PiStorm kills Vampire?

[alexh]

It's a software thing. There are pictures of Claude using a Pi4 and PiSTorm32 (A1200) uses a CM4

[Sim085]

I was wondering when the A1200 was going to get this. That looks great. Hopefully will become available soon.

Originally Posted by alexh

It's a software thing. There are pictures of Claude using a Pi4 and PiSTorm32 (A1200) uses a CM4

[pandy71]

Perhaps this https://github.com/FEX-Emu/FEX can be some inspiration for Musashi Emu68

[alexh]

Originally Posted by pandy71

Perhaps this https://github.com/FEX-Emu/FEX can be some inspiration for Musashi

Nice. I think you mean Emu68? Not Musashi.

Emu68 is PiSTorm's bare-metal emulator (in that it doesn't run linux). It's getting numbers close to the theoretical maximum (e.g. 800MIPS). It's WIP but you should try it. It's like a vampire... on steroids... for €50 :-)

[pandy71]

Originally Posted by alexh

Nice. I think you mean Emu68? Not Musashi.

Emu68 is PiSTorm's bare-metal emulator (in that it doesn't run linux). It's getting numbers close to the theoretical maximum (e.g. 800MIPS). It's WIP but you should try it. It's like a vampire... on steroids... for €50 :-)

Yes, Emu68 - i see recently lot of activities in ARM world as Apple decided to transit from x86 to ARM and they will use Rosetta 2 to close application gap, seem similar effort is in Open Source side and as FEX is relatively fresh also in WIP then some techniques may be applicable to Emu68 to further gain some benefits (also perhaps as RPi is and for sure will be multicore then perhaps some hybrid solution i.e. 68k and x86 can be used for benefits in Amiga - modern video/audio codecs is a first thing that comes to my head).

And yes, this is my intention to try PiSTorm as from very early beginning i've opted for ARM MC68k emulation as cheapest way (but instead using RPi i've opted for Beaglebone solution where direct interfacing with MC68k bus is possible trough PRU's usage) - for now it must wait anyway - need to finish building my home and bring my Amiga's back to life! Hope next year it will be possible

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by alexh

It's like a vampire... on steroids... for €50 :-)

This is exactly what we need to kill all those stupidly expensive 68060 accelerators. That'll wipe the smirk off a few faces!

[alexh]

Originally Posted by pandy71

as FEX is relatively fresh also in WIP then some techniques may be applicable to Emu68 to further gain some benefits

There's no fat on Emu68. It's a brand new ground up JIT using all the right techniques. It's performance is testament. Something like 85-90% of the theoretical maximum. That's a performance well above what FEX is capable of today.

Yes being bare metal has it's disadvantages but they are being overcome... Just.

Originally Posted by pandy71

perhaps as RPi is and for sure will be multicore then perhaps some hybrid solution i.e. 68k and x86 can be used for benefits in Amiga - modern video/audio codecs is a first thing that comes to my head).

The way Emu68 works there is no need for anything like that. All the RPi hardware including the hardware video and audio codecs are available to AmigaOS. You just need to port the driver to AmigaOS. There are already basic RTG drivers for Videocore

[pandy71]

Originally Posted by alexh

There's no fat on Emu68. It's a brand new ground up JIT using all the right techniques. It's performance is testament. Something like 85-90% of the theoretical maximum. That's a performance well above what FEX is capable of today.

Yes being bare metal has it's disadvantages but they are being overcome... Just.

Ideas, techniques can be inspiration - this was my point with FEX (never heard earlier about FEX so immediately shared this with EAB)

Originally Posted by alexh

The way Emu68 works there is no need for anything like that. All the RPi hardware including the hardware video and audio codecs are available to AmigaOS. You just need to port the driver to AmigaOS. There are already basic RTG drivers for Videocore

Fine but isn't RPi specification for those blocks and for other few important resources is still not open sourced by Broadcom...?
Don't get me wrong but RPis is only partially open and some important stuff is still controlled or by binary blobs or not accessible from bare metal...

Also RPi especially 3 is limited in terms of bandwidth - 4 is other topic as USB3 or PCIe is available. This is not a problem for BeagleBone where PRU's can be programmed to deal with MC68k bus without latency and you may even create PCI bus thanks to 4 PRU's (similar to PRU's are PIO in RPi Pico).

[droopy]

Originally Posted by NovaCoder

It will certainly take some interest away from the Vampire, same as MiSTer, Buffy and the rPi4 but I doubt it will kill it off entirely.

Personally if we are talking about an 'Amiga' I would prefer to only use the FPGA to recreate the custom chips and use a real 68K CPU to cycle.

Well as an Amiga user for many years I noticed that the amiga people have a tendency to follow more than onme "path" so many users would get both a Vampire and a PisTorm. Also staying with their old hardware and it's newly produced cards and remakes.


Usually Amiga people like technology and enjoy all branches the Amiga related hardware seems to split into. A PiStorm are cheap (I got one with a Pi for 60Euro)


Also many Amiga users have more than one machine to play around with.
Not every one are just playing games on the Amiga.


It's more that something is possible to do that captures the Amiga fans interest to buy a new pice of harddware..

[NovaCoder]

Came across this video of some of my 'heavy' ports running on a Storm, looking very playable already

[ Show youtube player ]

[alexh]

Emu68 on PiStorm is very impressive. I think RTG performance can be improved as the videocore driver improves but CPU performance has probably peaked (at least until PiSTorm32).

[tomcat666]

Rtg driver has absolutely no hw acceleration... It is all in software on Amiga side ... So yea ...

[hammer]

Originally Posted by 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.

FYI, there are licensed 68K clones. None of the licensed 68K cloners developed into a second source "AMD" insurance for 68K.

[OlafSch]

PiStorm is a cool development but it is definitely not killing vampire in general but solely the concept of V2. So it is a V2 killer at best

[Chucky]

well with a PiStorm you know your board is not randomly becoming "illegal" anyway

[Leon Besson]

Originally Posted by Chucky

well with a PiStorm you know your board is not randomly becoming "illegal" anyway

True! Soooo True!

[Pyromania]

Red Storm Rising will really be good.

[Flimbo]

Just need enough people to be guinea pigs for the 1200 PiStorm please.

[Havie]

Happy to offer and compare with my V1200!

[Ratteler]

Originally Posted by Flimbo

Just need enough people to be guinea pigs for the 1200 PiStorm please.

I think the problem with Pi anything is the availability of the PIs at this point.

I wish some one could figure out a RADXAStorm to go with https://ameridroid.com/products/radxa-zero

Since the RADXA Zero is available and the Pi Zero isn't.