A sad day

[Speelgoedmannetje]

@Iggy

Unprofessional is EXACTLY the term I'd use for the statement from Amiga on the Lake. In particular the sentance:



These sentiments wreaks of personal anger and bitterness rather than some cool level headed words communicating a sound business decision. I'm not saying running an Amiga retail business is easy but don't make this personal!! A simple statement about the "ceasing of all distribution of A-EON and Amigakit products due to an unforeseen conflict of interests" would have been more than sufficient.

I had the same thought but on this part:

The decision we made is grounded in our experience during the last 8 months in regards to both companies.

What experience? What happened? Why do you not want to reiterate the grounds of your decision? Do you just want us to agree with you because '8 months of experience'? This kind of self-righteous yet 'mysterious' and not wanting to state facts -attitude makes me very wary.

[Iggy]

I had the same thought but on this part:

What experience? What happened? Why do you not want to reiterate the grounds of your decision? Do you just want us to agree with you because '8 months of experience'? This kind of self-righteous yet 'mysterious' and not wanting to state facts -attitude makes me very wary.

Interesting logic, but for business, a bit flawed.
I don't know about the Netherlands, but in the US and Great Britain we don't always have the latitude to air our grievances.
It isn't "mysterious" or an "attitude", its reticence to detail exactly what during the '8 months of experience' put you off.

Personally, I'd call that consideration.
But, I'm sure you'll all harp on this to the point that some of it will come out.
In the meanwhile, we in the US just have to buy from Matt directly (which HAS had its complications), and I for one will still buy what I can from AOTL.

As I've said before, its our problem, not the Europeans.
But hey, after Britex, does a British company not playing well on the world stage surprise any of you?

I'm only hoping OUR government doesn't become that stupid.
After all, it IS a global market.

[klx300r]

gonna be tough to keep your mission statement with only ACube products since last I checked finding a new Sam460 or AOne 500 is pretty hard to come by.
They can do what Amigakit did and be a reseller for the Vampire/ Apollo Team though unless it could emulate PPC on the FPGA their mission statement is still gonna be hard to keep

[djomre]

I never understood all the self-destructive infighting in the Amiga community, going back decades it seems. You'd think with such tiny market share overall, everyone would kind of be on the same team?  
 
 Pipe dream I guess.

[Iggy]

gonna be tough to keep your mission statement with only ACube products since last I checked finding a new Sam460 or AOne 500 is pretty hard to come by.
They can do what Amigakit did and be a reseller for the Vampire/ Apollo Team though unless it could emulate PPC on the FPGA their mission statement is still gonna be hard to keep

Actually, it really sucks not having a US distributor for AmigaKit, Aeon or their product, since product returns now mean transatlantic shipping for US customers.

That being said, Aaron hasn't completely dropped support for X5000 related hardware, I ordered a cpu cooler/fan combo from him yesterday.
And he still has memory and drives in stock.
Its hardware he has to rely on Matt and company for that he's not carrying.
Which tells me that at some point Leaman Computing dropped the ball.

I never understood all the self-destructive infighting in the Amiga community, going back decades it seems. You'd think with such tiny market share overall, everyone would kind of be on the same team?  
 
 Pipe dream I guess.

Hmm, same team...
I use legacy hardware and more than one NG OS.
Sled dogs fighting in a whirling ball have more team spirit, because when they're done fighting they're off and running. :hammer:

[smerf]

All I have to say is for the past year I have been looking for the ACA500 plus for my Amiga 500. Now Amigakit USA had it listed by one method (internet search) but when you went there and tried to find it, it acts like it was never made, yet on Internet search it took me right to Amigakit, finally I gave up and went to Individual Computers where I bought one. Now A-eon is another story, why should I buy a computer for that price when Amiga Forever probably runs faster and better on a gaming computer. Ok so it isn't a real computer, but Amiga Forever has more backing then Aeon, and you don't need a special computer to run stuff on. Put quite plainly I can't afford to buy a 3000 buck computer that runs slower then a modern PC and I am an avid Amiga fan, and even worked for Commodore selling Amiga's because I believed in them, but at least they were affordable.

