Hi, while waiting for my V4 I’ working on a vision on what to do with it and I’m curious to hear what others think about it. What I’m trying to do is to set up a “real” Amiga hardware and software environment, which at the same time should be able to run modern applications.

My plan is to use an A600 wedge case + keyrah and mount the V4 + a Raspberry Pi and a wifi nic in there. The Pi would act as a wifi internet gateway, firewall and file server, serving the Vampire over ethernet and with DHCP.

Furthermore I’d like to be able start individual applications on the X server from within Workbench/Wanderer, using VNC/Rdesktop (there are a few such programs for Amiga, though getting old in the tooth) in hosted window mode. The window theme in X on the Pi should match the Amiga Workbench. By using the file server volume for saving files anything I’d work on would be accessible from both machines.

Long term vision would be to have management of the Pi Linux system more integrated in the Amiga. For example a unified App store for Amiga and Linux apps where installing a Linux apps evokes the package manager on the Pie to install the desired app. Thereafter a script sets up a short cut in Workbench for the application, which runs over VNC hosted in its own Workbench-looking X window.

Also it would be nice to see newly produced A600 cases with mounts and ports customised for the Vampire + Pi. If others like my idea I’m happy to modify it after feedback, talk to Apollo and for example the a1200.net guys and if everyone involved can agree on something maybe we can throw a kickstarter to crowd fund it. Of course the kickstarter wouldn’t just have to finance the hardware, but also some software development.

Such software can be useful for more than just people running V4 + Pi. For example anyone with an old Android phone can root it an install Linux, then connect it to the home router with USB-ethernet adapter and have the X server accessable from any Amiga on the same network. Or just tape up the Android phone in the Amiga instead of mounting a Pi.

Another suggestion, from IRC user fMuadDib, is to also throw in an “Amiga port compatibility" board (for the V4) that contains the following things all at once: 1) RTC, 2) Audio jacks, maybe including microphone IN & digitizer, 3) Serial port, 4) Parallel port, 5) Floppy disk drive interface, maybe even for external floppy, 6) Amiga keyboard interface, 7) PCMCIA, 8 ) Maybe: MIDI”.


@ealm

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ealm wrote: Hi, while waiting for my V4 I’ working on a vision on w

I stopped here.


MEGA RJ MICAL

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@ealm

What V4 lacks, is capability to boot from something else than pre-flashed SD cards with OS installations.

It would be a HUGE help if it could at least have an I/O management firmware akin to the Minimig firmwares, so it could load kickstarts, configure emulated floppy and hard drive controllers to load ADF and CD image files located on mainstream filesystems (FAT32/exFAT) on USB sticks or microSD cards - this would simplify installation, it would make it more "stand alone" etc. And this is how all other FPGA systems work, I just don't see why V4 cannot do the same. Some of the other FPGA systems even use a second tg68 instance to run this firmware, and the AC68080 is supposedly hyperthread capable and should have no problems. I sort of took it for granted that V4 would come with this capability, and was surprised (and baffled) when it turned out that it doesn't.

Last edited by kolla on 28-Apr-2020 at 11:20 PM.

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@ealm

Quote:

The Pi would act as a wifi internet gateway, firewall and file server, serving the Vampire over ethernet and with DHCP. ... Long term vision would be to have management of the Pi Linux system more integrated in the Amiga. For example a unified App store for Amiga and Linux apps where installing a Linux apps evokes the package manager on the Pie to install the desired app.

Btw - I do some of this already, using wifi capable Raspberry pi zeros and cheap Orange Pi zeros from China that I build into the Amiga boxes.

