New Amiga based on Power PC is rumored to have microcontroller or embedded supp

Unknown

The Amiga 1000 came out twenty five years ago and a Power PC version with dual core is coming out with rumored microcontroller support.·

Here is the news story:
http://www.osnews.com/story/22693/New_Amiga_Sports_Programmable_Co-Processor_Dualcore_PPC

I was reading that a company called Amino was involved:
http://www.xcore.com/projects/amino

I read this little tidbit on the above link:

"Inspiration includes OpenSource hardware like Arduino and its ecosystem."

I'm not sure what they have in mind since this is a new computer and a lot is under wraps right now but it will be out this summer.· The idea that is has microcontroller support is interesting.

I'm sure some of you could capture this moment and make it work with the Propeller chip and do a better job.

The downside is there isn't a lot of software for this computer and first year models can have bugs.· First year cars have problems.· The other downside to this computer is that you probably don't need it and most companies can't compete with the current hardware out there because of the billions of research which has been done.· The idea that Amiga could catch up is 25 years late.

I would be concerned about Amiga Inc. or involvement with them as they have not delivered and don't have a good track record with the Amiga community at the present time.· I'm not sure who is producing the current hardware.



·

TonyD

There's more info at:

http://www.a-eon.com/6.html

The AmigaOne X1000 Specs are:

• ATX Formfactor
• Dual-core PowerISA v2.04+ CPU
• "Xena" XMOS XS1-L1 128 SDS
• 7.1 channel HD audio
• 4x DDR2 RAM slots
• 10x USB 2.0
• 1x Gigabit Ethernet
• 2x PCIe x16 slots (1x16 or 2x8)
• 2x PCIe x1 slots
• 1x Xorro slot
• 2x PCI legacy slots
• 2x RS232
• 4x SATA 2 connectors
• 1x IDE connector
• JTAG connector
• 1x Compact Flash

but the price at 1295 USD looks expensive :{

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- Tony

http://zuzebox.wordpress.com/

Ale

I thought they where using the XMOS to emulate the 68k... I thought about doing it... there is a lot of power there but maybe just recompiling the code is abetter idea :?:

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Visit some of my articles at Propeller Wiki:
MATH on the propeller propeller.wikispaces.com/MATH
pPropQL: propeller.wikispaces.com/pPropQL
pPropQL020: propeller.wikispaces.com/pPropQL020
OMU for the pPropQL/020 propeller.wikispaces.com/OMU

Leon

It's an interesting project, but the architecture seems overly complex and expensive. By the time that comes out the NVIDIA CUDA multi-processor cards will be quite affordable:

www.nvidia.co.uk/page/tesla_computing_solutions.html

and will be able to do anything that system can do in software.

Leon

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Amateur radio callsign: G1HSM

Post Edited (Leon) : 1/6/2010 1:40:11 PM GMT

Mike Dench

Thats an interesting piece of info, thanks, I'd LOVE another Amiga that was as advanced now as it was then and that's the problem right there. Of course up to date hardware is essential but the best or perhaps I should say the most functional machines are almost always because of their software and thats where all the high powered one offs fail. Take for example the late lamented Sun or those Silicon Graphics work stations, what they can do is awesome but most people can't use them (if they could afford them) because the software is impenetrably dense with a very steep learning curve.

IMHO unless a machine is designed with the software and hardware equally innovative and equally dedicated to making it easy to use, you're looking at a doomed product.

Sinclairs Spectrum would probably have disappeared pretty quickly were it not for magazines like 'Crash!' (especially them) and others that created and united an enthusiastic user group who harnessed their considerable talents to boosting performance by all sorts of clever programming tricks which they gave away to anyone interested. It was the original open source freeware by default rather than by design. Everybody used everybody elses hints and tips and developed them further when possible and so what you had, in effect, was a huge R&D representing hundreds of man years something way beyond what any company could afford to do on their own

The original Amiga design team had Jay Miner and other really imaginative software writers and it was the software bundle that made the Amiga stand out. The Amiga too quickly got a following and similar results except that listings in print were replaced by floppies being mailed or attached to magazines and of course it was a lot of freeware that came up with some of the neatest ways of exploiting the machine design.

All of my best programs in my toolbox originated as shareware or freeware without exception. I stayed in correspondence with their authors in some cases which was very helpful, 3DMENU and ORPHEUS (DOS programs) and the original Graphics Workshop are perfect examples of very powerful, user friendly programs that made my life as a teacher much easier since I was stuck with a room full of 286's and students expecting more functionality than command line bare bones editors! Just using those three gave the illusion of Windows like capabilities and they were relatively tiny compared to the commercial alternatives (if they would even run on those relics).

What we need and I thought when I joined this forum that Parallax users might fit the bill, isn't so much an ultra powerful controller as one that is affordable, accessible and has an enthusiastic following willing to share and help each other out as indeed seems to be the case from all I've read to date.

A new 'Amiga' would be wonderful but without all of the above its going to die stillborn, is my sad opinion. I'll keep an eye on it though 'cos I'm an optimist!