That sounds like a great idea. Since MorphOS has A Box, and Q Box, there could be a third Box that utilizes the multi core support. The third Box can run the legacy programmes (perhaps even if MorphOS became 64 bit) inside the second core.

Or whatever it was that you said. This sounds like an important feature but obviously I am not a coder. The MorphOS Developers are coders and their view is best.

If the above is not possible, then:

There needs to be a concrete explanation to provide for the potential newcomers of MorphOS explaining why MorphOS does not need the Multi Core support.

And if any single core hardware exists and in production, port to it. Perhaps if it is single core hardware, it might cost less ... and low cost hardware is an advantage.

Well, we all know the developers have committed to an eventual ISA change.
But can't that be developed gradually as an evolution of our current environment?

Because even once an ISA change occurs, PPC MorphOS isn't going away any time soon.
Were development to stop at V 3.6, I'd still be able to get many more years of useful service out of our current hardware base.

> MorphOS has [...] Q Box

Does it?

> there could be a third Box that utilizes the multi core support.

That's what the second box aka QBox was supposed to be about.

> The third Box can run the legacy programmes [...] inside the second core.

Wouldn't the ABox be there for running legacy programs?

I did not know about SMP or ASMP was proposed with Q Box.

>>Wouldn't the ABox be there for running legacy programs?

Can the A Box be placed inside the second core? Some similar suggestion from whatever takemehomegrandma and Jim were talking about.

> I did not know about SMP or ASMP was proposed with Q Box.

SMP (as well as memory protection, resource tracking etc.) was the whole point of the QBox idea:

"The goal is to [...] work on a new OS layer using Quark functionality called Q-Box. [...] Because we believe that the original OS design has strong limits for newer technology through its design structure, we also plan a completly fresh and clean OS layer on top of the Quark kernel (called Q-Box now). The A-Box API [...] has serious limitations because it doesn't hide OS structures and has no concept of memory ownership. [...] As a consequence, we will not replicate the A-Box API in the Q-Box but we will try to do a new API without any compromises to the past but based on past experience."
http://web.archive.org/web/20020626181353/http://www.morphos.net/overview.php3

Regarding the "Quark functionality" to be used by the QBox, see there:

http://web.archive.org/web/20020626180435/http://www.morphos.net/kernelinfo.php3

> Can the A Box be placed inside the second core?

Yes, the Quark kernel running underneath both the ABox and any other potential box running in parallel with the ABox would be able to put the ABox on any core, and even switch between cores at runtime. That's the very nature of SMP after all.

Has there been any new statements about the "Q-Box" being a future project of the MorphOS Dev. Team?

I thought that the last word from the Dev. Team (and this was a fairly long time ago) was that the "Q-Box" was dead and had been abandoned, and that only the current "A-Box" would be worked on for the foreseeable future.

This is why I ask if any of the MorphOS Dev. Team members have made an announcement, or even hinted at new work beginning on the "Q-Box".

I also thought that one or more of the Dev. Team members have stated that NO work has been done on any architecture change, and that "IF" any change to a different architecture would be attempted, it would be a long time (years) before it could be completed.

Are my impressions correct, or are there new statements or hints from any Dev. Team members that suggest a different impression of what is happening, or what might happen (or be started) within the next year?

> Has there been any new statements about the "Q-Box" being a future project of the
> MorphOS Dev. Team? [...] I ask if any of the MorphOS Dev. Team members have made
> an announcement, or even hinted at new work beginning on the "Q-Box". [...] are there
> new statements or hints from any Dev. Team members that suggest a different impression
> of what is happening, or what might happen (or be started) within the next year?

No.

> I thought that the last word from the Dev. Team [...] was that the "Q-Box" was dead and
> had been abandoned

The last word from a MorphOS Team member was that the QBox was never planned and also never mentioned as future prospect by the MorphOS Team (which is not true, of course).

> I also thought that one or more of the Dev. Team members have stated that NO work has
> been done on any architecture change, and that "IF" any change to a different architecture
> would be attempted, it would be a long time (years) before it could be completed. Are my
> impressions correct [...]?

Yes.

We can call it Q-box, and the concept is quite similar.
But at this point we can consider multi-core SMP support and 64 bit addressing.

Well, this has all been speculated about with mostly the same conclusions since I joined MZ 2 years ago. Without the input of the MOS Team it's quite pointless. After all, it's them who has to do all the work.

I just hope they will announce their plans before people get tired of waiting. Used macs are, as we all already know, a nice stop gap compromise and they will do just fine for a few more years. And it can work even longer if people know what the next step will be, even if it takes years to materialize IMHO. Old macs works, but it's not sexy

However, like the AOS 4 laptop, making promises that may not materialize is even worse than saying nothing at all.

Quote:

Come on man, don't compare MorphOS to other NG solutions that are practically abandonware!

We end users are allowed to speculate, it is part of the fun as long as the users are grounded in reality. I'd love to see an ISA move and I'd love to see SMP in the near future, but if neither ever happened I'd be happy to just have had the opportunity to use MorphOS on PPC Macs like we have now.

