Amiga.org
Amiga computer related discussion => General chat about Amiga topics => Topic started by: CHR_ZD on November 06, 2005, 05:33:18 PM
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I mean, how comes it costs 600/900 euro? I think these prices are completely out of the market.
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CHR_ZD wrote:
I mean, how comes it costs 600/900 euro? I think these prices are completely out of the market.
Supply/demand? ;-)
You try finding one for sale right now.....
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the fact that there are not any for sale means no one is buying at those prices.
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Well saying that even Apple has decided to stop using G3-G4 processers, who knows what the future is???
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I don't think Apple's decision will have as much effect on the
supply of PPC chips available (or its future) as many people
are making it out to be. There are many devices that use
PPC as its core, (xbox360 just to name one mainstream device).
Apple was only one school of fish in the sea, there are still
plenty others.
C Snyder
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well thanks to the great decision of making an obsolete ppc custom motherboard many won't never use amiga os 4.0 or morphos... nice move! at least pegasos is a bit cheaper and a better hardware.
I'll never understand
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For crying out loud it is a developers' prerelease box for running a developers' prerelease of the OS to bring some native code to the OS4 platform before the official release.
-edit-
Do you realize that most people that run XBox 360 games will never own an XBox 360 DevKit? Do you realize that most Playstation 3 owners will never own a PS3 DevKit?
Granted I like using my MicroA1 for whatever I do with it but when it suddenly locks up (due to me never adjusting the core voltage up) I don't have a fit. It just needs some adjustment. The quirks may never be worked out of it but I need it to be able to compile code on.
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You're saying that when AOS4 comes out, there will be an all new, shiny A1 waiting for us to install it on? Wake up, man. :roll:
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I know that when OS4 comes out that I´ll be as fast as I can to install it on my classic Amiga´s :lol:
But I know, it´s off the topic ...
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I think the truth is out there. I think that back in New Mexico a ship from another world crashed in the desert and our government got hold of it and began tinkering and they created the out of the guts of that craft a new computer.... the Amiga!! And now after all this time they realize that a really good hacker could extract from the inner workings of the Amiga proof that aliens had not only visited this planet but they had such superior technology that we were in deeep sh*t. By that time someone in the group had leaked a sample of the technology in the form of the first Amiga and it got out of their control. All the crazy decisions that the various owners of the Amiga technology made, all those impossibly stupid commercials, incompatible boards and software... even today... are designed to distract us from finding out where this all came from. That's why the Amiga will never do the right thing at the right time, and that's why it seems like they are deliberately screwing us over, the Amiga boosters, the ones who believe in it all. Otherwise none of it makes any sense. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
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It was obselete and overpriced when it first came out as well ... but remember, never under estimate the levels of insanity Amigans reach, the words "price", "performance", "sucker" all mean nothing so long as it has "Amiga" written on it somewhere :-D
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Yes, it is obselete tech. But then it's a hell of a lot faster than anything else out there RESPONSE-wise.
Seriously, going from OS4 on my 800 Mhz G4 AmigaOne to using MacOS X on my brother's 733 Mhz G4 Mac was like stepping in treacle.
It's going to be a long ttime until anyone can go out and buy an Amiga, so accept the fact that you'll need to pay the premium to be at the bleeding edge of Amiga developments.
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AMIGAONE.... isn't it an obsolete technology already?
Now lets see. You can puzzle the answer together yourself with very little effort.
Question what is obsolete?
Obsolete; like replaced by something else. To be more precise; made useless because there is something better that does the same job.
Look at your subject.
Amiga; what makes it stand out today;
Great graphics? No, others do that better these days.
Multitasking? No, there are plenty alternatives.
Productivity? Err, not really standing out.
Multimedia? Not really standing out here too.
Games then? Not much unique the last years.
ehm....stability? Could be in the race here. But there are plenty alternatives.
Support? No comment.
Price? Looking just at perfomance and applicability and price. Hell no!
Hobbyism factor? Could be in the race here.
You can go on enlarging the list.
I stop here since most answers are negative.
I'd say it is very very much obsolete.
To be more precise; I wonder how the A1 creation can ever make a healthy profit. Just hobbyism I think. I don't think anybody really beleives it will take over the world or something. Why would you want it too?
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Keep in mind quality, you can buy a speedy PC for £500 but the quality is rubbish, if you want top quality the same PC is £1000-1500. The A1 is quality, its not so power hungry as a PC. The specs on the A1 is about the same as an Xbox and the XBox has all the latest games!!!!
so all your paying is a couple of 100 extra something you really want???
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SamuraiCrow wrote:
For crying out loud it is a developers' prerelease box [...]
That is a patently false statement, and I wish people would stop repeating it. No "AmigaOne" has ever been sold with any "developer hardware", "beta", "pre-release" or similar label. No warnings, caveats or disclaimers have ever been issued or mentioned regarding the quality of or support for the hardware. All Terons that have passed through Eyetech to AmigaOS users have been sold as fully functional-as-advertised, licensed, tested and certified "AmigaOnes", with not only the expected normal minimum legislated consumer protection and warranties but with a supposedly even greater level of protection. All "AmigaOnes" were supposed to be the final hardware that customers were supposed to keep and use with AOS4 once that's released.
The "it's developer hardware" statement was issued retroactively by Eyetech in response to customer complaints about warranty and quality issues (in a "Q&A" session on aw.net, IIRC). It was a lie then, and it's still a lie.
Customers simply do not "develop" hardware that they've already bought (and as for software developers, they're likely to be more affected by faulty hardware than end-users, see e.g. the AOS4 development time wasted on trying to find workarounds for hardware bugs as well as adapting a new type of firmware).
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old_timer wrote:
Keep in mind quality, you can buy a speedy PC for £500 but the quality is rubbish, if you want top quality the same PC is £1000-1500.
You get quality for £500. You might not get excellent performance for e.g. the latest games in high resolutions and max FSAA et c (not because of faults, but because a £500 PC is not top-of-the-line), but that has nothing to do with quality. If the quality is lacking, you are actually covered by a warranty.
The A1 is quality, its not so power hungry as a PC.
You're joking, surely?
And what would power consumption (which doesn't differ significantly between an old G3 and a modern x86) have to do with quality? If you think wattage is a valid measurement for quality, then how would you say that the quality of an IBM POWER5 cluster or a Sony PSP would compare to an "AmigaOne"?
The specs on the A1 is about the same as an Xbox and the XBox has all the latest games!!!!
What the... OK, you're trolling. 1 post and all. I should've figured. Good one, IHBT.
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amipal wrote:
Yes, it is obselete tech. But then it's a hell of a lot faster than anything else out there RESPONSE-wise.
This thread is about the hardware that's sold as "AmigaOnes". It's not about AmigaOS, which is what gives you the quick response compared to e.g. MacOS X which you mentioned.
It's going to be a long ttime until anyone can go out and buy an Amiga,
Don't hold your breath for a new Amiga. The latest model was introduced more than a decade ago, and nobody's planning to make new ones. Third party hardware such as Terons/"AmigaOnes" is the way now.
so accept the fact that you'll need to pay the premium to be at the bleeding edge of Amiga developments.
That unfortunate fact is there due to an IMO retarded (anti-)business decision, not because of any technical reason. The decision was unnecessary and harmful, and hopefully it will be reverted.
If something stupid, unnecessary and easily changeable happens to have been made a current matter of fact, then expect that lots of people who care about it won't simply "accept" it without whingeing and/or trying to change it. Such is life.
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CHR_ZD: AMIGAONE.... isn't it an obsolete technology already?
You can follow Doppie1200's definition of obsolete. Also, something is obsolete when it is no longer useful, not just that it has been replaced. In this respect, even a C64 is not really obsolete.
Whether a C64 or an A1200 or an AmigaOne is technically competitive with modern hardware is a whole new issue. Value is a factor with any device, not just computers. A Kia may be a good car compared to what we had in the 60's, but it's certainly no Honda.
billchase: I don't think Apple's decision will have as much effect on the supply of PPC chips available (or its future) as many people are making it out to be. There are many devices that use PPC as its core, (xbox360 just to name one mainstream device).
The problem is that these companies make their own custom processors around a PPC core. You also need special tools if you want to take advantage of the custom features. If you want a "standard" PPC, they are getting harder to come by. There's not much reason for IBM or Freescale to supply the "middleware" desktop market, and it's pretty obvious that IBM didn't need Apple as a customer with so much manufacturing potential concerning the custom CPUs being designed for game systems. Hopefully, Sony delivers on their promise of putting Cell in non-PS3 devices, but even then there are additional license fees, and the like. The non-x86 desktop computer world has never been strong, and is not likely to change in the near future.
No, the PPC market isn't dead, but it's still not easy or cheap, especially for long-term ownership when embedded devices usually require you to dump the whole unit, and backwards compatibility tends to be an issue, both for technilogical and marketting reasons.
Look at how many old Macs cannot run OS X. Didn't Apple get in hot water because the Blue-and-White G4's couldn't get OS updates? This is more than just a tech issue. Apple would be all too happy to sell you a new Mac, complete with built-in monitor and new accessories, rather than track down compatibility issues and get their OS to run on your Mac with only 128MB of memory (which may explain why Tiger runs terrible with less than 512MB. Yeah, that really makes XP look like a bloated resource hog).
What we should be asking is, do we want the Amiga to be a general PC (meaning a desktop personal computer) or a purpose-built device? The AmigaOne is a PC. Amiga Incorporated has other plans, which obviously means existing AmigaOne owners are not part of their future.
Amipal: Seriously, going from OS4 on my 800 Mhz G4 AmigaOne to using MacOS X on my brother's 733 Mhz G4 Mac was like stepping in treacle.
