The Vampire II has had a GOLD3 core ALPHA released!

[Dunny]

The same can be said of AMD vs Intel - if the 68080 is "emulating" the 68k, then the 68060 must also be emulating a 68k... and by extension, AMD CPUs are also emulating the Intel chips.

Since that is patently not the case, then that rule cannot also be applied to the 68080.

Hence, not emulation. 68k compatible or a 68k clone, sure. Not a true Motorola CPU, certainly. But not emulation.

[Lord Aga]

I see that EAB's national sport - Vampire Bashing - is alive and well

Rush to post a negative splat on Vampire news - check.

Accuse people of taking money from the Vampire team to post positive opinion - check.

"It turns Amiga into a glorified keyboard" - check.

"It's not real, it's emulation." - check.

You guys should really expand your repertoire a little bit. This is getting a bit old

[d4rk3lf]

Originally Posted by demolition

Yeah, I'm thinking about getting my driveway paved with gold from all the money I'm receiving from them.

Only driveway?
Look at my house dude:
https://ae01.alicdn.com/kf/HTB1d5GqJ...omatic-DIY.jpg

On topic.
Great stuff.
AGA on A500 and A600 sounds amazing. I hope they won't have many obstacles, to finish this.

[kolla]

@LordAGA
Ok, how about this, from the top of my head... Gunnar's big plan is failing.
* interest for apollo core outside Amiga is minimal/non-existing
* interest and enthusiasm for apollo core inside Amiga communities is dwindling
* coders and developers are not flocking to support apollo core
* still no support in any toolchains and compilers
* so all software support comes from the same two-three guys
* other hardware manufacturers are not interested
* prices for hardware is not as low as he wanted (and he was warned)
* becoming the new "baseline" for 68k Amiga hardware is not happening
* delays and more delays, and he used to ridicule others for delays
* core was criticised for being too tied to a specific FPGA, now struggles with porting it
...

[kolla]

Originally Posted by d4rk3lf

AGA on A500 and A600 sounds amazing. I hope they won't have many obstacles, to finish this.

It's not AGA, it's SAGA, which is aimed to be mostly compatible with AGA software.

[Tigerskunk]

Originally Posted by kolla

* interest and enthusiasm for apollo core inside Amiga communities is dwindling
* becoming the new "baseline" for 68k Amiga hardware is not happening

Don't know about your other points, but those two seem not to be my impression.

(add: meaning my impressions reading forums and especially from my visit to the Amiga32 in Neuss/Germany last year. The Vampire "booth" was definitely the hottest thing happening there and shitloads of people interested about it.)

[Lord Aga]

Trollaaaaa, me old friend me buddy me pal me ntsc!

Gunnar's problems are his own, what do we care. We just buy the cards or not. I'm still saving money and will decide sometime in future.

Say, that MiSTer card that you have which is far better than a Vampire card... Is that the card you received as a "gift" so you would crap on any Vampire thread in return? Yeah, seems like that is the one. What else will you get if you continue to derail every Vampire thread that pops up? Hm?

[OlafSch]

@kolla

What 68k amiga developers are still there doing anything? It seems they hide under the table :-) we had this discussion already on amigaworld but you always write the same things... yes I think Gunnar has good ideas regarding hardware development but no real concept regarding software development.

So in short:

* interest for apollo core outside Amiga is minimal/non-existing

What had you (or anyone else) expected? It is a amiga retro machine, not more not less. There were not many reports outside the amiga community so who outside should know of? I could imagine that the standalone device might attract some more but that has to be seen...

* interest and enthusiasm for apollo core inside Amiga communities is dwindling

How do you measure that?

* coders and developers are not flocking to support apollo core

Which coders?

* still no support in any toolchains and compilers
* so all software support comes from the same two-three guys

You are right there... one of the weaknesses of gunnar

* other hardware manufacturers are not interested

Which other hardware manufacturers should? It is a niche product for retro market. Besides, we do not know if there are talks in background or not.

* prices for hardware is not as low as he wanted (and he was warned)

yes... but compared to the high prices of the old hardware it is still good money (if you need real hardware)

* becoming the new "baseline" for 68k Amiga hardware is not happening

Baseline does not necessarily mean adapted software, it might be that people develop more demanding software that needs more resources than current hardware base (68030 + some ram). It is a individual decision.

* delays and more delays, and he used to ridicule others for delays

I do not know where he ridiculed others because of delays. Mostly he was attacked

* core was criticised for being too tied to a specific FPGA, now struggles with porting it

Where do you know both? Involved in development and you know the FPGA code?

[Glen M]

So if my A500 had a hitachi or signetics 68k processor in it does that make it an emulation box?

And another thought... if you put the 68080 core on a chip and plugged it into say the mega drive would it work?

Vampire is what it is a fast amiga replacement and the fact that it takes over the host computer means is well named but is probably necessary to achieve the speeds they are looking for but more so its because the end game is the stand alone vampire that will become the Amiga Mini that will be in every living room connected to every TV so on April 4th 2026 a bouncing ball of red and white will appear on each screen across the land and we will bow down to our vampire overlords who will take over the world muhahahahahahaaaa.

