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      /  New bounty: "PowerPC emulator"
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PosterThread
A500Fan 
New bounty: "PowerPC emulator"
Posted on 30-Jan-2014 8:02:04
#1 ]
Member
Joined: 29-Jan-2014
Posts: 22
From: Cologne

I'm a long time lurker on various Amiga forums. Over the years there have always been threads about emulating NG Amigas. Most time people said that
a) there's nobody willing to program such an emulator
b) the emulator would damage the businesses of Hyperion and Morph OS, because it could enforce illegal copies of their operating systems.

Now I'm planning to hand in a bounty to power2people which motivates someone to program a working emulator. The bounty description shall ensure that you can't use illegal copies of operating systems with the emulation software:


"
Bounty: Power PC emulator

Description:
* Write an emulator for a PPC computer. The host OS should be a X86-PC
running Windows

* You might code the whole program from scratch. Adapting or using
existing source code (like Qemu) would be allowed as well.

* The emulator should be able to boot the demo version of Morph OS. The bounty is fullfilled when
a) Morph OS boots up to its desktop screen
b) User interaction via keyboard and mouse is working
c) Basic 2D Graphics are working
d) Small native desktop programs of Morph OS are able to be used

* The anti-copy protection of Morph OS' full version must not be broken in any way. So that in the end you can only use the demo version of Morph OS with the emulator. It must not boot OS4 too, because this seems to be forbidden by its TOS. This project is not meant to displease any company in the whole Amiga
world.
Running the demo version of Morph OS only would be a compromise: On the one hand, neither OS4 nor Morph OS sellers would be displeased. On the other hand, being able to emulate a demo version could already be sufficent to interest more people in next generation Amigas, like UAE stimulated overall interest in classic Amigas 15 years ago. Anybody could try out a modern Amiga like OS without having to do an investment first. This could lead to more people buying real PPC hardware afterwards.
"

Would you donate to such a bounty?
Are there suggestions for modifications?
Please also correct bad grammar. As you can the, English is not my mother tongue.

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AmiKit 
Re: New bounty: "PowerPC emulator"
Posted on 30-Jan-2014 8:30:12
#2 ]
Super Member
Joined: 18-Jul-2004
Posts: 1135
From: Europe

Quote:
So that in the end you can only use the demo version of Morph OS with the emulator. It must not boot OS4 too

Quote:
Would you donate to such a bounty?

No.

_________________
Modern Retro Experience

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recedent 
Re: New bounty: "PowerPC emulator"
Posted on 30-Jan-2014 8:37:17
#3 ]
Regular Member
Joined: 28-Jan-2010
Posts: 227
From: Tarnów

@A500Fan

I somehow fail to see a point in this bounty. I mean - if someone's willing to test the MorphOS demo he can pick up a used G4 PowerMac from the local recycling center for about... 0$. That said, the entry cost isn't really intimidating, is it?

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pavlor 
Re: New bounty: "PowerPC emulator"
Posted on 30-Jan-2014 8:42:12
#4 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 10-Jul-2005
Posts: 9578
From: Unknown

@A500Fan

Quote:
a) Morph OS boots up to its desktop screen


Already done, ask MorphOS Team to release it to public.





and of course...

Welcome!

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pavlor 
Re: New bounty: "PowerPC emulator"
Posted on 30-Jan-2014 8:46:31
#5 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 10-Jul-2005
Posts: 9578
From: Unknown

@recedent

Quote:
I somehow fail to see a point in this bounty. I mean - if someone's willing to test the MorphOS demo he can pick up a used G4 PowerMac from the local recycling center for about... 0$. That said, the entry cost isn't really intimidating, is it?


Some people don´t like garbage.


Emulation on x86 makes sense - eg. on portable devices with longer battery life than 8 years old iBooks/PowerBooks.

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tonyw 
Re: New bounty: "PowerPC emulator"
Posted on 30-Jan-2014 8:55:50
#6 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 8-Mar-2003
Posts: 3240
From: Sydney (of course)

@A500Fan

Let's assume that your host x86 machine is running a CPU at about 3 GHz. Let's also assume that the speed of the emulator is about 10% - 30% of a PPC CPU running at the same speed.

