiga Hardware for 2023, and emu68 was a runner up for Best Amiga Software for 2023, as voted by the community.

Also, our beloved keyboard computers in the wedge form-factor do not have many expansion slots. We don't have the luxury of multiple PCI(e) slots to have one for CPU, one for graphics, one for Ethernet, one for 16-bit audio, one for USB, etc. So we like to maximise the amount of extras we can put on a single add-on card.

Sure, at some point one kind of wonders about just how much heavy lifting is done by the add-on so why not just have a standalone product like the Apollo V4 SA?
While that is a good thing for people who do not have an OG Amiga, [cough]@ppcamiga1[/cough], it takes away from the nostalgia and magic of using a treasured piece of kit well passed its USE BY date. To make old dreams a reality.

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All the way, with 68k

@amigakit

For most cases, PiStorm works on A1500/A2000.

A3000/A4000 has Z3660 as the alternative to PiStorm.

Z3660 is based on Commodore's A3640 board but with 68060 support and its AMD FPGA SoC with ARM Cortex A9 (out-of-order processing with three instruction issues per cycle) + RTG + local Fast RAM.

ARM Cortex A9 was directly replaced by Cortex A15, A57/A58 and, A72. ARM Cortex A9 has a fatter CPU core when compared to ARM Cortex A53.

Last edited by Hammer on 16-Jul-2024 at 03:30 AM.

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Amiga 1200 (rev 1D1, KS 3.2, PiStorm32/RPi CM4/Emu68)
Amiga 500 (rev 6A, ECS, KS 3.2, PiStorm/RPi 4B/Emu68)
Ryzen 9 7900X, DDR5-6000 64 GB RAM, GeForce RTX 4080 16 GB

@Kronos

Quote:

There was no way forward with 68k. There was no way forward with the custom chipset. And before anybody chimes in Vampires with their "meh" performance compared to any HW from the late 90s proves that point.

Ex-Commodore Germany's leadership team was the wrong Commodore subsidiary to continue the Amiga.

Commodore Germany is part of the A600 problem.

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Amiga 1200 (rev 1D1, KS 3.2, PiStorm32/RPi CM4/Emu68)
Amiga 500 (rev 6A, ECS, KS 3.2, PiStorm/RPi 4B/Emu68)
Ryzen 9 7900X, DDR5-6000 64 GB RAM, GeForce RTX 4080 16 GB

@Hammer

Hindsight is 20/20….

Using that hindsight it is clear that AT“s 1st mistake was reproducing outdated AA Amigas 2nd was trying to build a new computer based on that same obsolete chiipset and a dead end CPU. Well putting it into a case designed by Vorwerk didn’t help either.

Even more hindsight would tell that going PPC was the 3rd strike but they didn’t live long enough to make any actual moves in that direction.

So short of someone with really deep pockets buying C= the only solution would have been going NG style HW from day one.

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- blame Canada

@ppcamiga1

You know, it would help if you put in some capitals, and mix it up a bit. As soon as I read the lower case I knew it was you. It's such an obvious tell.

However, you don't give enough information to argue your point. There are mainly two ways of setting it up. One uses the bare metal ASM Emu68K emulator and the other uses a C based 68K emulator. The other one, hosted on Linux, giving access to the Pi ports to the Amiga side. The bare metal one has more restrictions, but is obviously faster, and does offer access to SD storage and RTG.

As others have pointed out, I will dispute it being whole system emulated, because it is not. The point is to emulate only the CPU, which is a decades old idea I've had myself, made possible through the PiStorm Project. There's another alteration for you.

Which it can and does well. It can even challenge chunky to planar stereotypes. I tested it using a basic RPi 3 A+ and Doom ran so fast on native planar AGA I was shocked how fast that chip ram could go.

It's not a Vampire in an A500. Or an A500 Mini. So no. It doesn't fully simulate an Amiga chipset. People can strip out an A1200 case and stick in a Pi SBC running AmiBerry if they want to do that.

@Hammer

Quote:

It was a terrible idea when you factor in the bulk of Amiga's demographics and the wholesale prices for Motorola's PowerPC 601/603/603e/604/604e between 1994 and 1997 (cite Dataquest reports).

It was also a terrible idea when the Amiga was meant to go HP-RISC. And we hadn't even got the AAA chipset yet.

