 Information about the Apollo CPU and FPU. |
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Roger Shimada
Posts 30
07 Dec 2016 02:45
| Matthew Sparby wrote:
| | Could the Apollo CPU be adapted as a drop-in replacement for the 68030 or 68040 in NeXT or Sun3x workstations? |
There are no plans to create a Motorola compatible MMU so there is no point. After listening to interviews with Gunnar, I have the impression that he is only interested real time style operating systems and I can appreciate that. Asides from the hardware issues, it's likely someone would have to patch kernels for a different processor. I don't think there is much interest in a fast running vintage *IX system - and I own a 3B1 (10Mhz 68010).
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Alan Haynes
Posts 140
07 Dec 2016 04:28
| By the time the Apollo Team get the 10,000 or so Amigan's sorted, me included. Registered my expression of interest yesterday. Was about 1,595 and today I see it is currently 1,619. Remember there is still the A1200 to come then the Stand-Alone Blow Everything Else out of the Water board. After that there will probably be about 5,000 Atarian's wanting boards then who knows what they will want to do. Probably take a holiday. However while all this is on-going the boys are learning heaps and finding new ways to streamline processes so while it may never happen nothing is guaranteed at this time as far as other hardware support is concerned.
Looks like Apollo have really opened Pandoras box.
Go Team Apollop.s They have to give some time to their families and friends. We should not be so selfish and allow them to have a life regards,
Alan from OZ
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Gregthe Canuck
Posts 274
07 Dec 2016 05:24
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Alan - And don't forget the Apollo Team can start putting everyone back on the PC upgrade treadmill. For example in a year or two once the standalone board is done who is to say there won't be a V500/V600 V3+ board? With a bigger/faster FPGA, more memory, etc...
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Roman S.
Posts 149
07 Dec 2016 06:30
| I wouldn't afraid of it too much. Honestly, what would you do with computing power increased even more? On my current PC (UAE) I don't use JIT anymore, because the OS works so fast without it... Features/connectors (USB, 3D, bluetooth serial, built-in prisma-like MHI-compliant codec) might be more interesting, though :) BTW. The PC upgrade treadmill mostly ended. My Core i7 4790K, purchased some 2 years ago, is now slightly more expensive than when I bought it (at least in Poland). And the performance increase offered by Core i7 7700K is probably not really noticeable...
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Thierry Atheist
Posts 644
07 Dec 2016 07:23
| Matthew Sparby wrote:
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Could the Apollo CPU be adapted as a drop-in replacement for the 68030 or 68040 in NeXT or Sun3x workstations?
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I would REALLY love to see a NeXT Cube with a 68060 vs. one with a 68080, because of curiosity about the Display Postscript technique that they incorporated into their OS. Other than that, don't know if it has any value. BeOS is also a possible candidate too, only out of curiosity. Probably both need an MMU, though. It seems that BeOS doesn't run on 680x0 CPUs (I though that it did), however, Haiku might be compilable and may be able to run on the Apollo Core...??? We may not have access to the AOS1.x through 3.x source code, but that's the road I'm going to stay with!
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OneSTone O2o
Posts 159
07 Dec 2016 08:37
| Wasn't BeOS on PPC and x86? I don't remember a 68k version. But a drop in replacement Vampire for 68030/40/60 systems would be quite nice... Also ATARI users could profit from PMMU support with MiNT.
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Thierry Atheist
Posts 644
07 Dec 2016 09:33
| Hi Alan, Gregthe Canuck, We get to THOSE numbers, and I strongly believe that a "critical mass" would be achieved, such that, 1,000-2,000+ Apollo Core 68080 accelerators/S-ABEEootWb's could be sold every year, indefinitely.
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Alan Haynes
Posts 140
07 Dec 2016 10:27
| Roman S. wrote:
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I wouldn't afraid of it too much. Honestly, what would you do with computing power increased even more? On my current PC (UAE) I don't use JIT anymore, because the OS works so fast without it... Features/connectors (USB, 3D, bluetooth serial, built-in prisma-like MHI-compliant codec) might be more interesting, though :)
BTW. The PC upgrade treadmill mostly ended. My Core i7 4790K, purchased some 2 years ago, is now slightly more expensive than when I bought it (at least in Poland). And the performance increase offered by Core i7 7700K is probably not really noticeable...
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What then is the problem if the Amiga/Apollo/Vampire becomes as powerful or more powerful than a PC? Why are so many afraid of that. It sounds to me like the person that said: Nobody needs more than 640k of memory.
No body needs a computer to go faster than an intel i7. Why not? Why do we strive to put limitations on other peoples creative dreams/ideas and aspirations. What would be wrong with a Vampire powered Amiga being fast enough to run Windows version 10, 15, 18 or whatever. Would some poor little rich person get their knickers in a twist because somebody came up with a better computer. We should welcome with hope and joy any attempts to break down the monopolies in the computer industry and I see the Amiga as one such possibility.
I am writing this on an i7-4820k running at 3.7ghz but why shouldn't I be able to do it on an Amiga that can run faster. Cheers from Alan_H
Australia
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Roman S.
Posts 149
07 Dec 2016 18:30
| The problem is, that at some point you need a serious software update to use this power, sometimes the OS needs to be basically rewritten, often you have to sacrifice a lot of compatibility. Those, who wanted these things with Amiga, are now playing with AmigaOS 4.x, MorphOS, or AROS for a PC. They don't need the Vampire for their systems... because their problem is the lack of modern software.
