What do you think would be possible run MorphOS (EFIKA version) on MPC512X ARIA board

Source
http://www.dave.eu

If so what needs to be changed to make it possible.

Cheers

Gabriel


[ Edited by comsytec 13.02.2018 - 10:05 ]

> would be possible run MorphOS (EFIKA version) on MPC512X ARIA board

No, because the Efika 5200B and the ARIA board are too different, down to the SoC and even core levels.

> what needs to be changed to make it possible.

The MorphOS team would have to port MorphOS to and write drivers for the ARIA board, which would include the MPC5121e/MPC5123 SoC (e300c4 core + uncore (+ PowerVR MBX Lite)) and the other on-board components.

And that translates to: "Never gonna happen".

So the whole system has so bad conception that neither developer group can do these things except MorphOS team ?

> And that translates to: "Never gonna happen".

Except if the port is paid for like was done with the Efika 5200B and the PowerMac G5 :-)

> So the whole system has so bad conception that neither developer group
> can do these things except MorphOS team ?

Calling the closed-source concept of MorphOS a bad concept is a valid opinion. But nonetheless the fact is that porting MorphOS to another board (and in this case even another SoC with a yet unsupported core) requires source code access, which is reserved for the members of the MorphOS team.
Every "developer group" wanting to "do these things" is free to apply for MorphOS team membership, I guess.

Sorry for my weak english but I thought that the MorphOS closed source concept is built around some common closed part (OS kernel) and other parts can be solved by drivers. If SDK is publicly available then anyone (well trained developer) should be capable to write required drivers for target hardware dependent parts (BSP package). Or do you think the MS gives access to the WIN kernel to all driver developers ?

Quote:

I'm sure it would be possible to make it run (with quite a bit of work).

What I am not sure about is whether MorphOS would be a good fit for a board like that. Those specs (extra RAM, for example). Would have made a great Efika some 14 years ago... And LVDS? I don't imagine our users would like to play with that.

Is the board even still available? I cannot seem to find it from the links on the main website. It's all about NXP's imx6 these days it seems...

> I thought that the MorphOS closed source concept is built around some
> common closed part (OS kernel) and other parts can be solved by drivers.

Yes, drivers for plug-in hardware and peripheral (on-board) controllers could be written by third parties (and have been in the past). However, making MorphOS boot on a yet unsupported SoC with yet unsupported CPU core (and potentially unsupported controllers like RAM and PCI) obviously requires access to the OS kernel source.

Quote:

http://www.dave.eu/products/som/freescale/mpc512x_aria


I'm started looking for some still available in sales channel but not too many is available. If any then others are in unconventional sizes and targetted for military etc. And also excessively expensive.
All of boards referred here in HW list here are EOL or ?
Yesterday I got quote for developer prototype 400 Euro / per board. Prices for batches are better.
Spec:
MPC5121 3D-GE,128MB NOR,512MB RAM,1GB NAND,FPGA
17KLuts, 512 KByte NV-RAM, NWE, NO TSC,CS REVB

I don't think it makes any sense to invest time into EOL hardware...

> I'm started looking for some still available in sales channel but not too many
> is available. If any then others are in unconventional sizes [...]

Note that the ARIA is a COM Express module so needs an additional carrier board.

> All of boards referred here in HW list here are EOL or ?

You mean the list on http://www.morphos-team.net/hardware? If so, yes, all of them are out of production. The Sam460cr has been the most recent board.

Quote:

Sure. For ARIA they stated lead time 16 weeks

Quote:

Yes

Then how you get new users or that's not a goal ?

Quote:


w/o a switch to a more common ISA (x64 or ARM) MorphOS wil not get many new users anyway. And even with an ISA switch new users won't be a given - but at least it _may_ be possible then. ppc emulation may be a step for in between the ISA switch. x64 became fast enough to emulate ppcs of okayish speed - at least faster than an e300/400MHz.
A good decade ago I had big expectations in the 512x family, but, well, it's long ago, long outdated and meanwhile ppc is EOL in general.

But that does not stop use from having fun with current MorphOS on übercheap used and abandoned Apple ppc kit. Best recycling ever!

Quote:

The boot firmware should put all the known hardware into basic state and then load the OS. The OS should presume everything is ready for run. If some improvement is requested it should load driver for particular purpose later. The firmware should provide some inevitable driver set. If this inevitable driver set needs to be compiled into OS kernel then it is not the best solution. I can not imagine what else relates to SoC. Unsupported CPU core is another thing. Any other opinion ?

@comsystec

How come you are interested in it - in all: PPC, that special board as an EFIKa replacement and MorphOS? You have not been around here before and obviously you work with totally different hardware and software. I am curious.

I would still like that kind of small board but:
400 MHz is really low even if it has 1GB RAM. For the RAM I would like it and 4x USB which EFIKA never had. That would be a cool EFIKA, yes.

But it is just a daughter board. Which motherboard do you need? What does it cost? What else do you need (apart from case, drives and power supply)? Can you ask for a complete set of mother board and daughterboard at e.g. 50 or 100 pieces?

But I believe 50 pieces would not make enough sense for the team tostart the port. Because usually a port takes a while. And from the Sam 460 users only very few (much less than 50) bought MorphOS although so many were asking for it (put aside that you need to swap graphics baord for running OS4 and MOS).

So I am curious. If you can get a good price for the whole package AND it will still be available (where? I did not find a single reseller) then you maybe can convince the MOS team to do the port.

Which firmware does the board use?

