| From: | Joseph Fenton |
| Date: | 16 Aug 2000 at 00:28:52 |
| Subject: | Re: MorphOS and G3/G4- some opinions |
Steffen Haeuser wrote:
>
> All I can say is that H&P will support future PPC hardware. And they are
> talking with all people who are thinking of doing such hardware to ensure
> WarpOS compatibility. With Metabox here an agreement was already reached
> (though the release schedule for the Amijoe is not that nice
> IMHO :( ) and talk with other parties concerning WarpOS Drivers
> is being done. Of course we have still to see if such new hardware (G3/G4)
> really will appear. But if the hardware will come, I am pretty sure that
> WarpOS will be the software shipped with it.
What would be cool would be a return to the hayday of Amiga...
remember the public domain 68020 accelerator on AmiNet? I think
a public domain design of a PPC card would be a good idea.
E.G., Motorola has a chip called the MPC8240; it is a 266MHz
603e with the equivalent of the MPC107 built into it. This
means one single chip gives you a 266MHz 603e, a 100MHz SDRAM
controller, a 33/66MHz PCI host bridge, two DMA channels,
a FlashMem/ROM interface, and a I2C port. You could make
a really cheap PPC card from that; it would still be 603e
performance, but that is the trade-off for the simpler design.
For a more complex design, an MPC750(G3) or an MPC7400(G4) with
an MPC107 would be more in order; 512K or 1M of FSRAM (NEC, IBM,
or Motorola FSRAM would do) for a backside cache, and two or
four PC100 DIMM sockets. The MPC107 would handle the memory
FlashMem/ROM, and PCI as mentioned above. Throw on a couple
of VIA or NEC PCI USB and FireWire controllers. One 66MHz
PCI slot for a standard 66MHz PCI video card. Making schematics
for the above stuff is not that hard, it's the board layout that
is the main point. The project would have someone with access
to a layout program do layouts for A500/A2000/A3000(T)/A1200/
A4000(T). It would also include a parts list with URLs for
distributors for the parts. Obviously, it would be a task for
a GOOD engineer to then put everything together, but some of the
folks out there are up to it. I know folks who made their own
020 accelerators from the PD designs; they could make their
own PPC accelerators now. :^}