@kolla

Quick, cursory search returns:
- 1260 card: 650€ (http://www.amibay.com/showthread.php?88957-Blizzard-1260-64MB-SWAP-with-a600-or-a500-h-w-enhancement&highlight=680060)
- Vampire 600 v2.1: 369,95€ (https://amigastore.eu/en/645-vampire-600-v21.html)

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Tygre
Scientific Progress Goes Boing!

@kolla

Quote:

Vampire doesn't help much, really. People seriously overestimate what Apollo Core is capable of, we are talking about systems that are not even a magnitude faster than 060, and quickly cost a lot more than what it's worth if you want something faster. And the OS itself is still the largest obstacle for software development.

Except that's not what we're talking about.

A modern, general purpose solution isn't even on the radar.

If the objective is to offer an inexpensive Amiga retro experience, we're getting within firing range.

@kolla

Yeah, we were talking about mini A500 Classic Console type gismo not a full Amiga Classic on steroids!

_________________
"Art challenges technology. Technology inspires the art."
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@kolla

Vampire does not help where exactly?

It is a hardware for amiga geeks offering new features but it will not make amiga a big mainstream market again. It is a nice niche product replacing different expensive ageing hardware

But you already know that

Quote:

kolla wrote: Quote: Vampire doesn't help much, really. People seriously overestimate what Apollo Core is capable of, we are talking about systems that are not even a magnitude faster than 060, and quickly cost a lot more than what it's worth if you want something faster. And the OS itself is still the largest obstacle for software development. ne_one wrote: Except that's not what we're talking about. A modern, general purpose solution isn't even on the radar. If the objective is to offer an inexpensive Amiga retro experience, we're getting within firing range.

An "inexpensive Amiga retro experience" is an unexpanded Amiga 500 but the retro crowd wants more. Many want faster CPUs, AGA+RTG, fast and large capacity drives, ethernet, USB, etc. Many want to use a retro Amiga for modern general purpose computing too. The difference from NG Amiga users is that compatibility is a higher priority than performance and features. Kolla is correct that the Apollo Core is only roughly as fast as the fastest 68060 Amigas but it does show that good compatibility and performance can both be achieved with custom hardware. In FPGA, the Apollo Core is limited in performance and price/performance ratio but who in their right mind would deliberately optimize and limit a CPU core to an FPGA?

I disagree with Kolla that "the OS itself is the largest obstacle for software development". The biggest problem is a small, divided and shrinking Amiga user base which OS features are unlikely to fix even if the OS is modernized and free. It is affordable and standardized hardware which expands the user base, sneaks the OS to new users and creates a viable development target. The AmigaOS is hopelessly out of date for desktop use as SMP, security and 64 bit addressing have become very important but the current features are more competitive for retro, hobbyist and embedded markets. Yes, the 68k AmigaOS 3.1.4 is more marketable for retro, hobbyist and embedded markets than AmigaOS 4 and MorphOS PPC are for desktop markets. This has been brought to light with the current lawsuits over the 68k AmigaOS while nobody cared about Hyperion's failed PPC Amiga market.

@matthey

one developer is adapting aros to run native on Raspberry. That will be a nice little inexpensive toy. That is the biggest realistic opportunity, to compete with Windows, MacOS or even Linux on big boxes is unrealistic, we would fail latest at drivers and even if we would have a super-modern uptodate Amiga OS that is on same level as competition and even would have drivers we still would lack modern software. And such a modern OS would not feel much amiga-like anymore...

Quote:

OlafS25 wrote: one developer is adapting aros to run native on Raspberry. That will be a nice little inexpensive toy. That is the biggest realistic opportunity, to compete with Windows, MacOS or even Linux on big boxes is unrealistic, we would fail latest at drivers and even if we would have a super-modern uptodate Amiga OS that is on same level as competition and even would have drivers we still would lack modern software. And such a modern OS would not feel much amiga-like anymore...

Good point about lack of drivers which is a lack of standardization. AROS x86_64 has SMP and 64 bit addressing while security could be improved since Amiga 68k and PPC compatibility has been broken. The performance to price ratio of x86_64 commodity hardware is good but I can't see the majority of Amiga users converting to it even with major improvements to drivers and security. Retro and hobbyist Amiga users are more likely to use emulation on x86_64 hardware because it provides the compatibility and standardization (emulation of specific Amiga hardware) they desire.

