Two New Full Systems Based on Sam440ep-Flex

[asymetrix]

any news about the 400MHz Limebook??...

I'm sure it would taste a bit bitter to some

[spirantho]

Trevor has already said he's working on future models with Varisys.
The gestation period for a new machine when you're a small team is in the region of 2-3 years, further complicated by things like the Xena - so I'd class having two machines released in the last two years as being current. If we were using ARM chips we'd still have the same development time more or less - we don't all want portables, after all; some of us still want desktops and that's mostly unexplored territory for ARM.

You have to admit that compared to the Dark Ages (i.e. between the end of the AmigaOne XE line and the arrival of the Sam), it's positively thriving. Nothing happened in those years hardware-wise. Now we only have two companies making new hardware, but that's still two more than we used to.

I don't count the netbook because we don't know anything except it's probably not new hardware.... this thread is about hardware.

[A1260]

do you also know who is this mysterious embedded industrial buyers of the sam hw are?..

[kedawa]

If I had the money for a SAM, I'd use it to start a bounty to get the hardware I already own supported by AROS.
I think that would be a far better investment.

[haywirepc]

For the record, I HAVE used a sam system belonging to a very dissapointed friend. He even offered to sell it to me at half the price he just paid for it but I passed, because I thought it was total ****.

As I recall, his was the 800mhz sam. It could not even play 720x480 videos without stuttering. Sorry but my phone can do that. What a joke.

These boards were too slow when they were first released HOW MANY YEARS AGO? The fact that they are still trying to sell THESE boards instead of producing modern spec hw speaks volumes Edited by moderator to remove personal attack portion of post.

[danbeaver]

Can you show us exactly what years did Hyperion add to the Amiga user base and by how much?  Showing nothing but a decline and the only hopes to increase the number of Amiga users is based on expensive hardware in a worsening world economy is check-mate IMO.  I have my doubts if there wasn't a embedded customer for the SAM boards if ACube would have ever produced anything for the Amiga past the first batch.  Hobby is one thing, but even a hobby there is a point of no return when no one will make hardware available for the hobby.

No one says, "It's over" until we say its over. "Was it over when the German's bombed Pearl Harbor?"

[spirantho]

What happened when you played the same video on a similar specced PC using the same software?
You really can't compare open source software on an 800MHZ machine against a dedicated h264 hardware decoder (which phones have).

Decoding modern video compression is a MUCH harder process than people realise, you just don't notice because PCs have so much CPU speed and phones have dedicated hardware.

If your friend bought a Sam expecting it to run videos he would have been disappointed with an 800Mhz anything.

[amigadave]

No one says, "It's over" until we say its over. "Was it over when the German's bombed Pearl Harbor?"

Germans?

That was a really long flight!  I did not know they had perfected "In Flight Refueling" back in the 1940's, or that the "Germans" had an Aircraft Carrier fleet in the Pacific.

[amigadave]

There are people willing to buy second hand Mac's and register MOS, even though in the grand scheme of things a MOS license is about 40% higher priced than an OEM copy of Windows.

This misconception keeps getting repeated in different forms on many different Amiga forum sites.

You need to update your knowledge of the current licensing costs for MorphOS3.1, since the price reduction that accompanied the release of the MorphOS3.0 version.

To celebrate the much anticipated release of  MorphOS 3.0, we are furthermore offering special three-tier pricing.  The prices for a keyfile are 111.11 EUR for one PowerBook G4 system, 79  EUR for one eMac, Mac mini G4, Pegasos I, Pegasos II or PowerMac G4, and  49 EUR for one EfikaPPC system.

That is a direct quote from the Official MorphOS website, and is dated June 8th, 2012.

When I checked earlier this evening, the OEM version of Windows7 Pro costs about $91 U.S. dollars, or 70.77 Euros.  The "Home" version of Windows7 is cheaper, but most people that know anything about computers don't want the stripped down "Home" version, which is why I used the Pro version.  I don't even know what the OEM price is for the "Home" version of Windows7, so maybe your "40% higher priced than an OEM copy of Windows" is accurate for one of the versions of MorphOS3.1, but certainly not for the 49 Euro Efika version and maybe not for the 79 Euro version for the G4 eMac, G4 MacMini, Pegasos 1 & 2, or G4 PowerMac.

Just thought I would update you and anyone else who is not aware of the current pricing for MorphOS3.1.

I hope that the users who did not register MorphOS in the past because they did not like the 150 Euro price tag that it had prior to version 2.5, will reconsider registering their MorphOS computers now, since the price to register has come down as much as 66% for some instances.  To make these prices even more attractive, consider that for the 9 updates that have been released since MorphOS2.0 was first released, not one of the updates has required additional license payment, and there are no plans in place that indicate that the MorphOS Dev. Team will ever charge for an update, though that is completely up to them and they can change their minds some time in the future if they wish.  9 updates and lots of new features at no additional charge, and no plans to charge for any of the future updates.  This is something that everyone should consider when they think about the possibility of registering MorphOS3.1.  It is a great deal and just keeps getting better with each new release.

