Pegasos (computer)

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Pegasos II in a desktop case

Pegasos is a CHRP -based PowerPC desktop computer from Genesi that supports operating systems such as MorphOS and Linux . Power Macs can also be emulated via Mac-on-Linux .

The Pegasos is also a core component of the ODW (Open Desktop Workstation) or OSW (Open Server Workstation) from IBM and Freescale . However, the development goals here are fewer desktop computers than z. B. Embedded systems in focus. With the Efika board, Genesi is also addressing the market for thin clients, home theater systems and embedded systems and entertainment electronics.

Through licensing programs for third-party companies, Genesi endeavored to give the Pegasos architecture a broader base in the market. The production and further development of the Pegasos architecture has now been discontinued.

Firmware

Genesi regards the IEEE 1275-compatible Pegasos HAL / OF (Hardware Abstraction Layer / Open Firmware ) as the logical successor to the CHRP standard and offers a corresponding licensing program (nominal license fee per unit).

Consequently, information on the design and the required components for the Pegasos hardware itself is now available for free download under the heading "Open Hardware". It is unclear to what extent the current Pegasos-II is RoHS- compliant in its current form .

  • Pegasos I / G3 "PRE-APRIL", board: 1A (0.1b73), CPU: 750 CX 1.0, SF: 1.1 (20020814)
  • Pegasos I / G3, Board: 1A1 (0.1b112), CPU: 750 CX 1.0, SF: 1.1 (20021203121657)
  • Pegasos I / G3, Board: 1A1 (0.1b114), CPU: 750 CX 1.0, SF: 1.1 (20030317114750)
  • 0.1b124 (20030404171518)
  • 0.1b131 (20030805144022)
  • Pegasos II / G4, Board: 1.1, CPU: 744X 1.1, SF: 1.2 (20040224)
  • Pegasos II / G3, Board: 1.1 (0.2b1), CPU: 750 CX 1.0, SF: 1.2 (20040402193939)
  • Pegasos II / G4, Board: 1.1, CPU: 744X 1.1, SF: 1.1 (20040405172512)
  • Pegasos II / G4, Board: 1.1, CPU: 744X 1.1, SF: 1.2 (20040405)
  • Pegasos II / G4, Board: 1.2, CPU: 744X 1.2, SF: 1.1 (20040505)
  • Pegasos II / G4, Board: 1.0, CPU: 744X 1.0, SF: 1.2 (20040810112413)
  • Pegasos II / G4, Board: 1.2, CPU: 744X 1.1, SF: 1.2 (20040810112413)
  • Pegasos II / G3, board: 1.2, CPU: 750 CX 1.0, SF: 1.2 (20040810112413)
  • Pegasos II / G4, Board: 1.2, CPU: 744X 1.2, SF: 1.2 (20040810112413)
  • Pegasos II / G4, Board: 1.2, CPU: 744X 1.2, SF: 1.2 (20050602111451)
  • Pegasos II / G4, board: 1.2, CPU: 744X 1.2, SF: 1.2 (20050808153840)
  • Pegasos II / G4, Board: 1.2 (2B5), CPU: 744X 1.2, SF: 1.2 (20051216161829)

hardware

The PPC motherboards of the Pegasos were developed by the company bplan (bplan Society for Planning and Manufacturing Electrotechnical Assemblies mbH, Oberursel). The company is based in the same city as the well-known Amiga additional hardware manufacturer phase5 at the time and published the first specification of the Pegasos PowerPC mainboards at the end of 2000 (on December 8, 2000). One of the ex-managing directors of phase5, Gerald Carda, is also chief developer (CTO) of bplan.

Since then there have been two Pegasos models. The first generation of motherboards was withdrawn from the market with the appearance of the Pegasos-II because the boards had problems with the northbridge chip. The Pegasos-II was also discontinued at the end of 2006, although a successor with the (provisional) name Pegasos 8641D has been announced for 2007 . Prototypes of the new motherboard are already being delivered to developers. Based on the Pegasos boards, individual complete systems are offered by various dealers, whereby the motherboard is mainly sold individually. Despite the discontinuation of the Pegasos-II before the appearance of a successor, the board (as of January 2007) is not sold out yet.

The Pegasos II is based on a processor from the PowerPC architecture family. G4 processors from Freescale with a clock rate of 1 GHz (or 1.4 and 1.7 GHz for the ODW) are used.

The Pegasos-I differs from the Pegasos-II mainly in the northbridge used: the ArticiaS northbridge from MAI Logic that was initially used had to be provisionally corrected using a hardware patch (April 2 fix) and was therefore later completely replaced by a chip from Marvell. Furthermore, the Pegasos-I only had a G3 CPU, had only 100 MBit Ethernet and used PC133-SDRAM. In the advance notice from bplan of October 30, 2001, there was originally talk of a 133 MHz processor slot, even in combination with "350 MHz G3 / 512k cache" - but even then "up to dual MPC 7450 G4 PowerPC / 2 MB cache ”(the former as an option and the latter“ in current clock rates ”).

A special feature of both systems is the exchangeability of the CPU, which is housed on its own daughter board (CPU board). Similar to Powermacs , CPU upgrades are easy to do.

