Someone spell it out for me, A1 questions

[Gojirax]

Hi,

I'm returning to the Amiga scene after a few years, and I've read a little about the A1, but I don't have a LOT of time to surf the web lately like I used to.

What is the purpose of the A1? Is it in ANY way related to the classic Amiga?

Who is developing it?

What software/hardware does it already support?

Is it just a Power PC Linux box, or will it run Classic Amiga OS's? (3.1, 3.5, 3.9?) or is it just slated to run 4.0? (Or only a specific flavor of Linux? Will it run Red Hat etc?)

What kind of hardware expansions are supported on it?

If it's just a fairly standard PPC board, why doesn't it run something faster than a 900mhz G4?

Thanks in advance for your time,
Jack

[seer]

Welcome back..

What is the purpose of the A1?

It's (one of) the succesor of the classic Amiga line (A500 > A4000 type of machines). It's purpose is to keep the current Amiga users and to make the way for the future. Another alternative to the classic line is the PegasosII and MOS combination.

Is it in ANY way related to the classic Amiga?

Other then the name and the OS, no relation. Different CPU, no "custom" chip set.

Is it just a Power PC Linux box, or will it run Classic Amiga OS's? (3.1, 3.5, 3.9?) or is it just slated to run 4.0? (Or only a specific flavor of Linux? Will it run Red Hat etc?)

A linux is supplied with the A1, but its target OS is Amiga OS4. Classic software runs either thro UAE or on a emulation layer in the OS but the last one only supports software that doesn't hit the classic hardware directly.

What kind of hardware expansions are supported on it?

Not sure. Forget nVidia GFX cards with 3D support. Forget any special PCI cards as well. At the moment Amiga OS4 "only" supports Ati cards and Soundblaster compatible soubdcards (There are others but I can't remember them). Don't expect OS4 to support every PCI card like Windows does.

If it's just a fairly standard PPC board, why doesn't it run something faster than a 900mhz G4?

What standard PPC boards ? Only a few PPC board makers exist and they are either a direct competitor (Pegasos from Genesi) or don't give help to commercial OS efforts (Apple, Linux is ok for them, Amiga OS is not). AFAIK, other PPC boards are either in development or just don't exist. And offcourse there aren't enough resources to support a wide range of different PPC mobo's and chipsets.

[Morley]

Gojirax wrote:
Hi,

I'm returning to the Amiga scene after a few years, and I've read a little about the A1, but I don't have a LOT of time to surf the web lately like I used to.

What is the purpose of the A1? Is it in ANY way related to the classic Amiga?

Who is developing it?

What software/hardware does it already support?

Is it just a Power PC Linux box, or will it run Classic Amiga OS's? (3.1, 3.5, 3.9?) or is it just slated to run 4.0? (Or only a specific flavor of Linux? Will it run Red Hat etc?)

What kind of hardware expansions are supported on it?

If it's just a fairly standard PPC board, why doesn't it run something faster than a 900mhz G4?

Thanks in advance for your time,
Jack

Uh-oh, this is gonna start a flame-war :-)

The Amiga1 is a quite regular PPC board, if you can call a PPC board regular. It can only run OS4 or Linux. OS3.x is possible through emulation (WinUAE).

However, OS4 has built in 68k emulation that appears to work invisibly, allowing you to run old wb-friendly apps.

Anyhow, you might also want to check out the Pegasos, which features MorphOS, a Amiga "compatible" OS

/me hides


-edit-

WinUAE on OS4? doh....

[Gojirax]

Thanks for the great input folks!

I'm surfing as we speak to find more answers for myself. I've read some articles on Intuitionbase and even read through the OS4 Pre-release install instructions.

I found the section on compatibility. Very nice. As a PC user, I only buy name brand expansions anyway. (IE: ATI or Creative Labs.) I can't stand to waste time with unknown hardware, so the fact that the A1 supports Creative Labs (Audigy in particular) and ATI Radeon cards is a HUGE plus for me heheh.

Yeah, I guess that question about "Regular PPC boards" wasn't well thought out heh.  :-D

[seer]

No probs... BTW,

For your daily red news go here
For your daily blue news go here
For your daily flamewars go here
For everything, well I guess amiga.org is very good ;-) (Kidding wayne, about the flamewars)

Stick around, you'll soon understand the blue and red meaning

Disclaimer;
Just joking (sort off) about the mentioned sites, no harm ment.  :-D

[Acill]

Gojirax wrote:
Hi,

I'm returning to the Amiga scene after a few years, and I've read a little about the A1, but I don't have a LOT of time to surf the web lately like I used to.

What is the purpose of the A1? Is it in ANY way related to the classic Amiga?

Who is developing it?

What software/hardware does it already support?

Is it just a Power PC Linux box, or will it run Classic Amiga OS's? (3.1, 3.5, 3.9?) or is it just slated to run 4.0? (Or only a specific flavor of Linux? Will it run Red Hat etc?)

What kind of hardware expansions are supported on it?

If it's just a fairly standard PPC board, why doesn't it run something faster than a 900mhz G4?

Thanks in advance for your time,
Jack

Be sure to also check out the Pegasos II system. We are much more compatable and faster then the A1 is. The Pegasos DOES NOT run OS4 but it runs MorphOS. MorphOS will wun just about any system friendly classic app as well as apps made for it. OS4 applications dont run on it, but many of the apps released are also released for MorphOS. The hardware is faster and more modern. We are close to 1/2 the price too. Go to www.morphzone.org for an amiga.org like site all about the pegasos and check out www.pegasosppc.com for the home page of the hardware and links to resellers.

