Motherboard with IBM Power8 cpu... any use for OS4?

I'm not sure if this could be at all relevant to OS4 (probably not!), but just in case it is:
https://www.raptorengineering.com/TALOS/prerelease.php

From what the website says, it implies the Power8 cpu they use costs under $1,000 USD (so not exactly cheap, but just about in the X1000's price range, and maybe the price will come down given time).

Some interesting info on the Power8 cpu:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/10435/assessing-ibms-power8-part-1
(Basically it's an insanely-parallel server CPU.)

With the included motherboard, the price is much higher, higher then the X5000.

It won't be of any use since AmigaOS 4 only supports ONE core and TWO GB or RAM.

Indeed it's a dream machine.

@benny
I'm not worried about the price (yes it is way too high at the moment), but rather whether the Power8 cpu has any chance of being compatible with OS4 or not. If it is (or could be) compatible, then maybe there are (or will be) cheaper alternatives out there...

@K-L
Virtually all CPUs these days are multi-core, so I don't see it matters per-se (even if it would be a waste). And OS4 is supposed to get multi-core support at some point...

3.32 GHz (8 cores) or 2.92 GHz (10 cores). Nice even using one core

@Elwood

I dont think will be simple have AmigaOs on Power8 or Power9... because this cpu are Little Endian... It means all the software in Os4 depot,aminet and somewere will be need to be rebuild ad endianess fixed.

Will be more simple for us have a machine based on e6500 in future.

@tlosm Quote:
OK, thanks, that was the sort of info I was hoping for. I had seen mention of "Little Endian", but I wasn't sure if they'd really do a PPC chip that didn't support Big Endian.

edit: Or not! Thanks eliyahu!

@tlosm

Quote:
neither POWER8 nor POWER9 are little-endian. they are bi-endian. IBM continues to support LE in a big way due to the demands of the commodity, scale-out server market, which, having been dominated by x64 for so long, makes LE support necessary. but that in no way means that these chips are exclusively LE, nor does it mean that IBM has any interest in the POWER ISA migrating to LE exclusively at some remote point in the future.

-- eliyahu

@eliyahu

How LE/BE can be selected on a PPC CPU?

@Elwood

great question. it's something that's typically decided at compile-time. as a result most operating systems, like linux, will support different ABIs, one big-endian (ppc64) and one little-endian (ppc64le/ppc64el). for most application developers, it's fairly transparent, unless you're writing device drivers, filesystems, low-level OS components, that sort of thing where byte-order makes a difference. things are a little more complicated with vector-data, so there are APIs people can use to ease the transition.

if you're looking for more detailed information, you might want to read through the current ELF V2 ABI describing ppc64le (link) and/or the current ISA specification (link).

-- eliyahu

@eliyahu

Bi Endian ... wonderful i dint know

@tlosm
Why did you say it was little endian if you didn't know?

@elwood
The mode is chosen thanks to a bit in a privileged register (MSR).

@eliyahu
Thanks for the clear and detailed information.

@corto

because on linux kernel mailing list on Power 8 and Power 9 are working only for Le kernel for have this
http://www.ubuntu.com/download/server/power8

[ ] ubuntu-16.04.1-server-ppc64el.iso
19-Jul-2016 21:45 626M Server install image for PowerPC64 Little-Endian computers (standard download)

@eliyahu

Thanks for the details. So AmigaOS could be LE (ok drivers would have to be modified). So it could help in porting drivers from the LE world but not other software.

If we have one day amigaos as PowerPC LE kernel im sure will be more simple have all kind of porting gallium too

@ ChrisH: it is releveant, to the point we decided to do something aboutIT... :)
...the plan is to build freeScale e65oo PowerPC64EL GNU/Linux
notebook @least as an Open (Source?) Hardware, put aside
FreeOfPatents / respectYourFreedom hw for a moment... \o/ :) <(") ...of course, as practicality allows...there are also ideas/plans to do some 1o O.S. crossPorts (amigaOs, morphOs, bsd"s, redox, (open)darwin/fink, Haiku(OpenBeOS)m,...mayBe realTimes,...& atari MiNT, dolmen, pearlRealTime...just kidding :) ) ...again as patents would allow & interest is driven to doIT...
litleEndian mode unfortunately means no altivec(tor)Use (similar as MMXorFPU in x86 had it restricted)...so we"re still thinkering, "powerpc_32" is the userLand richiest fork, bigEndianPpc64 wouldNotBe / is not so debianPpc & ibm suported(seeBelow)...so the choice is tough...but ppc64el is the developer way to go...

http://www.powerpc-notebook.org/en/
http://forum.powerpc-notebook.org/index.php?board=6.0
http://www.powerpc-notebook.org/why-powerpc/

...after 6th c0reTeam (28 of 32o people) colab IRC/hat, we are now in stage of bringing up Statute for something like "Italian Open Hw Association" @the moment with working title "Power Progress Community"...feel free to suggest, not to close ourSelves in some cisc/risc arch cocoon...in eventual future projects (server, SBC SoC earlyDev experiment boards, IoT, digitalConvergence setTopBox/ mobile, gameConsoles like crowdFund failed RetroVGS,...)
...openPower is mentioned inside...crowdFunding for 5 prototypes is about to happen (55ooo €u ?)...Freescale(ex Motorola) have given us an T2080RDB devBoard to test...:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1gD ... vvImcWY/edit?pref=2&pli=1

