AmigaONE X1000 Sale Ends 7th January 2014

[Thorham]

there is no logical reason to buy one.

Humans aren't all that logical, so who cares?

[Iggy]

Humans aren't all that logical, so who cares?

That explains why, with a 2.3 GHz G5 Mac next to me, I still want an X2000 (or whatever it is called).

It probably will offer no performance, reliability, or expansion advantages - certainly no economic advantage (and I couldn't care less about OS4), so a big illogical WTF?! runs through my mind (and I still want one).

[Thorham]

a big illogical WTF?! runs through my mind

For me it's simple: If I want it and can afford it, then I buy it

[haywirepc]

See I see things this way... The reason they can deliver SO VERY LITTLE
for so INCREDIBLY HIGH PRICES is simple :

Because they can.

All the cool aid drinking cult members will pay any price they set, for any level of performance (or should we say total lack of performance)

Whats left of amiga fans should simply boycott anyone making 10 year old spec hardware for more than todays modern pc prices, or selling them a 3,000$ computer with two cores and years later only one core works...
Or years later still not delivering the drivers for that computer...

If everyone just said no to the substandard level of performance, lack of drivers and lack of software,then the hyperion people may be forced to make sensible choices, like porting to arm or x86 off the shelf hardware.

AMIGAOS4 will die because of GREED pure GREED. They have Amigaos4 locked down to uber expensive 10 year old spec hardware for a reason, and thats money and greed. If huge amiga fans can't jusifty the expense or afford the cost of ownership, any hope of any kind of a future or growing the user base is completely gone, and they know it.

All they can hope to do is rape the remaining amiga fans for as much money as possible while delivering as little as possible as far as value and performance goes.

Its allright though, there is alternatives...

[amigakit]

AMIGAOS4 will die because of GREED pure GREED.

This comment implies that you think there is a significant margin made on every sale of the X1000 which is very far from reality. The margin is wafer thin.  The price reflects the significant manufacturing cost of the machine in small numbers.

Moving to ARM or x86 and producing bespoke boards around them will not significantly reduce the motherboard price because the bulk of the cost is the NRE: non recoverable engineering and design costs which we are talking a 5 digit sum of money.

[haywirepc]

I'm pretty sure they could find a volunteer or two or five to port it to arm or x86 or do it through a bounty system, costing them zero.

If they ported to x86, someone would just need to write drivers for very common pci net and sound cards, and a few good graphics chipsets as was done with aros... Then any x86 with appropriate add on cards could run it. Zero engineering costs other than the initial port and writing some drivers for common
add in net, sound cards and video cards.

Anyhow never going to happen, so I'm happy there is AROS.

[Everblue]

I still think the biggest problem for Amiga OS4 on whatever board it runs on (as well as MorphOS) is the software. I've had a Sam (and own a Mac Mini/MOS machine) for a short period of time. It is ton of fun setting things up, downloading software, organizing things and all that. But once the dust has settled there isn't much to do, mostly due to the lack of decent software. I guess if you are a developer you will get the kicks from coding your own stuff, but in the end, as a user, although using an Amiga OS machine is fun, it is an end in itself.

Where is the software? You know, things that make computers productive? And I don't mean ports of open source software which I can already download (and run many times better) on my PC. I am talking about new, original software that would make an Amiga experience a complete one. Things like DTP, office, music, web etc... (yes, commercial).

To conclude, I think that there are the Amiga hardware companies out there are concentrating too much on making hardware while not investing anything in software.

Just my 2 cents.

[OlafS3]

I think you miss the point. We have 2013 and there is plenty affordable and good hardware at every corner. It makes no sense to produce custom hardware today as long as it not offers advantages compared to what is available. I understand that you like f.e. X1000 because you can earn money in opposite to MorphOS running on used Macs or AROS running on standard hardware but it still makes no sense if you want to create a market again for amiga software.

What Haywire propably means (saying it a little hard with "greed") is meaning Hyperion is not changing its strategy as long as they think they can make money with the community, only if people would not only moan about it but making it clear that they will not buy new PPC hardware and accept certain things like paying extra for drivers the companies involved would rethink their strategy. Of course rethinking could also mean dropping.

I make the prediction that MorphOS will change hardware in future (I do not know of course if 2014 already), propably to X64. So AmigaOS will finally left behind. I do not think if it is a good strategy to perhaps react if it is too late for a change. But on the other side it would be a really continuation of the past :-).

BTW happy new year

[OlafS3]

I still think the biggest problem for Amiga OS4 on whatever board it runs on (as well as MorphOS) is the software. I've had a Sam (and own a Mac Mini/MOS machine) for a short period of time. It is ton of fun setting things up, downloading software, organizing things and all that. But once the dust has settled there isn't much to do, mostly due to the lack of decent software. I guess if you are a developer you will get the kicks from coding your own stuff, but in the end, as a user, although using an Amiga OS machine is fun, it is an end in itself.

Where is the software? You know, things that make computers productive? And I don't mean ports of open source software which I can already download (and run many times better) on my PC. I am talking about new, original software that would make an Amiga experience a complete one. Things like DTP, office, music, web etc... (yes, commercial).

To conclude, I think that there are the Amiga hardware companies out there are concentrating too much on making hardware while not investing anything in software.

Just my 2 cents.