[eliyahu]

All I have to say is for the past year I have been looking for the ACA500 plus for my Amiga 500. Now Amigakit USA had it listed by one method (internet search) but when you went there and tried to find it, it acts like it was never made, yet on Internet search it took me right to Amigakit, finally I gave up and went to Individual Computers where I bought one. Now A-eon is another story, why should I buy a computer for that price when Amiga Forever probably runs faster and better on a gaming computer. Ok so it isn't a real computer, but Amiga Forever has more backing then Aeon, and you don't need a special computer to run stuff on. Put quite plainly I can't afford to buy a 3000 buck computer that runs slower then a modern PC and I am an avid Amiga fan, and even worked for Commodore selling Amiga's because I believed in them, but at least they were affordable.

fair points, but i should point out that, no, despite belief to the contrary, a modern gaming PC with UAE does not run AOS4 faster than a X5000. oh, and it's not even $2,000, let alone $3,000. the A1222 should be much more reasonable, though.

that said -- the vampire is awfully hard to beat these days. if i had a spare amiga, that'd be my choice.

-- eliyahu

[Iggy]

fair points, but i should point out that, no, despite belief to the contrary, a modern gaming PC with UAE does not run AOS4 faster than a X5000. oh, and it's not even $2,000, let alone $3,000. the A1222 should be much more reasonable, though.

that said -- the vampire is awfully hard to beat these days. if i had a spare amiga, that'd be my choice.

-- eliyahu

Well said, if you can get one. The only system I'd have that would work would be an A2000, and I've seen that done with an adapter card to the cpu slot for some reason.

And I don't think the X5000 is that high priced either.
OS4.1 under emulation is more of a "try it and see if you like it" solution.
And once MorphOS 3.10 is released, well...I can't run that via emulation.

So regardless of this thread, I'm still going to eventually have to go to Matt with my hat in my hand.

Besides, I really want to run the NG OS' with a Radeon HD 7770 or an R9 270X, not emulating a legacy RTG card.
And both OS4 and MorphOS should eventually support the same audio and video cards, so a tri-boot system with Linux will be possible.

[JimmiG]

Well said, if you can get one. The only system I'd have that would work would be an A2000, and I've seen that done with an adapter card to the cpu slot for some reason.

And I don't think the X5000 is that high priced either.
OS4.1 under emulation is more of a "try it and see if you like it" solution.
And once MorphOS 3.10 is released, well...I can't run that via emulation.

So regardless of this thread, I'm still going to eventually have to go to Matt with my hat in my hand.

Besides, I really want to run the NG OS' with a Radeon HD 7770 or an R9 270X, not emulating a legacy RTG card.
And both OS4 and MorphOS should eventually support the same audio and video cards, so a tri-boot system with Linux will be possible.

I think I get about 30 - 60% of the X5000 in terms of raw CPU performance running AmigaOS 4.1 under emulation on my Ryzen 1800X desktop. Maybe similar to the A1222?

As you mention there are other limitations. No hardware compositing means scrolling, animations etc. are jerky and slow, making web browsing painful and watching videos impossible. Also, only ~500 MB memory can be made available, even when running the emulation on a 64-bit OS. It's by no means the "full" AmigaOS 4 experience. More like a "demo/trial version".

However since I already own a ~$1000, 8-core desktop system with 16 GB of RAM and 8 GB VRAM, I would never spend twice that for half the clockspeed, a quarter of the cores and a 4 years old GPU. The A1222 however looks very interesting to me as a secondary/hobby system, while still using my main PC for more compute heavy tasks and gaming.

[Acill]