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Thierry Atheist
Posts 644
07 Dec 2016 18:42
| Roman S. wrote:
| | The problem is, that at some point you need a serious software update to use this power, sometimes the OS needs to be basically rewritten, often you have to sacrifice a lot of compatibility. |
The OS needs to be rewritten?Are you sure? I use AMOS Professional. I only saw a slow CPU as an obstacle. Well, and enhanced video output (want more colours, higher resolution screens). There was never an OFFICIAL version of AMOS released addressing AGA.... EPIC TRAGEDY!!!!! Then there's Java and Flash. Does AOS have to be rewritten to be able to do that? I know that for those to work you'd need to pay Oracle and Adobe anywhere up to probably a few million $$$ to get all of the information necessary to make it work on AMIGA OS.... :-(((
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Kolbjørn Barmen
(Needs Verification)
Posts 219/ 2
07 Dec 2016 19:11
| @Thierry
Yes. For example, AmigaOS cannot do fork() which so much modern software relies on. Why can AmigaOS not do fork()? Because on AmigaOS, there is just _one_ process, exec, and it already claims all the memory available.
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Thierry Atheist
Posts 644
07 Dec 2016 20:09
| Kolbjørn Barmen wrote:
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@ThierryYes. For example, AmigaOS cannot do fork() which so much modern software relies on. Why can AmigaOS not do fork()? Because on AmigaOS, there is just _one_ process, exec, and it already claims all the memory available.
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Hi Kolbjørn,I looked up fork() on Wikipedia, and all fork seems to do is contribute to the BANE OF ALL THINGS AMIGA, that being BLOATWARE, or rather, out of control RAM consumption, in this case.
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Kolbjørn Barmen
(Needs Verification)
Posts 219/ 2
07 Dec 2016 21:10
| Well, you said you wanted Java and Flash.
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Kolbjørn Barmen
(Needs Verification)
Posts 219/ 2
07 Dec 2016 21:13
| The most obvious platform to target for the Apollo Core are of course the Apollo computers.
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Henryk Richter
(Apollo Team Member)
Posts 128/ 1
07 Dec 2016 21:15
| Thierry Atheist wrote:
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I looked up fork() on Wikipedia, and all fork seems to do is contribute to the BANE OF ALL THINGS AMIGA, that being BLOATWARE, or rather, out of control RAM consumption, in this case.
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This BANE as you call it is actually the culmination of what the AmigaOS lacks. No memory protection, no resource tracking, no ability to scale beyond a single processor.
I'm aware of the history and reasons for this particular design decision, but I sorely miss a couple of Unix features on my Amiga. That being said, I'm happy that I have my newly refreshed Amigas to code some fun stuff on them.
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M Rickan
Posts 177
07 Dec 2016 21:52
| @thierry As performance improves and more users come back to the platform, it's inevitable that the expectations for general purpose use will arise. The novelty of having a fast 30-year-old OS will wear off quickly.
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Vincent Rivière
Posts 87
07 Dec 2016 21:56
| Kolbjørn Barmen wrote:
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The most obvious platform to target for the Apollo Core are of course the Apollo computers.
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:-D
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Thierry Atheist
Posts 644
07 Dec 2016 22:09
| m rickan wrote:
| | @thierry As performance improves and more users come back to the platform, it's inevitable that the expectations for general purpose use will arise. The novelty of having a fast 30-year-old OS will wear off quickly. |
HI, and Welcome to the 68080 Apollo Core Forum, M Rickan!!!I've always felt that what made AMIGA disappear is, obviously, 1. systems no longer for sale. (A no brainer.) Then it's 2. Slow CPU, and of course 3. slow GPU. 4. audio co-processor, no advancement. And, lack of RAM is the last straw.... I've never thought that the OS itself is really holding back progress in any way at all. If the (excellent) AOS doesn't do it, then you write code, and using assembler, nothing can stand in your way.
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Alan Haynes
Posts 140
08 Dec 2016 03:17
| Woo! Hoo!
Just checked and the orders have gone up to 1658 since yesterday so that is about 50 new orders in a day. I wonder how far it will go. Part of the reason some may be holding back is that they did not have enough faith in the team. Thinking; Oh yeah right a new accelerator for the A600 but nothing else. Now we see that all of a sudden a lot of the hype has become reality with the ordering phase now for the V2 A500 & A2000 and with several already sold on eBay to those who could not wait. what will be the case when the V2 A1200 arrives and then the stand alone.
I believe that once we get to the Vampire Amiga Stand Alone with the Arria 10 that we will get the programmers coming back who can re-write the old software to take full advantage of the Amiga re-born and probably, no almost certainly give us a new version of AOS say version 5. We actually may already be close to it as one of the Aros versions I believe is being tried on the 68080. Not sure how that is progressing.
Anyone that ever used a real Amiga for everyday use and then had to move to a PC would love to come back to an Amiga that could handle today's tasks. Anyone that thinks otherwise never really used their Amiga as the family computer. I remember helping the daughter capture some video footage to the Amiga with a genlock then adding titles and other graphics, text etc., then recording it back to vhs. She took to school as part of a presentation and blew them away. Got an A+. That was during the 90's. Just one of several things done on the real Home family PC. Oh! I hear you say that was then but this is now and you can do that on any PC today well yes you can but this is 20 years later an the PC has just caught up. Where have all the innovators gone? Give them a real computer and they will return.
Remember the great movie "Field Of Dreams?" It had a great line in it "build it and they will come"
I believe it to be true. Thierry believes it to be true also. I can tell from his positive slant on everything Amiga and I believe that many of the 1658 now waiting on their orders also believe it.Cheers from OZ
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M Rickan
Posts 177
08 Dec 2016 04:09
| @Thierry Except it's 2016 and will soon be 2017. Regardless of the CPU, GPU, audio and memory, the OS is in desperate need of support. If you wish to use the platform for nostalgic purposes it can remain as it is but otherwise it's an issue. And if you expect any sales, the roll-your-own crowd is simply too small.
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