Since when has MacOS been fast and responsive? ;-)
OS X is the biggest piece of bloat I've ever seen. Even when I saw it running on Apple's flagship dual G5 system, it's obvious XP puts it to shame in terms of speed. I only bought one to support the Mac people who visit my web site.
old timer: Keep in mind quality, you can buy a speedy PC for £500 but the quality is rubbish, if you want top quality the same PC is £1000-1500.
Only if you buy a "mainstream" PC, like a Gateway. There are other PC companies out there besides Dell, Gateway, and HP, even if you can't find them by walking into your local Wal-Mart or BestBuy (if you're a yank, of course).
Trust me, not all PC companies are equal. If HP is your reference, no wonder you're not impressed. And then, there's always AMD to compete with Intel. Look at how much thermal management and processor efficiency has improved since AMD decided they didn't want to be second-best anymore. The same happened when ATI got their act together and blew away nVidia's ill-fated GeForceFX.
old timer: The A1 is quality, its not so power hungry as a PC.
I sure hope you're being sarcastic. The build quality of any ABit or Gigabyte board puts any of the Terons to shame. The CPU alone isn't the only reference for the long-term durability of the board, especially when x86 chipsets are made for millions of customers and are very well tested compared to low-volume runs, like ArticaS. If problems are found in x86 chipsets, firmware patches are released quickly. How long is it taking to get work-arounds for the ArticaS years after it has been released?
Don't even get me started about the MegArray module and on-board power management.
Seehund: That is a patently false statement, and I wish people would stop repeating it. No "AmigaOne" has ever been sold with any "developer hardware", "beta", "pre-release" or similar label. No warnings, caveats or disclaimers have ever been issued or mentioned regarding the quality of or support for the hardware.
Yes. The AmigaOnes (all of them) are based on reference boards built by Mai as dev platforms for companies that wanted to use the ArticaS chipset in their own appliances. If you rebadge a dev board and sell is as a unit for end-users (with Linux, and no Amiga tools, for crying out loud), then it cannot be considered a dev board, even if Mai originally designed and certified it for that purpose.
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by CHR_ZD on 2005/11/7 1:33:18
I mean, how comes it costs 600/900 euro? I think these prices are completely out of the market.
Just ignore it and it'll go away.
:-)
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Go and post this on AW.net ;-)
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I think you didn't get my point. If Amiga wants to come back they must price their hardware low. Otherwise I am sticking to windows xp. I don't want to spend hundreds of $ for a machine who doesn't deliver anything but troubles. Nowadays you can find damn good laptops for as low as 700$ I don't understand how they think people will start buying overpriced mobos to run an OS they don't even know. As an old Amiga user I am interested in trying the new OS but be sure I don't make it my religion and I think the people on the development side should not count on blind faith from users
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I though it was an amigans forum.
If you really love amiga, go out and support OS4 for real, and stop complaining.
No, OS4 is not running on the X86 hardware you got to play games. No OS4 is not running on the latest intel model.No OS4 isnt running on any console.
You think PCs are better, cheaper, faster? Then youre welcome to visit PC forums or stop the X86 trolling here.
Hyperion choose the PPC instead of the X86, and that decission doesnt bring you the rights to call it "worse". You want Os4, buy Aone. Thats the game, as I understand it.
This is just my opinion, so no offense,ok?
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Will-i-am wrote:
I think the truth is out there. I think that back in New Mexico a ship from another world crashed in the desert and our government got hold of it and began tinkering and they created the out of the guts of that craft a new computer.... the Amiga!! And now after all this time they realize that a really good hacker could extract from the inner workings of the Amiga proof that aliens had not only visited this planet but they had such superior technology that we were in deeep sh*t. By that time someone in the group had leaked a sample of the technology in the form of the first Amiga and it got out of their control. All the crazy decisions that the various owners of the Amiga technology made, all those impossibly stupid commercials, incompatible boards and software... even today... are designed to distract us from finding out where this all came from. That's why the Amiga will never do the right thing at the right time, and that's why it seems like they are deliberately screwing us over, the Amiga boosters, the ones who believe in it all. Otherwise none of it makes any sense. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
hehe, nice :lol:
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No, OS4 is not running on the X86 hardware you got to play games. No OS4 is not running on the latest intel model.No OS4 isnt running on any console.
-- You should add: No OS4 isn't running at all.
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>-- You should add: No OS4 isn't running at all.
Eeks, Im running it for everyday use... so they must have sold me an OS3.9 + visual prefs theme :-D
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CHR_ZD . .ok now we have got your point of view.
Feel free to decide . . . or better, you have already deciced! so . . wheres the point of your post?
ah . . . and "don't try this at" . . .AW.net, at least without a good life insurance :-)
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Well, it's a bit dated, but with a G4 @ 1.4 GHz it's not that dated ;-)
And add a cheap 160 GB HDD and 1 GB SDRAM (2*512 MB) and you have something which can compete with my PC (and that one is a bit dated too).
That's why I'm saving money for the AmigaOne (or whatever comes up when the money is there - gimme some months - I'm a student) :-D
Besides that, OS4 compared with most other OS'es is a good reason to buy an AmigaOne (if you like Computer Science that is).
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G4 dated? So what's the most powerful up-to-date and available PPC chip for desktop computers right now?
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Probably a G9 @ 1.9*10^10 GHz... oh wait.. that one doesn't exist :-P .. but it's a 1024bit CPU with 1 TB of Level9 cache :crazy:
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:roll:
I tend to agree with SamuraiCrow on this one.
When OS4 is released, there will be hardware. Whether or not it resembles the AmigaOne or MicroA1 in any way or form remains to be seen.
Meanwhile, I enjoy using my MicroA1.
---
redfox
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I can understand CHR_ZD's position.
I wonder how many once-were Amiga users research the A1, get put off by price and specs, and dont bother to post their discontent on any Amiga forum? Plenty, I'm guessing.
The fact that a few do make the effort to sign on and comment (usually venting frustration with anger) just goes to show the choices for people wanting to come back to Amiga are lacking.
Its a pity, once they've got that impression they're not likely to come back.
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>Well, it's a bit dated, but with a G4 @ 1.4 GHz it's not that dated
Did they exhibit the "prototype" in the meantime?
I must have missed this particular show report.
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Funny, I seem to remember Amiga Inc.'s standpoint on all of this was they don't care about the Amiga platform... They said that from day one. Their only interest was in their "Amiga Anywhere" project, which was nothing more than an advertising gimick by using a well-known brand name. AmigaOne, AmigaOS4, the whole "modernized platform" was meerly designed for us hobbyists. Bringing "Amiga" back was never in the design. Ever.
You think the prices of AmigaOS4 boards are bad now?? Wait untill the real reprocussions of the death of ApplePPC hit. Far fewer PPC chips being used, far fewer being produced, supply will shrink, price will dramatically increase. It's inevitible.
I just hope we can get enough PPC boards, cheaply and quickly enough to beat this fate before OS4 completely dies.
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-- You should add: No OS4 isn't running at all.
On the hardware you own, probably not, but that's not our problem. It's runs fine on mine, so your statement is false, as most of the statements you made since you joined Amiga.org.
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by FrankBrana on 2005/11/7 3:36:09
You think PCs are better, cheaper, faster? Then youre welcome to visit PC forums or stop the X86 trolling here.
That's alright, AROS runs quiet nicely on x86. For a price of a A1 mobo/cpu, you can buy a new low end laptop. Which can run AROS, of course. :)
Dammy
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That's alright, AROS runs quiet nicely on x86. For a price of a A1 mobo/cpu, you can buy a new low end laptop. Which can run AROS, of course. :)
AROS is not even near to the quality, usability and robustness of AmigaOS 4. It's developed for many (10+ already) years by a tiny group of enthusiasts, part time, while AmigaOS 4 is commercially developed with two full time employed developers and a great many of contributors. Currently there is much more software available for AmigaOS 4, than for AROS, despite the fact that AROS predates the announcement of AmigaOS 4 with around 6 years:
OS4Depot (http://www.os4depot.net/) as of today - 667 files.
AROS archives (http://archives.aros-exec.org/) as of today - 11 files.
Giving this picture, no wonder why most of the people prefer to look at AmigaOS 4 and always {bleep}ing why it doesn't run on XYZ hardware.
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Apple puts Two Dual Core G5s in there top end system running at 2.5 Ghz, so yeah a single G4 at 1.2 Ghz is kinda long in the tooth. Apple for example doesnt sell a computer that slow anymore (even there slowest Ibook is faster then that now), and the x86 gang don't sell computers that slow either. Plus if you are talking AmigaOne then you have the hardware problems, plus of course its not currently available and likely never will be again.
-Tig
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I wish people would just stop it about the CPU. There's more problems here than just the microproccesor.
Pretty ironic. The custom chips are what made the OCS Amiga so special, and all people can do is try to make PPC look better than what it is. It's an embedded processor and has been since day one. Chipset support sucks.
Low performance is actually tolerable in most computer markets. Cost, value, and the lack of modern standards are the problems.
Coldfish: I wonder how many once-were Amiga users research the A1, get put off by price and specs, and dont bother to post their discontent on any Amiga forum? Plenty, I'm guessing.
I'm wondering how many people left the Amiga community for good after the PPC announcement was made.
Dr. Righteous: Wait untill the real reprocussions of the death of ApplePPC hit. Far fewer PPC chips being used, far fewer being produced, supply will shrink, price will dramatically increase. It's inevitible.
Well, price on the high-end versions, at least. Whatever that will end up being, of course.
Dr. Righteous: I just hope we can get enough PPC boards, cheaply and quickly enough to beat this fate before OS4 completely dies.
Hyperion is counting on licensing OS4 parts outside the fleeting Amiga community. In which case, I assume the OS parts are transparrent to end-users, and thus only generates revenue, and does not actually promote the platform. I don't think anyone seriously believes that OS4 has a future without a radical change in direction.
DrHirudo: AROS is not even near to the quality, usability and robustness of AmigaOS 4.
