Another ARM net-book... ARM touch-net-book
  • Acolyte of the Butterfly
    Acolyte of the Butterfly
    downix
    Posts: 105 from 2003/2/10
    From: Lightning capi...
    Quote:


    Andreas_Wolf wrote:
    > I think i got it now. ARM chips are able to load and process big
    > endian data, while addressing und such stuff are always little endian.

    Don't jump to conclusions about ARM's endianess(es) ;-) I just wanted to point out that there's a difference between just "endianess" and "true endianess".
    Given the existence of a (non-official) big-endian ARM (ARMeb) port of Debian there must be true bi-endian ARMs able to operate in true big-endian mode.

    Hint: Don't believe everything Neko is telling. He is not only wrong about ARM generally being non-true big-endian but also about Power Architecture generally being non-true little-endian.


    The way to look at it is this way: ARM replaced multiple BE architectures in the past, from the 6502 to the 68k itself, in multiple machines, all with minimal performance impact. See the Palm for prime example. Palm's OS is, frankly, even simpler than MorphOS or the Amigas OS, yet it did the transistion pretty smoothly, wouldn't you agree, and during a period with far weaker CPU's than we have today.

    And what you you mean Power being non-true little-endian? **eyes his OS/2 for PPC CD, pure LE PPC baby!**
    Nate Downes
    Genesi SARL
  • »20.03.09 - 22:44
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  • Yokemate of Keyboards
    Yokemate of Keyboards
    Andreas_Wolf
    Posts: 12132 from 2003/5/22
    From: Germany
    > what you you mean Power being non-true little-endian?

    Misunderstanding? It's definately not me meaning this. Quite to the contrary. Read Neko's comments here and here. This is what I and obviously Zylesea/[ujb] refered to.
  • »21.03.09 - 00:56
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  • Acolyte of the Butterfly
    Acolyte of the Butterfly
    downix
    Posts: 105 from 2003/2/10
    From: Lightning capi...
    Quote:


    Andreas_Wolf wrote:
    > what you you mean Power being non-true little-endian?

    Misunderstanding? It's definately not me meaning this. Quite to the contrary. Read Neko's comments here and here. This is what I and obviously Zylesea/[ujb] refered to.

    I know, I was trying to join in the comments.
    Nate Downes
    Genesi SARL
  • »21.03.09 - 01:19
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  • Priest of the Order of the Butterfly
    Priest of the Order of the Butterfly
    Crumb
    Posts: 732 from 2003/2/24
    From: aGaS & CUAZ Al...
    @r1vver

    I don't think the team has plans to port to ARM anytime soon.

    MorphOS on ARM would require a decent 68k emulator and llvm support to make any sense.

    ARM cpus are pretty weak compared to PPC and despiting the fact that PPC desktop market is dying I don't see ARM desktop market flourishing (I don't need to run MorphOS on my Cellphone or my clock).

    Even if switching to other cpu architecture was an easy thing and the m68k emulator was already available it would cause a lot of confussion to the users. Some kind of LLVM abstraction would be desirable before jumping to other cpu architecture.

    The number of MorphOS/amigaOS users is pretty pathethic, do you really expect developers compiling versions for each MorphOS flavour? I have seen what happened with AROS-PPC/AROS-x86_64/AROS-x86/OS4/MorphOS/OS3 and I don't see many developers creating binaries for so many architectures.

    Even if ARM sounds cool x86 machines make much more sense for desktop usage, users can get x86 based hardware easily.

    If MorphOS left PPC it would have to jump to the x86 ship. But PPC ship still floats

    I don't care if G4 Mac Minis stopped being sold 3 years ago as it's a kickass machine -in amigaos terms- that will run rings -in terms of speed- around any ARM machine for at least 3 years. It has been produced in millions of units and it's cheap. Pegasos/Efika are much more expensive compared to Mac Mini.

