At one point, one of my partners had a hand-me-down PowerPC apple laptop.

Does that count as Ancient? :) 

From what i remember she ran Linux of some sort on it.  i had my own laptop, so didn't pay much attention, and while the tech in me can appreciate the PowerPC architecture, but i was not ( still not ) an apple fan.

The apple transition from Motorola to PowerPC was disappointing.  The 68000 didn't live much longer after that, and the 68000 was superior in every way to the 8086.  It had a flat 32-bit memory space from the beginning.  Segmented addressing should have been rejected by the entire industry as soon as it came out.  Decades later we're still stuck with it.

POWER and PowerPC were interesting only in observing that IBM kept so many different variants around for so long.  They were similar enough that even to this day you run the "PowerPC" Linux kernel on a POWER machine.  The convergence of AS/400 and RS/6000 onto the same architecture (now "System i" and "System p") speaks volumes about how little variance there really was inside those machines all along.  It's just the half century old System/3X all grown up  :)

Even their biggest mainframe processors are really just POWER wrapped by a whole lot of microcode.

You can thank Bill gates for that.

Tue Apr 22 2025 14:33:50 UTC from IGnatius T Foobar Subject: Re: PPC Apple

 Segmented addressing should have been rejected by the entire industry as soon as it came out.  Decades later we're still stuck with it.

 

 

Ok since it was veering far from UNIX.. thought id finish my thoughts over here..

Like i was saying, to be fair have to compare the equivalent generations between the different companies, even for me.  Not fair to compare a Atari 800, to an Amiga 500.. or in reverse a Falcon to an older Amiga.. Or a C64 to a TRS-80 Mdl-1..

Since i had commodore friends, i could always compare the current gen side by side, and i always felt mine were better.   Sure, some of it was that once the ST came out and i moved over to them, i got used to GEM, and not the Amiga desktop thing. ( which i wasn't a fan of ), but i still felt in a fair 1:1, my side always won. Or a few times, it was close enough to say it was a preference thing.

One thing i did give commodore credit is during the end of the 8bit time, when the Plus4 came out, and its cheaper brother the C16 ( and the C116, which i never got to touch in person, but did have the other 2 ) I do feel it was a great advancement in 8bit at the time, and would have eaten the current Atari 8bit machines. But in this case commodore was one of the first to experience the market ramifications of advancement. "better isn't going to fly if its not compatible with what we have now", so it died on the vine.   I think Atari saw that and as more 8bit machines came out, they tried to keep compatibility there. ( even if it wasn't 100% in some cases, but they tried ). Of course we re talking decades, so might have it a little off, but its how i remember the timing.

And while its again not fair to compare, i don't remember commodore ever offering a laptop option.  Atari had a couple.  BUT i don't remember Atari offering a luggable option that commodore did.   And did commodore ever have a game system? ( thinking the Jaguar here, that 64bit GPU beast. And yes i know CPU was 32bit.. but still it was way ahead of everyone else )

And randomly: Once upon a time i did see an ST prototype or something that was similar to a first gen Mac. Unfortunately at the time i didn't realize how special that was.  Was at a guy's house over in ohio picking up a memory board and an external floppy for my 520. He tested the floppy drive so i could see it work. Plugged it in the back, 'it works' and i didn't think twice. until  a decade or so later "wtf did i see..."

And should i mention that my ST, with the proper cartridge, would emulate a Mac for 1/2 the price and 2x the speed? Or a x86 running MSDos? lol

Ok enough rambling about old stuff for one day :)

So... I can't believe I missed this whole conversation. I should have posted most of what I posted in the Linux room here. 

Look up the Vampire V4 Stand Alone FPGA computer. A bunch of German guys made this FPGA rig they call a 68080 - and technically - I guess that IS what it is. It uses the 68040 base instruction set and dispenses with the 68060 - which was not a popular Motorola CPU - but adds enhancements as a "what if". 

I'm listening to Layla streaming over internet Radio on my V4 right now... I surfed the directory.shoutcast.com site on the browser to download the .m3u for the radio station from the V4. 

If you can code assembly on a 68k, you can write code for this - and it is relatively powerful - like... PPC powerful. 

It is "modern" ancient, computing. 

It is awesome. When it works. Apollo Computers is the website. If you get sucked in and buy one, don't blame me. 

