Alan Redhouse revealed the impressive future of AmigaOne!!!!! (from AmiGBG 2003)

[olegil]

I must say I got a good feeling from Alan's A1 roadmap.
I am thinking of building my own SE board into a 1U rack unit, but I think it would be a tight squeeze with the new memory module I bought from Gunne this weekend.

However, I can see these as good selling points for the AmigaOne:

The firmware (U-Boot) will use serial port for stdin/stdout if you set the environment variables stdin/stdout to serial OR you remove the keyboard/vga card (autodetects...). Thus, you don't need a VGA card or a keyboard for a render-farm.

It has 66MHz PCI if you have a RAID controller or a gigabit ethernet card. Running in a 1U rack box without VGA but with IDE/SCSI RAID or GBE would make for quite a nice server, actually.

It uses hardly ANY power. 3W for the 750FX CPU? Dang, man. Might as well be zero when you compare to other platforms.

Look out for a 1U amigaone coming to a rack near you :-)


Addendum:

Check out a 32x32 RS232 crosspoint matrix here:
Network Electronics website, D3232 product page

[olegil]

What I remember from Alan's speech:
The boards was in Germany on friday and is expected to Eyetech today. Gunne should have his on wednesday, I think.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think it's basically just a bunch of crates, one of which happens to include the excact number of boards Gunne needs so Alan redirect it easily. I think all boards go by England on the way due to some customs thingie. Unfortunately.

[olegil]

@Helgis75:

Well, good luck. The boards were in (Cologne/Køln/Köln, depending on your language) on friday, England hopefully today, Sweden possibly on wednesday, and then should reach Datakompaniet a few days after that (remember that getting them past Norwegian customs take another day or two at least, so maybe 3-4 working days...)

[olegil]

Helgis, I just have to ask. Where you there after all, or have you only read the short version from SlimJims report?

[olegil]

Could you point out the huge powerdrains you see in the SE design? I don't see them glowing red hot here on my board, maybe you could tell me? ;-)

[olegil]

@JurassicCamper:

The package for GGS was sent with UPS because of the show. Imagine the let-down when UPS didn't have it in England when Alan drove a long way to pick them up on friday.

GGS bought about 30 boards, 7 of which will end up with Datakompaniet. It would cost too much to send ALL the boards like that, so the rest will come in about a week.

Oh, and to everyone:
I saw someone making criticism about external Q&A and excuses and stuff. The big thing about external Q&A isn't that it's external, it's that it is in the same country as the production plant. That helps a lot when they have to ship boards back and forth between factory and testing... I know, because I'm in the R&D department at work and see this all the time...

[olegil]

JurassicCamper wrote:
Who's bloody dog kept barking in the background ?

I think this is the guy who brought the dog:  http://amigbg.com/gallery/graak/pages/h_mvc-066f.htm

:-)

[olegil]

@Hooligan_DCS:

How'd you like if major motherboard manufacturers would include a dongle making it possible to use only Windows as operating system? I am well aware of why it was included, but I am totally against it as the consumer pays the extra price for something as useless as a dongle in AmigaOne.

Wow, thanks for pointing out that you haven't even gotten a SINGLE point of what the dongle does. It does NOT ensure that you only run one OS on the machine, it ensures that you only run that version of the OS on THAT machine. Like, you can't buy a computer with Linux and then pirate OS4 later. However, you CAN buy a computer with OS4 and install Linux later. I seriously DO NOT see the problem with this for someone who is NOT contemplating piracy. And THAT'S a FACT (since you're obviously too stupid to understand written language, I'm referring to the fact that I am unable to see how this can be a problem for someone who is not contemplating piracy. That is a fact, because I don't see it.).

Now will you please shut the #### up about things you have NO good arguments for?

[olegil]

Also, how are Genesi any better? Where's the A1 version of MorphOS? Since the Pegasos doesn't have a dongle I should be able to freely download MOS for my AmigaOne, no?

If you could just understand that it's OS4 that has a dongle, NOT the AmigaOne, you might reach some sort of enlightened state.

[olegil]

For the price dongles they could have sent out those t-shirts.

Quite correct.

However, the "dongle" is also called "firmware" so I don't see how anyone could have made any profit from sending out boards without that component. Please tell me?

[olegil]

BUT THE POINT OF THE ####ING DONGLE ISN'T TO ENSURE THAT IT DOESN'T RUN ON THE PEGASOS.

It is to ensure that you (as in Joe Average, not Hooligan_DCS) don't go out and buy a Teron CX/PX and install a pirated copy of AOS4 on that. AOS4 for AmigaOne is sold only in bundles with the hardware, except possibly in bundles with dongles (if there is a market for that).

AOS4 WILL NOT RUN ON A PEGASOS WITHOUT MODIFICATION, so that's not much of a concern (as you correctly identified).

[olegil]

Darth_X wrote:

 I seriously DO NOT see the problem with this for someone who is NOT contemplating piracy.

Also, how are Genesi any better? Where's the A1 version of MorphOS? Since the Pegasos doesn't have a dongle I should be able to freely download MOS for my AmigaOne, no?

The business model for a Pegasos and MorphOS appears to be based around sales of Pegasos hardware.. the operating system (&  licensed apps) is included in the price of the Pegasos motherboard.

AmigaOS4 is an added cost on top of the price of the AmigaONE motherboard.

As for MorphOS for A1 boards, that's interesting.


olegil, are you a developer?

Well, I'm a Linux developer. Some of the other Linux developers are currently busy writing OS4 drivers, but I have devoted myself to making 2.5.65 run on the AmigaOne instead. At the moment I am actually more interested in Linux than OS4. But only because I now have both an A500 and an A1200 in working condition again. For the first time since ages :-)

However, the "dongle" is also called "firmware" so I don't see how anyone could have made any profit from sending out boards without that component. Please tell me?

The A1 could have used the standard Open Firmware instead of making a custom one? :-D

There would still have been the need to include the frelling "dongle" chip, now wouldn't it? And the frelling Open Firmware didn't excactly WORK either.

[olegil]

 

Seehund wrote:

olegil wrote:

However, the "dongle" is also called "firmware" ...

Nope. Terons sold normally will, according to Hyperion, have the same firmware as the ones sold to AmigaOS users. The "dongle" has no technically functional or operational purpose, regardless of whether it happens to be stored in the same physical *PROM chip that also holds the firmware. Think of it as an embedded serial number. A dongle, short and simple.

Oh, so now a serial number suddenly costs MONEY to implement?

I was answering Hoolingan_DCS, PLEASE try to include some CONTEXT next time.

If there's supposed to be ANY saving of money from NOT including the dongle, it would HAVE to be by shipping without the chip. Seriously.