@outrun1978

Both of you are right that the ISA isn't completely dead, but the e500v2 core was something that never should have been considered.
I don't know how the OS4 developers feel about it, but the MorphOS developers were warning against these cpus before the decision was made to build Tabor.

And while T10XX cpus weren't available when this project was started, they have been for some time now. How much less time would it have taken Hyperion to rework its existing port of the X5000 (which has a related cpu) into something that works with a T10XX based board?

Right now, the ONLY reason Aeon is committed to this design is the expense they have already sunk into it. And the complaint that it isn't 100% compatible with the PowerPC ISA is valid.

I have no problem supporting the current X5000/20, the future X5000/40, and a T2080 based laptop (if it gets produced).
Sure this may be the last hurrah for the PPC, but it will run our software now.

And I DO believe a move to X64 is essential for our long term survival.

Further, its hard to justify an expense of about 400 euros for a board with relatively low performance, that will require work arounds to compensate for its non-standard floating point unit.

I'm all for supporting the community, but not when the planning of one company so badly misfires.

Has anyone noticed the total silence from the MorphOS developers in relation to this board?
I won't claim to speak for them, but the silence speak volumes.

Both Aeon and the Apollo team appear to be under the delusion that we should recompile our software to suit their hardware.

That is flatly ludicrous. As are software solutions to poor hardware decisions.

I'm AM grateful for the continued endeavors of both entities, but I won't make excuses for bad or eccentric decisions.

_________________
Amiga! "Our appeal has become more selective"

@Beans

Well, the way I personally view the Apollo/Vampire is that it provides a nice and relativly cheap way of getting the performance of 060 and graphics cards without having to pay a kidney for old and fragile hardware.

Yes, they are adding features to the instuctionset, for future advances IF someone wants to exploit it with modified versions of their programs OR new programs. But its not actually needed. The sheer horsepower of the Vampire is enough as it is compared to what we have been used to for decades.

I dont think they/Apollo is as deluded as you might think I just think they enjoy their addiction/hobby, and based on sales, many share that sentiment.

Last edited by Overflow on 05-Aug-2017 at 05:21 PM.

@Overflow

The Cyberstorm Mk1 is fragile alright . It's kinda of like assembling the support structure for a shuttle launch! The parts are even called modules like a spacecraft's moduels!! There's nothing like original Phase 5 or DCE hardware though. If only they had been actual divisions within Commodore with high up management support for pushing the platform forward!

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

@pavlor,


Quote:
With the ApolloOS ISO, those headaches are all gone


Well, not for lawful people among us.


I own every flavor of OS3.X there is. So for me it's like handing someone all the disks and letting them do it for me.

@BigD

DCE, yeah that was an interesting outfit.
I had a discussion with Bill Buck about that a couple of years ago.

In a way, that direction almost became Amiga.
Phase5 hardware leading to new Genesi/bPlan hardware, with MorphOS adopted as the logical successor to AmigaOS3.1.

Instead you got Amiga Inc. and Hyperion.

_________________
Amiga! "Our appeal has become more selective"

@Beans

Quote:

Instead you got Amiga Inc. and Hyperion.

Bill McEwen wanted MorphOS as basis for AmigaOS4, but MorphOS Team refused the deal...

@pavlor

Quote:

Bill McEwen wanted MorphOS as basis for AmigaOS4, but MorphOS Team refused the deal...

Apparently it wasn't a very good deal. And Amiga Inc. wanted complete control of the operating system.
Think about that for a minute.
IBM didn't get complete control of PC-DOS/MS-DOS, and that was a much bigger deal (for a boat load more money).

In the long run, Amiga Inc didn't get control of OS4 either.
And no one has heard from Bill in a LONG time.

Funny because Hyperion is soldiering along with OS4 development (albeit slowly), Aeon improved on the specs released by Ack Systems in the X1000, and now has a second generation of PPC machines in production, and legacy hardware still seems to be flourishing (with Jens at Individual, the Apollo team, and other projects).

So what Bill wanted, beyond control of OUR market, escapes me.

But that he didn't get it, that seems like a good thing, overall.

He never had the assets or resources to pull his grand plans together anyway.
And if he'd just stayed out of the game...

Well...we might be using Amigas today, and not just AmigaOnes.

Last edited by Beans on 05-Aug-2017 at 06:30 PM.

