28 October 2015, 12:54 | #21 |
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In technology, the more niche something is, the more expensive it becomes. We're spoiled by the huge mass production of electronics these days, and the fact that big companies can pour millions into development when they can guarantee to shift millions of units, but that's obviously not going to work in Amigaland.
For a little bit of context: I work for a medical devices company where development cycles are long and slow. We still have machines in the field based on standard 486 boards running QNX. However, only one particular board will do, and the price we pay for those boards make even the X1000 look like a bargain. But that's what happens when your market is about 100 units worldwide. It's a fraction of the power of the A1222, and costs nearly 10 times more. Now *that's* niche! |
28 October 2015, 12:57 | #22 |
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Oh I absolutely agree,
I know from friends doing small manufacturing runs that if you can't buy in bulk or have mass production the price increases dramatically. I just don't know how many of us have that kind of spare cash floating around to purchase such a device. |
28 October 2015, 13:14 | #23 |
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Yep, I have too many hobbies vying for what little disposable income I have to justify it myself - not to mention getting married at the end of the year (an expensive proposition in Ireland!) I just have to hope my A1-XE holds itself together for the foreseeable future...
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28 October 2015, 13:20 | #24 | |
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or are you suggesting aou would buy both boards in order to support the development? and if so why not just trash the current design, and instead of still pumping money in the production, invest the money in redesign and sell for the double price. that would be still more reasonable that stubbornly sticking to apparently failed idea for whatever reason. |
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28 October 2015, 13:29 | #25 | |
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as for niche and hobby, if you make it expensive, it will be that, but not neccesarily. you can collect rolls-royces. but you can also buy a vampire fpga from majsta for about 100$ or build an aros machine for the same amount. its your choice. dont tell others that it is some requirement. |
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28 October 2015, 13:51 | #26 |
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Really wawa, do you not have anything else to do than take every possible opportunity to make negative comments about anything OS4-related you can find on the various forums? I don't understand why you feel the need - everyone's already painfully aware of your opinions, and if OS4 isn't your hobby then why expend so much energy on it?
I'm not trying to look for excuses - the reasons are plain to see, but it's interesting how you say things like that as if I should be ashamed of it. Same tired old story from you. I'm not telling anyone that anything is a requirement, again you're being ridiculous there and trying to make it look like it's me that's way out. Other people's Amiga-related hobbies are just as valid as yours, and you should really just accept that and move on. A Vampire FPGA won't run OS4 and well you know it, so I don't know what relevance that has for someone whose hobby is OS4. As it happens, the board I'm talking about isn't some magical, dependable, future-proofed board or space tech. It's standard PC motherboard tech from around 1993. Nothing special about them. We have to buy them at such a high price because of the small numbers involved, that's all. They constantly fail due to age, but those boards are the only possibility for repairing machines in the field. They also suffer hard drive failures, RAM failures and CPU failures typical of PCs of that age. |
28 October 2015, 14:35 | #27 | ||
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28 October 2015, 14:36 | #28 |
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Not nearly as bad as $2K for the X5000, and I am considering that one.
If they dropped the idea of fpu emulation for Tabor, and just recompiled software for the spe fpu, then some of the penalty involved in using this cpu would be alleviated. Last edited by iggybeans; 28 October 2015 at 21:13. |
28 October 2015, 16:20 | #29 | ||
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It should be obvious to anyone who have done something remotely similar that emulating a standard FPU with such a system would be dog slow, not only do one need to trap instructions one also need to swap register values around to emulate the FP registers. Sure, with a lot of effort one could use a binary translation approach to increase performance - but then one could use an x86 core instead and get much better performance for a lower cost. And the price? Incredible. Why not make an effort to make a good PPC emulator for a standard PC instead? Edit: "skilled in the arts" changed - I've read to many patents lately :/) Last edited by Megol; 28 October 2015 at 21:22. |
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28 October 2015, 20:06 | #30 | |
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Yep, that DOES look problematic, doesn't it. So the alternative is playing down the flaw and continuing with this design even after the first 1000 are sold. Because you don't want to upset the buyers of the Tabor design by introducing a better solution after selling this one to them. See just how convoluted this is going to get. A) admit you were wrong, scrap a lot of development work, and start over or... B)carry on and hope that the end results don't tarnish your image too much Neither solution is optimal. |
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29 October 2015, 02:19 | #31 |
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29 October 2015, 09:44 | #32 |
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PPC + FPGA = Hardware FPU and classic AGA + enhanced features in the FPGA and still running OS4. Can we hope?
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29 October 2015, 15:06 | #33 |
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29 October 2015, 16:02 | #34 |
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29 October 2015, 16:03 | #35 |
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@ppcamiga1
Uh oh. My Mac doesn't have Windows but it has Linux on a VirtualBox appliance... I'll just have to settle for Linux FS-UAE since I'm still running Snow Leopard which is too old for the latest FS-UAE... None of my other systems have Windows either. Wait a minute... Linux hardware running FS-UAE is dead simple and common! No rarity there! What support is there for running Windows or MacOSX on the Tabor board? Basically none. Emulation wins! Uh... Plentiful and cheap at least. My RasPi 2 isn't that powerful... |
29 October 2015, 16:24 | #36 | |
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Or some other low cost solution, if I have to accept this much reduction in capability. OR pay the premium for a X5000. |
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29 October 2015, 16:33 | #37 | |
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http://www.phonearena.com/news/ARM-d...-phone_id68632 I'm pretty sure that a Core M (and thus an ARM Cortex-A72) is more powerful than the Dual Core used on the Tabor. Honestly, PowerPC doesn't make any sense nowadays and using it only shows short-sightedness and/or rose-tinted nostalgia glasses. |
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29 October 2015, 17:54 | #38 | |
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29 October 2015, 17:58 | #39 |
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29 October 2015, 18:38 | #40 | |
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So how would it help to release a new mobo with an ARM chip? If the solution is to emulate in software then its even more pointless as there already is ppc support in WinUAE and that requires zero new hardware for anyone with a ppc. |
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