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Supporting the OPEN SOURCE AMIGApage  1 2 3 4 5 

Thierry Atheist

Posts 644
15 May 2017 10:36


I'm completely baffled.

It'll be like "crippleware".

What are the people making Minimig (4 megs), FPGA Arcade (64 megs) and MiST (? megs) supposed to do with this?

Without the FPU, AMMX and custom 64 bit CPU instructions.... will S-AGA be of any use? A 25-40 MHz 68030 CPU output combined with S-AGA, will that make for any kind of enhanced performance and/or user experience? Imagine, who will write programs for a tier of AMIGA between Vampire (with 128 Megs as baseline) and 4 to 64 megs S-AGA????

Again, it's about fragmentation.

I'm not trying to be a FUDer or troll by bringing this up, but really, can the others gain anything by it, even at all?


Saladriel Amrael

Posts 166
15 May 2017 10:49


I understand what you mean Thierry, but on the other side of the coin there is the same thing that made PCs what they are today:
They could be built by anyone, not just by one company.
That means fragmentation, yes. That might mean pain in the a$$ for developers. But that also means quantity, competition and freedom of choice for buyers. That can also mean collaboration between all the FPGA Amiga branches and, if it happens, could paradoxically mean LESS fragmentation than ever.

As for now I see it as a brave and risky move, but a very good one.


Thierry Atheist

Posts 644
15 May 2017 11:12


Hi Saladriel Amrael,

Many people believe that that (what you support) is the right way forward.

Those 2 paths have been debated for hundreds of years, nothing new at all.

I know this though, when knock offs of Rubik's Cube came out, while Rubik's Cubes' original makers priced their's extortionately, the knock offs were (ahem) GARBAGE. The stickers came off and rotating the sections, EVEN WHEN NEW weren't as fluid as the original, and started grinding, mere weeks after owning. I bought a few "different brands" and heck, wouldn't be surprised if all of them came from the SAME assembly line! Same thing happened with Slime, as well, I think! (I'm pretty sure there was a knock off of that too.) That was traumatic for me. :-(((

At any rate, "Pandora's Box" has been opened, we'll see what happens.

Doesn't change my plans of getting the Apollo made board.


Geoff Reynolds

Posts 8
16 May 2017 04:45


If you're concerned about the open-sourcing of SAGA, I'd suggest looking at the example of Linux vs UNIX. Back in the day, UNIX was huge and closed, and Linux was tiny and open. Now Linux dominates and looks unstoppable. There are parallels here with the current situation in Amigaland.

Open sourcing SAGA is a bold and generous move, which I believe gives the platform the best possible chance of success. The Amiga cannot afford to suffer any more impediments.


Thierry Atheist

Posts 644
16 May 2017 05:01


And others can grab what is good about S-AGA and put it to use in nVidia cards or custom PCIe cards, and run it using linux, mac or win-dos.... and I'm SURE we'll benefit from THAT!!!!

And Team Apollo Core and Amiga Community get SFA.


David Eriksson

Posts 8
16 May 2017 07:47


Thierry Atheist wrote:

And others can grab what is good about S-AGA and put it to use in nVidia cards or custom PCIe cards, and run it using linux, mac or win-dos.... and I'm SURE we'll benefit from THAT!!!!
 
And Team Apollo Core and Amiga Community get SFA.

Not that that is likely to happen, but I don't see what we would loose if that was to happen. It's not like we are loosing anything if others benefit from what we've got.


Kolbjørn Barmen
(Needs Verification)
Posts 219/ 2
16 May 2017 08:11


Thierry Atheist wrote:

And others can grab what is good about S-AGA and put it to use in nVidia cards or custom PCIe cards, and run it using linux, mac or win-dos.... and I'm SURE we'll benefit from THAT!!!!

Yes, we would. Why don't you see that?


Olaf Schoenweiss

Posts 690
16 May 2017 09:20


there was critisizm about Apollo-project creating a kind of new monopoly on the amiga market and by open sourcing and using Aros as OS I think it takes away that from the discussions. Thierry again talks nonsense... :-)

no big graphic card producer needs support or using any S-AGA components but at least in theory somebody supporting amiga could create a kind of clone using available components (I think there is f.e. TG68 for CPU). And even if Gunnar and the team would stop development someobdy else could take the torch.


Michal Warzecha

Posts 209
16 May 2017 10:10


Yes, and No. If somehow Gunnar and team stop support project and then make it open- it's ok. But if some other "power team" start developing this in another way- it can split community again like in 68k/PPC, WarpOS/PoweUP, AOS4 and MorphOS etc etc.


Olaf Schoenweiss

Posts 690
16 May 2017 10:26


we discuss now something that is only theorie, the same on aros-exec where one person not contributing anything instead starting a discussion about legality of aros...