It'll also run classic Amiga 68k classic OS. 

And EmuTos/ST 

But it is mostly Amiga oriented. 

An Apollo V4 standalone Amiga "clone" - for lack of a better word - it is an FPGA Amiga built on a hypothetical 68080 that is 68040 instruction backward compatible - dispensing with the 68060 which was evidently difficult to work with and broke a lot of backwards instructional compatibility. It is running iBrowse - in this case, searching Soutcast.com for streaming radio stations in .m3u playlist format to download and play on BackAmp, a WinAmp compatible clone for the Amiga suited for 68040 based Amiga computers like the A4000 and A3000. 

You can see it has a mapped persistent share to my Synology NAS. It looks pretty modern - and - it is kind of an illusion - it is pretty - but it isn't really on the level of modern Windows/Mac OS/Linux platforms. It can't access Facebook or X or even Uncensored - they're just too demanding for this processor. 

But it is bare metal FPGA - running native code without translation - not emulation. But I took this screenshot, while it was multitasking web browsing and streaming audio - and saved it to my NAS, so I could cut and paste it on Facebook, and now, here - with the same ease you would do the same on a Windows, Mac, or Linux machine. 

Which is pretty cool. Otherwise, it acts like a very compatible ancient Amiga - with modern benefits. I can boot into any one of about a half dozen Amiga OS systems from Amiga OS 1.2 to 3.9, and AROS, a modern open source alternative AmigaOS - or ApolloOS, an Aros variant specific to Vampire platforms. 

If you want a more general experience - MiSTer FPGA or MiSTer Pi, an inexpensive FPGA clone - are better alternatives - but not nearly as powerful. 

If you have questions about any sort of retro computing - ask me. I probably know at least a little - but maybe a lot more. 

I see you got the image thing worked out. 

Sat Nov 29 2025 06:24:24 UTC from ParanoidDelusions

*snip*

Got several ongoing challenges with technology worked out this week - which is a general win! :D 

I took the week off from work. I got zero accomplished at home either.

Not complaining. 

Sat Nov 29 2025 16:27:58 UTC from ParanoidDelusions

Got several ongoing challenges with technology worked out this week - which is a general win! :D 

 

I was listening to my AI music on way home from dog social tonight, does that count? 

Thu Dec 04 2025 16:46:55 UTC from IGnatius T Foobar

I'm listening to Layla streaming over internet Radio on my V4
right now... I surfed the directory.shoutcast.com site on the

IS THAT FREEDOM ROCK?!! THEN TURN IT UP, MAN!!!

It has been so long since I won like that. 

Sun Nov 30 2025 14:41:33 UTC from Nurb432

I took the week off from work. I got zero accomplished at home either.

Not complaining. 

 

 

See... this is one of those posts where the option to "like" or "thumbs-up" or other emoji would be so much less bandwidth than the response you get. 

I know... boolsheet social media... but this is a post I would have just acknowledged with LIKING the original post without a full response like this. I know I'm never going to win this battle with you, though. :) 

Thu Dec 04 2025 16:46:55 UTC from IGnatius T Foobar

IS THAT FREEDOM ROCK?!! THEN TURN IT UP, MAN!!!

It's not that I disagree, I just don't have a clean way to fit it into the data model.  It would require new metadata tables and extra work that would slow down performance.

Appreciate the kudos, though.  Just post a "💗" or something.

Technically not ancient..  But related. 

Cleaning the closet out more this week, getting rid of most of what is left of my 'gear'.  Ran across an Arm SBC that didn't get tossed/donated last time. Older 32bit so of no value and basically out of support, so off to the can it goes.    ( 2gb ram, 8gb of emmc, if i remember right. with WiFi and BT too )

Just makes you think, something we wouldn't even have imagined back in the 80s and 90s.. is now basically trash. Amazing how far we have come ( in some ways... )  or when i tossed some of my old phones a couple of years ago.  Again, stuff we never thought was possible, outside of a scifi book.. i was drilling holes thru and tossing in the can.

That is what my 223 is for. "gotta eat"

And ya, i had heard of the project, since it ran Forth we talked about in my group a little.

Fri Dec 12 2025 03:52:13 UTC from IGnatius T Foobar

Well, you could save it for The Collapse.