AROS ARM/Pi is interesting as the hardware is more standard and very cheap. The big question is whether better 68k compatibility can be maintained in big endian mode. Without compatibility, many users will use emulation/sandboxes which only retains the old Amiga standards without moving the Amiga forward and slow emulated software can feel like a lack of software. I can see most Amiga users owning a Pi with an improved AROS ARM/Pi BE but I doubt it will be the hardware which replaces 68k retro hardware unless seamless Amiga custom chip compatibility using emulation can be integrated.

Quote:

OlafS25 wrote: Vampire does not help where exactly? It is a hardware for amiga geeks offering new features but it will not make amiga a big mainstream market again. It is a nice niche product replacing different expensive ageing hardware

I see that you have come to the same conclusion about the Vampire Apollo Core in FPGA. It does not provide the price/performance ratio to move the Amiga forward. It is a step backwards in performance for AmigaOS 4 and MorphOS users so it can't unite the Amiga community. It was the best hope to provide compatibility and performance for the Amiga though. Turtle mode wait states or decreasing the clock frequency of cores can provide the right speed for games, Enable/Disable and Forbid/Permit CPU instructions could easily pause execution on other cores for SMP and perhaps even a protection ring could provide security on AmigaOS without breaking compatibility. The flexibility of custom hardware is amazing with the limitation in this case human (so much wasted time with the nose to the grind stone squeezing logic of a single core CPU into a little FPGA).

@OlafS25

Quote:

And such a modern OS would not feel much amiga-like anymore...

I think that's right. A thoroughly modern update of AmigaOS would be a lot more like macOS or Linux than it is now, and a lot of people wouldn't like that at all.

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@bison

macOS is getting more like iOS by the year and ALL desktop OSes seem to want to be more like phone OSes! AmigaOS is a breath of fresh air to be honest. If you just want something to open programs and not update every 30 minutes then AmigaOS 3.9 is hard to beat!

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

@bison

Quote:

A thoroughly modern update of AmigaOS would be a lot more like macOS or Linux than it is now, and a lot of people wouldn't like that at all.

I think a lot of that depends on what people mean by "modern."

AmigaOS was already modern in a lot of ways back in the 80s. A lot of the ways it's not modern now can probably be done without making it feel like macOS or Linux. That would also break a lot of compatibility.

It reminds me of something Bjarne Strousroup has said about the development of C++. I can't find it right now, but it's along these lines: Lots of people have tried to invent a language to replace C++, and they'll start by adding or removing some feature, but as time goes by they find that for the sake of convenience or expressiveness or efficiency or safety they have to add or subtract this, that, or the other feature, and before they know it they just have C++ with different syntax.

Of course, that just proves we should be using Ada, since C++ has spent 35 years turning C into an ugly form of Ada, but never mind that. The point is that once people were done turning Amiga into everyone's ideal platform, you'd probably have something like Linux or Windows or macOS.

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@BigD

Quote:

macOS is getting more like iOS by the year and ALL desktop OSes seem to want to be more like phone OSes!

I don't agree that that's true about Linux, and I don't know about Windows, but it's definitely true about macOS, where every new release seems to disable some Very Useful Functionality (TM) and replace it with a different one Just Because We're Apple and We Can (TM).

I'm still sore about Preview's Command+Shift+S ("Save As...") turning into Command+D, which does something completely different, wastes memory pointlessly, and still doesn't "Save As..." unless you Command+S. Likewise the decision to change the meanings of function keys. Or the constant breaking of the development environment if you aren't using whatever the latest fashionable language/framework that has become fashionable at Apple.

_________________
I've decided to follow an awful lot of people I respect and leave AmigaWorld. If for some reason you want to talk to me, it shouldn't take much effort to find me.

@simplex

Quote:

I don't agree that that's true about Linux, and I don't know about Windows,

Doesn't Windows 10 still have phone type 'tiles' in the Start Menu by default despite Windows Phone being a dead phone platform?

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

@broadblues

Quote:

Clearly, a rainbow checkmark renders less well in black and white than a two colour checkered boing ball. Even in grey scale it would be clumsey.