...my personal thinking on sw platform dedication was:

1.st Tier
Debian GNU/LinuxPPC64_EL >= 8.2/5 stable / 9.x testing / rollingRelease ... 96% of the autoServerBuild job is done inside of an Project, but later we would need to "give" developers to them, as we have been told...:

https://wiki.debian.org/ppc64el#Debian_ppc64el_port

2.nd Tier
other Linux distros which someHow & to certaint extent support our target PowerISA...(think Community, infrastructure & ecosystem, not oneDimensionally & only technology excellence side...): in eg. FedoraPPC, OpenSuSEPPC ( in eg. kernel 4.7 inside unStable & experimental openSUSE "Tumbleweed" PPC64EB has just been crossPorted to A-One x1ooo/5ooo Freescale e55oo core),
ubunutuPPC, GentooPPC,...

http://archives.fedoraproject.org/pub ... 21/Everything/ppc64le/os/
http://www.amiga.org/forums/showthread.php?t=71154
https://en.opensuse.org/Portal:PowerPC
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/PowerPCDownloads
http://distfiles.gentoo.org/releases/ppc/current-iso/

3.rd Tier

Open / Free unixes: NetBsd, OpenBSD, FreeBSD, system5: OpenIndiana(Solaris), OpenDarwin / Fink (Deb apt-get port 4 MacOS X),...:

http://wiki.netbsd.org/ports/
http://www.finkproject.org/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fink

4.th Tier
nonUnix & free & nonFree crossPorts: Haiku (OpenBeOS/Zeta),
Redox, Minix, QNX realtime, PearlRT, ArOS (OpenSource), MorphOS
(partial OpenSource), AmigaOS 4.x, AtariMiNT (GEM/TOS bsd hybrid),...

https://genesi.company/support/software

...pric€$ sugested would be lower than todays a-One babyies...coz we doIT also as a "Socially Aware Project", not only to chace profit & patents...but real world production will be the final judge...aCube, aEon & bigBlu have understanding of this attitude we choose...
... no domeServerOnChip S.K.A. bigBlue intestins inside...as was
primarily hoped... :-/
...also SMP, 64bit (compared to 32bit better c0deDensity), multiC0re A-OS benefits must also be considered & addresed in proprietary case/instance design...if i remeber well Hyperion has done something aboutIT...although ELF2 actually allows mixing of cpu (ABI) architectures (including endianess) & platforms/OSs (API) c0de in one single file (fat/dual binary were used in Apple PowerMacs/Books mixing powerpc & x86 upTo MacOS x.4/5, with the cost of fileSize)...lets callIT hwLevelInteroperability/portability...
...classicAmiga 12ooPPC used hybrid aSymetric multiProcessing of
68oxo / ppc6o3e/G2...ppc was a kind a RISC onDemand coProc...although one could run APUS/Linux natively (mix of mkLinux, m68k linux conf mechanics & ppcLinux) after halfAnMinute contextSwitch on Phase5"s Blizzard Power Board 6o3ePlus/G2...elf was also an choice of object file for ppc.library A-OS 3.1 kernel...remember doom, heretic, hexen, quake.elf joy(sticks) of the 9o-ties...in ex. even DOS 6.22 original Hexen CD with .wads worked...ppc binaries just pulled from amiNet or mags...

http://linuxfromscratch.org/lfs/view/ ... rologue/architecture.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fat_binary
www.voodoo-amiga.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=38

...managing hw "Free"-ness from Patents & "respectYourFreedom"
(DRM chip user espoinage & FSF-€ call for abandoning intel & amd for that matter, coz of malicious chipSet / (U)EFI firmware implementation), is an exhausting & tedious job of cleaning
propietary blobs from every level of hw/sw pyramide...:

https://platen-software.de/tobias/pict ... 812-700x745-minifree.jpeg
https://blogs.fsfe.org/tobias_platen/

... thats why we see Luke Lighton"s ARM EOMA68 parametric laptop design as a good role/case for our way...in sense of above mentioned user freedoms...as a step further...to reach: "someone will cloneUs--be my guest, & doIT faster" state of mind... :)

https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68/micro-desktop
https://www.youmagine.com/designs/libr ... -parametric-laptop-design
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:823097

...even @ the sw level free-ness is hard to achieve: of more than 8oo linux distros, merely 1o are sw free of Patents (<1 %) ...one few 1oo bytes proprietary binaryOnly (no source !) blob, aimed only for specific kernel version, can ruin the day...& polute...:

http://www.gnu.org/distros/free-distros.hr.html

typeUp

dGs

@tlosm

Quote:

From what I understand you'd break everything by switching to LE and might as well switch to x86/x64 at the same time.

@Rob

Power8 have the Altivec working for LE too plus have the optimization of Gallium and mesa.
About an OS4 PPCLE
Probably the only way for have old BE software working will be wiht a qemu-user mode. I dont know if kvm-pr there will gave the opportunity to have BE system too. if yes will be more simple a swap.