Upcoming Mirari PPC motherboard

The T2081 does not have SATA interfaces. If you need SATA, it must be added with a PCIe card. However, keep in mind that SATA is being phased out, with modern PCs and laptops often using NVMe over SATA SSDs.

Although we have only one memory controller, initial Linux benchmarks show that the single and SMT memory performance is at least on par with the X5020.

1) How much memory does it address? I don't see that in the writeup.

2) My only grumble is a preference for more expansion:

The T2081 does not have SATA interfaces. If you need SATA, it must be added with a PCIe card. However, keep in mind that SATA is being phased out, with modern PCs and laptops often using NVMe over SATA SSDs.

I wonder how hard it would be to support an NVMe to SATA adapter board like

With an NVMe adapter and networking and sound on the motherboard, there may not be much need for extra cards, but do PCIe splitters often/sometimes work without firmware or drivers? Any such remaining cards might be satisfied with one lane each, and a PCIe 4x splitter like this

Although we have only one memory controller, initial Linux benchmarks show that the single and SMT memory performance is at least on par with the X5020.

The T1042 being based on the same e5500 core as the X5000, if this comment is similar to the topic that Kas1e and Hans recently discussed here

https://www.amigans.net/modules/newbb/ ... id=154050#forumpost154050

then that's not so impressive.

As development proceeds I would be curious if anybody (maybe only Geennaam himself?) could venture a guess as to the nature of the X5000's DMA issues. Because A-Eon and Hyperion aren't talking.

5) I don't think Geennaam would have started this project without some plans to mass produce the boards. That is, I don't think he would have the resources to fund the manufacturing himself. Which (German?) company might partner with him?

6) Anyone want to guess what year it will go on sale?

Quote:

With an NVMe adapter and networking and sound on the motherboard, there may not be much need for extra cards, but do PCIe splitters often/sometimes work without firmware or drivers? Any such remaining cards might be satisfied with one lane each, and a PCIe 4x splitter like this

Same as above, needs driver and also kernel support. I think this was addressed in the (yet unreleased) pegasos2 kernel so it may be possible to write bridge driver, question is if they are willing to port AmigaOS to this board. Things that are plug and play on Linux are not necessarily work on other OSes. They work on Linux as it has drivers for a lot of hardware.

Quote:

As development proceeds I would be curious if anybody (maybe only Geennaam himself?) could venture a guess as to the nature of the X5000's DMA issues. Because A-Eon and Hyperion aren't talking.

What does Geennaam have to do with X5000? It's A-Eon's board so they have to find out.

AFAIU it isn't Geennaam's project but Skateman's primarily with Geennaam helping with design and development but he does not have to care about how it will be produced or what will happen afterwards.

Maybe the manufacturer is expecting a driver module in the Linux kernel? Mmm, hadn't considered that.

I figured the architecture is similar enough that they might eventually stumble on the answer. That is, if they perform Linux DMA tests comparing the Merari with the X5000 and find both are similar, then maybe it's a limitation of the SoC ?

Oh, I hadn't realized that! Then kudos to them both for undertaking this project!

...do PCIe splitters often/sometimes work without firmware or drivers? Any such remaining cards might be satisfied with one lane each, and a PCIe 4x splitter like this

https://www.amfeltec.com/flexible-x4-pci-express-4way-splitter/

says that it functions right out of the box.

This is the pure hardware solution and it transparent to OS.

Incidentally, both Geennaam and Skateman are from the Netherlands. Geennaam means "no name."

This is the pure hardware solution and it transparent to OS.