And yet a double checkmark in monochrome works really well and stylishly!

Last edited by _Steve_ on 21-Nov-2018 at 11:34 PM.

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

@BigD
I always loved the checkmark, it is timeless and with decent marketing would have been easily recognizable and a checkmark is usually a positive thing in ones mind.

The rainbow colours was great back then now where everything is 32bit it doesn't say that much but it clearly can work without the many colours.

The Amiga technologies logo was terrible, worst of the worst and the boing ball more suitable for a console IMO.

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@kolla

It seems that the Vampire is a bit less than twice as fast as the Blizzard in term of Dhrystones.

SysInfo Results for A1200 with Blizzard 1260

SysInfo Results for A600 with Vampire v2.1

So, in conclusion and simplifying slightly: a Vampire is twice as cheap and twice as fast as a Blizzard 1260 while maintaining compatibility

PS. I wonder if SysInfo works on Amiga NG hardware and if someone could produce such screenshots for it running on, say, a X1000, a X5000, and some MorphOS-capable hardware?

Last edited by tygre on 21-Nov-2018 at 04:27 AM.
Last edited by tygre on 21-Nov-2018 at 04:26 AM.
Last edited by tygre on 21-Nov-2018 at 04:25 AM.

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Scientific Progress Goes Boing!

@tygre
SysInfo is a horrible benchmark. The code it executes is not Dhrystone code, is not typical code and is not superscalar friendly. The results are practically worthless.

The Apollo Core is roughly the same performance as a 68060 clocked at the same frequency. The Apollo Core in the Vampire has more modern memory and clocks higher than most Amiga 68060 accelerators though. A revision 6 68060 at 100MHz with modern memory will be close in performance (FPGA Arcade 68060 expansion card for example). Even my Rev 6 68060@75MHz in a CSMK3 with 50ns SIMMs wasn't far behind in performance.

@BigD

Quote:

Doesn't Windows 10 still have phone type 'tiles' in the Start Menu by default despite Windows Phone being a dead phone platform?

Point well taken. I don't use Windows, but I have seen people use it. I didn't realize that the tiles came from Windows Phone, probably because I've never seen a Windows Phone being used in the wild.

_________________
I've decided to follow an awful lot of people I respect and leave AmigaWorld. If for some reason you want to talk to me, it shouldn't take much effort to find me.

@ne_one

Quote:

If the objective is to offer an inexpensive Amiga retro experience, we're getting within firing range.

With a Vampire? Not really no, there is no cheap Vampire standalone in sight.

They could of course try to make some cheap alternative, with a cheaper FPGA, but then it is quite likely that the current Apollo Core and SAGA will not fit, or would require serious "stripping" of the core. But then one might just as well do a MiST clone and use TG68020+MinimigAGA.

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@matthey

Quote:

I disagree with Kolla that "the OS itself is the largest obstacle for software development". The biggest problem is a small, divided and shrinking Amiga user base which OS features are unlikely to fix even if the OS is modernized and free.

The biggest obstacle is lack of modern development tools for Amiga, and the fact that the OS is seriously lacking in just about everything that developers expect from an operating system today. It does not at all help that all the "important" codebase also is closed behind people who are shit scared of losing any kind of perceived ownership and control over code. You cannot really expect to recruit developers in such an environment. The best you can hope for, are embedded people and cross-development tools. But they are rarely interested the type of programs that Amiga users crave for.

Porting to Amiga is more and more becoming a nightmare, as the world is moving on, while Amiga "ecosystem" is stuck in time. If you want to port some "modern" (less than 15-20 year old) networking code, you also very often end up having to "back-port" large chunks of a TCP stack, or "re-implement like it was 1995". Just think about it - the situation is that _ALL_ IP-stack development for AmigaOS depends entirely on ONE SINGLE person! And the situation is similar for other parts of the OS.

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@matthey

Aros ARM on RPi is something different than amiga 68k, it would be something more modern running on new hardware and still keep something from the old feeling but it would not replace "classic line". For direct integration of 68k you need something like Petunia, I do not see the resources to make something like that.

I never wrote anywhere that vampire/apollo will become mainstream because it is simply unrealistic. It is niche, the question only is how big this niche might become.

Last edited by OlafS25 on 21-Nov-2018 at 11:13 AM.