> the horrid 8080-derived architecture that [...] AMD push

They are in the process of establishing a second pillar:

https://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?forum=3&topic_id=7675&start=473
https://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?forum=3&topic_id=7675&start=551

Not that this makes the choice between x86 and ARM any clearer...

http://www.extremetech.com/computing/181867-amds-project-skybridge-new-arm-and-x86-chips-that-are-pin-compatible

btw As long as people are using high level programming languages, what does it matter if the underlying cpu architecture is a bit of a mess? What actual difference does it make to end users?

>As long as people are using high level programming languages, what does it matter if the underlying cpu architecture is a bit of a mess? What actual difference does it make to end users?

A bit of a mess is an understatement. Think about it. Does the engine in your car matter? No matter how you slice it, you're looking at problems if your engine is dreck. Look at the AMC Gremlin if you want an example. It sold well enough though and was a money maker for AMC.

To be clear I'm not a fan of PowerPC either due to lack of active desktop development.

I'm a proponent currently of SPARC64 and MIPS development as both architectures embody what I want in a computer: Low clock speed, legendary reliability, active desktop development and efficiency. Sun/Oracle hardware may be pricy, but its snappy and reliable for its age and I have never had one die on me, plus theres plenty of them. MIPS I like for the same reasons, I own SGI desktops, there are Chinese made MIPS desktop systems which have open documentation and are relatively inexpensive.

ARM has mostly market in cheap DIY hardware which may or may not have good documentation, has closed firmware or else is extremely expensive by comparison. Id say ARM has a long way to go before I consider it worthy to SPARC or MIPS

It would be nice for MorphOS to use MIPS especially if it has open documentation. But does MIPS laptop exist?

>TeamBlackFox wrote:
>... To be clear I'm not a fan of PowerPC either due to lack of active desktop development.
>I'm a proponent currently of SPARC64 and MIPS development as both architectures embody what I want in a computer: Low clock speed, legendary reliability, active desktop development and efficiency.

Could you show a link to MIPS desktops?
It's new to me.

Same for active SPARC64 desktops. Link?

I've been sure that PowerPC is the biggest desktop after x86/x64.

Other than that, IMO, MIPS is inferior to PPC.
(PPC is also far bigger in market share / bigger business http://www.brightsideofnews.com/2013/10/17/linley-processor-conference-arm-sweeps-next-gen-processor-designs/ ... unless there's cooking something that western world does not show)

btw. Does MIPS nowdays have SIMD? How about SPARC?
What's the state of RadeonHD or Nvidia support on those?

[ Edited by KimmoK 27.06.2014 - 06:22 ]

>> https://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?forum=3&topic_id=7675&start=551

> http://www.extremetech.com/computing/181867-amds-project-skybridge-new-arm-and-x86-chips-that-are-pin-compatible

Yes, this is what my link was about.

Quote:

Our niche would go grazy if someone did that with PowerPC.

(getting board from local x86 shop + plug compatible PPC on it)


Anyway, very nice move for AMD as their sales might be crashing.
http://www.techonlineindia.com/IMG/121/17121/bulletin20140429fig01.png
(but perhaps also console sales come to rescue this year)

[ Edited by KimmoK 27.06.2014 - 08:10 ]

> does MIPS laptop exist?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loongson#Loongson-based_systems
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lemote#Netbook_computers
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gdium

> Could you show a link to MIPS desktops? It's new to me.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loongson#Loongson-based_systems
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lemote#Desktop_computers
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lemote#Fuloong_2_series_of_small_desktop_computers

> Does MIPS nowdays have SIMD?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MDMX
http://imgtec.com/mips/architectures/simd/
http://www.linleygroup.com/newsletters/newsletter_detail.php?num=4918
http://www.google.com/search?q=loongsimd
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_Extension_Unit

> How about SPARC?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_Instruction_Set
http://www.google.com/search?q=simd+%22hpc-ace%22

> What's the state of RadeonHD or Nvidia support on those?

I guess that's more a question of operating system support than of CPU ISA.


Edit: added LoongSIMD
Edit2: added MXU

[ Edited by Andreas_Wolf 12.01.2016 - 11:43 ]

Quote:

And yet it moves. Sorry, Discworld reference... And yet, all but the entire digital consumer world runs on x86. Maybe if I refine my question - unless you're programming in assembly, what difference does it make? On that note, ppc assembly isn't as scary as some people pretend it to be.

Despite that, there is one MIPS-like cpu / project that I attempt to keep on my radar and that's OpenRISC. http://opencores.org/or1k/Main_Page

> Our niche would go grazy if someone did that with PowerPC. ;-)
> (getting board from local x86 shop + plug compatible PPC on it)

That's probably not how Skybridge will work:

"I don't expect we'll see standard socketed desktop boards that are compatible with both ARM and x86 SoCs, but a pin compatible design will have some benefits for embedded, BGA solutions."
http://www.anandtech.com/show/7989/amd-announces-project-skybridge-pincompatible-arm-and-x86-socs-in-2015

> Same for active SPARC64 desktops. Link?

Not active, sadly, but newer and more powerful that the PowerPC systems of MorphOS, hell yes!

Sun built them until 2008 and my Ultra 5 from 2001 is still a helluva workhorse. MorphOS on SPARC would be interesting if unlikely. As far as I know the SPARC architecture shares a lot of the benefits the PowerPC architecture.

> I've been sure that PowerPC is the biggest desktop after x86/x64.

