Re: AmigaOne X5000

On Mon, 13 Mar 2017, David Hopper wrote:
> Don't be too sad, the Apollo Vampire 68080 "spiritual successor" to the 
> MC680x0 line is imminent, works even in an A1000 and is apparently 
> nipping at the older PPC cores.

That rocks. Thanks for pointing it out. FPGAs are really yielding some 
wonderful results these days. I have one of those MiST FPGA boxes that 
I've had loads of fun with.

> I don't have a dog in this hunt (I've taken my A3000 as far as it can 
> go), I have no idea how close to production it is, but I do find it an 
> interesting project to follow.

What would be amazing would be a physical CPU upgrade for original 
Commodore hardware or better yet, a re-issue of the A4000 or A3000 with 
refactored hardware (or simply a new AGA-or-better 68080 Amiga).

> http://www.apollo-core.com/

> But according to a few mentions in the forums, the MMU is very different 
> from the traditional 680x0s and may be a non-starter for NetBSD.

Hmm, one would think that'd be a non-issue if it starts from a position of 
backward compatibility. However, I haven't done much more than open the 
web site. One factor that influences if NetBSD gets a port is simply "how 
interesting is the whole-product." If someone made an interesting computer 
system with that CPU, then it'd likely get a port if it was cheap enough 
for mortals to procure.

-Swift