    The only reason we stick to PPC is because MorphOS runs on it. We would prefer that our hardware was cheaper and easily available. It's a pity MorphOS didn't run on Mac Mini when it was released but it's the most affordable machine we can get ATM. MorphOS on Mac Mini can play 1080p videos so I think it's decent ATM.
  • »22.03.09 - 21:32
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  • Order of the Butterfly
    Order of the Butterfly
    Neko
    Posts: 301 from 2003/2/24
    From: Genesi
    Quote:

    ARM does support Big Endian, so I am quite perplexed by your comments there. Only the XScale model does not. That eliminates 1 series out of dozens. And nobody is proposing that we get silicon, at least, not at this time. But having the option, should it present itself, would be a worthly long term goal.


    ARM doesn't support Big Endian in anything but a bullet-point feature sense.

    The same is true of PowerPC processors which supposedly support Little Endian operation.

    The basic promise made in supporting these features is that it reorders bus transactions so they fit the right data format - memory is laid out in Big Endian, but when you load it into a register, it is flipped automatically and in the register on your Little Endian processor, you have Little Endian data.

    On PowerPC, you can fudge this manually without changing modes at all if you know the data format ahead of time (stwbrx, lwbrx). I'm not sure what the equivalent is on ARM.. maybe it doesn't have it, maybe it does.

    Instruction opcodes are still Little Endian in ARM whatever mode it's in. Internal registers and devices are all Little Endian. All that changes is how it routes data from memory into the cache and then the register. It is a limited subset.

    The SOLE reason for these features is because both ARM and PowerPC targets can and do run as device targets (e.g. on a PCI bus with another host processor doing the control) and they need to be able to interoperate with those buses. It does not magically turn your system into a Other Endian chip, it just aids interoperability - the same way that running Samba 4 on a Linux box does not mean you have a Windows 2008 Domain Controller, it just means you have a subset of the functionality which look for all intents and purposes like you do (you are basically not running Windows, so don't expect every feature of Windows!)

    However absolutely NONE of this is relevant to MorphOS. MorphOS is for all practicality endian-independent - the only reason it gets thorny is trying to mimic PowerPC and/or m68k operation. So, the solution is.. drop those things in the trash where they belong. MorphOS has plenty of developer support and a huge amount of open-source software out there that can simply be recompiled. AROS is proof positive of this - it runs on x86 AND PowerPC, and it certainly does not run the PPC in little endian mode.

    Do many people really still want to run 15 year old software from an A1200? Would they buy a Netbook and want this feature?

    Maybe you would. The other million customers would not give a shizzle either way.

    As for the bleating about "the MorphOS guys should get a hardware team together", what on EARTH have you been smoking lately? I recommend you stop. The MorphOS team, if they wanted to port to ARM and take control of an ARM license and develop an SoC core, can make a business case RIGHT NOW and Genesi and bplan will take in on for them. bplan have ALWAYS been around for the MorphOS team to do this kind of project. We have the contacts inside Freescale and ARM, ODMs standing by to produce millions of units.
    Matt Sealey, Genesi USA, Inc.
    Developer Relations
    Product Development Analyst
  • »22.03.09 - 22:29
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  • Yokemate of Keyboards
    Yokemate of Keyboards
    Andreas_Wolf
    Posts: 12132 from 2003/5/22
    From: Germany
    > ARM doesn't support Big Endian in anything but a bullet-point
    > feature sense.

    Opposed to what you (and downix for that matter) claim, at least StrongARM and XScale are able to do true big-endian. Or what do you think the already mentioned Debian ARMeb, Debonaras, SlugOS/BE and Angstrom for IXP4xxbe are for?

    > The same is true of PowerPC processors which supposedly support
    > Little Endian operation.

    No, true little-endian is supported at least by MPC8xx/e200, e300, e500, PPC4xx, (upcoming) PPC A2 and PA6T/PWRficient.

    For e300 refer to page 23 of http://www.lauterbach.com/pdf/debugger_ppc600.pdf
  • »23.03.09 - 05:39
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  • Yokemate of Keyboards
    Yokemate of Keyboards
    Andreas_Wolf
    Posts: 12132 from 2003/5/22
    From: Germany
    > ARM does support Big Endian [...]. Only the XScale model does not.

