Personally, I don't think H&P should be setting any standards since they do not manufacture PowerPC boards themselves. I believe H&P have tried to set standards because of the speed problem with Phase-5's ppc.library (namely, AmigaDOS function calls). For the record, let me state that the speed problems with Phase-5's ppc.library has been fixed by us.

The normal overhead taken for an AmigaDOS function call from the PowerPC processor using Phase-5's routines is 91.5ms (milliseconds). The H&P library requires approximately 6ms to do the same.

The simple patches we make to the Phase-5 ppc.library make AmigaDOS function call overhead only .215ms, which is ~423 times faster than Phase-5's original code and ~27 times faster than H&P's solution. We are writing a patcher program to fix the library problem. I have tried dozens of times to contact Phase-5 reguarding the fix to their library and have gotten no response (this is my only complaint with Phase-5... getting ahold of someone is a nightmare).

With our significant increase in speed, with no change in compatibility, I see no reason to change from the standards set by Phase-5. We are writing a complete replacement exec.library written in native PPC code, that will use Phase-5's ppc.library. Given the speed enhancements we have made, it should outperform H&P's Warp thingy.

I am not really for or against either side. There is a standard, it works, it is included with every board sold, and now it will work like it is suppose to with our fixes.

Jim Drew, Microcode Solutions - http://www.ctaz.com/~msdei
msdei@ctaz.com (email)
72662,14 (CompuServe)