First days with the Apollo Vampire V4+ Standelone

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Moulinaie
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First days with the Apollo Vampire V4+ Standelone

Post by Moulinaie »

Hi all,

I have received my Vampire last week and worked a lot on it.
It comes with a super fast 68080, 512MB ram, a marvellous sound system and video modes up to 1920x720 and 32 bits.

Running EmuTOS, you have a clone of the TT with a graphic card.
vampire.jpg
I have enhanced EmuTOS to get colors on the desktop.

I have made the adaptation of M_PLAYER to the new sound system (version 4.25).

Here is a video in french with english subtitles. This machine is really amazing!

https://gtello.pagesperso-orange.fr/one_video.htm

Guillaume.
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Re: First days with the Apollo Vampire V4+ Standelone

Post by ccarl84 »

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Re: First days with the Apollo Vampire V4+ Standelone

Post by Entuzio »

It's a Amatari :))
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Re: First days with the Apollo Vampire V4+ Standelone

Post by Moulinaie »

Entuzio wrote: Fri Sep 10, 2021 5:28 pm It's a Amatari :))
Exactly, you also get a CF card with tons of Amiga software, lots of games.

One young Amiga programmer (the son of one from the Apollo team) writes games ins ASM that could possibily be adapted as is under Emutos. Just changing the start code and very few things.

Guillaume.
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Re: First days with the Apollo Vampire V4+ Standelone

Post by Moulinaie »

Hi again,

About performances, here are compared:
- The Vampire with EmuTOS (GREY)
- The Atari TT + Mach32 (BLUE)
- The CT060 + Radeon + TOS (GREEN)
- The CT060 + Radeon + Freemint + MyAES (ORANGE)

Basically in the same environment (TOS, a graphic card with 16 bits display). Only one is running Mint.
kronos1.jpg
And the AES performance. Note that MyAES overclasses the standard TOS !
kronos2.jpg
So, next step is to install Freemint + MyAES on the Vampire and see what it's like.

Guillaume.
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Re: First days with the Apollo Vampire V4+ Standelone

Post by penguin »

Moulinaie wrote: Fri Sep 10, 2021 4:52 pm I have enhanced EmuTOS to get colors on the desktop.
Bringing colors to the desktop seems to be your special skill :cheers:

Will you contribute the code to the EmuTOS repository?
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Re: First days with the Apollo Vampire V4+ Standelone

Post by lp »

Moulinaie wrote: Fri Sep 10, 2021 4:52 pm Running EmuTOS, you have a clone of the TT with a graphic card.
That statement is a bit misleading isn't it? Unless something has changed recently with the project there's no underlying TT hardware at all. I take it your reworked player is aware of what it's running on and uses non-atari calls and memory addresses. I wouldn't mind being proven wrong, then I'd be onboard, but it's way to generic for my taste in it's current state. However, I'm glad you are having fun.
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Re: First days with the Apollo Vampire V4+ Standelone

Post by Moulinaie »

penguin wrote: Fri Sep 10, 2021 10:21 pm
Moulinaie wrote: Fri Sep 10, 2021 4:52 pm I have enhanced EmuTOS to get colors on the desktop.
Bringing colors to the desktop seems to be your special skill :cheers:

Will you contribute the code to the EmuTOS repository?
You're right ! It's a kind of obsession.
The fact is that I'm really satisfied with the simplicity of the TOS desktop and that I needed the maximum RAM space back in the days. So a little patch consuming only a few kB was the best for me.

I'd like to contribute to EmuTOS but...
- I never coded in a group
- I've always considered that "C" brough useless complexity in code reading/writing

But why not, with a little effort ! And I saw that the EmuTOS source code includes assembly parts, that's where I feel home.

Guillaume.
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Re: First days with the Apollo Vampire V4+ Standelone

Post by Moulinaie »

lp wrote: Fri Sep 10, 2021 11:53 pm
Moulinaie wrote: Fri Sep 10, 2021 4:52 pm Running EmuTOS, you have a clone of the TT with a graphic card.
That statement is a bit misleading isn't it? Unless something has changed recently with the project there's no underlying TT hardware at all. I take it your reworked player is aware of what it's running on and uses non-atari calls and memory addresses. I wouldn't mind being proven wrong, then I'd be onboard, but it's way to generic for my taste in it's current state. However, I'm glad you are having fun.
It widely depends on what kind of specific hardware you're talking about.
Concerning the CPU, it's an enhanced 68060 with FPU support and extended instruction set.
On the RAM side, you have the ST RAM and TT RAM.
For the VIDEO, it behaves really like a graphic card on TT, you have direct access to the graphic memory with similar modes. Olivier Landemarre is working on ST/TT specific modes (planar, mono, 16, 256 colors) to bring more compatibility.
Mouse and Keyboard accesses are made through the TOS.
Disk is so similar that I just had to unplug a CF card from my TT (that uses a SCSI2CF adapter) formatted with HDDriver and all partitions were detected with no change.