I appreciate what the AROS team is doing, and if they get a kick out of it, more power to them. However, I tried AROS several times and it was a crash-fest. I don't really see the point in trying to make an OS3 clone when they could better spend their time making a new OS that just looks and feels like OS3. Besides, nobody programs in the "style" of OS3, anymore, and the majority of existing apps cannot be recomiled as they are dead projects.
Why is nobody trying to go beyond UNIX? Why are projects like EROS all collecting dust?
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Why is nobody trying to go beyond UNIX? Why are projects like EROS all collecting dust?
Because they don't make money. Or rather, noone was able to make them make money at the time of their conception. They also incorporate tricky ideas which you cannot read about in popular books and magazines: this requires genuine brains.
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AROS is not even near to the quality, usability and robustness of AmigaOS 4. It's developed for many (10+ already) years by a tiny group of enthusiasts, part time, while AmigaOS 4 is commercially developed with two full time employed developers and a great many of contributors. Currently there is much more software available for AmigaOS 4, than for AROS, despite the fact that AROS predates the announcement of AmigaOS 4 with around 6 years:
It's slow in developement, but it's still progressing and it can be run on cheap hardware that can multi-boot into other OSs.
OS4Depot as of today - 667 files.
AROS archives as of today - 11 files.
Except you didn't mention that AROS archives is only a few months old nor did you mention the vast majority of files are in the AROS or AROS Distro AROS-Max which has even more files then the AROS ISO. The AROS Archive is the "over flow" of code that people did not want to submit into the AROS SVN.
Biggest draw back to OS4, other then the lack of reasonable hardware at reasonable costs, it's joined at the hip with Amiga Inc. That's enough for the vast majority of Amiga users to shy away from A1/OS4. AROS is independent of commercial preasures and failures.
Dammy
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However, I tried AROS several times and it was a crash-fest.
What was the latest version did you try and was it AROS ISO or the distro, AROS-Max? More importantly, what hardware did you try it with?
Dammy
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Technology:
Cheap, Fast, Good... Pick two.
Time and money is the key. Do you have the time and money to invest in an A1? That is the question to answer. May be so, may be not. Either way, end of discussion.
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Well, I don't consider the AmigaOne for obsolete. Not compared with what is still sold on the x86 platform. It is however terribly overpriced (the prices are typical around 4-6 times higher than they ought to be, sometimes even more).
But if you're interested in Computer Science and especially OS'es, I believe it's worth it (to a certain extent).
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Well, where are these brand new os4 exlusive software?. The majority are pcish conversions from linux(open source) such games and other apps.
And, more important, where is os4?. I haven't saw it yet, and i mean finished version, not beta. It's inadmisible that a os in his beta state was SOLD among the hardware, if the customer pay, the need to get the final product!, would you buy a brand new car with only 3 wheels and semi-worked engine?
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Buyers of OS4 prereleases can get updates without paying more.
And I'm used to use alpha, beta and pre-releases.
Besides that, a final version of package X doesn't mean it's better than a beta version of package Y.
Any coder knows this.
If (!softwareExist) {
doWriteIt();
} else if (softwareExist) {
doRejoice()
}
It's that simple...
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Speaking of releasing unfinished work, can anyone remember M$ ever publishing a version of Windows without major flaws? Most of my favourite software is in some form of development phase (I also rely on open source projects for much of my productivity - praise be to the coding community).
I think anyone who uses Amiga will know the benefits of a fast and efficient operating system. That said, I was not very tempted to buy the Amiga1 even when it was available. If I had any dosposable income at all, I would definitely be interested though. As it stands, buying only one main computer, I didn't consider it an option for a readily accessible, reliable, compatible, and productive platform.
-Oli
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Dr_Righteous wrote:
You think the prices of AmigaOS4 boards are bad now?? Wait untill the real reprocussions of the death of ApplePPC hit. Far fewer PPC chips being used, far fewer being produced, supply will shrink, price will dramatically increase. It's inevitible.
I just hope we can get enough PPC boards, cheaply and quickly enough to beat this fate before OS4 completely dies.
Apple only use a few percent of PPCs made, production will fall slightly because of that but the fact that the console manufacturers are using PPC mean it's production will rise by a much larger amount.
Aside from that the fact IBM are opening up PPC means the market for PPC is growing these days.
Linux is also proving very helpful since it doesn't require legacy x86 binaries - e.g. the A1 micro was originally designed as a Linux machine.
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Waccoon wrote:
Why is nobody trying to go beyond UNIX? Why are projects like EROS all collecting dust?
For an actively developed open source OS that strays from the Unix-ish fold try Syllable. It's further along in hardware support and useable internet applications. Takes a lot of inspiration from BeOS apparently.
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@CHR_ZD:
No OS4 isn't running at all.
In that case this post must be nothing more than a figment of your imagination.
:-)
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minator wrote:
Apple only use a few percent of PPCs made, production will fall slightly because of that but the fact that the console manufacturers are using PPC mean it's production will rise by a much larger amount.
First of all Apple is basically the only user of the G5, and it is by far the largest user of the G4. Just because G4+G5 is only a small portion of the PPC market doesnt mean that the loss of Apple won't severly impact new desktop speed PPC parts. As for the consoles, I doubt we are going to see any of the 3 as major CPUs in any computer. People will hack the 3 consoles and put linux on them, but for the next 18 months at least, every part that IBM can make of these 3 types are going to Nintendo, Sony & Microsoft.
-Bill
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@Tigger
you forgot Eyetech ;)
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@CHR_ZD
I didn't notice this one first time through.
No OS4 isn't running at all.
:whack:
OS4 pre-release is working mighty fine here. :-D
---
redfox
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CHR_ZD wrote:
No OS4 isn't running at all.
Damn, it was all a total figment of my imagination! I could have sworn it booted on the BPPC/1200T here just the other day too :-o
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No it didn't. And there is no website for Amiga OS 4.
And it doesn't have datatypes and it doesn't run fast on even old hardware (with fewer resources than embedded systems).
No it doesn't. Because, if it's not a final product officially then it's no product, says The Mighty Midget.
The Mighty Midget also says: "Releasing unfinished software is a crime, especially if you charge for it - unless you call it a final product. Then everything goes."
The Mighty Midget's Rule #3: "However, releasing really good software as unfinished software is really bad and deserves a strong punishment! It's better to release poor software as final product, than to release good software as a pre-release. Especially for the customer".
........
I don't believe in The Mighty Midget :-P
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what a crazy thread!!
I dont mind buying the updated A1 when OS4 goes gold
or what ever but I am mighty glad to have OS4 to run
at all :-D so even if it's only updated bridge chips
or IDE etc. thats cool just give me an updated Amiga
and then start on AmigaTwo LOL
I'm glad for Aros, uae and Mos they are all great
products with full credit to the devs cheers :pint:
but I want an Amiga not a imitation.
I dont care about Amiga Inc. they can take thier
Anal Anywere sofware and well....erm ....yeah
but long live Hyperion and OS4 :) :pint:
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First of all Apple is basically the only user of the G5
Apart from Mercury-Momentum, Terrasoft, IBM (JS20s), I believe even Motorola sell them in blades. Telcos probably find them useful.
and it is by far the largest user of the G4.
Actually Apple are not even the largest user of the G4. If they were Apple would have been able to force Freescale into using a an updated FSB.
Just because G4+G5 is only a small portion of the PPC market doesnt mean that the loss of Apple won't severly impact new desktop speed PPC parts.
If the current trends had continued I'd agree but it's all changing now, AMD and Intel have effectively given up pushing clock frequency, IBM on the other hand looks like they will continue to push higher for sometime yet.
but for the next 18 months at least, every part that IBM can make of these 3 types are going to Nintendo, Sony & Microsoft.
Probably true for Microsoft and Nintendo but a similar core to the one they use (also the PPE in the Cell) will almost certainly appear from IBM as a separate PowerPC product.
The Cell on the other hand has never been a console only part, all 3 partners can make them and sell them to whoever they want. You can already get them from IBM and it's looking like it'll turn up in a Mercury system before the PS3 ships. Toshiba are also planning to ship their Cell reference system in April and put them in HDTVs later in the year.
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billchase wrote:
I don't think Apple's decision will have as much effect on the
supply of PPC chips available (or its future) as many people
are making it out to be. There are many devices that use
PPC as its core, (xbox360 just to name one mainstream device).
Apple was only one school of fish in the sea, there are still
plenty others.
C Snyder
Probably, but I think one thing that will happen is fewer advancements to the line of CPU's. Now that the maket is mostly embedded controllers, etc, I think most R&D will be for power and heat related performance issues rather than desktop performance. Not that's that a bad thing, but I think as time goes on, the PPC will become less and less suitable as the right tool for the job in desktops or general purpose CPU requiring applications, assuming this inertia doesn't change direction. (who knows maybe Microsoft decides PPC is the way to go and things would change again. :-P)
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-- You should add: No OS4 isn't running at all.
This statement alone is adequate reason to consider you an ill-informed troll with no real interest in supporting the PPC community, regardless if it is blue, red or whatever other flavor.
Paul
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minator wrote:
First of all Apple is basically the only user of the G5
Mercury-Momentum = They have one shipping product (the development board), it appears two more on the way, do you honestly believe they are a major portion of the G5s sold?
Terrasoft = They are software company, they are running on Macs and Mercury's, and IBMs, you don't get to count Mercury boards for Mercury, then count them again when Terrasoft sells them?? Also lets look at when they started selling Mercury's shall we: Sept 1, 2005, so that would be because Apple is getting out of the G5 market. People are going for Apples rack mount leavings as they leave the market.
IBM (JS20s) = IBMs Blade that shipped much after the Xserve (due to its initial memory problems), never really caught on because it was more expensive then Apple, etc. I mean the only reason Terra is going to sell them now is Apple is leaving the PPC market.
