AmigaOne X1000
Encyclopedia
AmigaOne X1000 is a PowerPC
based computer intended as a high-end platform for AmigaOS 4
. It was announced by A-Eon Technology CVBA in partnership with Hyperion Entertainment
and is expected in late 2011. Its name is influenced by the Amiga 1000
released by Commodore
in 1985.
, specifically Version 4
and beyond. The focus of A-Eon is on the high-end, with the goal of the X1000 project being broadly to create a computer to continue the original Amiga's legacy.
A partnership with Hyperion Entertainment
was formed early on to allow discussion with key AmigaOS 4 developers about what such a next generation AmigaOS 4 computer would need. One important decision made during this early phase was that the AmigaOne X1000 should be a complete system built around a bespoke motherboard with a customised case and peripherals. This contrasts with the adapted reference design strategy used by Eyetech for the original AmigaOne
series.
Even before the 'wish list' was completed, hardware design company Varisys had been chosen as a partner based on their track record both with the PowerPC architecture and with parallel computing. The decision to form a partnership with Varisys had the consequence of bringing XMOS chips to the AmigaOne X1000, as it is the connection between XMOS
and the Varisys team, dating back to earlier work on the Inmos
Transputer, that led to the suggestion of including an XMOS XCore chip on the X1000 motherboard. This XCore chip is referred to by A-Eon as the 'Xena' Coprocessor.
The first prototype machines were manufactured during mid-2009 and Hyperion Entertainment began the process of porting the AmigaOS to the X1000 in late-2009. By mid-June 2010, the X1000 was booting AmigaOS from hard disk and the machine made its debut at the Vintage Computer festival at Bletchley Park
on the weekend on the 19 and 20 June 2010, with a joint presentation and demonstration by Hyperion Entertainment, A-Eon Technology and Varisys during which the partnership and progress report was announced.
By August 2011, hardware designer and manufacturer Varisys had begun the first production run of revision 2.1 boards, intended for shipping to AmigaOne X1000 beta tester customers.
is an event driven architecture made scalable by the low-latency links between cores and zero-latency communication between threads on the same core. http://www.xmos.com/technology/architecture 'Xena', a single-core XS1, has eight hardware threads that together provide a maximum of 500 MIPS
.
Roughly one quarter of Xena's I/O lines are directly connected to the CPU local bus, while the remaining three quarters are connected to the Xorro slot. These I/O lines to the Xorro slot are configurable in software using 'XC', a set of extensions to the C
programming language. They provide a low-latency connection both to the main system and to any Xorro expansions, allowing data sampling or custom hardware control over Xorro. This also makes it possible to link additional XCore chips to Xena via Xorro, scaling up the co-processor's performance accordingly.
PowerPC
PowerPC is a RISC architecture created by the 1991 Apple–IBM–Motorola alliance, known as AIM...
based computer intended as a high-end platform for AmigaOS 4
AmigaOS 4
AmigaOS 4, , is a line of Amiga operating systems which runs on PowerPC microprocessors. It is mainly based on AmigaOS 3.1 source code, and partially on version 3.9 developed by Haage & Partner...
. It was announced by A-Eon Technology CVBA in partnership with Hyperion Entertainment
Hyperion Entertainment
Hyperion Entertainment CVBA is a Belgian software company which in its early years focused in porting Windows games to Amiga, Linux and Macintosh. Later on, they were contracted by Amiga Incorporated to develop AmigaOS 4 and retired from the gaming business...
and is expected in late 2011. Its name is influenced by the Amiga 1000
Amiga 1000
The A1000, or Commodore Amiga 1000, was Commodore's initial Amiga personal computer, introduced on July 23, 1985 at the Lincoln Center in New York City....
released by Commodore
Commodore International
Commodore is the commonly used name for Commodore Business Machines , the U.S.-based home computer manufacturer and electronics manufacturer headquartered in West Chester, Pennsylvania, which also housed Commodore's corporate parent company, Commodore International Limited...
in 1985.
History
A-Eon Technology is a privately funded company formed by Trevor Dickinson, Anthony Moorley and Ben Hermans in 2009 for the sole purpose of developing new hardware for the AmigaOSAmigaOS
AmigaOS is the default native operating system of the Amiga personal computer. It was developed first by Commodore International, and initially introduced in 1985 with the Amiga 1000...
, specifically Version 4
AmigaOS 4
AmigaOS 4, , is a line of Amiga operating systems which runs on PowerPC microprocessors. It is mainly based on AmigaOS 3.1 source code, and partially on version 3.9 developed by Haage & Partner...
and beyond. The focus of A-Eon is on the high-end, with the goal of the X1000 project being broadly to create a computer to continue the original Amiga's legacy.
A partnership with Hyperion Entertainment
Hyperion Entertainment
Hyperion Entertainment CVBA is a Belgian software company which in its early years focused in porting Windows games to Amiga, Linux and Macintosh. Later on, they were contracted by Amiga Incorporated to develop AmigaOS 4 and retired from the gaming business...
was formed early on to allow discussion with key AmigaOS 4 developers about what such a next generation AmigaOS 4 computer would need. One important decision made during this early phase was that the AmigaOne X1000 should be a complete system built around a bespoke motherboard with a customised case and peripherals. This contrasts with the adapted reference design strategy used by Eyetech for the original AmigaOne
AmigaOne
AmigaOne is a series of computers intended to run AmigaOS 4 developed by Hyperion Entertainment. Earlier models were produced by Eyetech, and were based on the Teron series of PowerPC POP mainboards...
series.
