> the FPU on chip uses diffent datatypes

Both the standard PPC FPU and the e500v2 FPU can handle double precision floats. Or what do you mean?

> FreeScale has SoCs with a proper FPU and similar price and performance on sale

True, but I suspect that QorIQ T1 wasn't available when Tabor idea was born and design process started. Nevertheless, they could have used a Mamba SoC from APM's PPC465-based PacketPro family instead.

http://www.apm.com/products/embedded/mamba-family/

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Exactly. Lawyer and liar sound similar and _sometimes_ are similar.

The bitter truth? We are not really talking about a revolutionary piece of hardware here, even if we ignore the FPU.

My cheap Mac Mini will still run MorphOS faster than AmigaOS 4 will run on that board. _That_ is the bitter truth.

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I wonder how it'll compare performance wise to OS4 in UAE on an identically priced x86 machine?

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Pretty well I'd say. Mac Minis are still cheap as dirt, and OS4 Classic have only very limited hardware support (128MB RAM, no HW graphics acceleration, etc.).

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Sorry, I should have been more specific, I meant "I wonder how the Tabor will compare" not the Mac Mini.

If the Tabor sells for 700 you can buy an awful lot of Intel brute-force emulation power for the same price. UAE will probably get hardware accelerated graphics support and more emulated RAM at some future point too I imagine.

The limitation for OS4 emulated lay in OS4-classic which will bail on anything that goes beyond what the actual HW could deliever.

"Fixing" OS4 to support UAE more directly would be trivial, but just won't happen.

Porting OS4 to a no-nonsense PPC-EMU would also be possible but won't happen till Mr Beelzebub puts warm socks on his XMas wishlist.

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I think that was understood. Still, given that this is a MorphOS website, it should not be surprising that someone would point out how a low-cost Mac Mini G4 would provide much better performance than PPC emulation on a very high-end Intel-compatible machine.

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Single-core performance has not improved much in the past few years. Intel's focus appears to have been on improving power efficiency.

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We'll see.

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I talk with few users, and they say that it is not a problem.

aka, they do have a rather odd definition of "problem".

Sure stuff will run, and if it ain't performance critical (and noone sane would use PPC-Linux when performance is a concern) one would probraly not notice the difference.

Doesn't mean there ain't no one....

Yes, apps works without bugs and visible slowdowns,
it means there is no problem with fpu trapping.

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What is a "visible slowdown"? Where are the benchmarks running on OS4 or at least linux?

I suggest that all speculation be delayed regarding performance and pricing of the AmigaOne A1222 until after benchmarks are available, and A-Eon has finalized the price which they are going to charge for it. Take the statement from Trevor who has said that the 700 to 1,000 Euro quoted price is "very high" over what the actual price will be, as proof that he is doing his best with A-Eon in partnership with ACube to bring a lower priced new AmigaOne system to the users.

As for the FPU complications and performance implications, I'll wait for actual benchmarks on real world applications and games before passing judgement, as the developers who are actually doing the work of porting to this board are showing very little concern that the performance will be unacceptable. If it were truly that bad, I doubt that they would spend their time working to port to this product.

In other words, I think that most posters in this thread need to calm down and take a "wait and see" attitude, before claiming that the sky is falling.

[ Edited by amigadave 18.10.2015 - 10:34 ]

The sky is not falling. We already have good range of supported hardware, old and new, slow and fast, cheap and expensive, portable and desktops. Tabor motherboard offer nothing new to us.

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We will see if the MorphOS Dev. Team decides if the A1222 is worth porting MorphOS to or not. I don't think it will be a system I am personally interested in buying, but there are many AmigaOS4.x users who have been begging for a cheaper system to purchase to run AmigaOS4.1FE on, and there might be a few MorphOS users who also want a new system that is lower priced than the X5000.

I am not advocating a port to the A1222, but I am also not worried, nor will I complain if the MorphOS Dev. Team decides to support the A1222 by porting MorphOS to it. As has been stated several times already, the port of MorphOS to X64 or ARM hardware is going to take a long time.