Telcos probably find them useful. ---- G5 is a pretty expensive part for the that use, why exactly do you think that is true??
Apple bought over 2M G5's last, Mercury just came out with there product, IBM hasnt been able to ship enough G5's to its primary buyer Apple. And of course you are still missing the point, which of these products use the fastest G5's (only apple), which of these use the dual core G5's (only apple). If you honestly believe that use by Blades is going to drive PPC forward, you havent paid attention to the x86 market.
and it is by far the largest user of the G4.
Actually Apple are not even the largest user of the G4. If they were Apple would have been able to force Freescale into using a an updated FSB.
I disagree, who exactly in your opinion bought more then 2 million G4s last year to take Apple out of #1 G4 buyer in your opinion?? My info says Apple is number 1, if you think I am wrong, you are going to have to come up with a name and some facts. I mean your Freescale comment is funny, but not alot of reason with it, even you agree Apple bought the most G5's yet they couldnt get one good enough for a laptop could they??
-Tig
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Things happen.
I don't think Apples switch to x86 will make a major difference in the long term. Nor in the short term since it will take quite a while to finish the transition from PPC to x86.
The only problem IMO is the high price for the AmigaOne and the small production.
We need more A1s and a 67-75% cut on the price. The same goes for OS4.
-
Except A1's are finished. Their chipset is now EOL and the fat lady has sung. Either Eyetech will have to find a new hardware to call A1, or Hyperion finds a new suck^H^H^Hhardware vender willing to put up with AI Tax.
Either way, it's not a pretty future.
Dammy
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It would be nice to have a major (or just a medium sized) hardware vendor. But...
Another option is to replace the chipset.
-
Question of course, who is going to do the R&D into putting a new mobo together. Eyetech simply boingballed stamped the mobo after swapping out the ROM image. I doubt anyone will deny that developing a new mobo is beyond Eyetech's capabilities. Of course, no one will deny it would be expensive to do and ROI is nearly impossible with the current market.
Unless Eyetech can come up with a new mobo to rebadge, no more A1s.
Dammy
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dylansmrjo wrote:
Things happen.
I don't think Apples switch to x86 will make a major difference in the long term.
I have no idea why you would think that. Apple buys over 4 million high end PPCs, thats not something thats going to get swallowed up by the Eyetech, Genesi, etc. Instead those lines will go to making parts for Microsoft, Sony & Nintendo. The 775's production is going to dump down very low, and I don't think we will see a G6 or quad G5 at least for a long time, and maybe not ever.
Nor in the short term since it will take quite a while to finish the transition from PPC to x86.
On June 6th, the switch was announced, at Siggraph (August 2-4) basically all the main players have there software running on the mac prototypes, when NAB rolls around (April of next year) I fully expect the x86 laptops (and maybe desktops) will be shipping and the software for all will be available. Why do you think its going to take quite awhile to finish the transition?? This is the last year of only PPC macs, and I think before this time next year, there will be no PPC macs at the Apple Store.
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Tigger wrote:
I have no idea why you would think that. Apple buys over 4 million high end PPCs, thats not something thats going to get swallowed up by the Eyetech, Genesi, etc. Instead those lines will go to making parts for Microsoft, Sony & Nintendo. The 775's production is going to dump down very low, and I don't think we will see a G6 or quad G5 at least for a long time, and maybe not ever.
So we need a "Cell" port for OS4, Hyperion have hinted about this before and if it turns out to be the natural path for ppc, GREAT, it's a powerfull chip. :-)
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So we need a "Cell" port for OS4, Hyperion have hinted about this before and if it turns out to be the natural path for ppc, GREAT, it's a powerfull chip.
Except it's not that great of a general purpose CPU for desktops.
Dammy
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I think its pretty narrowminded of A1 owners to ignore those prospective A1 buyers/users who get put off by the A1's prohibitive price and (perceived) lacklustre specs.
Hyperion, for one, wouldve liked to see the A1 shift more units. Imagine how it feels to know that even when OS4 is completed, the most units you can look forward to shifting is somewhere in the vicinity of; I'm guessing, <3000? Probably a lot less?
In addition to this, the A1 community has unfairly pinned all their hopes and dreams on Hyperion. They're only a small company, and like all small businesses need to profit from their efforts and cover their costs. How can they profit from the A1's tiny userbase, and go on to develop future products in a dwindeling market?
Crunch the numbers A1 users, it doesnt look good!
You NEED those prospective A1 buyers whether you want them or not.
For this reason I'm sympathetic to CHR_ZD even if he didnt articulate his anger and frustration at the A1 situation in the best possible way.
-
there is no point in getting excited about the price of a low run motherboard. Low prodution number = higher unit cost & if thats a major deterent the the obvious solution is to not upgrade or buy second hang (although not lightly to find one)
we are a niche market & thats cool. I wish it was cheaper but I'm not going to troll about it.
no offence to those frustrated, I am too but NOT taking pot shots at those that are giving us SOMETHING!!
and who better than the Super Hyperion bros. :idea: hey that gives me an idea LOL :lol:
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There's no question the price is too high. Of course it's too high.
Low production == high price.
Eyetech does not have the financial strength to mass produce in great numbers. However, this is nescessary for the price to drop enough for the masses to buy the A1. Right now it's selling for the classes instead of the masses.
The major question would be: From where should the needed funding come? I'm blank on this one.
But in regard to the whether A1 is obsolete from a technological POW, the answer is "no".
But it's too expensive, which has a very logical explanation. I think the base quality of AOS4 is enough to make A1 look good, but I'm probably the only one :-P
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Tigger wrote:
I have no idea why you would think that. Apple buys over 4 million high end PPCs, thats not something thats going to get swallowed up by the Eyetech, Genesi, etc. Instead those lines will go to making parts for Microsoft, Sony & Nintendo. The 775's production is going to dump down very low, and I don't think we will see a G6 or quad G5 at least for a long time, and maybe not ever.
Quite simple. The switch will be finished medio 2008 according to Apple and Freescale.
Tigger wrote:
On June 6th, the switch was announced, at Siggraph (August 2-4) basically all the main players have there software running on the mac prototypes, when NAB rolls around (April of next year) I fully expect the x86 laptops (and maybe desktops) will be shipping and the software for all will be available. Why do you think its going to take quite awhile to finish the transition?? This is the last year of only PPC macs, and I think before this time next year, there will be no PPC macs at the Apple Store.
Since the switch wont be finished until medio 2008 according to Apple and Freescale, then there will be PPC Macs for sale in 2006 and 2007. And support for these will stay around for another decade. The G3 and G4 CPUs will be very obsolete way before production of them stops.
It's a wonder you believe that you can switch so fast, as you think they can.
It takes many resources and much money to make such a transition.
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Tripitaka wrote:
So we need a "Cell" port for OS4, Hyperion have hinted about this before and if it turns out to be the natural path for ppc, GREAT, it's a powerfull chip. :-)
Great, but if thats the plan, they should already have developer boards (and they don't), they should have announced a deal with Mercury (or one of the other reputable board manufacturers) to sell OS4 on there boards, and they should be lining up people to buy the boards. At least that board will run Linux well, if OS4 is going to be a Cell OS, then they need to be porting it. I still say a much better idea is port it to the Mac Mini, sell OS4 for $100 or $150 with a USB dongle, and be done with it. Hardware warranty problem gone, hardware availability problem gone, worst thing is Hyperion would have to tell people we are out of our first 500 USB dongles, it will be two weeks till we get 500 more, wouldn't that be better posts, then we dont have any idea when hardware to run our OS will be available. Plus your systems would have USB, Firewire, etc, everyone would be working on drivers, because linux drivers for all of it exist already, so its not that hard to move them from one OS to another running on the same hardware.
-Bill
-
Porting OS4 to x86 would be even better ;-)
At least in regard to availability of hardware and hardware prices.
However, supporting the wide array of hardware could turn out to be quite troublesome.
Porting to x86 would give a much greater market, allowing for lower prices and therefore larger sales numbers :-D
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Back to the thread topic:
I don't know what you call
PC133 SDRAM
USB 1.1
PCI based interconnect
but I call that obsolete - nobody tries to sell machines with these specs any more.
No offense meant, I'd like to have an A1 myself since it'll probably be the last 'Amiga' ever, but with low specs and high prices the market will remain tiny, with or without a release OS4. I wonder who they want the sell the OS to when it's done. If it's done.
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Well, the only clearly outdated item here is: PC133 SDRAM
Good old PCI is not obsolete, nor is AGP.
SDRAM is obsolete, but you gain next to nothing with DDR RAM when the FSB is running at 133 MHz. However, considering the lower prices on DDR RAM, it would be great if it was possible to use it with A1.
A1 is not obsolete, it is however overpriced based on specs.
The only way to get lower prices is to produce a lot more. That requires quite some investments, which apparently is a major risk for a company like EyeTech.
I'd prefer to see AOS4 running on a Peg2 :-P
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Mercury-Momentum = They have one shipping product (the development board), it appears two more on the way, do you honestly believe they are a major portion of the G5s sold?
Momentum alone have done quite a few 970 based boards but I don't think all of them are public. Mercury sell to military, medical etc. type customers so we're unlikely to hear much of what they sell either.
My point it Apple are not the only people selling 970 based systems. Apple are the only company selling them to the general public though.
Telcos probably find them useful. ---- G5 is a pretty expensive part for the that use, why exactly do you think that is true??
G5 is a very good DSP, Telcos (or suppliers thereof) can and do pay top dollar for that sort of processor, e.g. Ericsson signed a deal with Compaq to buy $1 billion worth of Alpha processors a few years ago, and they were sure never cheap.
IBM hasnt been able to ship enough G5's to its primary buyer Apple.
