Buffee - 68030 at 3.2 GHz - Will it work on Amiga and worth it?

[Matt_H]

If it achieves its intended objectives this will be an incredible product. Super fast accelerator that fits in the exact footprint of the original 68000 chip? Wow. I have an A2000 that might make a good home for this.

[skan]

Great concept, but I still think this would be a better fit for a 1200 accelerator card instead (as well as other similar RPi-based solutions).
Nice project and interesting times indeed, this beast is so fast it could emulate a PPC on 68K! The irony: playing WipeoutXL on an emulated PPC...

[grelbfarlk]

Originally Posted by skan

Great concept, but I still think this would be a better fit for a 1200 accelerator card instead (as well as other similar RPi-based solutions).
Nice project and interesting times indeed, this beast is so fast it could emulate a PPC on 68K! The irony: playing WipeoutXL on an emulated PPC...

Lets see it! I can imagine how amazing that will look in 64 color Halfbright or HAM mode, at say 320x240, maybe even double digit framerates!

[skan]

Originally Posted by grelbfarlk

Lets see it! I can imagine how amazing that will look in 64 color Halfbright or HAM mode, at say 320x240, maybe even double digit framerates!

I was thinking more of the AGA/1200 version TBH, but now that you mention it, there's some dirty pleasure in what you describe above.

[nikosidis]

Originally Posted by skan

I was thinking more of the AGA/1200 version TBH, but now that you mention it, there's some dirty pleasure in what you describe above.

A1200 version is not possible I think. Would for sure be fantastic!

[alexh]

The limitation is the number of pins on the devices. I don't think the SoC used in Buffee or the RPi in PiSTorm have enough pins for a 32-bit interface

[skan]

Originally Posted by alexh

The limitation is the number of pins on the devices. I don't think the SoC used in Buffee or the RPi in PiSTorm have enough pins for a 32-bit interface

Mhmh not even an RPi CM4?

[alexh]

Originally Posted by skan

Mhmh not even an RPi CM4?

If I'm reading the datasheet correct are no more pins on a CM4 than any other RPi (28). The PiSTorm multiplexes those 28 pins into 16-data, 24-address, numerous sideband

[d4rk3lf]

Originally Posted by Akira

To do what with it?

To run Ultima 6 in almost normal speed.

[skan]

Originally Posted by alexh

If I'm reading the datasheet correct are no more pins on a CM4 than any other RPi (28). The PiSTorm multiplexes those 28 pins into 16-data, 24-address, numerous sideband

Ouch, thanks for the info. Well, so we're stuck with overpriced 060s and... "the other thing", for the time being!

[Promilus]

Originally Posted by skan

Mhmh not even an RPi CM4?

Doesn't matter, GPIOs of RPI aren't all that many and are of way different structure than 68k interface (address, data, control signals) - that's why PiStorm uses FPGA to simulate 68k interface from amiga side and translate those to things which RPi GPIO can handle during interrupts. It is inelegant solution where you can't map amiga directly as external memory for host CPU and have to use software translation from virtual addresses (emulated 68k on ARM) to GPIO (ARM GPIO registers) and then through FPGA to real addresses of amiga chipset. Overhead isn't probably as high as it seems but takes a lot of cycles anyway. Buffee handles those signals directly and treats amiga as it's external memory (albeit very slow). So you can write directly to amiga hardware (although with an offset) from host CPU. It's more elegant and more efficient but... TI SoC has only 16bit wide external memory interface which means it is perfect solution as 68000 replacement. It ain't that good as 020+ replacement. TI has solutions with more powerful ARM core (Cortex A53) but it's much more expensive and still 16bit GPMC so won't be any real competition with PiStorm. And since original buffee won't have anything besides CPU+mem it's impact on amiga performance will be severly limited. So you might achieve great number of mips, ok... so what? It will still access limited chip ram very slow and PIO0 ide with probably 1,5MB/s ... maybe slightly more. It is what it is - a 68000 CPU replacement. If that's something you need - go for it. It's fairly cheap and powerful. If you need something more, something else - well it is not product for you. There is distinc possibility someone might fork project and get "van helsing" with NAND Flash drive reaching hundred of MB/s, USB Host and perhaps PowerVR RTG 3D - that's what SoC is capable of hardware-wise. But coding firmware and AOS drivers would be PITA. And most of the amiga community just want to have things presented to them as a finished, polished product at the golden plate.

[Methanoid]

Originally Posted by alexh

I don't understand what people are moaning about. It's a very fast 680x0 accelerator with integrated FastRAM and MAPROM. It's probably going to be faster than any A500/A2000 accelerator ever made. It's relatively inexpensive.

The PiSTorm which is a similar project I think is more interesting as it has RTG, fast bootable storage and could soon have AHI, Ethernet/Wifi. It will never be as fast as Buffee in raw CPU numbers but makes up for it with peripherals.

They dont indicate price anywhere do they?

Would love any more info on PiStorm as https://github.com/captain-amygdala/pistorm seems to just say "this is how it works" but not what it does or what it will cost....

[ubermick]

I don't think there's any price for it (pistorm) - the boards are open source, so you download the gerber files and build it yourself. Doesn't look like it'd be super expensive.

[Methanoid]

Thanks. I should have been clearer. I meant there was no price for Alexh to comment on re BuFFEE

But also a lack of info (Inc price etc) of any kind on PiStorm, apart from that GitHub. Is there a discord or something somewhere?

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[alexh]

Originally Posted by Methanoid

I meant there was no price for Alexh to comment on re BuFFEE.

$140 for 512MB and $180 for 1GB. Those are the expected prices from the Buffee team.

Originally Posted by Methanoid

But also a lack of info (Inc price etc) of any kind on PiStorm, apart from that GitHub.

€15 assembled from JLCPCB PCBA service + RPi (3B+ 1GB €25)

[Methanoid]

PiStorm wow.... Is there anywhere other than GitHub I can read about or pics? Found 4 videos on YT but don't show it !!

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[alexh]

https://twitter.com/Claude1079
https://t.co/giTjdoiG4w?amp=1

[Methanoid]

Thanks Alex. Also found your Atari thread

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[malko]

Originally Posted by Methanoid

[...]
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https://eab.abime.net/faq.php?faq=ea..._eab_signature

[ubermick]

Originally Posted by Methanoid

PiStorm wow.... Is there anywhere other than GitHub I can read about or pics? Found 4 videos on YT but don't show it !!

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Noticed you went over to the Discord, have you been able to figure out what it actually is/does yet, because I haven’t!!

(Might be about time for a thread on it, actually...)