[OlafSch]

Originally Posted by Glen M

So if my A500 had a hitachi or signetics 68k processor in it does that make it an emulation box?

And another thought... if you put the 68080 core on a chip and plugged it into say the mega drive would it work?

Vampire is what it is a fast amiga replacement and the fact that it takes over the host computer means is well named but is probably necessary to achieve the speeds they are looking for but more so its because the end game is the stand alone vampire that will become the Amiga Mini that will be in every living room connected to every TV so on April 4th 2026 a bouncing ball of red and white will appear on each screen across the land and we will bow down to our vampire overlords who will take over the world muhahahahahahaaaa.

very funny... a clever comedian obviously

yes the standalone devices were what apollo core was developed for

the vampire cards were only easier to create so they were developed first

[meynaf]

Originally Posted by kolla

* coders and developers are not flocking to support apollo core

It's apollo core that should support coders and developers, not the other way around.

[OlafSch]

Originally Posted by meynaf

It's apollo core that should support coders and developers, not the other way around.

indirectly apollo core supports developers by offering more resources (even if optimized software potentially runs even faster)

[Daedalus]

I honestly don't understand why emulation is considered such a bad thing. It's already been a part of the Amiga in both hardware and software forms. For example, the 68040 and 68060 libraries emulating missing opcodes to improve compatibility is software emulation, but you could also say that at a design level at least, the 68060 is emulating the 68000, since it's not a 68000 but acts like one.

As for hardware emulation, the AGA chipset emulates an ECS chipset until put in AGA mode by flipping a configuration bit in a register, or if selected in the early startup menu. It acts like an ECS chipset, even though it's not. That's hardware emulation. It's even called emulation by Commodore themselves.

And another example, Akiko emulates many of the functions of the CIAs, allowing the CD32 to work without any actual 8520 chips fitted. Again that's hardware emulation.

See? All good, positive aspects of software and hardware emulation that have long been embraced by the Amiga community.

And conversely, saying that a 68080 *isn't* an emulator simply because it doesn't 1:1 mimic a 680x0 alone isn't a very strong argument. If it was, you couldn't really consider WinUAE to be an emulator either once you've set it to have 8MB of chip RAM. After all, what Amiga is it mimicking that was ever capable of using 8MB of chip RAM?

[AMIGASYSTEM]

Originally Posted by kolla

It's not AGA, it's SAGA, which is aimed to be mostly compatible with AGA software.

Does this mean that you will never have 100% compatibility?

[Ian]

I must say that after many reported posts some which contain valid critique in my opinion, some don't not of course.

You really need to think what you want to happen, it's clear many do not appreciate the product, the people or the promises. As there are going to be many that do.

We cannot ban everyone who says an unkind word. People are entitled to voice their opinion no matter how much it grates if it differs from your own.

I have to say though it is tiresome that all threads about the product decend into some sort of slagging match and reported post generator.

It's getting to the point when we may as well close the threads as soon as they are opened.

So I say to all concerned, stop the tit for tat nonsense currently polluting the threads. We get that several people absolutely hate the product, to those I implore you to stop. We get it.

To those reporting the posts, stop being so sensitive, some of the posts being reported are completely fine, you just don't like them which is not a valid reason to report them, heck if i did that there wouldn't be a hardware thread anywhere on the forum as they cause far more problems than any other thread.

Don't take this as the official line, this is just my own personal opinion.

If you want us to discuss this to come up with a solution let any of the gms know and we will have a virtual meeting and propose something. Ideally though you will all just calm down and resolve the issues between yourself.

[E-Penguin]

Even AGA itself isn't compatible with ECS. If everything was compatible it wouldn't be Amiga.

[kolla]

Originally Posted by Lord Aga

Say, that MiSTer card that you have which is far better than a Vampire card... Is that the card you received as a "gift" so you would crap on any Vampire thread in return? Yeah, seems like that is the one. What else will you get if you continue to derail every Vampire thread that pops up? Hm?

No, I paid for it. Though a lot less than what I paid for Vampire V600v2 and Vampire V500v2. I have them all and use them all. You say you don't even have a Vampire, so what do you know.

[meynaf]

Originally Posted by OlafSch

indirectly apollo core supports developers by offering more resources (even if optimized software potentially runs even faster)

This is not really supporting developers, as they don't care about the code just being faster - for this they can use some uae with jit.
The problem is that there were may ways to enhance the programming flexibility and what has been done is the exact opposite.

Originally Posted by Ian

It's getting to the point when we may as well close the threads as soon as they are opened.

What puzzles me is why do people still open vampire related threads, knowing how they usually end...

[OlafSch]

Originally Posted by AMIGASYSTEM

Does this mean that you will never have 100% compatibility?

100% compatibility never was first goal, if you want that use FPGA Arcade or Minimig or simple the old hardware. Gunnar always wanted to create a new better platform implementing concepts that were planned for AAA chipset and even beyond

[ShK]

This is how compiled core looks like, it's nothing but gates and wires like an any 68k CPU.

Top right is zoomed a tiny part of core: