68060 sources

[alenppc]

Also LC060s are abundant and cheap. They can run at ~100 mhz, people just need to start compiling using the -nofpu option. Even if they don't, with SoftIEEE, you can still run FPU code and get more performance out of it than with a 68882, people just need to stop being snobs about the FPU.

[mikro]

That's a very narrow point of view. E.g. Quake would be impossible to do without FPU, same for many other games/demos. For normal applications one can always use 68000 versions. Creating a triple set of binaries (000/020+/ColdFire) is common practice at least in Atari world.

[alenppc]

That's a very narrow point of view. E.g. Quake would be impossible to do without FPU, same for many other games/demos.

That's not true. Quake already exists in integer version but it has not been ported to the Amiga. Even the SoftFloat quake is almost fully playable on the LC060 at 100 Mhz. Now if the integer version was ported, it would run massively faster. The problem here is not the CPU, it's the mindset.

[terriblefire]

It's true. PocketQuake would be faster than standard quake if it was ported. FPU is overrated

[mikro]

Ok, so someone redid Quake for integer-only math. I emphasise the word redid, because the original source code base is 100% hardware FPU code, both x86 and m68k.

So that's one.

Who's going to redo all the others? It's worth mentioning that Quake had one huge advantage in this: every asm function (full of FPU code) had its C counterpart. So you could at least recompile it with -msoftfloat, even though with a huge performance penalty.

Don't get me wrong, I'd love to purchase and use cheaper 68060 CPUs but since I happen to be the author of several ports from PC/Amiga world I have a pretty good idea how incredibly hard job is to get rid off FPU code once it had been used somewhere. And then there are of course demos, which depend on FPU registers (in addition to integer registers which are already used for something else) and precision and parallel execution in their inner loops. I assure you that Starstruck wont run on 680LC60 nicely even with hand-optimised code unless you overclock it to at least a couple of 100s MHz.

[terriblefire]

Ok, so someone redid Quake for integer-only math. I emphasise the word redid, because the original source code base is 100% hardware FPU code, both x86 and m68k.

So that's one.

Who's going to redo all the others? It's worth mentioning that Quake had one huge advantage in this: every asm function (full of FPU code) had its C counterpart. So you could at least recompile it with -msoftfloat, even though with a huge performance penalty.

Don't get me wrong, I'd love to purchase and use cheaper 68060 CPUs but since I happen to be the author of several ports from PC/Amiga world I have a pretty good idea how incredibly hard job is to get rid off FPU code once it had been used somewhere. And then there are of course demos, which depend on FPU registers (in addition to integer registers which are already used for something else) and precision and parallel execution in their inner loops. I assure you that Starstruck wont run on 680LC60 nicely even with hand-optimised code unless you overclock it to at least a couple of 100s MHz.

I agree demos benefit a lot from the FPU but switching things to fixed point isn't that hard of you have the source. It's something i specialised at for many years.

[mikro]

In that case you're much smarter and more patient than I am. :-)

[terriblefire]

In that case you're much smarter and more patient than I am. :-)

Neither. Just stubborn. Hard work beats talent every time.

[DrZiplok]

Well done. 23 is a good haul. I only managed to find around 8 (going back to mid 2000s). Back then embedded 060 boards were very cheap. I've not seen them sold cheap for a while.

I have no background in these boards. I don't think I ever bought one of these. I just google researched all sources of embedded 68060s after reading this thread.

The price online varies wildly, so I imagine no-one knows how much they are worth and are advertising them based solely on the prices they have found via google +10%. I find it hard to believe that people are using these boards in their intended purpose still.

Put one on eBay with world wide shipping with an EC/LC 060 fitted and see if you can get more than the price of an EC/LC 060 for it?

Better still, relist the board without the CPU - especially the MVME 177s. Folks like myself with large-ish stocks of 'RC060s will re-populate them and donate them to worthy causes.

[foft]

No-one wanted them without 060 or with LC. So the rest of the boards seem without value.