Another Retro Computer returns from the ashes

[Fransexy_]

@ FranSexy

No, dude, I was comparing cost of ownership to cost of ownership. Which is the bottom line for many of us here.

Then, You can buy only the cpu and it will be more cheap and you own it *rolling eyes*

[paolone]

Are you comparing the price of a motherboard alone to the price of a complete system with case, and with PCI-e, PCI, XORRO, SATA, IDE that the other do not have?

"PCI-e, PCI, XORRO, SATA, IDE" are just connectors and BUS. What makes the difference in a complete system is the hardware you connect to them. I'm still waiting for a complete X1000 HW configuration (drives, cards, and so) for a right price comparation with actual PCs.

[the_leander]

@Iggy there is a port of Ubuntu for this thing apparently. Also android.

Are you comparing the price of a motherboard alone to the price of a complete system with case, and with PCI-e, PCI, XORRO, SATA, IDE that the other do not have?

The price quoted for the X1000 was afaik for the motherboard alone.

PCI slots that you're going to use for what exactly? There are drivers for what, maybe a dozen PCI cards AmigaOS can use, graphics is taken care of on board. USB ftw. This thing comes with everything you need on a single board to make it usable. What good are these connectors if there is very limited use made of them by the OS?

Seriously though, Xorro? The Xcore is available as a $10 usb dongle.

--edit--

Bah, paolone said it better.

The point is, this board is out there, it's cheap, it's available and performance wise an A9 should do quite well against a G4/5 class cpu.

Oh and the OS's are fast becoming mature for this hardware platform.

Futhermore, you are comparing the Price of a Cpu used on a devices (mobile phones) that only the last 2 years sold more units that computers in all the history of the personal computers

So what? All that means to me is that I get great performance for a low cost. Also very low power requirements = cheaper running costs.

[the_leander]

Then, You can buy only the cpu and it will be more cheap and you own it *rolling eyes*

Don't be a tard.

[persia]

@the_leander

I thought the price for the beta board was £1,150.  The case is another £150 or so, adding drives memory etc would push it above £1,500 by some, but not a lot.  Still looks rather pricey compared to USD 174 for a motherboard though...

AmigaOS appears to be aiming for the classes not the masses, but realistically that may be the only way to survive financially.

[the_leander]

I thought the price for the beta board was £1,150. The case is another £150 or so, adding drives memory etc would push it above £1,500 by some, but not a lot. Still looks rather pricey compared to USD 174 for a motherboard though...

Wasn't the cost of the beta board supposed to be subsidised? But yeah.

AmigaOS appears to be aiming for the classes not the masses, but realistically that may be the only way to survive financially.

Its a fine way to go if you've both the product and the name to brand name to justify it.

Given the reaction even of no small number of hardcore supporters though...

Anyway, the reason I put this up, beyond a slight desire to feed my inner troll, is that this is the sort of cool tech that keeps me interested in computers.

Look at the size of the system. If I were to guess I'd say a little bigger than nano-itx. So a bit more than the floor space a box of kitchen matches takes up.

Yet has as much CPU umph as G4 powermac, possibly more graphically.

Doesn't that realisation absolutely blow you away?

[haywirepc]

This board IS just cool, and would make a really cool tiny system. Its 4 inches by 4-1/2 inches. Thats awesome, just awesome for the horsepower it offers.
 
I can imagine you could solar power this board, dependant on the power requirements. It certainly would be easy to hack into a keyboard case.
 
Would make an awesome media center in your car...
 
It would make a nice set top box for watching youtube on your living room tv too. 175$ is cheap, and I bet you'd get much better pricing if you were say hyperion or morphos and bought 1,000 boards.
 
I think arm could be a great future for amiga like oses....
 
Isn't someone porting aros to arm?
 
It already runs ubuntu... I may buy one just to play with.
 
Steven

[Iggy]

yes Alan,
I'm with you on this one. Its a neat low power system with almost everything you need in a really small form.
What about expansion? The set up documentation shows the system connected to a host (primarily for storage). Is there any way to connect a drive controller to this board. I'm not sure I want to be limited to USB or complact flash for storage.

[zylesea]

So what is stopping someone making a cheap little board like that with a PPC processor?

