PPC680x0 anyone used this?

[grelbfarlk]

Hello,
I've taken an interest in playing around with WarpOS coding and wondered if anyone had used PPC680x0 and whether it was worthwhile or not.
http://aminet.net/package/dev/asm/PPC680x0V1.10
I assume since it has three exclamation points in the Aminet description that it is very awesome but just wondering what the word on the street or back alley is.

And if anyone wonders my class level for asm coding is 0 (NPC commoner).

Thanks.

[Zetr0]

@grelbfarlk

That is quite a fascinating find, I will say that ASM is quite a low level programming language (next to binary it is the lowest level) as such it might not lend itself to a new comer to programming.

This particular product converts 68k ASM opticodes into PPC opticodes - since the PPC is a lot faster than the 68k there will be some noticable speed / performance improvements.

I would look as an WinUAE build of either "Storm C" or "SAS C" - from here, unless you already know C / C++ you can then learn programming with the support of C coding on the interwebs! There is also a lot support including the RKRM (Rom Kernal Reference Manuals) that have all the information to allow you to exploit and hit the hardware.

From this you can look at compiling your code to (asm) and then see not only how that differs but also how you can improve things like loops and lookup tables while learning ASM at the same time.

Once you have the hang of this in a direct environment (WinUAE) then you can look at a PPC compiler, I think there is a few cross-compilers so you can write on the PC and then test it all out under WinUAE =)

I hope that helps.

[Cowcat]

@grelbfarlk
I would suggest going the C route at first, looking at asm ppc output from small programs or functions. I think ppc680x0 went a "verbatim" route as the 68k disassembly goes, so no special backend is used to optimize the code as vbcc or whatever compiler does or did.

For warpos, the most important aspect is the use of #pragma amiga-align (vbcc way) when system includes are called in sources. This is a must. Quite a few examples are in BlitzQuake or Phx Quake using asm functions integrated. Or how I tweaked the Quake2 gcc sources to be vbcc happy.

The special subject for max performance in warpos are the use of mixed 68k/ppc code in the same program to reduce context switch beetwen cpu's: For example the mouse/keyboard functions for the input handler in BlitzQuake.

There's a good amount of work needed for upgrade old sources to be 2017/vbcc compliant as things changed over the years (makefile knightmares one of those), but well, some famous programs are slowly upgraded but never released on public....

And I really like ppc asm

[kamelito]

Originally Posted by grelbfarlk

Hello,
I've taken an interest in playing around with WarpOS coding and wondered if anyone had used PPC680x0 and whether it was worthwhile or not.
http://aminet.net/package/dev/asm/PPC680x0V1.10
I assume since it has three exclamation points in the Aminet description that it is very awesome but just wondering what the word on the street or back alley is.

And if anyone wonders my class level for asm coding is 0 (NPC commoner).

Thanks.

Coyote Flux site is still up.
http://www.coyoteflux.nl/ppc680x0.htm
Kamelito

[Hedeon]

The output of that program is difficult to read. At least last time I tried it more than 2 years ago. I tried to convert the AllocMem function from the KS1.2 exec source which is floating about. I ended up with getting a good second hand book from Amazon which I learned it from.

The downside is that it affects your 68k coding with moving stuff from memory first to a register instead of direct memory to memory which the PPC can't do.

I can give you the name of the book if you want. Even explains pipes and stages.

[voxel]

a link to that book will help too ^^)

[Hedeon]

Optimizing Powerpc Code: Programming the Powerpc Chip in Assembly Language

by

Gary Kacmarcik

Got it for 30 dollars.