    XScale definitely does support true big-endian (see Debian ARMeb, Debonaras, SlugOS/BE and Angstrom for IXP4xxbe).
  • »23.03.09 - 05:55
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  • Yokemate of Keyboards
    Yokemate of Keyboards
    Andreas_Wolf
    Posts: 12132 from 2003/5/22
    From: Germany
    > The fastest ones I've seen in person have been Marvell's 1.2Ghz
    > dual core model (78200).

    According to the Marvell website the dual-core MV78200 maxes at 1.0 GHz. At 1.2 GHz it would rather be the single-core MV78100 or the single-core 88F6281.
  • »23.03.09 - 07:48
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  • Acolyte of the Butterfly
    Acolyte of the Butterfly
    downix
    Posts: 105 from 2003/2/10
    From: Lightning capi...
    Quote:


    Andreas_Wolf wrote:
    > The fastest ones I've seen in person have been Marvell's 1.2Ghz
    > dual core model (78200).

    According to the Marvell website the dual-core MV78200 maxes at 1.0 GHz. At 1.2 GHz it would rather be the single-core MV78100 or the single-core 88F6281.

    The MV78200 site clearly lists 1.2Ghz. However, then I've looked for them for sale at various vendors, I could only find the 1ghz and 800Mhz models listed as available, so we both might be right in that yes, there is an MV78200 at 1.2Ghz, but it might not be available in any significant volume at this time, nor even shipping yet.

    As for the BE/LE thing about XScale, I went and dug up the reference I was using. I'd realized I was looking at a very old reference for StrongARM from DEC, and was for a prototype unit at that, so consider that statement retracted.
    Nate Downes
    Genesi SARL
  • »23.03.09 - 12:24
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  • Yokemate of Keyboards
    Yokemate of Keyboards
    Andreas_Wolf
    Posts: 12132 from 2003/5/22
    From: Germany
    > we both might be right in that yes, there is an MV78200 at 1.2Ghz,
    > but it might not be available in any significant volume at this
    > time, nor even shipping yet.

    Yes, that sounds like a probable explanation.
    May I ask, where and when did you see the MV78200 at 1.2 GHz in person?


    Another thing that puzzles me regarding Marvell and ARM:

    According to Marvell, their Sheeva core was developed from both the Intel XScale and their own Feroceon CPU, both being ARMv5 ISA implementations. So one would assume the Sheeva to be ARMv5 ISA compliant as well. But then there is this:

    "Compliant with the Cortex A8, Sheeva also supports both the ARMv6 and ARMv7 instruction sets, making it the world's first dual ARM ISA compatible CPU."
    http://www.marvell.com/technologies/cpu_history/cpu_history.jsp

    What's Sheeva then? ARMv5 (like XScale and Feroceon), ARMv6 or ARMv7 (like Cortex-A8)? Or a combination of these? Very confusing. Can anyone shed some light, please?


    Edit:

    http://www.marvell.com/files/technologies/SheevaUntoldStory.pdf from August 2008 provides some further clues:

    "2009 - A new flagship CPU: Newest CPU core features multi-Ghz performance, [...] out-of-order execution, and full ARMv6 and ARMv7 compatibility"
    (page 2, "Figure 1. Timeline of Marvell CPU development")

    "Marvell has extended its license to cover ARM v6 and v7, the most recent version of the architecture. The company expects to sample its first ARM v7 CPU in late 2008."
    (page 3)

    So it seems that contrary to the statement on the Marvell "History of CPU" webpage current Sheeva core(s) are ARMv5 ISA compliant and *not* ARMv6 or ARMv7 ISA compliant but *future* Sheeva cores are supposed to be.

    On a sidenote, pages 5/6 are good for some great laughter:

    "Marvell's recent 88F6000 processors achieve CPU speeds of up to 2.0GHz. This clock speed [...] is faster than any [...] PowerPC processor [...] To minimize cost and power, the 88F6000 processors use a simpler CPU design than other Marvell products. This CPU is a scalar design, executing only one instruction per cycle, and it has no reordering capability."

    A fabled 2.0 GHz in-order non-superscalar ARMv5 faster than for instance an existing 2.0 GHz out-of-order superscalar PPC970FX? Good one ;-)

    [ Edited by Andreas_Wolf on 2009/3/23 17:28 ]
  • »23.03.09 - 16:26
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  • Acolyte of the Butterfly
    Acolyte of the Butterfly
    downix
    Posts: 105 from 2003/2/10
    From: Lightning capi...
    Quote:


    Andreas_Wolf wrote:
    > we both might be right in that yes, there is an MV78200 at 1.2Ghz,
    > but it might not be available in any significant volume at this
    > time, nor even shipping yet.

    Yes, that sounds like a probable explanation.
    May I ask, where and when did you see the MV78200 at 1.2 GHz in person?



    NDA from work, sorry to say. Should be able to discuss details in the next 3 months tho, if nothing goes wrong.
    Nate Downes
    Genesi SARL
  • »23.03.09 - 17:00
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  • Yokemate of Keyboards
    Yokemate of Keyboards
    Andreas_Wolf
    Posts: 12132 from 2003/5/22
    From: Germany
    > NDA from work

    So you have an MV78200 running at 1.2 GHz at work while "it might not be [...] even shipping yet"? Sounds like magic to me.
  • »23.03.09 - 19:00
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  • Acolyte of the Butterfly
    Acolyte of the Butterfly
    downix
    Posts: 105 from 2003/2/10
    From: Lightning capi...
    Quote:


    Andreas_Wolf wrote:
    > NDA from work

    So you have an MV78200 running at 1.2 GHz at work while "it might not be [...] even shipping yet"? Sounds like magic to me.


    Samples shipped over a year ago, not magic to me. You stop caring so much when it's the dozenth "next-big-thing" CPU you've had to handle this month. Some days I get surprised at things which have not shipped yet, or even worse, ones that have.
    Nate Downes
    Genesi SARL
  • »23.03.09 - 20:16
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  • Acolyte of the Butterfly
    Acolyte of the Butterfly
    downix
    Posts: 105 from 2003/2/10
    From: Lightning capi...
    Did some digging, Marvell's 88F6281 is listed as being able to be clocked at up to 2Ghz, due for release this year. The 1.2Ghz version of this chip can be found in the SheevaPlug, which is a fun thing to play with I must say.
    Nate Downes
    Genesi SARL
  • »24.03.09 - 14:12
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  • Yokemate of Keyboards
    Yokemate of Keyboards
    Andreas_Wolf
    Posts: 12132 from 2003/5/22
    From: Germany
    > Marvell's 88F6281 is listed as being able to be clocked at up to
    > 2Ghz, due for release this year.

    We'll see. In June 2008 it was announced to be clocked up to 2 GHz, 4 months later (page 2) it was reduced to 1.5 GHz, and finally it has been released with 1.2 GHz max.
  • »24.03.09 - 21:54
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  • Acolyte of the Butterfly
    Acolyte of the Butterfly
    downix
    Posts: 105 from 2003/2/10
    From: Lightning capi...
    Quote:


    Andreas_Wolf wrote:
    > Marvell's 88F6281 is listed as being able to be clocked at up to
    > 2Ghz, due for release this year.

    We'll see. In June 2008 it was announced to be clocked up to 2 GHz, 4 months later (page 2) it was reduced to 1.5 GHz, and finally it has been released with 1.2 GHz max.
    Right, but that is where I'd gotten the 2Ghz speed I'd listed earlier. I do like being complete.

    In any case, no denying that the access of a 1.2Ghz ARM system for $100 is quite appealing, yes? Or a $150 for a slower system which also includes DSP and GPU?
    Nate Downes
    Genesi SARL
  • »25.03.09 - 13:10
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  • Yokemate of Keyboards
    Yokemate of Keyboards
    Andreas_Wolf
    Posts: 12132 from 2003/5/22
    From: Germany
    > that is where I'd gotten the 2Ghz speed I'd listed earlier.

    Then why did you state that the 2 GHz version of the 88F6281 was "due for release this year" when you even knew that there's only 1.2 GHz max, opposed to the announcement?

    > I do like being complete.

    I rather call that "being behind" and "ignoring when announcements get superseded by reality" :-P

    > no denying that the access of a 1.2Ghz ARM system for $100 is quite
    > appealing, yes?