How many VHDL developers are available in community and willing to start that? We should not create problems where no exist in reality


Olaf Schoenweiss

Posts 690
16 May 2017 10:29


Michal Warzecha wrote:

Yes, and No. If somehow Gunnar and team stop support project and then make it open- it's ok. But if some other "power team" start developing this in another way- it can split community again like in 68k/PPC, WarpOS/PoweUP, AOS4 and MorphOS etc etc.

there were discussions about gunnar creating a monopoly in market, of course with bad goals, open sourcing core components like S-AGA is a good move to counter that. In reality it will not change anything, the only difference people with dev software could download it and look at it, in best case more people might become interested.


Wawa T

Posts 695
16 May 2017 10:33


my god, all kinds of apocalyptic scenarios painted on the wall in advance.. you guys enjoy stiring pot and spreading paranoid fud about non issues? is that what you are here for?


Andrew Copland

Posts 113
16 May 2017 10:45


Thierry Atheist wrote:

And others can grab what is good about S-AGA and put it to use in nVidia cards or custom PCIe cards, and run it using linux, mac or win-dos.... and I'm SURE we'll benefit from THAT!!!!

You are mad if you think there's anything, that anyone commercial needs from SAGA.

I'm sure SAGA is a good implementation but it's an implementation of well known and existing features that modern GPUs and hardware have done in the past already.


Andrew Copland

Posts 113
16 May 2017 10:46


Please stop the paranoid, mad, s**t stirring.


Wawa T

Posts 695
16 May 2017 10:53


btw WarpOS/PoweUP, cgx and p96, os4 and morphos, mui ... all these splits happened exactly because the standards and implementations were closed to begin with. if they were open people might have cooperated isntead to reinvent the wheel.

atheist has completely derailed natami forum single handedly. now he works his way here. go figure..


Olaf Schoenweiss

Posts 690
16 May 2017 11:31


he is mad with a long history. We should ignore him


Aksel Andersen

Posts 120
16 May 2017 12:09


Thierry Atheist wrote:

    And others can grab what is good about S-AGA and put it to use in nVidia cards ....
   

   
    You.. must... be... joking?!?
   
 
  edit: This forum could need an active moderator to remove static like this.. it's hard to reccomend this forum to former Amigans when this babble and hype is all over the place..
   


Marlon Beijer

Posts 182
16 May 2017 12:28


Aksel Andersen wrote:

Thierry Atheist wrote:

    And others can grab what is good about S-AGA and put it to use in nVidia cards ....
   

   
    You.. must... be... joking?!?
   
   
    edit: This forum could need an active moderator to remove static like this.. it's hard to reccomend this forum to former Amigans when this babble and hype is all over the place..
   

They were going to switch to a more modern forum  (the apollo-accelerators forum), but people tend to go here instead because none of the proper people are there to answer questions.


Ian Parsons

Posts 230
16 May 2017 12:31


I expressed some concerns when the idea of opening SAGA was discussed some time ago on IRC. The Vampire has been about raising the bar of entry level Amiga systems. If anybody can use SAGA to build a system or accelerator the minimum processor power, instruction set and memory of a SAGA system cannot be guaranteed. This could lead to further "splits" (e.g SAGA/020 and SAGA/080AMMX versions or even variants in like "SAGA2", "SAGAXYZ"). If opening SAGA is successful in spreading to other devices it will introduce yet more variation into the classic Amiga community and if not adopted then what is the point?

In reality I'm not sure if anybody else will adopt SAGA, without the power of an Apollo class CPU would there be any point? Minimig hasn't seen any real hardware development for years (the Acube Minimig+ seems to be vaporware), I've not seen any signs of a "MiST2" yet and I'm not sure if the Cyclone II they currently use could handle SAGA (whatever SAGA ends up including) other Minimig variants like MCC and Chameleon are all focused purely on the retro market. The FPGA Arcade Replay is the other current player, mikej has said

  "I've no idea what SAGA is? If it's documented / open source then potentially, I see it as a 3rd party add-in to the original machines, much like an RTG graphics card.

I'm trying to model the original hardware/CPU as accurate as possible. Additions I have made, such as expanding the address range of chipset memory pointers for example, are configurable.

I'm spending time working on a Slower CPU which is more accurate
(and the rasp pi compute module running just CPU emulation)"

Wider adoption of SAGA will likely rely on compatible software (non-RTG) existing, if SAGA software expects an 68080AMMX processor then there won't be any software for third party SAGA adopters unless they can either do it themselves or get the authors to support there CPU choice.

So chances of this dragging down the SAGA platform to a lower common denominator or creating more divides are probably pretty slim. So what are the advantages if any of opening SAGA? Well more eyes on the design could help spot bugs, find better solutions/optimisations, experiment with potential new features and ensure documentation for coders can be complete and accurate.


Aksel Andersen

Posts 120
16 May 2017 12:31


*Deleted*

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