> I can't see much similarity between the Applied Micro Soc and the Freescale Soc
> on the X5000.

Yes, the PPC440H6 core and the e5500 core don't seem related at first glance. I think the solution to this mystery lies in the supervisor instructions implemented in the cores. Both PPC440/460/470 cores and e500/e5500/e6500 cores implement the Book III-E (embedded) specification of the Power ISA and thus provide a basic compatibility on supervisor level, whereas the PA6T implements the Book III-S (general purpose and server) specification which makes it incompatible on supervisor level with cores based on Book III-E.
Booting an OS requires supervisor-level instructions, and the Sam460 was the first MorphOS-supported board using a CPU based on a core following Book III-E specification. So I guess this is what geit means when he says that existing Sam460 support in MorphOS allowed getting the X5000 to boot MorphOS "in hours instead of weeks".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_Architecture#Books

>> What's your grudge against this [javascript] exactly...

> right now issues with Java have interfered [...]

How do issues with Java make you dislike JavaScript?

> I don't like being required to rely on a proprietary software package

How is JavaScript a "proprietary software package"? OWB/WebKit's JavaScriptCore component is completely open source, and bigfoot's JIT compiler will be as well I think.

>>>>>> only laire (still active?), bigfoot and piru have the necessary skills
>>>>>> to pull off the ISA transition.

>>>>> I think you might have just slighted Frank Mariak with that statement

>>>> Frank's contribution has primarily been graphics (and audio) drivers I think, the code
>>>> of which should be compilable for another ISA (he may correct me on this if assumed
>>>> wrongly). The PPC-specific low-level code (Quark kernel etc.) was laire's work.

>>> I believe Frank did some of the work on the SAM460 port.

>> Indeed, but I still believe he mainly developed the drivers for the on-board
>> chips (video, audio) and SoC controllers (PCI/PCIe, SATA, USB, GbE),
>> while bigfoot mainly did the CPU core-specific adaptations.

> those Soc controller components may just be what Geit is referring to.

I doubt the SoC controllers of the PPC460EX are compatible on driver level with those of the QorIQ P5 (or with those of any x64 SoC for that matter).

> Frank's work has been crucial

Yes, Frank's work on supporting the Sam460 on-board chips and SoC controllers has been crucial for Sam460 support. And I believe that what was said about the similarity of the Sam460 and the X5000 means that bigfoot's work on supporting the PPC440H6 core has been helpful for X5000 support. And I also believe that between these two MorphOS team members, bigfoot is the one whose skill set is more crucial for jump-starting ISA transition.

> if you all are so interested in X64

I for one am not :-)

Quote:

No, I don't have any inside information regarding the pricing of the X5000 motherboards and complete systems, or how many of each of those items A-Eon will need to sell before they can recoup all of the design and production costs they have incurred doing the X5000 project. It just seems like an insurmountable amount to recoup, given the size of our community, and the statements and reports of A-Eon spending several hundreds of thousands of dollars, to design and produce the X5000. Sure, some of that reported investment must have included the Tabor A1222 motherboards, but the amounts mentioned still are so large, it seems to me that our community is too small to repay those amounts through purchases of A-Eon systems and motherboards. So, this is just an impression I have of the situation, not based in any facts, other than the numbers that have been reported, or stated by Trevor himself, regarding how much has been invested into design and production, plus rough guesses by myself on how much the bare components might cost and quick math to arrive at a very high number of boards and system sales, that would be needed to repay all investment monies. Even if the production cost of each system or board were doubled to arrive at the sales price (which for many products is true, but I doubt Trevor and Matthew are doing with the X5000 and A1222), it seems to me that approximately 300 to 400 X5000 complete systems would need to be sold just to get close to breaking even. Although no hard figures have been released for the number of X1000 sales, given the number of production runs, and the guessed at number of X1000's probably included in each production run, that 300 to 400 number is probably very close to the number of X1000's that were produced and sold. Are there enough users who did not purchase an X1000, plus existing X1000 users who are willing to upgrade, or add an X5000 to their collection, to reach 300 to 400 sales of X5000's? I don't know, but I am guessing that A-Eon is not doubling the production cost amount of their X5000 and A1222 systems and I believe that I am using a lower number than A-Eon's actual investment number, so both would make recouping all design and production costs harder, with higher numbers than I have noted above. I would love to be proved wrong, and have A-Eon make a profit, to help sustain their continuing work, investing in many different parts of this community, but it just seems unrealistic to me, given the size of our community, and their general tendency to want everything for little or zero cost. The number of users who are actually willing to spend thousands of dollars on a single system, is very small, and many users complain about prices for our software and hardware. Not an easy community to make a profit from, no matter how you slice it.

>> I'm sure most work done on MorphOS is not oriented to any ISA but written in portable,
>> endian-agnostic C code

> Nah, I'm guessing >90 % of their code which is not based on something from the ouside
> is written with assumption: machine = 32 bit big endian. Look at some of the code where
> source code is available, like Ambient.

Such massive endian-dependency would be worse than I thought, especially after reading geit's statements.

> But this things are not that difficult or time consuming to fix

Good to hear.

> [...] how many of each of those items A-Eon will need to sell before they can recoup all
> of the design and production costs [...]. the statements and reports of A-Eon spending
> several hundreds of thousands of dollars, to design and produce [...]. [...] some of that
> reported investment must have included the Tabor A1222 motherboards [...]. [...] the
> numbers that have been reported, or stated by Trevor himself, regarding how much has
> been invested into design and production, plus rough guesses by myself on how much
> the bare components might cost and quick math to arrive at a very high number of boards
> and system sales, that would be needed to repay all investment monies.