    Yes, for people who are interested in a non-superscalar, in-order ARMv5 chip :-P

    > Or a $150 for a slower system which also includes DSP and GPU?

    Do you know how much slower a 600 MHz superscalar ARMv7 CPU is compared to a 1.2 GHz non-superscalar ARMv5 CPU?
  • »25.03.09 - 22:23
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  • Yokemate of Keyboards
    Yokemate of Keyboards
    Andreas_Wolf
    Posts: 12132 from 2003/5/22
    From: Germany
    Update:

    > hopefully upcoming Titan (not cancelled yet)

    10 days ago, AppliedMicro (former AMCC) announced the first Titan core based SoC, the dual core APM 83290 (codename: Gemini). It's supposed to reach up to 1.5 GHz. More information here and there.
  • »05.10.09 - 02:19
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  • Yokemate of Keyboards
    Yokemate of Keyboards
    Andreas_Wolf
    Posts: 12132 from 2003/5/22
    From: Germany
    > 10 days ago, AppliedMicro (former AMCC) announced the first Titan core based SoC,
    > the dual core APM 83290 (codename: Gemini). It's supposed to reach up to 1.5 GHz.

    Today, AppliedMicro announced the sample availability of the APM 83290 starting now and production number availability for Q1/2010.
  • »16.10.09 - 18:41
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  • Yokemate of Keyboards
    Yokemate of Keyboards
    Andreas_Wolf
    Posts: 12132 from 2003/5/22
    From: Germany
    > Another thing that puzzles me regarding Marvell and ARM:
    >
    > According to Marvell, their Sheeva core was developed from both the Intel XScale and
    > their own Feroceon CPU, both being ARMv5 ISA implementations. So one would assume
    > the Sheeva to be ARMv5 ISA compliant as well. But then there is this:
    >
    > "Compliant with the Cortex A8, Sheeva also supports both the ARMv6 and ARMv7
    > instruction sets, making it the world's first dual ARM ISA compatible CPU."
    > http://www.marvell.com/technologies/cpu_history/cpu_history.jsp
    >
    > What's Sheeva then? ARMv5 (like XScale and Feroceon), ARMv6 or ARMv7 (like
    > Cortex-A8)? Or a combination of these? Very confusing. Can anyone shed some light,
    > please?
    >
    >
    > Edit:
    >
    > http://www.marvell.com/files/technologies/SheevaUntoldStory.pdf from August 2008
    > provides some further clues:
    >
    > "2009 - A new flagship CPU: Newest CPU core features multi-Ghz performance, [...]
    > out-of-order execution, and full ARMv6 and ARMv7 compatibility"
    > (page 2, "Figure 1. Timeline of Marvell CPU development")
    >
    > "Marvell has extended its license to cover ARM v6 and v7, the most recent version of the
    > architecture. The company expects to sample its first ARM v7 CPU in late 2008."
    > (page 3)
    >
    > So it seems that contrary to the statement on the Marvell "History of CPU" webpage current
    > Sheeva core(s) are ARMv5 ISA compliant and *not* ARMv6 or ARMv7 ISA compliant but
    > *future* Sheeva cores are supposed to be.

    To answer my own question from 9 months ago in conclusion:

    There's currently 2 types of Sheeva cores: The older Sheeva PJ1, which implements ARMv5 ISA, and the new Sheeva PJ4, which implements ARMv7 ISA.

    http://www.marvell.com/company/news/press_detail.html?releaseID=1341
    http://www.google.com/search?q=marvell+sheeva+pj1+pj4

    Mystery solved, case closed :-)


    Edit:
    Changed press release URL due to Marvell website redesign.