_________________
Amiga! "Our appeal has become more selective"

@Beans

Well, no one needs to use the newer features of the Apollo Core, but having them as an option is just progress. The A1222's FPU is a bit of a headache, but with an fpassist library, no one will NEED to recompile their software to make it work. The hardest part seemed to get the OS working, something I attribute to Hyperion's limited resources and probably having to write or port over the fpassist library (my guess is QNX's implementation).

I can understand the MorphOS developers not bothering to work around the issue, but it doesn't signify a huge problem with the board.

As for AMD64 or ARM... That's still pretty much non-essential at this point. Icaros Desktop (x86) and AEROS (ARM) work fine in that regard.

@WolfpackN64

The question isn't if it can be done, its how big a performance hit it will represent.
And I'm willing to bet the distributions specific to this platform will be common wherever the option to compile specifically for it is available.

That degradation takes an already marginal processor and decreases its performance.

As to AROS, its an option, but its not OS4 or MorphOS.
And we will need somewhere to shift to as PPC are phased out.

Who really knows how long NXP will offer its existing PPC products, and they are not introducing any new cpus.

_________________
Amiga! "Our appeal has become more selective"

@Beans

We will have to see. NXP continues to state that Power is part of it's portfolio (and all that kind of company speech) and denies the CPU's are end of life.

The takeover by Qualcomm seemed to be the last nail in the coffin, but that takeover is on the verge of collapsing.

As long as the OS development can't outpace the CPU development, Power will do fine. Who knows, in a year or two, NXP's promised Power CPU's might come out and the entire ISA transition can go back into the fridge.

A lot of people are missing the obvious point of the OT:

Regardless of which solution appeals to you, it appears that there will soon be options. That competition will encourage innovation and increase interest in the platform.

Yes, market fragmentation is possible but we're already seeing tangible evidence of how efforts can exploit multiple platforms.

The real challenge is the OS and that issue affects both sides equally.

@ne_one

Of course options are good. It always seems strange that people demand ISA changes and direction convergences when there are enough options that do just that.

As long as the API's don't diverge too widely.

WolfpackN64 AKA Jon L. Aasenden (which seems to be part of Hyperion dev team, according to what he stated on Facebook) has written an article just yesterday about the discussed arguments: Where is PowerPC today?

The article has several incorrect statements, especially when he talks about the XENA/XMOS chip potentials. I've partially replied here, on Facebook.

@Beans

Quote:

In the long run, Amiga Inc didn't get control of OS4 either.

In the end, MorphOS (well AmigaOS4) would have been sole PowerPC NG OS under full control of MorphOS Team. That means sustainable user base of over 5000. No Blue/Red war at all.

Think about that for a minute.

@cdimauro

That's one book of a reply. Judt one thing, in all performance tests I've seen, the G5 isn't any faster then the P5020. The P5020 is at least a lot more efficiënt.

@WolfpackN64

G5 has faster FPU (and of course AltiVec), e5500 is faster with integer code.

@pavlor

So it depends on the application. Not very surprising.

@WolfpackN64

Quote:

@cdimauro That's one book of a reply. Judt one thing, in all performance tests I've seen, the G5 isn't any faster then the P5020. The P5020 is at least a lot more efficiënt.

As Pavlor reported, the G5 has a stronger FPU, not even counting Altivec which draws circles around the P5020 when doing massive calculations.

However I haven't talked about the P5020 in the comments that I've written on my Facebook post. Only Taber was mentioned.

Anyway I'll address all incorrect/misleading things that you've written in your article, point by point, when I've time (hopefully today). So, I'll add more comments on my FB post.

@pavlor

Quote:

pavlor wrote: @WolfpackN64 G5 has faster FPU (and of course AltiVec), e5500 is faster with integer code.

Somebody reported the results on some benchmarks weeks ago, and AFAIK the G5 shown better performances on average.

@WolfpackN64

Quote:

WolfpackN64 wrote: @pavlor So it depends on the application. Not very surprising.

That's normal. There were some applications where P5020 had much better performances than the G5. And viceversa.

@cdimauro

Just to clarify, I didnt write that article.

@cdimauro

Quote:

Somebody reported the results on some benchmarks weeks ago, and AFAIK the G5 shown better performances on average.

I have good source for X5000 and 970MP benchmark comparison. Some benchmarks simply don´t show well average performance of the machine.

Quote:

Only Taber was mentioned.

Tabor... Comparing this one to G5 is ridiculous.