PiStorm kills Vampire?

[stevelord]

Originally Posted by Promilus

Browsing with no browser handling current standards and with limited by AGA resolution and color depth...

Just aheads up, netsurf is pretty standards compliant and ok on an 060/50. Not fantastic, but works. But surfing on an Amiga tends to be for Amiga stuff which IBrowse is mostly fine with. Also if you havent tried frogfind and 68k.news they're worth a look.

[stevelord]

Originally Posted by YouKnowWho

68060 are no longer made for some time. Ones that were made were in limited quantities because of the narrow deployment across popular computers

No, I have 3 060s in my house, never had truble getting them. Most recently I bought one from here:
https://amiga68k.com/?product=mc6806...-6-mask-71e41j

I have more in other non Amiga kit at my office.

Originally Posted by YouKnowWho

68040 or 68060 is just for SysInfo pointless desires. Just like real 68060s....minimal benefit on very few and limited applications that have no real productivity purpose.

I don't get this "The only way to experience the Amiga is my way and everyone else is wrong" attitude. Just because you have no use for a 68060 doesnt mean others don't. Lightwave, ImageFX, Art Effect, Photogenics, SFX, OctaMED Soundstudio, Vista Pro, Mainactor, ffmpeg and other intensive work all benefit from 060s. Don't want one? Don't use one. Knocking a CPU you clearly don't use is a weird flex but ok.

I mean it's not going to make games like lemmings better, but even games like AB3D II, Genetic Species, TFX are better.

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by Promilus

Browsing with no browser handling current standards and with limited by AGA resolution and color depth... ok

My Vampire is set to 1024x768 (max. native resolution of my 19" TV) in 24 bit color. The biggest limitation is my eyes.

My PC runs Windows XP and has the latest version of Firefox that will run on it. Sadly this is becoming less compatible as websites are now being deliberately designed to only work on later versions (to hell with standards... let's just code for specific browsers like we did 30 years ago!). In some cases IBrowse actually works better.

I also get on the Web with my A1200, which I run in 8 colors going out on PAL composite to my big TV. IBrowse does an amazing job with those 8 colors so I don't need any more when doing Amiga stuff. It's also faster than my PC if I just want to eg. check for the latest Aminet downloads or look up some info for programming. My PC takes ~2 minutes to boot and recognize the network. By that time I could have done what I wanted on the Amiga and have the results where I want them.

that's what cross compilers are made for. Or you claim to have absolutely no different platform to do amiga stuff?

Perhaps I could do Amiga stuff on another platform, but I prefer to use the Amiga when doing Amiga stuff. I find PCs frustrating to cross-develop on generally, and I keep my PC in another room away from my Amigas.

Ok... and you know what DraCo or Casablanca was?

Yes. A friend of mine had a Draco. It was specifically designed to do video editing, and general Amiga compatibility was not great.

It was non-commodore hardware without any portion of amiga chipset inside them but with Zorro slots, 68k processor and running under AmigaOS. Well if 060+RTG is a target you could've done that 25 years ago with DraCo.

I was doing that 25 years ago on my A3000. 060 and RTG is a target, but not the only one. My A600 has a Vampire, but still runs games and apps that need real Amiga hardware. I use a PCMCIA network card, CF card via the PCMCIA slot, and an external disk drive. Unlike a Draco it is not limited only to apps that stick to a subset of OS functions.

It's not even amiga. It doesn't have "classic amiga hardware". It runs things you mentioned.

But doesn't run others, which makes it a very frustrating 'Amiga' because you never know when it will bite you.

Icedrake and Firebird are V4SA backported to actually fit inside Amiga... they just added those cards for naive ppl thinking they retain "classic amiga hardware" when in fact they just use Amiga board as an supply extension for a whole new platform

Perhaps you are right about that (bummer if you can't use real AGA etc.), but this is irrelevant. Icedrake and Firebird aren't out yet, and they aren't even officially Vampires. I have an actual Vampire and it doesn't do what you say. It's an accelerator and RTG board and that's all, a traditional Amiga hardware addon.