The other data of the current Pegasos-II are as follows:

  • MicroATX form factor
  • Open firmware implementation (Pegasos HAL / OF)
  • Marvell Discovery II MV64361 and VIA VT8231
  • PC2100 RAM (2 × DDR266 sockets), max. 2 GB Pegasos-I or 1.5 GB Pegasos-II 2B5
  • AGP slot (1 × speed)
  • PCI slots (3 × 32 bit / 33 MHz)
  • IEEE1394 / FireWire (2 × external, 1 × internal, 100/200/400 Mbit / s)
  • Ethernet connection (1 × 10/100 Mbit / s and 1 Gbit / s each)
  • USB 1.1 (2 × external, 1 × internal)
  • S / PDIF digital audio
  • AC'97 sound (microphone, line in / out, speaker), SigmaTel STAC 9766 codec
  • IrDA (prepared)
  • ATA100 (2 × internal or 4 devices)
  • PS / 2 (2 ×)
  • RS-232
  • Parallel (IEEE1284)
  • Game port ( MIDI )
  • Floppy (internal)

As a further Pegasos descendant that uses the same Pegasos HAL / OF as the Pegasos-I / II, Genesi has been offering the EFIKA 5K2 since December 2005 , a "Performance Evaluation Board" that is based on the PowerPC SoC (System-on-Chip ) MPC5200B is constructed around. The performance data are as follows:

  • MPC5200B PowerPC SoC (up to 466 MHz)
  • 128 MB DDR-SDRAM (or from 32 MB to 512 MB)
  • 44-pin IDE port
  • Ethernet (10/100 Mbit / s)
  • USB 1.1 (2 ×)
  • RS-232
  • Stereo audio (microphone, line / in, speaker)
  • PCI / AGP riser slot

On the roadmap are a quad-CPU server board based on the PPC970 and the Pegasos 8641D as the successor to the Pegasos-II, whereby a new generation of Freescale CPUs is used, which Apple has never installed due to the change to the x86 architecture and will be used there for the first time on a workstation.

Second screen

  • AGP-Radeon + PCI-Radeon
  • AGP Radeon + PCI Voodoo
  • AGP voodoo + PCI voodoo
  • AGP Voodoo + PCI Radeon

software

The complete system was officially presented to the public by bplan at the Amiga 2001 in Cologne together with MorphOS (October 30, 2001), which became available for the platform two months earlier (August 30, 2001).

The following operating systems are now running on the Pegasos either directly or via emulation or are on the way to porting (as of January 2009):

Support for the Pegasos platform has been removed from the OpenBSD kernel. Several inquiries to maintainers of the OpenDarwin project showed that porting of the system to the Pegasos platform was never started and requested, so that the information on the manufacturer's website is incorrect information.

Amiga compatibility

The Pegasos is considered an Amiga clone because for a while it was delivered as standard with the MorphOS operating system, which was binary compatible with AmigaOS 3.1 (via 68k emulation), and was marketed accordingly.

In contrast to the system originally presented as the official Amiga successor, the PowerPC-based AmigaOne , the Pegasos is seen by its proponents as being technically more mature, and MorphOS also offers better compatibility with the classic Amiga systems. Since January 31, 2009 AmigaOS 4 has also been available for the Pegasos II.

history

Several attempts to reach a larger market have apparently failed so far - no major deals have been publicly announced, although Genesi's press work otherwise takes place in a variety of ways and is generally very communicative. So an OpenBSD port was started, which was not continued due to differences. Associated with this was a network monitoring project, the Pegasos Guardian, which could not be implemented. So-called set-top boxes based on the Pegasos were also announced - but no specific products were ever known.

The EFIKA board may bring a little more movement into this area.

The focus of the software development on the part of Genesi is now more on Linux, so that the future of MorphOS can be viewed as rather uncertain from this side.

Further hardware development is likely to be shaped by the fact that the future of PowerPC processors with regard to desktop systems is generally considered uncertain by experts after Apple switched to x86 processors with its PPC-based Powermacs and ended this process at the end of 2006. The future of the PowerPC seems to lie in the embedded area, with servers (IBM Power) and with entertainment electronics / consoles ( Xbox 360 CPU, cell processor). The so-called G6 processor (also launched as the PPC980 and derived from the Power 5) has consequently disappeared from various presentations. The hardware-related further development, e.g. B. with regard to 64-bit processors like the PPC970 (called by Apple G5), faster bus systems, SATA, faster FSB, etc. is currently uncertain.

For Genesi, the qualified development partnerships with Freescale and IBM (ODW / OSW), which suggest an increasingly solid mainstay in the embedded area, are positive.

As Genesi announced in mid-December 2005, the company ODM Technologies is now a licensee of Pegasos and Efika technology. Genesi has therefore given ODM a production license for Efika boards using the Pegasos HAL / OF. The minimum production volume is 50,000 units.

In January 2009 Genesi announced that it would use processors of the ARM architecture in future mainboards .

credentials

  1. ↑ MorphOS-News.de of December 3, 2002
  2. ↑ http://www.openbsd.org/pegasos.html
  3. ↑ http://www.amigaworld.de/blog/amigaos-41-fuer-pegasos-ii/
  4. ↑ http://www.amiga-news.de/de/news/AN-2009-01-00062-DE.html

Web links

Commons : Pegasos  - collection of images, videos and audio files