Market research for new PowerPC system

[dammy]

The first production run will be about 500 units. This will be used to fund the next and so on. Well, that's going to be the way, unless I manage to get an investor with huge pockets and order 10k units at once... (unlikely given the current situation).

If you think that porting AmigaOS and MorphOS to ARM would be of benefit just for a single motherboard, then I think you got this on a wrong basis. It would be the start for many nice things, eg. eventually, one might just sell AmigaOS-loaded Beagleboards, or sth like that. The potential is big. Anyway, you know, if the PowerPC thing doesn't gather enough interest, I'd just as well try my luck on ARM.

Konstantinos

500 minus hold back for warranty replacement of say 50 at a bare minimum would be 450.  Don't think I would risk that much money on either porting a OS to it or actual manufacturing of it unless there was a signed contract for the rest.  Worst of all, what if there is a major flaw or bug in the chips like we have seen in the past PPC systems?  And they do have issues as we have seen posted over the years.

From what I have seen so far of what the business plan looks like, I'd run in the opposite direction as fast I could unless this is popcorn money that can be throw away with little concern.  ARM would be a better option, let Genesi do the heavy lifting on the A9 Dual core that is coming out in six months and pay for whatever ports you want from Amigaland.  I can think of two Open Source OSs in Amigaland that could use a archangel that are moving to ARM.

[dammy]

@Dammy

You know it's posts like this that make me want to start this sooner than later. So far, in just one day of a post, I've received ~40 mails of interest. I've set a milestone, end of October to see if I'll manage to surpass 500. And I don't think you know what "profitable" business means. If I manage to make even 1 euro out of every board, that will be a profitable business. Stupid, but profitable. In truth I plan to have a sane profit, if only to be able to fund the next production batch. This is too much hassle to be a one-off production. And it's not that I would need it anyway, I'm doing quite ok doing enterprise and embedded applications so far.

But enough words from me. If you don't believe me, that's respected. I'd love to prove you wrong though and I can only do it with actions (building the board), and not words.

Konstantinos

I had the exact same feeling and did go forward but in a smaller way then you did.  I had to try, even though it failed, it was a good thing for me.  Best of luck to you.  Sometimes one has to walk down that path to learn.

[markos]

500 minus hold back for warranty replacement of say 50 at a bare minimum would be 450. Don't think I would risk that much money on either porting a OS to it or actual manufacturing of it unless there was a signed contract for the rest. Worst of all, what if there is a major flaw or bug in the chips like we have seen in the past PPC systems? And they do have issues as we have seen posted over the years.

That's a reasonable argument. Well, As far as the MPC8610 and 8640D go, they're not really "new" chips, and most bugs have been fixed. But it does hold as an argument with the P1022, which is not even out yet (Q3/Q4 2010). Well, I can't say much in this case. I hope the producer does not withhold any hidden info -like the cache coherency in the 5121e chip) and the prototypes are hopefully to find any error seen in the chips early enough -yes, there will be prototypes

[kolla]

Maybe those who dont give a damn about PowerPC could just STFU?

[dammy]

Maybe those who dont give a damn about PowerPC could just STFU?

I didn't see this thread flagged as a PPC fanboy only thread.

[persia]

I'd consider a PPC board if it ran AMigaOS or Morphos and if it were the same price as a comparable Intel board.  The first is possible, the second is not.  I'm not at the stage of my life where I cant throw a thousand bucks at a hundred dollar board...

[markos]

@persia

I don't think that's going to happen, I'm sorry. The scales are just not the same. Even if I wanted to I couldn't sell a PowerPC board at the same price levels as eg. an Asus motherboard -and neither could anyone except Freescale and IBM themselves who will not do that. Go over at mouser.com for example or some other parts supplier and check the prices of the PowerPC cpus there. It's just prohibitive, and there are only a few options to choose from to build a decent board at prices affordable by most people and not just Telcos/Defense companies.

[kolla]

I didn't see this thread flagged as a PPC fanboy only thread.

Maybe you didnt read the title for this thread? :hammer:

[kolla]

I'd consider a PPC board if it ran AMigaOS or Morphos and if it were the same price as a comparable Intel board.  The first is possible, the second is not. I'm not at the stage of my life where I cant throw a thousand bucks at a hundred dollar board...

And because you cant afford it, you have to post the same rant over and over again? What are you trying to accomplish? Magical summoning of MorphOS for x86? Or drop dead cheap PowerPC mobos?

(Btw, you can get the latter by buying for example a Bubba Two (google it) and adding a mini-PCI graphics card, for example there's one with ATI Rage XL. Presto... an el cheapo "desktop" PowerPC based system (333MHz e300c3), with 256MB RAM, gigEther, SATA, fast USB etc.)

[the_leander]

Maybe you didnt read the title for this thread? :hammer:

Don't worry - it's been added to the tags now so that no one will be in any doubt!

[Golem!dk]

of the three OS's you've pointed to, only one (AROS) could actually use the system due to the dualcore nature of the proposed system. The other two would have to leave one core completely idle (so far as I'm aware neither MorphOS nor AOS are SMP capable).

You mean AROS running hosted on one core? or did someone add support SMP recently?

[yakumo9275]

@markos, will your design work constitute more than the existing reference design? or are you basically going to re-fab the reference design from freescale and sell it on?

[the_leander]

You mean AROS running hosted on one core?

Yes. Sorry I wasn't clearer.

 

or did someone add support SMP recently?

I figured that'd be more icaros territory though Dammy might be able to tell you one way or t'other.

[markos]

Which reference design? MPC8610's developer platform? MPC8640D? P1022? No, it's going to be a from-scratch design -of course following the guidelines set by the reference design and specs. Refabricating a reference design is not the cheapest solution, as to many components are used, which are not needed by the end user.

[Golem!dk]

Yes. Sorry I wasn't clearer.

I figured that'd be more icaros territory though Dammy might be able to tell you one way or t'other.

Ok, icaros is still aros, or did you mean to write anubis?

[persia]

It's a very small market, the universe of Amiga users probably wouldn't fill a large hotel ballroom, a PPC Mac Mini port of Amiga OS 4 and Morphos would fill any conceivable demand at a price that you couldn't match. In away that's the dilemma that Hyperion and  the Morphos Team face, developing a PPC MacMini port would put the OS back in the affordable range at the cost of essentially killing all other alternatives.

Would I try a PPC Mac Mini version of Morphos or AmigaOS 4?  In a heartbeat....