> About the 4th comment down at
> https://twitter.com/RaptorCompSys/status/975910664924311553

Sounds nice. Here the direct links:

https://twitter.com/RaptorCompSys/status/980910319856955392
https://twitter.com/RaptorCompSys/status/981235951719665670
https://twitter.com/RaptorCompSys/status/981236288291524614

Quote:

That is good news, hower the Power 9 Little Endian support, what could that bring 'us' ?

Update:

>> https://openbenchmarking.org/result/1803284-AR-TALOS2RAP51

> Compilation has been done with GCC 7.3.0. POWER9 (Power ISA 3.0) support
> was introduced with GCC 6 and enhanced with GCC 7. For whatever reason,
> "--with-cpu=power8" was used as GCC switch, needlessly decreasing performance.
> Accompanying article:
> https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Raptor-TALOS2-Initial-Tests

New benchmark results using GCC 8 with "--with-cpu=power9" and LLVM Clang 6.0:

http://openbenchmarking.org/result/1804013-AR-TALOS241110

Accompanying article:
https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=GCC-Clang-POWER9-Benchmarks

Quote:
POWER9 can operate in Big Endian, and someplace I read it could also do mixed endian, but don't hold me to that.

Big Endian is actively in development with Debian.

Debian

> someplace I read it could also do mixed endian, but don't hold me to that.

Yes, for different guests running on the hypervisor in parallel.

> Big Endian is actively in development with Debian.
> Debian

...but only as unofficial port (same as for 32-bit PowerPC and for PowerPC SPE).

Quote:

An easier way to build Odyssey from Webkit, other packages geared toward mainstream little endian cpus.

Just some news.

CLICK!

Damn that's a pretty board.
And I DO have an EATX case here...

I never really got into Fedora though.

I have an old Antec eATX case but doubt it would fit, at least the bottom 5 1/4 drive bay might have to be hacked a bit.

Sure would like to see one, but I would probably ruin it by drooling all over it.

SUSE and Ubuntu should be along soon.

>SUSE and Ubuntu should be along soon.

Cool, Ubuntu or Debian (which I guess is redundant to mention) I can handle.

What is the current state of the AMD video drivers?

Don't really know. Probably need a few more in the wild to smooth out the kinks.

LINK

Wow, the best deal I can get on a Radeon Pro WX7100 is about $500 (or more).

I need to spend half a grand or more to get a video card without issues?

There is Radeon HD 5850 support, which I assume means the 5870 ought to work, but I wonder what they mean by, "Currently has issues with only using 32-bit DMA".

[ Edited by Jim 11.05.2018 - 12:32 ]

Perhaps the Linux vendors were supplied with only the Aspeed and Polaris chips to work with to get 64 bit DMA. Since (it looks like) the WX 5100 also works, and has the Polaris, this may be the case.

I don't know where the software falls down. Could be in the Linux kernel, Xorg, or even in the early stages of boot. I'll just bet somebody is working on it.

Quote:

Mildly interesting. I don't follow this sort of tech like you and a few others here. What would you say the general cliff notes are here?

That this company may introduce a cost competitive Power based desktop?

Any chance it may capture the attention of the MorphOS team?

I'm guessing no to both, but let me know what you think.

>> https://twitter.com/RaptorCompSys/status/980910319856955392
>> https://twitter.com/RaptorCompSys/status/981235951719665670
>> https://twitter.com/RaptorCompSys/status/981236288291524614

> That this company may introduce a cost competitive Power based desktop?

I don't think anything built in relatively low numbers and not subsidized can ever be cost-competitive with equally performant x64 hardware.

> Any chance it may capture the attention of the MorphOS team?

This may also depend on the current development progress of the x64 version. The more progressed it is, the smaller the chance I'd say. And the MorphOS team would have to be provided with boards or systems, of course.

>>...this company may introduce a cost competitive Power based desktop?

>I don't think anything built in relatively low numbers and not subsidized can ever be cost-competitive with equally performant x64 hardware.

Not competitive with X64, but definitely priced lower than other Power 9 boards. If they can get it a little closer to the X5000's price, I'd be interested.

>> Any chance it may capture the attention of the MorphOS team?

>This may also depend on the current development progress of the x64 version. The more progressed it is, the smaller the chance I'd say. And the MorphOS team would have to be provided with boards or systems, of course.

Attention sure, but as a possible platform? Not unless they want to explore SMP before the ISA switch. A sixteen thread machine running a single thread would offend most people's sensibilities.

Edit - We COULD buy one for Mark (he already has a Radeon HD 5850 video card).