Moreorless, PowerPC is dead on the workstation/desktop front. I don't see much development from it these days. China is chugging along with MIPS production though. Plus moving to MIPS would grant us access to an abundance of cheap hardware.

> I guess that's more a question of operating system support than of CPU ISA.

Andreas speaks the truth here. It has NOTHING to do with the CPU ISA, this is all handled by the OS.

I like PowerPC, but I fear for its future as a suitable ISA. Moving to MIPS brings a lot of benefits that ARM doesn't have like I said.

I think it would be delightful if MorphOS would run on a MIPS computer.

Also, MIPS computers seem to have Linux by default. If there was an official MorphOS MIPS computer, "MorphOne Z10000" would make sense, and also it would help us overthrow the evil Linux.

[ Edited by In_Correct 27.06.2014 - 09:16 ]

> more powerful that the PowerPC systems of MorphOS, hell yes!

1.6 GHz Ultra 45 is faster than 2.7 GHz PowerMac G5?

> Moving to MIPS brings a lot of benefits that ARM doesn't have

One advantage of MIPS over ARMv7+ I can think of is big endian byte order for both code and data, unless it's a pure little endian MIPS implementation (like e.g. XBurst, Loongson, BCM47xx).

> 1.6 GHz Ultra 45 is faster than 2.7 GHz PowerMac G5?

For a lot of calculations, yes. SPARC tends to do very well for general computing, but as a result their CPUS are not optimized for games - they're designed to run for years at a time, non-stop doing general computing.

> Also, MIPS computers seem to have Linux by default. If there was an official MorphOS MIPS computer, "MorphOne Z10000" would make sense, and also it would help us overthrow the evil Linux.

Yeah the only reason why I have not gotten a Loongson is because BSD support on them is iffy at best. I don't use or support GNU/Linux. That being said if Genesi or some other company built an official MorphOS machine that would be awesome. And since I mentioned it do us a favour and don't call BSD evil or a form of GNU/Linux as thats not correct - GNU/Linux is a workalike of UNIX that is about as UNIXy as Richard Stallman is sexy.

>>> more powerful that the PowerPC systems of MorphOS, hell yes!

>> 1.6 GHz Ultra 45 is faster than 2.7 GHz PowerMac G5?

> For a lot of calculations, yes.

Okay, this reads a little different than your previous broad-brush statement :-)

> if Genesi or some other company built an official MorphOS machine that would
> be awesome.

They did, several times, but with PPC :-)

> They did, several times, but with PPC

I know. I mean now they don't

> Okay, this reads a little different than your previous broad-brush statement

Most of my posts are when I'm either:

A: Sleep deprived
B: Drunken
C: Enthusiastic to the point of mania

In other words - its totally normal. (^o^)

> whether it was two pin compatible designs or one chip with both ISAs.

While AMD SkyBridge is going to implement the former idea, the latter idea may be tackled by another contender according to rumours:

http://www.extremetech.com/computing/185888-vias-new-isaiah-x86arm-hybrid-cpu-outperforms-intel-in-benchmarks-but-will-it-ever-come-to-market

Neat approach.
Considering AMD's X64 is RISC at its core I am surprised that they are not using a similar approach.

I don't know if speculating again such or such choice is a good idea.
Definetly i think that Morphos developpers aren't working on an architecture move, they need an hardware partner to
have a documented hardware to work on.
In fact the processor's choice is not the main problem, hardware support is the main problem.
Most of Arm or Pc gpu are not documented....sadly

Quote:

DIdn't they announce they were working on something?

Quote:

Well they've done a pretty good job with Macs.

IIRC Some of the hardware is fairly well documented. Samsung used to have their hardware reference manuals on line. You might still be able to get them.

IIRC Allwinner are also considered to be open source friendly.

>> Definetly i think that Morphos developpers aren't working on an architecture move

> DIdn't they announce they were working on something?

No. The most substantial "something" they "announced" in this regard was 3 years ago, but they didn't say they were already working on it. They hadn't even decided for the target architecture yet.

https://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?topic_id=8121&forum=9&start=18

> Samsung used to have their hardware reference manuals on line. You might still be able
> to get them.

Yes, they have them publicly available mostly, even for an Exynos 5 chip:

http://www.samsung.com/global/business/semiconductor/file/product/Exynos_5_Dual_User_Manaul_Public_REV100-0.pdf

> IIRC Allwinner are also considered to be open source friendly.

Allwinner SoCs use Cortex-A8, Cortex-A7 or Cortex-A15, of which only the last one would be worth supporting in my opinion. Unfortunately, Allwinner SoCs with Cortex-A15 CPU core use PowerVR GPU, for which documentation is said to be hard to come by for non-corporate developers.

In fact they have annouced an architecture switch, but for them it's not simple, such a project is a big amount of work.
For the moment they want to finish and also prepare the operating system coponents for a switch. Many sources must be modified.
An hardware partner could be interesting..., some devellopers are thinking that morphos could be hosted transparently by linux in order to gain an impressive amount of work.




[ Edited by acepeg 15.07.2014 - 18:17 ]

@acapeg

I don't. I don't want MorphOS to make it more linux like/linux friendly to save some work or get some software. I think MorphOS would lose it's appeal.

Quote:

+1

And I really think you are in safe harbor in this regard Yasu, concerning the previously expressed views of the MorphOS Team on this issue!

The MorphOS Team is making *Their Own* OS!