PowerPC will return as desktop CPU alternative!

@billt

To try to give a good answer to all your question, i could start off saying that i don't have all the answers and i have never developed a program or hardware for the Amiga.

The only way i ever supported the Amiga was to talk good for it, to be some kind of a speaker for it, also based on my own experience with the Amiga, testing the general use of the Amiga, even my latest Pre4 AmigaOS 4.0 setup with AmigaOne G4-XE....

I know quite well that x86 is a very dominant platform, but that is again because Microsoft have ensured things went the way they wanted to. With their monopholy, they have managed to prevent just about anybody to make better alternatives than x86 and Windows! In many ways they have so many times broken the law EU have warned them so many times not to do, which will have consequences...

The theory could therefore be that when there were many companies supporting the PPC platform, both with Linux and the situation with Apple, was "scared" or "threaten"
with the choice of dumping the PPC, making Microsoft
very happy, and again who remains as the winner?
Everybody supporting Microsoft, and Microsoft themselves.
Who turn out to be the "loosers" sticking with other CPU platforms like PPC? The others who want to be free, breaking away from Microsoft's domination...

That's why we have this situation. Neither Hyperion nor A-EON are to be blamed for all the attempts in the past to bring Amiga into the future. Commodore and the Amiga Inc were the companies who failed, NOT A-EON or Hyperion. Hyperion have succeeded developing and releasing both AmigaOS 4.0 and any incarnation of AmigaOS 4.1. AmigaOS 4.1 Update 1 is a living edvidence of Hyperion's success. Look what happened to Amiga Inc. They lost the rights to everything related to AmigaOS, AmigaOne and Boing Ball. The only right they have is the Amiga brand name. Nothing more, nothing less...So don't blame A-EON or Hyperion Entertainment..

Still, we might speculate why they don't want to go x86 now. It could be that they have a secret strategy to make AmigaOS a fully completed 64-bit SMP OS with all the important features that a OS is supposed to have today, and this can be done by letting the X1000 use a modern PPC CPU, and working on components to fully support the X1000 hardware, then include what AmigaOS4 is missing, and FINALLY consider weither or not to go x86 or to make better PPC technology...

@billt

Again, there are many other PPC chips than the 970. We are talking AMCC and P.A Semi chips, not the 970. Forget 970. That CPU will not be used...

@All

I am well aware that at current, PPC is unthinkable as an alternative desktop CPU again, but that might likely change, and X1000 could very well be the computer
platform that will show why PPC again can become
an alternative CPU for the desktop market...

@billt

I'm a diehard Amiga supporter and believer, because i have always realised its' unique abilities, strength and flexibility.
Because i know how important it is to believe in things you love, and how important it is to have hope...

If we stop believing in hope and everything we love, trying always to be so realistic that you become pessimistic instead, then everything we do will be for nothing..

And don't forget the Amiga's 25th Anniversary this summer.
There is a reason that is coming now, and that means something really big and extremely important is supposed to happen to the Amiga, and i think we all know what that is to be...

@centaurz

I appreciate what you say. That you do not try to attack me. Perhaps i might be wrong, but it seems that A-EON and Hyperion Entertainment know something we don't...

It's not that hard to understand, really...

@billt

Almost forgot. You mentioned the question why i believe today's PPC support much of the same components as used on today's x86 motherboards...

These are the spesifications for AmigaOne X1000:

Custom case with Boing Ball
ATX Formfactor
CPU: Dual-core PowerISA? v2.04+ CPU
Co-processor: "Xena" XMOS XS1-L1 128 SDS
Audio: 7.1 channel HD audio
Memory: 4? DDR2 SDRAM slots
10? USB 2.0
1? Gigabit Ethernet
2? PCIe x16 slots (1x16 or 2x8)
2? PCIe x1 slots
1? Xorro slot (gives access to "Xena")
2? PCI legacy slots
2? RS-232
4? SATA 2 connectors
1? IDE connector
JTAG connector
1? Compact Flash

All these components, except the choice of CPU, are identical to what you find on today's x86 motherboards..

@Helgis

only time will tell my friend..so relax, hang on, have a beer (or a few), and most importantly...enjoy the ride

@Helgis


Quote:

I don't share this view, there are many factors and none of this have any thing to do whit Microsoft.

