22 Apr
2016
22 Apr
'16
11:51 a.m.
On Fri, Apr 22, 2016 at 1:25 PM, Guy Sotomayor <ggs at shiresoft.com> wrote:
I've heard about PPC Amigas from time to time. What was the state of
68K->PPC emulation or dynamic translation on those?
I like the new types of peripherals but it makes me a little uncomfortable
knowing that e.g. in the case of the uIEC-SD for Commodores, the clock
speed of the peripheral is 16 to 20 times that of the original host CPU. I
keep hatching little schemes of perhaps putting a tiny OS kernel in the
thing, but at that point *it* would become the computer and the 128 would
be just sort of sitting there. The same is true of the CosmosEx device I've
been thinking of getting for my Atari STs; it has a Raspberry Pi inside.
--
Eric Christopherson
On Apr 22, 2016, at 11:03 AM, Swift Griggs
<swiftgriggs at gmail.com>
wrote:
Remember all the accelerator boards for the Mac, Amiga, and even PCs in
the
90's ? I've often wished that I could
get something similar on my older
SGI
systems. For example, fitting an R16k into an O2
or doing dynamic
translation on a 4.0Ghz i7.
The main reason for a lot of the ?accelerator? boards was to be able to run
non-native code on the same platform. With the advent of performance
micros (latest x86 and Power) there is little need to do that because
emulation
(or dynamic translation) is fast enough and with the various virtualization
capabilities, it?s not unusual to have multiple different OS?s running on
the
same HW.
Apple did this with some success in it?s various CPU transitions. When
they
switched from 68K to PPC, the PPC emulated the 68K code. The same
happened when they switched from PPC to x86, again the PPC code was
emulated (actually in that case it was dynamically translated).
So, here's the question. Is my dream likely to ever be possible enough
that
a boutique shop could pull it off and not lose
their shirt on the
production
costs and R&D to do it ? I'm encouraged
by things floppy emulators that
are
produced for these old machines. However,
that's probably significantly
easier to make than a CPU accel board.
It?s also keeping in character with the old machines. It?s not adding new
capabilities but more replacing old peripherals with something a bit more
convenient. Adding in a new accelerator means not only developing the
HW but also writing a boatload of *new* SW in order to be able to take
advantage of it.
Most of what you see (and what I?m mainly doing these days in terms of
?hobby?) is producing parts to a system in order to keep it running rather
than adding completely new capabilities. Most companies would rather
spend their time and budget doing things for a high ROI and for large and
growing markets.