@Karlos

Quote:

Karlos wrote: So. Did anyone watch Fallout?

Watch it? I devoured it.

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@matthey

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matthey wrote: Listen to Jay Miner and you will find that the Amiga consists of 3 parts. 1. 68k 2. chipset 3. AmigaOS Remove any of the 3 parts and Amiga compatibility is lost.

The m68k was indeed integral to the Amiga, but is wasn't the X factor that made it unique.

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@agami

We all know what different variations of this looks like.

1. No 68K, we have AROS x86/x64
2. No chipset, we have Draco, Amitalon, MorphOS and AmigaOS4.
3. No AmigaOS, we have Linux 68K and AROS 68K

Quote:

The m68k was indeed integral to the Amiga, but is wasn't the X factor that made it unique.

Yeh, the chipset was more what made it look what it did in the 80’s, if had a different CPU back then it won’t have been much difference. Provided it was just as fast.
But by the mid 90’s, it did not matter, PC graphics was so much faster, provided more colors etc, Amiga was not unique anymore.

Last edited by NutsAboutAmiga on 13-May-2024 at 06:22 AM.
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Last edited by NutsAboutAmiga on 13-May-2024 at 06:17 AM.
Last edited by NutsAboutAmiga on 13-May-2024 at 06:13 AM.

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@agami

in 2024 normal tv don't display video from chipset so chipset no matter

@agami

Quote:

agami wrote: @Karlos Quote: Karlos wrote: So. Did anyone watch Fallout? Watch it? I devoured it.

As soon as I saw the nuke scene at the beginning, I knew something was up. Some people were saying how unrealistic it was, but I think they missed it big time. The explosions were low yield and they were ground burst. And there were several, across the city. Exactly the sort of thing you'd expect from ADM (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_demolition_munition) type devices.

The games were always a bit vague on how it all started. That scene told us right from the beginning.

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@ppcamiga1

Quote:

in 2024 normal tv don't display video from chipset so chipset no matter

Well, what matters is that you can run software that depends on the chipset.

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@matthey

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matthey wrote: A-Eon signed a $1.2 million USD contract for Ultra Varisys to design, develop and manufacture PPC hardware way back in 2013.

So what?

All that money despite not having a new chip designed....

Which kinda proves my point.


Wanna do a super 68100 with AAAAAAAAAAAAA chipset to compete with rPI?

Take the Vampire, make it dual (or better quad) core and 64bit. Give it a proper MMU and the usual media codec stuff everybody expects today. Validate (in FPGA) that it will run at >1GHz while also being able to throttle down both when overheating and idling.
Write/port a complete SW stack from compiler to GUI from driver to browser so it is at least somewhat useful.

You can either do it on volunteer basis and wait a decade or hire a team of skilled engineers which will eat up the 1st million long before you order the 1st sample chips.

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NutsAboutAmiga Quote:

Yeh, the chipset was more what made it look what it did in the 80’s, if had a different CPU back then it won’t have been much difference. Provided it was just as fast.

No! The 68k has a large flat address space with 32 bit ISA, 32 bit registers and addresses, that allows memory beyond 64kiB to be accessed without segmentation (memory bank switching). The NS32k was the only other MPU that I am aware of that allowed this and it was buggy so the 68000 gained most of the business from this competition which improved economies of scale and made the 68000 cheaper. The 68k is what made the Amiga the dynamic computer that it is today instead of hardware that was a poor choice to upgrade like 16 bit ISAs that were upgrades of 8 bit ISAs. I expect modern x86(-64) CPUs carry around more ISA baggage than the 68060 uses. They support 8 bit (not binary), 16 bit, 32 bit and 64 bit ISAs with 6 operating modes, segmentation and finally a flat address space. There have been more instructions added to x86(-64) than the 68k instruction total in all 68k ISAs put together and most of the x86(-64) instruction additions are deprecated and not used anymore in new code. The 68k has one 32 bit ISA, one operating mode and a single flat address space.

ppcamiga1 Quote:

in 2024 normal tv don't display video from chipset so chipset no matter

No! FPGA hardware like MiSTer and Vamp/ACSA have digital video output like HDMI or DVI. Even the $45 USD Flea FPGA Ohm has digital video output.



It's not a problem outputting the Amiga chipset to modern digital TVs and monitors. It's not expensive either as the FLEA FPGA Ohm has a small FPGA and costs less than some people spend on a tank of gas to fill their vehicle. There are likely multiple logic implementations for digital video output like there are multiple Amiga chipsets including at least 3 independent implementations supporting AGA.

Kronos Quote:

So what? All that money despite not having a new chip designed.... Which kinda proves my point.