I wish I wasn't going to be gone here in another couple hours and not having Internet with this happening. Let me say this though before I leave. I think I'm one of the most avid and longest continuous Amiga owner and supporters here in the US. I'm definitely in the top 10 being  an owner since release of the 1000. I've been both for and against many of the shifts in the scene, I've put countless amounts of my personal time and money into the spread of Amiga awareness. I've helped out those wanting hardware and repairs done often well below what it costs me to do them for just because I love the platform and the community we all are. Matthew and Trevor are both great people and are doing this for all of us, not to screw anyone over. Running a store costs money, trust me I just closed mine after not getting much in terms of sales through it. The problem I see is the price of this machine. The x5000 is way to high, and unfortunately the cost to produce them in the low numbers they are is also high as a result. If a lower entry model isn't introduced this will fail and continue to fail as new high end machines come out instead of more entry models with realistic prices. Look at the smaller machines no longer made, they sold out, look at classic Amiga, the 500 sold millions over the 1000 because it was priced lower, the 1200 sold well above the numbers of the 4000 and so on. You need to get the lower end model out so you can generate sales to fund the way forward! Get real Matt and Trevor. I want an NG Amiga and even I can't afford to spend that kind of money on a machine like that. It's not realistic to make a machine that the OS and software can't even take advantage of.

[klx300r]

@Acill

hey Paul I think you missed the point of this thread.

[Arnuph1s]

I'm with Acill on the whole X5000 price thing but what we are talking about here is a new USA vendor of NG Amiga stuff who has pretty much thrown in the towel in less than a year due to some falling out with A-EON and Amigakit. Having had the pleasure of meeting both Trevor and Matthew at Amiwest I know both to be genuine stand up guys who love the Amiga with a passion. So I find it hard to believe they would be the aggressor in whatever happened here.

I think AOTL may just have been premature since the stock of 'complete' X5000s doesn't seem to be that high based on the original cases being out of stock and the black keyboards in short supply. Perhaps they should have waited until the A1222 came out and the boards available in large numbers before beginning such a venture.

I do wish AOTL continued success though and hope selling other Amiga-related stuff keeps them afloat.

[Iggy]

I think I get about 30 - 60% of the X5000 in terms of raw CPU performance running AmigaOS 4.1 under emulation on my Ryzen 1800X desktop. Maybe similar to the A1222?

As you mention there are other limitations. No hardware compositing means scrolling, animations etc. are jerky and slow, making web browsing painful and watching videos impossible. Also, only ~500 MB memory can be made available, even when running the emulation on a 64-bit OS. It's by no means the "full" AmigaOS 4 experience. More like a "demo/trial version".

However since I already own a ~$1000, 8-core desktop system with 16 GB of RAM and 8 GB VRAM, I would never spend twice that for half the clockspeed, a quarter of the cores and a 4 years old GPU. The A1222 however looks very interesting to me as a secondary/hobby system, while still using my main PC for more compute heavy tasks and gaming.

The only problem with that compromise is you get similar performance to your emulated system, but it is more affordable and you get video support.
I'm just not interested in using a cpu with a crippled fpu.

I'm with Acill on the whole X5000 price thing but what we are talking about here is a new USA vendor of NG Amiga stuff who has pretty much thrown in the towel in less than a year due to some falling out with A-EON and Amigakit. Having had the pleasure of meeting both Trevor and Matthew at Amiwest I know both to be genuine stand up guys who love the Amiga with a passion. So I find it hard to believe they would be the aggressor in whatever happened here.

I think AOTL may just have been premature since the stock of 'complete' X5000s doesn't seem to be that high based on the original cases being out of stock and the black keyboards in short supply. Perhaps they should have waited until the A1222 came out and the boards available in large numbers before beginning such a venture.

I do wish AOTL continued success though and hope selling other Amiga-related stuff keeps them afloat.

Who knows if the limited supply of X5000s was the only (or even the primary) reason?
It hasn't been stated, but whether Trevor or Matt are stand up guys or not, the supply issues, delays, pricing and marketing schemes are completely bizarre.

As I've said before, its our Spinal Tap moment, or "(Our) appeal has become more selective". :hammer:

[eliyahu]

@thread

there's an article on the situation over at amitopia quoting various 'sources' on the situation. as always, without named sources, take this with a grain of salt, but it would certainly line up with the few available facts....

http://amitopia.com/amigaone-x5000-turbulence-in-the-amigaland/

-- eliyahu

[F0LLETT]

@thread

"take this with a grain of salt"

-- eliyahu

Indeed.

[Acill]

Maybe I've missed the point, but I don't think AOTL is pointing the finger fairly here as well. Sure a new dealer gave up, but my point t of pricing remains true. There's no room to make any money on these new systems. That must change or more of this will continue. That's a fact that can't be overlooked.