But your opinion seems to point out there are quite a lot vampire users still clinging "so what I do have vampire it still is hooked to original amiga so it's still classic experience, not some bloody NG which is different hardware or pistorm which is software emulator".

My opinion is that the Vampire is just as much a classic Amiga addon as anything we had back in the day. The PiStorm currently fits into that category too.

The V4SA is a different story, and one reason I am not so interested in it.

already wrote about 3DNow! SSE basically did the same thing - both were used by idTech3 so every game, either MOHAA, Jedi Knight, Quake 3, Half Life etc. used it as well. Which is already more than you can tell about AMMX... AMMX didn't even got so much support as AltiVec in G4/G5 based NG.

Oh sorry, I didn't realize it was a popularity contest. PC envy is still alive and well in some of us it seems.

RTG was initiative which begun when non-rtg commodore (and 3rd party) products (which were designed because chipset was already at it's limit) made a mess on the market with weird modes, drivers etc. So standardization begun with P96 (3rd party) or CGX (same here). And most of those RTG cards were based on ... surprise! Tseng, Cirrus, S3, 3DLabs*, 3dfx*, ati*.

For me, RTG was a way to bring my A3000 up to the level of AGA machines.

Yes, it's sad that this was done with old PC graphics chips and a patched OS. Not that I am against using PC hardware when appropriate (I have done it myself) but having to make do with the limitations of PC hardware was sad. Also sad was that manufacturers refused to provide documentation so it had to be reverse-engineered, keeping us further behind.

Fortunately we don't have to play that game today. There are no ancient PC graphics chips hiding in the Vampire. SAGA is much closer to what Commodore might have developed (if they had survived a bit longer) that anything designed for a PC, and the Apollo team are the only ones keeping it alive by expanding the original Amiga design rather than making us put up with PC hardware.

So much for "classic amiga experience" with RTG. Towerized A1200 with Elbox Mediator, BlizzardPPC and Voodoo3 is as much "classic amiga experience" as your vampirezed A600 or PiStormed A500.

Did I ever say it wasn't? Yes, towerized A1200 with Mediator and BlizzardPPC was part of the Amiga scene towards the end of the old days. A step in the wrong direction IMO, and a big cause of fragmentation in the Amiga community.

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by stevelord

No, I have 3 060s in my house, never had truble getting them. Most recently I bought one from here:
https://amiga68k.com/?product=mc6806...-6-mask-71e41j

'Out of stock'. Oh oh...

[YouKnowWho]

Originally Posted by Chucky

Icomp. well. try to order an ACA1260.. or ACA1240.. good luck.
but the TF1260 is the most sold modern 060 solution there are for the amiga..


ah yeah misread that 040 thing. yup. true. correct. anyway. why bother about the 040. it is slow,. it is the least compatible 68k cpu. and just hot and horrible.
I AM dyslectic.. so yeah it happens sometimes.. however THAT doesn't affect the TF boards at all..

I hear you. Happens to me too.

Those aren't sellable products, so they can't be ordered. Never claimed iComp was a player in 68040 or 68060 at this time. I did see posts about them, and what they are designing sure as heck looks very good. However, the products like 1221 68020 based solution at up to 40 MHz is sufficient for all my needs and offers serious value that is hard to beat. ACA500+ noted by others in this chain also is one heck of a piece of kit after reviewing it - even if I'm not a A500 user myself.

I've yet to be displeased with what I get out of 1221 with the speed boost and RAM - which only makes the hill steeper when it comes to justifying a 1260. I know it's fun to do it because you can. But I have this nagging OCD need to justify value and usefulness of stuff I buy. I know, I'm weird that way. Probably why I don't own a Lambo with the speed limits around here. And as far as Amiga goes, I have never been disappointed with anything I bought from iComp. And I never had to belittle myself or bow down. Click, order, pay, lovely item arrives and does what it said it would do. Amazing. And that is why in my view, no one comes close to them in supporting this platform. When that Reloaded 1200 with RTG and all the other goodies comes out...lights out. An actual new original chipset Amiga! Hopefully it happens before October 2022 - 30th anniversary of the 1200.

