@Fransexy

Quote:

There was already a failed bounty for a MPC8640D motherboard

Not failed, pointless, as the X1000 was announced.

I was working on a design myself when that happened.

Should I have continued to work on a project that was slower than the X1000?

@cdimauro

Quote:

Amiga sold more than 5 MILLION pieces, whereas the PowerUPs sold around 10 THOUSANDS cards. How an heritage can be subjugated by such scant minority?

By that logic we ought to still be expanding the C64.

@bison

Quote:

One alternative is to create an Amiga-like environment on top of an existing software architecture and work on it top-down, improving and replacing components as things progress. This has been badly done in the recent past -- Commodore OS Vision springs to mind -- but that doesn't mean that it couldn't be done better. The big advantage to this approach is that it starts out with a lot of apps, which makes it possible to attract new users, and the system can be used as it is developed. The downside is that it is not interesting at all for people who enjoy the hardware side of things.

I am a big fan of this approach. It's nice to see that others think in similar ways.

_________________
All the way, with 68k

@forum

BTW...I don't appreciate either Raffaele or myself being slandered as "stupid".
I have two degrees , over 217 college credits, and I used to work for a small company that used to build and sell its own hardware.

I want something better than Tabor, and will probably buy an X5000.

But I also want to see a T10XX based board produced before MorphOS transitions to X64.

And with Tabor in the pipeline (the incredibly LONG pipeline) that isn't coming from A-eon.

S0, Raffaele and I are discussing potential forums where people with positive input can exchange ideas.

You all can continue to sit on your thumbs as it appears to be a latter day Amiga tradition.

@OlafS25

Quote:

The only exception for me would be something FPGA based because it is cool, it is different to standard hardware and it has some geek factor.

Yeah, I could see myself spending money on something like that too.

Quote:

Regarding Linux use as base, yes and no. It would be difficult to get something that really differentiates from Linux.

The area to differentiate in would be the desktop environment. There are already a lot of them out there, but none of them are very good. I don't know why, but it seems like this is something that is really hard to get right. It's almost like they are going backwards -- I like some of the stuff from 15 years ago better than what is out there now. I would start with something very close to Workbench, since I already know that I like that, and go from there.

Quote:

BTW Aeros from Phoenixkonsole is exactly that, combining Aros and Linux.

I haven't tried it -- I have an aversion to the register to download thing.

_________________
"Unix is supposed to fix that." -- Jay Miner

@agami

There are a few of us! Sort of a subset of a subset of a subset...

_________________
"Unix is supposed to fix that." -- Jay Miner

@iggy

As the self-appointed lawyer for others in this forum who don't have a firm grasp of English grammar and for those to whom English is not their first language, or just lack social conversational skills:

I believe they are not stating that you or @Raffaele are fundamentally stupid. Smart, skilled, and intelligent people do stupid things and think stupid thoughts all the time; I'm certainly a prime example.
Rather, your line of thinking is stupid, i.e. In today's market place it is a fool's errand to actually pursue the production of a Power ISA motherboard on any scale. Unless it's for academic credit or some such.

Full props go from me to you for your engineering skills and many accolades. Heck, if I had the money I would hire you myself and we could produce all sorts of cool new things. Indulging @Raffaele is a good mental exercise, gets the neurones firing. I'd just rather see people such as yourself using your talent and skill on something a lot more fruitful. And when I'm able to gather the necessary funds I'll be sure to seek you out.

Also, do you have a better suggestion for how people are to keep their thumbs warm?

Last edited by agami on 06-Nov-2015 at 05:14 AM.
Last edited by agami on 06-Nov-2015 at 05:12 AM.

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All the way, with 68k

@iggy

Quote:

iggy wrote: @cdimauro Quote: Amiga sold more than 5 MILLION pieces, whereas the PowerUPs sold around 10 THOUSANDS cards. How an heritage can be subjugated by such scant minority? By that logic we ought to still be expanding the C64.

That's what happened with such beautiful machine: a lot of expansions and games were, and are still, produced.

But how many of the 18 MILLIONS C64 users remember, or even know, the fabulous SuperCPU cartridge?

The same happens with such PowerUP cards for the Amiga.

It's the Commodore 64 and Amiga machines heritage that persists: not some cards which came much later, and sold just some THOUSANDS pieces...

@iggy

Quote:

S0, Raffaele and I are discussing potential forums where people with positive input can exchange ideas.

My main gripe with this sort of discussion is that it's always about "positive input" rather than "constructive input".

