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News of Free 060 Like Apollo Core License - True?page  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 

Gunnar von Boehn
(Apollo Team Member)
Posts 6207
13 Nov 2017 20:38


eric gus wrote:

  if you were going to release a "Stripped down" "free" version of the core,
 

 
But a free FERRARI is still not a LADA.
 
3000 people have a Vampire or want one.
I would not pay to much attention to three clueless but jealous guys.


Michal Warzecha

Posts 209
13 Nov 2017 21:02


And I think We should stop this discussion here. It's not a duty to buy Vampire, no one is pushed to do this. They somehow don't like it, but who cares? It's their choice. Apollo team is not wishing well. They want 060- they need to wait for Phase5 new father.


Vojin Vidanovic

Posts 770
13 Nov 2017 21:07


Michal Warzecha wrote:

  They want 060- they need to wait for Phase5 new father.

And get ripped off :-)

Right. I hope this space will be used to future news of free core licensing terms etc.


M Rickan

Posts 177
14 Nov 2017 02:56


Michal Warzecha wrote:

And I think We should stop this discussion here. It's not a duty to buy Vampire, no one is pushed to do this. They somehow don't like it, but who cares?

Except the whole point is that this isn't about the Vampire.

If the two projects are indeed separate entities, then the Apollo licensing opportunity is designed to appeal to entirely separate projects - making the Vampire an Apollo licensee.

The answer to everything where this is disagreement isn't to simply stifle the dialog. Investing in the FPU has proven to be a wise move. If MMU support is the remaining stumbling block then why fight it?


Mr Niding

Posts 459
14 Nov 2017 04:37


@M Rickan

Time and roadmap/priorities.

Gunnar has said before; step up and actually help, and we will help you/modify the roadmap/timeline.
Jari did exactly that, and in relativly short time we have very good/and constantly improving FPU support.

If noone else steps up, it seems like the team defaults to their roadmap, and since its them that do the hard work, it seems only fair they are the ones mapping it out.
Not a few people hammering their fists on a keyboard on some forums.


Nixus Minimax

Posts 416
14 Nov 2017 08:53


eric gus wrote:
I agree but you know as long as it has .. what did they call it.. "foreign"? design concepts they will reject it.. (I think we all know the folks we are talking about who complain most about the "non standard" additions in the 080 core )..

Actually I got a different impression. There sure are people who don't like AMMX because it's not traditional or is inspired by Intel or whatever. However, the most common argument against AMMX I see is "why spend work and resources on something that doesn't get used when the rest of the core is not fully compatible to the 060". By "compatible" they mean cycle-exact reproduction and even crashing when a 68k instruction supported by the 040 but not by the 060 is scheduled for execution.

The slightest difference in behaviour would mean "it's incompatible" to them. They think that no work should be spent on anything that is not present in the 060 and all work should be spent to model the core as closely to the 060 as possible until the two cannot be told apart by code. This would be an entirely different project and a lot of work.



Mr Niding

Posts 459
14 Nov 2017 09:02


Britelite has come with some more somber comments. He doesnt have a default anti-Vampire attitude. Nor is he bothered by new features per see. His one comment is that he is worried that routines written for legacy machines might or might not behave as expected.
Given how well demos, even requiring FPU, is running lately, I think that might be a unfounded concern.

But atleast he directly verbalize a objective concern.


Olaf Schoenweiss

Posts 690
14 Nov 2017 10:04


I do not understand why Thore and others repeat the same all the time. I explained him already f.e. that Apollo/Vampire is a project to create a new platform, not just a accellerator with some additional RAM. I can remember him writing something like unfortunately you seem to be right. Despite that new discussions again, the same topic. Gunnar himself explained it too. Hopefully this ended the discussions now. The same for the others. They had their own expectations (some seem to own vampires) and expected it to be 100% compatible in every sense and component to the old 68060 and now are crying on every forum because this is not the case. To one of them I wrote he should sell his vampire if he is not happy but he did not react. It seems he is more happy to keep it and moan about it. Weired people...


Mr Niding

Posts 459
14 Nov 2017 10:10


They now seem to belive it was their moaning that spurred on the FPU development. The fact that Jari decided to teach himself ASM by developing the SoftFPU is a part of the story they gladly neglect/forgets.
So I guess they will complain endlessly until the MMU is 100% as they want it.
And Ive just decided to stop engaging them on any level with regards to these topics.
 
Gunnar has said repeatedly that those that make genuine efforts to help developing the Core or does something that truly enhance the roadmap, will be able to affect the direction of the project.
 
But complaining takes less work.


Thierry Atheist

Posts 644
14 Nov 2017 16:46


Mr Niding wrote:
They now seem to belive it was their moaning that spurred on the FPU development. The fact that Jari decided to teach himself ASM by developing the SoftFPU is a part of the story they gladly neglect/forgets.

"For the record", as they say;

1) There always was PLANNED to be a FPU.

2) There WAS a FPU made and working for at least one year ago (I hope that's close).

3) It was deliberately withheld from release, due to, "there wasn't any algorithm available that could fully showcase it's potential" and more likely, because there weren't enough LE's available, until they optimised the Apollo Core to use a little less space, so that a partial FPU could at least be installed.

4) The Vampire 4 with the higher capacity FPGA was for certain getting that FPU that had ALREADY EXISTED for over 1 year!!!!