The timing of the AGA chip was horrible bad, only 1 year latter Apple adapted true colour, so CBM wasted lots of money on development and resource.

The Motorola 680x0 CPU that Apple and Amiga uses where too hot, it was not possible at the time to clock it up to more then 50mhz so they head to switch to PowePC, Intel chips have always stayed backward compatible. (Apple had to switch 2 times, 680x0 to PowerPC to Intel, Microsoft never needed too)

CBM produced Motherboard, Graphic chips, xyz whit the exception of some sharp based chips, hey really did not have many partners there voice in the marketing where 1 company ageist many IBM PC clone companies, and component manufactures selling hardware also advertised PC's , even before Windows became a success.

CBM history of cancelling technology development like flat screens, that was just crazy.

CBM spent money they did not have, on all kind of stuff.

CBM produced a number of flops like the CDTV, A500+, A600, and to some degree the A1200 where not so success full as A500, maybe because at the time, PC where starting to target 3D games, and adventures games, whit speech and video sequences, only tiny present of the Adventur games where ever sold as Amiga games (often cut back versions on disks), and as for 3D, most games where released after ID software released the source code, the game industry where virtually dead on Amige before CBM died.

But we love the operating system lets forget about the past regrets, and start think about future, and stop looking for some one to blame for the past CBM mistakes, no none learns anything from that.

@Helgis

Its not bad, and I hope its going to be a success.

@Helgis

Quote:

I don't quite "blame" Hyperion for anything, without them Amiga would have died ages ago. A-Eon, they haven't had a chance to do anything good or bad yet.


Quote:

You don't need a PPC in particular for doing those things.

Elsewhere you talk about PowerPC trying to make a desktop comeback. The PowerPC chip companies are not. Hyperion/Aeon may be, but they are trying to use an architecture those chip designers are targetting away from desktop uses for desktop uses.

Perhaps it sounds lik eI "blame" them for that. Perhaps I do to an extent. Apple left PowerPC out of frustration that they could not get the performance they wanted in the power consumption that they wanted. They now use X86 for performance, and they use ARM for low-power consumption in portable stuff like iPods and iPads. They directly killed the best "desktop" PowerPC chip out there.

Who else but us WANTS desktop PowerPC anymore? Considering that, why would the chip guys put effort into continued desktop PowerPC chip creation? It's EXPENSIVE to do that, and why do that with no expected returns? (A couple thousand potential Amiga fans is the same as zero in this comparison, we're completely negligible to them)

Now, does someone want to do such a thing regardless of what some of us consider to be poor chip business decision today? I guess it's possible. Likely? I don't think so. Of course Hyperion/Aeon know something we do not, whatever CPU they use we don't know what it is exactly. They most likely have something new. Doesn't mean the chip designer intends it to be a desktop chip, but for our purposes it may be the new closest choice for what we want a CPU chip to do.

@328gts

Thanks, mate. I am not worried about what CPU it will use, as technology has become so modern today, it doesn't really matter what CPU it is using as long as the OS is
supporting it. In generall, the CPU itself is pretty much
irrelevant...It's what the OS can do with the hardware,
not what CPU a machine is using...

@billt and all

I don't think one should blame A-EON and Hyperion Entertainment at all. Some would say that choosing
PPC is a mistake, while others would say that if going
x86, we fall into the trap that Microsoft have made for
everyone else who have gone the same path..

Even that x86 is the dominant CPU for the desktop market, PPC is dominant in the embedded market. There might be an important point in this. We should also not forget that PPC has progressed extremely amazing the last few years,
and what AMCC and the chips from "P.A Semi" are edvidences of how advanced and modern PPC have
become today. It's interesting...

Then again we have the ARM, and perhaps ARM would be a very interesting thing to se in the Amiga. I can understand the direction X1000 is pointing at, at it seems there is a high wish to bring Amiga back into the desktop market also, and not only be viewed as an embedded system.

But again, we will know more when X1000 is released. Then we will also get an idea where the Amiga is heading..

I'm not really worried that PPC is chosen as a CPU as long as X1000 is using the same technology as today's x86 motherboard. Therefore, the only difference now is the CPU X1000 will be using. The rest is identical..

@LiveForIt

in your earlier post:
You forgot that almost every sold games console have a PPC chip/core(s).

I think embedded chips sell more than x86 desktop chips, in general.