Nothing - except nobody shells ot the money to actually do it.
What about an even more minimalistc ppc board for half the price? MPC5125 is your friend. e300 @ 400 MHz all required things within the SOC except audio. Add a little RAM (say 256 MB) and a socket for an SD card and there you go. The chip costs only 11 US$ in bulk order and runs at a single watt.
Sure, 400 MHz is not really up to date, but for 50 US$ board it would offer a lot of fun... Put AROS ppc on it and you'll have an ultra cheap little Amiga.
Or if more power is required there are ppc alternatives. ppc is only dead for the desktop, beside the desktop it is pretty alive. It's only stupid to try to build desktop computers on either way underpowered cpus (AMCCs offerings) or outdated but very expensive midclass cpus (PA6T).
While a 1500 EUR kit isn't able to compete with current x86 desktop offers anyway this is a dead end. The key (as long as the no x86 mantra is valid) is affordeable gear, say 50 EUR (e300/400 class)  to 300 EUR (e600 or e500 /1000-1500 MHz class) stuff. That kind of kit is for fun sales. While it can't powerwise challenge a Core i7, it even doesn't need to try to do so - it is a complete different kind of product and no wannabe high end desktop computer.

[ferrellsl]

Wasn't the cost of the beta board supposed to be subsidised? But yeah.



Its a fine way to go if you've both the product and the name to brand name to justify it.

Given the reaction even of no small number of hardcore supporters though...

Anyway, the reason I put this up, beyond a slight desire to feed my inner troll, is that this is the sort of cool tech that keeps me interested in computers.

Look at the size of the system. If I were to guess I'd say a little bigger than nano-itx. So a bit more than the floor space a box of kitchen matches takes up.

Yet has as much CPU umph as G4 powermac, possibly more graphically.

Doesn't that realisation absolutely blow you away?

Oh no, now you're inciting the X1000 clowns who will start flaming you, because to them, the X1000 is obviously a better system because it just has to be!  I mean heck, a 1500EUR computer just HAS to be better than one costing 125EUR? Right?  The X1000 even has that Booing Ball logo on the front and everything! And SATA ports, and that Xorro or Xena thingy...and...and...

Sarcasm off:

OS4 could just as easily be ported to a Beagle Board or a PandaBoard, but then the hard-core Amiga loyalists couldn't be gouged as deeply!  The X1000 is ridiculously overpriced and underpowered for the cost.  The X1000 "IS" about the money in spite of what A-Eon and Hyperion are saying.  The prices for comparable systems or for developer boards such as the Beagle and Panda prove it.  Building the X1000 "out of love" or "for the community" is a bunch of baloney.  I'll stick to MorphOS and a Natami for my Amiga-fixes.  Too bad Hyperion hasn't figured out they'd be more successful selling cheaper hardware (bundled with OS4) to the masses than bundling with hardware that's so obscure and expensive that only a handful will ever CONSIDER buying it.  Economies of scale anyone........

[persia]

I would love a tiny aOS 4 system, slap it on the back of a monitor, install it in your car, it's almost a stealth computer.  Sort of an AmigaAnywhere without the Taos.  But it doesn't fit the grand design of a microprocessor in a big box costing lots of money, so it won't fly.

[Fransexy_]

For just a little more money you can get this "Smarttop":



The specifications are as follows:

Freescale i.MX515 (ARM Cortex-A8 800MHz)
3D Graphics Processing Unit
WXGA display support (HDMI)
Multi-format HD video decoder and D1 video encoder
512MB RAM
4GB Internal SSD
802.11 b/g/n WiFi
Bluetooth
SDHC card reader
2x USB 2.0 ports
Audio jacks for headset
Built-in speaker

As something to refer to, I think it will actually kick some "Sam" butt performance wise!

There is also a "Smartbook" (Netbook based on ARM) that is built on the same SoC.

Video: See the Smartbook running!

These products are the result of a cooperation between Genesi and Pegatron (think ASUS), and they will be mass produced. Genesi is currently building markets for these in numerous developing countries, like in El Salvador, where the Efika MX will be sold as "mobile phone" (bundled with a subscription plan). You can do cool things with this and built in GSM and GPS.

Target price for the Smartbook is around ~$300
Target price for the Smarttop is around ~$200 (only ~£13 more than the above mentioned Beagle board). You can actually buy it now already, not mass produced, for $250.

And yes, I think there might be a RISC OS port coming...