I think we can do some simple calculations based on what has been announced by A-Eon or said by Trevor himself:

1. A-Eon paid 1.2 million USD for NRE and manufacturing costs of Cyrus (Plus) and Tabor.
2. A-Eon commissioned production of 500 Cyus Plus boards.
3. A-Eon set a sales price of about 1600 USD per Cyrus Plus board.
4. A-Eon commissioned production of 1000 Tabor boards.
5. A-Eon announced a sales price of about 400 USD per Tabor board.

Let's see: 500 x 1600 USD + 1000 x 400 USD = 1.2 million USD

Coincidence?

Edit: statement regarding NRE costs of Cyrus (Plus)

> Even if the production cost of each system or board were doubled to arrive at the sales
> price [...], it seems to me that approximately 300 to 400 X5000 complete systems would
> need to be sold just to get close to breaking even.

I think they need to sell all 500 produced Cyrus Plus boards to break even (incl. recouping of NRE costs).

> Although no hard figures have been released for the number of X1000 sales, given the
> number of production runs, and the guessed at number of X1000's probably included in
> each production run, that 300 to 400 number is probably very close to the number of
> X1000's that were produced and sold.

Based on the numbers revealed by Trevor, there were at least 400 Nemo boards produced and sold. My personal guess is 600 to 800 boards.

[ Edited by Andreas_Wolf 08.02.2017 - 23:37 ]

Quote:

And if you meant me: I am not too interested in X64 as a technology per se. I am interested in fast, affordable and easily available hardware. If there is Intel or AMD in it, I don't care too much. If it's x64 mid class or x64 high class, I don't care too much. If the boards supported are made by Fujitsu, HP, Apple, Asus - I don't care too much. As long as it will be generally fast, easily avaialble and not insanely priced.

What I care about is newer and more powerful machines than now (significantly more RAM, significantly more cpu power) while keeping a relatively sane price for the hardware.

>>> if you all are so interested in X64

>> I for one am not :-)

> And if you meant me: [...]

I didn't ;-)

> significantly more RAM

My PowerMac G5 can take up to 8 GiB RAM :-)

Quote:
While I chimed in in your reply I didn't ansered you, but Jim.

Quote:

8 GiB is too little
But i guess you know anyway what I intended anyway.
You are right regarding the RAM, that there are supported machines where technically a rather sufficient ammount of RAM is installable. The 8 GiB of a G5 will be okay for the next couple of years, but with current MorphOS this ammount is not usable to the full extend, but limited to some 1.x GiB.

The thing, and you know that pretty well (and IIRC agreeing to tha, toot), is that MorphOS PPC 32 bit has some limitations that will not get overcome w/o breaking some compability level. And while breaking compability anyway, take the opprtunity to switch ISA to a more future proof ISA than PPC is.

Ah, 8 GB works for me, while I currently have AM3+ system, and before that I had 32GB in a dual Xeon system, but anything past 16GB seems pointless as its pretty much never used (by ANY OS) in a desktop setting, and 8GB is pretty functional.

And X64, yeah I don't like it either.
I've NEVER really cared for Intel.

But we play the tune market forces dictate.

BTW - I just sent a lengthy dress down on the fact that I blame this at least in part on IBM, to a Raptor Engineering tech in my statement as to why I was pulling my support for Talos (basically, TOO f'ing expensive).

So...here we go! 68K>PPC>and finally concession that we need to turn to the "darkside", aka X64.
I'm OK with that (Vader always appealed to me more than Luke anyway).

> X64, yeah I don't like it either. I've NEVER really cared for Intel.

x64 (aka AMD64) is being implemented by AMD as well.

> I just sent a lengthy dress down on the fact that I blame this at least in part on IBM, to a
> Raptor Engineering tech in my statement as to why I was pulling my support for Talos
> (basically, TOO f'ing expensive).

This takes the same line:

"Raptor has also faced problems getting support from some members of the OpenPOWER Foundation. It wasn’t, for example, invited to the OpenPOWER Summit in Europe a short while back. As that summit focused on HPC and new university wins it would have been ideal as a funding push. One of the reasons for that is the lack of awareness inside IBM of the project. Last week Enterprise Times asked a number of people inside IBM about this project and drew a complete blank. That is bad news for IBM and for Raptor. IBM has tried to keep the OpenPOWER Foundation at arms length. This is to stop it being seen as an IBM project. For companies like Raptor who are doing something different this is where it needs to do more."
https://www.enterprisetimes.co.uk/2016/12/15/crowdsourcing-power8-motherboard/

Quote:

Thanks, that post was enlightening.
WTF were they thinking?
We know from past inquiries (about the Cell BE) that IBM likes to qualify all uses of their products and prefers to work in partnership with companies that use IBM components.
I think they tend to think that products using their silicon represent IBM as well as the company designing and selling the products.
Stranger still is that if they had worked with IBM they might have received some technical advice and assistance.
After all, IBM wants outside parties involved in Power 8 and 9.

Status update:

TrashcanFileSystem is now complete. Making good progress on Ambient integration.

Quote:

Thanks for the update Jacek.

Enjoy your New Year's celebration and stay safe (away from other drivers, who may be too drunk to be driving).

Here's to more fun with MorphOS in 2017!

Quote:
Right on dude!

[ Editiert durch ernsteiswuerfel 28.12.2016 - 19:23 ]

It's been released. You can find the download link in the news section.

Please test this version and report back if you have encountered any problems.