CPU 68080

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genetika
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CPU 68080

Post by genetika »

When a new “super Gold Card” with a 68080 will be available ?

:D
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pjw
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Re: CPU 68080

Post by pjw »

Forgive me if I got this wrong, but my understanding is that Vampire is not a drop-in replacement CPU; it is an Amiga-specific board, containing, among other things, a disk controller, video and audio components..
The Buffee (formerly Buffy) board, however, is a systems agnostic drop-in replacement for a 68030 - only its capable of 21st century speeds.
Purists will no doubt cringe at the thought of Buffee since it is based on an emulator running on an ARM CPU. However, to my mind, the way it is implemented on the Buffee is not far different from the microcode underlying any "real" 68k. The emulator runs on the bare metal of the ARM (no Linux, etc!) employing a pseudo JIT to do the 68k code emulation.
Sadly, the QL world seems to have fossilised into a collector's club for the Quaint Lump, unlike the Amigos who seem to have visions not only of reviving their platform, but evolving to new levels. Lucky them!


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Derek_Stewart
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Re: CPU 68080

Post by Derek_Stewart »

Hi,

I have followed the Buffee project, looks interesting, but time will tell if they can get the project out, unlike the PiStorm, which there are no chips to make the board. Not good.

I wonder why does anyone want a 68060 on their QL, I ponder this after I build and sold the Q60, 20 years ago.

There was no software written to take advantage of the 68060 op codes, in fact some extra code had to added to run QL software that needed TAS (Test And Set)

I have a Vampire for an A600, but it does not get much use.


Regards,

Derek
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XorA
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Re: CPU 68080

Post by XorA »

genetika wrote:When a new “super Gold Card” with a 68080 will be available ?

:D
When you design it I guess :-D


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XorA
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Re: CPU 68080

Post by XorA »

pjw wrote:Forgive me if I got this wrong, but my understanding is that Vampire is not a drop-in replacement CPU; it is an Amiga-specific board, containing, among other things, a disk controller, video and audio components..
The Buffee (formerly Buffy) board, however, is a systems agnostic drop-in replacement for a 68030 - only its capable of 21st century speeds.
Purists will no doubt cringe at the thought of Buffee since it is based on an emulator running on an ARM CPU. However, to my mind, the way it is implemented on the Buffee is not far different from the microcode underlying any "real" 68k. The emulator runs on the bare metal of the ARM (no Linux, etc!) employing a pseudo JIT to do the 68k code emulation.
Sadly, the QL world seems to have fossilised into a collector's club for the Quaint Lump, unlike the Amigos who seem to have visions not only of reviving their platform, but evolving to new levels. Lucky them!
They did at one point announce a "free" license to use just the CPU section with a lower clock speed as a CPU replacement. No idea if anyone has ever taken up this offer or if it still exists.


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Dave
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Re: CPU 68080

Post by Dave »

Advances in clock speed and instructions per clock move us forward some, but the extra instructions do not. The caches break a lot and often just need to be disabled. Pipelines changing can have unanticipated results for self modifying code.

So I have restricted myself to experimenting with 68030 and below, which retain the asynchronous bus.

There are 68000 cores that work at 50 and 66MHz. A 68030 at 40MHz would be a little quicker for some things, about the same for others.

What do you want from this proposed card that the Q68 or the SGC don't already have?


Derek_Stewart
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Re: CPU 68080

Post by Derek_Stewart »

Hi,

i think this has been discussed before. But, the Amiga A1200 has a Vampire addon, that attaches to the 68020 CPU and seems to work quite well.

Maybe a way of attaching the A1200 Vampire to the SGC 68020 CPU could be done and the SGC mayb have the same speed advantages, but I guess there would have to driver changes in the operating system, which would mean using SMSQ/E.

I do not think this is worth doing, as Dave said, we already have the same functionality with the Q68 and also some degree the SGC.

Who fast do you want to run your QL system?

I would think there is a more need for newer software rather than using something that was written over 20-30 years.


Regards,

Derek
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pjw
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Re: CPU 68080

Post by pjw »

I dont care much about the XXes in 680XX. What I care about is a flat,
non-segmented memory space across the available addressing range - and
a bit more speed!

I care about large-ish screens and 16 bit colour (for lots of good
reasons!) To make such a system feel comfortable, effortless,
balanced.. sufficient power is needed. 40 MHz doesnt cut it.

The argument that there is no software to take advantage of the
68020's capabilities is specious: "Anything" that runs on a 68008 will
run on a 68020, including all of SMSQ/E, and any part of SMSQ/E that
is optimised for QPC2. Then there is GWASS, which will actually
assemble 68020 instructions. And if a (nominal) 68020/30 becomes the
new 21st century base line, no doubt those instructions and any useful
extra capabilities will be taken advantage of - if theres anyone left to
write or run programs on the "QL" by then!

Other programming languages, such as the in-the-works Pascal, and with
a bit of effort, maybe even C68, could be made to output "pure" SMSQ/E
code, and make them more Qdos-like rather than the basterdised Linux
specimins we have had until now.

Whats the point? you might ask. Id be happy to give my answers to that
as part of any discussion on the subject, but Im not going to write a
long article no ones going to read or respond to. The question to ask
oneself is not What is? but, as always, What possibilities are there?


Per
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XorA
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Re: CPU 68080

Post by XorA »

But, the Amiga A1200 has a Vampire addon, that attaches to the 68020 CPU and seems to work quite well.
It doesn't attach to CPU, it attaches to the expansion bus which has a pin to disable internal CPU.


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XorA
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Re: CPU 68080

Post by XorA »

So I have restricted myself to experimenting with 68030 and below, which retain the asynchronous bus.
Which also seems to be the actual most common CPU expansion for all the Amiga models! Very little apart from Demos actually uses/needs 68060+


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