RE: [ql-users] Happy new year!!
I thought the Irish voted against the Euro ? Have fun anyway - I'm glad we're not in it !! Remember the crash when Stormin' Norman Lamont was Chancellor - all because one guy sold a shed load of Sterling, imagine the consequences on 12 countries if the same thing happened to the Euro, I suspect it won't be long in coming .. Not that I'm a cynic or anything :o) Norman. PS, What hangover ? - Norman Dunbar Database/Unix administrator Lynx Financial Systems Ltd. mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Tel: 0113 289 6265 Fax: 0113 289 3146 URL: http://www.Lynx-FS.com - -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Wednesday, January 02, 2002 10:16 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [ql-users] Happy new year!! Hi All, Just to wish you all a happy new year - hope the hangovers are receiving the nesscessary treatment!! The Euro is in full swing over here; organised Chaos this morning, as everyone comes to terms with it. This email is intended only for the use of the addressees named above and may be confidential or legally privileged. If you are not an addressee you must not read it and must not use any information contained in it, nor copy it, nor inform any person other than Lynx Financial Systems or the addressees of its existence or contents. If you have received this email and are not a named addressee, please delete it and notify the Lynx Financial Systems IT Department on 0113 2892990.
[ql-users] Re: Welcome to ql-users
Dave wrote: They do. Unfortunately, it's something of a poor relation. They're made on .5 or .65u processes with aluminium interconnects - generally very old hat. Not quite. The 68LC060RC75 uses a 0.35um process. Still I'd love to see it in 0.15um :-) Finally, with open hardware, and/or doing it the old-fashioned way, what is the likely interest in a QL-compatible SBC? note the Q40/Q60 are not an SBC - an SBC would have the interfaces and connectors all built onto the same board. I sure considered making the Q40 an SBC. But the majority of users needed systems with harddisks, CDROMs, Floppys and standard Minitower cases with powersupply. This renders the size advantage of an SBC almost useless. While it would add costs. E.g. for the price of an off-the-shelf ISA multi IO card (with all cables) you could hardly purchase the components and connectors, let alone the cables and extra PCB and SMD production costs. Peter
Re: [ql-users] Re: Welcome to ql-users
In article [EMAIL PROTECTED], ZN [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes The problem with the Motorola 68000 series is that they aren't making them anymore. They do. Unfortunately, it's something of a poor relation. They're made on .5 or .65u processes with aluminium interconnects - generally very old hat. If they were fabbed at even .25u, they would happily run at 250-400MHz speeds. But that would cost a few tens of millions of bucks ;) Actually, the biggest problem with the 68k family is that Mot. does not want to sell the licence to anyone else, so that even FPGA cores that implement the same instruction set are, strictly speaking, illegal. Besides, there are compatible (or close enough) CPUs based on the 68k manufactured using .25u process, the V4 ColdFire. Even here we have a problem, which is Mot. dawdling over making the chips more freely available. They are targetted at the embedded OEM market and get 'compiled' to order along with peripherals. HP uses them profusely in their printers, for instance, because Mot. gladly maks speciffic versions that reduce the printer to 2 chips. The validity of the 68k concept is certainly obvios, otherwise it would have died a long time ago. Instead, an attempt to reduce the instruction set in the previous generation ColdFire's has been all but reversed with the new ones, which can be made almost completely compatible - if you can get Mot. to sell them to you! Thanks for the clarity around the 68k. I was gettting the impression that the series had come to the end of its development potential. In terms of Mot doing the manufacturing. Yet obviously not the case. HP do make very good printers ... so that's how they are doing it :-) I guess it is very financially worthwhile too ... as every computer needs a printer, or two. There are a couple of alternative aproaches, all of which have problems with mustering the required amount of manhours to make them work. One interesting possibility would be a Transmeta CPU with a 68k code interpreter. Even the smaller Crusoe would do just fine. In this case you also have the problem in getting Transmeta to provide the data to write the interpreter. Transmeta has invested a lot of work in producing their code morpher for I86 CPUs, and they principally want to sell you the licence for that - the CPU just comes along. On the otehr hand, a 68k interpreter or (wishful thinking) code morpher could be a lucrative venture. The QL community by far isn't the only one wanting faster 68k CPUs. This is interesting ... what other approaches are there ? Is there any QDOS/compatible OS that's written in C? I could try to get it converted to compile on ARM chips - I realize for QDOS itself that's a no-no, as it's basically hand assembly... what's the nearest to a version of QDOS written in C? There isn't one. In fact, I wish there was one because it could be used as a classic comparison of Assembler vs C efficiency :-) Finally, with open hardware, and/or doing it the old-fashioned way, what is the likely interest in a QL-compatible SBC? note the Q40/Q60 are not an SBC - an SBC would have the interfaces and connectors all built onto the same board. I can hunt around for a schematic for the original QL and dig out my SQB schematics and see what else could be added in... This isn't likely to happen, but if it was, what would people be looking for? Well, not that I am putting down the idea, but wouldn't that be a step back, especially considering your lamentation re 68k not being available on a .25u process :-) Strictly speaking, no there are no QL based SBCs, but the problem here is that QL developement being what it is, there is an interesting problem of conflicting requirements: 1) Because of limited resources, we get to design such a thing about once in a decade, which means a lot has to be anticipated - whatever is designed has to last a decade! 2) 'Evolving' too far away from existing hardware results in problems with actually using the new features - entirely because of a lack of open _software_ developement, namely the OS. 3) At the same time, whatever you come up with gets compared to the latest PC, but is required to be able to use all the old QL bits. Hardware developement is not really a problem, to tell you the truth. It's making the OS cope with it that's the real problem. This really requires the designer of the hardware to become a one-man band and do boththe hardware, and the software - that's very unlikely to happen. By all means, I applaud your open hardware developement idea, but I would at the very least like to see it followed by open software developement - maybe even preceeded by open software developement. clip -- Malcolm Cadman