However, I've read the HP-RISC, like was common with RISC, would not be a CPU but a GPU. Rather like in Apple graphic cards or a SuperFX chip. So Hombre still needed a CPU which still may have been a PPC. It certainly wouldn't have been a 68K. Either way, I can't find any other info other than hearsay, so it's about as good quality as the WindowsNT AmigaOS replacement allegation.

@Hypex

Quote:

However, you don't give enough information to argue your point. There are mainly two ways of setting it up. One uses the bare metal ASM Emu68K emulator and the other uses a C based 68K emulator. The other one, hosted on Linux, giving access to the Pi ports to the Amiga side. The bare metal one has more restrictions, but is obviously faster, and does offer access to SD storage and RTG.

There's an excellent dissertation of what PiStorm is and how it works on youtube by the great RetroBytes channel.

I must confess, I went there with great fear expecting to find out that we were actually being cheated by szulc hammer and othersm who are said to be spreading pistorm propaganda. That Emu68 worked like WinUAE with the whole system being emulated, although I myself love when the whole system is being emulated, or that it changed commodore hardware into nothing more than joystick mouse keyboard interface for rpi, I mean, more then previous accelerators boards, who used all important things like cpu ram hdd net gfx sound on it, obviously not as as much as more recent amiga ppc motherboards which doesn't even have a chipset of their own.

I went on in fear off discover it to be a stupid way to waste money on changing amiga into joystick mouse keyboard interface for rpi, despite it being my favorite way to interface with computers, never having had a chance to have my thoughts transposed.

Thankfully all my fears were put to rest, with a clear and detailed explanation of what PiStorm is/isn't.

I leave you with the words of a great thinker once said:
"It is expensive and it destroys the Amiga we in the past knew, so that a new Amiga can rise from the ashes for the modern times."
"If want use emulator just use WinUAE, because no other software ever come close!"

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The Illusion of Choice | Am*ga

@ppcamiga1

pistorm changes commodore hardware into nothing more than joystick mouse keyboard interface for rpi


exactly the same that was made with powerup accelerators by phase 5 in 1996-1999

Rip phase5 (love it)


PS: is more an amiga the Amiga 500 with RPI than a X5000/tabor or some other crappy hardware of "today".

Last edited by tlosm on 16-Jul-2024 at 11:33 AM.
Last edited by tlosm on 16-Jul-2024 at 11:32 AM.

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@Kronos

Quote:

Using that hindsight it is clear that AT“s 1st mistake was reproducing outdated AA Amigas 2nd was trying to build a new computer based on that same obsolete chiipset and a dead end CPU. Well putting it into a case designed by Vorwerk didn’t help either.

With enough compute power, AGA can display 1995's SW Dark Forces.

AAA or ET4000 wouldn't address texture-mapped 3D issues with weak 68EC020 @ 14 Mhz.

Quote:

So short of someone with really deep pockets buying C= the only solution would have been going NG style HW from day one.

Apple has deep pockets and a large user base who can spend 1.2 million PowerMacs in 1994.

_________________
Amiga 1200 (rev 1D1, KS 3.2, PiStorm32/RPi CM4/Emu68)
Amiga 500 (rev 6A, ECS, KS 3.2, PiStorm/RPi 4B/Emu68)
Ryzen 9 7900X, DDR5-6000 64 GB RAM, GeForce RTX 4080 16 GB

@Hypex

Quote:

Hypex wrote: @Hammer It was also a terrible idea when the Amiga was meant to go HP-RISC. And we hadn't even got the AAA chipset yet. However, I've read the HP-RISC, like was common with RISC, would not be a CPU but a GPU. Rather like in Apple graphic cards or a SuperFX chip. So Hombre still needed a CPU which still may have been a PPC. It certainly wouldn't have been a 68K. Either way, I can't find any other info other than hearsay, so it's about as good quality as the WindowsNT AmigaOS replacement allegation.

Dr Ed Helper's Amiga Hombre plans from https://archive.org/details/Hombre_201808

The game console model has a $40 Amiga Hombre chipset with two main chips which include a customized PA-RISC clone with 3D extensions. Amiga Hombre is self hosting.

The desktop variant has an extra Hitachi's PA/50 CPU.

Nathaniel has the following
- PA-RISC integer CPU core with MMU and cache.
- Blitter with raster-ops, lines, and fills (texture and shaded).
- Audio (AAA style)
- CD-ROM interface
- Memory block copy
- DMA Control
- DRAM/VRAM controllers

Natalie (Video) has the following
- Line buffers
- Cursor RAM
- 512 x 25 CLUT
- Framegrabber
- Genlock
- YUV-to-RGB (MPEG)
- Mouse/Game Controller.

