 Documentation about the Vampire hardware |
| Vampire V4 and Atari ST... Baby Steps! | page 1 2 3 4
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Greg Thomas
Posts 24
07 Dec 2018 08:52
| I'm imagining merging Amiga + Atari + Mac 68K onto one display. The idea being that all the important hardware would be present in all of them. Something like Amiga Falcon which runs Mac software. So I'm wondering what the common hardware would need to be that its an upgrade for everyone. And then what would be required on the software side for these programs to live side by side on the same GUI. The other elements I was keeping to myself were early PalmOS which ran on Dragon 68K chips and BeOS (now as FOSS HaikuOS). I'm figuring out the hardware, so that I can figure out if the software side is possible. Foundational elements of AROS and EmuTOS/MINT inserted into HaikuOS along with Object Oriented Rexx or Network Rexx, Python, OpenGL or similar, etc. But perhaps EmuTOS is sufficient? Touchy software like games can be run in emulation windows like UAE, Shapeshifter and MAME where they think they are running 'on the real thing'. They should have familiar 'real' (softcore) hardware so the emulation is extremely simple and efficient. The idea being to have everything available now, and more. Apollo guys are already doing most (maybe already all?) of what is necessary on hardware side. Each computer with an Apollo Vampire accelerator would be able to do this on the software side. First step would be getting Atari ST software working on another OS like Workbench. Though workbench doesn't have memory protection, Haiku does. But what needs to be figured out is what hardware is required, and what can be modernised. So what do you end up with in hardware?
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OneSTone O2o
Posts 159
09 Dec 2018 08:39
| You will have some hardware adress conflicts between Amiga, Atari and Mac chipsets. Atari and Amiga adresses seems to avoid each other for most functions, except for Atari IDE interface which is somewhere in Amiga chipset adress range, but I don't know for mac chipsets. Other thing will be interrupt sources from these chipsets. Software would have to be modified to test if interrupt comes from Amiga, Atari or Mac chipsets. Better doing an all in one machine based on full software emulation based on Linux. Run UAE, Hatari/Aranym and Sheepshaver/Basilisk on a Rapi 3/4 and it would be faster than any original or FPGA based hardware. For running Atari software integrated on Amiga-OS you would need some runtime environement / translator / wrapper software which translates GEM/TOS/MiNT system calls to Amiga-OS system calls. Something similar like Wine does for Windows apps on Linux. Nothing you can do in hardware.
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Greg Thomas
Posts 24
09 Dec 2018 11:53
| GEM is a pretty poor UI. I'm imagining with SAGA added to Atari that they could run something like Haiku-OS with an API-wrapper on it. That way they would have all things they have now, but with a far superior GUI.
I'm imagining that down the track AROS and Haiku could be merged so as to make a superior system with advantages of Amiga inserted into Haiku as the new WorkBench.
With Vampire, Atari could run Atari, Amiga and BeOS software. Perhaps Palm-Pilot too.
Haiku has pre-emptive memory protected multi tasking with POSIX compliance which would grant all the advantages of MiNT.
Though Haiku would take up far more resources than TOS, on a Vampire card they would have so much to play with that they would be way ahead.
Haiku just needs "public-screens" added which Amiga has.
If Mac System 9 compatibility can be added then Atari's can also run MS Word 5.1 on their computers as a native program along with Deluxe Paint and any other Amiga software they would like to use.With an API-wrapper type system, system legal programs should not be aware of the different address ranges. Some lower level hardware programs like games however might need a more full on UAE style of emulation. Though we'll also have MAME for games... so we can just play the best version of which ever game we want to play. Perhaps a better version than we remember ;-)
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OneSTone O2o
Posts 159
09 Dec 2018 19:31
| BS... You only see little green desktop of TOS 1.0 and says MiNT is simple... Wrong. There is no Atari software which would be comaptible with Haiku, nobody will rewrite it. BeOS is PPC or x86 based OS, no support for M68K, so can not run in Vampire. And ontop TOS and Amiga OS based software woule need to be rewitten to run in BeOS. Atari does not need MS-Word, there is Signum, Wordplus, That's Write and Papyrus, and if you love MS, you can give MS-Write for Atari a chance... Yes, that exists... Deluxepaint is availabe for Atari but if you habe seen Photoline you don't want the Amiga classic painter anymore. Hardware can not be hidden by API wrapper, that would need hardware abstraction layer as Windows does for any kind of hardware driver plus some kind of DreictX -like API, software needs to be changed to use driver or API instead of direct hardware access, and it needs PMMU, no PMMU in Apollo Core yet, more software overhead, system becomes slower at same clock speed, it would not be anymore the machine we love for it's simplicty and effectivity.
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Vojin Vidanovic
(Needs Verification)
Posts 1916/ 1
10 Dec 2018 05:45
| Or in short, biggest advance towards SEPARATED use of Mac, Atari and Ammiga m68k software would be a m68k MMU active in some v4 core. Even then, as ston explains, use from one OS and core boot would be hard to do. So use em all, just reboot is fine with me.
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Gunnar von Boehn
(Apollo Team Member)
Posts 6214
10 Dec 2018 08:38
| Greg Thomas wrote:
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I'm imagining merging Amiga + Atari + Mac 68K onto one display.
...Touchy software like games can be run in emulation windows like UAE, Shapeshifter and MAME where they think they are running 'on the real thing'.
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Shapeshifter and MAME are very different. Shapeshifter runs the MAC Software very fast - with relative low overhead.
