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Supporting the OPEN SOURCE AMIGApage  1 2 3 4 5 

Gunnar von Boehn
(Apollo Team Member)
Posts 6207
13 May 2017 18:28


There is some movement of AROS, the open source AMIGA OS.
 
Three things are needed to build AMIGAs.
  A) A good 68K CPU
  B) The real AMIGA chipset, ideally enhanced
  C) AMIGA OS
 
 
AROS can offer the OS.
 
To Support this Open Movement, we hereby announce that we will open source SAGA (the enhanced AMIGA chipset).
 


Michael Westman

Posts 2
13 May 2017 19:01


Thank you!


Mo Retro

Posts 241
13 May 2017 19:51


Fantastic news together with the huge donation for AROS, the only real Opensource Amiga OS, by xWR over at EAB :D
A very Colorful future for Vampire & AROS it is :D


Wawa T

Posts 695
13 May 2017 19:57


very good move.
  i see at least two vampire owners in aros ml.
  i also see that amiga-m68k regains interest of aros developers. looking at last few days of aros commits all seems to be primarly 68k related, especially ensuring aros capabilities to boot on real amiga hardware as well as debugging it via gdb.
 
  i also notice extended user interest, even though i cannot partly confirm the positive experience people report with aros. i start to think, even if unlikely, i must be missing some good stuff, whatever it is..


Dusko Kovacic

Posts 21
13 May 2017 20:33


this is the most important news since C= died.

After my 1200 and blizzard 1240 i am looking forward to buy vampire

standalone. it is like new 4000T in those days!

this will boost aros development x1000 and bring Amiga back to people!

you brought me back! thank you!

;)




Manuel Jesus

Posts 155
13 May 2017 22:46


GREAT NEWS!
Heh... Amiga progress c***k blockers got a black eye TODAY!


Thierry Atheist

Posts 644
14 May 2017 00:08


Gunnar von Boehn wrote:
Three things are needed to build AMIGAs.
  A) A good 68K CPU
  B) The real AMIGA chipset, ideally enhanced
  C) AMIGA OS

  Okay, this makes sense.
 
 
Gunnar von Boehn wrote:
To Support this Open Movement, we hereby announce that we will open source SAGA (the enhanced AMIGA chipset).

However, why do this?
 
I don't like this at all. Everybody worked really hard to achieve creating S-AGA, and now, if you give it away, anyone else can run out and gain financial benefit from it, rather than you (the group)!!!!
 
Why is this necessary? Why are things better NOW, than yesterday?
 
 
 
  (All this is better to be answered in a new topic. We are talking about a NEW AOS, though, so I bring it up.)
  On a side note: Is there any way that AROS can be made to use 4 gigabytes of RAM, but NOT break old software? Can a MMU be used to stop the 32nd bit problem? What software and how, is behind that 32nd bit error code being triggered, that would cause a crash?


Wawa T

Posts 695
14 May 2017 00:45


On a side note: Is there any way that AROS can be made to use 4 gigabytes of RAM

 
  there is no reliable hardware nor necessity for full 4gb ram on an amiga as fo today. you can use whatever amount of memory you can dream about with aros x64. for now we need to walk before learning to fly.
 
  i just fired up one of my a4000s with current nightly and start to woder if aros got really faster since i tried it last on an amiga.


Geoff Reynolds

Posts 8
14 May 2017 01:08


This is amazing news. A tremendous THANK YOU again to the Apollo Team!

In my humble opinion, AROS is the only viable path forward and AROS and Apollo seem like an ideal match. I'm really looking forward to seeing where this goes, and I'm very excited about the prospect of a completely OS platform down to the hardware. Even if the CPU core isn't OS, I have complete trust in the work you guys are doing (unlike the big players in the industry). Congratulations and thank you again!


Thierry Atheist

Posts 644
14 May 2017 01:18


CORRECTION!

In my broaken post, the 2nd time I use
(quote="Gunnar von Boehn")
SHOULD BE REMOVED.
 
 
Mo Retro wrote:
Fantastic news together with the huge donation for AROS, the only real Opensource Amiga OS, by xWR over at EAB :D
An ASIC initial seed funding would have been better.


Wawa T

Posts 695
14 May 2017 01:45


here in forum, photos of mine and collegues a4000s running aros, arosowb web browser, actually browsing the web not that fast but with an acceptable speed, must be comparable to netsurf or perhaps even a bit better.
   
  we are running different network cards, sifferent rtg cards, probably altogether a bit different setups..
 
  also usb poseidon stack running on aros some mass storage device:
   
  http://www.a1k.org/forum/showthread.php?p=1072165#post1072165
 
EXTERNAL LINK  EXTERNAL LINK  EXTERNAL LINK


Andreas Koenig

Posts 9
14 May 2017 08:55


Thierry Atheist wrote:

An ASIC initial seed funding would have been better.

I cannot believe I am agreeing with you but I second that motion.

Somewhere down the road, when the Apollo Team is satisfied with the core, there should be a crowdfunding campaing to try to raise funds for an ASIC. FFS, Phil managed to get more then 150.000€ just for casings from the A1200 owners alone. I believe there will be a much greater demand for the ASIC since it is a viable option for almost every Amiga, not only the A1200.


Andrew Copland

Posts 113
14 May 2017 09:12


Thierry Atheist wrote:

 
Gunnar von Boehn wrote:
To Support this Open Movement, we hereby announce that we will open source SAGA (the enhanced AMIGA chipset).
 

