$160 PowerPC Computer

http://penguinppc.org/embedded/kuro/

This could be used as a CHEAP lowend entry model AmigaONE.

Look at the specs

    * Freescale 8241: 200MHz SoC with 603e-based core
    * ADMtek AN983B: 10/100 PCI ethernet Tulip clone
    * Silicon Image Sil0680A: PCI Ultra ATA/133 controller
    * Atmel AT90S2313: 8-bit microcontroller
    * NEC D720101GJ: USB2 OHCI/EHCI host controller
    * 64 MiB of soldered RAM
    * 4 MiB of flash ROM

Just add a PCI 3DFX/Radeon 7000 and you've got an extremely cheap PPC box.

Eyetech could seriously make some money shifting these boxes.

I know a 200MHz 603e isn't much, but it's good enough on CSPPC/BPPC.  I'm sure MorphOS/AROS/AmigaOS4 would still be nice and responsive on it too.

It could be something for the kids christmas stocking if packaged up and marketed right.

[BlitzThose]

any idea if these will be going on sale in the uk

[Hammer]

That would be nice for a cheap A1 box i.e. A600 style AmigaPPC.

BlitzThose wrote:
any idea if these will be going on sale in the uk

They already are, the Buffalo Link Station has the same mobo and CPU etc.... £156 is a good price.

[MarkTime]

Amazing how this product exists, when we've been assured repeatedly and vigorously, that economies of 'scale' make it impossible to sell a PowerPC box at anything but two or three times more expensive than your typical PC.

Well, it only takes a little assurance to keep the faithful happy, so after a few cheesy explanations are submitted, this little blast of reality will slip away too.

But, it would be nice, if an amiga company could envision a device for the low end, and let people use it as a home SAN, Linux, or Amiga Box....(as long as it is also an Amiga box, the more the merrier).

but, as long as we are primarily interested in Amiga OS (and I'm guilty)...then kmos/eyetech have us by the you knows and will charge as much as they can possibly get...of course, I won't pay it, but it sure sucks not having os 4!

lol.... thanks for the link, they almost had an impulse buy today!

lol.... thanks for the link, they almost had an impulse buy today!

That'll be two "nearly" impulse purchases they had today then! ;-)

[Matt_H]

It's cool, but from what I can see, it lacks one very important thing for a home computer: A video interface. I can't see a way to add one either.

Get one of those on there and I may even buy it just for the geek factor, even if it can't run AmigaOS.

Matt_H wrote:
It's cool, but from what I can see, it lacks one very important thing for a home computer: A video interface. I can't see a way to add one either.

Get one of those on there and I may even buy it just for the geek factor, even if it can't run AmigaOS.

it has pci slots, hence the pci ethernet card.

[Golem!dk]

I see no mention of pci slots.

Despite the Kuro's young age, it seems that there are already thoughts about a Kuro II. Possible improvements could include more RAM, a faster processor, a serial port, another USB port, and even a Mini PCI slot. Choosing a newer Freescale processor with more integrated IO could even reduce the development cost, since fewer external chips (ethernet, USB, ATA) would be needed and board complexity would be reduced.

[the_leander]

I don't believe it has a pci slot, the freescale chip has a controller for such an interface, but as I've read it, its designed to be a headless network storage unit, just enough to connect it to a LAN, and run a hard drive.

If it does have a pci slot, its likely that that is used by the pci eithernet card that MDMA meantioned, as the freescale cpu I do not belive has an intergrated eithernet controller.

It is an interesting design, but it is in no way a desktop capable machine, its design as I say is as a headless network drive, an embedded system. Hackable yes, but not to the extent I think you're after.

Sorry to disapoint.

--edit--

Looking at other reviews and technical discussions, this system is a single board setup, at no point do any of the reviews I have read meantion even in passing a PCI slot, only partially setup serial (requiring some pretty nasty hacking to get going) usb2, IDE and gigabit eithernet. I'm guessing since I've not actually seen the guts of this thing that its very unlikely that this has such a slot and that the "tulip pci eithernet clone" the spec refers to is simply the controller chip, rather then a seperate card.

In short, this thing will no more run BeOS or windows then it will AmigaOS. Sorry chaps.

[CyberStorm]

Even if someone made OS4 to run on that machine, would you really like such a low spec OS4 machine?

One of the reasons the Amiga 1200 didn't became more popular was because of the fact that Commodore still did sell lower spec ECS amigas at the same time as the Amiga 1200.

If developers are to develop for such a machine, there will probably be a lot of programs/games out not using the full potential of the faster A1.

People not knowing the Amiga that good will see this low end machine, and will never geting interested in the Amiga of that reason.

And about the price it's still not cheaper than a x86 machine anyway, and would of that reason not be able to sell any bigger numbers anyway as an AOS 4 machine.

But as an SetTop box, for internet, DVD's, MP3's and maybe simple videoediting, it could be interesting.

[Hammer]

mdma wrote:

lol.... thanks for the link, they almost had an impulse buy today!

That'll be two "nearly" impulse purchases they had today then! ;-)

Make that three "nearly" impulse buy...

[Hammer]

If developers are to develop for such a machine, there will probably be a lot of programs/games out not using the full potential of the faster A1.

The problem with the old Amiga 600 vs 1200 is the lack of appropriate API abstraction e.g. titles was tied to a particular chipset.

My POV is an ecosyetem system similar to Pentium II@233Mhz to Pentium III @1Ghz scenario, where Windows (with DirectX API)runs them all.  Replace X86 as PPC and Windows as AmigaOS4(or MOS) for Amiga's case.

[the_leander]

CyberStorm wrote:
Even if someone made OS4 to run on that machine, would you really like such a low spec OS4 machine?

And even if they did, you wouldn't be able to see anything on it, because it has no graphics hardware, nore the possibility of adding it.

If developers are to develop for such a machine, there will probably be a lot of programs/games out not using the full potential of the faster A1.

People not knowing the Amiga that good will see this low end machine, and will never geting interested in the Amiga of that reason.

If developers tried to port AmigaOS and assorted dev kits to this device, end users on the other hand, around the globe would be left scratching their heads wondering where to plug in a monitor/tv.

And about the price it's still not cheaper than a x86 machine anyway, and would of that reason not be able to sell any bigger numbers anyway as an AOS 4 machine.

But as an SetTop box, for internet, DVD's, MP3's and maybe simple videoediting, it could be interesting.

Actually for the job its doing its cheeper then most of the other stuff out there (including X86), the job its doing is as an all in one fileserver. It would be as useless as an STB or video editing as it would for use as a desktop machine for the reason outlined above - it has no video hardware, nore the expandability to add it (no pci or similar).

[the_leander]

Sadly, my earlier suspcions regarding the lack of expandability have been borne out, as the following image from revogear shows, it doesn't have the requisite port.



So again, sorry chaps, but this machine, even if you could port OS4 to it, would be utterly useless in that capacity.

Another thing is that it is extremely cheep, even with a 40Gb hard drive, cheeper even, then many of its x86 counterparts in the same market (portable network fileservers).