So, sure, for the sound part, as you said, M_PLAYER detects the Vampire and uses new HW addresses to play sound. Now that I'm aware of how to do it, I can give the informations to Olivier who wants to write a XBIOS support (as on the Falcon).

Then you can't plug anymore Serial cables, nor SCSI/ACSI devices, nor cartridges. But you've got a Ethernet port ! (with no driver... that will surely come one day).

Guillaume.
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Re: First days with the Apollo Vampire V4+ Standelone

Post by calimero »

Moulinaie wrote: Fri Sep 10, 2021 4:52 pm Here is a video in french with english subtitles. This machine is really amazing!

https://gtello.pagesperso-orange.fr/one_video.htm

Guillaume.
You choose nice video with Dr. Bill G. as demonstration :D
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Re: First days with the Apollo Vampire V4+ Standelone

Post by penguin »

Moulinaie wrote: Sat Sep 11, 2021 5:18 am I'd like to contribute to EmuTOS but...
- I never coded in a group
- I've always considered that "C" brough useless complexity in code reading/writing

But why not, with a little effort ! And I saw that the EmuTOS source code includes assembly parts, that's where I feel home.
Me neither, but I added two AES extensions which are in the current snapshot of EmuTOS and modernise the UI. Basically the group helps that the code fit in with the rest of the EmuTOS code and test it on various systems. Color icons on the desktop are on the to-do list of course, but so far no one has done it (it's not as trivial as swapping out the icon set, although the icon set is part of the problem).
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Re: First days with the Apollo Vampire V4+ Standelone

Post by stormy »

I don't know... To me if it's not Atari hardware it's just not Atari. To me I would not favour a Vampire over a BeePi machine. Although I do appreciate them for what they are, I don't think they are more than what they are.
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Re: First days with the Apollo Vampire V4+ Standelone

Post by PeterS »

I don't care what the hardware is as long as it isn't running on to of another OS and preferably runs on something like an M68k.

I believe there is still no MMU but it's looking good.

More Atari users will bring more compatibility.
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Re: First days with the Apollo Vampire V4+ Standelone

Post by Moulinaie »

stormy wrote: Sat Sep 11, 2021 8:13 am I don't know... To me if it's not Atari hardware it's just not Atari. To me I would not favour a Vampire over a BeePi machine. Although I do appreciate them for what they are, I don't think they are more than what they are.
I understand ! That's why I don't use much emulators such as Aranym or Hatari : they are not real hardware.
But, with the Vampire, it's really a physical machine, with a physical processor 68k.

In the Atari serie, there are lots of HW differencies:
the STE brought new video features, the DMA sound and the Joypads
The Mega STE came with a new TOS and more speed
the TT brought the 68030, TT Ram, the SCSI, new video modes, new TOS
the FALCON a new sound system, the DSP, a new TOS, new video modes...

The Atari serie is yet full of changes and uncompatibilities.
The Vampire is a kind of successor.

Guillaume.
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Re: First days with the Apollo Vampire V4+ Standelone

Post by Moulinaie »

PeterS wrote: Sat Sep 11, 2021 8:53 am I don't care what the hardware is as long as it isn't running on to of another OS and preferably runs on something like an M68k.

I believe there is still no MMU but it's looking good.

More Atari users will bring more compatibility.
That's the key : bring more users to the Vampire and make it evoluate as close as possible to the Atari.


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Re: First days with the Apollo Vampire V4+ Standelone

Post by shoggoth »

None of the Atari clone systems are Atari computers anyway. By contributing to the Vampire project, it can be turned into something that's definitely on par with the Milan or even the Hades (given some work), compatibility wise.

