I was clued in by that whole.... no developments in twelve years aspect ;) One of those times I'm happy to be spectacularly wrong. :D
Dave On Tue, Mar 21, 2017 at 7:33 AM, Peter Graf <pg...@q40.de> wrote: > Hello Tony, > > it is good to read something from you. > > > 1) You need a system development environment that > > a) will support different processors - ruling out assembler > > That depends on where one looks for a niche market. Things have changed > inasmuch small to medium sized FPGA have become large enough to contain > a whole 32 bit CPU. > > In addition to that, patents on the original 68000 have expired. > > Because of the high code density, I found the 68K architecture best > suited for use with the limited internal RAM resources of an FPGA. I > have tried several 32 bit architectures, and 68K allows the smallest > memory footprint. > > Within small to medium sized FPGA systems, having a real-time operating > system would often advantageous, but existing systems are simply too large. > > For such targets, the best would be an assembler written OS, still > allowing application code in C. Like SMSQ/E and C68, but capable of real > time operation and oriented toward embedded systems instead of personal > computing. > > > 2) You need to develop interface modules (drivers?) for a wide range of > > "peripheral" devices - the device manufacturers will not develop them > > for you. > > This also improves with FPGA - once there is a peripheral device in HDL > (Hardware Definition Language) you can at least keep it th the same for > the next product generation. > > > 4) You need to develop entirely different hardware architectures - this > > century, architectures have become ever more tightly dedicated to UNIX > > (Linux, Windows NT, ...) > > Maybe you can take the Q68 as a modest proof that a new hardware > architecture can be close to 68K and the driver requirements of an > assembler OS. I developed the Q68 as a hobby project, so is now 10 years > old. Therefore it can not demonstrate the lastest chip performance, and > of course the Q68 has a homecomputing flavour. > > But updated to latest chip generation, and adapted to an embdedded > application, such a system suddenly could make a lot of sense with Stella. > > > 1) A first version of the Stella core was coded in MC68000 assembler and > > benchmarked [...] > > So nothing would be better to continue development of the Stella than > the 68K architecture. > > > 3) There is still no end in sight to the discovery of new "exploits" in > > all sorts of Unix based devices. > > This is an important point. I have been joking with friends, that we > might have to go back to 68K for internet use, simply because the > architecture is too exotic to be exploited. Also, security requires > lowest possible complexity. > > All the best > Peter > > _______________________________________________ > QL-Users Mailing List > -- Dave Park Sandy Labs d...@sinclairql.com _______________________________________________ QL-Users Mailing List