Re: [ql-users] Re: Welcome to ql-users
In article [EMAIL PROTECTED], Phoebus R. Dokos [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes A 68060@66MHz Q60 will give you about 300 times the processing power of a QL... not that bad, hue ? Not bad at all... :o) I've been playing with StrongARMs. When Sinclair went away I followed the Acorn route. This is the main reason I'm so out-of-date on the current state of play... ;) I use RISC OS, as well as QL and PC ... so you are in good company :-) ARM have made considerable progress with the RISC chips ... they even have INTEL on board now, after all these years ... The problem with the Motorola 68000 series is that they aren't making them anymore. I beg to differ Malcolm... what about M*Core chips like the DragonBall for example (Used in Palm OS handhelds or even the 68010 (Used in TI92 calculators... hehe just bought one... BTW... anybody wants to port QDOS on it). Even 68040's and 60s are being produced if I am not mistaken Isn't this the 'embedded' market though, like the ARM chips that are appearing in many exciting products ? It is always the case that new hardware stimulates new software development. What is to follow the 68060 ? -- Malcolm Cadman
Re: [ql-users] Re: Welcome to ql-users
In article [EMAIL PROTECTED], Dexter [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes On Wed, 2 Jan 2002, Malcolm Cadman wrote: I use RISC OS, as well as QL and PC ... so you are in good company :-) Risc PC 700/SA@287MHz, plus a LART (www.lart.tudelft.nl) I am using an 'older' generation, an A3000, with upgraded SCSI 1 interface. ARM have made considerable progress with the RISC chips ... they even have INTEL on board now, after all these years ... I wouldn't say they have Intel on board. Intel won the intellectual property that is the difference between an ARM and a Digital StrongARM in a lawsuit with Digital. They saw the embedded marketplace as the largest growth area in the future, and they were right - by controlling their already-biggest competing product, well... He .. he .. good to see you have not lost the scepticism :-) The problem with the Motorola 68000 series is that they aren't making them anymore. They do. Unfortunately, it's something of a poor relation. They're made on .5 or .65u processes with aluminium interconnects - generally very old hat. If they were fabbed at even .25u, they would happily run at 250-400MHz speeds. But that would cost a few tens of millions of bucks ;) Indeed ... the new development is not being invested in. Is the supply of 68000 series still assured for the forseeable future ? Is there any QDOS/compatible OS that's written in C? I could try to get it converted to compile on ARM chips - I realize for QDOS itself that's a no-no, as it's basically hand assembly... what's the nearest to a version of QDOS written in C? Finally, with open hardware, and/or doing it the old-fashioned way, what is the likely interest in a QL-compatible SBC? note the Q40/Q60 are not an SBC - an SBC would have the interfaces and connectors all built onto the same board. I can hunt around for a schematic for the original QL and dig out my SQB schematics and see what else could be added in... This isn't likely to happen, but if it was, what would people be looking for? Not getting anyone's hopes up, but asking seriously... -- Malcolm Cadman
Re: [ql-users] Happy new year!!
In article [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes Hi All, Just to wish you all a happy new year - hope the hangovers are receiving the nesscessary treatment!! Happy new year, Darren. The Euro is in full swing over here; organised Chaos this morning, as everyone comes to terms with it. The coins have a very cheap feel to them, a bit like the toy money in those toy grocery shop sets for children! Notes are much smaller, so you feel you have a lot less money even it your bank balance is larger!! Took me 20 minutes to pay for a newspaper this morning as the poor girl tried to work out the correct change - by law, all shops must accept both euro and irish punts until 9/2/02, and give change solely in Euro. Quite confusing!! You could have read most newspapers for free in that time ... How many punts to the Euro then ? ... I must admit I have not yet seen a Euro note in 'real life', nor any of the coins. The 'time was' when genuine coins had real gold or silver in them :-) -- Malcolm Cadman
Re: [ql-users] Re: Welcome to ql-users
On Mon, Dec 31, 2001 at 07:16:42PM +0100, Peter Graf wrote: The reason why we don't emphasize the slots are the current lack of QL software drivers for anything but IDE, FLP, SER, PAR. The only thing I can see missing from that list that I consider important is ethernet. We have Ethernet! It works fine on Q40/Q60, but under Linux. The development of QDOS/SMS software is (as always) the big bottleneck. actually it would be easy to get Ethernet and TCP/IP working in QDOS. A much bigger problem is 'ppp' support, unfortunately thats what most people need to get internet access. A Q60 on DSL or cable modem would be fun though. Bye Richard
Re: [ql-users] Re: Welcome to ql-users
On Wed, Jan 02, 2002 at 12:22:34AM -0500, ZN wrote: Actually, the biggest problem with the 68k family is that Mot. does not want to sell the licence to anyone else, so that even FPGA cores that implement the same instruction set are, strictly speaking, illegal. Besides, there are compatible (or close enough) CPUs based on the 68k manufactured using .25u process, the V4 ColdFire. Even here we have a problem, which is Mot. dawdling over making the chips more freely available. They are targetted at the embedded OEM market and get 'compiled' to order along with peripherals. HP uses them profusely in their printers, for instance, because Mot. gladly maks speciffic versions that reduce the printer to 2 chips. The validity of the 68k concept is certainly obvios, otherwise it would have died a long time ago. Instead, an attempt to reduce the instruction set in the previous generation ColdFire's has been all but reversed with the new ones, which can be made almost completely compatible - if you can get Mot. to sell them to you! not yet compatible enough for our purposes. Even if they were, the emulation of the missing instructions can have serious impact on performance. They probably loose half of their potential markets because of the silly incompability. Bye Richard