That means that the best PPC speed you will be able to emulate is about 1 GHz (give or take). It certainly is not going to be any faster than the available PPC Amigas.

So a high-end x86 machine with a PPC emulator is going to be cheaper than a high-end PPC Amiga. Probably about the same cost as a low-end Sam 440. It's not going to run any faster and it's going to be years of development before it can run most PPC software. It's a very big job for an expert in machine language.

Whoever takes on the bounty is going to spend man-years of development on the job, and what is he going to get for it? A few thousand bucks? He'd really want a few hundred thousand bucks to make his time worth while.

What is any one going to get for it? It's just not worth the effort.


_________________
cheers
tony

Hyperion Support Forum: http://forum.hyperion-entertainment.biz/index.php

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pavlor 
Re: New bounty: "PowerPC emulator"
Posted on 30-Jan-2014 9:16:55
#7 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 10-Jul-2005
Posts: 9578
From: Unknown

@tonyw

Quote:
That means that the best PPC speed you will be able to emulate is about 1 GHz (give or take). It certainly is not going to be any faster than the available PPC Amigas.


x86 CPUs are (much) fatser/MHz than years old PowerPC CPUs.

QEMU is able to emulate cca 1/45 of native performance (according to my benchmarks) without "accellerator" (available only for x86/x86 emulation). That is roughly Pentium II 350 MHz speed on core i5-2500 3.3 GHz of my brother (comparable to G3 at similar MHz).
With 1/10 CPU emulator, you would get PA6T 1.8 GHz performance (except AltiVec and FFT of course).

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A500Fan 
Re: New bounty: "PowerPC emulator"
Posted on 30-Jan-2014 9:25:39
#8 ]
Member
Joined: 29-Jan-2014
Posts: 22
From: Cologne

@recedent:
Over here in Germany I never had the opportunity to get a PowerMac for free. The only possibility would have been to pay 100 bucks for one on ebay. And even if it was for free: Not everybody would go and look around for hardware, just to try out an OS he doesn't know yet. I'm sure much more people would try out Morph OS if they only had to download an emulator.

@pavlor:
I had a short mail correspondence with a morph os guy. He says that the source code for this QEMU fork had since been lost.
But that it already had been done shows that such an emulator would be feasible.

@tonyw:
I'm not sure if it would really take several man years. One might not need to develop everything from scratch. Maybe some parts could be taken from existing source codes (QEMU, PearPC etc.)
I am thinking back to the 1990s: Back then, there were always discussions on the usenet about the fact if an amiga emulator was feasible. Most people said: "No, it would be too much work to emulate those custom chips". But then UAE appeared from one day to another.

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WolfToTheMoon 
Re: New bounty: "PowerPC emulator"
Posted on 30-Jan-2014 9:28:59
#9 ]
Super Member
Joined: 2-Sep-2010
Posts: 1351
From: CRO

@A500Fan


it's a good idea...

but by the time it produces anything usable, I'm guessing MorphOS will be running natively on x64 or ARM.
AmigaOS4 is a possibility, just be prepared to endure possible legal threats from everyone's favorite lawyer amigan

_________________

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pavlor 
Re: New bounty: "PowerPC emulator"
Posted on 30-Jan-2014 9:32:25
#10 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 10-Jul-2005
Posts: 9578
From: Unknown

@A500Fan

Quote:
He says that the source code for this QEMU fork had since been lost.


Probably on same place as Moana.

Quote:
But that it already had been done shows that such an emulator would be feasible.


It shows MorphOS Team is not interested in this path.

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KimmoK 
Re: New bounty: "PowerPC emulator"
Posted on 30-Jan-2014 10:47:10
#11 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 14-Mar-2003
Posts: 5211
From: Ylikiiminki, Finland

>by A500Fan on 30-Jan-2014 10:02:04
>b) the emulator would damage the businesses of Hyperion and Morph OS, because it could enforce illegal copies of their operating systems.

Hyperion has already done Peg2 port. I doubt many illegal copies are in use.

