AA3000+ DSP emulation
 

Hi would there be any interest / plans to add support for the DSP on the AA3000+ to WinUAE?

it seems that the guys have got it to do some actual work

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2OoPYBlc-2A

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Usual requirement for emulating something that does not "exist" or is not really Amiga hardware: there must be existing license compatible DSP chip emulation.

The dsp does not work correctly or reliably at the moment, so any thoughts of emulating it are rather premature.

AFAIK instabilities are due to hardware interface between Amiga side and DSP not being stable/correct.

Emulation does not care and would work correctly :)

It is not yet detemined whether the patched PAL equations are correct, or whether the lack of DMAC04 registers will be an issue going forward, so i'd give it a few more months before we pop the cork :)

And whilst the devtest and mandel are great, i hope we see something a little more complicated before we call it a victory :D But progress so far for only a few months is remarkable!

What does Johnny the Monkey think bout this DSP chip?

I think MAME has very basic dsp32 emulation and dsp16, but i guess that would be kind of useless.

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Does Imagine or Lightwave use the math libraries? If there were DSP drop in math libraries would that be a good speed test for the DSP?

Is it possible to use the DSP as a modem, if so what speed modem do you think the DSP could decode?

Wanted to know if the DSP chip would of been cheaper then a modem back in the day.

you would have to look at how the apple quadra 660AV and 860AV implemented the dsp3210 to get the answers to those questions, but I doubt we will ever see such uses for the Amiga even if the dsp is made fully funcational, simply because who would integrate the dsp into the amiga OS, and who would write the functions to use the dsp for maths heavy tasks in 3d renders? I suspect we might see a decoder for mp3s for use in say amigaamp, but even that willl be a significant piece of work.

The quadra on-board dsp and the nubus dsp cards could be used in photoshop and with quickdraw, and i assume in some audio applications maybe?

If you're interested in the dsp then sign up for an A1K forum account and read the DSP development mega-thread on there. it's over 1000 posts long at the moment and still going strong.

A long time ago.. (more than a decade, I'm sure), Jens was doing some stuff with delfina.library.. It uses a different DSP but if I'm not mistaken, there was open source code.
Ok so 2 different DSPs but maybe similar enough so that it would make sense to start by looking at what is already done in terms of utilizing a DSP to decode mp3 under Amiga OS.

The Video Toaster Flyer also had a great onboard DSP that was not taken advantage of by other Amiga applications. Since that is more widespread, was released, sold in good numbers, and is documented. Maybe support should be added for this DSP?

Uh, no. DSPs are extremely complex and every DSP is more or less totally different.

Also the problem with the Flyer is that it runs its own custom embedded OS, so you will need to use its interfaces, if available, to get access to the DSP.

@gulliver

Not being a programmer myself I can't answer the question of how to use interfaces. The developer documentation is available free from the link below.

http://discreetfx.com/DeveloperManuals.html

As far as DSP hardware and Amiga is concerned. Is there a modern best selling external DSP that can be used by the Amiga if the right drivers are made?

Don't hijack this thread. Topic clearly says AA3000+.

Sorry about that Toni, it won't happen again. I have an Amiga interest in DSP technology and didn't realize at first that this thread is specific to an unreleased Amiga and its proprietary DSP chip. It's interesting to note that Apple also used this DSP in some of its Macintoshes from that era. It does not seem that the DSP benefited that market either even though it was released.

That may be because it was restricted to the very highest of high end Quadra machines. If every Mac of the time period had been fitted with one, things may have turned out differently.

That said, i've no idea what the volume pricing of the chips was back then. But, just think what might have been possible if every A1200 could have been supplied with one inside it... :crying

However, it seems to me that adding emulation of it, in principle at least, would be within the scope of a fully complete Amiga emulator. The hardware did and indeed does exist, after all. Just not in mass produced quantities.

I guess it's unlikely to ever happen, but I'd love to see it included in WinUAE. Just so I could have a go at programming the thing.

B

@Old_Bob

It's up to Toni if he wants to include something like this. I like your idea of it being built into every A1200 back then. It might have been a more widespread opportunity for the DSP to get some use by developers in the early 1990s.

The 3000+ was canceled and replaced by A4000. If the DSP would have been included in any Amiga it would have been in the A4000. Someone apparently decided the A4000 would have no DSP.
I can't see commodore adding a DSP to their low end computer. The more expensive Falcon with its 030 + 56001 DSP didn't do well in terms of sales...

Btw it's really impressive that he got the Mac code running on the DSP and who knows what limitations we're looking at here.. (Architectural or unoptimized software) but I was surprised to see the 060 beating the DSP in mandelbrot.
Its likely this chip would have been utilized for audio 90% of the time..
(Apple eventually also used it as a fast modem AFAIK)