A new Amiga with customizable coprocessor(osnews.com)
osnews.com
A new Amiga with customizable coprocessor
http://www.osnews.com/story/22693/New_Amiga_Sports_Programmable_Co-Processor_Dualcore_PPC
5 comments
The Amiga is similar to the Mac to the extent that the users loved it. Unlike the Mac however, the parent company detested and destroyed the Amiga.
I remember when they first came out and literally standing glued to the floor, multiple active windows, it was the first time I ever saw that.
The only other machines at the time capable of doing that were priced way out of ordinary mortals budget.
There as the Acorn 'unicorn', probably the cheapest and then right away big $ stuff like the Apollos.
There was no way I could afford a machine like that (nor the Amiga, for that matter, at least not at that time) so I stuck to my trusty 8 bitter for a bit longer and built the Elektuur 'GDP', a hardware assist for vector graphics.
But it never looked as good as the Amiga OS.
The only other machines at the time capable of doing that were priced way out of ordinary mortals budget.
There as the Acorn 'unicorn', probably the cheapest and then right away big $ stuff like the Apollos.
There was no way I could afford a machine like that (nor the Amiga, for that matter, at least not at that time) so I stuck to my trusty 8 bitter for a bit longer and built the Elektuur 'GDP', a hardware assist for vector graphics.
But it never looked as good as the Amiga OS.
Same here. I brought home the BYTE issue with it on its cover and read the article eagerly. At that time, importing personal computers into Brazil was forbidden, and it took me a couple years to see an Amiga face to face, but from the extensive coverage, I was very impressed. I stuck to my Apple II for a couple more years before, grudgingly, moving to a v20-based PC.
I never saw a 1000 in person, but I am the happy owner of a 500, and it's a centerpiece of my "interesting computer" collection.
I really miss the 80's in that: you could tell different computers apart. Now even Macs are PCs...
I never saw a 1000 in person, but I am the happy owner of a 500, and it's a centerpiece of my "interesting computer" collection.
I really miss the 80's in that: you could tell different computers apart. Now even Macs are PCs...
> [...] I stuck to my trusty 8 bitter for a bit longer and built the Elektuur 'GDP', a hardware assist for vector graphics.
Interesting... This one? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acorn_Electron#Slogger.2FElektu...
Interesting... This one? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acorn_Electron#Slogger.2FElektu...
Close :) BBC model B.
It was not that Commodore detested the Amiga. They were just aiming it at the wrong market for too long. They kept the Amiga a home computer. Finding a niche in videomaking allowed it to survive for some more time. It's analogous to what happened to the Mac - it was failing until desktop publishing created a niche for it. The difference is that it didn't work for the Amiga.
The Amigas were built around TV signal timing. When it became common to run home computers with VGA screens, it took too long for Commodore to build a machine that could drive them. The Amiga 3000 was the first one with a VGA port, but, by then, it was depressingly clear the low-cost PCs had won.
The Amigas were built around TV signal timing. When it became common to run home computers with VGA screens, it took too long for Commodore to build a machine that could drive them. The Amiga 3000 was the first one with a VGA port, but, by then, it was depressingly clear the low-cost PCs had won.
10/10 for persistence. I'm sure it'll run BeOS too before long ;)
Whilst this is interesting technology wise and may open impressive possibilities... so what? Without a solid install base why would I spend my time writing impressive software that is tied to this machine? Profit? No install base = no customers. Hubris? No install base = no one to impress.
I'm fully aware this is a chicken and egg situation...
(I say all of the above as a total Amiga fanboy from back in the day!)
I'm fully aware this is a chicken and egg situation...
(I say all of the above as a total Amiga fanboy from back in the day!)
I think it's designed for the number crunchers out there. A GPU can crush a CPU for some applications but there is a huge middle ground between a GPU and a CPU.
Why do you think it's designed for the number crunchers? I want one (I'm an ex-Amiga user, and still miss it...), but I certainly don't think a dual core PowerPC + a 400 MIPS co-processor is going to be cost/performance competitive with a suitable x86-64 based server at this stage. In fact, I'd be surprised if it was much faster than my current $600 laptop.
The XCORE ("Xena") co-processor they've added is exciting, but because of the hard-realtime capabilities / low latency and IO lines, not for raw performance.
The XCORE ("Xena") co-processor they've added is exciting, but because of the hard-realtime capabilities / low latency and IO lines, not for raw performance.
I was thinking of the people that crunch numbers not the programs. I don't think it's designed for a production environment; rather it's a dev box that lets you explore programmable processors. I think they avoided making an x86 with coprocessor because they want to own the dev environment for such things, but the innovation is all about that coprocessor.
PS: 1x Xorro slot with a card that's 102400 MIPS is fast. An example of number crunching would be real time encoding of super? HD (4x 1080p). Or a custom high bandwidth router etc.
PS: 1x Xorro slot with a card that's 102400 MIPS is fast. An example of number crunching would be real time encoding of super? HD (4x 1080p). Or a custom high bandwidth router etc.
I don't consider it a dev box as much as a box intended to satisfy Amiga hobbyists, some of which may use it for development, but a lot of which just want a non-x86 box running AmigaOS at decent speeds... Keep in mind that the people behind this are long time Amiga supporters - they're not in this for the sake of the XCore.
For the people who are interested in the XCore, it's cheap to buy USB attached dev-board, so this only really matters if you want to play with a system that may have significantly tighter integration (we don't really know yet how tight).