So if PPC manages to have good position in embedded space, the future for Amiga desktop is good enough. (IMO, that is)

About AGA & timing:
I think HAM8 had advantages over everything on the market untill late 90's. It made Amiga the best platform for realtime high colour MOVING GFX.
But sure, 24bit should have followed quickly.
(they had the working prototybe of AAA)

@Helgis

Quote:

I think that saying PPC is the dominant embedded CPU isn't correct anymore. ARM is. I think has been for a while. PPC is still there, but losing ground to ARM. Consider that nearly every cell phone has an ARM in it. Tivo. GPS units. etc... PowerPC is still in routers and car engines and some other things, but it;s falling behind in raw numbers.

PPC has progressed extremely amazing in the last few years? I'd say, for desktop users, that's not true at all. Desktop features are being removed. The highest-performance chips we had have been dropped. Sure, Titan is coming, but we don't know much about it. I'll assume it does not have Altivec, as I cannot find anything saying it does. Same for IBM 470, which may be what Titan is anyway. (Wikipedia used to say Altivec for 470 but not anymore)

Quote:

I don't think anyone, from a buyer point of view, has ever considered Amiga as an embedded system. I think Hyperion would be smart to find embedded uses for their product and have it go there as well as desktop OS for us, but I'm not sure we have a reason to think there's already an embedded system aspect to come back from. Most people view Amiga/AmigaOS as an antique, dead, game machine. Look at the reaction to ANY Amiga post on slashdot...

@KimmoK


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AGA where released in 1992, before 1992 we where using OCS and ECS chipsets,
1993 was the day true color screens came to Mac's
AGA where horrible slow compared to s3 Virge aka Cybergraphic.
Yes its true OCS,ECS,AGA it did have perfect sync, but problem was games of the 90's required more then just that, they required a CDROM, a hard-drive and true color.

Quote:

No one use planar graphics anymore, this should give you an idea how out dated this tecnology is, a simple task as writing a pixel on AGA required spiting up pixel in number of 8 SET bit machine code operations on a number of 8 bytes, the operation where too costly, compared to wring the pixel data to 1 byte (8bit) and be done whit it, as modern graphic cards do.

And speaking about HAM6/HAM8 it was even more costly because you need to calculate the effect one color had on an other color, or you head to make translation table to speed it up, you can think about it as simple compression routine.

@KimmoK

It's an interesting perspective, and might be true.
Still, i believe that X1000 might change a lot of things...

The CPU is the least important thing to worry about as long as there will be an OS to run X1000, and as long as it will use the same components as seen on any x86 motherboard today...

I am also convinced that going for the X1000 is the rightest choice i have made ever in my life. To finally be able to "return home" again. That is what i want..

@billt

I find it interesting that you believe ARM will dominate, perhaps more than what x86 is currently doing...

You also say that PPC is loosing ground. That's very ironic, as PPC has changed a lot the last 5 years. There is now no longer any excuse to aband PPC now that a PPC motherboard uses any industry-standard components like PCI-E, DDR2 (the difference between DDR2 and DDR3 are very small), USB2, Gigabit Ethernet and several other industry-standard compoents, as
seen on any x86 motherboard of today.

It's true that PPC is currently only seen as a popular
choice for the embedded market, but because AmigaOne X1000 is the next-generation AmigaOne X desktop computing systems, it's likely that the X1000 will
bring so much attraction to the desktop market
by using a modern PPC as CPU...

IBM is still developing new PPC chips based on newer POWER architecture, and there seems to be a longterm
strategy to bring PPC further into the future. Multi-core
technology is introduced to the PPC technology, adopting much of the same idea as x86, and it's still important to assure that PPC uses low heat, and pushing efficiency to the maximum. Also look closely at what AMCC are doing with their PPC chips, and then you have P.A Semi with their extremely powerful PPC chips. Forget all about G3, G4 and G5 (the 970). They are long gone and not relevant for what is happening to PPC now..

I read the long interview with the people behind A-EON.
Especially one name should be noticed. Ben Hermans is one of the men behind this company, and has been working with Hyperion Entertainment for many years.
Another name is Trevor Dickinson. A man i guess many of you are quite aware of. A known name to the Amiga scene...

