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Offline Rob

Re: Two New Full Systems Based on Sam440ep-Flex
« Reply #29 on: September 27, 2012, 11:39:44 PM »
Quote from: A1260;709554
who is this mysterious embedded industrial buyers of the sam hw?...

i have always wondered that.... the money aint coming from the os4 community and the less than 100 people that have bought the sam and the x1000.


If you can get access to the OS4 sales figures it shouldn't be too hard to find out who their embedded customers are.
 

Offline haywirepc

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Re: Two New Full Systems Based on Sam440ep-Flex
« Reply #30 on: September 27, 2012, 11:50:54 PM »
who is this mysterious embedded industrial buyers of the sam hw?...

i have always wondered that.... the money aint coming from the os4 community and the less than 100 people that have bought the sam and the x1000.

Thats what they don't talk about or tell amigoids. These boards were not designed originally to run AOS, they were for embedded applications where
raw processing power is not as big an issue.

AOS needed some kind of power pc processor and solution, these boards
were available... AND no one was buying them...

No one would pay that much for a board for embedded applications when they can get a similar x86 or arm solution for 1/10 the price.

So hey lets sell them for absolutely ridiculous prices to people intent on running a hobby os...
 

Offline asymetrix

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Re: Two New Full Systems Based on Sam440ep-Flex
« Reply #31 on: September 28, 2012, 02:10:59 AM »
@thread

Way too underpowered !

What people not seem to understand is it does not matter how fast and efficient your operating system is - if applications use alot of resources they need the resources !

Geez -  were not super optimizing 68k assembler apps anymore - look where that got us for portability !

Applications today are a different beast they need the power - hardware mhz and GFX grunt.

Games and apps these days are so complex, just the AI alone for some games would make our systems crawl, not to mention the hours it would take for compiling software.

Software houses have standards, they want to port to Amiga, they look at the Hardware and just say - nah, nope, my developers would take too long waiting for the hardware to do the things they need done.

Boss - 'Port this game to Amiga', developer - 'sorry it will take too much time optimizing or removing features'.

Dont limit the creative freedom of developers by hardware constraints.

How many of you know that OpenOffice has its own BASIC programming language (that one can program) to automate record tasks ?

UltraEdit also has Perl scripting language built in for automation ! We are not talking some basic text editor here, its one of the most powerful in the world.

Give people the hardware, they will find a way to max it out :)
 

Offline Duce

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Re: Two New Full Systems Based on Sam440ep-Flex
« Reply #32 on: September 28, 2012, 02:30:15 AM »
Hate to be the proverbial turd in the pool, but...

You could make a 8ghz 64 GB RAM Amiga like variant and the world as a whole would not care about it in the least.  You and I would, sure - but everyone else?  They would say "uhh, Amiga what?" like they have been for the last 15 years.

Game devs would never flock to the platform, nor would the power apps mystically just appear.  There will simply never be the masses of users to warrant the big guns ever getting involved.

It's a niche platform.  There's very few applications even maxxing out or taking the power we have at hand on these system to full throttle.

It's an enjoyable hobby, but I still do get a kick out of the people that figure if you were to re-invent the spirit of the original Amiga it would make a dent in the market.  It wouldn't.  Computers are appliances now for 99% of the collective world.  Even our old niche of rendering and video work that came with the Toaster is long, long gone and all the good intentions in the world won't change the fact it's a Windows and Mac world now.

I enjoy it for what it is, but it's never going to be a worldbeater of a platform.

"Give people the hardware, they will find a way to max it out :)"

The power is there and has been for some time, and the fact is there's very few applications that really use it.
 

Offline asymetrix

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Re: Two New Full Systems Based on Sam440ep-Flex
« Reply #33 on: September 28, 2012, 03:26:44 AM »
lol

I bet some people would argue with hardware devs at sony or microsoft saying - dont make Playstation 4/Xbox 720 with 16 processor cores next year its such a waste - we dont need it.

OMG.
 

Offline runequester

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Re: Two New Full Systems Based on Sam440ep-Flex
« Reply #34 on: September 28, 2012, 03:40:59 AM »
People will develop games for a mainstream console. They won't bother for a system with 1000 users or so.
 