Shapeshifter creates an environment in which MAC software can run on the AMIGA HW. This is very close to your "original" goal.
In Shapeshifter MAC programs run "native" on the 68080 CPU. MAME on the other hand emulates a whole system, it emulates a CPU
and GFX and AUDIO chipsets. MAME is very slow. I think what you want is actually Shapeshifter, and something very similar for ATARI.
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Szyk Cech
Posts 191
10 Dec 2018 14:07
| Hi Gunnar!!!
Good to know you are still alive!
Are you still working on Apollo?!?
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Gunnar von Boehn
(Apollo Team Member)
Posts 6214
10 Dec 2018 15:48
| Szyk Cech wrote:
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Are you still working on Apollo?!?
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We develop every day. As you know APOLLO is very mature. Our current development focus is the V4-Standalone system.
We have recently worked on this list of items:
- support for USB-Mouse,
- support for USB-Keyboard,
- Improvement of AGA.
- enablement of 11 MB chipmem and 500 MB fastmem
- Improvement of the Apollo Hardware FPU
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Matthew Langtry
Posts 199
10 Dec 2018 16:32
| Is v4 standalone and a500 variant's Scheduled for 2019 early first quarter Release or undecided yet?
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Vojin Vidanovic
(Needs Verification)
Posts 1916/ 1
10 Dec 2018 20:38
| Gunnar von Boehn wrote:
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- Improvement of the Apollo Hardware FPU
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Very nice "ongoing" list. How fast/precise full V4 FPU will be compared to e.g. V2 current one, or older 040/060 FPUs ?
Full FPU speed use would need a recompile?
How it would behave with unoptimized - 881/882 code
Once this list is done and Standalone (and V4) ready, could some future revisions add Apollo PMMU ability to emulate m68k MMU (or other MMMU related trick) to enable Enforcer, MMU related OS3 tools, m68k Linux, easier Atari/Mac compatibility? Even with speed penalty.
Thats all, hope to see standalones in 2019!
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OneSTone O2o
Posts 159
10 Dec 2018 21:41
| Abyhow, I like to remind you, that this is the thread about Vamp (still not!) boots in ST mainboard and runs TOS/GEM applications.
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Tim Trepanier
Posts 132
11 Dec 2018 00:59
| Gunnar von Boehn wrote:
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Our current development focus is the V4-Standalone system.
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Sounds like the Standalone comes before the A1200 version.
I thought the A1200 version was coming first.
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Greg Thomas
Posts 24
11 Dec 2018 03:07
| Tim Trepanier wrote:
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Gunnar von Boehn wrote:
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Our current development focus is the V4-Standalone system.
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Sounds like the Standalone comes before the A1200 version.
I thought the A1200 version was coming first.
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Hopefully they have chosen the path will make more money (resources to keep development going and make happier developers) for ongoing development, so as to bring the Amiga back from the dead. Hopefully we shall see all versions within 6 months. Now they have put the prices up, they will hopefully be able to start streamlining their development to the point of keeping extra boards on the shelf instead of users having to wait months for the next production run. Their effots to keep prices down are very admirable, but now we see the benefit of them making a bit of a profit too. Standalone with Super AGA, Atari Videl, 56001 DSP while continuing to develop the Apollo 68080 will be great, especially if development contributions from end users are made possible! ;-)
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Edro Ferreira
Posts 21
12 Dec 2018 00:13
| On Vampire V4 will it be possible to run Mister cores?
I mean, remove existing core and use other cores and return back to vampire when we want.
Why do I ask this? I think vampire V4 is much more like what mister should be, with all outputs and old joystick support.
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Eric Gus
Posts 477
12 Dec 2018 04:09
| Edro Ferreira wrote:
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On Vampire V4 will it be possible to run Mister cores?
I mean, remove existing core and use other cores and return back to vampire when we want.
Why do I ask this? I think vampire V4 is much more like what mister should be, with all outputs and old joystick support.
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Exceptionally unlikely .. the Mister is designed around a specific board the DE-10 Nano, the Vampire uses its own board and the core dev guys seem pretty focused on that.
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Vojin Vidanovic
(Needs Verification)
Posts 1916/ 1
14 Dec 2018 08:48
| oneSTone o2o wrote:
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Abyhow, I like to remind you, that this is the thread about Vamp (still not!) boots in ST mainboard and runs TOS/GEM applications.
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Gunnar started the V2/V4 craze, people are hungry for Vamp news, tend to forget its ever evolving process, not a soon to come ffinished product (yet).
So true. What do we need to improve the current MINT condition? Improved SAGA VIDEL driver - I remember Vamp V2 lacked only there to Falcon 060 / FireBee.
Also, what kind o video modes/blitter support in V4 would improve "Classic" ST/TT compatibility for games and apps? Sadly, even Vamp did not bring MIDI as standard to Amigaland.
Or lets see what we have (my assumptions, please correct):
- Basic ST/MMint gfx modes and basic VIDEL driver
- EmuTOS in form of Amiga KS,MapROM compatible
- There is a support for FAT16 and ST partitions, but MINT cant see Amiga partitions and vice versa
- 080 works like charm but nothing is AMMX optimized
- Mint and AES are 040 generic but work fast a recompile could do even more magic
- TCP/IP in MINT needs to see V2/V4/Amiga classic solutions
- Some apps are shipped with distro but We need best possible bundle of MINT apps
-There is no ST/TT/Falcon sound yet! Silence!
- We see experiments with V2 in ST/STE that could use onboard chips and MIDI to override some of restrictions Amiga users have
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