The Pi:
* rfc1918 addressed link to the Amiga over ethernet or (worst case) serial port + PPP
* runs telnetd, ftpd and rshd with permissions only from the address of the Amiga
* has rz/sz installed (for zmodem up/download via AmTelnet or Term+telser.device)
* runs tinyproxy web proxy for the Amiga, gives the Amiga access to IPv6-only http/https resources
* is IPv6 only, using DNS64/NAT64 to access IPv4-only resources
* GIT repos for Amiga stuff
* rsync server accessible from the Amiga, for example to sync above mentioned GIT repos, and do backups of the Amiga to GIT repo
* Access "cloud" resources that support webdav (Egnyte, Box)
* Access AWS S3 object stores
* fileserver exporting "cloud" resources as well as local filesystems - I use NFS, but Samba is an option

On the Amiga:
* Roadshow :)
* Script ("RPi") to run commands remotely using rsh
* Tons of shell aliases that use the above script to run commands on the Pi
* Nightly backup to the Pi using rsync
* Sync of git repos on pi to local GIT: assign, alias to pull/push repos to gitlab.com using the above mentioned "RPi" script (rsh) + ssh (on pi)
* rcp for quick up/download from Amiga Shell
* ch_NFS as NFS client to mount filesystems exported from Pi (could be smbfs)
* AmTelnet (or Term + telser.device) to log onto Pi (telnet), libraries for zmodem transfers come with Term, and also work with AmTelnet

Future projects:
* put all my Amiga systems (independent of location) on the same rfc1918 distributed VLAN, so that all my Amiga systems see each other on the same /24, regardless of whether they are at home, or at work, or on travel (FS-UAE)
* With all Amiga systems seeing each other, use Amiga NetFS (or Envoy) for accessing the other Amiga systems
* I hope to have Amiga NetFS implemented as an open source project, lightweight and "Amiga native" - to make samba/nfs redundant.
* ... ideas I can't recall right now :)

Last edited by kolla on 28-Apr-2020 at 10:22 AM.

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@kolla

Being a network "noob", I don't understand half of what you wrote in technical terms, but I would be very interested in viewing a video of what your combined Amiga & Pi Zero systems can accomplish. Are you, for example, using the combined Pi hardware to allow your Amiga systems to use any Linux software, like a web browser? Or are you only using it for accessing "cloud files" and shared files between different Amiga systems, using shell commands?

Being able to run more modern software from any Amiga system, has always interested me, but AROS hosted, just hasn't grabbed my attention completely "yet". I've got a couple of Raspberry Pi's, and one other advanced ARM SoC board that I backed through a Kickstarter project, and I would love to make use of them to enhance my Amiga experience, so this forum thread is interesting to me.

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@ealm

This is a very interesting idea, and I hope that you can, with the help of others, come up with a combined project, that is affordable, and efficient. Be careful to not allow too much "feature creep", that can kill any project, when it runs out of control. Establish exactly what it is that you are trying to accomplish, then do it in the simplest and most efficient way possible (at least that is how I see it being most likely to succeed).

Ideally, you would get support from the Apollo Team, and they would be involved in integrating your idea into future development of the Vampire V4, so that your project is not some "Hack", that is poorly supported on the Vampire.

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@amigadave

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Are you, for example, using the combined Pi hardware to allow your Amiga systems to use any Linux software, like a web browser?

You are asking if I run an X11 server on the Amiga, on which Linux X11 clients on the Pi zero can render, like for example a web browser? I can do that, but that would be a slow mess - the Amiga networking solutions are __SLOW__ by modern standards, and modern X11 clients are __BLOATED__ - especially so web browsers.

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Or are you only using it for accessing "cloud files" and shared files between different Amiga systems, using shell commands?

For accessing files in the cloud or elsewhere, for offloading data processing to pi (or "cloud compute" whatever), for doing things that borderline impossible to do on Amiga due to limitations in OS and/or hardware... for example using programming languages and programs that simply don't exists for Amiga (git, kubectl, docker, python, ruby ...)

Last edited by kolla on 29-Apr-2020 at 11:59 AM.

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kolla wrote: What V4 lacks, is capability to boot from something else than pre-flashed SD cards with OS installations. It would be a HUGE help if it could at least have an I/O management firmware akin to the Minimig firmwares, so it could load kickstarts, configure emulated floppy and hard drive controllers to load ADF and CD image files located on mainstream filesystems (FAT32/exFAT) on USB sticks or microSD cards ...