Ars technica forwarded a theory a while back that says the supply problems were due to Apple not ordering enough parts and expecting more to be instantly available - not a sensible move given it take 3 months to make a new batch. IBM did admit to having yield problems in early 04 but never since. They don't seem to have problems making millions of processors for Microsoft.
And of course you are still missing the point, which of these products use the fastest G5's (only apple), which of these use the dual core G5's (only apple).
IBM have already announced dual core blades...
I agree the really high end 970s are being driven by Apple and the pressure to push them will be off after Apple leave. However with PA Semi appearing both IBM and Freeescale now have some pretty serious competition and will need to compete. It could be argued that this is only an "embedded processor" but that doesn't mean it'll be a useless desktop chip or slow, it's looking like it'll be just as good as anything Intel will be producing.
IBM look like they want to get into the low end server market, they're getting pressured by AMD now and would probably rather have their own chip in their boxes. AMD and Intel are giving up on clock speed, IBM are still pushing upwards so a cut down POWER6 could be just right for that market - Apple or not.
I disagree, who exactly in your opinion bought more then 2 million G4s last year to take Apple out of #1 G4 buyer in your opinion?? My info says Apple is number 1, if you think I am wrong, you are going to have to come up with a name and some facts.
So, you're saying you are right because, well, you just are?
I haven't heard who but I have heard they aren't the biggest G4 customer, given it is primarily an embedded part and that's Freescale's business this shouldn't be terribly surprising.
I mean your Freescale comment is funny, but not alot of reason with it, even you agree Apple bought the most G5's yet they couldnt get one good enough for a laptop could they??
The lower clocked G5s have long run cool enough for laptop, the problem seems to have been the recently replaced Northridge, it ran both slow and hot.
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by dylansmrjo on 2005/11/18 2:41:07
Porting OS4 to x86 would be even better
At least in regard to availability of hardware and hardware prices.
However, supporting the wide array of hardware could turn out to be quite troublesome.
Porting to x86 would give a much greater market, allowing for lower prices and therefore larger sales numbers
Even porting to a -limited- set of X86 hardware would be a boon! For that matter even a limited set of PPC boards, I dont actually care about CPU.
I'd be happy with a port to just a select few currently available massmarket boards/configs.
At least then you could nip out buy the required bits from youre local computer shop for around the same price as everyone else, and get stuck into OS4.
meh, pie in the sky...
-
Coldfish... exactly...
imagine AmigaOS4pr running on one of these cheap 1.8GHz Duron-pc's, with 256 MB ram, 80 GB Harddisk, AGP 8x, and so on .. for 25% of the price for one microA1-C :-D
-
One reason why MorphOS and AmigaOS4 (have to) stick to PPC is
backwards compatibility. AROS is ported to x86 (or rather it always
was) but you cant use existing M68k, PowerUp or WarpUp software with
it.
-
Well, nothing prevents me from playing old amiga games on my x86 PC ;-) (however: I'd prefer to spend time on coding a Gimp-clone from scratch.. but that'll have to wait :-P )
Backwards compatibility is mostly important when you have a large application base. However, there is hardly any application base left on the Amiga side - compared with Mac OS X, GNU/Linux and Windows.
However. Sticking to the PPC platform would be good. Imagine AOS4 ported to Peg2 :-D. Quite better hardware for half the price of an mA1-c :-o
Besides that, machinecode for the PPC looks much better than x86 machinecode.
The PPC is elegant :-P
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dylansmrjo wrote:
Besides that, machinecode for the PPC looks much better than x86 machinecode.
The PPC is elegant :-P
Have you ever looked at PPC asm? It's horrible... Granted x86 is no oil painting, but PPC is hardly any better... If it's elegance you want then it has to be 68k...
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dylansmrjo wrote:
Well, the only clearly outdated item here is: PC133 SDRAM
Good old PCI is not obsolete, nor is AGP.
Both are very much obsolete!!! No one in their right mind would buy these technologies any more.
SDRAM is obsolete, but you gain next to nothing with DDR RAM when the FSB is running at 133 MHz. However, considering the lower prices on DDR RAM, it would be great if it was possible to use it with A1.
I wouldn't buy a DDR ram machine anymore either... DDR2 is now the minimum spec, I would part with cash for.
A1 is not obsolete, it is however overpriced based on specs.
Obsolete and over priced, it always has been.
The only way to get lower prices is to produce a lot more. That requires quite some investments, which apparently is a major risk for a company like EyeTech.
Not a major risk, simply an impossibility, the money is not there.
I'd prefer to see AOS4 running on a Peg2 :-P
An x86-64 board would be better.
-
Well, we did mess a bit with PPC asm in school. Looks way better than x86 asm IMO.
Haven't seen 68k asm but I've heard it should be a beauty :-P
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bloodline wrote:
Both are very much obsolete!!! No one in their right mind would buy these technologies any more.
PCI and AGP 8x isn't obsolete. There are newer standards, but mobos with PCI-E are approx. 5-8 times more expensive than mobos with good old PCI and AGP 8x. Most graphics card are still AGP-based, and 32-bit PCI is still the most widely used standard.
The fact that there are newer standards, does not make older standards obsolete. It'll take 12-18 months before they can be considered obsolete for the home user.
Only hardcore gamers benefit from PCI-E and DDR-RAM2.
I wouldn't buy a DDR ram machine anymore either... DDR2 is now the minimum spec, I would part with cash for.
Well, you're a hardcore gamer, right?
I don't buy expensive stuff. I buy the cheap stuff, and a lot of that. 1024 MB DDR-RAM is much better than 256 MB DDR-RAM2 :-P
You also consider 32-bit CPUs obsolete, right? And parallel IDE? Despite the fact that most computers sold are still 32-bit and most harddisks are still parallel IDE?
REPEATING: The fact that there are newer standards, does not make older standards obsolete.
Obsolete and over priced, it always has been.
Nope, just overpriced. Look at it from home user perspective, and not from a narrowminded clueless stupid hardcore gamer, who knows next to nothing about optimizing a system :lol:
Not a major risk, simply an impossibility, the money is not there.
Nothing is impossible. However, certain actions are extremely risky.
An x86-64 board would be better.
Well, it would be overkill. But it wouldn't be bad. But x86-64 is still 5-8 times more expensive than a standard 32-bit system. Remember: Selling for the masses, not the classes. We don't care about hardcore gamers, we care about the home user. No need for anything above 1.5 GHz, nor higher than AGP 8x or DDR-RAM.
We're not building a high-end server system, you know :-P
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dylansmrjo wrote:
bloodline wrote:
Both are very much obsolete!!! No one in their right mind would buy these technologies any more.
PCI and AGP 8x isn't obsolete. There are newer standards, but mobos with PCI-E are approx. 5-8 times more expensive than mobos with good old PCI and AGP 8x. Most graphics card are still AGP-based, and 32-bit PCI is still the most widely used standard.
The fact that there are newer standards, does not make older standards obsolete. It'll take 12-18 months before they can be considered obsolete for the home user.
The last Motherboard I bought, back in January (almost a year ago) was PCIe (nForce 4 based), it cost me £50... it was actually one of the cheapest boards I could buy at the time!
Only hardcore gamers benefit from PCI-E and DDR-RAM2.
Not really. I just don't want to spend money on a product that will only last me a few months before I can't upgrade/find parts for it.
I wouldn't buy a DDR ram machine anymore either... DDR2 is now the minimum spec, I would part with cash for.
Well, you're a hardcore gamer, right?
No... but I do use my machine as a Digial Audio Workstation... so I guess I'm in a similar terratory....
I don't buy expensive stuff. I buy the cheap stuff, and a lot of that. 1024 MB DDR-RAM is much better than 256 MB DDR-RAM2 :-P
True, but RAM is one of the things that you always have an upgrade cycle with... no point buying a Mobo which gets more expensive to upgrade over time.
You also consider 32-bit CPUs obsolete, right? And parallel IDE? Despite the fact that most computers sold are still 32-bit and most harddisks are still parallel IDE?
I wouldn't buy a 32bit CPU any more (though to be fair I bought one in May, when I got a G4 PowerBook, but laptops are not upgrade machines so they don't count)...
I Certainly would never buy a P-ATA drive. But then my nForce 4 Mobo has 4 (3 empty) S-ATA slots...
REPEATING: The fact that there are newer standards, does not make older standards obsolete.
Um... yeah it does. :-P
Obsolete and over priced, it always has been.
Nope, just overpriced. Look at it from home user perspective, and not from a narrowminded clueless stupid hardcore gamer, who knows next to nothing about optimizing a system :lol:
I look on it as a system that I plan to get a few years use out of, meaning a planned upgrade cycle.
If I was just a Home user, I get a Mac Mini. No upgrade plans, and all the software I need built in.
Not a major risk, simply an impossibility, the money is not there.
Nothing is impossible. However, certain actions are extremely risky.
[/quote]
Quoting Depeche Mode isn't going to get you browine points... actually it does, so I'll agree with you even though I don't ;-)
An x86-64 board would be better.
Well, it would be overkill. But it wouldn't be bad. But x86-64 is still 5-8 times more expensive than a standard 32-bit system. Remember: Selling for the masses, not the classes. We don't care about hardcore gamers, we care about the home user. No need for anything above 1.5 GHz, nor higher than AGP 8x or DDR-RAM.
We're not building a high-end server system, you know :-P[/quote]
I disagree, an x86-64 based solution would be cheaper than most systems... and certainly give you more bang for your buck.
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dylansmrjo wrote:
A1 is not obsolete, it is however overpriced based on specs.
In this case, at least, obsolete and overpriced are the same thing.
The Terons could not be produced at a cost that would allow sales at a price that consumers would be prepared to pay for that product. They're low volume items, so today Eyetech might be paying up to, say, $200 per board to the manufacturer. Even if Eyetech lowered their own reseller price to $210, nobody in their right mind would buy this product for that kind of money. I.e. there still wouldn't be any volumes to speak of.