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by Chucky

68020 and 68000 is still in production.

And readily available second hand too. But for how long?

Last month I bought a Macintosh SCSI card, purely to harvest the 64 pin DIP 16MHz 68HC000 from it. Could have bought one from eBay but they all look like fakes.

you get more money selling a 030 than for gold.. still

That's good to hear. A few years ago I bought a 50MHz 030 as a spare for my Blizzard 1230. I will probably never use it (got a TF530 board but can't be bothered building it). If I keep it long enough I could be rich!

but. well. YOU might not need more than 020. guess what: this might come as a newsflash for you: the world is larger than you....

You are missing the point. The only reason for having an 060 is speed. Most Amiga software that needs a faster CPU is compiled for 68020, and there is no reason it shouldn't stay that way. An FPGA core based on the 68020 instruction set covers 99% of 060 code too, as well as possibly being simpler to implement.

[Promilus]

@Bruce

bummer if you can't use real AGA etc

Sure it can. It's not like address lines ARE cut off when accessing SAGA rather than AGA. Well they could (ignore external lines when AGA registers are in use) but aren't. So you COULD use amiga chipset on original board. It doesn't change a fact both of new apollo accelerators are based on V4SA (with SA portion being cut off ... so those accelerators reintroduce an idea which was the start of V4 project anyway). It basically means it is "devolving" V4SA so it could use 68k external bus. It's not unlike what PiStorm does. It's complete system which could work independently. RPi can emulate whole amiga but instead it is made to emulate 68k alone with peripherals and on-die functional blocks being translated to Amiga-style devices. So it is some peace of mind to "classic amiga hardware" fans but kind of... stretched. It feels to me like "artificial accelerator". Both PiStorm and new apollo. And those new cards are the only thing you can order ATM (and yes, most likely it will take a lot of time to actually get those). V2 is EoL. We're talking about what you can order now and for how much. How long will you wait for it. It's easier, faster, cheaper to do PiStorm. I'm not a big fan but I do cheer for them. I do cheer for apollo team as well even if I don't agree with every decision about feature set they make. That's their choice to make. Doesn't mean I can't contribute some constructive criticism.

My opinion is that the Vampire is just as much a classic Amiga addon as anything we had back in the day. The PiStorm currently fits into that category too

Validity of introduction of new ISA is their popularity. AMD 3DNow! was fairly popular up to the point SSE was introduced. AMD released Enhanced 3DNow! just to support SSE feature set. In late K7 it was obvious lack of SSE2 was becoming painful when applications required those. Most applications don't require AMMX nor use it. That's why it is kind of failed attempt to set a new standard of SIMD into 68k software base. And why? Because that's basically only Gunnar's vision - he didn't consult it with community of developers. He tried to force his own way and it didn't really go that well. If someone uses it and is happy - well good for him.
PPC was Phase5 vision and it did some good things ... for a while. I am one to believe ARM introduction to AOS3.x would do some good things too. Zynq based ZZ9000 is some option but as it is basically graphic card on Zorro II/III interface then using ARM code hits many walls. It is useful but there's no much use right now. Even though - should Vampire use Cyclone V SoC with ARM core it would be much better (although more expensive) because ARM would have access to main memory and 68k softcore on "very intimate level". But again - that's only my dream. It's more possible to introduce ARM through PiStorm though. And fairly high performance ARM nonetheless. That's why I kind of see things with PiStorm going beyond what even best apollo card can offer. I cannot assure anyone it will indeed happen.