I expect Trevor wasted many millions USD on AmigaNOne and never had anywhere close to competitive desktop hardware to show for it. It likely requires investing hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars to be competitive in the desktop market. The RPi Foundation came out of nowhere and broke into the hobby, educational and embedded markets with likely less investment than Trevor has wasted on the AmigaNOne but the RPi Foundation has sold over 50 million SBCs and AmiagNOne has sold a few thousand computers. The RPi Foundation newcomer has a healthy growing business that has even set embedded market standards. Trevor's business model was broken from inception and AmigaNOne should have been cancelled over a decade ago. Trevor is like a modern Irving Gould who funded but mismanaged the Amiga into the ground. At least Jay Miner didn't have to watch his dream being destroyed by Trevor like he had to with Gould.

Kronos Quote:

You can either do it on volunteer basis and wait a decade or hire a team of skilled engineers which will eat up the 1st million long before you order the 1st sample chips.

I expect investment of $5-$10 million USD would be necessary to develop and produce a small SBC with ASIC 68k SoC. This isn't that much anymore. A Kickstarter raised $8.5 million USD for the Ouya microconsole back in 2012. There are many 68k and retro hardware fans who would like to see it happen.

Last edited by matthey on 13-May-2024 at 06:05 PM.

@matthey

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No! The 68k has a large flat address space with 32 bit ISA, 32 bit registers and addresses, that allows memory

Yes that was always a problem, as creates a lot of memory fragmentation, you have bocks splitting memory in half, resulting out of memory error due to lack of continues memory blocks.

Quote:

large flat address space

Has problems like being limited 64mb gfx memory when your graphic card has lot more memory, because etch zorro slot has divide into IO memory with fixed limited size.
“LARGE� not really, more like memory fragmented IO space. And because it always there it takes up space from the main address space.

Amiga computer did not have full address lines, the Amiga 1200 has only 24 address space, not full 32bit one, so again wasting address space was a huge problem.

Last edited by NutsAboutAmiga on 13-May-2024 at 09:30 PM.
Last edited by NutsAboutAmiga on 13-May-2024 at 09:29 PM.

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@matthey

Quote:

I expect investment of $5-$10 million USD would be necessary to develop and produce a small SBC with ASIC 68k SoC. This isn't that much anymore. A Kickstarter raised $8.5 million USD for the Ouya microconsole back in 2012. There are many 68k and retro hardware fans who would like to see it happen.

That was 12 years ago. Here, in 2024, people can already use rPi/Emu68 and design hardware bridges like the PiStorm to retrofit it into various machines which is exactly what is going on. Sure that won't appeal to everyone - there are diehards like yourself that will settle for nothing less than a physical implementation. But are there enough of you to raise the money required?

I'm not sure I like your chances. Especially considering that what you propose will take more than just money to make happen.

But if it ever did, I'll take two.

Last edited by Karlos on 13-May-2024 at 08:07 PM.

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@matthey

Quote:

matthey wrote: A Kickstarter

So what do you want? 1 rich guy blowing away millions Trever style or 100000 blowing away $50 each?

Same difference as you still haven't explained what problem you wanna solve or how your solution is gonna be better.

Sounds alot like that Rabbit R1 nonsense....

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@matthey

So you’re saying FPGA adds value now?

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NutsAboutAmiga Quote:

Amiga computer did not have full address lines, the Amiga 1200 has only 24 address space, not full 32bit one, so again wasting address space was a huge problem.

The 68k CPU number of address lines are not important. The 68k 32 bit ISA keeps 32 bit addresses in registers and memory so all software should be 32 bit clean even on the 16 bit 68000 and 8 bit 68008. The NS32k is the only other MCU that I'm aware of that had a 32 bit ISA like this when the Amiga was in development. The 80386 launch was too late for the Amiga. Some other later ISAs were not 32 bit clean like the original ARM ISA which only had a 26 bit PC (R15) as upper bits were used as a status and condition code register.



The ARM ISA making the PC directly accessible as an orthogonal GP register reduces performance and wastes a GP register. ARM has 16 orthogonal registers but the PC (R15) and LR (R14) are not general purpose leaving just 14 GP registers for a RISC ISA that needs more registers than CISC ISAs. The 68k ISA does not make the mistakes with the PC and has 16 GP registers which is a good number for CISC. The 68060 has no problems executing original 68000 code which it does very well. ARM fails while x86 compatibility is possible at the cost of lots of hardware baggage.

Karlos Quote:

That was 12 years ago. Here, in 2024, people can already use rPi/Emu68 and design hardware bridges like the PiStorm to retrofit it into various machines which is exactly what is going on. Sure that won't appeal to everyone - there are diehards like yourself that will settle for nothing less than a physical implementation. But are there enough of you to raise the money required?

How many new Amiga users has the PiStorm brought? How many new Amiga users has THEA500 Mini brought? How many new Amiga users has the Vamp/ACSA brought? How many new Amiga users has WinUAE brought? How many new Amiga users has the AmigaNOne brought? How many new RPi users has the RPi brought? Many people know what the RPi is but few know what the Amiga is anymore. There are tens of thousands of Amiga users and hundreds of thousands of Amiga fans but the Amiga is dying.