Look at similarly specced (K*133) old PC motherboards. I've seen them on Pricewatch for $10. So old stock is still available, but noone's going to make new ones, because consumers aren't prepared to pay much more than a tenner for them. The technology might still be around, but it's not profitable to produce any more of those products.
They're all obsolete!
The only way to get lower prices is to produce a lot more. That requires quite some investments, which apparently is a major risk for a company like EyeTech.
No, increased production requires increased consumer demand for the product. One can invest all one wants in buying more product from the manufacturer, but that's useless if there's no demand for the product. Poor availability is not the only reason to why people don't want to buy "AmigaOnes".
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@ bloodline:
It's interesting you can get a mobo for 50$ and still get PCI-E.
In Denmark you don't get PCI-E at that price. You get a couple of 32-PCI slots, an AGP 8x, and 2 or 3 DDR-RAM slots. And perhaps S-ATA if you're lucky (just checked up on the prices).
Even many mobos at 200$ doesn't ship with PCI-E and DDR-RAM2.
Take a mA1-C, replace PC133 with DDR-RAM, G4 @ 1.4 GHz, S-ATA and AGP 8x and sell it for no more than 150$ and you have something which can sell quite well.
Nodoby with a sane mind would ever buy a Mac Mini. Mac OS X is extremely slow, and eats system resources in a way that ought to embarass Steve Jobs. It's as bad as Vista. Mac OS X has however a nice implementation of the desktop metaphor.
But an updated mA1-c with AOS4 at a much lower price still beats Windows and MacOS X IMO (but I prefer efficient small systems).
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dylansmrjo wrote:
@ bloodline:
It's interesting you can get a mobo for 50$ and still get PCI-E.
In Denmark you don't get PCI-E at that price.
Well, EVERYTHING is more expensive around our parts of the world... :P
That said, here (http://www.itbutikken.dk/i/96686/2.htm) is a PCI-e x16 mobo for the equivalent of £41 (bloodline's talking GBP, not USD).
(I picked itbutikken.dk because I already knew about them since they ship to Sweden too. There could be cheaper alternatives.)
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I wasn't really ranting because of PCI (PCIe has no big advantages yet - for desktops), but because of PCI interconnect, ie the connection from the north bridge to the south bridge and everything else.
It limits the complete I/O throughput to an absolute max of 133 MB/s in total.
gigabit ethernet requires 125 MB/s
(P-)ATA requires 133 MB/s
SATA requires 150 MB/s
So each of these maxes out PCI alone.
The VIA686B south bridge is complete crap; when PCI is saturated, it starts losing data from the IDE interface. All PC boards with this south bridge suffer more or less from this, causing massive instability.
When I was talking about PC133 that included the slow FSB and AGP connect. PC133/FSB133 can't do more than 1 GB/s (very theoretical value), so heavy AGP load slows down the CPU and vice versa.
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Aaahh... Pound Sterling it is :-P
Well, it means 60% higher prices ;-)
But okay. In Denmark one can for £50 (and not $50) actually get a DDR-RAM2 and PCI-E capable mobo. But only for AMD (ASRock 775Dual-880Pro).
But it doesn't change the fact that the mobo is more than twice as expensive as standard mobo's.
Upgrading the mA1-C to DDR-RAM and AGP 8x should be enough for the next 18 months. If (and only if) the price is comparable to the prices for the x86 platform.
A mA1-C mobo (without CPU) for £25 would be nice - and then I wouldn't care about PCI-E nor DDR-RAM2 :-)
A much much better idea would be to port AOS4 to Peg2.
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In Denmark you can for £356.52 get a Peg2 with 256 MB DDR-RAM, a G4 @ 1 GHz, Radeon 7000 with 64 MB RAM, and a MorphOS cd (which would be replaced with AOS4 if it was available - but unfortunately it isn't).
I would buy such a solution, if it ran AOS4.
A mA1-C with somewhat similar specs costs £610.85. And that's the main problem.
A lot would be gained if AOS4 was ported to the Peg2.
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One reason why MorphOS and AmigaOS4 (have to) stick to PPC is
backwards compatibility. AROS is ported to x86 (or rather it always
was) but you cant use existing M68k, PowerUp or WarpUp software with
it.
Actually the first platform for AROS was on the Amiga. It migrated to x86 from the Amiga. As using existing Amiga apps and such, AROS has EUAE.
Dammy
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Before I start this reply, I have to say tat it's late and I've had a few tins of beer....
I have been an Amiga user for almost two decades and overall it still remains my favourite computer to work with, but as far as I can see, the Amiga (hardware and software) is defunct technology.
We all used to say :-
My Amiga boots faster than your PC... Still true, but now with XP (my wife uses it, not me), the only time I have to reboot is with a major service pack or when I go on holiday - Not an argument anymore.
My Amiga makes better use of it's resources (memory, disk, etc.) - Resources like RAM and hard drives are so cheap now, who cares.
My Amiga multi-tasks better than windows - Still does, but there was so much hacking, kludges and non OS-friendly software, it became about as reliable as British Rail.
There are fewer security risks on the Amiga - Only because too few people use it and it isn't worth targeting.
I will still use my A1200 (I plan to teach my son basic computing / programming with it), but what made the Amiga great has either been emulated, copied or suppased by Windows and Linux. I don't think it will ever again be affordable. There's just too much catching up to do. It pains me to say it, but we all know it's true.
I write this from a Linux box (Authentication, file server, DNS server and proxy server) - There ain't no way Bill is taking over in this household.
Posting with regret. :getmad:
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My current favor micro-ATX mobo is an ASUS A8N-VM (http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16813131570#DetailSpecs) for $91.50 (with shipping no less). Great Bang:Buck ratio. Throw either a el-cheapo Athlon64 939 or a Athlon X2 and you got a nice little setup.
Dammy
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How about porting OS4 to run on Elate/Intent? Virtual CPU/Fast java engine/3D Graphics and physics etc.!
Had to ask. :lol:
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People, please stop arguing about current standards. The whole point to PC hardware is that you can buy anything you want. Some people want to spend cash for a good machine. Some people want cheap stuff. AmigaOne doesn't give that flexibility. If Amiga wants proprietary hardware, they can make their damned hardware lock for a licensed, modified PC mobo, which they can relicense anytime they want -- and rebadge a laptop or tablet PC while they're at it.
Amiga laptop? When is that going to happen? If Hyperion had any interest in "aBook", then Amiga mini would already be available. It isn't.
I upgrade my PC every two years. My budget is $300 for a motherboard, CPU, and memory, $150 for a video card, and $100 for a hard drive. I haven't bought a new case in four years, though I did finally get a kickass thermally controlled power supply for $70. I'm an audiophile, and my Audigy still doesn't need to be replaced (it only cost me $45, anyway).
I suppose all this puts me in the budget PC arena (cooler and quieter, anyway).
My system is an ABit IS7 mobo with a 2.4Ghz P4 that is almost totally silent, and my CPU temp never goes above 40 degrees C. Nothing other than number crunching uses CPU cycles, thanks to the brilliant architecture of my i865 PE chipset. I have more USB 2.0 ports than I know what to do with, and use an external USB hard drive to make backups, which is almost as fast as my S-ATA drive.
Nobody can convince me Amiga can make a better machine than this. Ever. All this talk about PPC being supirior makes me sick.
Oh yeah, and I still can't read my A1200 floppies on an AmigaOne. That's nice, too, for "official" hardware.
How about porting OS4 to run on Elate/Intent? Virtual CPU/Fast java engine/3D Graphics and physics etc.!
Had to ask.
That's why I was interested in the new Amiga in the first place. Funny how OS4 seems to be going well while AA is either dead or just a private club that doesn't need to show off any real technology.
With so many Linux spinoffs, how can it be so damn hard to make just one Amiga update?!
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@dylansmrjo
Nodoby with a sane mind would ever buy a Mac Mini. Mac OS X is extremely slow, and eats system resources in a way that ought to embarass Steve Jobs. It's as bad as Vista.
Have you even used Vista ? I keep reading how people call it a resource hog and is worse then XP but having used Beta1 and CTP2 on VMWare (512MB Ram allocated) I can safely say Vista outperforms XP and uses only little more then XP. Not bad for a beta.
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Backwards compatibility is mostly important when you have a large application base. However, there is hardly any application base left on the Amiga side - compared with Mac OS X, GNU/Linux and Windows.
It is still better than nothing. TCP/IP stacks, browsers, mailers,
paint programs, development tools, text editors, archivers,
system monitors, pdf viewers, movie players, net radio streamers...
Besides that, machinecode for the PPC looks much better than x86 machinecode.
Uglier than m68k machine code... dealing with 32-bit constants is
pain.
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bloodline wrote:
dylansmrjo wrote:
Besides that, machinecode for the PPC looks much better than x86 machinecode.
The PPC is elegant :-P
Have you ever looked at PPC asm? It's horrible... Granted x86 is no oil painting, but PPC is hardly any better... If it's elegance you want then it has to be 68k...
I can't deny it, PPC asm took me some time to get to grips with, but well, I prefer the programming model over x86 still.
68K is still more intuitive though :-)
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by Waccoon on 2005/11/19 18:30:33
Amiga laptop? When is that going to happen? If Hyperion had any interest in "aBook", then Amiga mini would already be available. It isn't.
I scored an old Compaq E500 @600Mhz for $50, that does a pretty good job of pretending to be an Amiga using WinUAE and AIAB. :-)
It is actually pretty good!
...and the closest thing to an Amiga laptop I'll ever own.
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Look at the hardware requirements for Vista. It says all which is needed :)
Of course you can get "decent" performance if you turn of several services, just like we do on XP to get better performance.
Personally I prefer Windows 2003 Server of the Windows versions I've used so far (starting with 3.0 back in the old days).
