Phase5
Encyclopedia
Computer
A computer is a programmable machine designed to sequentially and automatically carry out a sequence of arithmetic or logical operations. The particular sequence of operations can be changed readily, allowing the computer to solve more than one kind of problem...
hardware manufacturer that made boards for the Amiga
Amiga
The Amiga is a family of personal computers that was sold by Commodore in the 1980s and 1990s. The first model was launched in 1985 as a high-end home computer and became popular for its graphical, audio and multi-tasking abilities...
computer. Their best known products were accelerator boards which replaced the CPU with a faster model. Mostly these used a CPU from the Motorola 68k series
68k
The Motorola 680x0/m68000/68000 is a family of 32-bit CISC microprocessors. During the 1980s and early 1990s, they were popular in personal computers and workstations and were the primary competitors of Intel's x86 microprocessors...
, but their later products, the Blizzard PPC and CyberStorm PPC, included a PowerPC
PowerPC
PowerPC is a RISC architecture created by the 1991 Apple–IBM–Motorola alliance, known as AIM...
CPU, along with either a 68040
Motorola 68040
The Motorola 68040 is a microprocessor from Motorola, released in 1990. It is the successor to the 68030 and is followed by the 68060. There was no 68050. In keeping with general Motorola naming, the 68040 is often referred to as simply the '040 ....
or 68060 with both CPUs sharing the system address space.
These PowerPC
PowerPC
PowerPC is a RISC architecture created by the 1991 Apple–IBM–Motorola alliance, known as AIM...
boards operated in a novel fashion where the on board 68k CPU could operate concurrently with the PowerPC CPU. This architecture was enforced by the fact that AmigaOS
AmigaOS
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...
was 68k based and the required emulation software had not yet been developed to run natively on the PowerPC architecture. This design suffered from the need to flush CPU caches between context switches from 68k and PowerPC code and vice versa, making mixing code ad hoc and often impractical. Minimising these context switches and making mixed binaries required a large amount of effort and planning, making their use somewhat unpopular.
Phase5 developed a PowerPC kernel called PowerUP which ran alongside the 68k based AmigaOS
AmigaOS
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...
. Effectively, a programmer could then utilise the PowerPC CPU as a coprocessor
Coprocessor
A coprocessor is a computer processor used to supplement the functions of the primary processor . Operations performed by the coprocessor may be floating point arithmetic, graphics, signal processing, string processing, or encryption. By offloading processor-intensive tasks from the main processor,...
. German company Haage & Partner
Haage & Partner
Haage & Partner is a German company established in 1995. They distribute software products where they usually are the exclusive distributor. Products are aimed at Microsoft Windows and Mac OS. The primary destination countries are Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.Other areas include translations...
developed a competing multi-tasking kernel called WarpOS
WarpOS
WarpOS was a multi-tasking kernel for the PowerPC architecture developed by Haage & Partner for the Amiga computer platform in the late 1990s and early 2000s. It ran on PowerUP accelerator boards developed by phase5 which contained both a Motorola 68000 family CPU and a PowerPC CPU with shared...
for the phase5 PowerPC boards which operated in a similar manner but was not code-compatible with PowerUP.
Despite planned newer PowerPC boards based on the G3
PowerPC G3
The PowerPC 7xx is a family of third generation 32-bit PowerPC microprocessors designed and manufactured by IBM and Motorola . This family is called the PowerPC G3 by its well-known customer Apple Computer...
, the company went out of business in 2000, after an announcement on July 22nd, 1999 with QNX
QNX
QNX is a commercial Unix-like real-time operating system, aimed primarily at the embedded systems market. The product was originally developed by Canadian company, QNX Software Systems, which was later acquired by Canadian BlackBerry-producer Research In Motion.-Description:As a microkernel-based...
Software Systems that they intended to build an alternative to the official Amiga solution of the time, to be known as AMIRAGE K2 http://www.amigahistory.co.uk/amirage.html.
The most common current reference to Phase5 is in the Linux
Linux
Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...
port to APUS
APUS Computer
APUS stands for "Amiga Power Up System", and describes a computer comprising an Amiga computer with a Phase5 PowerUP PowerPC accelerator board....
computer systems. Phase5 PowerPC boards are also able to run 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...
and MorphOS
MorphOS
MorphOS is an Amiga-compatible computer operating system. It is a mixed proprietary and open source OS produced for the Pegasos PowerPC processor based computer, PowerUP accelerator equipped Amiga computers, and a series of Freescale development boards that use the Genesi firmware, including the...
.
Much of Phase5's skills and experience were retained in a new company, bPlan GmbH, which in partnership with Genesi
Genesi
Genesi is computer company focused on building Power Architecture and ARM architecture computers. The organization is split into two units, Genesi USA, Inc. working out of Texas operating as the primary front-end for sales, customers and developers, and bplan GmbH based in Germany as the primary...
produced the Pegasos
Pegasos
Pegasos is a MicroATX motherboard powered by a PowerPC 750CXe or PowerPC 7447 microprocessor, featuring three PCI slots, one AGP slot, two Ethernet ports , USB, DDR, AC'97 sound, and FireWire...
, a final realisation of several attempts to build an alternative Amiga system.
Corporate history
Phase5 was founded in 1992 as subsidiary company of AS&S (Advanced Systems & Software) by Wolf Dietrich and Gerald Carda, which were the owners of AS&S. Phase5 focused on the development of general Amiga hardware, but mainly accelerator boards, SCSISCSI
Small Computer System Interface is a set of standards for physically connecting and transferring data between computers and peripheral devices. The SCSI standards define commands, protocols, and electrical and optical interfaces. SCSI is most commonly used for hard disks and tape drives, but it...
controllers and graphics cards.
The company Phase5 Elektronikfertigungs GmbH (hardware manufacturing) was founded in 1996 as a subsidiary, which produced all of the Phase5 expansions from that time on.
On 2000-02-09 the company filed for insolvency
Insolvency
Insolvency means the inability to pay one's debts as they fall due. Usually used to refer to a business, insolvency refers to the inability of a company to pay off its debts.Business insolvency is defined in two different ways:...
and on 2000-04-27 the company was liquidated. DCE bought licenses before liquidation and produced some of the Phase5 hardware products under its own name. The A\Box, a concept for a complete computer scheduled for 1997 and based on custom chip technology, was planned but never released.
External links
- Phase5 Unofficial Support Homepage
- PowerUp Support Homepage
- Amiga Hardware Database - Descriptions, photos, drivers and benchmarks of Phase5 products.
- Phase 5 corporate history
- http://www.dcecom.de/