Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watnot!watmath!clyde!rutgers!sri-unix!husc6!seismo!amdahl!kim From: kim@amdahl.UUCP Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Comments on future ASDG products (68020) Message-ID: <6043@amdahl.UUCP> Date: Sat, 28-Mar-87 23:42:58 EST Article-I.D.: amdahl.6043 Posted: Sat Mar 28 23:42:58 1987 Date-Received: Sun, 29-Mar-87 18:15:25 EST Organization: Amdahl Corporation, Sunnyvale, CA 94086 Lines: 142 Keywords: 68020 ASDG MMU cooperation future [ "Send lawyers, guns, and money ..." ] A few days ago, I received a 10 page flyer from ASDG entitled "The ASDG NewsLetter", and dated as "Issue 1, March 1987". I guess this means that ASDG received my $10 registration fee for the "Recoverable Ram Disk" (you did send in your's, didn't you?) Anyway, there is a lot of information about ASGD's plans for the future, some of which I will summarize here, along with some personal thoughts and comments. Please note that I'm trying to present *information* here, not marketing hype, nor commercial endorsements. First, here is what ASDG has planned for the A2000: 2MI - 2 Meg memory board (equivalent to the A1000 2M product) 8MI - 8 Meg memory board (equivalent to the A1000 8M product) 20XI - 68020 processor board SDPI - smart disk processor SIOPI - smart I/O processor The newsletter stated that there would be A1000 equivalents for the 20XI and SDPI (called 20X and SDP, natch). The 2M and 8M A1000 products are already available (8M in April). No mention of an SIOP card for the A1000, but then ther was nothing in the newsletter about this card other than the above one liner. And you already know that ASDG has committed to building the 2000-and-1 A1000 expansion box. The 20XI/20X 020 board: To quote ASDG, "Right now, the board (which we'll be calling the 20X and 20XI) is vaporware. But the feature list of the product is already well defined. So in the following article, bear in mind that the first printed circuit board has yet to be built. What you're reading is preliminary." Extracted from the article, here's what I see as the "facts", with my comments in []'s: o Designed with a proprietary decoupling scheme that provides a processor board with *minimum* clock speed of 14 MHz, and a maximum clock of 25 MHz. The board will operate at any speed in between. [25 MHz !!!!!] o Will have on-board 32-bit DRAM, with zero wait-states (at 14 MHz). Comes with 1 Meg on-board, expandable to 4 Meg. o Socketed for a 68881 floating-point processor [damn, no Weitek's :-) ! ] o Some "stuff" that allows an "N" MHz board to be 10 to 20 percent faster that current 020 boards running at the same clock (code dependent). [Sounds like an on-board caching scheme, to me.] Sounds like a *very* impressive piece of h/w, but I've saved what could be the best for last (and *this* is really what prompted this posting). I quote from the newsletter: "Now here's where direct customer contact comes into play. Do you think we should add a demand paged MMU? If so, what would you use it for? Would you port System V/4.x BSD to our board? And you thought getting this newsletter meant no work on your part! "Seriously, we want to know if there's any interest in having an MMU on the 20X and 20XI. Designing it in and then leaving it [the chip itself] off the board uses up only a little board real estate but adds at least thirty dollars to the suggested retail (that is, to have the empty socket on your 20X subtracts $30 from your pocket). "Please fill out the customer feed back request and tell us what you think." At the risk of starting up the old MMU wars again, ASDG *is* asking us what we want. Though Perry doesn't miss much that's posted here :-), I will collect feedback that is posted and/or emailed to me, and make sure it gets to ASDG. Religious discussions on the merits of MMU's vs. no-MMU's will be summarily sent to /dev/null. For myself, I will *demand* having an MMU on my next system, and $30 for the *capability* seems a small price to pay on a board that will likely cost more than $1K in it's minimum configuration. But ... I said *system* above, and that includes an OS that can *use* the MMU in an *intelligent* manner. *I* won't be porting UNIX(R) to the Amiga myself (BSD please!), and only CBM has the *real* AmigaDOS source (as well as the *shipping* AmigaDOS/MetaComCo source). Although UNIX(R) is quite popular and might seem like a good choice for a machine of this power, it isn't ideal for the Amiga. LOTS of work would have to be done after getting a vanilla version up to support all the Amiga specific h/w (blitter, audio channels, etc.). Then there are the compatibility issues ... whaddya mean, I can't run DPaint on AmigaUNIX?! To be successful on the Amiga, I think *any* OS is going to have to support the features and *kind* of s/w we've come to expect to see on the Amiga ... if UNIX(R) is all I'm after, there are PClones with Microport/XENIX/etc. that already provide that (though I'd like to run 4.x BSD in a window next to MS-DOS!) Now, CBM has stated that they too are working on an 020 board for the A2000's 86-pin unbuffered "co-processor" slot [could this work in an ASDG 2000-and-1 expansion box Zorro I slot, Perry?] It has also been said that CBM's 020 board MAY have some kind of MMU support (my impresion is that CBM's MMU would fall far short of providing demand paging, but would provide segmentation or maybe just simple memory protection). In any case, CBM will have to support any such scheme in AmigaDOS. All of which is leading up to a suggestion to ASDG, CBM, and any other h/w vendors who may have similar plans ... WORK TOGETHER to define an ARCHITECTURE for 020/MMU support! What we don't need are a bunch of totally incompatible implementations! I know that such cooperation may be a novel idea, but without it, nobody will win. Such an approach could specify several implementation levels, from simple memory protection, all the way thru virtual memory with demand paging. Developers could go for the high end or the low end without limiting their creativity. Customers could buy the amount of machine they need now, and upgrade when they need more. And it would all fit under one umbrella and work together (though certain s/w might require at least some minimum level of implementation). Now *that's* an upgrade path! Whew ... this got longer than I expected awfully fast, and I haven't even talked about the SDPI board or the 2000-and-1 box ... I think I'll make them a seperate posting. Lastly, I pleased ASDG is asking for input on their products ... what do y'all say ... want an MMU? /kim P.S. Nope, I'm not associated with ASDG in any way, except I use their indespensible RRD, and sent in my registration fee for it! -- UUCP: kim@amdahl.amdahl.com or: {sun,decwrl,hplabs,pyramid,ihnp4,seismo,oliveb,cbosgd}!amdahl!kim DDD: 408-746-8462 USPS: Amdahl Corp. M/S 249, 1250 E. Arques Av, Sunnyvale, CA 94086 CIS: 76535,25 [ Any thoughts or opinions which may or may not have been expressed ] [ herein are my own. They are not necessarily those of my employer. ]