Gentoo Linux is much better, but not a choice for the ordinary user, but definitely a choice for me :-P
The day when Mac OS X (and newer for that matter) and Windows and Linux can run with a GUI on hardware similar to what AmigaOS 4PR can run on... then I'll stop calling it bloated and slow ;-)
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Look at the hardware requirements for Vista. It says all which is needed :)
Which one ? AFAIK there's no official final list yet. Most "requirents" I have seen are from a "in the know" journalist..
Besides, is there any OS out there that had a major upgrade and kept the same hardware requirements ? Even Amiga OS has grown in hardware requirements.. Not as bad tho but still..
Of course you can get "decent" performance if you turn of several services, just like we do on XP to get better performance.
Thats just it... I never turned of any of the services in Vista. And there are plenty more as default compared to XP..
Offcourse the "eyecandy" needs more and most hardware requirements are targeting the "eyecandy.
I also installed beta 1 on a P4 2Ghz 256MB with a "slow" Geforce4. Not the lowest spec PC out there but not what one calls high end these days. Again Vista outperformed XP without any tweaking.
Personally I prefer Windows 2003 Server of the Windows versions I've used so far
Vista is based on Win2003 code and said to be the fastest and most stable Windows available out there.
The day when Mac OS X (and newer for that matter) and Windows and Linux can run with a GUI on hardware similar to what AmigaOS 4PR can run on... then I'll stop calling it bloated and slow ;-)
That will never happen....
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seer wrote:
That will never happen....
True, and the day when I'll stop complaining about them being bloated will never happen too :-P
No doubt Vista on reasonable hardware is faster than XP. XP is anything but optimized in regard to I/O and is a far cry from the speediness known in Win2K3 Server.
Hardware requirements for Vista is atm. (according to MS):
2 GB RAM, DDR-RAM2
Graphics card with no less than 256 MB RAM and support for DirectX 9 (this is just to show the desktop and the standard theme, mind you).
This is recommmended minimum, not nescessarily the lowest possible minimum.
Most hardware running to day cannot run Vista without turning off several services.
It takes a fast machine (like a P4 @ 2.4 GHz - it's still a fast machine - and far away from lowend machines - remember - clockspeed hasn't got higher on x86 for a few years) to run Vista reasonably.
For Vista (and Mac OS X) to become decent systems requirements for 3D MUST disappear.
They are bloated. Period.
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For Vista (and Mac OS X) to become decent systems requirements for 3D MUST disappear.
I for one am looking forward to an OS that finally uses the 3D hardware in my computer. It seems like a logical and well overdue progression.
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It already does (in games).
But it's terribly terribly horribly wrong, to use it in regard to draw a 2D desktop.
It adds NO functionality at all.
But of course it can be used for more heavy weight eye candy that completely kills your computer, but heeey... if that's you want then go ahead.
You'll just have to live with the fact, that what your computer could do in 10 minutes in 1985 still takes 10 minutes today. Just with hardware much much faster :lol:
People who like eye candy like the Mac OS X and Vista way should be banned from using or looking or even thinking about computers. Period. :-P
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dylansmrjo wrote:
People who like eye candy like the Mac OS X and Vista way should be banned from using or looking or even thinking about computers. Period. :-P
I suppose you think that all GFX chips should only be used for games?
Yes! We should all go back to the horrid BIOS text shell of the IBM PC...
Come on, If my computer has a chip that can pump a billion pixels around the screen per second, I damn well want to use it in every application where it can be used! :-D
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Nope.
It's wasting my CPU cycles :-o´
It requires more work from the CPU to draw windows and widgets.
It should require less work. It's about time systems STOP getting bloated with non-functional elements dragging the computer back to the stoneage.
Vista has nothing in regard to eye candy that I want, and couldn't get with an operating system from 1995 (Like OS/2 2.0)
In regard to functionality Vista has nothing. Only bloatedness in regard to eye candy.
Eye candy is evil.
REPEAT after me: Eye candy is evil!
:-P
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I for one am looking forward to an OS that finally uses the 3D hardware in my computer. It seems like a logical and well overdue progression.
Pray tell, how would you like the 3D features to be used? Rotating windows, putting them sideways, or displaying directory trees in 3D is cool, but from a usability point of view, absolutely horrible. Put another way: how is Joe User going to benefit from the truckloads of raw processing power lurking in his GeForce InsaneVersion or the ATi HahaCaughtUpAgainVersion? Keep in mind what Joe User does: email, process words, do a bit of accounting, view movies (pr0n or otherwise), rip songs, and perhaps a bit of computer-supported hobby about cars, motorbikes, outdoor sports, terrorism, programming, collecting, that sort of thing.
Oh wait, there's an interesting app already: a fully nude genuine 3D deskmate, 'helping out' when Joe is stymied by a computer error. Were it not for the fact that such apps already exist---do a Google search for 'virtual girls', for example.
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dylansmrjo wrote:
Nope.
It's wasting my CPU cycles :-o´
If you aren't using the clock cycles, they are wasted too, you waste alot more clock cycles on your computer reading email then Vista can dream of wasting drawing pretty pictures.
In regard to functionality Vista has nothing. Only bloatedness in regard to eye candy.
No, Vista has a much faster IO system then XP Pro, its taken from 2003, which is already fairly fast on my system, since I usually mix 3 or 4 streams of uncompressed video realtime on my system. I personally care less about eyecandy, but frankly looking at the excitement 256 color icons on OS4 & MorphOS drew on here and other sites I am in a minority on the subject. Vista runs faster then XP, that means it runs Lightwave, Mirage, Modo, Messiah Studio and VT faster, thats better in my book.
-Tig
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It requires more work from the CPU to draw windows and widgets.
It should require less work. It's about time systems STOP getting bloated with non-functional elements dragging the computer back to the stoneage.
Let's see... Lets draw everything on screen using the GPU or using the CPU ? The whole idea of LDDM is to take even more of the GUI from CPU to the GFX card.
Win32 is out, GDI is out. Vista is going to be the biggest change for Windows since Windows95/98 > NT4.
But all everybody sees is the "eyecandy". The 3D rotating windows are a "showcase". The are to show what the new GUI could do. If you haven't used Vista how can you comment on "non-functional elements" ?
In regard to functionality Vista has nothing. Only bloatedness in regard to eye candy.
What eyecandy ? Again, have you used Vista ? XP was Windows 2000 + Eyecandy. The "eyecandy" in vista is functional. If you haven't used Vista you won't know what it means. Visually Vista looks prettier (IMHO) then XP but it's visual functional. Files are better displayed, menus work better. Having directories with a few hundred (thousands) files are far better organized or can be by the user.
I dislike the GUI in Windows 2000. I turned the XP bubbly gui off to the plain looking 2000 gui and to get a nice speed increase as well. In Vista the theme was as fast or faster then the 2000 Gui.
The "current" Vista theme work great even without a super GFX card (The VMWare only has a 16Mb Gfx card emulated...) and is very useable in it as well. So much for just eyecandy..
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Rotating windows, putting them sideways, or displaying directory trees in 3D is cool, but from a usability point of view, absolutely horrible.
This is not what the GUI in vista is about, and Vista doesn't do this. (Sure it can do it but you need to turn it on, it's not part of the default features). The movies / pictures that show these things are just to show it truly is 3D and fast. Not just 2D bitmapped windows.
Besides, doesn't OSX use the GPU to speed up it's gui ?
Put another way: how is Joe User going to benefit from the truckloads of raw processing power lurking in his GeForce InsaneVersion or the ATi HahaCaughtUpAgainVersion?
A fast responsive GUI ? Why do people go on how slow Windows is in the GUI department and as soon MS does something about it, it's bad. Sure the current Beta can still be improved but it sure got a lot better since XP. IIRC the OS4 devs were also interested to use the GPU for GUI operations.
Also, if you have the hardware why not use it ? Or should Amiga OS never have used its custom chips to draw the GUI but the CPU and only used the custom chips to play games ?
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2 GB RAM, DDR-RAM2
Graphics card with no less than 256 MB RAM and support for DirectX 9 (this is just to show the desktop and the standard theme, mind you).
This is recommmended minimum, not nescessarily the lowest possible minimum.
Looks more like the "optimum requirements" as quoted on some tech sites. And are for the "glass" theme that is only standard if you have the hardware that supports it. On WinHec it was said Vista should run good on todays hardware but also on older PC's
Also can you tell me why Vista on a VirtualPC with 512MB Ram and a 16Mb (emulated) GFX card almost looks and feel identical when it runs on a 256MB Geforce7800 ? (Except for offcourse the "glass effects")
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Besides, doesn't OSX use the GPU to speed up it's gui ?
Yes.
It does some fancy tricks but some of them are very useful and add to the functionality of the system. Expose is immensely useful and is largely made possible by the 3D hardware, it would be much more processor intensive without it. Transparent terminal windows can also be surprisingly useful. In other cases the "eyecandy" is just visual cues - i.e. they are there to enhance usability.
Also, if you have the hardware why not use it ? Or should Amiga OS never have used its custom chips to draw the GUI but the CPU and only used the custom chips to play games ?
Exactly, if there's hardware make use of it.
There has been experimentation in 3D user interfaces but it's largely unsuccessful for the desktop itself or desktop apps (I think that's what the previous poster was complaining about). I think they'll become more useful when we get real 3D displays - some of which on the market already.
If someone really doesn't like eyecandy, open a shell and kill the workbench. On Linux (or other Unix) kill the X server. If it's early 1960's* UIs that float your boat, have fun...
*Like most modern computer tech, GUIs originally started their life in the late 60's.
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seer wrote:
Let's see... Lets draw everything on screen using the GPU or using the CPU ? The whole idea of LDDM is to take even more of the GUI from CPU to the GFX card.