[Argo]

Be sure to check out IntuitionBase.com for some good info on the AmigaOne models and Amiga OS 4.

[Paul]

What is the purpose of the A1? Is it in ANY way related to the classic Amiga?

Hardware wise, No, it's not related. Considering the last efforts of C= were back around 1991, that's probably a good thing.

The fact that the core Amiga OS (re-written to work on PPC processors) works on the AmmigaOne hardware DOES make it related, as far as I can tell.

I've copied over backups of programs from my A4000 onto my AmigaOne and they have run just by clicking the icon (FinalWriter), or with a little bit of editing (Thor). Even Voyager (the browser) runs quite well, although rumor has it that Vaporware will not develop anything for OS4. Too bad, Voyager is nicer than IBrowse, IMHO. But that doesn't mean there won't be a PPC browser for OS4.

The fact that these Amiga programs run very nicely on an AmigaOne tells me that the AmigaOne hardware must somehow be "related" to the Amiga, too. (contrary to some of the implications above)

When the micro A1 is released, it might well take care of the price issue mentioned by one of the Peg fans above.

BTW, my A1 is running with a Radeon 9100 and Soundblaster Live 5.1 very nicely. It's at least as stable as my patched and kludged '060 A4000, and generally faster, even though the OS is still beta (pre-release).

Paul

[rayt]

Be sure to also check out the Pegasos II system. We are much more compatable and faster then the A1 is. The Pegasos DOES NOT run OS4 but it runs MorphOS.

Yeah but the topic is "A1 questions".

[KennyR]

Well, fair's fair. The A1 and the Pegasos both share the aspect of being absolutely, totally unrelated to the original Amiga in any way.

[Gojirax]

Well, I'm working on picking up an A1200 to soup up for my fix of "Classic" Amiga fun. (Plus I have a CD32 and A500 in the closet still.)

I'm mostly interested in the "NG" system that the largest community of classic Amiga users/developers are moving to.

Heck, if they all moved to Macs, I'd move with em.

As far as the A1 was concerned, I wanted something close to an Amiga that didn't require Windows to use.

90% of what is done on my PC's by my kids and myself is either playing games on NeoPets or Cartoon Network (So Flash and Java are a must.) or writing music with Cakewalk. (I used to use ProTools on the Mac until I lost my copy.)

So if I can surf, do Email, play online games and write music... then 90% of my Computing needs are met. (The other 10% would be playing Blizzard games like Diablo2 and Warcraft III.

I've bookmarked the sites that have been linked in this thread with info about PegasOS and A1. (Didn't MorphOS start out on Classis Amiga?)

Thanks again, great info here!
Jack

[Paul_Gadd]

To follow the name, the AmigaONE board is the only route (despite is being a overpriced POS board), MorphOS has got a better priced board but if you want to follow the Amiga name then that is not an option.

[BigBenAussie]

90% of what is done on my PC's by my kids and myself is either playing games on NeoPets or Cartoon Network (So Flash and Java are a must.) or writing music with Cakewalk. (I used to use ProTools on the Mac until I lost my copy.)

So if I can surf, do Email, play online games and write music... then 90% of my Computing needs are met. (The other 10% would be playing Blizzard games like Diablo2 and Warcraft III.

Is that all you want?
Sorry you're SOL on practically everything you mentioned.
There's no java support yet.....although there's a Jamiga effort.
There's definitely no Flash player, and even if there was it'd be clunky like Linux.
There's no Cakewalk port, but there are sure to be some 68k midi composition programs out there somewhere. Maybe someone's working on a PPC one right now. The only music related thing I've heard about for the PPC is Audio Evolution, and I may be wrong, but it looked to me like a sample based program.
Diablo II and Warcraft III??? These are recentish PC games right? So its unlikely there'll be a port unless they are released as open source.

There is some hope on the Flash and Java side although nothing has been announced. AmigaDE is a technology being pushed by AmigaInc that is certain to make its way to OS4 at some point. The AmigaDE tech is based on(or perhaps rebranded) Tao's Intent technology. Tao also has a browser called Qi, and Qi is said to feature Java and Flash functionality(at least its a stated goal on their website). Now, if AmigaDE is going to make it to OS4 it stands to reason that Qi will also. But there have been no announcements to confirm this. Genesi will probably buy the tech from Tao for use in MorphOS, in the end as well, if AmigaInc get out of making the port of AmigaDE that a recent court case was about. Yes, its complex and its not black and white, but red and blue. ;-)

But don't hold your breath for any of these things. You could be waiting for a long time.

[Jope]

Paul wrote:
The fact that these Amiga programs run very nicely on an AmigaOne tells me that the AmigaOne hardware must somehow be "related" to the Amiga, too. (contrary to some of the implications above)

I'm sorry, but you figured wrong. That's all done in software via emulation.. The AmigaOne isn't related to the Amiga hardware in any way.

[Jupp3]

There's definitely no Flash player

There definitely IS Flash player.

BUT it sure can't play all the flash files out there (especially games)

But some flash files (Such as Happy Tree Friends) it can play, more or less...

Audio Evolution for OS4 (and ProStationAudio for MOS) are both "multichannel mixing programs". Of course such programs are VERY useful to any composer, but they won't replace a midi sequencer.

About old Amiga sequencers, Bars & Pipes is being developed for morphos, and I think that OctaMED soundstudio is also still under development (Well it isn't sequencer, but a VERY good tracker with midi support)

And of course, then there's also completely new ProTracker being worked on...