I think that it can 100% be done if the specs make sense from BOTH a technical AND a business point of view.

My technical input:
I could make a T1022 board (with T2081 upgrade path), an SB600 southbridge, PCIe slot for graphics and mini-ITX form factor MYSELF in about 8 weeks of full time work, so it's certainly possible for an engineering firm to do it. Previous PPC design experience is crucial, though.

So design cost roughly 10k EUR, prototype run cost roughly 10k EUR, likely a respin due to some error adds another 15k and then you're into serial production.

I have the beginnings of a design here already. Took me one evening two weeks ago. The T1 has 2 USB, I wired half the PCIe to SB and the rest to PCIe slot for graphics. Total 4 SATA, 1 PATA, 12 USB, 2 GBE. 4 serial ports, SPI, 3xI2C, lots of GPIO and of course 7.1 audio and DVI (T1 only). I didn't have audio connector, GbE+2xUSB connector and elevated DVI connector

My quick routing plan based on connecting at least a few pins of each connector to the right place on the SoC/SB:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BxHnnc5wuu_qMEk5elRVNkdGQlk

For a flexATX design I would simply swap out the SB600 with an SB850 (or newer). I would also make a quick SB850 plug-in-card so that SB850 drivers were ready early.

Btw, I'm NOT saying I'm available for 8 weeks full time work any time soon
Plus, I've promised spare time to another electronics project that I hope will bear fruits and be enjoyed by a few people.

There, that was my technical input. Now someone give their business input.

@billt:
All qoriq chips have RGMII, no serdes needs to be used for the first two GbE.
But using SATA from the T1 is not a good idea because it rules out T2 compatibility.

Last edited by olegil on 06-Nov-2015 at 07:45 AM.

_________________
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.

I think we can do a lot more with the hardware we have. We don't necessarily need faster hardware, even if that would be very nice. I would have loved to see the e6500 in the X5000 for example, since Altivec can be a goldmine if utilized well.

Like the Classic Amiga, there is a lot to explore in the hardware from a software point of view.
Examples:
- Make the graphics card decode video. That's the number one optimization.
- Make browsing faster by implementing a javascript JIT.
- Enable 4 or more GB or RAM. We have that in some strange way now, but not for real.
- Enable audio out on HDMI to make it a viable media center.
- Use the Xena to connect a nice IR remote transceiver for the media center. Use another Xena wire for S/PDIF audio for long wire audio transmission.
- Switch on PIO5/UDMA on the harddisk controller during bootup, to get closer to an "instant on" machine.
- Use Altivec in a smart way for dispaying and editing (huge digicam) pictures. I'm working on this now!
- Using the extra CPU core for something; SMP, AMP, whatever.

The NG hardware is infinitely much more powerful that the Classic Amiga HW, and has so much more potential for tinkering and optimizing and exploration.

I'd say building new hardware isn't the (only) answer. Spending the time and money on SW for utilizing what we have could be just as well spent.

Last edited by Deniil715 on 06-Nov-2015 at 08:12 AM.

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- Don't get fooled by my avatar, I'm not like that (anymore, mostly... maybe only sometimes)
> Amiga Classic and OS4 developer for OnyxSoft.

@Deniil715

What about this: http://www.research.ibm.com/labs/zurich/microserver/#fbid=MGztcSXTSPV

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retired

@AmigaBlitter

Been debated to the gates of hell and back several times already:

https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=site%3Aamigaworld.net%20microserver

Edit: including a mention in this thread already.

Last edited by olegil on 06-Nov-2015 at 08:39 AM.

_________________
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.

@iggy

who called you and Raffaele stupid? i only read that people wrote he underestimates the problems and there are reasons why noone else did it already. People should not be always thin-skinned.

@bison

you can download without registering

http://www.aeros-os.org/styled-9/index.html

as far as I know just newest versions need app store

@Deniil715

the problem is... much of that needs access to OS sourcecodes

todo1: enquiry https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BxNz0P5oVk2wZGFVaWFNUmZkMUU

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

@KimmoK

does the price people are willing to pay not heavily influence the options?

@OlafS25

Common sense needed when filling that kind of enquiry.
(I see if I manage to do a real enquiry template / suggestion tonight.)

Those who are willing to participate in some way sould be the initial "voters", but public/AW version of vote would also be interesting.

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

@KimmoK

it was no critic

just that I fear people want everything and best free of charge

@KimmoK

I have a hard time figuring out why anyone would NOT want this to be T2 compatible. I thought Altivec was the holy grail?

_________________
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.