> As yet no reply from Chris Rains to the e-mail I sent asking for clarification/update on the
> status of my pre-order enquiry. [...] I strongly suspect either it was a prospective 'test'
> of the potential market for such a product, or (more cynically) a tool to boost Servergy's
> value on paper.

"P-Cubed (PowerLinux Dev/Compute Node Board)" mentioned in a Freescale presentation from October (uploaded 3 weeks ago):

http://www.freescale.com/files/training/doc/dwf/DWF13_M2M_IoT_SDN_SanJose.pdf (page 23)

(...and also revealed there that the successor of the P4080-based CTS-1000 will be based on the T4240.*)


* Edit:

"The company is also giving the industry a sneak-peek of its 64-bit Cleantech I/O accelerator and server [...]. The new 64-bit system is currently under development and will be out later this year."
http://servergy.com/servergy-gives-preview-of-worlds-densest-powerlinux-soc-server-at-ocp-summit/

"CTS-64000"
http://oracleus.activeevents.com/2014/connect/fileDownload/session/BD8C94DD27862557EA8B766C0F0B7BD9/CON5660_Beckwith-J1.pdf (10/2014, pages 50 to 56)

http://www.infoq.com/articles/Hadoop-Cluster (12/2014)

https://community.freescale.com/servlet/JiveServlet/previewBody/105848-102-1-27287/ftf-snt-f1205.pdf (06/2015, pages 33/34)

[ Edited by Andreas_Wolf 14.07.2015 - 17:42 ]

>"(...and also revealed there that the successor of the P4080-based CTS-1000 will be based on the T4240.)"

Now that is cool. 24 virtual cores!
Our developers announce a future ISA change, and things keep happening in the PPC world.

>> the successor of the P4080-based CTS-1000 will be based on the T4240

> things keep happening in the PPC world.

According to this article, the CTS-1000 is about 15,000 USD, so don't expect its successor to be any cheaper. But on the other hand, there is another T4240-based system going for less than a tenth:

https://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?topic_id=7780&forum=11&start=34


Edit: Massive price drop for the CTS-1000:

"prices start at $1,000."
http://servergy.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Servergy-CTS-QuadS-Flyer-11-10-14.pdf

[ Edited by Andreas_Wolf 18.11.2014 - 12:09 ]

> this Leaman replaced Hermans and Moorley, right? I just want make those rumours clear.

http://moobunny.dreamhosters.com/cgi/mbmessage.pl/amiga/244388.shtml
https://www.companysearchesmadesimple.com/company/uk/08020555/a-eon-technology-ltd/#people

According to this, Leaman replaced only one of them. The other one was replaced by Trevor's wife.

Will MorphOS run on the X4000?

Quote:

What is that?

>> Will MorphOS run on the X4000?

> What is that?

Maybe this:

"internally we are referring to [...] the P5040 model as the AmigaOne-X4000."
http://obligement.free.fr/articles_traduction/itwdickinson2_en.php

Would be great to support x4000 if MOS support multicore . If not I think its a expensive machine.

There are allready plenty dual-CPU-setups (PMac G4 and G5) that are supported by MorphOS, so if adding SMP or AMP was the goal, one wouldn't need invest into overpriced deadend HW from AEON.

Thats true. I have a dual g5 waiting to fly with morphos. The only problem is they are getting older. But hell, 3000 euros for a machine is too much.

I'm not paying $3,000 for a machine that will still be slower than my PowerMac G5. The very idea is lunacy!!!

Addendum:

> http://www.ultra-electronics.com/press_releases/299_Ultra_acquires_Varisys_-June_2013.pdf
> http://www.varisys.co.uk/news/varisys-ltd-acquired-by-ultra-electronics
> http://www.a-eon.com/news/16-06-2013.html

Also reflected on the new motherboard:

http://fbcdn-sphotos-h-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/t1/156896_749481141728940_152014557_n.jpg

And btw:
http://fbcdn-sphotos-b-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-frc1/t31/1836762_758264830850571_2054294710_o.jpg
http://amigaworld.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=38719&forum=33#728708

That is kind of neat.
OK, so its an expensive, impractical vanity project for a small community.
Who says hobbyist computing has to be practical?
It is very much an Amiga spectrum device.

