Hi! Well... Computer '96 Show is over... this is a small report of some stuff there... The Fastest Amiga of the Word There are up to now 10 PowerUP Developper Boards existing, most of them at Phase 5 and Haage&Partner (the makers of StormC), one at Oberland (Reflections...). There will be shipping a LOT of more developper boards the next view days, though... Phase 5 even has plans that EVERYONE who wants can buy a developper board. The developper Board is put on the Cyberstorm MKII and has a 240 MHz PowerPC 603e. On the show they showed a Mandelbrot program running both on a 50 MHz 060 and on the PowerPC (both used same code, but different compiler, both 100% C coded). The PowerPC version ran about 3-5 times faster. They told the final version of the board (200 MHz PowerPC 604, and 64 Bit Memory Access, while the developper Board uses 32 Bit) will be about 2-3 times faster than the developper Board, probably. The final version will be a board of its own, without mounting it on the Cyberstorm, and Upgrades will be available for all Cyberstorm (MKI and MKII !!!) and Blizzard owners (A1200 and A2000 as i understood it). Starting price will be 1000 german marks as an upgrade (160 MHz version). There probably will be PowerPC 603e versions that will be cheaper, too. The current version of ppc.library can't run both processors fully parallel. The task that called the PPCLoadSeg will stop, till the PPC code returns, other tasks will continue, though. This will be fixed (with Semaphore stuff for synchronizing) soon, though. Phase 5 showed a small CyberGL Demo too, though there was not yet doublebuffering implemented for the CyberGL, so it flickered with Anims. Will be fixed later. (Could do shading, fog effects, all that stuff, the CyberGL...). CyberGL was up to now only available for 680x0. PowerPC versions of CyberGraphX 3 and CyberGL will be done, additionally to the 680x0 versions. BTW, Phase 5 said something about "all important Amiga Compilers being supported for PowerUP"... up to now they use SAS for 680x0 and gcc for the PowerPC part. Haage&Partner showed the StormC for PowerPC. As i asked, the programmer showed me some of the compiled code. Even as i do not know PowerPC ASM, it looked VERY GOOD to me... the PowerPC has three address and four address commands (something that does reg4=reg1+reg2+reg3 or something like that, for example...). You can translate C->ASM DIRECTLY for NEARLY ALL CODE... and nearly everything will be put in the registers (32 integer registers, 32 FP-Registers... :) ). Also, different to most RISC, PowerPC has a LOT of commands (>200...). Haage&Partner also showed Demos of a new Text-Program for PowerUP and there was another application... if i remember right, it was a 3D Paintprogram or something like that, for PowerUP... but not sure anymore... Oberland showed Reflections 4 (they also had a PowerUP system there...) which looked very GOOD. They only showed a Anim created by the program, though... i think there was nobody competent around who could use the raytracer :( or he was not there anymore at the last day of the show when i was there... One more time back to Phase 5... they said the will show a (maybe quite finished) prototype of the A\Box on the Computer '97... the project already runs since more than a year... And now : p-OS It was shown at proDAD. This version was a 680x0 version (PowerPC not finished, yet), running on a 68060 system. Of course a 060 is fast, but this thing was fast, even for a 060 !!! The claims of ProDAD that p-OS would run faster than AmigaDOS as to the graphics, are true, me thinks... :) You saw : An animated proDAD logo, a Breakout, a (only very basic) DirOpus Clone called p-Opus, a Shell in the style of KCON, an iff-Anim being played, a graphical clock, and you could move around the windows with their full contents !!! Everything very fast :) I spoke with the proDAD guys (had to wait a bit, as more important people than me where there and spoke with the guys... first a guy of German "Amiga Magazin", then Dr. Peter Kittel, appearently looking for an OS for the PIOS ONE :) (so it seemed to me, at least...)). Well, after all the questions of the important guys were answered, it was my turn... I asked for a source, and they showed me the source of the clock program and some more stuff... asides from different named functions and constants and structs (for example IntuiMessage is pOS_IntuiMessage now...) it looked nearly EXACTLY the same like an AmigaDOS source... of course we had such stuff like RTG added (direct access to the Chunky Map... or the Planar Map, as p-OS supports AGA, too... with faster GFX functions than AmigaDOS, as i already said... if you do not simply access the Map directly...). I asked about Doublebuffering. At first the said there was none, and that i should use pOS_AllocBitmap buffers (yes, p-OS supports additional Bitmaps in Video RAM !!!) and blitting... then we came about that they misunderstood me... they thought i wanted to doublebuffer a WB Window... well, now they said, if i opened a new screen, OF COURSE DBuffering would work the same like under AmigaDOS. Well, still i said once more how much it is needed... strangle they did not mention AllocScreenBuffer, but ViewPorts (probably they meant ChangeVPBitmap, but i am not sure... the guy i spoke to definitely was NOT the guy responsible for the RTG Code, his knowledge about that was basic at best...). He then recommended me the developper program (and well, i will be in in this program :) ) called EpOS. PD/Shareware programmers can get pOS with includes and binaries for pOS as official pOS developpers till January/February. It will cost them NOTHING (They have to pay a support fee when their first Shareware program for pOS comes out, though. PD programmmers do not have to pay a fee, only Shareware). There are also more enhanced developper programs ("Pre-Commercial","Commercial"). Information comes from devsup@prodad.de, if you need it. ORDER p-OS DEVELOPPER INFO NOW ! :) Developper version also comes with the "debugging version" (see below) Some more infos about p-OS : - No more Kickstart ROM. Instead a 700 KB Executable. - Runs parallel to AmigaDOS based on AmigaDOS Exec kernal. Or 100% p-OS, based on faster p-OS kernal. - New: Quick Tasks (Will be run before other tasks, anyways, which priority they have). - Full network support, including displaying a program that runs on a different system (like with X-Window System). - Up to now 680x0 only, PowerPC Version for PowerUP soon. More PowerPC systems (A\Box was mentioned) later, maybe even Intel Architectures, but that up to now only was an IDEA, not more... - 100% C Coded, with Multitasking and GFX being FASTER than from old AmigaDOS. - cooperative applications supported (cooperative applications = Two people on two systems work on the same application at the same type (one person can even move the mousepointer of the other person :) This was not shown at the show, though...) - Multiprocessor systems principially supported. - 70% Source-Compatible to AmigaDOS. - RTG fully integrated. - PowerPC Native version soon. - proDAD will work very tightly together with Haage&Partner (and Phase 5, as it seems...). - 24 Bit Support (with Alpha-Channel, if hardware supports it) integrated. Of course, 8 Bit works, too... - Instead of memory protection : Special debugging version, that has all the protection features... for developpers... the developper version is slower, but the machine will give you detailed error messages instead of crashes ("pOS_OpenFile was given a Null pointer as parameter..."). This is fine, i think. The normal version still will be fast, and you still have the protection features for coding&testing :) Well, asides from that the show was not very big... cheap memory (got 8 MB PS/2 for 57 german marks :)))) ) and some guys showing new PSX+PC+U64 games and LOT of guys trying to sell old PC+Amiga games. Phase 5, proDAD and Haage&Partner definitely were the most important parts of the show (for PSX owners : Tomb raider was announced for 22nd November, Disruptor for 14th December). Steffen Haeuser