SAGA is much closer to what Commodore might have developed

That's BS. What commodore had in plans for Amiga we already know thanks to e.g. Dave Haynie interviews. Should they survive chipset would be just a i810 level (integrated crappy graphics for windows alone) and since Commodore didn't produce any powerful graphic chips it would be up to 3rd parties to produce graphical backbone for new Amiga. And all their ideas were even less compatible with old school amiga (abandoning 68k architecture as well!)
So maybe some ppl find SAGA as some extension of what chipset was and is - but it surely isn't something commodore would went into. And also - SAGA capabilities met no real support from developers. Just RTG. I find it kind of like patched up Arduino with CPLD working as graphic chip ... it's product for a just few hobbyists trying to do things inefficiently but "oldschool". BTW did you know even V4 FPU has only (iirc) 56 bit precision? It's funny to make flops claims when it does calculate things differently than 060 FPU.

[stevelord]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

'Out of stock'. Oh oh...

Nicolas gets them in fairly regularly. There's currently an MC68LC060RC50 in stock elsewhere on the site for about 60 quid. You can order his custom A3660s from there too.

My point is people who say that 68060s are hard to get generally haven't tried to get them. They're not. If you want a specific version, sure you're gonna probably have to wait till one pops up, like say a specific Vampire. Expensive for a full Rev 5? Sure! But they are available for people prepared to actively seek them.

[Promilus]

@stevelord LC and EC are lacking FPU while EC lacks MMU as well (which makes it rather poor choice since even if there's software designed for 060 running ok without FPU there are libraries which actually use MMU. But you are right, LC060 is fairly easy to obtain. Full 060 is rather scarce (with many fakes) and best 060 variants which runs up to 100MHz nearly impossible to get. And every new source is getting dry instantly. Very soon there will be no other choice but use FPGA or software emulation. It's way different with 68000, 020 and 030 - which have pretty big stock worldwide and shouldn't be shortage of those for as long as our 30years old hardware has to live anyway.

[YouKnowWho]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

'Out of stock'. Oh oh...

350 Euro for a CPU only? How many PiStorms is that?

[grond]

Originally Posted by Promilus

Most applications don't require AMMX nor use it. That's why it is kind of failed attempt to set a new standard of SIMD into 68k software base. And why? Because that's basically only Gunnar's vision - he didn't consult it with community of developers. He tried to force his own way and it didn't really go that well.

That's not entirely true. Gunnar did consult with developers, he just didn't invite many and none of the people who believe they are too important to ignore. One guy that provided a lot of input is a university researcher in the field of data coding and communication who wrote test cases trying different instructions and measured their impact. He also knows the Amiga inside out.

Of course, there are also several matured SIMD instruction sets to nick ideas from (I'm not sure there is even one genuinely new idea in AMMX other than providing well-known SIMD instructions together with typical 68k address modes to result in a CISCy vector unit), so consulting with a community of developers wouldn't have been very productive when there is so much knowledge available from two decades of use of actual high-tech products. Amiga developers are no different from Amiga users in that they can't agree on the colour of shit.

[YouKnowWho]

Let's get real. We're talking about lanes here.

In the left lane is the Original chipset and 68K CPU. It is the only true real Amiga.

Next lane over to the right you have FPGA acting as 68K CPU. Vampire is in this lane. FPGA based systems are in this lane too. Nice to see FPGA used for good, not evil.

Next lane over to the right you have PiSorm software emulating a 68K CPU.

Next lane over to the right on this 4 lane highway, you have the software emulation running on any hardware platform. Pi, Intel, etc.

You have the right to drive in any lane you wish. Just know, that the further you get from the left lane, the further you are from a true real Amiga.

Experimentation is fine and fun. But in the end, left lane is where Amiga is at.

