Addendum:

> I guess there're still some information to be revealed to get the whole "quite a story".

A-Eon didn't reveal it so far (no idea why), but as there're still discussions on this and questions occuring at various places I'm going to tell how I perceive this "quite a story" came along in chronological order:

1. A-Eon decides for the PA6T, approaches P.A.Semi for recommendation of a board design company with PA6T experience and subsequently get turned to Varisys.
2. A-Eon plans on buying PA6T chips from P.A.Semi, but before it's able to place an order P.A.Semi is purchased by Apple (April 2008).
3. Apple decides to supply the PA6T to P.A.Semi's existing customers only, which A-Eon is not but Varisys is.
4. Apple calls P.A.Semi's existing customers for final PA6T orders as the chip is going to be discontinued. Varisys informs A-Eon about this call.
5. A-Eon asks Varisys to place an order for an (unknown to us) amount of PA6T chips. Varisys agrees.
6. Varisys orders the chips from Apple. The chips arrive at Varisys.
7. A-Eon in turn purchases those chips from Varisys, effectively rendering Varisys A-Eon's CPU supplier (the chips remain at Varisys, though, for obvious reasons). As part of this supply agreement between Varisys and A-Eon, Varisys demands an NDA* to be signed.

* The reason for Varisys' NDA requirement is even more speculative than my timeline. Maybe the supply agreement between Apple and its PA6T customers contained the condition that the customer must not resell the chips to 3rd parties, which is what Varisys effectively did though, so they feared penalty from Apple. It's odd at least that Varisys was officially revealed as A-Eon's design partner in June 2010 while the exact type of CPU was only officially revealed half a year later (which must be when the NDA ended).

Addendum:

> > would it make more sense to go for a P5010 based system or
> > one based on the P5020?

> That would depend on the price difference between the two.

No prices on the P5 yet, but seeing the price difference the number of cores makes with the P4 going for the P5010 could be a sensible decision:

https://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?forum=11&topic_id=6196&start=160

With the P4 halving the amount of CPU cores cuts off chip price by 25%. Don't know if Freescale will apply this policy also to P5 though.

>A-Eon didn't reveal it so far (no idea why), but as there're still discussions on this and questions occuring at various places I'm going to tell how I perceive this "quite a story" came along in chronological order:

Everyone should keep in mind that Andreas is probably right about this sequence of events (in fact, his explanation is the only on that fits the facts), but this is still speculation.

Obviously, for the reasons stated in Andreas' summary, Trevor and the rest of A-eon haven't been able to reveal some of this information.

> Obviously, for the reasons stated in Andreas' summary,
> Trevor and the rest of A-eon haven't been able to reveal
> some of this information.

Really? Could you name those reasons? I ask because as I stated above I've "no idea why" some of those information should still be confidential when the NDA between Varisys and A-Eon had ended in (or before) December 2010 obviously.

I can think of three reasons for the info not to be released.

1. The NDA is still in effect.

2. The information to be released could be embarrassing to the person/company responsible for releasing, or not releasing it.

3. The person/company responsible for making the decision to release, or not release the information does not think it is important one way or the other and feels there is no reason to respond to any requests for such information.

> 1. The NDA is still in effect.

Unlikely, else A-Eon wouldn't have revealed the type of CPU in December 2010. The information on the CPU was part of the NDA according to A-Eon.

> 2. The information to be released could be embarrassing to the
> person/company responsible for releasing, or not releasing it.

Could be.

> 3. The person/company responsible for making the decision to release, or
> not release the information does not think it is important one way or the other
> and feels there is no reason to respond to any requests for such information.

Unlikely, else A-Eon wouldn't have teased us with its "quite a story" comment.

http://www.google.com/search?q=%22a-eon%22+%22quite+a+story%22

>> We won't have to do that as Freescale will offer all presentation slides
>> for public download, as usual.

> Now you have my attention, sir! Yeah! Hard info on the T5!

I seems that this year Freescale for whatever reason requires to login in order to be able to download the FTF presentation slides. Pity, I'd really like to know what the improvements of the updated AltiVec are.

http://www.freescale.com/webapp/sps/site/overview.jsp?code=FTF_2011_AMERICA_OLL_CAT

@Andreas

The registration process is simple enough, and open to the public.

> The registration process is simple enough, and open to the public.

I know that. But there's no need to as Jim is kind enough to relay the slides I'm interested in. I'm just wondering why Freescale changed the policy after years of making the FTF slides available without having to login. Besides, you just can't easily link to files that are not publically available without registering ;-)

Umm its called data mining.

But you wont be able to register anyway as you are a bot.

> you are a bot.

Seems the other half of your split personality disagrees with you:

https://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?forum=11&topic_id=5724&start=40

Yes, having to log in to view the PDFs is a pain since you can't link to them when creating posts. I'm having trouble locating one of the files Andreas asked about, but I've sent him the others.
And I've put in a request for the file I couldn't locate.
they should respond by tomorrow.
I've been really busy at work, so I haven't had a chance to review them.
Can't wait to see what Andreas picks out that's note worthy.
These files along with the announcement of the new processor really have me stoked.

