Amiga 500 Vampire is alive

[Zetr0]

@eXeler0
Should / when the AGA chipset be implemented into the core - it will be aga-compatible not "aga-emulation" in the software sense - Just like the Apollo Vampire is a 64bit 68000 compatible processor and not an emulator.

It is important to make this distinction.



@portarinos
The V500 will have a RTG graphics display - this will save precious CHIP ram when in use - however the original A500 series is stuck with only 512KB chip / 512KB other as standard - the user would need to modify the motherboard to make the most of their CHIP memory by upgrading it to 1MB.

However this wont give you the 2MB CHIP required by some software titles - in this instance until the V500 core has a unified native OCS/ECS/AGA graphics you will need to source a 2MB CHIP RAM adaptor - they exist and with demand will come a supply I am sure.

[ReadOnlyCat]

Originally Posted by Zetr0

@eXeler0
Should / when the AGA chipset be implemented into the core - it will be aga-compatible not "aga-emulation" in the software sense - Just like the Apollo Vampire is a 64bit 68000 compatible processor and not an emulator.

It is important to make this distinction.

I am just being a nitpicky bit of a kitten here but I think "not an emulator" is not the formula you are looking for here.

Technically, emulation does not mean simulation/interpretation , it just means that the behavior of the original "thingy" is reproduced, so an emulator can be as much software (MAME, UAE) than hardware (Vampire, Mist, etc.).

What we usually mean by emulator is "software interpretation" but the word has a much broader sense.The Vampire is really a 68k emulator: it emulates the behavior of a 68k+, just in hardware.

AMD CPUs are also technically emulators, but we use the term "Intel compatible processor" to be more precise, so maybe saying "68k+ compatible processor" as you did is just enough.

Maybe what you want to say is that it is not a software emulator.
Nothing wrong with being an emulator after all. It does the job so who cares?

[Dunny]

Originally Posted by ReadOnlyCat

Maybe what you want to say is that it is not a software emulator.
Nothing wrong with being an emulator after all. It does the job so who cares?

There are a lot of people (and they're all idiots) who believe that emulation cannot replace the original hardware.

Seriously. Did I mention they're idiots?

[idrougge]

I'm one of those idiots who cannot get a Vampire since I must know if my software crashes because it does something wrong or just because the Vampire isn't compatible.

[Zetr0]

At the risk of the mod's spanking my ass and eXeler0 loosing his sh!t with me (sorry buddy)

Simply put the word "emulation" is quite vague and used at time incorrectly - and that is with connotations that "emulation" is not as good as "the real thing" all to often emulation has the stigma of many layers of software abstraction and interpretation of native code.

Originally Posted by ReadOnlyCat

I am just being a nitpicky bit of a kitten here but I think "not an emulator" is not the formula you are looking for here.

Technically, emulation does not mean simulation/interpretation , it just means that the behavior of the original "thingy" is reproduced, so an emulator can be as much software (MAME, UAE) than hardware (Vampire, Mist, etc.).

What we usually mean by emulator is "software interpretation" but the word has a much broader sense.The Vampire is really a 68k emulator: it emulates the behavior of a 68k+, just in hardware.

Indeed I couldn't agree more my friend, but there are connotations of performance associated with abstracted software emulation - while this is so far from the actual implementation of FPGA processing its not even funny.

This is more a failure of the English language and the perpetuation of lacking information.

after all it has been said that CD's emulate Vinyl.....

Originally Posted by ReadOnlyCat

AMD CPUs are also technically emulators, but we use the term "Intel compatible processor" to be more precise, so maybe saying "68k+ compatible processor" as you did is just enough.

Maybe what you want to say is that it is not a software emulator.
Nothing wrong with being an emulator after all. It does the job so who cares?

Indeed "nothing" wrong with software emulation - I am just being a stickler

Originally Posted by Dunny

There are a lot of people (and they're all idiots) who believe that emulation cannot replace the original hardware.

Seriously. Did I mention they're idiots?

It was emulation that got me back into the Amiga and Spectrum - I wouldn't of achieve a 10th of what I have accomplished if it wasn't for FUSE / WinUAE and to be fair I would of achieve a good 100% more if wasn't for NeoGeo Emulation

Sometimes the English language sucks the big one.

