I't's not intended to be the next "wow" ultra fast next generation Amiga hardware.

It's about maximizing the potential of the classic Amiga within OS 3.9

Just imagine having for your 1200 an all in one accelerator card with built in USB, Ethernet, AGP cards, and a processor with DVD playback capabilities and all this with just one straightforward software installation. No more need to have messy devices hanging from clockports to get ridiculously slow USB speeds..

It's a serious piece of kit considering most classic Amiga users today have had make do with what can we say "imaginative solutions" that require alot more imagination, patience and money to get runing.

How compatible it is with current 68k software we just don't know yet.
If it's able to match 060 performance for the old software that's great but even better when you consider coldfire specific applications should fly!

If you want a super lightning fast computer then get OS4 when hardware permitting.
If you want a modern and clean classic Amiga and OS get a Dragon.

SIMPLE..

Last edited by Akiko on 13-Nov-2006 at 04:24 AM.

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4000T/BFG9060
CD32/Elsat ProModule, TF360
CD32/ Edu's CD32 <> A1200 Adapter, Vampire V2
CD32/ FMV Module

couldn't be formulated better I think.

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Could any who attended or polish members post up a paraphrase of what was said in the demostration video about the dragon. Also I noticed in one of the videos that a jumper was swapped before entering early boot menu, what was the significance of that ? Is that a debug screen or will day to day operation require opening the tower and moving jumpers ?

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A1200T 603e 330Mhz - Mediator TX OS4.1 F.E.
CDTV 8MB Fast, OS3.1, SCSI, MicroSD SCSI & CD32 FMV
X5000, X1000, A1XE with OS4.1F.E.

@JurassicC

Quote:

Is that a debug screen or will day to day operation require opening the tower and moving jumpers ?

On one of the photos a "68020" jumper is visible. I am not sure if the fall-back to 68020 can also be activated through the boot-menu, but from phase5-products we know that it at least "can be done" technically. If there isn't such a software option, it shouldn't be much of an effort to wire that jumper to an external switch.

And I agree, a show report or a transcript of the videos in English would be very welcome!

Hmm.. english subtitles will be ok ?

Quote:

Hmm.. english subtitles will be ok ?

Hehe, that would be cool! Honestly, I think that many on AW and other English Amiga-related websites would appreciate it *very much* if one of the attendants could write up a small show report in English.

@akiko

The problem is that if I want a super-amigaos machine I can use Amithlon/OS4/MOS but if I want to use classic amiga I want to run everything at the maximum speed without losing compatibility: that means software should run faster than a 060/50.

About coldfire specific apps: I heard that history years ago with PowerUP and we shouldn't forget that 90% of amiga software won't be rewritten and I doubt even more than enyone decides to support Coldfire instead of OS4/MOS/AROS.


They should hire AfA's author to adapt AROS to coldfire ASAP, because ATM and looking at the videos the speed is worse than my old A3640/30Mhz...

Last edited by Crumb on 13-Nov-2006 at 01:13 PM.

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Since Coldfire is a more or less 68k compatible I do not think there need to be Coldfire specific apps. Just some software like oxypatcher will do the trick.
Back in the Phase5-days the PPC cpu did not replace the 68k cpu. But if I understood it the right way this is not the case with the dragon.

I can be completely wrong about this ?

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@JurassicC

Quote:

Could any who attended or polish members post up a paraphrase of what was said in the demostration video about the dragon.

I wasn't there but I know polish. I gathered most important things from the HW explaining videos in this post.

Quote:

Also I noticed in one of the videos that a jumper was swapped before entering early boot menu, what was the significance of that ? Is that a debug screen or will day to day operation require opening the tower and moving jumpers ?

It was so called "020" jumper that was swapped. It disables the Coldfire CPU and switches back to 020. Then they showed in this HEX editor that Dragon's flash memory (firmware) was still visible and could be flashed if needed. Of course day to day operation will not require this :D.

@Aminicle

It's not that simple. The differences between 68k and Coldfire a bit larger. The missing instructions can be emulated by adding a "illegal instruction interrupt". This is how it was done in case of 040/060. Unfortunately, Coldfire not only has missing instructions but some which are there work in a bit different way than on 68k. These cannot be catched with an interrupt. And doing it in any other way means a huge slowdown.

Last edited by yak on 13-Nov-2006 at 03:57 PM.
Last edited by yak on 13-Nov-2006 at 03:52 PM.

what do you mean with " doing it another way ? "

what possibillities are there ?

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@ all

Dragon maybe in future run nativ ColdFire Amiga system clone LINK

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last time i checked i didn't understand the language of that site... I fear that is not changed.

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Watched the movie's but i also was not impressed with the speed at all.
my 040/25 opens directory's waaaaay faster, guess that this is the main reason elbox did not release the dragon till now.

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@Aminicle

Quote:

what do you mean with " doing it another way ? "

Basicaly this means that every instruction has to be checked before it is executed in the CPU. If it is one of the instructions, that work different than in 68k then an additional code is executed to emulate the original functionality. This causes a huge slowdown since check must be performed for every instruction.

However, there may be other possibilities that I don't know about. This topic was discussed quite a lot in the past. Search AW.net and Amiga.org forums for more info.

SKOLMAN_MWS probably wanted to say that Elbox plans to use AROS compiled directly for Coldfire. I mentioned it already here. This thread also has some good points about emulating 68k on Coldfire.

Am I the only one that speaks both english and polish and wants to inform non-polish community about the Dragon?

Last edited by yak on 13-Nov-2006 at 11:04 PM.

@yak

Quote:

Am I the only one that speaks both english and polish and wants to inform non-polish community about the Dragon?

I'm afraid you are the only one who makes the effort of informing us... thank you again

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@ Kicko
I hope it gets released this year so you can enjoy it.

It might became true.
I was there and I asked them about it.
I was told they hope to manage to get the Dragon to market this year.

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I miss draggable screens in MorphOS... and do you? I know I'm in a minority unfortunately.

The main thing which concerns me is the apparent lack of a pass-through for existing accelerator cards, such as the BPPC. This effectively means that the Elbox Shark (should it ever exist) will be the ONLY ppc upgrade option, and by disabling the dragon one is reduced to the onboard 020 with no fast ram.
Should I want to play frontier, or some other game which is not coldfire-friendly, and not workbench based (assuming there is no "coldfire optimised" version released) - do I really want to do that on an 020 @14MHz with no fast ram?
I do not like the fact that buying the dragon would be removing the choice of all other existing upgrades.
Unless there is a pass-through which iI have not seen, in which case please ignore my concerns.

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Troll - n., A disenfranchised former potential customer who remains interested enough to stay informed and express critical opinions.
opp., the vast majority who voted silently with their feet.

If I remember well, Elbox does have a stand-alone pass-trough connector , it was used with ZIV boards. In the other way when you have a dragon that works fine and should the shark become available, do you really mind selling your tired BPPC and using the money for a Shark ?.

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It was only suggestion. Unfortunetly I have no time to do it... maybe later ;)