Sorry Frank,
I went back and corrected the post to read X600.
And yes Andreas, Frank and I have exchanged a few messages on the R400 series, because I have a modified ATI FireGL X3 with an X800 XL BIOS that I've got working on my G4 under OSX.

And yes, this is unrelated to the original topic and touches on a subject we'd discussed only to prove that it could be done.

Sorry for bringing up a confidential exchange.

> I went back and corrected the post to read X600.

I think it's bad style to alter the part of a posting that got already quoted. There're other ways to handle this, e.g. asterisking the erroneous part and footnoting it.

>>> his last message to me mentioned working on the R600 cards for the G5

>> Do you mean a personal message he sent to you?

> yes Andreas, Frank and I have exchanged a few messages on the R400 series

I ask you whether you talked about the R600 and you answer yes, you talked about the R400. That's too confusing for me to make any sense.

> Sorry for bringing up a confidential exchange.

pega-1 may disagree with me, but I don't think there's anything confidential in it given the fact that pega-1 himself published screenshots of MorphOS running on a machine with Radeon X600 GPU.

I think all the confusion was made by myself trying to make a joke as you mentioned that ppl do believe in bigfoot.

Sorry for that guyz.

> I think all the confusion was made by myself trying to make
> a joke as you mentioned that ppl do believe in bigfoot.

That may have been the trigger for the off-topic, but certainly not the one for Jim's confusion (X600 vs. R600, 3D drivers vs. 2D drivers) ;-)

Quote:

Not really confusion, just a foolish typo. Frank mentioned quite awhile ago that the highest cards likely to be supported would be the R400s (primarily because they;'re quite similar to the R300 series).
I just made a miss-statement.
In fact Frank recently sent me a return PM mentioning the X600 in the iMac as his current focus (with Bigfoot doing the 3d drivers). Which I guess means I'll have to wait for the X800 drivers.
BTW - The R400 works great in a G4 Powermac. You ought to see it running Doom3 under OSX. It's a really nice performer.

I really don't see how this is going to tarnish the Amiga name. It's not like these cheaply built products, put together by under paid college kids in China are going to become a wide spread product that everyone is familiar with. At most, you might see them in a Claw Machine, or a Big Lots at best. They are going to release un-noticed by the general consumer, a story that only Amiga die hards will be telling to their grand children...

...within a tent house in the post apocalyptic future.

Update:

>> it's said that "just the CPU is 400-450 euro".

> Remarkably, in the coming Amiga Future issue #89 Trevor Dickinson dares to write:
>
> "The PA6T-1682M is a [...] low cost [...] Power Architecture CPU"
> http://www.amigafuture.de/album_pic.php?pic_id=16353

"the PA Semi CPU [...] alone costs $500"
http://amigatronics.wordpress.com/2011/04/08/exclusive-to-amigatronics-28-questions-and-28-answers-with-trevor-dickinson-a-eon/

Assuming he means USD (500 USD = 345 EUR currently) it seems the PA6T has slightly decreased in cost since June 2010 when he made his '400-450 euro' statement. Could this perhaps explain his recent 'low cost' assessment? ;-)

Oopps sorry. That is a major typo. The PA Semi CPU is low power consumption but certainly not low cost.

"lost in translation" or proof reading error?

TrevorD

[ Edited by TrevorDick 09.04.2011 - 10:25 ]

Trevor: I'm not really into chipsets, processors but do you think that was the best choice to make? Were there no other PPC processors available?

>> Could this perhaps explain his recent 'low cost' assessment? ;-)

> That is a major typo. The PA Semi CPU is low power consumption
> but certainly not low cost.

Thanks for clarification. I was really puzzled by that.

> do you think that was the best choice to make? Were there
> no other PPC processors available?

I'm not Trevor, but this is my stance on A-Eon's decision for the PA6T over other CPUs back then, which according to Trevor was arrived at before Apple purchased P.A. Semi:

https://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?forum=3&topic_id=7183&start=136
https://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?forum=3&topic_id=7348&start=50

Bottom line: Between the three viable options there were at that time (PA6T, PPC970MP+CPC945, MPC8641D), the PA6T was certainly the most sensible choice. That's what I would have opted for as well.

@Pampers

What Andreas_Wolf said.

If were starting now, there would of course be more CPU options.

TrevorD

Update:

>> Why don't we make our own PowerPC CPU? [...] Really, could
>> it be possible [...]?

> Last time I looked you had to acquire an architectural license
> from IBM to do that in a legal way.

Or maybe that isn't needed anymore?

https://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?topic_id=6775&forum=11&start=105

Seriously, a GPL'd Power Architecture implementation sounds nice. Is it legal? I don't know.

PPC is 20 years old now so the early patents will be expiring.

Anything newer and you can expect IBM to send in a small army of lawyers.

> PPC is 20 years old now so the early patents will be expiring.
> Anything newer and you can expect IBM to send in a small army of lawyers.

IBM's Army of Lawyers against China's PLA. Interesting thought ;-) Seriously, you may be right that the expiration of IBM's related early patents is the reason that PWRSemi is only starting this endeavour now. But I'm not quite convinced that it isn't just due to them being located in China and thus out of reach of western jurisdiction ;-)

>> Remarkably, in the coming Amiga Future issue #89 Trevor Dickinson dares to write:
>>
>> "The PA6T-1682M is a [...] low cost [...] Power Architecture CPU"
>> http://www.amigafuture.de/album_pic.php?pic_id=16353

> Oopps sorry. That is a major typo. The PA Semi CPU is low power consumption
> but certainly not low cost. "lost in translation" or proof reading error?

I just now noticed that this obscure wording is also in the A-Eon press release titled "AmigaOne X1000 CPU revealed" from 21st December 2010. So to me it seems that this is where this "typo" (as you call it) occured first.

Update:

> "the PA Semi CPU [...] alone costs $500"
> http://amigatronics.wordpress.com/2011/04/08/exclusive-to-amigatronics-28-questions-and-28-answers-with-trevor-dickinson-a-eon/

"There were some minor logistical delays from Varisys set against the backdrop of rising PA-SEMI CPU (~100%) prices and other components. We decided to absorb the hardware price rises and not pass them on to consumers."
http://amigaworld.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=34437&forum=2&start=180#676781

I guess this should mean that the PA6T-1682M chip alone costs about 1000 USD (about 815 EUR currently) now.

Edit: It's 975 USD (750 EUR) according to this:
http://amigaworld.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=36670&forum=16&start=80#685248

Confirmed in Trevor's AmiWest 2012 presentation (direct link):

"I can purchase more PA6T CPUs. No problem. I can get as many as we want at 975 USD each. [...] On this last batch [...], I'm actually subsidizing. I'm eating 475 USD a machine."

[ Edited by Andreas_Wolf 03.11.2012 - 02:51 ]