For commercial development you need a market (big number of users) and to win new users you need a OS that offers advantages (or at least makes people curious) and you need cheap hardware. For example Aeros on Raspberry now slowly comes to a state where it is interesting for Raspberry users (including new software like Magellan and the new OWB hopefully soon). If you force people to buy new expensive hardware without having any advantages compared to what they already use it will not work. The same is forcing people to buy used old hardware to test it. Cheap options and at best offering the chance to use it on existing hardware is the way to go. If there would be at least demo-versions that would run on X86 (perhaps as blackbox) the chances would be higher. At the moment it is a pure retro thing for the few interested.

[NovaCoder]

....but it still makes no sense if you want to create a market again for amiga software.

What I think most people miss, is that it would take a massive coordinated investment for an alternative OS to gain any kind of market these days.   A modern example would be ChromeOS.   Even with Google's large pot of gold behind it (and a forward thinking radical concept), it's only just starting to gain some market share.   Another example is Windows, MS is having to sink $$$ into it just to try and stop the bleeding.

If AmigaOS/MorphOS were ported to x86 and given away free as an new year's gift they would still remain an extremely niche hobby OS.  

Everything is going cloud-based and controlled via touch screens (or something even more radical), the OS itself is moving to the background with the Apps taking center stage.

[utri007]

I'm pretty sure they could find a volunteer or two or five to port it to arm or x86 or do it through a bounty system, costing them zero.

If they ported to x86, someone would just need to write drivers for very common pci net and sound cards, and a few good graphics chipsets as was done with aros... Then any x86 with appropriate add on cards could run it. Zero engineering costs other than the initial port and writing some drivers for common
add in net, sound cards and video cards.

Anyhow never going to happen, so I'm happy there is AROS.

Just stop, Please. x86/arm is not a possible nor viable. You simply don't know what you are taking about.  "zero angineering costs"

It is perfectly possible to manufacture cheap (30-50€) PPC mobo, it would just require big quantity like 10-20 000 boards. Typical life cycle of x86 mobo is short, typically they run just one batch of them.

Luckily you can choose Aros to your hobby OS.

[OlafS3]

What I think most people miss, is that it would take a massive coordinated investment for an alternative OS to gain any kind of market these days.   A modern example would be ChromeOS.   Even with Google's large pot of gold behind it (and a forward thinking radical concept), it's only just starting to gain some market share.   Another example is Windows, MS is having to sink $$$ into it just to try and stop the bleeding.

If AmigaOS/MorphOS were ported to x86 and given away free as an new year's gift they would still remain an extremely niche hobby OS.  

Everything is going cloud-based and controlled via touch screens (or something even more radical), the OS itself is moving to the background with the Apps taking center stage.

It depends on how you define "market" here. For me "market" means big enough to justify commercial development (means you can live by selling). That is far lower than trying to compete with mass markets like Windows or mobile area. If AROS f.e. could become a interesting option on Raspberry this would propably already multiply the number of users and thus making it interesting for f.e. game developers. It would be far off from Windows (or Mac, Linux...) still.

[Glittering]

AMIGAOS4 will die because of GREED pure GREED. They have Amigaos4 locked down to uber expensive 10 year old spec hardware for a reason, and thats money and greed. If huge amiga fans can't jusifty the expense or afford the cost of ownership, any hope of any kind of a future or growing the user base is completely gone, and they know it.

All they can hope to do is rape the remaining amiga fans for as much money as possible while delivering as little as possible as far as value and performance goes.

AmigaOS4 was deliberately tied to expensive hardware from the start but it came around and bit them on the arse multiple times over the years but they still never learned from it before it was to late.............So after chasing everyone else (especially potential developers) away they're left with is the microscopic "we will pay any price" crowd.

Over two thousand pounds for that computer in 2014 is clearly making someone a nice profit and of course amigakit will deny it but its obvious a good profit maker and credit to him for cashing in.

Its allright though, there is alternatives...

I bought Amiga Forever 2013 for a fiver and now that was well worth the money.

[OlafS3]

Just stop, Please. x86/arm is not a possible nor viable. You simply don't know what you are taking about.  "zero angineering costs"

It is perfectly possible to manufacture cheap (30-50€) PPC mobo, it would just require big quantity like 10-20 000 boards. Typical life cycle of x86 mobo is short, typically they run just one batch of them.

Luckily you can choose Aros to your hobby OS.

Yes who will do the run and take the financial risk for such a large PPC batch?

[OlafS3]

What I think most people miss, is that it would take a massive coordinated investment for an alternative OS to gain any kind of market these days.   A modern example would be ChromeOS.   Even with Google's large pot of gold behind it (and a forward thinking radical concept), it's only just starting to gain some market share.   Another example is Windows, MS is having to sink $$$ into it just to try and stop the bleeding.

If AmigaOS/MorphOS were ported to x86 and given away free as an new year's gift they would still remain an extremely niche hobby OS.  

Everything is going cloud-based and controlled via touch screens (or something even more radical), the OS itself is moving to the background with the Apps taking center stage.

cloud? You mean "NSA"-certified?

What we need in future is a new desktop for tablets. I do not see iPhones (or similar) replacing desktops.

[utri007]

Yes who will do the run and take the financial risk for such a large PPC batch?

That is good question and exactly my point