RiscOS 5 also run on Touch Book



The specifications

    * 9.7" x 7" x 1.3" for around 3 lbs (with keyboard)
    * ARM Texas Instruments OMAP3 chip
    * 1024x600 8.9" Multitouch screen
    * Video output HDMI 720p
    * 512MB RAM - 8GB SD card for storage
    * Wifi 802.11 b/g/n and Bluetooth
    * 3-dimensional accelerometer
    * Speakers, micro and headphone I/O
    * 7 USB 2.0 (4 internal, 3 external)
    * 10 hours of battery life


http://www.alwaysinnovating.com/wiki/index.php/RISC_OS

[Iggy]

Nothing - except nobody shells ot the money to actually do it.
What about an even more minimalistc ppc board for half the price? MPC5125 is your friend. e300 @ 400 MHz all required things within the SOC except audio. Add a little RAM (say 256 MB) and a socket for an SD card and there you go. The chip costs only 11 US$ in bulk order and runs at a single watt.
Sure, 400 MHz is not really up to date, but for 50 US$ board it would offer a lot of fun... Put AROS ppc on it and you'll have an ultra cheap little Amiga.
Or if more power is required there are ppc alternatives. ppc is only dead for the desktop, beside the desktop it is pretty alive. It's only stupid to try to build desktop computers on either way underpowered cpus (AMCCs offerings) or outdated but very expensive midclass cpus (PA6T).
While a 1500 EUR kit isn't able to compete with current x86 desktop offers anyway this is a dead end. The key (as long as the no x86 mantra is valid) is affordeable gear, say 50 EUR (e300/400 class)  to 300 EUR (e600 or e500 /1000-1500 MHz class) stuff. That kind of kit is for fun sales. While it can't powerwise challenge a Core i7, it even doesn't need to try to do so - it is a complete different kind of product and no wannabe high end desktop computer.

I don't knpw, Zylesea, I don't think you're going to be able to get the price of an e600 core based motherboard down to 300 EUR. The processors cost almost that. And I don't knowabout the rest of the family, but the MPC8640/8641 works better paired with a Southbridge (like the SB600 used on the X1000 motherboard). Considering the complexity of the board, the cost of the processors, and the necessary glue logic the price would be about double that or more.
Now e300 cored products might be closer to your price, but they don't offer the processing power of the ARM processors mentioned here.

I like PPC processors, but I don't think we have any SoCs that are this compact, powerful, and low cost.

[Iggy]

I've spent more time than I should have researching the PandaBoard.

Since the board is designed as developers system its got a few rough edges.

Use of full memory increases the chance of crashes.
There are several other causes for boot crashes and run time crashes (like network initialization on boot).
The DVI outputs aren't enabled unit (nor is the LCD output).
Sound files and HD video still may experience some stuttering.

I haven't checked on how open the PowerVR GPU is to development.
I haven't seen anyone use the expansion bus yet.

Still, it does look neat.

[zylesea]

I don't knpw, Zylesea, I don't think you're going to be able to get the price of an e600 core based motherboard down to 300 EUR. The processors cost almost that.

8610 is to get for much less. Also note that many e500 processors have a nin-insane price/performance ratio (some PowerQUICCs and QorIQ).

And I don't knowabout the rest of the family, but the MPC8640/8641 works better paired with a Southbridge (like the SB600 used on the X1000 motherboard).

Better yes, but if you leave out all the bells and whistles you can do a simple and cost intensive design. The probelm is that these chips aren't designed as desktop processors (okay the 864x was intended for general computing), so better don't try to make a desktop computer outof this. Keep it simple, tehn you'r able to reach good prices.
[/QUOTE]Considering the complexity of the board, the cost of the processors, and the necessary glue logic the price would be about double that or more.
[/QUOTE]

Now e300 cored products might be closer to your price, but they don't offer the processing power of the ARM processors mentioned here.

The e300/400 is for sure much weaker than the ARMs of the prducts listed here, but it could yield to way cheaper boards.
Look to the 5125, it has all you need and is 11US$. A 50 US$ board to play around would sound fun to me.
With QorIQ 2010 a 150 US$ e500/1000 board including a Uli M1575 SB doesn't seem like a too crazy phanatsy. Would probably not match a 150US$ x86 or the ARM board, but also not too far off and holding other benfits. Probably more difficult to sell, than a 50 US$ toy board though... But such a 1 W toy board would still run circles around all PowerUp hardware, it would pretty exctly match Efika power with worse gfx, but better usb and no crippled ATA interface. I still rate the Efika as nice fun/special use device with two major draw backs: too little RAM, too expensive. Not the board itself withits 99 US$ price tag, but you need an ATX psu, a gfx card, a hdd and a case - exceeds 200 US$ rather quickly. And for that ammount of money a e300/400 w/128 MB RAM is not too sexy again (but I still like mine).

Problem is: There is probably nobody going to make such a board. I will not do so either - my funds are currently not that big that I could take the risk, just bought a house a week ago :-)

[lsmart]

The X1000 is ridiculously overpriced and underpowered for the cost.

Most people said this about the Amiga 3000 by the time it was new. Or look at apples prices in the 90s. But wait for the machine to arrive first, then we will see how powerful or cool it really is.