Status report on AmigaOS 4.2 development

[wawrzon]

Ben H, assuming it's him, has always been willing to argue with those not so keen on OS4 but getting an answer about something like the netbook has never yielded an answer.

because he has no answer that would satisfy you, man! get over with it.

[wawrzon]

AW staff has openly encouraged users of the account to sign their posts for reasons of credibility. They have obviously chosen not to.

#6

whoever the guy is he doesnt seem to be a coder. rather a guy who knows to express himself in such a way, that it would be difficult to pin him down on something he seems to be suggesting.

[wawrzon]

So i feel that acube has given us better pricve/performance over the years. And probably will to if people support them.

how do you want to support them to give us a better price/performance ratio? with money?

[wawrzon]

well if you really wanted a system capable of running AOS4.x, you ciuld always support a-cube by actually buying a SAM system.

can buying it second hand qualify as "support"? will that have an influence on their price/performance, what do you think?

[wawrzon]

If you read specs of Sam Flex or any other Sam boards, you find out that there ar lots of weird features, wich doesn't have any use with average Amiga hobbyist.

Sam Flex :
•2 integrated Ethernet 10/100 ports
•Up to 4 serial ports
•2 I2C interfaces
•SPI interfaces
•64 pin for I/O General Purpose
•FPGA Lattice XP with 80 pin I/O expansion connector

Sam 460 is even more weird.

If ACube could make mobo just for Amiga hobbyists, it could be much cheaper.

i agree, with the whole post, only the actually sane conclusion looks flawed in context of what actually happens. this, because there is apparently a motherboard made entirely for amiga hobbyists and not only is it much more expensive, but also contains a number of unsupported or not necessary devices, most prominently the x-mos part. that aside, it doesnt seem that the raw computing power scales along the price here, so sorry, i dont trust that we can do anything about the price/performance factor, whether we find ways of support or not.

[wawrzon]

Again, though, how exactly are we supposed to do that? MorphOS I can try by picking up a used Mac at the local recycle center or public school for beer money (one that will, if I turn out not to like MorphOS, serve perfectly well for running OS9 and old MECC games) and burning a live CD; there's no such comparable option for OS4. (Correct me if I'm missing something, but) In order to give OS4 a shot, I'd have to drop $500-900 on a board (which does at least tend to come with the OS,) more for a PSU, hard drive, RAM, mouse, and keyboard at least (that's assuming OS4 supports the onboard Silicon Motion audio/video?) That's an investment of up to $1100 just to try the thing! See the problem here?

I would honestly be 100% open to giving OS4 a shot if there were any reasonably accessible way to give it a try and find out if I like it before blowing that kind of money on a system, but there's just not.

that might exactly be a reason not to provide a demo version and not support any cheaply available hardware. if you need to invest considerable amount of money beforehand you will not easily give up, even if what you get wouldnt live to your expectations. a customer in such a situation tries to sit it through, convince himself that the product is not so bad and hope for the future improvements. especially if there is no return option, or it means even more stress and investments, like for instance high postal risks and costs.

[wawrzon]

You realize that you're describing Customer's Stockholm Syndrome here?

i knew it must have a name. i didnt know it to be a manifestation of stockholm syndrome, but it is widely taken advantage in marketing, that for sure. which is probably legitimate, but doasnt make it any more sympathetic. i must say also in this respect morphos team has choosen much more credible strategy.