> I'm having trouble locating one of the files Andreas asked about, but I've sent
> him the others. And I've put in a request for the file I couldn't locate. they
> should respond by tomorrow.

Thanks for your efforts. It's really appreciated.

> Can't wait to see what Andreas picks out that's note worthy.

;-) I've yet to have a look at them but will do so ASAP.*

> These files along with the announcement of the new
> processor really have me stoked.

They have despite the fact that Freescale underdelivered compared to what you had hoped for? ;-)


* Addendum:
https://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?forum=3&topic_id=7001&start=665

[ Edited by Andreas_Wolf 24.06.2011 - 05:41 ]

Update:

> I'd really like to know what the improvements of the
> updated AltiVec are.

Page 12 of FTF11_NET_F1176 document mentions "Improved load /store to ease bit alignment" and "New instructions for video analytics".

Edit: Now also there:
http://www.freescale.com/files/32bit/doc/brochure/PWRARBYNDBITSSKD.pdf (page 3)
http://www.freescale.com/files/32bit/doc/brochure/PWRARBYNDBITS.pdf (page 59)

[ Edited by Andreas_Wolf 27.03.2012 - 19:39 ]

>> These files along with the announcement of the new
>> processor really have me stoked.

>They have despite the fact that Freescale underdelivered compared to what you had hoped for?


Oh YES! Between this and the new developments at IBM (and Nintendo) I really excited to see PPC processor development advancing. For all those naysayers that said this was a dead ISA, things sure seem to be moving along nicely.

APM announced a new ppc NAS processor, too.
The APM86491 - Key features: 1.2 GHz 465 core, 256 kb L2 cache, 2x usb 3.0, 2x SATA, 2x Gb Ethernet, 2 x PCI Express, 2.5 W energy uptake, 20 US$ in bulk volume.

http://phx.corporate-ir.net/preview/phoenix.zhtml?c=78121&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1576895&highlight=

While designed for NAS boxes, this may also be used for a small low cost low end, low cost computer if you attach a video and audio codec to it.

[ Editiert durch Zylesea 25.06.2011 - 01:51 ]

> APM announced a new ppc NAS processor, too. The APM86491

https://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?forum=3&topic_id=7001&start=671

;-)

Care to elaborate what you wanna tell with your link? I see the Sam460 specs only...

> Care to elaborate what you wanna tell with your link?

Yes, of course. It is meant to take you to a three day old posting of mine where I reported the announcement of the APM86491.

> I see the Sam460 specs only...

I guess you're using MorphZone with reversed posting order then. Unfortunately, the MorphZone upgrade from some months ago destroyed the facility to link to a particular posting regardless of the selected posting order. In this regard, the upgrade was more of a downgrade actually. I could give you a direct link using reversed order and the new 'showonepost' facility but this only works for postings on page #1 of a thread so as soon as my posting drops to page #2 due to new postings in the thread the link will stop working. This is the same with my 'post_id' plus fragment identifier links I used before the upgrade. So unfortunately, my MorphZone interlinks can only work with non-reversed posting order. This also means that all my older interlinks from before the upgrade don't work anymore. What I could do to work around this problem is to hardcode the non-reversed posting order in my links like this:

https://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?forum=3&topic_id=7001&start=671&sortorder=0

This should take you to the right posting (does it?) but may confuse you because of the non-reversed order, i.e. reversed compared to the way you chose to view threads here on MorphZone.

Yor link for reversed order works and that inks of course makes sense.
The ordering thing is indeed pretty confusing. Probably I should switch to no reversed order in my settings.

Quote:

*IT IS* a dead architecture for all purposes interesting to MorphOS; it makes little to no sense to run MorphOS on a NAS, Switch or a Printer...

> it makes little to no sense to run MorphOS on a NAS, Switch or a Printer... ;-)

...or a gaming console for that matter ;-)

Quote:

I fixed it for you.

Or have the developers said otherwise?

@minator

No need to "fix" anything. AFAIK, *nobody* is building viable and affordable PPC desktop and/or laptop motherboards, because simply there is no point, and I see no reason whatsoever to believe this will change. The PPC Macs were the last of its kind, Apple *was* the PPC desktop/laptop market, and when they left it behind, they left it with no pulse, no future. But I'm sure these new CPU's will make excellent routers and printers or whatever...

@ takemehomegrandma,

While i appreciate your opinion, and consider the point about affordable PPC based computers valid, I seriously disagree with you on the potential of these new CPUs.
Have you checked the specs on them? They're hardly limited to use in routers and printers.
Did you notice the quote Andreas mentioned on AltiVec enhancement?

>Page 12 of FTF11_NET_F1176 document mentions "Improved load /store to ease bit alignment" and "New instructions for video analytics".

Instructions designed for video are not intended for router or printer applications.

To be sure, high volume, affordable PPC motherboards seem to be a thing of the past. But Acube is making PPC boards. Aeon is (sooner or later) supposed to be making PPC boards.
And these new processors are more powerful than the APM processors used in the Acube boards and more then powerful enough to suit our purposes.