--------------------------
My comments:

PA-RISC provides geometry and game logic processing.

Amiga Hombre's Blitter has additional functions for texture map 3D i.e. texture fill feature.

Nathaniel supports a shared 32-bit VRAM config for a minimal games console configuration.

Nathaniel supports a discrete 64-bit VRAM and 32-bit DRAM config for an expanded games console configuration.

Discrete memory configuration is needed against PS1 and Saturn.

Motorola PowerPC 601/603/603e/604/604e's inclusion blows up the price beyond the game console foundation.

Prove Motorola PowerPC 601 was offered for $40 in 1994!
Prove Motorola PowerPC 603 was offered for $40 in 1994!
Prove Motorola PowerPC 603e was offered for $40 in 1994!

ARM gained the "cheap RISC" market for a reason.

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_________________
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Amiga 500 (rev 6A, ECS, KS 3.2, PiStorm/RPi 4B/Emu68)
Ryzen 9 7900X, DDR5-6000 64 GB RAM, GeForce RTX 4080 16 GB

@Hammer

Quote:

Hammer wrote: With enough compute power, AGA can display 1995's SW Dark Forces. AAA or ET4000 wouldn't address texture-mapped 3D issues with weak 68EC020 @ 14 Mhz.

So you can use an expensive end of the line CPU to brute force a game into playable status?

AAA or ET4000 are irrelevant as we are talking bout mid to late 90s.

You know x86 CPUs from 100-1000MHz, GFX cards from Matrox Mystique to Voodoo3, Radeon7000 and early GForce.

No 68k could compete with that (even ignoring prices) and noone had the resources to push the chipset to even touch the absolute low end within a reasonable timeframe.

That option was lost when Moto ditched 68k and even earlier when C= failed to push the chipset forward in the late 80s.

_________________
- We don't need good ideas, we haven't run out on bad ones yet
- blame Canada

You know, if there was something like the Vampire but solely dedicated to just the Amiga inspired "custom chipset of your dreams" accepting a Pi/Emu68 as the CPU/FastRAM/RTG/etc, I'd probably die of excitement.

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Doing stupid things for fun...

@Kronos

Quote:

Kronos wrote: So you can use an expensive end of the line CPU to brute force a game into playable status?

There's a reason why the Japanese game console vendors selected RISC CPUs e.g. SuperH-2, MIPS R3000A.

The entry vector is low price with 28Mhz to 33Mhz 486SX/LC040 class performance for the primary CPU.

$100 68EC040 is brain-dead for DMA-equipped desktop computers/game consoles.

Saturn has two SuperH-2 @ 28 Mhz while PS1 has a GTE (66 MIPS) geometry co-processor.

Quote:

AAA or ET4000 are irrelevant as we are talking bout mid to late 90s.

My AAA and ET4000 examples wouldn't make any difference if I used "S3 Trio 64V" with a slow 68EC020 @ 14 Mhz mentality from Commodore.

Phase 5 CyberVision 64 with C= A2620's 68020 @ 16 Mhz or A3000's 68030 @ 16 Mhz.

Lew's $20 math budget is for DSP3210.

Quote:

You know x86 CPUs from 100-1000MHz, GFX cards from Matrox Mystique to Voodoo3, Radeon7000 and early GForce. No 68k could compete with that (even ignoring prices) and noone had the resources to push the chipset to even touch the absolute low end within a reasonable timeframe.

RISC-based Saturn and PS1 competed against the gaming PC.

Gaming PC needs to deliver a higher-resolution texture-mapped gaming experience e.g. GLQuake at 640x480p at least 30 fps vs PS1's 512x240p 30 fps.

The RISC-based game consoles delivered lower cost with a contemporary "good enough" texture-mapped 3D gaming experience.

The Amiga's entry argument is near game console price, desktop computer freedom, and contemporary gaming experience. The Amiga was dropped from the contemporary "good enough" texture-mapped 3D gaming experience.

Quote:

That option was lost when Moto ditched 68k and even earlier when C= failed to push the chipset forward in the late 80s.

Moto's 68030-25 wasn't price-competitive against Am386-40, let alone against SuperH2 and LSI's MIPS R3000A.

$100 68EC040-25 is brain-dead for DMA-equipped desktop computers/game consoles. This is a bad decision from Motorola when the BOM cost is the same as 68LC040-25.