    [ Edited by Andreas_Wolf on 2010/2/18 14:44 ]
  • »04.01.10 - 04:58
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  • Yokemate of Keyboards
    Yokemate of Keyboards
    Andreas_Wolf
    Posts: 12132 from 2003/5/22
    From: Germany
    > upcoming PPC476

    See there :-)

    > and PPC A2

    IBM's long-standing "Next-gen" "64-bit Commercial Core" mystery seems to be demystified finally. Indeed the longish-rumoured PowerPC A2 just seems to be that very core. When IBM released their POWER7 processor 1.5 weeks ago they concurrently (well, half an hour later actually ;-) unveiled their upcoming PowerPC A2 core and processors based on that core.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PowerPC_A2
    http://www.isscc.org/isscc/2010/ISSCC2010_AdvanceProgram.pdf (page 21, from 11/2009)
    http://submissions.miracd.com/ISSCC2010/WebAP/PDF/AP_Session5.pdf (page 2, from 11/2009)
    http://www.research.ibm.com/journal/abstracts/rd/541/franke03.html (from 2010)
  • »18.02.10 - 12:19
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  • Yokemate of Keyboards
    Yokemate of Keyboards
    Andreas_Wolf
    Posts: 12132 from 2003/5/22
    From: Germany
    > Today, AppliedMicro announced the sample availability of the APM 83290 starting
    > now and production number availability for Q1/2010.

    According to Lauterbach, the APM83290 has a PPC450 core:

    http://www.lauterbach.com/pro/pro__amcc.html
    http://www.lauterbach.com/pro_amcc.html#PowerPC_450

    Does that mean that Applied Micro's "Titan" core is a Fast14 enhanced and thus upclocked PPC450 core?
  • »11.04.10 - 18:55
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  • Yokemate of Keyboards
    Yokemate of Keyboards
    Andreas_Wolf
    Posts: 12132 from 2003/5/22
    From: Germany
    Update:

    > upcoming PowerPC A2 core and processors based on that core.

    Some more information about the A2 core and the PowerEN processor (Power Edge of Network, formerly known as "Wire-Speed Processor") based on that core:

    http://www.power.org/events/2010_ISSCC/ (don't miss the two PDF files)

    According to The Register the A2 core is a trimmed down POWER7 core:

    "On the networking and data center front, IBM will be talking some more about its Power Edge of Network, or PowerEN, which is a 16-core, Power-derived processor that IBM also talked about at the International Solid State Circuits Conference in February. This chip, known as the Wire-Speed Processor back then, has 16 cores, each with four threads, derived from the Power7 architecture but with lots of stuff ripped out that's not necessary for an inline processor that chews on data and passes it on as it sits on the network."
    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/06/28/hot_chips_22_preview/
  • »06.08.10 - 18:24
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  • Yokemate of Keyboards
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    Andreas_Wolf
    Posts: 12132 from 2003/5/22
    From: Germany
    Update:

    > Today, AppliedMicro announced the sample availability of the APM 83290
    > starting now and production number availability for Q1/2010.

    Bad news from 5 weeks ago:

    "AppliedMicro has scuppered its APM83290 dual-CPU IC based on the Titan CPU it developed with Intrinsity. Instead of selling the processor as a product, AppliedMicro will offer it as a development vehicle to customers and then convert these customers to undisclosed, forthcoming 40nm processors with similar capabilities but a different CPU."
    http://www.mdronline.com/processor_watch/watch_issue.php?processor_watch_id=646
    http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:www.mdronline.com/watch/watch24_0709.html#3

    "AppliedMicro will not productize its first dual-CPU processor, the 90nm APM83290, which was developed in conjunction with Intrinsity. Instead, the company will supply this processor only in sample quantities and later convert customers to a homegrown 40nm processor."
    http://www.mdronline.com (under "July 5, 2010")
  • »12.08.10 - 23:57
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  • Yokemate of Keyboards
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    Andreas_Wolf
    Posts: 12132 from 2003/5/22
    From: Germany
    Addendum:

    > According to Lauterbach, the APM83290 has a PPC450 core

    In contrast to Lauterbach, a new edition of Wikipedia's PPC4xx article claims that Titan was designed "using the PowerPC 440 core spec".

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PowerPC_400#Titan

    Either way, there's still something else mysterious about it: According to Wikipedia, PPC440 and PPC460 (and thus I conclude PPC450 as well) comply to Power ISA v2.03+, whereas Titan complies to Power ISA v2.04+ (i.e. not to v2.03). Strange.
  • »18.08.10 - 12:43
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