Ease off bashing AmigaONE X1000?

[spirantho]

The incessantly negative attitude of many on A.org has definitely driven away a number of good members. If you look on places like AW.net where it's a much more friendly forum for all flavours, you'll probably find a number of members who used to frequent here.

Myself I hang around because I'm a fan of classic Amigas, and this is still the best place for that - I just wish there was more tolerance towards people who for whatever reason prefer AmigaOS4 to AROS or MOS for their NG kicks.

As it stands, it's not as bad right now as it used to be, but it's still pretty bad. As soon as I saw the thread about the X1000 (which is really good news as it allows a lot of people who want a top-end, purpose-built AmigaOS machine to get one - more Amigas, how can it be bad news?), I wondered how long it would be before someone unnecessarily posted a completely unhelpful, negative comment, and what was a really positive piece of news.

It was the third post.

Within the first five posts or so, someone had rated it with 1 star. Why? How can new hardware possibly be a BAD thing? If you don't want it - don't buy it.

I really wish this forum was truly open, but as long as there's this red vs. blue attitude, and as long as people fail to accept that their own choice may not equal somebody else's, it's not going to happen, and that's a real shame.

It would be so much nicer if people stuck to the "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all" axiom.

Just my 2c (as someone who has every AmigaOS from 1.3 to 4.1, and also MOS and AROS)

[spirantho]

Eliyahu, I think you have your work cut out for you before this forum can be called truly welcoming for all AmigaOS users.

It's unbelievable... the thing that draws the most criticism on an Amiga forum, is when somebody releases a new top end AmigaOS machine.

[spirantho]

It is the strategy that is critisized. And censoring everything will not solve anything. You cannot censor what people think and you cannot censor what people outside think. As soon as "Amigians" (AmigaOS user) get out and try to "sell" it they will get the same questions and wondering. And if they have no persuasive answers they will fail to win any new users. Or are the AmigaOS people happy with the situation?

I take your point, but I fail to see why people feel the need to criticise the strategy EVERY TIME OS4 is mentioned. An announcement of new stock of the X1000 is not the place for criticism of strategy.

What I "bashed" (I did not do that) was building new high-end (or better high-price) machines. I understood to a certain degree why Trevor created the X1000 (even though I personal think that "custom" systems have no chance in todays world) but why these two new machines? One as a replacement for X1000 (from comments it seems similar priced) and a new even more expensive. It would have made sense to offer a more advanced system in the midrange and a new better entry system and of course something for mobile but two new high-price systems? Amiga was a affordable good system at its time but now it is almost unpayable for most users. I think it is the completely wrong direction. To critisize that is valid. And as I said I talked to a number of ex-amiga developers (mostly former AmigaOS developers) and there was the red vs. blue bashing and similar only one reason, more important was that they lost trust in the future.

The high-end machine isn't for everyone, nor is it meant to be. There was a gap in the market for high-end, high-dollar AmigaOS computers. Trevor filled that gap.

I really can't see how that can be a bad thing. It's not like they stopped producing SAMs when the X1000 appeared - then I could understand people's frustration. But now you can get a nice little OS4 machine for not very much (certainly less than the original A500 in 1987), so what harm is there in producing the X1000? Why does it need to be yelled at every time it's mentioned? If you don't like it, that's fine - but people shouldn't keep repeating the same (usually false) arguments in threads that are announcements. Sure, open a different thread entitled "Is the X1000 a waste of money" or something - no problem with that. But this was a thread announcing the availability of them, and immediately the same old criticisms (some valid, some not) get wheeled out to rain on their parade.

It would just be so nice if the nay-sayers would let the people who choose to use AOS 4 celebrate good information without others trying to ruin it.

[spirantho]

I know of at least two of the OS4 developers that would like to see it ported to Mac hardware but he who must be obeyed Herr Fuhrer Hermans says no.

I'm invoking Godwin's Law here!

There are many good reasons for why they didn't support the Mac, and it's been covered at length before.

[spirantho]

There would be no bashing of x1000 if there was a cheap less than
200 Eur alternative on the AOS4 market like there is for Morphos ...

Even in the Commodore days, Amigas were considerably higher than that price for the low-end models. The only reason MorphOS is so cheap is because they're all mass-produced but obsolete second-hand models (and I mean that literally, not in a derogative sense).
Comparing Apples and Bananas again here.

[spirantho]

But there is a point, it would be perfectly possible to produce Sam440ep Flex level mobo and sell it less than 100€. It would require order minium 10000 mobos to get price that low. I belive that  440ep CPU is less than 15€

You're right in as much as you say you could get the 440 Flex mobo produced for less than 100 euros, but no way could it be sold for that.

You have to factor in:

Manufacturing cost
Hardware Development cost
Software Development cost
Profit (Acube aren't a charity)
Distribution cost
Taxes

Plus if they made 10000 of them it'd take years to sell out. The low demand for Amiga-like OSes isn't as much to do with prices as people think, otherwise MorphOS and particularly AROS users would massively outnumber AmigaOS 4 users.

Personally, I think 270 Euros for a Sam 440 Flex (the current price) is a good one, when you consider the quantities we're talking about.

[spirantho]

@takemehomegrandma

Actually, with reservations - I mostly agree with you.
I don't agree the 667MHz CPU is too weak, because my Sam440ep is a 600MHz machine and is great. Not going to win any speed demon awards, but I don't want it to - nor do I want to play 3D games (got a PS3 for that) or highdef videos (PS3 does that too).

But, that aside, we all wish that we could go back to those times. Back in those days, Apple were pumping cash into the PowerPC which meant that G4 CPUs could be had easily and cheaply, especially when the G5 came out. Hence the price of the Peg II was much lower considering the power it was.
The problem is that these days, PowerPC is still going and still healthy, but most of the development is in embedded CPUs, which require less power - hence the ones which do have the power (e.g. PA6T) cost an arm and a leg, and possibly your first-born child.

This is the conundrum we're faced with - technologically we were in a better position in 2006 because we could hang on the coat-tails of Apple. We can't do that any more, so we now have to wait for technology to catch up with the power of Apple CPUs. For those of us who bought a G4 machine, anything less than a lump of dough is going to be a downgrade, which is unfortunate but unavoidable... at least for now. As technology of embedded CPUs catches up, we should eventually surpass G4 class CPUs at a reasonable price.

[spirantho]

It would take about 3-5 years to port it. Unless you have a full time team doing it. If they start now Amiga OS would only be a few years behind other OS'es.

But who's going to pay for it? 3 to 5 years without anything to sell? That's called suicide....

[spirantho]

I learned to code on a ZX81.

Didn't do me any harm.

Nicholas is right, though - you can learn to code on any computer you feel like, though I'd recommend just something like Blitz BASIC on an A1200 if you want something fun and relatively easy to get into, while still being potent enough to do some cool stuff.