Re: The future of an SCC that has been given up on
On Sun, 27 May 2012, Thorsten Glaser wrote:
> Finn Thain dixit:
>
> >Yet you can buy new FPGA hardware and run a soft-core 68020! That kind
> >of new hardware is easy to find.
>
> How fast would that be?
If I recall correctly, the minimig core is faster than a Motorola part
(i.e. it retires more instructions per cycle). Soft-core CPUs get faster
as FPGAs get faster (though I doubt that this approach could ever replace
Aranym/emulation).
> Are there sort-of off-the-shelf solutions with that, i.e. adding support
> peripherals (keyboard and graphics or serial console, network,
> disc/compactflash)?
Most FPGA boards usually include some devices of that nature, especially
since SoC's became commonplace.
>
> >If new CF hardware was common, and justified release-architecture
> >status, there would be real demand for an archive of un-compromised,
> >CF-native packages (instead of compromised hybrid binaries).
>
> What exactly are you talking about when you say hybrid binaries? In my
> world, that?s a term for the Mach-O ?fat binaries? that contain two
> versions of a thing. Aren?t you meaning generic or common-subset?
I don't think I ever saw a proposal for a common-subset per se. As I
understand it, there would still be illegal instructions and these would
be handled by the kernel (with the ensuing overhead).
>
> >So the hybrid approach is a long term prospect if and only if CF never
> >becomes common enough to justify a CF-native port.
>
> Yes. But you underestimate the work to make a new port here,
No, I'm assuming that any prospective port with sufficient potential users
also has a sufficient potential pool of skilled developers.
> as well as the masses that would rather stick to the 680x0 port, and
> (according to what was said earlier) overestimate the CF gain when in
> fact the 680x0 are those that would benefit from optimisation.
Actually, I'm arguing that the 680x0 port does not stand to gain (see
above re "new hardware" vs. release status and "compromised binaries" vs.
performance on 680x0 hardware).
Finn
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