Offline haywirepc

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Re: Two New Full Systems Based on Sam440ep-Flex
« Reply #35 on: September 28, 2012, 07:03:13 AM »
"You could make a 8ghz 64 GB RAM Amiga like variant and the world as a whole would not care about it in the least."


Yeah right, because no incredibly talented coders would want to work on a
system like that. Thats the bull**** the money makers and amiga grave robbers are feeding everyone.

If there was a very advanced platform with some kinda amiga name on it, the amiga name wouldn't matter except to generate some interest in this very advanced platform.

An advanced platform that is technologically superior to what is currently available in the mainstream always generates interest, excitement and great
coders. Thats why amiga was successful in the first place.

Now we have excuses for **** slow hardware, a 10 years behind the times OS and a total lack of invention or technical superiority.

Thats why anything amiga is just a blip on the radar now instead of a player.

Guess you can always just customize and  play with your os4 desktop and think about using it for great things like you used your classic amiga for back in the day... But it can't do great things, not anymore, because its an under powered crippled joke. In truth, even a 3,000$ X1000 amiga is a crippled one core slow ass excuse for a modern computer that can not compete with a
50$ ebay pc.

We now return amiga.org members to their usual delusions...

Steven
 

Offline spirantho

Re: Two New Full Systems Based on Sam440ep-Flex
« Reply #36 on: September 28, 2012, 07:22:08 AM »
For Amiga software, the Sam isn't too underpowered at all. If it was, it'd be useless. However, the only people who say it's useless are the ones who haven't even used one.... the ones who do get by just fine.
We don't need multi-ghz machines to run our software. Comparing it to development of the next Playstation is absurd: the next consoles need more power because of the games that will be written. If we made a 64  core 3GHz powerhouse with the latest graphics card, the amount of new games developers would still be zero.

The Amiga is no more suited to games now than the PC was in 1988, the market has changed. Games are now multi-million dollar products written for machines with tons of CPU power, and that's not the Amiga's strength - it never was. Heck, even the Atari ST ran a faster CPU than the A500. If you make a super Amiga the publisher will still ask
"how many units do we expect to sell?"
and the answer will be very small, and the publisher will go back to the consoles.

The research and development cost of an Amiga to keep up with a PC or Playstation or whatever is SO huge - probably billions of dollars, a) who's got that much money to spend and b) would anybody buy it? Even if you find someone rich enough to develop it, still no-one will buy it because there's no software for it. There's no software for it because nobody's bought it. It's a vicious circle.

What I don't understand is why people are screaming about how it's way underpowered, yet most Sam owners are happy with their machines. If it was that underpowered, it would be useless and wouldn't sell. It does sell (they still make them, so it must be selling - Acube are not a charity), people are happy using them so they can't be underpowered for the tasks the users are running on them.

"Underpowered" is such a subjective term anyway. If you want to run render apps, yes it's unsuitable (it's not designed for CPU intensive tasks). If you want to run other stuff, it can be just fine.

You can tell the Sam users how underpowered it is all you like, but it doesn't change the fact that it's not.
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Offline Britelite

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Re: Two New Full Systems Based on Sam440ep-Flex
« Reply #37 on: September 28, 2012, 08:05:23 AM »
Quote from: spirantho;709643

You can tell the Sam users how underpowered it is all you like, but it doesn't change the fact that it's not.


I beg to disagree, it IS underpowered for quite a lot of tasks (just like most other PPC-hardware), especially considering the price. Amiga-users are just too used to tweaking their own habits around what the machine is (in)capable of doing, but it's 2012 and a "new" machine should be able to perform tasks that PC's have been doing for the past 10 years.

But that doesn't change the fact that using the machine can be fun, because it is fun. But trying to convince yourself that the machine isn't underpowered (compared to anything else on the market today) and somehow arguing that the price isn't crazy high is just silly. Hobbies are expensive and they don't need to be sane :)
 

Offline spirantho

Re: Two New Full Systems Based on Sam440ep-Flex
« Reply #38 on: September 28, 2012, 08:32:12 AM »
I kind of agree and disagree. :)
It is underpowered for quite a lot of tasks, but only those it's not meant for - i.e. CPU heavy ones. If you buy any Amigaoid system for stuff like rendering these days, you must be a bit crazy as we just don't have (or in AROS's case can't harness) the power needed. PC's have oodles of power and have done for a long time now, but that doesn`t mean that we have to do the same things as them.
It just annoys me rather that people who've never used a Sam come on and tell everyone how underpowered they are, when I know that they're perfectly capable doing a lot. I know this because I actually use one.
For instance, on my Sam:
I'm writing this now using OWB.
I develop software such as Catweasel drivers. Heck, I even ported SDLMAME using the Sam! I used the A1 for the final optimised compilation, but for the porting I used the Sam.
I emulate other machines.
I play the occasional game.