[Jope]

And that's the end of the emulation vs. reimplementation vs. recreation metadiscussion. No-one's budging, time to agree to disagree.

Further posts on that topic in support.hardware will be deleted, please go and have the discussion somewhere where I don't have mod rights (which is every other subcategory on here except support.hardware* :-D).

[Zetr0]

Originally Posted by idrougge

I'm one of those idiots who cannot get a Vampire since I must know if my software crashes because it does something wrong or just because the Vampire isn't compatible.

Given that there is software emulation (WinUAE) you could easily emulate a multitude of environments before you try your software on a hardware implementation like a V500 or V600.

I am quite fortunate to have pretty much 1 (or more) of each Amiga - with exception to the tower models, A3kT / A4kT respectively.

The truth is as you know, if you want total compatibility then you would have no choice but to stick to a 68000 CPU as opposed to a compatible i.e. 68010 / 68020 / 68030 / 68040 / 68060 - Apollo 68000

I have to admit, while it is a tad "by the seat of your pants" coding on the Apollo core is quite exciting indeed!

[eXeler0]

Originally Posted by Zetr0

@eXeler0
Should / when the AGA chipset be implemented into the core - it will be aga-compatible not "aga-emulation" in the software sense - Just like the Apollo Vampire is a 64bit 68000 compatible processor and not an emulator.

It is important to make this distinction.

@Zetro IMO it's also relevant to make the distinction between ppl who don't give a crap about how stuff works under the hood and the minority who want to "go Rainman" on all the details of the inner workings. ;-)
The way the question was asked makes me think the technicalities of emulation or hardware re-implementation are *completely irrelevant*, and we don't have to close down another thread while pursuing this off topic matter ;-)

The interesting part here is how this will appear to the end user and how well it will work.
I don't think this part has been sufficiently explained by the devs, tbh, but it's probably also due to the fact that the exact solution isn't developed yet, so it remains to be seen how transparent that implementation will be to the user.


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[Ratteler]

Originally Posted by idrougge

I'm one of those idiots who cannot get a Vampire since I must know if my software crashes because it does something wrong or just because the Vampire isn't compatible.

Don't worry. I'm sure one of us will test your game for you at some point.

You do bring up an interesting dilemma. It seems like the single most important accessory for the Vampire 500 might be a recreation of the Mega Chip/MiniMegi for 2MB of Chip RAM.

I wonder if there is a way to just put the 2MB on the adapter and just do away with the Trapdoor/ onboard memory.

Another question I have for the the gear heads, how about just putting higher density DRAM on the motherboard. I have a REV 5 A500. I'm actually thinking about just removing the DRAM and putting in sockets for the hell of it. If nothing else, t will make i easier to change the DRAM on the board if it ever goes bad. If we can bank switch 512k on a C=64 motherboard, this shouldn't be out of the real of possibility.

[Zetr0]

@Ratteler
The A500 (in its released series) has about 4 iterations in the wild (not including the A500+) that differ from slightly to quite a lot.

That aside the addressing of CHIP memory comes down to the Agnus, there are a few flavours out there and this will make it difficult as it will come down to a revision of the motherboard and installed Agnus chip.

Early A500's had the 8370 then the 8371 which will only address 512K CHI RAM. In the latter half of the A500's life it supported the the 8372A and then the 8375 (318069-1x) which would support 1MB of CHIP RAM. After that we move onto the A500+, A3000 and A600 Agnus Chips that can support 2MB of CHIP RAM.


Getting 2MB CHIP on the A500
I have done a fair bit of research in creating / developing a 2MB CHIP RAM adaptor for the A500 - based on the 8375 -390544 Agnus found in the a500+ and the 8372AB found in the A3000.

An adaptor for the earlier A500 - would require a multiplexing (bank shifting) circuit to use the 2MB Agnus, it would also need to assert Gary and additional addressing lines - I suspect that without heavy modification very early A500 motherboards simply wont be able to use 2MB of CHIP RAM.

obviously its not impossible, just quite a challenge made more so with the different revisions of A500 motherboard.