[ Edited by Jim 12.05.2018 - 00:49 ]

I just don't know enough about POWER9 yet to make any kind of conclusion about it's suitability for other than Linux.

If Linux, the OS that is, runs on a single core and distributes tasks to other cores, which they refer to as 'slices', then perhaps a single threaded OS would at least boot on such a machine. (?)

I'm certainly not advocating that any OS team drop everything and go to POWER9.
However, that should not mean they should ignore POWER9 as an option. The A1222 should be developed and promoted for both MOS and AOS as it fills a gap in the hardware lineup that's been empty for too long.

If Apple had not killed the PA6T perhaps MOS would be on that. Just don't know.
And now Apple is planning another jump away from x86, and you can be sure if they go ARM it will be a custom top secret design that only runs their OS, so porting anything to that would be next to impossible.

POWERx. Is it an option? Certainly not up to me. Would it be cool? Hell yes.

Apple is not planning to jump away from AMD64.

Okay. It's probably just buzz created by Apple to get a better price on processors for all I know. Google 'Apple on ARM'.

Quote:

Maybe not, but the A10 Fusion is very powerfull and Arstechnica has an article about it:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/04/apple-is-exploring-macs-running-its-own-cpus-but-that-dream-is-a-long-way-off/

> I just don't know enough about POWER9 yet to make any
> kind of conclusion about it's suitability for other than Linux.

A FreeBSD port to the Talos II seems to be on the way.

> perhaps a single threaded OS would at least boot on such a machine. (?)

I see no reason why using more than one core/thread should be mandatory.

> The A1222 should be developed and promoted for both MOS and AOS

1. Development of Tabor/A1222 was finished several years ago.
2. Technically, Tabor/A1222 has not really been developed for OS4 (see current lack of drivers). It's a Power Architecture platform which OS4 required (and still requires in some aspects after so many years) porting to. In general, an OS is developed/ported for a piece of hardware, not the other way round. Porting MorphOS to that platform would surely require similar efforts as porting OS4.
3. It wouldn't make sense to promote Tabor/A1222 for MorphOS when the MorphOS team has made clear that MorphOS won't get ported to it.
4. I hope that the MorphOS team won't change its mind about that. In my opinion, there is too much effort and too many problems involved with making standard FPU programs run on SPE FPU, especially when it comes to interaction between both worlds.

> If Apple had not killed the PA6T perhaps MOS would be on that.

...if there had been another PA6T-based desktop platform than Nemo/X1000, maybe :-)

> if they go ARM it will be a custom top secret design that only runs
> their OS, so porting anything to that would be next to impossible.

I think at least Linux and BSD would be on it quite fast.

At this point the only real advantage I could see to Power 9 would be as a platform to expand the OS to 64bits with SMP, because if we are just using it to run emulation via Qemu that can be done just as effectively on X64 hardware.

While I'd love to stick with PPC, since it's different, I'd have to agree with Andre' s post about following the lead of the developers.

They've decided on X64, so even if I have the funds to buy a TalosII, I'd just have to dedicate it to running Linux (with of course the potential to run virtual machines that might run some of our legacy software).

If the future is X64, so be it.
I wouldn't mind a multi-core high frequency Ryzen based monster.

The SAM460 had apparently been emulated, the X5000 may not be far behind.

We might as well switch to commodity hardware.

$1700 or so would buy a pretty powerful AMD64 system (you don't even really need to spend that much).

> if we are just using it to run emulation via Qemu that can be done
> just as effectively on X64 hardware.

A Power Architecture guest CPU won't have to be emulated when using QEMU on a Power Architecture host CPU:

https://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?forum=9&topic_id=5774&start=60

Quote:

I agree for the most part. We certainly have the best and brightest developers in the post-Amiga space, that's not up for argument. The only thing I've questioned and still question is the distractions brought on by porting to Sam460 and then X5000. It was mentioned that the Sam460 port brought almost no new licenses. I'd venture to guess while the X5000 port did better, it is likely still insignificant compared to the labor involved. It's their baby so I'm not complaining, just observing.

All that said, this new platform is intriguing. Unlike the Sam460 and X5000, I might possibly be interested enough to pay up for one. It's not some head scratching half baked boutique computer. It actually brings some value to the table. I imagine it could be ported to faster than the first X64 release.

Either way, ultimately I will follow their lead. I think they earned that respect.

I totally agree. Especially with it being intriguing.

It's real, available, and interesting. Weather anybody ports any OS to it is up to them. There is no 'gotta do' for any OS. And any threads about this kit need not be about anything other than the kit itself. It's a computer, and I like messing around with computers. Don't we all?

As far as having one......... oh yes, I will have one.