Amy Developer Motherboard.

[Troika]

Dear Amigans,
Back in 2007 at TroikaNG, we changed our product development goals. The system codenamed Prometheus/Amy05 had taken us into one direction, grown and as time progressed became costly, and slightly dated with regard to the technology used.

A new project, codename Athena, was commenced. This was a lower cost system which provided a more effective price point for the current markets. The initial hardware was developed and tested towards during 2007.

We are very pleased at this point in time to present a sneak preview of the updated design of this new motherboard designed for Amiga OS4x.    The focus is a low cost entry level system designed to kick around Os4, and maybe do some developer work.  Our new series will be known as the Amy Developer.

In addition we have an active development roadmap around a higher higher performance core, with a 1 GHz processor and numerous enabling technologies.

Since this is a sneak peak we won’t reveal all the specifications only that she can compete with other motherboards running at speed of 500-700 mhz. The feature set includes USB 2.0  high speed, Gigabit Ethernet, SATA and support for DDR RAM (DIMMS).



Graphics are provided by an off the shelf PCI card as this provides the most cost effective solution, to you, the end user.

Customer feedback is important to us.  We realize that in the past, our announcements have not always been universally well received. It is because of this that we have spent the best part of the last two years developing and testing our system before announcing the product.

We look forward to hearing your opinions.
Also we are running a Poll on AW and could use your input
http://amigaworld.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=28102&forum=33&poll_id=744

[mikrucio]

1ghz? sigh....PCI VIDEO WTF? sigh....DDR RAM sigh...
you wont get my money.. not with decade old Hardware.

i KNOW cost is a problem for small hardware developers. and this will never change... but seriously... rethink.

[FluffyMcDeath]

Would they get your money if they provided today's technology in two years time at five times the price? Would that be better?

Go buy a PC if you want a PC.

[hooligan]

You are doing this as Amy is, quote, slightly dated with regard to the technology used?

You out of your mind?

[keropi]

maybe it will be cheap? and not 500-600eur

[Trev]

We could encourage Hyperion to support OS4 on IBM's bleeding edge Power series of systems, but the cheapest models start at $5500. Not exactly cost-effective for hobbyists.

Or, we could live with the mediocre performance of the Cell/BE PPU, port OS4 to the PS3, and be done with it. PS3s aren't exactly rare or at risk of going out of production any time soon. ;-)

[utri007]

From amigaworld, price would be 300-350$ or 227€

Not that bad if that ever appear, I would denifinetly buy one.

[paolone]

1ghz? sigh....PCI VIDEO WTF? sigh....DDR RAM sigh... you wont get my money.. not with decade old Hardware.

I think people too often look to hardware specs first, and then don't consider what those specs may produce as final results. A DDR1 memory driven architecture with a 1 GHz CPU won't be slower than a DDR2 with a 667 MHz CPU and, maybe I'm wrong, but I don't remember of other Amiga architectures using DDR2 or DDR3, apart my AROS machine (that's not 'exactly' an Amiga for most people).

The problem with ageing hardware, however, is not efficiency but ease to buy. I can't understand why Amiga hardware developer still rely on damn PCI video cards: they are difficult to spot, technologically dead and more costy than the lower-price, entry level average PCI Express card. Even AGP is dead. Maybe creating the logic for a PCI to PCI-E bridge, needed to drive communications between CPU and video would add a cost, and maybe is not feasible, but users would be really more happy if they could afford a 40 euro Radeon HD2400/3400/4500 card and place it into their Amiga systems.

Not counting how difficult is to spot a value DDR1 module of 512MB or 1GB size.

[Darrin]

I'm not sure what you mean by "hard to spot" PCI graphics cards when all the major retailers (including Walmart) have bucket loads of brand new ones cluttering up the shelves.

[zylesea]

1ghz? sigh....PCI VIDEO WTF? sigh....DDR RAM sigh...
you wont get my money.. not with decade old Hardware.

i KNOW cost is a problem for small hardware developers. and this will never change... but seriously... rethink.

I don't read there anything about a 1 GHz cpu. It is written there:

in addition we have an active development roadmap around a higher higher performance core, with a 1 GHz processor and numerous enabling technologies.

There is stated in addition. I.e. it is *not* the board they ask about now, but an *additonal* vapour ware project.

The current vapour board is specified as:

Since this is a sneak peak we won’t reveal all the specifications only that she can compete with other motherboards running at speed of 500-700 mhz. The feature set includes USB 2.0 high speed, Gigabit Ethernet, SATA and support for DDR RAM (DIMMS).

... and then the use this silly 3rd person female talk for a motherboard which should be neutral gender.

Troika: Don't come again with your vapor ware bla bla if you wanna be taken serious, but with a *real* product.
Then, but not a mintue b4, we may talk.

[ChaosLord]

Has Troika ever released a manufactured product before?

[itix]

So... what OS this board is capable to run?

[paolone]

I'm not sure what you mean by "hard to spot" PCI graphics cards when all the major retailers (including Walmart) have bucket loads of brand new ones cluttering up the shelves.

Are you sure they aren't PCI-EXPRESS ones?

The day you'll plug a PCI EXPRESS card in a PCI slot and you'll succeed running it, please call me and tell me how you did. Until that, it's impossible, and PCI cards (not the easy-to-spot-since-there-are-loads-of-them PCI Express ones) are now rare, obsolete and pricey.

[EvilGuy]

I had to re-read the post because I thought I was reading something out of 2001.

DDR RAM is horrendously expensive round these parts and the only time I've seen PCI video cards in the last five years has been on EBay.

Good luck to Troika, but spending good $$$ on something based around ten-year old technology (and its not a "real" Amiga!) is foolhardy.

They'd be better off picking some tech which is expensive today and working on making that function properly so that in two years+ time when they finally have a prototype then the rest of us could afford the hardware..

[Darrin]

Are you sure they aren't PCI-EXPRESS ones?

The day you'll plug a PCI EXPRESS card in a PCI slot and you'll succeed running it, please call me and tell me how you did. Until that, it's impossible, and PCI cards (not the easy-to-spot-since-there-are-loads-of-them PCI Express ones) are now rare, obsolete and pricey.

Absolutely.  I do know the difference.

Is there a chance that what you think are PCI-E cards are actually PCI cards?  You'll have a hell of a time trying to fit a PCI card into your PCI-E slot.  If you do manage it then give me a call and tell me how you did it otherwise it's impossible you know.  

PCI cards are still everywhere here and are extremely cheap, unlike the more expensive PCI-E cards.  Places like Walmart love them because almost everyone has a spare PCI slot in their PC and most of their customers probably don't know the difference between PCI, AGA and PCI-Express (although they do sell all of them online).