For the Amiga community, an x86 box would've been a non-starter. The people in the most likely buying segment for this box are people that have stuck to ancient "classic" Amigas, or at best upgraded to sub 1GHz single-core PowerPC boards running newer versions of AmigaOS, that they've paid more for than what you'd pay for a quad core 2GHz+ x86 box. Most of them would've been happy with "just" another PowerPC machine, but the XCore adds some extra excitement and may entice a few ex-Amigans like me to have a go for the fun too.
> PS: 1x Xorro slot with a card that's 102400 MIPS is fast. An example of number crunching would be real time encoding of super? HD (4x 1080p). Or a custom high bandwidth router etc.
The 102400 MIPS is an example based on a hypothetical card that doesn't exist, though.
For comparison, XMOS themselves sells a roughly 25000 MIPS experimental board for $1500, so while you can make it fast, it'd also be fairly expensive and it does require a new product.
I am excited about having the XCORE chip there, and I may buy an X1000 (who am I kidding, I will buy one unless the price is absolutely outrageous), but I am an ex-Amiga guy and would buy it in part because I still really love the whole Amiga experience, without any illusion that I couldn't do most of the same things on a PC much cheaper in most instances.
When it comes to the XCORE what excites me about it, rather than performance, is that it will be standard. In other words, (the few) people who write Amiga software can soon reasonably rely on having it available in the computers of most users of their software. People are already thinking up all kinds of bizarre uses for it.
For the people who are interested in the XCore, it's cheap to buy USB attached dev-board, so this only really matters if you want to play with a system that may have significantly tighter integration (we don't really know yet how tight).
For the Amiga community, an x86 box would've been a non-starter. The people in the most likely buying segment for this box are people that have stuck to ancient "classic" Amigas, or at best upgraded to sub 1GHz single-core PowerPC boards running newer versions of AmigaOS, that they've paid more for than what you'd pay for a quad core 2GHz+ x86 box. Most of them would've been happy with "just" another PowerPC machine, but the XCore adds some extra excitement and may entice a few ex-Amigans like me to have a go for the fun too.
> PS: 1x Xorro slot with a card that's 102400 MIPS is fast. An example of number crunching would be real time encoding of super? HD (4x 1080p). Or a custom high bandwidth router etc.
The 102400 MIPS is an example based on a hypothetical card that doesn't exist, though.
For comparison, XMOS themselves sells a roughly 25000 MIPS experimental board for $1500, so while you can make it fast, it'd also be fairly expensive and it does require a new product.
I am excited about having the XCORE chip there, and I may buy an X1000 (who am I kidding, I will buy one unless the price is absolutely outrageous), but I am an ex-Amiga guy and would buy it in part because I still really love the whole Amiga experience, without any illusion that I couldn't do most of the same things on a PC much cheaper in most instances.
When it comes to the XCORE what excites me about it, rather than performance, is that it will be standard. In other words, (the few) people who write Amiga software can soon reasonably rely on having it available in the computers of most users of their software. People are already thinking up all kinds of bizarre uses for it.
Thanks for the background. When I read:
"We believe that with this easy gateway to the world of 'Software Defined Silicon' and a path to massive parallelism, the X1000 will once more make the AmigaOS platform the best choice for truly creative and unique applications. For custom hardware control from robotics to theatrical lighting, for hobbyist creativity, for hardware hacking and for a multitude of applications we haven't even imagined yet, the X1000 is a dream platform - and therein lies another meaning of 'X', the unknown. It is you, not us, who will define the future."
I thought it was a great way to attract hobbyist developers. A quad core 2+ GHz x86 chip can do an insane amount of computation quickly and cheaply and even a mid range GPU takes that to a whole other level. I don't know how many flops you can get per MIPS on XCore, but if you are handcrafting at that level you can do things for less power than a CPU while having more flexibility than a GPU.
It never really occurred to me that people where still using the Amiga OS. From that standpoint it's much more evolutionary than revolutionary, but still cool.
PS: In my mind computer hobbyists and developer often mean just about the same thing. But, I realize developer makes people think of Software Developer not a HW dev.
"We believe that with this easy gateway to the world of 'Software Defined Silicon' and a path to massive parallelism, the X1000 will once more make the AmigaOS platform the best choice for truly creative and unique applications. For custom hardware control from robotics to theatrical lighting, for hobbyist creativity, for hardware hacking and for a multitude of applications we haven't even imagined yet, the X1000 is a dream platform - and therein lies another meaning of 'X', the unknown. It is you, not us, who will define the future."
I thought it was a great way to attract hobbyist developers. A quad core 2+ GHz x86 chip can do an insane amount of computation quickly and cheaply and even a mid range GPU takes that to a whole other level. I don't know how many flops you can get per MIPS on XCore, but if you are handcrafting at that level you can do things for less power than a CPU while having more flexibility than a GPU.
It never really occurred to me that people where still using the Amiga OS. From that standpoint it's much more evolutionary than revolutionary, but still cool.
PS: In my mind computer hobbyists and developer often mean just about the same thing. But, I realize developer makes people think of Software Developer not a HW dev.
My take is that it is less for GPU-like number crunching and more for interfacing with real-world devices; perhaps writing relatively simple scripts in ARexx for working with serial, parallel, etc. devices.
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Oh cool. A dead platform jumps onto another dead platform. The concept of a modern Amiga has gotten beyond ridiculous at this point.
If anybody ever wants to put an end to it they'd better bring some garlic, wooden stakes and silver bullets.