[Promilus]

@grond - as you are well aware SIMD units are (like FPU) different chips which made into one silicon die with processor. That's why in most implementation they have their own registers and instruction set utilizing those registers. They sometimes share logic with FPU. In case of AMMX it is made to work like "natural" extension of base 68k ISA. And while AMD "K8" introduced wider GPRs it also introduced more of those. Also there's more of XMM registers in 64bit mode as well. I did look at AC68080 ISA long time ago and that's exactly what it hit me... it doesn't seem to be implemented the way most SIMD units are. Arch. generation apart SIMD units are treated as something else which gives compilers ability to choose version. So you can choose optimization for CPU ISA and if floats should be handled by FPU or SIMD, and should compiler try to auto-vectorize ... It seems a lot more complicated when AMMX is used. ARM goes the same - CPU, VFP and NEON are different things with their own flags, registers, optimizations. I'm no specialist in this field but AMMX seems very different for each and every popular high performance processor there is. And I don't think AMD, Intel, ARM, nvidia, IBM engineers are just plain stupid for doing it this way.

[DDNI]

You will need a lot more lanes if that's how you want to play things...
ECS lane
AGA lane
RAM expansion lane
HDD lane
PPC lane
Amiga NG lane

Give it a rest and try to stop being so narrow minded.

[Promilus]

@DDNI - AGA is backward compatible. If someone stayed behind with ECS - well you can't blame anyone for that. PPC lane was something P5 and some other ppl decided to do. It was a dead end since it took an awful long of time to get AOS4 and hardware supporting it and when it did there was a plague of issues. NG is just an offspring of PPC-68k marriage so basically the same lane but... if you say PPC with AOS3.9 - well that's something different than PPC with AOS4.x ... regardless of the hardware used (classic amiga + ppc accel or NG). HDD lane - even A1000 had HDD option but yes, there are many titles designed to run from floppy and with no installer. For those WHDLOAD was created to benefit from HDD. I wouldn't call it different lane. Every road which gives access to classic amiga SOFTWARE and creation of NEW ONE is Amiga lane. Doesn't matter if it's FPGA, 68k, ARM or x86. As long as it does benefit amiga community it is a good thing. That's why bebbo or abyss IDE are also good - because you can create software for amiga while working on PC and test it (to some degree) as well. And since compilation takes fraction of time it would took on classic amiga IT IS A GOOD THING! PC cross development for Amiga brings a lot of nice features. Vampire is a good thing. PiStorm is a good thing. Buffee is a good thing. TF is a good think also.

[YouKnowWho]

Originally Posted by DDNI

You will need a lot more lanes if that's how you want to play things...
ECS lane
AGA lane
RAM expansion lane
HDD lane
PPC lane
Amiga NG lane

Give it a rest and try to stop being so narrow minded.

All Amigas that have a 68K and original chipset (OCS/ECS/AGA) get to drive in the leftmost carpool lane! Regardless of RAM or HDD.

PPC lane was so niche on the Amiga, even by Amiga standards, I've decided not to build a lane on my highway for it. . PPC can drive in the FPGA lane.

[grond]

Originally Posted by Promilus

I did look at AC68080 ISA long time ago and that's exactly what it hit me... it doesn't seem to be implemented the way most SIMD units are. Arch. generation apart SIMD units are treated as something else which gives compilers ability to choose version. So you can choose optimization for CPU ISA and if floats should be handled by FPU or SIMD, and should compiler try to auto-vectorize ... It seems a lot more complicated when AMMX is used. ARM goes the same - CPU, VFP and NEON are different things with their own flags, registers, optimizations. I'm no specialist in this field but AMMX seems very different for each and every popular high performance processor there is. And I don't think AMD, Intel, ARM, nvidia, IBM engineers are just plain stupid for doing it this way.