>Bounty: Power PC emulator
>* Write an emulator for a PPC computer. The host OS should be a X86-PC
running Windows

I will not support windows SW.
Better target x64 and some open source OS (Linux or MOSx64 or AROSx64)

>* The emulator should be able to boot the demo version of Morph OS. The bounty is fullfilled when
>a) Morph OS boots up to its desktop screen

If Peg2 HW (or Artisia based) is emulated, then it could enable AOS4 as well.

e) PPC to x64 JIT

>* The anti-copy protection of Morph OS' full version must not be broken in any way.
>So that in the end you can only use the demo version of Morph OS with the emulator.
>It must not boot OS4 too, because this seems to be forbidden by its TOS.
????

I think for MOS the emulator must enable locking a licence to MAC address.

>Would you donate to such a bounty?

It should be improved a lot. Ideally it should be approved officially by MOS team and AOS4 team.

Other ways::
-develop PPC card that fits in a laptop internal slot (card slot?) , then get *OS ported to that.
-develop a PPC "gumstick" card that is connected via USB2 / USB3 / ePCIe to host x86 PC, then get *OS ported to that.
-for trying *OS, arrange public VNC (or some better virtual network) connectable HW running the *OS
-pay MOS Team and/or AOS4 team to build OS demo to be downloadable from web shop for PS3, xbox360 and WiiU (no CPU emu needed but full blow OS fun is not possible on those consoles).

Most usefull:
-become active in developing ultra low cost PPC HW for niche OSs.

Last edited by KimmoK on 30-Jan-2014 at 11:00 AM.
Last edited by KimmoK on 30-Jan-2014 at 10:49 AM.

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

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elwood 
Re: New bounty: "PowerPC emulator"
Posted on 30-Jan-2014 11:19:40
#12 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 17-Sep-2003
Posts: 3428
From: Lyon, France

@A500Fan

Quote:
Would you donate to such a bounty?

No but I would donate to a bounty for a QEMU x86 port for AmigaOS.

_________________
Philippe 'Elwood' Ferrucci
Sam460 1.10 Ghz
AmigaOS 4 betatester
Amiga Translator Organisation

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ilbarbax 
Re: New bounty: "PowerPC emulator"
Posted on 30-Jan-2014 11:36:50
#13 ]
Regular Member
Joined: 17-Jan-2010
Posts: 184
From: Italy

@A500Fan

this would decree the end of the PPC amigas hardware. It would act as UAE for the 68K machines. People is not passing to NC amigas, just because they continue to use UAE.

If I think that to use the amiga I have to wait for W$ to start-up and shut down. I would definitely forget about amiga and I would use linux directly. PS I never used UAE for this reasons.

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Arko 
Re: New bounty: "PowerPC emulator"
Posted on 30-Jan-2014 11:39:08
#14 ]
Super Member
Joined: 17-Jan-2007
Posts: 1989
From: Unknown

@A500Fan

Quote:

* The emulator should be able to boot the demo version of Morph OS. The bounty is fullfilled when


There is not much demand for an "PPC Computer Emulator" running MorphOS, hardware is cheap and maybe MorphOS will be available on x86-64 in three years.

Maybe you should ask for an "PPC Computer Emulator" running AOS4.

Quote:

* Write an emulator for a PPC computer. The host OS should be a X86-PC
running Windows


For AOS4 you must specify the emulated hardware, emulating a PPC CPU in a x86 would not be much help for AOS4 users, at least as long AOS4 is bundled to specific PPC-Computers.

Last edited by Arko on 30-Jan-2014 at 11:40 AM.

_________________
AmigaONE. Haha. Just because you can put label on it does not make it Amiga.

I borrowed this comments from here (#27 & #28):
http://amigaworld.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=38873&forum=2&start=20&order=0

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A500Fan 
Re: New bounty: "PowerPC emulator"
Posted on 30-Jan-2014 11:45:43
#15 ]
Member
Joined: 29-Jan-2014
Posts: 22
From: Cologne

@WolfToTheMoon
Quote:
but by the time it produces anything usable, I'm guessing MorphOS will be running natively on x64 or ARM.