And a huge THANK YOU to Jari for making a FPU released earlier, rather than later.


Matthew Langtry

Posts 199
29 Jan 2019 14:05


nvm


Vojin Vidanovic
(Needs Verification)
Posts 1916/ 1
29 Jan 2019 16:32


While licensing is nice and one of possible future paths, as well as offering an "m68k" alternative one day when 040-060 CPUs simply dry out, it somewhat feels "out of window" (yet) - too early. A Vampire V4 success might bring some interestees.


Adam Whittaker
(Needs Verification)
Posts 270/ 1
31 Jan 2019 13:28


ok so after reading this all the way from the start - I have an opinion on why "Chucky" is such a d... no no I will nice - on why he is so negative about the vamp, and it is really simple... MONEY the guy upgrades peoples 040 accelorators to 060's and charges a small fortune for the pleasure, I once called him on one of his ebay or amibay sales I cant remember which but he was selling one of his "NEW" 060 cards I asked him why it was still 400 - 500 quid (again cant remember exact amount) and he said thats how much the parts cost, so I said well how come the vamp guys can do a card with a load more features and ram onboard for like 250 quid they are all new parts yet dont cost no where near as much to which he said well a real 060 is better and they are getting hard to find now hence the cost, to which I said well I wont be buying from you... I already had a Vamp 2 but I wanted to hear what bull he would spout! So yea top and bottom is the more people that by vamps the less money he makes on his overpriced gear!!! and as for licensing a shareware style apollo core that would be cool - just imagine minimigs, MISTS, and MISTers all running 080!!! NICE :P


Mike Kopack

Posts 268
31 Jan 2019 19:01


As I see it the more 080 cores that are out there with these new extensions like AMMX, the more reason developers have to compile versions specifically to take advantage of those features, the better the performance we get.  It kills me that the community is held back constantly by this insane desire to require 100% backwards compatibility of everything to the original 68000, throwing away the architectural improvements and benefits provided by the newer cores.

If Vampire and the licensed 080 core can become the new “platform” standard then we are much more likely to be able to make a break from the past - still be able to use the old software but have new software written for the new core that can do a lot more.

Personally I’d LOVE to see a new version of the Os and libraries built specifically for 080 (much like OS4 required PPC). Sooner or later we need to modernize things. Vampire gets us the Hw, next we need the SW.


Greg Thomas

Posts 24
02 Feb 2019 11:14


Mike Kopack wrote:
  If Vampire and the licensed 080 core can become the new “platform” standard then we are much more likely to be able to make a break from the past - still be able to use the old software but have new software written for the new core that can do a lot more.
 
  Personally I’d LOVE to see a new version of the Os and libraries built specifically for 080 (much like OS4 required PPC). Sooner or later we need to modernize things. Vampire gets us the Hw, next we need the SW.

Absolutely right. The new A500 standard for 2020 needs to be Apollo 68080 as we prepare our movement to 64 bit software. Standardised hardware upon which we can have a new standard of software. Once we settle down onto 64bit then we can fragment without danger. But for now its important that we try and stick together.

We're developing here in Australia a little gamer accelerator card at the moment. Beyond the basic 68000 gaming features, I'd hope to license the 68080 for the higher models.

So is this licensing true? Many of us want the fastest Amiga we can get.


Gunnar von Boehn
(Apollo Team Member)
Posts 6207
03 Feb 2019 10:52


Greg Thomas wrote:

So is this licensing true? Many of us want the fastest Amiga we can get.

 
Yes, the licensing is true.
 
But its only offered to serious people, that have a very serious plan to create hardware for many users.
 
The license is not available to "toy" projects like people that want only to try, or want just 1 single card for themselves.
 
The license comes with our education and support in using the Core.
We have very limited time to provide this support.

Therefore we provide this only to serious projects that will also benefit the users and community.
 


Matthew Langtry

Posts 199
03 Feb 2019 15:45


... I wonder what excuse you come up with next ?  ....


John William

Posts 563
04 Feb 2019 07:49


Matthew Langtry wrote:

... I wonder what excuse you come up with next ?  ....

Eh? You seem to come out hostile.

I wonder why?


Gunnar von Boehn
(Apollo Team Member)
Posts 6207
04 Feb 2019 07:56


Matthew Langtry wrote:

... I wonder what excuse you come up with next ?  ....

Matthew this forum is for asking questions and getting support.
Hostility or any insulting behavior is here not tolerated.




Gunnar von Boehn
(Apollo Team Member)
Posts 6207
04 Feb 2019 09:57


To prevent any misunderstandings.
We said this before but lets repeat it:

The "free licensing" Apollo 68080 Core is available under some conditions.

A) The core will come with bring-up support from us.
This means we will not just hand you over the core and let you with your problems in the cold.
We will help you to get to core working in your card.
We will help you do the bring-up, test it.
We will be available with online and telephone support and answer your questions.
We will assign several beta-testers from our team to this effort for you for some time.

To be able to provide this support you will have to provide us with at least 4 cards for bring-up and tests. You will also compensate =pay the testers for their hours spend.

The core comes free.
But the people helping you, have family and their time is valuable.

B)
A reasonable number of cards need to be planned to be produced.
Reasonable means it need to show us that many people will benefit from this.



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