13.May.2014
(ANF)
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68k-Core for FPGA: The "Apollo-Core" in use
The "Apollo-Core" is the reimplementation of a m68k-CPU in a FPGA, which was originally developed for the Natami.
Because instead of a CPU the Vampire 600 has a FPGA-unit, it can be used as test environment for the Apollo-Core. Now the developers (group shot) have released a first video (AVI-file), which shows a Vampire together with an Apollo-Core, running Amiga demos.
In order to be able to compare the demonstrated speed with different computers, the used demo is available for download (Executable, 70 KB). It shows the calculated frames per second: three figures in orange are integers, the fourth blue figure shows a tenth of a whole frame.
The Core is supposed to be made available as a free update to all owners of a Vampire, as soon as all software tests have been passed. According to Boehn other accelerator boards are in development, which have more powerful FPGAs and therefore are able to use other ALUs.
According to Gunnar von Boehn on a1k.org, the Apollo-Core is not a complete m68k-implementation. Currently it has the following features integrated:
- + the major part of the 68060 instruction sets
- - Bitfields are deactivated in the build
- + 68020 EA-modes are activated - if they use the Brief-Extension Format
- + indirect jumps are activated in the memory
- - indirect EA with Inner/outer displacement are deactivated in double memory
- The caches are coherent.
- - Memory stream detection and automatic prefetching are deactivated
- + Out of order memory access is activated
Hint of the editorial team: We do not kno how this limitations affect the compatibility or speed of different software. Because the used demo was offered by the Apollo developers themselves, it must be assumned that it is adapted to the features of the Apollo-Core at best.
(cg) (Translation: dr)
[News message: 13. May. 2014, 17:53] [Comments: 0]
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