I didn't knew this, I thought it should have more option than Minimig.

Harddrives or ADFs on USB sticks are a 'must' especially if you don't have other connectors for external media, I would be surprised if Ethernet + Samba works. You should have some benefit over a Minimig if you are investing 500€.

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amigadave wrote: ... I would be very interested in viewing a video of what your combined Amiga & Pi Zero systems can accomplish. Are you, for example, using the combined Pi hardware to allow your Amiga systems to use any Linux software, like a web browser?...

Yes as much as you can drill a hole in your knee and smear some mustard in it ....

Using a RasPI4 as an Amiga replacement is much more useful than an RasPI as Amiga enhancement.

Last edited by OneTimer1 on 29-Apr-2020 at 02:22 PM.

@kolla

Quote:

kolla wrote: @amigadave Quote: Are you, for example, using the combined Pi hardware to allow your Amiga systems to use any Linux software, like a web browser? You are asking if I run an X11 server on the Amiga, on which Linux X11 clients on the Pi zero can render, like for example a web browser? I can do that, but that would be a slow mess - the Amiga networking solutions are __SLOW__ by modern standards, and modern X11 clients are __BLOATED__ - especially so web browsers. Quote: Or are you only using it for accessing "cloud files" and shared files between different Amiga systems, using shell commands? For accessing files in the cloud or elsewhere, for offloading data processing to pi (or "cloud compute" whatever), for doing things that borderline impossible to do on Amiga due to limitations in OS and/or hardware... for example using programming languages and programs that simply don't exists for Amiga (git, kubectl, docker, python, ruby ...)

Again, I say that I would be very interested in seeing what and how you are doing this, with your combined Classic Amiga system, and the Pi Zero, or Orange Zero SoC boards. You are actually booting up an Amiga that can then use the Pi Zero to run programming environments for programming languages that have not been ported to the Amiga, I'm guessing in a shell window on the Amiga Workbench (or even from the shell without Workbench even being loaded), that talks to the Pi Zero back and forth. Then you even send a compile command to the Pi Zero, but can access the completed executable file from either system, on a shared drive of some type. Am I getting closer to understanding what you are doing?

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@OneTimer1

I have no idea what drilling a hole in my knee and smearing mustard in it means, though at times I have been tempted to drill holes in both knees, if it would relieve the pain that comes and goes.

I agree that recent advances in running an emulated Amiga on a Raspberry Pi, and the speed increase of the RPi4 over the RPi3 and earlier, do make for a very useful Amiga experience, it's still not quite the same as firing up an original Commodore Amiga system. Which is why so many users are still tinkering with their 30 to 35+ year old Amiga computers, and why some people continue to add hardware to enhance their capabilities. Using a Pi Zero, or similar hardware device to enhance the Amiga is no different in my eyes, than adding an accelerator card to my Amiga. Of course I accept a much broader definition of what an acceptable Amiga experience is than most people.

I like it all.

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@amigadave

Quote:

amigadave wrote: ... would be very interested in seeing what and how you are doing this, with your combined Classic Amiga system, and the Pi Zero, or Orange Zero SoC boards. You are actually booting up an Amiga that can then use the Pi Zero to run programming environments for programming languages that have not been ported to the Amiga, I'm guessing in a shell window on the Amiga Workbench (or even from the shell without Workbench even being loaded), that talks to the Pi Zero back and forth. Then you even send a compile command to the Pi Zero, but can access the completed executable file from either system, on a shared drive of some type. Am I getting closer to understanding what you are doing?

Yes, quite correct understanding. I don't really use it for cross compiling binaries for Amiga, though that is obviously also quite possible. This is really nothing different from what we did in the "old days" using Amiga as desktop computer and some Linux/unix server remotely through telnet and rsh, only now the remote server is tiny enough to fit inside the Amiga casing.

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