I haven't coded for AMMX but the 080 has a lot more registers than the ASIC-68ks which you can use conveniently for vector stuff. Having separate register files for separate units was a historical thing (FPUs which, as you mentioned, were separate chips) and then a practical consideration (SIMD) because multi-port registers accessible concurrently from different units were harder to implement than today. Also there was a trend towards separate registers files in the 90s because it was hoped that the various units would eventually run independently from the same instruction stream such that e.g. the integer unit would operate much farther along the instruction stream while the FPU was still crunching on a slower FPU instruction and such. However, the reality is that most code has very FPU or SIMD intense code sections followed by very integer-intense code sections which makes this effect pretty much negligible.

I believe the most recent POWER processors actually have all registers of all different units in the same single register file which is HUGE (hundreds of registers).

[YouKnowWho]

Wait a minute!

When watching a horror movie, and a vampire would bite someone they then stopped being themselves. Stopped being human. Stopped being pure. They turned into some unnatural version of themselves. Such doomed hero would always want to reverse this curse of the vampire bite.

And here it is doing it to the Amiga! Vampire doing what vampires do! Biting the 68K, transforming it into a mutant version of itself. At least you can sleep at night knowing it is easily reversible.

[Thomas Richter]

Originally Posted by grond

That's not entirely true. Gunnar did consult with developers, he just didn't invite many and none of the people who believe they are too important to ignore.

No, he just ignored people that are inconvenient...


Let's face it: Vector instructions are a nice-to-have, but for the Amiga not "the big deal for 3D", same as they never were in the PC in the sense that they enabled 3D. It was more a marketing gag back then to denote them as 3DNow!. What helps much more for 3D is a chip-based vertex and pixel shader, and the 3D logic sits today on the GPU, not the CPU.



That does not mean that they are useless, but not quite for the applications they have been marketed for, or applications that are important for the Amiga.



However, 68K legacy is ignored in parts where we *do* have applications that depend on them (instead of instructions for applications we don't have), and that's IMHO just "a bit more important" for a retro platform.

Originally Posted by grond

So consulting with a community of developers wouldn't have been very productive when there is so much knowledge available from two decades of use of actual high-tech products.

The Amiga is not a "high tech product" anymore, and pretending that it might be or might become one looks just insane to me. Priorities are wrong: First, let's get the compatibility right. If there is room for extensions - well, why not - but basics need to be right first.



They just aren't. What we have here is an EC-type CPU with a somewhat crippled FPU, and a utterly incompatible "MMU".

Originally Posted by grond

Amiga developers are no different from Amiga users in that they can't agree on the colour of shit.

The "color of shit" is the color of the motorola manuals, and color of the RKRMs - not the color of Gunnar's toilet. That defines what "compatibilty" means. As long as this isn't straightened out, I'm not facscinated by pure speed. If I want pure speed, my PC can do, much better, much more, thank you.

[YouKnowWho]

Originally Posted by Thomas Richter

The Amiga is not a "high tech product" anymore, and pretending that it might be or might become one looks just insane to me.

This is SO true.

There is this constant coordinated effort to drag the Amiga kicking and screaming toward doing things it never did or was. And sure, that's admirable and in the end it can do these things somehow, which is impressive.

But what it comes down to is this: Amiga is over 36 years old. It's retro computing. It can't and won't be what computers are today and that is perfectly fine. Like it for what it is, not for what it is not.

I just got back into the Amiga as this pandemic was starting and the more wild I want to get, the more I ask myself - WHY? Why do you want this computer in the first place? Didn't you get a 1200 so you can enjoy all that was possible with so little back in the 90s?

And so turn it into a FrankenAmiga if you wish. For me, as you say it isn't a high-tech product, but it certainly is beautiful. Amiga chipset and 68K CPU it must be. Just like I wouldn't take a vintage car and start re-engineering it with new bits and pieces to make it something it is not and something I didn't buy it for, same with the Amiga. I just want to enjoy it as it was, what it was. As if it is Christmas, 1993.

Now forgive me, I have to go print a HAPPY BIRTHDAY banner on the 24 dot matrix with PrintMaster on my Amiga 1200. Try to do that with today's high-tech fancy hardware.

YOU CAN'T!