  However, why do this?
 
  I don't like this at all. Everybody worked really hard to achieve creating S-AGA, and now, if you give it away, anyone else can run out and gain financial benefit from it, rather than you (the group)!!!!

Are you kidding? This is good news!

Keeping SAGA proprietary would have limited adoption, now it means that others could integrate it _however_ I imagine that they'll need to add things to existing FPGA based boards such as bigger/faster FPGAs, more RAM etc because the Vampire boards have set a minimum standard (128MB)

Also all previous attempts to do things with the Amiga chipset have all failed, because they were proprietary standards. Closed off and with paid for SDK's etc.

This avoids all of that and I think it's a really great move which garuantees SAGAs future.


Mr Niding

Posts 459
14 May 2017 09:59


Isnt even the quite generous bounty just a drop in the bucket when you start to talk about ASIC?

Software/OS support is imperative to get any hardware widely used (relative for a hobby platform).
Just look at AOS4.x. Much more powerful hardware available (altho quite expensive), and its struggling to get both OS development AND software, altho I appriciate the hard work from a handful of developers on that platform (I only got AOS4.1FE Classic/Emulation).


Dusko Kovacic

Posts 21
14 May 2017 10:24


Mr Niding wrote:

Isnt even the quite generous bounty just a drop in the bucket when you start to talk about ASIC?
 
  Software/OS support is imperative to get any hardware widely used (relative for a hobby platform).
  Just look at AOS4.x. Much more powerful hardware available (altho quite expensive), and its struggling to get both OS development AND software, altho I appriciate the hard work from a handful of developers on that platform (I only got AOS4.1FE Classic/Emulation).

I think that aros will get tons of coders in the near future.
Somehow os 4 never got me. too much hidden games with licenses,
court cases and deeper interests between few players.

aros + vampire = everything is clear and open sourced.

perhaps im wrong but somehow something tells me that this time
it will work as it should




Gunnar von Boehn
(Apollo Team Member)
Posts 6207
14 May 2017 10:27


For the goal to create AMIGAs you need 3 things

a) The OS
b) The AMIGA Chipset (ideally an improved version)
c) The 68K CPU (ideally a optimal version of it)

a) AROS can provide the OS
b) SAGA does provide the optimized Chipset.
The SAGA design can satisfy all users wishes (truecolor/aga/sprites/copper/full HD) easily even in consumer grade FPGAs.

c) APOLLO 68080 is the next-gen 68K CPU.
APOLLO is highly optimized and advanced 68k CPU implementation.
Apollo is the best on the market. No other 68K CPU was ever this advanced in design.

The point with open sourcing all parts is the following.
Apollo 68080 is very fast.
Apollo even when only using a consumer FPGA is able to beat 300 MHz PowerPC Asics - in some applications benchmarks (DOOM/Video playback).

But we actually want to reach more.
We know that we can put APOLLO in to an ASIC.
And we know that then we can compete and beat even G3/G4/.. latest PowerPC or ARM Asics in performance.

But going for an ASIC is not only a lot of work but will need a lot of funding. We will need really a lot of money for this we talk million $ here.

Its clear that the chances to get this funding are higher if we not open source Apollo today.



Thierry Atheist

Posts 644
14 May 2017 12:26


Hi Everyone,

All of your comments are very persuasive. I find it hard not to agree, but.... BUT;

I look at the Vampire, and see everything "done right".

While it's not that others, given access to the S-AGA coding can't "do it right" as well, what I DO see is FRAGMENTATION....

Fragmentation INCREASES COSTS for whomever does whatever it is that they'll do. Split sales of produced units across 3 or 4 or 5 hardware producers, and NOBODY can make a profit!!!!

windos works on THOUSANDS of combinations of hardware, and we see that it HARDLY WORKS... What I LOVED about AMIGA was the CLOSED environment where, everything was supposed to work all across the line of computers that they produced, because they were "the same". While, that WAS the idea, I am fully aware that it didn't quite work but I was VERY HAPPY to the extent that it in fact did.

Gunnar von Boehn wrote:
But going for an ASIC is not only a lot of work but will need a lot of funding. We will need really a lot of money for this we talk million $ here.

Its clear that the chances to get this funding are higher if we not open source Apollo today.


I agree, don't open source it.

I wish you'd keep S-AGA as well.

It's not like I have some alternative to go to if you do open source S-AGA, though. Still getting that Vampire motherboard.


Szyk Cech

Posts 191
14 May 2017 12:28


Gunnar von Boehn wrote:

  To Support this Open Movement, we hereby announce that we will open source SAGA (the enhanced AMIGA chipset). 
 

 
  Is this mean you will share VHDL (or Verilog) sources?!?
  When is this will happen?!?
 


Gunnar von Boehn
(Apollo Team Member)
Posts 6207
15 May 2017 06:00


Szyk Cech wrote:

Gunnar von Boehn wrote:

  To Support this Open Movement, we hereby announce that we will open source SAGA (the enhanced AMIGA chipset). 
 

 
  Is this mean you will share VHDL (or Verilog) sources?!?

Yes, this is exactly what we said.

Szyk Cech wrote:

  When is this will happen?!?

This will need some time to prepare.



Obetto Sannala

Posts 61
15 May 2017 07:00


@gunnar
   
    How are you gonna be Open Sorce with SAGA?
   
    What kind of license and organisation do you think of?
   
    Something like the FreeBSD or OpenBSD organisation?
 
  BTW: Great move!

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