Quote:

I love to see how ARIX manages to handle it and what comes.
(so far, to me it seems AROS and Linux have had huge trouble without custom designed, 100% supported HW)

In the meanwhile, with SMP capable 64bit PPC HW the "next dimension" can be prepared while users can boot pack to legacy (single core, 32bit) system when needed.

UPDATE: nice graph that shows why SMP is very important:
(x86&cinebench)

[ Edited by KimmoK 01.07.2014 - 09:56 ]

Quote:

ARIX uses a Linux kernal, and Linux based Amiga like OS' should have an advantage in implementing SMP.
The core question is the same though, how do you get legacy Amiga apps to run in an SMP environment.

I think the Hypervisor idea is a really neat one. While I am rather more in favor of making a clean cut and probably jump ISA. the hypervisor idea on PPC actually is neat. A multicore ppc where the processor itself warrants the environment for each OS instance. Two OS instances: MorphOS as we knwo it for one core, MorphOS NG on all the other cores . Both running alongside. The actual silicon taking care that everything will be fine.
The good thing: MorphOS as we know it wouldl stay as it is (and stay compatible). MorphOS NG can evolve.
Sure, no easy thing. And to be nicely useable both OS instances should be glued togetther somehow. But that approach would offer a very smooth transition. So to say a clear cut (MorphOS NG) without the clear cut (MorphOS stays as it is one _one_ core).
The big, big, big disadvantage (aside from the required work): it would need to stay on PowerPC where hardware supply of current (QorIQ based) "normal" general purpose computers is - well - problematic (but at least there are the Freescale dev boards). But the idea to use hypervisor to run two instances simultaneously is brilliant to provide a smooth upgrade path for the OS.

This SMP or ASMP, Hypervisor, Q Box, etc. Improvements certainly would make MorphOS shine yet again.

The following is not a good enough reason to add these feature(s) but I still want to share my experience the last two and a half days:

I have hundreds and hundreds of pages on my Watchlist from Wikipedia. There is a Power Architecture page which includes information on Genesi computers, AmigaOne computers, Hyperion, and the three AmigaOS 4, AROS, and MorphOS.

An IP Address had removed every mentioning of Hyperion, the OSs, and AmigaOne claiming it to be not encyclopedic. The edit war continued until earlier this morning.

All of the IP Address reasons to remove the information were unacceptable except for one:

None of the Amiga-like OS fully supports Power Architecture. MorphOS usually does, except for the systems which contain more than one core.

Are there many (and current) Power Architecture systems containing more than one processor core? The only ones I am familiar with is AmigaOne series. (Which kept getting removed from article).

It does not matter because the edit war ended with a cease fire and all Amiga clones, and Operating systems, and related companies are still in the article.

> None of the Amiga-like OS fully supports Power Architecture. MorphOS
> usually does, except for the systems which contain more than one core.

Power Architecture is an ISA, not a chip or system. Therefore it makes no sense claiming an OS doesn't fully support Power Architecture just because it is a single-core OS. After all, the ISA allows for single-core implementations, of course. A single-core OS can't fully support a multi-core chip or system, but the ISA is per core.

> Are there many (and current) Power Architecture systems containing more
> than one processor core?

Yes, there are hundreds of systems using more than one core that complies with Power Architecture currently on the market from a broad range of vendors. They are mostly specialized systems for embedded, networking, telco, industrial, imaging, storage, military etc. use.

> did he give any hints about what kind of multicore support will be used in AmigaOS4.2?

Hyperionmp mentions SMP as goal for OS4.2:

http://amigaworld.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=35072&forum=32&start=340#738096

Quote:

Which means SMP can be ruled out with 100% certainty.

[ Edited by Kronos 29.07.2014 - 03:03 ]

@Kronos

It does? I found Hyperions answer rather cryptic.

Quote:

Of course they are cryptic, that is the whole idea. Something to do with Plausible deniability.

@redrumloa

Maybe, but I don't think it qualifies as "100% certainty". Plausable maybe (what do I know?) but not definite.

from Hyperion MP:
//Please bear in mind however that some of the goals (SMP e.g.) were deemed "impossible" to achieve barring sandboxing the current API, at least by a quite vocal group.
Since we realize that many of you are getting somewhat impatient, there will be a "nice surprise" before the end of the year.
(We realise that "nice" is not the work some would use but there you go).//

To me it seems they have managed to somehow the stretch the (AOS4) API so that SMP like threading has become possible. (or perhaps they use HW assisted virtualization as part of the solution)

It will be interesting to see. (and to see if it's "SMP" truly usefull for normal users)

(there definitely is a lot of ways to get SMP... perhaps some will nag if lecacy code is left to run only on core0, but so is life...)

[ Edited by KimmoK 30.07.2014 - 14:14 ]

Seeing is believing :)

> To me it seems they have managed to somehow the stretch the (AOS4) API so
> that SMP like threading has become possible.

More information:

http://blog.hyperion-entertainment.biz/?p=1184

well you just can't expect some solid work here. everything that came from hyperion was buggy and unstable even in their old days when they ported games...

Edited - Sorry that sounded snide.

It does look like Thomas is facing the same realities we've been discussing.

[ Edited by Jim 28.02.2015 - 17:59 ]