As I recall, many 2D-operations are accelerated to begin with, so already a large portion of graphics operations is handled by the GPU. Back in the heydays, when Diamond, Matrox and 3dfx were the things to have, all they cared about was 2D-performance. That same performance is still lurking today in the corners of the modern videocards, albeit largely forgotten. Nowadays it goes without saying that straight blits are faster than the eye can follow. Or have you forgotten the times when window dragging was done by XOR-drawing the outline...?
In addition, you cannot offload anything to the GPU. It doesn't draw on its own, not even with all those fancy shader languages. The CPU still needs to supply it with the information it needs to work with. There is one concept of modern GPU's which will improve performance even without actual 3D performance, namely the Z-buffer. Overlapping windows are simply sorted according to their 'depth', and the GPU takes care of the rest, including clipping. There is no need for a separate layers-like library anymore where the CPU handles buffering and clipping and what not. The CPU is just responsible for creating the 'texture' of each window on the fly, and shipping it to the GPU to be rendered. Internal clipping is a thing of the past. The use of the alpha channel comes free of charge. However, there still needs to be some sort of rudimentary layer heuristics to determine which windows would need to be actually drawn in the first place---otherwise you are just wasting Z-buffer bandwidth.
Of course you get to play with a few extra's, namely textures nearly free of charge, and vectorised graphics nearly free of charge (at bloody long last). All new and useful features, granted, but not of the sort you need the latest in GPU performance for. Unless, of course, your fancy runs to eye candy. That was the point I was trying to make.
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Of course you get to play with a few extra's, namely textures nearly free of charge, and vectorised graphics nearly free of charge (at bloody long last). All new and useful features, granted, but not of the sort you need the latest in GPU performance for. Unless, of course, your fancy runs to eye candy.
Like Minator said better then I did "In other cases the "eyecandy" is just visual cues - i.e. they are there to enhance usability."
Offcourse this could have been done with plain 2D/bitmaps but vectorised graphics, as you point out, is one of the other reasons to make it 3D. I might be wrong but I believe GPU are faster at drawing 3D then 2D. (You know what I mean)
But like I said, Vista is faster (at beta stage) then XP is. And that is compared to XP without the themes service running. Sure it stil is windows but it I find Vista much nicer to work with then 2000/xp
I guess I come over as a Windows fan boy but honestly, I never really liked XP. It's as bad as most Amiga user make it out to be IMHO but Vista I like to use.
My "beef" is that people shout eyecandy OS, while it's hardly that at all. If anything, XP is the eyecandy windows with al its bright colors... :lol:
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by Cymric on 2005/11/22 2:01:33
Pray tell, how would you like the 3D features to be used?
I'd like to see a versatile interface that is highly configurable and visually appealing that gets the most out of the technology.
While the majority of us can look forward to computer technology advancing onward, others can stick with good ole' 2D. :-)
That's perfectly fine with me.
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coldfish wrote:
I'd like to see a versatile interface that is highly configurable and visually appealing that gets the most out of the technology. While the majority of us can look forward to computer technology advancing onward, others can stick with good ole' 2D. :-) That's perfectly fine with me.
Of course, that was not an answer to my question, but since this discussion is going way off-topic, I'm not going to pursue it here.
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dylansmrjo: It takes a fast machine (like a P4 @ 2.4 GHz - it's still a fast machine - and far away from lowend machines - remember - clockspeed hasn't got higher on x86 for a few years) to run Vista reasonably.
I take it this is from personal experience.
I've read that Vista works fine with 512 RAM, with or without 3D. 2GB RAM is probably for the early beta, which had a lot of debugging services enabled.
Note that minimum specs have to account for what apps are going to run on the OS, not just the OS itself.
What point is there to making an OS that runs in 4MB of memory when a web browser happily swallows 50+ MB just to render a CSS web page, and 512MB of memory is less than $45?
Microsoft has special versions of Windows to deal with lower spec systems and embedded hardware. Vista is designed for desktops which have high-end hardware. That's all there is to it.
For Vista (and Mac OS X) to become decent systems requirements for 3D MUST disappear.
Have you really thought about how much legacy junk can be thrown away by switching to 3D?
It's been a long time since I've used an S3 VergeDX. :-)
It adds NO functionality at all.
Maybe you just lack the creativity to see beyond old-fashioned desktops. Granted, OSX-style eye candy is a waste, but moving to vector graphics has huge advantages over traditional bitmaps. Just look at what Flash has done for animation and games on the Internet. It's outright killing Java, and is a hell of a lot smaller and uses less memory.
Whether 3D in a desktop environment is a good idea has more to do with implementation than concept. I don't like the way OSX does it, and haven't really used Vista, but banning 3D altogether is a very rash idea.
If Amiga had a 3D desktop before Windows, what would your opinion be? ;-)
You'll just have to live with the fact, that what your computer could do in 10 minutes in 1985 still takes 10 minutes today. Just with hardware much much faster
In 1985 we used floppy disks. Trust me, functionality was not faster back then. Maybe you're spending a bit too much time using ADFs. ;-)
It requires more work from the CPU to draw windows and widgets.
Today's CPUs aren't just faster, they have special instuctions that do that stuff much better. It never ceases to amaze me how fast Flash can render anti-aliased vector graphics with gradients, and all I can think about is, "I wish GUIs could do that."
Also, I think you're underrating caches and LOD. You don't always have to render things over and over again.
In regard to functionality Vista has nothing.
One word: thumbnails.
C'mon, man, you can't judge Vista before it's released.
I am disappointed the new shell (meaning, the CLI), isn't going to appear in Vista. I've really been looking forward to that, because I've quickly found out that Windows is next to useless without Perl (and trust me, Perl is one big piece of bloat).
REPEAT after me: Eye candy is evil!
At least you can still turn it off in Vista, in pieces. OSX doesn't give you much choice. :-)
Cymric: Pray tell, how would you like the 3D features to be used? Rotating windows, putting them sideways, or displaying directory trees in 3D is cool, but from a usability point of view, absolutely horrible.
That's becuase people have no imagination (especially GUI programmers). Vista is important not because of 3D, but because the whole drawing system is being rethought.
seer: Let's see... Lets draw everything on screen using the GPU or using the CPU ? The whole idea of LDDM is to take even more of the GUI from CPU to the GFX card.
Yeah. Funny, I would think that hardcore Amigans would appreciate this kind of coprocessor-driven design.
minator: There has been experimentation in 3D user interfaces but it's largely unsuccessful for the desktop itself or desktop apps (I think that's what the previous poster was complaining about). I think they'll become more useful when we get real 3D displays - some of which on the market already.
It could also be argued that most control devices are 2D. I think every mouse should have a zoom axis, not just a scroll wheel. Keyboards could also be a lot more versitile. Most people don't use the keypad for entering numbers, anymore, so I'd replace it with a good set of configurable zoom/undo/redo/history buttons. Hotkeys and other multi-key sequences should be bannished. They are difficult to memorize in a lot of cases, are largely architecture dependent (key combos differ on each system). The Mac doesn't have "better" key combos than the PC -- they're just different. I have my Microsoft keyboard media keys remapped to the back and close buttons on my web browser, and it's a million times easier to browse the web, now. Using my Mac, that has no support for media keys, and extremely limited support for action remapping, is a real pain.
There's plenty of interface design books on the subject of "failed" interface concepts, including ZIP, or the Zooming Interface Paradigm. People just aren't thinking beyond the input devices that have been with us since the 80's, let alone the graphics techniques.
If someone really doesn't like eyecandy, open a shell and kill the workbench. On Linux (or other Unix) kill the X server. If it's early 1960's* UIs that float your boat, have fun..
God, I really wish we could have a new shell. With UNIX, you have to wait for things to finish before you get a response, thanks to all the piping the commands are designed to handle, thus limiting what you can send to STD_OUT. Maybe we should have a STD_STATUS or something. We could abolish a lot of libraries and APIs that way.
seer: I guess I come over as a Windows fan boy but honestly, I never really liked XP. It's as bad as most Amiga user make it out to be IMHO but Vista I like to use.
I use Win2K. I don't need XP's features as I use apps like ACDSee to keep my photos organized, and I don't obsessively collect MP3s or movies. My big beef with XP is that it complains big time whenever you swap hardware. Win2K doesn't care. I don't suppose Vista does this better, no? :-)
coldfish: While the majority of us can look forward to computer technology advancing onward, others can stick with good ole' 2D.
Microsoft does deserve a lot of credit, here. Windows is very configurable and allows you to do things the old-fashioned way. I'm finding it difficult to get used to OSX compared to my OS8 days as a Mac sysadmin. New versions of Windows, however, don't bother me at all. I mean, so long as they don't BSOD when you swap your motherboard. XP is a real pain how it outright rejects new hardware, while Win2K will dilligently eat anything you throw at it. :-D
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My big beef with XP is that it complains big time whenever you swap hardware. Win2K doesn't care. I don't suppose Vista does this better, no?
Well.. I never had any problems with XP and swapping hardware.. I even swapped my motherboard and CPU and GPU to a different model and XP just needed to install the mobo drivers. It was only when my harddrive died I had to reinstall and reactivate.
Still I heared but never experienced that XP needed to be reactivated after adding something trivial as a extra HD ??
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Still I heared but never experienced that XP needed to be reactivated after adding something trivial as a extra HD ??
I've added new drives via parellel ATA with no issue, even on the same cable, so long as you have the correct boot drive selected in the BIOS.
I did have issues where I got a BSOD when adding a SIIG ATA 100 card. I put it into several PCI slots and Windows just wouldn't take it. I tried a Promise card later, and that worked fine.
I've never really been able to swap a mobo, though, even after uninstalling the drivers, first. Windows still has a pretty pathetic way of managing drivers.
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Isn't one of the new consoles using the PPC?
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Eclipse wrote:
Isn't one of the new consoles using the PPC?
Yup. You heard right ;-)
Personally I'd still prefer AOS4 running on an updated A1 with specs (and prices) similar to the Peg2 :-P