I don't:
try to render stuff
try to play HTML5 YouTube videos (MUCH more CPU intensive than people realise. It's only because things like phones and PCs have dedicated hardware and things that make people think it's not - we don't have those drivers so it's all down to CPU grunt for us, not for them).
try to run MAME :) (It's very CPU intensive). Having said that, it can run some games quite well.
try to run Timberwolf (it's not finished and there's no optimisation, so it's too slow - but that's not the Sam's fault).

Stick to what it's good at and it's a beautiful machine.  Forget PC's - they're a different beast. Don't try and keep up with PCs because you won't win - they have a massive userbase and masses of technological evolution, we don't. Take the Amiga (and the Sam) on its merits rather than looking at your neighbour's PC, and you'll be happy. If you want PC power - you need to buy a PC, there's no way round that.

As for the price... seriously, these guys have to eat. They have families to feed. How can they be expected to produce low volume hardware at much cheaper prices?  There's a lot of work gone into the R&D of the boards, of the production of the boards, of the investment risk in the first place. These guys deserve money, and really 550 Euros for a complete system is a bargain when you factor in all the costs. We're not talking about big companies with huge economies of scale here.

However, I completely agree that hobbies are expensive and they don't need to be sane. I know this because I own a CS-PPC. :)
We're very lucky that we're part of a hobby that still has commercial companies doing anything for us at all. It's not like we're a huge market. And then when they actually want some financial reward for their work and risk, people complain as though they should be doing everything for free.

Acube with their products aren't trying to build machines for power users - just use a PC for that. They're building hobbyist products for a hobbyist audience.  I hate to say it but the only way the brand "Amiga" is ever going to be big again is if C=USA make it big and just stuff the label on a standard PC (and that makes me sad *sniff*).  The Amiga as we know it cannot possibly compete with the technological advancement rate and the huge multi-billion dollar budgets of the PC world.
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Offline Britelite

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Re: Two New Full Systems Based on Sam440ep-Flex
« Reply #39 on: September 28, 2012, 08:38:14 AM »
Quote from: spirantho;709646

As for the price... seriously, these guys have to eat. They have families to feed. How can they be expected to produce low volume hardware at much cheaper prices?  There's a lot of work gone into the R&D of the boards, of the production of the boards, of the investment risk in the first place. These guys deserve money, and really 550 Euros for a complete system is a bargain when you factor in all the costs. We're not talking about big companies with huge economies of scale here.


Except that the price ISN'T 550 euros when you add taxes and the cost of the OS. And I know WHY the price is high, but it doesn't make it any less crazy high though for me as a potential buyer. I might actually consider buying the machine if it was 500e for a complete system, with OS and taxes included. But paying nearly 1000e for it just isn't an option, and it most likely won't attract anyone not already using AOS4 to buy one.
 

Offline spirantho

Re: Two New Full Systems Based on Sam440ep-Flex
« Reply #40 on: September 28, 2012, 09:00:16 AM »
Quote from: Britelite;709647
Except that the price ISN'T 550 euros when you add taxes and the cost of the OS. And I know WHY the price is high, but it doesn't make it any less crazy high though for me as a potential buyer. I might actually consider buying the machine if it was 500e for a complete system, with OS and taxes included. But paying nearly 1000e for it just isn't an option, and it most likely won't attract anyone not already using AOS4 to buy one.


I understand that, but the problem is that that is the price. The people behind it are probably not much more than breaking even at that price. To sell it at 500 euros would be a large loss, including the OS developers. Small volume design and production is expensive, it's a fact of life.

These people aren't driving Ferraris here, they're just trying to make a living.
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Offline asymetrix

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Re: Two New Full Systems Based on Sam440ep-Flex
« Reply #41 on: September 28, 2012, 12:49:59 PM »
ok lets look at it from another angle.