I would not have brought up MorphOS3.1 in this thread, but just wanted to clear up a mistake made in an earlier post.  I now return this thread to it's regularly scheduled ......

[Duce]

I haven't paid more than $70 for Win 7 64 bit oem (Pro/Ultimate) since the day it came out, and Win 8 (assuming anyone wanted to use that mess, lol) will be cheaper yet.

WHS 2011 is $50, OEM.

Nice to see MOS coming down in price, though.  That also being said, OS4 is not cheap either.

[Digiman]

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.

The alternative certainly isn't the crap C=USA produced after C64x.

The point is AROS is the only possible future for Amiga because it is the only OS that runs on Intel i7. Intel i7 has been the ONLY way forward as a CPU choice for computers for the last 36 months or more. NOTHING else comes close to price/performance of an i7.

So if anyone is making a new Amiga OS it needs to be x86-64bit. Not Linux mint based crap on Commodore OS. And the hardware needs to abandon looking at ARM or PPC NOW! ARM is a low power CPU for phones sorry NOT a £500 computer AND PPC is a dead end, has been a dead end since G5 was abandoned by Apple, and for good reasons.  

So you need Hyperion and MOS to stop f**king about and get on with an x86 ports IMMEDIATELY because SAM or X1000 based computers are NOT Amigas. Like I told you all millions of times ONLY Commodore designed Amigas, these are just  PPC machines that run some obscure kooky OS that has nothing to do with Commodore. MOS is even worse, I puke every time I see an Apple logo, how can a Mac running MOS be anything like an Amiga, idiots argument that one!

So as it stands there is no Amiga, if you just want to avoid using crappy Windows and OSX bloatware rubbish then AROS is your only hope. I don't want a door stop performance 400mhz computer for £800 or a smelly old Mac that has zero support and hard to find replacement parts for repair as my 'Amiga' I'd rather have a beautiful (looks better than any sh*tty Mac) PB iXtreme cool white PC silently running AROS if there is no chance of a real Amiga computer being launched (which as it stands ONLY Natami is even close to being called a real Amiga).

If it needs UAE to run Cinemaware code then it is NOT Amiga anyway so END OF DISCUSSION IMO. Whether it is running AROS/MOS/OS4 doesn't make any of these computers more Amiga than the other, because NONE can be called Amiga in any real sense of the word. Doesn't matter if is says A-EON, Apple or Dell on the motherboard, without a Paula chip the machines themselves are NOT Amigas.

YMMV :pint:

[A1260]

Germans?

That was a really long flight!  I did not know they had perfected "In Flight Refueling" back in the 1940's, or that the "Germans" had an Aircraft Carrier fleet in the Pacific.

on the internet you learn new things every day....

[spirantho]

Yes, and it's all true. It has to be if it's on the internet. The internet does not lie.

[dammy]

For those too young, "It's over" quote is from a movie:

http://youtu.be/V8lT1o0sDwI

[A1260]

For those too young, "It's over" quote is from a movie:

http://youtu.be/V8lT1o0sDwI

young people hanging out on a amiga site... that's definitive stretching it a bit.

[dammy]

Trevor has already said he's working on future models with Varisys.
The gestation period for a new machine when you're a small team is in the region of 2-3 years, further complicated by things like the Xena - so I'd class having two machines released in the last two years as being current. If we were using ARM chips we'd still have the same development time more or less - we don't all want portables, after all; some of us still want desktops and that's mostly unexplored territory for ARM.

My reply was about any announcements with hard tech information which, to the best of my knowledge, has yet to appear.  Small mobos prototyping should never take 2-3 years if the ODM is worth a damn. ARM has the one advantage that there are plenty of designs out there that anyone can take advantage of and have dev boards ready to go for porting in the matter of months if not weeks. Look at what Genesi has done with ARM systems.  Once the A16 is released, there is your desktop worthy ARM.

You have to admit that compared to the Dark Ages (i.e. between the end of the AmigaOne XE line and the arrival of the Sam), it's positively thriving. Nothing happened in those years hardware-wise. Now we only have two companies making new hardware, but that's still two more than we used to.

I don't count the netbook because we don't know anything except it's probably not new hardware.... this thread is about hardware.

I will point out that this community was multiple times larger during those "Dark Ages."  Had Hyperion ported OS4 to Pegs earlier, I doubt the SAMs would have been offered.  So here we sit and the total population world wide is probably down in the mid 4 digits vs mid 5 digits ten years ago, if not higher.   Once herald Amiga fairs drew hundreds and now if a couple of dozen show up, it's called a success.  The constant adding of new OS4 core devs draws attention to the fact the OS4 core dev pool is constantly losing proven talent.  The only hope I see is if Trevor spends a whole lot of money on designing and building cheap and powerful PPC systems that he will probably never see a return of investment on.  If he has deep enough pockets for the Amiga charity, more power to him.  As far as ACube is concern, I don't know where they are going to go from here if their embedded customer needs the 400 series as it's CPU core.