During that interview seen in AW.net, it was also mentioned that they spoke a lot with engineers having great knowledge of PowerPC and came to the decision to use the "Nemo" motherboard with the specifications for the X1000 that is already known. I also think that the XMOS co-processor dubbed "Xena" will bring along a lot of interesting features. Features that were never possible in AmigaOS before. We are into a great change.
A historic change for the Amiga, and an important one..

Would that mean PPC is loosing ground? I certainly do not think so. It sounds quite the opposite to me..

@Helgis
While some people may be annoyed by your over-enthusiasms, I think it's better to find something exciting than to be pessemistic about everything (as you can see in some people over on AW.net). Pessemists never get anything done, by definition, while optimists while at least try new things, and some of them will likely turn out to work. As long as you try to temper optimism with a bit of realism, there is nothing wrong with being an optimist.

As regards your first post, we can certainly expect more Cell processors, although who knows what they will appear in (apart from Sony products!), and yes, there are also other PPC processors on the way. At the very least there seems to be a secret-ish ultra-low-power one which will find it's way into the X1000.

PPC is no-way dead. I'm not sure it will ever become main-stream on the desktop again, but I don't think it *needs* to be - as long as there are reasonably fast PPC processors for use in other markets, they can be used by us for the desktop. (They probably won't beat x86 on raw power, but then again the Amiga has never been about brute force.)

BTW, ARM is now seen in the same light as PPC *used* to be (say 10 years ago). If I was a betting man, I'd say that x86 (more specifically Intel) will clobber ARM on the desktop/laptop just as well as they already did to PPC. I think ARM will be restricted to embedded devices in (say) 10 years, while PPC is at least still used in servers & others that needs reasonable computational power (in addition to embedded uses). Some companies are pumping a lot of money into ARM at the moment, but if that doesn't result in massive sales increases (i.e. new markets) then I think the money will dry-up again.

@Helgis

Quote:

ARM dominates in a different place than X86 dominates. They both do, in their respective areas. X86 dominates in desktop/laptop computers. ARM dominates everywhere else.

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Consider this, compare the number of new ARM laptops you can buy today to the number of new PPC laptops you can buy today. Think about that...

If they made a PPC board without modern things like PCI-Express, USB2, SATA, I'd consider it a laughable joke. They HAVE to do that, or it's pointless IMNSHO. I'd prefer to see USB3 now, hopefully we'll see some plugin-cards supported for that.

How has PPC changed to benefit desktop in the last 5 years? The big 3 game consoles use it? They are not desktops, and cannot be well used for that purpose. Xbox360 has a relatively high rate of failure. PS3 was horribly slow to catch on. Sure, they are gradually integrating peripherals into SOC chips that we want in a motherboard, but where are all the desktop motherboards for us? Only a couple. Very very few, far between, and still no freakin Amiga laptop after all these years, not even when old PPC laptops do exist. The market for desktop PPC boards simply is not anything to consider in existence, and thus only very special designers put them out for us nanoscopic Amiga community to use.

If it was me, I'd stop making motherboards directly including any CPU especially for Amiga market. And I'd not want to call my own an AmigaOne-Anything if I don' t absolutely have to in order to get some OS licensing for some reason. I'd make one thing that can be a laptop or can be an ATX or can be a Flex-ATX or can be a mini-ITX or... and let the users decide what shape to make it, as in this teeny teeny tiny market it really does not make sense to have such a number of different motherboard designs or different performance levels. If I ever do succeed in my design idea, it'll be the highest performance I can get, with the most modern features I can get, so it's as useful to as many Amiga fans as possible. I do want an X1000. I don't know if I can afford one, as I'll have a baby about the time X1000 is said to ship, but no matter what CPU is on it, it's still not what I want, because I'm really tired of having all of my Amiga stuff chained to a desk and I can't use it anywhere else than at that desk in that room of this house. Give us a laptop, and I'll find a way to pay for it. Give us a desktop casing of any size/shape, and I'm at the mercy of my wife, I'm much less motivated to really make sure I get one that way.

Quote:

So much attention from who, other than us Amiga fans? Just watch when it's announced to Slashdot, what the reaction is. (Here's a hint of what that will be, they'll be in crazy wonder why we weirdos want a new board for such an ancient and dead platform, and really be puzzled why we don' tchange to X86 and have all that cheap and plentiful variety instead of one or two bigbox boards total to choose from. I'll bet you US$100 on that. Other than Amiga web sites, that will be the response.) It'll be a fantastic board for us, but honestly, who else will care? How well did Eyetech do outside of the Amiga community, they wanted to sell it as a low-power consumption server. Why did Genesi turn away from PowerPC in favor of ARM? (Until giving poltiical support to someone's new bounty 8610 idea?)

