Re: Market research for new PowerPC system

On Sat, 26 Sep 2009, Konstantinos Margaritis wrote:

(Sorry for the cross-posting, please ignore if you are not interested in this,
CC me as I'm not subscribed)
Hi,

First some introductions. I'm Konstantinos Margaritis, a long time
Amiga/BeOS/Linux user/developer and a PowerPC fan, former Debian Developer,
also a SIMD/AltiVec fanatic and the author of libfreevec. I've posted this on
the following sites:

http://amigaworld.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?mode=viewtopic&topic_id=29594&forum=33&start=0&viewmode=flat&order=0

http://www.amiga.org/forums/showthread.php?t=49424

http://www.morphzone.org/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?topic_id=6465&forum=11

http://aros-exec.org/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?viewmode=flat&topic_id=3768&forum=4

http://www.haiku-os.org/community/forum/market_research_new_powerpc_system#comment-12604

To anyone who is not a PowerPC user, it might seem like crazy, but here it
goes:

I'm considering funding the design & production of a new PowerPC system (well,
the motherboard, the rest are typical pc stuff and a case). No this is not a
joke, I've been wanting to do this for a long time, and perhaps the chance
will be given to me now. But before I spend any money on this, I want to do a
little market research first. I know the market is literally "dying" for a new
powerpc motherboard, but exactly how many are there that want to buy one?

Ok, just a short comment. In principle I like diversity, competition, etc. 
And it was somewhat sad when Apple abandoned ppc. But honestly - why 
should I be buying a ppc desktop system? If we restrict our comparison to 
Linux, because that's what I'm using, what advantages would a ppc system 
give me over a comparable in price ix86 system? This is not meant 
negatively, I just have not followed recent ppc CPUs from the "desktop" 
range, so, this is a real honest question. Would such a system provide 
more MIPS per Watt at the same price? Or more periferals? Or some specific 
hardware blocks unavailable or unsupported om ix86?

Thanks
Guennadi

Ok, let's give some rough specs first. I'm considering 3 choices -not in order
of probability/importance:

1. MPC8640D-based. It will be dual core at 1Ghz -most likely, higher
frequencies are much more expensive and the cost of the final board would be
prohibitive.
2. MPC8610-based. Single core at 1Ghz, slightly less expensive, and includes a
2D DIU display unit -quite fast, but no 3D unfortunately.
3. QorIQ P1022-based. Again dual core at 1Ghz (1055Mhz to be precise). Apart
from the much lower chip price, this one includes dual gigabit ethernet, dual
SATA, USB 2.0 and a 2D DIU display unit (same as the MPC8610). So this one
would lower the cost of the board quite much. Disadvantages: No AltiVec unit
(it sucks I know), though it includes an SPE unit which is not that bad, and
availability will be in Q3/Q4 2010, so that's a long wait.

Now, the end motherboard will probably be MicroATX (in the 8640D/8610 case) or
PicoITX (in the P1022 case), and it will definitely include:

* SATA connectors
* USB (possibly 2 back and 2 front, but that's discussable)
* Dual gigabit (at least one will be there, in the case of the MPC8640D we
might even have 4!!!)
* Sound (of course, SPDIF support will definitely be there)
* 1 PCI-e slot 1x
* 1 PCI-e slot (4x in the P1022 case, 8x in the MPC86xx cases)

Ok, what I want to know is if people would really really buy one of these. End
price is estimated to be ~around~ 350EUR for the P1022 board or ~500EUR
(definitely more in the case of 8640D) in the case of the other boards.
Besides being more expensive, the MPC86xx chips, don't include SATA, USB and
only one of ethernet/sound (quad-gige in MPC8640D case, or sound in the case
of MPC8610). I know this sounds a lot, but it's the reality, there is not
enough funding to build enormous amounts of units and bring the prices down
substantially, we have to start low and build up from there. In case you are
wondering, yes, the boards will be designed/produced by bPlan and funded by my
company (Codex).

Support for OSes: Linux definitely, Haiku most probably and there is a
possibility of supporting AmigaOS/MorphOS, which will depend on the actual
feedback I get from those users.

I would like to make a list of everyone that is really interested in such a
system, so it would really help me make a decision sooner rather than later if
you would send me a few personal details to markos@codex.gr with subject
"PowerPC board":

* Name
* Country
* email (definitely, I'd have to reach you back!)
* Phone/Skype (optional, please include international prefix)
* Forum you saw this post (ok, Morphzone in this case)
* OS of preference
* board you would be most interested in (MPC8610/MPC8640D/P1022)
* preferred price (please have in mind the estimated price quotes I mentioned,
it might be lower but that's not very probable)
* Other notes/comments

Also, I found out that I had to state my case on many forums to prove that
this is not vapourware. Well, it will not be vapourware, if I get feedback. So
far the feedback I got can be summarized here:

http://www.codex.gr/index.php?pageID=&blogItem=60

Thanks a lot for your time and I hope this system becomes a reality.

Konstantinos Margaritis

Codex
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Guennadi Liakhovetski, Ph.D.
Freelance Open-Source Software Developer
http://www.open-technology.de/