Personally, I hope we keep developing the Abox based/PPC version of MorphOS moving forward (regardless of the ISA/64 bit move) and that the developers consider this platform (the X5000).
It should way out perform the SAM460.

> Freescale insists that e6500 delivers 6.0DMIPS/MHz.

They seem to have changed their tune. According to https://www.nxp.com/files-static/training/doc/ftf/2014/FTF-NET-F0032.pdf (page 7/8), it's still 3.3 DMIPS/MHz per thread, but now only 5.4 DMIPS/MHz (i.e. 10% less than before) per core.
On the other hand, https://www.nxp.com/files-static/training/doc/ftf/2014/FTF-NET-F0140.pdf (page 8/9) and https://www.nxp.com/docs/en/brochure/BRT1T2FAM.pdf (pages 2 and 7) still show 6 DMIPS/MHz for the e6500 core.


Edit: The following documents show 7 DMIPS/MHz
https://www.nxp.com/docs/en/product-brief/T4240PB.pdf (page 2, 10/2014)
https://www.nxp.com/docs/en/fact-sheet/T4240T4160FS.pdf (page 2, 07/2016)

[ Edited by Andreas_Wolf 17.05.2023 - 14:23 ]

Quote:

I agree. I can't remember if I have already said this:

But I would love continued support of PowerPC device, even while supporting a second architecture. Support all available PowerPC, while selecting 2 - 4 x86 64 items: a desktop computer and laptop computer, each with a "low end" (affordable one) and a "media center" one.

I do not believe there needs to be supporting more than four X86 64 items. It might increase User Base significantly, but it might not. According to Wikipedia, there are other Amiga "inspired" OSes, almost all on X86, yet none are more popular than MorphOS. (Or perhaps it is because these OSes are inferior compared to MorphOS.) However, if X86 64 support increases User Base by thousands of thousands, then perhaps they should support dozens or hundreds of X86 64.

I do have one respectful disagreement. I do not think ABox should be supported. It should be moved to an emulator. Another idea: perhaps if MorphOS attempts SMP, then one core can be ABox and another core can be QBox. ?

It would be nice for MorphOS to support the X5000, but also it would be nice if MorphOS to support the SAM 460.

> Support all available PowerPC

This would dash against missing support for GPUs in machines where the GPU is onboard and you can't put in another one.

> I do not think ABox should be supported. It should be moved to an emulator.

On little-endian non-PPC, ABox couldn't be supported anyway. And on PPC, a box or virtual environment for ABox wouldn't be something I'd call an emulator.

> The T2080 looks like a good possible CPU for any PPC Amiga/Morph/AROS system,
> if any kind of multi-processor support can be completed. The fact that it includes
> Altivec is a plus.

Prices for 1000 pcs. qty. revealed: 127 100...111 142 USD
Reference design board T2080RDB is 1499 USD.

http://www.freescale.com/webapp/sps/site/prod_summary.jsp?code=T2080&tab=Buy_Parametric_Tab
http://www.freescale.com/files/32bit/doc/brochure/PWRARCHQIQSG.pdf (page 7)
http://www.freescale.com/webapp/sps/site/prod_summary.jsp?code=T2080RDB
http://www.freescale.com/webapp/sps/site/prod_summary.jsp?code=T2080RDB&tab=Buy_Parametric_Tab
http://www.freescale.com/files/32bit/doc/fact_sheet/T2080RDBFS.pdf


Edit: new chip prices

[ Edited by Andreas_Wolf 06.11.2014 - 15:54 ]

Quote:

Am I reading the pdf correctly that the Eval board has 4 PCIe slots that are 2.0/3.0 Generation compatible?

If the MorphOS Dev. Team would port to this Eval board, couldn't this board be used as the basis for a brand new MorphOS compatible computer system at a price of not much more than $2,000 US Dollars, or less if you use existing case and PSU and other peripherals that you already own?

At 1.2GHz to 1.8GHz with Altivec, 8 cores, and 4 PCIe slots, as well as USB2.0/3.0 and Ethernet on board, I don't see why this wouldn't work. The 7 other cores would go to waste, but could be utilized if the owner also wanted to run Linux on the same box part of the time.

