WarpOS

WarpOS is a multi-tasking kernel for the PowerPC architecture developed by Haage & Partner for the Amiga computer platform in the late 1990s and early 2000s. It ran on boards developed by phase5 which contained both a Motorola 68k series CPU and PowerPC CPU with shared address space. WarpOS ran alongside the 68k based AmigaOS which could utilise the PowerPC as a coprocessor.

History

In 1997, Phase5, an Amiga hardware manufacturer, launched their range of PowerPC (PPC) accelerators. The PowerUP boards were dual-processor boards, incorporating the PPC and a 68K processor (68LC040, 68040 or 68060).The AmigaOS still requires a 68K processor, while the PPC acts as an extremely fast coprocessor that carries out specific instructions. Unfortunately, this causes significant slowdown when the OS task switches between the 68K and PPC. In an attempt to solve the problems that were raised and the lack of performance by PPC processor, Haage & Partner, an Amiga software and hardware manufacturer (which also created AmigaOS 3.9), developed a competing API called WarpOS. Phase 5 reacted by implementing Executable and Linkable Format (ELF) that was aimed to promote their own A/Box solution.

Features

The WarpOS executables are called Extended Hunk format. When the AmigaOS sees this Hunk in the header of executable file, it passes directly the executable program to the PPC processor resident on the accelerator card.

The best feature of WarpOS is that it is system friendly with original Amiga executables which implemented the Amiga Hunk format of executables. This format was called EHF (Extended Hunk format)ref num|EHF|1, and implemented the hunk type named HUNK_PPC_CODEref num|EHF specs|2.

*Notes:

# See also pages regarding [http://www.amigahistory.co.uk/ppchistory.html history of the PPC processor on Amiga] at Amiga.History site.
# [http://www.haage-partner.de/amiga/storm/sc_tec_d.htm EHF specifications] on Haage&Partners site.