Quote:

Want to port some of my software to AOS4 and/or MOS and need to buy some AOS4 and/or MOS capable hardware (not EOL ones) but nothing is around so this was just an idea. I deemed this board looks very similar to Efika. Better would be to have some PowerArch T or P series NXP cpu. In the past designed some cpu boards using RENESAS SH2 SH4.

Quote:

prices without bargaining
MOQ=100 370 Euro / per board
301+1000 237 Euro / per board

Quote:

Don't want to convince nobody about porting. Any help is appreciated but I'm a lone wolf.

As tagged:

Just looking around

[ Edited by comsytec 13.02.2018 - 18:31 ]

> Which motherboard do you need?

According to the fact sheet, any COM Express type 2 carrier board should do.

> Which firmware does the board use?

https://lists.denx.de/pipermail/u-boot/2009-May/052365.html

> need to buy some AOS4 and/or MOS capable hardware (not EOL ones) [...]
> so this was just an idea.

As I understand, the ARIA board is EOL and what‘s available are remnants. Or is the ARIA still being produced (per order)?

> Better would be to have some PowerArch T or P series NXP cpu.

MorphOS 3.10 is supposed to support the P5-based A-Eon Cyrus Plus board (AmigaOne X5000).

Quote:

As Andreas_Wolf stated above, the A-Eon X5000 seems to be what you might be looking for, as it will support running both AmigaOS4.1FE and MorphOS3.10 (once 3.10 is released, which will hopefully be soon). Frankly, I was surprised that it took so many replies to this thread, before that suggestion was made. The X5000, like all PPC hardware, is also pretty much EOL, but it is still available new (AFAIK), and should there be enough demand for more X5000's, the CPU and other components will be available for a few years, so more production runs could be completed, to satisfy future buyers. It is an expensive system, specially when compared to any Efika class product, but it is also much more powerful, and capable of running a wider variety of software, and supporting many new, or near new video cards.

As a small niche group of users and even smaller group of niche developers/programmers, we are always very interested to find out how new users, and specially new developers/programmers become interested in MorphOS. Most often, we find that they are former, or current Amiga owners/users.

Since our tiny community is desperate for new developers/programmers to join us, allow me to welcome you here, and offer any help I can provide answering questions, to encourage you to become a regular MorphOS user and developer.

Edit: I believe that the MorphOS Developer Team has stated some time in the past that they would not work on supporting any more PPC hardware, and all team development would now focus on completing 3.10, and moving forward to an ISA switch to x64 hardware. If that has not been openly stated, it is the general consensus of most users I know, that this is the direction the development team is headed.

[ Edited by amigadave 13.02.2018 - 17:11 ]

Quote:

For quote query I got following (personal info intentionaly grayed out):

dave-0.jpg

Quote:

I thought the the CPU used in X1000 is EOL. The P5020 upon NXP is still available.
Is the "PowerPC" and "Power Architecture" something different ?

Quote:

Still owning Amiga 500+ but has hardware defect. Was a nice computer at those days (RIP).

Quote:

Thank you !

Quote:

x64 means x86-64 AMD ?

>> is the ARIA still being produced (per order)?

> For quote query I got following [...]

Thanks. Seems I was wrong and the ARIA is indeed still being produced per order. NXP is supposed to provide the MPC5121e until 2024 at least, btw.

>> The X5000, like all PPC hardware, is also pretty much EOL

> I thought the the CPU used in X1000 is EOL.

Yes, the PA6T is EOL as EOL can be.

> The P5020 upon NXP is still available.

Yes, NXP is supposed to provide the P5020 until 2020 at least. amigadave referred to the board, not to the CPU. A-Eon had 500 Cyrus Plus boards produced at one go. New boards will likely only be produced when these 500 boards are sold and demand for more boards is considered high enough to warrant another production run.

> Is the "PowerPC" and "Power Architecture" something different ?

In common parlance it's the same.

> x64 means x86-64 AMD ?

Yes, "x64", "x86-64", "x86_64", "AMD64", "Intel 64", "EM64T" means all the same.

Ok. So best way is to wait for MOS x64 release.

Depends. If you are really patient then waiting may one good option, but in my book MorphOS is rather about today than tomorrow (we can be dead tomorow ) and hence an Apple ppc machine from the junk or an überexpensive X5000 is the way to enjoy MorphOS - and life - starting today (okay the for X5000 we still need the 3.10 release which is said to be soon (but the saying goes for about 1.5 years now..).

Quote:
No, definitely not the best way. If you want to experience with MorphOS, get a PPC Mac now, they're plenty and almost free nowadays. Nobody knows if/when x64 port would happen and there aren't any official statements about its situation. Definitely not around the corner and you might have to wait for years. We need users and support now, it's useless to concentrate something which more like rumour and isn't here now. If we won't use current systems and show some support for developers, it might end that we won't get anything in the future. Enjoy what you have now and don't wait till grave.

I also don't quite understand why you would want non-EOL hardware that much for a hobby system. Hardware changes so quickly that everything will be pretty EOL when small OS like MorphOS would get support ready for it. I think it would be worst decision to add support for some marginal HW which wouldn't be available as used when they stop selling it. We've seen how it goes with these "new" custom systems we've supported earlier. They sell few hundred units and then they suddenly stop producing it more... development work is pretty much wasted unless it was a paid port.

It's way better to support some mainstream hardware which will be available as used for ages after its manufacturing is finished. That kind of hardware is much better tested and ironed out of bugs too. We've seen all the bugs causing troubles and delays in AmigaOnes for instance.