Edit: We could use PCIe to PCI and/or AGP adapters for video and sound cards, until we could get drivers for
PCIe cards, couldn't we? Just wondering if this could be the answer for users who want new equipment, instead of used Mac gear. That is not me, as I am satisfied with what we already have, but some are not.


[ Edited by WB_Coder 04.06.2014 - 15:03 ]

a) 2000$ is still far far to expensive to make any sense for what is essentially G4 class performance

b) even if we could make good use of all cores (which we can't) it would still be a bad bang/back ratio

c) getting PCIe GFX cards with allready supported GPUs is not a problem

I would fear supporting that proposed computer could overwhelm MorphOS developers. Instead of jumping at multiple computers simultaneously, it should be taken one step (or computer) at a time. Example SAM 460, which unless something changed I am not aware of, it is a computer still in production, not an Apple, and is not expensive. If angry mobs demand X1000 etc. then I would certainly join the request to port MorphOS to the X1000s.

Quote:
Well, I wouldn't call it cheap or even reasonably priced ;)

Quote:

I would rather see a 32 bit Amiga compatible PPC Mac plus a NG MorphOS 64 bit non-PPC machine worked on simultaneously. With the G5 you could even have both on the same machine as a stop gap measure.

But hey, I'm no programmer and I'm not a developer. I trust the MorphOS Team that for whatever reason they don't port it to PPC machine X or x64/ARM machine Y today, it's because they have a good reason not to. And my bet it that it's mostly a question of TIME. If they could live by coding for MorphOS, then I bet more cool things would happen. But since they can't, we can't be too demanding.

Maybe we could start a foundation, like they have for the Haiku camp? Then we could maybe pay salary for a developer to work full or half time for a while. Or use the money to reward people who make big contribution for MorphOS in general? I know I can spare 25 euros every month for such a thing. Just my 2 cents.

[ Edited by Yasu 05.06.2014 - 10:28 ]

Perhaps the person most desperately wanting MOS on HW X should put up a bounty for it.

(I'm personally very convinced that current low end ARM or off the self x64 is out of the question, so until custom x86 becomes cheaper than custom PPC, let's stay with the PPC.)

>> http://www.freescale.com/files/32bit/doc/brochure/PWRARCHQIQSG.pdf (page 7)

> Am I reading the pdf correctly that the Eval board has 4 PCIe slots that
> are 2.0/3.0 Generation compatible?

No. While the T2080 chip has 4 PCIe controllers, the T2080RDB board offers only one PCIe x4 slot (not sure whether PCIe version 2 or 3). You can see this "PEX x 4 Slot" in the block diagram there:

http://www.freescale.com/files/graphic/block_diagram/products/processors/31877-T2080RDB-BD.jpg

...called "PCIE x4 Slot" on the photograph there (page 4):

http://www.freescale.com/files/32bit/doc/quick_start_guide/T2080RDBQS.pdf

One PCIe slot could run short when we consider the need for graphics and audio. So what I think may be better suited than the T2080RDB is the T4240RDB:

https://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?forum=11&topic_id=7780&start=34

It has the following main advantages relevant for general-purpose computing:

- PCIe slots: x8 + x4 (vs. x4)
- CPU: 1.67 GHz (vs. 1.53 GHz)
- RAM: 6 GiB in 3 DIMM slots (vs. 4 GiB in 1 SODIMM slot)
- price: 1445 USD (vs. 1499 USD)
- allegedly available in production volumes from Nexcom

However, it also has one main disadvantage relevant for general-purpose computing:

- SATA ports: 1 (vs. 2)

Using a SATA card in the PCIe x4 slot of the T4240RDB would more than make up for its SATA port shortage compared to the T2080RDB (but then no slot left for an audio card).

> If the MorphOS Dev. Team would port to this Eval board, couldn't this board
> be used as the basis for a brand new MorphOS compatible computer system
> at a price of not much more than $2,000 US Dollars, or less if you use existing
> case and PSU and other peripherals that you already own?

I think yes, it could. Both boards come with case and PSU already. The board form factors would complicate using a standard case anyway.

> 1.8GHz

1.67 and 1.53 GHz respectively.

> 8 cores

4 and 12 cores respectively. They are dual-threaded, though, so amount to 8 and 24 hardware threads respectively.

> 4 PCIe slots

2 and 1 PCIe slot(s) respectively.

> USB2.0/3.0

2.0 only.