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new 99 dollar 500mhz 68020?
- Thread starter HYDRAGON
- Start date
I got a private email from him - he's talking about building a FPGA Mac around this: www.apollo-core.com
Amiga accelerators based on FPGAs already exist. MHz is meaningless; the speeds are anywhere around to twice the speed of a 50 MHz m68060:
http://www.majsta.com/modules.php?name=News&file=categories&op=newindex&catid=1
Work is already underway to make the CPU core more complete (MMU, FPU support, too), and some work has been done on an Amiga 500 version which would be compatible with certain Macs if the m68000 is socketed since it just uses the CPU socket.
The current core would be faster, but not significantly faster than m68060 CPUs, but later FPGA cores could really speed things up tremendously. There's been talk about one which would be electrically compatible with m68040 sockets, which would probably interest everyone here...
http://www.majsta.com/modules.php?name=News&file=categories&op=newindex&catid=1
Work is already underway to make the CPU core more complete (MMU, FPU support, too), and some work has been done on an Amiga 500 version which would be compatible with certain Macs if the m68000 is socketed since it just uses the CPU socket.
The current core would be faster, but not significantly faster than m68060 CPUs, but later FPGA cores could really speed things up tremendously. There's been talk about one which would be electrically compatible with m68040 sockets, which would probably interest everyone here...
Guys excuse me,It is indeed the apollo core,is full 68020 compatible,it is as fast as a 500mhz 020 cause it is superscalar,has two execution units,fast fpu and many other improvements,it runs this fast on common Cyclone 5 Altera,nothing too exotic,there are Xilinx Zync 7010 boards for 99 dollar now,Zync 7010 contains fast Artix 7 fpga logic and is big enough for a very fast 68k mac,it has 1 gig ram,HDMI,usb,ethernet,all this on a credit card sized board.
Maybe we could do a kickstarter campaign to hire in some developers?
Maybe we could do a kickstarter campaign to hire in some developers?
Yeah. Sure, I'd buy one in a heartbeat. I just don't believe that it can or will exist. Please prove me wrong, though. I like your enthusiasm!
Same lot as that NatAmi thing, isn't it? If so I'd expect them to get it done.
But not open, no, so Mac people can't extend it and it'll only support the boards they decide. Feels a bit backwards to me, but I suppose anyone still involved with Amigas must secretly love getting left high and dry.
But not open, no, so Mac people can't extend it and it'll only support the boards they decide. Feels a bit backwards to me, but I suppose anyone still involved with Amigas must secretly love getting left high and dry.
The developer,Gunnar,is very openminded,but he does all the hard work on his own,if we could support him it would accelerate the proces enourmously.We could have a cheap FPGA board with a very fast 68k MAC,AMIGA,ATARI,the hardware is here,only needs some good FPGA developers to write the code.
On one hand you're talking about an FPGA-based accelerator, then in the same thread you mention:
So you want to skip the Mac hardware altogether and just use an FPGA board? Why not just get a really fast Core i7 and emulate a Mac in that case?
John,software emulation and fpga are not the same isn't it?,can you buy a real fast i7 for 99 euro/dollar?,but I am not here to argue,some very talented man puts alot of energy in preserving and upgrading a processor wich we all love I hope,the only way we not so talented could support him is with our money,if we bundle our forces instead of argue maybe one day we can have new 68k computers,be it APPLE MAC,AMIGA or ATARI
Well especially if you can get the 68K fast enough, you may be able to finally write a decent web rendering engine for the 68K mac and it actually be usable.
BUT... there is a HUGE BUT... the processor can be 5Ghz, your still stuck at the 16 to 33Mhz system bus using the real hardware, this includes the RAM so its going to be slower than balls still.
Sure the CPU can crunch the numbers as fast as lightning, but if you cant "get" it to there, then it wont run any faster.
itll help if the L2 cache and of course the main system RAM is modern and running as fast as the processor. But again, the interrupts and all that jaz are ASIC/VIA controlled, and again, your stuck.
BUT... there is a HUGE BUT... the processor can be 5Ghz, your still stuck at the 16 to 33Mhz system bus using the real hardware, this includes the RAM so its going to be slower than balls still.
Sure the CPU can crunch the numbers as fast as lightning, but if you cant "get" it to there, then it wont run any faster.
itll help if the L2 cache and of course the main system RAM is modern and running as fast as the processor. But again, the interrupts and all that jaz are ASIC/VIA controlled, and again, your stuck.
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No, software emulation and FPGA emulation are not the same, but they're also not all that different. I'm interested in an FPGA accelerator because it can be used with real hardware from decades ago. Remove all the hardware and emulate it (in the case of a complete FPGA system), and it's less interesting to me.
The completeness of the current m68k FPGA accelerator for the Amiga 600 is a good sign. But how practical is it to do something like that for Macs? As far as I know, the only Macs that have a surface mount m68000 are the Classic and the Portable. How many 128K / 512K / SE Macs have socketed m68000s?
Considering the space and power limitations of the Amiga 600, the FPGA accelerator is damned impressive. But the next step, and a better one for people who care about performance, would be an FPGA accelerator for m68040 sockets. m68040 machines have more of a power budget for the CPU, have much faster access to motherboard memory and more expandability, along with a more physically robust socket. I'm looking forward to those!
The completeness of the current m68k FPGA accelerator for the Amiga 600 is a good sign. But how practical is it to do something like that for Macs? As far as I know, the only Macs that have a surface mount m68000 are the Classic and the Portable. How many 128K / 512K / SE Macs have socketed m68000s?
Considering the space and power limitations of the Amiga 600, the FPGA accelerator is damned impressive. But the next step, and a better one for people who care about performance, would be an FPGA accelerator for m68040 sockets. m68040 machines have more of a power budget for the CPU, have much faster access to motherboard memory and more expandability, along with a more physically robust socket. I'm looking forward to those!
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