Bigfoot told me at Neuss that they are not at all interested at porting MorphOS to this board and mentioned the incompatible FPU as one of the reasons.

@ Yasu

Frank Mariak posted a similar comment here on MorphZone the other day:
MorphZone Post

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As much as I respect Trevor, share the passion of his endeavor (and perhaps secretively wish that I was on his position, leading the scene) I can't close my eyes and turn my head the other way when it comes to the new hardware he launches. Both price and spec wise these options are on the wrong side of the fence. My 2.7Ghz G5 is what, 9 yrs old already or something? And the overall performance can crash all of AEON (and A-Cube hardware). PPC is beyond dead, imho. Are there any cpu options that can surpass 10 yrs old hardware made by Apple and what would be their cost? That should be the base of a discussion for an upcoming hardware product but I think that we all know the answer. My personal opinion is that MorphOS team shouldn't have even done the 460ex and spend resources on the x5000, let alone invest on a hypothetical tabor port. After all, let's be honest, to how many new licenses did the A1 500 resulted to? None of the A1 500 owners that I know personally is interested in MorphOS and none bought it (hey, some even inquired me for a crack of the 50 euros registration :P). On moszone how many new threads did we witnessed soming from A1 500 owners? Release 3.10 and just head for the damn ISA switch. The sooner we break free, the better. The G5 sums up the fastest amiga possible and there are no alternatives worthwhile on the foreseeable future from the (OS4) hardware vendors. The OS is already in an extremely good shape (given its indie spirit) apps will continue coming while the NG port is ongoing, the current systems won't stop working, so I hope that we 'll finally abandon PPC the soonest possible and never look back.

> A-Eon in partnership with ACube

What's ACube's specific role in this partnership? Has Tabor been developed by them?

> there might be a few MorphOS users who also want a new system that is lower priced
> than the X5000.

Isn't that what the Sam460 port is for? Or has the Sam460 been discontinued by ACube in favour of Tabor?

> Are there any cpu options that can surpass 10 yrs old hardware made by Apple
> and what would be their cost?

https://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?forum=3&topic_id=9463&start=76

> None of the A1 500 owners that I know personally is interested in MorphOS [...]
> (hey, some even inquired me for a crack of the 50 euros registration :P).

They can't be that uninterested in MorphOS then ;-)

> On moszone how many new threads did we witnessed soming from A1 500 owners?

I witnessed 4:

https://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?topic_id=11249&forum=11
https://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?topic_id=11256&forum=11
https://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?topic_id=11353&forum=3
https://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?topic_id=11379&forum=11

(That's Sam460 boards and not necessarily AmigaOne 500 systems, but I don't know why that should matter.)

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I don't have any confirmation from an official source, but I have heard that the SAM460 is being discontinued because of the introduction of the Tabor system. I don't know when the Tabor will be ready to purchase, and also don't know when (or if) the SAM460 is really going to be cancelled, now or in the near future.

It would not make any sense to continue producing SAM systems, if the Tabor is both faster and cheaper than the SAM460, which is the assumption made by many who are supposed to know the people working on porting AmigaOS4.x to the Tabor.

> I have heard that the SAM460 is being discontinued because of the introduction
> of the Tabor system.

That's sad to hear, especially as MorphOS support for the Sam460 has been introduced only 5 months ago. If the MorphOS team knew availability would last only few months at best after introduction of support, I guess they maybe wouldn't have started the port in the first place.

> I [...] don't know when (or if) the SAM460 is really going to be cancelled,
> now or in the near future.

Considering that the ACube webshop hasn't had listed any Sam460 board or system for a while now, I'm afraid this has already happened. All in all, the Sam460cr availability was barely noteworthy.

But it does seem a little odd to discontinue a board that is finally almost well supported for a board that's still just in development, and presumely lack most drivers. And Hyperion doesn't have a reputation to make those fast.

> it does seem a little odd to discontinue a board that is finally almost well supported

Just guessing, but it may be a problem with availability of board components.

> for a board that's still just in development

Has this been stated? I've been under the impression that the board itself is ready to go, just OS4 tarries.

> and presumely lack most drivers.

...in OS4. Linux has them all I suspect ;-)