Karlos Quote:

I'm not sure I like your chances. Especially considering that what you propose will take more than just money to make happen. But if it ever did, I'll take two.

Finding the right people is half the battle when a team is needed. There are some things that would need to fall into place, money may need to be raised and options explored.

Kronos Quote:

So what do you want? 1 rich guy blowing away millions Trever style or 100000 blowing away $50 each?

It is logical to raise money from larger investors and business partners first. Preferably kickstarter would not be necessary for smaller investors but a pre-order discount could be used to help fund production provided development is done.

Kronos Quote:

Same difference as you still haven't explained what problem you wanna solve or how your solution is gonna be better.

I want competitive enough hardware to bring back Amiga fans and attract people outside of the Amiga community so the Amiga user base can grow. I want hardware that pays homage to the 68k and 68k Amiga and its developers. I want upgraded 68k Amiga hardware that isn't failing after 30 years. I want to not wear a bag over my head when I talk about the Amiga, its failure and the lack of any competitive or affordable Amiga hardware.

kolla Quote:

So you’re saying FPGA adds value now?

High performance FPGA CPUs not being competitive with ASIC CPUs does not mean FPGAs lack value. FPGAs are an incredibly valuable tool and smaller FPGAs have advantages in production where versatility and updates are important. FPGAs are great for chipset simulation and relatively simple CPU simulation.

Last edited by matthey on 14-May-2024 at 02:57 AM.

@ppcamiga1

Quote:

ppcamiga1 wrote: @agami in 2024 normal tv don't display video from chipset so chipset no matter

Of course the Amiga chipsets from the mid-to-late ‘80s and early ‘90s are not relevant in terms of contemporary computing.
We are discussing things within their context: Keep up.

The Amiga is a line of computers produced from 1985 - 1995 by Commodore and subsequently by ESCOM/Amiga Technologies, based on the Motorola 68k series of CPUs, with a custom chipset, running Amiga OS 1.x - 3.x
This combination of hardware and software provided a multi-media multi-tasking creative dream machine, that set the benchmark for all other personal computer to match. Which by the turn of the millennium Microsoft Windows PCs and Apple Macs did, and given that the Amiga was orphaned they eventually surpassed it.

So when we say that it is the chipset and the OS that makes the Amiga what it is, we are talking about the one and true Amiga. Not the fake wannabe “NG� machines using PowerPC CPUs, running Amiga OS 4.

In order for a modern computer to be considered a successor to the original Amiga, in my view it should in some way set a new benchmark.

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@Karlos

Quote:

Karlos wrote: @agami As soon as I saw the nuke scene at the beginning, I knew something was up. Some people were saying how unrealistic it was, but I think they missed it big time. The explosions were low yield and they were ground burst. And there were several, across the city. Exactly the sort of thing you'd expect from ADM (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_demolition_munition) type devices. The games were always a bit vague on how it all started. That scene told us right from the beginning.

The nuclear explosions were plenty realistic.

As a person who lived through the last decade of the Cold War in a non-aligned country wedged between NATO and the Warsaw Pact, we had high availability of information on nuclear weaponry and what to do in the event of detonation, and ration treatment of building, land, and food, for survivability in a post nuclear war world.

Maybe it’s that fact of growing up in that place and at that time that I developed a penchant for all things post-apocalyptic. Either way, I look forward to season 2.
I played Fallout 3 on the Xbox 360 but never got around to playing Fallout 4, mostly because I knew I didn’t have the time to invest.
I’m told Fallout: New Vegas is a nice contained experience that could satiate my appetite in the meantime.

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@matthey

Quote:

How many new Amiga users has the PiStorm brought?

Facebook PiStorm group has 3,659 members.

Facebook Commodore Amiga group has 30,522 members.

Vampire has "more than 10,000" units shipped from a centralized Apollo-Core organization.

PiStorm doesn't have a centralized organization for tracking PiStorm sales.

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@matthey

Hmm. I think I see the issue with your view here.

The Amiga isn't dying. It died quite some time ago. We, the users and fans are dying. None of us are getting any younger.

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@agami

By unrealistic, what I mean is that people have become accustomed to depictions of medium to high yield airburst weapons in media depicting nuclear Armageddon. This is why I think they had issues with the scene. But low yield groundburst ADM detonations in the middle of a metropolis are not going to look like that.

Last edited by Karlos on 14-May-2024 at 11:25 AM.

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@Karlos

Yes. I agree.

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@Karlos
Quote:

The Amiga isn't dying. It died quite some time ago. We, the users and fans are dying. None of us are getting any younger.

Some people speak up because they have something to say, while others speak as they also want to say something.

OldFart

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