Quote:

How do we have PA Semi and their extremely powerful PPC chips? I really don't understand why you continue with them. They haven't existed for two years... I liked those chips. If I could, that's what I'd have in my Amiga laptop. I had an NDA with them for such a goal, but they were taken away from us and shoved into a garbage disposal in Apple's basement. If A-Eon have managed to go supernatural and bring the thing back to non-military life, I will be truely amazed, and perhaps I'll consider Ben a CPU God. Until there's a proven miracle and we begin to celebrate PA6Teaster every year with the PA6Teaster Jackalope hiding buckets of fudge Boing balls, I do not believe the chip exists anymore. Unless you're a defense contractor making zillion dollar fighter planes and are super-rich enough to bully Apple around and have them give in. Even if the PA6T is somehow back from the dead, at best it's now 2 years old tech.

IBM have dropped future Cell development.
http://www.n4g.com/tech/News-431744.aspx

Fixstars does not list their PowerStation tower anymore?

Linux distributions are dropping PowerPC. Ubuntu, OpenSUSE, and Fedora are either gone already or going soon.
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubun ... 2007-February/000098.html
http://www.osnews.com/story/23071/GNU ... ros_Silently_Drop_PowerPC

Sony is killing OS support on PS3. My Slim never had OS support to start with, but older PS3s will lose that capability soon, and thus reduce "desktop" usage of PowerPC things.
http://blog.us.playstation.com/2010/0 ... s3-firmware-v3-21-update/

I know who Ben is, I've talked to him about a number of things. I don't know anything about X1000 that you all here don't though. He's a cool guy, but not a CPU god. Amarjit Gill might be (thought nothing to do with A-Eon), here's hoping... I don't recognize the other names on the A-Eon list.

I'm curious as to what the Xcore will lead to. Maybe a couple simple IO boards. I myself would prefer an FPGA like a biggish Spartan6. I have a lot of ideas, FPGAs can do more of them than I think XCores can, but I have a big Spartan3 on a PCI card to play with before saving up for a Spartan6 board.

@Helgis

Regardless what you read on various forums, I seriously believe the X1000 will offer a level of functionality which will at least equal the PA6T on benchmarks and speed.

Make of that what you will.

Simon

Hi Helgis
You posted this a day to early.

But I really like your positivity, we need more of that combined with a little realism

@All

Well, this topic was never meant to be an April fool, but it was meant to be a serious perspective...

Some claim here that i was the pessimistic person from AW.net. It was quite the opposite, but i was overrun by the members who doubted me as a character and too many of the members there have lost the belief in the Amiga. I had the feeling that i was fighting a lonely battle there to convince people the opposite, without much of a success...

Nobody knows what CPU direction the Amiga will take in the future, but for now it seems to be PowerPC, and the reason is a clear one. We want the X1000 out as soon as possible, and that can be done by letting it use the latest incarnation of AmigaOS 4.1 as efficient as possible...

I'm happy to see that people realise that PPC is not dead and it has changed a lot the last few years...

A-EON and Hyperion Entertainment may know something we don't. Why do you think they keep their projects as secret as possible, until the time is right to reveal them?


I have tried many times to take up the debate about x86 vs PPC. I was even told by the people behind A-EON and Hyperion Entertainment that the debate is pointless as the situation stands for the meantime..

Does it really matter if the X1000 is using a modern PPC architecture? I'm sure it will benefit greatly from it, compared to how x86 is used on today's Windows systems...

Some might have felt annoyed about my enthusiasm, but at least i'm doing things the right way. There is no point of supporting the Amiga if you don't love it and believe in it as i do. I love it, and i believe in it. I believe it can do it again, and it's already showing a lot of potensial for the future...

I'm here to stay, as long as i live. Amiga is my dream and my way. It's like returning home again. That's why i will aband Windows in favour of Amiga. Why? Because the Amiga is a much better overall system to use than Windows, no matter how modern it is. There is no excuse anymore to aband the Amiga..