So let's not be Amigans - they seem to fight all the time about "what is a real Amiga". Let's spend that energy on something productive shall we.
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Re: First days with the Apollo Vampire V4+ Standelone

Post by wongck »

wow Amazing...
Thanks for making the video, love that pie in the face video.
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Re: First days with the Apollo Vampire V4+ Standelone

Post by joska »

The Vampire looks very neat. Unfortunately it is currently of little interest to me. Yes, it is fast, but so was my Firebee. The Firebee also had large resolution, Videl-style graphics modes, and even more advanced sound (AC 97) than the Vampire. Vampire CPU compatibility is better, but that actually doesn't mean anything as the sort of software that would benefit from this wouldn't work because of the missing Atari hardware. Also, just like the Firebee there is (atleast not yet) memory protection support in MiNT for it, which is the primary reason why I sold my Firebee.

Of course, it is very fast. But to be honest so is my Milan060 and Falcon/CT60. And for me the Vampire does not offer much over these, except for raw CPU processing power. But as this is an FPGA design, this may change over time. If someone implements Falcon hardware on the Vampire then it suddenly becomes extremely interesting.
Last edited by joska on Sat Sep 11, 2021 1:21 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: First days with the Apollo Vampire V4+ Standelone

Post by lp »

I'm pretty much on the same page as Joska. Having owned a Hades for quite some time the Firebee fell short of reaching the same level of compatibility I was used to. With the Hades, YM players worked out of the box. Some programs, like GFA, GEM-View, Control Panel, etc only needed a small patch. For sure it's not worth arguing over, everyone has different expectations. I feel like I'm in an endless wait and see loop, but isn't that normal in the Atari world. :wink:
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Re: First days with the Apollo Vampire V4+ Standelone

Post by leech »

shoggoth wrote: Sat Sep 11, 2021 9:52 am None of the Atari clone systems are Atari computers anyway. By contributing to the Vampire project, it can be turned into something that's definitely on par with the Milan or even the Hades (given some work), compatibility wise.

So let's not be Amigans - they seem to fight all the time about "what is a real Amiga". Let's spend that energy on something productive shall we.
Agreed. I actually think in a few years, the Vampire may just end up being the Amiga/Atari/Mac 68k machine that could unite the three into one tiny device. Since it's FPGA, it can basically re-write like the MiSTer does, and depending on which core you go for, bits of it will be replaced so the OS thinks it's running on real hardware. Though I think at this point the target is more 'we have a hardware platform, create drivers for other Operating Systems, and we can have a Multi-68k system!' perfectly plausible. I'm excited for the future of the device, myself. Though I think it needs a bit more connectivity so we could still use older devices with it.
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Re: First days with the Apollo Vampire V4+ Standelone

Post by MM41 »

Thanks Guillaume :)
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Re: First days with the Apollo Vampire V4+ Standelone

Post by danboid »

Hi Guillaume

Please could you try the cuzebox emulator on your Vampire? I only have a A600 and a STFM and even Hatari with a emulated 32 Mhz 060 still won't be fast enough to run cuzebox but maybe the Vampire is fast enough?

I have uploaded a FreeMiNT build of it here:

viewtopic.php?t=44453

Thanks
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Re: First days with the Apollo Vampire V4+ Standelone

Post by Moulinaie »

danboid wrote: Sun Dec 01, 2024 9:22 pm Hi Guillaume

Please could you try the cuzebox emulator on your Vampire? I only have a A600 and a STFM and even Hatari with a emulated 32 Mhz 060 still won't be fast enough to run cuzebox but maybe the Vampire is fast enough?

I have uploaded a FreeMiNT build of it here:

viewtopic.php?t=44453

Thanks
Hi,

I can!
But I don't understand what is Cuzebox...
I have downloaded the binary, but it complains about a gamfile.uze that can't be found.
Help, looks like a game but I'm really not a gamer.

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Re: First days with the Apollo Vampire V4+ Standelone

Post by Moulinaie »

I finaly found some UZE files...

I tried ARKANOID.UZE.
It is far too slow. (in the intro screens, one of them requires 76 seconds to display the whole sentence character by character). Then the first round appears, but it never starts. The ball never unplugs.
Why the use of Freemint?

Guillaume.
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Re: First days with the Apollo Vampire V4+ Standelone

Post by danboid »

Hi Guillame

Thanks for trying FreeMiNT cuzebox on your Vampire for me! Its much appreciated.

I was expecting it would be slow but maybe not quite that slow! I think cuzebox would require either a m68k assembly AVR emulator or some kind of dynamic recompiler for it to stand a chance of being playable. I don't know m68k yet so I'm not going to be adding such features any time soon.

Some Linux / UNIX software can be built for FreeMiNT with minimal changes, as is the case with cuzebox. The same binary might also work under TOS but again, its going to be way too slow without some serious optimizations.

Thanks for your help!
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https://uzebox.org/wiki/Omega

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