@eXeler0
I can agree with some of the disparity caused by the project, with the card being called the Vampire and the processor being called the Apollo (confusing indeed) - but what we are witnessing here is a confluence of sorts - where hardware development has come together to create this accelerator implementation.

for me its not about being anal or rain-man like (although this does happen) - for me it is to ensure there is as little ambiguity or obfuscation as possible - sometimes its not easy to do in English - it would be a lot easier if we call all talk in machine language

If I could be bold as to say, there will be a lot of customers whom would want to know how the device works - not many people know what an FPGA is, how it works and its relevance in the industry. This is why I don't like terms i.e. referring it to emulation when it clearly isn't - well as much as an 010 / 020 / 030 / 040 and 060 is "emulation" - and when you have reach that point - why use the term "emulation" its utterly meaningless and only exists to obfuscate the matter.

[idrougge]

Originally Posted by Zetr0

Given that there is software emulation (WinUAE) you could easily emulate a multitude of environments before you try your software on a hardware implementation like a V500 or V600.

Fact is that as of version 2.8 of WinUAE, there was still a bug that made certain Blitz Basic blits shake the screen, which only occured under emulation. It's been mentioned several times in the Blitz subforum. Without real hardware, I would just have banged my head bloody against some wall.

Originally Posted by Zetr0

I am quite fortunate to have pretty much 1 (or more) of each Amiga - with exception to the tower models, A3kT / A4kT respectively.

So do I. It helps.

Originally Posted by Zetr0

The truth is as you know, if you want total compatibility then you would have no choice but to stick to a 68000 CPU as opposed to a compatible i.e. 68010 / 68020 / 68030 / 68040 / 68060 - Apollo 68000

Depends on what compatibility you aim for. You may aim for a 68030-equipped A1200 as a baseline for example. But if you code for an incomplete FPGA implementation, you can't expect that your work will work on a real machine, or even expect that the FPGA's author regards an incompatibility as a bug. At least an emulator author will.

[ReadOnlyCat]

Originally Posted by Dunny

There are a lot of people (and they're all idiots) who believe that emulation cannot replace the original hardware.

Seriously. Did I mention they're idiots?

Thinking that people who have a different opinion than yours are idiots is not exactly what I would qualify to be a very rational reasoning.

They disagree. It is fine.
If you view them as normal humans, with a difference experience and view of the world than you, if you can make the effort to understand their point of view, you will have way more chances to change their point of view (or to change yours!) than by thinking they are idiots.

We are all kittens, not one of us got "the manual of life" when we got expelled into this mess so of course we will disagree on stuff. Now, we can talk about it without judging other's values and choices.

[ReadOnlyCat]

Originally Posted by Jope

And that's the end of the emulation vs. reimplementation vs. recreation metadiscussion. No-one's budging, time to agree to disagree.

Further posts on that topic in support.hardware will be deleted, please go and have the discussion somewhere where I don't have mod rights (which is every other subcategory on here except support.hardware* :-D).

I shall just indicate that my point wasn't to start such a discussion: I really put no judgment value on what it is in the end. It could be made of nanoscopic kittens who each simulate what each electron does in the original 68k that this would not change a bit of its value.
("Does it do the job" is the only thing that matters to me.)

Sorry if this derailed the thread!

[Ratteler]

Originally Posted by ReadOnlyCat

Thinking that people who have a different opinion than yours are idiots is not exactly what I would qualify to be a very rational reasoning.
...

You must not live in the United States.

We have lot's of people whose opinions are diametrically opposed to all scientific research.

[Dunny]

It's their constant assertions that emulation can never perform as well as the original hardware, despite near constant improvements in compatibility - as if there's somehow something that hardware can do that software can never achieve.

As I said, idiots.

[Locutus]

The point being here is that the original hardware is a exact reference point we can all agree on is 100% accurate.

Now getting this worked up over such a trivial of an argument is getting a bit silly, just let people enjoy what they want.

Starting to call people 'idiots' like this is uncalled for, unwanted and just plain bad form.

It does help to keep your community friendly....

[Ratteler]

Been a while since us 500 guys had an update. Any word on what's going and when we might see our Vampires?
Is there a list yet?

[Pyromania]

Will the Vampire for the A500 work on an Amiga 1000? I have a few of those lying around that's why I ask. Also it would be cool if it works on CDTV, I have two of those.

[demolition]

Yes, it should work in an A1000 (I've seen a video of it running) but not yet in a CDTV (due to the extended ROM as well as lack of physical space).

[TuKo]

Here is the vid : [ Show youtube player ]

Keep in mind this is still WIP.