Hip-shot post in semi-coherent order follows.
@Helgis75
Ask Wayne for a "Helgis ejaculates over some Teron announcement" forum category (and I'll ask for a "Seehund whines over the usual again" category)
@olegil
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.
Imagine A Beowulf Cluster Of Those!
Seriously, you still need at least an OS to run on each box, and there's an onboard NIC, so what would the advantage be over just networking it all "as usual" (not that U-Boot is unique in allowing I/O redirection to other interfaces)? Nobody's ever needed graphics/keyboards at each box for such clustering anyway.
@Odin
No it's not! The OS these boards were built for still isn't here :-p.
Didn't Linus make his first public release 12 years ago?
OK, OK, the hardware isn't built for any particular OS, but I couldn't resist...
@Hooligan_DCS
How blind are people not to see that A1 mobo is nothing special and OS4 will be the driving force. I couldn't care less if it ran on intel and on parts purchable from store next door.
Hear hear!
@vortexau
During my 30 years of motorcycling, I NEVER bought a really-fast chain-driven machine!
Uh, yeah, but they stopped making good/beautiful cars and motorcycles around 1970, so that's understandable.
Comparing that to computers, and using it to excuse poor performance and high cost of supposedly "new" computer hardware is outright ridiculous. For "vintage computing" we've already got e.g. Amigas.
(If someone starts comparing prices and specs of their old Amigas with reasonably modern hardware like a Teron board, then it's time to bring out the LART damnit! Why not go all the way and compare the Terons with the ENIAC? Honestly, some people shouldn't be allowed to buy computers.
)
AOS on x86 would NOT attract applications, any more than BeOS did!
Compared to post-Commodore AmigaOS, BeOS was a veritable honeypot! The demise of BeOS begun before it went x86, but then it was too late it seems. But BeOS lives on.
Linux runs on PLENTY of x86 boxes - WHERE are ALL THOSE WONDERFUL Linux Games?
Do you see a pattern here? Other OS' run on x86 - Developers code for Windows!
Bad reasoning/example IMO. The few commercial (closed source) Linux games that actually are out there are for... *drumroll*: Linux/x86.
If you make an end-user, "general purpose", "home computing" OS, then you compete with Windows (and other OSes in that broadly defined category) and its apps. No matter what CPU architecture.
Porting apps to another OS is one thing, porting apps to another OS
plus another architecture is another. Which do you think is easier? Which do you you think is potentially more commercially interesting, given the vast x86 user/hardware base?
WHY is MAC OS not on X86? Same reason! Move on!
Because Apple make a living on selling their Macs (not "MACs" BTW, pet peeve of mine). They supposedly have a parallel x86 branch of MacOS, but it'd probably only run on x86 computers built by Apple if it's commercially released.
Anyway, the dice has been rolled for AmigaOS: it became PPC. I'm not all that religious about a specific configuration of silicon logic gates to get involved in that silly x86 vs PPC war all over again. Though I'm not all that extatic over having the PPC path even further narrowed only based on dealerships, trademarks and hardware market control, as you all might have noticed.
@Hammer:
You missed the main purpose of a dongle.
What is the main purpose of a dongle (e.g. Cubase SX)?
Answer: Run a single authorised copy at a given session.
Yeah, normally. But what is the main purpose of dongled motherboard firmware together with compulsory OS/HW bundling and hardware dealer licensing?
Answer: To invent a restricted "Amiga hardware market" out of a subset of an ordinary third party hardware market.
Dongling does not prevent piracy. Personally I don't object to dongling as a concept, it's the implementation in this specific case that is just sick and counterproductive.
To paraphrase South Park / Slashdot:
1. Try to "prevent piracy" by not selling the software.
2.
3. Profit!!!
This method does not protect the software any better or worse than your Cubase example. It only protects the marketshare of a distributor of third party hardware, which should be irrelevant to AmigaOS.
But hey, there's always the absolutely humongous and incredibly lucrative market of people who wet themselves as soon as they see the "AmigaOne" trademark. THAT will surely ensure a prosperous future for AmigaOS!
@olegil:
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.
What I find funny is that Eyetech originally said that they would QA test the Terons themselves.
Unpack Terons... Peel off QA stickers... Look for the "On" button... Shake boards to hear if anything rattles... Slap on "AmigaOne by Eyetech" and new QA stickers... Pack "AmigaOnes"... Ship to dealers or send back to Taiwan...
Let's hope that this external company has at least the impressive engineering expertise and advanced testing equipment that Eyetech apparently must have, and that they too have passed the strict Amiga, Inc. certifications.
What a bloody sad and overcomplicated circus all this has been made to be.