The Morph OS team always says that this will happen in the distant future, that it currently has no priority etc.
So nobody knows if an when they will do it.

Quote:
AmigaOS4 is a possibility, just be prepared to endure possible legal threats from everyone's favorite lawyer amigan


I personally would love an emulator which can emulate both, Morph OS and OS4 as well. But I guess that Hyperion would dislike this and for that reason I exluded OS4 from the bounty. It don't want to provoke anybody. It should be a project which no side in the Amiga world would have a problem with.

@pavlor:
Quote:

Quote:
But that it already had been done shows that such an emulator would be feasible.

It shows MorphOS Team is not interested in this path.


Maybe they are not interested to do this themselves. But they don't seem to have a problem if anybody else does it.
The MorphOS guy didn't say to me "We don't have the source anymore and don't do this. We will sue you". He said rather something like "The source is lost, but you could try your bounty. But first ask in a forum if there would be enough people who would also donate to an emulator which runs the demo version only".

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phoenixkonsole 
Re: New bounty: "PowerPC emulator"
Posted on 30-Jan-2014 12:00:18
#16 ]
Super Member
Joined: 8-Nov-2009
Posts: 1770
From: Unknown

@A500Fan
If Team MorphOS included a online registration in MorphOS it can be safe.
I would donate.

Maybe it is better to use Dolphin emulator as base since it emulated ATI GPU and is faster than Qemu.

_________________
AROS Broadway - AEROS - Aminux - AmiCloud - indieGO! Appstore - AmiWallet - VAN lossless video codec - AMC Amiga media Center -KrypUnite - LibertyNet - MinX - amigaNX

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AmigaBlitter 
Re: New bounty: "PowerPC emulator"
Posted on 30-Jan-2014 12:15:11
#17 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 26-Sep-2005
Posts: 3512
From: Unknown

@elwood

Already talked with a team about an OS4 virtual machine. It's feasible, but they ask me about some things that i have not the permissions to give them.
Btw, while we wait for a laptop, a vm may be usefull, especially for developers.

Of course, hardware and software should be licensed.


_________________
retired

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Kronos 
Re: New bounty: "PowerPC emulator"
Posted on 30-Jan-2014 13:05:22
#18 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 8-Mar-2003
Posts: 2553
From: Unknown

-------forgot my backpack in the bus------------

Last edited by Kronos on 30-Jan-2014 at 03:55 PM.

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

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Kronos 
Re: New bounty: "PowerPC emulator"
Posted on 30-Jan-2014 13:05:40
#19 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 8-Mar-2003
Posts: 2553
From: Unknown

--------- my dog ate my homework ---------

Last edited by Kronos on 30-Jan-2014 at 01:07 PM.

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

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Kronos 
Re: New bounty: "PowerPC emulator"
Posted on 30-Jan-2014 13:05:48
#20 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 8-Mar-2003
Posts: 2553
From: Unknown

@A500Fan

Quote:

A500Fan wrote:
Over here in Germany I never had the opportunity to get a PowerMac for free. The only possibility would have been to pay 100 bucks for one on ebay.


Actually finding 50Euro G4 PowerMacs on ebay.de (or even kleinanzeigen.ebay.de) is easy, my last QuickSilver was just 40Euro at 800MHz including a 18"TFT.....


Bout that bounty:
a) do a "hostile" EMU and you have to emulate a Pegasos (or any other PPC) down to the last bit. Southbridge,NorthBridge,CPU,GPU,OpenfirmWare etc... Won't even get near to the 1:45 ratio mentioned earlier

b) do a "hostile" EMU but somehow provide generic drivers for the MorphOS (or OS4) side, 1:45 seems realistic, but much more work and far to easy to be shutdown with next MorphOS update.

c) wait for the team to do a proper EMU, drivers could be written to directly hit the x86-HW from the MorphOS-side (just like Amithlon did with some drivers) and even a PPC-x86 JIT might be feasible, getting atleast near the 1:10 ratio for the whole adventure to make sense (and as a bonus maybe a way to write x86-MorphOS code for near 1:1 performance).

Last edited by Kronos on 30-Jan-2014 at 01:06 PM.

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

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