I came across this today:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/06/17/cherrypal/

From the article:

"The system runs on a Power architecture-based 400MHz Freescale mobileGT MPC5121e chip, ships with 4GB of Flash storage and has 256MB of memory. The operating system of choice is a tweaked version of embedded Linux (Debian)."

I wonder if this little sucker could run OS4?

Bill "tekmage" Borsari

@tekmage

this made me really curious. apart from the ugly logo, it looks sweet on the mockup.
i wonder how it looks for real.

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Quote:

"Well, CherryPal CEO Max Seybold promises that this puppy flies. The 10.5 ounce unit boots in 20 seconds and can crank through just about any applications, including graphics-heavy stuff thanks to the tri-core Freescale design that includes a graphics cruncher"

I like the sound of Tri-Core

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Quote:

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MiniMig FPGA, Sam440 Flex 733Mhz PPC, Amiga OS 4.1 Update 2, MorphOS 2.4, Other - AmiKit + Cloanto Amiga Forever 2008 + E-UAE, AmigaSYS

meet.mrnrg:
"I like the sound of Tri-Core"

Marketing bull *censoring-*-*-*-*-is-so-lame*


Moderator:
The filter is there for a reason.

Last edited by zerohero on 23-Jun-2008 at 09:17 AM.
Last edited by ironfist on 20-Jun-2008 at 09:03 AM.

@tekmage

If Hyperion could port and sell OS4 to the platform they desired it would be perfect, but until Amiga Inc is around boicoting and locking out every effort to make Amiga platform successful we are pretty stuck to A1/classics

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@tekmage

Quote:

I wonder if this little sucker could run OS4?

Yeah, I'm sure it could. So could the Efika, the SAM440EP, the Pegasos, PowerPC Macs, the LimePC, IBM's Power workstations, the Playstation 3, etc, etc.

Will they? Of course not! That's a far too sensible idea!

Last edited by Gleng on 20-Jun-2008 at 10:55 AM.

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@tekmage

Well, an 5121 design, just like the Efika2.But I wouldn't bet my money on a never heard of company, when you have Freescale and THTF (they are huge!) forming some kind of alliance (Genesi also included to some extend).
Anyway, if it appears, good. If it will have a nice price tag even better. Hopefully it uses some Open Firmware.

For OS4 it is useless like all the other ppc devices (Mac, pegasos, Efika, PS3, ...) anyway - there's no license.

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My programs: via.bckrs.de
MorphOS user since V0.4 (2001)

@tekmage

Quote:

I wonder if this little sucker could run OS4?

No way! Just look at it... An existing hardware with compatible CPU, no way it would EVER get a licence!

@Jupp3

at around $100 I hear? £50? Tell you what - make it a little more with a HDMI port, the AmigaOS and a marketing plan, and you have a deal!

Oh hold on that sounds like a good idea... Amiga, Inc. will never allow it.

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Sven Harvey
Amiga Mart in Micro Mart, Geekology 4M@, and other places
A1000, A2000, A1500 A500, CDTV, A500+, A600, A4000, A1200, CD32, AT A1200HD, A1-XE

@spotUP

It probably looks excactly like that. I'm evaluating 3 different 2W solutions at work now, and the MPC5121e seems to be winning the competition. Fun things it has which I won't be using much of:

Audio DSP and graphics accelerator in addition to CPU (yes, it's a 3 core chip)
3 16/24-bit (or 8-bit, it's got palettes as well) display fields with alpha channel blending and/or chroma keying
PCI
Camera/parallell video input
LCD display which can easily be interfaced to DVI/RGB/HDSDI encoders
SATA controller
USB controller

Seriously, this thing is practically an Amiga 5000 on a stick. The Early Reference Manual is 1400 pages, but I advice anyone who is even remotely interested in computers to read through it.

So basically a 400MHz PPC, a 200MHz Delfina and a 400MHz Voodoo all rolled into one little chip. Add some 200MHz DDR2 (aka PC2 3200), CF socket, an ethernet phy and a bootflash with UBoot and you have yourself a computer.

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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.

@tekmage

Even more great hardware that will never run OS4 because of Bill McEw.

@ironfist

CPU + Audio DSP + GPU != three cores now? Care to elaborate?

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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.

olegil:
It is marketing BS to promote it as a "tri-core" chip.

The first thing people will think of when you say dual-core,
tri-core or quad-core is that you have several equal CPU-
cores to speed things up - just like any normal CPU of today.

@ironfist

Well what do you call it when you have a CPU, DSP and GPU in the same chip then? It's three processor cores.

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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.

As OS4 will never be available for this device what would you guys do with this device (running Linux)?

I could probably use it in the living room for checking mail and surfing the web but I have no other ideas as for what to do with a low spec device like this. Would have liked a laptop version though

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@Troels

Quote:

As OS4 will never be available for this device what would you guys do with this device (running Linux)?

I plan to get one so that I can rip the guts out of it and put it in an A600 case.

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@Gleng

Nice idea, not that I usually like it when people tare their Amiga's apart but an A600..

How will you get keyboard working and is it only intended for browsing, email etc?

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As soon as Haiku gets past the alpha stage other platforms stand a chance of getting a port. HaikuOS on a cool, quiet, efficient, PPC laptop - I could go for that.

Also not impossible but perhaps less likely is MorphOS on a wider range of hardware... But that's just more closed source misery.

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@Troels

It's an empty case that's been waiting for the right motherboard, so no worries there.

I intend to hook up the keyboard via a KeyRah and an internal USB hub. The plan is to also add an SD card reader where the floppy drive would normally go. I was originally going to use an Efika for the project, but they are too tall to fit in the case.

As for its intended use; well, I haven't really thought that far ahead yet!

Last edited by Gleng on 22-Jun-2008 at 04:54 AM.

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@Crumb

>>If Hyperion could port and sell OS4 to the platform they desired

OS4 still needs a decent browser and a few other things before it can go against Win, OSX and Linux...

Last edited by TheDaddy on 22-Jun-2008 at 06:36 AM.

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