Even before the 'wish list' was completed, hardware design company Varisys had been chosen as a partner based on their track record both with the PowerPC architecture and with parallel computing. The decision to form a partnership with Varisys had the consequence of bringing XMOS chips to the AmigaOne X1000, as it is the connection between XMOS
XMOS
XMOS is a fabless semiconductor company that develops multi-core multi-threaded processors designed to execute several real-time tasks, DSP, and control flow all at once.-Company history:...
and the Varisys team, dating back to earlier work on the Inmos
INMOS
Inmos Limited was a British semiconductor company, founded by Iann Barron, with both the head office and the design office at Aztec West in Bristol, it was incorporated in November 1978.- Products :...
Transputer, that led to the suggestion of including an XMOS XCore chip on the X1000 motherboard. This XCore chip is referred to by A-Eon as the 'Xena' Coprocessor.
The first prototype machines were manufactured during mid-2009 and Hyperion Entertainment began the process of porting the AmigaOS to the X1000 in late-2009. By mid-June 2010, the X1000 was booting AmigaOS from hard disk and the machine made its debut at the Vintage Computer festival at Bletchley Park
Bletchley Park
Bletchley Park is an estate located in the town of Bletchley, in Buckinghamshire, England, which currently houses the National Museum of Computing...
on the weekend on the 19 and 20 June 2010, with a joint presentation and demonstration by Hyperion Entertainment, A-Eon Technology and Varisys during which the partnership and progress report was announced.
Release
The original intention was that the machine would be available by Summer 2010, but A-Eon technology announced at the Vintage Computer festival that the release had been delayed.By August 2011, hardware designer and manufacturer Varisys had begun the first production run of revision 2.1 boards, intended for shipping to AmigaOne X1000 beta tester customers.
Specifications
The specifications from A-EON Technology's website:- Black Pearl PC case, White Case also available with Boing Ball
- ATXATXATX is a motherboard form factor specification developed by Intel in 1995 to improve on previous de facto standards like the AT form factor. It was the first big change in computer case, motherboard, and power supply design in many years, improving standardization and interchangeability of parts...
Formfactor - Dual core PWRficient PA6T-1682MPWRficientPWRficient is the name of a series of microprocessors designed by P.A. Semi.PWRficient processors comply with the 64-bit Power Architecture, and are designed for high performance and extreme power efficiency...
2.0 GHz PowerISA v2.04+ CPU - Co-processor: "Xena" 500 MHz XCore XS1-L2 124 SDS
- ATIAtiAs a word, Ati may refer to:* Ati, a town in Chad* Ati, a Negrito ethnic group in the Philippines* Ati-Atihan Festival, an annual celebration held in the Philippines* Ati, a queen of the fabled Land of Punt in Africa...
Radeon R700Radeon R700The Radeon R700 is the engineering codename for a graphics processing unit series developed by Advanced Micro Devices under the ATI brand name. The foundation chip, codenamed RV770, was announced and demonstrated on June 16, 2008 as part of the FireStream 9250 and Cinema 2.0 initiative launch media...
graphics card - Audio: 7.1 channel HD audio
- Memory: 4× DDR2 SDRAMDDR2 SDRAMDDR2 SDRAM is a double data rate synchronous dynamic random-access memory interface. It supersedes the original DDR SDRAM specification and has itself been superseded by DDR3 SDRAM...
slots - 10× USB 2.0
- 1× Gigabit Ethernet
- 2× PCIe ×16 slots (1×16 or 2×8)
- 2× PCIe ×1 slots
- 2× PCI slots
- 1× XorroXorroXorro is a new slot using an industry standard PCIe x8 form factor to give access to the 'Xena' IO. This will be the route to Xena's 64 IO lines, which are dynamically configurable as input, output, or bidirectional. 'Xorro' will allow bridging Xena to external hardware for control purposes, to...
slot - 1× Compact Flash
- 2× RS-232RS-232In telecommunications, RS-232 is the traditional name for a series of standards for serial binary single-ended data and control signals connecting between a DTE and a DCE . It is commonly used in computer serial ports...
- 4× SATA 2 connectors
- 1× PATA connector
- 1× JTAGJTAGJoint Test Action Group is the common name for what was later standardized as the IEEE 1149.1 Standard Test Access Port and Boundary-Scan Architecture. It was initially devised for testing printed circuit boards using boundary scan and is still widely used for this application.Today JTAG is also...
connector
'Xena' coprocessor
'Xena' is a new feature of the AmigaOne line. It is the name A-Eon have given to the XMOS XCore XS1-L2 124 located on the X1000 motherboard connected to the 'Xorro' slot, a modified PCI-express slot. XCore XS1XCore XS1
The XCore XS1 is a 32-bit RISC microprocessor architecture designed by XMOS. The architecture is designed to be used for embedded systems, and instruction encoding is compact using 16 bits for frequently used instructions and 32 bits for less frequently used instructions .Almost all instructions...
is an event driven architecture made scalable by the low-latency links between cores and zero-latency communication between threads on the same core. http://www.xmos.com/technology/architecture 'Xena', a single-core XS1, has eight hardware threads that together provide a maximum of 500 MIPS
Instructions per second
Instructions per second is a measure of a computer's processor speed. Many reported IPS values have represented "peak" execution rates on artificial instruction sequences with few branches, whereas realistic workloads typically lead to significantly lower IPS values...
.
Roughly one quarter of Xena's I/O lines are directly connected to the CPU local bus, while the remaining three quarters are connected to the Xorro slot. These I/O lines to the Xorro slot are configurable in software using 'XC', a set of extensions to the C
C (programming language)
C is a general-purpose computer programming language developed between 1969 and 1973 by Dennis Ritchie at the Bell Telephone Laboratories for use with the Unix operating system....
programming language. They provide a low-latency connection both to the main system and to any Xorro expansions, allowing data sampling or custom hardware control over Xorro. This also makes it possible to link additional XCore chips to Xena via Xorro, scaling up the co-processor's performance accordingly.