IBM PowerPC 602 targeted the game console's CPU market, but it's not Motorola.

I would purchase an IBM PowerPC 602-based wedge Amiga with OpenGL 3D for A1200's $599 to $699 price. I would still buy a Pentium-class gaming PC, but it wouldn't be two of them.

PS; I can purchase low-cost IBM Power9 CPUs, but they are useless without a low-cost motherboard.

Motorola was selling certain 68EC060 batches that are fully functional 68060, but it's a silicon lottery. It's just a pricing policy issue.

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_________________
Amiga 1200 (rev 1D1, KS 3.2, PiStorm32/RPi CM4/Emu68)
Amiga 500 (rev 6A, ECS, KS 3.2, PiStorm/RPi 4B/Emu68)
Ryzen 9 7900X, DDR5-6000 64 GB RAM, GeForce RTX 4080 16 GB

@Karlos

Quote:

Karlos wrote: You know, if there was something like the Vampire but solely dedicated to just the Amiga inspired "custom chipset of your dreams" accepting a Pi/Emu68 as the CPU/FastRAM/RTG/etc, I'd probably die of excitement.

FYI, this is currently being worked on i.e. FPGA AGA with PiStorm support.

I prefer FPGA SAGA with PiStorm32.

Last edited by Hammer on 17-Jul-2024 at 07:28 AM.

_________________
Amiga 1200 (rev 1D1, KS 3.2, PiStorm32/RPi CM4/Emu68)
Amiga 500 (rev 6A, ECS, KS 3.2, PiStorm/RPi 4B/Emu68)
Ryzen 9 7900X, DDR5-6000 64 GB RAM, GeForce RTX 4080 16 GB

@Hammer

Quote:

FYI, this is currently being worked on i.e. FPGA AGA with PiStorm support. I prefer FPGA SAGA with PiStorm32.

Beggars can't be choosers! :P

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@ppcamiga1

No this is factually incorrect. The only one doing propaganda here is you.

As I already say regarding politics - ideology is not more valuable than truth. Truth is more valuable.

I like AmigaOS 4 best, but I won't lie about PiStorm.

Emu68 does not emulate the whole system, it only emulates the CPU. It is a JIT, just like Petunia and Trance. The special chips are still used (well, not on my PiStorm system asides from stuff like timer chip etc as I do not even have an AGA capable monitor connected - but then I stopped using AGA stuff in the mid 90s, already then no longer had a monitor for PAL/NTSC).

And why would they plan to do an AGA-on-FPGA if they had complete system emulation ? They don't, Emu68 is pure 68k Emulation. Also a reason why there is no standalone PiStorm.

Again - do not use lies as means of discussion. It plays against you, not for you.

PiStorm is similar to what back then PowerUP Boards did with PPC, only this time with ARM. The part where PiStorm is inferior to the concept of PowerUP Boards is that it is not possible to run native ARM code on it, while for PowerUP Boards you could run native PPC Code (no matter if you chose PowerUP or WarpOS they both had/have this possibility).

It's really not much different to what was done with PowerUP, just instead of PowerPC an ARM CPU this time. What CPU a accelerator has does not matter. When you use the system you just have an A1200 (or whatever).

And actually it does not destroy but save Amiga, for example if I can sell my games for OS4 *and* fast 68k systems this means more sales and I might do more games then.

And no, you cannot demand people to use UAE, this is everyone's own decision what he uses. Some people want a classic Amiga, not start Amiga from an app in Windows. If you prefer that you can use UAE... but don't tell others what they should use (I have here BTW besides each other an Amiga x1000, an A1200 PiStorm and a Vampire and two PCs).

Last edited by MagicSN on 17-Jul-2024 at 02:18 PM.

@MagicSN

I would say it's important to highlight that Petunia/Trance are host system components and mostly run just the user mode instructions.

Emu68, by comparison, is not a system component, it is the system. It implements a 68040 complete with a significant portion of the supervisor model and as such can run software that's a challenge for NG JIT, e.g.WHDLoad

I'm also not entirely convinced it's a disadvantage to not support ARM native execution as this represents yet another architectural fracture. I am a bit on the fence about that though.

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@Karlos

Quote:

Karlos wrote: You know, if there was something like the Vampire but solely dedicated to just the Amiga inspired "custom chipset of your dreams" accepting a Pi/Emu68 as the CPU/FastRAM/RTG/etc, I'd probably die of excitement.

No worries, SAGA will be open source once it is … uhm… done.

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