Assuming developers are interested in programming games on a SAM system, they tend to use a game engine they are familiar with EG, Unreal Engine.

The Unreal Development Kit (UDK) has 2 million+ lines of code and takes just under 3 mins to compile on a blazing fast 8 core / 16 thread system.

Assuming we have Unreal working, how long would it take to compile just the UDK, (just compile the developer kit without game at this stage).

For a decent game to get on Amiga, we need the same Game engines that developers use, or they wont even look in our direction.

Once we have Unreal 3 engine working, find the simplest commercial game (oldest) and try compile - see how long a developer need to waste time for it to compile.

Any guesses ?

hardware needs to match the 'norm hardware' - this is the first stage or obstacle.

First match hardware, then price, match developer tools, then increase userbase.

These days Game developers are using 100+ distributed network systems to compile their games.
 

Offline Duce

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Re: Two New Full Systems Based on Sam440ep-Flex
« Reply #42 on: September 28, 2012, 12:58:01 PM »
The game devs are not going to look in our directions anyways.  Amiga gaming, commercially - ended in the 90's.  You could sell a $500 4 ghz Amiga like OS machine and it STILL would not get the big guns coding for it.

We are small fry.  Appreciate what we actually do have.

You are more likely to see an official big name mainstream game running on your toaster than you are an Amiga-like system.

If you really think the guys behind the Unreal Engine are just chomping at the bit for someone to re-invent some obscure old OS from the 90's, EVEN IF there was insanely powerful and dirt cheap HW to run said OS, you're on glue.
« Last Edit: September 28, 2012, 01:06:52 PM by Duce »
 

Offline spirantho

Re: Two New Full Systems Based on Sam440ep-Flex
« Reply #43 on: September 28, 2012, 01:24:34 PM »
Quote from: asymetrix;709662
ok lets look at it from another angle.

Assuming developers are interested in programming games on a SAM system, they tend to use a game engine they are familiar with EG, Unreal Engine.

The Unreal Development Kit (UDK) has 2 million+ lines of code and takes just under 3 mins to compile on a blazing fast 8 core / 16 thread system.

Assuming we have Unreal working, how long would it take to compile just the UDK, (just compile the developer kit without game at this stage).

For a decent game to get on Amiga, we need the same Game engines that developers use, or they wont even look in our direction.

Once we have Unreal 3 engine working, find the simplest commercial game (oldest) and try compile - see how long a developer need to waste time for it to compile.

Any guesses ?

hardware needs to match the 'norm hardware' - this is the first stage or obstacle.

First match hardware, then price, match developer tools, then increase userbase.

These days Game developers are using 100+ distributed network systems to compile their games.


Compilation time is irrelevant. They'd use a cross-compiler.

I can tell you now that even if the Amiga was twice as fast as a PC, it wouldn't succeed. The hardware is irrelevant. The fact is that there's no software = no userbase = no software. The only way to break that cycle is with a big (and I mean millions and millions of dollars) marketing push, and a massive "contribution" to developers.

We are seriously talking in the billions of dollars here - that's not an overstatement.

I am a games developer. I would love to develop games for the Amiga, but it's financial suicide, simple as that - and publishers know this. Developing a fantastic uber-Amiga isn't going to change that - it's about money, and in the Amiga market, there's hardly any. You don't spend $2m on developing a new game when you know total sales are going to be measured in the hundreds.

We should be very grateful we have anybody left at all giving us software and hardware.
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Offline dammy

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Re: Two New Full Systems Based on Sam440ep-Flex
« Reply #44 from previous page: September 28, 2012, 02:06:08 PM »
Quote from: spirantho;709649
I understand that, but the problem is that that is the price. The people behind it are probably not much more than breaking even at that price. To sell it at 500 euros would be a large loss, including the OS developers. Small volume design and production is expensive, it's a fact of life.

These people aren't driving Ferraris here, they're just trying to make a living.


That's the problem, it's not economically viable product anymore while the alternatives costs are significantly less.  The bad calls Hyperion has made over the past ten or so years has them painted in a corner leaving them no where to go.  Time will tell, but I believe this is check-mate.
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